Chapter 230: Rowe's Name
"May the Lord bless your path."
"Amen."
A moment later, still in Fuyuki City, the river called the Mion River ran through Japan's quiet provincial town like a blade, splitting it into north and south and separating the east and west banks. The two sides were linked by the Fuyuki Great Bridge, a simple span that pretended it could stitch together worlds.
The east bank was the old district, Miyama Town. A residential area built against the mountains, quiet enough that footsteps sounded loud, grown from the bones of a castle town that had survived the Warring States.
The west bank was the new district, shaped by modern society. Neon, engines, chatter. The noise of a world that believed the mysteries were dead.
Rowe was in a church in Miyama Town.
He sat in the front pew beneath the cross, looking up at the upright back of the priest who faced the altar. The man's silhouette was rigid, as if devotion itself had given him a spine of iron.
"There's no need for extra words, Father Kotomine," Rowe said lightly.
"Just register me."
"I would rather not be dragged into trouble and labeled an illegal intruder."
Rowe smiled as he spoke. The joke was private.
The Lord you keep invoking is sitting right here, he thought. Do you want me to bless myself?
After descending into the present world, he had come straight from the new district to this place for one reason.
Registration.
An identity stamped into the hidden side of society. A young magus with a clean background, a respectable origin, and paperwork that prevented the Holy Church from treating him like a trespasser the moment anything went wrong.
In the modern era, the Church's influence was vast. On the surface it was religion. Beneath the surface it was administration, judgement, and enforcement.
Even though the Holy Church and the Clock Tower shared a common origin in Rowe's distant past, the two had diverged long ago. One pursued truth. One pursued justice. They had hated each other with the intimacy of siblings who shared the same blood and chose different gods.
Not heresy.
Heterodoxy.
And heterodoxy was often more intolerable than heresy.
In the end neither side crushed the other, so they signed a pact.
The Holy Church supervised mysteries and magi.
Magi managed leylines and territory.
If a magus entered another region, they registered with the Church. If they did not, then any incident, any anomaly, any blood spilled in the night would be enough for the Church to label them an intruder and hunt them.
"But even so," the priest said, "a magus who comes to register so proactively is rare."
Father Kotomine turned around.
He was tall. His robe was thick and dark. His face was old and weathered, but his white hair was neatly combed, and the crucifix on his chest swung slightly as he moved.
Solemn. Dignified. A man built for confession and verdicts.
"The essence of magecraft is mystery," Kotomine Risei continued. "Even fairycraft would not reveal itself lightly."
Unless something had become too large to ignore, magi avoided contact with local Church personnel. And Church personnel often pretended not to see.
Unless it was too large.
"Exactly," Rowe said.
He tapped the wooden armrest of the pew with one finger, calm and polite, as if he were requesting a baptismal record.
"I am here for the Holy Grail War."
Kotomine Risei's gaze sharpened. Not outrage. Not shock.
Attention.
Rowe could practically hear the gears inside the supervisor turning.
The Holy Grail War.
He had decided on it for a long time.
Rowe was, at present, both absurdly strong and disturbingly fragile.
He had not fully adapted to the modern world. He had not fully mastered the weight of a Star Creating God. He was balancing inner and outer existence on a knife edge.
If the balance slipped, he could tear the world.
If the balance slipped the other way, he could collapse.
So this was the best place to seek death.
A proper death required enemies strong enough to strike where he was vulnerable.
Modern magi were too weak. Only heroes dragged from the Throne could carry the weight needed to shatter that delicate equilibrium.
Of course, that was not the only reason.
But it was the cleanest.
"The Holy Grail War," Kotomine Risei said slowly, "so that is what you are truly registering for."
"Of course," Rowe replied. "Supervisor Kotomine Risei."
He did not bother hiding the man's role.
"The grand ritual in Fuyuki. A summoning system that calls Heroic Spirits from the Throne of Heroes, gives them bodies that can walk the present, and forces them to fight."
"I am interested."
"Very interested."
He let the words hang just long enough to be provocative.
"And the founding families who created the Grail," Rowe continued, still smiling, "are hardly ordinary."
"The Tohsaka, rooted in Japan, disciples of the Second Magician."
"The Einzbern, from the German lands, inheritors of the Third Magic."
"And the Makiri, who came from Western Europe, descendants of a declining lineage of fairycraft."
Kotomine Risei's expression settled into something severe.
It was not only diligence.
It was calculation.
Because the supervisor of the Holy Grail War was also, by tradition, a cheater in the Holy Grail War.
And Kotomine Risei had already chosen his side.
He had colluded with the current Tohsaka participant. He planned to use his authority as supervisor to tilt the board.
Rowe knew.
That was why he had come.
To leak information.
To place his throat on the table and invite the knife.
Come, he thought. My weakness is right here.
Try to kill me.
Rowe stood and clapped his hands once.
On the back of his hand, red sigils surfaced, sharp and unmistakable.
The marks of a Master.
"The Command Spells," Rowe said. "Condensed prana. Proof of qualification. A tool to summon a Servant, strengthen them, and force obedience when needed."
"Is that correct?"
Kotomine Risei drew a slow breath.
"It is. You are a participant. There is no doubt."
The participants were selected by the Greater Grail itself, hidden somewhere beneath this city. Those connected to mysteries, those with strong desires, were chosen.
