Fate/Apocrypha

Zugzwang

(Note: This is a short story that came out in Type Moon Ace Vol 10, which follows Assassin of Black and her Master Rikudou Reika before they went to Romania. It is not precisely a rewrite of the original "Act 1: Unbirth" short story that was released before the main volumes were published, but rather an additional tale that deals with events that the first short story did not cover and that takes into account details such as Sagara Hyouma being part of Yggdmillennia, which hadn't yet been decided upon at the time of Unbirth's writing.)

Sagara Hyouma didn't understand.

He didn't understand why he was lying on the ground here, why he was losing blood and why his eyes were filled with tears from overflowing pain.

Such a nightmare couldn't be.

Such despair was impossible.

He should have been participating in the Great Holy Grail War as a magus and as a member of Yggdmillennia.

He had chosen a catalyst he was confident in. He had gotten a hold of knives that had actually been used by Jack the Ripper through his channels as a magus, and had proceeded to summon him in the Shinjuku district in Tokyo.

He was to control the Servant who most specialized in killing Masters—Assassin—in order to perform stealthy maneuvers in the war. That should have been the duty of the Black Master, Sagara Hyouma.

But now, not only was his throat crushed and his Command Spells forcefully ripped out, his Achilles tendons were cut and he couldn't move at all.

Why did it turn out like this?

After all, he still hadn't participated in the war yet. Even though he was recognized as Yggdmillennia's Seventh Master in the Great Holy Grail War, why was he on his knees and begging for his life?

He couldn't accept this as reality. His mind recalled the instant he was betrayed over and over again in a refrain.

Rikudou Reika was the start of how everything had failed. When he had tried to use her as a sacrifice (to be precise, he had tried to reproduce Jack the Ripper's crimes in order to maximize the summoning's chances of success), she had displayed greater resistance than he had expected. Because she had refused to be killed, the summoned Servant ended up choosing not him, but Reika, as her Master.

Even if he had Command Spells as a Master, he couldn't do anything if he was hit by a surprise attack. Moreover, the Servant he had summoned was Assassin—there was no way an ordinary magus like Hyouma could react in time to her attack speed.

Sagara Hyouma still didn't understand.

The Great Holy Grail War had already ended for him. Unable to even live miserably as a loser, he was in a situation where it wouldn't be strange if he was killed in the next instant.

Sagara Hyouma still didn't understand.

Why had Assassin of Black betrayed him? The unmatched serial killer who was famed for killing (at least) five prostitutes was a young, innocent-faced girl.

But she wasn't a Berserker. She had the appearance of a child, but she could hold a conversation, and based on her conversation with Reika, her intelligence didn't seem to be low either.

That's why he couldn't understand. Reika was an ordinary human, not a magus. Servants were familiars who obeyed their Masters. So why?

"Hey, Mother. Can we kill him yet?"

"Not yet. We still have a ton of things to ask him."

A voice so calm it seemed false. Hyouma looked at the face of the woman he had tried to use as a sacrifice.