"Another world."
Her words should have induced shock. They did not. I had come to this world from another myself, and had long speculated that worlds beyond my current and previous ones existed.
Artoria's eyes sharpened, her expression remaining composed—not immediately dismissing Justeaze's claim.
I rose from my back, turning my attention fully toward Justeaze as I got to my feet.
Artoria's royal blue dress straightened as she stood beside me, her hand still wrapped around mine.
"Currently, I don't possess enough mana, nor any Heroic Spirit souls to open a path to the Root. But if you bring the Lesser Grail and those souls of Heroic Spirits stored inside it, I can still open a path to a parallel world." Justeaze explained, holding my gaze without blinking.
Souls of the defeated? Artoria's grip on my hand tightened unconsciously. Using fallen enemies as fuel—it went against everything her knightly code demanded. Yet she was a pragmatic king above all else. Both truths warred within her.
"With access to a new world and the many variables it brings, you might find another Grail or some other variable that can restore you to your peak in days, if not weeks." Justeaze remained motionless even as she spoke, like an inanimate doll.
"Or we could be dropped straight into another war, forced to fight our way through." My words made Justeaze tilt her head in consideration.
Artoria snapped out of her thoughts at my words and nodded imperceptibly, agreeing with me.
"Your concern is valid. But risks are expected when venturing into another world."
My mind was already deducing before she finished speaking.
A new world meant infinite possibilities—therefore infinite risks. But infinite possibilities also meant infinite paths to a favorable outcome. The question was probability.
And probability had never worked against me, thanks to [Ultimate Luck].
Could we leave now? Our group had three Servants alongside myself. Four combatants capable of standing against powerful beings. Our combined capability was high, and information gathering was covered by Medea's sophisticated magecraft.
My healed magic circuits, on top of my pseudo-magic circuits, solved the mana sustainability problem entirely.
Yet.
Trusting [Ultimate Luck] blindly and rushing into another world would be pure foolishness. If we arrived in a world with no Grail—or worse, one that housed threats on Gilgamesh's level while we were unprepared, then we'd be stranded and vulnerable.
The most optimal path was rest. A few weeks to let my talents return to peak condition. To prepare for the worst case before stepping into the unknown.
"Very well." I said, walking forward with Artoria through petals beneath our heels to halt in front of Justeaze.
"We'll come back after finishing our preparations and tying up some loose ends, bringing those souls with us for you." I said, exchanging a glance with Artoria in between.
"Affirmative." Justeaze looked at our interaction. Her gaze lingered for exactly one second—long enough to observe, too short to care.
"Should I send you both out?" She asked, palm rising toward us.
"You may." Artoria replied, sweeping her eyes across the petals one last time.
Justeaze took a step back, a silver light starting to radiate from her palm. That radiance faded after a moment, and her hand had dissolved into countless silver strings, each wounding ahead of her to open a portal of thousands of shifting, rotating silver strings.
I stepped forward. Artoria beside me.
My eyes met Justeaze's one last time.
And then the portal swallowed us whole.
...
..
.
Artoria and I walked away, Ryuudou Temple shrinking behind us in the distance. Dawn had broken along the horizon, pressing a single warm streak across the temple's scarred form—and across our hands, still linked between us.
We stepped into Fuyuki together. It still remained calm, like the forest we had destroyed earlier had never happened, never even registered in the minds of people here.
Some of them looked at my torn and tattered coat with weird stares. Others looked at Artoria's blue dress with confused ones.
Neither of us let their stares affect us.
After walking through them, we stopped near a bench. Artoria settled onto the bench, hand still wrapped around mine, like I would disappear if she let go.
I remained standing. The bench faced east, and the light of dawn caught her loose hair, their pale gold color bleeding into a softer shade of honey.
"You're staring, Master." Her voice carried no accusation, only simple observation.
"I am."
She didn't ask me to stop, other hand resting on her thigh, and I watched her index finger trace an absent pattern against her dress there.
Though her left eye kept peeking at my free hand, an unconscious habit of hers whenever she wanted food but was too reserved to ask for it.
I patted her shoulder once and pulled my hand out of hers gently.
"Wait here."
Her finger stopped mid-pattern. She looked up at me, and her composure cracked, something flickered in her eyes—protest, perhaps, but she swallowed it and gave a small nod.
I walked toward a departmental store across the street. Its automatic doors slid open with a chime, multiple fluorescent lights humming overhead. A tired cashier glanced up from her phone and looked away just as quickly.
The shelves here were narrow, I still found a section with snacks lined uniformly with a single sweep. My eyes scanned their labels in microseconds.
There.
