The underground workshop of the Tohsaka family in Miyama-cho, Fuyuki City.
Right now, the air had grown suffocatingly heavy.
Tokiomi Tohsaka’s face, which normally maintained an aristocratic composure, was now twisted into a mask of pure agony.
He stared blankly at the silver heavy-armored knight kneeling on one knee in the center of the magic circle, unable to utter a sound for a long while.
“Berserker…
Why is it a Berserker?”
Tokiomi felt as though his entire worldview was being tossed into a blender and pulverized.
He had clearly used a fragment of armor said to belong to a Knight of the Round Table!
A Knight of the Round Table!
That was the very synonym for loyalty, chivalry, and absolute noble purity!
The summoned Servant should have unquestionably been a top-tier Saber!
Even if losing “Goldie” had thrown him into disarray and caused a minor hiccup in the summoning ritual, it shouldn’t have popped out a mindless Berserker devoid of all sanity, right?!
“Hey!
You red-clothed mage over there!”
Just as Tokiomi Tohsaka was questioning his existence, the knight in the center of the circle stood up with extreme impatience.
With a heavy screech of scraping metal, the knight grabbed the hideous helmet fully obscuring her face and yanked it off violently.
*Clatter!*
The helmet was carelessly thrown onto the Tohsaka family’s absurdly expensive carpet, gouging a deep dent into the floor.
Beneath the helmet, however, was a face Tokiomi could not have imagined in his wildest dreams—
A mop of wild, untamed short blonde hair, and emerald-green eyes flashing with rebellious savagery and explosive malice.
Although her face possessed the delicate contours of a young girl, the violent aura and thuggish savagery between her brows—as if ready to tear the world apart—made her look more arrogant than a Shinjuku yakuza boss!
“Stop staring at me with that disgusting look!
I’m asking you, where is this?
What era are we in?!
Is that bastard father King Arthur here?!”
The knight girl—Mordred, the legendary “Knight of Treachery” who ended King Arthur’s reign—was screaming furiously at Tokiomi Tohsaka.
Because she was summoned under the Berserker class, Mad Enhancement not only amplified her power but also infinitely magnified her obsession with her “father” King Arthur and her naturally short temper.
Right now, Mordred was a powder keg with a lit fuse!
“A…
female knight?” Tokiomi Tohsaka took a deep breath, forcing down the urge to vomit blood as he desperately tried to preserve his final shred of elegance.
“Could Your Grace be…
a legendary Knight of the Round Table?
May I ask your True Name…”
“Shut up!
Don’t call me a woman!
I am the one true heir, Mordred!!”
At that address, Mordred bristled instantly.
She swung the broad longsword in her hands—Clarent—slicing right past the tip of Tokiomi’s nose.
With a deafening crash, she shattered the entire cabinet of rare red wines behind him into splinters!
*Clatter—!*
Millions of yen worth of vintage Domaine de la Romanée-Conti mixed with shattered glass and pooled across the floor.
Tokiomi’s heart bled.
He stared at the wine-drenched floor, then looked at the delinquent-like Berserker before him whose entire face read “Fight me if you dare,” and finally realized what kind of creature he had summoned.
Mordred!
The “Knight of Treachery” who raised the flag of rebellion in legend and dealt the fatal blow to King Arthur at the Battle of Camlann!
The ultimate traitor and “filial child” of British mythology!
“My God…”
Tokiomi’s legs went weak, and he nearly collapsed butt-first into the broken glass.
He, Tokiomi Tohsaka, had spent his entire life pursuing “elegance,” adhering strictly to the relaxed, refined demeanor of an aristocratic mage.
The Servant of his dreams was supposed to be obedient, noble in demeanor, and complementary to his stature.
And what did he end up with?
The King of Heroes had been stolen.
The second-rate catalyst he used to compensate had summoned a rebellious, violent hooligan who danced on the brink of losing all sanity!
He had basically invited an ancestor back home to demolish his house!
“Hey!
Old man in red!
What are you zoning out for?” Mordred stomped her foot onto a crushed oak barrel, pointing her sword at Tokiomi like a bandit chief.
“Since you brought me out with that useless cup, hurry up and give me orders!
Where are the enemies?
Let me chop off all their heads!
If King Arthur is in this war too, I’ll be even more thrilled!
Hahaha!”
Watching the maniacally laughing Mordred, Tokiomi closed his eyes in despair.
It was over.
The Tohsaka family’s dignity was completely gone today.
…
Meanwhile, inside the arcade of Fuyuki City’s amusement park.
“Hadouken!
Shoryuken!
Die, you Soviet bastard!”
*Bang!*
With a ridiculously dirty low sweep from Yoru Hayashi, the little figure in the red gi on screen knocked the muscle-bound giant controlled by Gilgamesh to the ground once more.
“K.O.!”
“Curse you!
You mongrel, using such despicable, underhanded cheap tricks again!”
Furious, Gilgamesh kicked the coin slot of the arcade cabinet.
That incomparably handsome face was now covered in the rage of an addicted gamer getting stomped, lacking any trace of the King of Heroes’ distant majesty.
“Skill issue.
Get good, and don’t play if you can’t handle losing, Goldie.”
Yoru Hayashi took a delightful sip of cold Cola, just about to dish out more sarcastic banter.
Suddenly, the long-silent system notification chime rang out frantically in his head like festive New Year drums.
[Ding!
Detected severe distortion in Fuyuki City’s leyline!]
[Ding!
System Announcement: Tokiomi Tohsaka has completed Servant summoning.
Affected by the butterfly effect of the host’s ‘catalyst intercept,’ Tokiomi Tohsaka failed to summon Gilgamesh and instead utilized a damaged catalyst, summoning Berserker—[Knight of Treachery] Mordred!]
