"Huh...?"
The mysterious girl's abrupt request left Hyouma Sagara frozen in place.
When he gave no response, the girl, Manaka Sajyou, patiently explained further.
"If you'd be willing to transfer your Command Spell to me, that would be a great help. As thanks..."
She tilted her head adorably. "I'll let you live, Uncle."
"Huh? Huuuuuuuh? Who do you think you are? Don't screw with me!"
Hyouma Sagara finally came back to himself and roared in fury.
"Oh, I see. I understand now. I completely understand... You're a pursuer sent by the Mage's Association, aren't you?"
"Nope."
"Don't lie! Who else besides the Mage's Association would know about this Command Spell?"
The Magecraft ritual scheduled to take place in Romania in a few days, the Holy Grail War.
It was not one of the Subcategory Holy Grail Wars that had been popping up all over the world like garbage in recent years.
This would be the largest Magecraft ritual in history, surpassing even Fuyuki sixty years ago... no, surpassing even the Third Holy Grail War.
Two factions.
Fourteen Servants and fourteen Masters.
The Mage's Association's Clock Tower and the Yggdmillennia Clan, an unprecedented seven-on-seven Magecraft war.
At this scale, "war" no longer felt sufficient. "Great War" was far more fitting.
That's right. The Great Holy Grail War.
For tonight's Summoning Ritual, Hyouma Sagara had staked the entire rest of his life.
He had risen above the others in the family's internal selection and become one of the seven Masters.
After finally obtaining this once-in-a-lifetime chance, how could he possibly hand it over to someone else?
The crimson Command Spell branded on the back of his hand was, without a doubt, more important than his own life.
The Command Spell.
This was the proof that he had been chosen and acknowledged by the Greater Grail!
If becoming a Master in the Holy Grail War meant obtaining such supreme glory, then what did it matter if he killed a prostitute or a little girl or two?
Humanity was something he had thrown away the moment he became a Magus!!
Hyouma Sagara revealed a mad grin and stretched his right hand toward Manaka Sajyou, several meters away.
"Hm?"
Just as the Magus was about to burn the platinum-haired girl to death, he suddenly noticed three shadows appearing beneath her feet.
What kind of trick was this?
From those three pitch-black, wavering shadows, Hyouma Sagara could sense something with physical substance.
To be honest, Hyouma Sagara was an exceptionally capable modern Magus.
Otherwise, he would never have earned the right to participate in the Holy Grail War within a great clan like Yggdmillennia.
Unfortunately, Hyouma Sagara's understanding was still trapped at a shallow level.
He could not comprehend that a genius like Manaka Sajyou existed in the world.
The black shadow that sprang up from the ground swallowed the Mana Hyouma Sagara released.
By the time he realized what had happened, it was not only his Magecraft that had vanished.
His right arm now ended in a perfectly smooth cut, while his right hand had been carried off by the black shadow.
"...Huh?"
Hyouma Sagara could only watch helplessly as the shadow made a skin-crawling sound and gnawed down his right hand, devouring it along with the Command Spell on the back of it.
"My Command Spell... My Command Spell! Aaaaaaaaaaah! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"
Hyouma Sagara collapsed to his knees, screaming.
Why? Why? What happened? His Command Spell had been taken?
Where had he gone wrong?
The intense pain robbed the Magus's brain of even the most basic ability to think.
Manaka Sajyou looked down at the man kneeling on the floor, wearing the same beautiful smile as always.
"You're actually quite nice, aren't you? You even went out of your way to hold out your hand for me. Thank you for cooperating."
"Guh...!"
The Magus gritted his teeth, suppressing the piercing agony, and glared at Manaka Sajyou with bloodshot eyes.
I'll kill you, kill you, kill you, kill you.
Hyouma Sagara activated his Magic Crests without regard for the consequences, unleashing the Magecraft traps he had prepared in his workshop with enough force to turn the entire room into a sea of fire.
Rage had overwhelmed him. He had completely lost his reason and no longer cared that this would take his own life as well.
"!"
As the torrent of Mana rapidly expanded in the cramped space and formed into flames, the hotel room instantly became a hell of heat surpassing 2,000°C.
"It would be troublesome if this caused a commotion in Japan..."
A girl's wistful voice rang out in the room.
"If Ayaka finds out, she'll scold me again."
The flames vanished.
With nothing more than a smile, she completely cooled the air scorched by the Mana flames.
Heat control. High-speed incantation.
She had even abandoned the chanting of a spell, activating Grand Magecraft of the four great elements through a single action.
