Fate: How About a New Savior?

Even within the Clock Tower, knowledge of the secret passage connecting it to the British Museum's underground was limited to a handful of core Magi—mostly the Lords of the Twelve Departments and their close associates.

Shiomi only knew of it because of his connections with two of the Lords from the Democratic Faction.

It wasn't the kind of secret that was particularly large or small.

As the headquarters of the Magus world, even a full-scale assault by the Holy Church wouldn't guarantee its fall, making this passage seem almost irrelevant.

But the situation in the London Singularity was far beyond any previous assumptions.

"...As expected, most Magi—including the Lords—had already left London before the monsters descended, all for various 'legitimate' reasons," Shiomi murmured as he flipped through the Clock Tower's access records.

Only a small fraction of Magi perished alongside the ground-level facilities of the Clock Tower.

The truly influential figures had all made their exits under perfectly reasonable pretexts.

What was the true significance of this quiet exodus? Shiomi wanted to discuss it with Morgan.

But interference from the underground archive was too intense—any contact with Chaldea was impossible.

Had Shiomi not known how to disable the auto-triggered magical book guardians, Mordred and Artoria wouldn't be standing watch at the entrance—they'd be fighting to hold back the library's defenses.

He'd have to make a mental note of this and bring it up later.

With that thought, Shiomi stood up and called out to Sakura, who was assisting with the search.

"Sakura, find anything on your end?"

"Eh? Ah, yes, I've already found it..." Sakura snapped out of her thoughts and responded quickly. "The materials related to the Boundary Record Belt that Dad mentioned—someone already sorted and grouped them all together. They were really easy to locate."

"Someone organized them?" Shiomi looked at the stack Sakura had laid on the table.

So someone had come here before them, reviewed the same materials, and thinking they might be useful to future visitors, had intentionally arranged them in one place.

Who had it been? Shiomi had no idea.

But with no sign of them remaining, no clues left behind, he had no way to track them.

He picked up one of the documents and glanced over at Sakura.

"You're curious too, right? About why that person sorted these records—what their goal was?"

"...No, not really," Sakura admitted, sounding slightly embarrassed. "I was just thinking... is it really okay to leave Saber and Lancer on guard together?"

"If you're worried, go take a look," Shiomi said with a slight smile. "Since the data's been organized, we'll finish this quickly anyway."

"They're our Servants, sure, but their relationship as parent and child... it's not really something we should interfere with," Sakura said, frowning a little. "I just don't really get it."

"Don't get what?" Shiomi asked as he flipped another page, scanning for relevant information.

"Saber's like me. We didn't get to choose who our parents were. From the moment we were born, our paths were already set." There was a note of quiet understanding in Sakura's voice.

Shiomi realized then—meeting Makiri Zolgen earlier must have stirred up memories for her.

"We can't choose where we come from," Shiomi said softly, "but I always hoped that you and Caren could choose where you go."

That had been his thinking when he came to Chaldea as well. The Antarctic was too far removed from the rest of civilization. Even for a Magus, coming and going wasn't easy. He'd feared it would make seeing family too difficult, and had nearly refused.

But in the end, Sakura and Caren had joined Chaldea of their own volition, with their own strength—and become his colleagues.

"That's why I don't understand," Sakura finally voiced something she had never dared to ask. "Why did Dad choose me? Caren was your friend's daughter. She was still a child when she was adopted, so that made sense... but what about me?"

Not asking didn't mean she hadn't thought about it. If anything, becoming a Magus made such questions even more inevitable. The deeper your understanding of the world, the more clearly you grasped the shape of your place in it.

But Shiomi had never treated her poorly. That's why Sakura had buried the question deep down and never let herself dwell on it.

"There wasn't really any special reason," Shiomi said, knowing it was hard to explain. After all, the whole thing had originally been set in motion by BB for reasons still unclear—but for Sakura's sake, he needed to give a proper answer. "...I just wanted to pass on what my master taught me. Instead of having a child with uncertain potential, I thought it made more sense to directly choose someone with exceptional talent..."

He paused, a hint of guilt in his tone. "Pretty lazy of me, huh?"

"That sounds exactly like something you'd do." Sakura smiled, a little troubled but warm. "But... why not get married first? Try having a kid that way?"

"Well, I had just split from Touko at the time... We were close, yeah, but calling it a relationship would've been a stretch," Shiomi said as he flipped through a stack of documents. "And even if that weren't the case, suddenly being told to go find someone to marry isn't exactly easy. I couldn't approach it like a Magus would, with pure pragmatism. But I also didn't want to drag an ordinary woman into all this—turn her into a vessel for a Magic Crest."

"I see..." Sakura responded softly, a little melancholic.

"Besides, I always knew where I was headed. When my time as a human ends, I'll return to the Land of Shadows," Shiomi said with a shake of his head. "I didn't want to leave behind anything too complicated... though, in the end, that didn't go as planned either."

Looking back, his life had certainly been more complicated than that of most Magi.

Still, "There's one thing I'm truly grateful for," he said with a quiet smile. "That you and Caren became my family. That makes me happy."

"It's the same for us." Sakura smiled back just as warmly. "Also, Dad... didn't you forget about Gray?"

Shiomi shook his head. "She's different. We helped her escape the fate she was born into. Until she resolves everything with King Arthur, Gray will keep moving forward, trying to become someone entirely her own."

As he spoke, he flipped through a few more pages, then grabbed two worn volumes from the side. Laying them open to the same section, he began cross-referencing them—and then let out a low gasp.

"I knew it... Heroic Spirit Summoning wasn't something the Tohsaka, Matou, and Einzbern families came up with on their own. The Holy Grail War was just a repurposed version of an already existing guardian system, twisted for selfish gain. The original summoning ritual was created to combat 'a great enemy,' using 'the seven strongest humans' as a weapon..."

"Wait... are you saying...?"

Sakura immediately pushed aside her earlier melancholy and leaned in to examine the material with him.