Fate/first order derivative
Part II.1

⇒ continue: iteration 23, day 6, early night

Holy shit... that's it. That's actually it.

⇒ what

The porn is the key. The porn is the key!

⇒ story of your life huh

Ha! Go fuck yourself. And no, I mean it's the - well. It's like this, all right?

So an hour or two ago, I'm looking for this circuit diagram I saw in the notebooks somewhere. (I've been trying to get a better idea of how the mana detector functions lately.) I couldn't remember which book it was in, but I knew that it was towards the beginning somewhere. Because that's just how my memory works sometimes, I guess.

⇒ the human brain: confounding itself on a routine basis since 80,000 bc

So I'm going through and looking at the first few pages of each notebook, right? And that's when I noticed there was some encrypted text on page three of the red notebook, and a dirty story on page three in the green. And they're about the same length.

I started going through and comparing. Time and time again, pages with cipher text in one notebook would have corresponding porn on the same page in another. That's when it finally clicked.

⇒ explain

It's called a running key cipher. Let's say you have two pieces of text: a message you want to encrypt, and some document you know the recipient also has. Like, I dunno, a book, or a copy of a particular newspaper from a specific day. Something you've both agreed to use in advance. That second thing is called the key.

⇒ okay

So what you do is, you convert each letter in both the message and the key into a number, usually based on its position in the alphabet (あ = 1, い = 2, etc.) You add each number in the message to the corresponding one in the key, then convert their sum back into a letter. And boom - your message is encrypted in a new form. That's called the cipher text. Whoever you're sending it to can then decrypt it by reversing the process - convert text to numbers, subtract the key from the cipher text, and convert everything back into letters to get the original message.

It's not impossible to crack this kind of cipher without knowing what the key is, but it's way more difficult. Especially if a different key is used for each message. That's why I wasn't getting anywhere with frequency analysis.

⇒ sounds like you'd also need to have access to all the notebooks in order to decrypt everything

Right. But here's the really amazing part: what if your key is something you know no one else - well, okay, outside of maybe a small niche of older gay men who are into your particular kinks - is gonna want to read?

⇒ thus the porn

My uncle weaponized the cringe factor. That's why all the stories were so... um... let's say excessive. He wasn't just being gross. It was for security.

Shin, you genius. You brilliant, crazy, utterly filthy genius.

⇒ so what have you got

I've only completely decrypted one message so far. It was a little tricky at first since Shin threw some kanji into the mix, but I think I've got the hang of it now. Kinda speaks for itself:

WORKING THEORY: MAGICAL ENERGY SPECTRUM
LIKE THE EM SPECTRUM CAN BE BROKEN DOWN
INTO DISTINCT WAVELENGTHS OR ENERGY TYP
ES. CALLING MOST PROMINENT IN FUYUKI RE
GION "G-ENERGY" AS IT'S PRESUMABLY BEIN
G EMITTED BY THE GRAIL. MAY REPRESENT M
ANA IN MOST BASIC STATE / EQUIV OF MICR
OWAVES. OTHER TYPES DETECTED: "C-ENERGY
," POSSIBLY ASSOCIATED WITH COMMUNICATI
ON AND TELEPATHY (EQUIV OF RADIO WAVES?
); AND "I-ENERGY," ASSOCIATED WITH ILL
USIONS AND DISPLAYS OF LIGHT (EQUIV OF
VISIBLE SPECTRUM?). AMAZING. IS THIS WH
AT MAXWELL AND TESLA FELT LIKE?

⇒ so shin really did know about magic

And the Grail. This proves it once and for all.

⇒ must feel good

Oh, God, you have no idea. Feels like I've been staring at this shit forever without getting anywhere.

⇒ so other than that what else have you been up to

Uh... well. You're probably not going to like this...

⇒ what did you do

It's really more about what I haven't done. I haven't talked to Shirou and Rin this time around. Like, at all.

⇒ ...

Now, just hear me out, okay? I decided I wanted to test the null hypothesis this loop.

⇒ meaning

I wanted to make sure it's not something that I'm doing that leads to the world ending. I've technically never done nothing before in one of the full loops. I've always either talked to Shirou and Rin on the first night or left them a note or something.

But what if that's what makes them lose the Grail War later on? What if I'm the problem?

⇒ you sure this isn't just an excuse

Oh, come on. How many stories about time travel are there where the time traveler causes the problem they're trying to solve?! Via the butterfly effect or predestination or whatever. I'm just trying to cover all my bases here!

⇒ ... fine
⇒ i guess that's a reasonable thing to check into
⇒ once

Besides, this gave me the chance to catch up on some of my backlog. Not just the notebooks. I've been reading the Hagakure, for example, that one book on bushido Shirou mentioned. Oh, and that muscle memory task we talked about? I did that in the last loop! Dug up a custom version of Tetris I haven't played before. Did a lot of that until I learned the keystrokes.

⇒ and the results?

Mixed! When I started playing the game again in this loop, I was definitely slower than I remember being. Much slower. But I relearned the keystrokes a lot faster than I did the first time. Basically, it seems like muscle memory and conditioning partially transfers across loops. I still need to practice in order to get it all the way back. But otherwise, I guess it's like... I don't know how to describe it. It's like the shape of the skill comes with me when I loop, rather than the skill itself. Or maybe it's more like when you learn how to do something, but then don't practice it for a long time before eventually going back to it again. At first you're struggling - but then you start to recall little bits and pieces that seem familiar, until you finally reacquire the whole thing. Does that make any sense?

⇒ sorta
⇒ anyway that's good to know

Oh, and I'm pretty sure I passed the three-month mark in the last loop at some point. Since I got stuck in this whole situation, I mean. So, you know... there's that.


⇒ skip to: iteration 23, day 8, afternoon

A few decrypted lines from the notebook page with the date calculations (just below where he defines his variables, thank God):

THE BUILD-UP CONTINUES APACE, IT SEEMS.
THE NEXT WAR IS CLOSER AT HAND THAT ANY
ONE ANTICIPATED. BUT WILL I LIVE EVEN T
HIS LONG, I WONDER.


⇒ skip to: iteration 23, day 13, late night

⇒ two riders were approaching
⇒ the wind began to howl

So I am like 98% sure that this isn't my fault now. Because here we are again. City on fire, sirens, everyone screaming, etc.

⇒ satisfied now

I guess? As much as one can be in this kind of scenario, anyway. I dunno. Was I wrong to suspect a last-minute twist?

⇒ no
⇒ you weren't wrong

Yeah, see, I felt like that was a genuine possibility here...

Ulp. And here comes the shadow beam, right on schedule. Here we go aga ow ow fuck always forget how much this sucks fuck fuck shit FU -


⇒ restart: iteration 24, day 1, early night

⇒ there must be some kind of way out of here
⇒ said the joker to the thief

Yeah, no kidding... phoof. Okay. Unless it's a situation where the very fact that I'm time traveling is setting things up or causing - like - a paradox buildup or something technobabblish like that... I'm probably not the problem here.

⇒ congratulations
⇒ can we actually get to work now

Hey, none of that sass. I'm declaring a sass-free environment, effective now.

But... yeah. Let's go talk to some people, I guess.