Chapter 243: Ryougi Shiki and Manaka Sajyou
The so called Throne of Heroes was, in essence, a platform that stored the record of life's activity across the universe.
That record was not dead.
It was alive.
The Servants within the Throne were both data and living people with self awareness. No record was more accurate than one preserved exactly as it was, with its will intact.
And now, Rowe was doing something absurdly straightforward.
He was using infinite Holy Grails to wrap the world itself, constructing a planetary scale Holy Grail.
To feed the records of the human order back into the present.
To solidify and pull down the true bodies of the Servants recorded on the Throne of Heroes.
If not all the contents of that archive, then at least a vast portion, would spill into the real.
Weight accumulated downward.
The Throne of Heroes was dragged toward the surface, nested atop the Holy Grail Spirit Origin formed by the world.
It resembled what Rowe had done when he fought the gods in Uruk, but the scale was larger, and the objective was far more outrageous.
Because what he wanted was not a breach.
He wanted a replacement.
He wished to replace the Throne with the present world.
To steal the heavens and exchange the sun.
To usurp the seat.
Infinite light flared.
Countless Holy Grails glittered.
And countless silhouettes began to condense from nothing.
Records on the Throne were taking shape.
The shadows of one Servant after another emerged as their true bodies began to surface.
"After being frustrated for so long, I can finally hold my head high," Rowe said, smiling.
This was the cleanest answer he had arrived at after grinding his teeth against that deadlock.
If you have strength, you have initiative.
He could never climb onto the Throne of Heroes.
So he compensated for it.
If he could not go up, then the Throne would come down.
Whether he could immediately reclaim the power he had left on the Throne was secondary.
Once the Throne merged with the present world, the new membrane formed by that union would be able to bear the monstrous specifications of his body.
A Star Creating God.
The planet's Ultimate One.
Nero's delighted voice rang out first.
"Umu umu. As expected of my Player."
Then another voice followed, quieter, almost reverent.
"Lord Rowe, is this your wisdom? Even I, as I am now, can hardly fathom it."
The Servants present stared at the earth shaking transformation with open astonishment.
Even Nero, who could turn absurdity into theater by sheer force of ego, was forced into a brief, genuine silence. She could not even imagine such an operation, much less duplicate it with a flourish.
Wisdom could not fully contain it.
Madness did not adequately describe it.
Primal Man. Primal Wisdom.
Even if the power itself was locked away, this alone was something Rowe had never lost.
He smiled, almost satisfied.
He silently asked a question into the dark above the world.
How is that?
The answer returned without hesitation.
Reckless.
Rowe did not need to turn his head to know who was speaking.
At the edge of the Sea of Stars, at the confluence of infinite colors, on a shoreline woven from infinite existence, two girls shook their heads.
Gaia, the planetary suppression system.
Alaya, the human suppression system.
Rowe had always known they were watching the present world, watching him. His silent thoughts were directed at them, and their reply came as naturally as gravity.
Reckless or not, it is already done.
How do you choose?
How indeed.
Rowe was using the world as the Holy Grail for summoning, and the planet itself as Spirit Origin, forcing the Throne to fall into reality.
That meant he could not bypass Gaia and Alaya.
Without their cooperation, the final step would be brutally difficult.
The final step of God descending into man, the complete materialization of those countless Servants.
A dry, irritated voice answered in his mind.
What a nasty fellow. Asking how to choose when you already made your choice.
Another voice cut in, sharp with pride.
Father is the planet's Ultimate One, and you hold a portion of planetary authority. On that point, Gaia cannot easily refuse.
Shut up, Alaya. I just do not want to. Besides, this benefits me too.
Mm. Yes. That is right.
Their exchange became substance.
Their will turned into impetus.
The world shifted.
Fuyuki.
Servants standing there began to fade.
They would disappear, returning to the Throne of Heroes.
Or rather, their true bodies would manifest in the present world.
Because now the Throne of Heroes covered reality itself. With the true bodies manifesting, consciousness would naturally return.
In the basement beneath the Tohsaka estate, panicked voices rose.
"Holy Grails, the whole world is Holy Grails. How can there be this many Holy Grails?"
"Teacher, please calm down."
In Tokyo's streets, Kiritsugu Emiya held a cigarette and stared at the vastness of the human world, at a loss.
A strange aimlessness settled over him, like the sensation of No Longer Human.
Elsewhere, a familiar argument erupted with ridiculous energy.
"Rider, with so many Holy Grails, which one is our target?"
"Boy, true conquest requires subduing everything before your eyes. Only then is it complete."
