The night wind blew coldly across the pier filled with stacks of shipping containers. In the middle of that steel cargo labyrinth, an extraordinary battle was taking place. A female knight stood tall holding a sword cloaked in an invisible whirlwind. Before her, a gallant man stood ready with dual spears—one short and the other long.
They fought fiercely, the clash of weapons echoing in the night air. Suddenly, the man retreated. He dropped his short spear to the ground, and slowly the bandage sealing the long spear began to unravel, revealing a blood-red sharp blade.
"As ordered, I will begin to eliminate you," said the spearman in a cold tone. His eyes stared sharply at the whirlwind in his opponent's hand. "Saber... are you going to keep using that wind magic to hide your sword?"
Saber remained silent, but her stance remained firm and unshakable.
"I see," Lancer smirked faintly. "So you have your own reasons why the form of that sword must be hidden."
The female knight replied without fear, "Too bad, Lancer. You won't be able to figure out my true identity just through my sword."
Without warning, Lancer dashed forward with incredible speed to cut their conversation short.
CLANG!
A deafening clash of metal exploded in the air. When the red spear clashed with Saber's weapon, an anomaly occurred. The tip of Lancer's spear instantly tore through and neutralized the wind magic wrapping it. In an instant, the true form of Saber's golden holy sword was clearly visible.
Surprised but remaining focused, Saber swiftly dodged Lancer's follow-up slash and parried his attack. Now, without any more illusions covering it, the flashes of the golden sword and the red spear continued to clash fiercely, creating a dance of death that grew increasingly heated upon the pier.
As the fierce battle continued, a teenager landed silently on top of a cargo stack not far from the arena. He smiled faintly, staring at the scene below him with eyes full of interest.
"Heh~ so it's you two... this might be what they call destiny," he muttered softly. His gaze fixed on Saber, then shifted to the white-haired, ruby-eyed woman taking shelter behind the knight.
The teenager sat and observed. From above, he saw Saber take the initiative and lunge forward with her sword. However, Lancer calmly received the attack using his red spear.
Seeing the maneuver, the teenager clicked his tongue. "What a fool. Taking that spear attack with pure magical armor is a fatal mistake. Well, it's to be expected though... she doesn't know Lancer's true identity yet."
Right after those words were spoken, the tip of Lancer's red spear pierced Saber's magical armor as if piercing paper, tearing through her defense and inflicting a long gash on the knight's body.
"What did I tell you," the teenager smirked. "In front of that magic-severing spear, you might as well be naked."
From his perch, he listened faintly to the conversation between Lancer and Saber. Provoked by the situation, Saber then made a drastic decision to release the rest of her magical armor to increase her agility.
Seeing that, the teenager could only shake his head slowly. "Wow, this king is truly reckless. She has completely fallen into Lancer's trap."
Down below, Lancer and Saber took their stances once again, gathering their strength and preparing to clash in a deadly attack.
"Oh, I can't let this continue," the teenager muttered. The smirk on his face vanished, replaced by a serious expression. "I still want to face them later in their prime condition."
Right after he made up his mind, a glow of light began to appear from under his clothes. Intricate, neon-glowing lines—Magic Circuits—activated simultaneously. A dense and powerful flow of prana instantly flared up, wrapping around both of his arms and legs, preparing to intervene in the night of the battle.
Right after the circuits lit up, the atmosphere around the pier seemed to freeze. The Magi hiding in the dark of the night widened their eyes, their breath caught not only because of the sudden appearance of the foreign power, but because of the mana density that exploded abruptly. The energy released was so massive and dense, as if the entire magic reserves of a large city were compressed into a single human point.
Saber and Lancer, who were closest to the center of the pressure, felt the hairs on the back of their necks stand up. This feeling was no longer like facing a fellow knight, but rather like the emergence of an ancient monster that suddenly awoke beside them—an apex predator staring at them with bloodlust. Both of them fell silent instantly, their muscles tensing in a defensive reflex.
Irisviel, who was standing behind Saber, almost fell to her knees as she felt the wave of power that felt hot and heavy sweep across her skin.
Even from a distance, through their mental connection, the voices of their Masters echoed with panic in the minds of both Servants.
"Lancer!"
"Saber!"
BOOM!
Without warning, an explosion struck right in the middle of them. Saber, sensing the danger, immediately manifested her magical armor again in a flash, while Lancer raised both of his spears in a perfect defensive stance. Dust and steam billowed, covering the figure who had just landed with immense force.
Whoosh!
A shadow dashed at a speed that almost exceeded the limits of a Servant's sight. The shadow moved straight towards Lancer. With sharp combat instincts, Lancer saw a hand thrusting rapidly towards his face. Sensing the threat, the spear knight leaped backward as fast as lightning. In a desperate reflex motion, he managed to slash his yellow spear, Gae Buidhe, toward the wrist that was attacking him.
Lancer landed quite far away, his breath ragged—something that rarely happened to a knight of his caliber. For the first time in this war, he felt real terror, as if he had just been attacked by a monster in human form. He stood leaning against a cargo container, his eyes staring sharply at the dust cloud.
"Who are you?!" shouted Lancer with a slightly trembling voice. "How dare you interfere in this sacred duel... are you a Servant?!"
Slowly the dust cloud thinned, revealing the intruder's back. The man turned out to be just a teenager with pitch-black hair, wearing white casual clothes that did not reflect the aura of an ancient knight at all. The teenager turned his body slowly, carving a relaxed smile on his face.
"Hahaha... me? How should I say this..." he chuckled softly. "You can feel it yourselves, right? I'm clearly not a Servant."
