Chapter 232: Command Spells

"It can't be..."

The three red marks on her hand, the Command Spells, were shown glowing faintly.

Sakura looked at this on her hand unable to say anything about it. All she could want to know now was, why? This didn't make any sense. One day you just wake up and you have three Command Spells in your left hand, the irrefutable proof that you are now participating in the War for the Holy Grail.

'My father was supposed to want to go to that war... he was supposed to abandon me to fulfill his dream...'

She was supposed to be left alone, but these marks on her hand were telling her otherwise.

It is said among the magus of the Clock Tower that the Holy Grail chooses people who really need something, for this will be the chance to fulfill what they long for.

'Father... what should I do...?'

Waver is an expert in these matters. He would know what to do at this moment, but how would that man feel to see what he wanted so much being fulfilled through his daughter? That was inconceivable.

Waver had suffered so much because of that war. Surely he would forbid Sakura from participating.

"Onii-san... what would you do right now?"

Looking at herself in the mirror, she widened her eyes as she remembered the small hole in her left ear. There goes the earring she received as a gift from Toru. Then she realized that.

That earring is the relic of a hero, the way to bring Toru back.

To summon a specific Servant you need a catalyst. The catalyst is the earring and the prana supplied for the summoning is something that the Grail grants to the seven Masters of war.

Sakura had already done a lot of research on that. There was no doubt, now she could bring Toru to her side.

Her eyes filled with hope, but her father's dream also discouraged her.

"I'm sorry, father..."

She also had a wish to fulfill, but she was letting her father fulfill her wish first, but in the end....

"Looks like it will be me first..."

She wanted back the boy she met ten years ago.

-???????-

He's been here for a long time.

He's been alone in a depressing white void; alone with the whispering voices of souls clinging tightly to their existence.

The white void was brightly lit, surrounded by a huge bed of white hell flowers that seemed to move to the sound of the non-existent wind.

He was silent. He did not move a muscle in his body for a long time.

His black cloak worn by constant battles, his red scarf aged by the passing of time, that hood covering his face, a face showing a depressing distressed expression.

He is alone...

Alone in this place...

For him nothing matters anymore, for he has long since lost his hope.

There is nothing left for him to do. He has not spoken a word in all this time, in all this lonely emptiness that could come to generate a mysterious echo.

...

...

A slight movement after so long.

...

He is looking at the white sky, but the sorrowful expression on his face has not changed in the slightest.

His eyes no longer had any light in them, they were completely dull and lifeless.

This was his calm, white hell.

This was his torture; his punishment.

'I'm tired...'

But even that doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter if he's married.

It doesn't matter if it all hurts too much.

It doesn't matter if the sadness he feels is so great and horrible.

Nothing matters...

Nothing is worth it...

It's all so...

'Boring...'

-Fuyuki Church, Japan-

"It seems that the arrangements for the war are progressing as they should. It's interesting, isn't it?"

The man with the vacant gaze, but the pursed-lipped smile, full of confidence, walked between the pews of the church.

Behind him, sitting in one of the pews with his arms folded, a blond, crimson-eyed young man answered him:

"It's still a long time before it all starts, how many months do you give it?"

"Three or four months before the Masters summon their Servants. How ten years ago, Einzbern, Tōsaka and Matō will be the families that the Holy Grail will prioritize."

"Hm... until that, everything will be very boring. Do you already know who the Masters will be?"

"I have my theories. One of those Masters, of course, will be the last daughter of the Tōsaka. The Matōs chose their pathetic firstborn. I guess anything can be expected from the Einzberns. The restó is still a mystery to me, but the Clock Tower is also planning to send someone."

"They all seem to be running around in high spirits. They're clinging to their mundane dreams knowing they're not going to fulfill them. It's so sad it's laughable. But, Kirei, don't you think there are some interesting people in this town? Not counting those who left, of course."

"It will all depend on how the Masters are organized. My job for now is just to be the judge of the war. When everything starts going the way we want it to, I'll take action."

"And that leaves the fun part to me, I guess."

"Indeed, Gilgamesh..."

-Somewhere in England-

In a place where the blood of a beast created by the magic of a magus lay, Gray held a strangely colored scythe as golden particles rose around it.

Behind her, Waver watched the scene smoking a cigarette. This was the end of his mission in this part of the country. A cult of common people worshipping a magus as if he were a god.

