For nearly 200 years, a secret war among three mage families had been established with a single goal in mind. That goal was the most cherished desire of all mages in the world, the Root, the place of God, the Akashic Records, the records of the beginning and end of all things that create everything in this world.
Approximately 200 years ago, in 1800, three families—Tohsaka, Matou, and Einzbern, known as the Three Founding Families—devised a reproduction of the Holy Grail that Jesus Christ used at the Last Supper. It was also a theme in many traditions around the world.
But this Holy Grail was not the true Sacred Relic used by Christ at the Last Supper. The Fuyuki Grail was merely a copy of the Omnipotent Vessel of the Son of God, which opens a path to a utopia.
The Fuyuki Holy Grail was a Great Ritual established by the Three Founding Families.
The Three Founding Families hoped that the summoning of the Holy Grail would fulfill their desires, the desire that all mages in the world share: the Root.
With this goal in their minds, the three mage families offered their secret arts to finally manifest the so-called Omnipotent Vessel, the Holy Grail.
However…
This Holy Grail could only grant the wish of one person. As soon as this truth became known to the Three Founding Families, the bonds of cooperation were washed in blood by conflicts among the three mage families in 1810, ten years after the Holy Grail was established in 1800 by the Three Founding Families in pursuit of the Root.
And so began a legendary secret war in the world of the occult among the three mage families.
This war was known as the Holy Grail War.
It was a war that occurred every 60 years, where seven mages chosen by the Holy Grail as Masters, with the support of the Holy Grail, could summon one of seven Servants to battle for the acquisition of the Grail and have their wishes fulfilled.
This was the beginning of the Fourth Holy Grail War, after the chaos of the Third Holy Grail War on the eve of World War II in 1939.
The Fourth Heaven's Feel.
"Have you memorized the summoning incantations accurately?"
In a dark storage room, Zouken reminded Kariya once more, just for safety.
Filled with a foul smell of rot and dampness, a greenish darkness like the depths of the sea. This was the worm storage hidden deep in the soil of the Matou residence, located on the hill of the small mountainous town of Fuyuki.
"Yes."
Kariya nodded in the darkness of the storage. Kariya's face was covered by the hood of a blue sweatshirt he wore to hide his pale face.
After a year since implanting the worms in exchange for expanding his Magic Circuits and magical potential for this Heaven's Feel, Kariya was in an extremely decrepit state with little time left to live.
Because of this, Kariya currently had sickly pale skin, almost like that of a corpse, his black hair now white, the left side of his face completely paralyzed, and half of his limbs—arm and leg—dysfunctional and distorted.
"That's good, Kariya. Just in the middle of the incantation, add two more lines of incantations."
"What do you mean?"
Zouken smiled menacingly at Kariya's confused expression.
"Isn't it obvious? Kariya, you must know that, as a mage, your skills are not just one or two levels below those of the other Masters. This will affect the basic abilities of the Servant. If that's the case, it can only be altered through the Servant's Class, and we must raise the Root Parameter."
Zouken explained to Kariya why he should add two more lines of incantations in the middle of the Heroic Spirit summoning incantation.
"We can predetermine the Servant's Class through a slight alteration in the summoning incantations. Normally, the assignment of a Servant's Class is inevitably decided by the attributes of the Heroic Spirit being summoned. However, Kariya, there's an exception. There are two Servant Classes that can be designated by the summoner in advance. One of them is Assassin. The Servant belonging to this Class can only be assumed as a group of assassins who inherited the name Hassan-i-Sabbah. And the other Class is for all Heroic Spirits and can be manifested as long as the summoner incorporates the necessary foreign ingredients. Therefore…"
Zouken handed Kariya a paper with some words while smiling with a distorted and joyful expression on his repulsive, wrinkled old face.
"… This time, give the summoned Servant the attribute of Mad Enhancement!"
Matou Zouken declared loudly with a very happy face, as if welcoming the disastrous implications contained within.
"Kariya, as the Master of Berserker, fight for me with everything you have."
Kariya said nothing more and began the summoning of the Berserker Servant.
