Fate/Requiem Volume 2: Shinjuku the Nostalgic City
TIP
Chapter 9 is translated by Clyton while the rest is translated by Coggy.
Cover and Illustrations
- Chitose
Manazuru Chitose. Utsumi Erice’s grandmother. The mage who uses Shinjuku as her base. As the winner of the previous Holy Grail War, she was deeply involved with the establishment of Mosaic City. Her alias is “Stigmata”.
Longinus
Class: Lancer
Lucius Longinus, a soldier of the Roman Empire. The spear he holds that pierced the crucified Messiah is known as the “Holy Spear”. He later converted and became Saint Longinus. In the previous Holy Grail War, he was summoned as Manazuru Chitose’s Servant and brought her victory.
- Kuchime
A languid street musician. Although he prefers depressing melodies, he definitely has skill in playing the guitar. He has an interest in Akihabara’s traditional otaku hobbies.
Nzambi
Class: Caster
The Earth Mother Goddess of Congo, Africa, whose name became the root word for zombies, which are moving corpses. Her image was distorted due to the influence of the folklores about her. A self-proclaimed necromancer who hunts for Command Spells and manipulates the dead. Her contractor is unknown.
- Makki
A waitress at a Shinjuku café. An agent who is partnered with the City Management AI Caren Himuro and takes responsibility for Anti-Servant disposal. There are many mysteries regarding her personal history.
The Borgia Siblings – Cesare Borgia and Lucrezia Borgia
Class: Assassin
The older brother “Cesare” and the younger sister “Lucrezia”. A Servant as a pair of individuals. They work as concierges at a Shinjuku hotel. In reality, they are information brokers whom are well-connected to the underside of society, and they are an influential pair to those in the know.
- TL needed
- Shinjuku the Nostalgic City
A city with a three-storied structure that was reconstructed in the same way as Akihabara. Each block is called with the name of a town, such as Hanazono, Tsunohazu and Kashiwagi. Having the largest population, it is the current Capital of Mosaic City.
Chapter 9
The stench of death… it won’t go away, sticking to the insides of my nasal cavity.
Slamming my face while in the showers, only the spilled blood… and pieces of flesh of the deceased… were washed off me.
The screams of the people that should have been saved echo within my ears.
The feeling of the last struggles of the Servants who went out of control and were manipulated by Nzambi… remains in these fingertips that reached out to the evil spirits.
A loss that can no longer be recovered.
───I failed. I failed. I terribly failed at my job.
Regret leans heavily on me, but even if I regret it, I can’t completely do so. I collapsed in my bedroom, not feeling like doing anything.
As I curled up into a ball in the dark, I felt a tuft of my wet bangs. A Mystic Code app, which is connected to the magic communications network, is inserted into my hair.
The open line will remain silent and will not have a response. I will not hear that person’s voice anymore.
“… Teacher…”
This Mystic Code was something given to me by my teacher when I decided to leave my home in Shinjuku.
Caren Fujimura – who was my guide the whole time ever since I was aware of the things around me – has died. If I were to borrow the words of her successor, the Spiritron Kernel that composes her has vanished.
I… should be… awfully sad.
It should be alright to even sob as much as my voice can bear doing so. Even though I had set aside this time so that I could properly mourn for her───And yet, tears won’t come out.
As I wrapped myself up in the sheets that I pulled closer to me, I tried to put myself to an idle sleep.
The stench of death I couldn’t help but smell… it made me remember a distant, murky past as I dozed off.
＊
───It was five years ago.
I was about nine years old when I started living alone in Akihabara.
I was finally able to manage the small tasks that were sent to me by Caren.
My work were simple routine tasks that also didn’t make me come into contact with the inhabitants of Mosaic City very much, such as settling the crimes caused by Servants and doing undercover investigations in places that were hard for children to stand out.
I was desperate in order to live.
Even in this world that is like paradise, I struggled to the death in order to prove that I’m needed even if I don’t possess a “Holy Grail” or the blessing of immortality. That I can do it even without Chitose’s protection, and even without a partnered Servant, for I want to convince myself that I can properly live alone.
Luckily, I was possessed by evil spirits.
I was pleased that I was able to make full use of even a mass of evil spirits that lurked within my blood, managing them as if they were my limbs, and even at times as weapons that were faster than a knife. I was sure in being undoubtedly able to not only protect myself, but even hunt enemy Servants… I was proud of myself like that.
And then───
While I was submerged in the muddy waters of self-conceit, I had stepped into a certain incident.
A single male citizen I happened to meet by chance in a group therapy session had a difficult problem.
While struggling, this man was also looking for a place where he can belong to as he tried to live within this Mosaic City.
The man told me that he was a leather craftsman. He made bags and children shoes before selling them wholesale to shops.
In his quiet workshop where only his hammering can be heard from far away, the man always showed a gentle smile on his face.
His muscular, toned body that could mistake him for being a Servant was trained by going through ascetic gym work. In some respects, there was a similarity between our situations.
On no account could we both remove the uncomfortable feeling that followed our lives within this city.
An anguishing soul is here.
If so, I can get close to this man. I can understand him. In addition, by any chance, maybe I could even save this man───I don’t need to turn to Caren, nor Lucius; only to my own power. That’s the most important point.
Ah, this───is the first real “work” I’ve found. Like that, I quietly shivered in pleasure.
However… that man was secretly ill mentally since long before I met him.
It was already so serious, he passed the point of recovery.
There were even many chances for me to notice it and escape from him. But I was young and foolish.
I didn’t happen to have the experience to measure the depth of the man’s darkness, and above all, I was largely lacking something important.
Nearby the leather craftsman, there was always a handsome-looking Heroic Spirit who could give somebody the impression of a white porcelain doll accompanying the man.
That dreadful child───Louis.
The Duke of Normandy, “Louis XVII”. The last King of France at the end of the Bourbon Dynasty. The second son of Queen Marie Antoinette, who was put to the guillotine at Paris’ Revolution Square.
He was quite chatty, different from his contractor who didn’t open his mouth except for the bare minimum.
“What did you say you were gathering in the city? ‘Fragments of “emotions”’? You said such a thing, right Erice?”
“Yeah…”
“That’s unusual, Erice. Even interesting, Erice. Doesn’t that mean you want to be human? That you’re… not human?”
“… Probably… Still-“
“I’m positive! A dead person would still be more expressive than you and would at least feel pain. AHAHAH, now, this is getting more and more interesting.”
“I won’t pinch my cheeks. I… understand pain. I just don’t know much about it, yet.”
Even in the school class I was in at the time, I was a foreign substance.
The other students───the new generation of classmates born after the War – everybody was kind, quick to understand things, and appeared happy. Not even a single student tried to do something nonsensical like participating in bullying, and they also didn’t ostentatiously flaunt their partnered Servants.
Because they were content since birth, it wasn’t especially necessary for them to ingest the drug called ‘a sense of superiority’. I guess even the charity that cared for me – who lacked just about everything – was proud of me.
As far as I’m concerned, the school was just like a hospital. It was a lifelong ward that kindly wrapped me up with good intentions and thoughtfulness.
There was a time in my school life when, because of a trouble that started from my misunderstanding, I had a quarrel with a classmate, and that classmate ended up receiving a minor injury from me.
At that time, the Servant of that classmate promptly materialized, breaking the rule of prohibited manifestation within the school, and they worked to try to dispel my misunderstanding. I wasn’t condemned at all, and even the people around me accepted and consented to that result.
When the classmate in question – who should be the victim – bowed their head to me for their lack of consideration and even robbed me of a chance in making a shameful apology, it was like I was punched in the face.
If I try to look back on it now… the Servants, I think they had been sensitive to the fact that I was a dangerous existence to them.
When I disclosed such a story to him while feeling ashamed, he kept silent for a little while, before saying:
“… Wisdom that can’t be learned at school, huh? I suppose there are even… several things like that. But I also wanted to receive education and try to savour things like freedom and equality that naturally comes with it. Well, Erice? Is something like emotions necessary in this city where one can live even without doing anything? What’s the point in trying to understand things like the suffering and sadness of another person?”
“They’re necessary. For a citizen of Mosaic City, and for the sake of continuing to live within this city. Because emotions are something that I, who doesn’t possess a Servant nor a Holy Grail, can obtain. I… want to be wanted by everyone. I want them to accept me by saying, “It’s fine for you to stay here.””
“… Is that so? Well, it seems that’s a very important thing to you. Well then, at any rate, it’s fine if you stay here. At this leather workshop. I’ll never particularly care if you do, and I’ll still be bored like before too.”
“What’s… alright for me to call you by? Prince… Charles…?”
“Yuck───Call me Louis. I’m the last Louis.”
I became friends with him. My first friend of around the same age. My young self had believed that it was a chance meeting. Even… a fateful one. I didn’t know anything.
After that, I often visited the workshop where the leather craftsman and Louis were.
The Mosaic City Servants are loyal partners of their contractors. They protect their Masters and lend their powers to them for the sake of promoting their partners’ self-actualization within this complex society.
I even believed in such a thing… the whole time.
However, the truth is different from that.
───Servants also… have “desires”… they want to fulfill.
The Holy Grail System, which created Mosaic City, surmises the latent aspirations of individual citizens before matching them with Servants that are most compatible to them.
The Holy Grail isn’t omnipotent.
To those who truly hold no desires, and to those who completely refuse to follow around others, Servants were nothing more than meddlesome targets of their disgust.
Even group therapy, which I had been partially forced to attend, was a measure for City Management AIs to try to provide care for those sorts of people. Many of the therapy users were also people who were deeply scarred emotionally by the prior War.
Mixed into the therapy users, there… were citizens who desired the complete ruin of their very own selves.
The Holy Grail allocates Servants to properly heal such Masters.
He… the monster called Avenger Louis XVII… was awakened from the land of the dead and was released into this world again.
That’s a bug of the Holy Grail that even Chitose didn’t intend for.
It was an exposure of the carelessness and limits in changing and entrusting the act of measuring the people’s hearts… to magecraft.
The moral prosecutors of Mosaic City were once again reminded that, at the root of humanity, there’s no distinction between good and evil.
───The first murder case… occurred in Tama, one of the cities of Mosaic City.
The criminal had expanded their scope of activities to Shibuya and Shinjuku without having their movements caught.
Because the whereabouts of the victims were unknown for a long period of time, each murder incident wasn’t recognized to be correlated to each other, and chances of that state of affairs being discovered were slowly disappearing.
The victims… were either people who avoided manifesting their own Servants for some kind of reason, or people where manifesting Servants is effectively impossible for them.
A typical case would be focused on a patient who has Servantphobia where they bore a psychological trauma as a result of a Servant killing their family before their very eyes during the War.
There was also a clever camouflage where traces of the victims’ disappearance were purposely left behind so that people would misread the disappearance as a voluntary act of the victims.
They didn’t disappear.
Each and every single victim was taken to a prison.
They were physically and magically isolated due to Louis’ unique Noble Phantasm, “There is Salvation of Death in the Prison of Mud”.
Once they were caught in the Noble Phantasm’s area of effect, it was impossible for them to seek help from the outside.
The leather craftsman… processed them while carefully preserving their vital activities. They had brass tacks nailed into them, were meticulously tanned with chromium sulfate, and were sewn together with needles and threads.
They were made out into a work that expresses the anguish of idly staying alive.
Several months after the first disappearance, a work of his was discovered in a quiet park in Shinjuku. Forty-five minutes after its installation, there was not even an uproar about the work, and it was so delicately finished that it was recognized by passersby as avant-garde art.
This provocative act was projected as a great threat to the people of Mosaic City, who were trying to break free from the disorder of the postwar period and regain their peaceful daily lives little by little.
Authorities also responded promptly, spreading out a dragnet for this theatrical crime. Arrest was now a matter of time since Servants and personnel that were renowned in the fields of criminology and detective work were mobilized to take the lead in the investigation and come to grips with a solution to this case.
Since that has happened, arrest was now indeed a matter of time. The criminal’s profile was narrowed down, and the dragnet had also steadily contracted.
… However, since it already reached this stage, the culprit wasn’t really thinking about successfully escaping. I know that well. Even inviting the investigators closer to him was something done to meet the desires of the leather craftsman.
At that time, I was also aware that the pros that looked after the public order of Mosaic City – whom have a connection to Caren and Chitose – were hurriedly making every effort in dealing with the incident.
Nevertheless, I only remember a faint sense of anxiety and alienation, and never felt a sense of danger. Even despite being in the middle of the incident at that moment.
───That was the last conversation I had with him, before realizing the leather craftsman’s true character. Looking back, it was the day I exchanged the most words with that man.
At that day, with just the two of us in the workshop, I stared at the leather craftsman’s delicate working manner.
“───Utsumi. Listen. I want to have a talk with you.”
“Erice. E-ri-ce───Remember the name, Mr. Craftsman.”
“… Listen. Don’t come to this workshop anymore, Utsumi.”
“Louis isn’t here just for today… So why do you say such a thing?”
“That guy made me expend my Command Spells so that he could go out to the other cities.
I’m sorry, but I’ll never see you again.”
“Why is that, Craftsman? You said it’s fine for me to come visit this workshop at any time. Besides, you promised that you’ll teach me how to use a knife. Were they all lies? Look, even these deerskin shoes… you’re still making them.”
“I’ll be busy. If there’s something you want, you can take them as you please.”
“… Are you going to close the workshop, and leave the city… or something? I wonder if you’ll then say ‘I’m going to run away at night.’ Because it sounds a little like that from the way you’re talking. But you shouldn’t run away. The leathercraft made by the Craftsman is something truly wonderful. Louis looked proud while saying, “Both the sacoche and baby shoes sold out instantly when I went to sell them to the stores.””
“………”
As he stared intensely at the workbench, the leather craftsman won’t reply with anything.
The sitting man – who shrugged his shoulders that have their deltoid muscles completely developed – has no spirit. He was like a puppy who was scolded by their master and didn’t try to face their gaze. Even though he was a large man who also has about twice the height on me.
“Is that… perhaps, my fault? Did someone catch sight of me going to this workshop and reported it as a good publicity stunt, or something? I wonder if they said something that didn’t need to be said to inflate their absurd delusions? That sort of person is what I call a citizen with ‘self-proclaimed good intentions’. If that’s the case, then I’ll even directly negotiate with that person and persuade-“
“───That’s not it. That sort of problem didn’t happen. You’re good at conducting yourself so that you don’t have the public gaze sticking on you. You’re also always watchful so that you don’t have others tailing you.”
“Yeah, but… Then, why in the world…”
I tried to look like I’m only unhappy, putting on a brave front as much as possible, but I’m actually shocked.
I couldn’t endure in completely losing this cozy place.
I didn’t have to worry about who I am when I can be here, in this corner of the city where only a little light of the world shone through a small dormer window of the semi-basement workshop… Even though it was such an important place.
I can’t even see Louis’ clear face, who frankly doesn’t mince matters in making fun of me. I was extremely unlikely to stand with that kind of treatment.
More than anything, I───haven’t accomplished this work yet.
I haven’t determined… what was tormenting this man’s soul.
I’ve never revealed to the leather craftsman and Louis that I’m somebody who has a connection to Caren. To say nothing of the information that would make someone hold something like prejudice towards the grandchild of Minazuru Chitose; that also has been concealed from everyone. Even if someone looked me up in the city’s information network, work was also being performed on the main database so that they would be going over dummy information.
However… it seems that the child’s crafty secrets were entirely found out by that man from the beginning. And yet, he still had me closely by his side because he was surely even willing to let all that come to light to him if it was through me.
The man looked at me.
His dark gaze that soon approached me… was crazed and bloodshot.
“Have you never thought about… wanting to change this city, Utsumi?”
“…… The… city?”
I was taken aback.
Even though it was I who wanted to change it despite not knowing it back then. Rather, it was this man before my very eyes who, on the verge of insanity, wanted to change everything about this world.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“It was just about… when you were born. That War… came to an end.”
“Yeah… I wasn’t present for the War. I sometimes hear stories about it from people.”
Even if I’m not part of the new breed of humans who possesses a “Holy Grail”, there’s no mistake that I’m still a human of the new generation of humanity.
“───The form of the world has been like this since the time I was born. I’ve never thought about changing this world, just trying to familiarize myself with it the best I can instead. Though, I’m aware there are such thoughts.”
The leather craftsman urges me to continue while his gaze remains fixed at me.
“In therapy, one old man had said───’I didn’t want something like immortality from the beginning. I just wanted to live, and die, naturally. The ‘Holy Grail’… it was not something good to obtain at all if there is not even a compensation for me in return. That does not recompense the lot who had died in the War. What the heck is the so-called difference between those people and us? There is no difference’… So he said.”
“That’s the “emotion” you learned, huh? However, that’s wrong. That’s the feeling you’re telling to yourself.”
The man’s fingers grabbed both my shoulders.
“That elder… he wants to go to the side of his family who died in the War. The “Holy Grail”… it does not try to grant that wish by any means. It just merely soothes him.”
“He doesn’t do that… because he can’t kill himself? It’s a very scary thing, and the Servants will stop him if he tries. Automatically.”
“Do those guys have such a right? This… This is the land of humanity! IT’S THE LAND OF HUMANITY! Why is it necessary to borrow the power of ghosts? Even if the outside of the city is a hell where humans can’t live in even now, the reason we’re receiving a treatment like this───”
I wasn’t bothered by his fingers digging into my shoulders so tightly that it left marks on them.
I was surprised by the fact that the man… has such strong emotions towards Servants.
That’s still a mystery to me that I’ve noticed… during our meager exchange. It was supposed to be an opportunity for me to know what kind of hope he’s trying to entrust to his Servant, Louis.
… However, the man stepped back like he was in dismay when I stared right back straight at him.
“Ah… Sorry… I’m sorry…”
The leather craftsman – who spoke so fervently – averted his gaze, put some distance from me, and returned to silence again.
I wanted to hear more of the man’s talk.
His hidden emotions can’t be recited into words. What he personally felt in his heart… It seemed to me that the man wanted to convey such emotions to me at that time. That was a terrible mistake.
“Craftsman. Do you hate this city? Do you think about wanting to destroy it completely, or something like that?”
“This city… I… love it. I want to save it. From the bottom of my heart.”
His empty words reverberate.
“Nevertheless, I’m still intending to go away.”
“Ah…”
I haven’t changed in the slightest as of now; still a child, and still foolish.
Emotions… can only be expressed as actions. A true wish can’t be fulfilled just by believing.
The people, the cities, and the world… can only be changed by shedding blood.
A few days have passed after that.
I nervously came in contact with the Borgia Siblings, buying information from them that was circulating through the underside of society for my work. During that course, I became aware that the search area for the aforementioned grotesque incident was narrowed down to the Akihabara District.
Regarding the works once again… the remains of who was once known as the victim was discovered, the surveillance network has left a blurred image of the suspect – who slipped past the heightened emergency state, and moreover, people have also noticed that a new missing person has been announced.
I was feeling suspicious of the leather craftsman and Louis, but I couldn’t really get used to having a doubtful mental attitude towards them. Somewhere in my heart, I categorized them as ones whom would stand with the side of the victims of Mosaic City, and I couldn’t throw away that assumption.
Even after the serious conversation with the leather craftsman, I visited the workshop without expectation.
Every time I saw the door of the workshop having its shutter down, I shrugged my shoulders.
I also met Louis – who was alone downtown – by chance. Although I was relieved to know that the craftsman has yet to leave the city, the words I emitted to him – who has the same attitude as usual – couldn’t somewhat get to the point I wanted to make. While exchanging words with him, it soon became a little quarrel between us, and we awkwardly separated from each other.
Servants can disappear if they feel like doing so. He probably… let me find him on purpose. And yet, I overlooked the signs he was showing to me.
Something was different that day.
The closure of the workshop’s shutter was incomplete, and the lock had traces of being picked from the outside.
There was no prior foreboding, or unpleasant hunch, or anything like that.
But suddenly───my body’s spiritual affliction spread out, and dark red blood seeped from my wounds.
The evil spirits were actively noisy and notified me of something abnormal.
Somebody died in the immediate vicinity of the workshop.
