The walls of Zelretch's study whispered with the rustle of unseen parchment. Shelves towered overhead like judgmental pillars, their contents too ancient to remember their names. The light was soft but never warm—like moonlight on snow, bright enough to illuminate, never enough to comfort.
Claudius's voice cracked through the stillness. "Lord Zelretch, enough of these games. I demand answers. Why am I entangled in this… abomination?"
Across the room, Zelretch barely flinched. He sipped his tea like a priest officiating a ritual he'd performed too many times. "Ah, the thirst for truth. A double-edged thing, that. Nobility in pursuit—despair in acquisition."
Claudius's knuckles tightened. "Spare me the riddles."
Zelretch sighed. Not tired—bemused. He set his porcelain cup down with exaggerated care, as if the sound were a note in a symphony only he could hear.
"Very well," he said at last, "I will grant you two paths of speculation. First: The boy's soul—if you'll permit me the term—is an anomaly. It does not adhere to our established laws. It wanders. Slides between vessels. And yet, the Root does not reject him. That alone speaks volumes."
He turned to Shisan then, those glimmering eyes narrowing.
"Second theory: You are not, as you believe, from another world. No. Worlds are but layers of the same painting. You, my dear wanderer, are from another plane—a canvas stitched into the very edge of existence, where our rules do not apply, and yours cannot take root here."
Shisan's eyes darkened, mouth parting slightly, like a man standing at the edge of an abyss that just whispered his name.
"If that's true… then why can't I use magic here?" he asked. "Why did everything I learned—every rite, every sigil, every invocation—die the moment I arrived?"
Zelretch smiled faintly. "Because you were never taught our language. Magic, here, is not simply a force. It is a culture, a bloodline, a curse. Yours speaks in rhythms we cannot hear. Ours in rules you never studied. Like two gods whispering at the same time in different tongues."
Shisan's fists clenched against the wooden chair. "Then… there's no way to return? You're saying I'm just stuck here?"
For a moment, something in Zelretch's expression flickered. Pity? Amusement? Perhaps both, perhaps neither. He stepped forward, his coat sweeping behind him like the page of an unwritten tale.
"I cannot return you," he said gently. "The door you came through… is not mine to open. Or close."
Silence descended, heavy and absolute. Shisan's breath hitched in his throat. "Then I'm a prisoner here," he said, more to himself than to anyone else. "A ghost in someone else's world."
"But not without hope," Zelretch said, gently lifting his finger. "There is a way—uncertain, dangerous, improbable. But is that not the very flavor of fate?"
Shisan's voice was rough. "What kind of way?"
"The Greatest Holy Grail War," Zelretch intoned, his voice now a sermon. "A ritual, ancient and sacrosanct. Sixteen mages. Sixteen Servants. Heroic Spirits drawn from every era, every legend. They wage war for the Grail—an artifact capable of rewriting the laws of nature, of granting even the most impossible wish."
Shisan's brows furrowed. "A war? You want me to win a war I don't even understand, in a world that doesn't want me?"
Zelretch tilted his head. "The world rarely wants greatness, yet it is forged all the same. I offer no guarantee of victory. Only opportunity."
Claudius scoffed from his seat. "I won't participate in this farce. I'm not some pawn in a thaumaturgical death match. Allow me to leave Lord Zelretch,"
Zelretch waved a hand lazily, and a door from behind them broke the dim lighting in the room, letting in the moonlight. "As you wish."
Claudius brushed invisible dust from his robes. "I'll have no part in this madness." With one last glare at Shisan, he turned and stormed out, footsteps fading into the hall's silence.
Shisan turned back to Zelretch, jaw tight. "You knew he would refuse."
"I suspected," Zelretch said with a shrug. "But his pride is the mirror through which his decisions pass. He'll return."
Shisan exhaled. "And what about the war? What does it require?"
Zelretch's tone grew graver. "It will take place in Fuyuki, Japan. An isolated spiritual zone, rich with ley lines. Neutral ground, or as close to it as the modern world allows. There, you will summon a Servant—an echo of a soul greater than time itself. And you will be given sixteen enemies and fifteen allies with the same right."
Shisan's face was blank, but his eyes burned. "And if I win?"
"The Grail answers your call," Zelretch replied. "It will open the way, if your desire is strong enough. But know this—many seek its light, but few survive its shadow."
Shisan frowned. "And if I die?"
"Then this story ends in a grave far from your home," Zelretch said simply.
For a long time, neither of them spoke.
Then Shisan asked, quietly, "Why me?"
