Fate: Question And Answer System of Traversing Heroic Spirits

"What the hell are you doing, Darnic?!"

Time rewinds to just before Gilgamesh unleashed Enuma Elish, when the Heroic Spirits were fleeing the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

While everyone's attention was fixed on the unfolding catastrophe, Darnic made his move.

In the midst of the chaos, he snatched up the unconscious Chihiro and vanished into the shadows.

Sisigou immediately raised his shotgun, but he hesitated afraid that a reckless shot might hit Chihiro instead.

In the next moment, Gilgamesh's attack descended.

The overwhelming force of Enuma Elish's shockwave sent them all flying.

By the time Sisigou crawled out from beneath the rubble, Darnic was nowhere to be found.

Meanwhile, far from the battlefield, Darnic ran through the ruined city, carrying Chihiro's unconscious body.

His breath was ragged, his hands trembling but his eyes gleamed with insanity.

He had found a secluded place, away from the others.

Now, he could finally enact his plan.

What was Darnic trying to do?

Simple.

He intended to devour Chihiro's soul and steal his body.

With Vlad III and Fionn both dead, Darnic had lost his qualifications to compete in the Holy Grail War.

But he refused to accept defeat.

After all, he had already declared war against the Mage's Association.

Even if he somehow survived this conflict, he knew his fate was sealed.

There was no turning back.

That was when he saw Chihiro, unconscious, vulnerable.

A failure's last desperate gamble was born.

Even though soul transference rituals required extensive preparation and precise timing, he no longer had the luxury of waiting.

Besides—devouring the soul of an adult was inherently dangerous.

This was madness.

But Darnic was willing to take the risk.

And he had his reasons.

After conducting a quick examination, he confirmed something important.

Chihiro's coma was the result of severe mental trauma.

That meant—his resistance was weakened.

The risk of failure was significantly lower.

"I refuse to fall here… The glory of Yggdmillennia must be restored!"

With mad determination, Darnic placed a hand on Chihiro's head, his voice trembling with fervor.

"Give me everything you have!"

Then—

With no hesitation, he drove a dagger straight into his own heart.

A necessary step.

To free his soul from his dying body.

As his ritual chant concluded, the transfer began.

His spirit left his corpse, drifting into Chihiro's body.

Or so he thought.

What Darnic didn't realize was that his actions had triggered something within Chihiro.

Something connected to the Holy Grail.

A terrifying force erupted an unseen suction, far greater than Darnic had anticipated.

Both his soul and Chihiro's were pulled in.

---

"…Huh?"

After what felt like an eternity, Chihiro's eyes slowly fluttered open.

A vast white expanse stretched endlessly before him.

"Where… am I?"

His mind was still hazy, struggling to process his surroundings.

But before he could think further.

A sharp, searing pain pierced his skull.

"Tch—!"

Chihiro winced, clutching his head.

The pain was overwhelming, like a thousand voices screaming at once.

Just as he thought he wouldn't be able to withstand it.

A gentle white light descended upon him.

The pain vanished instantly, replaced by a strange comforting warmth.

Chihiro finally regained consciousness. Looking around, he found himself in a vast, empty space, nothing but an endless expanse of white in every direction.

"Where the hell am I?"

Before he could make sense of his surroundings, a figure appeared before him.

She wore an elegant white dress, a silver crown adorned her head, and her long, white hair cascaded to the floor. But what caught his attention most was her face, a visage eerily similar to Irisviel von Einzbern.

However, unlike Irisviel, this woman's expression was emotionless, almost mechanical.

Chihiro, being well-versed in Fate's lore, immediately recognized who she was.

Justeaze Lizrich von Einzbern.

The Holy Maiden of Winter.

One of the three founders of the Holy Grail War, alongside Nagato Tohsaka and Zouken Matou. The very core of the Einzbern family's nine-hundred-year pursuit of the Third Magic, a living embodiment of their success, yet paradoxically, the proof of their failure.

Her creation was never planned, an accidental miracle that shattered the foundation of Einzbern's magecraft.

She achieved the Third Magic, Heaven's Feel, but the process was so inefficient that it rendered their centuries of effort worthless. Even as she proved that the miracle was real, the Einzbern family rejected her existence because it meant their approach was flawed.

But, as always, pride bows to results. They begrudgingly accepted Justeaze and spent the following centuries attempting to artificially replicate her, resulting in generations of homunculi, all modeled after her appearance.

Despite her success, Justeaze was never free.

Her version of Heaven's Feel was flawed, it could only resurrect one person at a time and required years of preparation for a single soul. A far cry from true immortality or the mass salvation Einzbern desired.

