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For context: Hassan-i-Sabbah — the Old Man of the Mountain — was not a single person but a lineage. The title passed through generations of the Assassin cult's leaders, each one erasing their individual identity completely upon taking the name. Eighteen generations in total.
Max had not included all eighteen. The Holy Grail War's Assassin pool contained four: Hundred Faces Hassan, Cursed Arm Hassan, Serenity Hassan, and Starlight Hassan, with small-chance bonus results for rarer variants. The probability distribution was what it was. Alex had drawn Serenity on a standard pull, which was not the worst possible outcome from a raw stat perspective.
What it required was knowing what you had summoned.
Alex had not known what he had summoned.
He had walked into her arms with Emiya Kiritsugu's "family-ending face" — that was the chat's term for the haggard, thousand-yard-stare appearance that the character model carried, the face of someone who had made too many decisions — and had been flushed and embarrassed and had immediately tried to touch her back.
Serenity Hassan's assassination method was, historically, a honey trap. Inviting targets into intimacy. Skin contact, fluid exchange, anything of that nature. Immediate and untreatable poisoning. Her actual face, behind the skull mask, was striking enough that this method had worked consistently across her career.
Her wish was the simplest thing imaginable: she wanted someone to hold her without dying.
Alex had given her that, for approximately three seconds, and then he had died.
The debate in the chat about whether this constituted a good death or a preventable death or both had been running since the replay ended and showed no sign of concluding.
[Chat]: he died doing what he loved
[Counter]: he died because he skipped the tutorial
[Third_Option]: both. simultaneously. the same energy.
[Serenity_Sympathy]: she looked so surprised when he walked toward her. she'd never had that before.
[Also_Sympathy]: and the one person who ran toward her—
[Moving_On]: let's not finish that thought.
[Too_Late]: already finished it. already sad.
[Practical]: note for anyone queuing co-op mode: read character descriptions. specifically Serenity Hassan. before any physical contact.
[Counter_Note]: I read it. I would still have walked toward her.
[More_Counter]: same. Alex's death was not in vain. it inspired understanding.
Maverick had the VR helmet off and was sitting in his chair at 6:45 AM, looking at his monitor, looking at the number on it.
11,000,000.
He took off his glasses. Polished them. Put them back on. The number was still there.
[Chat]: what are you looking at. have you never seen 11 million people before.
[Chat]: be more energetic, you're embarrassing us
[Chat]: MAVERICK you thick-browed honest-faced man did you actually win
He had actually won. Six deaths, multiple near-eliminations, one Servant, no strategy going in, and an alliance he'd formed mostly because A-bro had been standing in front of him at the right moment.
The Shark Platform sidebar was full of unread messages. Sponsorship inquiries, probably. Partnership requests. The platform's official account had sent something. He'd look at those later.
Right now he looked at the chat.
[Donation]: ["MaverickLovesLotusRootCrystal" sent 10 rockets! Message: "KING MAVERICK!!!"]
[Thanking]: Thank you to the Lotus Root Crystal boss—
[Energy_Comment]: you already pulled an all-nighter. sleeping now is only for people who haven't contributed to society.
[Counter]: don't kill him. he's the best stream I have.
[Five_Computer_Person]: I watched five simultaneous co-op streams tonight. Maverick's was the most entertaining by a significant margin.
[Worshipping_That_Person]: five computers. big boss. please accept my respect.
[Asking_To_Continue]: keep going, keep going. queue another round. you're already up, you're not tired, and the Holy Grail War is right there—
Maverick was, he noted, not tired. He should have been tired. Eight-plus hours in a haptic feedback VR system, sustained adrenaline from start to finish, an all-nighter with no particular plan for sleep. His body should have had opinions about this.
It didn't. It felt like the best gaming session of his life and he wanted to play again.
This was, he suspected, intentional on Max's part.
He looked at the match queue. 11 million people watching. A game that had gone from four hundred thousand to eleven million viewers in a single session and was still climbing. His face on the Shark Platform homepage.
His body not being tired despite eight hours of continuous haptic feedback immersion.
Max had thought of everything.
[Chat]: COME ON
[Chat]: QUEUE IT
[Chat]: QUEUE THE NEXT ROUND
Maverick cracked his knuckles.
"Alright," he said. "Let's keep playing."
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