Chapter 698: The Despair of Imaginary Numbers! Ria, Sever His Head!
The air in the Matou residence was stagnant, heavy with the scent of old dust, rotting wood, and something far more sinister—like formaldehyde mixed with dried blood.
Matou Zouken stopped at the entrance at the top of the basement stairs. His hunched silhouette blocked the dim light from the hallway, casting a long, twisted shadow that stretched down into the abyss below.
Sakura, who was following him with small, hesitant steps, also stopped. She clutched the hem of her small dress, her knuckles turning white.
She looked up at her new "grandfather" with clear, confused eyes.
"Grandfather... where are we going?"
The stairs leading down were completely dark. It wasn't a natural darkness; it was a heavy, suffocating gloom that seemed to swallow sound itself.
Little Sakura Matou was scared. Her instincts, honed by the sharp mana sensitivity of a naturally gifted child, were screaming at her to run.
Matou Zouken slowly turned around. The movement was jerky, accompanied by the dry cracking of joints that sounded like brittle twigs snapping.
"Wah!!!"
Under the flickering, yellowed light of the hallway lamp, Sakura screamed in fright as Zouken's face came into view.
It was a face that belonged in a nightmare.
He was bald, his skull pushing against skin as thin and dry as papyrus. His limbs were as withered as a mummy's, trembling slightly with a palsy that betrayed his unnatural longevity. Within his deep, sunken eye sockets, two sharp glints of malice burned like will-o'-the-wisps.
He carried a foul, decaying smell—the stench of a grave that had been disturbed.
The old man's face wrinkled as he contorted his lips into what he surely intended to be a reassuring smile. Instead, it looked like a crack appearing in a porcelain mask of death.
"I'm sorry..."
Sakura realized her impoliteness instantly. The strict etiquette drilled into her by the Tohsaka family kicked in automatically. She bowed deeply, trembling.
"I'm sorry... Grandfather. I... I didn't mean to scream."
"Hehehe... Kukuku... It's alright, child. Grandfather doesn't mind."
Matou Zouken forced out a laugh that sounded like phlegm rattling in a dry throat. He raised a withered finger, the nail long and yellow, and pointed into the suffocating depths of the basement.
"Go down, Sakura. Inside, I have prepared a housewarming gift for you. A special welcome to the Matou family."
"Gift?"
Sakura blinked. The word sparked a tiny flicker of hope in her terrified heart. A gift? Like a doll? Or maybe a beautiful dress like her sister Rin used to wear?
Her clear, bright eyes looked into the darkness of the basement.
Scritch... Scritch... Squelch...
Faint sounds drifted up from the bottom. Wet, sliding sounds. Like wet meat dragging across stone.
She shrank her head back, the hope vanishing instantly.
"Grandpa... I... I'm afraid of the dark..." she whispered, her voice trembling. "Can we... look at the gift up here?"
She didn't dare to go down. She felt it. There was something monstrous waiting in that pit.
However, Matou Zouken's eyes narrowed into crescents of pure cruelty. The mask of the kindly grandfather dissolved completely.
"Hehehe. You have no choice, little girl. You are a Matou now. The name Tohsaka is gone. You must listen to me."
He stepped closer, towering over her small frame.
"Go down. Accept the love I am giving you."
To Sakura's absolute horror, Matou Zouken raised his cane and then, with his bony, rough hand, he shoved her hard on the shoulder.
"Go!"
"Ah!"
Sakura screamed as gravity claimed her.
She lost her footing on the slick wooden floor. Her small body tumbled down the steep stone stairs.
Thud. Thud. Crash.
She rolled, hitting her elbows and knees against the cold stone, before finally landing on the damp floor at the bottom landing.
Pain flared through her body. Her vision was blurry with tears.
"Daddy... Mom..." she sobbed quietly, trying to push herself up.
She looked up towards the light at the top of the stairs. What her tear-filled eyes saw was Matou Zouken standing there, silhouetted against the light, smiling like a demon who had just secured a fresh soul.
"I never expected Tohsaka Tokiomi to give me such a pristine vessel," Zouken muttered to himself, his voice echoing down the stairwell. "What a foolish, arrogant man."
Tohsaka Tokiomi?
Hearing that name, Sakura's eyes widened. That was her father. The mage who stood tall and elegant. The man she respected more than anyone.
Why? Why did Father send her here?
Zouken looked down at the girl with a calculating, hungry gaze. He wasn't seeing a granddaughter. He was seeing raw materials.
Tohsaka Tokiomi... that quintessential magus. He was a man bound by the cold logic of their kind.
The inheritance of a magus family is absolute. The Magic Crest—the accumulation of centuries of research—can only be passed to one heir. To split it is to dilute it, to destroy the family's path to the Root.
