When the abnormality occurred, Shirou was home alone, playing a newly released fighting game with Illya in the living room.
Since this was a match with his dignity as an older brother on the line, Shirou felt no guilt whatsoever about beating up his three-year-old little sister and had absolutely no intention of going easy on her.
"Shirou! You're glowing!"
Illya suddenly shook his arm excitedly, as if she had discovered a new continent.
"Hmph, Illya... You think I'd fall for that? It'll take more than that to distract me! Take this!"
Shirou kept his eyes fixed on the television, fully aware of Illya's cunning, and refused to give her even the slightest opening.
On the screen, Zangief had grabbed Cammy and was about to unleash a move that would make Illya so angry she would cry.
"No, Shirou! You really are glowing! Ah, your body's turning translucent!"
"What?"
Shirou glanced at his own body from the corner of his eye.
He really was glowing.
Wait, this couldn't be...
A bad feeling rose in his chest.
"Shirou, what kind of Magecraft is this? Teach Illya too!"
"..."
Shirou turned around, grabbed the girl by the shoulders, widened his eyes, and put on a solemn expression.
"What's wrong, Shirou? Your face looks scary."
Illya blinked, and the red-haired boy took a deep breath before speaking.
"Illya, listen carefully. I have to go."
The silver-haired girl tilted her head and asked curiously, "Go? Where are you going, Shirou? You won't play with Illya anymore?"
"...Ngh."
Shirou bit his lip bitterly. "If I could, I'd stay here and keep playing with Illya...
But I can't. I have to go. To protect Illya, I have to."
"Is that so... Then I guess it can't be helped."
The girl nodded, half understanding and half not, then gave him an innocent smile.
"Shirou will come back soon, right? You definitely won't leave Illya behind, right?"
"Of course. I promise I'll be back soon. Right, let's pinky swear."
"No." The girl turned her face away.
"Huh?"
"Shirou never keeps his promises, so no!"
"Hahaha..."
Shirou scratched his cheek awkwardly. If he had known this would happen, he would have paid more attention to his credibility.
"So then~"
The silver-haired girl looked at Shirou with her deep crimson eyes and spoke with a proud expression.
"If Shirou still wants to play games with Illya, then this time you absolutely have to keep your promise."
"..."
Shirou froze for a moment, then his expression turned resolute.
"Yeah. It's a promise, Princess."
"Hehe. Good, as long as you understand what you did wrong. When Shirou comes back, Illya will play with you again."
Illya happily reached out and stroked Shirou's hair. Then he spoke.
"Oh, right, Illya."
"What?"
"Tell Iri that I..."
Before he could finish his tragic line about heading to the battlefield, Shirou's vision was forcibly cut away.
A blue vortex of light opened before his eyes.
...
When he came back to himself, Shirou was already standing at the center of a Summoning Array.
During the transfer, the Holy Grail had granted him the bare minimum amount of information, and he already understood that he had been summoned to another world as a Servant.
And then, the Master who had summoned him.
"Hello, Saber."
The platinum-haired girl gazed into Shirou's eyes and murmured.
"I will definitely grant your wish."
Shirou: "..."
This girl is my Master.
Judging by her appearance, she was probably thirteen or fourteen at most?
But Shirou could not be certain. He remembered that Sakura had already developed quite well when she was thirteen.
No, no, no... It was wrong to judge a woman's age by her appearance!
Looking closer, though, she really was an adorable girl...
That was what Shirou thought.
He could not help but think of Sakura Matou when she had just entered middle school.
Back then, Sakura had also been as delicate and lovely as this girl, almost like the embodiment of purity itself, with the air of a flower blooming by the water and a kind fairy.
Hmm. Looks like I'm lucky. I got a good Master.
...
Shirou decided to organize the information he had received from the Holy Grail first.
Although this world appeared no different from Shirou's original world and did not have any enormous differences like the Fairy Kingdom, there were still slight differences in the details.
If he compared it to a river, this world felt like a tributary branching off from the main stream.
So the world I came from can actually be considered the mainstream world? Shirou was surprised.
And the difference between this world and the mainstream world.
