Roy simply laid out the facts for Kiritsugu without explicitly guiding his hand. He left the next move to the man's own initiative.
As expected, the highly proactive Kiritsugu didn't take Roy's word at face value. He used his connections to investigate the three founding families. Bit by bit, the clues aligned with the "Demon God's" intel. The truth surfaced.
Kiritsugu slumped in his chair, looking haggard. His ideal of saving the world was shattered; instead, he was participating in a ritual to destroy it. The shock was enough to break anyone. But Kiritsugu was a man who had killed his own father as a boy, bombed his foster mother as a youth, and was now losing his wife in middle age. He was a survivor. After a cold shower, he regained his focus.
In his darkened room, he began to plot how to stop the war and save the world. This was exactly what Roy expected. Any other magus would have fled upon learning the truth. Only Kiritsugu would stay and fight harder.
The mess left by the ancestors was legendary; the Grail War was destined for disaster. Analyzing the intel, two ideas formed in Kiritsugu's mind. First: dismantle the "Great Grail" magic circle built by the three families to end the war once and for all.
"Demon God, where is the Great Grail's magic circle located?" Kiritsugu asked.
"That is a different question. It will cost you another Servant's soul," Roy chuckled.
Kiritsugu's face darkened. The war only lasted seven days, and he had spent two just investigating the truth. He only had three or four days left. He didn't have time for a manual search. Getting the location from the Demon God was the fastest shortcut, but the entity clearly didn't work for free.
Of course, Kiritsugu wasn't naive. This led to his second, bolder idea. Since all Servant souls entering the Grail would open the "hole" and release the mud, if he simply handed those souls over to the "Demon God," he could prevent the catastrophe!
However, he couldn't give all the souls to the entity. If the Demon God fully manifested, it would pose an unknown risk. Kiritsugu remained wary. He finally reached a conclusion: a fifty-fifty split. Half the souls to the Grail, half to the Demon God. This was the only way to prevent the Great Disaster!
Roy, eavesdropping on Kiritsugu's thoughts, was amused. Kiritsugu had fallen into a trap of his own making: he now believed he had to personally kill half the Servants, making Roy the direct beneficiary.
Calculating against a brilliant person isn't much harder than a fool, because the brilliant person will actively rationalize their way into "logical" conclusions. It was a classic case of being "too clever for one's own good."
Kiritsugu's first move? A sowing of discord.
He sent the information he had gathered about the Grail War to every faction. Not just one copy per camp, but one for the Master and one for the Servant. The two anti-social lunatics in the Caster camp wouldn't care. The Berserker, Lancelot, had no sanity to care. In the Assassin camp, the Hundred-Faced Hassan couldn't resist the monster that was Kirei Kotomine anyway.
The strongest reactions came from the Rider and Archer camps.
"Aaaaaagh!" Iskandar roared after reading the anonymous letter. Frustrated, he downed a massive gulp of wine and slammed the barrel onto the ground. To think he had been so excited, challenging all the heroes at the docks—he felt like a total clown. Those damned magi were even swindling the dead! Did they have no ethics?
With his massive build and red hair, Iskandar looked like an infuriated lion. Waver sat by, not daring to make a sound; he only wanted recognition, not the Grail itself.
"Come, we're investigating!" Iskandar slapped Waver on the back, tossed him onto the chariot, and thundered away to verify the letter's contents.
Meanwhile, at the Tohsaka manor, Gilgamesh reclined on a sofa, sipping fine wine while reading the letter some "ant" had sent him. He treated it as entertainment.
"Hahahahaha!" Halfway through, Gilgamesh burst into manic laughter that rang through the estate. He laughed so hard he nearly cramped. "They actually wanted to recreate the Third Magic? These fools are quite amusing."
As a top-tier magus himself, he could tell the contents were mostly true. His Gate of Babylon held the prototypes of all world treasures, including the Holy Grail. He had only descended for a bit of fun. This was just more fun.
But as he reached the end, his smile vanished. The ritual required all Servants to enter the Lesser Grail—meaning the final Command Spall was meant to force the Servant to commit suicide.
