When Kayneth returned to the presidential suite on the top floor of the Hyatt Hotel, he finally came face to face with the mastermind behind tonight's events.
Waver Velvet had already explained things to him on the way, but Kayneth still had trouble believing it until he saw it with his own eyes.
The one who had directed Saber and Master, manipulated Waver Velvet, played both him and Lancer for fools, and abducted Sola was actually an eight-year-old child.
"Nice to meet you, Kayneth-san."
The red-haired boy stood brazenly in the very center of the room.
"No, I suppose this is only our first meeting for you. For me, it is not. Well, it makes no difference."
"You little brat! How dare you...!"
Kayneth ground his teeth in fury. The mercury by his side seemed to respond to its master's anger, transforming into countless blades that slashed toward the boy in the room.
But just as those blades were about to cut Shirou's fragile body to pieces.
"Do you no longer care what happens to your fiancée?"
That single sentence made the mercury blades instantly veer off course. As if venting his rage, they shredded the carpet and furniture around them to pieces, while the boy himself remained completely unharmed.
With bloodshot eyes, Kayneth demanded, "Where is Sola right now? If you so much as lay a finger on her, I will never forgive you!
I will not kill you quickly. I will make your lungs and heart regenerate while I chop you apart from the tips of your toes onward, leaving you unable to live and unable to die, writhing in endless regret and agony!"
A Magus's words, thick with magical energy, could become a kind of curse. An ordinary person with no grounding in Magecraft might well have gone into cardiac arrest and died on the spot.
But Shirou paid that venomous threat no more mind than if he were enjoying a spring breeze. He simply gestured with his chin toward the large bed in the center of the room.
"...Sola!"
Kayneth's eyes widened, and he rushed to the bedside.
Only now, his mind no longer blinded by rage, did he notice the woman lying there quietly as if asleep.
The woman with vivid red hair was none other than Kayneth's fiancée, Sola.
Her face was pale, but the rise and fall of her chest showed that she was still breathing.
"What did you do to Sola?"
Kayneth gripped her hand tightly and demanded the answer in a trembling voice.
Shirou replied flatly, "Nothing much. I just gave her one of my special candies.
I am not only somewhat skilled at setting traps. I also know a little about herbs...
Or as you Magi call it, the field of [Witchcraft]."
Kayneth frowned.
"...You poisoned Sola?"
"Relax. As long as you cooperate properly, I will give you the antidote."
"..."
The veins at Kayneth's temple twitched as he glared at Shirou.
He had already experienced Shirou's abilities for himself.
His methods were low and dirty, but his skill with traps and bounded fields was unquestionably first-rate. So much so that even Kayneth could not help feeling a trace of regret.
He possessed talent this exceptional, yet had no interest whatsoever in the honorable art of Magecraft duels, instead wasting it on crooked side methods.
It was almost impossible to imagine just how vicious a poison made by a brat like this could be.
Seeing the confusion and apprehension on Kayneth's face, Shirou kindly explained,
"It is a drug whose toxicity activates when magical energy is used or infused into the body, so do not try to heal her with Magecraft, all right?"
At that point, someone who had remained silent ever since entering the room finally spoke.
"Why, Shinji?! Were you deceiving me and using me all along?!"
It was Waver Velvet, his face battered and bruised from Kayneth's beating, shouting in frustration.
"So you came too. Didn't I tell you to retreat?"
Shirou nodded and admitted it at once.
"That's right. Kayneth must already have told you.
There was never any story about Lancer betraying his Master. I made all of that up. Honestly, I am impressed that you believed it so completely.
Waver Velvet, if you trust people this easily, life is going to be very hard for you from now on."
"Shut up! You liar! I don't need someone like you lecturing me!
I really thought I had met someone who shared my ideals... damn it!!!"
Waver Velvet suddenly lost control and charged forward, swinging his fist straight at Shirou's face.
The result was that before he even understood what had happened, the world flipped upside down. Shirou had casually thrown him to the floor.
Waver Velvet did not even struggle to get back up. He simply lay there face-down, buried his face in the carpet, and began sobbing.
Ignoring him, Shirou turned back toward Kayneth at the bedside.
Kayneth was still hesitating over whether he should try using a healing spell on Sola.
According to what Shirou had just said, she had been poisoned with a lethal toxin that would kill her instantly the moment magical energy was poured into her body.
But that, too, might simply be another lie from this brat.
Shirou watched him quietly.
"If you want to kill your fiancée with your own hands, then go ahead and try healing her."
"..."
Sweat covered Kayneth's forehead. In the end, he gave up. He simply could not bring himself to gamble with the life of the woman he loved.
Shirou smiled.
"Good. Since Kayneth-san has no objections, let us return to our original topic."
