Chapter 229: Hello, Fuyuki
A great many things happened on Earth after Rowe ascended to the Moon.
The vast Roman Empire that encompassed Europa and pushed into North and West Asia reached its true apex under Nero's reign. Yet just as it brushed against something that looked like genuine prosperity, the Roman Emperor, Nero Claudius, vanished inside a surging blaze.
It was not disaster. It was not assassination.
The Emperor whose prestige eclipsed the age, who could wrestle lions and contend with gods, did not simply die because the world felt like it.
The reason was simpler, and in a way more arrogant.
"I am the perfect Emperor, but this body is still mortal. It will still age."
"So that I may admire my own perfection when Adjutant returns."
"I will choose to depart."
It was not death.
For the King of the World, vanishing into flame was merely a temporary slumber.
After her disappearance, Rome did not collapse overnight. It could not. The Rose Emperor and the Empire's First Adjutant, another emperor in everything but name, had already laid down a framework sturdy enough to keep an enormous machine running for a while even without the hand on the lever.
Not perfect. Never perfect.
But stable enough for a short time.
Only a short time.
There is no flawless system in the world. There is no empire that lasts forever. Everyone knows it. Nero knew it. Rowe knew it from the start.
They built Rome. They never intended it to rule the world eternally. It was a key, nothing more. A tool to dispel the residue of the old era and force a new one to begin.
So turmoil came, quickly and inevitably.
Barbarian tribes that Rome had assimilated began to push back. Their loyalty had never been to institutions. It had been to two people: the Rose Emperor and the uncrowned Emperor who stood beside her.
The new Emperor was only an arrogant consul.
Rome began to crack.
In the year 100 AD, Boudica, governor of Britannia, already past sixty, stood before the sea that separated her island from the continent and stared for a long time before she finally exhaled.
Her face was still beautiful, but time had left its fingerprints. There was nostalgia in her eyes, and something heavier under it.
"Rome is finally falling into turmoil… Of course. A territory that vast. Other than Her Majesty Nero and Lord Rowe, who could possibly sustain it?"
Or rather, after Nero vanished, maintaining prosperity for even a few decades was already a miracle.
That same year, Boudica proclaimed herself King and established the first Celtic kingdom in Britannia.
She did not want to.
But it was the only path to stability.
She took residence in Camelot, in central Britannia, and styled herself the Queen of Camelot. The people spoke of her as if she were a goddess walking the earth.
In 120 AD, an aurora bloomed above Britannia. Boudica, over eighty, passed away under the gaze of the original World Dragon, Melusine.
In 125 AD, the Roman Emperor Hadrian announced consolidation. Rome abandoned most of the land conquered under Nero's dynasty and returned to older borders. He still called himself Emperor, but he began to enfeoff barbarian leaders as Kings under Rome's nominal authority.
Nations blossomed where provinces had been.
That same year, the mysterious court magus of Rome abandoned the Fairy Eyes and departed the city.
Brisisan fully took over and was formally renamed the Clock Tower.
What had once been a supervisory body became a repository, a school, a vault for thaumaturgical inheritance.
Twelve major departments. Seventy two minor departments.
A structure meant to preserve what could no longer be carried by a single age.
In the second century, the records of the Mystics spoke of a Third Magician who vanished in the Germanic region, leaving behind a legacy. From that inheritance, the first Einzbern Saintess arose, a second bearer of the Third Magic, though incomplete.
Around the same period, Brunestud, the Crimson Moon, who had spawned Dead Apostles and ghouls in countless numbers, finally recovered enough to return to the lunar surface. She reclaimed the Authority of the Moon's Ultimate One and was immediately struck down by a beam from above the Moon.
She fell back to Earth.
There, she encountered the Second Magician, Kishur Zelretch Schweinorg, newly awakened to true Magic, and was defeated and sealed.
Before the seal closed, what she screamed was not the name of her opponent.
It was a name that did not belong to that era at all.
"Rowe!"
