Sakura Matou Rewrites Destiny

At this moment, Kurumi felt an immense amount of time emanating from King Hassan—enough to make even her excited.

"Ten million... one hundred million... hahahaha, you strange guy actually has the time of seven billion people on you?"

'If only I could obtain this much time before entering the Temple of Destiny... how wonderful that would be...'

With a trace of melancholy and reminiscence, Kurumi, whose face was practically plastered with the word "excitement," began to absorb freely...

"So she really can absorb time..."

Hearing Kurumi's words, Sakura's expression instantly grew even more serious.

Normal Servants shouldn't have time at all, and even if the King Hassan before them wasn't a normal Servant...

The amount of time Kurumi mentioned—equivalent to seven billion humans—shouldn't possibly exist on King Hassan's person.

At this moment, Sakura felt certain she had been dragged into something major...

One minute... two minutes...

As time gradually passed, Kurumi suddenly snapped out of her excitement, and after a moment of hesitation, directly dispelled the Castle of Time summoned by her clones.

This wasn't because Kurumi didn't want the time, or because she was already full.

Rather, as time flowed, Kurumi found it increasingly difficult to plunder time from King Hassan.

If at the start, the time on King Hassan was like clear water, easily absorbed into herself.

Then as time passed, the time on King Hassan gradually turned from clear water into glue... and by the moment Kurumi voluntarily stopped, the time on King Hassan had become nearly as viscous as asphalt—almost impossible to absorb any further.

"Time Spirit, this one is pleased that thou knowest when to stop."

"Tch..."

What nonsense about knowing when to stop—Kurumi didn't 'understand' that word at all... If it weren't that she could barely absorb any more, she wouldn't have stopped.

Especially since this time had been voluntarily offered by King Hassan, a figure whose allegiance was unknown.

Just as Kurumi was forced to stop and feeling annoyed at King Hassan's seemingly gratified expression.

Sakura's gentle, ethereal voice sounded in Kurumi's ear.

"Sister Kurumi... can you confirm roughly how much time you just absorbed?"

"Of course... roughly equivalent to absorbing one month of time from over seven billion people all at once!"

Licking her lips, which had become dry from tension, Sakura, after hearing Kurumi's description, immediately spoke to King Hassan with a tense expression...

"The Counter Force... Alaya?"

Facing Sakura, whose small face was entirely written with tension, King Hassan calmly leaned on the ferocious greatsword in his hand and nodded.

"Thy guess is correct. This time was entrusted to this one by Alaya to deliver to the Time Spirit."

The corners of her mouth twitched involuntarily, and a sense of melancholy emanated from Sakura...

"Then... there wouldn't be Gaia involved as well?"

"Indeed. Gaia also entrusted this one to deliver an item to thee."

As he spoke, a strangely shaped great scythe was tossed out by King Hassan, landing directly in front of Sakura.

Picking up the oddly shaped scythe from the ground, gently stroking the depiction of the Zodiac engraved upon its blade...

The name Chronos involuntarily surfaced in Sakura's mind.

Chronos—the Primal God in ancient Greek mythology, the god of time worshipped by Orphism, one of the three major schools of thought, the Time Dragon God!

In some modern artistic works, he is often depicted as an old man holding a scythe.

And if Sakura wasn't mistaken, what King Hassan had handed over on behalf of Gaia was very likely the scythe in Chronos's hand.

But was this reasonable?

In Sakura's view, it was extremely unreasonable.

After all, the Greek mythology in the Type-Moon system was a bunch of deus ex machina gods.

According to the original text in FGO—the Grand Ancestor's description of the Primal God, Chaos: "The scale of Chaos's existence has far surpassed our world!"

He was an existence beyond the norm, an outlier.

And who was Chronos? In mythology, he was Chaos's father!

An existence far older and greater than Chaos.

How strong was Chaos? He could unleash Noble Phantasm attacks targeting planets, star systems, and even space-time itself. At the same time, he could directly attack concepts, even decomposing concepts on Earth into spiritrons!

And Chronos?

In the Greek mythological system circulating on Earth, he was still far above Chaos.

Chronos's scythe... how did Gaia, the Counter Force, manage to obtain such a Noble Phantasm?

This was far too unreasonable! Theoretically, there should be no Chronos in that fleet of the Greek gods.

Could it be that Chronos was the one who created Chaos?

But if so, how did his humanoid Noble Phantasm fall into Gaia's hands? Wasn't he not supposed to exist on Earth?

And why did Gaia give her this Noble Phantasm?

It couldn't be that she wants Sakura to take it and go cleave those Greek gods from the Lostbelt, could it...

And besides... for such a heavy treasure to fall into Sakura's hands, what price would Sakura have to pay for it...

No doubt about it, a hot potato!

36. Scythe of Chronos, the 16 Years That Were Blocked Out.

For Sakura, who knew the truth and history of the Type-Moon Greek god pantheon, there was no question that after this scythe landed in her hands, her head nearly exploded on the spot.

Too many questions, too many inconsistencies.

Yet clearly, King Hassan had no answers to enlighten Sakura—or perhaps he himself didn't know either.

