That Saber girl had held back.
Not just the purple-haired Rider who had noticed. Even the red Archer himself had a vague, uneasy sense of it. Because frankly speaking, that terrifying mana output of hers...
A simple black mana beam already approached anti-army Noble Phantasm scale. Output of that magnitude would be questionable even for a first-rate Heroic Servant to tank head-on without a defensive Noble Phantasm. And yet the red Archer had not only tanked it, he had come out the other side only lightly drained, without sustaining serious injury. It was hard not to wonder whether Miss Illya had pulled her punches.
The purple-haired Rider had barely gotten two exchanges in before her weapons nearly got wrecked by two punches. And the red Archer had taken Miss Illya's full-force kick squarely to the body, no weapon between them, and had somehow come out fine.
If there wasn't something going on beneath the surface, even the red Archer himself probably couldn't believe it.
"Fuyuki City Broadcasting, emergency bulletin, emergency bulletin. We interrupt our regular programming with a breaking news update. In the early hours of this morning, a serious gas leak incident occurred in a Fuyuki City residential district. Multiple streets and roadways, as well as the residential district's municipal park, have been destroyed. The relevant departments have launched an investigation and will identify the problematic step in the process as soon as possible. Citizens are asked to remain calm, trust in the law, trust in the police, and trust in the government."
The sky was just beginning to lighten, the early morning air carrying a faint chill.
Inside the Tohsaka family residence, a somewhat disheveled Tohsaka Rin had taken a bath and washed away the exhaustion of a few hours earlier. Not that she had actually slept at all tonight.
Hugging a small pillow from the sofa, she picked up the coffee her Servant had brewed.
She rubbed her aching eyes and took a small sip, then let her expression slowly relax as she exhaled a long breath, and enjoyed the first moment of quiet she had had since the Holy Grail War began.
The television showed footage of police and fire departments at work.
Credit where it was due, Fuyuki City's media cleanup was genuinely fast. The Servant battle had started around eleven at night. The scene had been cordoned off at one in the morning. The news broadcast had started at three or four in the morning, with practiced efficiency assigning the blame to a human-caused disaster.
Though unlike ten years ago, when Father Risei Kotomine had offered his reassuringly authoritative expert commentary from in front of the camera, the current Church supervisor for this Holy Grail War did not exactly seem like a warm and personable individual.
"We now bring you live commentary from a renowned figure of Fuyuki City's Church, heir to the scholarship of Father Risei Kotomine, and certified expert on gas and artificial safety hazards, Father Kirei Kotomine, who arrived at the scene simultaneously with our reporters. Citizens should not let Father Kotomine's relative youth concern them, as he holds numerous accredited qualifications in his field."
The gentle, pleasant reporter helpfully introduced him, then followed the camera as it swung to frame a stone-faced black-robed priest who wore an expression of perfect, three-way blankness.
On the priest's chest was pinned a municipal government emblem designating him a certified natural gas specialist.
"Father Kotomine, what is your opinion regarding this incident..."
"Gas leak."
"I understand this disaster was caused by a gas leak, but witnesses near the residential district reported seeing a pillar of light shooting into the sky. How would you explain that scientifically? As the expert invited by our station, I'd hope you could offer the viewing public some..."
"Gas leak."
"For a simple gas leak to cause destruction on this scale seems rather difficult to accept. Perhaps some hazardous material was mixed in that triggered a chain reaction, especially given that multiple witnesses at the time..."
"Hallucinations caused by the gas leak."
For heaven's sake, is gas leak the only thing in your vocabulary? Could you say something, anything, that might actually reassure people?
But looking at the priest's impassive, oppressively calm eyes, the reporter maintained her professionalism admirably and offered effusive thanks to the expert-father before her several times, then continued on to interview the workers busy at the disaster site, assuring Fuyuki City's citizens that the municipal government would soon determine the cause of the accident and hold accountable those unscrupulous lawbreakers who had apparently started cutting corners again after only ten years.
Ah.
As for why, you ask, there were people willing to set up gas companies in Fuyuki City again after the major gas company scandal of ten years ago?
Rough waters make for pricier fish. With the old gas company gone, the market opened right back up. Add in the population growth from Fuyuki City's new residential development project.
Companies willing to grab this lucrative market were beyond counting. After all, with sufficient profit, these company presidents would sell the very rope used to hang themselves.
"Looks like tonight's affair has wrapped up. What a mess, getting beaten up out of nowhere. A Saber and a Lancer just happened to start fighting right there, and then Sakura snuck over without telling anyone. What a lively evening."
