Holy Grail War

The Holy Grail War (聖杯戦争) is a competition that decides the ownership of the Holy Grail through intense battle royale. While there have been many conflicts over supposed Holy Grails in the past, this term refers to those specifically based around Masters, usually proficient magi, summoning Servants, Heroic Spirits brought forth as familiars, and meeting in battle until only one pair is left to claim the Holy Grail.

Fuyuki
The Holy Grail War of Fuyuki, also called Heaven's Feel (ヘブンズフィール), is a ritual that has been ongoing for two hundred years. Established by the Tohsaka, Matou, and Einzbern families as a means to reach Akasha, it is currently thought to be only a competition for something recognized as a possible Holy Grail. Seven magi are chosen by the Grail as Masters and, with support from the Grail, allowed to summon seven Servants to do battle. The winning pair is supposed to be able to claim the Holy Grail and utilize it to grant a wish for each of them. Its true purpose is to actually utilize the seven Servants returning to the root as a way to form a hole directly to it.

There has yet to be even one true winner who actually claimed the Grail in all five wars, and due to Angra Mainyu being summoned in the Third Holy Grail War, it would be impossible for a winner to have their true wish granted in most cases. The Grail, which is normally "colorless", was corrupted and turned into a manifestation of All the World's Evils. It cannot grant wishes without also causing great destruction, though only the Einzberns are directly aware of that fact. Overall, it is a minor event in the magi world. The stakes could be considered the highest up until the Second War, as the Church became involved afterward.

History
The original purpose of the ritual was to recover the Third Magic lost by the Einzberns, the "Cup of Heaven." Around 1790, Justizia Lizleihi von Einzbern, Nagato Tohsaka, and Zouken Makiri created the system in order to create a gate leading to Akasha. At that time, the Mage's Association and the Church were locked in a battle to the death, so a land in the Far East, where the Church could not monitor, was chosen. The Einzberns provided the alchemy to create it and prepared the vessel for the Grail, the Tohsaka provided the necessary land and called forth the Servants, and the Makiri assembled the magecraft to stabilize the starting materials and designed the Command Seals that command the Servants.

The Holy Grail War itself was devised by Justizia, and she was to become the key of the ritual. The Great Grail was created through forming a large circuit from many multi-layered Crests carved onto a bare rock over fifty meters in diameter. It was covered in multiple layers of circuits, while its many geometric figures turned in place. Justizia stood in the center of the it, and became the key to reenacting the Third Magic. The Holy Grail would have only been just a Holy Grail without her, as her will was required for Heavens Feel. Kishua Zelretch Schweinorg acted as a witness to the event.

Currently, only the Tohsakas want to reach Akasha, while the Einzberns and Makiri only want the completion of the Grail, that is, the revival of the Third Magic. However, both Zouken Matou and Shirou Emiya note these ambitions are apparently impossible as there was never a victor for the past four Heaven's Feels and the Grail became corrupted by Angra Mainyu after the Third War.

First Holy Grail War
The First Holy Grail War took place around 1800, but it was not meant to be anything like the future Holy Grail Wars. It was not named as such, only meant to be a ritual for the families to reach Akasha. It took ten years from its establishment to gather the necessary energy to manifest, but the Three Families originally planning to utilize it realized that the system could only allow for one person to utilize it. Though they had the same goals, their opinions on how to reach them were different, so the unforeseen aspect caused them to break off their alliance. They instead agreed to proceed with the system and means to create the Grail, but they would then become enemies when it was summoned.

Due to requiring seven Heroic Spirits to achieve the ritual and seven Masters to summon them, they had brought in four outside magi with the call of "We've succeeded in manifesting the Grail. If you'd like to witness this miracle, join us and become Masters." Though the outsider magi had only sought to learn about the ritual of activating the Grail, they used the internal quarrel as an opportunity to grant their own desires. Though the Three Families held the rights to the Grail, winning the conflict would allow them to obtain a wish regardless of the ancestry.

It was not a major conflict in the end, and can be called a "small quarrel of sorts" due to the conflicting opinions and interests. From the point of view of the Einzberns, the first time ended before the completion. The evocation site of the Grail was held at Ryuudou temple on Mount Enzou.