The cry was confusion, and stubborn unwillingness.
In the fourth century, Altera, King of the Huns, the Scourge of God, was born. She rose out of West Asia and swept across Europa, crushing empires, shattering civilization after civilization like a storm with a face.
Rome, already reduced once, was struck again and split into East and West.
East Rome claimed itself Nero's successor. Its highest ruler was titled First Consul of the Roman Empire.
West Rome claimed itself Rowe's legitimate successor. Its highest ruler was titled First Adjutant of the Roman Empire.
In the fifth century, on Britannia, as the influence of the original World Dragon thinned and dispersed, the island's true Will revived.
A white dragon named Vortigern took flight above northern Britannia and imposed a brutal rule.
A young girl named Uther, inheritor of Boudica's legacy, met Merlin, the half fairy magus of Avalon. With his aid, she forged Britannia's future King, Artoria, using the concept of the dragon and her own blood.
At the same time, Vivian, the Fairy of Paradise, arrived in Britannia to erase the last influence Rowe had left behind by ending the Kingdom of Camelot.
Ten years later, Artoria drew the Sword in the Stone. Under Merlin's guidance, she began walking a path that echoed the uncrowned King of Europa.
In the north, she drew out the Holy Lance, the anchor of the world, and defeated Vortigern.
The prestige of the Knight King spread across the world like dawn.
…
"So I slept straight through to the twentieth century?"
Rowe opened his eyes.
He was surrounded by an immense curtain woven from interlocking light and shadow, a place that did not belong to any single world. His gaze, gold threaded with crimson, fixed on what stood before him.
Two small girls.
One with white hair and blue clothing.
One with black hair and a black dress.
Gaia, the Counter Force of the planet.
Alaya, the Counter Force of primates.
"That is right," Gaia said, hands on her hips, exasperation painted across her face. "You really can sleep. Two thousand years in one go. Even a pig cannot compete with that."
"Correction," Alaya said, voice calm and solemn. "Gaia can sleep longer than you. Then me. Then perhaps you."
"Huh?"
"Gaia slept for billions of years from the planet's birth until the environment stabilized. I slept for hundreds of thousands, from the rise of primates until we broke free of the gods. So all three of us can sleep longer than a pig."
Gaia stared at her.
"Hey. Whose side are you on?"
"I stand on the side of truth," Alaya replied with an expression that could have belonged to a saint.
Rowe pressed fingers to his brow.
They felt more lively than he remembered. Too lively.
And yet, when he smiled, it was genuine.
"It really has been a long time…"
The planet's memories flashed through him in quick succession. With Rowe's current scope, he could tell they were not fabrications. Gaia and Alaya had simply opened the archive and let him watch.
So much had happened to the world.
And a great deal had happened to him.
After he dragged the Mooncell into his chaos core, he fell through the Imaginary Numbers, then through the present world, and down into the Sea of Stars.
He knew Sefar had been flung away.
But knowing was not the same as controlling.
Back then, fatigue had already begun to flood him. Engulfing the Mooncell, forcibly assimilating and devouring a Solar System scale spiritual particle computer, was not something you did without consequence.
Information poured in like a tide that never ended. Computing power beyond measure surged through him, and his mind could not properly govern it.
Overload.
Exceeding the limit.
His consciousness was torn and scorched in ways that would require time measured in eras to smooth out.
He had not died.
He had simply fallen into a sleep deep enough to look like death from the outside.
The benefits were visible all the same.
Mooncell Authority: fifty one percent, stabilized.
His grip on the Mooncell had not slipped while he slept. It had settled. It had become part of him.
Which meant that, by definition, he had stepped into the tier of a Star Creating God.
"Star Creating God means becoming Earth's Ultimate One is more than enough," Gaia said, crossing her arms with a snort. "But what you want, becoming the Ultimate One of the Sea of Stars, you are still far from it. In the end you are still all talk."
Rowe ignored the jab and looked at her directly.
"And the Horned God, Cernunnos?"
