novel-bin Chapter 52 Opening
Chapter 52 Opening
Before Arthur had even finished his coffee, the Dragon Force River trembled.
He put down his cup, walked to the window, and his dragon eyes opened... It was the river of magic in this world itself that was trembling.
Beneath the seaside city of Tokyo, the man-made magical river is rising, its current nearly twice as fast as last night, and its water level is increasing.
That was magic power forcibly extracted from the city's earth veins; the seven-day accumulation period was over.
The Holy Grail War has begun.
Ayaka stood beside him, still holding that overly sweet cup of coffee. Her magical perception wasn't as far as Arthur's, but she could still sense it.
The Command Seals on the back of her hand were burning.
Arthur placed the cup on the windowsill. "A servant might come knocking today."
Ayaka's fingers tightened slightly on the rim of the glass. "How did you know?"
"Because you are the last Master 'without a Servant,' everyone will come looking for the easiest target." Arthur turned around from the window.
Ayaka looked at him. "Is there anything you need me to do?"
"Do what your father wrote in his notes: observe the flow of the ley lines, determine the possible location of Servants, examine their class characteristics, and identify who is coming."
Arthur took the sword from the lake from his waist. "Your eyes are my Command Seals."
Ayaka put down her coffee cup, walked to the bookshelf, pulled out the top black notebook in the row, opened it, and saw that it was written in fountain pen, with heavy strokes and annotations all over the corners.
She glanced at a page, then looked up. "The nearest ley line convergence point is in the southeast, about four hundred meters away, at an old drainage pumping station."
Ayaka's fingers moved across the annotations in her notebook. "Legion convergence points usually attract Servants, but today is the first day, and most Servants will choose to observe first."
Arthur turned around. "Let's go."
Ayaka paused for a moment, "Now?"
"Let's go find him."
Ayaka closed her notebook, stuffed it into the pocket of her loungewear, went to the entryway to put on her shoes, tied them twice, the first time too loose, so she untied them and tied them again.
Arthur stood at the door waiting for her. She didn't look up, but her fingers were much steadyer when she tied the knot the second time.
The door opened, and the morning light shone on the porch.
……
The old drainage pumping station is a red brick building, a relic from the Showa era, with a thick layer of red rust on its iron gate.
The door wasn't locked; the latch had been broken off from the inside, the break fresh. Arthur pushed the door open, and the smell of rust mixed with the dampness of concrete hit him.
A servant stood in the very center of the pitch-black space.
He had short blue hair, a long ponytail at the back of his head, red eyes, and a face whose soft lines had been worn away by wind, sand, and blood.
She was dressed in a blue bodysuit, tall and slender, and carrying a gun that was longer than a regular spear.
The tip of the gun touched the ground, a faint, cold light shimmering on its shaft. The moment he saw Arthur, the tip of the gun rose half an inch from the ground.
"You are not a Servant."
Arthur did not draw his sword. "No."
"Then why are you here?"
"To protect my partner."
The spearman's gaze passed over Arthur's shoulder and landed on Ayaka, who was standing in the doorway with her hands in the pockets of her pajamas, where a notebook was bulging.
The lancer withdrew his gaze. "She has Command Seals, but no Servant aura." The spear tip lifted half an inch more. "Who are you?"
"Living people."
"..."
The spearman's spear tip trembled slightly. "A living person cannot stand on the battlefield of the Holy Grail War."
"But I'm standing here now."
The spearman remained silent for a moment.
"Cú Chulainn," Arthur said, uttering his name.
Cú Chulainn's pupils contracted slightly. "You know me?"
"The Child of Light of Ireland, Scáthach's student."
Cú Chulainn lowered his spear, and his fingers loosened for a moment, as if holding something for far too long, when suddenly someone called out its other name.
"Do you know the teacher?"
"She taught me the art of killing gods."
Cú Chulainn stared at him for a long time, then put the gun away and held it upright at his side.
"What's your name?"
"Arthur Pendragon," Arthur said solemnly.
Cú Chulainn's eye twitched slightly. "You're the Red Dragon of Britain?"
His gaze fell on the Lake Sword at Arthur's waist. "That sword, was it forged by the Lake Spirits?"
"Yes."
Rusty water dripped from the pipes at the top of the pumping station, drop by drop, making a very faint sound as it hit the concrete ground. Cú Chulainn pointed his spear downwards and plunged it into the ground.
I won't kill you today.
Why?
