fate/x AU revue prototype - ycsh

{It’s time.}

.

Being in the lineage of Magus comes with a lot of drawbacks, or so she has learned over the course of time. The participation of Holy Grail War is one of those drawbacks that she couldn't list anymore.

Actually, she can bail out because she is not the first children of Yumeoji clan; though unfortunately, as how things played out over these past three years, she can't.

Shiori stared on the backyard of her home. That lush green backyard was once filled with happy memories of two girls running, playing together like there’s no tomorrow. Shiori made sure she cut the grass as it is growing too tall, keeping the garden as how it was like in the past.



The night wind started to blow to the direction where she stood, as if the sky questioning her determination.

She can bail out. She can stop.

Her hands were dyed in red. The blood she used for summoning ritual is of her own.

The inscription regarding of the summoning she has read in her father’s study didn’t state any specific type of blood she should use. She has pigeons—a memento from her mother and the ‘other girl’—that she raised on her own for these past three years. Rather than having to sacrifice them, Shiori let the pigeons free, and ended up using her blood instead.

Servant Summoning Ritual, Shiori chanted inside her mind, is an important ritual for any Magus to get their rights on participating the Holy Grail War.

Shiori held her breath again. Another memory from her past started resurfacing, as clear as if it just happened yesterday.

Her parents and her older sister, as a mandatory from the Mage’s Association, came to attend her older sister’s first welcoming ceremony. Shiori can’t come with them that day because she was bedridden with her recurring childhood sickness. A few days later, she saw the news about their flight is hijacked by a group of deviant Magi. The plane crashed and the fate of the passengers remained unknown.

Being in the lineage of Magus comes with a lot of drawbacks, or so Shiori has learned over the course of time.

As Yumeoji lineage should be kept alive, Shiori has been busying herself over speed-learning Yumeoji history, overcoming her own frailty, training to be able to use magic properly, studying the use of Thaumaturgy, et cetera et cetera until she reached this day when she ought to choose.

To continue or to bail. To show that the generation can flourish or it will be buried with the course of time.

The records of Yumeoji family lineage ever participated in Holy Grail War is nil, though her father has studied about it a lot as a part of his own “research” that Shiori didn’t know. Along with her study in Japan’s branch of Mage Association, Shiori learned bit by bit about her father’s interest in the Holy Grail War.

Her father has predicted for the next cycle to continue ‘no sooner than a decade’ in his latest note, and he has proven herself right.

The Holy Grail War in this era started up as a baseless rumor sprouting from magus to magus. Its presence right now is like ‘the rumor has come true’. Shiori could tell the Mage Association’s members were excited, as there is no minimal requirement needed for summoning a Servant and no catalyst needed. ‘It’s a party that anyone—in this example, any Magus—can join; but only Seven that will be going to the main area’, so she can conclude.

“Sister, are you watching?” Shiori clasped her bloodied hands on her chest. “I will prove something. I will make you and our parents proud.”

As she solidified her own ground, the circle started to glow. The night of the summoning has commenced. Pouring her blood once again at the center of the circle, she chanted the lines.

—She could hear a crash coming from somewhere, before the ground around her started to shake, she finished the last line as the earth continues on crumbling and wind started to pick up, concentrating in a gust, shattering in waves of light.


. . .


There was nothing in sight after the light ceased.

The blood red circle line has faded, leaving nothing of its trace, leaving nothing for Shiori to see, to hear, to smell, to feel. The blonde collapsed to the ground on her knees, holding her bloodstained right hand, catching her breath.

If the summoning succeeded, a mark of red will appear on the back of her hand – yet, she gained nothing.

She has failed, that much she can conclude. There are a lot of people doing the summoning ritual tonight, that much should make her realize that her chance of success is low.

Her own conviction wasn’t enough. / Her reason is shallow. / She is not worth to Yumeoji’s name. / She couldn’t continue what her father and her sister have left off.

As much as Shiori wanted to wail of her own incompetence, she swallowed hard.

She tried to stand up. She should go back to her house before someone—or to any kind of threat coming from that crash she just heard when the ritual concluded—found her.

“… You’re quick to recover, aren’t you?”

Shiori felt something constricting her neck; a cold sensation akin of metallic blade. There was nothing around her, not a nick of Mana she could feel up until now, but the blade felt real, grazing the skin of her neck.

Her instinct is not to move nor to speak, waited for this invisible attacker’s next move.

“Now, now. You’re so stiff. I won’t kill you. I just want to mess with you,”

The presence is getting sharper, the Mana is taking shape. Shiori finally took a grasp of the being that threatened her right now. A soft, feminine voice. A weight to her neck. A real blade to her throat. A sensation of her smaller body being hugged from behind.

One thing came to her mind of this condition of an absence of Mana: Presence Concealment. Yet, Shiori was not a Master – she has failed, why would a Servant, or some other Master, able to move swiftly and secured her neck right after the ritual concluded.

“Assassin.” Shiori mouthed a Class name. “Who’s sending you here? I’m afraid that I’m not a—“

“But you are,” The Servant chuckled. “And I am your Servant, dear Master.”

Shiori turned around, the said ‘Servant’ stepped back in a blink of eye, making a good distance before them.

Pink hair under the waning moonlight sparkled, but the one that’s more sparkling is the light’s reflection of the golden mask covering half of her face. Her way of dressing is one of midnight coat with high collar like those of vampire’s from the fairytale, like any elder Count with boring, orderly way of speech.

Shiori noticed that Assassin’s coat is tinged with deep red from the insides, fluttering in majestic fashion as the wind picked up once again.

“Are you, perhaps, thinking of my approach as a lie?” Assassin spoke, she smiled ear-to-ear, delighted. “There’s no one else here but us.”

“I … know, but I don’t-”

“Your Command Spell is right there, concealed by your blood.”

Assassin clasped on her bloodied hand. She wiped the blood away, stopping the flow of blood with her Mana. The mark then formed, flashed in red on the cleaned palm, three petals in semblance of one rose.

Shiori looked back to Assassin, watching as the smile softened, unlike her initial jester grin left.

“I’m sorry, I mean it.” Assassin said. “You’re … looking distraught earlier so I-“

Shiori replied nothing. She retracted her hand and walked to the direction of the main house, not looking back.

“Assassin.”

“… Yes?”

“I hope the next time you’re here, you’re not here to make fun of me.”

Her voice breaks a bit, she could only hope Assassin didn’t hear it.

It’s not like her to be so angry, Shiori disliked it.

[Was her conviction is so shallow that a Servant can laugh at her?]