It was a cold and foggy night.

The carriage that was carrying Isaac and his Servant to the Crimson Mansion ran along a muddy road. The two passengers were silent. They had just left the city of Newcastle behind them and also the two new allies they had just made.

Archer, opposite her Master, was still looking out the window. A human eye would never have been able to penetrate the thick darkness, but hers were those of a predator of the night. Nothing could hide from her sight. Not even the most timid details of nocturnal nature were able to escape Archer's penetrating eyes: whether they were animals or plants, everything that hid from the sun was completely stripped of its stealth.

"You're more silent than usual," Isaac observed.

"You could've asked me before allying yourself with those two strangers," she replied angrily.

"You were not there. You decided to go off and fight that Servant, without telling me, and I had no way of knowing if you were in trouble or not. I had to ask Caster for help."

"Hmm...? Really?" She wasn't convinced. "You could've used a Command Seal to call me back."

"I don't intend to waste them—"

"Or you didn't intend to let the beautiful oriental lady slip away," she stated in a scornful tone. "Is this all part of your plan, Master? Are you going to use her?"

"What of it?" he asked, smiling. "Are you jealous?"

She replied with an amused smirk. "Don't let it get to your head, worm. You're not that important to me," she lied. "I just don't like her. She's a dangerous person and you're playing a risky game. She's not a girl you can easily manipulate... after all, she's a Master just like you."

"You have no reason to worry, Archer, I know what I'm doing. Plus, technically, I want to use her because she's obviously trying to do the same to me—She wanted to meet me for this reason."

"And that's why you should be even more cautious."

"The fact that you're the one telling me to be cautious is... funnier than you think."

"Why...?" She understood immediately. "I wasn't reckless, I know Lancer perfectly. Even before I fought her, I knew who I was dealing with."

"Care to explain?"

"Her name is Mélusine. In the past—no, in another timeline—we served a powerful queen named Morgan; my mother. Me, Mélusine, and Barghest were her knights, her paladins, her... Round Table. To summarize: there was peace back then. The kingdom wasn't perfect, but it was stable... balanced. The law was just, the people were happy, and the aristocracies were loyal. And then, one day, invaders from outside joined a group of human rebels and declared war on us for no reason. These trespassers also sided with a fairy who had decided to betray my mother and helped her end the kingdom. And..." She was silent for a few seconds.

"And...?" He was curious.

"And that's the end of the story. I don't know what happened next. I have no idea, and to be honest, I don't care."

"But you were a knight of the kingdom, right? Have you no interest in what happened next?"

"Should I?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. "Should I really care about the life of some useless fairy?" A grin spread across her face. "I have never cared about the lives of my subjects, if that's what you mean. I only fought for my mother's sake. Everything else was of no importance to me."

"And this Mélusine? She's supposed to be your friend, right?"

She burst out laughing. "Oh, good heavens, no! How could I be friends with such a boring and ridiculous creature?" She shook her head. "She and I have always been incompatible from the beginning. She's a tragic knight, while I'm the one who brings tragedy."

"A tragic knight...? What do you mean?"

"Like all fairytale knights, she loved a princess. However, unlike most of them, she was never lucky enough to be loved in return. The fairy she had fallen in love with was anything but a sentimental person, in fact she was a psychopathic bitch who enjoyed manipulating people."

"Like you?" he asked ironically.

She smiled amusedly. "Like us, you meant." She paused briefly. "Still, this bitch was also a hypocrite to the core. She was a person who hated getting her hands dirty, after all, she had a reputation to uphold. Everyone saw her as the purest woman of all, and so if she had to kill someone, she asked someone else to do the job. She loved to delegate atrocities to the only knight so desperate as to give up her dignity in order to end up between her legs."

"Mélusine."

"A real idiot, in fact."

"And then how did it end between the two of them?"

Archer shrugged. "I don't care. But if you really want to know, I can only assume it ended in tragedy. It always does with those people."

