Early morning sunlight pierced through the giant floor-to-ceiling windows of the Hyatt Hotel’s presidential suite, landing on Yoru Hayashi’s face without an ounce of mercy.
“Sss…”
Yoru sat up on the expensive leather sofa, clutching his neck and wincing in pain.
Although the system had granted him Rank C Battle Continuation and Rank B Bajiquan mastery, that didn’t stop him from getting a stiff neck from a terrible sleeping posture.
He turned his head toward the two-meter-wide bed a short distance away.
Tohsaka Sakura—or just Sakura now—was wrapped up tight like a little silkworm cocoon, clutching a corner of the blanket while sleeping soundly.
The little girl’s brow was relaxed, as if enjoying a sweet dream free of bugs and her terrifying grandfather.
Watching her, Yoru rubbed his stiff neck and mentally reviewed his plans.
“Even though I blew up the Matou household right off the bat and secured Sakura for now, this Holy Grail War is no game.”
Yoru was well aware of the current situation.
It was 1993, less than a year before the Fourth Holy Grail War officially kicked off.
That old bastard Tokiomi Tohsaka was probably in his basement right now, elegantly swirling a glass of red wine as he eagerly awaited summoning the oldest King of Heroes, Goldie; Kayneth was likely still giving Waver a hard time back at the Clock Tower; and Kiritsugu Emiya was almost certainly scouring the globe for heavy artillery while admiring the snow with his wife, Irisviel.
And what about him, Yoru Hayashi?
He had less than 900,000 yen in cash, a five-year-old kid tagging along, and nothing to his name except two martial arts techniques and a pitiful trickle of magical energy.
If he charged straight into the Holy Grail War like this, he wouldn’t even be able to block a toothpick shot from Gilgamesh’s Gate of Babylon.
He’d die on the spot and be forced to reload his save.
While he possessed infinite resurrections, the ability wasn’t entirely without drawbacks.
Dying repeatedly was mental torture, and if he ran into a Noble Phantasm that directly sealed souls or brainwashed targets, that would be a fate truly worse than death.
“I need a sponsor, and a scapegoat…
no, a partner.”
Yoru stroked his chin.
Instantly, an image sprang to mind: a guy with seaweed hair, a perpetually miserable expression, and a tragic devotion that made him ready to burn his life away at any moment for the woman he loved.
Kariya Matou.
“You’re the one, Fuyuki City’s Number One Simp!” Yoru slapped his thigh, making up his mind.
…
At ten o’clock in the morning, inside a high-end children’s clothing store in Fuyuki City’s Shinto district.
“This red one, this pink one, and that little dress with the lace trim—wrap them all up.
Also, these leather shoes, pick the pair with the softest soles.”
Like a nouveau riche tycoon, Yoru barked orders at the shop assistant, sweeping up the brightest, cutest clothes off the racks.
In the original story, Sakura always wore dull, depressing purple or black outfits that made anyone’s heart ache.
Now that she was with him, he was going to spoil her to death and dress her in the brightest colors possible.
When Sakura stepped out of the fitting room wearing a tiny pink trench coat, white tights, and cute red leather shoes, even the seasoned sales assistant couldn’t help calling out, “Kawaii!”
The little girl nervously tugged at the hem of her coat, keeping her head low, but her deep crimson eyes sparkled with irrepressible joy.
At the Tohsaka household, everything was dictated by “magecraft elegance.” She had rarely been allowed to wear bright, cheerful clothes meant for an actual child.
“Big Brother…
are these…
really expensive?” Sakura asked softly.
“Expensive my ass!
Swipe it!” Yoru grandly slapped the bank card he had swiped from Tsuruno Matou onto the counter.
He turned to Sakura with a grin.
“Wear them without worry.
This money was generously ‘sponsored’ by your nominal uncle.
It’d be a waste not to spend it.”
After buying the clothes, the two found a public phone booth on a street corner.
Relying on his memory, Yoru flipped through the phone directory until he found the landline number for the Matou residence, then dialed without hesitation.
*Beep…
beep…
click.*
The phone was picked up instantly after two rings.
