Shirou Emiya lay on his bed, too tense to sleep.
"Can't sleep?" a voice suddenly asked, prompting Shirou to look toward the source.
Seeing the figure that had appeared in his bedroom without warning, Shirou nodded. "Yeah, Mr. Morpheus, you came in a bit too suddenly."
"No big deal, we're both guys... not exactly intrusive," Morpheus said casually, sitting nearby. "Is it about Illya's mother?"
"Yes," Shirou confirmed, then quipped, "Aren't you British? I thought Brits were particular about boundaries, especially between men."
"Not bad, cracking jokes now," Morpheus nodded approvingly. "Don't worry, Britain's safer than ancient Greece. Back there, I only hung out with charming girls!"
Seeing Morpheus gearing up to recount his romantic exploits, Shirou quickly interrupted, "Mr. Morpheus, can Illya's mother really be revived?!"
Morpheus nodded. "Absolutely. With her soul intact, reviving someone becomes much simpler. The real challenge is when the soul is gone."
"So it's tied to the soul?"
"There's plenty of magecraft to heal physical wounds quickly, but retrieving a soul is among the most advanced aspects of magic. Alchemy's ultimate goal... creating new life... isn't hard for the body but fiendishly difficult for the soul.
"If you could create a new soul, you'd be stepping into divine territory."
Morpheus smiled. "You could think of it that way, but whether creating a soul truly makes you a god, only those who've done it would know."
Shirou listened intently, but afterward, he groaned, "Ugh, how'd this turn into a magic lecture?!"
"You asked, so I explained," Morpheus replied.
Shirou had to admit Morpheus's explanations stemmed from his questions, but that wasn't his main concern now.
"If... I mean, if Illya's mother comes back, what should I do?"
"What, nervous about facing your adoptive father's wife?"
Shirou hadn't said Illya's mother but Kiritsugu's wife, pinpointing his exact worry.
"Yeah, I don't know how to face her… Someone I've never met, practically a stranger, but because of Kiritsugu, she's sort of my adoptive mother, right?"
"At least Illya sees you as her brother, so to Irisviel, you'd indeed be her son.
"By the way, homunculi... like those dolls... can be more obsessive and odd about emotions than humans. It wouldn't surprise me if she treated you like her own son."
Morpheus patted Shirou's shoulder. "Congrats, kid, you've got a new mom... and a kind one at that."
Shirou could only manage a wry smile. After a pause, he said, "I get it. I'll try to adjust to the new dynamic!"
"Why overthink it? Mother or not, it's a process from acquaintance to familiarity. From what I know of Irisviel, she's approachable and kind. Want to know more? Ask your Servant."
"You mean Saber?"
"Yeah. Though Artoria was Kiritsugu's Servant, in the Fourth Holy Grail War, she worked closely with Irisviel. They got along well." Morpheus smiled. "Instead of fretting, think about your future... like what to study after high school."
"Magic?"
"No, I mean university."
Such a grounded comment yanked Shirou from the Holy Grail War back to reality, stripping away the magic and conflict.
"Follow your dreams or pick something you're good at. If you ask me, I'd suggest studying languages, history, archaeology, or mythology.
"But you can learn those in your spare time. Scientific knowledge aids magecraft. Even Aleister Crowley studied things like relativity."
"Aleister?"
"No big deal, just a guy strong enough to crush a hundred of me like a ball."
Morpheus's words shocked Shirou. His home hosted heroes from various eras... King Arthur, Greek champions, Ireland's Child of Light, even Medusa... but none outshone Morpheus. Even the oldest king, Gilgamesh, was easily bested by him.
In Shirou's mind, Morpheus was unmatched, tied to mythic gods!
Yet now Morpheus claimed this Aleister could overpower a hundred of him. Shirou couldn't fathom such strength.
"Not that strong... just able to unleash ten times the energy of infinite universe creation, with pinpoint single-target precision."
Shirou noticed Morpheus's displeasure as he spoke, a rare expression.
"And much of the magical knowledge you're learning came from him and his contemporaries."
Shirou realized who Morpheus meant.
"The Golden Dawn folks you mentioned?!"
"Yeah, though Aleister's more pre-Golden Dawn since he left."
"That's how it is, but honestly, I can't wrap my head around it... what's this about an attack ten times the energy of infinite worlds, precise to a single target?!"
