The hum of damaged systems was constant now.
Like the base was breathing wrong—wheezing, sparking, limping forward. There was no sunrise here. Just flickering overhead lights, cracked walls, the occasional whine of a half-repaired bulkhead.
Jack lay on his side, coat crumpled like a blanket over one shoulder, eyes unfocused, head against his arm.
The cot wasn't comfortable. Nothing in Chaldea ever had been. But that wasn't why he couldn't sleep.
He exhaled, slow.
"Tch…"
Everything was too quiet.
No sirens. No rayshifts. No monsters clawing at dimensional seams.
Just… time. And with it, thoughts.
Unfortunately.
He hated thinking. Not in the performative "ugh, school's hard" way, but in the way animals hate fire. It meant movement. Decision. Responsibility. He preferred when things moved around him. Through him. Over him. He was good at that.
Drifting.
Letting the flow of things carry him like a paper boat on rainwater.
But lately? He was swimming. Worse—walking.
He'd killed a Servant. Three, technically.
Cu had helped. Mash had shielded him. Moriarty had drawn fire. But it had been him that moved. And he hated that.
That kind of movement—it left marks.
He stared at the cracked ceiling.
The room smelled like smoke and sterilization foam. He hadn't changed clothes. They were still the same wreck he had since Fuyuki.
"Lev called the old man 'Professor'…"
The words left his mouth before he meant them to.
He scowled.
His servant hadn't said much since they returned. Typical. The bastard was all mystery and smirks, like some detective villain halfway through a story arc.
Mash hadn't said much either.
He didn't know what her Noble Phantasm was. She didn't know either, technically—but she'd done something in the last fight. Something big. A block that shouldn't have worked, mathematically. She stood there, shield braced, and Saber's mana-drenched sword crashed against it—and didn't break through.
Not normal.
But then, nothing was.
He sat up, letting his legs hang off the side of the cot. Wiped his face with the sleeve of his coat. Still smelled like singed leather.
The images were back in his head.
Not Saber. Not the explosion.
The city.
No world beyond it. A boundary like fog. A sphere of reality carved out of space.
"It was a cage."
He said it aloud this time. Letting it form made it realer.
Fuyuki hadn't just been a warzone. It was a construct. A limited singularity, fake as a movie set.
Lev—or Flauros—had made it that way.
"Magecraft that can twist history. Carve fake realities. Control people. Use shadows of Servants, of heroes…"
Jack's jaw clenched.
Not from anger. From the edge of panic that he wouldn't admit was there.
If they could do all that, what was the point of fighting?
If history could be rewritten, why not just erase him next?
He wasn't special. He wasn't meant to survive. Lev had all but said that outright. He was a fallback, a placeholder Master. Not even supposed to exist. Not worth targeting.
Yet here he was.
Still here.
Because he had moved.
And that was the problem, wasn't it?
That moment where instinct kicked in—when his body acted before his mind caught up—that wasn't him.
He wasn't like that.
He didn't do things unless he had to.
He stared at his gloved hands.
"There has to be a better way…"
A way to stay still. To keep floating. To avoid being in the center. To let the world spin while he watched from the shore.
He wasn't a hero.
Wasn't even a Master, technically—not a proper one. No training. He wasn't someone who changed the world.
But now the world was broken, and somehow, that meant he had to.
He hated it.
He hated that thinking about it meant accepting it.
He laid back down, arm over his eyes.
Tried not to picture Olga's face as it faded. Tried not to hear Lev's voice saying you were an error I tolerated. Tried not to remember the Grail's hum—the feeling in his chest when he stared at it too long.
"I don't want to be important."
He didn't mean to say it aloud.
But the words just slipped out.
And they sat there, unanswered.
Like everything else.
Outside, through the cracked porthole above his bed, the artificial sky of Chaldea flickered. Repaired in segments. Never quite right.
Tomorrow, someone would tell him they'd located the next Singularity. That the Rayshift system was almost back online. That Roman was panicking, Da Vinci was scheming, and Mash was waiting.
He'd go. Of course.
But tonight?
He let himself drift.
-
The lights hadn't even flickered to "daytime" yet. Not that anyone noticed anymore.
Jack opened his eyes before the announcement chime.
No knock. No alert from the Command Room. Just… awake.
His body knew something was wrong before his head caught up.
Old instinct. He hadn't always had a bed, after all. Sometimes waking up early meant you lived longer.
He sat up slowly.
The cot creaked under him, dusty and warped from repurposed materials. He didn't bother stretching. Just let his feet hit the cold floor and leaned on his knees.
A breath.
He hated this part.
He still hadn't changed.
Same coat, same scuffed shirt. Still scorched where Saber's mana burst had seared near the ribs. Dust, ash, a little dried blood. Mostly hers.
He scratched his head. Didn't know if the showers were even working. No one had told him anything. For all he knew, the tech crew was still manually rewiring the Rayshift core.
"...Should've asked."
Didn't matter. He wasn't here to look good.
He stood up and started pacing, slow.
Thinking.
"Magecraft, huh…"
The word tasted like static in his mouth.
It wasn't real to him until Fuyuki. Not truly. Not until he saw Servants tear concrete apart with ancient legends made physical. Until he saw history shattered and rebuilt in the shape of a burning city.
Not until he saw the Grail.
It didn't look like a prize. It looked like a tool.
He stopped.
Scratched his cheek.
"I'm not a magus."
That wasn't new. He knew that.
Couldn't draw a Circle. Could barely feel mana.
He wasn't trained. No family crest. No lineage. Just… "suitable enough" in a crisis. Disposable. Forgotten.
But.
He'd survived.
Fought.
He'd killed.
And more importantly—he'd seen. Enough to start asking questions.