In the middle of the storage room was a well-crafted piece of wood in the center of a magical circle shaped like a purification ring, surrounded by another ring of four purification circles, enclosed by a summoning protection.
That crafted piece of wood was a genuine fragment of the Round Table that Zouken managed to buy, to be used as a catalyst to summon a powerful Berserker Servant from the Arthurian Legends.
The sale of many Round Table fragments was common in the market at the time of the Holy Grail War. But there were many forgeries, so it was quite difficult to obtain a genuine fragment like the one Matou Zouken acquired to summon Berserker for the Fourth Holy Grail War.
"Let silver and steel be the essence."
As Kariya began the Servant summoning incantation, the magical circle glowed with a great concentration of Magical Energy accumulating within it.
"Let stone and the archduke of contracts be the foundation."
The worms in the damp storage began to writhe with the start of the summoning incantation.
"Let black be the color I pay homage to."
All those worms were used to provide the Magical Energy needed for the Heroic Spirit summoning to be performed correctly.
Although fresh blood from an animal or human could also be used in the Heroic Spirit summoning ritual, it was more beneficial to use materials with a high concentration of Magical Energy to summon a powerful Heroic Spirit for the Holy Grail War, rather than a blood sacrifice.
"Let my great Master Makiri be the ancestor."
Kariya continued chanting the Servant summoning incantation, hoping to summon one of the heroes from the other side of the universe in search of a miracle to save a little girl from a cruel fate.
"Let a wall rise against the wind that shall fall."
As Kariya progressed in the summoning chant, pain overtook his body.
"Let the four cardinal gates close."
Even with all the pain, Kariya continued chanting the Servant summoning incantation for the Holy Grail War.
"Let the three-forked road from the crown reaching unto the Kingdom rotate."
Kariya felt the worms inside him stir and devour his flesh faster with the rapid consumption of Magical Energy in the Heroic Spirit summoning.
The veins on Kariya's face thickened, and beneath the skin of his face, the worms crawled to eat his brain.
The pain Kariya felt from having his body and brain devoured was unimaginable.
"I-I… can't stop here! I have to save little Sakura! For her…"
Thinking of the duty he carried on his shoulders… Kariya would not back down at this moment.
"I hereby declare. Your body shall serve under me. My fate shall be your sword. Submit to the beckoning of the Holy Grail. If you submit to this will and this reason… then answer!"
With his resolve strengthened, Kariya chanted several lines of the incantation, thinking of the duty he, as Kariya, and not a Matou family mage, carried on his shoulders.
"An oath shall be sworn here!"
As Kariya's chant continued with all his strength, the Magical Energy scattered in the atmosphere trembled in terror, with fear and dread of what was being summoned in that worm storage.
"I shall attain all virtues of all of Heaven. I shall have dominion over all evils of all of Hell!"
In the middle of the incantation, Kariya paused and then added the forbidden foreign ingredient to the summoning incantation.
It was just two lines that would strip the Heroic Spirit of its sanity, reducing the hero to the Berserker Class.
"… Yet, though you serve with your eyes clouded in chaos, you, bound in the cage of madness. I am the one who commands this chaos."
Kariya is different from other mages because his Magic Circuits are made of other organisms living inside him as parasites.
The anguish needed to incite them and activate his Circuits is incomparable to that suffered by other mages. For the worms used to activate Kariya's Circuits devoured his body from within, primarily devouring Kariya's brain with the activation of his Circuits.
As he chanted the incantations, Kariya's limbs twitched in spasms, and blood flowed from his shattered capillaries.
Blood tears flowed from the remaining healthy right eye, streaming down his cheek.
Even so, Kariya did not relax his concentration with the duty he carried on his shoulders.
"From the Seventh Heaven…"
The storage room trembled, the floor and walls of the dark, damp storage cracked with a small tremor as Kariya's chant neared its end with each line of the incantation.
"… Attended by three great words of power…"
The worms scattered throughout the storage room as a sacrifice let out a shrill sound as they began to rot and release a black smoke in the storage that swirled around the summoning magical circle.
