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Chapter 57 - Chapter 57: The One Who Arrives

Everything went exactly as planned, and once news of Irisviel's pregnancy spread through the Western-style Mansion, everyone's mood shifted. All of them doted on Irisviel, but have you ever seen the Queen of the Land of Shadows cooking in the kitchen? Or King Arthur preparing ingredients with her Holy Spear? You probably haven't—and you really don't want to. In just one day the kitchen was destroyed twice, and everything they produced looked like charcoal, utterly inedible. When Alice saw the wreckage she nearly hurled a Moon Oil spell on the spot.

Outside the lively mansion, Fuyuki City brimmed with hidden danger; the descent of Heroic Spirits heralded the imminent opening of the Holy Grail War.

In a Fuyuki hotel room, the man known as the Magus Killer, Kiritsugu Emiya, gazed out of the window, eyes deep with unspoken thoughts.

'Kiritsugu.' A woman opened the door and walked in. She approached him and asked softly, 'What is it, Kiritsugu?'

'It's nothing, Maiya.' He turned to look at Hisau Maiya, and his usually rigid face softened slightly.

'Have you located this war's Lancer Master?' Kiritsugu asked.

Maiya nodded. 'He's set up in the biggest hotel in Fuyuki—he's turned the place into his workshop.'

'I see.' Kiritsugu nodded, walked to the bed, and pulled a metal case from underneath.

'Maiya, do you think we can trust the Einzbern? A Grail that can grant any wish…' Even though the Einzbern had been largely destroyed by Asagami Fujino, they still sought Kiritsugu out so they could complete the Third Sorcery through this Holy Grail War.

Maiya gave no answer; she simply stepped to his side and rested a hand on him.

'I thought so.' Kiritsugu allowed himself a rare smile and opened the case to reveal neatly arrayed firearms.

'By the way, where's Saber?'

For this war the Einzbern had again provided the relic Avalon, summoning the legendary King Arthur. Kiritsugu disliked her knightly code; he'd originally hoped to summon a Servant compatible with himself without relying on a relic, but the Einzbern had forced Arthur on him to secure an advantage.

'I sent Saber to patrol outside,' Maiya replied.

'Good.' Kiritsugu assembled a weapon as he spoke. 'Maiya, I'll count on you from here. Stick to the plan: you pose as Saber's Master while I eliminate the others from the shadows.'

'Understood.'

In Asagami Fujino's mansion, Fujino reclined against a pillow beside Irisviel, who wore a white silk nightgown. Because of the pregnancy and the overwhelming power of Fujino's blood, Irisviel's body prioritized the life within her; she slept to nurture the child, waking only about four hours a day. The rest of the time she had to rest to ensure the baby's survival.

Using her Clairvoyance, Fujino observed Kiritsugu. After copying every Clairvoyant Heroic Spirit in the Throne of Heroes, her ability had surpassed the EX rank; she could see a person's past and present at a glance, her sight reaching even the depths of the cosmos. Combined with her The Demon Eye of Distortion, she could obliterate a planet—after all, those eyes depend on sight for power. In some ways this pairing surpasses even the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception; whereas those require striking a lethal point, Fujino's combination can kill from thousands of miles away.

'Kiritsugu hasn't changed. He'd make an excellent Reincarnator.' Fujino didn't dislike him; she had no comment on his wish for world peace, since every life is unique.

'Oh, they're finally here.' A smile curved her lips—she'd been waiting quite a while.

At the foot of the mansion's hill, a golden-haired girl and a fox-eared girl in a blue shrine maiden's outfit walked toward the estate.

(Please vote and leave flowers—the stats have stalled again…)

Tamamo-no-Mae, a Servant appearing in TYPE-MOON's Fate/EXTRA, CCC, EXTELLA, and F/GO. One of the selectable Servants, debuting as a 5-star Caster in the F/GO Halloween event, reaching up to three tails after spiritron release.

The Berserker version, Tamamo Cat, is not the main body but one tail split from her eight-tailed form—an incarnation of her (relatively) innocent side. Legend says she was first wounded by arrows then beheaded, so Archer-class Servants are her natural enemies.

Alignment: Neutral・Evil

Representative color: Peach

Specialty: Breaking solemn atmospheres

Likes: Happy four-and-a-half-tatami life (2.25 Ping), hot-spring trips (not the springs), home-cooked meals (while cooking), presents for herself, the protagonist (Hakuno Kishinami)

Dislikes: Other versions of herself, dogs, half-hearted pretty boys, anything that disturbs a couple's world

Nemesis: Dark handsome monster Abe no Seimei

Around the protagonist she feels like the perfect wife (often coquettishly saying 'mikon~').