"Can't they just… implant that crap?"
That was it. That was the question.
If magecraft was so modular—bounded fields, storage in mystic codes, spells in swords—then why the hell did anyone have to learn anything?
If he couldn't cast it, could he just carry it?
If circuits were the problem… couldn't you just put them in?
It wasn't elegant. Wasn't deep.
There had to be a cheat. Something he could fast-track. Magecraft for idiots.
"Da Vinci's here, right…? 'Genius inventor', 'Rider of Renaissance', and all that? She should be able to do something."
Maybe she'd call him stupid.
Maybe she'd laugh.
But maybe, just maybe—
"If it works, I don't care how stupid it sounds."
And on that note—he finally remembered something.
He muttered it aloud, walking toward the door:
"Wait, she's a chick?"
The thought hit him weirdly late.
He blinked a few times, opened the door.
"Huh…"
He really hadn't processed that before.
Fuyuki hadn't exactly been great for introductions. Between flaming dogs, corrupted grails, and falling cityscapes, noticing Da Vinci's gender hadn't even cracked the Top Ten.
He stepped into the hallway, stretching his arms up with a sigh. Felt one of his shoulders pop.
Chaldea was still half-dark. The overhead lights flickered on and off in sequence as the day-cycle tried to simulate something like morning.
The walls were cleaner now. Damage scrubbed. Some cracks filled with magecraft-infused sealants. Still smelled like ozone and burnt wire.
He walked slow, half-yawning.
Not toward the showers—he didn't know where they were, and he was too lazy to ask. Besides, he liked the way people winced when they smelled burnt leather and blood off him.
Made it easier to pass in silence.
He turned a corner near the central atrium—
And there was Cu, crouched on the far side of the corridor.
Alive. Awake.
Leaning against the wall, arms crossed, long blue hair damp. Probably had used the showers.
His red eyes tracked Jack the moment he stepped into view.
Jack didn't wave.
Just squinted.
"You're already up?"
Cu snorted.
"You think a Lancer sleeps late? I'm up with the war drums, kid."
Jack blinked once.
"You're Caster."
Cu grinned.
"Same difference. Muscle memory's hard to kill."
Jack glanced over his shoulder. No one else. Not yet.
"Command Room not calling?"
"Nah. Systems still syncing." Cu tilted his head. "Roman said it'd take a bit more. Da Vinci's patching the leyline anchor first. Still some instability."
Jack clicked his tongue.
So it wasn't time yet.
He looked back at Cu, who was now eyeing him like a hawk.
"...What?"
"You stink."
"Showers even working?"
"Yeah."
"Then that's a tomorrow problem."
Cu barked a laugh. Looked like he appreciated the apathy.
Jack started walking again, hands in his coat pockets.
"Where's Da Vinci?"
"Workshop, probably. She pulled an all-nighter again. Something about recalibrating pseudo-spatial ratios. I didn't ask."
Jack grunted.
Didn't ask either.
But he was going there.
Not because of protocol. Not because of duty.
Because maybe—just maybe—there was a way out of this that didn't involve learning anything.
He wanted tools, not lessons.
And if this world was broken enough to bring legends to life with a cup?
Then maybe he could break it back.
-
He watched the kid disappear down the corridor.
Didn't say goodbye. Just walked.
Typical.
Cu leaned back against the wall again, folding his arms. Let out a breath through his nose.
He hadn't expected any of this.
Not this Grail War.
Not this kind of battle.
Hell, he wasn't even summoned for a proper one. No Master. No contract. Just a blink, a blur, and suddenly there he was—standing in fire, staring down monsters, with shadows instead of Servants.
Didn't take long to figure something was wrong.
And then?
A kid in a coat holding off a Servant by the skin of his teeth. A half-armored girl with the aura of a Saint but none of the confidence. A damsel barking orders she couldn't back up. And that bloody Grail sitting there like it owned the place.
"This ain't a Holy Grail War," Cu muttered to himself. "This is a bloody mess."
And yet.
He was still here.
Still alive.
Still standing in Chaldea—whatever the hell that meant—told that he was fighting to "preserve human history."
Wasn't that a kicker?
He wasn't exactly heroic material. Not like the others. He'd killed too many. Laughed too hard while doing it. Hell, the best story they tell about him is how many spears he jammed into one poor sod's guts.
Sure, he stopped an army once.
One army.
This? Seven Singularities? Reality itself twisting on a dime?
"I'm a warrior, not a goddamn cosmic janitor."
But he hadn't said no.
Not once.
His eyes flicked down the corridor again, where Jack had vanished.
"Still," he said with a grin, "for a first-timer, that kid handled himself."
He'd expected worse.
Expected the Master he'd save to be the usual sort—cocky, untrained, and screaming. He'd jumped in to help them fight that Medusa-like creature and figured he'd spend the rest of the day dragging someone behind him while getting whipped by curses.
Instead, the kid had adapted.
Sure, he wasn't a fighter. Movements were raw. No aura. Just instinct, grit, and a kind of stubborn laziness that somehow kept him breathing.
Laid-back. Open-minded. Smart enough to run when needed, bold enough to charge when forced.
"Bit lazy, though," Cu muttered, smirking. "Bet he'd lie down in the dirt if it looked soft enough."
But he respected that.
There was something in Jack's eyes.
A survivor's spark.
It reminded Cu of himself.
And the girl—Mash.
He shook his head.
"Now that's something."
A Demi-Servant. The term alone was nonsense. Someone had tried fusing a human with a Heroic Spirit. Half and half. He'd never heard of it working.
She hadn't even awakened properly. Didn't even know what her Noble Phantasm was. Yet there she was, guarding the frontline. Shield in hand, fighting off corrupted legends like she'd been born to it.