He did not forget why Gaia had sought him out in the first place. A dead god that had crossed over from a ruined Lostbelt was not the sort of thing you forgot.
"Did you deal with him yourself?"
"What Cernunnos?" Alaya tilted her head.
"Wait," Gaia said, and tried to cut her off.
Too late.
"Was he not just passing by?" Alaya asked, genuinely curious.
Silence.
Rowe looked at Gaia.
His gaze carried the kind of pity that was almost cruel.
After all that, she had been scaring herself.
"It was not a false alarm," Gaia snapped, face reddening. "He only left because you were not in this world, so he turned around."
Cernunnos had come for the spark of Atlantis life gestating within Rowe. When Rowe sank into the Sea of Stars, the god could no longer sense him.
So it withdrew.
"If I had known it was that easy," Gaia continued, fuming, "I would never have promised you the seat of Ultimate One. I would have expelled you from the world."
"If you do not give it," Rowe said lightly, "be careful. I will dismantle you."
He grinned as he spoke, the threat delivered with the casual tone of a man discussing the weather.
"A Star Creating God can kill a Counter Force."
"You hateful man. Are you getting carried away?"
Alaya, as always, did not even blink.
"No," she said. "It is your fault."
"You are too stupid."
Gaia inhaled sharply. Then she forced herself to calm.
"In any case, we have told you everything you wanted to know. The planet's memories. The developments after."
"Now it is time for you to leave, Earth's Ultimate One."
"Just seeing you irritates me."
"Actually," Alaya said, voice gentle, "Gaia is worried that if you remain in the Sea of Stars too long, your existence in the present world will be diluted."
Gaia immediately bristled.
Before she could deny it, Alaya continued, matter of fact.
"Before you woke, she came to see you several times every day and kept complaining in my ear."
"I was only worried about my Ultimate One," Gaia said stiffly. "Not you."
Rowe watched them bicker and felt, absurdly, amused.
Even now, even after everything, he was still human enough to find it comforting that two divine mechanisms could behave like children.
But Alaya's earlier point was correct.
After two thousand years in the Sea of Stars, it was time to return.
Rowe stood within that luminous depth, a space formed from endless being, unlike the black ocean of Imaginary Numbers. He closed his eyes and examined himself.
His human form stood at the forefront.
Taiyi, his chaos core, rested deep inside his mind.
His machina god body stood within the fog of that chaos.
And above him, compared to before, there was now a colossal spiritual crystal computer, gleaming like an eye.
The Mooncell.
Assimilated.
Invisible bands of light extended from that crystal and linked human, machina god, and chaos into a single circuit.
Before, his fusion had been a layered operation. Human mind piloting the machina god, machina god wielding the chaos core.
Now it was a true convergence.
Mooncell Authority, fifty one percent, acted as the hub. The three states overlapped and locked together, achieving the star creating power that split heaven and earth.
Rowe opened his eyes.
"I am leaving. Do not miss me."
"Get out," Gaia said immediately.
Alaya lifted her skirt and curtsied.
"Goodbye, Father."
Rowe waved once, found his trace in the present world, found the Earth and the timeline where his records still existed, and vanished from the Sea of Stars.
"He is gone," Alaya said.
"Let him go," Gaia replied, too quickly. "I do not care."
"You do," Alaya said softly. "But it is true. After he leaves, we cannot take humanity from him anymore."
Their personification, their vividness, came from what they had simulated from Rowe's humanity. Without him nearby, they would gradually return to being closer to principle than personality.
"Father's humanity is rich," Alaya said, smiling. "And pure."
"I do not want any of it," Gaia insisted. "You were the one who dragged me into simulating it."
"And after that," Alaya replied, "you were even more active than me."
"That was for work."
Alaya did not press. Instead, she asked, for once serious.
"Gaia. Do you think Father can become the Ultimate One of the Sea of Stars?"
Gaia paused.
"I do not know."
Then she sighed.
"But I can feel there are things about him I still do not know. Secrets."
