All his life's savings—gone.
Turned into fireworks by the hands of Goddess Ishtar. After confirming the loss, Tokiomi returned from the basement. He looked at the scene of Ishtar dominating the battlefield and felt nothing but heartbreak and fury.
Wastrel!
Those gems represented everything the Tohsaka family had built! And the worst part? No one could stop her. And Tokiomi himself? He was too much of a coward to even try. But still, a coward is human too. And humans get angry. Resentment toward this unreasonable goddess welled up inside him, and for the first time...
He began to pray. Could someone—anyone—punish this haughty woman and show her the cruelty of the real world? And just as that prayer was uttered...
He saw the moment Ishtar clashed with Saber's Master. He saw the two divine beasts collide. And then—he saw Su Mo slap her.
"SMACK!"
A crisp, satisfying sound. Was it pleasing?
Absolutely. That was a beautiful slap.
"Nice hit!" Tokiomi shouted before he could stop himself.
Hit her again!
He was fired up. Normally, he wasn't such an irrational man. But after losing all his treasured gems, his mental state had clearly taken a hit. They were called heirlooms...
But truthfully, the Tohsaka family had fallen on hard times before his generation. Everything they had now was thanks to Tohsaka Tokiomi's own efforts. He had single-handedly rebuilt their prestige. And those gemstones? Nearly all of them were the fruit of his life's work.
But as the saying goes—a thief inside the house is the hardest to guard against. Having lost all of his life's savings, Tohsaka Tokiomi was temporarily afflicted with a [Sanity Evaporation] debuff.
Watching Ishtar get beaten—
He didn't care about anything else. He was just happy! Truly, joy overflowed from his soul. However, while cheering for Su Mo, Tokiomi had forgotten one small detail. He was watching the scene from the comfort of his own home. The familiar's visual feed was projected right in front of him, plainly visible. And his wife was still in the room.
So—
"Tokiomi…"
A soft voice called from behind. His wife, Aoi Tohsaka, was staring at him with a complex and somewhat hard-to-read expression. She pressed her lips together, hesitated, then spoke gently.
"Even if Ishtar's attitude is… difficult, that is Rin's body she's using."
"As her father, watching your daughter getting slapped like that... is that really the reaction you should have?"
Aoi could understand Tokiomi's frustration with Ishtar. But regardless, it was still their daughter's body. As a mother, of course she was worried. Besides, Ishtar, despite her harsh treatment of Tokiomi, had always been relatively friendly toward her. So, if anything, Aoi had grown rather fond of the goddess.
"Ahem!"
Not expecting to get caught in the act, Tokiomi quickly cleared his throat, immediately shifting back into his dignified posture.
"I understand," he said solemnly. At that very moment, the situation at the port had also reached a point where he could no longer stand by and do nothing. The man known as Su Mo—possibly a god living in the modern world—had already landed three clean strikes on Ishtar. And she hadn't reacted to any of them.
Which meant that if he'd actually intended to kill her…
She would've died right then and there. Realizing this, Tokiomi's expression turned grim. No matter how many grievances he had with Ishtar, that was still Rin's body. Her safety came first. He didn't plan to forcibly recall Ishtar just yet—not until he figured out Su Mo's identity. Besides, the situation didn't appear immediately dangerous.
——And no, he absolutely was not secretly enjoying watching the goddess get her butt kicked a few more times!
——Tohsaka Tokiomi could swear to that on the Root itself!
But then, he saw Ishtar begin to channel another deadly move. Tokiomi could sit still no longer. As an observer, he had a clear view of what was happening. Ishtar summoned the Bull of Heaven. Su Mo, in turn, summoned a divine boar. The two beasts seemed evenly matched. Even though neither side appeared to be fighting with genuine killing intent, if Ishtar pushed forward with another ultimate move, Su Mo would likely respond in kind. And there was no guarantee that things would remain evenly matched next time.
Judging by the calm and relaxed demeanor Su Mo had shown so far, there was no doubt he could overpower Ishtar. If it went any further—if his next move was stronger than hers—
Tokiomi might not even have time to issue a recall. For his daughter's safety...
Tohsaka Tokiomi made an immediate decision and issued a Command Spell order.
And then came the goddess's response:
"Dumbass Tokiomi! Don't stop me!"
The vein on Tokiomi's forehead bulged. Without hesitation, he activated a second Command Spell. Even with her A-Rank Magic Resistance, Ishtar couldn't ignore two Command Spells enforcing the same command. Unwilling and furious, she was instantly recalled via spatial transfer.
And then—
The beautiful, bountiful, battle-hardened goddess took out her fury… on her Master.
"You bastard! I'll kill you!"
In the end, Tohsaka Tokiomi was thoroughly beaten. And the Tohsaka household finally returned to peace. Truly, a happy ending.
...
...
At the port beneath Fuyuki Bridge, Ishtar had just vanished. Rider turned to Lancer and asked the question that had been weighing on everyone's mind.