Kayneth said nothing. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the presidential suite, he glanced at Lancer on the rooftop of another high-rise.
At that moment, Lancer was fighting Saber and had no idea what was happening inside the suite.
But even if Kayneth warned him through telepathy, or used a Command Spell to summon Lancer directly, what would that change?
Sola's life was already in the enemy's hands.
"...What do you want?"
Kayneth asked the question even though he already knew the answer.
Shirou replied, "My wish is for Kayneth-san and Sola-san to return safely to London."
What a hypocritical way to put it, Kayneth thought.
"...You want me to withdraw from the Holy Grail War of my own accord?"
Shirou nodded.
"If you are willing to do that voluntarily, nothing could be better."
Kayneth's expression immediately turned cold.
There were now two paths before him.
The first was to do as Shirou said and obediently withdraw from the Holy Grail War. If he chose that, Sola's life could be saved.
The second was to disregard the danger to Sola's life and attack this arrogant brat standing before him.
As long as he defeated the brat, he could force the antidote out of him through torture afterward and save Sola's life that way.
There was no need to think about which answer to choose. Of course it was the second.
This was not about who would claim the Holy Grail.
Kayneth's pride as a Lord would never allow him to submit to an enemy's demands.
While Kayneth secretly poured magical energy into [Volumen Hydrargyrum] and prepared to launch a surprise attack, he thought to himself:
First, I'll cut off one of the brat's arms and one of his legs. I cannot kill him outright yet. I still have to force the antidote out of him...
But at that moment, a muffled groan of pain interrupted his thoughts.
"...Ugh!"
The red-haired woman on the bed suddenly twisted with pain.
"Sola!"
Kayneth shouted in alarm, clutching her hand tightly.
Shirou stepped in behind them at just the right moment and glanced at his watch.
"Ah, I forgot to mention. There are less than five minutes left before the poison takes effect."
"What did you say?!" Kayneth's eyes flew wide open.
Shirou replied, "After all, what if you decided to use force to make me hand over the antidote, Kayneth-san?
I was never going to give you that kind of time.
Think carefully. Sola-san does not have much time left."
The brat had already accounted for the scheme in his heart. There was no chance left to turn things around.
Despair closed in around Kayneth.
At that point, he had only two choices left. Give up the war and save Sola, or give up Sola and continue fighting.
The Holy Grail?
Or Sola?
There was no need to think about it at all.
It could only be Sola.
To begin with, that so-called omnipotent wish-granting machine had never held any value in Kayneth's eyes. He had already cast aside similar things, such as the Three-Core Magical Energy Reactors, and replaced them with [Volumen Hydrargyrum].
The Holy Grail War was something he had joined half for amusement, simply to add one more stroke of glory to his record.
Even if he failed to win this Magecraft ritual in the Far East, it would not tarnish the career of a Lord of the Clock Tower in the slightest. His achievements would remain every bit as brilliant as before.
But...
A life without Sola.
Kayneth truly could not imagine it.
Ever since their engagement was arranged. No, even before that.
From the very first moment he saw her, Kayneth had already come to regard this woman as part of his life.
So he had no choice.
But what he could not understand was why this boy understood just how much Sola meant to him.
Everything the boy had done tonight rested on one major assumption. That Kayneth would be willing to give up the Holy Grail War for Sola's sake.
That made no sense at all.
Magi were cold-blooded creatures who placed profit above all else.
To a Magus, love and family were nothing more than means of passing down Magecraft and knowledge. Kayneth's feelings for Sola were an exception among exceptions.
And yet this boy had seen at a glance that Kayneth would be willing to abandon the Holy Grail for his fiancée?
At that moment, Kayneth suddenly felt a chill deep in his bones.
It was as if every private detail between him and Sola had already been laid bare before this red-haired brat.
If he refused here, the red-haired boy would surely have other methods prepared specifically to deal with him.
The moment those dusk-colored eyes had fixed on him, he and Sola had already been left with nowhere to run...
Even though he was already crumbling inside, Kayneth still forced out one last attempt at resistance.
"I can give up the Holy Grail War. But I have one condition."
"Go ahead."
Grinding his teeth, Kayneth said, "Give Sola the antidote first."
"That... I'm afraid I can't do that." Shirou looked regretful.
"A Magecraft contract! You will sign a [Self Geass Scroll] with me!"
[Self Geass Scroll]
Shirou still did not understand many aspects of Magecraft from Proper Human History, but this was hardly the time to pull out a little yellow toy duck and ask it for an explanation.
So he simply kept a blank, inscrutable expression on his face.
Taking Shirou's silence as consent, Kayneth snapped his fingers. A drawer in the corner of the room opened by itself, and a scroll of parchment flew out.