"And what about you? Have you ever loved anyone like that?" he asked, even more curious than before.

Her eyebrows raised a little. She crossed her arms and said, "Not like that. No. But I've loved enough to regret it... And you?"

"I've never loved. In fact, I've never thought I could. To love, you have to give up selfishness, and that's something I could never do." He sighed. "I love my life more than I would love anyone else's."

"Ooh, so uncaring..."

The carriage stopped with the sound of a loud neighing from the horses. Isaac immediately looked out the window. Archer grabbed his arm and threw him forcefully to the ground.

"Stay down, Master. There's a Servant out there."

"Another one? Tch! Looks like this day is more messed up than expected..."

The two heard a gunshot.

"They killed the coachman..." Isaac muttered, staying low. "Looks like they don't want us out of here alive." He was silent, for a few seconds, to plan. "We're in my territory. Tonight we're going to play the skeleton game. Are you ready?"

She nodded and left the carriage, closing the door behind her. A tall, muscular, bearded man with red eyes and black, bull-like horns stood before her. His wrists were covered in studded iron and his lower body was well protected by black steel armor. The bull-man was clutching a large, terrifying-looking axe and a shield with a large red gem.

Archer looked around. The Master was gone, but she was sure they were close. She shifted her eyes back to her enemy and, smiling, asked,

"Are you sure you want to fight me, pig?"

He said nothing. He took a single step closer and pointed his weapon at the woman in red.

"Did you swallow your own tongue, imbecile?"

He screamed like a wild beast and ran towards his opponent with the same bloodlust of a hungry carnivore. With the large axe he swung a single slash downwards, Archer quickly dodged it with a jump back and, when she saw the damage caused by the powerful impact, she was astounded: the carriage had been literally overwhelmed by the shockwave of that blow alone and the earth had shattered. The man looked up and started running towards his enemy again. She fired several scarlet magic bullets, but the man managed to defend himself with his steel shield and, instead of trying to close the distance, he stopped and stuck the blade of the axe into the ground, and then threw, with all his force, large clods of earth at her. The woman used her superior speed to avoid the attack; her enemy had foreseen it and intercepted her. With a single slash, the bull-man managed to knock his opponent to the ground.

If it hadn't been for the protection of the large black spikes, Archer would've died.

"Berserker..." she muttered, looking at the serious damage to her improvised defense. "Yours was a lucky strike, nothing more."

He responded with another furious shout and resumed the offensive.

Archer dodged the first two attacks with relative ease and tried to create a distance between the two, but he abandoned his shield and grabbed her leg just as she was jumping. With animalistic aggression he slammed her to the ground once, twice, three times and wanted to continue, however, on the fourth time, she used the heel of her boot to hit his eye. He immediately let go and Archer took advantage of that opportunity to hit him with a magic projectile, however the enemy immediately grabbed his shield and protected himself from the attack.

"You disgusting brute," she said angrily, "I'll make you grunt like a fucking swine!"

He threw his shield at her, and she caught it in mid-air with one hand. He immediately attacked with his axe, but she dodged the blow and, jumping back, threw the shield back at him, adding a few magic bullets to the mix. He hit the shield with his axe, sending it flying back at her, and then, spinning the weapon, stopped the magic bullets. Archer kicked the shield again. Berserker was ready to hit it another time, but as soon as he swung, the shield went back on its own; it was tied to Archer's invisible magic strings. She used that opening to hit his head with that same round, heavy steel protection.

Meanwhile, Berserker's Master, a priest with short brown hair and hazel eyes, approached the carriage lying on the ground brandishing a revolver. He opened the door and saw an individual in a brown jacket. He couldn't see the head clearly, but he fired anyway. He heard a strange noise. As if the bullets had hit wood instead of flesh. Confused, he turned the body and saw that the one wearing the jacket was a skeleton.

"Behind you, asshole," Isaac said.

"Huh?!"