"That is easy for you to say. Wait, Rider, how did you secretly eat my base?"
"Conquest in games is still conquest."
"Damn it."
"Hahaha, kid, remember this. Life is moving forward without hesitation, so you have no regrets."
"Why are you talking like it is your last words?"
"These are not last words. They are simply farewell words, Waver Velvet."
"…Is that so?"
"If you have time in the future, come find me in Greece."
"Kariya. Sakura."
"I will treat you to the finest wine in Greece."
The voices overlapped with the world's rearrangement, pieces sliding into their proper places.
Artoria lowered her head, watching her own body begin to fade.
Spiritualization.
Dissolution.
Reformation in Britannia.
"Did you calculate this too?" she murmured, almost to herself.
Then she looked up, her gaze catching the Great Wall orbital in the sky.
"This is fine."
"By my own strength alone, by the strength of only myself and my knights, it is not enough to contend with the Divine Land."
"If that is the case…"
"This King will lead Camelot to conquest once more."
"This time, for no other reason."
"Only to reclaim what is mine."
Her voice turned steel bright.
"King Arthur, King of the Wild Hunt, Sacred King of Camelot's lover."
She raised Rhongomyniad.
She vanished along with her Knights.
In Britannia, the Holy Lance pierced heaven and earth, opening a passage to Avalon.
In legend, after Camelot's fall, the king led her kingdom into slumber within the ideal Avalon, far from the mortal world.
Now, she stepped out again, from the page of history, from within Avalon itself.
A familiar voice followed her, airy and insufferably pleased.
"Oh my. Is the King still so young?"
"Shut up, Merlin."
"Heartless. I even gave you a gift."
"…."
It was not just Artoria.
Atalanta loosed one final arrow toward Rowe.
Her figure dissolved, but her voice remained, sharp and possessive.
"You better clean yourself up and wait for me, Rowe."
"You are my prey."
"Always mine."
Rowe lifted his hand and caught the arrow. His thumb brushed the fletching, as if weighing the affection inside it.
Next time, hunter and prey might switch places.
He put it away.
Then he met Altera's gaze.
Altera said nothing. She only tightened her grip on the Sword of the War God. In the final moment before she scattered into the wind, she rose on her tiptoes.
"Wait for me…"
The voice that drifted away was soft, gentle, almost too sweet for the one called the Scourge of God.
Nero, still burning with theatrical fervor, stretched a hand toward Rowe as her form began to fade.
"Umu. My Rome, return, and reclaim my Adjutant for me."
"Rowe's performance, I am very satisfied."
"But next, it is my turn to perform."
Even Artemis, though she was not a Servant in the ordinary sense but a machine god commanding a stellar fleet, vanished as well.
Because she also had a record on the Throne.
Not as a hero.
As a god recorded through association with heroes.
The world was reorganizing itself.
Servants returned to their positions within the human order.
Like the creation of heaven and earth, only by returning to their respective places could the Throne of Heroes be fully fixed into the present world.
They would return to the Throne to record their positions.
Avalon, Rome, Greece, northern Europa, each one locking into place.
But no longer alone.
Consort Yu vanished with obvious dissatisfaction.
"Hmph. Remember this."
As she returned to Shenzhou, her sleeve swept, and in the last moment before she disappeared, Tamamo no Mae chuckled, eyes gleaming.
"This concubine is becoming more and more interested in you."
Then the final scene became an empty expanse.
Rowe stood where he was, looking up at modern Tokyo's lights, and beyond them, the Great Wall orbital moving through the sky like a silent spine.
A laugh cut through the stillness, rich with arrogance.
"AHAHAHAHA. As expected of the wild dog I raised. Only you would dare change my courtyard on a whim."
"You are having an episode again. It is time for your medicine."
"Rowe. Long time no see."
Gilgamesh walked out of the shadows.
Enkidu arrived beside him, her steps light, almost gentle.
The banquet hall was long since reduced to ruins.
The three oldest met again, here, amid the rubble of a world that had just been rewritten.
Rowe did not look surprised by Enkidu's appearance.
If she had not come, that would have been the surprise.
This bond, the first bond, was supposed to be like this.
"It is time to go home, Rowe," Enkidu said, and slowly took his hand.
Her body, too, began to turn hazy.
Even though her true body was not dead, she was still a Servant, still a record on the Throne.
Gilgamesh watched them with arms crossed, amused.
"King Gilgamesh."
A shadow appeared beside him.
"Siduri, how are the preparations?"
"They are ready."
"Then we go. That wild dog and that weapon."