Tokiomi had two daughters with miraculous potential. Rin, capable of manipulating the Five Elements. And Sakura...
Sakura possessed something even rarer.
Her Origin and Elemental Affinity were not the standard elements. They were "Imaginary Numbers" (Hollow). It was a rare, chaotic potential that was completely incompatible with the Tohsaka's orderly Jewel Magecraft.
Tokiomi loved his daughters in his own twisted way. He couldn't bear to see Sakura's talent wither away as a normal human. He wanted her to reach the Root, even if it meant passing her to another lineage.
The Matou family, one of the Three Great Families alongside the Tohsaka and Einzbern, was rotting. Their bloodline was drying up. They had no heir capable of activating their Magic Circuits.
So, the deal was made.
An adoption. An alliance.
Tokiomi believed he was giving Sakura a future as a glorious magus of the Matou line. He believed he was securing a legacy for both his children.
"Foolish Tokiomi," Zouken sneered, his fingers twitching. "He thinks I care about the Matou lineage? He thinks I care about the future?"
Zouken, once the great Makiri Zolgen, had lived for five hundred years. His noble goal of saving humanity had long since rotted away, replaced by a singular, cancerous obsession: Immortality.
He didn't need an heir. He needed a body. He needed a fresh, high-quality battery to feed his soul.
"Grandpa! What are these?! Something is touching me!"
Sakura suddenly screamed in absolute terror.
Her eyes adjusted to the gloom, and the "rustling" sounds became a reality.
The floor of the basement wasn't stone. It was moving.
A carpet of black, glistening shapes writhed and pulsed around her.
"Sakura-chan, this is the gift," Zouken's voice drifted down, dripping with sadism. "These are my beloved children."
Crest Worms.
They were disgusting, phallic-shaped larvae, slick with mucus and pulsing with magical energy. They were parasites created for one purpose: to burrow into a host, devour their magical energy, and force open their Magic Circuits through agony and stimulation.
They smelled of arousal and rot.
"No... No! Go away!"
Sakura scrambled backward, kicking at the slimy mass. But there were thousands of them.
One crawled over her shoe. Another wrapped around her ankle, its wet skin cold against hers.
"No, don't come any closer!!!"
She wept, pressing her back against the cold wall. "Grandpa! Help me! Daddy! Save me!"
She wanted to beg. She wanted to wake up from this nightmare.
However, looking up, she saw Matou Zouken gripping the heavy iron handle of the basement door.
"Enjoy yourself, Sakura-chan. Let them educate your body. Let them turn you into a proper Matou doll."
"No—!"
SLAM.
The door closed with a heavy metallic thud. The lock clicked shut.
The beam of light vanished.
Total, absolute darkness engulfed her.
"Ah... ahhh..."
Sakura's breathing hyperventilated. In the dark, the sounds were amplified a thousand times. The squelching. The hissing.
And then, the sensation.
Dozens of wet, cold bodies began to crawl up her legs. They were hungry. They sensed the immense magical potential within her, and they wanted to feed.
She curled into a ball, screaming until her voice broke, her mind beginning to fracture under the sheer weight of fear and despair.
"Who... who can come... save me..."
Crack.
The sound of a teacup shattering echoed in a different space.
The scene froze, hovering like a holographic projection in the air.
Ren sat on the sofa, his expression unreadable, though the temperature in the room had dropped to freezing point.
Beside him, the blonde King of Knights, Artoria—or rather, in her current black-clad, corrupted form, Ria—stood up.
Her golden eyes, usually cold and indifferent, were now burning with a fury that could incinerate a city. The magical energy radiating from her body was so intense that black lightning began to arc around her armor.
She had seen cruelty in her life. She had seen war. But this? This calculated, disgusting violation of a child by her own "family"?
It was an insult to the very concept of life.
"Master..."
Ria's voice was low, a growl vibrating in her chest. She gripped the corrupted holy sword, Excalibur Morgan, so tightly that her gauntlets creaked.
She didn't ask for permission to speak. She demanded action.
"I say we kill him. No..."
She looked at Ren, her eyes pleading for the order to slaughter.
"That evil, filthy, rotting pile of refuse... He does not deserve a swift death."
She pointed her blade at the image of the basement door.
"I will cut off his limbs. I will burn his bugs. And then, I will mount his severed head on a pike for all to see."
"Can I do it, Master?"
Ren looked at the trembling darkness in the projection, then at his enraged Servant.
He stood up slowly, a dark, tyrannical smile forming on his lips—a smile directed entirely at the old worm waiting in the shadows.
"Ria."
"Yes!"
"Don't just cut off his head," Ren commanded softly, his voice devoid of mercy. "Erase his soul. Make sure he regrets ever crawling out of the mud."
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