Chapter Eleven: The Command Seal That Arrived Unbidden

Watching Ryunosuke Uryu slide slowly from the arm of Killer Queen and finally crash to the ground like a broken rag doll, Roland stepped lightly around him and glanced into the living room.

“What a gruesome scene—if this ever got out, it’d probably make the news. No one cared in the original, but you just had to work at my shop, didn’t you?”

Even for Roland, whose mind had long since turned inhuman, the hellish spectacle was unsettling, almost enough to make him retch. Skirting the corpse, he found what he was looking for behind the nearby sofa.

It was a dried, incomplete magic circle. Judging by the marks, it seemed the ritual had failed because there wasn’t enough fresh blood left, forcing an abrupt interruption. If not for the need to complete this circle, Ryunosuke with his usual habits would never have left evidence sitting out so long.

Realizing this, Roland’s gaze swept around the circle, quickly settling on a peculiar old book riddled with wormholes and bound by hand, clearly someone’s personal journal. Flipping through it idly, he was surprised to find large sections written in Chinese characters, though the content described Western sorcery.

It seemed the Uryu family’s ancestors, back in the late shogunate era, must have held some standing to be literate in Chinese. Considering their lineage as magi, it wasn’t all that surprising.

“Lucky for me,” Roland mused, tucking the battered volume away. He turned back and approached Ryunosuke, who, driven by sheer will to survive, was somehow still clinging to life.

His lungs, punctured by a knife-hand strike, could only spit blood, making speech impossible as he instinctively gasped for air—a pitiful, almost farcical display.

“So much pain... Hah, haha—how beautiful...”

Despite the convulsed muscles and bloodied face that rendered him monstrous, Ryunosuke wore a look of bliss. Ecstatic, he felt only joy.

To command invisible demons, to treat human death with such indifference—there could be no mistake, this was the companion he’d always longed for! The one before him had transcended the mundane, wielding supernatural power to kill in ways ordinary people could not. To follow him, to witness his art—even dying like this was a price Ryunosuke was willing to pay.

See? At their very first meeting, the other had given him a taste of the most exquisite death, lurking within his own body all along.

Though his eyes were now crimson blurs and his mind could no longer command his flesh, Ryunosuke, as if to prove something, uttered his final whisper:

“Ro...land...”

Then, with great effort, he lifted his hand. Just as all sensation was ebbing away, a sudden, searing pain shot through his arm.

At the moment the dying murderer’s desire flared, the Grail faithfully bestowed its miracle.

“Command seals... truly terrifying. Originally you were just a lucky stand-in to fill a vacancy...”

Roland cast a cold glance at the killer slumped like a puddle on the floor, then, without hesitation, used his Stand to sever the man’s wrist.

Normally, an incomplete circle couldn’t summon a Servant—but one could never be too careful. Roland knew all too well that those who took the Holy Grail War’s rules at face value rarely met a good end.

“By the way, though this may not be the time for such things, I probably won’t get another chance. I’m not fond of owing debts.” Roland flicked a five-hundred-yen coin onto the barely breathing Ryunosuke.

“Keep the change.”

Pocketing his spoils, Roland quietly closed the front door, shutting away the darkness inside along with the demon who’d just glimpsed the meaning of life, only to be cast from heaven to hell.

He walked away without so much as a backward glance. By his side, Killer Queen pressed her thumb down.

“Boom—!”

A blast of flames and wind roared outward, the house reduced to smoldering ruins in an instant. The gale was so fierce it made Roland’s coat billow wildly.

Turning to survey the desolate lot, he offered a poetic sigh.

“Fuyuki City is as peaceful as ever today.”

With the man who painted summoning circles and killed at random now gone, the remaining Masters, aside from Kiritsugu Emiya, were for the most part bound by principle. Life should be much quieter from here on—unless that so-called gravity decided to play tricks on him again.

“All right, time to take care of this.”

He produced Ryunosuke’s last remains—a severed hand. The man had simply been driven by a hand fetish, his tastes otherwise normal. There was no value in keeping a man’s hand as a trophy.

But then Roland witnessed something strange.

On the severed hand, three crimson command seals began to glow faintly with a dark red light. At the same time, a stinging sensation pricked the back of Roland’s own hand.

Startled, he turned his hand over. There was nothing there—he wasn’t even a magus, so he shouldn’t be able to receive command seals.

Yet the burning pain persisted, and the seals on the severed hand shone ever brighter.

Command seals, granted by the Grail, are the ticket for Masters to join the War. If a Master dies or loses their Servant, the seals are immediately recalled for redistribution.

Thus, to seize command seals, it must be done while the Master still lives; otherwise, the Grail always acts faster than any magus. After all, command seals are crystallized magical energy—precious and nearly irreplaceable.

Even those left behind by the Church are only extracted when a Master voluntarily withdraws from the War.

So what was happening now?

Roland eyed the charred ruins, bewildered. The abilities of a Stand often change subtly depending on its user’s mindset and personality. In Roland’s hands, Killer Queen’s explosions packed far more power than Kira Yoshikage ever managed.

At the epicenter, Ryunosuke’s corpse had been obliterated to the point that not even fragments remained.

Though deeply shocked, Roland quickly collected himself and began to ponder.

The Grail picks its favored Masters. Aside from the three great founding families, the rest are chosen by the Grail’s own criteria. This time, corrupted by black mud, it seemed to prefer the wicked.

“So even without command seals, I’ve been recognized as worthy?”

Magical energy isn’t strictly necessary; the real key to being chosen as Master is forming the contract itself—after all, a Servant can gain mana simply by devouring human souls.

Roland scoffed. “But I refuse! If there’s one thing I, Roland, love, it’s saying NO to those who think they can have their way!”

“Killer Queen!”

With a gentle touch from Killer Queen’s fingertip, the ashes of the severed hand scattered on the wind.

I’ve destroyed even your last vessel—let’s see what the Grail can do now!

Roland dusted off his hands, a trace of pride on his face.

But as the ashes dispersed, the magical energy that had been anchored to that spot did not return to the Grail. On the contrary, the hand’s destruction seemed to free it at last.

In an instant, the command seals transformed into a streak of red light and shot straight into the back of Roland’s hand!

The sudden, familiar searing pain felt like a brand, then gradually faded away until everything seemed normal. With a grim expression, Roland turned his hand over.

Three interlaced marks, as if mocking him, now rested quietly on his skin.

At this point, there was nothing more to say. Chosen by the Grail, Roland could only grit his teeth and offer the Grail his heartfelt greeting, one word at a time:

“S. H. I. T!”