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Language:
English
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Published:
2023-11-17
Updated:
2025-08-30
Words:
138,604
Chapters:
38/?
Comments:
1
Kudos:
24
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1,302

Fate\last call : night, dawn, and the birth of stars

Summary:

Fuyuki City is peaceful, and daily lives are led in ordinary ways even by the extraordinary individuals who live there. One such individual is a certain orphaned young man on the cusp of graduation from Homurahara, whose biggest worry is what he's going to do with himself after that, having struggled up until now on whether to pursue normalcy or a Magus's way of life.

But strange powers attract strange powers, even posthumously. After encountering a spirit with a material form at a convenience store, he learns of the city's past involvement with a long-defunct but deadly ritual called the Holy Grail War, and discovers foreign Magi who have stepped into Fuyuki to revive it once again. As the only resident around with anything resembling practical Magecraft, Jikan Ren resolves to take responsibility, fight the unwinnable battle to shut it down and protect his hometown.

Notes:

The following companion literature is strongly recommended (but not required) as reference while reading. Use it at your leisure.

List of characters
Dictionary of terms

Chapter 1: Prelude

Chapter Text

The earth cast a shadow, and that shadow looked up at the heavens.

What am I, it demanded. It howled in anguish, festering with the agony of existence.

Why am I alive?

Why must I die?

Why? Why?

Bleeding with filth and pus, the vile thing curled up, weeping in preparation for itself to be extinguished.

But the end never came. Even the ashes of the land sneered in mockery as they turned to nothing in the wind.

If all things were impermanent, then how much longer until it could stop crying? How long until it returned to the mire from which it had been born?

There was nothing here. Not anymore. For the blink of an eye, it had known hope, and then it had blinked.

Ruin. Hollow, meaningless ruin. And yet, it could not vanish.

Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?

It wept and wept, and no answer came. And so, searing its own eyes, it finally looked to the sky with the loathing to burn it down.

And in that moment, for the first time, a star responded.

You will not vanish. Because you are loved.

As it lay weeping in its ashes and its filth, the worst possible answer of all came, and it learned the name of hate.

The starlight warped to meet it, and the sky became a shadowgraph.

I despise you. So don't disappear.

Please.

Hate is all I have left.