After her main body entered the ROOT, Gaia's request was actually pretty simple—convert Ophis's clone into information, then merge it into the Throne of Heroes.
Really, Gaia lived up to her reputation as an old fox with billions of years under her belt. What looked like a trivial act cost Ophis almost nothing, and in return Gaia gained a remarkably useful permanent asset.
Of course, under normal circumstances you couldn't just casually turn someone into a Heroic Spirit. But Ophis herself carried the King of Heroes's achievements in this world, so it wasn't a problem.
That Heroic Spirit could be considered a "clone" of Ophis, yet it wasn't tethered to her. As long as the information in the Throne of Heroes remained, even if Ophis's true body vanished completely, this "clone" would be fine.
In a sense, it meant Ophis had gained an extra life.
With nothing else to do in the ROOT—and with the massive torrent of information constantly battering her mind, which was about as far from "peace and quiet" as it got—Ophis decisively tossed everything to Sha Naqba Imuru. She projected her consciousness into the Heroic Spirit, and through summonings again and again, she went through quite a lot.
This time, being summoned by Tokiomi Tohsaka wasn't because of Gaia's request. It was because Ophis chose to answer after receiving the call.
Mainly because on the other side of the summoning, she'd sensed a presence that made her… pay attention.
And now, Ophis was wandering the streets of Fuyuki, thinking as she walked.
She'd already changed out of the Uruk-style black robe, switching into clothes that fit this era.
A dark gray skirt and vest, a pink jacket over top, black thigh-high socks—right now, Ophis looked like nothing more than an ordinary cute girl.
She wasn't lacking in modern knowledge, but experiencing it firsthand was still interesting.
Suddenly, Ophis stopped. She sniffed the air, looked diagonally ahead, and narrowed her eyes.
After tilting her head to think, she began scanning around. In the end, her gaze locked onto an unremarkable suitcase tucked into a corner.
Ophis walked over and picked it up.
"Oh! Thank you so much! I've been looking everywhere for this lost one million. As a reward, I'll give you ten percent of what's inside!"
Taking the money, Ophis didn't spare a thought for whether the Golden Rule she'd inherited from the King of Heroes came packaged with some kind of intelligence-nerf aura. She simply walked straight toward the spot she'd glanced at earlier.
"Ooh, little miss, want some cotton candy?"
"Two."
...
Ophis tossed one stick of cotton candy into Gate of Babylon to copy it, then held the other and nibbled in small bites as she returned to her earlier train of thought.
That catalyst used to summon her—if she hadn't misread it—should've been…
But she didn't get to keep thinking.
Ophis caught a scent that felt familiar.
"Saber, look over here!"
"Madam, please be careful."
Around the street corner, a white-haired lady came skipping into view like a child at play, with a blonde beauty in a black suit close behind.
At that moment, the blonde—called Saber—seemed to sense something and glanced aside.
Aside from a few pedestrians who looked like they'd seen a ghost and kept rubbing their eyes, there was nothing unusual.
Well. That alone was already pretty unusual.
Saber frowned, quietly raising her guard. She moved a few steps closer to her lady, then quickly led her away.
From the rooftop of a nearby building, Ophis watched the two leave, cotton candy in hand, tilting her head in mild distress.
Lily had been summoned into the Holy Grail War too?
Ophis's original plan was to wait until the other Servants started tearing into each other, then pull out Ea, Sword of Rupture, and wipe them all out in one sweep. But with Lily involved, things got troublesome.
After all, she'd helped Ophis before. With Ophis's "good kid" temperament, she obviously wasn't going to just kick her out.
They'd deal with it when it came. Either way, Ophis didn't need the Holy Grail—handing it to Lily wouldn't hurt anything.
With that thought, Ophis suddenly felt the urge to open Sha Naqba Imuru and check whether any other summoned Servants had a "Lily situation" like this… but she held back.
Sha Naqba Imuru had two modes: passive and active. In passive mode, it automatically analyzed anything that entered Ophis's line of sight, but that analysis was shallow—at most, the simplest basic parameters.
If she actively opened it, though, it could parse everything from the level of fate itself. If used on an ordinary person, it could reflect their entire life clearly—from when they were still a sperm cell, all the way to the moment they became a ghost and faded away completely. The more complex a being's fate, the greater the resistance to analysis, and the mental strain was enormous.
And if she wanted to grasp the state of this Holy Grail War, she'd have to crank Sha Naqba Imuru's output up to a ridiculous level—directly analyzing the fate of an entire area. With the Root's knowledge still being processed at the same time, the mental drain would be downright horrifying.
More importantly…
When her advantage was already this overwhelming, going and looking up a walkthrough would just make things unbearably boring, wouldn't it?
The future was only fun because it was unknown.
Ophis knew this was the influence of Inori's leftover personality, but she didn't really mind.
The woman was dead—and had left everything she had behind to Ophis. What else was Ophis supposed to do?
Besides, Ophis didn't believe this Holy Grail War contained anything that could threaten her, even if she was only in a Servant body right now.
Then Ophis's eyes sharpened.
Space rippled…
Another Servant manifesting? That shouldn't cause such a strong spatial reaction, and Tokiomi had said all seven Servants were already present.
And yet… this fluctuation felt familiar. Like back during the Singularity…
Ophis quickly finished her cotton candy, tossed the stick into Gate of Babylon, stood, and dissolved into spirit form.
...
"Hah!"
The moment Ophis arrived at the center of the disturbance, she saw it: another Lily—her aura far more immature than the two Lilys Ophis had met in the Singularity and just moments ago—swinging her sword and cleaving a Servant in attire similar to the earlier intruder's.
Behind Lily stood Ritsuka and Mash, and beside them was an unfamiliar man with the look of someone permanently overworked.
"Careful. It's a new Servant signature—this feeling… it's extremely powerful!"
The familiar doctor's voice came through Chaldea's communicator as Ophis approached.
"Is it an enemy?"
Ritsuka and the others looked surprised, but they steadied themselves quickly and took defensive stances. The one who reacted more strongly, instead, was the seemingly composed overworked man—his emotions clearly shaken.
"Why…"
His brow furrowed hard, as if he couldn't understand what he was seeing.
"Mr. El-Melloi, do you know this Servant?"
Mash asked the overworked man called El-Melloi, keeping her guard up.
"No. That's what's strange. In every Holy Grail War I'm aware of, there's never been anyone like her—there isn't even a trace I can recall."
"Then does that mean this Servant is likely the key to this Singularity?"
Ritsuka joined the analysis.
Ophis stood there with both hands in her jacket pockets, head tilted, watching them completely ignore her while they enthusiastically discussed her existence.
Should she cooperate by "disconnecting" for a bit too?
But if that was the case… then for them, this situation counted as the "past," didn't it?
After thinking for a moment, Ophis suddenly showed a smile—one that absolutely could not have appeared on her past self's face, a hint of malicious amusement curling at the edges.
---
T/N: OHHHH THIS IS WHERE THEY MET OPHIS, also lmao ophis was like i smelled cotton candy, let me just get money real quick
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