Reborn in Type-Moon: Starting by Adopting Sakura - Chapter 44

Artoria's eyes never left Yuu's car as she bounded across rooftops, maintaining her distance like a particularly dedicated stalker—though one with considerably better athletic ability than most. She kept herself exactly one street behind, a shadow among shadows.

Yuu's grip on the steering wheel grew tighter with each passing block. The empty road stretching ahead under the pale streetlamps had an uncomfortable chill to it, the sort that made you wonder if you'd accidentally driven into a horror film set.

Logic dictated that other Masters wouldn't bother attacking a magus who wasn't even participating in the war. Logic, however, had a rather poor track record when it came to predicting the behavior of magi. If there was one thing the magical world had in abundant supply, it was individuals whose relationship with sanity was, at best, casual acquaintanceship.

As Yuu navigated the quiet streets, mentally rehearsing various worst-case scenarios—a hobby that came naturally to anyone who'd survived Clock Tower politics—fate decided to throw him a curveball he definitely hadn't seen coming.

A delicate figure lay crumpled beneath the amber circle of a streetlamp ahead. Her form seemed almost translucent in the dim light, as if she might dissolve into the autumn mist at any moment. Yuu had seen mirages before, but they usually didn't involve unconscious women on abandoned streets.

The deep-autumn night in Fuyuki had wrapped itself in a thin, drifting fog that clung to everything like an unwelcome relative. The moon had apparently decided to play hide-and-seek behind a wall of clouds, leaving the streetlights to cast their sickly amber glow over a world that seemed drained of color. This old section of the city was a far cry from the neon-bright entertainment district along the new-town river—here, he could practically taste the weight of years gone by, the kind of atmosphere that made him want to glance over his shoulder for stalkers.

Yuu let the engine idle and stared through the windshield at the collapsed figure. His first thought was practical: definitely a Servant. His second thought was considerably less encouraging: definitely a Servant without a Master.

He'd spent the better part of the summer studying Irisviel's construction—not exactly typical summer reading, but then again, few people had access to the Einzbern family's masterpiece. She'd been crafted as the perfect vessel, modeled after their legendary Winter Maiden, Justeaze, whose magical circuits formed the very core of the Greater Grail itself. All that intimate knowledge of the Grail system's inner workings had given him an unexpected talent: he could spot a Grail-summoned Servant from a considerable distance.

More troubling still, he could tell this particular Servant was running on borrowed time. Without a Master's magical energy to anchor her to this world, she'd fade away like morning dew—assuming she didn't simply vanish in the next few minutes.

"The Holy Grail War hasn't even started, and a Master's already dead?" Yuu muttered, genuinely taken aback. Either someone was getting remarkably efficient at the whole murder business, or this war was going to be even messier than usual.

Even so, he was already stepping out of the car before he'd finished processing the implications. He couldn't afford to let this Servant disappear—not if he wanted to keep Irisviel from becoming a magical garbage disposal for dead souls.

The mathematics of the situation were frustratingly simple: if this Servant faded away now, her soul fragments would flow directly into the Lesser Grail like water down a drain. Since Yuu still hadn't figured out how to intercept those fragments before they reached their destination, each Servant death would forge another invisible link in the chain binding Irisviel to the Grail system. And once that connection was established, severing it later would be about as feasible as performing surgery with a sledgehammer. Considering that freeing Irisviel from this entire supernatural mess was the whole reason he'd driven to Fuyuki in the first place, letting this particular Servant expire would be spectacularly counterproductive.

He approached the fallen figure at a measured pace—not too eager, not too cautious—while somewhere above, Artoria perched on a nearby rooftop like a very concerned gargoyle, her eyes sweeping the area for potential threats.

When Yuu got close enough to notice the skull mask covering the Servant's face, his eyebrows climbed toward his hairline in genuine surprise. The design was remarkably familiar—nearly identical to the ones he'd crafted for Tokiomi's apprentice. Nearly, but not quite. Close enough to be unsettling, different enough to be intriguing.

"Excuse me," he said, adopting the tone of a concerned citizen who definitely hadn't been expecting to stumble across unconscious supernatural entities during his evening drive, "you seem to be having some problem. Do you need help?"

