"I guess stealing is okay when you find yourself in a situation of need."
Toru said holding a glass cup in his hand.
He had just stolen that glass goblet from a house in the city and was now using it to drink the wine he stole from Iskandar.
Yes, that was the need. Toru simply wanted to take a little break by drinking some alcohol.
The exertion he made earlier took a large amount of his mana.
Drip...
Drip...
"Haa... again..."
Tears ran down his face. He was still processing the fact that his emotions were still coming out on their own in the form of tears.
"I never imagined it would hurt so much."
He realized something and shook his head.
"No... I knew perfectly well it was going to be this way. I always knew how much everything I've been through hurts."
Enough lying to himself. Honesty was always something he lacked, but he had to at least be honest with himself.
If it hurt, he wasn't going to lie to himself that he's used to it. If it felt sad, he wasn't going to lie to himself by saying he feels fine and isn't hurting.
"It hurts... it hurts so much..."
He closed his eyes with a slight calm smile, tears spilling over without stopping. After that, he looked at the cup in his hand and drank all the wine.
"Mother... You hurt me so much. Even though it was my choice to endure all that. So, for the most part, it's my fault for being so kind."
He was too perfect and pure a child. He was that way until his body became stained with the dirty red of his own blood and he lost his emotions.
...
Anyway. He drank more wine from the barrel. When he finished a glass of wine, he let out a tired sigh. Those sighs that only a tired older man has coming home after a long day's work.
...
At the rhythm in which the tears fall, Toru drinks the wine in peace.
However, the wine glass fell out of his hand, hitting the floor and shattering into pieces.
"... I knew this would happen."
Toru's hand became semi-transparent.
He felt a deep tiredness that for a second made him stagger, even if he was sitting up. Despite that, he forced himself to remain in this world and the effect of his body disappearing subsided after that.
"I have to do something about it. If I leave things this way, the mana will run out and I'll return to the Throne of Heroes."
And that was something he wasn't going to allow himself.
The only way for an Assassin to get mana was to kill.
Then...
His eyes glowed with the light of the Shigan and he immediately disappeared shrouded in the black wake of the night.
-Einzbern Castle-
"You should go to sleep, Irisviel."
"Don't worry. I want to help you."
Artoria tried to get Irisviel to rest, but she repeatedly refused the offer.
Right now Artoria was looking for Assassin's name among all the books in the mansion, but there was something strange.
"I can't find it..."
It was as if that boy had never existed in this world. There were no records of his history or his exploits. There was simply nothing about him.
"Even though he said everyone knew him and looked at him..."
No. Artoria knew Toru's words were not lies. She could see it in the boy's kind smile and how he surrendered in his final moments.
"How could someone like that be an Assassin?"
It didn't make sense.
In this girl's eyes, Toru was worthy of being more than just an Assassin. He wasn't just someone who fought and killed to fulfill his desires, there was something deeper to it all and she wanted to find out by reading the history of this one herself.
But there was nothing.
Asahi Toru doesn't exist...
-By Artoria-
He was a boy with a dull look, as if his soul had been ripped out of his body, but there was something else.
I searched and searched through the pages of the history books. I tried to remember some of the history I knew, but I found nothing about him.
A mysterious boy, enigmatic in every sense of the word. His gaze was deep, as if he saw straight into your soul.
Although I saw his face only a few times, his appearance was engraved in my mind together with the moment of his death.
Her hair the color of jet. His eyes silver like the bright moon in the night sky. His face with elegant, fine features, as if he were a perfect doll, but broken inside. His skin battered by battle and his hands bruised by the use of his weapons.
Asahi Toru seemed to become one with the shadows, as if darkness was his nature.
***
"He controlled the primordial elements and could empower himself through a magic that allowed him to absorb the energy present in the air. In addition, there were his eyes..."
"How about you look up something about his Mystic Eyes, then? There should be something about it."
"... You're right."
And Artoria followed Irisviel's advice.
She walked through the door and seconds later arrived with a large stack of books in her hands. The weight of the books was not a problem for her.
-In the sky of this city-
"Rider... you've been quiet since we left Castle Einzbern."
Iskandar sighed. Leaving aside the girl calling herself king, the Asahi Toru thing was puzzling.
"Asahi Toru... Now that he tried to remember, I don't know that name. There hasn't been a shinobi with that boy's abilities."
"Uh... you mean what happened a while ago."
"I saw you were curious about that."
"Oh, well. At the time yes, but now I don't know what to think. Someone like that could be an Assassin?"
"Hm... let me explain."
Iskandar looked at Waver and remembered.
"Servants are summoned with a class under certain conditions. Their history and actions are part of those conditions. Though the form of choice for a class is still not entirely consistent. I have my own theories about that."
"So?"
"You see..."
-Einzbern Castle-
"The Seven Classes of Servant."
