Ranma warily looked at Architect trying to figure out the trick and not lose his cool at the same time. If Architect in this universe was anything like his counter-part in Ranma's universe then Ranma could not afford to offend Architect. The difference in their power was simply too much to compare. Ranma was extremely good for his age. However, he had not entered the proverbial minor leagues yet and Architect's counterpart was a superstar of the major leagues.
Architect gave Ranma a knowing smile as if he was reading the teen's thoughts. The truth was that Architect really was reading Ranma's thoughts thanks to one of the subroutines his counterpart put in the Sacred Gear system. "Please relax Ranma. I did not summon you here as an enemy commander. Rather, I called you here as a proud ancestor wanting to help his descendent."
"Proud ancestor, what kind of fool do you take me for?" Ranma couldn't believe the dribble coming from Architect's mouth.
Architect spoke completely unfazed by Ranma's verbal attack. "In the purest technical sense you belong to my counterpart's lineage. However, even by most mystical metrics the lineage between you and I still counts. On your father's side you come from human stock minus one instance of yokai influence which makes you my child being descended from my greatest creation. On your mother's side you come from a devil lineage created from humans by Lucifer who was one of my beloved and favored creations. By all divine standards you are my child making me your ancestor."
"As to me being proud of you, what reason do I have to not be proud of you? Unlike many of your peers you have taken the gifts you were born with and worked tirelessly to improve upon them. You have been industrious in your labors and dutiful to your parents. Moreover, you have looked after those under your charge and helped them to improve themselves. When it comes to romance you have looked to your companions as an individual whole instead of only parts of them and have never progress further than both of you were comfortable with."
"You have your flaws to be sure Ranma. This is true even when judging you by your own cultural standards instead of my own. That does not change the fact so far you have grown into a young man that I am proud to acknowledge as coming from my lineage."
"However, I did not call you here to increase the disorder of pride that you naturally cultivate. We are here to discuss your efforts to correct the avenger glitch in the Greater Grail system that is endangering humanity. You have already made some strides in achieving that goal even if unknowingly when you reincarnated your servant."
That news shocked Ranma. "How did reincarnating Saber help?"
Architect spoke as if he was talking about the weather. "By reincarnating Saber you fundamentally changed her parameters as a servant making it impossible for her saint graph to be absorbed by the Greater Grail system. Instead she will rejoin her core essence in the Ring of Deterrence as if she had been summoned by my system like it is intended to be used. Hopefully, this rejoining will not happen for centuries if not millennia from now."
Hopefully it would be far in the future that Ranma's Nero would fuse with her core essence. Architect wanted that for two reasons. First, he wanted all his children to live long and fulfilling lives. Nero was no exception to this rule even will all she had done against his followers while alive the first time. Second the second life would increase Nero's abilities as a servant strengthening her core essence. This would potentially allow her to take on other servant roles.
Architect continued on. "I have already created a program to assist you and your aunt in reincarnating other servants in this war. However, the program will only work if the servant in question is told about what joining a peerage entails and agrees to be turned. Free will is why humanity is my greatest creation and I will tolerate no threats to that gift. It is why I allowed the mages to have their supposed secret backdoor access to the Ring of Deterrence."
Ranma nodded his head in understanding. Part of him was leery that Architect was willing to help Sona and him reincarnate servants. However, he could see the logic behind it since the reincarnation made the Grail useless. This was simply a case of allies of convenience.
The devil then asked, "What other ways do I have to end the threat the Grail poses? I doubt you want Sona and me to reincarnate every servant. Zelretch couldn't give me any details on how to stop the threat. It's almost like he was just hoping I'd stumble across the way to handle the problem."
"Zelretch was not hoping Ranma," Architect firmly said. "He was trusting in the suggestion I sent him via the Alaya system. Longer lived beings like him know that Alaya works best when it is working subtly. I will tell you the methods you can use to deal with the avenger glitch."
"There are a couple of methods to deal with the situation temporarily and there are several that will deal with the issue permanently. The easiest way to stop the Greater Grail from activating in this war is to destroy the Lesser Grail used to prime it. Regrettably, this requires you to kill Irisviel von Einzbern and at least partially mutilate her corpse due to the Einzberns making the Lesser Grail a person this time instead of a chalice like they originally agreed to in the First Grail War. The other way to stop the activation of the Greater Grail this war is to prevent the servants from killing each other for 40 days. After that time period the Greater Grail will enter into a semi-dormant power collection state for the next 60 years."