The point of divergence was the Third Holy Grail War.
More than sixty years ago, on the night before the Third Reich invaded Poland and ignited the flames of the Second World War, the Third Holy Grail War took place in Fuyuki City, Japan.
Seven Servants and seven Masters fought each other until only one pair remained, all for the sake of granting their wishes, but midway through, an accident occurred and the Lesser Grail was reduced to ashes.
At that point, the Holy Grail War itself came to an abrupt and unsatisfying end.
The problem was what happened afterward.
The Greater Grail, the all-purpose wish-granting machine hidden inside the cavern of Mount Enzou.
No one knew where fate had changed, but a Magus supported by the Third Reich discovered it and attempted to relocate it with the help of the military.
Although The Three Founding Families fought to the very end to stop this operation, they had just finished the Holy Grail War and were terribly weakened. In the end, they failed.
The Greater Grail, constructed by gathering all the power of The Three Founding Families, was stolen by outsiders just like that.
That war was recorded in no documents, left behind no footage, and did not even remain in people's memories, but without a doubt, it was a horrific war between the military and the Magi.
Then, having successfully obtained the Greater Grail, did the Führer of the Reich become able to rule the world as he pleased?
Of course, that future never came to pass.
While being transported to Germany, the Greater Grail mysteriously vanished.
Was it taken by the Japanese Army? Or was it attacked by the Soviet forces?
Whatever the case, the Greater Grail that should have become the symbol of the German Third Reich and fulfilled the dream of unifying the world fell into no one's hands, and simply "disappeared."
With leadership changing hands and those involved being sent off to the battlefield, even the Third Reich, which should have been the victor, no longer knew where the Greater Grail had gone.
Even the people who knew of the Greater Grail's existence had disappeared.
The Magus who had urged the Führer of the Reich to seek the Holy Grail, the one who called himself "Yggdmillennia," was nowhere to be found.
The Greater Grail had vanished.
The dreams and obsessions of The Three Founding Families dissolved into nothing, and Fuyuki City greeted the end of the war in peace and stability.
"So, the Fuyuki Greater Grail was stolen by a Magus from Yggdmillennia and has been hidden ever since?"
Several years ago, for reasons unknown, information that "the Holy Grail War can reach The Root" had leaked, triggering countless Subcategory Holy Grail Wars all across the world.
Looking back on it now, had that also been a smokescreen released to cover up this massive seven-on-seven Holy Grail War?
Shirou rubbed his chin.
Then he realized an even more critical issue.
In that case...
Could this Fuyuki Greater Grail be the untainted version!?
Acht had not done anything strange.
A completely pure-white Greater Grail.
A true wish-granting machine, one that could even open a path to The Root by sacrificing seven Heroic Spirits.
Oh, so it was a harmless Holy Grail after all. Now he could relax...
As if.
A Greater Grail that faithfully reflected human desires was even more terrifying, wasn't it!?
Shirou still did not know why he had been summoned to a world that had nothing to do with him.
But this Holy Grail War... he really could not just leave it alone.
"...Clatter."
Something fell to the floor.
"S-Saber... what are you doing!?"
Shirou turned his head and saw Manaka Sajyou standing in the doorway, her face deathly pale.
At the girl's feet lay a fallen plastic bag, along with vegetables and ingredients that had spilled out and rolled across the floor.
"Why are you here, and dressed like..."
"Hm?"
Shirou followed Manaka's gaze down to the apron he was wearing.
"Isn't it obvious? I'm making dinner."
"Huh? Huh, huh, huh, huuuuh!?"
Manaka Sajyou's mood plummeted from giddy excitement straight to rock bottom, then plunged into complete confusion.
Why...?
Why was her Saber in the kitchen, holding a kitchen knife in one hand and a mushroom in the other?
He was preparing dinner... Wait, wasn't that supposed to be her job!?
Shirou walked over and picked up the plastic bag from the floor.
Inside were potatoes and cod fillets the girl had bought from a nearby supermarket, an astonishing amount of them, along with all kinds of other ingredients, including yogurt.
Was she planning to make fish and chips?
Shirou was a little surprised. He had not expected girls these days to have that sort of taste.