No family crest. No formal training.
Just heart.
Cu respected heart.
She tried too hard. He could see the strain. The doubt. But she stood.
That meant something.
"Pressure must be eatin' her alive," he muttered, quieter now. "Whole weight of humanity on her back."
Didn't seem fair.
But nothing about this job was.
Then there was Olga.
Cu's face soured a bit, but not out of dislike.
She wasn't a fighter. Wasn't brave, really.
But she was trying. He saw that.
She'd shouted orders, tried to stay composed. But the battlefield broke her piece by piece. And when Lev—that bastard—had turned? The look in her eyes...
"She really believed in him, huh…"
He'd caught the implication, even if the words had been veiled.
Lev hadn't just worked with her. He'd raised her.
Treated her like a daughter.
And then used her like kindling.
Killed her without blinking.
Just part of the plan.
Cu wasn't sentimental, not much. But even he flinched at that one.
"Pretty little thing," he said with a sigh. "Didn't deserve that kind of end."
Couldn't have saved her.
Didn't stop him from wishing he could.
As for the Archer...
That professor...
"He's a slippery one," Cu muttered, glancing sideways. "But he fought well."
He didn't trust the type.
Too many secrets. Too many smirks.
But battle proved a man's worth. The Archer had stood tall. Used brains instead of brawn. Had probably figured out more than he let on, even during the fight.
Cu didn't need to like a man to respect him.
And Archer?
He fought like someone who understood stakes.
That was enough.
So now?
Seven Singularities.
Cu ran a hand through his damp hair, eyes closing for a second.
Didn't know what any of that meant yet. Barely understood the half of what Roman was talking about with "Foundation of Humanity" and "Chronos-curves."
But if the world needed saving?
Then he'd do what he always did.
Fight.
And if the kid led the charge?
He'd follow.
"Humans these days…" he muttered. "Always makin' things complicated."
He cracked his neck, rolled his shoulder, and stood up.
"Guess I'm in."
-
Fuyuki had been... a curiosity.
Nothing more, at first.
A localized distortion with oddly precise boundaries. No surrounding terrain. No exterior geography. Just a city—burning, collapsing—sealed off from the rest of the world like a snow globe dropped in pitch.
Moriarty had noticed immediately.
He'd left the others for a scant few minutes during their so-called "plan," claiming he had to scout, calculate trajectories—something suitably Archer-like. The truth? He had raced through the edges of that constructed hell in less time than a bullet splits air. Servants were fast. Heroes even more so. And he? He was neither. He was an idea, immortalized in ink.
Still fast, though.
What he'd seen confirmed his suspicions. A closed system. Shadow Servants with fragmented souls. Magecraft rituals that reeked of patchwork thaumaturgy. And the Grail? In the hands of Artoria—clearly not herself.
"Crude," he'd muttered at the time, examining the air like a sommelier judging vinegar. "This isn't refinement. This is brute force."
Not his style. But someone's.
And now?
He stood in the cold shell of Chaldea, sipping warm tea with hands that no longer felt truly corporeal. Jack had passed by him not long ago—ragged, barefoot, already scheming. The others were rousing, slowly.
Moriarty, of course, had barely slept.
Thinking was far more efficient.
Always had been.
A hero.
He grimaced at the word like one might at a poorly aged wine.
That was what he had to play this time.
Of all things.
He looked down at his gloves, flexing his fingers. Constructs, really. Like the rest of him.
He'd never been real.
Sherlock Holmes's equal and opposite. An archrival crafted for narrative conflict. A name, not a man. A page in a book.
"Disgusting," he whispered with a smile.
But people's tastes changed.
Once, they adored clean-cut heroes with gleaming swords and sharp jaws. Now, they liked their saviors dirty. Grey. Cynical. Complicated.
Who better than him?
Who better than the Napoleon of Crime, cast now as reluctant guardian of humanity?
Most don't realize it.
But he is willful.
Very much so.
He remembers the summoning clearly. The flicker of contract. The resonance of purpose. The first words he had in mind?
"I wish to destroy the world."
Purely theoretical, of course.
He was curious. What would break first? What systems would fail? Which of man's brittle ideologies would shatter under real pressure?
A thought experiment with explosive potential.
And Jack—the young man who'd answered him—hadn't even reacted, spiritually. Not surprised. Just... "nodded". As if it were normal. As if he understood that kind of apathy.
Someone who hated thinking, Moriarty had noted.
Someone like so many today. But one who admitted it?
Rare.
Charming, even.
But this?
This was too easy.
This wasn't some fragile world Moriarty would get to dismantle for curiosity's sake.
It was already gone.
"So Goetia has already won," he murmured, pacing through the ruined halls of Chaldea. "The incineration has already begun. How disappointing."
No experiment left to run. No hypothesis left to test. No society left to unravel.
Merely ashes.
Being a villain in a world already ended... what was the point?
Where was the fun?
So, he would help.
Out of principle, perhaps.
Out of boredom, more likely.
Not to save humanity—no, never—but to play. To interfere. To complicate the plans of another "intellect" who thought himself superior.
That Flauros... no, that Goetia... presumed far too much.
There was joy in villainy only when there was opposition.
And if no one else would challenge this infernal theocracy of annihilation?
Then Moriarty would.
With a grin. With a cane. With a sniper rifle.
The young ones, though...
They were fascinating.
The girl, Mash. A mystery clad in armor, wielding a shield too big for her frame and a heart too big for her body. Not yet a proper Servant. Not yet a proper human, either.
The Irish Caster—Cu. More perceptive than expected. Respectable, in his savage simplicity.
And Jack?
Lazy. Blunt. Sloppy.