"The temporary solution is the bare minimum you need to complete in order to fulfill your deal with Zelretch. However, it is risky as the avenger glitch is masked from even my sight due to the Ring of Deterrence's anti-scrying systems. Even I cannot say with certainty if the glitch will be harmless if the Greater Grail is not activated. The free-will of avenger himself is the root cause of my uncertainty."
"A more permanent solution will be needed as I think both of us can agree. I want one so that the avenger glitch is solved. You'll want to permanently solve the problem because your pride won't let you leave a job half done correct?"
Ranma nodded his head in agreement. He needed to get home. However, only completing a job due to a technicality would burn at his pride. If he was going to do a task he blessed well will do the best job possible.
Architect continued on speaking. "I have figured out a way to solve the problem permanently. It would involve you get collecting a sample of 5 non-reincarnated servants, 3 if Gilgamesh is one of the servants, energy along with using a large store of power. Your aunt's research has already given you the means to do this. These would be directly imputed into the Greater Grail tricking it into assuming that the Lesser Grail has been primed. I will use that trick to initiate an extraction program pulling the avenger glitch from the system and making it unable to re-enter the Greater Grail system. You would then have to destroy the glitch in whatever form it takes."
"Understand this Ranma the power that the avenger glitch has once extracted will be unknown. I can say with certainty that it will be extremely powerful. The glitch could theoretically have access to all the power that the Greater Grail has collected over its existence. It's improbable it would have that much power, but it is likely that the glitch once manifested will have more power than what you currently possess. Your skill and your allies could allow you to destroy the glitch. The probabilities are simply unknown at this time."
"I can only help you indirectly to fight the glitch due to covenants I have made with the deities living in the Reverse Side of the World. However, my help will certainly cause you and your clan political problems back in your world. It would be such a shame that my viewing of your sacred gear would cause it to acclimate to this universe and activate."
"This leaves us with you having a simple choice to make Ranma. There are two doors. The door to your right will lead you deeper into SERAPH allowing me to finish activating your sacred gear. The door to your left will let you immediately exit SERAPH."
"I know that with your sacred gear you will be able to beat the avenger glitch at any power it could have. However, you will be fighting it to the finish or it will be the last thing you ever do. On the other hand, you could leave SERAPH right now and solve the avenger glitch by any method you wish. This is probably your only chance to reap the benefits of having a sacred gear along with the costs."
Ranma's eyes narrowed as he picked up on Architect's word choice. TANSTAAFL was a principle everyone in the moonlit world had to understand no matter the universe. However, sacred gears had been a bit of a head scratcher back home because no one could figure out what the unique cost having a sacred gear was. The randomness of a sacred gear's appearance or ability did not count as that fell under the aegis of natural talent. Most devils thought that Architect's counterpart had paid the cost for sacred gears himself. Architect's words indicated otherwise.
"I need more information before I can properly make my choice Architect. What is the cost of having a sacred gear?"
An amused smile appeared on Architect's face. "The cost of having a sacred gear is irrelevant since you have to pay it whether or not the sacred gear works. Still, I see no harm in telling you as you will not reveal it at large. The sacred gear system is my counterpart's method of insuring humanity is protected. As part of this method sacred gears come with complete monitoring. They are created to remotely be deactivated by whoever my counterpart let's sit on the throne of the most high. But the feature you should be most aware of if you take the right door is that they can turn the user's energy against the user for an instant death."
It was only due to the nature of the room they were in that Ranma did not faint or fall over. Unvoiced questions that had been plaguing devil strategists for centuries had been answered. Why had heaven allowed sacred gear users to be reincarnated and why weren't reincarnated sacred gear welders hunted with extra ferocity to recover the gears? Why were sacred gears given out so randomly without a seeming care about who got them? How come heaven didn't insure that only their most loyal and trusted subordinates receive sacred gears? What possessed the Jackass in the Sky to create literal deity slaying weapons!
Horror crossed Ranma's face as he looked at Architect and truly began to see the web that Architect's counterpart had woven. Architect was right that Ranma wouldn't reveal the cost of having a sacred gear at large. The implications of the costs would break the moonlit world. An army of the perfect spies for heaven that doubled as powerful assets all pointed at other supernatural factions. Practically every supernatural faction had sacred gear users as an important marshal or support aspect of their strength that could be taken from them by Heaven's whim. Moreover turning a person's energy against them could be comparatively peaceful to surrounding people or a violent cascade of energy. Nuclear weapons were on the low scale of damage that weaklings could cause if their energy was set to a violent cascade with no regard for their existence.