“… Aah… Hii… Guu…”
I groaned in disgust and discomfort. One more. And another───
While enduring the pain, I crept into the completely silent workshop, and saw an unknown man collapsed on the floor face down in a pool of blood.
He was an investigator with the authorities. A half moon-shaped round knife pierced deeply into his throat, having ended his life.
There were no signs of the investigator’s Servant being here in the surroundings. But on the other hand, I caught with my eyes the door of a hidden passageway on an unexpected wall of the workshop having an open gap, showing me a view of some traces of blood that were scattered in drops, all heading towards the basement.
From the basement, a muffled and sorrowful cry, and a cheerful voice singing in French, were resoundingly leaking out.
“Louis───”
Having my attention caught by the lord’s voice, and trying to get into the passage, I didn’t notice that the criminal who caused this tragedy got behind me before I became aware of him.
And───
Coming to my senses, I was pinned under the man’s large frame, who didn’t move at all.
After dozens of tense seconds have passed by, the workshop was in a terrible condition due to the damage caused during the life-or-death struggle.
The damage caused to me was also no less as awful as the workshop’s condition. One of my shoulder joints was dislocated, leaving that one arm with no strength at all, and my ribs that were struck by a hammer appeared to be broken, the ribs on the verge of cracking.
I was crushed and couldn’t breathe as I am currently, but I somehow pushed the man aside so that I could crawl out from underneath his arm, before standing up as I staggered. I’m the only one alive in this workshop. One of my eyes was out of focus from being struck, and while I scolded that eye, I headed for the basement once again.
Rather than calling it a basement… it was more like the dungeon itself.
An unrealistic space where jails, furnished with evenly spaced iron bars, lined up left and right of the passage. It was also as dark as the night of a new moon, and the smell of filth hung in the air.
There were also traces of a violent conflict engraved into this place.
At the center of the intersecting passageways, in the middle of a pool of blood belonging to the victims that had turned into corpses and were scattered about, was him, blending in with the corpses.
His upper body was smeared with bright red blood, and he was kneeling on the ground without any strength, humming that song with his hoarse voice.
“… Louis?”
While I felt a powerful magical energy, simultaneously, I felt an enormous flow of magical energy continuing to disperse from this place, the energy rapidly fading away.
A Servant who lost his contractor.
The magical energy produced in compensation for the blasphemous abuse of life where the citizens are used as sacrifices is being directly supplied to Louis, allowing this space to be maintained. However, even the remaining time given should only be a short one.
Surveying each jail, there were people who were captured and were bound to become the next work of art. I fear that they were administered a drug, being forced to a listless and relaxed state. I’m not even sure if they’re alive or dead.
“Louis───your Craftsman died. I… killed him. If he had let go of his weapon, I wouldn’t have killed him… because I’m weak…”
Even when I addressed to him my words of apology, he had no response. Nothing will reach his ears or eyes anymore.
He was about to be released from his contract and return to the “Throne of Heroes”. His transient life bestowed by the Holy Grail will disappear. That’s the death of a Servant.
What did he gain by being a supporting actor of this unprecedented grotesque crime that occurred after the postwar disorder period? What did he desired as a hero, or as an anti-hero?
Although the leather craftsman tried to change the world, it was just a failed attempt to spread death in the end, and wasn’t he merely a victim of the Revolution?
Would he jokingly say: ‘I’m a Servant of the “Avenger” Class’? Did he desired to be released from prison… and escape to the outside?
A tragedy that wouldn’t occur… if neither the “Holy Grail” nor Servants exist.
(Is the War… still going on…?)
I tried to digest the unwavering facts as I was overcome with surprise.
If the contractor dies, then the Servant disappears. Even if I understood that, I couldn’t understand the true significance of it. What the heck can I do… if I don’t have the qualifications to be a Master?
───The usual song… stopped.
“Who’s there…?” He muttered, perhaps perceiving my body temperature as I was standing stock still.
He… was no longer a beautiful boy who looked like a doll. He looked like he was starving and haggard, his cheeks are thin, and his limbs have shriveled as if he was an old person.
“Ah… The Grim Reaper, huuh… Fine, take it… I’m… a little worn out…”
“Louis.”
When he collapsed onto his back, I rushed over and supported him. I held his head with my knees as a substitute for a pillow, and peered into his hollow eyes that didn’t look at anything even when they were wide open.
He, who became faint, may not recognize who I am anymore.
I couldn’t tell ‘It’s me, it’s Erice’ to him. I wanted him to hear my apology.
But───gasping, I was at a loss for words, speechless before my quivering lips. As I was in front of him – who was dying – I thought that I just didn’t want to get my feelings hurt like that; nothing more than my awful selfishness.
I tightly grasped his bony fingertips, just trying to see him with my own eyes in silence.
He let out a deep, long breath, as if he was relieved.
“Mother…”
───That was his last word before he vanished.
Soaked in the pool of blood, I hugged the empty space where he was before.
I writhed in regret and disgrace as I tightly closed my eyelids.
… Someone asked me a question. Without even any kind of advanced notice. And in a very astonished tone.
“Hey, aren't… you moved to tears?”
When I raised my face───right in front of my eyes, there was a terrifying appearance like that of a devil.
It was a dragon… no, that’s not it; it was a dinosaur. An ancient organism of the carnivorous – and especially ferocious – type, and a creature that shouldn’t exist in the modern era───
“───Or, are your tear glands suddenly broken? That person who returned to the Throne just now, wasn’t he someone special to you?”
I unconsciously flinched.
With that, the scene of the prison that had surrounded me and the dinosaur faded away.
The lighting returned, illuminating the empty, undressed-concrete room. This is the original view of the basement. The effects of the Noble Phantasm of the vengeful Louis have worn off.
The abducted victims have collapsed and were scattered along the walls.
The dinosaur before my very eyes still has its huge body, its head looking like it was scraping against the ceiling.
“Is this entity… a Servant?”
“It’s Momi.”
A girl suddenly makes her appearance from the dinosaur’s shadow.
Her age range is the same as mines. Her hair is short, and her height is a little tall. She has a boyish style with the Sukajan and short leather pants she’s wearing. At that time, she still had a small build and had a contrastive form compared to me who grew out my hair long. If I didn’t hear her voice, I thought I would’ve mistaken her for a young man. Nonetheless, her tone is quite rude.
Yeah, it was her, and not the dinosaur, who addressed me. It was likely that her Servant was staring at us while being silent.
“───It’s ok to cry. He just died. Although it was that guy’s partner who kidnapped me, wasn’t he a special person to you?”
“… I don’t know… how to cry… I’m just… ashamed… I’m almost dead.”
She embraced me, who was crouched and battered, from the front, like she was covering me with a shroud.
“I see. That guy was unmanageable.”
Good grief. I’ve never been right in the middle of a mayhem.
A murderous urge that can’t be suppressed. The death of a friend. A strange child with a sense of distance. And a dinosaur.
“Aah, you’re tattered and bloody, huh? You’re painful to look at, aren’t you. Hey, I’m glad that you’re living though. Well, I didn’t take a bath yet, so we’re similar in that we’re both dirty.”
“…… Yeah.”
“Hahah.”
As I received her baffling embrace, I became a listener to her story that I didn’t even ask for.
I had confirmed that the magic communication line has already been restored and that reinforcements from the authorities are heading towards here. There’s nothing I can do but wait quietly, and reluctantly go along with her story.
As expected, the girl was a victim abducted by the leather craftsman, and she eventually became one of the few survivors of the incident.
She was abducted while visiting Akihabara and was made unconscious through some chemicals. As a matter of fact, she was in the middle of running away from her home, and her family may not have submitted a missing person report.
So far, no child was included in the list of missing people. But in the end, I can’t deny that the man was impatient enough to even target children, just like when he came to attack me. However, she wasn’t kidnapped indiscriminately.
She previously participated in some therapy session at her parents’ recommendation. It appears she was marked by the leather craftsman at that occasion.
“You’ve… never summoned a Servant...? You too?”
“Too?” The girl tilted her head to the side in response. “Karin. That’s my name.”
“… Karin… Then that dinosaur is your Servant?”
“Yeah! It’s my first time too. Today is my first time that I’ve met Momi! Although it’s not what I had imagined at all───”
Her face lit up with excitement.
“───But, it’s unbelievably cute! Right!?”
Her cohort… the dinosaur growled lowly. Did she smile?
The True Name of the strange-looking Servant will eventually be identified as the Berserker, Kijyo Kouyou.
Karin was raised in a household where the summoning of Servants is strictly prohibited, so she has never attempted to summon one, save for an accidental case where she was concerned about the preservation of her own life.
“I’m secretly chatting with Momi in my house while keeping this a secret from my family. Well, rather than say, chatting, or a hazy feeling being transmitted to me, it’s more like a feeling where we exchange messages and emoji? Do you dig?”
“… I can’t imagine, not at all.”
The master and servant relationship between Karin and Kouyou is a unique case, different from the traumas and phobias.
It seems that ever since she was born, she had heard a “voice” that spoke only to her. Kijyo Kouyou… was always at her side, watching over her.
“Uhh… Karen…?”
“It’s Karin, not Karen. What’s your name?”
“I’m… Erice, Utsumi Erice.”
That was the encounter between me, Karin and Kijyo Kouyou.
After the incident, I was severely scolded by my teacher… Caren.
It was a reprimand that criticized my reckless moves.
However, the thing I was most afraid of───was that I didn’t care enough when it came to killing a citizen and having their Servant disappear.
She dealt with that indifferently by saying “It is legitimate self-defense. If it was something done by me as the City Management AI, it would be a huge legal and ethical problem, but Ms. Erice is a citizen who holds citizenship of Mosaic City.”
I once again remembered that the AI is something like this, and that perhaps the person who was the model for Caren has a fairly lighthearted character at their foundation.
Chitose, my original guardian, was admonishing me at every opportunity about me living by myself up to the time of this incident, but it appears that the incident has made her refrain from interfering at every chance she got.
I was coldly informed by her, “If you can live your life, then you must be undoubtedly an adult by now, so congratulations.”
It looked like she even felt proud that I was able to personally deal with the incident, although imperfect, as there was a victim in the form of the investigator and his tragic death. I remember the chills from Chitose’s way of thinking, and I still strongly feel that it was correct to leave the Manazuru household.
She also said, “In the end, I have no choice but to confront the approaching danger by myself, as it was a situation that was eventually going to happen.” The meaning of that… I don’t understand it well even now.
‘For the sake of surviving, I’ll kill any enemy that comes to me───’
Even if that karmic reply was normally used everyday in times of war, the heavy responsibility within me didn’t disappear.
Really… I wonder if they were enemies, or if they were victims, and that kind of doubt stuck to my chest forever.
It was not a human, nor an AI, but the Servant Lucius who got close to me as I was vexed about that matter.
At the time of my childhood, I was strictly trained in the art of self-defense and in violence-dealing skills by him, and I naturally understood that it was because of him that those became weapons that would save my own life and take away the lives of others.
That’s why he didn’t try to condemn me, nor try to comfort me with words.
He merely took his spear and once again gave me training, even during a time when there was a long silence between us for some time ever since I left my home.
In a spare time during training, he told me this sort of story that he was reminiscing about.
Around when he himself was still a boy, he was attacked by a robber in the suburbs of Rome. He bravely opposed the robber alone with a dagger in hand. Lucius narrowly repelled the robber, but due to an injury that he received from Lucius, the robber became unable to walk and turned to begging.
Every time he passed by the highway, Lucius was grieved at heart whenever he saw that beggar. It is said that before long, that beggar fell ill, threw away his faith in the Roman gods at the time when he was receiving care, and became a devout believer in monotheism while the amount of believers of that religion was increasing during those days. Unexpectedly, he became a believer before Lucius.
On the battlefield, Lucius killed enemies that numbered up to hundreds with his own hands as a soldier who held a single spear, further gave orders as a centurion who commanded a corps, and snatched away the lives of thousands of barbarians, but he’ll never forget the fear that he felt when he was attacked by the robber and the sensation of stabbing a person for the first time… Such was the story he told me.
Chapter 10
───And so, the Season of War came once more.
This truth is something the people do not accept. Exhausted and hurt, they refuse to even understand it.
Even so, I can feel it. Through my Servant.
The war for the Holy Grail that destroyed and rebuilt the world has not yet reached its end.
A few days had passed since the tragedy that struck at the Colosseum, and Mosaic City was trying to recover, little by little.
In Akihabara, the area which had suffered the greatest damages, the tranquil feeling of a resort-city that the district once possessed had yet to return. Even so, the city had calmed to a point where its citizens appeared to have returned to normalcy.
And I had a job to do.
In the midst of the massacre caused by the dreadful Servant Nzambi, when zombified people and manipulated servants ran amok, I was the one who had been responsible for handling the situation, and as such I was obligated to help with the cleanup after the fact.
Dealing with the post-processing with the authorities was a painful experience, one that served as a constant reminder of Caren Fujimura’s absence. Though, looking at it another way, it was also time for me to calmly sort out what I was feeling in my heart, as well as an opportunity to restore my determination.
I knew what I had to do first─ Request a meeting with a certain person.
The destination was the northernmost section of the Akihabara district, a place nicknamed “Yushima Tenjin”. It’s a shrine known for being the place to go to pray for success in one’s studies, the official name of it being “Yushima Tenman-gū”.
Since the shrine is called “Tenjin” after the Kami of Learning, the shrine must be dedicated to the God among scholars “Kankou” Sugawara no Michizane, though that fact had little to do with my current visit.
I was advised to visit Yushima Tenjin by the City Management AI of Shinjuku, Caren Himuro— No, I’ll just call her Himuro– after she heard out my aspirations.
The shrine I was heading towards was located in an area that used to be a part of a neighboring ward, one that was not considered a part of the Akihabara area prior to the war. After the reconstruction done by the Holy Grail it became an important location for the Spiritual Ley Lines, and was conveniently incorporated into Akihabara’s northernmost area. This area was just one of the places I was forbidden from entering in the time right before the Holy Grail Tournament, along with the rest of the Spiritual Leyline Management Sites.
The area in front of the shrine’s grounds are no longer Ueno Onshi Kōen’s Shinobazu Pond, but instead a coastline where a swathe of willow leaves sway. I guess it wouldn’t be wrong for you to say that the whole area in front of the shrine has been through a slip in time, returning to the scenery it originally had during the Edo Period… or that’s what I would say if it weren’t for the pure white sand and clear blue sea making it look like the beach at a tropical resort.
I walked along the twisted shrine road through Umebayashi Park by the sea side by side with Karin. The path we walked was crowded with beachgoers and visitors to the shrine at Yushima Tenjin, as usual.
“Hey, Eri-pie?”
“What?”
“I was just thinking, ‘After that terrifying uproar, there’s no way there’d be a single person on the way to the shrine, right?’ but… There are a lot of people, dontcha think? And doesn’t it look like they’re all going to the same shrine we are instead of heading to the beach?”
I nodded in response to Karin’s straightforward questions.
“...Guess so. I wonder if they’re religious people coming to pray for their families’ safety or something.”
Even though Servants have become an abundance in our everyday lives, the faith leftover from ancient times didn’t just disappear from the citizens. Instead, in this chaotic world, that faith has become a stronghold and in this time it has once again become necessary for a God to take root in this land.
The sight of Master’s accompanied by Heroic Spirits, spirits who have come from all across the world, times ancient and modern, going to worship at the shrine of the Japanese God of Learning… It was the kind of sight that was unique to the peaceful Mosaic City.
“This place is usually just full of tourists looking for a resort.”
“...Have you been to this shrine before, Karin?”
“That strange? I guess I should say I didn’t come here for myself, I’ve been since Momi wanted to visit. Sometimes we drop by on the way to Akihabara, since the tempura manju is super delicious.”
“Hmm. For Kōyō you say…? Tempura manju too…”
“Uh, side note, is that alright Eri-pie? It looks like the kid is going to end up wandering off on his own.”
Karin turned her head towards the boy in front of us.
…Voyager.
My… He’s my… he’s a person like me’s… he’s my very own… Servant.
His fluffy golden scarf fluttered in the sea breeze as he rapidly walked down a path I hadn’t even told him about.
“Hmmm? Something about you and Pran seems–”
“Voyager. His name isn’t Pran, because you already know it’s Voyager.”
“Crap, that’s right.” Realizing her mistake Karin quickly bowed her head down in apology. “That’s my bad. You already identified his True Name, so Voyager should be called Voyager. In that case, Voyager and Eri-pie seem… like they’re a bit awkward together?”
“...We’re not awkward.”
“Did you guys get into a fight?”
“Wha–? Absolutely wrong. Why would you think we fought?”
That was a lie.
After all, it had been pretty awkward since this morning, and there was also a little bit of a fight between the two of us.
In the days since I discovered his True Name, Voyager’s behavior had changed.
It was like his ego and his sense of purpose had risen to the surface in its own unique way, though that vague atmosphere around him was still the same in some respects.
He had always shown glimpses of stubbornness, but I get the feeling that something like a strong sense of fixation was born within him too.
He used to be brimming with curiosity when I would walk around the city with him, and he seemed to be interested in everything from the places I took him, to the things I showed him, to the foods he ate, like he wanted to absorb all of it. But not anymore.
This morning we had a dispute over breakfast. He seemed like he was unsatisfied with the cereal I got him, and said that “It would be nice if we had something different”.
“If you’re not happy with it then it’s fine if you don’t have any, isn't it?” When I said that and told him about the fact that meals are just a bit of stylistic beauty for Servants he just glared at me in response.
Seriously, what’s the problem with having the same food every morning for a week or two?
And right after that, I guess so he could try to add some flavor to his cereal or something, he took some of my most treasured jam, without even asking for permission! Of course, I got angry about it and we got into a little bit of a scuffle and… well, you know what happens.
“That was totally a lie, right?” Karin nodded her head in affirmation of her own assertion. I had no words with which to make a reply.
“...........”
“Eh, I guess it’s pretty understandable. Not only have you never had a partner to form a contract with before, but you’ve also never had a real relationship with a Servant. The basis of all your interactions with them is basically banishing them or killing them, right? Like “VANISH OR DIE!”, ya know? Not really the right timing for an honest bit of communication.”
“Guh… It wasn’t THAT extreme.”
“It’s fine, don’t even sweat it. You two can fight with each other as much as you want. Like Momi and I? We fight all the time!”
“Huh, that’s… honestly pretty surprising.”
I don’t know of any other Masters and Servants with a relationship as good and well-coordinated as Karin and Kijyo Kōyō’s. Then again, it did seem like Koharu and Galahad have a pretty volatile relationship on the surface.
“Heroic Spirits are sorta like our senpai in life, so they don’t really care about getting into fights.”
Karin smiled and looked at the boy walking ahead of us.
“I know I just said all that, but something about the kid does seem a little different…”
Different…? What exactly is different?
As the Reaper I’ve profiled Servants before. My studies of their exploits goes far in terms of both width and depth, but that experience has been totally useless to me in regards to the one Servant in existence who’s ever become a familiar presence for me.
And although I’m officially a Master myself, I still haven’t been able to handle the information that has been directly imprinted upon me by the Holy Grail.
Voyager suddenly turned his head. Then he gazed toward the ocean on his right.
I followed his gaze and saw a houseboat that was operating as a water bus approaching a small dock on the beach.
This beach is supposed to be a point of transit for those boats, not a place for them to land to drop off passengers. One of the people onboard jumped off from the houseboat, and the ship immediately changed direction and returned to its original course.
The sole person to get off the boat was a female student carrying a large bag over her shoulder. Her pale skin and white blouse looked brilliant against the blue sea. Her light-colored hair fluttered in the wind, and I could tell she was a little bit taller than me. I felt like I recognized her face from somewhere.
“Hey, that’s an Akijyo uniform!”
“Yeah, it is…”
Just as Karin said, the girl was wearing the summer uniform from the Akibagabara Jyogakukan High School, “Akijyo” for short. She waved goodbye to the people who stayed on the houseboat, all of whom were wearing the same uniform.
Naturally, she had to be older than Karin and I, who were still in Junior High School but…
The girl quickly took off her shoes and socks, and instead of taking the long way around the wharf which would be an inconvenience for her, she chose to jump across the deck of a small boat that was moored at the dock.. With an agility filled leap, she easily jumped over several small boats as well, and quickly landed in the shallow water in front of us. She clearly didn’t care if she got wet from the splash of her landing.