Zelretch raised an eyebrow. "Because your arrival disrupted more than one plane. Because your presence stirs something in the weave. And because I, of all people, know how rare it is to meet an anomaly... that the Root does not erase."
"And if I tell someone what I am?" Shisan asked, voice low.
Zelretch's smile vanished. "Then the Clock Tower will hunt you. The Church will burn you. And worse still, reality itself may correct the error with terminal prejudice."
Shisan nodded slowly, the weight of the warning settling in his bones.
Zelretch leaned back. "Now then. Convince Claudius. You'll need his cooperation. And his talents." Shisan obeyed, leaving Zelretch in the dimly lit room with haste.
Shisan found Claudius in the courtyard, where the cold breath of night clung to the ivy-laced stone. The moon hung low, veiled in gauze-thin clouds, casting a pale luminance that softened nothing. Claudius stood alone by the fountain, one hand braced against its rim, the other clenched at his side. The water within rippled faintly, as if disturbed by thoughts not spoken.
Shisan hesitated before approaching, the sound of his steps barely audible against the hush of the hour.
"Claudius," he said quietly, almost reverently—as one might call to a ghost not sure if it would answer. "Please… I need your help."
Claudius didn't move. His back was a wall of tension, his shoulders drawn high beneath the fabric of his robe. "Why?" he asked, voice sharp with fatigue, not cruelty. "Why should I risk everything—my place, my name, my future—for you?"
Shisan swallowed, his breath caught between pride and desperation. "Because I can't do this alone," he said. "This world rejects me like a body rejects a foreign heart. I don't understand its rules or its monsters. I don't know how to walk its paths without becoming lost."
Claudius turned slightly, just enough for the moonlight to catch half of his face. His eyes were unreadable—reflecting silver, hiding grief.
"I'm not asking you to trust me," Shisan continued. "I'm asking you to believe that I'm trying. That I don't want to steal your place or threaten your world. I just want to go home. But I can't get there without surviving what's coming. And I won't survive it without you."
The silence that followed was cavernous. Shisan looked down, ashamed at how heavy the words felt once said aloud.
Then—softly—Claudius spoke.
"Do you think this is easy for me?" he asked. "To see my own face speak with your voice? To feel my body obey another rhythm when I wake? You've unsettled everything I've spent my life perfecting."
Shisan said nothing. There was no rebuttal for the truth.
Claudius turned to face him fully. His gaze was hard, but no longer cold. Just tired.
"You ask for help," he said. "Not as a warrior. Not as a stranger. But as someone who's lost. I don't know if you're dangerous. I don't know if I should trust you. But I do know what it means to feel… displaced."
He stepped forward. Not threatening—resolute.
"Very well," he said. "I will help you. But not because I believe in your story. Not because I pity you."
Shisan met his eyes, unsure.
Claudius's voice lowered, steady and final. "I do this of my own volition. My choice. Not yours. Let that be clear."
There was a beat of stillness. Then Shisan gave a small nod, his throat tight. "Thank you," he said, the words almost cracking.
Claudius didn't reply. But for the first time, he didn't look away.
And for the first time, Shisan didn't feel quite so alone in this world.
The pair returned back to Zelretch's study, where the air felt different. Not merely heavier—but denser, as if each breath taken had to be filtered through fate itself. The scent of parchment and bergamot still lingered, but now it was cut with the sharp, electric undertone of impending change.
Zelretch stood by the hearth, one hand resting lightly on the pommel of a cane that hadn't been there before. His presence was no less overwhelming now, but something in his posture had shifted—from performance to purpose.
"I will assign you an instructor—someone I trust with lives, not just theory. She will teach you how to survive what is coming… perhaps even how to win."
Shisan gritted his teeth in anticipation, but said nothing.
Zelretch turned to him fully, and for a moment, all levity vanished. His eyes glinted with a severity that stripped away all artifice.
"You will be given quarters. Separate from the other students. Hidden, for your sake and theirs. But know this, under no circumstances are you to speak of your origin. Not even to those who seem trustworthy. Not even to those who love you, should it come to that. The both of you are dismissed,"
Shisan nodded slowly, the weight of the warning settling in his bones like winter frost.
Silence followed. Not oppressive. Just full—like the breath before a storm.
As the door opened and the two boys stepped into the corridor beyond, they closed the door behind them. The warmth of the study gave way to the cold, clinical air of stone passageways and arcane barriers.
The hush between them held until they reached the foot of a spiraling staircase, where the torchlight flickered like a dying constellation.
Shisan stopped.
He turned, looked at Claudius—at the face that had once held only contempt and calculation.
"Thank you," he said, quietly. "For trusting me. For agreeing to help. I'm sorry… for dragging you into this."
