Fate/Apocrypha

Act 1 - Unbirth

The sage cries out. "Open, Gate of Heaven. Bless us and bestow miracles upon us!"

* * * * *

– It was a place endlessly surrounded by cravings.

Gluttony and lust bring forth avariciousness and a hunger for fame, in turn bringing forth violence and cajolery. Everyone gladly threw themselves into this endless hell.

The women sell their bodies, the men sell their violence.

The men sell their bodies, the women sell their honor.

Laughing, and being laughed at; devouring, and being devoured; jeering, and being jeered at; harming, and being harmed; violating, and being violated.

This is Shinjuku.

A place that only truly shone in the darkness of night.

A never-before-seen, and never-again-shall-be, battle royale between magi who had attained the qualifications of 'Master' and heroes summoned as 'Servant' — that is the Holy Grail War.

A magus who had qualified and was now preparing to join the battle was here in Shinjuku as well.

However, he still had a dilemma.

...He could not summon his Servant.

On the roof of a multi-tenant building, a magic circle was drawn in human blood.

The etched circle glittered crimson — and abruptly, as though something had been cut off, the light was lost.

"...It's not working."

The man dropped his shoulders in disappointment.

Before his eyes were four strangely-shaped knives and two butcher's knives.

It was a symbol to summon the Servant.

Using the six blades favored by that 'serial killer', the magus attempted to summon the Servant — and failed.

"This isn't enough. Yeah, it's totally not enough."

Generally, having an item with an affinity to the Heroic Spirit will suffice in summoning a specific Servant.

For example, the sheath of the holy sword once wielded by the King of Knights.

Or perhaps the fossil of cast skin from the first snake in the world to shed its skin.

If you could prepare something like that, drawing a specific Servant is comparatively easier.

However, there existed two points which led to the failure of the summoning this time.

One was the caliber of the man as a magus. In this Holy Grail War, entirely unlike the Fourth, there are fourteen magi who become Masters. By necessity, there are also fourteen Servants. It is double the norm.

Following this, the Grail that originally would support the summoning can only exert half its strength, and the rest must be made up for by the magus.

And regrettably, the man was nothing more than a second-rate magus.

Another point was how weak the Heroic Spirit the man had been trying to summon was.

He was weak, though merely in terms of belief.

The Servant the man had been trying to summon was an existence from merely one hundred twenty years ago.

Despite his fame, he was not one who could match those who were worshiped as gods and heroes.