While we were watching such a situation unfold before us from land, she must have noticed us from the other side.
She blushed and blinked her eyes at us, and from her position on the beach pressed her lips together with her index finger as if to say “Shhh”, telling us not to tell anyone. She was in the uniform of a prestigious young lady’s school, and it appeared that she was aware of the fact that she was behaving mischievously while wearing it. And then…
“WELCOME HOME MY LORD!!!!!”
From deep within the shrine grounds the sound of a voice filled with energetic cheer echoed out.
The owner of said voice came dashing towards the schoolgirl, and it was someone who I immediately recognized. A slender and tall female Servant, one with interesting features that you couldn’t mistake:
Minamoto no Kurou Yoshitsune— Ushiwakamaru.
(Ushiwakamaru… I had a feeling about it but to think she really was a woman…)
Today she looked like she was working a part-time job, the total opposite of the gallantly armored warrior she had appeared as in the Tournament.
She was wearing a bib apron and a triangular bandana in order to put aside her long black hair. Underneath the apron she was dressed in a light, swimsuit-esque outfit that, depending on the angle, made it appear as if she was wearing nothing but the apron itself. On her chest was a logo and illustration for “Yushima’s Masterful Tempura Manju”, the place that Karin mentioned earlier. She must have come straight from the kitchen of the tempura manju stall on the shrine’s grounds.
The student girl was literally jumped at by Ushiwakamaru, and it was like she was being mobbed by a large dog who was overjoyed and over-excited by her return.
“My Lord! My Lord! My Lord!”
“Yep, yep, it’s me, it’s your lord.”
The student girl acted as if she had gotten used to this. If that’s the case then… I see, that girl must be Ushiwakamaru’s Master.
During the Tournament she was wearing an elegant and traditional kimono, so the impression she gave here was quite different. Karin also seemed to have noticed, as we looked at one another and nodded.
“Ahhhhh~ It’s not fair that you leave your Ushiwaka at home My Lord… My Loooord…”
“Oh c’mooooon, cut it out already~! It’s too hot~! And stop sniffing me!”
Suddenly, her eyes opened wide as she yelled “Dossei!” and executed a backwards pivot throw. Ushiwakamaru was thrown completely off, down onto the sand with a thump.
It was splendidly done.
The schoolgirl’s movements were done in a manner that was casual and slight, but she performed an Aikido tenchi-nage.
Without a care in the world, Ushiwakamaru laughed gleefully as she rolled away on the ground, before noticing Voyager, who was crouched over the two companions in observation.
“Oh? Aren’t you the one from the other day…?”
From the position where she was lying on her back, Ushiwakamaru quickly reseated herself into a seiza position on the spot and politely bowed her head to Voyager.
“I’m extremely grateful to you for your help that day. I didn’t intend to leave you with the task of taking care of an opponent who was a bad match for me, so I’m truly indebted to you. Were you injured?”
“No, I’m okay.”
Voyager was likewise without any shyness, nodding his head to Ushiwakamaru. It appeared that the two remembered each one another from the arena.
“That’s great to hear! Although, it seems that there’s something different about you compared to our first meeting.”
“...Do you think so? You… smell good… today. That’s not… the smell of blood, this time?”
“Hehe. This is the famed aroma of Tenman-gū Shrine! The freshly fried food we provide is particularly exceptional! I’d certainly be happy to treat you to some. Hey, My Lord? Rurihime-dono───”
Ushiwakamaru called out a name as she looked back. The girl, called Rurihime, looked to Voyager.
“…Oh. Oooooh! You’re the boy from the Colosseum! The kid who was able to defeat that atrocious Servant! The way you sparkled made you stand out, so I just couldn’t forget about you. Thanks again! Seriously, thank you so much for the help. Gosh, I couldn’t handle everything with just my dear Shana, so you know I was about to cry– just baaarely on the verge of tears.”
“It was quite the predicament, but Rurihime-dono endured with such strength.”
“Yep, thanks for that.”
She had a look about her that gave me the impression that she was so excited she was ready to go in for a hug on Voyager, knock him over as she grabbed him, and haul him away with her. She seemed like she was just barely resisting doing such a thing by putting both of her arms up in the air to stop herself.
The feeling she gave me screamed “stranger danger”.
A second later, she turned towards me with an even brighter sparkle in her eyes.
“So, you must be that boy’s Master? Or, is it you? You look so young! Oh wait, you two wouldn’t happen to be middle school students by any chance would you?”
“C’mon, it isn’t me! Look over there, that one’s who you want.” Karin said as she pointed at me.
“Y-Yeah. I’m Voyager’s Master. Um… to be honest, I have a special favor to ask of you today, regarding the Tenman-gū Shri───”
“Oho? A favor for me, you say? As long as it’s not about studying, I can take care of you, got it?”
“Huh? Shouldn’t that be the other way around?” Karin said with a puzzled look on her face.
Right as it looked like Karin was about to unload a barrage of questions, Ushiwakamaru suddenly tugged on the other girl’s sleeve.
“───My Lord, your father is just over there.”
When we looked back towards the shrine’s grounds, there was a middle-aged man dressed in a Shinto priest’s hakama standing underneath the great torii.
“Ah, father… I’m home.” The girl fixed the hem of skirt, which had been put into total disarray, and brushed the sand off of her.
As the man approached us, he recognized who I was and gave a slight bow with the proper posture.
Surprised, I corrected my own posture in response, bowing my head to return the courtesy.
Wearing a purple hakama with a white pattern, this man was the chief priest of Yushima Tenman-gū Shrine, and the man whom I had been hoping to meet with, the one who I had been referred to by Himuro.
I had already met with him a few days before this at the Colosseum, at the time of a site inspection that was being conducted there. He already knew of me at that time, too.
Even so, I somehow never expected… I just didn’t think that the Master of Minamoto no Kurou Yoshitsune, a very popular participant in the Holy Grail War Tournament, would turn out to be the daughter of this shrine’s chief priest.
Karin and I were then given permission to meet with the chief priest of Yushima Tenman-gū Shrine.
We were invited in, not to the shrine office, but to the inner sanctuary itself, which had been expressly cleared of people for our visit.
Due to the fact that the sanctum was a location with a powerful Bounded Field designed to keep out low-ranking familiars and other such magecraft, both Voyager and Kijyo Kōyō’s presences were implicitly refused. As such, they were forced to remain outside.
The chief priest’s only daughter, Rurihime, and Ushiwakamaru were also not allowed within.
I started with my request, which was in regards to handing over my role as Akihabara’s Nightwatch to somebody else. I would give up the duty I had originally been entrusted with by Caren, since I would no longer be able to continue acting as one of the agents who "deals with''Servants for an unknown period of time…. A plea I knew was self-centered.
I told the chief priest everything, without hiding any of the details.
From the existence of an enemy who had thrown Mosaic City into pandemonium, to the outbreak of a new Holy Grail War, which would bring about more harm to the public than the incident from a few days ago, rapidly approaching.
And of course, the fact that a Servant had manifested before me for the first time, someone who had not been able to form a contract with one before this point in their life.
Naturally, most of this information had likely already reached the chief priest’s ears, but even so he listened to me in silence.
The chief priest of this shrine was assigned to an integral role and key location for the purpose of maintaining and preserving Akihabara’s Spiritual Ley Lines. Alongside Kanda-myōjin Shrine, which protects the city’s weakest point, Yushima Tenman-gū Shrine performs an essential duty within this city.
The divine majesty of Sugawara no Michizane, who possesses both the aspects of a God of Sincerity who prays for peace across the nation and that of a savage Thunder God, is only fully demonstrated here, at the Tenman-gū Shrine.
Suppose that the attack the other day wasn’t aimed at the Colosseum, but instead at destroying the Tenman-gū Shrine. In such an event, not only would the Bounded Field surrounding Akihabara have collapsed, but a great many of the Servants in Akihabara who receive their Magical Energy from the Spiritual Ley Lines would have completely fallen into dysfunction.
Even if the scope of our roles was considerably different, both the integral role that the chief priest held and my own role consisted of protecting Akihabara. In a manner of speaking, our roles were two sides of the same coin.
The chief priest’s reply was succinct─── “Have no worries. You can leave this to me.”
With the threat from the outside made clear, the Shrine would lend its full support in dealing with any anti-Servant cases in order to prevent the spread of chaos in the city.
However, that role would not be left to the chief priest, as it would instead be entrusted to his daughter, Rurihime— Wait.
—HUH?
This must have been Himuro’s doing.
She must have been anticipating this development. She must have predicted my inner turmoil, must have been laughing to herself this entire time.
Damn it, the Caren Series really is filled with nothing but tricksters…
I had expected that the chief priest himself would be unable to undertake the duty of handling the anti-Servant cases, considering how busy he already was, but even so I had been hoping he would be able to give me some kind of alternate plan or even give me advice on putting something else in place myself.
Not only was this outside of my expectations, but his response itself also managed to surprise me.
This was not a chief priest putting his faith in Rurihime’s abilities, but instead a father who was forced into making a desperate, last-ditch effort for his daughter. Or at least that was the impression that I got from him.
(Ahh, could it be because of my…)
When I came to that one objective fact, I felt just a little sorry for the man…
Being forced to confront the sight of a kid, even younger than his high school-aged daughter Rurihime, already doing this kind of job most likely annoyed him… Or at least, I think that's probably what caused him to make the decision the way he did.
With some feelings of depression, I headed towards the area behind the inner sanctuary, where a small shrine stood. Conversing in front of that shrine was Rurihime, Voyager, and Kijyo Kōyō.
“Oh, Kōyō…”
This was the first time today she had shown her face.
Rurihime, who looked as though she was more in her natural element in this form,, had changed out of her Akijyo uniform and into the red and white uniform of a miko. With the change, her elegant and graceful look from the Holy Grail Tournament had returned.
“I see, so Akihabara’s peace and future rests on my shoulders now, does it?”
“Um, I’m sorry for asking you so many times but… it really is a dangerous job–”
“Uh-huh, mhm.”
When I went to tell her the details and discuss things with her, the girl gave me a pretty positive reaction to the whole situation, which left me bewildered.
“—Not to mention that it isn’t uncommon for certain people to hold a grudge against you. Even when you’re not actively doing your job, the dangers of it will always follow y–”
“Yep, yep. It must be a real pain to be an Ally of Justice.”
“....That… That’s not what I was trying to say.”
I understood that she was being earnest about things in her own way.
I understood that but, even so, I didn’t feel like her seriousness about the matter was really coming through. I felt like I was finally able to infer the chief priest’s true motivations.
“I didn’t think it was possible but… Rurihime, are you the type who feels the call to be an Ally of Justice?”
“Nope, absolutely not. But I get the feeling the Holy Grail Tournament won’t be starting back up anytime soon, right? I’m going to end up being so bored without it.”
“Sigh… That’s… I guess that could make sense.”
I noticed that Karin was glancing over at me, as if she wanted to jump in. Considering she was a girl who was never scared of talking back to her seniors, she seemed like she had been obediently following the conversation the entire time.
“Hey, Miss Rurihime? Hasn’t Akijyo been on break from school this whole week? Didn’t you go out of your way to go all the way to the school then?”
Now that she mentions it, Karin’s right. Since I was always in and out of classes I didn’t even think about that at all.
“Yep, I did. I’m acting as a class representative right now, so there’s a lot of stuff for me to do, ya know? I also got called over by the student council asking for help, so I went over in the morning. We had to check on the safety of the students and stuff~, it was sooo hard to contact some of them through the Information Network~. Then, since the school had been turned into a temporary evacuation center, I had to lend a hand to clean things. So I asked my dear Shana– My dear Ushiwaka to do the house-sitting for me.”
“Woooah, you had to do all that annoying crap? I guess that’s what it means to be a High School Student.”
“Oh it wasn’t like that! It made me so happy to see the faces of everyone from the school, it was the first time in a while.” Rurihime turned to face me.
“Your name’s Erice, right? You wouldn’t happen to have heard anything about Koharu, would you?”
As a participant in the same tournament, she was worried about Koharu’s safety.
“Last I know she was going back to the Riedenflaus family to receive medical treatment for her injuries.”
“Is that so…”
Karin furrowed her brow.
“Koharu’s arm was injured… right Erice? Was it really bad?”
“No idea. It wasn’t life-threatening at least.”
“I see. In that case, I’m sure she’ll be fine!”
Karin’s reaction was typical for the next-generation, as modern medicine was capable of restoring the average injury back to its original state. However, Koharu was stabbed in her arm during a life or death battle with Nzambi. On her right arm, right above where her Command Seals were located.
“About that I… I’m not too sure…” After muttering that, Rurihime’s expression darkened for a moment, before quickly turning back to a smile. “Erice, you probably have a better chance of running into Koharu than I do. If you do happen to see her again, can you please tell her I send my condolences? And also tell her that I want to fight her in the arena again.”
“Of course. I won’t forget to let her know.”
I wanted to see Koharu again too. Right now, I was certain I needed her.
Rurihime flapped the sleeves of her miko outfit with excitement.
“Alright, I’m really motivated all of a sudden. Isn’t this gonna be pretty neat? The Nightwatch! What do you think about it, Shana!?” With a snap, the instant the girl raised her hand Ushiwakamaru came flying out from the manju stall, skidding sideways as she came.
“I understand the situation! Everything, I get it all! Naturally, I already knew that My Lord would accept this undertaking!”
“I know right~? Shana, your skills are probably getting dull too, right?”
“Actually, My Lord… While you may have some experience with martial arts, you do not possess any technical knowledge of Magecraft like Lady Erice, so you will need to start learning from the basics during your work. Do you not believe that starting out like that all of a sudden is rather reckless?”
“Urgh. I guess you’re right about that.”
“Regardless, this Ushiwaka will serve as My Lord’s sword and shield in defense of her being, no matter the occasion!”
“O.K.! I’ll make sure to be careful… What, is there something else?”
“Indeed. In addition to those concerns, I believe your Father has been pushing you exceptionally hard lately. You aren’t trying to use this as an excuse to run away from your studies, are you…?”
“Woah, it’s fine if you don’t say things you don’t have to ya know! A-Anyway, I have high expectations for you Shana! Even more so than during the tournament!”
“Of course. I am the only one who is fit for this role. My Lord has had an exceptional instinct for fighting since she was young after all, more than most would know what to do with.”
Rurihime blushed in response to the variety of things about her that were being spoken of so openly, while Ushiwakamaru held her chest out with pride. In spite of the carefree attitude she appeared to possess, it seemed as if she actually had quite a bit of courage and guts.
“I think it’s probably fine if you leave it at that.” Karin muttered under her breath. She said it in a hushed tone, like she was trying to water her words down..
“You know something, It would be better if a job like this just didn’t exist. I mean, what’s the point of a job where the asshole who wants to do it the least is also the jerk who’s best suited for the job?”
“...Karin?”
I thought I had gotten used to Karin’s bad language, but I found myself getting a little antsy to try and gloss over the way she had spoken.
“I don’t think it’s anything like that, it’s not like I’m trying to impose on Rurihime or anyth—”
“I already know that! I get that you don’t really want to give it up to anyone else. You’re not doing this stuff because you like it, and that’s why you don’t want anyone else to take over, right?”
“...Huh!? What are you trying to say?” I suddenly lost my cool and started to talk back to Karin.
(Not wanting to give it up to anyone else? Me of all people?)
It was a painful decision for me to make, but I was just trying to fulfill my duties in my own way. I wanted to make sure Karin understood that, so I made sure to reach out to Karin today—
“.........”
Before I knew it, a pair of pale blue eyes were staring straight at me. Voyager’s serene gaze put me at a loss for words.
It wasn’t that he was worried about Karin and I arguing. I could feel that he had dangerous intentions, that he was trying to get me to make a more direct confession toward Karin. But what could I possibly say…?
“........ (mmrm mrmm mrm)”
In his hand was a freshly fried tempura manju, given to him by Ushiwakamaru. His little cheeks were puffed up as he absentmindedly gobbled it down.
I felt my stomach muscles tighten up as I somehow managed to stifle any laughter as I asked:
“V-Voyager…? Did you remember to say thank you?”
“(Mrm)”
Karin couldn't help but to break out in laughter. Rurihime on the other hand seemed impressed, arms folded and head nodding as she let out an approving “Uh-huh!”.
“You guys are… pretty hard to deal with, huh? It’s honestly overwhelming. It’s like a whole different world from that of us carefree high school girls. And really, that’s why taking this job sounds so interesting to me.”
“I think you’re pretty hard to handle yourself Rurihime…”
“You think so? I feel like I’m rather different from the next-generation children who were born into this world.”
“...Now I get it. You’re part of the Boundary Generation, aren’t you?”
As I was myself an exception without a Holy Grail, I knew that such a question was a complicated one to answer.
One way or another, we were able to secure a successful applicant to take over my Nightwatch duties.
I couldn’t even begin to properly convey how serious and demanding such a role was using words alone and, just as Karin once said, I still find it hard to approve of or understand the seriousness carried by the Holy Grail War Tournament participants.
I made a promise with Rurihime to call her at a later time, and our group made our exit from the shrine’s grounds. All that remained from here was for Caren Himuro to get in contact with and assist her, and failing that find another unit in the Caren series to do it.
As I was considering all of this, Ushiwakamaru stealthily approached and stopped me before I could leave.
“Lady Erice, and Lady Karin as well. I must bow my head to your considerations. I must also express that your concern for My Lord is only natural.” Leaving her master behind, Ushiwakamaru approached us by herself. "Know that with my blade I shall sweep aside every spark that comes our way. But… As I avowed earlier, My Lord’s vigorous and hotblooded nature in regards to battle has been with her ever since she was a child. She will not stop until she has taken the type of wound that slams into her with such force it makes her. That is why her father has been having such a hard time."
"Um, you mean Rurihime's father and why he looked so stern?"
She certainly did seem like a disobedient girl who would cause worry for her family after all. Who do we know like that?
Ushiwakamaru smiled a bit, as if relieved.
“But it is exactly for those kinds of situations that I am here. It is my role as a military commander to weigh the skills of our enemies and ascertain when we need to retreat. If the situation goes beyond our control, it is my promise that I shall act as a shield that will block one thousand arrows to ensure My Lord escapes.”
“What are you on about, Ushiwakamaru? Saying that kind of stuff is no good, ya hear!?”
As Karin hounded her for it, Ushiwakamaru’s eyes blinked incessantly in response.
“May I ask why it’s no good… Such a disappointing reaction…”
“Because it’s no good, that’s why! Seriously, you Heroic Spirits, why do you always– as if it were the natural thing to do– try to do the coolest things!? You’re all so smart but so so stupid!”
“W-Wait a second Karin! There’s no need to be rude about it–!”
I consoled the newly dejected Ushiwakamaru and chided Karin before we said our goodbyes once more. As Ushiwakamaru swung her tongs in a wave, Voyager waved a small hand back in response.
“You know, it almost seemed like Rurihime knew you from somewhere Kōyō.”
After I asked, Karin nodded in response.
“How do I put this, it’s sort of like we knew each other before we actually got acquainted with one another? Since we’ve come to pray at this shrine before she saw Momi and remembered who we were.”
“Hmmm. Kōyō, were you coming to offer worship to Sugawara no Michizane, perhaps?”
Sugawara no Michizane was a person who lived during the early Heian Era. Meanwhile, Kijyo Kōyō lived during the middle-period of the Heian Era, which would have been around one hundred years after Michizane’s death. That was around the time that his haunting storms would have been raging.
(Ah…)
I had forgotten a much more important piece of the puzzle.
While I had my moment of clarity, Karin told me what Kōyō was saying back in her Spirit Form.
“She said ‘No, that’s incorrect. I was visiting the shrine to worship more ancient Gods’.”
“I see… Now I understand. It’s Togakushi Shrine. That small shrine was Togakushi Shrine, wasn’t it?”
“Togakushi, as in the place from around Momi’s hometown? I think it was near… Nagano Prefecture, right?”
“Mhm. That’s it. Mount Togakushi, Oninasato Village, the place where Mount Izuna used to be– Wait, Karin, shouldn’t you know all of this as Kōyō’s Master?”