The parchment drifted lazily through the air like a jellyfish before floating lightly down into Shirou's hand.
At first, there was nothing written on it. But as Kayneth poured magical energy into it, lines of text gradually appeared across the parchment.
[Binding Formula]
[Target: Kayneth El-Melloi Archibald]
[By order of Kayneth El-Melloi's Crest, provided the following conditions are fulfilled, this oath shall become a commandment and bind the target without exception.]
[Oath: Kayneth El-Melloi Archibald shall voluntarily withdraw from the Holy Grail War and return to London with Sola-Ui Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri.]
[Conditions: ...]
Shirou silently read the words on the parchment and felt the magical energy flowing from it, gaining a rough understanding of what it was.
I see. So this is a spell that uses the function of one's own Magic Crest to impose restrictions on the caster himself.
What was used as the pledge was not the caster's life, but the Magic Crest. That meant even if the Crest was passed down to the next generation, they too would remain bound by it and would never be able to defy the formula.
After checking it over once, Shirou judged that this so-called [Self Geass Scroll] should work just fine.
There was no problem with the formula itself, but there was still a problem with the contents.
"Let's add a few more clauses to the oath," Shirou said after thinking it over.
"[Kayneth El-Melloi Archibald and his Servant are permanently forbidden from killing or harming Shirou Amamiya in any way.]"
"..."
With a dark expression, Kayneth added the clause.
"That should be enough now, shouldn't it?!"
"No, wait. I want to add a little more. Just because you cannot harm me does not mean other people cannot, right?"
After a moment of careful thought, Shirou said, "Add this as well. [All persons related to the El-Melloi faction are permanently forbidden from killing or harming Shirou Amamiya in any way.]"
Kayneth complied once again and added the new clause.
"Let me think."
Even with Kayneth pressing him again and again, Shirou still felt the contract was far from airtight. It was full of loopholes. To make it truly perfect, it needed at least ten more clauses.
"Oh, right, there's also..."
"That's enough already!"
Kayneth let out an anxious, low growl.
"Sola doesn't have much time left!"
In Shirou's setup, the poison in Sola-Ui's body would flare up within five minutes, so Kayneth's panic was only natural.
"All right, all right. You're really something."
Shirou shrugged.
The contract was riddled with holes, but he did not believe Kayneth had any real chance of killing him anyway.
"Let's leave the contract as it is. I accept."
Shirou looked at him.
"Then, Kayneth-san, please fulfill your oath."
With a cold expression, Kayneth said, "According to the contract, you give Sola the antidote first!"
Shirou shook his head.
"No. I need to see Kayneth-san's sincerity first."
"...."
Kayneth ground his teeth.
In the end, he had no room to bargain at all.
He stared at the final Command Spell left on his right hand, then gave his last order as a Master.
[I command you by Command Spell.]
[Kill yourself, Lancer!]
Bathed in crimson light, the demonic Diarmuid's magic sword abruptly turned and drove straight through his own chest.
The other three present, Saber, who had been fighting Lancer, Irisviel, who was supporting her, and Rider, who had been watching the battle, were all stunned by the sudden turn of events, their faces filled with disbelief.
And yet one person showed no surprise at all.
The demonic Diarmuid silently watched the blood pour out, with neither shock nor anger in his eyes.
He was eerily calm about the fact that he had used his own hands to kill himself.
Lancer turned to look toward the top floor of the Hyatt Hotel and immediately understood.
"So that's how it is. That brat..."
For him, this was the second time he had been murdered by his own lord.
Diarmuid Ua Duibhne had once wished to overturn that tragic ending. That was why he had answered the summons and appeared in this world.
If it had been the man he was back then, he would probably have been swallowed by overwhelming despair and grief at this moment.
All he had ever wanted was to serve his lord faithfully, yet he had still been schemed against again and again, only to walk the same tragic path as before.
He would have cursed the whole world through bloodstained tears.
But the Diarmuid of today was no longer the knight he had once been.
Having readily accepted the darkness in his own heart, he felt little over being tricked and killed by his lord.
Doing whatever it takes to win was the common law of the world. Since Lancer had already accepted that way of thinking, he could naturally accept this fate as well.
There was no resentment in him, no humiliation. Only the regret of an unfinished end.
"Hmph. I should've killed that brat back then. What a misjudgment..."
Lancer's pitch-black figure turned into a golden wind and scattered into the night.
"So an anti-hero really doesn't suit me after all. In the end, my Luck stat didn't even go up. Damn..."
...
...
Kayneth stared blankly at the fading figure of his Servant drifting into the night sky.
His Holy Grail War was over.
After a brief pause, he resolutely turned his gaze back into the room.
"You can hand over the antidote now, can't you?"