Note: Though the original Tamamo-no-Mae is an ancient legendary yokai, her speech is very modern.

She has participated in Moon Holy Grail Wars before.

Strictly speaking she is a sorceress, not a Magician, producing physical phenomena by programming her own body as material.

She sees souls, not faces, so gender is irrelevant to her.

While inside Sakura, the conversation with Lancer mentioned that she had brought down five dynasties, including the Shang.

In CCC she claims her cooking is terrible, but in truth her culinary skill is so high she could run her own class, rivaling even Archer. The only reason she bad-mouths her own cooking is that Caster sets her ideal bar impossibly high.

In F/GO she listed the other eight tails as: the luxury-loving Tamamo Gucci, the house-proud Tamamo Model, the feral Tamamo Cat, the capable beauty-secretary Tamamo Bitch, the pampered-princess Tamamo Princess, and the inexplicable Tamamo Aria.

Karna once remarked that Caster's divinity surpasses his own, so he cannot afford to hold back.

The striking technique Solar Face Burst: Femininity Revealed (8) can shatter the Moon Cell's eightfold spatial barrier.

She has more friends than one would expect: Ame-no-Uzume, Princess Kaguya, Kiyohime, Osakabehime, and the Tongue-Cut Sparrow are all on good terms with her; Ame-no-Uzume is her best friend, whom Caster simply calls.

Apart from her peerless cooking, Caster is also an excellent dancer.

She counts Abe no Seimei as her mortal enemy, dismissing him as a dark, handsome villain—too beautiful, she says, to be Japanese.

Nasu lately teased that she and Kuro share some uncanny similarities.

Because every friend she had in life—including Ame-no-Uzume—was a gifted singer, she insists she has no resistance to Elizabeth Báthory's murderous vocals, flatly calling the girl's singing a natural disaster.

With Divinity ranked A, she could struggle against Gilgamesh if he wields a Noble Phantasm that binds divine Servants.

Character History

Late Heian period: a celebrated beauty in the service of Emperor Toba, said to be the guise of the nine-tailed golden fox. Her childhood name was Wakamurasaki. At eighteen she entered court, became a lady-in-waiting to the Emperor, and styled herself Tamamo-no-Mae. Her erudition soon won the Emperor's favor.

Accounts differ, but the Emperor later fell ill; onmyōji investigating the cause exposed her fox identity and drove her from the palace. She fled to Nasuno, where her atrocities grew so infamous that an imperial army of eighty thousand was sent against her. She scattered them, yet in a second campaign was defeated by human champions; legend claims her remains became poisonous stones.

Dakiniten

Street lore calls Tamamo-no-Mae a nine-tailed fox, but strictly she is a jackal, originally worshipped as the Inari deity linking Amaterasu (manifest trace), Dainichi Nyorai (Dharmakāya), and Dakiniten—hence also Ukanomitama. In the Tale of the Heike, Taira no Kiyomori is said to have seized power through rites to this Dakiniten. The EXTRA Tamamo is a splinter of Amaterasu; her true form is not a fox but a facet of a goddess.

Classifying her as a Heroic Spirit is a gross error. She became a Servant only to fulfill her wish to be a good wife, so her specs are sealed. If reproduced as a vengeful spirit—an aramitama—she would be a Great Yokai able to slaughter a hundred heroes without effort. One of Japan's Three Great Monsters is not mere hype.

Thanks to Mooncell limits she currently has only one tail; originally each tail could birth a million-strong host, or so Caster insists—veracity unknown.

Each tail regained multiplies her power ninefold. If an A-rank Servant's stats total 100 (Noble Phantasms excluded), one-tail Tamamo is about 9; nine tails would be 9 to the 9th power.

Golden White Face

A nine-tailed sun deity, a petulant aspect of Amaterasu—not Caster transformed, but the primordial source from which she arose.

Foxes were originally tomb-guardians, embodiments of the earth's yin pulse. While feng shui speaks only of yang dragons (energy for the living), foxes were the more valued yin dragons (energy for the dead). The image stems from Moonlight casting a white fox's shadow like a long dragon-vein across the land.

