Steel ringing against steel. Heroes from different eras trading the techniques of their ages, finding in an opponent a rare equal—that was one of the Holy Grail War's greatest appeals.
"You've fought this long without breaking a sweat. Hard to believe you're a woman."
"No need for modesty, Lancer. Your name escapes me, but to receive praise from a spearman of your caliber—the honor is all mine."
Professional flattery: required equipment.
"Enough of this, Lancer. Don't drag it out—Saber is a difficult opponent, but finish her now. You have permission to use your Noble Phantasm." Pity the hidden Master nearby had no appreciation for the moment.
Lancer's mouth curved. "Understood, my Master."
Diarmuid's Noble Phantasms: Gáe Dearg—the crimson spear that nullifies magical enhancements—and Gáe Buidhe, the yellow lance whose wounds could never heal. Their effects were exactly what the names implied.
Before he could bring either to bear, his spear snapped up in a guard—and something blazing red crashed into his field of vision. A spear, equally crimson, trailing enormous magical energy, slammed into his weapon with enough force to bow it into an arc before sending it flying.
"Who's there?" Artoria, who'd been trading pleasantries with Lancer seconds ago, raised her invisible sword, every sense sharpened.
Dr. Roman's muffled voice was murmuring something from the comm: "So that's what all that magical energy was for? And that spear—there's something about it..."
"Not the wisest move, but it does count as... intervening... though regarding these two..."
The signal started cutting out again.
"Why is my Servant complimenting someone other than me first?" Ritsuka finally stepped out, checking left and right carefully as she did.
El-Melloi had mentioned Saber's Master kept a sniper rifle trained on everyone at all times.
"To interrupt my duel with Lancer—for a knight, this is an unforgivable insult."
Saber lowered her invisible blade to point at Yimi's nose, but her eyes stayed fixed on the spear. "Your appearance is far from human, so I will not dismiss you as an ignorant child. Since you chose to intervene, I'll assume you've prepared yourself for the consequences."
"Mm?" Yimi calmly deflected the invisible blade aside. The cat didn't like being pointed at.
She glanced toward where Lancer's thrown lance had landed. Already gone.
The Spear of Longinus was too long for her—ground-based Insect Glaive techniques always felt awkward with something that size. She'd been hoping for something shorter.
"Please wait—we can explain this." Ritsuka stepped forward quickly, sizing up the woman who was likely Saber's proxy Master, and shot blind: "I'd also appreciate it if Saber's real Master could point that rifle somewhere other than my head."
Far away, Kiritsugu frowned. "I've been spotted?"
"Explain?" Lancer's Master's voice rang from the air. "You're looking for an opening to attack us and ingratiate yourself with Saber's camp. Pathetically transparent."
"Well said, my Master." Lancer had already returned, eyeing the small girl warily. "That magical energy is immense. Your style of combat is extraordinary—but you're Caster, aren't you? Unusual for a magus to carry a spear like that."
"That spear..." Kiritsugu shifted the rifle off Ritsuka and trained it on Yimi, zooming in.
Unlike Lancer's uniformly crimson weapon, this spear's red had an unnatural, almost painted quality—as though the color came not from craftsmanship but from being soaked in blood.
Every Heroic Spirit worth the name had blood on their weapon. But for blood-soaked to persist as the defining trait of a Noble Phantasm—that required, at minimum, killing mythological creatures. At minimum.
At maximum... easy to deduce, but surely not.
"Not Caster."
Yimi's gaze moved between Saber and Lancer. The strange male voice from her Master's comm had said—before the signal failed—something about keeping at least three Servants alive to prevent All the World's Evil from leaking out.
The cat had no idea what All the World's Evil was. Class knowledge hadn't covered it.
"Not Caster? You must be jok—"
"OHH OHH OHH OHH!"
A battle cry followed thunder from the sky. A chariot pulled by two enormous bulls descended, and the red-haired giant standing on it flung his arms wide:
"Both of you, stand down! No fighting before His Majesty!"
He looked left and right with great satisfaction. "I am the Conqueror King—Iskandar! I appear before this Holy Grail War in the class of Rider!"
Announcing his True Name in the opening moments—a move that stunned everyone present except Yimi. Not because the identity wasn't impressive (it was), but because even someone as upstanding as Artoria had been concealing hers.
"Fujimaru—can you hear me? The feed seems to have cleared."
"Loud and clear, Lord El-Melloi. That thieving student who betrayed his teacher has arrived—and he looks oddly familiar to me?" Ritsuka said under her breath.
Then El-Melloi went quiet again. This signal was genuinely infuriating.
"What are you doing, you idiot?!"
The flustered student tried to berate his Servant—and got flicked away with one finger for the effort.
Having disciplined his consort (not really), Rider turned his attention on the assembled Servants with great interest. "Though we are all rivals contending for the Holy Grail, I would first ask—does anyone wish to swear fealty to me and yield the Grail?"
"Impossible—the Holy Grail is mine to begin with!" Yimi leveled her spear at him.
The first villain had appeared: openly demanding, to the cat's face, that she hand over her treasure. Decision made. He was off the survivor list.
"Is that something a Ruler should be saying?! You must be a god of lies who manifested under falsified information!" Dr. Roman was losing his composure—though the more he stared at that spear, the more wrong it felt.
"A Ruler?"
Every eye turned to Yimi.
Somewhere in the less-accessible corners of the Grail's instilled knowledge there was a mention: an extra class that could appear when the Holy Grail War encountered certain anomalies.
But why had they received no notification? And Rulers were supposed to be those who died without personal wishes.
A fake?
"Hey, little one—I'm not sure why a Ruler is here, but as I recall, a Ruler is a neutral referee." The Conqueror King cleaned out one ear. "If you're going to claim the title, do you at least know what 'referee' means?"
Yimi looked up and pulled up the System.
Obediently, the System looked up the term and displayed the result.
The cat put both hands behind her back, like a student reciting something freshly memorized, and read it out with careful imperfection: "A referee is a person in a competition who determines victory, defeat, and fouls."
Rider's Master Waver tried to cut in. "So you know what it means—then your whole act is obviously—"
Yimi cut him off. "This war is a competition to seize the Holy Grail. An anomaly has occurred. Therefore the referee must determine which party the Holy Grail belongs to."
"So..." Waver said.
Yimi swung the spear back to point at him. "So—whatever I declare the Grail belongs to, that's who it belongs to. I declare the Grail is mine. Therefore the Grail is mine!"
Ritsuka nodded. "She has a point."
"That makes a lot of sense," the Conqueror King said, stroking his chin.
"THERE IS NO LOGIC IN THAT WHATSOEVER!"