"My friend."
"I will go ahead to my palace."
Gilgamesh vanished.
Enkidu smiled and lifted her chin, lips curving.
"I will wait for Rowe to come home."
"And if it becomes a little lively, that is not bad either, right?"
Her last words drifted away.
Rowe paused, feeling as if her tone carried a meaning deeper than the surface.
But everyone had taken their places.
So next, it was his turn.
Rowe still stood in Tokyo, yet at that moment, he was also climbing back.
In Britannia, within the Holy Lance held by Artoria, the light of Rowe's will bloomed.
In Rome, Nero Claudius opened her eyes inside a resplendent palace. Fire blossomed before her, and a hand reached out and clasped her palm.
In Shenzhou, high above the heavens, within Lingxiao Palace, Consort Yu opened her eyes and found a figure seated beside her in the position that had been empty for two millennia.
In northern Europe, amid a snowstorm, Skadi, newly separated from Scathach, opened her eyes abruptly.
Their final exchange still echoed in her ears.
Return to northern Europe. Manifest as your true body.
I will remain in eastern Japan.
Everyone else is gone.
We will have a chance, will we not?
A chance.
Skadi's gaze hardened with resolve, then faltered in the next heartbeat.
"Now, you are my prey."
A familiar voice.
A familiar figure.
In Greece, around the Aegean, within Mount Pelion's cave, the centaur sage Chiron opened his eyes and stumbled out into the light.
Eastern night was deep. Western sunlight struck his face.
"I never thought I would return to the present world in my lifetime, Mister Rowe."
Israel.
Jerusalem.
In the ruins of the old temple, upon a throne that remained only half intact, a young looking man shrank back.
"Lord, can you please stop scolding me?"
The Magic King Solomon looked like he wanted to flee his own name.
Egypt.
Within a pyramid, a dark skinned, powerfully built Pharaoh opened his eyes.
"Long time no see, friend. Have you come to welcome the King of Kings, the most supreme and noble king?"
One by one, they descended.
One by one, they manifested.
Until the first, the origin of this madness.
Uruk.
Ancient Uruk, now the Middle East, the Mesopotamian plain. After endless change, it had become a land of wars fueled by resources, with empires igniting conflict and resistance rising from beneath the ashes.
That night, the flames still burned.
But beneath the vast sky, a colossal palace appeared.
A relic of ancient civilization.
The glory of an ancient empire.
Figures appeared within it.
A towering city.
A towering Uruk.
The oldest King brought the oldest sparks of civilization.
Beside him, two figures smiled at one another, and the words recorded in the oldest pages surfaced once more.
"Uruk still exists here."
Epic of Gilgamesh, seventh tablet.
In Tokyo, Rowe remained at the center of it all.
Yet his shadow existed simultaneously across the world.
Those were all him.
They were his records left upon the Throne.
Now, myriad convergences became one.
All shadows vanished in an instant, because in the end they would all become Rowe standing here.
A god descending as a human.
The Throne dragged down.
Rowe himself was the biggest anchor.
Because he was the biggest anchor, he could follow his own past trajectory.
Step by step, he climbed toward the highest seat of the Throne of Heroes.
He retrieved his own power.
He could not die.
But now, he no longer needed to.
The present world was the Throne of Heroes.
So next…
"I only need to follow the traces I left behind to reach the origin of the world."
Because the Throne had merged with the present world.
That meant the planet's origin was the highest point of the Throne.
"The true first record."
Over Tokyo, the night sky was wide.
Radiance from Servants illuminated the present.
Rowe lifted his gaze.
Even beyond the atmosphere, in space, the radiance of the planet's human order still shone.
It filled the solar system.
In time, perhaps it could illuminate the galaxy, even the universe.
After all, the Third Magic that created the Holy Grail represented humanity's future.
And within that light, Rowe's power, drawn from the Root, might exist at the deepest, farthest, highest point.
If he touched it.
If he reached it.
If he stepped into that brilliant radiance.
He could obtain it.
But at that moment, Rowe stopped.
The evening breeze moved softly over Tokyo.
The Servants had dispersed. Their true bodies had manifested across the world. The place should have been empty.
Yet a figure stood in front of him.
A shadow with its back to him, directly facing the radiant world.
A clear, cold voice echoed.
"A consciousness without blemish or impurity is the abode of emptiness."
"The Root of all things."
The long katana in her hand reflected a sharp flowing light.
She wore a luxurious kimono, immaculate, formal, almost like a ritual.
"I am the consciousness of the Root," she said. "You may also call me Ryougi Shiki."
