The great battle at Ryuudou Temple had come to a close in a way both brutal and bizarre.
When the survivors, dragging their exhausted bodies and minds, gathered once more at the Emiya Residence, the joy of victory never came. In its place was a deathly silence and an oppressive weight too thick to disperse.
The air was steeped in the smell of blood, and in the scent of "emptiness," the name for what remained after an ideal had collapsed.
Shirou Emiya lay in his own room, deep in a coma.
His body was on the verge of collapse from forcibly projecting Rho Aias, his Magic Circuits snapping inch by inch like wires scorched by fire. Had Saber not channeled her remaining magical energy into him in time to keep him alive, he would likely already be dead.
Saber knelt silently at Shirou Emiya's bedside, her spiritual body grown thin from depleted magical energy, even her silver armor taking on a faint air of unreality.
She kept her head lowered, her golden hair falling forward to hide her expression.
But everyone could feel it. That unbreakable aura of a "King" that clung to her had vanished.
In its place was a... heartbreaking fragility.
Rin Tohsaka and Waver sat in the living room, the tea before them long gone cold.
Gone from Rin's face was the effortless confidence of a genius, leaving only deep exhaustion and bewilderment.
Waver, for his part, smoked one cigar after another, trying to numb the nerves that ached from too much thinking with nicotine.
The course of this war had slipped entirely beyond his control.
Archer leaned in the shadows of the corridor, arms folded, like a statue fused with the darkness.
He said nothing, but in those hawklike eyes churned a storm more complicated than ever before, brimming with self-loathing and bloodlust.
Rider stood like a true shadow, soundless, in a corner of the courtyard. Her task was done, and now she only waited for that man's next command.
And Seiji Fujiwara had become the only person in this "home" still functioning "normally."
First he gave Shirou Emiya emergency treatment with clear, methodical care, using his "consummate" knowledge of alchemy to mix a draught that could stabilize the Magic Circuits.
Then he prepared steaming, strength-restoring food and black tea for the exhausted group.
Like the most perfect, most dependable quartermaster, he quietly tidied up the wreckage after the storm.
"...Have a little, all of you." He set the food before each of them, his voice gentle as a lullaby in the dead of night. "Conserving our strength is the only thing we can do right now."
No one spoke, but each of them silently took the food he handed over.
In that suffocating silence, Seiji Fujiwara began his final "harvest," precise as a scalpel.
The first one he approached was Rin Tohsaka.
"Miss Tohsaka," he said softly, "are you blaming yourself?"
A faint shiver ran through her body.
"Blaming yourself for your error in command? For not foreseeing Lancer's betrayal? For... nearly getting everyone killed?" Seiji Fujiwara's voice seemed able to see straight through her heart.
"...I..." Rin opened her mouth, but no words would come.
"It isn't your fault, Rin." For the first time, he spoke her name with such intimacy. "You've done more than enough. You're the most brilliant, most dazzling genius I've ever met."
"It's only that the filth and baseness of this war went beyond anything you could have imagined."
"This isn't your fault. It's the fault of this world."
"So don't hold yourself to perfection anymore."
He reached out and gently tidied the loose strands of hair at her forehead.
"Leave all the things you aren't suited for, all the dirty work, to me."
"All you need to do is shine, like the most radiant jewel, on the final stage. That's enough."
"I will bring you what you want most... victory."
His words flowed like a warm spring slowly seeping into Rin's heart, a heart already worn out and filled with self-doubt.
She lifted her head and looked into this man's eyes, brimming with "understanding" and "acceptance," and felt an urge to lean on him.
Seiji Fujiwara smiled and turned toward the despondent King of Knights.
"Saber," he said, standing before her, looking down at her from above. "Are you still suffering for the sake of your kingly path?"
Saber didn't answer, only buried her head lower.
"Artoria," he spoke her true name, his voice soft as a sigh. "You've carried too much, for far too long."
"A King is not a god. A King can err, a King can be selfish, a King... needs saving too."
"You aren't the King of Britain. You're only... a pitiable girl named Artoria, cursed by destiny."
"Let it go. Let go of that crown that rotted away long ago, let go of an obsession that lost all meaning long ago."
"What you truly want isn't to save Britain."
"It's... to save yourself."
"I'll help you. I'll free you completely from the curse of the King. I'll let you... become an ordinary girl again, one who can laugh freely and weep freely."
His words were like a key, opening the deepest chains within Saber's heart, sealed for a thousand years.
That "King's" will, taut for a thousand years, began to waver in that instant.
Glistening tears slid soundlessly down her pale cheeks.
At last, Seiji Fujiwara walked up to the red-clad Archer, who radiated an aura that warned the living to keep away.
"Still thinking about how to kill your past self? Heroic Spirit EMIYA."
Archer's body stiffened. He raised his head, those hawklike eyes filled with undisguised killing intent.
"Who... are you, really?"
"Who I am doesn't matter." A look that could be called "compassion" appeared on Seiji Fujiwara's face. "What matters is that I know what lies at the end of that despair of yours."
"Nothingness."
"Even if you kill Shirou Emiya, you won't free yourself from the Counter Guardian's curse. You'll only have the last shred of your humanity ground away in eternal slaughter, and become a... true machine."
"Your suicide is meaningless."
"But..." His tone shifted, his voice full of temptation.
"What if I could give you an ending more meaningful than death?"
"What if I could let that justice of yours, the justice the world betrayed, be realized in the most brilliant way?"
"For instance..."
"...becoming the trigger that destroys this rotten world, so full of contradiction and ugliness."
Archer's pupils contracted sharply.
He looked at this man before him, as though seeing a "demon"... one even madder than himself.
Seiji Fujiwara smiled and extended a hand toward him.
"Come. Make your choice."
"Will you go on drowning in meaningless self-destruction?"