“Ahaha, sorry, my bad.”
Originally Yushima Tenjin was a shrine dedicated to the Gods of Togakushi, prior to the enshrinement of Michizane… In other words, it was dedicated to the Kami associated with the Legend of Ama-no-Iwato in Japanese mythology.
Since she can no longer hope to visit the Togakushi Shrine in the Shinshū Province, that shrine at Yushima Tenjin must have become a very important place for her.
To think that the shrine associated with Togakushi is protecting the Spiritual Ley Lines of Akihabara. It would make me incredibly happy if Kōyō were to pray for the peace of this city while keeping such thoughts within her heart.
Yet, in spite of that, I’m currently denying such favor as I abandon my own responsibilities toward the same thing.
(Speaking of the Gods… There are Divine Servants too. Those bastards who attacked the city were Divine Spirits, no mistaking it…)
Servants from the mythical era when the greater Gods roamed, Divine Spirits are those who have surrendered a part of their soul in order to become a Servant. They are particularly rare in Mosaic City, despite the fact that it’s home to countless Servants. It’s likely that there’s only one per city, and among them, I still don’t know of any related to Gods from Japanese mythology.
(There are some minor deities from a folk lore level registered here and there, but…)
If such a being were to manifest, it would be a very powerful entity, one who would have an advantage from the land. But the fact of the matter is that this is not the case, and as such that is why I believe the citizens still maintain true faith.
“Kōyō, thank you for this.”
“Hm? Oh, you mean like for the prayers? If that’s the case, you should know that Voyager prayed with us too!”
“That’s just because he’ll imitate anything he sees.”
“He’s so innocent and fresh, right? It’s like he’s just been born!”
We stared at Voyager’s back a few steps ahead of us for a while as we walked through the park.
“—So then, what the heck is your plan here? What do you think you’re doing, asking someone else to handle your work for you?“ Karin asked me in the serious tone from before.
“It’s not like I quit my job as a Nightwatch I… I’d like to return to it if I can, if possible. Actually, I think I have to. Whether or not Rurihime will keep doing it when that time comes will depend on how she feels about it.”
Karin stopped in her tracks and grabbed onto my hand tightly.
My left hand, which still felt uncomfortable from the Command Seals being engraved into it—
“Eri-pie, answer this question honestly. This isn’t about what anyone else wants. I’m asking you. What do you want to do?”
“Erice wants to go.”
The boy’s words swallowed us whole.
Voyager answered the question. Clearly, like the sharp ring of a ship’s bell declaring that the time to put out to sea had finally come.
And the deflated sails of my heart swelled with a heavy sense of unease as the tailwinds of defiance blew through them.
I felt as though I had read this exact scene in a book somewhere before.
Even still, Karin continued to ask us questions.
“...Where? Where do you want to go?”
“To Fuyuki.”
Chapter 11
Early in the morning, on the day I was to leave Akihabara—-
In the midst of the cool haze that covered Station Square stood Karin, alone, at the spot where her voice had echoed along with the performance of a lone street musician.
I had sent her a message about my departure from the city last night, despite knowing that if I told her she would try to come with me.
Because that’s the type of person she is. I knew that.
It troubled me greatly but… I knew that telling her was the only way.
If I went through with deceiving her about my exit and leaving without telling her, I would regret it for my entire life.
“Yo Eri-pie!” She said with a smile that had a hint of bashfulness to it. “And a ‘yo’ to you as well, Voyager.”
“Morning.”
“Good morning… Karin.”
The boy’s scarf swayed in the morning sun, and at its touch fluttered as if it were a golden torch. I still wasn’t used to the sound of his voice, spoken with childishly broken language, coming from my side.
My feelings of wanting Karin to come with us and my feelings of not wanting her to follow continued to entangle themselves within my heart, turning into a massive lump of emotion that I could not untie.
The fact that she was able to come out of the recent storm of slaughter unharmed was something that I thought could only have been a result of all of her stockpiled good fortunes surfacing one after another.
Not to mention the fact that this was definitely different from any of the previous unpredictable Servant-related incidents. The enemy this time would be an organized opponent, and as a result merely traveling with me would put her in danger.
(Or maybe it’s possible… Could it be that I’m underestimating Karin and Kōyō…? No, I’m positive that couldn’t be the case. I know for sure that Kōyō is a wise and sensible person. But, even knowing that…)
There was one other reason to avoid traveling with them. A complicated question, one to which I had yet to find a way to give a definite answer.
(The “Holy Grail” with which I made my contract and the Holy Grail the citizens of Mosaic City are connected to… are they both truly an existence that stem from the same root?)
TL Note: （私の契約した〝 聖杯"と…… モザイク市の市民たちと結びついている《 聖杯》は、果たして同じ根源を持つ存在なのだろうか……？）". This one was rather difficult for me to TL, due to the wording on the final part of the sentence: 果たして同じ根源を持つ存在なのだろうか……？
Considering the Grail is a way to REACH the Root, the usage of the exact Kanji "根源" stumped me somewhat. She could be asking "Are they both an existence that stems from the root" or "Are they both an existences that contain the root" with 根源を持つ, though that specific wording is more likely to be "stem from" as it's similar to "原因を持つ" as in "having the same origin". And yet, even with this, it was somewhat unclear due to the usage of 根源 which could just be another word for "origin", yet it feels like a very specific kanji to use given the context of it in Type Moon works. I ended up putting Root, with a belief that Erice is referring to the Grail that acts as "Administrator" of the city as the "Root" in this instance and the thing with the citizens is referring to the fact they each posses one that connects them to it as the "Root" of their power, but... admittedly, I'm still unsure about that specific sentence.
I just could not find a way to believe that the Holy Grail, which bestowed Command Seals and Servants unto all of the citizens, including Karin, would grant its blessings to me now, after I had already lived 14 years of my life. I did not WANT to believe it.
I figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask the person most connected to the matter, Voyager, but when I had tried he just gave me a puzzled look, as if he was unable to determine what the answer was himself.
The boy didn’t even really understand what a Servant was, so it wasn’t really a surprise. After all, the Holy Grail was supposed to bestow knowledge of both the Holy Grail War and of universal information about things common to the modern world upon Servants.
Voyager was lacking in both.
(It’s not like I’m entirely without a means of confirming whether or not they’re the same but… that method is…)
Let’s imagine what would happen if I were to use a single “stroke” of the Command Seals engraved upon my left hand.
The result of such a thing should be obvious:
If my Seals were bestowed upon me by a Holy Grail that stems from the same root as the one that gives power to the citizens of Mosaic City, the Seal would be restored.
But even knowing that, at this point in time I absolutely could not afford to take such a risk. If the possibility that they were different came to be true the results of my test would be irreversible.
(And if they really were different then…. That would mean that another “Holy Grail” has come into existence…)
Until the answer to that question is known to me, it is too early to make a decision.
What Caren had said– “The Holy Grail War… is not yet over.”
If there was anyone who had the answers I wanted, it would be Chitose or Lucius, but asking them about things relating to their Command Spells was not an easy thing to do.
Such a thing was considered strategic information, the secrets of a Magus. That information concerned their very existence, having won the Holy Grail War through great sacrifice.
There wouldn’t be any family sentiment to help me there.
(Lucius had pointed his spear towards Voyager… he tried to destroy my Servant. Chitose must have decided that Voyager was dangerous… She had determined that he was an enemy to her!)
The morning train, still only sparsely populated by passengers, moved as if it were gliding as it crossed the railway bridge over the sea.
I sat in a cramped four-person booth facing toward Karin, with Voyager in the seat next to mine, face firmly pressed against the window. Today he had been extremely restless and excited since the morning, hurriedly pushing me to rush about. It was a bit like how a dog might act when taking it out for a walk around the neighborhood.
In the short time since the train had left the skyscrapers of Akihabara, the scenery outside the window had changed dramatically. The tips of ruined skyscrapers, which had been abandoned fourteen years ago and left uninhabited since, dotted the ashen horizon.
Karin and I had already become familiar with the landscape, a sight that had not changed for the better.
As he stared out the window with a devouring gaze, Karin called out to him.
“This your first time seeing the sea, Voyager? The beach we saw yesterday at Tenman-gū Shrine was man-made ya know.”
“House.” Voyager said with a sigh, his forehead still glued to the glass of the train car's window.
“Hmm, a house? Where’s it at? Oooh, under the sea, right?” Karin and I peeked out the window together. We could make out the faint outlines of buildings below the surface of the ocean.
The apartment buildings and shopping districts in which people lived before the War were now drifting away at the bottom of the sea, where marine life had been drastically reduced and the past laid undisturbed like a sleeping beauty.
“The sea…. I saw it. From the sky. The sea I knew was… much… more blue… more blue—”
“A dark blue sea, you say? You must’ve seen a tropical sea!”
Voyager nodded in response to Karin’s words.
I mumbled the name of a tropical sea that came to mind.
“Cape Canaveral…. I think. It’s the sea in Florida where some rocket launch pads were located.”
“Yes. That’s correct. Flo ri da.”
The space probe Voyager was launched in the Summer of 1977, from a base facing the Atlantic Ocean. As of now, that would have been about half a century ago.
“Then, I guess that is my house. Flo ri da. It must be. Florida.”
“Your house is Florida? Hmm… I find it hard to understand when you put it like that.”
The Voyager Program was supposedly spearheaded by a NASA-supervised research institute in Pasadena within the state of California, though the probe may have been assembled at the Space Center in Florida.
Where is the boundary line at which he would find his sense of self as a Heroic Spirit? Or does that sense trace all the way back to the initial inception of the Program, the point in time at which the concept of exploration was established?
“Hehehe.”
I shrug my shoulders in response, and he simply smiles at me without worry before turning to the window again, narrowing his eyes with a look of longing.
“I could really feel it. I was listening to it. The sounds of the winds from the ocean… and the sound of the waves.” He quietly closed his eyes and pricked up his ears to listen.
“Thunder. Rain. Bubbling. Lava— The sounds of this star. I have to remember… all of it… But… It has changed. Entirely.” As he leaned against the glass, Voyager followed the path to his memories. It was as if he were listening directly to Earth. “I cannot hear… the song of the whales anymore…”
“....Do whales sing? How do they do that?”
“They sing. It was a good thing.”
He tilted his head as if to say “Didn’t you know that already?”.
“Kyuuu.”
“....Kyuuu?”
He performed his special mimicry once again.
Kyuuuu… Kyuuuuuuu…. Kyuuuun…. Kokokoko Korokorokoro….
The boy suddenly stepped down into the aisle as he began to sing and slowly swayed his body in a dance. He was clearly trying to imitate the form of a whale swimming in the ocean.
“...Ahahaha! I’m a whale too!” Karin joined in without a moment of hesitation.
They sang a curious song together as Karin moved in and out of Voyager’s reach, twisting and turning her body through the surrounding area with gentle steps. There was even a little bit of spicy belly dancing thrown in.
“Hey, cut it out Karin…” I was embarrassed, but I couldn’t bring myself to say anything since we were in a car that was virtually empty.
As the boy’s body swayed, his flowing golden scarf made it look as if they were really under the sea, and it made me think that I wanted to see more of their dance.
I had never seen a real whale, after all.
It was the same for every single one of us young people, but he and the whales lived in the same time period.
Though, it does feel ridiculous to say that a space probe “lived”.
(Voyager… A Servant. He’s a genuine Servant.)
In the middle of an occurrence entirely lacking in altruism, it hit me once again.
Whales, fish, and all other types of marine life had seen their populations plummet. The birds of the ocean as well.
All of it is the fault of the Holy Grail War.
Before our train arrived at its destination I asked Voyager some questions, the purpose of which was to determine if the level of common information from modern times that the Holy Grail would introduce a normal Servant to had been given to him.
It would be an inconvenience if things that were normal pieces of knowledge had not been conveyed to him, especially in the case of an emergency… But in the end I was given almost none of the answers I had desired, and instead ended up giving a lecture.
On today’s lesson plan we had “The Holy Grail War”.
TL Note: the Japanese text is actually "本日 の 講義 内容 は《 聖杯 戦争》 について。" with a furigana "シラバス" over "講義 内容". I found that to be a good use of the furi for a fun little joke and figured I'd try to convey it here, since I am not using "small text" in English and am instead combining the words or fitting both into the sentence somehow. I hope the comedic effect still came across!
Ever since the days leading up to the forming of our contract, I had repeated the same lecture countless times. As expected for someone who said they knew nothing of war.
“---We are taught about the war that transpired 14 years ago… ‘The Holy Grail War’, during the schooling that takes place over our compulsory education. It’s our obligation to do so, even though not everybody wishes to speak about this event. Some families even aspire to make sure their children do not know anything of it, if at all possible for them.”
Inferring what I meant through the expression on my face as I spoke, Voyager glanced over at Karin. She pretended not to notice, leaning on her elbow and looking out the window of the train instead.
“A great war… happened, right?”
“....Yeah. It happened. There was a great war. One that every living thing on this planet was dragged into, the biggest war ever in history. No nation, no person, not even any Heroic Spirit who had been summoned was safe… It was that terrifying kind of war. And as a result of it, our planet ended up in such an awful state. Voyager, the beautiful Earth that you knew is already gone… All that it left behind was a mockery, this imitation of its form.”
This was the reality that every Junior High Student in Mosaic City knew.
He was dumbfounded.
His eyes were shaking as he stared at me in response. This was the first time I had ever seen such sorrow expressed upon his face.
“......”
In a change from her earlier festive look, the corners of the now listless Karin’s mouth raised into a suggestive smirk. She put her hand onto Voyager’s head and began to lazily ruffle his hair, like a big sister would do to her baby brother on a whim.
Voyager seemed discontent with this.
Naturally, considering I’ve never done anything like that to him before.
“....And the whales?”
His naive question had to be responded to with a cruel answer.
“I believe most of the whales became victims of the war. They were caught up in the large-scale drone operations.”
“Drone?”
“That’s right, drones. A drone is a weapon that flies in the sky, unmanned. A machine that makes offensive strikes against its enemies by using its own judgment regarding the progression of a battle. The war was a war of drones– It’s estimated that at the height of the conflict there were over ten-thousand drones for every one soldier. From small drones the size of a miniscule insect to large drones that were the size of a passenger plane, they flew throughout the battlefield under semi-autonomous control. But there weren’t just drones that flew through the sky. There were also drones that could dig beneath the earth’s surface in order to infiltrate underground facilities, drones that could swim underwater, as well as various other abnormal types that were developed. There were even drones that were disguised to look like dolphins or whales in order to launch suicide-bomber style attacks on enemy submarines. During the war anything shaped like a fish that approached would be met with a thorough offensive, no matter what the creature truly was, in the name of self-defense…”
If any large marine mammals were still alive in the ocean today, it would have to be the result of a miracle.
The United States of America’s space center at Cape Canaveral had become a battleground at the very beginning of things. Right now, it was a wasteland covered by craters who served to collect the filthy water there. Florida’s beautiful waters would never return again.
“....The drones are… machines… aren’t they? Then that means they… are just like me.”
“They are NOT like you!”
The words came out with more intensity than I thought they would, causing Voyager’s eyes to widen. Even Karin looked to be taken aback.
But I did not stop.
“They could not be the same as you. You… may not be unconnected to war and weaponry, but you and the drones are different.”
Karin took over my words from there.
“...Well, you’ve got that right. Voyager, you’re different from a drone, arentcha? 'Cause drones are sorta like evil spirits. For our parents’ generation at least, they’re a symbol of horror that you shouldn’t even want to talk about. In our Mosaic City we somehow managed to eliminate them, but for a little while after the war there were tons of people who ended up becoming victims at the hands of some of the more stubborn drones while trying to deal with them.”
“....Eeeehhhh…?” He furrowed his brow and looked restlessly around the moving train car, surveying it.
Karin laughed at him.
I didn’t think it was an unreasonable response. On a first look, the train would appear to be running through an awfully undefended area.
“These tracks are just fine, Voyager. The railways that connect the Mosaic Cities to one another are still inside of the Bounded Field of Mosaic City, so they’re well protected… Though, outside of Mosaic City is Hell.”
There were still a few cases in which single-function drones were permitted for the purpose of maintaining minimal urban functions and maintenance. They could be used to measure contamination in areas that humans were unable to trespass, as well as operate as surveillance cameras with strictly limited operation space.
Most of them were Old World wirelessly-controlled machines that required an operator to function, not unlike radio-controlled devices. If it is possible to substitute something with Magecraft, we do so to the best of our abilities.
In consideration of the public sentiment towards them, any airframe registered with the authorities was cleverly camouflaged in order to avoid contact with the public eye.
“Hell, huh… Ugh– the old me would’ve never believed in something like that! But now I’ve been hanging out with Erice for such a long time. I’ve learned about those trespassers coming in from the outside, those unauthorized foreign Servants, and now I’ve stopped doubting these kinda things.”
Right, in our generation of youths there was no one who had personally experienced the terrible devastation of the outside. It was not something one would be aware of in their daily life.
That much was Mosaic City’s peace… was…
“Even now, an unknowable number of drones are hidden away in the wasteland, waiting in hibernation. Because their life span is semi-permanent. If an airplane were to fly through the sky, any drone that sensed it would awaken and shoot it down in an instant.”
The ocean was the same. If any ship tried to conquer the sea, it would be unforgivably unsafe.
Captain Hendrick and his Master, Ahasuerus, had set sail upon the wandering Dutch ship known as “The Flying Dutchman”. They set off on their voyage together despite knowing full well that they would be in mortal danger.
Truly, God and the Devil of the Sea had cursed those two.
And the location I had my eyes on was Fuyuki, a place which I could only reach by traveling on foot through that Hell.
Therefore, I needed to be prepared. I needed a powerful weapon.
I needed something that Caren Fujimura had left behind.
Shinjuku.
The city where I was born. The city where I was raised.
The city where I had lived together with my mother and father.
Our train arrived at my old hometown without incident.
Ever since I had begun to live on my own in Akihabara I had only returned to this city a few times, but now, because it was necessary for me to come here for my ”work”, returning couldn’t be avoided.
Naturally, I avoided visiting my parents’ home, where Chitose dwelled.
Shinjuku was the core of Mosaic City and, as of now, had effectively become its capital. The city had grown so much that it had fully regained the prosperity it had in the Pre-War days, and the population count of its inhabitants was so much larger than the other cities that you couldn’t even compare them.
While Akihabara was a place where coasts and resorts were the main selling points of the city, Shinjuku had a certain character to its liveliness, a certain passion, that was as different as could be.
If you compared it to the other Mosaic Cities, the most distinctive characteristic you would find was undeniably the way the city had been consumed by a large-scale revival of customs and public morals from both the early years of the Showa Era and the age of the Taishō era.
I don’t know just who among the people had their wishes reflected by the Holy Grail during the Post-War reconstruction of this damaged city but…
Seriously, it was a totally drastic measure to take. The nostalgia and fondly-remembered days experienced in the minds of the citizens here was nothing more than a fabricated taste for the past, a manufactured nostalgia.
It had been one century since that time.
Who had personally experienced, or could even remember, the way of life that existed one hundred years ago?
That was the city where I was raised, Shinjuku.
I had felt utterly humiliated when I learned the reality of things, and then I became totally apathetic.
It was like the oceans from which the birds and whales had disappeared– Because this planet had forfeit its nature, the abnormalities of Mosaic City had become normality, had become the everyday life that needed to be safeguarded.
My very foundation, my beloved hometown, had become nothing more than a theme park.
As things were, it was a parody of infantile regression. It was impossible to love such a thing.
Even so, the people had chosen…. Shinjuku had chosen that fabricated nostalgia.
—Shinjuku Station overflowed with people in the morning.
Many of them were businessmen who were employed in Shinjuku, accompanied by their Servants, and in the wait for the train to depart some of them unfurled their newspapers while others hurried over to the station’s shops in a rush to get their breakfast.
Less than a week had passed since the tragedy that had left countless deceased in its wake, and yet they worked through their daily routines quietly and with a lack of concern, as if nothing had happened.
A slight sigh of amazement came from my side, as next to me Voyager’s eyes sparkled and brimmed with curiosity at the scenery spread out before us. Seeing the scene of a morning that was so different from the usual calm of morning in Akihabara excited him.
