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Clink.
The lights went out. At the moment of summoning, Chaldea went dark.
But it was not only the electricity. The summoning circle itself, which always cast its light upon the face of the summoner, blinked out, leaving the lone Master in complete black.
As they opened their mouth in surprise, cold air so sharp it felt like solid fingers reached into them. They recoiled, snapping their lips shut and taking a step back. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. They’d done this dozens and dozens, hundreds of times. Even summoning gods didn’t cause such a reaction.
The lone Master peered into the endless darkness in front of them to see what was there. And in that darkness, something like a wisp of smoke flickered.
Clink.
The lights were back on, so intense it burned their eyes. They blinked, then slowly opened their squint wider and wider until they could see the room again.
Before them was still something dark. That thing like candle smoke grew wider, circling and flickering around the room till it became the room itself. The way it moved was not like anything they’d seen. Each particle of the being shifted in opposite directions at once. Like an optical illusion, it appeared to be moving as it was still, or perhaps it was the other way around.
But there was a shape in the thing like smoke. Its particles were gathering in a certain way as it swirled, like it was trying to condense into a single form.
The Master furrowed their brow, trying to make out the shape of what this thing was. There was a little bit which looked like rivers—no, like strands. Hair. And below it, valleys of softened lines. A face, like an inverted photograph. Slowly, each piece came closer together to form a cohesive whole.
Once again, the Master of Chaldea opened their mouth, because the face formed in the smoke was theirs.
“What…”
As they finally spoke a word, the being dispersed in a rush of black. The Master held up their hands to shield themself from the rush of cold, feeling sharp tingles of pain shoot across their body.
When they lowered their arms, the being had shrunk yet again. It was now equal in height, and shaped in an outline of a human. Though still a collection of ever-shifting energy, it formed every line and curve needed to make their perfect mirror.
They stood there silently for a moment. Normally, the summoned Servant would introduce themself first without being asked. That was how it worked. Any Heroic Spirit from the Throne of Heroes would know that. But this summoned being did not speak.
In that case, the Master decided it was their responsibility. “Who are—”
They cut themself off. As they did so, the unknown Servant closed its mouth as well. The being had spoken the same words as the Master, at the same time, with the same diction.
And then, the Servant opened its mouth, as the Master of Chaldea felt their own being forced open to shape words they did not know.
“I have no name,” the Master of Chaldea found themself saying as the Servant spoke the same words. “But many have been used for me, as many as there are lives in the world.”
The Master swallowed. Every inch and fleck of skin in their body was trembling with an innate, primal, instinctive fear. Their body itself was afraid, without even needing the mind. Not that their mind was free of it. Far from so. This level of sensed doom crushed them with the weight of many worlds. It would be enough to snuff out the life of most.
But the Master of Chaldea had felt this before. Time and time over. Having no hope of success and waiting for death, and inflicting that same dread upon others.
Time and time and time and time and time and time and time over.
So by now, they were used to this. They opened their mouth again.
“What should I call you then?” they made them both ask.
“Rider.”
The Master clenched their teeth inside of their frown. They had met Servants as strange as this before. But those had been exceptions: the extra classes. A Servant of the seven main classes existed inside the rules and boundaries of the world. Never anything like this.
“We have lots of Riders here,” they both continued. “What should I call you?”
“Rider.”
“Huh?”
“A version of me, a piece of me, in another world was called Pale Rider.”
The tongue of the Master’s mouth felt like sand.
But the Servant continued in their dual voice. “I have taken a form upon this summon, so I might take another name.”
“...And what’s that?”
The Servant made of a mass of darkness in their form looked right through them.
Grim Reaper
"Death."
The Master felt their uneasy grin grow wide. This Servant was not that unique. There were many within Chaldea’s walls who held the responsibility of reaping souls. It was the one thing that remained, though, which had their limbs feel like stone.
"Why do you look like me?"
But they already knew, ever since that moment in the icy eternal blizzard of Russia.
They both opened their lips to speak.
"Because you are me."