IBHJ Chapter 991

"Well, well! It seems you've been harboring a maiden's heart all along. Congratulations, congratulations."

"You're the one with a maiden's heart! This... this has to be some kind of accident or misunderstanding!"

Rather than taking offense, Gilgamesh merely looked at the boy with an amused smirk, clearly enjoying his embarrassment.

Unable to bear Gilgamesh's smug gaze any longer, the boy blurted out in desperation, "Blonde tsundere, sharp-tongued, twintails falling from the sky!"

The effect was immediate. Gilgamesh's amused expression shattered, replaced by raw anger. "If you dare define me with that disgusting drivel again, I'll grind your bones to dust!"

The younger Shirou, realizing he'd struck a nerve, held up his hands. "What? It has nothing to do with me! It's just some manga with a loli Gilgamesh as its selling point. I just happened to see it, and you just happened to see me seeing it."

Gilgamesh's face contorted with rage, clearly torn between the desire to obliterate the insolent youth and some lingering amusement at his audacity. Unable to fully commit to either impulse, he settled for once again bundling the boy up like a dumpling with his chains, suspending him in the air.

"No, wait! I'm sorry!" the boy quickly begged for mercy, his courage evaporating as he began to swing back and forth. Gilgamesh, however, merely grinned viciously, pushing him into another pendulum swing.

The older Shirou watched this scene with a mix of secondhand embarrassment and disbelief, his mouth twitching. Had such absurd antics really been part of his past? Back in the grim and dark Connection Point of Shinjuku, he hadn't seen a trace of such... warmth.

"By the way," the younger Shirou said, his voice strained as he swung back and forth in his aerial dumpling confinement, "that Barbie doll... has she done something to me again?"

The older Shirou's brow furrowed in confusion. "What Barbie doll?" Despite this being their first encounter, neither he nor the boy felt any sense of unfamiliarity with each other.

"Tethys," the boy clarified, his tone suggesting this should be obvious.

Shirou's heart skipped a beat. "Tethys?"

The boy's confusion deepened, mirroring his older counterpart's. "Huh? Isn't this Tethys messing with me again?"

Shirou couldn't help but ask, "Have you met Tethys?"

"Isn't that obvious?" the boy replied, looking increasingly perplexed. "How else could I have summoned Archer?" A note of doubt crept into his voice. "Are you really my future self? How could you forget something this important?"

Shirou's frown deepened as he tried to process this information. Tethys was the core of everything, including the vortex in his soul. He had been searching for her relentlessly, and yet... could it be that she had been by his side all along?

In the endless cycle of resets, Shirou had lost the memories of his previous lives. Without a doubt, the boy before him represented one of those lost pasts—a version of himself that had direct contact with Tethys.

Suddenly, with a soft "clatter," the younger Shirou's glasses were dislodged, falling to the ground. "Archer, please put me down. My glasses fell off—I can't see anything."

Gilgamesh scoffed, "Being blind suits you best."

"You're such a big meanie," the boy pouted.

The older Shirou, suppressing a sigh, walked over and retrieved the glasses from the ground. He held them up to his younger self, who gratefully slipped them back on.

"Thanks," the boy said, blinking as the world came back into focus. He turned his attention back to Gilgamesh. "Has your anger cooled off yet? Don't be so petty."

Gilgamesh, who had indeed been calming down, felt his irritation flare up again. Veins visibly pulsed on his forehead, but he managed to restrain himself. With a cold snort, he finally lowered the boy to the ground.

As his feet touched solid ground, the boy took in his surroundings properly for the first time. His eyes widened as he noticed the additional company—Misaya and the unconscious Cu Chulainn.

"Eh? Reiroukan-senpai? Why are you here too?"

"So the blind one finally noticed me," Misaya said, her face full of resentment.

The boy smiled. "You have such little presence, Reiroukan-senpai. Like a ghost. You can't blame me for not noticing you."