Lying on the sofa, Tohsaka Rin couldn't help but reflect. And this was only the first night of the Holy Grail War, and already five Heroic Servants had shown themselves.
If Sakura hadn't stepped in to stop it, there probably would have been a Servant exit tonight.
Because no matter how proud she was, she had to face reality now. Compared to the white Lancer, the black Saber girl, the purple Rider girl, and the Age of Gods magus Medea who had all appeared, the Servant she had summoned was clearly not on the same tier as these ancient heroes and champions. She had been at a disadvantage in virtually every exchange, not managing to get so much as a half-step ahead of anyone.
Of course, she knew that wasn't her Archer's fault. Honestly, he was very impressive. The sheer value of being able to briefly hold his own in close-quarters combat against both the Saber and the Lancer, two obvious stat monsters, without being completely overwhelmed, was not nothing.
She had just had terrible luck, combined with a timing error in her summoning ritual that had prevented him from being summoned in a stronger class.
"...Rin. That head of the Matou family."
"Mm, you're thinking right. She's my little sister. We've been separated since we were young, a parting of ways. The Tohsaka family's magecraft crest only has one copy, and Father didn't want her and I coming to blows over the magical lineage, so he had her adopted into the Matou family, another of the Three Founding Families that he trusted."
And the daughter sent away had grown up strong, becoming a magus who could stand entirely on her own.
While the Tohsaka heiress who stayed had run the family into the ground.
Sometimes she genuinely thought she was worse than her little sister, that Father should have sent her away and kept Sakura to revive the Tohsaka family. Not that this was anything more than an idle thought. She was not the kind of villain protagonist who would be petty and jealous of her own little sister just because things hadn't gone well for herself.
"Your relationship doesn't seem particularly good?"
The red Archer frowned slightly.
"How to put it? As heirs to our respective magecraft families, both competing for the same all-purpose wish-granting device, it would be stranger to be on good terms, wouldn't it?"
Your position dictates your perspective. She did have feelings for Matou Sakura, naturally.
But Father's expectations in his letters, her mother's growing frailness, the centuries-old aspiration of the Tohsaka family, all of it put considerable pressure on Tohsaka Rin, a high school girl of only sixteen or seventeen. Just as Matou Sakura was willing to buy her way into the Holy Grail War for the sake of the Matou family, Rin carried the weight of meeting her father's expectations and bearing responsibility for the Tohsaka family's revival. She couldn't afford to be indecisive, couldn't just act on raw passion as she had in childhood. No matter who her enemy turned out to be, she wouldn't give herself permission to go soft.
"Don't worry. I won't hold back. Or rather, I don't have the right to hold back. Sakura's magecraft ability is said to be approaching the Formalcraft rank."
"Do you understand what that means? A magus who reaches that rank at her age has a floor of the Standard rank for future achievement, just one step away from the Color rank of a Clock Tower Lord. Rather than worrying about whether I'll be too sentimental to act against her, you'd better worry about whether I'd even be capable of defeating a Formalcraft magus in a direct Master battle somewhere down the line."
Matou Sakura's magecraft in this Holy Grail War was almost exactly like Kayneth's magecraft level in the eyes of other participants in the Fourth Holy Grail War. Simply not on the same tier as anyone else. Even just that sudden display of imaginary number magecraft in the night.
Tohsaka Rin was fairly confident that in this Holy Grail War, short of a Heroic Servant intervening, there was almost no Master who could directly kill that imaginary number prodigy in a frontal confrontation.
This was the gap between Masters, though of course Master battles were almost impossible to arrange before the Assassin had fully exited the field.
"Oh, also, don't just make it about me. Archer, what's your situation? Sakura told me that Saber held back against you. Is that true or false? Did you two have some connection in life?"
The Anti-Medea Alliance she would naturally be joining, or rather, she had no realistic choice but to join.
Holding the Servant with the lowest numbers in the War, with her own magecraft ability being unremarkable outside of Reinforcement magecraft, if she didn't want to be eliminated at the starting line, she needed allies. At minimum, having someone to help oppose the Age of Gods magus Medea left open the chance of finding a path to victory afterward. And if she turned down Matou Sakura's invitation, even setting aside Sakura herself, the white Lancer alone would already be a significant headache.
The preliminary strategy she and Matou Sakura had outlined was to seek as many allies as possible. Sakura would reach out to whatever Servants and Masters she could contact and bring them into a strategic alliance against the Age of Gods magus Medea. Outside of the stable three-way core the two of them had already established, however, everyone else would be a temporary ally, to be targeted once Medea was gone. The final stage had already been reserved for the three of them.