But Moriarty had seen it. In the thick of fire, in that final stretch when all was collapsing—he'd acted. Moved. Took risk not because it was calculated, but because he had to.
Even laziness, when forced to think, could become brilliance.
Sometimes, especially so.
"The most dangerous man is one who refuses to play by the rules, but knows them," Moriarty said, smiling softly. "I suppose I shall invest in this one, for now."
He leaned on his cane, looking out toward the remnants of the Control Room. Alarms dim now. Lights flickering in a low, exhausted hum. The countdown to the next Singularity? Not yet begun.
He would need a plan.
Not a battle strategy. That was Cu's realm. Jack's, in theory.
No, he would plan for after.
Plan to counter even the likes of a Grand Caster.
Plan for a world already ended.
Let the young think he's a "support" role. Let them ask him to fight up front.
He's used to that.
Underestimation was always his favorite piece on the board.
"Let the game begin, then," he whispered.
And he grinned.
-
The ruins of Chaldea stretched around her—broken steel, shattered glass, the scent of burned circuits mixing with stale air. The aftermath of a war no one had wanted but all had been forced into.
She walked slowly, footsteps echoing through the hollowed halls. The battle was over. They had won... but at a cost.
Saber was dead.
Olga was gone.
Lev's betrayal still stung fresh in her mind.
Her chest tightened, the weight of it pressing harder than any enemy's blade.
They had done what seemed impossible—defeated Saber, Archer, and survived the onslaught. Yet, victory felt hollow.
She hadn't even seen Saber fall.
The name "Galahad's whelp" whispered in her ears, echoing softly from memory. She'd caught it just before the end—the faintest trace in the chaos.
Galahad.
A legendary knight. The purest of the Round Table. The one who never faltered, who bore the holy grail.
Was that who she was bound to?
The thought was both strange and familiar.
Something deep inside stirred. A quiet resonance, faint but insistent.
Ambiguity.
It was as if the spirit tethered to her struggled with its own purpose—a burden it bore reluctantly.
No words formed, only a weight of unresolved duty.
She wasn't sure if she was ready to carry it.
She didn't even know who she truly was.
Not yet.
Her gaze lifted, eyes scanning the corridor.
Footsteps approached.
Jack.
His figure appeared through the haze—disheveled, his clothes rumpled, still raw from exhaustion. But there was purpose in his stride.
Purpose mingled with that familiar laziness.
She forced a small, tired smile.
"We did it," she whispered to herself. "We're still here."
But her heart remained unsettled.
They had won the battle, but the war... the war was far from over.
Jack's eyes met hers.
No words yet.
Just the quiet weight of survival, of the fragile hope they both clung to.
And in that silence, Mash felt a flicker of something new—maybe trust, maybe understanding.
Or perhaps just the calm before the storm.
-
Jack's lips parted just as Mash opened her mouth. Their voices would have overlapped, but he cut in first, voice low and calm but carrying that usual lazy edge.
"Da Vinci… and the rayshift. Are they ready yet? Can we go back?" Jack's eyes flicked to her, expectant but guarded.
Mash blinked, steadying herself after the exhausting fight. "Yes, the repairs are complete. The rayshift can activate anytime. Should I prepare?"
Jack shook his head, already turning away, hands shoved into his pockets, sleeves rolled up despite the mess around them. "No. Not yet. I've got some other ideas first." He glanced back briefly, smirking faintly, a little tired but focused. "If we're going to fix this, I want to make sure we're not just running blind."
Mash frowned slightly, watching him move down the hall. "What kind of ideas?" she asked quietly, hoping he wasn't just stalling.
Jack didn't answer right away, instead muttering under his breath, "It's not like I'm a proper Magus or anything… but I've seen enough bullshit magecraft today to know there's got to be a shortcut or a loophole somewhere. I'm gonna try to find it before we jump back into the frying pan."
Mash felt a flicker of relief. Despite his grumbling, he was thinking ahead. They needed that.
She quickened her pace to catch up beside him, ready to support however she could.
-
Jack pushed open the door to the war-damaged command room, still in his usual mess of a fit — dirt-streaked, shirt untucked, sleeves rolled halfway up. Not a care for appearances; not now. The faint hum of damaged equipment and flickering emergency lights set the grim tone. Da Vinci was already there, standing beside Roman, who looked over some data streams, his expression taut with focus. Moriarty lounged nearby, calm as ever, eyes sharp.
Moments later, Mash and Cu quietly entered behind Jack, their steps echoing softly in the hushed room.
Roman glanced up, about to speak. "The rayshift repairs are complete. The system should be ready to—"
Jack cut him off, waving a hand dismissively before turning to Da Vinci. "Forget the rayshift for a second. I've got an idea… implants. Magic implants. They plug skills and knowledge directly into your brain. No slow, boring training."
Da Vinci's eyes lit up, shifting from her usual playful demeanor to serious scientific interest. "Implants? That's… intriguing. The concept isn't new — Chaldea and even other magi have toyed with neural implants before. The major problem has always been the lack of complete neurological understanding. We simply can't map every nuance of the brain."
She took a breath, voice growing enthusiastic. "But with my magecraft? That limitation might be bypassed. The 'magic' could fill in the gaps where science falters. Basically, ignoring the holes in our knowledge."
Jack raised an eyebrow. "Sounds promising."
Da Vinci smiled, a spark of excitement. "I mean… I can do it. I am the amazing Da Vinci, after all! There's always a chance of permanent brain damage — that risk's part of the deal — but in our current situation? I'd say the risk's worth it."
"It beats what I was working on, a Mystic Code for you, anyways. So, I'll focus on that idea first".
Her tone softened, and with a friendly grin, she looped an arm around Roman's shoulders, turning the spotlight on him. "Luckily, we do have a doctor on hand. No need to worry."
