Having settled everything with the Tohsaka family, Izumi turned toward Tohsaka Tokiomi and spoke bluntly:
"Are you planning to participate in the Holy Grail War next?"
Tokiomi didn't bother hiding anything.
"Indeed. I've prepared everything necessary."
"This time, without fail, I will reach the Root. I will accomplish the ultimate goal of all magi."
Izumi gave him a look of pure contempt.
"Reach the Root?
You're overthinking it."
"The Root isn't some tourist destination."
"You think a wish on the Grail will take you there?"
"And what then? Get swallowed whole the moment you touch it?"
He snorted.
"Even if you win—which is already doubtful—all you'll get is a corrupted tin can."
"The Holy Grail War itself is a joke."
"If reaching the Root were that easy, do you honestly think it'd be your turn?"
"There are countless magi far more capable than you. You're barely mid-tier."
"Every Clock Tower magus is stronger than you."
"If the Grail truly granted easy access to the Root, the big names would've come running long ago."
"Yet it's always just the same few families playing war here."
His tone dripped with ridicule.
"Something that only you people fight over? Doesn't that sound suspicious to you?"
Tokiomi stiffened, stunned.
He stared at Izumi, baffled.
"D–Does Izumi-sama know something?"
"Since you are from the future, then surely you know the outcome of the Holy Grail War?"
His eyes lit up with desperate, trembling hope.
"Tell me… did I win?"
Had he done it?
Had his years of planning paid off?
Had he achieved the glory he longed for?
Izumi didn't hesitate.
"No. You die."
A beat.
"Your wife dies shortly after you."
"And Rin becomes an orphan."
"Oh—your disciple is the one who kills you, by the way. He later mentors Rin and even gives her the very blade he used to stab you."
Izumi laid it all out without mercy.
Tokiomi and Rin were struck speechless.
Especially Rin.
She didn't even react to being told she'd become an orphan—no, what made her freeze was something else entirely.
Her father is killed… by his own disciple?
And that disciple later teaches her?
There was only one person that pointed to.
Rin's face twisted with fury. She marched straight up to Izumi, grabbing his sleeves.
"The one who kills him—do you mean Kotomine Kirei!?"
"He's the murderer!?"
The sheer rage in her voice shook the room.
Her father's killer had been beside her all this time.
Teaching her.
Smiling at her.
Handing her a weapon soaked in her father's blood.
It made her want to vomit.
Right now, Tohsaka Rin wanted nothing more than to storm the church and obliterate Kotomine Kirei on the spot.
Tokiomi was equally horrified.
Killed by his own apprentice…
His wife dying soon after…
His daughter raised by his murderer…
The more he processed it, the worse it felt.
Izumi shrugged casually.
"I told you. I know a lot about this world."
"Let's just say… I divined it."
Le Fay, who had been silently listening, twitched at the corner of her mouth.
Divined?
Izumi-sama was spouting nonsense again.
She herself studied astrology—the same system he did.
Astrology could only divine events of their original world.
But this was another world entirely.
Izumi was obviously BS-ing.
Le Fay sighed inwardly.
Izumi-sama was incredibly good at fooling people.
Rin, meanwhile, had gone pale from fury.
"Kotomine Kirei…!!
I'll kill him myself!!"
Her shrill shout shook even the furniture.
Izumi wasn't done tormenting her.
"Oh, and the reason you're poor in the future—why you have to work part-time to support yourself?"
He pointed lazily at Tokiomi.
"That's also because of Kirei."
"When your father dies, all the Tohsaka assets fall into his hands."
"And that man—who only chases 'pleasure'—squanders everything almost instantly."
Compared to real magus families, the Tohsakas weren't wealthy.
But they weren't poor either.
Yet in the future, within a few years of Tokiomi's death, everything is gone.
Izumi always found that absurd.
The so-called rich Tohsaka Rin… reduced to a broke part-timer.
Pathetic.
His words sliced into Rin like a blade.
She staggered.
You've got to be kidding me.
Not only did this bastard kill her father—
He also made her poor!?
Her worldview was collapsing.
Even Tokiomi's vision shook with rage.
"Kotomine Kirei…!!
You treacherous apprentice!!"
He stormed toward the door, intent on going to the church and killing the man immediately.
But Izumi stopped him with one lazy sentence.
"Calm down. Does it really matter?"
"Don't you want to know the true nature of the Holy Grail?"
Tokiomi froze mid-step.
The true nature?
Of course he wanted to know.
He wanted to know more than anything.
Izumi had said so much—
about his miserable future—
but not a word about the Grail itself.
Slowly, Tokiomi returned to his seat.
His expression was black, but his curiosity overpowered his anger.
If the Holy Grail War was a sham…
If everything he worked for was meaningless…
He needed to know.
Izumi, watching their devastated expressions, felt quite satisfied.
This was exactly the kind of chaotic drama he enjoyed.
He smiled and continued:
"Your Grail was corrupted during the previous war."
"It's full of 'All the World's Evils.'"
"Sure, it can grant wishes—
but it does so in the most twisted way possible."
"For example:
You wish for world peace?"
"Sure."
"It'll kill every human on the planet so the world becomes peaceful."
Tokiomi and Rin paled.
Izumi went on as if discussing the weather.
"And the so-called 'Great Grail' constructed by the Three Families?
It's just a massive ritual altar."
"One your ancestors built."
"Meaning… if I wanted a Holy Grail, I could make one myself."
"After all, it's simply a byproduct of the Third Magic."
"Oh, and if someone has the Second Magic, they can hop between parallel worlds and grab as many Grails as they want."
He chuckled softly.
"Chaldea would love that, I'm sure."