"… Come forth from the ring of restraint…"
It seemed that the foul storage room of rot and dampness in the darkness of the deep sea was rapidly decaying, with the green color of the sea depths fading into a lifeless gray.
"… Protector of the Holy Balance! Ahhhhh…"
With the end of the chant, Kariya felt immense pain in his body being devoured by the worms upon the activation of his Magic Circuits.
Then, suddenly, the air and Magical Energy vibrated within the lifeless gray storage.
From the magical circle, thousands of buzzing sounds emerged, accompanied by a dense black cloud formed by the worms, which had disintegrated, serving as the source of Magical Energy for the Berserker Servant summoning ritual.
The black smoke began to spread with the buzzing throughout the damp and rotten worm storage.
When some flies landed right next to Kariya's decaying face, Kariya realized that the black cloud was not some kind of smoke but was, in fact, a large swarm of flies.
The patterns of the circle glowed in a blood-crimson black light behind the dense cloud of flies surrounding the magical circle.
Kariya's Magic Circuits had connected with a plane not of men… and from the blinding crimson light shining in the midst of the dense cloud of flies, a silhouette in complete darkness emerged in the form of a tall, slender man.
"Ohohohoh…"
Zouken laughed eerily, observing the silhouette amidst the dense black cloud of buzzing flies with a terrible sound in the Matou residence's storage.
But then…
"I ask you, are you the Master who summoned me?"
The dense cloud of flies and the terrible buzzing dissipated, revealing a young man with black hair wearing the black robes of a priest, and a staff with a skull in one of his hands.
Zouken's laughter died the moment he heard the Heroic Spirit's voice. But seeing that figure of a Heroic Spirit, Zouken turned to Kariya with a furious expression on his repulsive, wrinkled face.
"Useless!"
Zouken spat irritably.
"You're a failure, Kariya. Instead of summoning Berserker, you summoned Caster."
Kariya was startled by Zouken's expression and irritated tone.
"What? But I pronounced the Mad Enhancement attribute to summon Berserker! How could I have summoned Caster?"
"Isn't it obvious, you useless fool! Even with all the resources I spent on you, you messed everything up by summoning the wrong Servant. I guess that girl wasn't that important to you after all. Kariya, you wasted my time and resources and didn't summon the Berserker Servant."
Kariya didn't move at Zouken's words. Kariya's one good eye was unfocused as all his hopes of saving Sakura slowly faded.
"A waste of time. I knew you were weak, but I had no idea you were so pathetic. Even using a specific incantation to summon Berserker, you managed to summon the weakest Servant, Kariya. Ho ho, you useless… you wasted a year of my time that I could have spent training the little Tohsaka girl."
"N-no…"
Kariya staggered back on his paralyzed leg and ended up falling, without strength, on his paralyzed leg. With half his body almost completely paralyzed, Kariya had to crawl to move in the past year.
"Hehehe…"
Zouken smiled with pleasure at Kariya's desperate and hopeless face on the ground.
Zouken Matou had given up on the Fourth Holy Grail War from the start. He only trained Kariya for a year just to train, as Zouken Matou considered the Fourth Holy Grail War a lost battle from the beginning. He had no hope that Kariya would win the battle for the Grail. But the pleasure he felt in humiliating Kariya was too good for him to simply ignore his failure to summon the Berserker Servant.
"I'm going to enjoy every second of that little girl…"
Pow! Zzzzzz! Crack!
A loud sound of a strike echoed in the storage, followed by an annoying buzz, and then the sound of one of the storage walls cracking and breaking with a tremor that shook the entire Matou residence's storage as if a small earthquake had occurred and hit the Matou house.
"Ah?!"
It happened so fast that Zouken didn't realize what had happened until he saw a line formed between him and Kariya on the storage floor. Looking at that line, Zouken saw that it stretched from the tip of the Servant's staff standing on the magical circle to a wall that had completely turned to rotten dust.
"Servant Berserker…"
In that moment of silence, the Servant spoke, drawing the attention of Zouken and Kariya.
"Berserker?"
Zouken Matou was surprised to hear the Servant pronounce his Class. It was something Zouken couldn't imagine happening—a Berserker Class Servant, a Class of Servants consumed by insanity and madness, speaking normally.
