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Prologue.
Zod... He had no surname. The boy was simply called Zod.05.
Born in a test tube and raised within the sterile confines of a laboratory, he was a specimen. He was an existence brought forth from an artificial womb without parents, intentionally created by the United States government's psychic development project. From the moment of his birth, he was granted nothing more than an identification code: Zod.05, signifying that he was the fifth subject of the codename 'Zod.'
From his very first breath, he was hailed as a masterpiece.
Unlike the four preceding test subjects, he was treated as a perfect success.
A mighty physique that bullets could not pierce; speed capable of breaking the sound barrier; the ability of flight; thermal rays of immense heat erupting from his eyes; a superhuman strength that could lift hundreds of tons; super-vision and super-hearing; a sensitive sixth sense and X-ray vision.... He was treated as a flawless superhuman, distinct from the failures who came before. While the researchers rejoiced in their success, they simultaneously trembled in fear at the chillingly perfect power he possessed.
A boy with flowing golden hair and azure eyes deeper than aquamarine... His handsome, adorable face, touched with a certain cuteness, was of the sort that would trigger protective instincts in any woman and cause them to fall in love instantly.
However, there was one thing they did not know... This boy was malevolent.
Born of artificial insemination in a cold, rigid test tube rather than the warm womb of a mother, he was a frozen specimen who had never received love or warmth. As if to prove this, the boy was utterly wicked.
He was precocious from a young age. Sensing the extent of his own power and his current standing by eavesdropping on the conversations of the scientists, he maintained a low profile. He chose to cooperate docilely with their experiments to lower their guard. He even manipulated the female researchers with his charming face to secure various favors and conveniences, ensuring he lacked for nothing.
However, the boy soon decided he wanted to go outside.
Rather than living within the cold, rigid laboratory that felt like a bunker, addressed by a non-name like Zod.05, he wanted to see the warm sunlight he had only ever observed through audiovisual materials.
".......Shall I leave?"
His voice was dry and cold, yet it overflowed with the confidence of one who could effortlessly walk out of this prison-like laboratory and facility whenever he pleased.
The boy proceeded to crumple the sixty-centimeter-thick steel laboratory door as if it were a sheet of paper. As he stepped out into the hallway where researchers were busily moving about, everyone seemed to freeze in an instant.
After all, unlike the previous test subjects, he had never been rebellious; he had always been obedient and complied with every experiment. Consequently, they had not prepared any special restraints or countermeasures against him.
That... That moment of negligence invited an immense catastrophe—a tragedy.
*Bzzzzzzzt... BOOM!!*
Powerful heat vision instantly bisected the researchers' bodies, sweeping through and obliterating the laboratory.
Some researcher must have pressed the emergency button; sirens wailed alongside a broadcast announcing the specimen's escape. Armed forces were deployed, but they could not stop the boy.
Using his heat vision and superhuman strength, he literally tore the troops apart while destroying every corner of the research facility.
"Ah... blood splattered on me. How filthy..."
With a dry and calm demeanor, his only concern was the blood on his skin. He paid no mind to the special forces operative dying in his grasp with a hole through his stomach; the boy simply grabbed the man's spine, ripped it out, and tossed it aside. He then casually wiped his hands on the dead man's clothes.
".....Hmm..... Is everyone dead?"
Having been engrossed in the slaughter, there were no survivors left... Only the crimson emergency lights flickering before his eyes and the noisy sirens ringing irritably in his ears.
"Hmm....."
As he looked around the research facility, the boy discovered some documents. From those records, he realized that this laboratory was not merely a facility for creating superhumans or enhanced humans.
The documents, handed over by remnants of the Nazis as part of a negotiation, contained information on the Third Holy Grail War, along with details regarding Magecraft, Magi, the Clock Tower, the Holy Grail, the Holy Grail War, and Servants.
The boy read through them intently.
A normal person raised with the common sense of this world would have dismissed such a report as absurd, ridiculous, or the delusions of a third-rate novelist or a madman. However, for a boy who lacked the standard common sense of the outside world, this story was undoubtedly an intriguing subject.
Even at his young age, the boy was capable of a rational deduction: if an organization was researching products of Mystery—things considered fictional in this world—and recording them in reports at a facility like this, it could not be entirely a delusion.
Thus, the boy burned the documents.
He had already memorized the contents. There was no benefit to more people knowing this information, so he burned the papers without hesitation. Then, using the blood of those he had killed, he drew a summoning circle.
Even as he drew the circle with the blood of the slaughtered rather than his own, a faint smile played on the boy's lips.
If the contents of these documents truly held reality, then for the first time in his life, he would gain a 'friend'—no, a toy.
Therefore, the boy completed the summoning circle and began to recite the incantation.
Fill, fill, fill, fill, fill.
Repeat five times. But when each is filled, destroy it.
Set black and star as the material. Chaos and the Archduke of Contracts as the foundation. The nameless chaos as our great ancestor. Let a wall rise against the descending wind. Let the four gates close,
Exit from the Crown and follow the three-forked road leading to the Kingdom.
I announce.
Your body shall be under me, my fate shall be with your sword.
If you abide by this will and this reason in accordance with the Holy Grail, then answer.
An oath shall be made here.
I am the one who attains all eternal evil, I am the one who suppresses all eternal good.
You are the Seven Heavens clad in the three great words of power,
Come forth from the circle of restraint, O Guardian of the Scales!
He recited the summoning incantation exactly as it was written—an arrangement of the Tohsaka family's ritual used by the Nazis and the Japanese army to summon the Avenger class. Soon, a murky, dark light erupted, and two women stepped out from the summoning circle.
"Servant... Saber. I have answered your summons to participate in this war. Are you the one who is my Master?"
"Servant, Avenger. I have answered your call... What is with that face? Here, the contract."
A female knight in black armor with platinum-blonde hair and golden eyes, and another woman in similar black armor with silver-white hair, golden eyes, and a dragon's crest... As the two women stepped forward, the boy felt a monstrous possessiveness stir within him for the first time in his life, a desire to own them.