Chapter 5: My First Servant
The world shifts.
It isn't like teleportation. It's like deconstruction.
Riya's body is torn from one layer of reality and slammed into another, hurled across timelines like a stone through a mirror. The world reforms around him with a jarring thud.
He crashes through a rotted door into a forgotten workshop—once a sanctum for ritual, now decaying under time and silence.
His back slams against a dust-covered table, knocking over brittle books and blackened candles. Everything here smells of ash and failure.
He coughs, pushes himself up slowly, and looks around. Circles carved into the floor have long since faded, etched by someone with a sure hand and a desperate heart. Shelves of relics line the walls—cracked, rusted, or drained of magical value.
Footsteps echo from a side corridor. Riya turns sharply, mana sparking faintly in his palm. But it's only an old man—withered, bent-backed, dressed in layered robes, his face like parchment stretched across bone.
He stops short when he sees Riya.
"You're not Sisigou," the man says flatly.
"No," Riya answers, steadying his breath. "But I'm here now. That's going to have to be enough."
The old man stares for a long moment, eyes flickering with arcane instinct. He doesn't ask questions. He doesn't need to.
Instead, he crosses the room and retrieves something from a locked chest behind a workbench. When he sets it down on the table, the relic seems to warp the air around it.
A fragment of black steel. Jagged. Singing with spiritual weight. It's cold, but alive—like a dormant predator.
"A piece of a cursed blade," the old man says. "Refused all attempts at use until now. Maybe it was waiting for someone like you."
"Go summon. And summon well. You don't get a second chance."
Night falls quickly over the countryside.
Before Riya stepped into this new world, Zelretch had told him something importent.
"You'll need to summon a Servant," Zelretch had said, leaning forward.
"But it's not as simple as reciting some chant and hoping for the best. You're bound by fate now, and the Grail will respond to that."
Riya had furrowed his brow. "So, what do I do?"
Zelretch's voice grew serious, the weight of his words sinking in. "Use a catalyst—anything that ties the Servant to the world you want them from. I have a friend that chould help you with that. Then, you need to channel your mana through the summoning circle, binding them to your will. But don't think of it as just a ritual. It's a contract. You're offering your soul as the anchor, your resolve as the tether."
He handed Riya a slip of parchment.
"Here's the chant. Speak it clearly, and the Grail will answer, though I can't promise it'll give you what you expect."
Riya took the parchment, his fingers tightening around it. "And if it's not what I want?"
Zelretch smirked. "That's the price of this war. You may summon who you need, not who you want."
Stars bleed into the sky as Riya kneels within the ritual circle. He's redrawn it with chalk, blood, and mana-infused dust. The lines glow softly in the dark.
The relic sits in the center. Waiting.
Riya closes his eyes and begins the chant.
"Let silver and steel be the essence…"
The circle flares. Mana churns, drawn from deep within him—too deep. He can feel the other Saint Graphs shifting in his core, sealed but watching.
"Let the four cardinal gates close, let the three-forked road from the crown reach the kingdom…"
The relic trembles now, vibrating with an invisible tension. The ground quakes. Light gathers in a pillar that shoots into the clouds above.
The world feels like it's screaming.
Then—
A figure steps from the flames.
Not radiant. Not divine.
But sharp.
A lean, weathered man with red hair and calloused hands. His eyes burn with cold intelligence. His kimono is sleeveless, revealing arms scarred from years of forging, fighting, surviving. A sword rests at his side—but he is the true weapon.
Senji Muramasa.
He surveys the scene quietly before his gaze locks onto Riya.
"That shard," he says. "It's a piece of me. Of my legend."
He takes a step closer, and the air hums as if metal and spirit are being drawn together.
Muramasa narrows his eyes. "You're... not normal."
Riya meets his gaze. "I'm something else."
Muramasa tilts his head. "Unfortunate—for the world. And for you."
Riya doesn't flinch. "Will you fight for me?"
The question hangs in the air, charged.
Muramasa studies him for a long moment, then offers a single nod. Not reverent. Not subservient. Just... accepting.
"I'll fight," he says. "But not for a wish. I forge paths, not dreams. If you want loyalty—earn it."
"Fair enough," Riya mutters.
They don't shake hands. They don't exchange names again. But something settles between them. An unspoken agreement. The kind warriors make on the edge of war.
Elsewhere
At the castle of Yggdmillennia, the summoning chambers blaze with activity. Masters chant. Circles flare. One by one, Servants begin to emerge.
The Berserker emerges as a battle-worn warrior with a predator's grin—Beowulf, wild-eyed and ready for blood.
Cloaked in starlight, silent, ancient.
Hassan of the Shining Star has arrived.
Back in the Forest
Riya and Muramasa leave the workshop before dawn, traveling deeper into the wilds where they won't be immediately detected.
They don't talk much. There's no need yet.
But as they set up a small fire, the silence begins to fill with unspoken questions.
Muramasa watches Riya for a while, then says, "You'll have to fight like a Servant. Not just command one."
"I know," Riya replies. "And trust me I will."
They sit quietly beneath the stars—two men caught in the middle of a war neither of them asked to fight.
And yet, they're both exactly where they need to be.