Second Holy Grail War
The Second Holy Grail War was held around 1860's, formally take on the name of the "Holy Grail War." Developing into a war for the second time, it pointed out shortcomings in the rules due to it developing into a murder spree in which nobody survived. It ended with no victory, and the Three Families took it as a lesson to create more precise rules such as bringing in a third party like the Church. The evocation site of the Grail was held at Tohsaka mansion.

Third Holy Grail War
The Third Holy Grail War took place in the 1930s, held on the eve of. The fourth evocation site was confirmed and established, later becoming the center of the developing residential area of Shinto, the Fuyuki City Hall. Jubstacheit von Einzbern prepared the Einzbern forest and castle as the family's headquarters. The Tohsaka and the Edelfelt families were participants. The Edelfelts had two Masters, each with the same Saber-class Servant due to their unique Sorcery Trait. The Enizberns, tired of losing out on reclaiming the Third Magic, subverted the usual system in an attempt to summon the god,. They obtained Avenger, which replaced the Berserker-class, but he was a weak Servant without any abilities.

During the course of the War, there were battles over the Lesser Grail with the Imperial Army and the Nazis as well, and the fighting unfolded in the Imperial Capital. Avenger was lost early during the conflict, while upholding the Saber class' reputation, at least one of the Edelfelt sisters made it to the end. They were ultimately defeated by the Tohsaka, and the fate of the younger sister is unknown. The older sister ran away from the country, promising never to come back. The Lesser Grail was destroyed during the battles before the victor could be decided, so the ritual became meaningless and failed. The evocation site of the Grail was set to be at the Fuyuki Church.

There was a meeting held at a suitable time that appointed the then young Risei Kotomine as the supervisor for the next Holy Grail War. The ritual ended in failure, but Avenger, Angra Mainyu, was absorbed and the Greater Grail was contaminated. Up until that point, only true Heroic Spirits were summoned, but that contamination allowed for "something other than a Heroic Spirit" to be summoned during later Holy Grail Wars.

Fourth Holy Grail War
The Fourth Holy Grail War took place around the 1990's, supervised by Risei Kotomine. The corruption caused by Angra Mainyu took effect, allowing for the summoning of improper Servants like Gilles de Rais. The destruction of the Lesser Grail during the previous war led Jubstacheit von Einzbern to develop inside the body of a homunculus, leading to the creation of Irisviel von Einzbern. While the Holy Grail manifested, Kiritsugu Emiya, realizing that it could not grant his wish, effectively betrayed his Einzbern patrons by destroying it. The contents of it spilling out caused a large conflagration that killed five hundred people and destroyed 134 buildings. The only survivors of the participants were Kiritsugu, Kirei Kotomine, and Waver Velvet. Gilgamesh, through being incarnated by the mud of Angra Mainyu, also managed to still exist in the world.

Due to the inconclusive termination of the War, the Grail's failure to grant a wish to the selected victor, Kiritsugu, and the victor's subsequent destruction of the Grail, it resulted in the premature occurrence of the subsequent Fifth Holy Grail War only ten years later. The unexpended thaumaturgical energy accumulated through the elimination of Servants was recycled due to the destruction of the Lesser Grail before the Greater Grail could direct the accumulated mana to establish its pathway, thus trapping some of the unused mana within the Grail.

Kiritsugu had planned to demolish the ritual as of the proper scheduled time of the Fifth Heaven's Feel by arranging for the physical collapse of the Great Grail System before the originally estimated date. The process involved utilizing stocked dynamite and the manipulation of ley-lines to ensure a severe localized earthquake in the targeted area within thirty to forty years of the Fourth War. The premature occurrence of the Fifth Holy Grail War and the subsequent destruction of the ritual means that it no longer has a purpose.

Fifth Holy Grail War
The Fifth Holy Grail War took place in the 2000s. Kirei Kotomine kept his contract with Archer from the previous war, and though he was supposed to act as the impartial mediator from the Church, he mortally wounded Bazett Fraga McRemitz and took her Servant, Lancer. While there were various possible scenarios in Fate/stay night, Shirou Emiya emerged as the victor and destroyed the Grail rather than activating it. The manifestation of Angra Mainyu seeking to grant a wish entangled Bazett in the events of Fate/hollow ataraxia.