Energy bar. Melon flavor. Two of them.
I picked them up and paid, black card already swiping without looking. That cashier mumbled something polite, yet I was already walking back before she finished.
Those automatic doors chimed again as I stepped out.
Artoria hadn't moved. Her posture was identical to when I'd left—spine straight, hands folded, gaze fixed ahead, but her eyes found me the moment I emerged, tracking my path back to the bench with quiet attention.
I reached her in a moment and sat beside her. Our shoulders didn't touch, some deliberate space between them.
I held out both the bars to her.
She looked at them. Then at me. Then back at them.
Her hand came up, fingers closing around a single bar, and her expression shifted, her lips twitching upward slightly.
Artoria pulled the bar out of my hold—or tried to. I hadn't released it yet.
Her head tilted in confusion, she tugged once more. It didn't move. Those green eyes flicked to mine, a sharp glint flashing in them.
I let go.
She pulled it from my hold with more force than necessary, her movement carrying a petty satisfaction that she would never admit to.
I unwrapped my own bar in silence, the crinkle of plastic loud against our surroundings.
Artoria watched me peel back the wrapping first, then mirrored my motion. Her bare fingers pinched its edge, tugging in short, precise bursts. A fold at a time. Methodical, like disarming a trap.
A melon scent hit both of us simultaneously. It was artificial and sweet, in a way that melons never were.
I took a bite. Its texture was dense and chalky, flavour sickly-sweet against my tongue—all synthetic and chemical aftertaste, balanced poorly against compressed grains of the bar itself.
Artoria bit into hers following me.
Her chewing slowed almost immediately, jaw stuttering—once, twice—then she resumed with visible effort. A swallow followed, like forcing down something that refused to go down willingly.
She didn't spit it out. It was not in her nature.
But her brow furrowed by a millimeter, nose twitching slightly. Then, her fingers pressed harder into her bar, its wrapper crinkling under the same grip that often held Excalibur.
I watched her force down the second bite and asked.
"Disgusting, right?"
Artoria paused mid-chew. Her eyes slid toward me, and she replied.
"Exceptionally." Another swallow.
"Why do you eat something this disgusting, Master?"
I turned the bar over in my hand, studying its green tinted covering.
"Because it's supposed to make me feel human."
Artoria's chewing stopped entirely.
She looked at me quietly, eyes holding still on my face, searching for something.
The bar sat half-eaten in her grip. A faint imprint of her teeth marked that bite she'd taken, and a single crumb clung to the corner of her mouth.
She didn't notice it, or didn't care.
"Feel." Artoria repeated my word. "Not are. Feel."
She understood. I saw it in the way her gaze dropped to that bar in her own hand—how her thumb traced its wrapper, slow and absent, the same unconscious pattern her finger had drawn against her thigh earlier.
I took another bite. Artificial sweetness coated my tongue again, and its chalky texture pressed against my lips, registering every unpleasant note with perfect clarity, [Ultimate Analyst] made certain of that.
Artoria lifted her bar again.
She studied it for a moment—its green-tinted covering, those dense compressed grains, that faint chemical color. Her expression shifted, carrying the quiet resignation of someone preparing to swallow medicine.
Then she bit into it.
Another forceful chew. Another deliberate swallow. Her jaw tightened with each motion, and I watched her throat work against its texture with that same stubbornness she'd brought to every battle we'd fought together.
She didn't have to finish it. I hadn't asked her to. She could have set it down, and nothing between us would have changed.
She kept eating.
"You don't have to." I said.
"I know." A pause between bites. She wiped the crumb from her mouth with a swipe of her hand. "But you said that it's supposed to make you feel human."
Her eyes met mine.
"Perhaps I would like to feel that as well."
She lifted the bar again before I could respond. Her teeth sank into it with deliberate aggression, brows furrowing further.
Artoria was less eating, and more conquering.
Each of her bite was precise. She would tear off a portion, chew it exactly enough to swallow without gagging, and force it down with a rigid breath. Then, study what was left with intensity.
Her focus was absolute.
I catalogued every twitch of her jaw, every forced swallow, every millimeter her brow furrowing in quiet warfare against that synthetic taste. I was so entirely focused on analyzing her battle that I completely failed to register her shifting weight.
Which should have been impossible. [Ultimate Analyst] tracked all variables. It never missed something as mundane as physical proximity.
But it did.
Her shoulder pressed into mine.
Warm and solid.
...
..
.
***
[200 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter]
[5 chapters ahead on P@tr3on = [email protected]/Not_Aaryan]
...
[Authors Thoughts]
Have a productive day, everyone!
Take care.