Mythological Dress

Mythological Dress

Since antiquity, the sun's dawn path across sea or mist has been seen as serpent, dragon, or fox. That reflection—sunlight incarnate on earth—is part of her essence; the Tamamo Stone is a mirror-stone reflecting sunlight beneath a river.

Eternal World Rending Massacre Realm (Higanbana Sesshō-sei) 0

(Note: Tokoyo is the eternal land of the dead; massacre realm refers to ominous hexagram currents.)

Ability Settings

Parameters

Strength: E Endurance: E Agility: B Mana: A Luck: D Noble Phantasm: B

Class Skills

Territory Creation: C

As a Magician she can build a beneficial workshop, but her personality makes even that difficult.

In the sequel CCC, influenced by Lancer's SG2—Wifely Wish—she installed a kitchenette in My Room to cook for the protagonist.

Fate/GO effect: own Arts cards +6% performance.

Divinity: A (from the official mobile game)

As a shard of a goddess she bears peak divinity, already multiply sealed.

Fate/GO effect: own attack damage +200.

Personal Skills

Thaumaturgy: EX

Dakiniten methods: arts to gain status and wealth (for men), to win a ruler's favor (for women), to foresee death, etc. She avoids them, having suffered enough.

Fate/GO effect: high chance to reduce one enemy's NP gauge by 1.

In FGO it upgrades to Multi-Layered Charms·Broad Sunlight: A—high chance to reduce one enemy's NP gauge and raise all allies' NP damage for 3 turns (self excluded).

Shapeshift: A

Also called borrowing a body to take form. A spell used by the thousand-year fox spirit of the Celestial Dynasty, regarded as equal to Tamamo-no-Mae. It possessed and transformed into Daji during the Yin-Zhou revolution (Investiture of the Gods) period, but due to psychological trauma she prefers not to use it.

Fate/GO Game Effect: Greatly increases own DEF

Fox Wedding: EX

A cheat skill self-remodeled from Item Construction. She unilaterally declares marriage, makes a celebratory sun-shower rain, and hands gifts to any nearby allies demanding blessings. (Note: in parts of Japan a sun-shower is called a fox's wedding.)

Fate/GO Game Effect: Increases one ally's Arts card performance

After clearing the skill strengthening quest: increases one ally's Arts card performance and restores HP

Noble Phantasm Details

Suiten Nikkō Amaterasu Yano Shizu-Ishi

Suiten Nikkō Amaterasu Yano Shizu-Ishi

Suiten Nikkō Amaterasu Yano Shizu-Ishi

Rank: D (downgraded from EX)

Type: Anti-Army

Range: 3–30

Maximum Targets: Up to 100

The mirror Tamamo-no-Mae carries. Temporarily releases the divine treasure among divine treasures known as the Tamamo Stone.

A barrier that curses away the laws of the mundane world; inside, all mana costs become zero. Because her own spiritual rank has fallen, the Noble Phantasm's rank dropped as well. Originally an EX-ranked Anti-World Noble Phantasm whose range could cover an entire country.

The Stone was enshrined in Izumo, said to be a divine treasure brought from the heavens by Takemikazuchi and the very body of the great deity of Izumo. According to the Nihon Shoki, it was taken from Izumo at the court's request and enshrined in Kawachi.

It is believed to be the later Yata Mirror, the divine body of Amaterasu Omikami. Moreover, the Stone is thought to be the prototype of the Mononobe's Ten Sacred Treasures, possessing the power to vitalize souls and life-force. In theory it could even resurrect the dead, but in her Servant form she lacks such authority.

Fate/GO Game Effect: Reduces skill cooldowns for all allies by 1 and restores 1,000 HP (after clearing the interlude, 2,000 HP at Lv.1); also increases NP (effect rises with Overcharge)

Incantation:

This is my land, a divine land, the fertile Central Land of Reed-Plains.

The country pours its waters into the bays, circles the High Heavens, circles the Yellow Springs, circling, circling—Suiten Nikkō… I shall shine upon it!

Upon the eightfold rings of the bountiful reed-plain land, add yet one more ring—ninefold, Amaterasu! Suiten Nikkō Amaterasu Yano Shizu-Ishi.

Exclusive Desire

Exactly what one would expect.

There are similar SGs like a confinement wish, but this one is less dangerous.

Since Caster's top priority is her Master's happiness, she can't truly bind him when it matters.

'I want him all to myself. I want him to love me forever. Frankly, I refuse to lose to any other woman in love.'

'I'll kill both the cheater and the one he cheated with ☆'

She says this with a smile, but it's only a metaphor—she'd never actually do it. Probably.