If I took my eyes off of him for even a moment, who knows where he’d saunter off to.
“You know, we didn’t come here today to stroll around”
“....Is that so?”
“Yeah, that’s so.”
On the other hand, Karin stood pressed close to my chest, with an understandable look of dissatisfaction on her face.
The JP for this is 私 の 胸先 に 迫ってきた which does literally mean "against my chest" or something like it, but can be tl'd as something like "close to my side" or "by my side", but with the later line about her feeling embarrassed from passersby looking at them, I thought the more literal version made more sense here. Especially since Karin DOES feel like the type to cling to Erice's chest and complain.
“Hey, Eri-pie? I thought we were headin’ to Fuyuki today? Just how far away do we have to walk to get to our connecting train?”
“I can’t just go there so abruptly. To begin with, the train to Fuyuki doesn’t even exist anymore.”
“Woah, what’s this? Oooh~ I get it! You’re still looking for a good reason to back out this late in the game~? Must feel nice to know getting there is actually impossible, right? So, why’d you go through the trouble of asking Rurihime to take over your Nightwatch duties then?” I noticed passersby glancing at us a few times, and found myself feeling embarrassed.
“You listen here… Going off on ‘adventures’ without planning things out is one of my least favorite occurrences, got it?”
“Seriously? I guess you’ve got the thinking of a gamer who goes ‘Now I’m fully prepared! I’ve grinded exp til I hit the level cap, I’m finally ready to get started!’, huh? Is that really any fun?”
“It doesn’t have to be fun. This is not some kind of game.” Deciding to leave Karin to continue her angry complaints by herself, I turned over to Voyager. “Listen to me, Voyager. Shinjuku is a pretty big place, so I’m going to give you a quick overview of the city.”
He nodded in agreement, giving me the O.K.
While I gave my explanation to him, we left the first platform. The station was shaped into a half-circle, which we moved along as we headed for the passageway that led to the pedestrian deck on the upper level.
The view to the outside was poor from the underground area, and after leaving it the sky became barely visible through the windows.
“To begin, the large building where we are now is called ‘Shinjuku Central Station’. This is a hub station where trains to and from Akihabara, Shibuya, Tama, and the other cities arrive and depart. From here, you can also take a tram that wraps all around Shinjuku itself like the meshwork of a net.”
Gathered in front of the transit map posted on the wall was a group of citizens, most likely those who came from other cities. Voyager floated over and took a glance at it.
After he was done we had to calm down a still-complaining Karin, and then we were able to walk our way out of the station. I had not seen Kōyō since this morning, though I knew she was probably still nearby in her Spirit Form.
“The whole of Shinjuku is a three-dimensional structure that looks sort of like the leaves on a tree as they overlap with one another. Generally it’s one town per leaf, each divided into different blocks. Here, look, you can already see it just ahead of us, right?”
“Woaaaaah…”
He had the look of someone who was absolutely inspired from seeing the Shinjuku skyline in person for the first time. He rushed out from the station building and ran forward as he leapt up to the railing at the handrail on the edge of the deck adjacent to it.
“Wah! Watch it, Voyager! Ahaha!” The pigeons in the station's square were all startled by him and flew away in unison, the tips of their feathers tickling Karin as they went by.
The scenery of this cityscape had already become familiar to me, but for the Servant from the Old World who had just been summoned here, just about everything was brand new. I stood next to him as he motionlessly gazed at it with pure concentration.
“In a large city, a single block can be several hundred meters to a kilometer squared, though some are as small as a few dozen meters squared. For address notation and for the convenience of city administration, they’re roughly divided into three layers: Upper, Middle, and Lower.”
“Buil…dings… bill…boards… neon… This is a big, big city, isn’t it? And it’s also… terribly tall. There are parts of it for the day and parts of it for the night, and all of it is overlapping… It’s so pretty. It looks like corral.”
“Like a corral? Oh, you mean it looks like coral, as in the sea creature? So that’s how you see it… I guess it could look like that.”
The only coral I knew was the fake coral from the artificial beaches. There was no way for me to know if the rough and bumpy texture or the brilliant hues of that coral were like the real thing or not.
Even so, that’s how the city looked to him.
From the deck of the city’s mid-level his blue pupils slowly scanned the scenery of the cityscape, before they swept back around to the tip of my nose.
“This is… Tsunobazu, right?”
“...Yeah, that’s right. The zone around Central Station is a block known as “Tsunohazu”. It’s the widest block here.” I stuck my index finger out in front of me and spun around on my heel like the turning of a weather vane. “On the west side you can find Kashiwagi and Yodobashi. On the south side is Junisou. To the east are Okubo and Banshū. On top of all those, you can find several other blocks snugly between, like Aizumi and Wakaba, but this should give you a rough feel for things…”
“Erice!”
“....?”
As soon as I finished speaking, he called out to me.
The boy grasped onto the railing and pushed onto his tip toes with all his might, pointing to a section of the city that commanded a view from an upper level.
“W-What is it?”
“That place over there is “Hanazono”, right? The place where… Erice was born?”
“Tch…”
The name of the block that I had purposefully left unnamed came spilling forth from his lips with a smile.
He had probably noticed that I was fully aware of that place.
Then he managed to guess what it was by comparing that awareness with the transit map of the Shinjuku area, which he must have put to memory in the brief moment he had looked at it.
“It’s so pretty, this place. The people, the greenery, it’s full of it… They’re full of life.”
“...Yep.”
As I nodded back at him begrudgingly, he gave me a smile and a giggle as if he had just found some kind of treasure.
–That’s right.
Hanazono, the “Flower Garden”, was the neighborhood where I lived with Chitose. For a brief time, my parents lived there too.
But, to me, it now looked like it was just a tiny flower bed buried in a mish-mash of junk and covered by a cloud of dust.
In this city, few Servants were materialized during the daytime, at least when compared to Akihabara.
And even when they were materialized, the Servants didn’t just laze around, but they themselves acted with purpose, and most were wearing a suit or the uniform of an office in order to support their Masters in their work.
“Do you come here often, Karin? To Shinjuku I mean.”
“Wha? Me? …Nope, I don’t come around here much. Shinjuku is a city dedicated to adults. Not really a place to play around in.”
“So that’s what you think… Though I don’t agree. I mean, it’s true that the business districts are there solely for adults, but there are plenty of museums around, and even department stores all over the place. Not to mention restaurants and the like.”
“Restaurants, eh… Now that you mention it, I have come over here for dinner with my family before. We had curry at Nakamuraya.”
“Oh?”
“It was a long time ago. Besides, you can get curry anywhere. Not really sure why we came all the way here for it… And now that we’re talking about food, I’m feelin’ pretty hungry. Let’s go eat in someplace. Ooooh! I spy a bakery with some freshly baked bread over there~!”
“We didn’t come here to play around. First of all, it’s not even time for lunch yet. Second, there’s someone here I have to go meet up with.”
“C’mooon, you got an appointment with someone? Lemme guess, Shinjuku’s City Management AI? Caren, right?”
“...You got it in one. How’d you know?”
Sometimes this girl is weirdly perceptive.
Still, I’m sure she hasn’t managed to guess the actual details of my business here.
There’s no way she knows that I’ve tried to contact Caren Himuro countless times since handing over my duties as a Nightwatch, just to be put on hold or ignored. Or about the fact that I’ve not received a proper response from her.
“I knew ‘cause my Eri-pie doesn’t have any friends! If you were going out of your way to come here for something, there’s really only one thing I could guess.”
“You were using that kind of sloppy logic?”
“You don’t… have any? Any friends…”
“Ugh…”
Voyager had looked at me with upturned eyes. A look of concern… No, his eyebrows were knit with an expression of pity.
Stop that.
Please… stop it.
“–No, I have some! I have some around here. It just so happens that... friends around my age are a species at risk of extinction. But it’s not a question of ‘how many’ or ‘how few’ when it comes to these things, right?”
TL Note: She actually specifically says 同年代は壊滅状態ってだけで in regards to the "people from my age group". TL'd more literally, that would be something like "The situation is that my generation was decimated" or something like that. I struggled with this one a bit, and decided to just make it a tl note and go less literal, simply because of the context of it, but I wanted to point out the literal translation of the line as well since I do feel it conveys something. The use of "decimate" feels like an Erice-ism, but I felt the Kanji doesn't come across the same translated.
He kept a look of doubt on his face as I finished.
Ahh, give me a break already…
“A-Anyway, Karin, that manager isn’t called “Caren”... Her distinguished name is “Himuro”, so please call her that. Though there’s no doubt about the fact that she’s a member of the Caren Series.”
“...Er, yeah, that’s true. My bad for that one— Huh? The heck’s that?”
Noticing something strange happening nearby us, Karin shifted her gaze elsewhere. I turned myself around, since it seemed like someone had called for me.
A crowd of people had gathered in front of a shop on the station street, and voices from the group drew my attention.
“ERI~!” “OUR BELOVED ERIIIIIII!!” “ERIRI’S here~!” “MISTRESS ERI!” “LADY ERI!”
(What the…?)
The high-pitched voices in my ears were filled with calls of “Eri”, which was none other than my nickname.
What is going on here?
“They said… Eri, didn’t they? Are those people over there… Your friends?”
“Huh? No they’re not… Er, I don’t think they are?”
“Wanna go check it out?”
I began to approach the store, unable to resist the charm of the cheers calling my name repeatedly.
It said “Clothing Rental Shop” on the front of the store, and it looked to be a newly redecorated store that had just opened its doors recently.
It was a relief to see that the reason for the crowding wasn’t another uproar caused by a corpse.
A group of around thirty people was crowded around the storefront, and in the dead center of it all, surrounded by a group of noisy followers, was a group of gorgeous girls giving off such an energetic aura that it brightened up the surrounding area.
It was a set of female Servants, each with heads adorned with hair as red as freshly drawn blood, and two twisted horns to match. They also had the tail of a lizard peeking out from their waists.
(What’s up with this girl–)
I suddenly recognized those distinctive characteristics of hers.
Her True Name was “Báthory Erzsébet”, also known as Elizabeth Báthory.
There was a five person line-up of her all in one place.
They were each wrapped up in retro-style costumes, which they must have just put on, considering she was originally a Hungarian Countess who had become famously known as a classic example of a ‘wicked woman’.
As for why she had manifested in the form of a young girl, the Holy Grail must have, as usual, chosen a figure from when the balance between her inhuman side and her innocence were at their peak, due to its distorted style of command.
“So, how is it? What do you think, my Little Squirrels and Piglets? Does this ‘Taisho Modern’ outfit look good on me?”
“Alright, why don’t you take as many pictures of me as your hearts can handle!” “Which of us are you looking at!?” “Take a picture of me, my Puppy!”
They wore kimono that had arrow feather patterns and a camellia motif, along with a navy blue hakama. This was one of the ‘orthodox styles’ of the female citizens of Shinjuku.
Each member of the group moved out to strike a charming pose one after the other, letting the audience capture as much footage as they wanted with their phone cameras.
“Haaah… It wasn’t ‘Eri’ they were calling… It was Eli. Like, ‘ELIzabeth’ Eli… Pretty easy to mix up…”
Voyager seemed to also recognize that the girls were all Servants as soon as we saw them.
“They all… have the same exact face? ‘Quintuplets’... I think is what you call that?”
“Not in this case. Those girls up there aren’t quintuplets, just multiple versions of the same Servant who’ve been summoned at the same time. I’ve never seen so many Servants with the same Spirit Origin in one place though.”
“Woooah… So that type of thing… is happening here?”
Each of them may have a different Class, but even so that’s still fairly rare.
The people surrounding them must be those girls’ Masters, as well as overzealous fans of Elizabeth.
The Clothing Rental Shop seemed to be a store that offered a novel service to custumers visiting Shinjuku from other parts of Mosaic City.
For human customers, they would rent out actual clothing from the early Showa period and the Taisho period. For Servant customers, an expert Magus would craft them a temporarily effective Spiritron Dress to wear as a small layer on their clothing.
For example, perhaps a small jewel imbued with magical energy would be placed on their wrist or chest, in order to keep it inconspicuous.
There were already ordinary clothing rental shops in Shinjuku that conformed to the city’s cultural standards, but the fact that this one included Servants among their customer base was an original idea.
After all, such technology was a kind of ‘hacking’ technique for Saint Graphs. In terms of Magecraft, such a thing was a very advanced technique, and in the past it would even have been illegal.
Considering the way it was being utilized so openly here, it seemed that the regulations had been relaxed.
“Oh, so it’s her! I get it now, so this is Liz’s offline meet-up. That makes way more sense~”
“You know her too, Karin? Elizabeth, I mean.”
“Yep. I see some of them around every now and then, since a few of the Liz’s live in Shibuya. They’re regulars at the Live Houses and you always see them on the electronic billboards around there. Heck, I even tried going to a live concert of theirs once, so I’ve already learned my lesson about doing that.”
“What do you mean? I think they have pretty nice voices… Anyway, those hangers-on around them must have come from Shibuya to mess around in Shinjuku too.”
Now that I’m thinking about it, Elizabeth is similar to Kōyō in a way, since both of them are reptilian creatures with big horns. Though Elizabeth seems to just have a dragon attribute, while Kijyo’s dinosaur attribute is almost her entire being.
“What a coincidence running into Lil Liz! You noticed those retro clothes too, right? They had a real ‘modern girl’ style, dontcha think? Like weren’t they WAY too cute!? And hey, ya know, ever since we got off the train, my outfit has been kinda feelin’ like it sticks out, right? That’s why I was thinking about–”
“I am NOT going to borrow an outfit. And I’m definitely not going to make such a pointless detour.”
I quickly grabbed Voyager by the hand and walked away.
If I catered to Karin’s curiosities our time wasted here would stretch out into infinity.
“Eh!? Just lemme try one on! It’s modern girl style! MODERN! GIRL!”
At the same time, the gathering of Elizabeths (and friends) began to move, and we ended up getting caught up in the middle of them. jostled and tossed about at the mercy of the crowd, until we eventually managed to hop onto a tram that had entered the square.
For the sake of meeting up with Himuro’s typically cold shoulder, we made our way to the entertainment district.
The entertainment district was a shady street located behind the kabuki theatre, marked by the dazzling glare of neon signs.
Based on the information we had gathered, we had decided that this was the location with the highest probability for us to find and catch Himuro.
(If we contacted her in advance she would just run away. That’s why I’ll come straight for her instead!)
The structures on the city’s upper level blocked the sunlight here and, though it was still the middle of the morning, the surrounding area was covered in gloom, making it feel as if the area was approaching twilight.
That feeling was one made with intent, probably because it was the most favorable mood for a place built for amusement. A space style could suck in exhausted adults with the allure of comfort both day and night.
Even I, who has had the opportunity to sneak into all sorts of off-limits places to carry out my work, hesitated to enter such a place with confidence.
For one thing, this time around I had Karin and Voyager with me. And while he may be a Servant, Voyager still had the appearance of a little boy.
The barkers who pulled people in from around the street of the entertainment district wouldn’t like it if kids like us were wandering into their work space.
This, of course, was for the obvious reasons such as “It’s bad for your education” and “We can’t guarantee your safety” but… Well, that was the official stance but, above all, anything that could remind the average person that they were being neglectful toward their family was an unwanted interruption in an adult’s playground.
Right as we were disembarking from the tram, the smell of tobacco hit my nose. Then, a powdery aroma, one that was a little sweet, the scent of white facial powder.
Next was the languid song of a chanson singer. The somewhat lonely sound of a guitar being strum. The voices of drunkards as they called out in toast, the angry voices of a fight breaking out. The sound of mahjong tiles clacking against the board.
We stuck out like a sore thumb here, and would do so regardless of whether we were wearing retro clothing or not.
In fact, we were even stopped by adults several times, who proceeded to roughly try and shoo us away from here.
But I had been born and raised in Shinjuku, so I knew how to deal with it.
If you were up against a barker, you just had to drop the name of the area’s yakuza boss to put them in their place. If your opponent was a meddling passerby, you would tell a lie that could get you enough sympathy to sidestep the encounter.
Though that kind of B.S. wouldn’t work on people who make a professional living through offering guidance to the youth. When running into one of those, all you could do was run away.
When I was being given support from the City Management AI, Caren, I could get a free pass by stating that I was a member of the Nightwatch, acting to preserve the public order of Akihabara, but I could no longer hope to have such freedoms.
….In the past I couldn’t help but wonder why such a filthy and disorderly place as this was necessary in this reconstructed Shinjuku.
However, now that I had stained my hands with the duty of killing Wayward Servants, had experienced firsthand the burning tenacity of their Masters’ desires, I finally understood how important a place like this was to adults.
I had begun to have a hazy understanding of why Chitose allowed these immoral and hollow relics of the Showa and Taishō eras to be revived via the Holy Grail in this Post-War New World.
–The only thing that could alleviate the sorrow of the people was beauty.
It took us some detours, but our group eventually ended up face to face with its destination.
Our objective was known as “Reijinza Kaikan”, or “The Belle’s Gathering Hall”-- In the Showa style of speaking, a café. In modern style… a hostess bar.
“A café?”
“A cowfee?”
Upon hearing the name of the location, Karin and Voyager tilted their heads in sync.
“If it’s a café, does that mean it’s a coffee shop? So what, they serve drinks here or somethin’?”
“This isn’t just a coffee shop, it’s a… café, as in a… Well, you’ll understand when we go inside. Wait, bringing Voyager in probably isn’t a good idea… Maybe we can have him come in Spirit Form?”
“Spirit Form…” A look of bewilderment appeared in the boy’s blue eyes. “Enter Spirit Form… Right… How do I do that? I… don’t know how to do it.”
“...Eh? You can’t do it? What!? Wait, you’re just telling a little lie, right!?”
It was certainly true that he had not once yet attempted to dematerialize his body and enter Spirit Form.
In Mosaic City there were Servants who were extremely reluctant to enter Spirit Form, but in the end they would always obey their Master’s will.
I had assumed that Voyager was a part of this group as well, and that such a thing was just in the nature of certain Servants. My thinking was that, with our contract bound by my Command Seals and our pact laid out by the Holy Grail, the situation would simply resolve itself.
To begin with, a Servant comes in the form of a Heroic Spirit– a being summoned through a ritual in which the summoner communes with the dead, the ghost of a person who properly lived out their life in a different axis of time from the one they are summoned into.
From a magical perspective, their Spirit Forms would be more like a flat, natural state of being.
Then there’s the situation in Mosaic City, where the overwhelming Magical Energy supplied by the Holy Grail allows for the manifestation and materialization of an unprecedented number of Heroic Spirits.
Like some kind of idiot, I had been so lost in the joy of Summoning my very own Servant that I had forgotten to check that he could perform such basic abilities.
In my more detective-esque activities, overlooking such a weak point would have been a fatal error.
“...Aw damn it.”
As I began to turn pale, Karin stepped in and offered a solution with a happy-go-lucky demeanor.
“What’s even the problem here? You can’t go into your Spirit Form, right Voyager? If that’s all, why not just watch how Momi does it? I’m sure she could even teach you how to do it too!”
“I… see… Miss Kōyō… could teach me…?”
That’s a good idea!
…Is what I thought for just a moment, before quickly finding my mood turning back to disappointment.
How would she even teach him how to do it?
Kōyō is a Berserker, so she can’t speak a single word.
There was no way the Mystic Code app I had installed to translate her nonverbal communications would be able to express how to go about entering Spirit Form with the same level of concrete detail as an individual with actual experience in the act explaining it would have.
And then we find the one person who can telepathically communicate with Kijyo Kōyō in Karin, someone who wouldn’t even have the Magical Knowledge OR vocabulary to explain such a concept to anyone else!
–That’s when it happened.
From a back alley nearby, an unknown person leapt from the pitch black darkness with great power.
(Karin–!)
She was on the collision course of this unknown person, but hadn’t noticed them at all.
Using the enhancements on my legs, I pushed myself in front of her to give her cover.
But even faster than I could move was the thick tail of a dinosaur that surrounded Karin and I, protecting us from the danger.
(Kōyō!)
“Woah woah woah!” The tall figure leaping towards us stumbled just before they collided with it, somehow managing to stop their movement in the nick of time.