The priest didn't have time to turn around before he was immediately disarmed. Isaac tried to stab him in the throat, but the mysterious Berserker's Master managed to stop his hand in time and tried to hit him with a punch... however, his arm was stopped by the skeleton's hand.

Locked in that small space, the two men exchanged two completely different looks: the priest's eyes were full of anger, Isaac's of amusement.

"Did you really think it would take so little to kill me?" the necromancer asked. "You really are an idiot."

"Where did that... thing come from?"

"The skeleton? This is my territory, take a guess..."

"You brought it here?"

"You can never be too sure in life, so every now and then I buried old skeletons near the main roads that lead to my mansion. How many have I buried? Twenty? Thirty? And what about those interred by my predecessors?"

"What?!"

"Exactly. There must be between a hundred and two hundred skeletons resting under the earth of my territory. Not bad, huh? You must always be prepared for any eventuality!"

"Heh! You're right!" He raised his hand and shouted, "Berserker!"

With the Command Seal he called his powerful Servant to him. The bull-man disintegrated the entire carriage with a single blow of the axe. Isaac, overwhelmed by the force of that attack, rolled out of what remained of the wooden vehicle. He stood up and saw the priest and Berserker in front of him.

Archer arrived immediately and stood in front of Isaac.

"Thank you for your lesson, Aravilar," the priest said, picking up his revolver. "I was wrong to underestimate you. I thought it would be easier to kill you, but it seems you were prepared to fight all along. I can't say I'm satisfied, but at least I know what you're capable of."

"Oh, believe me, you have no idea what I'm capable of," Isaac said with a sadistic grin. "If you want, I can show you tonight."

"As much as I'd like to kill you right now, I know it would be risky to fight you here. I'm not that dumb. So, I guess we've nothing more to say to each other for tonight."

Berserker lifted his Master with one arm and retreated.

If Isaac hadn't stopped Archer, the battle would probably have continued.

At that moment, the night sky was torn apart by an immense light, immediately followed by a shower of meteors. That cataclysm, so far away from them, wasn't a damage to the body, but a disturbing spectacle for the eyes. The priest had no idea that that was the Magecraft of Livia Animusphere. In fact, even Isaac didn't know the author of that terrifying miracle, but he muttered these words:

"Wodime...?"

The supernatural phenomenon lasted only for a few minutes and then an unnatural silence followed, as if all existence was shocked by what had happened. None of the witnesses knew about the attack on the Tourmaline Tower, but all the magi and Masters who had been spectators knew that the person responsible would be the most fearsome of adversaries.

In the dull morning of the next day, the priest, who was temporarily residing in Christon Bank, prepared to leave the county for good. He had not slept that night, it wasn't the frightening magic of Livia Animusphere that had disturbed him, but rather the same caution that had suggested him not to continue the fight with Isaac.

Prudence.

It was for this very reason that he had been chosen by the Holy Church to kill the Philosopher of Death, the last member of the Aravilar house. It was for this very reason that he had been charged with destroying the Holy Grail and killing every magus participating in the war. And it was for this very reason that he climbed into a carriage to leave the small Christon Bank behind him.

After more than two hours in the vehicle, the priest caught sight of the city of Newcastle through the window. He intended to lodge there and plan his next move. The Holy Church had agents and collaborators all over the world, so it was very easy for the priest to find safe accommodation in the city.

Welcomed to the modest home of a member of the Holy Church, the priest wasted no time unpacking his bags and immediately wrote a letter to be delivered to London; to the man who had taken on the role of Overseer. In the message, written in coded language, in addition to updating the recipient on the mission, he described what he had seen in the sky and also asked permission to investigate personally.

In the late afternoon he left the shelter to study the city. He had no intention of fighting among civilians, however he didn't trust his enemies and was worried that they, being magi, wouldn't have scruples about involving innocents.

It was then that two figures walked towards him.

The first was Lancer, who was wearing an elegant blue dress paired with long white stockings and a black cape, decorated with golden lines and a pale flower. From the way she was dressed, it was easy enough for the priest to guess that she was a Servant. She wasn't there to fight, but rather she was accompanying a man. A man the priest immediately recognized...