Her sleeves shifted as she slowly turned.
Distant city lights glittered, but they could not conceal the brilliance in her eyes.
Black hair, cut to shoulder length, swayed with the motion. Beneath her obi, her waist looked delicate, almost fragile. Her breathing was calm, her curves soft.
A beautiful Japanese girl with an unmistakably classical air.
And yet, the feeling she gave Rowe was dangerous.
Not to Sage Rowe of Uruk.
Dangerous to Star Creating God Rowe.
"I have been waiting for you here for a long time."
Rowe watched her closely.
Ryougi Shiki's voice remained cool.
"The outsider who stole my precious possession from within me."
"That is not right," Rowe interrupted. "I only took back what rightfully belonged to me from the Root."
To reach the Root was to receive an answer.
That was the world's rule.
"But you stayed inside me for too long," Ryougi Shiki replied. "And the power you took exceeded the limit."
She smiled.
It was not warm.
It was empty, like the surface of still water.
"So you are here to stop me from reclaiming my power?" Rowe asked.
Of course he knew the name Ryougi Shiki.
A young lady of the Ryougi family, an exorcist lineage in Japan. After a car accident, she had brushed the Root, and gained Mystic Eyes that perceived death itself.
And within her, a consciousness called Ryougi Shiki was said to exist, a will born from the Root.
That accident happened around the time of the Fuyuki Holy Grail War.
These past two years.
He had simply never considered that the birth of that consciousness might be tied to him.
"Stop you from taking your power?" Ryougi Shiki repeated, still smiling emptily. "I have no such intention."
"Rather, I should thank you for allowing me to be born."
The Root, as the origin, should not have a will.
Heaven and earth were not benevolent. They treated all things as straw dogs.
The Root was an objective law, intangible and absolute. It should not possess a self.
"However," Ryougi Shiki continued, "you stayed within the Swirl of the Root for a long time. The Swirl is infinite, but it is a spiraling infinity."
"And when you departed, you took away almost infinite power."
"But you also caused a momentary weakness in the Swirl."
"And so I was born."
To some extent, she really did have reason to thank him.
That was why the young lady Ryougi Shiki existed in the real world at all.
She was the projection of that consciousness into the present.
"I will not stop you from reclaiming your power," Ryougi Shiki said softly.
"But the moment you reclaim it, I will devour you."
This time, her smile was no longer empty.
It held a faint, unmistakable excitement.
"The source of my birth should remain with me, should it not?"
She was not trying to kill him.
She was trying to keep him.
To make Rowe eternal.
"To turn me into a puppet of the Root?" Rowe narrowed his eyes.
"I have waited a very long time for this," she said. "Outsider. Sir Rowe."
Rowe fell silent for a beat.
Why did obsession find him everywhere?
"That will not do."
A second voice sounded behind him, clear, delicate, with a hint of childishness.
"It is rare to meet someone who interests me."
"How could I let you devour him?"
Rowe turned.
A girl stood behind him, golden short hair fluttering, wearing a light blue dress. The hem lifted in the breeze. When Rowe looked at her, her blue eyes narrowed into a sweet, almost bashful smile.
Ryougi Shiki spoke first, tone flat.
"The princess who connects to the Root."
The girl smiled, a little embarrassed.
"Princess is a bit of a humiliating title, is it not?"
"Do you get embarrassed?" Ryougi Shiki asked.
"Of course. I am still a girl."
"Which ordinary girl can come to a place like this?" Ryougi Shiki lifted her gaze, and the hostility between them became obvious.
It was natural.
Ryougi Shiki was the will of the Root, but not the Root itself. To her, the Root was home.
Sajou Manaka, a princess who could connect to the Root and freely draw on its power, looked like a thief who treated that home as her personal storeroom.
And Ryougi Shiki could not truly stop her.
Even if this was their first meeting, ill will was inevitable.
The girl no longer looked at Ryougi Shiki.
Instead, she turned to Rowe.
She raised her hands and lifted her skirt slightly in a polite introduction.
"My name is Sajyou Manaka."
Then, the pretty, delicate girl blinked.
Her eyes were bright with anticipation.
"Excuse me… can you be killed by me?"
Rowe exhaled, helpless.
Of course he knew Manaka.
A girl from a prestigious lineage, born with a special constitution, a princess who could freely exercise the power of the Root.
One Root consciousness.
One Root princess.
One in front, one behind.
No forward path.
No retreat.
Rowe realized that he had not escaped the so called love triangle at all.
He had only fallen into something even more absurd.
.....
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