Roman gave a small, somewhat embarrassed nod. "I'm here to help, yes."
Jack folded his arms, nodding approvingly. "Fantastic. So, what's the plan? How long will this take? What kind of knowledge do I get? And what do you suggest? You're the genius here."
Da Vinci tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Well… scanning myself would be too complex — I have too much stored knowledge. But I could isolate and copy just basic magecraft-related memories and skills into the implant."
Jack frowned slightly. "I'd want more than just magic. Basic human skills too. Engineering, sociology, geography — stuff that actually helps in the real world."
Da Vinci hesitated. "That's tricky. Right now, it's either magecraft or general knowledge. I can't do both at once."
She glanced at Roman. "We could try scanning some of the remaining staff for general knowledge. But the catch is: they can't stop working, especially right now."
Roman immediately stiffened but nodded. "I can take over the rayshift control for a bit. It's not as demanding as direct operation — just enough to keep it stable."
Jack gave a slow nod, weighing the options. "Alright. Let's do it. Magecraft knowledge, plus some of that human skill if you can get it from the others."
Da Vinci's eyes gleamed with challenge. "Leave it to me. You'll be a proper Magus in no time… well, almost."
Moriarty, watching the conversation unfold, adjusted his gloves with a slow, almost idle grace, a flicker of interest dancing behind his monocle.
"'So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong…'"
"Hm. Asking for wisdom? How very... Solomonic of you."
The word hung in the air like a poisoned dart dipped in honey.
"Quite ironic, really — for someone who proclaims to dislike thinking altogether."
The name Solomon left his lips with velvet smoothness, but Roman — just for a moment — flinched. A twitch. Barely perceptible. But Jack caught it. He ignored it outwardly, but not internally. No detail like that would go unfiled.
Instead, he pivoted.
"Moriarty," Jack said, calm and even.
There was a pause.
Moriarty's fingers froze on his gloves. He had never said his name. Only "Archer." Lev — Flauros — had called him professor in the heat of battle, but even so… He allowed himself a small, resigned sigh.
His smile stayed fixed, but a hint of disappointment touched it — a quiet, inward sigh at having his little mystery unraveled so soon. But then again… wasn't that always the curse of intellect? To leave breadcrumbs too tantalizing for clever minds to ignore?
He chuckled, more amused than wounded.
"Ah… well. I had hoped to reveal it in a more… flourished fashion. Thunder, lightning, perhaps a monologue or two. But yes — it seems the cat is out of the bag."
"Professor James Moriarty, at your service. Consulting criminal, mastermind, and — for reasons even I find somewhat distasteful — the current iteration of a Heroic Spirit."
Mash blinked. "Moriarty? Like… Sherlock Holmes' Moriarty?"
Cu muttered something under his breath. "So that's why you sounded like a pompous prick. Should've guessed."
Roman ran a hand down his face, looking somewhere between impressed and horrified. "We summoned Moriarty. Into Chaldea."
Da Vinci? She just smirked.
"Hah. I had my suspicions. The coat, the cane, the tone. Not exactly subtle, you know. You criminals really do enjoy making a scene."
Moriarty gave a grand, mock bow. "Touché. I suppose secrecy was always doomed to die in the face of brilliant minds."
Then, with theatrical flourish set aside for a moment, Jack continued — serious now.
"I still think we need to get to the second Singularity fast. But... maybe not that fast."
Mash and Cu turned toward him.
"I don't know what kinds of enemies we'll face there — if they'll even be like what we saw in Fuyuki. But it's our only sample. So I've been thinking — how did those fights actually go?"
Mash and Cu turned to him. He looked serious — far more than usual.
"I don't know what kinds of enemies we'll face there — if they'll even be anything like what we saw in Fuyuki. But it's all we've got to go on, right? Our only sample. So I've been thinking — how did those fights actually go?"
He began to pace, slowly.
"Medusa. She was Servant Lancer, but… not that dangerous. She ignored the squishy targets — me and Olga — and went after Mash and Caster instead. Strange choice, no?"
"Then Archer. Guy did try to kill me. But even then, he died too easily."
"Then Saber. Powered by the Grail. Should've been the strongest of them all. Still went down. Not without effort, sure. But…"
Jack frowned. "It doesn't make sense. Goetia supposedly destroyed all of human history. That's some broken-level power. So if he exists, then enemies like that exist. What we fought? It felt like a warm-up. Even Flauros — Lev — just monologued and let us walk out. He could've killed us. Why didn't he?"
Cu crossed his arms, leaning back on a console. "Strength-wise? They were about average. I mean, Medusa, Saber, Archer… they're no jokes, don't get me wrong, but they weren't monsters, either. I'm pretty strong myself — as a Lancer. Not this caster gig. But I'm no fool. I know I'm not invincible."
He grinned. "As for arrogance? That comes with the territory. We're all legends. Most of us did something crazy enough to echo through time. That does things to your ego."
Moriarty gave a small, amused chuckle. "Indeed. But his assessment is only partly true. Medusa, Saber, even that Archer… and our charming Caster here — they're proud, yes. But not irrational. In battle, such types are rarely so sloppy."
He folded his hands behind his back. "The Grail corrupts. It's almost certainly why they were so reckless — more like beasts than tacticians. Don't expect that again. If your next enemy is lucid, we may not be so fortunate."
Jack nodded, half to himself.
Moriarty went on. "As for abilities? You're absolutely right to be wary. You may have noticed how I didn't miss a single shot. Or how my skill — End of the Spider's Thread — interfered with causality itself. That's not metaphor. I altered fate. These are the kinds of things Servants can do. Abstract, conceptual, and dangerous. We will go in blind every time."
