4/
Lately my mind has been on my sister.
Icecolle said that we might be able to blame the person herself for selfishly dying but I can't even do that.
Winter in London is white. The streets are paved with snow, and usually it's the seasons of comings, rather than going. It's with this false consumerist cheer serving as our backdrop that I said goodbye to my sister and her fiancée.
There wasn't much emotion in my chest that time. There was no apprehension, I was not worried about the future, and there was no way I could imagine they would never come back. Never doubting for a moment, I passed Kayneth the wooden box with his replacement catalyst inside.
The previous catalyst had been stolen by an idiot student of his so it was natural that he would turn to the Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri for a replacement.
"In this box are the remnants of a fence with seven doorways that once stood in a forest near Athlone. With this, you will summon the Saber-class Servant you seek."
Patting me on the shoulder, Kayneth regaled me about how great of a brother-in-law I would be and promised when he came back he would tell me all about the great battles he conquered in the largest sub-category Holy Grail War held thus far.
I have been waiting ten years to hear his stories. I have been waiting ten years to see her face once more.
It was difficult to see it back then, with her being bundled up in furs and a scarf covering the bottom half of her face. But as I was wishing my sister, my former spare, goodbye and a safe trip, I'm not sure I felt much at all.
If I didn't feel much, if I didn't put much importance in that farewell, wholeheartedly believing that in two weeks they would return, then what are the chances of me even remembering what her face was at the time?
Was she happy, ready to go into battle with the man she loved and would marry?
Was she scared, hopelessly depressed about the possibility of being drawn into battle?
And that's why I can't blame my sister for dying. I might be able to blame Kayneth for bringing her, but who could blame such an illustrious and great man in the first place?
Without knowing who to blame, I've spent this decade pondering about everything I've lost; even if, at the time, I took everything I had for granted.
How truly easy it must be to punish those you believe did wrong and in doing so, do right, while laying those you love to rest. It doesn't even matter if Icecolle isn't human because, and I don't want to admit this, that feeling, that emotion, is more human than anything that I have decided on in these ten years.
We are both victims.
We are the ones who were left behind because of the selfish nature of a magical war.
But even so, it's not like we had everything taken away from us; this is just one part of who we are. Yet, why does it feel as though this is now the core of my being?
Maybe that's why Icecolle took my arm away from me, so I could finally understand what was lost and what can never be replaced. Even if I somehow remember the sort of face my sister made when she left for that Holy Grail War, I'll never see her again.
This is difficult, but not difficult in the way that magic formulas or rituals are difficult. The problem is difficult because I don't think there's a right answer. It's not like I know that what I did was correct because some phenomenon was correctly replicated. Rather, the question is whether or not I can live with myself after what I've chosen.
How do we, those who were left behind, move forward?
When I wake up, I find a plate of food next to the bed – what seems to be a thick yogurt sweetened with honey, a slice of black bread, and the same pot of the tea that Icecolle made me when we talked last afternoon. The smell woke my stomach so I break off a corner of bread, dip it into the yogurt and pop it into my mouth.
"It's good, isn't it?" Mr. Musik is at the laboratory bench-top. "Sour cream mixed with cottage cheese, sounds absolutely disgusting like most of the foods this culture has to offer, but it grows on you after a while." Like the insolence of a certain homunculus, he adds, mumbling under his breath.
When our afternoon tea concluded, Icecolle escorted me back to the cell, where I promptly flopped into the lumpy bed without saying a word to my cellmate. I don't think my cellmate really cared.
Still, as I absentmindedly ruminate on this hard bread, I can't help but think how unsafe it is to be eating in this alchemical workshop. In the Clock Tower, they do teach us not to eat while performing magecraft unless that happens to be one's switch or the magecraft is the food itself. Either way, I digress.
"Mr. Musik, what was Icecolle talking about when she said she wanted you to create a vessel for a wish-granter for her? Does this have to do with the Great Holy Grail War?"
Mr. Musik snorts, making a crude remark about Icecolle.