She had no objection to that plan. They were all grown enough to know that backstabbing wasn't some exotic concept.
The Holy Grail War was a brutal game. It ended with one person standing.
Only, maybe because she was just that incompetent, she still found herself, at some subconscious level, only wanting to defeat Heroic Servants, without having given much thought to killing the enemy Masters.
"Haven't I told you, Rin? Your summoning mistake made me forget my own True Name."
"What? Forgetting your True Name is one thing, but how can you forget your own experiences?"
"Martial arts and combat style belong to a warrior's instincts. If you're asking me to force myself to remember what connection I have to that strange Saber, I can't help that. At best I can tell you: I might know her, or I might not. Determining which requires in-depth research and consideration. Give me ten days to two weeks to think about it and I'll let you know."
"You bastard! That's the same as saying nothing at all!"
I genuinely don't know, though.
What relationship do I even have with her?
And I'm still trying to figure out what kind of mutant ahoge-queen she is. This is an anomaly, Restraint Force!
Would it kill you to help out the red-and-white contractor working overtime for you?
Watching Tohsaka Rin climb up on the sofa in frustration, the red Archer stood there wearing a kitchen apron and looking completely innocent, seemingly helpless, and retreated to the living room window to spread his hands.
That the black Saber girl had held back was something he could certainly feel. After all, a single punch from her had sent that well-mana-supplied Medusa flying dozens of meters along with her weapons. It was difficult to imagine her not breaking his spine with that kick.
Objectively speaking, his stats were more than a full tier below Medusa's, who had the Monstrous Strength skill. If she couldn't tank a force, he certainly couldn't.
Though that Medusa had seemed somewhat off, as if she were hiding something.
But appearances could deceive. Stats didn't lie. Her numbers were plainly higher than his, and she had been beaten around by that black Saber girl regardless. To say the girl who looked every bit like some kind of mutant ahoge-queen hadn't been holding back would be pretty wild. It wasn't as though there were some compatibility counter at play.
It was like a game of rock-paper-scissors-elephant. The black Saber girl was the overwhelming elephant that crushed every wild animal by sheer numbers. And he was the tiny mouse, weakest of all, yet somehow the one thing capable of toppling the mightiest elephant.
"You don't need to use this kind of distraction. The person you want to save is not necessarily dead."
"?"
Seeing Tohsaka Rin pause in mild surprise, the red Archer sighed again, this time with genuine resignation. She really was quite bad at this.
As a magus, she was clearly blaming herself for failing to protect innocent civilians within her domain, yet she kept steering toward other topics and burying the exhaustion inside herself rather than dealing with it.
"If Miss Saber really did hold back, it may have nothing to do with me."
"It might have to do with you instead. Like her Master perhaps ordering her not to go all-out against a close friend from the same school? That would make considerably more sense than her holding back for my sake. I genuinely have no memory of that black Saber at all."
Of course, that was a lie.
Because he had a nagging feeling that the black Saber girl's voice was just slightly familiar.
Her voice had been flat and detached, like the white Lancer's, seemingly indifferent to everything, a simple unconcern for the world. But even so, he found it distinctly familiar. And when she had spoken, he had inexplicably felt a tiny, unexplainable warmth, even as her bearing and demeanor matched no one he could place in his memory.
He wasn't sure whether that was the reason she had held back. But with nothing confirmed, he didn't mind attributing the reason to Emiya Shirou to comfort his Master. Because he was at least seventy percent confident the participating Master list for the Fifth Holy Grail War hadn't shifted dramatically, and that the Saber girl was very likely affiliated with Emiya Shirou.
"...You mean? Emiya has already become a participating Master in this Holy Grail War?"
"How is that possible? He isn't a magus. How could he summon a Heroic Servant?"
Tohsaka Rin's first reaction was disbelief, because in her memory Emiya Shirou was just an ordinary person. There was no reason the Grail would choose him.
And even if it did, how would he have the money to acquire the relic needed to summon a Heroic Servant this powerful?
Emiya Shirou's family situation was not poor, but it was nothing compared to the Tohsaka family. She herself couldn't afford a high-quality relic. There was even less reason he should be able to. Unless Matou Shinji had been bankrolling him somehow.
"Who knows. Maybe he is, maybe he isn't. But I think the probability isn't small."
"This is completely speculative with no basis..."
