"I really didn't expect my Master to be myself... This feeling is truly bizarre. It's like looking in a mirror, but the me in the mirror seems to have gotten cuter?"
"Cut the crap."
The young girl Prelati swatted his hand away with a grimace, but she couldn't hide the smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.
"You understand the situation, right? This Holy Grail War is already broken."
"Yeah, yeah, I know."
The boy turned around and leaned against the floor-to-ceiling window where the girl had just been resting, looking down at the tiny city below.
A dangerous glint flickered in his eyes, the kind of excitement that came from finding a new toy.
"That Avenger who took up a seat... and that little girl who summoned him..."
"I really want to see what kind of expressions they'll make when they realize this war has been a malicious joke from the very beginning."
The boy raised the human-skin book in his hand, making a toasting gesture toward Fuyuki City below.
"Say, let's muddy these waters even further!"
"Whether it's the Holy Grail or that strange Avenger..."
"In the end, they will all become sacrifices offered to that lord! Hahahahaha!"
Twenty thousand meters up in the sky, the overlapping, mad, and joyous laughter of the two Prelatis echoed.
Beneath the canopy of the sky.
The Kamado residence.
Compared to the lunatic duo plotting to destroy the world up in the sky, the atmosphere here felt heavy and... somewhat subtly cozy.
Asuka remained in his spiritual body state, floating in the corner of the ceiling in the second-floor bedroom, watching the young girl sprawled out on the bed like a starfish.
"Are you alright, Kamado?"
No response.
"...Are you still alive?"
"...Dead..."
Sumire Kamado buried her face in her pillow, her voice muffled. "Scolded to death by Mom... She chewed me out so much my ears are ringing... So scary..."
Just moments ago, she had endured a hellish two-hour interrogation.
Relying on that lame but well-intentioned excuse, coupled with a tearful promise, Sumire had barely managed to escape the clutches of her mother, Haruri.
Of course, the price was having her allowance docked for the next month and a strict curfew demanding she return home on time every day after school.
"Phew..."
The girl suddenly rolled over, lying on her back as she sensed Asuka's presence on the ceiling.
"Mr. Ghost... You're so disloyal. You didn't even say a single word to help me just now."
"If I had spoken, your mother probably would have sent you straight to an onmyoji."
Asuka slowly floated down. "Alright, enough idle chatter."
He pointed at the back of Sumire's hand. "Since we're safe now, we need to have a serious talk about what comes next. About this... Holy Grail War."
At the mention of those words, the air in the room seemed to grow a few degrees heavier.
Sumire dropped her playful demeanor and sat up straight. "Um, Mr. Asuka, what exactly is going on? That creep talked about summoning demons, and you mentioned Servants and Masters... I didn't understand any of it."
Regarding this point, Asuka had already asked the black-haired youth in his mind multiple times.
But to protect himself from being harmed in the Spacetime Turbulence, the other party seemed to have expended a massive amount of energy and had fallen back into a coma...
"Actually, I'm still digesting it myself."
Asuka sorted through the knowledge forcibly instilled in his mind by the Heaven's Feel upon his summoning.
"Simply put, it's a slaughter."
He looked directly at the girl with his invisible eyes. "Seven magi summon seven Heroic Spirits to fight over a wish-granting machine called the Holy Grail, killing each other... until only one remains."
"A wish-granting machine?!" Sumire's mouth fell open in shock. "You mean... like Aladdin's magic lamp? Any wish can come true?"
"Theoretically, yes." Asuka nodded. "It sounds like whether it's money, power, or bringing the dead back to life, as long as it's your wish, the Holy Grail can grant it through a massive amount of Magical Energy."
"Then what is Magical Energy?"
"...I don't know. It's probably just another term for Reiryoku."
"What is Reiryoku?"
"...It's hard to explain. It's just an objectively existing power. Those who know how to use it just know."
"You're really unreliable, Mr. Asuka. Does someone like you even count as a Heroic Spirit?"
Seeing Sumire's skeptical gaze, Asuka shook his head. "I want to say no, but it seems I truly am of the so-called Avenger class. Even I am not entirely clear on this point."
"I wasn't supposed to appear here in the first place. I don't know what happened to drag me into this world."
He looked at Sumire, his eyes complex.
A familiar Reiryoku flowed through this girl's body. He had already figured it out; the Reiryoku contained within the wooden butterfly carving he had left behind had merged into her body after it shattered.
Perhaps it was precisely this power that had built a bridge between the two of them in this chaotic spacetime.
'Speaking of which, being sucked into the void by that strange magic circle... did I fall into the interior of the Greater Grail?'
'Then how am I supposed to return to my original world? Do I have to win this war and use the Holy Grail to make a wish?'
'But that thing... no matter how I look at it, something feels wrong. Can it really be trusted?'
"Since we've already been dragged into this death game..." Asuka touched the hilt of his sword in the void. "Kid, if we win the Holy Grail War, what is your wish?"
A wish? Sumire's fingers unconsciously twisted the hem of her shirt.
If it had been before yesterday, her wish might have just been to sleep in a little longer, or for the arcade downtown to be a bit cheaper.
But now...
She remembered that dark, damp basement.
She remembered those peers who had been brutally murdered, and the despairing look in that short-haired girl's eyes.
After experiencing last night, she felt more and more that her everyday life was simply a continuous chain of miracles, incredibly precious.
"I..."
Sumire raised her head, the confusion in her eyes gradually dissipating, replaced by her family's ancestral stubbornness and clarity.
"I don't have any wishes about ruling the world or becoming a billionaire."
She took a deep breath and said earnestly, "I want to protect my current life."
"I want my mom to not have to work so hard anymore. I want my friends to grow up happily. I want... for there to be no more creeps like that in this city, hurting innocent people."
At this point, she glanced at Asuka and scratched her cheek, a little embarrassed.
"Does that count as a wish? Is it too much? Or does it feel a bit... too ordinary?"
Asuka looked at her.
In a daze, the figure of that young boy carrying a wooden box overlapped with the girl before him.
No hatred or greed.
Only the simplest, most unadorned dedication to goodness, and love for family.
"That's not ordinary. That is the most powerful wish of all."
"Since that's the case, there's nothing left to hesitate about."
Asuka's spiritual body extended a fist toward Sumire. "I will protect you, because I also have a reason why I must win."
"But, you have to promise me one thing."
"Eh?" Sumire felt the fist extended toward her and subconsciously reached out to bump it. "Wh-what is it?"
"Get stronger."
Asuka's voice was firm. "Just as I said, from this moment on, you must maintain a state of Total Concentration Breathing at all times."
"Eeeeh?!"
Sumire let out a wail. "That's super exhausting! I only use it right before a competition! If I keep it up constantly, my lungs will explode!"
"They won't explode. At most, you'll just cough up a little blood."