Kama—or rather, Kama's core as Beast III/L—had already traded pieces with the Old Man of the Mountain. She couldn't be moved lightly.
So after Irisviel joined—
The war's balance became 3 : 2 : 1.
Byakuya's side: Morgan + Scáthach + the Goddess Rhongomyniad
Enemy Group A: Iskandar + Diarmuid
Enemy Group B: Gilgamesh
…Right.
"Last night you said that if we confirmed the Grail was corrupted, you'd need to prepare something," Byakuya said to Irisviel. "What exactly are you preparing?"
"Of course I can answer." Irisviel nodded. "Actually, I intended to bring it up anyway. Since we've allied with the Matōs and you already know the Greater Grail is tainted… I assume you also understand the essence and procedure of this war?"
"I know some." Byakuya nodded. "After the Greater Grail gathers enough mana from the Fuyuki leylines, it selects Masters, who summon Servants to fight. When one victor remains, the sixty years of accumulated mana is used to stabilize the 'hole' opened when a Servant returns to the Throne—so you can reach the Root."
"Exactly." Irisviel continued smoothly. "To achieve that, the souls of defeated Servants are temporarily held inside the Lesser Grail. And you likely already know this: in every war, the Lesser Grail is provided by the Einzbern."
She paused deliberately.
"But what you may not know is that besides being the Einzbern Master, I also have another identity."
Irisviel looked straight at him.
"I am also the Lesser Grail for this war."
Byakuya: "…"
Should I admit I already knew?
"After repeated failures in prior wars," Irisviel went on, "one of the Einzberns' decisions for the Fourth War was to give the 'Grail vessel' the property of being alive, to increase our odds."
"Normally, when a Servant is defeated, their soul is recovered by me. And as I absorb more Servant souls, the function of the Grail vessel expands until it fully suppresses my original personality. At that point, I become the complete Lesser Grail."
"That's why I brought several maids with me to Fuyuki. Their task is to assist the ritual once my human functions fail."
Irisviel's gaze hardened.
"But now that the Greater Grail is corrupted…"
"So you want to adjust the 'Lesser Grail' function in you," Byakuya said, "so you don't lose yourself as the war progresses?"
"Yes." Irisviel nodded. "Even if it's only to ensure Saber can face that thing in her best state later… I can't become a burden."
"In that case," Byakuya said, "I happen to have a 'professional' on our side."
He pulled Morgan into a private channel via the Master–Servant link, asked her opinion, then recommended her to Irisviel.
Irisviel hesitated and looked to her own Servant.
The goddess gave a small nod. "Whatever else you think, in this matter you can trust Sister King's technique."
…
Two hours later.
Morgan and Irisviel emerged from a room, one after the other.
"Well?" Byakuya asked, seated in a wicker chair by the second-floor window, not bothering to turn around.
"Not difficult." Morgan walked over, picked up Sakura from a nearby chair, sat down, and settled the sleeping girl on her lap. "As she said, she's a perfected artificial lifeform at the end of that particular path."
"Other than being born in a workshop's amniotic tank instead of a womb, waking with this body rather than as an infant, and trading lifespan for extreme performance… she is almost identical to a normal human."
"So all we need is to separate the carrier of her 'Grail vessel' function—her heart—then replace it with a new one. That preserves her personality without preventing the Lesser Grail from activating normally."
"I took a small sample from her heart. Give me about three days to complete cultivation."
"After she receives the new heart, her lifespan should reach a normal human level."
Morgan tilted her chin toward the yard outside, where metallic clanging rang nonstop. "And what are those two doing?"
Byakuya followed her indication.
In the courtyard, Scáthach held her crimson spear. Across from her, the goddess gripped the holy lance Rhongomyniad—something that, in a sense, was her very body.
"As you can see," Byakuya said cheerfully, "they were idle. So they're moving a bit."
Two hours earlier, Sakura still hadn't woken up. After Morgan took Irisviel away, the living room had only been Byakuya, Scáthach, and the Goddess Rhongomyniad.
And to be honest, none of the three were good at starting conversations.
Byakuya could at least grind his Rune Magecraft proficiency and pretend to be busy.
Scáthach and the goddess, on the other hand, could only stare.
Maybe even they thought the silence was unbearable. After a round of "whoever blinks first loses," they wordlessly reached for their weapons at the same time—
If you can't talk, then put everything into your spear.
That was the narration Byakuya heard in his head when he saw it.
"Very much something she would do," Morgan said, smiling. "If she'd been even a little better at speaking back then, Camelot wouldn't have—"
She cut herself off abruptly, shook her head, and returned her gaze to the goddess.
"It seems becoming a 'god' instead of the 'king' hasn't shortened the distance between her and the 'human' she was meant to be."
"Which brings me to a question," Byakuya said, studying Morgan. "Back then, were you angry because you were also a woman—and the island's rightful ruler in Britain's Mystery—yet she was chosen as king? Or was it more that you couldn't stand how she became a hero, a savior, a king… while that nobility was, in some sense, built on her denial of 'self'?"
"Master." Morgan's tone cooled. "You're crossing a line."
She handed him a teardrop-shaped glass vial with a long narrow neck.
"Drink it."
Byakuya rocked the vial. The black liquid inside shimmered with an oily, rainbow sheen.
"What is it?" he asked. "A potion that makes people unable to speak?"
"I haven't named it yet," Morgan said lightly. "But making someone shut up shouldn't be a problem."
"These years, whenever I've found an interesting toxin, or created a new poison, I extract a little essence and store it in there."
Byakuya, who was about to pull the stopper and sniff it: "..."
....
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