In a clearing within a bush at a corner of the small mountainous town of Fuyuki, Waver Velvet began his preparation of the summoning ritual after making sure that he was completely alone.
Waver’s nerves were held extremely taut the entire day due to the incessant crowing of the chickens, so much so that a ritual of purification of the mind was needed before the conduction.
The shape of the magic circle has to be drawn on the ground while the dripping chicken blood was still warm. He had practiced the procedure many times, drawing the four encircling patterns of departure within erasure inside the summoning circle.
No mistakes must be made.
“Shut. Shut. Shut. Shut. Shut. Five perfections for each repetition. And now, let the filled sigils be annihilated in my stead!”
Waver carefully spread the chicken blood on the ground as he chanted the incantation.
In the underground workshop of the Tōsaka residence in the same small mountainous town, the same preparations were being made for the same ritual.
“Ye first, O silver, O iron. O stone of the foundation, O Archduke of the Contract. Hear me in the name of our great teacher, the Archmagus Schweinorg.
Let the descending winds be as a wall. Let the gates in all directions be shut, rising above the crown, and let the three-forked roads to the Kingdom revolve.”
Tōsaka Tokiomi chanted the incantation loudly as he inscribed the magic circle, using not the blood of sacrificial victims but the molten essence of magical gems. To prepare for this day, Tōsaka have liberally used up all the gems that were full of prana stockpiled in his hoard.
Beside him were the Kotomine father and son – Risei and Kirei.
Kirei gazed intently at the holy relic placed on the altar. At first glance it looked like a broken fragment of a mummy, but in fact it was claimed to be the fossil of the skin that was shed by the first snake in the world in ancient times countless eons before.
Kirei cannot help but feel a wave of fear at the thought of the Heroic Spirit it would summon.
Tokiomi’s reasons for his confidence were finally understood. No Servant can defeat the Heroic Spirit that Tokiomi have chosen.
At the same time, in the distant castle of the Einsberns, Emiya Kiritsugu was examining the completed state of the summoning circle scribed on the floor of the ceremony room.
“Would such a simple ritual suffice?”
For Irisviel, who was standing aside overlooking the procedure, it was surprising that the preparations were so plain.
“Maybe you are disappointed, but the summoning of Servants never needed an extravagant spiritual evocation ceremony.”
Kiritsugu explained as he carefully checked for twists and smudges on the patterns drawn with mercury.
“Because it is in fact not the power of the magus that summons the Servant, but the power of the Holy Grail. As a Master I am only a cord that connects the Heroic Spirit with the world we reside in, and then merely provide him with prana necessary for materialization in this world.”
As if satisfied with the completed state of the summoning circle, Kiritsugu nodded and stood up. The holy relic was placed on the altar – the sheath of the legendary holy sword.
“According to this, victory should be within our hands.”
“Have you accurately memorized the incantations of summoning?”
Matō Zōken reminded Kariya again and again for safety’s sake. The latter nodded in the darkness.
Full of the foul odor of rot and dampness, a green darkness as that of the depth of the sea. This is the worm storage hidden deep beneath the ground of the Matō residence that stood on the hill of the small mountainous town.
“That’s good. Only, midway through the incantation, add two more lines of incantations.”
“What do you mean?”
Zōken smiled ominously towards Kariya’s confused expression.
“Isn’t it obvious? Kariya, you should know that as a magus, your abilities are not just one or two notches below the other Masters. It will affect the basic abilities of the Servant.
If that’s the case, it can only be amended through the Servant’s Class, and we must raise the parameter from the root up.”
Predetermining the Class of the Servant through the alteration of the summoning incantations.
Usually, the assignment of Servant Classes is inevitably decided by the summoned Heroic Spirit’s own attributes. However, there are exceptions; two Classes can be designated by the summoner beforehand.
One of them is Assassin. The Heroic Spirit that belongs to this Class can be assumed as a group of killers that inherited the name of Hassan I Sabah.
And the other class is for all Heroic Spirits and can be manifested as long as the summoner incorporates the required foreign ingredients. Therefore –
“This time, give the summoned Servant the attribute of ‘Mad Enhancement’!”