The Servant lifted her head with considerable effort. The timing was almost cruel in its beauty—the clouds parted at that exact moment, letting moonlight wash over the scene in pale silver. It felt like the world was offering her one last gift before she faded away.

She felt like she was staring at destiny itself, though perhaps that was simply the desperate hope of someone who had nothing left to lose.

The girl reached out with a hand that trembled like a dying bird, her fingers shaking somewhere between desperation and longing. There was grief there too—for all the gentle touches she'd never been able to share, for every life her poison had stolen, for the isolation that had become her constant companion. This felt like her final chance at something that had always been forbidden to her.

Yuu crouched down and offered his palm, letting her warm, dusky fingers meet his. For her, it was the first kind touch she'd received in what felt like lifetimes.

For the girl, time seemed to pause, as if even fate wanted to savor this impossible moment. The stars above brightened all at once, and she couldn't tell if it was real or just her heart finally understanding what hope felt like. All she could see was their joined hands under the starlight, and the man before her who had somehow accepted her touch without fear, without pain, without dying.

Years of solitude crashed over her all at once—every person who had recoiled from her, every life her very existence had ended, every night she'd spent wondering if she was meant to be alone forever. And now, here was someone whose hand remained steady in hers, whose eyes held no fear, whose presence promised that perhaps she wasn't the monster she'd believed herself to be.

…

Yuu, meanwhile, felt the immediate burn of her deadly poison seeping through their contact. It was potent stuff—the kind that would normally have him writing a very apologetic last will and testament. Fortunately for him, and unfortunately for any toxins with ambitious plans, the poison hit his defenses and promptly ceased to exist.

The Domain of Nothingness was one of his more practical innovations, a bounded field that had turned saying "no" to negative effects into an art form. It wrapped around his entire body like the world's most paranoid security system, covering everything from skin to cell membranes in a protective layer that simply deleted anything hostile enough to try its luck.

He'd developed it during his travels with Touko on the Mystic Eyes Collection Train, after witnessing her Mystic Eyes and the frankly terrifying variety of ocular weaponry that other passengers wielded like party tricks. Being born without any particular supernatural gifts—just an academically inclined magus with a healthy appreciation for not dying horribly—he'd decided that the best defense against mystical attacks was to make them mathematically impossible.

Charm effects, binding spells, petrification, withering curses, hypnosis, compulsion, illusions, burning sensations, and various other unpleasant surprises all received the same treatment: immediate and thorough deletion from reality. He'd originally designed it specifically for mystic eyes, but scope creep was apparently a problem even in magical research. Years of "improvements" had turned it into a passive ability that ran constantly in the background, like the world's most specialized antivirus software.

Ironically, a simple kitchen knife would probably pose more of a threat to him than most supernatural attacks.

The poison coursing through her was potent enough to fell magical beasts in seconds. For ordinary creatures, even the briefest contact would mean certain death. But his hand remained steady against hers, warm and alive and impossibly gentle.

Yuu studied the girl before him, taking in the full tragedy of her existence. Her entire being radiated toxicity—she was poison given human form, beautiful and deadly in equal measure. Dusky skin wrapped simply in black cloth, she carried an allure that promised both fascination and destruction.

Her collapse had left her back exposed, revealing the graceful line of her spine as it curved from neck to hips. Even in her weakened state, there was an undeniable elegance to her form, the kind of beauty that had probably drawn countless victims to their doom.

"You..." He looked at her, and she stared back with eyes that held a universe of longing.

Finally—after an eternity of isolation—she had found him. Someone who could touch her skin and live to speak of it. Someone whose warmth she could feel without bringing death in return. The sensation was overwhelming, this simple contact she'd dreamed of but never dared hope for.

"Please... take me with you. I'll give you everything." The words spilled from her lips like a prayer—desperate and determined all at once, with tears gathering at the corners of her eyes.

She couldn't lose him. Not when he was the first person in memory who didn't recoil from her presence, who didn't crumble at her touch. This man was her salvation.

Serenity reached for her future with both hands, refusing to let it slip away.

Looking into those bright, tear-wet eyes that held such desperate hope, Yuu nodded, then slipped his arm around her bare back and lifted her into his embrace. She weighed almost nothing, as if grief and solitude had hollowed her out from within.

For the first time in her existence, someone was choosing to hold her close instead of running away.