IBHJ 1130

"The Holy Grail... answered my wish..."

Mordred stared at Dwynwen, unable to process what she was hearing. Her mind wandered back fifteen hundred years, when the Eternal Kingdom was falling apart from within. Sixth Seat had corrupted everything. The Holy Grail had been their last hope.

She'd spent five years searching for it. But when she finally found it, the Holy Grail told her there was no saving what they'd lost.

That's why she had given it to Galahad. Why she chose to carry the burden alone and end the kingdom with her own hands.

And now Dwynwen was telling her the Holy Grail had fulfilled her wish - just not in the way she had wanted.

"Your wish was too big for its power," Dwynwen said softly. "So it found another path. It created a world where the Eternal Kingdom never fell."

The realization hit Mordred all at once. This explained why being in the empire hurt so much. Why every moment here brought back memories of everything she'd lost.

This was why.

Seeing how down Mordred looked, Shirou turned to Dwynwen with a frown. "Could the Holy Grail really do something that massive?"

He'd seen the true Holy Grail himself. Fifteen hundred years ago, Mordred had given it to Galahad, who passed it to Zeus from Miyu's world. Zeus tried to use it to gather all the divinity from his world to create his ultimate weapon. But then the Sixth Seat struck. He'd used Manaka Sajyou, who was hiding inside Ayaka's body, to corrupt it. Manaka's evil had twisted it into something horrible.

Zeus had no choice but to seal it in Pandora before the Age of Gods ended.

Thousands of years passed before the Ainsworth family, who guarded Pandora, started the Class Card Holy Grail War around Miyu, the Divine Child.

During that war, Emiya Shirou beat every opponent and after winning, sent Miyu to Pan-Human History.

The effects of this Holy Grail War woke Manaka up.

But this wasn't the real Manaka Sajyou - it was Sister, a Manaka with a fake personality born from Ayaka's wish.

When Manaka woke up, that horrible thing broke free from Pandora and attacked Pan-Human History. Shirou defeated it in 2003.

And inside that thing was the Holy Grail.

The true Holy Grail.

Despite how everything began with the Holy Grail War, Shirou didn't find this true Holy Grail all that remarkable.

"But you see, the power comes from the Holy Spirit's blood inside the Holy Grail, not the cup itself," Dwynwen said with a smile.

Shirou knew the story. The Holy Grail was the cup that caught the Holy Spirit's blood during the Crucifixion. This simple wine cup became something that could grant wishes because it held that sacred blood - that's why people called it the Holy Grail.

All the Holy Grail Wars across different worlds were just copies of this original, true Holy Grail.

"If it had the Holy Spirit's blood in it, how did you get it, Princess Dwynwen?" he asked.

She smiled, "Mordred wasn't the only one trying to save their country with the Holy Grail."

Mordred looked at her with narrowed eyes.

"After Emperor Nero died, the Roman Empire fell apart with four emperors fighting for control. They wanted the Holy Grail to restore order, so they destroyed Jerusalem, Solomon's city, looking for it."

Dwynwen smiled. "The Holy Spirit brought the Grail to Britain to protect it from human greed and gave it to Ambrosius, who gave it to me. Then Mordred borrowed it, gave it to Galahad, and he passed it to Zeus."

"You knew this all along?" Mordred shot her a look.

"I just remember things well." Dwynwen hid her smile behind her hand.

She waited a moment before speaking again. "Zeus tried to use the Holy Grail against the threat from the Root. But it didn't work. Not that it mattered - what he had was just an empty cup with traces of power left. Nowhere near enough for what he wanted."

"What do you mean, empty?" Mordred asked.

"Like I said before - the cup itself isn't special. It's the Holy Spirit's blood inside that matters. And most of that blood..." Dwynwen looked at Mordred. "It was used to make your wish come true."

Mordred stared at her. "Are you saying... the Emperor..."

"This whole world exists because of your wish, Mordred. A kingdom that never fell, that grew into an empire ruling everything. And the Emperor..." Dwynwen's voice softened. "He was born from the Holy Spirit's blood, created by your wish. He's a Holy Spirit, just like the Enlightened One who reached the other side. That's why everyone calls him the God of this world."

"A Holy Spirit born because of me..."

