If one ranked everyone in the Type-Moon world by sheer misery, Waver probably wouldn't place very high.
But if the contest were about who was weakest in their youth, then Mr. Waver Velvet would easily claim a spot near the top.
In this Fate/Apocrypha parallel world, a single butterfly had flapped its wings—Rhodes. And that tiny disturbance had already grown into a raging storm that tore through the original course of events.
The one most affected was Waver.
Because Rhodes interfered, Waver failed to obtain Alexander's Holy Relic. With no other choice, he used the Holy Relic of "Queen Medb" that he had acquired by sheer accident.
Queen Medb—infamously nicknamed for her licentious nature—was a Heroic Spirit who delighted in bedding legendary heroes, stealing their bloodlines to create vast armies.
Despite her chaotic romantic history, Medb was anything but weak.
Even setting aside the iron war chariot she wielded as a Rider-class Noble Phantasm, she possessed the terrifying ability to create warriors from a single drop of blood—soldiers infused with heroic lineage.
Each of these warriors possessed power on the level of a Heroic Spirit. They lacked Noble Phantasms, and their demand on a Master's mana was brutal, but they were still an overwhelming force.
The problem was that very few people could truly control a Heroic Spirit like Medb.
Waver certainly wasn't one of them.
At their very first meeting, he had been threatened into dissolving the contract, losing all authority over the Heroic Spirit he had summoned.
A Master in his weakest form, blackmailed by his own Servant—an anecdote worthy of the Holy Grail War's darkest humor.
And yet, in a twist of fate, Waver—who should have been eliminated at the very start—became the only Master to survive the Holy Grail War.
He endured mockery, assassination attempts by the Three Great Families, and barely escaped death more than once. In the end, he crawled back to London, alive.
Not the Clock Tower.
One of the war's participants, the Archibald family, had placed him under a manhunt. Waver, caught in the crossfire, had no choice but to hide in London's slums, often struggling just to secure three meals a day.
Ironically, it was precisely because he hid in these filthy shantytowns that he survived. The Archibald nobles despised the air here—and the people even more—so they never searched too deeply.
Kayneth never even got a corpse to accompany him into the grave.
But today, an unwelcome visitor stood outside Waver's ramshackle wooden shack.
This was London's slums. Polluted water flowed through clogged gutters, garbage littered every corner. Even in 1996, with London's meticulous city planning, places like this still festered in the shadows.
Waver curled inside his shack and heard a crisp knock at the door.
His body stiffened. His face drained of color.
The local thugs didn't knock.
Only nobles—polite, arrogant nobles—did things like that.
"Who… who's there?" The thin wooden planks offered no comfort. His voice was hoarse and weak. He hadn't eaten properly in days.
"Someone here to help you," came the reply.
"Do you want your life as a magus back, Waver Velvet?"
The voice sounded young, barely more than a boy's. Yet there was authority in the tone, enough to hook Waver's desperate hope.
"You… you can really do that…?" Waver murmured as he pushed the door open.
What greeted him froze him in place.
Corpses.
Bodies. Pieces. Piles of flesh.
The slum residents had been butchered into fragments. Thick blood flowed through the gutters, spreading a stench so heavy it filled the air. Waver's stomach churned violently.
He couldn't run.
He couldn't beg.
He couldn't even move.
Because standing in front of him—no taller than he was—was a boy calmly manipulating a spell. Crimson runes and magic circles surged at his fingertips, weaving into an intricate pattern that seized control of Waver's body.
Dominate Person
A fourth-circle Enchantment spell from the Arcanist traditions of Faerûn.
Rhodes had poured two full months of accumulated "threads" into this casting, pushing its power to the extreme.
Even hiding inside the shack hadn't saved Waver. His body moved against his will, forcing him forward, bending him into a posture of abject submission.
"That's enough, RyuZU," Rhodes said lightly.
A slender figure appeared behind him. RyuZU still wore her pale gray gauze dress. Stained with blood, it had somehow become even more striking—an elegant beauty steeped in cruelty.
She flicked her twin scythes. The blood clinging to them was stripped away by magecraft and absorbed into her dress.
"Don't worry, Mr. Waver," Rhodes said, standing amid the bodies while spouting words even he didn't believe. "We're not fond of killing. We simply need your abilities."
He smiled faintly.
"And I think you've already seen the price of refusal. You're a smart man. You know how to choose."
"Cold, stinking corpses… or a living, luxurious future."
"Anyone would make the right decision."
The boy's smile was gentle.
And utterly merciless.
Waver trembled from head to toe. He wanted to flee, but his legs refused to move.
"Tell me your answer," Rhodes said, extending a Self-Geis Scroll. The elegant handwriting listed terms so harsh they made a slave contract look generous. "Don't test my patience, Mr. Waver."
"I…" Waver's thoughts dissolved into panic. He looked at the mangled bodies, imagined the alternative, and finally signed his name—along with a trace of his feeble magical energy.
"Excellent. The contract is complete."
A grin like a weasel that had stolen a chicken spread across Rhodes' face. He waved a hand casually.
"Clear the 'set,' Marianne."
A surge of magical fluctuation followed.
The corpses dissolved into illusions. The pools of blood vanished. Even the stench disappeared without a trace.
"Surprised?" Rhodes asked with a playful laugh. "Didn't see that coming, did you?"
Waver Velvet—thoroughly trapped—stood there like a statue, his mind completely blank.