Gazing at the strange-shaped Noble Phantasm in her hands, engraved with the Zodiac and a full head taller than Sakura herself, at this moment, Sakura undoubtedly wanted nothing more than to return this Noble Phantasm.

Even though, holding it now, she felt that if she swung the scythe, nothing would be beyond her cutting—even time itself could be severed...

Sakura still didn't want this hot potato.

But clearly, Gaia hadn't given Sakura any chance to return it. As if she had known Sakura would try to give it back, Gaia simply didn't come to see her.

"Old Man of the Mountain... can you help me return this to Gaia?"

"When Gaia entrusted it to me, bidding me pass it to you, she did not grant me that option."

"Fine... I knew this was a trap. I shouldn't have picked it up on a whim."

With a gloomy expression, she stabbed the scythe into the lawn. Knowing she couldn't dodge this one, Sakura let out a helpless sigh.

"Ah... alright. Old Man of the Mountain, the Counter Forces gave me time and a Noble Phantasm—what do they want me to do?"

"Stop everything, change everything... They hope you can refuse the Final Day!"

Stop everything? Change everything?

Those were also what Sakura hoped for.

But the Final Day—what was that?

Unable to understand, Sakura turned a puzzled gaze toward King Hassan.

As if reading the question in her eyes, just as Sakura looked at him full of confusion, King Hassan shook his head and said calmly, "You will know in time..."

Know in time?

Was the future already set?

Had fate already woven all of this?

That damned fatalism again!

As the master of the Temple of Destiny, Sakura hated that kind of talk. She was someone who longed to rewrite fate, to change the predetermined plot.

Though for now, limited by her own abilities, she couldn't do it yet, Sakura had always been striving toward that day.

And now, King Hassan's words—in a sense—told her that the future was already decided...

"Is that all?"

"Indeed. The task the Counter Forces entrusted to me was merely this..."

"Hmph, I understand... I'll see to it. If there really is some Final Day."

As Sakura nodded and accepted the conditions set by the Counter Forces, at that very moment, the scythe stuck in the grass beside her foot suddenly moved on its own.

The scythe rose into the air, then, like a crescent moon, swung through empty space once... before beginning to shrink, finally turning into a palm-sized miniature scythe that landed in Sakura's hand.

What just happened?

Sakura, at this moment, had no idea what that scythe had just done...

But Solomon, who had been watching Sakura Matou all along, and Gilgamesh, who was leading Kirei Kotomine to experience pleasure, both clearly sensed that this world had changed.

In early 2016, inside the peaceful, calm Chaldea where nothing had yet happened, just as the Chaldea staff were going about their daily routines... suddenly, a piercing alarm and a red warning light flashed into the eyes and ears of every Chaldea employee in an instant.

Hearing the shrill alarm ringing in her ears, Olga Marie, the director of Chaldea, rushed frantically from her office to the control room, her eyes immediately locking onto the figure by the command console whom she trusted without reserve.

"Lev... what's happening?"

Hearing Olga Marie's call, Lev Lainur Frolo, the powerful magus holding a key post in Chaldea and assisting Olga Marie in its management, seemed to snap awake. He quickly smoothed the frown on his brow, then turned to look at Olga Marie with a slightly unnatural expression.

"I only just arrived myself..."

Just as Lev was about to explain to Olga Marie that he himself wasn't quite sure what had happened—

Suddenly, an employee in the command room shouted in terror.

"Director... Director... look at Chaldeas!"

Everyone looked up, and there, on the transparent screen opposite the command room, the simulated Earth environment model—Chaldeas—

had been shrouded in a shadow at some unknown point.

"Th-this... what in the world happened?"

Seeing Chaldeas covered in a shadow that hadn't been there moments before, Olga Marie let out a piercing shriek.

While everyone's attention was fixed on Chaldeas, Lev, unnoticed on the sidelines, couldn't help but reveal a twisted expression at the sight.

Damn it. So that distortion I discovered wasn't some trivial little issue after all...

Then what exactly was that shadow on Chaldeas, and how did it come about?

That shadow was time—an incredibly violent, incredibly frenzied Temporal Turbulence. And its origin... was naturally the consequence of the Scythe of Chronos's slash at the beginning of 1994...

A layer of dark black mist... stretching across a full sixteen years...

It was as if those sixteen years—from 1988 to 2004—had been severed from the timeline by the Scythe of Chronos, isolated into something independent.

From this moment onward... that entire sixteen-year timeline, as if swallowed by a black hole, had become a bizarre existence that could neither be observed, nor reached, nor analyzed...

Gaia didn't give Sakura the Scythe of Chronos for her to actually go around cutting people with it... though it could cut people, that was true.

Gaia's true purpose in granting Sakura that Noble Phantasm was precisely to make this one slash—to give Sakura a full ten years of time undisturbed by forces capable of traversing timelines.

At the same time, it was to protect Sakura, to keep certain beings that could cross timelines from traveling back to when she was still weak and killing her...

Returning to Fuyuki City at the beginning of 1994.