Architect's smile grew wider as he spoke. "I've had quite lengthy and detailed conversations with my counterpart sitting on that universe's throne of the most high. It is rather amusing that so many in your world view Heaven as the weaker member of the three Biblical Factions. Both my counterpart and I prefer to work form an outward perception of weakness. It makes the lesson stick so much better when the apparent underdog beats the odds."
Most of Architect's talks with the Michael of Ranma's universe had involved him getting his head angel to open his literal counterpart's quarters that Michael has sealed off in mourning. Architect understood that his counterpart had to arraign his own murder sooner than expected in order trigger a cease fire among the Three Factions. That was why Ranma had an uncompleted sacred gear that would never activate without his help.
However, Michael knew that his god had kept backup and emergency plans in his quarters before the necessary suicide happened. Michael's grief had nearly wrecked things for heaven despite his best efforts to the contrary. Putting Michael back together when he realized his errors had not been easy for Architect.
Ranma regained control of himself and decided he could live with the cost of having a sacred gear. He had been paying it all his life and would pay it until the day he died. Might as well get what he was paying for with his life. Ranma grabbed the handle to the door on his right and opened it filling the room with blinding light.
When Ranma could see again he found himself standing in the city in the desert from his and Nero's visions. To be more specific he was standing at the gates of that temple that had so utterly terrified him. The instinctual dread that had shocked Ranma awake before was gone. In its place was an emotional worry and intellectual wariness when he realized just what was in front of him. "Zion, this dreamscape comes from Zion. That must mean that this is his temple."
The temple doors opened allowing Ranma into the courtyard. Ranma rapidly looked around hoping to identify which of the two temples and what era this sacred gear's dreamscape came from. He hoped that it came from one of times that the temple had been desecrated. The holy aura Ranma felt in the courtyard ended that notion. All of Ranma's devil instincts were screaming at him to get out.
The gilded doors to the sanctuary opened up forcing Ranma to divert his eyes from the painful light. A figure cast a shadow protecting Ranma from the light as the doors to the sanctuary closed. "I'm sorry about that discomfort. Fusing a Sacred Gear and a servant's saint graph together is not as seamless as expected."
Ranma looked up at the speaker and saw a white haired man in his twenties with a Middle Eastern complexion. The man was dressed in very ornate and expensive robes with a regal accent. Warily Ranma asked, "And who are you? What do you mean by fusing a saint graph to a sacred gear?"
With a smile the man regally said, "Peace my lord I mean you no harm. I am the servant chosen to be fused with your sacred gear so that it could be completed. Architect didn't provide me with much information, but apparently your sacred gear was "lost" for lack of a better term during a battle before it could be completed. It has been cycling through the years through different hosts all unable to use its beneficial abilities because those systems weren't complete."
Ranma nodded his head and replied, "So you were merged with my sacred gear to get it to work. That makes some sense. However, it doesn't tell me who you are or what my sacred gear can do." Ranma had some inkling of who the servant was given the mindscape. However, he didn't want to voice that because he wanted to be wrong.
The regal man blushed slightly and said, "I did forget to introduce myself. How embarrassing. I am the Grand Caster King Solomon of Israel also known as the King of Magecraft. I was selected by Architect to merge with your sacred gear for three reasons. One, my powers help to regulate the abilities of the sacred gear the best out of all recorded heroes. Second, you are the reincarnation of my counterpart in your world so using me means there is less chance of rejection from the sacred gear. Third, I was agreeable to the merging."
Under normal circumstances, Ranma would have been shocked and horrified by the claim that he was the reincarnation of King Solomon. Devils viewed King Solomon like many Jews viewed Heinrich Himmler. That son of a whore was notorious for binding devils and working them to death on his building projects. The first temple was only the most infamous example for devils. The fact that said devils were infamous even for their time and had been attacking Israel was conveniently forgotten by most devils.
These were not normal circumstances for Ranma. His ability to give a care was overdrawn and the emotional credit had already been maxed out. Ranma gave Solomon a deadpan stare and said, "I've had an emotionally exhausting day. Can you just tell me what powers you grant so I can collapse into unconsciousness?"
Solomon put his hand at the back of his head and chuckled nervously. "I'm still integrating completely so there are some details I cannot give you yet. This sacred gear originally involved the essences of the original noble devils of your world. From what I can tell so far, the Regalia of Solomon grants you the ability to use the unique abilities of the noble devil clans as your own."
Well that going to make things interesting for Ranma when he got home. And by interesting, he meant grandfather was going to be tested to see if a devil could die from a heart attack. Ranma sighed and said, "I am going to faint now and when I wake up I don't want to deal with any more paradigm shattering revelations for at least a month."
