Matou Zouken watched the boy in front of him with a gloomy, unpredictable expression. He subconsciously stepped back half a pace and let go of the unconscious Matou Kariya.
Then, his body suddenly fell apart. Countless insects flew out from within him, scattering in all directions.
As the founding head of the Matou family, Matou Zouken was a great magus who had lived for five hundred years. He had abandoned his original flesh and instead manipulated magical insects to form a temporary body, attempting to achieve immortality through this method.
Perhaps his raw power was not especially overwhelming, but he possessed many ways to save his own life.
The next moment, Alvin drew his sword.
Whoosh!
A golden blade of light lit up beneath the night sky.
The blazing, magnificent surge of mana swallowed up nearly all of the crest worms in an instant. Even so, two or three of them fled in panic and managed to escape from the building.
Alvin was about to give chase, but driven by sheer survival instinct, those crest worms flapped their wings desperately and flew off into the vast, empty sky.
Matou Kariya frowned slightly. He finally shook off his earlier weakness, slowly opening his eyes.
In a low voice, he said, "Matou Zouken, he won't let Sakura go."
"He should worry about whether he can even survive until the Holy Grail War ends."
Alvin looked out into the deep night where heavy snow was falling and said calmly, "Besides, Sakura won't be going back to the Matou house."
Matou Kariya froze for a moment, then quickly fell silent.
For Sakura, the Matou family really was not a good choice.
Without paying any more attention to Matou Kariya, Alvin withdrew the holy sword, turned around, and headed back to his room.
Matou Kariya was startled and instinctively looked at the boy, "You're not going to kill me?"
"You're just an ordinary person who was forced by Matou Zouken into participating in the Holy Grail War. You haven't even summoned a servant yet, you're not worth my hand."
Alvin turned around and closed the door.
Matou Kariya stood there blankly, staring at the tightly shut door with a complicated look in his eyes.
———
The fight outside the room lasted less than half a minute from start to finish. When Alvin returned to the living room, all he saw was a little girl sitting stiffly on the sofa, holding a cup of hot tea in both hands.
"Why did you take so long? Did you run into some trouble?"
Sajyou Manaka sat on the sofa and looked up at the boy in confusion.
"It's nothing. I just chatted with a couple of guests at the door for a bit," Alvin shook his head with a smile.
As he spoke, he turned his gaze to Matou Sakura sitting nearby and said, "Sakura, will it be uncomfortable living here?"
Matou Sakura gently shook her head, but when she thought of the Matou household, she glanced at the boy again, a little uneasy.
Alvin reached out and lightly patted her soft, smooth hair, "Don't worry. I already talked things over with your grandfather just now. After the Holy Grail War is over, I'll send you back to the Tohsaka house."
Matou Sakura believed him. In that instant, a glimmer of hope lit up in her eyes.
After sitting in the living room for a while, Sajyou Manaka suddenly tugged lightly on Alvin's hand, signaling for him to step outside with her.
The two of them went into the dining room. Sajyou Manaka looked up at him and asked, "Did the enemy get away?"
Alvin nodded gently, "Don't worry. He'll come back on his own soon... if he still wants the Holy Grail."
From the very beginning, he had never worried that the old worm would hide forever after escaping this time. As long as he still wanted the future of the Matou family and the Holy Grail, Matou Zouken would definitely have to find a way to defeat him.
But even in a servant state, Alvin was absolutely not someone a mere magus could deal with.
From Matou Zouken's perspective, there was only one way to win.
That was to directly eliminate Alvin's master.
But even the old worm probably never imagined it, this master was also a heavyweight.
Thinking of that amusing scene, a faint smile quickly appeared on Alvin's face.
"Saber, do you think the enemy might try to get rid of me first?", Sajyou Manaka asked worriedly.
Alvin gave a slight nod and smiled, "He's already injured, so he won't pose much of a threat to you."
Yet the worry still lingered in Sajyou Manaka's bright, beautiful eyes, "But just in case, you should stay with me all the time for now… I-I'm a little scared."
"That's only natural. I'm your servant. Of course I'll stay by your side—"
Alvin was still wondering why Sajyou Manaka was acting so differently today when she continued, "Then to make sure we're safe, you'll sleep together with me and Sakura tonight."
Alvin: "..."
'No, wait. Isn't that a bit of a leap in logic?'
'How did she connect "ensuring safety" with "sleeping together"?'
'In all the previous Holy Grail Wars, which servant ever slept together with their master?'
Alvin was filled with the urge to complain internally.
Seeing his hesitation, Sajyou Manaka's mood dropped immediately. Her little face dimmed, "Is that not okay?"
"It's not that, it's just…"
Even though he had no intention of doing anything improper, if word got out, it would be pretty outrageous.
But in the end, Alvin still "reluctantly" agreed.
"All right… if that's the master's judgment."
———
Under the pitch-black night sky, flakes of pure white snow drifted down.
In a certain alley, countless insects quietly gathered together, forming a hunched, aged figure.
He staggered and leaned against the wall, sliding down to sit. Lifting his head, he felt the cold snowflakes land on his face. His expression was incomparably dark.
