[3rd person pov:???]
9th of April 2004
In the dim glow of a barely lit candle in the room, shadows stretched long and thin, dancing over the bookshelves filled with old tomes. A man sat atop an armchair, his form obscured by the shadows of the room. The air was heavy with incense coming from the burning candle.
KNOCK KNOCK
"Come in."
CLICK CREAK
As the door opened a hunched figure hobbled in, leaning on a cane. His skin was withered like parchment, stretched thin over brittle bones. Hollow eyes glinted faintly in the candlelight, and his crooked posture gave the impression of a man bent by the weight of centuries.
"So, what's the situation?" Said the seated figure breaking the silence. The hunched figure stepped forward with a sickly smile.
"It was proceeding rather well. The Masters had been assembled and those who refused the deal were silently dealt with by Assassin. But if there is one problem, it is that one of the magi we chose was killed but the killer has yet to try to divulge the information so I haven't killed her yet."
"Hmm? What happened? We shouldn't have attracted the attention of the Clock Tower yet, as they are still busy processing that girl of the Tohsaka after the 5th War. We even bribed a few of the Lords to help us conceal any news before the war actually began as by that point it would be too late to do anything for them."
He paused, a sudden thought striking him. His eyes narrowed with suspicion.
"Wait. Was it those guys from the US?"
The hunched figure shook his head slowly.
"No, it wasn't them. While I have no concrete proof, I believe they're still busy trying to decipher the ritual based on their analysis of the 3rd War."
"It was an unfortunate incident." The hunched figure admitted, the smile slipping. "But nothing catastrophic. The killer is an alchemist from the Atlas Institute. To be precise, I suspect she might be one of Zepia's descendants, though I'm not entirely certain yet. She ran into that French magus, and after some... persuasion, he told her everything about the war."
"I see, that's rather problematic. Do we know of her intention?"
"She seems interested in summoning a Servant to join the war." the hunched figure replied. "Should I dispose of her? Assassin has been monitoring her movements and can eliminate her at a moment's notice."
"An alchemist from the Atlas Institute, joining a Holy Grail War? Well, now that is interesting. But how did they even cross paths in the first place?"
That's what intrigued and perplexed the man the most. After all that french magus should have already been out of Europe and landed in Japan and yet ended up killed by an Atlas alchemist.
Someone part of an organization whose members were notorious for their secrecy and isolationism. Seeing one beyond their workshops was rare enough, encountering one so far away from Egypt and meddling in a ritual as chaotic as the Holy Grail War was pretty much unthinkable.
The whole situation might as well have been a first in history.
SIGH
"The fool got caught snooping around the cave where greater grail once resided in Fuyuki by the alchemist who also seemed to have come there to gather some information. Afterward the guy tried to dispose of her, only to get beaten up and spill everything he knew."
The man leaned back on his seat, narrowing his eyes thoughtfully.
"Let her be for now. If she takes the place of that guy as a master then there's no problem."
"But–"
"Just make sure to tell Assassin that if she tries to contact someone from the Institute, he must report immediately." the man cut in, not giving him a chance to complain.
The hunched figure hesitated, fingers tightening around his cane.
"Is it really fine? It's already strange enough that an alchemist got involved. What if the Director is behind this?"
For a moment, the silence returned in the room as the candle flame wavered, casting warped shadows that seemed to slither across the walls. Then, the man in the armchair chuckled and put on a sinister smile.
"It's impossible, I can't even imagine that man leaving the Institute. Even if he did, it wouldn't cause us a proble, as in that case, while it would attract a whole lot of suspicion and attention, I'll have to lend you my Contract of Atlas."
The hunched figure's hollow eyes widened in shock, the sickly smile vanishing completely. For a moment, he almost forgot to breathe as a shiver ran down his spine.
The seated man leaned forward with his eyes gleaming coldly in the dim light of the candle.
"Isn't that right? Matou Zouken."
***
[3rd person pov: The Rooftop]
Meanwhile as some people or rather some lowly "mongrels" schemed in the dark a certain king of kings was mighty confused by what just happened. So let's go back to a few seconds in the past. Just about 2 seconds is all we need.
WHOOSH SIZZLE
Amidst a blinding flash of light and a gust of wind, the king's eyes opened to a new world. He looked straight ahead at the figure of a small boy, no a child. He was barely 130 cm talls and was rather thin with dull brown hair and extremely dead eyes that were glancing at him from sideways.
'To dare look at me with such eyes? This boy is quite fortunate I was summoned as Ruler.'
Under ordinary circumstances, the boy might have found himself with a hole through his head, or at the very least, subjected to a barrage of scorn and reprimand for looking at him in such a manner. After all, the king's tolerance for insolence was slim, even if his leniency towards children was marginally greater due to their inherent ignorance.
After all, the most likely class in which he could be summoned as is the Archer class which incarnates the part of his life he spent living as a ruthless tyrant in nine out of ten cases. Though this raised the question of how he was summoned in such a class that could wait for later.
For now.
"Hm?Are you the insolent mongrel trying to cling to this king's radia–"
TICK
'Did this mongrel kid just turn his back to ME? In the middle of MY sentence?'
But then suddenly.
"–HUH?!?"
The boy jumped.
Off the rooftop.
Two seconds. This might have taken a lot of words but from the moment of Ruler's summoning to the jump just barely two seconds had passed.
'What?'
Needless to say even the mighty king would be so mighty confused by such a situation.
'Did that mongrel just hurl away from my sight as soon as he saw me? Is this a new way to try and insult me? No, that cannot be.'