Even in the Age of Gods, only the very greatest Magi could have accomplished such a thing.
And yet, the petite girl before him had done it effortlessly.
How could this be...
Hyouma Sagara's eyes widened in disbelief.
Was the so-called Holy Grail War truly a struggle on this level?
Before he was swallowed into the belly of the pitch-black shadow, the Magus thought in despair.
No wonder...
Then it only made sense that he would die...
After all...
How could I possibly win against a monster like this...
...
"Good. The nuisance is gone... It's about time to welcome His Highness the Prince."
Manaka Sajyou happily raised a finger and moved it through empty air.
Following the girl's movement, the hotel's double bed, which weighed several hundred kilograms, floated up on its own and flew toward the wall.
After clearing a large open space, Manaka Sajyou used the same method to have a piece of chalk draw the Summoning Array by itself, then took out the Catalyst for this Summoning, a golden sword scabbard.
The Star Sword granted by the Lady of the Lake, known to all in the legend of King Arthur.
The scabbard of the supreme sword that symbolized royal authority, the strongest Holy Sword that could never be defeated.
It was said that King Arthur's final defeat came because he lost this scabbard through a witch's scheme.
The Servant Manaka Sajyou intended to summon was none other than King Arthur.
Arthur Pendragon, the strongest Saber, whose Summoning in a Subcategory Holy Grail War was considered equivalent to victory.
However, Manaka Sajyou did not care about the Servant's strength.
That was not why she had gone to such lengths to obtain the scabbard.
Nor was Manaka Sajyou a fan of King Arthur.
Until three years ago, her understanding of the legend of the Knights of the Round Table had gone no further than the stories she had heard in childhood.
The reason she chose King Arthur as her Servant was because the girl had accidentally seen it.
The future where she would fall in love.
...
After Manaka Sajyou was born into this world, the first thing she saw was not her parents' faces, but a darkness as deep as the universe itself.
Within that absolute blackness was a vortex like the center of all creation.
She did not know what "that" was, the thing she saw whenever she closed her eyes.
Not until Manaka's father began teaching her Magecraft.
It was The Root, the origin point of all things.
From that day on, Manaka Sajyou became the embodiment of truth.
Once she understood that her body was connected to The Root, she became capable of doing anything in the world.
Let there be life. With that wish, life would arise.
Let there be death. With that whisper, death would spread.
One could say the world was connected to her, and she was connected to the world.
Manaka Sajyou became omniscient and omnipotent.
Anything could be manipulated, achieved, or destroyed according to her will.
And because the girl could find no joy in it, she set one single rule upon her omnipotence.
"I will not look into my own future."
Manaka Sajyou, who was equivalent to the world itself, restricted herself.
Without that restriction, her omnipotence would have been far too boring.
Maintaining herself "as a human" would become meaningless. Even the act of living would become a burden. She would surely die.
In the end, her decision was correct.
At the very least, Manaka Sajyou became able to do certain things.
Waking from sleep in the morning, opening her eyes, breathing, looking up at the sky outside the window, listening to the birds sing, turning her clear gaze toward her father, and so on.
She was finally able to do this and that with Magecraft as her father instructed.
When facing her newborn little sister, although she still could not shed tears like her father and mother, she could at least poke the baby's cheek with a finger like other humans did and confirm how soft it was.
Though she felt nothing about it.
She was finally able to live.
But that was all.
As the days passed, her mind grew more and more stagnant.
Seeing through everything, possessing everything, understanding everything.
The world and herself intertwined, merged, and became one.
At the end of selflessness, she gazed upon a pure white Purgatory and reigned upon a throne.
Though Manaka Sajyou was a girl, she possessed the perspective of a goddess.
It was far too difficult to make a human survive as a human.
She had no choice but to live like a living ghost.
"But it's fine. This is enough."
She did not care.
Even if she died while living.
Even if she lived while dying.
Feeling no pain, no hardship, and no sorrow, she went on living day after day.
Because there was still one pleasure she looked forward to.
It was the "future" she had glimpsed in the instant before she shackled herself.
It was the "result" that would inevitably arrive as long as the world remained the world.
When I participate in the Holy Grail War and become a Master, I will fall in love.
The instant she learned that she would "fall in love," Manaka Sajyou stopped observing her own future.
Originally, she could know fate, grasp the future, and even compile events and choose futures as easily as playing cat's cradle with the threads of the world and time. She could decide any possibility entirely as she wished, then choose the days she would live through.
But she did not.
With a smile and without hesitation, Manaka Sajyou closed the eyes that observed the future.