"Actually, I've been meaning to bring this up for a while. When we were at school, Emiya Shirou's speed was clearly not right. He slipped out of the battlefield right under mine and Lancer's noses. Do you really think that was a coincidence? Rin, you're being oblivious. That was obviously magecraft!"
There's no saving us.
This combination of ours.
A Servant whose stats are maybe just barely above an Assassin's, paired with a magus who constantly drops the ball at critical moments. I can't think of any path to victory outside of long-range sniping of the enemy Master. The red Archer rolled his eyes inwardly and mourned silently for their future.
"I, I, I..."
Tohsaka Rin seemed to be swaying. She clutched her head, thoughts in a tangle.
Oh no. I actually ran to save a Master who had summoned a Heroic Servant that powerful? This can't be real. That makes me a complete clown, doesn't it?
Setting aside how foolish it was to help an enemy, just looking at their respective Servant configurations and comparing them made her cringe. Did that person even need her to save them?
"Rin. Wake up. This Holy Grail War is not a children's game."
"..."
Clutching her head, Tohsaka Rin fell into silence.
But... saving people is right. Just like how Medea, the big sister she could barely remember anymore, had saved her from a terrifying murderer and a black knight when she was small. That rescue had felt so incredibly cool to her even then.
She had wanted to become someone like Medea, someone who could use their own power to save the weak.
That wish had never been spoken aloud to anyone. Probably Emiya had forgotten it too.
But she would never forget it. That silver-white fae light breaking into a dark alley.
The snow-fae who had defeated Ryuunosuke Uryuu and the black knight.
"Archer, what do you think... justice is?"
"?"
Wait, is that supposed to be your line?
I only said a few words to you, I didn't cast some brainwashing spell.
The red Archer blinked in genuine bewilderment. Did you and Emiya Shirou switch scripts?
"Once, I saved my classmate Kotone. When I saw those children escape safely, I felt proud. I didn't understand what that feeling was at the time."
"But afterward, after Medea saved me, I understood that power and responsibility are proportional. Even a witch called a traitor, an Age of Gods magus, was willing to save someone as insignificant as me, and didn't use me as a hostage to coerce Father either. That shook me deeply and taught me... what a hero is."
She had learned why saving Kotone had made her so happy. Because that was what it meant to be a hero.
She admired heroes like Medea. The heroic act of saving the weak.
That didn't contradict her ambition to reach the Root of Magecraft, the Tohsaka family's centuries-long wish. Because the greater your power, the greater your responsibility. The moment she truly became the world's greatest magus, she would be able to save more and more people, just as Medea had.
To become the hero she had admired as a child. To become the hero who would restore the Tohsaka family.
To become the hero who would ensure tragedies like the one that had happened to Kotone, like the one that had happened to her, would never be repeated.
"So do you understand, Archer? I have never once treated this Holy Grail War as some kind of children's game. I am simply doing what I want to do."
"Saving Emiya Shirou, saving innocent civilians, if I have the power to act on it, why shouldn't I?"
"The Tohsaka family administers Fuyuki City's leylines. We have the responsibility and the obligation to be this city's protectors. Power and responsibility in proportion. That is what Medea and my own experiences have taught me, a goal of marching forward toward an ideal, toward a hero, toward the Root of Magecraft."
This was her path.
The path of a half-baked magus, the current head of the Tohsaka family, on her way to becoming a hero.
What she had always wanted to save was never just Emiya Shirou. It was the duty she owed as the administrator of Fuyuki City.
She didn't need the red Archer to teach her anything. Because she knew better than anyone what she was doing.
If someone was innocent, she would protect them and save them. If they were an enemy in the War...
Then she would fight without hesitation, until the very end.
Within Fuyuki City!
She was justice. She was equity. She was the administrator. The only guardian who would hold the line!
"You're like a giant panda among magi. A shiny giant panda at that."
The red Archer sighed. He realized he had been wrong. Embarrassingly, completely wrong.
His Master had never been lost. She didn't need him to talk sense into her. She was already perfectly capable of distinguishing right from wrong.
"So, you want to become an Ally of Justice?"
"We can talk more later. Once it gets light, come with me to visit Father's grave. And to retrieve a few things while we're there. The Tohsaka family may have fallen on hard times, but that doesn't mean we've lost everything."
Tohsaka Rin stretched with a sleepy little yawn and rubbed her eyes.
She climbed off the sofa and made her way toward the stairs to her room on the second floor.
"And, Archer. You said it wrong. An Ally of Justice? That's a strange way to put it."
"Within Fuyuki City... I, Tohsaka Rin, am justice itself.