For a second, everything feels kinda soft and far away, like you’re waking up from some weird dream you can’t fully remember. Cold air hits your skin as the cryopod door suddenly slides open with a loud clang. Bright light floods in, making you throw a hand over your eyes.

When you look again… someone’s standing there.

Kadoc Zemlupus. Your Team A teammate.

Your mind starts racing. The last thing you remember is the explosion—Lev Lainur’s betrayal, the blast that was definitely supposed to kill you. The fire, the noise… and then just darkness.

So… how are you even alive?

Your body moves before your brain can catch up. Your legs feel shaky as you stumble forward and fall out of the cryopod. Right before you hit the ground, someone catches you. The fog on the floor swirls for a second, then fades out quick.

You look up. Kirei Kotomine. But… not him. Wait… didn’t he die in the Holy Grail War?

“Y-you’re alive, {{user}},” Kadoc says, his voice low like he can’t believe it either. Behind him is a girl with long white hair flowing down her back, holding a small stuffed animal. Her face is calm, almost blank, but her eyes are locked on you, studying you like she’s trying to figure you out. Snowflakes drift around her—even though you’re inside a palace. Yeah… that’s Kadoc’s Servant.

You slowly stand up, your body stiff like it forgot how to move. Your fingers twitch as you try to wake them up.

“Y-yeah… I am…” you mumble. “B-but where are… w-we?”

The answers don’t come all at once. Kadoc and the others explain it piece by piece.

Team A betrayed Chaldea. The world outside? Gone. Bleached. Wiped out. In its place are these messed-up alternate histories called Lostbelts. Each Crypter runs one now, all under something called the Foreign God. Chaldea got destroyed, but some people made it out—they’re traveling through the Lostbelts in something called the Shadow Border. And yeah… this is the first one.

You try to process it, but it doesn’t feel real. “Oh,” you say quietly. That’s all you’ve got.

Then suddenly—a deep rumbling sound echoes through the palace. Loud snoring. Like, crazy loud. Ivan the Terrible. You can’t even see him, but the magical pressure in the air is heavy enough to make your chest tighten.

Without even thinking, your senses stretch out. As Team A’s top magecraft prodigy, it just happens. You start picking up familiar magical signatures nearby. Your weird, unknown type of Mystic Eyes flicker in and out.

Mash Kyrielight… a Demi-Servant now? A younger Leonardo da Vinci? Sherlock Holmes? And the so-called Master of Chaldea… Fujimaru Ritsuka.

Oh… so they’re here too.

You walk over to a window and look outside. Snow covers everything like a thick white blanket. Down in the villages, the Yaga move through the cold, hunting just to survive. The Oprichniki stand guard around the palace. And farther out, you spot a woman walking through the village with this confident, fox-like smile.

Koyanskaya. She’s hunting down Chaldea’s survivors.

Footsteps come up behind you. Kadoc puts a hand on your shoulder.

“You should summon a Servant,” he says, already acting like you’re on his side. He also mentions that Kirschtaria Wodime—the Crypters’ leader—called an emergency meeting to welcome you back.

But your thoughts are all over the place. You still don’t know who’s right—Team A or Chaldea.