Dismantlement of the Holy Grail
The Holy Grail was dismantled ten years after the Fifth Holy Grail War in the 2010s. Lord El-Melloi II, a previous Master in the Fourth Holy Grail War, arrived in Fuyuki with Rin Tohsaka to set out to completely dismantle the Great Grail. This development was against the Mage's Association's plan of reestablishing it, so the two sides were opposed. It caused great turmoil of the same magnitude as a Holy Grail War, but the end result was the Greater Grail's dismantlement. This caused a complete conclusion for the Holy Grail Wars of Fuyuki. With the destruction of the Greater Grail in the Heaven's Feel scenario, it is unknown if the same events would play out.

Procedure
The Great Grail requires sixty years in order to amass enough mana to summon Servants, making the planning period span over generations. If the Grail is unable to utilize its energy, that which is leftover can reduce the time to as little as a decade, such as in the case of the period between the Fourth and Fifth Wars.

The Grail selects potential Masters anywhere from years in advance to right before the start of the Holy Grail War. It favors those from the three founding families and then picks out suitable magi through a mostly unknown process. There can be more than seven potential Masters, but only the first seven who manage to summon Servants gain Command Spells and the right to act as a Master. It is possible for other unchosen people to gain the right to act as Masters by contracting with Masterless Servants.

The Servants can be summoned in advance as well, but more than two months, such as in Berserker's case, is an anomaly. They can be summoned far away from the site of the ritual, allowing them to be initially summoned in Europe and then brought to Fuyuki. While played off as only a battle royal where the winner is granted a wish, the real point is to fill the vessel of the Grail with the souls of all Seven Servants. Defeated Servants revert to being pure energy and, while the would normally disappear from the timeline by returning to the Throne as information for the true Heroic Spirits, the Grail stops that process temporarily and collects them.

It is possible to make a wish upon it with only the power of five Servants, allowing it to grant most wishes. It is still incomplete, and will take at least six to bring it into form. Its true purpose, opening a hole to the Root, requires all seven Servants. Once the vessel is filled, the energy of the Heroic Spirits returning to the "Throne" is used by the Great Grail in a ritual to open a "hole" leading to Akasha. Due to the corruption of the ritual, most wishes will require great destruction. Kiritsugu Emiya realized the Holy Grail had been corrupted when it presented him a revelation of how it would grant his wish - instead of saving humanity, it showed him a utopia would exterminate all of humankind besides him, his wife, and his daughter; as a result, Kiritsugu rejected the Grail and attempted to destroy it. Within a decade his adopted progeny Shirou would complete this mission and ensure the malice within the tainted artifact would never threaten the planet again.

Though the maximum number of Servants is seven, there is an auxiliary reserve system within the Greater Grail to distribute Command Spells again to allow the summoning for seven more Servants. This was developed for the highly improbable situation that all seven Servants were to cooperate, but it would likely exhaust the leyline of Fuyuki. It is to be used only as an emergency measure to have seven more Servants to oppose those that have joined up.

Supervision
The First and Second Wars went unsupervised, but the chaotic Second Holy Grail War caused them to rethink the position. Japan had been in its period of civilizing at the time, so the possibility of witnesses spreading the serious damage occurring needed to be controlled even in such a remote area. It is a conflict between magi, so there is no one in the Mage's Association suitable to act as a mediator because of the political implications. They instead sought out the Church, enemies to the Magi, an external authority, and, as it utilized the name of the Holy Grail, one of their most sacred artifacts, it was not possible for them to let its name be used lightly.

The Church acts under the pretense that they cannot ignore the possibility that it actually is the cup that received the blood of Christ, but they already know that it is not related to it. They still send a supervisor because it is too powerful to ignore because they didn't want someone to use the Grail for their selfish desire. They are not concerned about Magi reaching the Root, but someone affecting the actual world is too large a threat. They wish to instead guide a magi seeking the Root towards victory to keep such a possibility from happening. The Association also expresses a measure of interest in the ritual, so they dispatch Bazett Fraga McRemitz to participate in the Fifth Holy Grail War.

