Fate/Spring Tonelico (Fate/Grand Order Redux)

The Faerie of Paradise may not possess memories of Spring. The journey must be nothing but suffering, for only hardship may forge a blade that bears the wishes of humanity. It is the struggle of the sorrowful for a better, brighter future that gives birth to the blade that shall save the planet.

Kicking. Screaming. Begging. Blood everywhere. Torn apart by ones own subjects after betrayals most heinous by those who do not understand. A miserable end at the beginning of the end. A hopeless end. A lightless end. Britain crumbles in calamity and the world shatters apart.

A sad end.

"Isn't it miserable?"

I wanted to save Britain. I wanted to be within a Britain that retained the state of Mystic. I wanted to rule Britain.

Those goals seemed incompatible. Why did I want to save a dead world? Why did I wish to rule a dead world? The dead world dragged me down and drew me towards the darkened, bleached shore of the grudge of the world. It made me remorseless, tormented, almost…

My body was hacked apart. They started at my back and then went to my extremities. Blood and gore and viscera spread everywhere.

I did not have any memories of Spring. It was that very fact that made me decide to forego the forging of the Sacred Armament of the Planet. I chose to use my free will to reject the path the Great Mother of Us All had decided. I was allowed to, wasn't I? For I was merely an aspect of that great will and thus had my own input on the decision. Why should I become the bones that brings salvation to the planet? The planet is unworthy of saving.

No, all Britain needed for it's salvation was me. That was my sincere thought. Yet at the close, it rejected my salvation. The very land itself was rising up, my subjects turning on me and casting me down. The blood in my body boiled and sizzled as my flesh tore and rent. I was merely a sack of unwanted meat to the fae and human within my court at this point. Sooner or later they would tire of the torment, but there would never be an end to it. I was a Faerie of Paradise. I would live on, impotent, useless, even as a bunch of lumps of flesh.

The best case scenario is that they would throw me in the pit. At least then the curse of the world to destroy this land would swallow me up. The Faerie of Paradise did not have the luxury of death. I would never be allowed to rest no matter how many years passed. Not until this Lost World that I had formed collapsed. Not until all my dreams lay in rubble and ruin.

"Isn't it sad?"

My body had lost its strength. With it, my thought clones, one by one, ceased to function. They may have been exact replicas of myself, in action and deed and yes, even thought, but without the energy passing through my throne, it was simply impossible for me to maintain them. A dark part of my rapidly fleeing consciousness pointed out that if I had simply taken to the battlefield myself, I would not be in this situation. A dark, traitorous part of myself.

My eyes burned. I thought they were tears for a moment, but really, it was blood. My eyes had already been put out by random swings of blades. I'm not sure my head was even intact anymore. My mind, desperate to be anywhere else, cast itself to my fading clones, overwriting them. In my final moments, extending to eternity, I desired reprieve. However brief that reprieve might be.

I could see her. The other me. My sister born of the Great Mother of Us All. The other Faerie of Paradise. She was struggling to stay conscious, stay alive. My onslaught had almost been enough to murder her, in spite of our inability to die. Maybe it would be a kindness to do so anyway. I could summon strength enough for this. To smite her down and enforce the shattering of Planet's Will. The Faerie of Paradise had at this point become more like a grudge then anything else. Something the planet did more out of spiteful obligation then anything else. The release of the Monster from the Abyss all those years ago, that thing that I had murdered, showed that even our Great Mother had given up on the idea of forgiving the sins of the fae. Forgiveness was out of the question. Hope was to be abandoned. Salvation was now dead at the deeds of the fae and that filthy human who acted more like a fae then any other.

My eyes found the foreign mage. The form was inconsistent, I realised. I was sure that the foreign mage had been a man in the Lostbelt of Greece, when I'd cast my gaze away, but she was a woman here. No, it wasn't that she was inconsistent, I realised. Rather, the Lostbelt's had as many possibilities as a true history of the world. In the history of the world, whether the foreign mage was male or female was not an important detail, merely that they existed.

And existed, they did. My thought clone took a sharp breath into her lungs. The pain of the real me was blinding, excruciating. They had taken to carving and goring my insides now. For a Faerie, possessing Faerie Patterns caused ones internal nerves to form into a magical circuit. The strong among us would possess working nerves in even the blood, that allowed us to determine what was happening within our bodies. My patterns were a step more powerful, Divine Patterns that were, as a Faerie of Paradise, of the same calibre of the grand dragon that was the model of the Sea of Life.

