Chapter 33: No Need to Search, They’ve Been Here All Along

Power is never without its source.

The Holy Grail, the legendary omnipotent wish-granting machine, does not derive its wish-fulfilling strength from thin air. When a Servant, an embodied Heroic Spirit, dies, their soul returns to the Grail. Only a Grail that has absorbed all such mana can truly be called a wish-granting device.

As of now, two Servants have made their exit. Their mana has nourished the Grail, but it is still far from enough.

…

Night had fallen. Inside the Fuyuki Church, Risei Kotomine paced back and forth anxiously.

As the supervisor of the war, he understood exactly what was unfolding. However, since the previous night, his ally Tokiomi Tohsaka had cut off almost all contact. His son, Kirei Kotomine, who had originally been apprenticed to Tokiomi and moved into the Tohsaka manor to devise strategies, had now been sent back.

The once unbreakable alliance had abruptly splintered following the death of Tokiomi's Servant, Archer.

"Kirei," Risei called out.

From the shadows of the church, Kirei Kotomine emerged. "I am here," he said in a low voice.

"What is your assessment of the current situation?" Risei asked his son.

"Well..." Kirei pondered for a moment.

One of his "eyes," one of the Assassin's personalities, Hassan, had been pulled into a Reality Marble and crushed by Shendu at the very beginning. His mentor, Tokiomi Tohsaka, refused to elaborate further. He had simply broken off the alliance in desolation; the only scrap of intel he provided was that Caster was formidable, and Caster's Master was even stronger.

Like Risei, Kirei currently knew the result, but not the process.

"Tokiomi has abandoned our alliance, but do not forget, Kirei, you are still a participant," Risei stated.

Kirei immediately grasped his father's implication. He responded with visible trepidation, "Hassan is not suited for frontal combat. Furthermore, though we haven't seen the Master act, Caster is incredibly powerful..."

"Kirei, the Holy Grail War is not a game of one-on-one. Neither the magus families nor we of the Holy Church will allow the Grail to fall into the hands of an outsider from who-knows-where."

He muttered, "Saber and Rider have not been eliminated, and Berserker is still on the field. The war is not over. You should know more about those other Masters than I do."

Kirei nodded and analyzed them one by one. "Kiritsugu Emiya is a formidable man, unscrupulous yet meticulous. His Servant, Saber, is even more powerful. Rider is Alexander the Great, who conquered lands across Europe, Asia, and Africa; he possesses immense strength. As for his Master, Waver, he is merely an inexperienced student. But Berserker... I know very little about him."

Risei looked at his son with satisfaction and waved a hand. "Berserker's Master is the lad from the Matou family. Before the war even started, his mana was substandard; he only forcibly boosted it using Crest Worms. Just keep an eye on Berserker himself."

"Oh, and!" he suddenly added. "Lancer has been eliminated. His Master, Kayneth El-Melloi Archibald, is preparing to leave Fuyuki."

"He gave up quite decisively," Risei mused.

Because he hadn't personally witnessed the battle with Lancer, he couldn't determine the full extent of the enemy's power. "Is there any word from Hassan?" he asked.

Kirei shook his head helplessly. This was a grievance he couldn't even voice. His Servant Hassan's concealment and stealth abilities were exceptional, yet they were completely useless against Zoran's eyes. It had happened multiple times. Hassan would barely begin to approach before being crushed by an invisible force from a great distance. If they kept testing him like this, the "Hundred Faces" would be slaughtered to the last man.

"Perhaps we can try to let Saber and Rider exhaust themselves against Caster first, and then you can seize the Grail at the end," Risei suggested, his words striking a final tone.

"Father..." Kirei hesitated.

"Kirei, there is an ancient proverb: 'When the snipe and the clam grapple, the fisherman profits.' The Holy Grail is of paramount importance. I hope you understand my meaning," Risei sighed. "Send Hassan out. Continue to act as our eyes."

"Yes."

Kirei nodded, and a Hassan manifested from the church's shadows. "Aside from Caster and his Master, continue monitoring the other participants," he commanded.

Hassan nodded and moved toward the door.

"If you can observe Caster from a distance, do not miss the opportunity," Kirei murmured to himself, lost in thought. "I wonder where Caster is now..."

At that moment, Hassan suddenly froze at the doorway.

Seeing Hassan's motionless form, a look of confusion crossed Kirei's face. Just as he was about to speak, Hassan's head turned with the mechanical stiffness of a clock hand.

He spoke: "I don't think we need to look for Caster..."

"What do you mean?" Risei asked, perplexed.

Hassan pointed toward the entrance, his voice trembling with horror. "He is already here."

"Impossible! The area outside the church is blanketed with familiars. He couldn't have arrived without us noticing—"

Kirei looked out the window, and his next sentence died in his throat.

Outside the church lay a forest. Looking up, every inch of available space was packed with the silent, masked ninjas of the Shadowkhan. They were on the ground, on the branches, dense and motionless, as if they had dissolved into the air and merged with the pitch-black night.

As far as the eye could see, thousands upon thousands of ninjas stood shoulder-to-shoulder, as quiet and still as statues. The sight was enough to make one's skin crawl.

Kirei rushed forward, scanning the surroundings. The Shadowkhan was like a wall of living shadow, encircling the Fuyuki Church so tightly that not even a breeze could pass through.

"When did this happen... Hassan didn't detect a thing..." His pupils contracted in shock.

With a heavy thud, Risei Kotomine collapsed backward, slumped on the floor. Every wrinkle on his face was quivering. "No... impossible... there must be at least ten thousand of them. I've never heard of a Servant in history with such summoning capacity!"

In the face of such numbers, even the "Hundred Faces" they were so proud of were utterly insignificant.

"Can we break out?" Risei asked, his voice shaking.

Kirei shook his head, a trace of bitterness appearing on his face. He knew this was Caster's ability; the Hassan assigned to monitor them that night had been killed in exactly this fashion. But he never imagined there were this many.

With this kind of volume, they weren't just laying siege to a church, this was enough to fight a full-scale war in the ancient world.

The night wind grew stagnant, blocked by the wall of black shadows. Tens of thousands of ninjas from the Shadowkhan surrounded the church in silence, like lifeless mannequins, appearing only to be waiting for a single command.

When had they appeared? No one knew. But one thing was certain: this was a dead end, with no path to heaven and no gate to the earth.

"What... are they waiting for...?" a trembling question whispered from inside the church.

The hands of the clock ticked softly, slowly closing in on midnight.