The Holy Grail War is unknown to the general populace. The Church is responsible for the cover up work in which they manipulates information by modifying the memories of victims and covering up the battle damage. While the Magic Association handles the media. The Association has the Einzberns cover the cost of any collateral damage. They will punish the landowner should it get too out of hand, such as in the Heaven's Feel scenario. The damage it causes in society and the assassination of Bazett are blamed on Kirei Kotomine, but the activation of the path to the Root gets Rin Tohsaka into a great deal of trouble. Such rituals are only supposed to be done under their supervision, but she also heard they wished to truly execute her because the path was closed even though they succeeded.

Moon Cell
The Holy Grail War of the Moon Cell is based off of the ritual in Fuyuki. It is vastly different than the original, as it starts with 999 participants that are pared down to 128 Masters who do battle in a tournament format. All participants have had their souls digitalized to enter the Moon Cell, and in the case of disqualification or loss, their lives are forfeit due to the deletion of the data comprising their souls.

History
The Moon Cell utilizes the Holy Grail War structure to collect data. It was not called as such until around the 20th century, and the original conflicts did not have a name. It wanted the best data samples, so a war of survival based on the ritual in Fuyuki was the best method for it to separate the good from the bad. The magi invited into it would simply kill others and then flee, leaving a mountain of corpses. It changed upon Twice H. Pieceman's entrance into consciousness as an NPC, allowing him to repeatedly enter because he would revive as an NPC no matter how many times he lost.

Twice eventually became victorious and reached an elevated seat close to the Holy Grail, but he could not utilize the wish granting aspect of the Moon Cell due to being an NPC that would be deleted before the wish could be granted. He decided to manipulate the rules of the Moon Cell into a structured Holy Grail War, a battle of survival from which only a single person could emerge victorious. The purpose was to have a world where the limits of human potential can be pushed beyond imagination to have a proper person fulfill his wish for him. He invited many magi to participate over two years, leading to a vast increase in deaths related to hackers.

Preliminaries
The participants are gathered together in a school, and they have all of their memories suppressed except for certain special people like Leonardo B. Harwey and Julius B. Harwey. Placed into the roles of students with different memories, they go through the same lessons, subjects, and content every day. Everything feels artificial, as students have trouble with memories and the general feel of the school. Those who figure out the strangeness are able to regain their own memories. Those like Rin Tohsaka are able to do it quickly, while some barely manage to make it. Direct interference with people without memory during the period is against the rules.

People close to figuring it out get crushing headaches and feel static that affects their vision as the illusion breaks apart. The overbearing strangeness only increases as people eventually start to disappear slowly over time, reducing the number of students each day. Only those who make the decision to look beyond the accepted and progress are allowed the right to exist. By recovering themselves, they are allowed to enter the main tournament. Overall, thirty percent manage to overcome it, allowing them to move on to the next stage of the preliminaries., while any who remain in the school are disqualified.

The final part grants the potential Masters an Effigy, a substitute for a Servant, and tests their capabilities. They are pitted against another Effigy, and if theirs should happen to be defeated, as with the defeat of an actual Servant, they will be disqualified. Those that manage to win will become one of the 128 competing Masters and will be granted a Servant. While Hakuno Kishinami loses, their will to survive causes their selected Servant to save them.

Battles
Those 128 who become Masters and obtain Servants are allowed into the main part of the Holy Grail War, an elimination tournament that lasts over a period of seven weeks. The last Master and Servant pair left alive then get to claim the Holy Grail as theirs. The main area is a new Reality Marble identical to the school used in the preliminaries, and all of the Masters and Servants are able to utilize it at once. They are not allowed to fight, but they can have their Servants materialize. Each pair is granted a Private Room in which to rest, and they have access to a shop, library, nurse's office, and church for their various needs.

Each round randomly pairs all of the Masters against each other, and they have a time period of one week to prepare for battle. The Preparation Period grants access to the Arena for six days, and the seventh day features the Elimination Battle. The arena, accessed at most once per day, allows Masters to gain strength by fighting the programs randomly generated there. If the programs overwhelm them, they will be disqualified. The arena generates two Triggers, a primary cipher key and secondary cipher key, for each Master that must be obtained for the right to participate in the Elimination Battle. Should they fail to obtain both, that Master will be unable to battle and immediately disqualified on the seventh day.

