Fuyuki City, the hilly district of Shinto.
Perched upon this hilltop, which should have been solemn and peaceful, sat the official oversight body of the Holy Grail War—Fuyuki Church.
According to the rules established by the Clock Tower and the Holy Church, this was an absolute neutral zone where participating Masters could seek asylum, or even surrender their status to save their lives.
Of course, that was just a superficial line to fool idiots.
“Brother Kariya, floor it!
Park right at the main entrance, don’t worry about parking spots!”
A black van roared up the mountain road.
Yoru Hayashi sat in the back row, leisurely peeling an orange for Sakura while giving driver Kariya Matou some “pre-battle briefing.”
“Let me give you the lowdown.
Old man Risei Kotomine at the Fuyuki Church—the supervisor for this Holy Grail War—is already in bed with Tokiomi Tohsaka.
Tokiomi stuffed his pockets full of bribes, so the two of them are colluding to rig the game.
Hell, Risei’s own son, Kirei Kotomine, is secretly working as Tokiomi’s hitman assassin!”
“What?!” Kariya slammed on the brakes, making the tires screech against the asphalt.
“Then where’s the fairness in this Holy Grail War?!
That hypocrite Tokiomi actually bribed a man of the cloth!”
“Fairness?
Where do you expect fairness in the adult world?” Yoru popped an orange segment into his mouth and gave a cold grin.
“That’s why I brought you guys here today to crash their place.
Since these shady old snakes like playing dirty, I’m gonna teach them what real evil looks like in Fuyuki City!”
Leaning back against the leather seat beside him, Gilgamesh raised an eyebrow slightly.
“Hmph.
A boring game where even the referee joins the wager?” For once, the King of Heroes didn’t mock Yoru’s vulgarity.
Instead, an amused smirk curled the corner of his lips.
“Since this is an interlude meant to flip the chessboard, I shall watch and see how far you can take it.”
*Screeech—*
The van came to a steady halt right in front of the grand, double wooden doors of Fuyuki Church.
Yoru opened the car door, lifted Sakura out, and handed her to Kariya.
“Brother, watch the little girl out here.
Wait for me to finish up some business inside.”
With that, Yoru turned around and bounded up the stone steps two at a time.
Reaching the heavy, intricately carved doors, he skipped the knocking entirely and kicked both doors inward with a deafening crash!
“Listen up inside!
Vice raid…
ah, wait, routine inspection!
Whoever’s in charge, get your ass out here!”
Inside the silent nave, rows of pews stood completely empty.
Sunlight filtered through the stained-glass windows, streaming down onto the grand crucifix at the front.
Beneath the cross, an old man in a priest’s cassock, complete with a white beard and a face full of wrinkles, had his eyes closed and hands clasped in prayer.
Hearing the door being kicked open with violence that outdid a demolition crew, the old man trembled and whipped around.
This old geezer was none other than Risei Kotomine.
“Who dares make such a racket in this holy chapel and desecrate the church doors?!” Risei Kotomine roared with full vigor, his eyes wide with fury.
From the shadows behind Risei, a tall, well-built young man with short hair and an expressionless face stepped out as silently as a ghost, dressed in a black cassock.
This was none other than the Type-Moon universe’s famous “Mapo Priest”—Kirei Kotomine.
“Yo, you’re both here.
Saves me the trouble of hunting you down one by one.”
Yoru strolled down the red carpet toward the altar with his hands in his pockets, flanked by a glowing golden Gilgamesh who crossed his arms with “you’re all trash” written across his face.
“Young man, this is no place for a lunatic like you to act wild,” Risei Kotomine said, frowning deeply at Yoru’s improper attire.
But as his gaze moved past Yoru and landed on Gilgamesh behind him, his pupils shrank violently.
What terrifying mana fluctuations!
This leather-jacket-wearing blonde man was definitely a Servant!
Risei Kotomine immediately put on his supervisor demeanor and demanded in a deep voice, “Are you a Master and Servant participating in the Holy Grail War?
Do you not know that the church is a neutral zone where fighting is strictly forbidden?
Declare your origins at once, or in the name of the supervisor, I shall…”
Cut the pompous act.”
Yoru walked up to the front row of pews, plopped down, and arrogantly propped his right leg over the backrest.
He raised his right hand and flashed the Command Seal on his backhand at Risei—one shaped conspicuously like a fist flipping a middle finger.
“My Master status is right here.
I didn’t come today for anything complicated.
As the organizers, shouldn’t you church folks hand over some settling-in allowance or share some intel with a newly enrolled contestant like me?”
Risei Kotomine stared at the deeply insulting shape of the Command Seal, his blood pressure instantly spiking to maximum.
“Utter nonsense!
The Holy Grail War is sacred—what on earth is a ‘settling-in allowance’?!
An unschooled wild dog like you, who knows nothing of mage etiquette, isn’t fit to participate in this holy ritual!” Risei shouted furiously.
“Kirei!
Throw this sacrilegious heretic out!”
“Yes, Father.”
Kirei Kotomine, who had been standing behind like a wooden statue, finally moved.
His hollow eyes locked onto Yoru, and his hands shot out from his wide cassock sleeves, six gleaming Black Keys—conceptual weapons used exclusively by Executors—held between his fingers.
“Oh?
Want to throw down?”
Yoru didn’t panic in the slightest.
He casually stood up and cracked his knuckles.
“I’ve long heard that you, Kirei Kotomine, are a ruthless bastard among Executors, and that your Bajiquan is notorious.
Coincidentally, your granddaddy here just learned a thing or two recently.
I’ll use you for target practice today.”
