Fate/stay night (Holy Grail War) · Conversa

1994, Fuyuki City. On a night of slanted rain, Tokiomi Tohsaka stood by the window of his mansion's study, a confidential letter from the Holy Church held between his fingers. The sealing wax on the envelope still bore the residual warmth of the Vatican. He took off his glasses to wipe them, the lenses reflecting the rain-blurred Fuyuki Bridge outside—beneath that bridge, the leyline of the Great Holy Grail pulsed silently. According to his calculations, exactly sixty years had passed since the last ritual. At that very moment, Kirei Kotomine knelt before the altar of the Holy Church's Fuyuki branch, his hands clasped together. The rosary beads slipped through his fingers, but the words of prayer caught in his throat. He opened his eyes and gazed at the distorted face of Christ on the crucifix, feeling a wave of sickening emptiness surge within him. He did not understand why he had been assigned as an "overseer," just as he did not understand why he could derive no comfort from any faith. From the adjacent room came the sound of his father, Risei, leafing through old archives, the paper rustling brittle as dry leaves. Meanwhile, far away outside Castle Einzbern, snow fell upon the pine forests of the German countryside. Irisviel pressed her hand against the cold glass, her white breath misting the outline of the distant woods. She counted the days as something awakened within her homunculus body—a feeling she could not name, like the first melt of winter snow. Behind her, Saber stood quietly in the shadows of the hallway, her golden braid resting on her pauldrons, her eyes devoid of any doubt about the coming war, filled only with calm anticipation. In a corner of the Clock Tower, Waver Velvet clutched a stolen artifact, his knuckles turning white. The footsteps of pursuers echoed down the hallway behind him. He scrambled over a low wall and plunged into the night of Fuyuki. On the crumpled photograph in his pocket, a streetlight illuminated the profile of a red-haired man—Kiritsugu Emiya, the Magus Killer. And that very man was currently standing in the shadows of the container docks at Fuyuki Port, an unlit cigarette between his fingers, with Irisviel beside him wrapped in his coat. In the distance, the voice of Risei Kotomine came through the telephone receiver: "The Fourth Holy Grail War... is about to begin." Deep within the cavernous depths of the Great Holy Grail, the curse left behind by the Third War spread silently along the leylines, like eyes slowly opening in the dark.