'How can a Berserker Servant be so… lucid?'
Zouken, who had lived a long life of over 500 years and had seen all the Holy Grail Wars in the past 200 years, couldn't imagine there could be a Berserker not consumed by insanity and madness.
The Berserker Servant looked at Kariya with his black eyes deeper than the darkest abyss in the world.
"… I will ask again. Are you my Master?"
The young voice of the Servant was calm but cold, with no emotions in its tone beyond sadness and more sadness.
Kariya, who until that moment was paralyzed with shock and fear, snapped out of his stupor with the cold voice of the Servant who had turned one of the storage walls into rotten dust of death and horror with a terrifying power.
"Y-yes… I am your Master, B-Berserker…"
Kariya responded with a weak voice but soon put on a stronger voice and spoke again.
"My name is Kariya Matou, and I am your Master! Berserker!"
"Then our contract is complete. For now, you may call me Bel, Master. My name is not something you should know at the moment. There are no issues with this arrangement, correct, Master?"
The cold, deep black eyes of the Servant caused fear in Kariya, as he could feel the power of a Servant by looking into the black eyes of the Berserker staring at him emotionlessly with a blank face.
"Y-yes, Berserker!"
"Kariya! What are the Parameters of this Berserker?!"
Zouken asked Kariya. Kariya looked at the Servant, and the information soon came into his vision as he used the Master's Sight.
"Strength C+, Endurance A++, Agility D, Mana and Luck E."
Kariya listed each of the Parameters and their rankings one by one.
"Except for Endurance, all the Parameters are below average."
Hearing the Berserker's Parameters from Kariya's mouth, Zouken quickly drew his conclusions about the power of the Berserker that Kariya had summoned as his Servant for the Heaven's Feel.
"Ho ho ho… for the Berserker Class, this Servant's Parameters are very low, Kariya."
As Zouken had said, except for Endurance, all of Berserker's Parameters were average or well below average, especially for a Berserker, who naturally should have Parameters above average, at B or A, in all their Parameters.
"And what about his Skills and Noble Phantasm? They must be at least strong. Tell me, Kariya, the names of all the Skills and the Noble Phantasm of this Berserker, along with their rankings, Kariya."
Kariya nodded and then turned back to his Master's Sight, looking at the Skills and Noble Phantasm of the Berserker, who remained still and silently waiting for Kariya's analysis for Zouken Matou.
"Berserker has… Divinity E?"
"Oh oh. A demigod, then. Or perhaps someone related to a God from the Age of Gods, or someone vaguely associated with a God but who succumbed to Decline in this Age or in their own legend."
After Zouken made a quick analysis of Berserker's Divinity, Kariya continued to speak about Berserker's Skills.
"Mad Enhancement is… E?"
"If it's so low, it's not surprising that his Parameters are also below average. A Berserker's Mad Enhancement is what truly defines all of the Berserker's Parameters. The higher the Mad Enhancement, the greater the Berserker's Parameters."
Zouken responded calmly upon hearing that the Berserker Servant had a Mad Enhancement of rank E.
"No!"
But Kariya drew Zouken's attention.
Surprised and shocked by what he was seeing, Kariya spoke with a tense voice full of dread at what he was seeing in Berserker's Skills.
"His Mad Enhancement is… EX?!!!"
"Ah?!!!!"
Zouken was surprised and shocked to hear that the Berserker's Mad Enhancement rank was so high, with a ranking beyond the limits of Parameter measurement.
"Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha…"
But soon, all of Zouken's surprise was replaced by a loud and joyful laugh. The sound of the laughter was so loud that it echoed off the damp, rotten walls of the Matou house's storage.
"I see! I understand, Kariya! This Berserker Servant. Despite having such a high Mad Enhancement rank, he still retains all his mental sanity. That should be impossible for such a high Mad Enhancement rank. Perhaps it's a Noble Phantasm or one of his Skills that makes him a true mad Berserker, raising all his Parameters to the level of a true mad Berserker."
"S-So that's it."
