[center][h1] ??? Lily - Outskirts of the burning Foreigner District/Miyama[/h1][/center]

The day was one that started normally, carefree. The battles, if they could be called that, of yesterday mere memories of exploration. The playtime with the other child servant inconsequential and yet of great fun.

Then came a whisper, then came a time that Lancer could not ignore.

He had shared what he had learned with his master, and even asked him to talk to another servant or two before suddenly leaving his master alone. A dangerous thing to do in a grail war, and yet the danger had yet to come.

What he was doing was worth the absence of his master’s guard for the time being.

Lancer ran through the streets, through the fires. Covered in ash that clung to him like ghostly grasps from those who burned up before him. From dying person to dying person he ventured, his presence like the grim reaper as with his appearance they all seemed to give up, losing their last remaining grasps on their ability to defy their end. Holding a writhing sack, more than what had been mixed in at the harbor now swam in the bag. The dead gathered, suffering gathered. Those that died in pain, resentment, hopelessness. A stain, a grudge that remained even after death, an imprint on the world that screamed of an unjust end.

Shackled, bound, imprisoned. The bag then was surely like a grave, just like the town that burned with its inhabitants offered as kindling.

Not even a carefree youth could laugh in such a time, and his face was simply blank, almost cold.  For the sake of the war, for the sake of… There was something that Lancer needed to do. Silently he continued to venture from person to person, their deaths simply arriving with him. It was not a matter of a merciful death, it was simply that they no longer held the ability to struggle further.

With Lancer’s presence they were not killed, but rather they died. Died to the flames that scorched even the soul, that burned black with malice and hatred. Burn, burn, burn. The flames and sack swelled as a result.

And so he left, with nothing but the silenced dead and burning flames. Greyed and covered in the dust of the deceased. A ghastly and ghostly sight as the ash covered up more than his strange clothing could ever.

A ghost of Miyama, a reaper of Miyama. Where he ventured people died. Those who struggled in the face of the accursed flames perished when he came to them.

Him, he was coming.

He could not be allowed to do that, he could not be allowed to ruin this. If that was allowed to happen then things would likely come to an end. The other interference was seen to by negotiations but this… This was someone that his plans could not stop so easily.

This could not simply be stopped.

So he left, leaving to the edge of the burning district. There alone he waited, even as the fire slowly spread and other servants battled in the background. Absentmindedly he noted the large golem that his master had constructed in the far distance and nodded to himself.

Then he came. Even without the voices he would have known that he arrived. That presence, that brilliantly shining presence that was so formidable.

A ragged breath came out from Lancer as he gestured towards the burning town. 

“I can’t let you do that. That won’t do at all.” He took his spear in hand and looked up to the giant. The shadows cast down by the blackened flames coated him, as though trying to hide the nature of what colored the gray-coated child. Ah, but there was no lie. The ashes and the sack spoke of death, of regret, of resentment. 

“Ruler.”

Lancer readied himself, confronting the one who oversaw the Grail War and protected the ritual, speaking an incantation and bringing forth the telltale magical energy of a noble phantasm that then enveloped him.

"Fool's Garb."