*Pfft—!!*
The gulp of Cola Yoru Hayashi was halfway through swallowing turned into a brown geyser, spraying in a wide fan across the entire arcade screen!
“Cough, cough, cough…
Holy shit!
Who?!
Who did Tokiomi Tohsaka summon?!”
Yoru Hayashi choked and coughed repeatedly, but his eyes exploded with an excessively wicked, intensely excited glow.
Mordred?
Mo-chan?!
And a Berserker version of Mo-chan at that?!
“Hahahahahahaha!!!”
Yoru Hayashi abandoned the joystick, clutching his stomach as he rolled around laughing uncontrollably on the rubber floor of the arcade, tears bursting from his eyes.
Kariya Matou and Sakura, standing nearby, were startled by his sudden episode.
“Hayashi…
Hayashi-kun?
What’s wrong with you?
Are you possessed?” Kariya quickly hurried over, trying to pull this embarrassing guy off the floor.
“No…
I can’t…
I’m dying of laughter…
Ow, my stomach…” Yoru Hayashi cackled while slapping the floor.
Only with Kariya’s help did he manage to sit up, wheezing as he said, “Brother Kariya, guess what that old bastard Tokiomi Tohsaka—the guy who won’t shut up about ‘elegance’—just summoned?”
Kariya froze, then grew tense.
Who is it?
Could it be Saber…”
“Saber my foot!
He summoned a Berserker!”
Yoru Hayashi wiped a tear from his eye, as thrilled as a spectator getting front-row seats to ultimate drama.
“And get this—he summoned the ‘Knight of Treachery’ from British legend, Mordred, who ran her own father King Arthur through with a sword!
A delinquent girl with a fuse shorter than a firecracker whose whole deal is ultimate filial piety!”
At this, even Kariya stood stunned.
Though he wasn’t well-versed in Western mythology, he knew that Mordred was synonymous with rebellion.
“You’re telling me that elegant, severely OCD old man Tokiomi Tohsaka has to command a Berserker delinquent girl who only knows how to chop people up and wreck houses?” In Kariya’s mind, a vivid image immediately formed of Tokiomi fuming with smoke coming out of his ears, sweeping up shattered glass with aristocratic elegance.
*Pfft.*
Kariya couldn’t hold it in and burst into laughter.
Gradually, his laughter grew louder, until both grown men were standing in the middle of the arcade laughing like total maniacs.
“Hahaha!
Tokiomi!
You got what was coming to you!
Let’s see how elegant you are now!
Hahahahaha!” Kariya felt as though a lifetime of depression had been cured in a single day.
“Hmph, what a tedious farce.”
Gilgamesh pulled out an exorbitantly expensive handkerchief with deep disgust, wiping away the drops of Cola Yoru Hayashi had sprayed onto his clothes.
He scoffed, “Nothing more than a mad dog devoid of reason.
A boring mage paired with a rabid cur—a match made in heaven.”
Though arrogant in speech, a gleam of clear gloating glinted within the King of Heroes’ crimson eyes.
After all, that mage named Tokiomi Tohsaka had originally intended to use *him* as an enforcer.
Now that it was swapped for a mad dog, Gilgamesh was definitely staying to enjoy the show!
“No way, this content is way too insane!
I’ve gotta go stoke the flames a bit.”
Yoru Hayashi nipped up off the floor with a kip-up, the flames of chaotic intent burning bright in his eyes.
“Brother, now that Tokiomi has acquired his dutiful child, then knowing how world line convergence works, Kiritsugu Emiya will eight or nine times out of ten still end up summoning King Arthur (Artoria)!”
Yoru Hayashi slung an arm around Kariya’s shoulder, his tone as pumped up as a pyramid scheme recruiter.
“Do you realize what that means?!
We’re about to get an epic father-daughter showdown right here in Fuyuki City!
Once those two clash, it’ll be more explosive than New Year’s fireworks!”
Although Kariya didn’t quite understand what a “father-daughter showdown” meant, he understood one key thing—Tokiomi Tohsaka was in for deep trouble!
“So what do we do now?
Storm the Tohsaka residence to watch the show?” Kariya rubbed his hands together excitedly, having fully embraced his honorable role as Yoru Hayashi’s henchman and walking ATM.
“Storm what?
Why alert the snake so early?”
Yoru Hayashi gave him a side-eye, then turned to look at Gilgamesh, who had gotten bored enough to start inspecting a nearby Dance Dance Revolution machine.
“Let’s go, let’s go!
Amusement park time is over for today!
Now that Tokiomi has shown his hand, we’ve got real business to attend to!”
With a broad wave of his hand, Yoru Hayashi scooped up the well-behaved Sakura and strode out of the arcade.
“What real business?” Gilgamesh followed behind, thoroughly annoyed.
“If you dare make this King do mundane chores, I will skewer you on the Gate of Babylon and roast you right now!”
“Collect protection money from Fuyuki City’s biggest local mob boss, of course!”
Yoru Hayashi grinned, flashing a spine-chillingly villainous smirk.
“Since we’re playing the wildcard in this Holy Grail War, we gotta claim our turf first.
Come on, I’m taking you to the Fuyuki Church to have a ‘friendly chat’ with that old fart Risei Kotomine.
The referee is already blowing dirty whistles, so if we don’t show him who’s boss, he’s really gonna think I came here on vacation!”
Yoru Hayashi glanced at the insultingly mock-middle-finger Command Seal on the back of his hand, his eyes narrowing sharply.
“Holy Grail War?
Breaking the Holy Grail War’s rules is my favorite pastime!”