[Inscription of Stars]
Nine hundred thirty million years after "Tiamat" descended into this world, the fae (demigods) came to this world.
Because of their influence, the surface creatures began to evolve; they developed new life forms and started competing with the primordial life for living space.
Tiamat did not care about the conflicts and slaughter between the new life and the primordial life.
Tiamat's love for life was aimed at the concept of "life" as a whole, not at single individuals.
From the creator-goddess's perspective, it was perfectly normal for her children to fight one another to survive better.
A single individual's hatred might sadden Tiamat, but what truly drove her to despair was humanity's collective unconscious "denial."
Because aside from the lives she created, Tiamat had nothing.
Goddess Tiamat and goddess Gaia, they were not always perfectly successful at each act of creation.
If the ratio of "freshwater" to "saltwater" skewed slightly, or the duet of "light" and "dark" became a little out of tune, what they made would not be a beautiful world but a void of chaos.
At times like that, the creator-goddesses would feel sorrow, sink into gloom for a while, maybe hundreds, maybe millions of years, and then regain their spirits.
For them, even if the "life" they created truly betrayed them, the more likely reaction would be a smile and a shrug. More likely still, the goddesses would leave, sad yet comforted, thinking "the children have grown up."
They had created countless worlds, and besides those worlds, the creator-goddesses had many divine friends in the heavens.
Take Gaia: she wasn't one of the Twelve Olympian deities, but in Olympus, neither Zeus the king of gods nor Hera the queen would dare belittle her.
Gaia did not belong to the Twelve simply because she didn't care. And if she joined, no other deity could stand beside her on equal footing.
Tiamat was the same. Though many coeval deities feared her for various reasons, a goddess with a heavy heart could still find many divine friends to cry to.
But Tiamat was different. Set up as a "Creation Mechanism" and unexpectedly gaining consciousness, everything she possessed was tied only to this world before her eyes.
Her loves and hates, her ideals, the anchor of her existence — all were bound here.
Thus, Tiamat could not accept the children's rebellion, and when humanity bestowed upon her the true name "Source of Calamity," her inner being truly changed.
A creator-god's creations turning away, defying their maker, that was not uncommon. In a sense, crossing that line is the completion of life's true "independence."
Emiya could not and did not intend to change that fact; what he could affect was only Tiamat's mindset.
To replace humanity, the ones about to rebel against Tiamat, and become the anchor in her heart.
That would be a long process, because of the Inscription of Stars: every ten thousand years, he would appear by Tiamat's side for one year.
From the time Tiamat descended until now, it would require at least ten thousand years.
The years he endured were one ten-thousandth of Tiamat's, yet even so, Emiya once lost control.
Back then he nearly forgot who he was, almost sinking utterly into past ages, unable to free himself.
Compared to the ten-thousand-year companionship with Tiamat, everything he had experienced before felt too brief. A cicada's cry in a long winter, gone in an instant, vanished in the wind and snow.
Only later did Emiya realize that those fleeting memories were the anchor that kept him from being lost in the Inscription of Stars.
He began habitually recalling everything, memories with his foster father and sister, and the events that happened in the labyrinth city Orario.
The latter period was shorter, but he recalled it more often.
From then on, Emiya never lost control again; traversing the Inscription of Stars grew easier and easier.
Now, his influence on this world was finally no longer limited to Tiamat's senses.
Emiya truly appeared before her, descending into this world.
———
In the Imaginary Sea, Emiya built a residence.
Tiamat was not the master of the Imaginary Sea, but at least for now she was the most "massive" individual within the visible domain of the Imaginary Sea, and therefore held the greatest authority there.
Within the Imaginary Sea, Tiamat was near omnipotent. She could freely create anything she wished.
The problem was that Tiamat's intellect was that of a child; she still lacked mature capacity to conceptualize fully.
So Emiya took part of the Imaginary Sea's authority from Tiamat and remodeled a limited region to a certain degree.
In the real world, the Imaginary Sea manifests as black mud with no mass and infinite depth; but the true Imaginary Sea is not an ocean of black mud, it is true "nothingness."
No matter, no time, not even orientation... before constructing a residence, one must first establish the concepts of up, down, left, and right.
This step cost Emiya quite a lot of effort; the actual imaginary creation afterward was accomplished with a snap.