Much like Albion, I could feel every little thing that happened to my body, even the parts of me that had been carved away. My body had lost over half of its weight. It would not be inaccurate to say that at this point, it was the act of desecration itself that was alleviating the twisted fantasies of the fae within the throne room. They were like cruel, innocent children. They knew not what they were doing beyond a surface level pleasure response. They believed that they were safe, so they lashed out at the one who they feared, even if I had been sheltering them.

The foreign mage was now unconscious. My thought clone had not ceased fighting, but instead continued in her mission to destroy the enemy. Her allies expended, my sister had drawn forth the light of the star to protect them from me. It was in that brief moment that I understood the name born by the other me.

Avalon le Fae was a name we bore as faeries. It described our purpose. It was more akin to a title then anything else. The shape of our magicks, though, showed us for what we really are.

Excalibur. Shining Sword that Promises Victory. Salvation on a breath. The whisper of human hope.

Rhongomyniad. Shining Spear that Promises Victory. Salvation on a breath. The whisper of human desire.

Hope. Desire. Two sides of the same coin. Excalibur would save humans because they hoped to be saved, a miracle that drove back the dark. Rhongomyniad would save humans because they desired to be saved, a miracle that formed in the darkest hour. Both would see humans to dawn in different ways.

Excalibur's eyes met Rhongomyniad's. My eyes, or rather, my thought clone's, met that of little Artoria. She was so young still. Still so very unaware of what it truly meant to be a Faerie of Paradise. She would be hated, despised, cursed by all.

Like me.

But unlike me, she would not break. She was made of stuff so much sterner, because her childhood had not given her a glimpse of a better life. Unlike me, she had been truly alone until the beginning of her journey, and unlike me, she'd been blessed by a wonderful companion of which to lean on in the worst times.

Staring at her, I could only wonder.

If I had a human to lean on in the worst times, could I have done it? Remained firm and strong?

My thoughts betrayed me, for I had a human to lean on. Uther. He was now gone. My sorrow at his passing would be eternal, and-

No. Uther was not a human. Not truly. He was a twisted creation of this twisted world that I had allowed to live entirely too long. He was a breathing corpse of someone who had died at the dawn of meaningful history. The foreign mage was no such fake. She was a genuine article. A friend.

Beryl had never acted as such to me. I saw straight through him, after all. My eyes could see lies. I had grown so used to the lies that I had stopped paying attention.

My inattention had cost me.

"Isn't it disgusting?"

In that final moment, my thought clones magical energy began to expire, and I understood. The source of my woes had always been myself. The other me, summoned by Beryl from the Pan-Human History. The wish I had inherited from her was to Rule Britain. I had always presumed in inheriting that wish that it was a requirement to save Britain. After all, that me had not wished to rule over a bleached wasteland.

It was now, at the close, that I understood. The other me did not truly wish to rule a Britain of people. She had merely been upset that the land of Britain had been destroyed by the Shooting Star so long ago. Her disgust that the land she would rule had been torn away had led to her inventing a circumstance where Britain would exist. She knew it meant her annihilation, but she had been compelled to do it as a Faerie of Mystics.

I had not understood. After all, we had been fundamentally different kinds of faerie. I had thought that I had been charged with inheriting her dream, but her dream had been accomplished just by my surviving of that calamity thousands of years ago. A Britain, ruled by Morgan, drowning in Mystics. The Morgan of that history had been blessed as the 'Faerie of Britain', a ruler. She was not me. She could never have been me. Her driving directive had been to create a Britain ruled by Britain.

Why had she cursed me with this?

What torment she must have felt, knowing that no matter how she acted, Britain's ruler was not her?

I raised my spear, pointed its tip at little Artoria. I could at least spare her the suffering that awaited her. After all, the Faerie of Paradise did not have to be 'alive' to fulfil its purpose, and what would come next would simply torment her. Yet the spell to summon forth one of my twelve divine blades fell silent on my lips. My fingers were clammy, falling loose, and I realised that the thought clone's unravelling was almost finished.

It had only been three seconds since my mind had fled from the pain of my body. I had always been cursed with an over active mind. I had always suffered from thinking far faster then the world moved.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry. I wanted to declare the unfairness of the world.

"Please. Use Erosion."

Instead, I begged. Erosion, the dagger I'd inherited from the true history, that this other me had belted behind her hip. The soul severing dagger that would be an end to my torment. A single blow would separate my mind, body and soul forever. Oblivion would be preferable.