Worse still, her body was fragile, incapable of surviving the centuries.

So for five hundred years, she was confined within the city, her existence little more than an experiment left to rot.

Until Zouken Matou appeared.

With his Greater Holy Grail system, the Holy Grail War was born, and Justeaze was sacrificed, her consciousness bound forever within the Grail's core.

Which meant—Chihiro was inside the Holy Grail right now.

"Shit… I'm lucky this is the Apocrypha timeline. If this were Fate/Zero's Grail, I'd be dealing with 'Dark Grail Iri' instead. Hell, this whole place would probably be black sludge."

But the real question was.

"Why the hell am I here?"

"This is the inner sanctum of the Holy Grail. Welcome, Holder."

Justeaze spoke in a distant, robotic tone, her words devoid of any human warmth. She was no longer an individual, she had fully merged with the Grail system.

Chihiro frowned. "Alright… but why am I here? What the hell just happened?"

Justeaze's response was as cold and clinical as before.

"The Holy Grail detected the presence of external soul fluctuations. The response protocol was activated, and both you and the foreign entity were absorbed into the system."

Chihiro blinked. "...Wait, what? Soul fluctuations?!"

Something was seriously wrong. His mind immediately raced to the worst possible conclusion.

Justeaze continued, "According to your existing knowledge, another soul entered your body. Due to the Grail's connection within you, the system reacted automatically, both souls were drawn inside."

Chihiro's eyes widened.

"A soul entered my body?!"

Justeaze raised a hand and pointed to the side. "He is approaching."

Chihiro turned his head, only for his gaze to land on a stunned, bewildered Darnic slowly making his way toward him.

"Darnic!"

Chihiro's blood boiled with instant fury.

He knew exactly what this bastard had tried to do.

"So that was your plan, huh? You wanted to steal my damn body?!"

Darnic, on the other hand, was still too distracted by his surroundings to even notice Chihiro's glare.

"Incredible… this must be the Grail's inner sanctum. To think such a place exists…"

His voice was filled with genuine awe, as if he had stumbled upon some divine revelation.

Chihiro wasn't having any of it.

"BANG!!!"

A fist slammed directly into Darnic's face, sending him flying several meters across the white void.

Chihiro cracked his knuckles, his expression dark. "Darnic, you really want to die, huh? Fine by me."

As he spoke, his fingers traced the air, sigils forming mid-motion as he began preparing a spell.

Darnic groaned, staggering to his feet. His expression twisted into a sneer. "Hmph. So, you actually woke up." He wiped a trail of blood from his lip, eyes burning with defiance. "Do you honestly think you can resist me? I am a top-class magus!"

He raised his hand, intending to cast a spell, only to freeze in confusion.

"...What?!"

His face paled.

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't activate any magecraft.

Chihiro scoffed. "Idiot."

He clasped his hands together, the completed spell-circle flaring to life as he chanted.

A blazing bolt of lightning erupted from the sigil, striking Darnic head-on.

"AAAAAAGGGHHH!!!"

Darnic screamed as pure divine thunder coursed through his incorporeal form.

In that moment, reality hit him like a truck.

He was a soul.

He had no body.

No circuits.

No external mana.

Without those things, he couldn't use magic at all.

But Chihiro?

Onmyōdō—magecraft that relied purely on the mind's processing power was still completely usable.

And on top of that…

This was the Holy Grail's domain.

Technically, they were inside his body's inner world.

Darnic had walked straight into enemy territory, completely powerless.

His eyes burned with rage and unwillingness.

"No… This was supposed to be my chance! I was supposed to take over his body! This damn Grail ruined everything!"

His thoughts twisted with resentment.

The Grail… should have been his.

Yggdmillennia should have ruled over it.

But it was stolen.

By this damned intruder…

With his hatred boiling over, Darnic let out a final scream of defiance.

But it was too late.

His soul fragmented, torn apart by the Thunder, and was consumed by the Grail as nothing more than fuel.

Chihiro let out a slow exhale, tension finally leaving his body.

"Damn… that was way too close."

If the Holy Grail hadn't intervened, he might have actually lost his body to that bastard.

He turned back toward Justeaze. "Alright… can you send me back now?"

Justeaze's expression remained unchanged. "The external world is still extremely dangerous, Holder. Because of you, this Holy Grail War has deviated significantly from its intended course."

Chihiro frowned. "What the hell do you mean?"

Justeaze raised a hand, summoning a floating display that revealed the current battlefield.

Chihiro stared at the screen.

"...Are you kidding me?"

Goetia was fighting the entire Holy Grail War Servants.

"What the actual fuck?!"

***

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