The women in his household all treated oil and calories as their mortal enemies, especially Iri and Sella.
Shirou glanced at Manaka Sajyou's slender figure. Maybe she did not have that many concerns.
"You bought this much? Thanks for running the errand. I'll handle the rest."
"..."
Seeing that Manaka Sajyou had no reaction, Shirou urged her, "Could you wait in the living room for a bit?
You must be pretty tired already. Leave the kitchen to me."
"...Yes."
For some reason, Manaka Sajyou's departing back looked utterly lost.
...
"Please, help yourself."
Manaka Sajyou came back to herself from her daze.
When she raised her head, she saw the Prince from her dreams, wearing an apron.
And on the dining table before the girl was a spread of dishes so lavish it left her speechless.
"W-what is this...?"
Shirou explained as he took off the apron.
"I made a few dishes with the ingredients you brought. I'm not sure whether they'll suit your tastes, though.
The portions... might be a little too much, since you said we're leaving Japan tomorrow, Manaka.
I figured it would be a waste to leave them behind, so I just cooked everything at once."
Manaka Sajyou bit her lip.
She did not even know where to start.
It was true...
She had certainly looked forward to an unpredictable, unexpected, surprise-filled future after meeting His Highness the Prince...
But this was too unexpected!
Why are you the one cooking for me?
Normally, when a girl says, "I'm going to buy some ingredients," doesn't that mean she's in charge of dinner tonight?
How did he interpret that as "we'll divide the work, one person buys the ingredients and the other cooks"?
Even if he was not the King of Knights from Proper Human History, wasn't it absurd for a king to personally cook in the kitchen...?
"Is it not to your taste?"
Shirou watched Manaka's reaction and asked carefully.
"I didn't know what you liked, so I made as many things as I could think of. I might have overdone it."
"N-no, not at all."
Manaka hurriedly shook her head, her platinum hair swaying with the movement.
"Th-thank you, Saber! Then I'll enjoy it gratefully."
"Yeah. Just eat whatever you like."
Manaka Sajyou nodded, then swept her gaze over the dining table in front of her.
A wide variety of dishes truly covered every inch of it.
And the most eye-catching of all was the mountain of fish and chips.
"As expected, the portions are way too big."
Shirou frowned, only to see Manaka Sajyou lower her head and murmur.
"...I'll eat all of it."
"Huh?"
"I'll eat every single dish Saber made for me!"
Her expression was grave as she clenched her small fists.
"How is it?"
Shirou watched the girl's face and asked, "Uh... Manaka, why are you crying?"
The girl covered her mouth. Tears glimmered at the corners of her eyes.
How could this be...
The omniscient and omnipotent girl had once again had her understanding "unexpectedly" rewritten.
It was actually this good...
It might even be better than mine...
Manaka Sajyou, Daughter of The Root, doubted herself for the first time since birth.
"Really? That's great... I was worried about what I'd do if you didn't like it."
"I-I like it..."
Manaka Sajyou avoided Shirou's eyes as she took small bites of the fries.
"Good. I'm glad you like it."
Shirou pulled out a chair and sat down across from the girl.
"This was actually my first time trying to make fried fish. I usually cook everyday food, and a lot of Chinese dishes... I'm basically an amateur when it comes to Western food.
I wasn't sure how much yogurt should go into the batter either, so I'm glad you liked it."
It was his first time making it... Ngh! Is he a genius?
"Saber, you really are amazing."
Shirou said, "That's an exaggeration. There's nothing amazing about this.
For a Servant, it's not really something worth bragging about either."
Manaka Sajyou shook her head. Whether it was his character or his cooking... he was simply wonderful.
The girl could no longer take her eyes off Shirou Amamiya.
Although losing to him in cooking was still a little discouraging.
From that moment on, Manaka gained a new dream:
One day, she would make a dish that Shirou would praise without reservation.
"..."
Watching her perfectly serious expression, Shirou thought to himself.
Yeah, Manaka really is a good kid.
...
After staying in Japan for two days, they boarded a plane and headed for Eastern Europe, where the Holy Grail was located.