The soft rays of the sun caressed Nero's face waking up the reborn empress. Nero's face became covered with a room illuminating smile as she rejoiced in simple pleasure of feeling the sun on her face. Existing as a servant was one thing, but things were so much better now that she was truly alive again. Just feeling the air in her lungs again was more than she could describe.
Nero sat up shivering at the feel of her sheets caressing her as they fell to the bed. Ranma and she had been carried into her bedroom to sleep off the reincarnation last night. Nero felt Ranma's arm on her waist and quickly spotted him sleeping to her right. She gently pulled Ranma's arm off of her and got off the bed. Then Nero headed towards her set of full body mirrors and proceeded to examine her new body.
Everything was flawless perfection as it should be. Part of Nero had been worried that there would be some minor flaw in her new body. She had been a ghost for all intents and purposes after all. Regaining a body without some sort of cruel or sadistic ritual was worthy of being called a miracle in and of itself. Restoring a form blessed by Venus herself just as the goddess crafted it was truly a miracle. Nero then flexed her power causing her devil wings and tail to emerge. She proceeded to experimentally stretch them and then posed with them.
While Nero posed her mind started to go into overdrive. The migraines she had suffered throughout her life thanks to her mother's poisoning had vanished. For the first time, Nero experienced her memories with complete clarity and understanding. Those experiences caused her to stop posing and she started to shiver in self-loathing. Too many mistakes and too many misunderstandings had occurred because of her migraines. Her missteps were now as clear as day to the empress. She had trusted too many enemies and spurned most of her friends because she didn't think clearly most of the time.
Nero soon came to grips with her painful past through her force of will. This was sped up by the reincarnation process itself which helped new devils deal with their usually traumatic past. Ajuka had quickly added that feature when he realized the background of most new devils. The satans didn't want the clans wasting resources on getting the new citizens semi-adjusted into functioning members of society.
The reborn empress decided to try out the baths now that she had a body again. Nero used her time in the bath to remind herself that her mistakes were in the past with her old life. She had a new life now and she'd used her experiences to live a better one. Nero discovered that she could summon her saber outfit onto herself with a thought.
This led her to experimenting with her servant abilities with reason. The ability to astralize was no longer available to Nero. However, her other servant abilities were still there and even enhanced where applicable due to her devil physiology and evil piece. This would do very nicely was Nero's main assessment. Only benefits for her reincarnation.
Nero left the bathroom and noticed that Ranma had rolled over in his sleep showing her his back. Her eyes bulged out in shock when she saw a massive tattoo covering most of his back. "Musician," Nero bellowed out waking up her shaken king. "What is the meaning of this outrage against the arts?" She grabbed the still groggy Ranma and yanked him in from of her mirrors. Nero pointed to the tattoo and hissed. "Where did this abomination of culture come from?"
Sleep quickly fled Ranma's mind as he tried to process the sight in the mirror. The tattoo covered his entire back and was in an imperial purple ink. It looked like someone had inverted the Kabbalah traditional tree of life diagram 180 degrees and replaced the sefirot with pentagrams. A closer look revealed that each line of the pentagram was composed of a devil clan's name. Also, each pentagram's connecting line was also composed of a devil clan's name.
Ranma sent a minuscule part of his power to the tattoo and it started to glow. He hung his head and muttered, "You just had to rub it in Architect didn't you? I'm going to need to remember to do a personal illusion spell if I ever want to even think of stepping foot in a bathhouse ever again."
Nero impatiently spun Ranma around, grabbed his face, and pulled him down to eye level. She glared at him and commanded. "I am waiting for a good explanation Ranma."
Part of Ranma wondered if there was something off about him. His servant was manhandling him and he was trying to distract himself from just how it enhanced her already stunning looks. "Sacred gear Nero, this seems to be the form of my sacred gear. It was activated when you were reincarnated."
That was the wrong thing to say as Nero proceeded to judo flip Ranma onto the floor and put her golden boot at his throat. Her body quivered with rage and she growled out. "Listen carefully Ranma. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt because you're still waking up. Wake up fully, cover that disgrace up, and let me cool off. This will give you time to think about your word choice allowing you to explain things better. I doubt you meant to imply that I caused that eyesore to mar your back."
Sona frowned as she watched the setting sun while stepping onto the deck. Bless it, why did long term missions with Ranma always seem to go so crazy? Her gaze quickly became fixed on Ranma who was on the prow launching small testing attacks out into the ocean. A shot of destruction energy vaporizing ocean waves sent shivers down Sona's spine.
