(A/N: This variant Holy Grail War borrows the setting from the Fate/strange Fake version, mixed with a lot of my own secondary settings. However, the characters appearing are still from Fate/Zero and previous simulator scenarios, as wrapping up plotlines should involve writing what everyone wants to see.)
(Gilgamesh and Gil-chan will fight, Artoria and the Artoria nurtured by Ryuya will also appear, Iskandar, Enkidu, Merlin, Morgan will all be there.)
…
1984, Snowfield City. This was a city with massive leylines, located not far from Fuyuki City.
Walking the streets of the city, Ryuya had already been here for three months.
Compared to the Age of Man in the real world, he found that in the Land of Trials scenario, magi were remarkably active, at least much more overt than those in the real world.
Without ceremony, he obtained some intelligence from so-called underground faction gathering places and followed the clues to learn the specific process of this Holy Grail War.
"So it's the Fate/strange Fake worldview, but altered quite a bit."
As everyone knows, the Nasuverse's history most are familiar with is basically composed of the First, Second, Third, Fourth, and Fifth Holy Grail Wars, the Great Holy Grail Wars where Servants fight for the Grail, and various related works like FGO storylines.
Among them, the First Holy Grail War was initiated by the ancestors of the Three Founding Families: Justeaze Lizrich von Einzbern representing Einzbern, Tosaka Nagato of the Tohsaka Family, and Matou Zouken, aka Makiri Zolgen.
The Second was relatively lackluster, essentially a transition created to refine the Command Spell System and ritual rules.
The Third is more interesting. It was a more mature Holy Grail War with Risei Kotomine as the supervisor. However, here, Einzbern summoned a Servant of the irregular class, Avenger, Angra Mainyu, leading to the Zero Timeline of the Fourth War.
Or, Einzbern summoned Ruler, Amakusa Shirou Tokisada, leading to the Apocrypha Timeline.
There are also many other possible developments. Just like the differences appearing in World Archives, even a slight change can cause a huge butterfly effect.
The scenario Ryuya was in was one of these many possibilities, but with some differences.
'The original Fake should be set ten years after the Fifth Holy Grail War, where guys from America, wishing to obtain the Holy Grail's wish, constructed massive leylines similar to Fuyuki City, creating the basic stage for a Holy Grail War.'
'Then they began summoning False Servants. When the number reached six, the gathered mana met the activation conditions for a Holy Grail War, followed by the birth of seven True Servants, resulting in a battle of 6 False + 7 True, totaling 13 participants.'
'In this world, this timeline has been moved up considerably. It's now 10 years before the 1994 Fourth Holy Grail War of Zero. The Snowfield City that should have been in America is now a city in Japan, not far from Fuyuki City.'
'In other words, this is a variant Fourth Holy Grail War.'
After briefly analyzing the worldline composition, Ryuya walked until he reached the outskirts of Snowfield City, where an ancient castle with various magical barriers stood.
The owner of this castle was a family familiar to all.
Its name was... Einzbern!
Einzbern, how to put it, is a very interesting, famous family.
As one of the Three Founding Families, compared to the declined Tohsaka and Matou, Einzbern undoubtedly still possessed considerable resources.
Homunculi, the Greater Grail, the Lesser Grail… with their numerous researches, they aspired to pursue eternal existence, the immortality of the Third Magic.
In this process, their actions truly influenced the course of many Holy Grail Wars. Even in this Fake worldline Ryuya was in, they were involved.
"Ryu-san, you are saying you have already seen the conclusion of this Holy Grail War?"
At the Einzbern's residence in Snowfield City, the old man named Jubstacheit von Einzbern was the eighth head of the Einzbern Family, having lived for over 200 years.
Watching the man who had broken into the castle with overwhelming force, he had never imagined there could be a magus of such capability in this world.
Even legendary Servants probably couldn't achieve this.
Looking at Ryuya with shock, he was even more surprised upon hearing Ryuya's words, because Ryuya told him that in nine months, the Holy Grail War could begin.
This matched their own calculations, because this Snowfield City was jointly created by Einzbern and the Americans.
"Correct. In this Holy Grail War, you will begin by summoning six False Servants, then meet the conditions for the true Holy Grail War to begin, thus giving birth to seven True Servants."
"In other words, this Holy Grail War is a great war of six False and seven True, totaling thirteen Servants."
Ryuya didn't use the same method on Einzbern as he did with Clue. He chose verbal communication for two reasons.
First, Ryuya wasn't the type to stop at nothing to achieve his goal. Unless absolutely necessary, he would maintain his bottom line while acting.
The Einzbern of this world hadn't offended him, so if possible, he didn't want to kill too much.
Second, Jubstacheit... abbreviated as Acht, the Einzbern Family's head, had lived over 200 years. His body was too frail and might not withstand Ryuya's domination magecraft.
Of course, using words and maintaining basic courtesy was merely the etiquette of a King. If the Einzbern people were imprudent enough to refuse Ryuya, then the Sun-Crowned King wouldn't mind using some violent means to make them yield.
Having a sword but not using it, and not having a sword at all, are two different concepts.
After listening to Ryuya's words, Acht said nothing.
After a while, he finally asked, "If it were you... could you achieve victory in this Holy Grail War?"
"I will end the Holy Grail War."
Was victory in the Holy Grail War the endpoint of this scenario? He didn't know. Ryuya never thought that so-called victory could end everything.
With a rating of SS Epic, the conclusion of the Land of Trials scenario definitely wouldn't be brought about by a single Holy Grail.
To achieve a perfect conclusion in this one and only attempt, what Ryuya wanted was to end the Holy Grail War and grasp the mystery of the entire world in his hands.
"End the Holy Grail War???!!!!"
Hearing Ryuya's lightly spoken words, Acht seemed to understand the determination of the man before him.
Looking at him in disbelief, he suddenly understood that relying on Einzbern alone, that so-called 'limit of their own talent' eternally shackled them, preventing them from breaking free.
"I see. Then, from now on, please act as our representative and end this Holy Grail War."
Performing the most solemn courtesy towards Ryuya, Acht handed over the future choice of Einzbern.
From then on, Einzbern began operating under Ryuya's direction. Three months later, the homunculus named Irisviel... was finally born.