Zōken declared loudly with an overjoyed face, as if welcoming the disastrous implications contained within it.
“Kariya, as the Master of Berserker, fight for me with all that you’ve got.”
On that day, incantations from different lands and aimed at different entities were chanted almost simultaneously, a harmony so coincidental it can hardly be regarded as an accident of chance.
For all the magi have the same hope.
A hope about a miracle. The summons pronounced to the heroes on the other side of the universe by these humans, who will brutally slaughter each other to achieve this miracle, were ringing out from the earth at the same time.
“Set –”
This is the moment that will present the greatest test to him as a magus. If he lost, he would even lose his life. Waver felt this acutely, but he was not a bit afraid.
A passion that desires strength. A determination that relentlessly pursues his goal. Based on those qualities, Waver Velvet is undoubtedly an outstanding magus.
“ – Set
Let thy body rest under my dominion, let my fate rest in thy blade.
If thou submitteth to the call of the Holy Grail, and if thou wilt obey this mind, this reason, then thou shalt respond.”
The sensation of prana that surrounded his body. The malevolent chill and agony caused by the slithering and circulation of the Magic Circuits within one’s corporal being is something that no magi can escape from.
Waver bit down on his teeth as he continued to chant the incantation.
“ – I make my oath here. I am that person who is to become the virtue of all Heaven. I am that person who is covered with the evil of all Hades.”
Kiritsugu’s sight darkened.
The Emiya family crest, that was passed down through the generations and carved on his back, began to separately chant the incantation as individual entities in order to support Kiritsugu’s thaumaturgy. Kiritsugu’s heart, in a dimension that escaped his mind’s control, began to beat rapidly like a hurrying clock hand.
His flesh that was tormented by the prana gathered from the air had already forgotten its functionalities as a human; instead, it had turned into a component of the mysterious ceremony, into a circuit that purely connected the ethereal with the material.
Kiritsugu gave no thought to the severe pain created by this discord that was enough to make one want to scream out loud, and concentrated on pronouncing his incantation. Even the presence of Irisviel, who stood beside him holding her breath, was no longer present in his consciousness.
Adding the forbidden alien ingredient in the incantations of summoning, Kariya included two lines of incantations that would rob the sanity of the summoned Heroic Spirit and demote the hero to a level of a berserker.
“ – Yet, thou serves with thine eyes clouded in chaos. Thou, bound in the cage of madness. I am he who commands those chains – ”
Kariya is different from other magi in that his Magic Circuits are made from other organisms that lived within him as parasites. The anguish necessary for inciting them and activating his Circuits are incomparable with that suffered by other magi. As he chanted the incantations his limbs twitched in spasms, and blood seeped out from his shattered capillaries.
Sanguineous tears flew from the remaining wholesome right eye, dripping down his cheek.
Even so, Kariya did not lax in his concentration.
Thinking about the duty that he bore on his back – then he would not shrink back at this moment.
“Thou seven heavens, clad in a trinity of words, come past they restraining rings, and be thou the hands that protect the balance – !”
With this as the end of his prayers, Tokiomi felt that the acceleration of the prana that raced in his body had reached its uttermost limit.
Thunder and lightening roared, accompanied with rolling clouds bore on a mighty wind. In the pressure of a gale that wouldn’t even allow onlookers such as Kirei to open their eyes, the patterns of the summoning circle glimmered with brilliant light.
Finally, the Magic Circuits have connected with the plane that is not of men… from the dazzling light that endlessly shone forth, a golden silhouette of an upright man emerged. Awed with such august solemnity, Father Risei muttered dreamily despite himself.
“…We’ve won, Kirei. Our battle is won…”
The wish was passed onto them like this.
Arriving from the other side and landing here, a legendary illusion wrapped in tornado and lightening.
Originally of human kind but separated from the mortal plane. Elevated to the level of elementals through powers not of men. The place where the supernatural primates gathered… from the Throne of Heroes that had its power of the Gods suppressed, the Heroic Spirits weaved from the dreams of countless ordinary men descended on the earth at the same time.
Then –
In a forest in the night, on a stone stool enveloped by the darkness, at each of these locations someone now asked in a majestic voice:
“I ask thee, art thou the Master that called me?”
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