"But don't be afraid. Flauros — Lev — made errors. Many of them. He didn't expect us to survive Fuyuki, and definitely not walk out. He misjudged the threat. He failed to kill Olga the first time. His cover was too perfect — too rigid — the kind that only a man confident in his own omniscience would maintain. That's arrogance."
"And for a Demon God touted for absolute knowledge? The fact that he didn't know things — as he admitted himself — betrays something crucial. Either his supposed clairvoyance is incomplete, or it doesn't exist at all."
Jack exhaled slowly. "Incompetence. Good. We can work with that."
He looked back at Da Vinci now. "Alright. Another thing. Summoning. How many more servants can we handle?"
He tilted his head. "Back in Fuyuki, we got Moriarty because we piggybacked off the leftover Grail energy, Mash's shield, and your fancy summoning system. What about now? I want an army, if we can get one. Not just three or four people winging it."
Da Vinci crossed her arms, thinking. "You're right. We could only summon one back then because of limited energy and poor conditions. But now that we've restored baseline function to Chaldeas and the power grid's stabilized… yes. We can do another summon."
"One," she emphasized. "Right now, just one. Power isn't the issue — the explosion damaged most of our resources. Chaldea was built to support a lot of Masters, so we had all kinds of magical components in stock. But most of it got crushed. Poof."
"You, Jack, have very high compatibility. Easily enough to maintain multiple Servants. Especially with Chaldea passively providing you with mana. But if we want to summon more?" She gestured. "You'll need to collect materials out in the field. Singularities, mostly."
Roman stepped in then, adjusting his coat. "And Rayshift's back online. It can handle about eight people per trip now. So — one Master, one Demi-Servant… and six others. Potentially all Servants. But we have to summon them first."
Then Roman's expression shifted slightly. A note of exasperated fondness crept in.
"…Also. Jack. You're still wearing that disaster of an outfit."
Jack blinked, then looked down at his torn sleeves, his scuffed boots, and a stain that might've once been curry. He shrugged, ironically. "Didn't really notice."
Roman rubbed his temples. "The showers are functional. Have been for a while. Please go use them."
Da Vinci chuckled, patting Jack's back. "He's right. While I prep for the neural scan, go clean yourself up. Roman and I will handle the base calibration. Once you're back, we'll run the implant operation and follow with a new summon."
Jack gave a small grunt of acknowledgment. "Fine. Fine."
As he turned to go, Mash watched him — quietly smiling, almost fond. Cu smirked, following behind, already offering sarcastic grooming tips. Moriarty adjusted his tie, watching the young man with curiosity.
Da Vinci, meanwhile, was already tapping away at the system. "Now, let's see what kind of prodigy we can cook up in that lazy head of his…"
-
The door hissed shut behind Jack, the echo of his boots fading down the hall. For a moment, the command room fell into a reflective quiet.
Da Vinci sighed with a grin. "About time. I was starting to think he'd fused with that jacket."
She turned back to her console, her expression sharpening. The holographic UI bloomed open again — neuron-mapping grids, sympathetic magic arrays, Chaldea's proprietary mana-lattice tech.
"Alright, Roman. Let's get his scan mapped before he comes back smelling like actual soap."
Roman nodded, all levity gone from his face now as he moved toward the second terminal. "You're sure about this? Implanting a compressed cluster of magical cognition into a non-Magus's brain?"
Da Vinci looked up, genuinely serious now. "No. I'm not. But I've done more dangerous things with worse odds and fewer tools. And besides — we don't have time for the traditional path. This isn't teaching a kid how to do an incantation. This is us force-feeding him a survival manual."
She tapped a rune. "I'll cap it at partial integration. Any more than that and we risk neural rejection. But if I slice a chunk out of my own memory bank — a curated segment of magecraft essentials — it should be usable. Think of it like… uploading the cheat codes."
Moriarty chuckled in the background. "A bold experiment. I do admire that in a fellow genius. But let's be clear: the odds of permanent neurological degradation are on the table, yes?"
Roman sighed. "Yes. There's always risk. But Jack's brain activity — even without formal training — it's stable, high-functioning, and unusually adaptable. Psychologically? He's a mess. But neurologically?" He gestured at a scan. "We've seen worse."
Cu whistled. "And I thought I lived dangerously."
Mash spoke up at last, hesitant. "This… is for our survival, isn't it? To make him more like a real Master?"
Da Vinci nodded. "Exactly. Right now, Jack's fighting on instinct. Strategy. Good instincts, I'll give him that. But if we give him even a basic framework of Thaumaturgical knowledge — combat theory, spell-layer awareness, elemental balance — he becomes exponentially more effective. Especially if he's going to command a real team of Servants."
Roman added, "And that's what this really is. Not just the scan. Not just the summon. We're gearing up for the Second Singularity. And I don't think it'll play as nice as Fuyuki did."
At that, Moriarty smiled faintly. "If Fuyuki was ever playing nice at all."
He adjusted his tie yet again. "No. What we saw was a puppeteer too arrogant to bother tightening the strings. But the next act may have a new conductor. One who's far more competent."
Da Vinci glanced at him sideways. "So what you're saying is… we shouldn't count on luck twice."
Moriarty's smile widened, razor-thin. "Luck is merely the illusion of order in chaos. Never bet on it twice in a row."
Roman exhaled and checked his monitor. "Neural calibration arrays are charged. When he comes back, we can run the full imprinting sequence."
Mash lowered her gaze. "And after that… the summon."
Cu looked up. "You think we'll get someone normal this time?"
Da Vinci scoffed. "Normal? Please. We're using an improvised Grail shard system powered by partially corrupted mana running through salvaged quantum leyshifts. Normal left the room screaming five Singularity collapses ago."