Aside from gaining strength, the opponents are given time to search for clues revealing the class and identity of the opposing Servant. Both pairs are allowed within the Arena at once, so they are able to interact. Direct battles between the parties are not allowed, but SE.RA.PH takes time to intervene. They can battle for a short period without worry, and it is possible for one side to lose should they be fully defeated before SE.RA.PH intervenes. Obtaining the two triggers and surviving the six days allows the opponents to enter the Coliseum to do battle, and the winner moves onto the next round.

Hakuno Kishinami faces the following opponents:


 * First week: Shinji Matou and Rider
 * Second week: Dan Blackmore and Archer
 * Third week: Alice and Caster
 * Fourth week: Lanrukun and Lancer (Rin route) or Monji Gatou and Berserker (Rani route)
 * Fifth week: Julius B. Harwey and Assassin
 * Sixth week: Rani VIII and Berserker (Rin route) or Rin Tohsaka and Lancer (Rani route)
 * Final week: Leonardo B. Harwey and Saber
 * Extra: Twice H. Pieceman and Saver

Victory
Obtaining entrance into the core of the Moon Cell, the Holy Grail of the Seven Heavens, allows a person to harness the power of the the Moon Cell to grant their own wishes.

Sakura Labyrinth


The Sakura Labyrinth (サクラ迷宮) is created by BB in the Far Side of the Moon Cell during Fate/Extra CCC. It takes Masters and Servants from the Holy Grail War, allowing them to keep their contracts, and places them within her world.

Battles
Rin Tohsaka and Lancer Archer Rani VIII and Lancer Passionlip Jinako Carigiri and Launcher Shinji-Tank and Shinji Matou Berserker Archer Meltlilith ZERO-MODEL BB Kiara Sessyoin and Caster Rin Tohsaka and Archer Kirei Kotomine and Lancer Twice H. Pieceman and Caster
 * Chapter 1: Floor 1st - 3rd
 * Chapter 2: Floor 4th - 6th
 * Chapter 3: Floor 7th - 9th
 * Chapter 4: Floor 10th - 12th
 * Bad End Requiem
 * Chapter 5: Floor 11th - 15th
 * Chapter 6: Floor 16th - 18th Caster
 * Chapter 7: Floor 19th - 20th
 * Secret Dungeon

Great Holy Grail War
The Great Holy Grail War, also called the Great War, is the Holy Grail War of Fate/Apocrypha. It is a conflict based upon those of Fuyuki that takes place in an alternate timeline where the Greater Grail was stolen after the Third Holy Grail War. It takes place in Trifas, a city on the outskirts of the Transylvania region of Romania.

History
Fuyuki's original Third Holy Grail War took place around the time of the beginning of the Second World War, but the ritual failed due to the Lesser Grail being destroyed. Afterward, Darnic Prestone Yggdmillennia, a magi supporting the Nazis, found the location of the Great Grail in the caverns underneath Mount Enzou, and it was removed using military aid from the Nazis. The Three Families and the Japanese Imperial Army fought to thwart the theft, but they were left in a weak position due to having been weakened by the Holy Grail War. With their opposition defeated, the Greater Grail was successfully taken by the Nazis.

Nazi Germany had planned to utilize it to allow them to rule the world as they saw fit, but Darnic interfered during its transport and took it for his own Yggdmillennia family. Records of battle for it were only known to magi and its whereabouts thereafter were not known to anybody, leading to speculation that it may have landed in the hands of the Imperial Army or raided by the Soviet forces. It was not allowed to become the symbol of the Third Reich and their dream of world unification, and it vanished without a trace, Darnic having also vanished from the Nazi's side.

Though the theft marked the end of Fuyuki's conflicts and the dreams of the Three Families, it marked the beginning of spreading conflicts worldwide. While attempting to prepare to utilize the Greater Grail for his own purposes, Darnic allowed for the spreading of information pertaining to the ritual, which he considered to be his only misstep. Though the Mage's Association had paid little attention to Fuyuki's ritual, the information behind its system was spread to magi throughout the world, beginning an advent of rituals across each continent.

The ritual was commonplace around the end of the 20th century, but the majority were all small in scale compared to that of Fuyuki. They could only summon five Servants, and even if the ritual were fully established, they could never proceed to the point of it being able to grant a wish. The location of the Greater Grail was revealed at that time due to Yggdmillennia seceding from the Association and using it as the focal point of their own association. They summoned Servants of their own in preparation for conflict, and settled themselves into their new position.