A rare flicker of surprise passed over Kirei Kotomine’s perpetually stoic face.
How did this man know he specialized in Bajiquan?
However, Kirei didn’t waste words.
As a rigorously trained Executor, his movements were lightning-fast.
He lunged forward with a single step, cracking the solid marble floor beneath his foot.
Passing on throwing his Black Keys, he closed the distance instead.
His right arm pulled back like a fully drawn bowstring.
Using the tremendous force of his forward stride, he delivered a lethal Bajiquan technique—[Heart-Striking Elbow]!
If this strike landed clean, it could crush the internal organs of an elephant.
“Come at me!”
Far from retreating, Yoru’s eyes erupted with a fiery thirst for battle.
The sixty Magic Circuits inside his body flared to life in an instant, coating his right shoulder and arm in a thick layer of pale-blue mana.
At the same time, the muscle memory from his system reward—[Bajiquan (Rank B)]—took over his body!
Yoru dropped his center of gravity and slammed his right foot forward with equal brutality!
*BOOM!* The tile under his foot shattered into dust.
Right after, Yoru executed a textbook [Iron Mountain Lean], driving his shoulder directly into Kirei Kotomine’s Heart-Striking Elbow!
*BOOM—CRACK!*
Two equally domineering Bajiquan forces collided fiercely in mid-air, releasing a deafening thud.
The violent shockwave flipped the front row of wooden pews clean over!
In that instant of collision, Kirei Kotomine’s hollow eyes widened abruptly.
He felt a terrifying force transmit through his arm, rattling straight into his internal organs.
*Thud!
Thud!
Thud!*
Kirei Kotomine—an Executor who had trained his physical body nearly to the human limit—was forcefully driven back three whole paces!
With every step he took back, the marble tile beneath his feet shattered!
In contrast, Yoru skidded back over a meter, his entire right arm throbbing with pain.
However, thanks to his insane passive skill that maxed out pain resistance, this level of pain was like a mere mosquito bite.
“Tsk, damn you’re hard,” Yoru shook his arm and grinned.
Was my stolen Iron Mountain Lean authentic enough for you?”
Kirei Kotomine stabilized his stance and gave no answer.
Yet inside his heart, which was usually a pool of dead water, a turbulent wave surged forth.
It wasn’t because of the opponent’s strength, but because the technique the man just used was undoubtedly pure, refined Bajiquan power-generation that required endless trial and training to master!
How could this mysterious intruder who popped out of nowhere possess the exact same martial arts as him?!
“Kirei!
Are you alright?!” Risei Kotomine was terrified.
He knew how terrifying his son’s close-combat prowess was—how could he be forced back in a single exchange?!
“I’m fine, Father.” Kirei wiped a trace of blood from the corner of his mouth and assumed a fighting stance again.
But this time, his gaze had changed.
It was the look of someone lost in profound confusion who had suddenly stumbled upon something…
interesting.
“Hey now, that’s enough of this circus.”
Just as Kirei prepared to take things seriously, Gilgamesh—who had been watching the show from the back—finally spoke up in annoyance.
“I came to watch you fools entertain me like clowns, not to watch you shove each other around on these filthy steps.”
The King of Heroes swept his crimson eyes coldly across the Kotomine father and son.
*Hummm—*
At a sharp ringing sound, a hundred golden ripples instantly oscillated across the void behind Gilgamesh.
Over a hundred Noble Phantasms of various shapes, radiating terrifying divine aura, locked onto the heads of Risei Kotomine and Kirei Kotomine.
With a single thought, this church and the two men inside would be turned into a pile of minced meat and rubble in an instant!
*Hiss—!* Risei Kotomine’s face turned pale with horror, cold sweat streaming down his forehead.
As the supervisor, he naturally recognized what level of aura this was.
A top-tier Servant!
Undoubtedly the most broken existence in this Holy Grail War!
Gilgamesh didn’t attack immediately.
Instead, he fixed his gaze on Kirei Kotomine’s stone face with newfound intrigue.
As a king possessing an omniscient perspective, he keenly picked up on the twisted sense of pleasure hidden deep within this priest’s heart.
“Oh?
You, priest…
On the surface, you wear a hypocritical facade of ascetic restraint, yet beneath it, you hide mud filthier than even this lunatic.” Gilgamesh smiled cruelly, as if discovering a brave new world.
“How intriguing.
I am in a good mood today, so I shall spare your miserable lives for now.”
Seeing Boss Gold speak up, Yoru quickly seized the opportunity to wrap things up.
He strode right up to the stunned Risei Kotomine, grabbed the cross necklace hanging on the old man’s chest, and snarled:
“Old geezer, I’ll spare this dump today for Goldie’s sake.
Listen up: register my name on the roster of participants right now.
And go tell Tokiomi Tohsaka to wash his neck and wait for me.
From today on, I run the show in Fuyuki City!”
With that, Yoru pushed Risei Kotomine aside like a chick and turned around, blowing a flippant whistle at Kirei.
“Mapo, next time we meet, I’ll teach you how to make authentic Sichuan mapo tofu.
Let’s go, Goldie, I’m taking you to a food stall!”
Risei watched the two stroll out the church doors with extreme arrogance.
Trembling with rage, Risei Kotomine slammed his fist against a nearby pillar.
“Imbeciles!
Absolute hooligans!
Contact Brother Tokiomi immediately!
Things have spiraled completely out of control!”
Standing off to the side, Kirei Kotomine slowly lowered his hands.
He stared at Yoru’s departing back, then mulled over what Gilgamesh had just said.
In those dead, lifeless eyes of his, a sickly ripple flared to life.