At a moment of such unhinged nonsense, for the Master to openly chime in and back her Servant up instead of pulling her back—did that count as some kind of compatibility?
The unexpected turn only made El-Melloi II's head start to throb. His original plan had been for Ritsuka to approach his old teacher Kayneth, work a routine of sweet-talking and bluffing his way into an alliance—ideally, with the use of Lancer handed over as well. There'd been a private hope mixed in too, about saving a parallel-world version of his teacher.
That plan assumed a one-on-one meeting. It assumed he could actually get a word in. Instead they were now at the center of a first-night free-for-all, and the Ruler acting as arbiter had just delivered, with what looked suspiciously like a complete evaporation of good sense, a speech guaranteed to turn every Servant and Master present hostile toward her and Ritsuka both.
"So that's how it is. I was wondering what madness had come over you, trying to steal my Catalyst. You wanted to join the Holy Grail War yourself, is that it, Waver Velvet? Shall I give you a practical lesson out here on what it means for Magi to slaughter one another?"
Lancer's Master seized the opening and went straight for mockery.
Waver, standing beside Rider on the bull-drawn chariot, instinctively clutched his head in both hands—whether out of fear or genuine guilt over what he'd done was unclear.
Rider clapped him on the shoulder and jeered up at the sky: "Oi, Magus. It sounds like you meant to take this boy's place as my Master? Laughable. To be my Master is to be a warrior who can stand beside me on the battlefield—not some cringing coward like you!"
"He actually made it sound noble! He covered up the fact that he stole things!" Ritsuka was genuinely scandalized. She chose to forget where the cash in her own pocket had come from.
"Fujimaru, maybe lower your voice right now. We're not exactly in friendly company..."
Having finished with Kayneth, Rider turned his attention to Yimi. "Little miss, your argument sounds clever, but you haven't actually shown us any proof that you're Ruler. That Class shouldn't even exist here to begin with. And besides—"
The bull-hooves pounded the road, kicking up small arcs of lightning.
"Anyone standing between us and the Holy Grail is an enemy. Ruler or not, anyone who dares block the King's path will be conquered and trampled. That is what a Holy Grail War should mean."
"Well said." Saber nodded in agreement.
The cat was getting less and less patient with this red-haired man. And that Saber, too. All of them—bad people.
Rider didn't actually launch an attack. Instead, he clenched both fists and raised his voice. "We can't be the only ones who felt the prana Lancer was just giving off. Heroic Spirits summoned by the Holy Grail—gather here! Or are you all like that coward just now, crouching in corners? Does someone like that even deserve to win the Grail?"
At least half the kind of figures who made it into the history books would refuse to let a taunt like that pass.
Atop a streetlamp, a man materialized. Sheathed head to toe in gold armor, he folded his arms and shot a contemptuous glance down. "Two insolent pretenders calling themselves kings without the King's permission, and some strange little thing besides."
The crimson eyes panned down and settled on Yimi.
"What is that?"
"She claims to be Ruler." Rider ruffled Waver's mop of hair, generously unconcerned about the new Servant on the field.
"Oh?" Archer examined Yimi with mild interest—or, more precisely, examined the weapon in her hands.
The cat was getting annoyed at being stared at. "Why are you looking at me, Gilgamesh?"
"..." Somewhere far away, Tokiomi went still.
After being summoned by Ritsuka, Yimi had picked up the Ruler-Class ability of True Name Discernment.
Archer let out a dry laugh of fury. "To call the King's name so casually—you..."
"Aaarrrrrrr!!"
A maddened roar crashed into the scene. At his Master's command, Berserker ignored everyone else entirely and charged straight for the newly-arrived Archer.
Archer sprang down from the streetlamp, his brow knotting in unmistakable anger. "To make the King stand on the ground alongside a mongrel like you—you've got nerve, you mad dog."
At the same instant, Yimi attacked too. The crimson spear swept in Rider's direction. The Prana Burst discharging from it pulverized the shipping containers parked in the lot into nothing and peeled up several inches of the ground along with them.
"Ruler, what are you doing?" Mr. El-Melloi II gasped.
"You said so yourself. Kill a few, keep a few." The cat pointed at everyone present and counted them off. Five Servants in total. Taking one or two out of the running wouldn't hurt.
"That's technically correct, but he's someone we can negotiate with." And Rider was the one El-Melloi most wanted to preserve. Also—had she forgotten that she'd just antagonized Saber and Lancer at the same time, and hadn't gotten around to explaining yet?
"What tremendous prana for such a little girl. That one strike came close to the output of certain Noble Phantasms." Rider, piloting his bull chariot up into the sky, looked down at the suddenly much more spacious battlefield. "Opening with an ambush, no warning—bold. But landing a hit on me isn't quite that easy."
"Before the rest of you go declaring war on your own authority, don't forget: this Ruler and I have unfinished business. She interrupted my one-on-one fight. I'm feeling rather put out about it."
Saber planted herself in front of Yimi, leveling the invisible blade at her.
"When you hear the word Ruler, shouldn't you start wondering what's gone wrong with this Holy Grail War?" Ritsuka finally remembered her role.
"We can sort that out later." That was Saber's answer. Seeing that nearly everyone had already outed themselves anyway, she dropped the pretense as well. "As the King of Knights, I've been insulted several times over tonight."
First, her honorable duel had been interrupted. Then a Conqueror King had announced he was graciously giving her the Grail. And now someone calling himself King-knows-what had declared no one was permitted to call themselves king without his say-so.
The Conqueror King sighed. "Somehow, I'm the one being attacked, and I'm the one coming off as rude."
"Oh, honestly..." Ritsuka glanced at Yimi. "Can you beat her without killing her, Ruler?"
"Probably?"
She didn't know how strong Servants were in this world. But aside from the time a pack of dogs had chased her home in her old village, Yimi had never actually lost a fight.
Saber's brow arched. "That's quite a condescending thing to say. Come, Ruler. Show me where this confidence of yours comes from."
It wasn't just that she refused to view her opponent as an ordinary child. Even without the cat ears, Artoria would have treated her as an equal hero—because she herself had always hated being underestimated for looking like a little girl.
Then her Intuition twitched. An attack came at her from an angle she hadn't anticipated at all: from the shaft of the small girl's spear, a figure shot out and drove a single punch down onto her invisible blade.
The force, by her standards, was negligible. No Prana Burst backing it. The speed was decent—but nothing that could match her own.
And precisely because the speed wasn't overwhelming, she caught a clear glimpse at close range of what the figure held in its other hand. An antique-looking pair of scales.
"Retreat, Saber."
Kiritsugu's command came almost instantly. Her brow furrowed.