Emiya Residence · Imaginary Sea Branch was completed.
As for Tiamat being raised in Emiya's residence and becoming ever more childish and helpless... that is another story.
"You're too excellent, Shirou. Mother's a little worried. You can be even lazier, you know. I'll help you."
She said that, but lying in Emiya's arms, pouting while trying to display motherly dignity, was not convincing at all.
After Emiya had cared for her for several hundred years, Tiamat's form shifted from a goddess full of maternal love into an adorable little girl.
The more juvenile Tiamat became, the more perfected her language function grew; when she aged up, human language actually became less familiar to her.
"As a reward, let me hug you," Tiamat opened her arms and looked at Emiya expectantly.
Emiya smiled and gently lifted her into his embrace.
"Sniff! Sniff!", Tiamat pressed against Emiya's chest, sniffed twice, then tilted her head slightly.
"Someone has connected to the Imaginary Sea... on Shirou's body, there is her scent."
At Tiamat's words, Emiya paused, and his gaze hardened.
Pale golden eyes flashed with starlike brilliance.
Emiya whispered a name.
"Sakura?"
———
[Kansai region, Japan, Oita Prefecture, Fuyuki City]
Fuyuki City is a small seaside town on Japan's far east, named for its supposedly long winters. In reality its climate is relatively mild and it rarely suffers extreme cold. The city sits near an active volcano; if you dig a couple of wells you might find hot springs.
A river called Mio runs through the city, dividing it into two districts with sharply different architectural styles. The east side is the new capital, a highly modern city with everything; the west is the deep-mountain quarter, an old town mostly residential. The two riverbanks are connected by the Mio River Bridge.
The great river connects to subterranean ley lines; as an excellent spirit site, many influential magi moved here long ago, and these magi and Fuyuki's spirit site are managed by the Tohsaka family, members of the Mage's Association at the Clock Tower.
Inside the Tohsaka mansion, a man paced back and forth.
He had handsome, well-defined features and a dignified bearing. Blue eyes, neatly kept brown curls, a beard on his chin. He wore a deep-red suit and a blue silk bow tie.
A high-born, responsible noble scion. That is the first impression this man gave.
Tohsaka Tokiomi, head of the Tohsaka mage family's fifth generation and the administrator of Fuyuki City.
The Tohsaka family managed Fuyuki's spirit site. Tokiomi and his predecessor converted the spirit land into commercial plots and leased them out.
Through magical and mysterious means, Tokiomi protected the lessees of these commercial plots from misfortune, disaster, and spiritual disturbances; somehow they gained business success. Tokiomi regarded the lessees as "tenant farmers tilling the Tohsaka land" and levied rents.
Moreover, Tokiomi made many magical innovations and amassed wealth from patents on magic developed in the Clock Tower; he was known in the Association as a genius.
Born noble, successful in career, harmonious marriage, a happy family, friendly mentors and peers... Tokiomi's forty-seven years as a man could be called the absolute life of a winner.
He faithfully followed the Tohsaka family maxim "maintain elegance," secretly accumulating effort where others would not look, gaining confidence from those efforts, speaking and acting with perfect thoroughness and meticulousness, possessing a balanced, honest character that discarded most of the perversions and evils common to magi.
But now Tokiomi was troubled by two matters, and his behavior showed faint signs of disarray.
One was the approaching Holy Grail War.
The so-called "Holy Grail War" is the struggle over the Grail, which can grant the holder's wish.
Originally the "Ritual of Descent · Heroic Spirit Summoning" was a decisive magical battle to save the primate world: seven heroic spirits standing at the peaks of seven attribute. The Grand-class servants, would appear to annihilate catastrophic threats hindering the primate world's development.
But humanity down-graded that magic into the summoning system now called the Holy Grail War.
About once every sixty years, the ley energy in Fuyuki's earth accumulates enough to support the Grail's descent, and a Holy Grail, a power that can instantly realize any wish, appears in Fuyuki.
However, that power can be claimed only by a Master–Servant pair. Thus an unwritten agreement arose: seven magi, each summoning their heroic spirit, fight for ownership of the Grail, and the last survivor gains the Grail. This is Fuyuki City's Holy Grail War.
This ritual had been held three times before, but for various reasons none of the first three Grail Wars produced a true winner.