Kariya was surprised by Zouken's explanation about the Berserker who still retained his mental sanity with such an absurd level of Mad Enhancement.
Kariya wouldn't deny it. He was also very surprised when he saw the Berserker's Mad Enhancement rank.
"Ha. Continue, Kariya. Tell me his other Berserker Skills."
After his euphoria, Zouken calmed down and ordered Kariya to speak about the other Berserker Skills. Although Zouken still had a malicious and mad smile on his wrinkled, withered, and pale face that had once lost all its vitality.
"Well. Oblivion Correction, also at…"
Kariya swallowed hard when he saw the absurd rank of the new Skill.
"… Rank EX."
The second EX-ranked Skill surprised Kariya again.
But Zouken thought for a moment in silence, still with his distorted smile.
"Hmm. I don't know what kind of Skill that is, Kariya; it's something completely new. But it must be linked to Mad Enhancement just by its strange name."
Kariya nodded at the explanation Zouken had given him about this new, unknown Class Skill.
Although Zouken's thoughts were contrary to what he had just said to Kariya.
'This is the same Skill as that Servant from the Third Heaven's Feel. The Avenger. Although the effects are unknown, it's very interesting…'
Zouken recalled a Servant summoned in the previous Heaven's Feel. A new and unknown Servant Class that had emerged amidst the chaotic eve of World War II.
"Very well, Kariya. Continue. What are the other Berserker Skills?"
"Right. Hmm. Three of his Skills are hidden."
"Berserker must be hiding them of his own will. Don't worry, Kariya. What are the ranks? That's what really matters."
"They are A, E, hmm… E with question marks, and…"
"Question marks?"
Zouken was confused and didn't understand when Kariya mentioned question marks in a Skill.
"Oh, yes, that's right, there are question marks in Berserker's second Personal Skill. What do those question marks mean?"
Zouken shook his head helplessly, but his smile only grew wider.
"I don't know… continue. What's the rank of the other Skill?"
"It's… it's another… EX again."
Kariya was once again surprised by what he was seeing and also frightened. From what Kariya himself had learned, it was not common to have more than one EX in Heroic Spirits of the highest caliber.
Kariya knew that Heroic Spirits with + modifiers are extraordinary.
And that Heroic Spirits with A+ were rare, and those with A++ were very extraordinary.
But those with A+++ were in a league of their own.
However… those with EX were the ones who possessed truly exceptional Skills that were completely off the scale.
So, after seeing a Servant with three EX ranks, it was impossible for Kariya not to be frightened and scared of Berserker.
Although, unlike Kariya, Zouken was beaming with a wide smile of ecstasy.
"Ho ho ho ho. Three EX Skills is unique, Kariya. The best of the best Heroic Spirits barely have one EX-ranked Skill. And this Berserker already has three of them. Hehehehehe…"
Zouken was delighted that Berserker had high-level Skills despite having Parameters below the average expected for a Berserker.
"What's his Noble Phantasm, Kariya?"
"Well, it's… hmm. Berserker still has one more Skill. Independent Action A++."
Before talking about the Noble Phantasm, Kariya noticed that Berserker still had one more extraordinary Skill.
"What?"
Zouken was surprised for a second, but his smile soon returned to his face.
"That's an Archer Skill. Are you sure this Berserker has that Skill at such a high rank?"
"Yes. It's Independent Action A++, the name and rank."
"Hoho. It seems you have some luck, Kariya. With Independent Action, Berserker won't kill you when he fights another Servant."
Kariya was very lucky. Since Berserker had a very high Independent Action rank, Berserker wouldn't be heavily dependent on Kariya's Magical Energy to stay in the world or fight for a while independently of having a Master to supply Magical Energy.
"However…"
Zouken's smile turned malicious as he looked at Kariya with pleasure.
"With a Berserker who still retains his mind and has such a high Independent Action rank, this Berserker might be uncontrollable for you. Hehe."