"Tokiomi... you have quite the nerve," Gilgamesh's voice turned icy.
"My King, please do not believe such baseless rumors," Tokiomi Tohsaka said with a respectful bow, though he was breaking into a cold sweat. Damn it, who leaked the truth? If I catch them, I'll tear them limb from limb!
Gilgamesh gave a hollow laugh, his crimson eyes narrowing as he stared at the "loyal" subject before him who clearly harbored treacherous intent.
Once he managed to appease Gilgamesh, Tokiomi summoned Kirei Kotomine.
"Master, the truth of the war has been exposed. What is our next move?" Kirei asked.
Tokiomi desperately wanted to skin the whistleblower alive, but that was just vent-up rage. After a moment, he said, "The situation has changed. Contact the Matous and the Einzberns. We need to kick the outsiders out first!"
Over the years, the three families had drifted apart due to different interests—the Tohsaka wanted the Root, the Einzberns wanted the Third Magic, and old man Matou wanted immortality. But now, they had to unite. With the truth out, luring "fools" to join future wars would be impossible.
"Master," Kirei asked, "could the leak have come from one of those two families?"
Tokiomi's eyes turned cold. "I know. That's why I'm contacting them." Kirei understood; it was a "union" in name, but an interrogation in practice.
Under the cover of night, the chess pieces began to move.Roy watched the drama unfold from his bed like a god observing a play. Kiritsugu Emiya feigned total ignorance, collaborating with Tokiomi Tohsaka, while the sinister and cunning Zouken Matou followed suit. Once again, the Three Founding Families stood united.
With four Servants under their control and Diarmuid already out of the picture, only two enemy Servants remained. The outcome was predictable. The Caster camp was the first to be kicked out of the game. Artoria's wound had healed—a process far less convoluted than in the original timeline—and upon meeting the giant sea monster, she promptly blasted it away with a single Excalibur. Meanwhile, Assassin was trapped within Iskandar's Ionian Hetairoi and trampled to death by ten thousand horses.
Two Servants exited the stage in quick succession. Roy received no rewards for these, but the one truly feeling the pressure was Kiritsugu; the disaster was drawing closer.
As the battle intensified, more information surfaced. The participants generally began to believe the contents of the leaked letters: this Holy Grail War was indeed a conspiracy by the Three Families. Tokiomi Tohsaka eventually lost his grip on Gilgamesh and was forced to use two Command Spells to order the King of Heroes to commit suicide. Gilgamesh had intended to incite Kirei Kotomine to murder his teacher, but time simply ran out.
Finally, Artoria and Lancelot settled their score. Only two Servants remained in the Holy Grail War: Artoria and Iskandar. They stood upon the Great Bridge, gazing at each other from a distance.
"Come!"
Abandoning all lingering obsessions, the two Servants charged at each other with nothing but the resolve to fight to the death. They wished for a final, honorable duel, but Kiritsugu would never allow such a thing.
Though Waver had exhausted his Command Spells to buff Iskandar, Kiritsugu intercepted him at the airport as he tried to leave.
"Iskandar, look at twelve o'clock!" Kiritsugu's voice crackled through a phone.
Artoria and Iskandar stopped simultaneously and turned. Several hundred meters away, Waver was tied to a stone pillar, a C4 explosive strapped to his chest, its red light blinking ominously. Their faces darkened.
"Don't move," Kiritsugu said coldly. "As long as you exit the war, I won't harm the brat."
Bang!
With a crisp gunshot, a sniper bullet pierced Iskandar's spiritual core. Iskandar wore a helpless expression; to exit in such a disgraceful manner was truly embarrassing.
"Saber, by the power of three Command Spells, I order you... commit suicide!" Kiritsugu raised his arm.
Artoria looked at her Master with a gaze full of sorrow as her holy sword pierced her own chest. The bodies of the two Servants dissolved into particles and vanished.
Kiritsugu breathed a sigh of relief. At the final moment, he had successfully "delivered" the souls of the two Servants to the "Demon God." Now, he thought, the disaster would surely be averted.
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