"... so, is there a particular reason you don't want to talk with your children?" Gudako ventured after the former Master-Servant conversation had ended, with Shirou leaving Sasaku to recuperate before the whole group would move out together.

"Mm, why ask that?" the Singularity's surprise Archer participant replied non-noncommittally.

"I would think it would be the natural response," the homunculus replied neutrally. "I should think that any child would ask why not, father."

"Ha, so you actually remembered that," the human chuckled. "I had been wondering if Illya was feeling touchy about that."

"Hardly, she wasn't sure about how you thought about it. Well, it was also the case that not long after that a number of refinements led to a lot of the, uh, 'reproductive research' simply being dropped in favor of what was already established." Gudako thought for a bit. "I guess there's also the oddity that my mother is my father's stepsister or something? Does that even count since it's a magecraft procedure?"

"You hardly think so, and I believe it would be up to you?"

"Mhm, But about Iri and Matthew, you know that they'll know sooner or later, probably sooner," she returned to the big question at hand.

Shirou sighed. "It's rather awkward; my status isn't exactly stable or anything, and it would be bad to give them unrealistic expec-"

"Calling bullshit on that !" The pair turned to see Mordred who had not been particularly trying to eavesdrop, more like she wandered up and heard with a Servant's usual excellent senses.

"Uh, Saber?" While the Masters had indeed read some of the records regarding Mordred, Shirou had been directly interacting with the knight for a couple of days, and unlike Gudako realized what had caught her ire.

"Let me put this real simple: if it was really a straight-up one-time thing, you should be grabbing the chance immediately. Complicated? Lay it out best you can, none of that thinking they can't understand crap. You should know better."

"Ahaha," Shirou chuckled ruefully. Gudako could tell by his mannerisms that there was been something more serious than just 'the probability of not being summoned in Chaldea' troubling the late head of Emiya. But she hardly knew where to start when it came to human relationships... perhaps Mordred didn't either, but it might have been for the better that she wasn't held back by that. "You have a good point there."

"By the way," he added as an afterthought after promising Mordred that he'd ask da Vinci to explain matters to his two children and arrange some time for them during their next scheduled communication with Chaldea. "It occurred to me that your mother might have been sensitive to any possible perception that she was trying to use our, uh connection, to set up any sort of inheritance - particularly magecraft - grab."

"I doubt that," Gudako replied quickly. "Since there was already a contract signed that permanently ruled that out."

He simply shrugged. "Your people are quite quick to expect human paranoia, are they not?"

The Master nodded simple acceptance. Actually, far as she knew, it was mostly an abundance of caution about Sakura. Ironically, Matthew's mother's desire to handle most of the boy's regimen herself was what led to Doru's current predicament of not knowing if it was a cause of the boy's issues.

Well, the woman's own non-appearance was also a subject to step carefully around, though Gudako couldn't help but wonder to herself, he claimed to be affiliated with the Grail while Sakura, like Irisviel and Illyasviel, had fused with shards of it.

What that meant, she couldn't tell.

"Tell me something," Shirou remarked to Gudao after finding the Master had returned from reinforcing the perimeter with Chaldea's Caster.

"And what would that be?" the homunculus replied.

"I'm told that human souls have a... hidden soul-lifetime of about a hundred years before it starts to rot away. Barring the Third Magic that can materialize the soul, of course."

"Well, there are references to a Mystic Code, the Dress of Heaven, which suggestively shares a name with the Third Magic. But like many things associated with the Magic of the Einzbern family, they elected to take it with them to the grave rather than allow us to inherit it."

"You mean: inherit their failures at reclaiming the Magic, like the five Grail Wars?" Shirou asked rhetorically, but the comment was taken seriously.

"They were not like Matou and Tohsaka who were gutted by the end of the Fifth War; there were records - maybe some still exist - of all their experiments and studies. If it wasn't for the present situation, we could have potentially carried out a successful Grail War, if we suspected it could actually accomplish the objective." Gudao paused for a moment. "Which we suspect was not Zelretch's actual aim in getting them to work towards creating the Grail System."

