Chapter 3.5

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It hurts... Save us... from the pain...

Their cries were all, more or less, repeating these three things - but what they lacked in variety, they made up for in sheer volume. Their wordless calls for salvation, their screams telling of agony and hardship - they were the voices of the powerless, sobbing in fear of death, crushed and overwhelmed by their own fate.

No... they are not calling for me, he thought. They are simply crying out - and he can hear it all.

That was the true tragedy. If they were imploring someone to be their saviour, then they at least still had hope in their own deliverance. But they simply cried out, with no one to answer them... their voices melting away into silence.

Then, what does that make of me...?

And so, he awoke from his dream. He opened his eyes and looked at his own body. Yes... it was nothing more than a dream; his small hands cannot hold a sword, and his first-class Magic Circuits threatened to rip apart own his body if he attempted to use thaumaturgy.

He has no power to save anyone. No power to take another's hand. Because he is only a homunculus, born a few months ago. He was born to be a battery providing prana to Servants, after which he was meant to die.

Who were the ones calling out to him, though? Was it the girl on his right? The man on his left? Or those on the other side who cannot take human form?

But whoever it was from, there is nothing he can do. The knowledge that the Holy Grail granted him allows him to understand just what an important role he - and they - will play.

There is essentially only one thing required by Servants to actualize in this world: prana. So in practice, the strongest Servant is the one with the greatest quantity of prana.

No matter how powerful a Servant's Noble Phantasm may be, without enough prana, they risk their own annihiliation by calling its true name and awakening it.

On the other hand, while a Noble Phantasm with a lower cost may logically be weaker, it can be used repeatedly without prana concerns. Compared with a gun that only chambers and fires one shot, a bow that can always replenish its supply of arrows is clearly more advantageous.

Thus, the more prana the Master possesses, the greater an advantage they hold. That is where the Yggdmillennia managed to turn the tables on their enemies.

Their idea was simple, and brutal: use the prana of a third party, wringing out every drop until they are reduced to a corpse. They did not use normal humans for this purpose - not for any ethical reasons, of course - but simply because that would make it harder to conceal... just as it would be difficult to gather the sufficient number of magi to sacrifice. But who would grieve for a humunculus? They cost money and effort, but little besides.

By stealing from the Einzberns and other great alchemical houses, they have learned techniques that, to an expert, would be considered child's play - but that is more than enough to create living batteries meant only to act as a prana supply.

The Yggdmillennia have staked everything on this one Holy Grail War and they, the homunculus, were the key.

However costly the Noble Phantasm, they are there to replenish the prana instantly. This also leaves the Masters free to use their own thaumaturgies to the fullest without consideration for supplying their Servants.

For both Masters and Servants, this is the best possible situation... putting aside those behind the black putting down their very lives.

"That's right... I can't help any of them."

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