A raspy, frantic, almost neurotic male voice barked through the receiver: “Hello?!
Who is this?!
Did you take Sakura?!”
“Yo.
That voice sounds like a tragic secondary male lead who just got fired,” Yoru said, a lollipop hanging from his mouth, sounding every bit like an arrogant professional kidnapper.
“Kariya Matou, right?
Relax.
The girl’s with me, alive and kicking, without a single hair out of place.”
On the other end, Kariya grabbed onto the words like a drowning man clutching at a straw, roaring into the receiver: “Who are you?!
What have you done to Sakura?!
Come at me instead!
I’ll give you money, Mystic Codes, whatever you want—just please don’t hurt her!”
“Whoa, hold on, stop!”
Yoru quickly pulled the receiver away; the guy’s voice cracking almost blew out his eardrums.
“First off, I’m not a human trafficker.
I’m the benefactor who fished her out of your sick father’s pit of bugs.
Second, if you really want to see her, meet me in thirty minutes at the McDonald’s family restaurant next to Shinto Central Park.
Remember: come alone, and—bring all your savings and bankbooks.”
With that, Yoru hung up cleanly.
Beside him, Sakura looked up, her face full of confusion.
“Big Brother, are we going to see Uncle Kariya?”
“Yep.” Yoru patted her head, giving a meaningful smile.
“Not only are we meeting him, but Big Brother is going to teach him a profound life lesson: these days, you don’t have to sacrifice your life to be a hero—having cash works just fine.”
…
Thirty minutes later, inside the McDonald’s.
Yoru ordered Sakura a Happy Meal.
The little girl held a french fry, nibbling on it in small bites like a tiny hamster.
*Bam!*
The doors of the restaurant swung open violently, drawing stares from surrounding diners.
A man in a gray trench coat stumbled inside, his hair disheveled and his eyes bloodshot.
His frantic gaze scanned the room until it locked onto the little girl in pink sitting by the window, munching on fries.
“Sakura!”
Kariya Matou’s eyes turned red, tears nearly bursting forth.
He rushed over and dropped to his knees right beside the table, trembling hands reaching out toward her face—only to freeze in midair, terrified that the sight before him was just a hallucination.
“Uncle Kariya…” Sakura stopped nibbling her fry and called out timidly.
Hearing her voice made Kariya break completely.
Last night, when he saw the old man’s pathetic, shattered state in that foul, reeking worm pit, his first reaction hadn’t been joy, but terror.
He feared that the monster who could pulverize Zouken Matou would do something even worse to Sakura.
Now, seeing her completely unharmed—dressed in lovely new clothes, her complexion rosier than it had ever been at the Tohsaka house—Kariya felt a massive boulder lift off his chest.
“Ahem.
That’s enough drama.
People will think I kidnapped a kid off the street.”
Sitting across from Sakura, Yoru tapped the table, rudely breaking up the melodrama.
Waking from his daze, Kariya snapped his head up to look at Yoru.
The youth before him looked barely twenty, casually dressed with a lazy glint in his eyes.
He didn’t look at all like the fierce monster the old man described—someone who could shatter a wall of bugs with a single punch and rub a five-hundred-year-old archmage into the dirt.
“Were you…
the one who saved Sakura?” Kariya stood up and took a deep breath, his expression deeply complicated.
“Allow me to introduce myself.
Yoru Hayashi.
Profession: brute specializing in curing arrogant fools; side job: current guardian of Tohsaka Sakura.” Yoru leaned back against his chair, sizing Kariya up.
“I heard you originally planned to go back and jump into the worm pit voluntarily, letting those disgusting bugs bore into your brain and spinal cord just to take Sakura’s place in the Holy Grail War?”
Kariya turned pale, gritting his teeth as he nodded.
“I could never let Aoi’s daughter go through that hell!
As long as I win the Holy Grail and prove my value to the old man, he’ll let Sakura go!”
*Smack!*
Yoru slapped the table hard, startling a young couple sitting nearby.
“Stupid!
Utterly brainless!
You’re suffering from terminal brain rot!”