"It's about turning imagination into physics. I don't fully get it either," Morpheus shrugged. "To me, it's like the three easy steps to stuff an elephant in a fridge."
Shirou nodded faintly. Turning imagination into physics sounded abstract... simple in theory, but impossible to grasp in practice.
…
After three days of waiting for his Lesser Grail substitute to mature, Morpheus began the critical step of his plan.
Gilles's soul was released. The moment it was freed, a channel between the world's inner and outer sides opened... not through raw power but via the rules.
With these rules, the channel formed swiftly and stably but would close the instant the Servant's soul passed through.
The Lesser Grail trapped Gilles's soul, dutifully maintaining the channel's existence.
However, a channel built on one Servant's soul was too weak to summon the Greater Grail.
Forcing it would cause the Greater Grail to collapse.
Of course, the Grail's self-monitoring system wouldn't descend under such conditions.
"A Servant's soul acts as the key to open the channel, while the mana forming their body is recycled upon their return, used to stabilize the channel."
Morpheus gripped the floating staff in his right hand.
Dressed in his coat, with three other elemental symbols hovering around him, Morpheus channeled elemental forces into the Lesser Grail.
The initially unstable channel, bolstered by his immense mana, grew steadily stronger.
Once it stabilized sufficiently, Morpheus sighed in relief. Just a bit longer, and the Greater Grail would descend!
No one else was present, a precaution against accidents endangering onlookers. Though Morpheus estimated a 99% success rate, bad luck could hit that 1%.
After a short wait, a massive void appeared in the sky, like an eclipse.
This void mirrored the scene Morpheus saw within the Grail... black liquid poured out, pooling on the ground into writhing, eerie flesh, as if birthing something.
The Greater Grail had appeared!
"What do you want to know? Have you decided your wish?" Irisviel... or rather, Angra Mainyu... appeared before Morpheus.
After speaking, it glanced at the sky's channel, surprised. "You've astonished me. Stabilizing the channel with just one Servant's soul and supplementing the missing mana? If the magus who fought to the death in past wars knew you summoned the Grail so easily, they'd leap from their graves in rage."
Morpheus got to the point. "Can you extract or copy Irisviel's memories?"
"What do you hope to find in them? She has no grand secrets. What's significant to her is trivial to magus... they wouldn't care."
Angra Mainyu smiled. "Not that I mind. I admire her. She's more human than many magus, with true human virtues."
"I just want to revive her. Her soul's still in the Grail, damaged but intact. Even if restored, her memories might be faulty. But you have them, making it perfect."
Angra Mainyu opened its mouth, then shook its head, laughing. "I shouldn't be surprised by anything you do."
It suggested, "You could reconstruct Irisviel's body first, then I'll inject the memories."
Looking at Morpheus, it added, "Let me guess... after getting the Grail, you'll seek knowledge on body reconstruction."
"Cloning tech exists," Morpheus muttered, grasping the Grail, poised between reality and illusion.
The Grail linked with his consciousness, giving Morpheus a chance to commune with this entity... lacking self-awareness but reacting instinctively.
"My wish is…"
Morpheus took a deep breath, voicing a wish he'd carefully considered.
"To answer all the questions in this book."
His action stunned Angra Mainyu. Morpheus pulled out a notebook filled with questions, clearly prepared. Normally, asking the Grail one question fulfilled a wish.
But Morpheus had compiled all his questions into one notebook.
Answering them all was one wish, yet it encompassed many. The Grail would need to address each one.
"There aren't many... just a dozen or so. They look numerous because I detailed them to prevent misinterpretation and limited the answer's scope to avoid trickery."
Morpheus even explained to Angra Mainyu.
"Hah!" Angra Mainyu laughed. Still linked to the Grail, it saw the questions in Morpheus's notebook.
A single question answered by the Grail was a massive gain for most, but he'd listed over a dozen!
One, like "How many ways are there to become a child of the Crimson Mother, a Deep One, and list them," was so complex even the Grail struggled.
Its difficulty rivaled Morpheus's prior question about crossing the Abyss to reach 8=3.
But Morpheus was kind, adding a condition.
"If it can't answer some, skip them. If it can't answer any, I'll change the wish later."
…
In a dim room, Zouken Matou raised his head, a faint smile on his lips.
"It's finally been summoned… Time for me to act…"
***
If you enjoyed this story, don't forget to drop 5 stars and your power stone. And if you want to read more than 70 chapters in advance, feel free to visit: pat reon . com / KangTL