"I... you...!" she stammered, clenching her fists. "You're as detestable as ever!"

"Am I?" the boy cocked his head. "Seems like you're the only one who thinks so."

"I'm sorry, but I do too," Gilgamesh said with a cold smile.

Shirou calmly added, "And me."

The boy blinked, genuine confusion spreading across his face. "Wait, what? Gilgamesh I can understand, but you too? How can you hate me when I'm literally you? Isn't that just... self-loathing with extra steps?"

Shirou said nothing, just held the boy's gaze. A complex mix of emotions churned inside him. Even though he knew this was the past he had lost, that it was himself, he still couldn't help but feel a pang of jealousy. He had experiences and strength that his past self didn't have, but similarly, his past self possessed things he had lost.

"What on earth is going on, Fujimaru Shirou!" Misaya shouted. She had been attacked by non-humans, and now it turned out that the non-human was apparently the future Fujimaru Shirou.

The boy raised his hands. "Look, I'm as lost as you are. I don't know why future me came here. All I know is what Kiara told us—something about us being in a game world?"

"Not exactly," the older Shirou said. "It's more like an illusion, created by Mooncell from my memories."

All eyes turned to him as he gave a brief rundown of the South American Connection Point.

Misaya shook her head, her voice rising. "Illusions? Memories? That's absurd! This has to be some kind of trick you're playing, Fujimaru Shirou!"

"I also find it hard to accept..." The boy's expression was troubled. "Everything feels so real, yet you say we are all illusions formed from your memories... Huh, Archer, why are you so quiet?"

They followed his gaze, surprised to see Gilgamesh—usually so loud and prideful—standing with his head bowed in deep thought. The sight was so out of character it made even this bizarre situation seem stranger.

Gilgamesh lifted his head, his eyes blazing as they locked onto Shirou. "I can't see through or understand things from beyond Earth, but based on your explanation, I'm certain that neither I nor anything here is a mere illusion created from your memories."

"Oh?" Shirou's eyebrows rose. "What's your thought on this then?" He knew better than to dismiss Gilgamesh's opinion.

"Probably something similar to Heroic Spirit summoning." Gilgamesh paused, gathering his thoughts. "We Servants are the result of a downgraded ritual formed by humans imitating the Counter Force's Heroic Spirit Summoning. Simply put, it's a ritual that summons a certain life stage of a Heroic Spirit who has completed their life journey and legend. I am the young stage of the Heroic Spirit Gilgamesh when he set out to conquer heaven and earth. That Cu Chulainn is the young stage of the Heroic Spirit Cu Chulainn just after he came out of the Land of Shadows. As for this 'dungeon'... I'm sure I don't need to explain further, do I?"

The boy and Misaya exchanged bewildered glances, not understanding what he meant.

Shirou, however, frowned deeply. "Are you suggesting this is my past? That some force has extracted a timeline from a node in my personal history?"

Gilgamesh nodded. "Whether this force is what you call 'Mooncell' or not, this King cannot say. But it's clear that some Mystery has tampered with your timeline."

The boy's eyes widened, his gaze darting between Gilgamesh and his older self. "Wait, is that even possible?"

"It is," It was Shirou who answered, not Gilgamesh.

He continued, "There are many entities and Mysteries capable of manipulating timelines. Remember, there's still that woman in Shinjuku. And... well, even I can manipulating timelines to some extent."

The boy looked at Shirou in disbelief. Was his future self really that strong?

Misaya let out an exasperated sigh, rolling her eyes. "Timelines this, Mysteries that. Could you maybe speak a language the rest of us understand?"

Her frustration was obvious. Despite the Reiroukan family's magical prestige, concepts like timeline manipulation clearly fell into the realm of "Laws"—far beyond her understanding of traditional magecraft. The idea of parallel worlds, so commonplace in Shirou's time, was still foreign in this era, leaving her without the framework to understand these complex ideas.