Yoru poked Kariya right on the nose, lambasting him without mercy.
“Is your head filled with raw sewage?
Don’t you know what kind of vile creature that old dried-up husk is?
You expect a five-hundred-year-old pervert who uses his own family as disposable fodder to keep a promise?
Even if we ignore that, with your pathetic, last-minute amateur skills and a handful of trash bugs, you expect to fight Heroic Spirits straight out of myth?
You wouldn’t survive the qualifiers!”
Kariya trembled all over, his fists clenched so tight his nails dug deep into his palms.
Yet he couldn’t refute a single word.
Deep down, he knew the old monster would never keep a promise.
He was merely grasping at a poisonous, thorny vine in his desperation, trying to hypnotize himself.
“I’m useless…
I have no talent for magecraft, and I can’t even protect the woman I love…” Kariya clutched his head in agony, his voice drenched in despair.
“Besides throwing my life away, how else am I supposed to save her?!”
“And there it is!”
Yoru dropped his anger instantly, changing expressions faster than flipping a page.
Smiling, he pulled a handwritten bank account number from his pocket and slapped it right in front of Kariya.
“Your spotlight’s been stolen by me.
I smashed the old bug’s physical body to pieces; he’ll probably be hiding in the basement sewer drains for months.
Sakura is under my protection now.
If anyone dares lay a finger on her, I guarantee they’ll vaporize from this world.”
Kariya stared blankly at the slip of paper bearing the account details, his brain failing to process what was happening.
“What…
what do you mean?”
“Literally what I said.” Yoru rested his chin on his interlaced fingers, looking at Kariya like he was a plump, juicy sheep ready for slaughter.
“You don’t need to feed yourself to bugs, and you don’t need to be Zouken Matou’s puppet.
You want to protect Aoi Tohsaka’s daughter?
You want Sakura to grow up happy?
No problem!
I, Yoru Hayashi, am now Sakura’s personal bodyguard and full-time caretaker!”
Yoru wagged a finger in front of Kariya’s eyes.
“However, raising a kid is damn expensive, my friend.
Food, clothes, future schooling, plus preparing for the upcoming Holy Grail War—everything costs money.
Last night when I beat up your brother, I nicked a few hundred thousand yen off him, and I’ve almost burned through it all this morning.”
“So, do you get what I’m saying?”
Yoru patted Kariya’s shoulder, flashing the warm, friendly smile of a ruthless capitalist.
“If you want to be a warrior of true love, you don’t have to sacrifice your life.
You can choose to invest in me.”
“Starting today, you, Kariya Matou, are the exclusive title sponsor for me and Sakura.
You supply the cash, I supply the muscle.
As long as your wallet stays open, I guarantee that old bastard Tokiomi Tohsaka won’t even walk away with a participation trophy in this Holy Grail War!”
Kariya Matou froze for a full minute.
He looked at Sakura, who was licking ketchup off her little fingers, and then at Yoru, whose face practically screamed, *Transfer the money already.*
In that moment, Kariya suddenly felt that all his previous tragic resolves to sacrifice himself, all those agonizing struggles late at night, were nothing more than a laughable clown show.
*That’s right!
If money can solve the problem, why the hell feed myself to bugs?!*
“Deal!”
Kariya slammed his thigh, a newfound vitality bursting from his previously dead, dull eyes.
“I’ve saved up plenty of money over the years working as a freelance journalist, plus I control several hidden properties under the Matou name—you can have it all!
As long as you keep Sakura safe and make that bastard Tokiomi pay, even if you want to buy up every fried chicken shop in Fuyuki City, I’ll reimburse you!”
Watching Kariya’s fanatical expression—looking like a man who had finally found an excuse to spend his wealth—Yoru raised his glass of Cola with a satisfied air and gave him a virtual toast.
“Pleasure doing business with you, ATM Number One.”
The Holy Grail War hadn’t even begun, but Yoru Hayashi had already successfully secured his starting capital and logistical backing.
As for what came next…
Yoru narrowed his eyes.
It was time to stir up the muddy waters of Fuyuki City for all they were worth!