"Report what happened here to Kirei Kotomine. I didn't expect even Berserker to show up now, keh keh. And with that unknown KING, all the Servants have fully assembled." In the woods not far from Artoria's group, several men and women in black bodysuits and skull masks appeared on tree branches as they spoke.
"Yes." The others answered.
Assassin: The nineteenth Hassan-i Sabbah. Because of his colorful skills, extensive knowledge, and a peculiar mentality that makes his actions completely unpredictable, he was given the awe-filled title "Hundred Personas." But in fact, put simply, he's just a mentally ill madman with dissociative identity disorder.
However, it's precisely because of those multiple personalities that Assassin possesses an ability to create clones: "Delusional Illusion." So Assassin can exist in multiple bodies. As an aside, among those countless clones, there is actually one purple-haired little girl under 4′7"4'7"4′7", wearing a white vest, with dark skin and half her face exposed.
Her presence, among this group of black-clad figures of varying shapes, was extremely conspicuous.
Winds surged from all sides. In just one night, it left the elite magi of Fuyuki City sleepless. Perhaps the most relaxed of them all was Meruem, staying with Sakura at the Matou residence—or rather, Sakura, as Meruem's MASTER.
Kirei Kotomine listened to Assassin's report, holding a glass of red wine. His face remained that same unchanging deadpan, making it impossible to tell what he was thinking. The Assassins stood respectfully behind Kirei Kotomine.
What the Assassins did not notice was that in another room of Kirei Kotomine's house, a golden figure with a haughty, world-weary air was sitting there with eyes closed.
On the other side, Kayneth was extremely dissatisfied with LANCER's behavior tonight. Hmph, what "the foremost warrior of the Fianna"? First, when fighting SABER, he concealed his Noble Phantasm and inflicted an unhealable injury on his opponent, yet still failed to take her down. Then, despite having an absolute advantage in a two-on-one, he still didn't bring down that unknown Servant KING.
How could someone as proud and arrogant as Kayneth, who viewed the Holy Grail as already in his pocket, not be furious? He even started wondering whether he had summoned the wrong Servant—whether the guy he summoned was completely useless.
He originally thought this was just some backwater place, and that with his ability he could win easily. What, the Three Great Families? Sorry, Kayneth really didn't take them seriously.
But reality slapped him hard in the face: any Servant who appeared tonight was no weaker than his own LANCER.
Who is he? He's Kayneth! The head of the Archibald family! A first-rank lecturer of the Clock Tower's Department of Spiritual Evocation! A figure renowned throughout the Mage's Association.
Even if you only looked at magecraft prowess, Tokiomi Tohsaka of the Three Great Families wasn't his match. Kayneth could even arrogantly declare that among all the magi in this Holy Grail War, none matched him in magecraft talent—they were all trash, especially that so-called Magus Killer who had no real magecraft ability.
This situation was hard for Kayneth to accept.
Why? Because he had the strength to back it up! Otherwise, why do you think Kiritsugu Emiya tried to kill Kayneth right from the start? Because in Kiritsugu's eyes, Kayneth's threat as a MASTER was higher than the others. Of course, that was Kiritsugu's thinking before he fought Kirei.
But that doesn't mean a damn thing. The Holy Grail War has no direct relationship to the Master's strength. A strong Master only increases the odds a bit. Servants are the center of the Holy Grail War. Before Masters transcend the category of ordinary humans, they absolutely cannot contend with Servants.
And combat power has no direct connection to magecraft talent either. Mapo can crush most magi with a set of Bajiquan. He's the kind of existence that can tear apart barriers with his bare hands. Kiritsugu's Origin Bullets are an absolute bane to all magi.
Kayneth's Volumen Hydrargyrum Mystic Code can likewise make every magus other than Kiritsugu unable to contend with him, yet it is completely hard-countered by Origin Bullets.
But one thing is certain: Kayneth's strength as a magus is extremely formidable.
Put simply: in close combat, Mapo is the strongest; in long-range assassination, Kiritsugu deletes everything; and if you remove Origin Bullets, then Kayneth equipped with the Volumen Hydrargyrum Mystic Code can lord over everyone.
But unfortunately, personality decides everything. Kayneth's arrogance doomed him to failure, and a total rout at that. We can imagine: if Kayneth had been cautious and hadn't been taken out by Origin Bullets, then Fate/Zero's ending might have been completely different, because if Kiritsugu didn't kill Kayneth, he would definitely be killed by Kayneth.
As for the other magi in this Holy Grail War: Tokiomi is steady and does indeed count as an excellent magus, but he can't contend with the three above. As for Waver—heh, to put it bluntly, although his later achievements are very high, his practical combat ability is still extremely low. As for Ryuunosuke, let's ignore his existence. Sakura is still a child. Perhaps only Zouken Matou could fight them, but at this point, Worm Grandpa's Crest Worms were already slaughtered 99%99\%99% by Meruem. Even if he has made some more now, they're still not worth mentioning.
To be honest, although Kayneth looked like he was scolding Diarmuid, he didn't say anything insulting and didn't really punish Diarmuid. It was more like he was complaining. Yes—complaining.
How should Kayneth be described? He really is arrogant. But he has the capital to be arrogant. At his core, he's not someone completely rotten, nor is he a guy who's evil down to the bone.
More accurately, he's the typical arrogant genius.
What he did to Waver at the Clock Tower before was indeed poorly considered, and he did go too far. But Waver's paper did have flaws, and its viewpoints also had major problems. As an instructor, pointing out a student's errors was not wrong—it's just that his method might have been a bit extreme.
He didn't consider poor Waver's fragile self-esteem.
However, after this Holy Grail War ended, once Waver returned to the Clock Tower and organized Kayneth's magecraft theory achievements, he came to acknowledge Kayneth. Otherwise, why did Waver inherit the name El-Melloi and become known as Lord El-Melloi II?
"Rhode, you're being too impatient." Just as Kayneth was turning into a homeroom teacher and nagging in front of Diarmuid, a beautiful woman with hair like blazing flames walked out from the other side of the room.
Sola-Ui Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri, Kayneth's fiancee, and also the one providing mana to Diarmuid.
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