Lancer stared sharply, his brow furrowed in full vigilance. On the other hand, Saber, who was standing not far behind the teenager, froze instead. Her grip on her holy sword loosened, her gaze blank as if in a daze. Noticing that reaction, the teenager turned his head back.
"Hi, Artoria. How have you been?" he greeted in an overly casual tone.
Hearing her true name mentioned just like that, Artoria flinched. Her eyes widened. Deep within her soul, her dragon instincts resonated intensely.
She could feel something incredibly familiar radiating from both the youth's physical body and soul—something that felt absolutely identical to hers. The magical core emitted such a strong aura of kin, making the Knight King's chest feel tight with a confusing overflow of emotions.
"Y-you... who are you really?!" Artoria's voice sounded slightly shaky. "Why do you... possess that too?!"
Meanwhile, in a blind spot far from the battle arena, Artoria's true Master widened his eyes. His heart raced when he heard his Servant's True Name exposed so easily.
"Artoria, fall back now!" he ordered sternly through the Master-Servant telepathy.
However, nothing. Artoria completely ignored the order. Their mental connection felt blocked, as if drowned out by the resonance emitted by the mysterious teenager.
"Damn it! What is actually going on?!" the man cursed.
Losing control of the situation, he immediately raised his right hand, preparing to sacrifice a Command Spell to forcefully summon Saber. However, right before his mind could execute the spell, his body suddenly froze.
Something metallic and incredibly cold pressed tightly against the nape of his neck. As an assassin who lived in the underworld, he was too familiar with this deadly sensation. An unknown person had just pointed a gun barrel right at the back of his head, followed by a voice that broke the silence of the night...
"Quiet. Stay down, don't move, and raise both of your hands," whispered the cold, hoarse voice.
Hearing the sudden instruction, Saber's Master—Kiritsugu Emiya—reflexively prepared to activate his magic circuits to manipulate time and launch a lightning-fast counterattack. But, the next sentence from the figure behind him instantly froze the blood in his veins.
"I've already planted a bomb right near Irisviel von Einzbern. And my partner... is currently watching the Einzbern Castle in Germany."
Hearing that deadly threat, Kiritsugu had no other choice. He slowly prepared to raise both of his hands. However, his instincts as a hitman were still at work; stealthily, his index finger tried to reach for the communication device on his collar to send a warning.
Empty. The device was gone.
Clack.
A small object was tossed and fell with a soft thud right beside Kiritsugu. It was his communication device. Kiritsugu remained stiffly silent, his pupils shrinking.
Who exactly was this person behind him? He had chosen this vantage point with a high level of caution and calculation. It was impossible for anyone to track or predict his presence here...
...unless that person possessed the exact same tactical mindset as him and knew everything inside his head.
Meanwhile, back at the pier area.
Artoria knelt on one knee, panting heavily to catch her breath, which felt so heavy. Behind her, Irisviel's face turned pale. She kept trying to channel healing magic into Artoria's body, but her efforts yielded absolutely no results.
"Irisviel... please, use your magic to heal me," Artoria groaned, clutching her chest that felt like it was going to explode due to the turbulent resonance.
"I've been doing that, Saber! But the magic isn't working at all!" Irisviel replied in a panicked tone. She didn't understand that what Artoria was experiencing was not a physical wound that could be healed by magic, but rather an overreaction of the Dragon Core within her soul responding to the presence of kin nearby.
On the other hand, similar tension also struck Lancer's faction. Through the Master-Servant telepathy link, Kayneth El-Melloi Archibald contacted his Servant with a voice trembling from both shock and anger. As a genius elite magus, he could sense the extraordinary anomaly from the teenage intruder.
"Lancer! Do you know who he is?!" Kayneth demanded from a distance. "This magical power pressure is highly unnatural! The quantity and quality of his mana even exceed that of Servants!"
"Forgive me, Master. I do not know his identity either," Lancer replied through inward telepathy.
The dual-wielding knight's attention then shifted to the teenage intruder's hand. Blood was still dripping from the slash wound he had inflicted earlier.
"Kid, whoever you are, that wound of yours is already very severe," Lancer reprimanded in a warning tone. "I hate to say this, but you will bleed to death if you don't amputate that hand immediately."
Before Lancer could finish his sentence, an anomaly occurred. The air above the teenager's head suddenly distorted. A golden wheel with eight engraved handles manifested magically and hovered right above him.
CLUNK!
The wheel spun once, producing the sound of a heavy metal collision that echoed loudly and terrifyingly amidst the silence of the pier.
The teenager turned his body casually. He raised his right hand that had previously been slashed.
Miraculously, his flesh and skin had fused back together perfectly, without leaving even the slightest scar.
"What wound do you mean... Lancer, Diarmuid Ua Duibhne?" he stated loudly, shouting the True Name of the spear knight into the night air without the slightest hesitation.
Lancer's eyes widened. The Celtic hero was severely shaken by two impossible things. First, his true identity had been exposed so easily. Second, and the most nonsensical, was the breaking of Gae Buidhe's curse. His yellow spear possessed a law that made any inflicted wound impossible to be healed by ordinary magic or medicine. Yet, somehow, the strange wheel above the boy's head had just defied that law.
"Who are you really, kid?!" exclaimed Lancer, gripping his spears tighter.
"Your aura clearly shows you are still a living human, not a Servant! But... this anomalous power far exceeds the limits of Servants and ordinary magi!"
The teenager only smirked, casually slipping one hand into his pants pocket.
"Me? I'm just an ordinary teenager who happens to be taking a stroll for some night air," he answered in an overly light tone. "My name is Ritsuka Fujimaru. Just an apprentice Magus taught by... well, a teach
er with a slightly broken brain who has a hobby of watching magical girls."