Chapter 128: The Fate/Stay Night Situation
"This reconstruction work — the banging and clanging all day long, I'm going to grow calluses on my eardrums."
Somewhere around six in the morning, lying in bed listening to the enthusiastic din outside, Ryū's mouth twitched.
He grumbled for a bit, then slowly hauled himself upright.
The moment daylight hit, the ninjas got to work. Rebuilding Konoha was going to eat up enormous amounts of time and manpower — practically the entire village was mobilized. Every minute counted, so they started at first light.
The shouted commands, the sounds of jutsu being cast outside...
Ryū yawned helplessly. "Should've bought earplugs. Going to sleep past midnight and waking up at six — for days on end. Sure, technically this body can go without sleep for days and be totally fine. But psychologically, not sleeping in is just... wrong."
He went through his usual morning routine, then let his consciousness slip into the Chat Group.
He stared at the "99+" notification.
These people are genuinely online twenty-four hours a day.
Minutes was all it took for the message count to cap out.
Eternally Seventeen: This is outrageous! That filthy worm Zōken Matou went to Sakura's house and talked circles around Tokiomi Tohsaka — he's trying to get Sakura adopted into the Matou family!
Eternally Seventeen: And Tokiomi AGREED!!
Eternally Seventeen: The adoption supposedly needs another two or three months — some bizarre preparatory ritual apparently — but is this man a fit father? No. No he is not. All of this is Tokiomi's fault!
Sakura of the Tohsaka: Um... Father probably just doesn't know the Matou family's secrets, that's all.
Sakura of the Tohsaka: Should I go explain things to him?
Edward Newgate: That's not a road you want to go down, little Sakura. You're not even five years old yet. Do you think your father would believe any of that coming from you?
Edward Newgate: Even if he did believe you, he'd want to know how a little girl came to know any of this in the first place.
Kaguya-sama: What if we just brought Sakura here to me? I do have some standing in the Shinomiya household — I can absolutely provide for my little Sakura-imouto~
Kaguya-sama: And I've saved up 1,000 Points now, enough to make the crossing!
RawrSoFierce: ...surfacing briefly.
"..."
Ryū skimmed back through the chat log. He had the rough shape of things now.
Tokiomi Tohsaka was already on the verge of handing Sakura over to the Matou family? The adoption was still a few months out pending some bizarre ritual, apparently. But Ryū knew enough about the source material to know exactly what kind of horror show awaited Sakura in the Matou household.
Especially at the hands of that creature Zōken Matou. The man was universally despised, and with good reason.
Whatever Sakura would be put through if she fell into his clutches — it didn't bear thinking about.
RawrSoFierce: I wake up first thing in the morning and you're already at 99+.
RawrSoFierce: Things are moving that fast on Sakura's end?
Kaguya-sama: The Admin has graced us with his presence! Yes, Admin — things have happened on Sakura's end. Her father is trying to adopt her out to the Matou family. To that old worm who absolutely deserves to be cut into a thousand pieces.
Eternally Seventeen: Unacceptable! Just thinking about what Sakura goes through in canon — my fury reignites every single time!
RawrSoFierce: Please. You're an ancient youkai. What haven't you seen.
Eternally Seventeen: Ah... ahem. A demon does not expose another demon's age.
RawrSoFierce: Taking Sakura out of her world isn't without complications. That said, her world's Gaia and Alaya can't break through the dimensional barrier. So there's that.
Sakura of the Tohsaka: ...If I leave, I won't be able to see my sister anymore. Or Mother. Or Father.
Sakura hesitated. Her relationship with her family was warm. The thought of suddenly going somewhere far away — no, not far away. Another world entirely.
That meant no possibility of ever seeing her family again. She was not quite five years old, and she was genuinely torn.
She turned to look out the window, her small face written over with worry. She looked, despite everything, like a little adult — a strange, quiet maturity in her expression.
That was partly the influence of the past few days. Worried about Sakura's situation, the female Group members — Yukari, Kaguya, Tatsumaki — had taken turns filling her in on things children her age typically had no business knowing. Practical knowledge. Real-world frameworks.
And Sakura, somewhat startlingly, had absorbed all of it at remarkable speed.
The result was this: a girl barely past four, nearly five, with the emotional composure of someone several years older.
Sakura of the Tohsaka: I'm just... going to miss Mother and my sister. And Father — he only agreed because he doesn't know the truth, didn't he...
Kaguya-sama: Mm. Separation from family is a real obstacle. I can't dismiss that.
Crazy Diamond: What if we brought Sakura's family over too?
Kaguya-sama: Ha... I only have 1,132 Points. Bringing Sakura alone is already pushing my limit. And would her family even believe any of this? If they believed it, would they agree to come?
Ying Zheng The Sovereign: In Our Imperial opinion: eliminate the enemy, and the problem solves itself.
Wandering Little Planet: Like a bolt of lightning cutting through the fog!
Wandering Little Planet: Kill everyone who means Sakura harm, and it's LGTM!
Eternally Seventeen: There's a certain logic to that...
Eternally Seventeen: Party up and go murder the old worm together?
RawrSoFierce: ...Sakura's world runs deep.
RawrSoFierce: Gaia probably won't intervene. Alaya's a different story.
Ryū decided it was probably worth giving everyone a crash course in the Nasuverse.
The strongest forces in that world were Gaia and Alaya — one the planet's own world-consciousness, known as the "Counter Force of the Star"; the other the Guardian of Humanity, a collective will that emerged to prevent human extinction, known as the "Counter Force of Humanity."
Below them sat the divine spirits, and the Grand Servants who approached divine stature.
Then the more conventional — or distinctively unusual — high-tier Servants, and the serious magicians. Though Ryū personally preferred to call them mages.
Then ordinary Servants.
Then ordinary humans.
It wasn't a perfectly precise ranking — there were always exceptions. The Nasuverse was, in Ryū's honest assessment, fiendishly complicated. Anime, light novels, games — none of them ever bothered to establish a clean, consistent power scaling system.
Which was maddening.
☆☆☆
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