"It's something as idiotic as you are," he says, moving to the old-fashioned furnace. "You know that my family once almost reached the level the Einzbern were at. We had a long way to go, but at the very least, we were able to see their haughty backs." Mr. Musik lightly scoffs at himself.
All magi look back into the past, that's what separates magecraft from science. But it seems like Mr. Musik is saying those times were when his family was the most useless or maybe those times mean less to him now than they once did.
"The Einzbern are able to make Holy Grails and put them in homunculi, or rather, make a homunculus as a Holy Grail," he continues.
If you give the Holy Grail a personality, the Holy Grail can not only manage itself, but also choose who should wield it. Essentially, the Einzbern are able to cheat. But why are we talking so much about the Einzbern if the person Icecolle kidnapped was Mr. Musik?
"The Einzbern once gifted the Musik family a portion of their magecraft and with that I was able to create the homunculi we used for the Great Holy Grail War. During that conflict, there was one function that I was able to realize that Darnic didn't want in the homunculi. Either way, implementing it into every single one of those brats would have taken too much time and didn't have much of a use. What was left out was the ability for the homunculi to fully function as vessels."
I see. I'm not an alchemist, but at the very least I understand the meaning behind those words.
"The reason why the Einzbern created homunculi that served as vessels is when the Servants were defeated, their spiritual cores could be collected and stored there, then."
A homunculus is an artificial life-form made from alchemy. However, the original purpose of creating a homunculus is creating magic circuits which are housed in a body compared to a magus who has a body which houses magic circuits. Furthermore, the zenith of homunculi are those called children of nature, basically, artificial nature spirits. These children of nature are generally complete the moment they are born and can survive on the breath of the planet alone. Needless to say, homunculi are riddled with defects due to their artificial nature. These go from a missing limb or mental disabilities to stunted growth or a very limited lifespan. No matter how much magical energy they can produce, they are a weaker species than humans. However, there is one advantage to this, a homunculus' artificial soul is young and very malleable, and if Mr. Musik is correct and he is able to create homunculi who are conceptually "vessels…."
"Mr. Musik, what is this new Icecolle head?"
"How on earth should I know? Probably a group of evil spirits or something like that." He throws his arms up in exasperation. "I can tell you that close to half a year after Celenike died, the three families who wanted to leave the Yggdmillennia debuted this new head."
I look at Mr. Musik's back more intensely. He knows, but he just doesn't want to tell me. I don't know who or what he's trying to protect. But we are never going to get out of here if he's going to be like that.
If I had to make a guess from our former battle and from everything that I have heard, I would say that Icecolle is a curse, the curse of the Icecolle so to speak. The moment this "Celenike" person died, there was nothing but ruin waiting for the family, so those who were left sacrificed themselves to change the destiny of the family. But a curse can never save anything, it can never give birth to something new. The remnants of the Icecolle had to know this, so then maybe what they wished for wasn't the further prosperity of the family. Maybe they just called it a day and decided to curse those who drove them to such a desperate situation.
In their desperation and dying moments, the Icecolle made a wish, but it was a distorted wish, a curse. And what place suits a distorted wish better than a wish-granting vessel?
"So then, Mr. Musik, do you want to escape?"
He sharply turns around, "Of course I do. What sort of question is that?"
"So then, Mr. Musik, why are you cooperating with her?"
If Icecolle wants Mr. Musik to create a homunculus body for her, there's no way she could put a mystic lock on this place. After all, Mr. Musik has to be able to use alchemy. At the same time, while we might not be able to escape via brute force, there is an infinite number of tricks that we could use. The question is why hasn't Mr. Musik tried? Icecolle even said that he was cooperating.
Usually, Mr. Musik looks slightly disgruntled at everything around us. However, right now, his face is at its most emotionless. He leaves the furnace, sits on his bed, and turns to face me.
"That's the question."
It seems that Mr. Musik also can't help but feel responsible. From what I've seen of him, he's an abrasive and awkward man who doesn't care about anything other than himself and his magecraft. In short, he is the perfect magus. That's obvious though; after all, only the greatest of magi could have survived the Great Holy Grail War.