Zouken knew that, as a Berserker who wasn't consumed by madness, he could pose some difficulty in receiving orders from his Master. But with an Independent Action rank that even Zouken himself hadn't seen in other Holy Grail Wars, the summoned Berserker Servant could refuse all his Master's orders. But in return, there was the benefit of minimal Magical Energy consumption, which was quite impressive for a Berserker, the Servant that consumes the most Magical Energy from its Master, enough to kill Kariya before the end of the Heaven's Feel, as Zouken wanted by making Kariya summon a Berserker.
But Zouken ignored his plan to let Kariya die before the end of the Heaven's Feel. Not that Zouken cared; Kariya would die anyway in less than a year after the Lust Worm devoured part of Kariya's brain.
Even if all the worms and the Lust Worm heading toward Kariya's brain were removed from his body, he had at most three to five years of life, or even less time.
"So. What's his Noble Phantasm?"
"It's the staff he's holding. Its name is Staff of Apomyius, A++, and an Anti-Unit personal use."
"Apomyius! As in Zeus Apomyius?!"
Zouken was shocked when he heard the name and couldn't help but shout in astonishment at the Berserker's Noble Phantasm's name.
"I don't know. Apomyius is the name of the staff, but it doesn't have Zeus in the name."
"Then your Servant's identity can be narrowed down to a Greek Servant. Zeus or his son Hercules are the first. But Zeus is impossible to summon, so it could be Hercules. If not Hercules, it's a Servant from ancient Elis related to the sacrifice for Zeus Apomyius in the Olympic Games."
"A Greek Servant? But the catalyst isn't for a Servant from Britain."
"Maybe it was fake. It's normal for there to be many forged catalysts during the Holy Grail War."
Fake or not, Zouken no longer cared now that he had a Matou house Servant for the Holy Grail War.
Zouken's smile returned to his withered and pale face.
"Well, Kariya. Go, go and try to win this Grail War."
Zouken climbed the stairs to leave the storage, leaving some final words for Kariya.
"Only by winning the Holy Grail War will you save Sakura."
With that, Zouken left the storage, leaving Kariya and Berserker behind.
Kariya's expression grew serious, and he tried to stand up from the storage floor. Half of Kariya's body was already paralyzed, and Kariya didn't have much strength to stand without leaning against the wall.
Berserker watched Kariya drag himself in the storage toward the wall. Only one arm and one leg of Kariya's were functional at the moment.
With a sigh, Berserker walked calmly toward Kariya with slow, heavy steps.
The sound of Berserker's boots echoed eerily in the storage.
Kariya looked at Berserker approaching him and shrank back upon meeting Berserker's black eyes.
For some reason, Kariya felt something very frightening about Berserker.
When Berserker reached Kariya, he extended his hand.
The action made Kariya flinch. Berserker's three EX ranks were not normal for any Servant.
"Let's go, Master. I'll help you stand."
"T-thank you, Berserker…"
Kariya took Berserker's hand, and with little effort, Berserker lifted Kariya.
"Call me Bel, Master."
"Y-yes, Berserker."
Kariya nodded with weak words and limped to climb the storage stairs while dragging himself along the wall.
"L-let's go… Bel."
With his deep black eyes, Bel looked at Kariya's back, struggling to walk and climb the storage stairs with one of his legs completely paralyzed.
Many thoughts passed through Bel's mind since he was summoned as a Berserker Servant.
Though his face remained cold and devoid of emotions beyond melancholy.
---
Servant Profile
Class: Berserker
Master: Kariya Matou
True Name: ???, Bel [Hidden from the Master]
Gender: Male
Height/Weight: ???cm ??kg
Alignment: Neutral Evil
Strength: C+
Endurance: A++
Agility: D
Mana: E
Luck: E
NP: A++
Class Skills
Divinity: E
Mad Enhancement: EX
Oblivion Correction: EX
Personal Skills
Baal-Zebul: A [Hidden from the Master]
Satan: E (??) [Hidden from the Master]
Mark of Lilith: EX [Hidden from the Master]
Independent Action: A++
Noble Phantasm
Staff of Apomyius: A++
With the exception of Endurance and NP, all other Parameters are based on the Berserker Container. C has a + due to Baal-Zebul, which is an attack of rank A or higher, classifying its Strength as A or higher while using Baal-Zebul.