Among the books Artoria brought, one suddenly fell out that showed the information about the Heroic Spirits and Servants that Kiritsugu used to learn about Heaven's Feel.
"Oh. I remember this. Kiritsugu and I read this book together."
"You used it to summon me?"
"Sort of. We used the information in the book to learn more about the choice of classes in the Servants."
"I see..."
Artoria looked at the description of the Servants.
Classes are something that allows a Heroic Spirit to be summoned by reflecting the abilities it presented in life.
So Artoria thought that was somehow true, but....
"I am Saber, but Asahi Toru..."
Irisviel also realized.
"Asahi Toru presented abilities outside of the Assassin class. If I had to think, what he used during the fight against Rider must have been a skill more related to Berserker-class Servants."
"Exactly. That's something I didn't think of at the time, but looking at it from that point... it doesn't make sense..."
Why would an Assassin possess such abilities? Servant classes are supposed to be chosen based on the skills they had in life, so....
"Waver Velvet mentioned it."
Irisviel pointed at the image of the Servant "Berserker" in the book.
"Assassin was forcing himself to use those abilities."
-High in the sky-
"Assassin would have no reason to be able to use power-up abilities if his strong point is stealth and strategy. What I'm getting at is that he most likely could have been summoned with another class."
"Another class? Like Saber or Caster?"
Rider smiled calmly before answering.
"Berserker..."
"Uh?"
"It is said that in that class are the heroes who lost their way. That they lost themselves... And if you think about it carefully it's kind of sad."
"Why?
"I consider Asahi Toru a worthy hero. He fought for his desires and seemed to want to protect someone else. To live...his wish is what a true hero would want."
"So he was a hero."
"And it's sad to think that the Holy Grail deemed him unworthy of his title, leaving him stuck in the pathetic Assassin class."
-Einzbern Castle-
"Someone who wasn't worthy of being anything more than an Assassin..."
Artoria clenched the pages of the book tightly. For someone who followed justice and order, this was just a thorn in her finger. How could it be possible that someone like Asahi Toru had been treated like that by the Holy Grail?
Though she also felt that there was something else strange about all this.
The moment when Toru attacked Iskandar was projected in her mind.
"I saw something. When Assassin stood up and attacked the army engulfed in flames."
Irisviel tilted her head in confusion.
"It was as if something or someone was limiting what Asahi Toru could do. It was as if they had him bound in chains and shackles, along with shadowy hands holding him by the neck."
As if he was just a simple prisoner.....
"Are you sure you saw that?"
"It may sound ridiculous, but I know I saw it. And ever since that moment, for some reason, I feel like someone is watching me. There's something strange about this whole war..."
"Hm... it could be..."
Irisviel thought out loud. Artoria looked at her, but she shook her head then said.
"It's nothing. I thought of something silly that doesn't make sense."
-Somewhere-
While Artoria was thinking about the injustice of this war, blood was spilling on the ground, where lifeless bodies fall one after another.
His daggers drip blood. His eyes stare death directly in front of him.
He who will do anything to win this war.
"It doesn't matter if I have to hurt others."
That was his decision. What he wants is more important than anything in the world and he is going to get it even if, from now on, he has to sacrifice innocent people.
"No..."
In fact, he reconsidered a bit on that score.
"Innocent people have nothing to do with this. But..."
People who have done bad things do, for their divine punishment has come.
"Next on my list will be... Kayneth El-Melloi Archibald... If I manage to kill him, I can get enough mana to continue to exist."
With the blood of inmates staining his clothes. With alarms blaring in the distance where police officers pointed their guns at whatever got into this prison.
...
A hero who lost his way...
Locked in the cage of his own madness, but free in this world of magic.
When his eyes looked at someone, that person would already be dead.
He is not an executioner, but he decided to become one to get his wish.
He Heroic Spirit who was not worthy of being more than a pathetic Assassin.
He smiled as he wiped his daggers with the flames of his magic.
...
Yes... This is the true Asahi Toru. The one who loves death. He whom death loves.
"Let's keep working and then I'll drink some more wine."
This night of work would go on for a few more hours.
-The next day-
"Hm... I think I overdid it..."
Maybe it was the heat of the moment, when all his emotions got out of control. The pent-up grudge came out and caused all this.
"At least I managed to calm down."
On top of the building, Toru saw how the police had been deployed all over this city to look for him.
He caused too much trouble...
"I won't drink again when I find myself like this."
He felt ashamed of his own actions. Though at least he didn't kill innocent people so it wasn't all bad.
"Well, I did them a favor. I got rid of the bad people. Not that I'm a saint though."
Fading into thin air, Toru sighed.
"I'll leave this as is and go get ready to kill the next Master."
***
And that very night something happened....
A gigantic monster rose out of the water near the bridge.
Three Servants were there and....
Assassin watched this in silence.
The final arc begins...
To be continued...