"That's the problem with human beliefs. There are times when even these very beliefs affect society as we know it. No doubt it's such a stupid thing that it's funny at times. It seems like that person was right when he said that human stupidity has no limit."

But that doesn't just involve ordinary people, but magus as well. This magus who thought he was god used his own followers to create hideous homunculi. Worst of all, these common people accepted these deals from the magus thinking that they were really serving god.

In this world there are countless gods that once ruled existence. The goal of a true magus is to know the beginning of everything before the age of the gods, but there are people like Waver who have strayed from that goal. The girl in front of him, holding the scythe over a pool of blood, also had other goals. She is not a magus, just a girl who grew up in the countryside under the religious upbringing of her people.

"Huh... this is a mess, who will be in charge of cleaning all this up?"

Add's voice echoed and Gray realized that her hood had fallen off, so she put it back on to hide her face. This time Waver didn't panic at the sight of that face, he simply looked away to forget the whole thing.

"I think we're done now. Let's talk to the owners of the house and go get some rest. I need a few hours of sleep. I haven't slept at all and I'm sure you think so too, lady."

"Uh, yeah. We should get back."

Gray then walked beside her mentor leaving the corpse of the hideous monster behind. A monster with dozens of human hands and heads together in a single bloody disgusting mass on the ground.

'My mentor is a very strange person...'

He began his internal monologue.

'There are words that disturb his calm. There are situations that have him worried. Now that we are away from home, I'm sure he is worried about Sakura. I have thought this many times, but the world around me is always strange and full of mysteries. This father and his daughter are not exempt from those mysteries.'

The scythe reduced in size and turned back into the Add cube. When she saw this, she put Add in the bird cage and continued walking and feeling the silence of her mentor.

She looked at him out of the corner of her eye and continued.

'He has me by his side to defend himself because he can't do it all by himself and he knows that. The magus I've met so far wouldn't be able to fight alongside someone and maybe that's one of the reasons why others resent this man being a Lord. In the end he only does this to pay his debt and fulfill his dream, even if he knows his debt will never be paid off, I think that's why he prefers not to mention the case. He is a strange person, after all...'

Which also reminded him of that girl who stayed at home. Sakura is also strange in her own way. Although that girl is more of the kind and common type, but being surrounded by all these eccentric characters, it makes her someone strange.

'Ever since I left my village I'm always discovering new things. I feel like this is something important to me...'

And it always will be.

-London, United Kingdom-

'Catalysts... Shikigamis... Uh... where was I?'

She was searching through all the books in the library for what was needed to summon a familiar or, in this case, a Heroic Spirit as a Servant.

"There you are!"

Sakura found what she was looking for. She put the book on the table and immediately opened it and eagerly turned the pages.

'Servants are summoned with seven different classes. Onii-san was of the Assassin class. If I summon him, can he appear with another class? I'm really not sure.'

The proud Saber, Archer and Lancer, the eccentric Rider, the mysterious Caster, the beastly Berserker and the infamous Assassin. In this last class are those who in life could not be considered heroes, but whose names were engraved in the history of the World.

She frowned as she remembered that fact about the Assassin. To her Toru is a true hero, but, if she knew his story, would she think the same? No one knows Toru more than he knows himself; the truth of all that his daggers and eyes await, what those worn hands and that dull gaze hide.

'There are specific days when the ley lines are especially strong. When specific stars align, the moon converges with a unique light. All the calculations, with time and date, put together what is needed for the invocation to go perfectly.'

A large amount of prana was also necessary and a lot of preliminary preparations before the ritual.

'My father will arrive in two days from what he told me last night. Then, if I look for a suitable place he will be able to invoke onii-san, taking into account the dates and times, I will be able to make it happen. There's no need to spend so much time on preparations, but that's the problem.'

With that problem in mind, Sakura thought of the room at the end of the basement. In that place she has been training her magecraft for years. The room is already infused with her mana and the city's prana. Although it may not seem like it, ordinary people make prana flow through the world, either with thoughts or what they call "faith", for that is used by magus for their magecraft.

"Melvin thought of everything, huh..."

Credit had to be given to that person.

-Somewhere far away, seven months ago-

He wants to be a hero, a hero who can save them all.