"Or... will you join me in offering this boring world the grandest, most magnificent funeral?"
...
That night.
In a secret safehouse in Shinto that Seiji Fujiwara had prepared well in advance.
Rider stood guard at the bedside, watching the purple-haired girl who slept on, lost to blood loss and shock.
"...Mr. Fujiwara."
When Seiji Fujiwara's figure appeared in the room, Rider rose to her feet and bowed to him respectfully.
"How is Miss Sakura's condition?"
"She's stabilized," Rider answered. "The draught you left worked well."
"Good, then."
Seiji Fujiwara walked to the bedside and looked at Sakura Matou's pale, peaceful sleeping face, without the faintest trace of pity in his eyes.
Only... the heartfelt ecstasy of watching one's most perfect "work" near completion.
"It's time."
He murmured to himself.
"Time for this flower, struggling ten years in the mire..."
"...to bloom, completely."
...
...
Just as the survivors at the Emiya Residence were all sunk past rescue in the poison-laced "comfort" Seiji Fujiwara had woven.
Fuyuki City, the church at the mountaintop.
This was the "overseer's seat" of the Holy Grail War, and the one "high ground" on the entire chessboard not yet shrouded in Seiji Fujiwara's fog.
Kirei Kotomine stood beneath the great crucifix, wiping clean his black short sword, stained with the blood of countless heretics.
His movements were meticulous, charged with a certain ritual quality.
His face wore that same corpse-like calm as ever. But within him, the whispers Seiji Fujiwara had left in his ear that day, like a devil's gospel, had stirred up waves like nothing before.
"...Create suffering, create despair..."
He turned the words over and over, and felt his long-"dead" heart begin, miraculously, to beat once more.
"Heh heh... heh heh heh heh..."
A low, magnetic laugh, carrying a trace of indolence and arrogance, rang out in the empty church.
Kirei Kotomine's movements stopped.
He didn't even need to turn around to know who had come.
Because there was only one person in the entire world who could speak in that tone of lording over all creation.
"Kirei, oh, Kirei."
A man in golden armor, with a head of dazzling golden hair and eyes like rubies, brimming with divinity, had appeared, at some unknown moment, in the church's confessional.
He sat there carelessly, as though he alone were the master of this church, and indeed of this world.
The King of Heroes... Gilgamesh.
The oldest Servant to survive the Fourth Holy Grail War.
"It seems you've found yourself a new toy."
Gilgamesh held a golden goblet brimming with red liquid, watching his "ally" with great interest.
"A toy that can breathe life back into even that dull husk of yours."
"King." Kirei Kotomine turned and bowed to him respectfully. "Have you been observing all this time?"
"Naturally." Gilgamesh swirled his goblet, the liquid within reflecting the cold moonlight beyond the window. "A farcical drama staged by a pack of half-baked mongrels squabbling over the King's treasures... how could the King possibly miss it?"
"Only, the King did not expect..."
A smile of pure delight crossed his face.
"...that this drama would feature such an interesting little clown."
"He's no clown." Kirei Kotomine's answer caught him off guard. "He's more like... a director."
"Oh?" Gilgamesh arched an eyebrow, intrigued. "To earn such high praise from you, it seems this mongrel does have something worth watching."
Kirei Kotomine reported everything that had happened at Ryuudou Temple to Gilgamesh, exactly as it occurred.
Including Berserker's destruction, Lancer's exit, and... how Seiji Fujiwara had manipulated it all with his invisible threads.
"...Heh heh, hahahahaha!"
When he had heard it all, Gilgamesh burst into hearty laughter.
"Fascinating! How utterly fascinating!"
"Using lies to destroy a knight's glory. Using reality to crush a hero's ideals. Using sympathy to dismantle a genius's pride."
"Everything this mongrel called Seiji Fujiwara has done is blasphemy! Blasphemy against those false virtues people sing the praises of!"
"This is, quite simply... a performance tailor-made for the King!"
His eyes glittered with excitement.
"Kirei, you've done well." He rose from his throne and walked over to Kirei Kotomine.
"You've found a new amusement, one far more interesting than all the toys the King once gave you."
"The King has decided."
He spread his arms wide and proclaimed in a tone bordering on aria.
"The King shall see this interesting director with his own eyes."
"The King shall see just what kind of lowly, yet interesting, soul lies hidden beneath that seemingly harmless mask of his."
"The King shall make him understand that in this world, all directors, all actors, all dramas..."
"...are nothing more than amusements for the King alone to pass the time."
Kirei Kotomine lowered his head and said nothing.
But for the first time, a sliver of... doubt arose in his heart toward that all-powerful golden king.
Because he knew.
That man called Seiji Fujiwara...
He was no "toy," and certainly no "clown."
He was a mirror.
A demon-mirror that could reflect the deepest, truest "desire" and "hollowness" in every heart.
And even a god, when forced to face his own truest "ugliness," might not be able to keep that composed "arrogance."
...
...
At Seiji Fujiwara's "suggestion," the surviving members of the alliance relocated for the time being to a safer stronghold: the Einzbern Castle.
It lay in a remote spot, its fortifications complete, and after the battle with Berserker it had become an empty castle, perfect to use as a base where they could rest, recover, and prepare for the final showdown.
The atmosphere inside the castle remained oppressive.
Shirou Emiya still lay unconscious. Saber, Archer, and Rin Tohsaka had each fallen into a kind of "withdrawal."
There was almost no exchange among them.
They were all chewing over the "poison" Seiji Fujiwara had planted in their hearts, all locked in an agonizing struggle with their own tottering convictions.
And Seiji Fujiwara, in the posture of a "guardian" and "mediator," held perfect control over this team on the brink of collapse.
[Read 50+ chapters ahead on Patreon: patreon.com/NiaXD]