"...No matter, I guess I'll just have to find out."
And with those words, everything stopped.
Whether they be the falling child about to crash on an alley in his free fall, the birds flying in the sky, the cars racing down the streets or people walking by the sidewalks it all just stopped waiting for the king of all to see through the nature of all creation. Be it fate, truth or the infinitely possible futures all can be discerned by the king with but a single glance.
And yet.
'I... cannot see.'
His fingers twitched. His sight was clouded.
'No. This is impossible!'
He tried again, pushing more of his will and mana into it, commanding the very fabric of the world to reveal itself to him. His Eyes should not fail him. Not now, not ever.
And yet, they did. As if someone put a blindfold before his eyes preventing him from seeing what's before him. He was unable to see through the true nature of the world around him.
'Dammit, dammit, dammit.'
The world started moving again.
"Fine then, I'll find out myself!"
The golden armored king sprang into action, leaping from the rooftop. As he descended, his treasury opened in the form of two golden gates from which two needles shot forth, striking the boy's heart and brain right before he finished his fall.
The needles temporarily preserved the state of the objects they pierced. Of course, it cannot affect the whole body but only the 2 organs and he's not sure if the kid's body was spiked or anything.
Various staves emerged next, weaving a complex web of bounded fields, some were designed to prevent the kid's condition from worsening and analysing his body for any spell that might have affected him. The rest was to detect any anomalies, any hidden mongrel that may have caused this strange event.
He waited. He waited to feel the response from the bounded fields but there was no response.
Nothing. Absolutely no abnormality.
It is then that He realized. There was no enemy attack. No spell, curse or charm applied to him. Only… a boy who jumped from a rooftop.
As matter of fact most of the reason why the king reacted so aggressively was due to the shock of being blinded from his clairvoyantic sight. And yet it all seemed like the whole ordeal was nothing more than a…
"What a farce."
He deactivated the detection fields, turning his attention to the nearly flattened boy's body.
'Not a single activated magic circuit. No sign of a makeshift circuit using nerves either. And he's not in possession of any relic that might be related to me as well.'
This raised even more questions. How did the kid summon him without any magic circuit or artifact? Even if he were lucky enough how did he even start the summoning?
'And why did I receive no information upon being summoned about its purpose? At first, I dismissed it, intending to use my Eyes to assess if the situation was actually worthy of my attention. But…'
The king's mind raced, trying to piece together the puzzle. But the amount of information was severely lacking.
'Was it the counter force? Is it a Grail War that escalated beyond scope? This child? Maybe someone messed up the workings of the Grail War summoning ritual? Or did someone create a new strange ritual that summoned servants?'
The more he thought of it the more the question piled on top of each other.
'No the second option is out of the picture. If that were the case I would have been granted 2 command spells for each servant participating in the war instead there's only 3 command spells and that too on the kid's hand instead of my body.'
'The fifth is also fairly unlikely. It's not exactly feasible and that wouldn't have manifested a servant in such a strange manner where the summoner doesn't even use one bit of his own magical energy to execute the ritual and from observing the boy the only shift in his life force is due to his slowly delayed death.'
'The first and fourth options cannot be discerned as of now due to a lack of information.'
"So the last analyzable option is…"
With a gesture, three more staves emerged: one to accurately assess the boy's magic circuits, another to determine his origin and element, and a third to search for any mystical properties in his bloodline.
It took a mere 3 seconds to analyze everything.
"33 inactive magic circuits of below-average quality. Elemental affinity… nothingness. Origin… emptiness."
The king's eyes narrowed.
"What kind of bloody mess is this child?"
No trace of a mystical or special bloodline, just an ordinary human. At least in that regard.
"I suppose I have no choice but to ask him directly and verify. Besides, this farce might prove an amusing challenge to pass my time."
At that the king retrieved a vial of liquid from his treasury.
"Be grateful, child. You might be the luckiest mongrel alive to make me waste one of my treasures on you before even proving your worth."
DRIP DRIP DRIP
The liquid dripped onto the boy's mangled form, flesh knitting back together with each drop.
'This will also activate his magic circuits and raise their quality to nearly avarage, even if only slightly. But I don't mind on the contrary this will help me better punish whichever mongrel dared to smear this king's sight.'
As the boy's body returned to a more recognizable state, the king picked him up by the foot, his expression a mix of disdain and intrigue. This filthy alley was beneath him, lingering any longer was a waste.
With the boy in tow, the golden King departed, a smirk playing at the corners of his mouth.
***
*Author's note: While the main character is not Japanese, but he lives in Japan and will be addressed in the future, in fate the origins are always described using Japanese characters to express their meaning(as it should, counting it's a japanese work) so I used the same logic regardless. His origin is not the same as Shiki Ryogi her is Emptiness (空, Kara) while MC is 空虚 (Kūkyo) in Japanese primarily means "emptiness," "void," or "hollowness". And apparently(at least according to chatgpt coff coff) in a philosophical or poetic context, 空虚(Kūkyo) can carry a subtle nuance of potential to be filled because emptiness can imply room or space for something more. This is especially true in Buddhist philosophy, where emptiness (空, Kū) can suggest a state of potential or openness. Then as for his element Nothingness (無, Mu) it's a canon element in type moon, one of the 2 imaginary elements we know together with Hollow (虚, Kyo) (this one is more famously known as Imaginary Numbers (虚数, Kyosū)) and while not much is known what we do know is the difference between the two as imaginary numbers is that "which is possible but not in the physical plane" and nothingness is that "which is not possible, but materializes".