“Wh-What the heck!? What’s the matter Momi?”
It was a brief materialization.
Leaving behind nothing but a low and menacing growl, Kōyō had disappeared again just as quickly as she had manifested.
“Sheesh, you kids really need to watch yourse– Wait, aren’t you guys…?”
Completely out of nowhere, a man we all knew had appeared on the scene.
A man with blue eyes and disheveled black hair, wearing a Hawaiian shirt that was completely out of place for the atmosphere of Shinjuku.
There was no mistaking it.
We had met this musician at the plaza in Akihabara!
“Kuchime…? That IS Kuchime, right? Well ain’t that a coincidence, ya oldie!”
In spite of Kōyō and I’s concerns, Karin’s face lit up with a sparkle.
It seemed as if we had run into him in a really REALLY bad place… the upset attitude he turned towards us with gave me that impression.
The man’s mouth twitched a bit as a wry smile appeared on his face.
“I’m no damn oldie! …Tch, so it really is you lot. My bad, but I’m in kind of a rush, so–”
“It definitely looks like it. You seem to be breathing rather hard.” I responded coldly as I confirmed that Voyager’s presence was behind me.
“Look, ditching you the other day was my bad, but I’ll make it up to you some time.”
“Hey, what’s the big rush? We just ran into each other, where the heck are you running off to?”
“No wait, I’m seriously sorry but– See ya!”
With a wave of his hand he went to take off, and as he did his neck was–
Like a snake, a red cloth that was both thin and long coiled around him with a fwish.
The man struggled against it in a desperate attempt to escape, but the cloth continued to entwine itself around his upper body, tightening itself as it went.
“--Huh? K-KUCHIME! What the hell’s going on!?”
Karin tried to help untangle him from the strange cloth, but was too weak to do so.
She was too late.
Pulled backwards away from us, Kuchime was dragged into the deep darkness of one of the back alleys nearby.
The man was like caught prey, whose fate had already been sealed. His struggle against the strength of the pull was swiftly brought to a halt.
“That cloth– It’s–!”
That linen cloth, dyed in a brilliant scarlet hue and engraved deep within my memories– retrieving that was the objective of my visit to Shinjuku.
(It’s the Holy Shroud…! That’s my teacher’s– That’s a memento from Caren!)
It was a first-class Holy Relic, a Mystic Code that targeted men in particular. Alongside the Holy Lance and the Holy Nails, it was a true model of an Artifact from the world of Magic.
After the incident at the Colosseum, Chitose had ordered it to be recovered alongside Caren’s body. The new owner was to be the one who would inherit the role of supervisor of the Caren Series, the AI Caren Himuro.
And the only thing left in my hands were my teacher’s broken glasses.
“That person… was the guitar man, right? Woah… That looked like it hurt.” Voyager seemed to have some instinctive fear toward the Holy Shroud. His alarm was vaguely expressed through his emotion.
“...Let’s go.”
The three of us moved towards the deep section of the back alley with a gulp.
After our eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, we discovered that there was someone there, as expected.
However, the person standing before us, clutching onto the end of the Holy Shroud, was not the woman we had anticipated.
“This ain’t some kinda show. Get outta here, brats.”
She dismissed us in a low, cold voice.
Dressed in a three-piece men’s business suit that fit her form perfectly was a hardened looking adult woman. If you subtracted the height of her boots, she probably wouldn’t have been much bigger than I was.
And yet, her presence came off with such intensity that I could not get such an impression from her.
In this moment it was even more impactful, her body poised like a statue of Bishamonten as he tramples evil underfoot in exorcism.
And as far as I could see, she only had one opponent.
Not Himuro, not even from the Caren Series. Who could she be?
At any rate, the woman was not a Servant. She was absolutely a human being, that much I was well aware of.
Because if she isn’t the Servant, I have to be ready for her Servant partner’s surprise attack.
Entirely oblivious to my caution, Karin rushed towards the fallen Kuchime.
“Holy CRAP this is bad! Can’t you see his eyes are turning white!? Are you okay old man!? Are you still alive, Kuchime!?”
“.....” The woman in the suit narrowed her eyes in annoyance at the one who had ignored her warnings. “I didn’t kill him. Not yet at least. I need to make him cough something up first.”
“Y-You can’t keep doing that! Look how much you’re hurting him!” As she objected, Karin pulled out her phone and began to call the authorities.
“Tch.” The woman clicked her tongue in annoyance, raising the middle and index fingers of her still-free left hand.
She made a small chopping motion, as if to cut something with them.
“Ah! What the heck did you do?” Karin looked at her phone screen in astonishment.
The emergency call she had been dialing had lost its connection, and the phone was forcibly returned to its basic screen.
“She just used Higher Communications Authority–!?”
People who possessed Higher Communications Authority were capable of secretly intercepting or jamming communications between citizens from behind the curtains. I myself had been given the opportunity to temporarily utilize the Authority as a part of my investigations in Servant-Hunting, when the need arose.
Without authorization from the City Management AI it was extremely difficult to do such a thing–
In other words, this isn’t a mere lover’s quarrel or some kind of lynching being done by a violent gang…!
Close by the side of the miserably sprawled out Kuchime, Karin’s reason seemed to dim as she raised her head towards the woman manipulating the flow of the Holy Shroud.
(Yeah, this is bad, this is really bad… is Karin planning on bringing Kōyō out here!? To think she would get THIS angry…)
“Wait– Wait a second, Karin–”
“WHY should I wait!?”
Putting my hand on Karin’s shoulder, I could feel their tension from her anger and nervousness.
“Listen to me. That man… Maybe he’s the bad guy here.”
“You think he’s WHAT!?”
I understood Karin’s confusion but…
Please don’t make me.
You absolutely cannot let me, of all people, have to hunt down a rampaging Kōyō.
“Excuse me! Are you… this city’s detective? No, that’s wrong. Are you possibly… the Nightwatch here?”
“...What’d you say?” She had a distinct reaction to the term “Nightwatch”.
(--Now I get it. It’s just like I thought.)
The woman looked behind me to where Voyager stood peering into the violent scene, before turning her gaze towards my person. For a brief moment I was certain that she was looking behind Karin as well, but I figured she was just on the lookout for any curious onlookers coming in from the main street.
“........”
She gradually nudged Kuchime over, slowly pushing down on his backside with the sole of her shoe, all while firmly keeping her eyes locked on mine. It seemed as if she was thinking things over, or simply waiting for something to happen.
A few seconds of silence and inaction passed us by.
Finally, she bluntly broke the silence while continuing to avoid answering my question.
“Hey, kid… You’re the Daughter of Utsumi, aren’t you?”
“...! How…?”
She kept going before I had the chance to calm from the shock and open my mouth for a proper response.
“You made a pretty awful mistake at the Colosseum, don’t you think? You not only failed to capture the lone suspect at the head of it all, you also allowed for countless people to become victims of said suspect, all resulting in Caren Fujimura winding up dead.”
….I was at such a loss for words that I couldn’t even attempt to say anything in response to her claims.
To my surprise, the woman seemed to know who I was, while I on the other hand had no idea what was going on.
“Hey! What the hell are you saying all of a sudden, you damn jerk!” Karin shouted out with a violent tone to her voice. “Don’t you know Eri-pie’s a victim too!? She was under suspension on the day all that happened, she just happened to be at the Colosseum! She did what she could as one person who happened to get dragged into the panic there! You think you get to complain about what she did like you’re all high and mighty!?”
“Wooow, don’t you just care about her soooo much. If no one else is willing to tell it to her, then I’ll be the one who does it. As many times as it takes. So she never pussies out from that kind of situation for the rest of her life.”
“WHAT did you say!? Don’t you DARE go making assumptions about us!”
“Karin I… it’s fine. Everything she’s saying is true…”
Even so, her blunt manner of speaking and that sharp tongue pierced right through me.
Clinging to Kuchime, Karin frantically pulled at the Holy Shroud until it was loose enough for a tiny opening to form around his mouth. With a wheeze, his labored breathing finally resumed as his body went limp.
The strength of a Middle Schooler would not have been nearly enough to loosen the binding of this Holy Shroud. The woman in control of it had to have intentionally adjusted the restraint, keeping him alive like one would a fish on the chopping board.
“--The guy here is Malenkov.” The woman told us.
“Huh? He’s… Malen… kov?”
“He calls himself ‘Akiba’s Malenkov’. He’s a street guitar player, goes from place to place in Shinjuku’s entertainment districts to perform.”
TL Note: Malenkov: Turns out, there was a fairly famous Japanese guitar player/singer named 加藤武男 who started guitar in the 1940s, and then was popular from the 50s-early 2000s, dying in 2009. His life, in my opinion, definitely inspired Kuchime's character in a few pretty obvious ways, so I recommend looking up his wikipedia (JP Wikipedia) if you're interested in that kinda thing. The name Malenkov is because people thought he looked like the Soviet politician of the same name.
“Kuchime, that’s the kind of thing you do? Wait, can you even talk right now?” Karin poked at his head.
“Hah… I-I’m fine, I’m fine. Everything’s totally not broken. HACK... Right, that’s in fact the type of thing I do. It’s a good way to earn some money ya know… When the folks around here have imbibed a bit too much, I’ll play them those dear songs from the anime they used to watch before the war, and they got locked into a trance listening to them. They get all earnest, they even start to cry. Really makes playing worthwhile, ya feel me…”
“Talking like that somehow makes you seem rather persistent… Or maybe you just have too much energy, Kuchime.”
He was in pretty terrible shape, but he didn’t seem to have any broken bones at least.
Karin seemed more or less relieved by this and no longer seemed intent on calling Kōyō forth, meaning the worst case scenario of an all-out battle had been avoided.
“Hmph. Just so you know, his REAL name is Kuchime, got it? If he’s guilty of something like doing lewd stuff in front of a kid or getting it on with one, I’ll hand him right back over. But before that, how about we start with a little bit of an interrogation?”
“...Interrogation, is it?” The woman seemed a bit hesitant about the situation.
I figured she was going to coolly dismiss Karin this time, but that didn’t actually happen.
Maybe she understood that Karin and I were involved in the incident we were talking about earlier, meaning we wouldn’t back down unless we got a good explanation as to what was going on.
She let out an exasperated sigh and began to talk.
“This guy works for me. As an informant.” She gave us a totally unexpected answer. Karin was as dumbfounded as I was. “When I talked with him for my investigation into the ‘Command Seal Hunter’ he gave me false intel. Thanks to that, Akihabara is still standing on shaky ground… Ask Himuro the rest.”
“Himuro is HERE!? Like, inside the Reijinza!?”
“Yep, she is.”
The fact that she had been entrusted with something as precious as the Holy Shroud, combined with the way she mentioned Himuro by name, made me certain that this woman was in fact a Nightwatch.
But I had absolutely no idea that this person even existed.
She may have said to ask Himuro for the rest, but there was no way she would meekly offer up that kind of insider information.
“...Are you going to do your interrogation there?”
I asked meekly, with a sense of timidness. We were calling all the questioning “interrogation”, but in this case it was really going to be a cruel form of torture, to force the person being questioned to spill the beans.
“Nah, no way. My partners’ll be here in a bit. They’ll take him in. I told you before, this ain’t some show for brats to be watching.”
It’s definitely not wrong that we are all children, but the woman’s words seemed to be dressed with a nuance towards Voyager in particular. I’d thought she had been completely disregarding us since we first showed up, but it would seem that the exact opposite was happening instead.
“It would be better… NOT to do such cruel things… right sis…?”
“....”
Voyager had said it to the woman with sadness in his voice.
He had called her ‘sis’.
That means she’s a big sister now.
Despite being the same boy who had been so detached from everything in the face of the tragedy at the Colosseum, this time he seemed to be able to sense that there was an uneasiness in the air around us.
Perhaps, ever since forming a contract with me, something had begun to change in him…?
“You know, that man makes really, really, nice music. He plays wonderful songs.” Voyager was soft-spoken, uncharacteristically elegant, as he recalled the scene in front of the station where we had watched Kuchime’s performance. “But he… His song seems a little sad too. It’s probably that he… He’s been searching for the person he TRULY wants to hear it this whole time.”
In the middle of another coughing fit Kuchime let slip a weak laugh.
“...I’ll spare his fingers and ears.” The woman said without a hint of emotion.
Such truly heartwarming kindness.
“Heh… Hey, I’m glad to hear it… Thank you kindly, kiddo.”
“Wait a sec, you stop acting like some kinda done-in yakuza right now! Are you TRYING to rush into old man mode!? It’s like you’re suddenly growing old man hair all over your body!”
“Just let it go… You’ve got no idea, ya hear me… cough”
(While I’d love to let Karin argue all she’d like for a few more minutes we…)
We didn’t have time for that.
I had to hurry up and make up my mind.
“Karin– I have a favor to ask you. A serious one.”
“Damn it, what could it be that you have to ask now?”
“I want you to take Voyager and go to the Reijinza Kaikan, ahead of me. I’ll catch up to you in a bit.”
“...You want me to WHAT?”
“You’ve been listening to everything that was just said too, right? If her suspicions of him are true, we can’t just let Kuchime go free this easily. In order to be certain about him, we have to leave things to this person– So go, and take Voyager with you.”
Karin did as I asked, keeping her head turned back towards us the whole time as she went.
With Kuchime on the floor between us, the woman and I now engaged in a one-on-one dialogue.
“You’re the Nightwatch of Shinjuku, aren’t you? And the Holy Shroud is something that you got from Himuro.”
She nodded wordlessly in response.
“--If you don’t have any other business here, just go already.”
“I still have a favor for you. Please, can I talk to this man–! Would you be willing to let me talk with Kuchime, just the two of us? Please! Even just one minute would be fine!”
“No way. Are you some kind of idiot, kid?”
“I-It’s because it’s a private matter!
“Look, I’ll give you the time, but I ain’t moving from here, and I won’t be loosening the Shroud at all.”
“....I understand.” I resigned myself from the conversation, and crouched down next to Kuchime, who was lying on his side. “Kuchime… I just want to ask you a single question. What do you think of Karin?”
With a look of feigned ignorance, Kuchime stayed in his silence and gave a slight smile.
I moved to make my intentions even more clear.
“If you’re just screwing around with her with that suggestive attitude of yours… I don’t want you to ever meet with her again. No, I won’t let you meet with her again.”
There was a short moment of reserved silence before he let out a sigh of resignation and a grumble. Just like he did that time before, his eyes turned downcast towards the ground.
“Good ol’ Karin… has a nice voice, don’t you think?”
“...Yeah.”
“The truth is I… I just want to listen to her singing voice for a little while longer. That’s all I want.”
“Is that… so.”
It was an unflashy confession, one made as an extension of our idle chatting and nothing more.
Kuchime had an attitude I couldn’t quite grasp, and yet, for some reason, it seemed as if he was saying what he truly thought just then.
If he had been using Karin to get closer to myself or Voyager, I had been thinking of how I would give him an incredibly vicious beating, so his words had let me down a little.
“That’s your minute.” The woman said with a snap of her fingers.
Without the need for any sort of enhanced hearing, we could hear the distinctive sound that comes from the brakes of a large vehicle, followed by the sounds of footsteps ringing out one after another as a specialized team of the authorities approached with their unique equipment in hand.
But there was still one more thing I needed to confirm with her, to ensure it was no mistake. Something that was extremely important to me, a personal matter regarding myself.
“Um, I have to ask–” I felt a premonition that this was a topic I should not touch upon… And yet, I also felt as though I could not help but to ask her anyway. “Earlier, when you referred to me, you called me the ‘Daughter of Utsumi’! ...People who know my personal history always, without fail, refer to me as the blood relative of Manazura Chitose, her insolent granddaughter– so why?”
As I asked, troops from the authorities clad in black surrounded Kuchime, tying him down with the latest model of restraints and loading him into a self-moving stretcher, as if he were just a piece of luggage.
The Holy Shroud, now finished with its duties here, folded itself up neatly into a compact form that easily slid into the suit breast-pocket of the woman, who was still standing in the alleyway.
“I don’t think there’s anything weird about it. It’s because you, kid, are Utsumi and Nami’s only daughter.”
“...kh…”
This person… This person knows my mother and father.
As she turned away to leave me, I desperately called out to her–
“A name! P-Please, could you tell me your name?”
“That’s not really necessary at this point. If you’re leaving the Manazura household behind, not to mention taking the liberty of abandoning your duties as a Nightwatch, our worlds no longer have reason to crossover with one another. Go live a peaceful life, as another member of the general populace.”
“No that’s…”
There were no words with which to reply.
She began to walk away, having erected a barrier of rejection towards me, before suddenly stopping in her tracks, muttering something with a grumble.
“...What…? You know that kind of thing is ridiculously meddlesome, right? …Fine, fine, I get it.”
(Who is she communicating with? It doesn’t sound like she’s talking to herself…)
…Of course not.
She had to be having a conversation with her Servant, who had never shown themself.
After a short argument, she reluctantly swung back around towards me, and said very bluntly:
“‘Makki’. That’s the name. Bye, Erice.”
“Quite so. This is goodbye, I suppose.”
In a private room within the Reijinza Kaikan, Himuro nodded her head. It was an entirely insincere gesture.
She was wearing a classical schoolgirl-style yagasuri hakama, as well as a face that was expressionless, simply unapproachable. At the same time, she also wore the same face, same voice, and same role over the Caren Series.
But despite all of that, their personalities and manners of speaking were utterly different. Strange.
I had always believed my teacher to have a touch of human kindness due to the way in which she pursued her obsessions, and just like her, Himuro’s personality being entirely mired in a coolly indifferent style of acting was, in my opinion, also very much human.
However, such a thing was the vice of humans who attempted to appraise themselves by their own standards of judgment. For her, as the human interface for the Holy Grail, such traits were not something to be admired for.
“The girl, Makki, had no intention of coming into contact with you in any way, but now that contact has been made there is nothing to be done about it.”
First, there was the Nightwatch with an intimate understanding of the underbelly of society, Makki, a person who was but a stranger to me. And now… the fact that this “cafe” and its services were directly managed by Himuro… My image of her character as the straight-laced type had been shaken.
“...Himuro, you’re not always around at this business, right?”
“Indeed, I am not. The job I do here is not full-time, though this store has its use as a place to meet with important persons for negotiations, while also acting as a lawful source of information that is both applicable and valid to utilize. When the time arises that I must leave for outside business, I entrust care of this store to the manager here.”
“Ah, so it’s that kind of thing…”
I had made my way into the “cafe” with heavy steps and a hung head, but what awaited me inside was a spectacle beyond my expectations.
The adult stylings and music. The dark brown of the mahogany furniture. The gaudy red and gold of the luxurious decor. The fragrance of the roasting coffee and the melodic flow of popular music…
Wait, this stuff is just like a normal cafe…
Instead, the problem came from Karin and Voyager, who had been guided into a semi-private room when they arrived ahead of me.
The cafe’s “waitresses”, who were dressed in aprons made in a style that blended Western and Japanese clothing together and designed to resemble the uniform of a maid, were all crowded around the young blonde boy sitting upon the sofa.
Set before him was an extra bit of service, a parfait seemingly gifted for him to eat at whatever pace he pleased. The hostesses of the cafe all gave off a sense of distance to him that said nothing but “too close” as they surrounded him, pampering away without reservation.
Out of nowhere, I heard the distant sound of voices whispering “Grim Reaper…” at me, but I pretended not to hear them.
“...What are you doing? Who do you think you are? Are you a prince now?”
“Chew, chew sluuurp …Do you know what this is, Erice? A banana… and cream and… pudding parfait. That’s what this food is. It’s super super tasty. It’s really not bad at all.”
“That is NOT the part I was talking about, okay? Do you understand?”
“It’s amazing. It has so many flavors in it. We have to do more… research on it.”
“.....”
For someone that’s usually quiet without much to say, when he DOES speak he sure likes to run his mouth.
Meanwhile, Karin was being Karin and, obviously having forgotten my earlier concerns, was having a rousing chat with the hostesses. She looked like a total regular.
It’s a matter of fact that minors are typically prohibited from entering this cafe, but Himuro had been aware of the situation at hand and chose to let them in.