"Because you remind me of someone." Cú Chulainn turned around and walked deeper into the pumping station. He stopped after a few steps without looking back.
"If your teacher taught you about 'killing gods,' then she must have also taught you 'not to kill those who shouldn't be killed.'"
His voice echoed briefly in the empty pumping station, "You're not on my kill list today."
Arthur watched his retreating figure disappear into the depths of the pumping station. "Who's on your list?"
Cú Chulainn paused for a moment, "One used chains, one used poison, and there was another..."
He didn't finish speaking before his figure disappeared into the shadows of the crisscrossing pipes.
Ayaka's hand emerged from her pocket, leaving a faint mark on the edge of the notebook from her grip.
"He's gone?"
"Um."
Stepping out of the pumping station, the Tokyo sun had already fully risen, and the streets were beginning to fill with early morning commuters. Ayaka suddenly stopped in her tracks.
Arthur followed her gaze and saw the convenience store on the street corner, the same one where he had bought water yesterday.
"Are you hungry?" Ayaka asked.
Arthur looked at her, and the edges of her ears began to turn red again.
"...I'm hungry."
"Me too." Ayaka walked into the convenience store, and after a while she came out with two rice balls, a bottle of water, and a new packet of instant coffee in her hand.
She handed Arthur a rice ball. "Salmon."
Arthur took it. The rice ball was warm, as if it had been heated, and the seaweed was soft. He tore open the packaging and took a bite. The salmon was salty, and the rice was sweet.
He remembered what Meryl had said: "If you remember the water, you've remembered half the road."
He remembered Tokyo's water before, and now he remembers Tokyo's rice balls.
Ayaka took small bites of her dried plum, which was so salty that she frowned, but she didn't stop.
"Is it good?" he asked.
"……salty."
"Then let's try something different next time."
Ayaka paused for a moment while biting into the rice ball, then lowered her head to continue biting. The redness around her ears spread from the convenience store entrance all the way to the intersection.
When I returned to the mansion, there was an extra letter in the mailbox in the entrance hall. There was no stamp or postmark. The envelope was pure white and sealed with a gold wax stamp.
The wax print depicted a sword with vines wrapped around its blade. Ayaka opened the envelope and glanced at it.
"It's not for me."
She handed the letter to Arthur.
There was only one line of text on the letter.
"You've arrived."
There was no signature, but Arthur's Dragon Power River trembled automatically. It wasn't a tremor from the River of Magic, but a deeper fluctuation coming from the direction of the "source".
Ayaka looked at him. "She's my older sister, Ayaka Sajou."
Why would she contact me?
"I don't know... but my sister knows everything." Ayaka's voice was very soft.
"My sister... is the most perfect successor in the history of the Sajō family. There is nothing in the world that she does not know."
She lowered her head. "But she never writes letters, not to my father, not to me... This is the first time."
Arthur looked at the three words, the strokes extremely light, each stroke carefully controlled so as not to be too heavy, not to appear too concerned, and not to pierce the letter.
"I'm going to see her."
Ayaka looked up.
"She's looking for me," Arthur said.
Ayaka opened her mouth, then closed it again, and nodded. "It's just across the river, in that Western-style mansion without ivy."
Arthur folded the letter, put it in his pocket, and placed it with the yellow wildflower.
The Western-style mansion across the river was quieter than Ayaka's. The grass in the yard was neatly trimmed, the stone path was swept clean, and everything was in good order.
The door wasn't locked, so Arthur pushed it open.
In the living room, a young girl stood by the window, her long golden hair reaching her waist, gleaming with a soft platinum-like luster in the morning light.
She was wearing a white dress and walking barefoot on the wooden floor. Hearing footsteps, she turned around and looked at the person who appeared in front of her.
Those were sapphire-blue eyes.
The moment he saw her, Arthur's Dragon Force River automatically unfolded.
Arthur was certain that her magical frequency was completely different from Ayaka's; if Ayaka was water, then she was air.
It is not an emptiness that comes from nothingness, but an emptiness that belongs to the "source".
It's like standing at the beginning of a river. The water hasn't flowed into a river yet, it doesn't have a direction, it doesn't have a name, but all directions are within it.
She is very strong.
Omniscient and omnipotent, connected to the origin from birth, everything in the world is just an ordinary script in Aigo's eyes.
She knew everything about every person, every event, and every ending; there were no surprises, no expectations, and no "I don't know."
But now, as she looked at Arthur, for the first time, there was anticipation in her sapphire-like eyes.