To have all 72 special abilities of the original pillar clans at one person's fingertips was no laughing matter. Part of Sona was repulsed at the thought of a sacred gear doing such a thing. It was an affront to the dignity of all noble devil clans. The fact that it bore the name Regalia of Solomon added insult to injury.
Sona had read between the lines of Ranma's explanation and deducted his connection with Solomon. It was a fact that she had quickly dismissed as trivial trivia. Natural reincarnation stripped so much from the soul that almost nothing but the basics remained. It was more like nature was reusing the bits of soul from a dead person than the transmission of self that people popularly thought of when they heard the word reincarnation. Even guided souls back home like the notable heroes showed widely different personalities in each life due to the spiritual nature of rebirth. Evil pieces were a combination of transmutation and reanimation than an actual reincarnation like they were called for simplicity's sake.
Oh Sona knew that some devils were going to make a major commotion about Ranma being King Solomon's reincarnation if they discovered that fact. She would as well in their place since causing enemies problems meant that they had to spend political capital defending instead of going on the attack. Such attacks were so common among the long lived devils that there was practically a ritualistic way they occurred. It was guaranteed that after a few years after the scandal no one would really care about it other than as a polite laugh.
It was the Regalia of Solomon itself that would cause the real chaos once knowledge of it became public. Sona knew that her father would likely be busy for years dealing with the fallout while she would have additional headaches managing clan power struggles. No devil ever possessed more than 3 special abilities and that was a statistical freak accident. Only a very lucky few possessed 2 special abilities. The Regalia of Solomon represented an arsenal of abilities that could turn even a lazy idiot into a major threat. With a wielder like Ranma, Sona could see a solid argument of declaring it a low tier Longinus class sacred gear.
That was a headache she'd have to brainstorm with her father in order to deal with once they got home. Sona's biggest focus right now needed to be this Avenger threat with the Grail War. She let out a polite cough to get Ranma's attention.
The cough worked and Ranma whipped around to face Sona and smiled. "I take it you came up with something?"
Sona pulled out an obsidian dagger and held it in front of her. She waked over to Ranma and handed it over to him for inspection. Ranma took it into his hands as Sona spoke. "The dagger is designed so that it can "bleed" a servant's astral body. Most of the energy a servant loses from the created wound is collected in the blade. The blade will start to glow once it has reached maximum energy storage. I've left the plans with Homura and instructions to time loop to this morning if things don't work as we plan."
"Speaking of time loops, why didn't Homura inform us about this beforehand? I think she should have included it in her report form the last time around."
Ranma shrugged and said, "Chaos theory 101. The additional information she provided us along with random chance changed the sequence of events so that I was contacted by the Great Enemy now. We are still six days from when Homura rewound time originally. He also implied that our direct contact was only due to the special circumstance of me reincarnating Nero."
Sona frowned and cut in. "Meaning that without reincarnating a servant he would have nudged us towards a solution." Her fists clenched at the thought. "It is extremely aggravating that he is using us as pawns to fix this issue." Never before had Sona's pride almost driven her to sabotage a mission. She and Raman were high class devils from noble clans. They were not supposed to be dancing to the Great Enemy's tune like some lapdog angel. But, their only option to get home was to do so.
"He's not referred to politely as the Great Enemy purely for our egos Sona. We are talking about the person who taught the original Satans everything they knew about leadership and manipulating events to suit their purpose. How many times in the Great War did Heaven seem to hold off on destroying devils giving us a chance to recover? Our history teachers love to play it up to the Satans' brilliant leadership, but when you look at it objectively we were left alive to act as a buffer against other supernatural powers."
That thought burned Sona's pride even more. However, she implicitly trusted Ranma's assessment. Military strategy was his area of expertise. Sona decided to focus on what she could control and said, "So we're still planning on meeting with Waver and Iskandar tomorrow?"
"That's still the plan unless you can think of a better one Sona. We need to let them know what's going on and our own strategy to stop the Greater Grail. Iskandar is the only one I can think of who can test this little device. Besides, our peerages might increase even more."
Sona nodded her head firming up her resolve to continue the plan. It went against her nature and training to put all the cards on the table. Regrettably this was required in their current circumstances. They needed to verify that her artifact worked light she thought before using it on the battlefield. Iskandar would likely be agreeable because of what his wish for the Grail probably was.
She then said, "Promise me one thing Ranma. If we get a solid opportunity we desecrate Fuyuki Church. I want the Great Enemy to know exactly what I think of him using us like this. Besides, that meddlesome priest needs to be brought to heel for neglecting his duties."
Ranma gave Sona a predatory grin that she quickly shared. "I can agree to that whole heartily Sona." He didn't get to say more as Sona started a make out session.