Shirou raised an eyebrow. "I thought Four Houses agreed the Grail War method was far too unstable to perform in the first place."

"Conventionally, sure. This was just drawing board-level, you understand: if you had seven Masters who were all like Gudako and I, we wouldn't care who 'won' formally, since we'd all ask for the same pre-determined thing."

"The Grail would just pick other Masters surely," was the obvious objection.

"Not if there weren't any others around; Separation Order. We'd have to of plan everything in order to forestall it grabbing seven people to force us into a seven-on-seven. Effectively we'd have to put the Order in place and then do everything from the first activation to the wish before ending the Order. I suppose a Ruler might attempt to intervene." Gudao shrugged.

"So that's why humans outside of the Four Houses are excluded as Masters for the current iteration of the Grail System," Shirou realized.

"To be honest, if any of them had gotten dragged in, besides the three of you of course, we wouldn't be inclined to trust them with the wish-making portion. And... some of those restrictions were 'imposed' by the Mages Association group in order to prevent any Grail War from starting."

"But you were already finding ways around it."

"Well, we had evidence from the Third War that you didn't have to be human, or half-human, to be a Master. But enough of all that, I think... your question is actually about how you're here and if you're the 'real' Emiya Shirou, is that right?"

"..." Shirou just raised an eyebrow silently for a moment before nodding. "Though with the parallel worlds, hardly anyone has an exclusive claim on being the 'real' one."

Gudao couldn't disagree with that. "We'll have to see what those in Chaldea like Anaz think, but there are two circumstances around your passing that are quite outstanding: first, human history was already destroyed, resolving the Fuyuki proto-Singularity didn't change that. Second, and correct me if I'm wrong, you and Illyasviel were in Sakura's Void Space when she passed. What those add up to? I don't know, sorry."

"Why are you two so gloomy?" Marie caught sight of their discussion. The pair, in turn, looked askance at the dark-clad Rider; Gudao knew enough about her, and Shirou could guess from general knowledge, just how ironic that statement was. "If you disliked coming back, you wouldn't have," the late royal consort pointed out. "So there must be something else troubling you."

"There are so many levels above us it's staggering," Shirou mused aloud as a part-answer. "Chloe's warning wasn't just because there was a possibility that I might get... trapped in Alaya's Counter Force. Rather, it seems like it happens very frequently, and ends quite badly..."

"You've met her then?" Gudao interrupted him. "I thought you didn't experience anything between your, er, mortal end and being summoned here."

"It was a note left for me. Of sorts," Shirou added as clarification. "She went to some lengths for that, since it's rare that I 'escape' such a fate. Possibly actually because I was effectively unconscious at the time that I died, and thus simply couldn't make such a contract."

"We've wanted to actually speak to her, but it seems we keep on missing our chances," Gudao shook his head. "Did she give any other details?"

"Yeah, remember the oddities with how the World tends to dislike having identical people or variants too close to one another? She implied that Chloes block Shirous if the former is already 'on the clock'. But, that just means the problem is divided a little bit... so then she realized it could be spread over not just proper Heroic Spirits but anyone that could qualify to be brought in at Servant-level and also counted as a Chloe. I think you understand what that means."

"She offered her power to be used as a Class Card for magical girls?" Marie guessed.

"Bit more than that, she might have made arrangements with Zelretch. The system represented by that Ruby and any of her sister Kaleidosticks can create magical girls with very good, er flexible rather, matchup coverage depending on what Heroic Spirit's Skills and Noble Phantasms they can use. Perhaps there's some sort of legend-copyright thing so that there's some value in getting them to sign on."

"Is Ruby really that powerful?" Gudao was skeptical about the possibility. "Sasaku doesn't get stronger when she transforms. Besides, she's already a Servant, one could say losing access to a lot of her usual Skills is a big downside in trade for some bolstered defenses and free magical girl abilities."

"Rin didn't have anything like Class Cards though. Neither she nor Sasaku went on some sort of serialized quest for them either." Shirou's mind was already working but unfortunately had little to go on regarding how such Cards might be created.

After taking a while to check that Mordred was getting along well with the Masters, Shirou sighed upon finding that he had effectively made a circuit around the small house, ending back at the door to the living room, and then walked in.

