The King of the Grail's Fate (Fate/Nasuverse)

Chapter XLII: Rules

Salter hoisted Harrison onto his feet as he continued to cough up blood. "I could have dodged that you know," Salter said with mock anger, as she knew no matter how capable she was he would have still tried that. "Well y'know... yeah I got nothing for that," Harrison said still leaning heavily on Salter to keep him upright. Their exchange was interrupted by the grinding sound of stone on stone as a door began to open don't the far wall bright white light illuminating the room. Another screen illuminated itself in front of Harrison's face, "Good job on your first success, but things only get harder and more dangerous from here. Please continue to your personal observation balcony." The screen read with an arrow that pointed towards the door. "Guess we only got one option huh," Harrison said as Salter helped walk him towards the door.

When the two of them passed through the doors they were treated by a large window that overlooked a giant forest and mountains region like an observation deck. Not only that but the room was massive with every amenity one could possibly want, equipped with a  full kitchen, a hot tub, couches, and a large bed yet with all that it didn't feel a bit cramped. "Well isn't this extravagant," Salter said as she looked around at the lavish room. Once they fully entered the white opening in space behind them sealed up revealing two doors, one labeled common area, the other labeled summons.

Salter sat Harrison down on the white couch as she continued to inspect the area. When she began looking out the window more closely she spoke up, "Harrison look at how many there are," she said in abject shock. As Harrison shuffled his way over to the window he saw hundreds of cells almost exactly like his. There were that many Masters, hundreds of thousands it seemed. "Salter this will prove to be an invaluable opportunity to gain information, one of these masters has to know how this grail war works and how to summon the grail, there are too many not to know," he said his voice shaking slightly.

Jalter finally decided to show her face as she helped Harrison sit down. "Salter go get him some water I'll check out his ribs to make sure nothing is broken," she said with a caring tone as she did a routine Harrison became all too familiar with over the training, since quite often he was on the brink of death. As Salter went over to the refrigerator in the room a hologram appeared in the center of the room a stereotypical magician type it seemed with a top hat and three-piece suit. Though his face was obscured it seemed as if it was intended just blurry enough to make it indistinguishable. With a flourish, however, the magician began his speech.

"Welcome masters of this holy grail war, I'm sure you are all wondering why you had to unexpectedly fight another master, well I assure you it was to weed on the ordinary from the truly extraordinary like yourselves, and any masters eliminated in that round have had all of their command seals removed, yay...

Regardless all 1,028 of you will be participating in the tournament set up so there are a couple of rules I must go over. All matches will be one on one arena matches between two masters, to win one must knock both the master and servant unconscious and the match will be concluded. To participate each master must wager an equal amount of command seals not exceeding the total amount of command seals held by any one of the masters. Lastly, as there are a few core masters among you and you may gain servants in the future, for matches like that you may bring any amount of servants agreed on by both parties, and of course, they have to be equal on both sides.

Now there is also some miscellaneous stuff I need to cover. The rooms you are in are magically coded to your mystic codes and are only accessible by you or your servants. The room can be altered to fit ideal specifications as long as it falls within 2500ft cubed dimensions. You may also notice the two doors to the rear of the room labeled summons and common area. The summons door will open when you are needed for combat, if you do not show up within five minutes of the door opening you will be forcibly moved to the needed location. As for the common area that is where masters and servants can interact in a large... well common area. You may also use this area to exchange or gift servants, and or command seals, however, I know you are all greedy so I don't see that really happening. For the most astute of you, however, in the common area, one can view one match that has or is happening so choose wisely, and remember to do your research.

Oh, right one last thing you all are probably wondering who I am. Well, I won't be revealing that just quite you'll learn more about me and my servants as you progress through the rounds, but for now, I guess I could tell you... I'm the second core master."