He looked at the boy with desperate hope and eager expectation, yet the words that came from the boy's mouth were the cruelest and most merciless possible.
"Antidote? There was never any such thing to begin with," Shirou said calmly.
The moment he heard that, Kayneth felt as if he had fallen into an icy abyss in the dead of winter.
His voice shook uncontrollably as he asked, "You were lying to me from the very beginning?"
Shirou nodded without hesitation.
"That's right."
Kayneth dropped to his knees with a thud, so crushed by despair that he could no longer speak.
He stared blankly at the carpet. He was so numb that he no longer even had the urge to kill Shirou out of rage.
Shirou slowly walked over to the only large bed in the room and said, "There may be no antidote, but..."
"You really are pathetic, Kayneth."
A cold, cutting female voice rang through the room.
For a moment, Kayneth thought he was hallucinating and instinctively looked up.
He saw Sola-Ui sitting up on the bed, supported by Shirou.
"...Huh?"
Sola-Ui looked at him with undisguised contempt and continued,
"You actually believed the enemy and gave up the Holy Grail War that easily. You might be the most spineless man in the world."
Kayneth's mouth fell open.
"Sola, why... weren't you already..."
Sola-Ui frowned.
"You mean, wasn't I already dead?"
"No, but you were poisoned, so how are you..."
"Isn't it obvious? Because I was never fed any poison in the first place."
"....What?"
With her arms folded across her chest, Sola-Ui explained everything to Kayneth.
Twenty minutes earlier, Shirou had burst into the room where Sola-Ui was being held under house arrest.
Sola-Ui had always been strong-willed, so of course she was not about to submit quietly. Shirou had to put in a bit of effort to subdue her. Namely, 0.5 seconds.
"If you think you can use me to threaten Kayneth, then you're gravely mistaken!"
Even while tied up, Sola-Ui kept shouting in fury.
At that moment, Shirou suddenly spoke.
"Big sis, how about we make a bet?"
"Do you think Kayneth would give up the Holy Grail War for your sake?"
"I think he would."
The moment Shirou proposed that wager, Sola-Ui's interest was instantly piqued.
Kayneth would give up the Holy Grail War for me? As if that were possible.
As the daughter of a distinguished Magus Family, she understood Magi far too well.
In the end, she herself was nothing more than a tool her father had raised for political marriage.
And Kayneth, just like her father, was a Magus through and through.
He would never value her, just as her father had never truly valued her as his daughter.
Just as Sola-Ui was about to argue back, Shirou took out a pill and shoved it into her mouth.
"Mgh... y-you, what did you make me swallow?!"
"It's medicine that keeps a person conscious while asleep. Just relax over there and wait for the result, big sis."
As he said that, Shirou tossed Sola-Ui onto the bed, then contacted Waver through the communicator.
After that, Sola-Ui fell into a state of conscious sleep.
In that deep, dreamlike slumber, she heard the conversation between Shirou and Kayneth.
She heard her fiancé declare that he would give up the Holy Grail War for her sake.
What the hell is this man doing?! Don't accept the enemy's terms that easily!
Aren't you one of the El-Melloi family? Why would you give up the Holy Grail War?! Kill that brat already!
You idiot! Coward! Useless man!
As Sola-Ui cursed Kayneth's weakness in her heart, something subtle began to change inside her as well.
She saw a side of her fiancé she had never known before.
So even the proud, arrogant Lord El-Melloi had a side that could compromise and yield.
Not for anyone else, and not for himself, but for Sola-Ui Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri.
All of a sudden, a feeling she had never experienced before began to bud within her.
It was not that she had been deeply moved by Kayneth's devotion and fallen in love with him. Rather...
Sola-Ui found herself thinking, This guy is so hopeless, I can't just leave him alone. It was almost like maternal affection.
At this point, even Kayneth's sharp, mean-spirited expression somehow started to look a little cute.
"Sola..."
Kayneth looked at Sola-Ui as she walked toward him, his lips trembling uncontrollably.
"You're really all right... I'm not dreaming, am I?"
"This isn't a dream, you idiot..."
Speaking softly, Sola-Ui bent down and wrapped her arms around Kayneth.
"Huh?"
Kayneth's eyes went wide.
Now that he thought about it, even though they had been engaged for years, this was the first time they had ever touched each other.
"Uh, Sola-Ui..."
At a complete loss, Kayneth held his hands awkwardly in midair, not knowing where to put them.
Then Sola-Ui, nestled against him, murmured:
"Kayneth, can't you even hold your own woman properly?"
…
...
Pulling his gaze away from the embracing couple, Shirou walked off to the side and let out a sigh.
"You should stop crying already."
Waver, sprawled on the floor, wiped away his tears with his sleeve and protested in a wounded voice,
"Sniff... I-I'm not crying!"