Scathach's magic circle for contacting Chaldea was neatly laid out with her druidic runes inactive. Next to it, in the former Caster's usual style which had foreign runes as well as apparently decorative vines and plants, Sasaku was kneeling quietly amidst the shimmering green formation holding up Ruby like some sort of icon; the wand's wings were moving back and forth slowly as it glowed gently.

"So, what is it?" the Servant asked as though expecting the visit.

"I didn't mean to interrupt," Shirou replied politely.

"We probably can't locate where Artoria went," the Ruler frowned. "Since Chaldea didn't 'get her back', I'm guessing she got redirected into some nearby Free Quest. And... we can't contact other Chaldeas when their Ruby is deployed, clearly she's on the same Quest that our Saber got sent to."

"Uh, I see..."

"So, again, what's on your mind?" his former Servant continued.

"Have you killed people?" he asked bluntly.

"Ok, take a break," she murmured to Ruby who disappeared along with its associated outfit. "If this is about the Septem 'incident', you'd have asked the Masters. Or you already did. I took down a few of the sub-Servants brought in by Okita Souji in the previous War, but you know about that... ah. Way, way back when I was a mortal like you? No, I was purged by the rulers over me, it was a very one-sided interaction."

"What about when you became an immortal? There were still conflicts after that period, right?" he prompted her.

"Hmm, she certainly did, but if you want numbers that's a statistics exercise." In specifics this was not the answer he had been expecting, but in general he had certainly anticipated opaque responses.

"What kind of statistics? Details would help."

She raised an eyebrow, clearly not understanding his particular context for the request. "Tell me how you'd apportion casualties to a bombardment action?"

"Uh..." Shirou had been wondering if he had drastically misconstrued her previous War comments in a sort of distorted hindsight, now that he had learned about his own variants' service to Alaya. "What bombardment now?"

"Hm, hm. Take one of your modern cities, they get up the order of say ten million people right? That's about right... I believe a few years back there was this, let's see... Chelyabinsk meteor. Did quite a lot of damage despite the atmosphere absorbing most of the meteor's energy. Even with a couple of centuries of advancement on you, the rebels couldn't defend against entities flying at supersonic speeds able to barrage targets with meteors like that."

"And yet this took you five hundred years? I'm remembering that number right?" He was skeptical about the timeframes involved. Conflicts like the famous Hundred Years War practically required that the two sides were within some distance of parity, without either side being able to sufficiently weaken or subdue the other.

"If we had gone hard on them, it would left the land a waste and the beasts of the field would have become too numerous," was the unhelpful explanation.

"I guess the first, I can understand," Shirou allowed, ignoring the second part. "So you had to go out and fight over and over for five hundred years?"

"Are you asking about why I, personally, did? Or is this about some sort of casus belli justification? I'll admit it isn't clear what you're trying to ask me."

"It's not about you, I was wondering about Counter Guardians."

"Ah. Well let me check that..." There was a brief pause. "Sounds like a terrible job. I guess non-Heroic-Spirit-level Guardians don't get any 'time off' in the Throne."

"Huh, that's what Chloe said. What I don't understand is why every version of me who became a Counter Guardian isn't a separate entity, who would block one another and could only be manifested one at a time?"

"Can't really run numbers on that, probably because there are many branches with no version of you, and thus many 'opportunities' for each separate Shirou-Guardian to be sent out. That and, of course, across time since they could be deployed past or future, but only come from a narrow period of our present."

"I see. Seems like a lot comes down to ratios more than absolute numbers, should've seen that by myself earlier. By the way, I noticed you still didn't answer my earlier question." Getting to his feet, the man looked down at his fellow, much smaller, Servant. Clearly he either didn't care for, or expect, the answer.

"Why do the numbers matter? Besides, did you want the last recorded fortress or just across all five hundred years?" Initially, she seemed about to look up at him, but decided not to bother since the angle required while seated would be quite extreme.

"Why not both?" he replied with a bit of amusement at her tendency to keep on asking counter-questions even when she probably was willing to give an answer anyway.