From the founding of the Matou family until now, over these five hundred years, Matou Zouken had rarely suffered such a great loss. This time, if he hadn't reacted quickly, he might have already been completely erased by the Sword of Promised Victory.
And that was a Sword of Promised Victory that had not yet been unsealed.
With such a servant present, there was no way to win this Holy Grail War.
And now Matou Sakura was still in the other party's hands. He couldn't even prepare for the next Holy Grail War.
As he thought of this, Matou Zouken's expression grew even more terrifying.
Then, as if something occurred to him, his tightly furrowed brows slowly relaxed.
'The White Dragon is indeed powerful, but at the end of the day, it is still just a familiar.'
'Once the master dies, no matter how strong the servant is, what could it do?'
'If I can seize the command seals from that master, perhaps I can even make the White Dragon serve me.'
At that thought, a dangerous gleam quickly surfaced in Matou Zouken's ashen-white eyes.
———
That same night, masters from all sides began carrying out the special rituals to summon heroic spirits.
Inside an extremely luxurious apartment building, a man with neatly combed blond hair stood in the basement, murmuring incantations under his breath.
Kayneth had naturally noticed the clash between the two mysterious servants that night. As a result, the Clock Tower lord felt a strong sense of crisis and began the heroic spirit summoning for this Holy Grail War.
Kayneth's chanting grew more impassioned. At the same time, a faint breeze stirred within the red magic circle before him, and its light gradually brightened.
BOOM!
The next instant, a loud noise echoed through the basement. From within the crimson magic circle, a figure began to take shape as it answered the summon.
As if sensing it, Kayneth slowly opened his eyes and looked forward. When the figure came into view, joy quickly appeared on his face.
"So it really worked!"
A fusion of the White Dragon and the Red Dragon, one of the monsters from the legends of King Arthur, and the child of Morgan le Fay. In the Fourth Holy Grail War, she descended upon Fuyuki as a lancer.
The knight clad in heavy silver-white armor slowly opened her eyes and removed her helmet.
Those emerald-green eyes seemed filled with madness and arrogance, and faintly, a terrifying power restrained by will emanated from her body.
"Lancer, answering the summons and manifesting here."
"Are you my master?", Mordred looked up.
When she clearly saw the man's appearance, doubt quickly surfaced on her face, "It's you..."
As a transmigrator, and having lived for a long time in the royal palace of ancient Britain, Kayneth had naturally crossed paths with Mordred a few times.
They weren't particularly close, but they had met on several occasions.
"It seems you still remember me, Lancer?"
Seeing Mordred, Kayneth also secretly let out a sigh of relief. In heroic spirit summoning, even with a relic, it wasn't guaranteed you would summon the servant you wanted.
Even possessing Mordred's relic, Kayneth hadn't been completely confident.
He quickly gathered his thoughts and said in a deep voice, "Enough small talk. Let's head back first, I'll also tell you about tonight's developments so we can plan our next moves."
After he finished speaking, the two of them soon left the basement and took the elevator up to the upper floors of the building.
At the elevator entrance, Kayneth gave a rough account of what had happened that night. The mysterious saber clashing with an archer, and the movements of the various masters that he knew about, and so on.
"A flashy, golden archer, and a saber who forced that archer back using only summoned familiars? Doesn't that sound a bit unbelievable, Master?"
After listening to Kayneth, confusion and doubt quickly appeared on Mordred's face.
Even though she wasn't particularly familiar with the Holy Grail War, Mordred still knew that summoning familiars was something a caster should do. How could a saber's Noble Phantasm be summoning familiars?
"That familiar was special. But for safety's sake, since I hadn't summoned a servant yet, I didn't get close tonight, so I don't know what that familiar really was."
Kayneth stood with his hands behind his back, his tone calm and arrogant as he said lightly, "Of course, no matter how strong a familiar is, it's still just a familiar. It's nothing to fear. What we still don't know is how strong that saber is personally."
"A saber who fights using familiars?"
Mordred scoffed, "Sounds like a pretty unimpressive servant."
"It's a shame their fight was already over. Otherwise, I'd like to see it for myself. You really should have summoned me earlier."
"Don't worry. You'll get your chance."
Kayneth smiled faintly, "Tonight was only the appetizer of the Holy Grail War, the real show hasn't even begun yet."
———
That night, outside, the world was frozen and buried in snow. Inside the room, it was quiet, the orange lights set to night mode adding a touch of warmth.
A little girl with short black hair lay curled up beneath the blankets, eyes closed, her mind replaying everything that had happened that night.
From being sent to the Matou house by Tohsaka Tokiomi, to leaving the Matou house and being saved by someone else, it had been less than a week.
In this short span of under seven days, Matou Sakura had experienced a life as turbulent as crashing waves.
She silently opened her eyes. In the dimness, she could vaguely see the boy's "sleeping" face.
In fact, she knew that her grandfather, Matou Zouken, had come by earlier that night, and that he had been driven away by Saber.
'If we stay here, Grandpa will probably come back to cause us trouble again, right?'
'But if I left here… where will I go?'
Her father had given her away to another family. Now, she couldn't possibly return to the Tohsaka house on her own.
With her father's personality, if she went back now, she might even get scolded.
Clearly she had a home but couldn't return to it, and instead had to become someone else's child.
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