In the fragmented images, long-absent smiles appeared on the stern faces of the representatives from the Clock Tower, the Atlas Institute, and the Wandering Sea. They looked as pleased as cats that had caught the scent of fish. In stark contrast, Romani sat across from them with a miserable expression, saying nothing.
Thus, Chaldea began formally engaging with outside mage factions and nations around the world. Vast quantities of supplies were shipped in, and countless scholars from various fields gathered there to research and develop a passage to the Otherworld, hoping to open its gates.
Watching the events unfold in the images, Ye Uchiha asked curiously, "So you just agreed to their demands?"
Romani gave a bitter smile. "Yes. To keep Chaldea running and ensure the continued survival of the Human Order, we had no choice but to agree."
"Wait, what about your Ritsuka Fujimaru? Hasn't he contracted with plenty of Heroic Spirit Servants? Chaldea shouldn't have to fear anyone, should it?"
Ye Uchiha remembered that Ritsuka Fujimaru, the protagonist of Fate/Grand Order, had far more than just Mash, a Demi-Servant. Although the game's story was primarily told from the player's perspective, new Heroic Spirits were summoned to fight in almost every Singularity. Added together, there had to be dozens, if not over a hundred. Such an impressive, powerful lineup alone should have been enough to crush any faction in the Nasuverse.
Ye Uchiha could not understand why Chaldea would compromise with other factions.
"Ritsuka is only a fragile human Master, not a Heroic Spirit Servant. Aside from his status as a Master, he's merely an ordinary mage. How could he possibly withstand the malice of the entire world?"
Romani understood perfectly well what Ye Uchiha meant and explained with a bitter, helpless expression.
Heroic Spirit Servants depended on their Master and Chaldea to sustain their magical energy. It was not inexhaustible. Once it ran out, they could only return to the Throne of Heroes or fall dormant in the Spirit Origin storage chamber.
Although most mages could not match Heroic Spirits, even Heroic Spirits could not withstand their schemes if they resorted to every dirty trick available.
As Chaldea's only current Master, Ritsuka Fujimaru was the backbone of the entire organization and its sole link to those Heroic Spirit Servants. They could afford to lose anyone else, but losing Ritsuka would mean the end of Chaldea's mission to safeguard the Human Order.
As for the Heroic Spirits who had formed Servant contracts with Ritsuka Fujimaru and remained at Chaldea, whether they would continue helping it protect the Human Order after losing their bond with their Master was another matter entirely. In their eyes, protecting the Human Order was simply their Master's command and their duty as Servants, not an obligation they inherently owed.
If the outside mages became determined to obtain Chaldea's information on the Otherworld, they would stop at nothing to assassinate its Master, Ritsuka Fujimaru. To them, Ritsuka Fujimaru, with his bonds to so many Servants, was the greatest threat. If they truly took action, even the protection of numerous Heroic Spirits might not be enough to keep him alive.
Romani knew the character of the Nasuverse's mages all too well. For the prosperity of their families, they would even sacrifice their own children. To fulfill a long-forgotten "five-hundred-year obsession," they would turn themselves into grotesque beings, neither human nor ghost. To pursue their own pleasure, they would feed on the suffering and misfortune of others.
Although Chaldea could summon Spirit Origins through the Guardian Heroic Spirit Summoning System, the cost was far too high. Its lack of funding also made the summoning mechanism extremely unstable.
With luck, they might summon extraordinary Heroic Spirits such as Gilgamesh or Scáthach, but they might also summon Darius or Ashra. It largely depended on the Master's own luck.
"And then? Did you eventually find a way to reach the Otherworld?"
"Yes. After several years of research, we found a way to reach the Otherworld. Using the Holy Grail and the power of the Heroic Spirits, we successfully arrived on the other side."
Romani waved his hand, and the images shifted to another scene.
Beneath a dim, gloomy sky, a hideous, misshapen monster roared, firing strange energy blasts from its mouth at the mages invading its territory.
But there were too many mages. By kiting it and unleashing more attacks than it could handle, they wore the monster down until it died. Then they dismembered its corpse and sent the pieces to a dedicated temporary research facility to study its anatomy.
"The first world we reached was an ancient world where the Age of Gods had declined and all manner of monsters roamed freely. That world possessed a treasure called the Shikon Jewel, which was said to grant any wish. Even its scattered fragments held the power to reverse life and death and strengthen their bearers."
The Shikon Jewel, yokai...
Ye Uchiha stared thoughtfully at the scenery in the images. From what Romani had just said, he already knew it was Inuyasha's world.
"Once the mages learned what the Shikon Jewel could do, they went mad, searching everywhere for its fragments. Chaldea wanted to stop them, but the situation was already out of control. The lure of the Root drove them to the brink of insanity. These mages from another world slaughtered indiscriminately, earning the hostility of many local Great Yokai, spiritual practitioners, and monks. The two sides began clashing, and just as I had predicted, war eventually broke out between the two worlds..."
The yokai and human spiritual practitioners set aside their prejudices and united to counterattack the mages' camp. Among them were terrifying beings comparable to high-ranking Heroic Spirits, and a great battle erupted between the two sides.
In the fragmented images, a red-robed half-yokai with white dog ears and long silver hair swung an enormous blade, unleashing a fierce hurricane. A monk wearing blue-and-black robes opened his right hand, and the black hole in his palm generated a tremendous pull, sucking in all matter around it. A delicate-featured, black-haired shrine maiden in red and white held a bow, firing arrows that turned into blue-green beams and shattered the barriers the mages had erected.
In the end, the mages won the war at a terrible cost. They captured or killed the humans and yokai who had resisted them and sent them to magecraft workshops as research material. Only a small number of yokai and humans with supernatural powers managed to escape.
"We wanted to stop them, but things had already gone beyond the point of no return. Even many prominent figures in the Mage's Association tacitly approved of those mages' actions. Chaldea alone had nowhere near enough influence to sway the decisions of the higher-ups. Then nations around the world sent in troops to occupy and divide up that world's territory...
"It's laughable, really. Chaldea was supposed to be a force for justice that safeguarded the Human Order and protected the world, yet we became accomplices to the butchers invading other worlds. If Marisbury knew the Chaldea he founded had become something like this, he'd probably be furious enough to curse us out." Watching the scenes continue to play, Romani gave a bitter, self-mocking smile.
Ye Uchiha said, "None of this seems connected to the disaster you mentioned, does it? It's just a war of aggression. I don't see any signs of a disaster."
"After that great battle, the mages gathered all the pieces of the Shikon Jewel. But unlike what they had imagined, it didn't possess the power to reach this world's Root directly. To be precise, it couldn't grant wishes at all. At most, it was an enhanced magical energy amplifier with the additional ability to resurrect the dead, and even that came with stringent conditions."
Ignoring Ye Uchiha's interruption, Romani continued his account, while the scenes in the fragmented images began flashing past more quickly.
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