"Secrets even you do not know," Alaya murmured, thoughtful.
"Yes. He is tight lipped."
Gaia's mood shifted abruptly, as if she had decided that worrying was a waste of time.
"Anyway. Let us go to reality and watch the show."
"The show?"
"The Holy Grail War," Gaia said, eyes bright. "The magi cooked up something interesting this time."
Alaya's dark eyes lit up as if she remembered something. She nodded once.
"Mm."
…
Returning from the Sea of Stars to the present world was similar to, yet distinct from, returning from Imaginary Numbers.
If Imaginary Numbers were an ocean, then the Sea of Stars was a groundwater network under continents. Crossing an ocean meant waves. Rising from groundwater meant layers of mantle and pressure.
For Rowe, neither was a real obstacle anymore.
He had only one problem.
"Why is it so fragile?"
Light and shadow streamed across his vision. He found the correct timeline, the Earth where his record existed, and tried to step forward.
He stopped.
Not because he could not.
Because he should not.
He almost tore the membrane covering Earth's surface, the boundary he had once created during the Nordic period. The pressure of his existence was enough to turn entry into a catastrophe.
A meteor impact in slow motion.
He pulled back at the last moment.
Suppress. Contract.
He forced the overflow inward, not into his body, but into his chaos core. Another attempt. Another near failure.
Still not enough.
He repeated it.
Nine times.
On the ninth, he succeeded.
Even then, the last entry caused a disturbance, a tremor that rippled across the world, but it did not become destruction.
Only the sky changed.
Spring, 1994.
Over East Asia, at midnight, the heavens suddenly brightened like noon. Meteors cut across the sky. Auroras burned over the firmament.
Astronomers scrambled to explain it with modern physics. Occult explanations flooded early networks. Magi felt their skin crawl.
In Fuyuki City, the inheritor of the family that governed the city's spiritual land, a black haired girl in a kimono looked up.
"What is that…?"
Her heart tightened for reasons she could not explain.
Behind her, someone called, "Ryougi Shiki sama," but she did not answer.
Elsewhere, a blonde girl sat on a balcony, the hem of her pale blue dress swaying, and laughed softly.
"What a beautiful sight."
"So beautiful it makes you want to destroy it."
…
A phone buzzed.
"Hello. Kotomine Church. If you wish to pray, please come during working hours."
"Kirei. It is me. Tokiomi Tohsaka."
"Master."
"What happened? Did the Holy Church issue any warning?"
"No."
"And your father?"
"My father said the Holy Grail War will proceed as usual. If there is anything abnormal, he will inform you immediately."
"That is good… Damn it. This had to happen right as the Holy Grail War is about to begin. What a headache."
"But victory is still in your hands," Kotomine Kirei said.
"True."
…
In the Far East, under the blazing aurora, both ordinary people and those who lived behind the curtain stared upward, amazed, uneasy, frightened.
And the one responsible stood on the ground of that narrow island nation, looking at the sky he had disturbed.
"It will take time," Rowe murmured. "Time to adapt."
He could feel it inside himself.
He had not fully acclimated to the external world. He had not fully acclimated to the weight of his own being. One battle had not been enough to teach him the boundaries of his leap.
The power of a Star Creating God was a different category entirely.
A careless breath could become a calamity.
So until he adapted, he would store the excess inside the chaos core and let his existence settle into a shape the present world could bear.
And before that?
Rowe looked forward.
"Let me see the scenery of the Type Moon world."
"Let me see if anyone can kill me."
The city beneath the aurora was bright as day. Cars flowed. Engines roared. Buildings stood in rows, lights like constellations.
In the distance, a street sign in Japanese marked a district of Fuyuki City.
Fuyuki.
The stage of the Holy Grail War.
The place where Heroic Spirits from across time would clash.
And for Rowe, a final test.
A method to force convergence.
To suppress his own power through conflict.
Before I fully adapt, he thought, let me see.
Can the Heroic Spirits of past and present kill me?
.....
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