"Fine, since you're so insistent. Divided up, the very last battle would probably count in the range of hundreds of thousands. From the Return until then, millions total? Maybe as high as ten, but not tens. You've seen what Servant-level beings can do; there was not much to physically tally up in either case."

"Doesn't that weigh on you?" Chloe had only given Servant-him a few details - apparently doing even that much before he died would have interfered with Alaya's desire to 'recruit' him - but just that was enough to fill his thoughts in the few days before Chaldea's arrival.

"Are you kidding? I had to take leave to go out to the field. I serve my liege pretty directly, so that means I was asking the ruler of our entire civilization for permission to go out for week here or a week there all of a sudden so the kids had places to build families."

"And he was just fine with that?"

"Well, I was denied sometimes." To be expected, really added her shrug.

"Sending out a Gen 0 is a pretty big deal, and we tend to want the kids to do some work for themselves. It's why the hostiles keep on thinking they have a chance; they can't really tell what's going on without things like tanks or planes coming across the border. But to your question, my liege does like zeal; for himself, not the nation he owns, mind you, but that's always been pretty clear to me, and he knows as much. I doubt many, or any, versions of you would come to such a relationship with a driver like Alaya."

"Isn't your current situation pretty bad for you, ideologically speaking?" Shirou had been wondering this since the previous War, actually. However, at that earlier point she had still been nominally a free agent.

"You think that when city-ships serving my liege start phasing into the skies - when said skies return to actual existence that is - I'm going to be somehow forced to shoot them? The World has all its Heroic Spirit-level defenders, as only a Servant-level being I'm trivial."

"How large is a city-ship anyway?" he asked out of sheer curiosity.

"The largest ones we were building in a mass-production manner would have a industrial scale of Japan or thereabouts?" she mused. "Tenth the population, though obviously that's leaving room for growth. But if you had in mind a scenario like a Colony Drop, someone like Zelretch could stop an even larger moon-scale object. Of course, the real problem is a thousand ships would be easily carrying tens to hundreds of millions of very high-level entities, so it would take probably millions of Heroic Spirit-level or billions of Servant-level defenders."

She paused to correct herself. "Ah, well it does seem like the World has its conceptual defenses. It could simply aggressively delete any branch where incursions occurred. Granted, there aren't infinite branches, and if it counted drone scouts in the possible trillions, that's more branches than I think usually exist. Yeah, I really don't trust that information though, pretty sure I told you before that it's probably intended to manipulate my evaluation of the matter."

"Wow, you really don't count for anything," Shirou replied with a bit of irony, not that he expected her to appreciate it.

"Indeed I don't," she said simply.

"Hmph." He turned to leave.

"Master." Sasaku said this in a very low voice, but of course as he was now a Servant, for Shirou she might as well as shouted.

"What sort of parting comment do you have now?" he asked the doorway in front of him, already halfway out, able to see Mordred in the hallway.

"Have you heard it said that 'Whatever your liege Kemosh gives you to possess, do you not possess it?' by any chance?"

"Caster, it's a bad habit of yours to pose such pointless riddles when we both know I have no clue what to even look up to start deciphering them."

"Fight for what you need, or what you want; there is no magical higher law that exists, just those able to out-fight you and yours. You have a chance to fight for your children's lives and future. And for your wife. Don't give up on that too easily."

l

(Iri and Matthew's Room)

"... so that's the situation as we understand it currently," da Vinci concluded while subtly watching for the two children's reactions.

"So that's what it is," Matthew said, surprising the Rider. The short time-frames involved meant that they shouldn't even have heard rumors, due to not freely going outside of their room and nothing scheduled for them.

"That's what what is?" she asked for clarification.

"Everyone was really excited a few hours ago, all the way until now I mean," he replied casually.

He can't possibly be connecting to the System in the way it sounds like, da Vinci thought to herself as Iri mentioned, "Since you didn't mention her at all, I take it our mother isn't there."

"She isn't." The Servant answered directly.

"That's opposite of what father expected," Matthew said revealingly, if innocently. Iri just shrugged as if to say 'who knows how these things work', a sentiment which even a genius-level Servant could agree with wholeheartedly.