Claudius didn't answer right away. He looked forward, then to the side, as if searching the shadows for something he hadn't yet named. When he finally spoke, it was with a tired, brittle honesty.
"You didn't drag me. I walked into it. Eyes open."
He glanced at Shisan, his expression unreadable—but softer, just slightly.
"I chose this. Not because I understand you. Not because I like you. But because if someone like Lord Zelretch thinks you're worth watching… then I'd rather be beside you than in the dark."
A pause.
"Besides," Claudius added, with something like a ghost of a smirk, "if the world is going to end, I'd rather see how."
Shisan let out a quiet breath—not quite a laugh, not quite relief. Just something human, unstuck from the weight behind his ribs.
They walked a few more steps in silence, before parting—one stairway leading up, the other down.
At the fork, they stopped, glanced back.
"I'm Xīwàng Shisan by the way," Shisan said.
"Nice to meet you, Shisan," Claudius replied.
And then, like chess pieces placed in opposing corners of the board, they disappeared into the corridors—strangers no longer, allies not yet, but something slowly forming in between.
Once the footsteps of the two boys had faded into the distant arteries of the Clock Tower, silence reclaimed the chamber. Not an empty silence—but a silence poised, sharp as a knife unsheathed in the dark.
Then, from the folds of shadow near the far bookshelf, a shimmer stirred. The illusion peeled away like skin shedding glamour, and a figure stepped forth—measured, graceful, and entirely unamused.
Rin Tohsaka.
She emerged with the composure of someone long accustomed to eavesdropping on gods and monsters, her crimson cloak falling about her like a curtain closing on the final act. Her boots clicked softly against the ancient floor, each step confident but not loud, like the ticking of a precise clock.
Her arms folded beneath the red and black fabric as she regarded the now-empty doorway where Claudius and Shisan had exited.
"So," she said, her voice crisp as winter glass, "they're the ones you've chosen."
Zelretch didn't turn immediately. He stood by the window now, peering out of the curtains at the deepening sky beyond the glass. The light filtering in had taken on a strange, violet tinge—twilight not just of day, but of something more arcane.
"They weren't chosen," he replied at length, his voice quiet but threaded with amusement. "They were… precipitated."
Rin narrowed her eyes, stepping further into the lamplit space. "The one with the orange hair—he's not from this plane?"
"No," Zelretch said simply. "He is something else. A contradiction written into the page margins of reality. An echo that shouldn't resonate… but does."
She exhaled through her nose, fingers tightening slightly beneath her sleeves.
"And you're putting them in the Greatest Holy Grail War?"
Zelretch finally turned, and the shadows caught in the silver of his hair made him seem older than the air itself.
"Where better to place a paradox than at the heart of a ritual designed to defy reason?"
Rin's frown deepened. "And the eclipse?"
"It is not a part of it, but I have a feeling it is closely tied to it," Zelretch said, folding his hands behind his back. "The old mechanisms will stir. Some already have. You've felt them, haven't you?"
"I've felt the thinning," Rin admitted. "The mana tides shifting. It's like something beneath the world is waking up—and it's not sure whether to scream or sing."
Zelretch's smile returned—slight, enigmatic.
"That's a rather poetic way to put it. But yes. The eclipse is not merely celestial. It is a key. And Shisan... he stands precisely where the lever breaks."
Rin looked at the empty chairs once more—one still faintly bearing the impression of Shisan's frame, the other rigid with Claudius's perfectionist tension.
"And his magic?" she asked. "You said he has True Magic."
Zelretch's eyes gleamed like fractured mirrors.
"I don't merely suspect he holds it," he said, "I know he does. But it's dormant. Buried so deep it doesn't even dream of itself yet."
"And you're still letting him fight?"
"I'm letting him choose to fight. That makes all the difference."
Rin looked down, her jaw clenched in thought. Then, almost reluctantly, she said, "I'll train them. But if he loses control—"
"You'll act accordingly," Zelretch interrupted gently, yet firmly. "I know."
A beat of silence.
Then Rin's voice, quieter this time. "Do you think he'll make it back? To where he came from?"
Zelretch's eyes drifted toward the sealed tomes on the far shelf—books no hand had touched in centuries. His voice, when it came, was soft as dusk.
"If he learns to walk the path that even the Root forgot? Perhaps."
Rin stood motionless, her silhouette painted against the velvet dark of the study.
"I'll keep them alive," she said, and turned toward the door.
"I know you will," Zelretch replied.
The door opened. Moonlight spilled in.
She stepped through.
And the door closed on the first ripple of war.
The Mirror Knows Not It's Master END