Fate: Hero of Justice Takeover

The dining table was adorned with food and drink, and rows of candlesticks shone brightly.

The nobles of Erinn gathered in the grand banquet hall of Mikolda, and the festivities were at their peak.

But tonight's banquet was not for the rowdy to compete in drinking.

Tonight, even the roughest warriors were enchanted by the elegant fragrance of flowers.

Yes, this was a banquet held to admire a beautiful flower.

The daughter of Cormac mac Airt, the High King of Ireland, Gráinne, was finally to be betrothed.

Her fiancé was none other than Fionn mac Cumhaill. A great hero who gained wisdom from the oil of the Salmon of Knowledge and possessed the power of healing water, he was also the leader of the invincible Fianna Knights. A man whose strength and reputation matched the High King's, there could be no more joyous union.

Accompanying the old hero Fionn was his son, the poet Oisín; his grandson, the hero Oscar; and many valiant knights of the Fianna Knights.

Among them were Caílte mac Rónáin, the Druid Diorruing, Goll mac Morna the "Horror of the Battlefield," and Conan of the Gray Lashes.

And among them, the most renowned, the one with the honour of being the strongest, the famous "Radiance of Beauty," Diarmuid Ua Duibhne.

All the great heroes who could hold their own in battle had gathered. Each of them revered Fionn, swore loyalty to him, and remained steadfast. The great heroes honoured their leader, offering their spears and swords to his command. This was the honour of a knight, the true will of the glorious warriors sung by bards.

To aspire to the path of a knight.

To walk the path of a knight.

A knight believes that one day he will die on the battlefield, wrapped in a horse's hide, in glorious combat.

Until that night, at the banquet of fate, he encountered a delicate flower.

"You will have my love, but in return, you must bear a geis, my beloved. Please stop this detestable wedding and take me away… to a place beyond the ends of the earth!"

The maiden wept, her eyes burning with sincere love.

It was a purgatorial fire that would consume his body… The hero understood this then.

But he could not resist.

The heavy burden of a geis that tested his honour and the path of loyalty he had sworn to follow—which was more precious? He asked himself this many times, but no matter how much he agonized, he could not find an answer.

Thus, what drove him to act must have been something entirely unrelated to honour.

The hero took the princess's hand, and together they abandoned their glorious future.

Thus began a tragic love story that would later be sung in Celtic mythology.

***

A bizarre dream tangled in Kayneth's mind, becoming his only solace.

The man once hailed as a prodigy, Lord El-Melloi, now had no light in his eyes.

Not only had his Magic Circuits been destroyed by the Origin Bullet, cutting him off from magecraft forever… but his beloved fiancée, upon his awakening, had broken all his fingers and tortured him to seize the two remaining Command Spells he held.

If it were merely out of a sense of duty as his fiancée, to win the Holy Grail in his stead, Kayneth could have accepted it. However—

Kayneth recalled the late night after the first battle when Sola-Ui gazed at Lancer with passionate eyes, a look she had never once directed at him, her fiancé.

If Sola-Ui had simply been mesmerized by a handsome man, he could have forgiven her. It was a minor fault any woman might commit, and getting angry over such a trivial matter would make him unworthy of being her husband.

But this was only true "if Lancer were merely an ordinary handsome man."

Love Spot.

The moment Kayneth remembered this cursed skill, his hatred for Lancer deepened.

Admittedly, even a modern magus could resist such a low-level charm. But what if a woman made no effort to resist, instead indulging in this forbidden and passionate emotion?

To take it a step further, the heroic spirit of Diarmuid Ua Duibhne was not such a great figure.

The heroic spirits summoned by the Holy Grail did not participate in the Holy Grail War solely for the sake of a contract. Each had their own reasons for desiring the Holy Grail.

Because they sought the Holy Grail, they would strive to help their Master achieve victory, hoping to share in its blessings.

Thus, the first thing a Master must do upon summoning a Servant is to ask their wish, to understand why they desire the Holy Grail and why they answered the summoning—without clarifying the Servant's wish, a bond of trust could never be formed. If their wishes conflicted, betrayal might occur at the moment the Grail was obtained.@@novelbin@@

Kayneth had, of course, asked Diarmuid his wish early on. He asked: When we obtain the Holy Grail together, what will you wish for?

But the heroic spirit did not answer.

No, that's not entirely accurate. Diarmuid did not refuse to answer; he outright denied the question's significance.

He said—"I don't want the Holy Grail."

I need no reward. I only wish to serve the Master who summoned me into this life and fulfil my honour as a knight. That is my wish.

Kayneth, of course, could not accept this. Without a compelling reason, why would a heroic spirit of such renown deign to lower themselves to become a mere familiar to a human? This wasn't charity work; the idea was laughable.

But no matter how much Kayneth pressed, Lancer remained steadfast, unwilling to change his earlier statement.

"I only wish to fulfil my honour as a knight. The Holy Grail is yours, Master."

Lancer never wavered, steadfastly refusing the Holy Grail.

—Looking back now, Kayneth realized that he might have distrusted his Servant from the very beginning.

How could a Servant not want the Holy Grail?

Thus, Lancer's response was clearly a lie, hiding his true intentions from others.

Kayneth had initially thought it didn't matter if Lancer remained silent. He had Command Spells, and as long as he held this absolute authority, Diarmuid could never betray him. A Servant was ultimately just a tool, a mere instrument. As long as it functioned as intended, what the tool thought was irrelevant. This was Kayneth's belief until yesterday.

But now, seeing Sola-Ui's unwavering trust in Lancer, Kayneth could no longer maintain his previous leniency.

If he truly followed Sola-Ui—if his words were true—then it was clear that his motives were not for the Holy Grail but for something else.

He could never trust that heroic spirit. Moreover, judging from the legends of his life, wasn't that man a traitor who betrayed his lord and eloped with his wife?

"The Command Spells… I cannot give them to you."

Minutes ago, he had said this.

Minutes later, Kayneth, with his hand broken by his fiancée, waited like a condemned man as she fetched surgical tools, watching helplessly as she walked toward a future alongside Lancer.

Was this surrender born of love or fear?

Kayneth himself did not know, nor did he have the time to ponder it.

Because—

Outside their second hideout, an abandoned factory in the suburbs came the terrified scream of his fiancée.

***

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