The fight at the Fuyuki harbor ended in a draw.
If you looked at raw parameters, Scáthach—who'd only come out on a whim—could not possibly match a Servant whose Strength, Endurance, Agility, Mana, and Luck were all A+++.
But Scáthach's advantage was that she wielded primordial runes—the wisdom Odin obtained by hanging from the World Tree for nine days and nights, offering up his right eye.
Even Bai Ye's modern rune scripts, reconstructed through Touko Aozaki's craft, could build him a full suite of enhancements—strength, speed, endurance, recovery, and more.
Scáthach's primordial runes were only more extreme.
With no clear gap in raw output, and with both women possessing skills that could only be described as absolute mastery within their fields—
They quickly reached an unspoken accord. Neither thought it was wise to fight to the death on the very first night. And to Bai Ye watching, after the first thirty exchanges the battle shifted from killing intent into something closer to an exchange of arts.
"Worthy of the king who crossed life and death and ruled that demon realm," the lion-masked Servant said.
She lowered her lance and removed her helmet.
Golden hair spilled free. Her eyes shone a luminous yellow-green.
She reported her name to Scáthach.
"A mere wraith… call me Rhongomyniad. Of course, until the final moment arrives, you may also call me Artoria Pendragon, descended in this Holy Grail War as Saber."
"I think for now I'll call you Artoria," Scáthach said, red eyes narrowing with interest. Though the other had recognized her already, Scáthach returned the respect with equal formality. "Scáthach of the Land of Shadows, descended in this Grail War as Caster."
"Caster?!" Irisviel blurted.
Everyone knew the Caster class tended to have high Luck and Mana, trading off lower Strength, Endurance, and Agility.
But Irisviel had just watched Scáthach trade blows with "Artoria" like a storm of steel—those weren't low physical stats.
And what kind of Caster didn't craft tools, didn't build a workshop, and instead opened by spear-dueling another Servant?
"That's your narrow thinking," Bai Ye said, wagging his index finger. "Every Caster has a staff that suits them best… Scáthach."
Scáthach cooperated, swinging the crimson spear and manifesting rune symbols in the air.
Irisviel stared, dazed—you can do that?
Bai Ye smoothly redirected the target.
"But you… Saber with a mount, fine, because 'Riding' is a class skill. But what she's holding…"
"That's a heavy thrusting sword!" Irisviel answered instantly.
"…"
"…"
"…"
Bai Ye, Scáthach, and "Artoria" all stared at her.
"…She was summoned like that," Irisviel mumbled under the three-way gaze, shrinking. "What was I supposed to do? The relic I used was the scabbard of the Holy Sword."
"Only the scabbard, no sword," Bai Ye said with an utterly serious tone. "So of course she could only pick up a spear. If you'd used the Holy Sword itself, this never would've happened."
"Huh? So that's why?" Irisviel brightened, fully convinced.
Bai Ye: "…."
You actually believed that?
Feeling the Saber's gaze on him had acquired a distinct and complicated flavor, Bai Ye cleared his throat.
"As things stand, whether from the Servant side or the matter we discussed earlier, no one is finishing anything tonight. If I may ask—what are your plans from here?"
"Our original plan was to act normally," Irisviel said. "If we met a Servant and had the chance, we'd send them away—so long as we could keep ourselves in good condition."
She hesitated, then added, "But after what you told me, I think I need to confirm it. If it's true, I'll need to prepare countermeasures in advance."
"Then let's part here," Bai Ye said. "I also have something I need to confirm."
He dispelled the rune barrier he had built to block Kayneth, Tokiomi, and others from spying, and bid Irisviel and Rhongomyniad farewell.
After leaving the harbor, Scáthach noticed the direction of travel relative to Bai Ye's mental map.
"You're heading for Fuyuki Church," she said. "Planning to cut away Tohsaka's support before you move on his Servant?"
"We'll see. I'm mainly going to confirm what that Servant is."
Bai Ye contacted Morgan.
"Kirei Kotomine is still there?"
"He's still there," Morgan replied without hesitation.
"Next question—days ago, you caught the summoning mana pulse. In the days since, have you seen his Servant at all? You don't need to identify them. Just whether you've seen any trace."
"Not once."
"Then while we have room to breathe, we need to confirm what kind of monster he pulled," Bai Ye said as they walked.
In the original storyline, the classic "Assassin ambushes the Tohsaka mansion and gets casually killed by the golden Servant inside" never happened here.
Because on the very day the Grail notified Masters that the Fourth War had begun early, Bai Ye and Sakura had already performed their summons: Bai Ye summoned Caster Morgan le Fay; Sakura summoned Assassin Kama.
So Bai Ye originally assumed the missing mansion incident was simply butterfly effect—
Not every Assassin could split themselves like Hassan of the Hundred Faces, enabling the trick plan of "sacrifice one body so everyone believes Assassin is dead, then hide the remaining bodies as a shadow piece."
But after seeing Kama, then Scáthach, then the "Artoria Pendragon" who had been pushed into divinity through Rhongomyniad—
and arguably Morgan too, who, like Scáthach, was still "alive"—
Bai Ye couldn't ignore the possibility that Kirei's summoning might also have deviated.
Even though he had confirmed two days ago that Tokiomi still summoned Gilgamesh, and tonight confirmed Kayneth and Waver still had Diarmuid and Iskandar—
What if Kirei was the exception?
In hindsight, Kirei's behavior itself—summoning a Servant and then squatting in the church without ever emerging—was already suspicious.
In the original story, he could openly enter the church because everyone "knew" his Servant died in the Tohsaka mansion raid, making him a Master without a Servant; applying for sanctuary under the Church's supervision was natural.
But now, with his Servant apparently still active, why could he do that?
Because everyone knew the Fuyuki Church's supervisor, Risei Kotomine, was his father?
Unless both father and son had simultaneously gone insane and decided to run a corrupt backroom operation even at the risk of later Church reckoning—
Bai Ye was convinced something was going on.
And if Kirei only became "abnormal" after the summoning, then the explanation almost certainly sat with his Servant.
....
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