Fate/Zero:Act 15 Part 1
-25:48:06
The sky was already brightening by the time Waver Velvet returned to the home of the old MacKenzie couple in Miyama.
He had walked for hours on the night footpath. He wouldn’t have managed to make it back to town had he not met a taxi on the way. He didn’t know whether he should feel thankful or angry for his luck at meeting an empty taxi at such a remote location. Fortune should have graced them when Rider and Waver were in the fiercest moment in battle. He could only feel sad at this untimely luck.
Waver gave a long sigh for this prolonged night march when he got off the taxi. Just then, he heard someone calling out to him.
“– Hey, Waver, come, come here.”
The voice was coming from above his head.
He lifted his head. Old man Glen, the patriarch of the family whom Waver had assumed was sound asleep, was sitting on the rooftop of the second storey and was waving at Waver, who was standing at the door.
“Grandpa? You… what are you doing?”
“Alright alright. Come on up. I’ve got something to say to you.”
“Something to say to me? Then… why are you on the roof?”
“You can see sceneries here that you would normally never be able to see. It’s the best place to be bathed in the light of the early dawn.”
This kind of strange behavior would only make others doubt whether he was getting senile. To be honest, Waver didn’t want to humor the old man. He had returned in a dragging and tired gait and having suffered through the chilly night air; all he wanted right now was to tuck into bed as soon as possible and let his exhausted body have some rest.
“Grandpa… can we wait till morning?”
“Don’t say that.”
Although his tone was placid, old man Glen was quite adamant.
“Kid, you better go up. That old man seems to really want to say something to you.”
A rough voice that only Waver could hear said this on top of his shoulder. Rider had finally promised to conserve his prana and remained in spiritual form on his return journey after having fought Saber.
“I’ll keep an eye out on the surroundings. Don’t worry.”
“It’s not a matter of whether I’m worried…”
Waver wanted to rebuke, but immediately hushed himself. Old men Glen couldn’t see a Servant in spiritual form. If Waver spoke, it would look like he was muttering to himself oddly.
“No one cares about what I think…”
At this stage, with the War of the Holy Grail almost at its end, he had to force himself to provide company for this useless old man. Waver couldn’t help but feel resentful. However, it would only drag this on for longer if he started to argue. Even if he didn’t agree to it, he still didn’t know how to respond if he was asked for the reason he returned in the early hours of the morning. In the end, Waver could only walk towards the roof, where the old man was at.
The MacKenzie house had one difference with the other houses: its roof had an attic and a skylight. It was easy to climb up to the roof through the skylight if one uses the ladder that stretched towards the rooftop attic from the second-storey stairway. It wasn’t made that way by accident. Rather, the house was fashioned into a design that enabled easy access to the rooftop when it was built. It was easy to get onto the roof if one gets used to it.
Although it was easy to get up to the roof, he had to endure the frosty and chilly winter dawn. Waver, having gotten up from the skylight, shivered in the northern wind. Because there were absolutely no obstacles, the chill of the wind at this height was incomparable to that on the ground level.
“Sit. Here, I prepared some coffee. Drinking it will heat you up.”
Old man Glen poured the steaming liquid out of the thermal flask into the mug as he said this loudly. He was wearing a down coat and had a few blankets wrapped around him. It seemed the old man had made thorough preparations for the cold. Waver couldn’t think of a reason for the old man to do this.
“Grandpa… how long have you been sitting here?”
“I woke up when the sky was getting bright, and I discovered you were still not back. Moreover, you can look at the spring constellations at this time of the year. So I wanted to look at the sky whiled I waited for my grandson’s return…”
Waver didn’t reply when he heard such drunken and almost senile words, and just drank the coffee nonchalantly. Glen thought of getting up specifically to look at constellations; do all old men have such leisurely thoughts?
“What’s wrong Waver? Didn’t you like this spot a lot when you were young? You watched the stars with me many times. Do you still remember that?”
“Mm… I think so.”
Waver gazed out at the scene beneath him as he perfunctorily brushed off these past events that he had no memories of.
The entire Fuyuki city, from Miyama to the sea, could be seen from the rooftop since the house was grounded at the side of the hill. The air was fresh and crisp while the dawn dyed the sea into a shade of pearl pink, and he could even detect with his eyes the shadow of sails sailing away to distant lands.
“How is it? Isn’t this a nice view?”
“…”
It was the entire view of the battlefield for Waver. He had no leisure in his heart to appreciate such a beauty.
“I first set foot on this land because of a business trip… Martha asked for two things when I discussed the decision to leave our bones on the land of Fuyuki with her. One was that the house was to be built on the hill of Miyama, and the other was that there had to be a skylight that allowed us to go on the roof… However, Chris still couldn’t forget Toronto. He just didn’t want to be brought up a Japanese.”