Because it mainly operates during the night there are few customers during the day, causing the staff to have a lot of free time throughout the morning. It would seem the combo of the seldom seen young boy and girl arriving at the shop had resulted in them being received as welcome guests.
And, as I had expected, the hostesses here consisted not only of humans, but of Servants too.
(The gorgeous woman over there, moving so gracefully…. That’s the famous female spy, Mata Hari! To see her performing a dance on the stage here… She’s a celebrity among Heroic Spirits…! And not to mention, that dangerous looking woman with the brunette hair and a rifle at her side… is that the female sharpshooter, Annie Oakley?
This is a first… is she the actual bouncer for this store, or is she just here for show?
Wait, no, I don’t think that’s a real gun…
And even though both of them are wearing those orthodox hakama, they really do stand out…)
(Both of those Heroic Spirits were involved in showbusiness, so they should be compatible with the service industry…. I guess?)
That sense of conflict that came from the Servants in the arena, between their pride and remorse, floats through my mind once more.
However, this store is different from the hostess club “cafes” of history.
The misfortune brought by those businesses’ unstably meager wages, the type that would cause the hostesses to become reliant on providing “excess service” in order to make ends meet, had not been reproduced here. In this place, supply and demand are exchanged under proper administration, after the mutual understanding of both the customer and the storefront had been reached.
And the person in charge of this store, as of the present, was the one I was currently in the middle of confronting, Caren Himuro.
“--Indeed. The assignment of the Holy Shroud to Makki’s possession was requested by myself, and granted approval by Chitose. Therefore, Erice, your wish for said request to be overturned will, as a matter of principle, not be granted.”
“...Seems that way, huh?”
“Ever since the incident some days ago, the public has had an exponential growth within its sense of insecurity, one that must be resolved without a moment’s hesitation. This application of the Shroud was a necessary action in order to preserve public order. Please, do understand.”
“...I understand.”
I already understood all that.
I knew that it was asking too much to have Caren’s belongings given over to me.
We had gone through so much trouble just to get a meeting with Himuro that it would’ve been completely nonsensical to just give her a greeting and then be on our way back home, so I decided to make my request just in case, but in the end it was a pointless conversation.
If you are going to be the owner of it, I was wondering if somehow you might allow me to be the one to use it?
“Ever since the incident there’s been an increase in your duties as City Management that’s been keeping your hands full. You’re saying that you, personally, don’t have the resources to directly solve the issues at hand through the use of Mystic Codes, isn’t that right?”
“That is exactly right, Erice. The innumerable letters of complaint that you sent have been weighed in comparison to the demands of countless other citizens, and appropriate measures have been taken as a result.”
So they were withholding their response because it was a lower priority for them… huh?
That was absolutely a lie.
That sort of thing could have been handled in the background of this little tea time in the split of a nanosecond.
Once again, Chitose is the one who instigated this!
“...Well, I need to thank you for what you did with Miss Rurihime’s situation but…”
“It was for the best. We have been receiving regular reports from Tenman-gū’s Rurihime. Her inheritance of your duties seems to have been a favorable one. Servant Minamoto no Kurou Yoshitsune is also acclimatizing. After her training period has reached its conclusion, it is our desire that she begin activities as the Nightwatch of Akihabara.”
That was good news. There should be no problems then.
It seemed like the right time to part with the store too, as the conversation had gone over rather polite and smooth, save for the fact that the answer to all of my requests was “no”.
And right when I hoped that she would spare me another of her sarcastic quips–
“It’s regrettable, isn’t it?” Himuro muttered those few words as she took a glass of iced tea into her hands. “I had rather anticipated ‘working’ together with you, Erice.”
“Is that… How you really feel?”
“Caren Fujimura appraised you so exceedingly high you see.”
I couldn’t help but let a bitter laugh slip out.
“My teacher was always scolding me. The results of my work were never something for her to praise. Her evaluations of it were always a failing grade– or one that was could barely be called a passable score.”
For a brief moment Himuro quietly fixed her eyes on me. Even if her behavior was nothing more than a performance put on by her fine-tuned personality, just what was she thinking at a speed of thought several hundred million times faster than that of a human?
“It was a pre-established configuration, the settings for the automatic succession sequence created with concern for kernel loss, and it did not leave the memories of Caren Fujimura’s personal feelings about you within our Series’ shared domain. As such, I am certain… Caren did not wish to hand those feelings over to anyone else.”
–I bit into my lip. To not show her any unsightly tears.
Makki’s words, wedged deep within my heart, began to ache.
From there, we exchanged any unreported information relating to the incident.
From Himuro’s side came the state of affairs surrounding the authorities’ investigation, as well as the analyzed data of the city’s surveillance network. For my part, I discussed what I knew about the movement happening within the underbelly of society that I had learned from an informant I was intimately acquainted with.
The investigation had gone exactly as expected, having made little progress and had uncovered no direct leads that pointed towards the culprit.
As we parted, Himuro said:
“Oh, in the case that you are interested in working at our café as one of its ‘Waitresses’, please feel free to contact me at any time. I shall be waiting for you to do so with pleasure.”
“Look up the Labor Standards Act.”
“Oh how sudden. To think the great Utsumi Erice had such care for the law?”
I suppose this too is just a part of Himuro’s sense of humor, but I really wish she would’ve stopped holding such a serious face when she said it. It made me take the joke too seriously…
Just as we were taking our leave from the private area, a wild Karin and Voyager appeared from where they had been waiting in another room.
“Yo, Himi-pie! Gotta thank you for the waffles. They were great.”
“Thank you for the meal.”
“You seem to be in good spirits Miss Karin, and Mister Voyager as well. If you enjoyed the meal I have cause to rejoice. Miss Karin, please send my regards to your father…”
“Wah– Blech, you can cut that out. A-Anyway, did you hear what you needed to Eri-pie?”
“That’s a loaded question. Which part that I needed to hear about specifically?”
“C’mon, isn’t it super obvious? That pudding haired big sister type from earlier. Who the heck was she?”
“There was pudding…” The boy tilted his head as he repeated a sweet tasting memory to himself.
But, pudding haired… Now that she mentions it, the roots of her hair were a bit unevenly dyed, so the black had returned to contrast with the blonde a bit.
Although, I have my own Mystic Code equipped in a way where the design resembles an extension of my bangs. Could that have been a type of Mystic Code too?
Well, no, that’s beside the point:
“I can’t just ask about that sort of thing so carelessly, Karin. It’s no good to pry into the work of the Nightwatch without caution, just talking about their work is a no go and might get in the way of it. First and foremost, I’ve already–”
“I see, so you wish to know about Makki, the agent that works for me full-time. That should be just fine, no?”
“Eh? Huh? I-It’s okay? Could you really tell us?”
Karin looked to me as her face changed into one of triumph, ready to gloat.
According to Himuro, Makki did not specifically ask her to remain silent on the matter. The only condition was that we could not ask questions that related to ongoing investigations.
It was a fairly standard condition to give, but it was enough to cause Karin’s face to 180 into a look of total dissatisfaction, given that the number one item on her list of questions (and likely the one thing she was even expecting to hear about) had to do with Kuchime’s arrest.
(As for me, I can’t just leave things like this either… I’ll go through with a more thorough investigation after this is done.)
“This is a topic that even some of the hostesses here would know of, those with the most discerning of ears at least.” Himuro said as a preface to the conversation. “Since the time in which Mosaic City was being founded, Makki has been acting as an agent for Chitose, providing her with assistance. This began even before my implementation as a City Management AI.”
“The Nightwatch has existed since even before the Management AI?”
So basically, that would mean that lady… would mean that Makki is something of a senpai to me… I’m starting to understand less and less.
“In those days the title and occupation of Nightwatch did not exist, however there was the rather free role of Spellcaster.”
“Hmph. She’s older than she looks. Must’ve been rejuvenated by some eternal youth treatments. She’s really overdoing it, don’t you think?”
“Karin… That’s a bit…” (...Of a strange thing to get so stuck on.)
Sometimes the next-generation will just casually talk about other peoples’ problems regarding their age, with no real ill will behind it. Whether one looks young or old is up to the person in question’s preference.
As for the old generation, the act of falsifying one’s outward appearance was an unnatural thing, one done with a feeling of guilt, though they didn’t have those negative values in the beginning.
“Erice? Allow me to say that, in spite of your intimacy with Chitose, it is of no surprise that you would not have any knowledge of Makki, despite her being someone you could call your ‘colleague’ within the Nightwatch. She is known to frequently make expeditions to the outside of Mosaic City as experiments, staying on-site for extended periods of time in order to conduct her investigative activities. Her current homecoming only began recently.”
“Did you say outside of Mosaic City…!?”
“Wha– No way! How the heck does she do that!?”
This topic became one that I was no longer a stranger to. The simple fact alone was one worthy of admiration. Karin was amazed by this information as well.
“It is not unreasonable for you to be shocked by such a thing. Makki is possessed of the ability to evade great peril. If she was not, she would have been incapable of surviving within that place– at the site of such a fierce and bloody battle like Fuyuki.”
(----!)
The instant I heard that name made my hair stand on end with a shudder.
“...Fuyuki…? Did you say Fuyuki? As in one of the battlegrounds of the Holy Grail War th–”
“Indeed. Agent Makki numbers among the few who can call themselves a survivor of Fuyuki.” Himuro let us see a slight smile flash upon her face. It was the first time that day her lips had stopped being so stiff. It was as if she was laughing at herself for making the mistake of saying too much to me.
Just like the nod, an entirely insincere gesture.
“The experience of having been at that place would be a truly gruesome memory, one impossible to wipe away, no matter the person. The woman in question has no desire to speak of her past. And because I myself only know about such things as a result of what I heard from Caren Fujimura, I have nothing more I can say on the matter…”
What follows is an unspoken “Please, accept my utmost apologies…”.
As she concluded her speech, Himuro hung her head with grace.
After all was said and done, Shinjuku produced zero results.
We couldn’t get our hands on the ‘Holy Shroud’, and I didn’t think that the Nightwatch we met through that sudden chance encounter, Makki, was likely to become our ally. I proceeded to go around to some of the underworld’s leading figures, as well as to my informant acquaintance, to look into the ‘Command Seal Hunter’, but the harvest wasn’t particularly bountiful there either.
At a nook within Tsunohazu our party sat side by side on some concrete playground equipment to rest our feet for a short while in a small park.
“Eri-pie, aren’t you gonna head home? I mean like, to your parents’ house in Hanazono.”
“What? There’s no way I’m going back.”
“You don’t wanna go and let Grandma Chitose see your face or anything?”
“...What is this? Are you being serious?”
Karin, whether fortunately or not, had not been present at that scene.
She was not witness to the shocking moment in which Lucius turned his spear upon Voyager. When I told her about what had happened after the fact she was hardly able to believe the situation could occur.
And besides, even though Chitose tends to stay at home under normal circumstances, right now she’s likely extremely busy, so she wouldn’t even be there. All we’d find is an empty and gloomy flat with nobody inside it.
“If you’re so insistent on homecomings, wouldn’t it be good to go home yourself? To your house in Shibuya.”
“Ew, no way. They’ll totally ban me from going out again this time. I wanna see my cute little bros but I’ll just have to put up with it strong as I can~ Hang in there Karin, hang in there…”
While insisting upon this point she took Voyager firmly into her arms and started to ruffle his hair while hauling him around.
“Eriiiice….” The boy who was being jerked around gave me a look with moistened eyes that cried out he wanted it to stop.
Reluctantly, I began to reach out with him with the feeling that I had no choice but to do something about the situation, when something caught Karin’s attention.
“Hm? What’s this under your scarf… leather goggles? And if it ain’t the ones I saw in Erice’s room before. You mean to bring these with you?”
“I got them, from Erice.”
“Ooooh! Isn’t that just the coolest! They look good on ya!”
“They do… right? I’ve… been thinking so too.”
The boy’s expression did an about-face as he smiled wide with a giggle.
Seriously, what an upbeat little guy.
“Hold it a second Karin, don’t go making any suspicious moves. And that goes for you too, Voyager. I’d like to avoid getting chased around by people looking to take us into protective custody again, got it?”
…Those goggles are a memento of my father’s. Or so I was told.
An antique aviation design. He would use them when he rode around on his motorbike. I had hoped that if, by some miracle, a defective thing like myself had a Servant summoned to them, I would be able to give those goggles to that Servant.
That’s why this morning, when I finally handed them over to him as I was leaving my apartment, I was at a suitable level of emotionally moved.
Although, the size is just a bit too big for Voyager, so he has to either hang them around his neck or wear them on top of his head but… well, if the one wearing them likes them I’ve got no problems.
That person– Makki, she didn’t try to hide the fact that she was acquainted with my father. Not only that, she specifically called me by my father’s family name of Utsumi. And she even knew my mother’s name, Nami.
Grandmother, Chitose, she changed her family name back to her maiden name of Manazuru after giving birth to my father.
Was doing so a demonstration of her determination as the heiress to a Magus’ family lineage, or was it due to a more personal separation involving her family…? Whichever it was, I have no idea.
Regardless, if Chitose continues to keep her mouth as closed as it’s always been about my parents’ past, then I want to meet with Makki again.
It’s not that I want her to tell me some heartwarming story about them.
I want to hear from her what Chitose and Lucius have never told me, what my teacher wouldn’t tell me until the very end. I just want her to tell me what happened when my parents died.
And, if possible I… I want to know more about her past, the thing that Makki herself does not want to touch on. For the sake of getting closer to Fuyuki.
“Karin, and Erice… both went away from home, so that makes you the same as me. Right?” Voyager said with a look of self-satisfaction.
“Hehe, runaways is it? Well, if Voyager is saying so too. Er, that is what he’s saying, right? Eri-pie?”
“Hmmm, running away from home and… Voyager’s exploration as a space probe? I wonder if those are really the same thing…?”
A number of days or weeks from home, to which you can return anytime, is incredibly different from a more than likely permanent trip. No, I think what Voyager wants to say is–
“...But in the end, you know what we’re doing? We’re just running here and there around Mosaic City, blocked up by Bounded Fields so we can’t even get out far enough to run away from home.”
(So that’s how Karin feels…)
She gave a lonely laugh at her own words, and it felt like the weight of reality had finally fallen onto me.
How could we do something like set our sites for Fuyuki?
The voice of self-depreciation had been ringing within my heart the entire time, telling me I was being nothing but an enormous fool. Even though I already knew all of that, I had started walking.
It was at that point that Voyager gently shook his head.
“This is just a swing-by.”
“...A swing-by?”
A very abrupt choice to use a space term. I believe it’s also called a fly-by.
“Yep. You know, at first, you have to go here and there around the closer stars. But, before long you go higher and higher, reach a lot deeper, the whole time getting further and further away until—” He stood in place and pointed straight at the sky. “You go. And we’ll go too.”
Neither Karin or myself had the words to reply, instead looking at his fingertips. The tip of a small and all too fragile finger points the way.
The Command Seals on my left hand began to dully ache.
He told me he had forgotten something.
He said the thing that was forgotten was my wish.
He said we were going to destroy this world. But, this world has been destroyed enough already.
(Ahh… This is… the Wish of Ruin… the bloody revolution my master dreamt of… the very thing that is the black dog’s seduction.)
If I could return to the Holy Grail everything that had spilled forth unto the earth I would undoubtedly reduce all of my loved ones, I would reduce my beloved homeland, I would reduce everything to ashes, and I would make an enemy of the World itself.
It would not bring back that which I have mourned.
Karin, who usually acted without restraint or any fear of causing trouble for others, had been acting completely docile today.
Despite the fact that I had made up my mind to go to Fuyuki, my dejected attitude had caused us to stumble from the start, until even she was discouraged by it.
As I was starting to suspect that was the case, I suddenly reconsidered what the reason could be.
(Ah, no, I’ve got it all wrong… can’t be due to my attitude, since it definitely has to be because of the stuff with Kuchime. That’s probably it…)
If falling in love was starting to weigh so heavily on her mind, then I can say I’m growing less and less interested in the situation.
I walked around the city with Karin and Voyager, riding as passengers on the trams from one spot to another, but the city was perfectly calm and peaceful. If I were to sense the presence of a strong murderous intent or the feeling of death itself my Dread Spirits would have an immediate response, but there was nothing of the sort.
I suppose that means it’s just a matter of course that Himuro would be dedicating the majority of her resources to the restoration of the city while the city’s investigators and their Servants were positioned around and taking the utmost precautions.
(Phew… getting myself so worked up about this won’t be changing things for the better…)
I relaxed my shoulders and let out a disappointed sigh.
“Hey, Karin? How about we head over to a fruit parlor? There’s a huge store in front of Central Station, right? It’ll be my treat.”
“For real? Alright, Madame Eri-pie’s come out! Such a rare sight, ya feel me? Is it seriously okay for you to treat?”
“It’s not that rare. No, actually, it’s not even rare at all. I couldn’t even tell you what percentage of the wages I receive are marked as ‘eaten up by Karin’. Besides I… want to go ahead and rethink my plans from here. It shouldn’t be anything unnatural for a couple of Junior High School girls to go to a place like that, right?”
“Probs. I’ve never really been to a place like a fruit parlor, so…”
“Yeah. I haven’t been either. But don’t you think Voyager would like it? And with any luck Kōyō will be allowed to enter the store as well.”
And so we made our way back towards the station, entering into the fruit parlor attached to the same building as a huge greengrocer. We could smell the delicious aroma coming from the shop as soon as we reached the storefront.
“A flute parser?”
“You don’t know what a fruit parlor is, do you? It’s an English word though? Er, wait, maybe it’s actually Wasei Eigo? In any case, it’s a fruit-based dessert shop. And you’ve been eating nothing but snacks since this morning…”
Just as expected, the spacious seating area was filled with women, as the male Servants who were present had read the room and made their physical forms disappear. There were also families, their children included, so our group didn’t feel out of place being accompanied by Voyager.
To be honest, I’m really not good at going to places like this. I don’t even like tropical fruits, but it’s not bad to know that there are still such friendly and peaceful places around to experience.
(Be that as it may… there’s still the usual initiation processes for a place like this…)
Some of the Servants who were more well-informed, enough that they seemed to know my face, did not disguise their disgust as they gazed at me, though keeping their stares hidden from their Masters. A bad omen had appeared, and it was a question of what in the world it had come here for.
We had unconsciously made our way to the back-end of the restaurant in order to get away from the bustling crowd, and there, at the table across from ours, a pair of eye-catching female Servants sat facing one another in the midst of conversation.
“Ain’t that Circe? No way, it’s totally her right?” Karin had recognized her right away. It was the woman who ran the live-broadcast at the Colosseum and the self-proclaimed Great Witch.
(Circe… she who lived on the island Ææa in Greek mythology, and an exceedingly dangerous witch...)
Her legend is especially famous for the episode in which she turned a group of sailors into pigs, but the true threat comes from the knowledge she possesses– Her ability to manipulate and transform both matter and life, as well as the arts she uses to do so at will is power nearing the realm of True Magic. I couldn’t tell you why they were selling her as some kind of groundbreakingly happy-go-lucky type character at the Colosseum….
And yet, that girl was not the slightest bit different from the image I had of her at that time, currently utterly immersed in her conversation as she rambled on and on. In contrast to her boisterous energy, her companion’s reactions were rather weak, offering only slight nods in reply.
Said companion was wearing a dark colored robe like a haori, with the hood hung low over her eyes. A Servant from Greece or related to the general Mediterranean Sea, the same as Circe… at least that’s what I was thinking, but she also had a peculiar atmosphere that made it so I could not say with certainty that’s all there was to her.
(An unknown female Servant… and one who’s totally unbothered in the face of that witch… who could it be…?)
I leaned forward a bit in my chair to try and get a peek.
A ceramic-like pale complexion with a melancholy tone to it, alongside long unkempt wavy hair. She has a bigger stature than Circe’s, though still fairly petite in size nevertheless. The embroidery on her robe seems to be geometrical patterns, but they aren’t something I’m familiar with so I can’t identify a particular cultural sphere from which they originate.
(...Agh, I shouldn’t have done that.)
Before I’d even noticed she was staring right back. Peeking out from deep in the dark shading under her hood, a sharp pair of amber eyes was watching.