She smirked. "But we'll get someone. And that someone? Could make the difference."
The screen flared — the summoning system booted up in the background, slowly stabilizing. Soft gold glyphs floated mid-air like prayer wheels, ready for invocation.
Moriarty's eyes narrowed slightly as he studied it. "So many variables, so little certainty. But... perhaps that's where all this becomes interesting."
Then, footsteps. The sound of boots on tile. Cleaner this time. Lighter.
The door slid open again — and Jack walked back in, scrubbed down, hair damp, a basic Chaldea uniform clinging to him awkwardly, clearly borrowed and too formal for his taste. But it was intact. Presentable. Human.
Mash blinked. "...You look different."
Cu cracked a smirk. "You look like someone who doesn't stink of grail-fueled barbecue. Progress."
Jack rolled his eyes. "I regret everything."
Da Vinci turned, grinning like a fox in a labcoat. "Perfect. You're just in time. Lie down in the chair — we're about to make you smarter."
Jack looked at the device, a blend of magi-tech and surgical throne, and narrowed his eyes. "Smarter, huh? This thing's not going to electrocute me, is it?"
Da Vinci beamed. "Only a little!"
Roman sighed. "Get in the chair, Jack."
He did.
-
Jack sank into the chair with a long exhale. The synthetic leather was cold against his back. A faint hum vibrated through the metal base — the kind of buzz that reminded him of dental drills and brain scans. He kept still.
Electrodes clicked into place along his temples and spine, pads pressed tight to his sternum, wrists, and the back of his neck. His fingers twitched involuntarily. Mana filaments wove like translucent veins across the metal, pulsing softly.
He stared up at the ceiling.
A thought occurred to him.
"Why the hell didn't I use Gandr in Fuyuki?"
A dry smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth.
Right. Because he wasn't an idiot.
Gandr — the basic curse shot. Almost every half-competent Magus could throw it. One of the few spells they drilled into his skull before everything in Chaldea went sideways.
That, Projection, and rudimentary Bounded Fields. Not enough to call yourself a Magus — just enough to pass the entry exam of "Congratulations, you now understand how not to set yourself on fire."
But in Fuyuki? No. That was suicide.
Casting spells against Heroic Spirits wasn't "bold," it was bait. Flash a magic signature in front of them and they'd feel it. Some of them, even from kilometers away. And then? They'd kill you. Out of reflex. Or annoyance.
"And I was supposed to do what? Duel Cu Chulainn with my thumbs and a chant?"
He scoffed. Idiotic.
People forgot — Servants weren't just "strong." They were monsters in human shape. You didn't fight one unless you were one.
So no, he didn't pull out his pitiful Gandr or start tracing kitchen knives in the middle of Fuyuki. He wasn't trying to impress anyone. He was trying to live.
And still, here he was.
Alive. Somehow.
The chair began to glow faintly. Thin lines of script spiraled outward from the floor beneath him — a shifting array of sigils in Da Vinci's handwriting, merged with digital overlays and Chaldea's computational Thaumaturgy.
Roman's voice crackled softly from a speaker.
"We're starting the imprint. Don't fight the sensation. Your memories may feel… heavier. Or louder. That's normal."
Jack muttered, "Define normal."
The world folded.
Suddenly, it was like pressure — not pain, not heat — just weight. Weight being poured directly into his brain. As if thought itself had mass.
Names, terms, diagrams. Logic trees. Incantation phrasings. Theoretical structures. History and heresy and elemental theory stacked like bricks in a collapsing tower.
He didn't see anything. But he knew it.
Not like reading a book. Not like hearing a lecture. More like suddenly realizing you remember a language you were never taught. As if the knowledge had always been there, buried beneath static.
Magical Circuits. Alignment theory. Ether pathways. Shorthand notation for bounded field calibration. Old names — Atlas, Barthomeloi, Zolgen. Their doctrines. Their tools.
He felt his own awareness pulse — expanding, compressing. Like his thoughts were trying to reshape themselves to fit the new parameters.
He forgot to breathe.
Then, just as suddenly, it stopped.
The pressure lifted. The script dissolved.
Jack blinked. His mouth was dry. His heartbeat thudded in his throat. The ceiling above him was the same — sterile, dull, lined with recessed lighting. But everything else felt… louder. More detailed.
He didn't feel smarter. But he understood more.
"Huh."
He sat up.
Roman's voice: "Vitals stable. No neural rejection. Da Vinci, he's fine."
Da Vinci's head popped into view with an expression halfway between relief and scientific curiosity. "Of course he is. I calibrated the knowledge segment to accommodate for cognitive elasticity."
Jack rubbed his temples. "It feels like I got hit in the face with a thesis paper."
Da Vinci chuckled. "Good! That means it stuck."
As he stood, Jack took stock of himself.
Something was different.
He could feel it when he breathed. The way the air moved. The way his own mana responded now — not just energy in his veins, but structure. Order. Pattern.
He looked at his hand. Let his fingers flex.
A whisper of Projection trickled along the tips — not enough to manifest, just enough to recognize the texture of tracing. He didn't try to form anything yet. He wasn't stupid. But the potential was there.
And more than that: context.
He now knew how magic circuits flowed, how to isolate a spell construct from the base thaumaturgical grid, how to modify a Bounded Field's resonance on the fly.
He couldn't do much. Not yet.
But he understood enough to improvise.
That was more dangerous than any incantation.
They moved back to the summoning room.
Mash was already waiting by the console, Cu beside her with arms crossed, half-bored. Moriarty was perched on a stool like a cat in a gentleman's body, amused as always.
The summoning glyphs were lit now — a full-scale circle, stabilized, reinforced by the faint pulse of Chaldea's compromised Grail shard.
