Act 5: Rider
In conclusion, “he” was a being as foreign as could be.
“He” was summoned to this false Holy Grail War as a Servant of
the Rider class.
“His” existence was proof that this Holy Grail War was false; proof
that there was nothing less worthy of the title “Holy Grail” than the
object of this War.
Only in name was “he” a Heroic Spirit, and “he” was not by any
means a Hero.
Then, a Villainous Spirit? A Demonic Spirit? Nay. Neither term
suffices to describe “him”. In some places, “he” was described as a
“curse”, while in some religions, “he” was said to be “divine punishment”.
In the Holy Grail War, Servants are selected from the past and the
future—from every age of mankind’s history.
The classes into which the Servants are summoned transcend time.
A Hero of the past, known only via lore, may be summoned, as may a
Hero of the future, not yet born into this world. If the Holy Grail War
had existed when Amakusa Shirou lived, he may have even been able
to summon his more powerful future self, an icon of heroism.
From that perspective—“he” had existed since time immemorial,
and “he” would likely continue to exist far into the future. “He” lived a
shorter life than anyone, and “he” lived a longer life than anyone.
And so, “he”—a being with physical presence, though not a Heroic
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Spirit—
Even at this very moment—there is no doubt that “he” continues
to take the lives of those that live on this planet.
Indeed, perhaps “he” does so so that “he” may “himself ” provide
nourishment for life to begin anew.
How beautiful.
Thus thought a certain young girl as she gazed upon that which
sprawled before her.
It was a city she was familiar with.
It was the city where she was raised. Ever so many buildings towered
over her, scraping the vast sky above with such vigor that they
seemed ready to swallow her up too.
A pair of six-lane causeways met at a mighty intersection. The primary
north-south and east-west arterial roads of the City of Snowfield
met there, not far from the city center. From the skies above, the roads
would seem to form an enormous crucifix, identifying the nexus of the
city.
An observer looking only upon those grand roadways might well
think himself to be in a city as grand as New York or Chicago. Indeed,
those roads raced past the city limits into the multifarious natural environments
surrounding Snowfield with such ardor, it was as though
they had asserted that they were a part of those surroundings—nay,
that they were in fact the culmination, the perfection of all nature.
But—something was amiss.
And the girl found this city, this familiar city, to be beautiful precisely
because something was amiss.
She stood at the center of the enormous intersection, which was
itself at the center of the city.
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It was a scramble intersection, allowing pedestrians to cross it in
every which way—but, of course, vehicular traffic would resume at
some point, forcing one to vacate the road.
And yet, she had stood there for more than ten minutes.
The traffic lights had cycled any number of times.
But—silence reigned. Not a single car honked at her.
And that was as it should be—
For there was not a single human anywhere to be seen.
An empty intersection.
A road devoid of vehicles.
Did she notice that it was silent? Then again, did she even notice
that it was odorless?
From the middle of the road, it was clear that the causeways lacked
any human presence.
The girl imagined an asphalt-colored red carpet, a most contradictory
thing. She was overwhelmed by the beauty of the complex of tall
buildings before her.
In the absence of people, concrete—that symbol of humankind—
seemed like a beautiful object of nature, sprung from the Earth’s surface.
If a building were a tree, what a grand, harmonious forest this city
would be. In that case, the city hall tower, tallest of them all, would be
a veteran among them.
She knew not why she was there.
Hence, she wandered the town in search of an answer.
But that brought sadness unto her.
Though she found this world beautiful in its lack of people, she also
found it lonely.
At first, she felt nothing but loneliness; within a few days, though,
she had grown accustomed to it.
Indeed. She had wandered this empty town for a long, long time.
After about three months, she had stopped counting the days.
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She was never struck by hunger, though she knew not why. During
the day she would wander the town, and come dusk, she would sleep.
At night, lights would go on in the empty buildings. She would look
up at the night sky and be comforted by the stars. Few things are more
unsettling than witnessing lights go on in a building empty of people,
but she had long since grown used to it, faced with the absurdity of a
city empty of people.
As loneliness departed her heart, the void it left was filled by the
pleasure she felt from being in this empty city.
After looking about the city a while, she lay down in the middle of
the intersection and idly gazed up at the night sky
Daddy. Mommy.
The faces of her parents came to mind.
I’m sorry. I couldn’t do it right.
Her first instinct was to apologize.
But then, she realized that she wasn’t even doing anything she
should apologize for, and—.
Two old emotions welled up within her.
One was loneliness, stemming from the impossibility of encountering
anyone else.
The other was
Snowfield Central Hospital
An enormous edifice stood in the central district of the City of
Snowfield, covered in white paint.
At a glance, it looked very much like an art museum. In fact, however,
it was a large hospital, furnished with the finest equipment in the
city.
It was a castle of healing. Multitudes of patients knocked at its
gates, seeking treatment from surgeons and psychosomaticists and all
sorts of other specialists.
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Of course, not all the patients came for elective procedures. Many
were brought to the hospital for other reasons.
“...I am afraid that I must inform you that it will be difficult for
your daughter to regain consciousness from this state,” said a doctor to
a man and a woman.