Due to interference from fifty hunters from the Association, the Greater Grail's backup system was activated, allowing for the Association to summon seven Servants of their own to oppose Yggdmillennia. The scale of the Holy Grail War, fourteen Servants being summoned, was the largest ever seen, leading to it being called the Great Holy Grail War. Due to the repeated Holy Grail Wars over time, relics acting as catalysts for powerful heroes like Gilgamesh, King Arthur, and Alexander the Great had been scattered and lost over time. There were still enough left for Yggdmillennia and the Association to properly summon excellent Servants of their choosing.

Procedure
The Great War makes use of the reserve system set up within the Greater Grail. While it would have likely exhausted the leylines of Fuyuki, Trifas' land is positioned on the best leylines of Romania, and they have been stockpiling prana at a higher speed than Fuyuki to the point of calling it an inexhaustible amount.

Due to the unprecedented nature of the Great War, the Holy Grail sees it as an abnormal encroachment of its authority no matter how much the system has been altered. The status of an impartial overseer is only outside interference, so it disregards whether they exist or not and instead uses it own logic to call upon a Servant to act as Ruler of the Holy Grail War. Ruler does not serve one side or the other, but protects the very concept of the Holy Grail War. Both sides believe the monsters gathered would be too much to ignore, so they took the summoning of a Ruler-class Servant as a given.

False Holy Grail War
The False Holy Grail War (偽りの聖杯戦争) of Snowfield is a ritual in America based off of the one in Fuyuki. Rather than fighting for a Holy Grail, the war is over a "False Grail", making the ritual hard to predict compared to that of Fuyuki. While it seems that the immense scale of the preparation for the ritual would have required a magi family of the caliber of a Great House like the Einzberns, the "Initiator" of the Holy Grail War has not appeared, nor do they give off any such presence of magi of their theorized stature.

The definition of “Summoning Rituals” is vague at best due to the flawed system, as shown by the summoning of Rider. After the fifth Servant is summoned, the False Grail wishes for the materialization of the sixth Servant, even through brutal force.

Ainsworth Holy Grail War
The Fuyuki Holy Grail War of Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA was stopped before the ritual could be established, but the ritual of a parallel world was brought forth into that world and mistaken for remnants of the planned ritual.

History
The ritual was started by the Ainsworth family in the parallel world, situated around Miyu Edelfelt being the Holy Grail. The elder of the family had spent much time collecting Mystic Codes, magical implements, and vessels from around the world to replace Noble Phantasms or the Holy Grail. The items were simply discarded in a large pile, and they eventually obtained the Holy Grail in the form of Miyu. Differing from Illyasviel von Einzbern being born to function as the Holy Grail as part of the Holy Grail War, Miyu was born as the completed Holy Grail and the Holy Grail War was created for her instead.

Procedure
Rather than summoning actual Heroic Spirits, the Ainsworth ritual creates cards with the powers of Heroic Spirits. The Class Cards are then utilized for an unknown purpose relating to the Ainsworth's goals.

Mirror World
A group name for a series of pocket spaces that were created by the Class cards. They contains landscape that mirrors the one in the real world, but with no living things present, and with damage done to it not affecting the real world. Their size was originally a few kilometers in radius, but as more cards were collected, they started shrinking until the last one was the size of single building. Their name comes from the analogy that if you put two mirror opposing each other, they would reflect each other infinite number of times, and each pocket space is but a single of such reflections, a mirror image of the world.

Each Class Card card was believed to be contained in a separate space, although it was shown that two cards could share a single space.

Mirror World could only be accessed by Kaleidosticks with a formed contract by opening a “Mirror Road” via a spell. After its formation a Mirror Road could immediately transfer several humans to and from Mirror World before closing.

Others

 * Shinjuku: The Holy Grail War in the original setting of Fate/Apocrypha takes place in . The one of Apocrypha is noted to be the Fifth Holy Grail War, and that Shinjuku is not the ordinary location. It is also abnormal in that fourteen Servants, rather than seven, are summoned. It is unknown if it has any connection to the Fuyuki system. It was later changed to Trifas in the novel version.
 * Fukutoshin: The Holy Grail War of Fate/Prototype takes place in Fukutoshin. It is said to have been established for the purpose of reaching the Root, but it is actually utilized to manifest the Beast.