Jack stepped into the center.
The air buzzed faintly with potential.
Da Vinci passed him a prepared slip — paper, enchanted, inscribed with a stabilizing chant and incantation keys.
"You don't need to recite all of it," she said, "just focus on the intent. The system will carry the rest."
Roman tapped the monitor. "We've adjusted the filter. The last summon pulled from fragmented data. This time, it should gravitate toward… resonance."
Jack raised an eyebrow. "Meaning?"
Da Vinci smiled thinly. "Meaning the Servant that comes out this time… will reflect you. More than it did previously, anyways."
Moriarty's grin widened. "Oh, this will be fascinating."
Jack looked down at the circle. At the shifting light. At the script spiraling inward toward his feet.
And in a low voice, calm and sardonic, he muttered:
"Let's see who I match with in hell."
He raised the slip, and the ritual began.
-
The summoning circle pulsed.
Not violently — no sudden flash, no blinding torrent — but with pressure. Like the air had grown heavier, tighter, pressing down against the skin and mind in equal measure.
Jack didn't speak. He didn't have to. The ritual had already accepted him. The Grail shard, flawed though it was, pulled deep through the bleached bones of the leyline beneath Chaldea's subspace — and reached out.
The gold light darkened. Red bled into it. Rust and iron and heat.
Jack felt a familiar shift in the atmosphere. The magic didn't swell, it coiled. Controlled. Restrained.
Like a bow being drawn.
Then — in a whisper-crack of air — a figure emerged.
Not from fire. Not from wind. From friction.
A shimmer like heat distortion. Dust. The scent of scorched steel. And in the center of the circle stood a man — tall, broad-shouldered, arms folded, cloaked in red that looked like it had seen too many wars and been mended with sharper edges.
Eyes sharp. Not glowing. But deep. Calculating.
His presence didn't scream. It watched.
Not a king. Not a savior. A weapon.
Silence.
Mash took a tentative step forward. "That's… Archer, right?"
Roman squinted. "I think so. At least — that's the class we registered. No true name yet."
Da Vinci's brow furrowed. "He's not standard. Definitely not a template pull from the Throne."
Cu gave a slow whistle. "Don't recognize him either. Not your usual cape-wearing prettyboy type. But I've seen worse."
The red-coated man turned slightly, gaze drifting to Cu.
And for just a moment — just a flicker — something crossed his expression. A thought.
Is that… Cu Chulainn? Not wearing that ridiculous blue spandex for once? Huh. Looks like he's shifted class. Caster now, is it?...Still alive. Still reckless. I wonder how long that'll last.
He didn't say it out loud. No point. If this was what he suspected — a timeline divergence, a Grail-style summon — then recognition was useless.
He turned instead to the circle's edge, where Jack stood, arms loose at his sides.
"You're the Master?"
Jack blinked. "...Yeah. You the Servant?"
A nod.
"For now."
The rest of Chaldea observed with quiet interest. Roman's terminal pinged.
"Mana-link stable. Bond synchronization minimal, but enough to function. Mana intake... efficient. A little too efficient, actually."
Da Vinci raised an eyebrow. "You saying he's overclocked?"
"Not overclocked. Just—" Roman gestured vaguely, "—refined. Like this one wasn't just a Heroic Spirit. He was forged."
Moriarty arched a brow. "A product of civilization's more… industrial sentiments, perhaps?"
Jack just rubbed his temple. "Can we stop doing the 'he's definitely something spooky' thing after we summon them?"
Eventually, Roman cleared his throat. "Right. Uh. Briefing time."
Mash stepped forward nervously, holding a datapad. "Do you… want to know what you've been summoned into?"
The Archer said nothing. He simply nodded.
Mash looked down at the file and started reading.
"The current state of humanity is classified as incinerated. Human history has been lost — overwritten by anomalies in the timestream. Singularities. Chaldea is the only surviving human oversight agency left, operating from an anchored bubble on the edge of recorded time."
A pause.
"...We've been sending operatives into the anomalies to restore the correct flow of history. Using Servants. You've been summoned to assist in that mission."
The man said nothing for a while. His gaze slowly lifted to the ceiling — or beyond it.
Then he sighed, almost too quietly to hear.
Humanity's been wiped out. And the Counter Force said nothing. Did nothing. Par for the course. They only intervene when they want to. Not when they should.
He glanced sideways at Jack.
And this is the one they handed a Command Seal to? A civilian? No proper training, barely stabilized circuits...But he's alive. Somehow. Fuyuki didn't kill him. That counts for something.
Out loud, finally:
"All of human history gone, huh? That's... quite the job to assign a bunch of amateurs."
Mash hesitated. "We… do what we can."
The Servant didn't mock her. Just looked away.
"I see."
He turned to Jack one more time.
"You can feed me mana?"
"Enough to keep you around," Jack said. "Assuming you don't get excited and start firing city-busting swords at everything."
A faint twitch of a smirk. "I'll restrain myself."
Moriarty, arms crossed, finally spoke again. "He seems oddly compliant."
Cu tilted his head. "You think so? I think he's just sizing us up. The quiet ones always do."
Da Vinci chuckled. "Or maybe he's just smart. Whatever he is, he's ours now."
Jack shrugged. "Could be worse."
The man in red — Archer — finally settled his posture, letting his arms drop to his sides.
Alright. Wiped history. Singularity anomalies. Civilian Masters. Technomagic facilities riding timelines like surfboards. It's ridiculous....But it's my job.
He exhaled, soft, resigned.
Of course the Counter Force wouldn't lift a finger. Not when there's already someone here to carry the weight.
Out loud:
"Just tell me where the next fire is. I'll handle the rest."