I had a hunch that she was offended by my prying eyes… or possibly even a Servant with knowledge of my unfavorable reputation, but that wasn’t the case. The woman’s gaze was focused upon the one sitting next to me with eyes sparkling at the sight of his grape parfait, Voyager.
After a bit Circe seemed to finally notice the situation, stopping her one-sided conversation and swinging around towards us.
“--Are you listening to a word I’m saying? Hm? Did you find a dessert that really catches your eye? You can order whatever you want, you’re treating us both after all, so… Hey, wait a sec, where are you going!?”
Without paying any mind to Circe’s displeasure the woman made a start from her chair and moved to standing in front of our table instead.
A suspicion-filled Karin’s words rang out “Something wicked this way comes…”
And, like a specimen in a museum, Voyager is examined with careful deliberation.
An unknown presence, one that creates a hanging atmosphere that contains both the feelings of awe in which a Heroic Spirit is naturally clad alongside a chilled fighting spirit different from the rest, and it causes me to feel a crawling under my skin. A bizarre sense of perfectly clear reasoning coexisting with confused, chaotic passion, the two sides not melting into one another.
(What in the world… is this the feeling of pure, distilled intimidation? Is this… the Majesty of a King…?)
Within the past memories of Servants with whom I had crossed paths, that sensation seemed to be the closest one I could recall. Without even thinking, my body leaned forward as if to provide cover for Voyager, who was staring with a puzzled look.
With no regard for my movements, her mouth opened.
“--You. You are, if my estimations ring true… You are the Servant Summoned twelve days ago, called in the middle of the night at Akihabara. That was you… am I correct?” She asked in a detached voice that gently flowed, one faintly tinged with passion.
“Mhm. That’s right– at Erice’s call, I forged a contract.” Voyager replied frankly and without any hesitation.
This is just an ordinary exchange, so why did it make my chest tighten?
“Very well, then you shall become the final Servant– whether you aspire to such a thing, whether you do not aspire to such a thing.”
“The final Servant… is me, is it?”
“...Mm.”
At the end of that exchange the girl, with a sudden sense of self, seemed to realize what she had just done out of nowhere. She saw Voyager staring back at her as he marveled, as well as the dumbfounded amazement of Karin and I which had entered into her field of vision.
In that moment she hid her blushing cheeks, pulling her hood forward and shrinking into herself.
—The girl’s name was Euclides.
She had been introduced to us specifically as “‘Euclides’ of Alexandria” by Circe.
It was the name of a celebrated mathematician and astronomer from the cultural sphere of BC era Greece. In English, the name is read as “Euclid” which, for the record, has become synonymous with Geometry itself. I think that if you were to list out the wise men who laid the foundations of our knowledge in ancient times, you could list Plato as a philosopher and Archimedes as a scientific engineer, you could then list Euclides among the mathematicians and not one person would be foolish enough to object.
It was rare enough to find a Servant who was a pure, genuine mathematician without any relation to tactics or strategy, but above all–
(A Foreigner Class Servant! As far as I know, she’s the only one in Mosaic City. And, once again, she’s a girl…)
There were few Foreigner Class Servants, and they were avoided as symbols of disaster that brought enormous suffering upon friend and foe alike in the last war. And Euclides, who was supposed to be a man as recorded in our history, is in fact a woman. Even that sort of discovery was buried in the midst of various other surprises.
After an invitation from Circe, now with spirits high, we ended up sitting alongside her.
“Naturally, rumors of the ‘Grim Reaper’ going around hunting Servants down have reached my ears, but to think it’d be a girl like yourself. Well, no need to worry here, I’m totally harmless to both humans and animals, got it?”
“Who I hunt is… it’s all depending on the orders of the Master.”
Keeping my guard up I gave a cautious answer that caused Circe to respond with a “Seems I got that right, hm?” and a wry laugh. The massive order of desserts she called for were lined up on our table, steadily coming one by one.
“Come on, it’s okay to go and eat as many of the dishes as you’d like, got it? Today is Euclides’ treat after all!”
“Ooh, double lucky! Wait don’t tell me, the commentator job you were working the other day– you decide to drop out all of a sudden or somethin’ like that?” Inquires Karin.
“Yep! That’s just the thing! And I took the chance to call up this hiki homebody here on my way to Shinjuku.”
“I… had a book I wanted to read. Though it is certainly true that there was something we needed to have a consultation about…”
Euclides had been entirely unaware of the Grim Reaper side of me. And yet, somehow, what she did know about was Voyager’s existence.
“When you call him ‘The Final Servant’, what does that mean…?” Wanting to know the true meaning behind her prophetic words from earlier, I forge straight ahead and ask her about it.
“Your group is… You are middle school students, are you not? What happened to school? I don’t find skipping to be praiseworthy.”
Upon being called out straight to our faces, both Karin and I cringe with a jolt before shrugging our shoulders. At the same time, in comes Voyager with a far too candid follow-up. I mean seriously, he really held nothing back.
“Erice, she, you know, really hates school.”
No way, I don’t hate studying and stuff at all.
But it was too late, the woman’s eyebrows had furrowed and she had drawn away from us in shock. Her lips were trembling.
“So that’s how it is…? That sort of thing is… Not very Euclidean of you…”
I thought I was about to get reprimanded by some stranger in a place like this, but instead the reverse came true as the girl suddenly became crestfallen and dropped into a depression. Not only that, she was even timidly pushing strawberries around with her fork.
“Ooooi! Won’t you come on back to us, Eucie!? I’m talking to YOU Euclides! You’re not feeling like this is your fault, are you? The education system has totally sunk to terrible lows though, right!?”
Circe gleefully cheers her on as if this were someone else’s problem.
One way or another, Euclides ends up regaining her composure and turning to face Voyager.
“Your True Name is ‘Voyager’, is it not? Allow me to give a tentative self-introduction of my own–” With her hood down Euclides reveals to us a clear view of her self, one that has the appearance of a young lady while still giving off an exceedingly mature look. Her physique is fairly slim and her eyes contain an expression of wickedness, giving the impression that she is in a horrendous mood at all hours on the clock. “I am Euclides. A Servant that descends from beyond, a Foreigner. There is a library in Tama at which I have taken to occupying the role of custodian, on occasion. I wonder if you’ve heard of it, perhaps? ‘Alexandria’. While, yes, the name of my old home, that name has also been taken by the largest library in Mosaic City. It is there that I help to edit teaching materials and textbooks, while also providing consultation services to the patrons welcomed within our halls.”
“I see… In regards to the library, I think I know it. The building with the statue of the King of Conquerors, Iskandar, right? And what of the Masters of both of you, where are they today?”
“He is an elementary school teacher. As such, he has to teach classes. That is why during the day we usually conduct our movement separately, doing various things. Today, since I secured his permission, he gave me the ability to come this far alone with Independent Action.”
That would mean they were consuming some percentage of their Command Spells in order to move about in remote locations.
Tama is a residential district that carries the left-over atmosphere of a Pre-War commuter town, a vast town rich with nature, abundant with average citizens and students. On the other hand Circe, whose homebase should be in Akihabara, says:
“A shop owner– My Master came here to Shinjuku with me, got it? Isn’t that a bit of a separate matter?”
With that simple explanation given she urges Euclides to continue, and in response The Great Mathematician munches on a half of a strawberry before swallowing it down and continuing the conversation.
“Some days ago, I was approached by medical personnel, an obstetrician, seeking a consultation with me. In recent days there has been a series of cases in which newborn babies born within Mosaic City have had the Servant that was supposed to be Summoned alongside their birth, for some reason, fail to materialize.”
“...So that’s it. Well then, I understand. Since the time of Mosaic City’s establishment, such medical cases have had a certain rate of occurring. However, you’re talking about how there has been a rapid increase in the last few weeks. It’s not become a major problem yet, but from a statistical standpoint the situation is an abnormality. There’s also–” I already had an idea of where this conversation was leading us. That is because, since the very beginning of my work as a Nightwatch I… I personally have been nothing less than a person of interest in this incident. “Not a single instance has been reported– of a return from Servant Loss.”
“...Mhm.” She nodded, her gloomy face dulling as it shadowed even deeper. “Circe and I have been researching the source of the matter. We have yet to reach any conclusions though… That’s right… you all were at that place too. Within the Colosseum.”
“Erice, you have to explain to me now.” Voyager says urgently.
Karin as well seemed to have figured out the severity of the ongoing situation, holding the tip of her finger to her mouth in quiet contemplation. I’d come all this way just to take a chance to relax, I can’t believe it turned to this sort of conversation.
“...I’m sorry. I’ve interrupted your story.”
“You seem to be rather knowledgeable. It’s fine. You exposit the details to him.”
“Right– Listen well, Voyager. Servant Loss is, quite literally, the loss of one’s Servant. In the incident at the Colosseum there were countless Masters who lost their Servants. There was an unusually massive amount of Servant Loss that occurred.”
“....That’s right. Lots of people… died.”
“Yeah… But you know what? If you’re inside this Mosaic City, a Servant will be Summoned again. Though it’s unlikely that an identical Servant to the one from before will be Re-Summoned. But even so a Servant will be Summoned again. The period of time for the Re-Summoning is different from person to person too. For some people it happens the very next day, for others not until after an entire year.
–And for some people, it finally happens after fourteen years.
Circe took over the explanation from there.
“...So, I even personally investigated things using my tournament connections, and you know what? In the whooole time following the incident, not a single case of a Re-Summoning has been reported. That means those guys’ Loss Status is continuing even as we speak.”
“That’s… weird, isn’t it?”
“Mhm. Weird indeed.” Euclides adds. “First of all, in terms of statistical probability based on population size, it is simply not possible. If we are to additionally take into account the circumstances surrounding the newborns, the situation could only mean one thing– To make plain what I mean, starting from some fixed point in time Servants are no longer able to be Summoned within this Mosaic City. Such a line of thinking is merely natural.”
“...And that’s why… I’m the final one?”
(Voyager, the Final Servant…?)
The “twelve days ago” Euclides mentioned must reference the night in which I battled Kundry to a crushing defeat, the night when Voyager materialized before me. It was unthinkable that in that time, with hundreds of thousands of citizens in Mosaic City, not a single Servant had been Summoned. And there was still something I was questioning.
“--The fact that he and I had signed a contract. Did you know about it?”
When I direct the question towards Circe, the Falcon Witch responds by curtly shaking her head and pointing at the gloomy mathematician sitting at her side.
“It was my intuition. Merely intuition. I thought that you, the Servant from that problem, I thought, that was you, right? Aggh– no, I don’t wanna… That’s… so non-Euclidean… Iäiä… vulgtmm… vugtlagln…”
Seemingly unable to consent to her own actions, the girl suddenly buried her head in her hands and brought it down onto the table in prostration while grumbling and muttering strange phrases.
“What, this again? Teehee, come ooon, intuition is really important ya know! Not to mention you, boy, I know just how special you are ya hear me? I don’t sense any magical power belonging to one of the known Classes coming from you. And the Foreigner is a pretty special class itself. Don’t you think that maybe there’s something that draws you two together as fellow non-standards of the Holy Grail War?
“That must be it! Great work always comes from a witch, right!?”
“I am THE Great Witch, you know? Alright come on, go on and praise me more!”
Karin nods with admiration and Circe breaks into a broad smile. She has a point and yet I feel like…
I feel like we’re being pushed around by the witch’s sophistry
In any case, even the Heroic Spirit of a mathematician is still a Servant in the end, still a Magical existence; and as such they are not an existence unrelated to thoughts outside those of logic and reason.
“Right, right! And while we’re at it, how about this Great Witch bestows upon that young Servant a brand new Class name– I’ve decided! ‘Voyager’! How’s that!?”
“...That’s good. Really good. Thank you.” Voyager says so with a smile.
“Don’t mention it! Ehehe!”
“No, that’s the EXACT same isn’t it?” I had a premonition that if this were left unchecked it would continue to derail things infinitely. I turned to Euclides, who was hanging her head with teary eyes. “Did you report this information? Miss Euclides?”
“I did. I reported it to the City Management AI of Tama, Caren Gotou, as well as to the City Management AI of Shinjuku, Caren Himuro to be doubly safe. Because it’s so important. Because it’s an anomaly happening throughout the entirety of Mosaic City.”
“Right… got it. Thanks for that.”
Although, Himuro had nothing to say about such an abnormal disaster when we spoke.
It has not yet reached the point of actual harm, after all. If she was intentionally withholding information, it instead makes me understand just how real the severity of the situation is.
As I am now, even with the information I wouldn’t be able to take the first step towards a method of dealing with the matter.
Seeing that there were now few customers within the store, Karin took the chance to call for Kōyō, but she did not materialize.
Karin had even specifically told the customers in our surrounding area “In a sec something big’s gonna materialize, sorry for the bother” to get their consent set for Kōyō’s appearance, and yet she still did not show her form. It would have been nice if even just the tip of her snout appeared to get a taste of some of the fruit but, nothing.
The conversation flowed back towards the topic of Masters, causing Circe to beam with pride as she spoke.
“My Master is a particularly skilled chef, you know? The chain known as ‘Kykeon Stock Ææa’? That’s our chain of stores. As of now, my Master is the owner. I’m the co-proprietor. You can find one anywhere in Mosaic City! Teehee! In Akihabara we even had TWO stores, ‘Kykeon Stock Akihabara’ and ‘Kykeon Stock Colosseum’, but well… it’s unfortunate, but the Colosseum seems to have been closed indefinitely, yeah? Therefore, it has been our decision to reassign the staff. And as such, today we’re here to inspect this block’s location, ‘Kykeon Stock Tsunohazu’.”
…Now I understand. That means she likely chose this famous fruit parlor as their meeting place so she could study and observe one of their rival stores. I had been thinking she was just a witch that only cared for lazing about and indulging in pleasure, but in reality she’s rather business minded.
The witch, who had spoken everything all at once, suddenly changed, her face abruptly turning to a more gloomfilled one. She still wore a smile on her face, though she looked at me with a tinge of loneliness.
“You said your name is Utsumi Erice, correct? Let me thank you. You fought for us. Risked your life to save the audience gathered at the Colosseum.”
“I… I didn’t do anything a person should want to praise me for. During that incident, I failed. Not a single thing went well.”
I am the Grim Reaper– and completing the duties of the Grim Reaper is something done without the praise or admiration of others. But even so, Circe never ceased her gentle smile.
It was as if she was looking at an unworthy disciple, a smile filled with understanding, acceptance, and affection.
“Nono, look here– I couldn’t do a damn thing, you know? I was only trying to get my own Master out of that hellish place, and that alone took everything I had.”
“An admirable thing to do.”
“Errgh, I wonder about that… I know I didn’t do super good at it…” She leans back in her chair while deprecating herself. She fiddles with her, which is done in a Taisho style allowing two braids to hang in front of her chest. The gesture of a maiden. “You know, my Master has been waiting this whole time. She parted with her beloved during the Pre-War period, but she still carries the belief he’ll come home to her. That’s why she’s been waiting the whooole time for the day he will finally arrive in Mosaic City, waiting a whole fourteen years.”
“A Holy Grail War Refugee… I presume?”
She nods with an “mhm”.
Those who lived in the neighborhoods of the metropolis in the Pre-War times are not the only peoples among the citizens of Mosaic City.
The number of refugees who had been forced to roam the lands in order to avoid both the catastrophes brought on by the World Holy Grail War and the natural disasters that occurred was not a small one, and those who wandered were eventually welcomed into Mosaic City in the Post-War period. At the misfortune of those refugees, Mosaic City eventually ceased to accept such peoples. Mosaic City hardly receives refugees these days, save for in exceedingly rare cases like that of the ‘Wandering Jew’.
“And so that girl goes all over the city: every day, every week, every month, all in search of her lover. I even tried to tell her that, should a visitor come from outside of the city, the Caren Series could surely tell her about them. But she just wouldn’t listen to me, you know? And now we’ve started this expanding chain of stores to see if they could help in her search, even if just a little bit.”
“So that’s what that stuff is… I really figured it was just one of your hobbies.”
“Hmm? Naturally, it’s a hobby too!”
Without any hesitation the witch replies to Karin, her demeanor changing to one that’s both bright and carefree, before humming out the tune from the Kykeon Shop commercials.
“--Hmm, I see, so your little group is planning to go to Fuyuki is it?”
We made the decision to share our goal with Circe, a choice we did not make lightly, and yet even so Circe’s reaction was one that seemed to readily accept it. Euclides remained with nothing to say on the matter.
Were they underestimating the reality of how impossible it is to get there? Or perhaps, as would befit a Servant of Mosaic City, they were fundamentally uninterested in a future that was unlikely to cross paths with that of their Masters’?
“Voyager, a little guy like you is a ship that can conquer the sea of the stars, aren’t you?”
“Yep. I’m… a ship.” He puffs his chest with pride.
Now that he’s wearing those goggles he looks more like a little pilot than a ship.
Voyager, Pioneer, Challenger, Enterprise– These machines that set their sights towards the universe are a mish-mash of aluminum alloys and electronic equipment, entrusted with the indomitable spirit of adventure by humanity and the descendants of the seafaring vessels from the Age of Exploration.
“--Very well, then you are fit for the task. As a show of thanks for the work you did with your captain in the Colosseum, I shall bestow upon you a piece of advice! It’s the least I could do, really. Normally when you beg a witch for advice you must pay their price with your very life but… You have already paid that price, Grim Reaper.”
“Add vice? Oh, you mean a hint, right?”
“That’s just the thing, little Voyager!”
“...Thank you very much, Circe the Witch.”
“THE GREAT Witch!”
I thought it would be best to respectfully accept her favor.
Among the Servants in Mosaic City, there are those who feel ashamed of the fact that they cannot use their power as they wish due to the limited Magical Energy they receive as a result of their Summoning here.
Be that as it may, the wisdom of the witch gifted to the valorous Odysseus upon his departure from Ææa has the same merit as the myth itself.
–And, in conclusion, we heard some momentous things from Circe the Witch.
While it was not something directly connected to Fuyuki, it was still a conversation with relation to our enemy. I was certain I’d be citing what we heard again to Voyager and Karin, who had yet to fully digest the contents of the conversation.
As we made our departure from the fruit parlor the witch tossed a harmless question my way.
“Oh Erice, by the by? Did the person who named you happen to be someone fluent in the Greek language?”
“...Eh? Not that I’m aware. If I had to say, they probably had more of a preference for French literature.”
Who exactly the person that named me was is something that I could not say for certain. Even so, at the time I answered as if I knew. In my parents’ home there were quite a few Western books that had been left behind by my father. In addition to books written in English, there were a lot of different books written in French as well. Among the French literature was The Little Prince by Exupéry.
“Ah, I see. That’s alright then.”
“...Is there something you noticed?”
I had no choice but to go along with the conversation. I hadn’t planned on doing so, but I had become acutely aware of a curiosity welling in my heart.
“Oh, it’s nothing all that important but– Well, the sound of the word ‘Erice’ brings to mind the land of the dead in which heroes spend their afterlife. In Japanese they call it ‘Eriyusion’, but if you wanted to call it by its proper name you would say ‘Elysium’. I just find it a little ironic that you, with a name like that, are the ‘Grim Reaper’ of this city.”
“...It is a common name.” At this point, Euclides hesitantly added her voice to the conversation. “...In the French language ‘Élysée’ carries the meaning of ‘Elysium’. The famous avenue in France is known as ‘Champs-Élysées’, is it not? And the ‘Jardin des Champs-Élysées’ is the paradise to which the spirits of those slain in war return after passing through the Arc de Triomphe. If you want the details, ask Bonaparte about it.”
“And that is the wisdom of a bookworm. You even know a lot about stuff outside your area of expertise, don’t you now? Don’t you think you should ask to be the commentator next time when the Tournament reopens?
“Bwegh… That wouldn’t be very Euclidean…”
A smiling Circe giggles with a ‘Teehee!’ before adding a conclusion to the conversation.
“In Fuyuki that girl was… I heard that Medea had been summoned there. Well, I’m sure she’s already long dead or returned to the Throne of Heroes, right? But if you DO see her, be sure to give her my best regards.”
…I will. Even if that person were to be an enemy of mine.
Because it’s so frustrating when you can’t see the people you want to see. Because it becomes too much to bear.