Skilled Cook

Caster only thinks she's bad at cooking; in reality she's quite capable.

Because the culinary level she idolizes is impossibly high, she's developed a mistaken inferiority complex.

Though she seems free-spirited, her ideal family image is modest and virtuous.

To serve her husband delicious meals she attends cooking classes diligently every day.

When the Holy Grail War began she couldn't even boil water.

Love is a magic that turns a woman who only knew how to microwave ready-meals into a devoted wife and mother.

Will the day ever come when an apron-clad Caster feeds her husband, mouth open, saying 'aaah'?

There's a 99% chance it won't happen, but she still believes her dream can come true.

Golden Fur, White Face

Unable to recall Caster's true name, no one knows what her true form is.

Yet what appeared in that dream was unmistakably close to her real name.

Deified as a natural phenomenon, her scale of power dwarfs ordinary Heroic Spirits.

When tornadoes, tsunamis, and earthquakes are personified, they become visually immense.

The Nine-Tailed Princess God possesses the cold cruelty of an ancient deity, yet at heart she's as mischievous as Caster—fond of whimsy. Perhaps male gods value reason while female gods follow emotion.

Foxes were originally spirits guarding hills and grave-mounds, the yin aspect of the dragon ley-lines.

Feng shui speaks only of the yang dragon—energy for the living—but foxes are the yin dragon, energy for the dead, equal in stature.

Their origin lies in moonlit nights when the after-image of a white fox racing across the land looks like a long, continuous dragon vein.

Since ancient times, the sunlit path that appears over the sea at dawn, piercing the morning mist, has been likened to a serpent, a dragon, or a fox.

"Sunlight reflected by water," the sun's terrestrial double, is counted as one of her essences—just as the Tamamo-monolith is a mirror-stone reflecting the sun beneath the river.

In this aspect, the mirror is emphasized above all, followed by its sun-inspired, perfectly rounded shape.

Character Data

★Name: Caster

But only for my Master, of course.

★Birthplace: Japan?

That's… tricky. Well—let's call it Japan, shall we?

★Birthday: Unknown

Sadly, human calendars don't quite fit… Oh, let's just say it's today! And my birthday wish is for you to—ow!

★Height: 160 cm

Not counting my adorable MIKON☆ ears.

Roughly 160 cm. Please pet me! I beg you—pat my head!

★Weight: 49 kg

This tempered body has nothing to hide!

★Measurements: B86/W57/H84

A figure of ultimate cuteness, or so I thought… but everyone here's a monster—haven't they heard of average?

★Weakness: My tail's a bit embarrassing…

Little Tamamo thinks her tail is kinda shy…

So please declare: "Before MO☆F☆R, I'll devour you first☆!"

★Likes: Soul fetish… TamaFetish? (A pun on "soul" and "Tama.")

A fetish for souls—TamaFetish for short. Cool souls are my kryptonite.

★What I ask of a partner? —Whatever you wish

Whatever you desire. Supporting you from the side is this good wife's duty.

★Favorite lingerie color? —The truth lies in the bath…!

Eeek! Master, you're unusually forward today!

The truth awaits in the bath…! Bath-time, let's go!

Hmm? Why haven't you come in yet?

★How I spend free time? —Attending Kodane-mae's cooking class

I take lessons at Kodane-mae's kitchen. By the way, Master, what dish do you love most?

Character Comment

[Comment: Kinoko]

Kinoko: So fluffy.

So fluffy.

Kinoko: The kimono made her the perfect wife. I wanted a beauty devoted to her husband, with a dark past. (planned)

Though she's devoted, she'll still deliver a sterilizing kick. Swinging from perfect wife to she-demon was fun to draw.

[Mythic Costume Comment: Kinoko]

(left black text: Transparent)

(right black text: The ribbon at her waist looks like butterfly wings from the side)

(red text: Tail exits here)

Kinoko: Caster's mythic outfit is simple: Cas-fox is the sun, plus the southern hemisphere of her breasts.

I mixed Japanese and Indian myth vibes, then added self-styled shrine-maiden spice.

Kinoko: Her casual clothes are cute enough to shake the Servant industry.

That outfit is all Takeuchi's hobby. So sexy… (peek) (Come on, into the futon!)

[Character Comment:]

Whoa, I thought it was a joke—then the order really came!

The final design differs; the setting sheet is official. If I get the chance, I'd love to fix the ED…

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