Even though that is his dream, even though he really wants to be a hero, he only had to do one thing to achieve it. However, his body is covered in blood right now and he is surrounded by a dozen white-haired, pale-skinned women whose eyes did not look like a human being's. They were all dressed in strange and elegant white clothes that contrasted greatly with the large castle that stood before their eyes.

"Emiya Shirō, leave if you want to keep your life."

Said one of the women holding a spear.

'I won't be able to achieve what I wish for if I die here...'

That was the cruel reality, but he didn't want to give up. He was still looking up at that castle, as if it was the last path to his victory.

He was not going to give up, he never would....

"I'll be back... I'll be back..."

Staggering, he turned and walked away from the castle, but another of the women spoke to him.

"You know why we haven't killed you yet. This will be the last time you set foot here. The next time you come we'll kill you right away."

Shirō stopped. Under his feet, scattered on the ground, dozens of corpses of women very similar to the ones now attacking him were spread out on the scene. All those dead, some with horrible bludgeoning wounds and others with arrows stuck in their bodies. On the same scene lay a bow broken in half.

"I will come back...I will save her...because if I can't protect my family...I can't be the hero of justice."

Until that happens he will come back again and again....

-Fuyuki, Japan. In the present...-

He was in that warehouse in the courtyard of his house meditating silently with his eyes closed. In a moment he opened his eyes and raised his fist in front of his face.

With a slight frown, he said:

"Trace on..."

And bright green lines appeared on his fist extending all the way down his arm.

"This will do."

The glow on his arm faded and he stood up. With his morning training finished, he walked out of the warehouse to prepare breakfast, for at any moment that crazy woman would appear like a storm.

"Pretty sunny today, huh..."

A rather relaxed day in his life. And although he couldn't tell at the time, there was a strange reddish stain on the back of his left hand.

***

She moved freely about her mansion. Now the expression on her face was more serious than usual. All this seriousness was due to the red marks that appeared on her hand.

'The time is drawing near'

Tōsaka Rin, 17 years old, that was her. She had grown up in all these years. Her appearance itself was radically different from the one she used to have ten years ago, for now she had the developed body of a woman.

On her left hand, the same hand where she has the Command Spells, right on her ring finger, she has a golden engagement ring with that small stone. That ring finally fits her; the gift from that person.

'Now it is more than obvious who I am going to summon. I hope Kirei already knows who the other Masters are, although it's obvious he's not going to tell me.'

Now she had to search on her own.

'Well... It's kind of early. I should get ready to go to school already.'

Just as promised in the past, she was still the same perfect girl in the eyes of others.

-London. The next night-

It was a dark place, but dimly lit by the faint light of the large magic circle drawn with mercury on the stone floor. All the tables in the place had been moved by this girl in order to have enough space to perform her summoning.

It took her a whole day making preparations for the invocation, but finally she was able to finish all the time, so she removed her earring from her ear and placed it on a small altar behind the circle and held out her hand.

'The chant is just a formality to call the Servant, so it's not really necessary, but..."

Her violet eyes showed her nervousness, but that wasn't going to intimidate her anymore. She raised her left hand and frowned.

"I want you to listen to me, onii-san. These words will only be for you, all I have to bring you to my side."

This was her call for that boy. Thus the invocation began. Prana began to rise in the room and Sakura closed her eyes before speaking.

In the moonlight at that window in the middle of the dark night,

the ghost that stopped my heart appears wrapped in mystery.

The magic circle increased in brightness and a spiral of wind began to form in the center of it.

Elegant and gentle; lethal warrior hiding behind the sacred relic.

Listen to me, please...

Hear me call to you in the depths of that dark house....

Thus, in the midst of that terrifying night, appear before my window wrapped in your strange mystery.

Answer my call, oh protector of balance....

Come back to me as you always used to do....

Answer my call, Asahi Toru!

The wind spiral began to blow strongly, the magic circle shone brightly and a great cloud of vapor began to rise from the light.

'Did I make it...?'

She wondered looking at the reaction of the magic circle. Almost a second later, all that steam gathered in the center and exploded pushing Sakura against the wall who, at the same time, let out a groan of pain.

The steam spread throughout the room covering everything like a dense white cloud, but despite that something bright could still be seen in the dim darkness.

It was two strange eyes, glowing rainbows in the darkness.

It was him...

"Onii-san..."

In the midst of the steam cloud, the red scarf and black hooded cloak were shown, giving a continuation to the legend of that hero who has lost his way....

To be continued...