The night when Leo resolved the knot in his heart with Medea, even the air at Ryuudou Temple seemed extraordinarily peaceful.
The trust between us, like a mystic code personally tempered by an Age of Gods magician, became stronger and purer after experiencing the flames of suspicion and the cooling of honesty.
The next day, the entire Ryuudou Temple came alive.
With Leo's approval, Medea made this place her true workshop.
Countless invisible magical circuits, like an intricate spider web, rapidly spread from her guest room to every corner of the temple.
The originally sparse magical energy in the air began to gather and condense at an astonishing rate. The wooden beams, ancient stone steps, and even the mountain vegetation seemed infused with souls, emitting a faint glow.
The methods of an Age of Gods magician far exceeded what modern magi could imagine. In just one day, this ancient temple had been transformed into a veritable mountain fortress. Its defensive capabilities could probably withstand a frontal assault from a small army.
While inspecting the workshop arrangements, Leo gazed at the magical traps appearing and disappearing in the mountain forest, and a vague fragment from his memories as an FGO player suddenly flashed through his mind.
"Speaking of which, Medea," Leo mentioned seemingly casually, "wouldn't a deep mountain ancient temple like this, connected to ley lines, be easy for things like... insects and such familiars to infiltrate from underground?"
Leo only vaguely remembered that in some storyline, the old monster the players jokingly called "Worm Grandpa"—Zouken Matou—seemed to have caused huge trouble for Ryuudou Temple with his disgusting insect swarm.
Although he couldn't remember the specific details, it was better to take precautions.
"Insects?" Medea heard this, her beautiful brows slightly furrowing, a trace of obvious disgust flashing in her violet eyes.
As a great magician from the Age of Divine Authority, she felt instinctive contempt and revulsion toward Zouken Matou's insect magecraft that twisted life and desecrated souls.
"Master, your reminder is very timely."
She nodded, her expression becoming serious, "Although modern magi's methods are mostly crude, that kind of thing's stealth and infiltration capabilities indeed cannot be underestimated."
"Please wait a moment, I'll confirm."
She closed her eyes, her slender fingers tracing a graceful arc in the air. Vast magical energy spread outward with her as the center, like an invisible giant net instantly covering the entire mountain and probing into the depths of the ley lines.
A few seconds later, she suddenly opened her eyes, her face becoming quite ugly.
"...As expected... a group of sneaky, disgusting little things are lurking near the ley line node at the foot of the mountain."
Medea's voice turned cold, "It seems an old worm has been eyeing our feng shui treasure for a long time."
Leo's reminder was confirmed, thoroughly enraging this proud witch.
She couldn't tolerate her workshop, her "temple," being coveted by such filthy things.
"Since I've discovered them, don't think any will remain!"
Medea became serious. She flew back to the center of the workshop and, using the entire Ryuudou Temple's ley lines as an energy source, launched a "extinction" level purification ritual.
Powerful Age of Gods magecraft transformed into invisible shockwaves, repeatedly sweeping through the underground depths.
Those Crest Worms formed of magical energy, upon touching this pure and ancient power, melted like snow exposed to scorching sun—silently decomposing and evaporating without leaving a trace.
After cleaning out all insect familiars within a ten-mile radius of Ryuudou Temple, Medea still wasn't satisfied. She additionally set up a powerful expulsion barrier specifically targeting insect magecraft.
This barrier completely sealed off the underground of Ryuudou Temple. Forget insects—not even a fly could infiltrate from underground anymore.
Thus, Zouken Matou's vaunted insect sea tactics were thoroughly declared bankrupt before even being deployed against us.
With our base solid as a fortress and Sasaki Kojirou, a top-tier swordsman, guarding the gate, we could finally take the initiative with peace of mind.
That night, the darkness was deep.
Leo and Medea quietly left Ryuudou Temple.
Their primary target was precisely the sinister and cunning culprit who, in his vague memories, caused everyone tremendous trouble in the HF route—Zouken Matou.
Leo planned to invade the Matou household tonight and completely erase this troublesome old monster from the Holy Grail War's chessboard.
However, at the same time Leo and Medea's figures disappeared onto the night road toward Shinto, an irreversible butterfly effect caused by his charm was quietly unfolding on the campus of Homurahara Academy.
Homurahara Academy, deep into the night, the campus was silent.
Emiya Shirou, who had stayed late to clean, was dragging his weary body and preparing to lock the main teaching building door before heading home.
However, the harsh metallic clashing sounds from the sports field, along with two blurry figures moving too fast for the naked eye to catch, made him stop in his tracks.
A hallucination?