Rowe did not need to manipulate it.
A Star Creating God was a walking mystery.
And desire was something he had never lacked.
"Yes," Rowe said, and his smile sharpened into something that looked like youthful arrogance.
"I have already summoned a powerful Servant."
"Since you are the supervisor, it is fine to tell you."
"My Servant is…"
A wind rose inside the church.
Not a draft.
A pressure.
It howled into a crimson storm, and within that twisting red, a slender figure formed.
Kotomine Risei's eyes widened.
He froze.
For a heartbeat, then another, he stood there as if his mind had been struck by a bell.
Rowe offered a brief farewell, turned, and walked out.
Only when the church door swung and the night air rushed in did Kotomine Risei regain his breath. His lips moved quickly as he reached for a communicator.
"Kirei."
"It's me, Father."
"Tell your teacher, Tokiomi Tohsaka, that someone has summoned a hero no less significant than the one he intends to summon."
A pause on the other end.
"Who?"
Kotomine Risei stared at the open doorway and spoke the name carefully, as if saying it too loudly might draw a response from history itself.
"The Sage of Uruk."
"The root of Western wisdom."
"Rowe."
…
Rowe had not gone far.
He paused, fingers brushing the red sigil on the back of his hand.
Rowe.
That was the name Kotomine Risei had obtained through his authority as supervisor, the instant Rowe revealed his so called Servant.
Rowe's Servant was Rowe.
And yet, he had not summoned anyone.
Because Rowe was still alive. There was no Rowe recorded in the Throne of Heroes.
What he had done was something simpler and more dangerous.
He had fused himself with the Spirit Origin framework granted by the Grail.
He had turned himself into a Servant.
A Heroic Spirit shaped by a ritual, not by death.
Rowe wanted either death or greater power.
Preferably both, in that order, with either one acceptable as a result.
But his death could not be ordinary. Ordinary death meant disappearance.
He wanted a death that placed his true self on the Throne.
Achievement alone would not satisfy the conditions, not even in a Holy Grail War.
However.
He had left too many traces across history. Too many names. Too many selves. Too many vacant seats.
When a Holy Grail War ends, the souls of Servants return to the Throne through the Grail.
So if Rowe, now functioning as a Servant, died in this war, he could ride the system's return path and arrive at the Throne of Heroes through the weight of his past records.
That was why he had chosen a weaker identity.
The Sage of Uruk.
That was why he had leaked it.
He wanted them to believe they were aiming at a manageable legend.
He wanted them to commit.
The Holy Grail War's official purpose was to reach the Root through the returning souls and their accumulated power.
But what was a fleeting brush with Akasha compared to staying there?
Rowe looked back once.
Miyama Town lay under a deep night. The tall church stood hidden in dense trees, its silhouette like a dagger planted in the earth.
He could hear Kotomine Risei feeding information to a participant, Tokiomi Tohsaka, through Kotomine Kirei.
He could hear it.
And he found himself looking forward to it.
Moonlight washed over Rowe's youthful face. He smiled, soft and sharp at the same time.
"The plan is working."
"I hope you do not disappoint me."
His footsteps faded into the night.
…
"Rowe first appeared in the city state of Uruk on the Mesopotamian plain," Tokiomi Tohsaka read aloud, seated in the Tohsaka family basement. He closed the book and looked up.
A man in a red suit, neatly groomed beard, eyes like polished embers.
The ritual chamber was clean and sealed. Firelight flickered. The air tasted of incense and metal.
Across from him sat a young priest in cassock.
Kotomine Kirei.
The supervisor's son, the Church's man, and Tokiomi's disciple.
"Kirei," Tokiomi said, "what do you think?"
Kirei was silent for a moment.
Then he spoke in his precise, restrained voice.
"I have heard the name at the Clock Tower."
"Rowe. The Sage of Uruk. The teacher of Greek heroes. The King of the Wild Hunt in the north. The Taiyi of Divine Land."
"All those names leave the same trace."
"Many records and historical studies claim they are the same person."
"If that is true," Tokiomi said, brow tightening, "then it is troublesome."
"Teacher need not worry," Kirei replied. "My father only confirmed the Sage of Uruk. So what was summoned should be only that aspect."
"A Heroic Spirit reduced into a Servant cannot carry all of its power."
"So."
"The hero you are about to summon may still achieve victory."
Tokiomi's eyes reignited.
Yes.
If it was only the Sage of Uruk.
Then the king he intended to summon could defeat him.
Kirei did not say what else he knew.
He did not say that the name Rowe, in certain accounts, pointed toward the source of modern magecraft, the one who aided Solomon, the one who reappeared at the beginning of the Common Era, who left behind a system of inherited fairycraft, who stood at the origin point shared by the Clock Tower and the Holy Church.
Those words would shake faith.
From the Church's perspective, the Lord did not answer the summons of magi, truce or not.
So Kirei buried it.
"Then we waste no more time," Tokiomi said, standing. "The Holy Grail War is about to begin."
"Now."
"Let us perform the Servant summoning."
"Kirei. Are your holy relics prepared?"
"They are ready," Kirei answered. "As you requested, I chose an Assassin suited for support."
"The Hassan lineage," Tokiomi murmured, satisfied.
"Then let us go."
"To the level below."
"I have prepared the summoning ritual."
.....
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