"Bram," he looks at me like one would look in a mirror. "I'm not that great of a person and I'm not that great as a magus. Neither are you.
"I'm no more than an idiot who was given the best card possible but never believed in the person behind the card. It might be okay if that card was someone I alone possessed and only I was brought to ruin because of my mistake, but that wasn't the case. It was a card that the entire clan shared and it was because of my mistake that we lost it before the war even started.
"It was my fault, but it wasn't only my fault. In that war, everyone made mistakes and the Ygddmillennia were blind-sighted by so many things. To make matters even more pathetic, the kid who saved us became a dragon who stole hope from humanity."
He laughs at that last remark before continuing.
"But, as a bad-mouthed and coarse homunculus once said to me, 'As an alchemist, you are… not that bad.' She's dead now, but as terrible as that woman was, those words saved me when I hit rock bottom," he says so without any emotion, but I can see a faint smile behind those words.
"Bram, I know that you lost a sister in a sub-category Holy Grail War, so I think you understand this better than most people do. What we lost and the situation that we were in doesn't make us special. What I went through is simply a part of life. Hah, it might be different for that fool and his sister since they were in the thick of it, but me? My war was over before I knew it and I became nothing more than an observer. Life is short but at the same time life is extremely long. The things that you believe that define you now… in ten, twenty, fifty years, their brilliance and luster will fade until they are nothing but faint dreams. Even so, there was meaning to those things. It's because of how they sparkled that I am here today."
Mr. Musik, I don't think I understand that because I haven't been able to let my sister go. In fact, I can't even touch something related to a sub-category Holy Grail War without thinking about what may have happened.
"What does this have to do with Icecolle though?"
"Celenike was not a good person. You could say she was a monster. However, she was still family who died because of our mistakes. When I was taken, I immediately thought to escape, just like you said. But this new head is simply too thick, just like you. Argh, it seriously annoys me thinking about it."
That's the Mr. Musik I know. Arrogant and problematic to the core. The reason why he's staying here can't be because of compassion or any emotion remotely close to empathy. He saw someone incompetently living their life and found it insulting to his sensibilities – like a veteran scolding his junior. It makes me slightly happy that there are magi like this.
That must be the reason why I sought out Mr. Musik. Feeling lost for ten years, never finding the courage, the humility to ask for help, I forced myself into a situation where I could at least watch someone who I believed went through the same thing I did yet came out stronger. With that being said, I'll admit that I have totally failed. Bram Nuada-Re Sophi-Ri can never compare to Gordes Musik Yggdmillenia, no matter our pedigree, no matter our magic circuits.
Valuables things were lost, but at the same time there were precious things that were obtained. I will mourn those things, I will learn from them, but no matter what I will face the uncertain future aiming for a star that I know I will never reach.
Frankly, I'm jealous. I wish I could live like that. I wish I had people around me who could provoke me, guide me to live like that. Instead, lately, my mind has just been on my sister.
And that's why Icecolle wants me to acknowledge her. Because honestly, I want Icecolle to acknowledge me as well. I know that she isn't human, but that makes it even more inviting. To have some objective proof that it's okay for me to feel this pain, that it's okay to hurt others because of my pain is more than comforting.
But I can't help thinking that's she's wrong. That she's forgetting something.
"Mr. Musik," I look him straight in the eyes, "Can you help me?"
"What do you want me to help you with?"
"-"
He scoffs, "Of course I can you idiot. All you ever had to do was ask for crying out loud!" He looks at my feather pillow. "Now take the relic out of that pillow case. Why do you think I turned on the furnace?"
Ha?
"You might be an idiot, but just because we share a cell, don't assume for a second that I am too. This is going to take a few days, but I said I was going to help you, didn't I? What you have to worry about is what spirit you're going to evoke into it."
"Don't worry Mr. Musik, I already know what spirit I'm going to use for that."
But the moment I say that, I look down at the clothes I was supplied and make a second innocent request.
"Can you help me put on my suit as well?"
"Hell no. One arm or not, put on your own trousers, you cheeky brat."
And for the first time in as long as I can remember, I smile.
Let's get to work, shall we?