"Arthur".
Her voice was very soft, not the softness of "I've finally met you," but the softness of "You really exist."
"You knew I was coming?" Arthur said.
"I knew it, I knew it the moment you set foot on this city's soil."
Aika looked at him, "The Root lets me know everything that already exists, but you..."
Her voice was as soft as the white mist exhaled through a windowpane, "You are not in what already exists; you are the 'unknown.'"
She took a step forward, her bare feet making no sound on the wooden floor.
"For the first time since I was born, I have no idea what will happen next."
I don't know what you'll say, I don't know what you'll do, I don't know when you'll leave, and I don't know if you'll ever come back.
Another step.
"I didn't know what it felt like to 'not know' before, but now I do."
She stood in front of Arthur, very close, close enough to smell the lingering scent of moss from another world emanating from the yellow wildflower on his lapel.
"You're standing in front for Ayaka."
"Yes."
"You are not a Servant, she is not your Master, you have no obligation to protect her."
"I know."
"Then why are you standing there?"
Arthur looked at her. "Because she chose not to summon, I will stand in front of her in place of the one who hasn't been summoned yet."
Something shattered in Aigo's blue eyes; for the first time, cracks appeared on that "empty" surface, spreading outwards from the center like a fine spider web.
"Are you standing there for someone who doesn't exist?"
"Yes."
"No one stands there for anyone else; everyone is acting for themselves, for the Holy Grail, for victory, for their own desires."
For the first time, her voice held a tremor, "What are you doing this for?"
Arthur did not answer. He placed his hand on his chest, and the four beats of the Dragon's Hearth traveled through his clothes to his palm.
"Someone once taught me that if someone has been sitting for a long time, you don't need to persuade them to get up; just wait by their side."
He looked at Ai Ge.
"How long have you been sitting?"
Aige stopped breathing, her sapphire-like eyes fixed on Arthur, without responding.
How long did you sit there?
It has been a long time since birth, it is omniscient and omnipotent, so it has nothing to do, it is connected to the root, so it has nowhere to go.
Everything in the world is known, so no one and nothing could make her stand up from the window.
Until she "saw" someone, someone not known to her, someone she could not foresee, could not understand, and could not simply turn the page of a mundane script.
"I've been sitting here for a long time," she said, her voice hoarse and unlike her usual self, "and nobody saw me."
"I saw it."
Aigo's tears fell.
A single drop falls silently onto the wooden floor. The Root Connector, an omniscient and omnipotent being, sees all things in the world merely as a script for a young girl.
She cried; for the first time, she "didn't know" why she was crying.
"What is this?" She touched her face, her fingertips wet with tears, and for the first time, confusion appeared in her sapphire-like eyes.
"I don't know what this is."
"It's the beginning," Arthur said.
Aige stared at the teardrop on her fingertip for a long time, then she raised her head, the crack in her blue eyes still visible.
But something is growing between the cracks.
That was, "the first time I owned it".
"Arthur".
"Um."
"I will protect Ayaka for you."
Arthur looked at her.
"It's not for her," Aigo said, her voice trembling, but she spoke each word clearly.
"It's for you. You stand in front for her, so I'll stand in front for you. All you need to do is..."
Her fingers gripped the hem of her white dress, her knuckles turning white. "Allow me to stand in front of you."
The living room was quiet for a long time. The light from the window shone on the two people, their blonde hair almost indistinguishable in the morning light.
"No," Arthur said.
Ai Ge's fingers clenched tightly, her sapphire-like eyes fixed on Arthur.
"You can stand beside me," Arthur said solemnly, looking at Aegean.
Aige loosened her grip on her skirt, said nothing more, turned around, walked back to the window, and sat down.
He placed his hands on his knees, his gaze fixed on the window, just like countless days and nights before.
But today, she was looking in the direction of Ayaka's house.
Arthur watched her blonde back as she walked away.
"I will come again tomorrow."
Ai Ge didn't turn around, but her voice came from the window, as soft as a corner of a curtain being blown by the wind.
"I know, but saying it out loud... makes a difference."
Arthur turned around, walked towards the door, and after a few steps, the sound of love song rang out again.
"Arthur".
He stopped.
"Did you bring that yellow flower from your original world?"
"Yes."
"Who gave it to you?"
"Merry."
There was silence for a moment.
"Leave it here, I'll water it, and you'll see a different one tomorrow."
For the first time, her voice carried the warmth of the word "tomorrow."