No, those clear weapon collision sounds, those scattered sparks—everything told him an extraordinary battle was taking place before his eyes.
A figure in blue tights wielding a red magic spear was fiercely battling another white-haired figure in a red coat wielding twin blades, fighting a mythological-level battle.
Emiya Shirou was stunned, completely unable to comprehend what was happening before him.
But soon, he wouldn't have time to understand.
The red-cloaked figure flickered and vanished, while the blue-clothed man wielding the magic spear turned his cold gaze toward the only witness in this direction of the teaching building.
"Ugh, what rotten luck. A normal person saw me."
Kū Chulin irritably scratched his hair, then his eyes became sharp as a spear tip. "Sorry about this, buddy. Since you've seen this, I can't let you live."
The next second, his figure vanished from where he stood.
Emiya Shirou's mind erupted with alarm bells, an unprecedented sense of crisis gripping his heart. Without hesitation, he spun around and sprinted deeper into the teaching building.
A one-sided chase began.
Corridors, stairs, classrooms... Emiya Shirou exhausted every ounce of his strength, pushing his years of physical training to its absolute limit.
Yet the gap between him and the monster behind him was the distance between humanity and legend.
Boom!
At a corner in the hallway, he was knocked to the ground by a tremendous force.
Before he could react, the cold, sharp spear tip was already pressed against his chest.
"This is the end," Kū Chulin's voice was devoid of emotion.
"Why...?" Emiya Shirou asked with difficulty.
"Holy Grail War rules—witnesses must be eliminated." Lancer answered tersely, then without hesitation, thrust the magic spear forward.
Squelch!
The crimson magic spear easily pierced through Emiya Shirou's heart, and blood instantly stained his school uniform.
The intense pain darkened his vision, and his consciousness began to rapidly slip away.
'Am I... dying...?'
'Like this... without understanding anything...'
His body collapsed onto the cold ground, his life's breath fading like a candle in the wind.
Just then, hurried footsteps echoed.
Rin Tohsaka's figure appeared at the end of the corridor. She had sensed the intense magical fluctuations in the school and rushed to investigate, only to witness Kū Chulin withdrawing his spear and her schoolmate—Emiya Shirou—lying in a pool of blood.
"Lancer!" she called out sharply, her heart sinking.
Kū Chulin glanced at her and shrugged. "Just cleaning up a witness, Miss. Nothing serious."
With that, his figure spiritualized and vanished into the air.
Rin Tohsaka hurried to Emiya Shirou's side, looking at the fatal wound on his chest and his rapidly unfocusing pupils, her expression becoming incredibly complex.
Her hand unconsciously touched the warm ruby pendant on her chest.
It was her father's keepsake, a trump card accumulated over ten years of magical energy, her most precious talisman.
Using it would pull this dying boy back from the brink of death.
'Should I save him?'
The thought flashed through her mind.
He was innocent, just an unfortunate ordinary person caught up in a magician's war.
By both emotion and reason, she should extend a helping hand.
But...
Another figure, unbidden, surfaced in her mind.
That figure who stood before the Ryūdō Temple gate, smiled gently at her, made a "seven-day promise"—beautiful as a god.
—Leo.
This name, like a brand, was deeply carved into her soul.
Everything she was doing now was to end this tedious war as quickly as possible, then go to his side.
And this gem on her chest was her most important trump card.
If she used it here... what if, what if Leo encountered danger later? Wouldn't she lose a trump card that could help him?
Exhaust her most precious treasure for an almost-unknown schoolmate?
Or... preserve it, for that person she was willing to give everything to pursue?
On the two ends of the scale, one held a stranger's life, the other held her beloved's uncertain future.
In an emotional world twisted by enchantment, the answer to this choice appeared almost instantly.
A flash of painful struggle crossed Rin Tohsaka's face, but was quickly replaced by icy resolve.
Her hand holding the pendant slowly loosened...
She bent down and whispered by Emiya Shirou's already-unfocusing ear, in a voice only the two could hear:
"...I'm sorry, Emiya."
With that, she stood up, took one last look at the dying boy, then turned and walked away without looking back.
Her footsteps were firm and swift, as if trying to completely sever herself from the life behind her.
In the corridor, only Emiya Shirou remained.
His final consciousness lingered on Rin Tohsaka's cold apology and her resolute departing figure.
He never waited for the red gem that would save his life.
He never waited for the summoning ceremony of fate.
He didn't even wait for his own Command Spells to appear on his hand.
In this cruel drama called the "Fifth Holy Grail War," the boy who should have been the protagonist never even got to speak a single line before, like a butterfly's wings fluttering from afar, the curtain of the story had yet to rise when he had already exited, prematurely and completely...
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