Now, as head of one of the Three Great Families, Tohsaka Tokiomi resolved to become the victor of the fourth Holy Grail War.
He had made ample preparations, but even so, with the date drawing near, an undercurrent of tension and unease nagged at him.
That was Tokiomi's secondary worry; his primary concern was his two daughters.
Tohsaka Rin and Tohsaka Sakura.
Although Tokiomi had achievements in commerce and invention, as a magus he was completely mediocre.
His magecraft attribute was the unremarkable single element, Fire. The number and quality of his mana circuits were ordinary, and his natural aptitude for magic was unimpressive.
Yet his two daughters were miraculous magical geniuses.
The elder daughter, Tohsaka Rin, was an "Average One" with aptitude in all five major elements (Earth, Water, Fire, Wind, Void). She had affinity with almost every type of magecraft and could interfere with most existing magics.
Rin's main mana circuits numbered around forty, with two auxiliary sets of thirty each. She could drive three types of magecraft at once without using jewels. Her mana generation reached five hundred, reaching one hundred is considered a top-tier magus.
The younger daughter, Tohsaka Sakura, had an even rarer magical attribute: Imaginary Number.
A magus with the Imaginary attribute can put their hand into the gaps between dimensions. The Imaginary space, nonexistent yet treated as existing, is like a dimensional pocket; objects that fall into it are unaffected by time and space.
This rare attribute alone made Sakura regarded as a magus no less talented than Rin.
Both daughters were peerless prodigies, and for Tokiomi this was a happy trouble: only one of them could inherit the Tohsaka family's magecraft crest.
A magecraft crest is a mystical seal formed from what a magus spends a lifetime training and solidifying. It is the mage-lineage's inheritance.
In any case, Tokiomi could not divide the crest; if he did, one of Rin or Sakura might be unable to pursue the path of a magus.
If their talents were mediocre that would be one thing, but to have such gifts and not be able to use them, to Tokiomi, that would be a tragedy.
"Decide it like this: give Sakura in adoption to the Matou family," Tokiomi thought to himself.
The Matou family is, like the Tohsaka, one of the Three Great Families, but due to a steady decline in heir quality, the Matou house had fallen into crisis.
With Sakura's talent, she could definitely inherit the Matou family's magecraft crest and traditions. Believing the Matou legacy to be water magic, Tokiomi judged this a win-win; it would be good for little Sakura as well.
Why give Sakura away and keep Rin? Because in Tokiomi's judgement, the five-element all-around [Almighty] ability outweighed the lone rare Imaginary [Only One] capability.
"Once the heir is decided, I can concentrate on preparing for the Holy Grail War," Tokiomi was decisive; after making up his mind he immediately negotiated with the Matou family.
For a gift fallen from the sky like this, the Matou naturally welcomed it.
The day after the negotiation concluded, Matou patriarch Matou Zouken came to the Tohsaka residence and took Sakura away. From now on she would be called Matou Sakura.
Then the Matou family disappeared.
Patriarch Matou Zouken, the former head Matou Zounin, the eldest son Matou Shinji, upon facing the figure who emerged from the Imaginary space, they only needed one glance before their eyes were burned away; hot sand flowed from their scorched sockets; without immediately bowing their heads, their spines were crushed, vertebrae snapped and blades manifested at the breaks.
Fuyuki City was not Orario; there were no gods' rules protecting the place. When mortals face transcendents directly, this is the sort of result they get.
———
At the same time, on the other side of the world at the Clock Tower in Britain, a violent shockwave arrived.
Twelve hours after Emiya descended into this world by "Counter-Projection," the Mage's Association convened an emergency meeting.
"The Astronomical Department, Ritual Summoning Department, Modern Magecraft Department, and Individual Fundamentals Department's findings are unanimous—"
"The 'Descent of a Deity' has been confirmed!"
"Existence duration: three seconds... anomalies caused include star chart perturbation, elemental displacement, and geomagnetic chaos."
"The 'gravity' of the 'deity' caused the world to warp."
"The epicenter of the distortion is Japan, Fuyuki City!"
"What, that backwater... wait, Fuyuki City, that name rings a bell."
"I remember now, Fuyuki City, the Holy Grail War... this ritual is for real!"
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