She was certain.
Once she fell in love, she would surely be able to feel her heart race like an ordinary girl.
After a long, long wait, as drawn-out as a monk's ascetic training.
The girl sensed that the day of fate was drawing near.
Nearly ten years ago, a worldwide trend known as the Subcategory Holy Grail War erupted.
Although Manaka Sajyou had lost her all-seeing eyes, she still sensed something strange about it.
If she wanted, she could have stopped all of it from happening, but she did not.
Because Manaka realized that although the degraded Magecraft ritual would not let her meet her Prince.
In the Great Holy Grail War that would soon follow, her wish would be fulfilled.
And so, at last, the day arrived.
Tonight, Manaka Sajyou would meet the one destined for her.
"But will my heart really race?"
Although this was the day she had waited so long for, she did not actually have much hope.
"Since I already know it will be love, then the one who comes will surely be someone ideal to me, familiar to me, and someone from a future, a feeling, that won't betray me."
The moment she placed the Holy Sword's scabbard at the center of the Summoning Array, a faint sense of disappointment suddenly welled up in Manaka Sajyou's chest.
After all, the world was still her possession.
Even though she had restricted her ability to foresee the future, everything around her remained, in her eyes, nothing but a dull mountain of things she knew inside and out.
No surprise, no joy, no anticipation.
Even for a day she had waited so long for, she could not truly look forward to it.
The world was a sandbox filled only with familiar scenery no matter where she went.
If she felt like it, she could touch even its smallest corner.
Falling in love... So she called it, but when the time came, what arrived would surely be the same as everything before it: a cold reality without warmth, one she could not experience the way other humans did.
That was what she believed.
All at once, the thought of giving up came to her.
Even though only a few hours ago, she had been as excited as an elementary schooler on the night before a spring outing.
And yet.
"I ask of you."
The Heroic Spirit who had descended through time and space.
"Are you my Master?"
His appearance was overwhelmingly different from what the girl had imagined.
"..."
Manaka Sajyou was completely dumbfounded.
How should she even put it?
First of all, there seemed to be a problem with his ethnicity!
No matter how she thought about it, there was no way King Arthur of Britannia could be an East Asian person with gentle features, right!?
And since he was the King of Knights from the Age of Myths, Manaka Sajyou had assumed he would have a much sturdier build.
But the one who appeared before her was a young man with long limbs and a well-proportioned, moderate frame.
His features could not exactly be called beautiful, but they were neat and well-shaped.
Although he had absolutely nothing to do with the word "prince," he was certainly the type girls would like. In other words, the sort of face that would invite trouble with women.
In that respect, he did match the legends.
However, what left the deepest impression on Manaka was his eyes.
Those amber pupils called to mind the twilight of the Netherworld, yet they also flashed with the keen light of a bird of prey, like a hawk.
...Different.
Different. Completely different!
Even the nature of his Mana was different from what the girl had imagined.
Everything was so different that Manaka Sajyou was truly astonished.
It was the first time she had ever felt surprise and bewilderment like this.
For the omniscient and omnipotent girl, it was an emotion she had never known.
And then.
Joy sprouted along with it, and a heartbeat she could not suppress.
Truly, with just that first glance, the girl fell in love with this person.
A Prince from a story?
None of that mattered anymore.
Perhaps he was not the ancient King of Britannia with the life everyone knew.
But Manaka Sajyou was absolutely certain: the red-haired youth before her was the person she had waited so desperately for.
The strongest knight of the sword from another world.
The Nameless King unknown to Human Order.
Past, present, future.
He was the one and only person in the entire world.
Manaka Sajyou's destined one.
Only then did she learn who she was for the first time.
The spirit that had lingered vaguely within her ghost-like life, and the hollow choices and selections she had made, all vanished.
She obtained the true self that had always been hidden, her true tastes.
As a human living in the world, burning her life with all her might.
As a girl who had learned just how scorching a first love could be.
I love him.
He is everything. I need nothing else.
Because he exists, I can go on loving forever like this.
Before meeting him, Manaka Sajyou had been nothing more than "a god with the functions of a girl."
Only after experiencing love did she become "a function of god that had become a girl."
"Hello, Saber."
The girl spoke with an expression of bliss.
"I will definitely grant your wish."
No matter what.
Manaka Sajyou had finally been born into the world.
...
Shirou: "...?"
No, seriously, lady, where the hell did you drag me?
He finally understood how Lady Avalon must have felt back when he had forcibly Summoned her and she had been unable to refuse.