Mordred clenched her fist until her knuckles turned white.

"A Holy Spirit..." Kama glanced at Mordred's troubled face. "No wonder the Chairman couldn't kill him."

Goetia looked at the ten rings on his hands. Solomon's legendary wisdom and power had come from hearing the Holy Spirit's voice and asking for wisdom.

But this Emperor was different. He was the Holy Spirit itself, born from sacred blood because of Mordred's wish.

Another Holy Spirit.

Now it made sense.

That explained why the ten rings were getting harder to use in this empire.

Shirou touched his crown and looked at Dwynwen. "Another Holy Spirit... wouldn't the true Holy Spirit have an issue with this?"

"Why would they?" She smiled. "Why would someone who's reached the other side care about what happens here? Yes, this planet is special, but after the ancient civilization fell, this whole solar system became like a speck of dust to them. The Holy Spirit probably likes the Emperor, actually. Who wouldn't like a cutie?"

"Cutie?"

She looked away. "Ah... forget I said that."

Shirou rubbed his chin. "So the Holy Spirit remains neutral, like Buddha?"

"Yes," she said. "But the Holy Spirit wasn't born on this planet, unlike Buddha. Even the records of Their resurrection couldn't be saved in the Throne of Heroes. So for this planet, having an Emperor born from Mordred's wish might not be a bad thing."

She smiled slightly. "We're safer now at least. Evil Gods and Beasts can mess with human order all they want, but they can't touch the Emperor."

Abigail: "..."

Goetia: "..."

Kama: "..."

"Wait." Shirou frowned. "If Mordred's wish created the Emperor, how is he making everyone in the empire immortal? Is that the Holy Spirit's power?"

"No." Kama shook her head, "None of us has seen the Emperor. But the people's immortality isn't from Holy Spirit power. If it was, Beasts could break it with their Authority. This is something else. Something worse."

"Kama's right." Dwynwen gazed through the train window at the warped landscape outside. "Everyone in the Eternal Empire has become fairies."

She turned to him, her expression hardening. "But they're closer to Lady Tethys than we are."

"What do you mean?"

"The Emperor went to Tír na nÓg and took two things - an ancient secret art and a relic island." She lowered her voice. "Long ago, Lady Tethys created us fairies using herself as the template. We're immortal, but bound by True Ether. The Emperor perfected her technique. The people of the Eternal Empire now exist closer to Lady Tethys's true form. That's why no Beast can break their immortality."

"Tethys's secret art..." Shirou's forehead creased. It made sense now - the empire's eternal nature came directly from Tethys herself. No wonder Beast couldn’t kill them.

The space hegemony that built Mooncell ran experiments throughout their solar system, creating Gaia and the other planets.

These newborn planets developed their own defenses - the UOs. But Gaia was different. She modeled her UO after the aliens who created her, resulting in an advanced civilization that other planets came to fear.

Under Gaia's guidance, this civilization tapped into Mooncell's knowledge. They evolved rapidly, transforming from physical carbon-based beings into immortal beings of pure information. With their new power, they began using worldlines as energy sources. This let them defeat their creators - the space hegemony - in an interstellar war, after which they established the laws of space travel.

But their constant manipulation of worldlines had consequences. The universe's origin point - the Root - became warped. From this warping came the Lord of Salvation, an entity of absolute evil that opposed all life.

The Lord of Salvation destroyed that civilization, but not before they managed to seal it within the Root.

Tethys, as one of their descendants, tried to rebuild the destroyed civilization. She used secret arts to create some companions, but could only produce fairies - nothing close to the beings of pure information from the civilization she came from.

If what Princess Dwynwen said was right, then the Emperor's actions with the Eternal Empire made perfect sense. The truly frightening part wasn't that he had Holy Spirit blood - it was the ancient secret art he had taken from Tír na nÓg.

At this moment, the train shook violently.

Everyone grabbed whatever was nearby to keep their balance. Kama caught herself and looked at Dwynwen. "What's going on?"

"Nothing to worry about," Dwynwen waved her hand. "We're just crossing the Emperor's Hand on the way to Tír na nÓg. Gets bumpy here every time. I better check on the controls. We can finish our chat when we get there - that child's going to be so happy to see all of you."