Glen’s gaze, immersed in memory, looked toward the other side of the ocean, his homeland where his departed son was at.
“… Do you really like Japan that much?”
“You can say so. However, if that turned out to be the reason I fought with my son and separated with him… then honestly, I regret it…”
The old man gave out a sigh as he reminisced those years of loneliness.
“I’ve always dreamt of sitting on the roof and watching the stars with my grandson like this, although I never expected it to be fulfilled.”
“– Huh?”
There was an obvious incongruity in that reminiscence accompanied by a bitter smile. That made Waver pause.
As if mocking Waver, old man Glen silently shook his head, and said.
“My real grandson never came to the roof with me. Martha is also afraid of heights. I’ve always been alone when I watched the stars…”
What injured Waver more than the awkwardness and the sense of crisis was the feeling of humiliation.
“Say, Waver, you aren’t our grandson, right?”
The subliminal hint was removed – moreover, it was by this gentle old man with no training in magecraft.
“I –”
“Mmm, who are you? It doesn’t matter. It’s incredible how Martha and I actually believed you’re our grandson. However, after being alive for so long, I found out some incredible things in this world remain incredible no matter how hard you think about them… your usual behavior was gentler than our grandson anyways.”
“… Aren’t you angry?”
Waver asked in a small voice. Old man Glen said with a complex but calm expression.
“As for that, of course I’m angry. However, Martha is always smiling happily now; that used to be impossible. I need to thank you for that.
“…”
“Also, it seemed you didn’t enter our house with ill-intent. You and that man Alex are all straightforward youths that are so hard to find nowadays. As to why you deceived us… I can’t understand it even if I want to understand it.”
Waver judged that this old man was completely defenceless and extremely dense. Even the lab rats in the Clock Tower were smarter than him.
Why didn’t he hate Waver, and why didn’t he blame Waver? For Waver, who only knew the small world of the Mages’ Association, the old man’s leniency was something he couldn’t comprehend.
“Or maybe I can ask you to stay only because I don’t know anything about you… if possible, I hope this relationship can keep up a while longer. Putting me aside, Martha probably didn’t feel anything unusual. It doesn’t matter if it was a dream. The times we spent with our kind grandson has been our hard-sought treasure.”
Waver couldn’t bring himself to look at the old man. He lowered his eyes and looked at his hands.
It was a pair of hands that will one day create great mysteries. He had such talents – even if others refuted him, at least he believed firmly in that possibility about himself.
But what was the result?
He didn’t even carry out a hypnotic hint, the most basic art amongst basics, to an outstanding degree. It wasn’t a matter of luck or an accident. Those excuses were useless. His magecraft didn’t even maintain a satisfactory result even when faced with this kind old man who begged him to deceive them a while longer.
Had he been that man, he could have obtained his goal while laughing and holding a goblet in his hand.
Not only did Waver Velver’s magecraft failed to achieve such a result, he had been indebted to another’s gentleness in return.
There was a sense of ridiculousness on top of regret – yes, he was only a clown.
Staring into the empty sky, Waver became oblivious to his surroundings and sank into contemplation. Now he fully understood the mindsets of those in the Clock Tower who laughed at him. Waver was laughing at his own stupidity with those people.
Although he thought as such, he couldn’t actually laugh. Glen and Martha MacKenzie weren’t expecting a comedy.
They were making a sincere request to Waver in their own way. Now that he thought about it, it was the first time that he wasn’t the subject of ridicule.
“… I’m sorry, I can’t promise you that. I can’t even promise that I can safely return here next time.”
“So you and Alex are doing something that endangers your lives?”
“Yes.”
Saber’s Noble Phantasm and its cold light flashed before his eyes. That had happened half a day ago. The abyss of death that Waver saw then won’t be forgotten by him anytime soon.
Old man Glen was silent for a while as if in thought, then he gave a heavy nod.
“Although I don’t know how important that thing is to you… but I hope you listen to me say this. You’ll realize that there’s nothing more important than life itself when you look back after having lived through most of it.”
This logic was in contrary to the reason Waver gambled his youth.
The so called way of magecraft could only be started after the practitioner became prepared to die – the ultimate state could only be achieved by burning away one’s life. That was the direction he had labored towards until this day.
However, if one were to search for a way of existence that fits oneself, then perhaps the words said by this peaceful old man would prove to be the truth.
With a sense of loss that left him at a loss of words, Waver stared at the dawn.
Little did he know then that he was greeting the final day of the fourth War of the Holy Grail.
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