Victor Barthomeloi.

He was dressed in autumn clothes. To the average person he looked like an old man like anyone else, no one except the priest and Lancer knew that this man was the most powerful mage in the Clock Tower.

"You have courage to show yourself here," muttered the priest as he approached Lord Barthomeloi.

Lancer immediately stepped between the two.

"Don't worry, young lady, this one works for the Holy Church," Victor said in a calm tone. "Father Lauros, if I'm not mistaken."

The man's eyes widened in disbelief. "How do you know me?"

"I know a lot, boy, more than you can imagine. Why did you talk to me?" he asked with a smirk. "What do you want?"

"I should ask you that question. You're far from the Clock Tower... from your precious friends. The only person who can protect you now is your Servant—"

"This young lady is not my Servant, she's simply accompanying me to a friend."

"They must be a very important friend, if you're willing to take such a risk just to meet them."

"What risk? Do you want to kill me by any chance?"

"If you're not participating in the Holy Grail War, you're not my target. However, the agents of the Holy Church are everywhere, you know that better than I do, and none of them have the same orders as me. Aren't you worried about your own life, old man?"

"I'm surprised that you are..." he commented ironically.

"I'm not really. I'm just... interested, that's all. A man of your caliber traveling to a war zone with this little girl as a protection is something truly unusual, if I may say so."

"Heh! If the Holy Church wanted to kill me, they could try, it would be the last great act before their downfall."

"Oh, really? Our downfall?"

"You think I'm joking? Twenty-eight years ago, Rome was conquered by the Kingdom of Italy and as a result, the Papal States were defeated. The Pope is no longer as powerful as he once was, and the Holy Church, while still very influential, has lost much of its power. To make matters worse for you, ten years ago, Prime Minister Francesco Crispi not only dismissed Mayor Torlonia for daring to kneel before the Pope, but he also erected a statue of Giordano Bruno. Remember Bruno? Remember the magus whom the Church burned alive? Now there's a beautiful statue of him in Rome, in the heart of your crippled empire. It's humiliating, isn't it? But it is also exhilarating... for me, at least." He paused briefly. "Humans are starting to rebel. Anticlericalism is spreading everywhere, and if all goes as planned, in a hundred years, the Holy Church will cease to exist."

"That won't stop us from hunting you, mages," he said in a tone of contempt.

"It should. I'm a magnanimous man and would rather see you die slowly than get my hands dirty, but..." He put his hand on Father Lauros' shoulder. "...that doesn't mean I don't enjoy the idea of having an excuse to burn down every single one of your damned, worthless churches."

"Are you... threatening me?"

"If you feel threatened, it means you know you're on a sinking ship." He stepped back a little. "So, I suggest you tell your friends in the Holy Church to think ten times before they pull the trigger." He raised his finger. "One bullet and the Holy Church is dead."

"Lord Barthomeloi, we have to go," Lancer said sternly.

"Right, right. I don't want to keep the pretty lady waiting. It was a pleasure to meet you, Father Lauros. Give my regards to the Pope."

The two left, leaving a deep bitterness in the priest's heart.

Everything Victor Barthomeloi had said was true. With the rise of the Kingdom of Italy, the Holy Church had lost much of its power. The Papal States no longer existed, and the Clock Tower enjoyed a power and influence that, for the first time in history, far surpassed that of the Church.

Yet, despite that, Father Lauros still believed in the possibility of reviving the great organization for which he worked. He still hoped for a rebirth of the Papal States, and he considered his own battle to be part of it.

The meeting withVictor Barthomeloi had reminded him of what was at stake. It had reminded him of what his eventual victory in the conflict would entail. He felt the weight of the fate of the Holy Church on his shoulders, and this didn't frighten him,but rather strengthened his determination. However, he knew that to win, he would not have to rely on that alone, he would also have to rely on a good dose of cunning.