"—Why are you kneeling?" But Lancer paid him no mind. Instead, he remained on one knee, eyes filled with deep reverence as he looked toward Su Mo.
"O great King of Gods, mighty Indra!"
"Please allow me to offer you my utmost respect! Though bound by my Master's command and unable to reveal my true name, know that my reverence is entirely sincere!"
Lancer remained prostrate on the ground, his tone utterly devout. If the act of a Servant kneeling was merely surprising...
Then the name that came from his lips—left everyone in utter shock.
"What?! Indra?!"
Waver's eyes went wide. Even as a Westerner, he had heard the name—a powerful deity from Hindu and Buddhist traditions. In those religions, Indra held a position equivalent to Thor of Norse mythology. Rider, too, furrowed his brow in realization.
"According to Holy Grail knowledge... Indra is the god known as Deva-rāja, the Lord of the Devas."
"A major god of war and victory." Although it had already been suspected that Su Mo might be a modern-world deity, Rider now saw the situation in a new light. After all, there were gods and then there were GODS.
This land's so-called "Eight Million Gods" were mostly just mountain spirits and local sprites. Minor deities, really. But no one had expected the man standing before them to be the Indra, the deity whose name echoed throughout history.
"No wonder he could defeat Goddess Ishtar so easily. Even though she's a major deity herself." Rider finally nodded in understanding.
"If it's the god of war and victory himself… then yes, this is plausible." It all made sense now. No wonder Su Mo's martial prowess was so overwhelming, capable of dominating even the divine matriarch of heaven. If he were Indra, then it all tracked. It explained everything.
Even Rider was beginning to grasp the bigger picture. Listening to the analysis, Lancer's Master, Lord El-Melloi (Kayneth), was also convinced. Perhaps out of curiosity—or caution—he used a sound-amplifying spell and asked loudly:
"Lancer, is this divine being truly Deva-rāja, the King of Gods Indra?" Without hesitation, Lancer gave a firm and reverent answer.
"Yes, Master!"
"That divine radiance—once seen—can never be mistaken."
"That is unmistakably the godly presence of Indra! I'm ashamed I failed to recognize it earlier when he had yet to reveal his divine nature." Lancer's voice was full of awe, and the conviction in his tone left the onlookers with no room for doubt.
Even Okita Souji peeked up with curiosity.
"So Master's real identity... is the King of Gods?" Upon hearing that, Su Mo glanced sideways at Lancer with a deadpan expression. You said you couldn't possibly mistake him? Then maybe you need to get your eyes checked.
Though he didn't show it outright, Su Mo could more or less understand why Lancer had reacted the way he did. What Su Mo had just revealed earlier was the divine authority of Verethragna, a war god from Zoroastrianism, the ancient Persian religion.
Ancient Persia lay in the region of Western Asia, and with the migrations of the Indo-Aryan people, their myths and beliefs slowly spread and influenced surrounding cultures.
The legends of Mithra, for instance, travelled westward into Rome, where they began to overlap with figures like Helios and Perseus from Greek mythology. That's precisely why when Su Mo killed Perseus, he had obtained the powers of Mithra instead.
As for Verethragna, his mythology travelled eastward into ancient India and eventually evolved into the figure known as Indra, or Deva-rāja in Buddhist terminology. Of course, somewhere along the way, stories from Zoroastrianism's dark gods also got mixed in, complicating matters. But the essential point is this—Verethragna and Indra originated from the same root deity. So, when Lancer saw Verethragna's divine authority, it was entirely understandable that he mistook it for Indra. However, Su Mo had no intention of acknowledging that particular title.
"You've got the wrong guy!"
"I'm definitely not that disgrace of a god, Indra!"
If he'd been mistaken for some other deity, maybe he'd let it slide. But Indra? Really? Sure, the guy was a famed war god with some major victories to his name. His divine reputation was strong. But just as famous were his many black marks in myth. And not just the ones too indecent to talk about in polite company—what he did to Karna, for instance, was utterly dishonorable and unbecoming of a true war god.
There was no way Su Mo was going to accept being mistaken for that guy.
"The divine aura you sensed wasn't Indra's," he said firmly. "It was that of Verethragna, the Zoroastrian god of war." Yet despite his serious tone, Lancer just looked up in confusion.
"But… wasn't Verethragna your previous name?"
Damn it! Was this another one of those universes full of overlapping identities and false names? Or maybe, in the Type-Moon world, Indra really did split off from the Zoroastrian pantheon and become a Hindu god?
It wasn't impossible. After all, Indra was also tied to the Zoroastrian concept of the "betraying evil god," carrying a legacy of defection. A god whose core trait was "defection" would almost naturally be expected to jump from one pantheon to another.
So even if this wasn't a full-blown Campione-style world where everyone had dozens of aliases, Indra's peculiar background made it likely that he might hold positions in multiple divine pantheons simultaneously.