They glanced at each other. They were probably in their thirties,
and seemed to be from East Asia. They seemed more than a little flustered.
“As of today, our daughter has been hospitalized for one full year....
Is that a sign that her condition has taken a turn for the worse?” asked
the man, in fluent English.
“...Physically speaking, there are no symptoms that would suggest
your daughter’s condition is worsening. Nonetheless, it becomes more
difficult to recover from a coma as the duration of the coma increases.”
The patient had been under her care for a full year now, and had
yet to recover consciousness. She had entered a vegetative state. Only
her body continued to develop, and that too, at a slow pace.
She was just ten years and three months of age.
Who knows what happened to her. One day, she abruptly lost
consciousness and wouldn’t wake up, and so, her parents, terrified,
brought her to this hospital.
An examination revealed that her body was studded with lesions,
particularly around her cranium.
After performing a biopsy on one of the lesions, it was found that
they were caused by an unknown strain of bacteria. The doctors all
panicked, fearing an epidemic within the hospital.
In the end, the bacteria turned out not to be contagious, leaving it
a mystery as to how the girl herself became infected in the first place.
The doctors considered having a hospital with even more advanced
facilities examine her, but for whatever reason, they were denied access,
and so, the girl remained under observation in this municipal hospital.
“We have not observed any changes in the state of the bacterial infestation.
Unfortunately, this means that the bacteria will continue to
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impede her cerebral function going forward. The bacteria have not
caused so much damage as to induce necrosis; nonetheless, they have
severely impeded her mental functions.” The doctor spoke as soothingly
as she could.
“Is that so....” replied the woman, worry permeating her voice.
“Keep in mind, this doesn’t mean that recovery is impossible.
There have been cases where a patient has been in a vegetative state
for over 10 years before regaining consciousness. As we learn more
about the genome of the bacterium, more treatment options will become
available to us. Please, don’t lose hope.” She was doing her best
to keep their spirits up, but—
The patient’s father looked ever more disconsolate.
“Never mind her consciousness... are her reproductive functions
still intact?” he asked.
“...Pardon?”
For a moment, she didn’t understand what she was being asked.
She simply could not grasp what he had meant by “never mind her
consciousness”. For a short while, there was a powerful silence.
Before long, the man spoke again, unwilling to let the silence drag
on. Rephrasing his question in greater detail, he said, “I would like to
know whether or not her ovaries and uterus—or at the very least, just
her ovaries—are developing normally.”
“Er... well, the lesions are only inhibiting growth in the part of her
brain to which they are localized, so there haven’t been any adverse
effects on her other organs, but...” The doctor just told him the facts
as they were, still unable to figure out why he was asking about that.
But—
Upon hearing her response, the patient’s parents looked at each
other once again. Their faces lit up.
“Really!? Well, in that case, thank you ever so much! We will continue
to pay her hospital bills as we have been, so please, continue taking
good care of our daughter!”
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“I’m sorry? That’s not... I mean...”
“We are truly grateful to you, doctor. There, you see, dear? You
don’t need to worry about that anymore.”
“Right you are, honey. Let’s get going... we need to make preparations
for tonight.”
The young couple waltzed out of the hospital in high spirits, leaving
behind the utterly perplexed doctor.
She had no idea what would be appropriate to say to them, and so,
she just stared at them as they departed.
“Goodness me.... What was the matter with them...?”
Perhaps the shock of finding their daughter comatose had left them
all muddled up. The next time they came to the hospital, she would
have to recommend that they attend counseling.
As she thought about the peculiar couple, she stepped through the
exterior door to the sterile room.
After being sprayed with a disinfecting gas and scoured with ultraviolet
light, the interior door opened, to reveal a single bed.
On the bed lay a sleeping girl with an IV drip.
Though it seemed at first glance as though she was merely asleep,
her face was emaciated and lifeless, and it did not seem as though she
would ever regain consciousness.
“...Even if your parents abandon you, I won’t. I’ll never give up on
you.”
The only sound emanating from the girl was the sound of her
breath. As the doctor looked at her, she checked her IV drip and her
vitals with a renewed determination.
And then—she discovered something unusual.
“...oh?”
She noticed the abnormality while she was repositioning the girl.
Something red appeared on the right hand of the motionless girl.
“What... are these...?”
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She took a closer look at the girl’s hand. There, she saw crimson
sigils that reminded her of loops of chain.
“A tattoo...? But who?”
Access to the girl’s room was strictly controlled, and there was no
way anybody could have brought tattoo implements inside. Besides—
when she had checked on the girl that same morning, there was certainly
nothing out of the ordinary. A chill ran down her spine.
At one time, “he” let loose the Black Death, which killed thirty million,
And at another time, under the name of the Spanish Flu, “he” killed
fifty million.
“He” was the horseman who brought calamity to all. His alias:
Pestilence.
As to whether anyone would recognize what “his” alias is, or indeed,
that “he” had been summoned as a Servant in the first place—
Either way, the false Holy Grail War was finally on its way to becoming
a maelstrom of chaos.
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