I begged for release.

Avalon le Fae's lips twisted into steel.

"You'll never sleep."

"The pain." My words were so short and sharp, but she understood. She understood that I had already been murdered, that she was truly only waiting for news that the battle was won. I needed release, or I would suffer forever.

Kill me. Please. While this body still exists.

The legs and extremities of my thought clone had unravelled.

Oh, how I wish, so sincerely…

I wish that I could…

Maybe the key had always been to leave it all behind. The thought had occurred to me several times. To cast it all away and run. To let Britain suffer for its sins. To let-

"Run away." My sister understood that too, in perhaps the cruelest way. Her fingers reached my fading form. Our patterns lit up in sync. After all, we were the same person from the perspective of reality. In that brief moment, I understood, and understood that she understood. She'd seen through the lie of omission.

I want to die.

I want to live.

I wish to win.

I wish I had run away.

I wanted a memory of spring.

I want what you got.

She did not understand yet. She would not until after the close. After all, she was stubborn, like me. She did not wish to surrender because she followed that pure, bright star that we saw when we closed our eyes. She did not wish to disappoint that star. She did not understand what that star was, not yet, maybe not ever, but one day she would recognise that she had no memory of spring because she lived within her spring now.

The star that was the hope of humans.

The star that was the human's wish to be with her.

A wish that could not be granted but we found beautiful all the same, and if she waited at world's end, she would be granted a miracle. That was the fate of Artoria Pendragon. My fate, and hers.

But I was flawed. I was also Morgan le Fae. As a result, I had no happy ending.

"I-" My voice was already fading. Yet little Artoria's mouth set in determination. I was shocked, but I had no way of expressing it, for I should have realised that my sister would always be able to do the impossible, no matter how insane it was. Her hand interlocked with my fading essence was more then enough, for my 108 ringings of the Bones of Pilgrimage became 114. Her six mere ringings of Pilgrimage joined with my lifetimes of doing it again and again for the sake of obtaining enough power to override even the will of God, hard work that had been unwound so very completely.

"Run away." Artoria's voice was insistent this time. "Run away, and never come back, Tonelico."

Tonelico.

My name. Before I was Morgan. Before I was Aesc. Before I was Morgan again. Tonelico, the name of the little shard of Avalon le Fae that had been taken in by Rain.

My Divine Patterns were no longer mine to control. Artoria was in control. She knew not the Grand Sorcery called Rayshifting. She didn't understand the spell or how it worked. She didn't understand that it was a sacrament that could never be adequately explained, that it was blasphemy against time and space.

She didn't care, either.

Faeries held privilege. We were allowed to live in any time period because our Great Mother did not think of us in terms of when or where. It was for that reason that Morgan's original Rayshift had worked in the first place. But she had not been summoned as a Faerie, but as a hero of humans, and thus had human limitations. She had only been able to send information to the past, to 'herself'.

I existed in the past. Then and now for me might as well be the same, for I am a faerie. I exist in both and neither. Time is linear, and I understand that, but if I cast my mind to the coronation of Uther, the memory is as fresh as if he was laughing beside me right now. Morgan had only sent information back to 'herself'. I would be myself again.

That was the only outcome of the spell that Artoria weaved, without knowing the specifics of the magicks. Without understanding the specifics of the magic, she could not understand the curse she would inflict on me. That I would be marching towards my own personal Armageddon and, when time righted itself at the death of the linchpin tree, I would forget and the tragedy would repeat.

She was unbelievably cruel. So very cruel.

"Sto-"

"Run away, Tonelico. Run away. Whisper of spring. Return to your winter smiling." Artoria was not really who was talking, I realised. Rather, we were talking. Avalon le Fae. Myself. We had linked patterns and in doing so, I was being talked to by the faerie that was us. The Faerie of Paradise, who was the custodian of the Sacred Armament. Artoria's eyes, after all, were not gold. "Run away."

Run away. The words were a lie.

What she really said… was 'live'.


Rayshifting without a coffin is impossible. One cannot send back something tangible without one. These are fundamental facts of reality, so that we had been able to ignore this one rule was an incredible feat beyond knowing. I remembered the days of Londinium like they were yesterday. Laughing alongside Uther.

I played through the motions. My mind was reeling in spite of it all. All I could do was play through the motions, for there was nothing else to do. What I had done had broken reality. On a fundamental level, I could see the inconsistencies within the era before mine. They weren't small things either. It was as if the fantasy had cracked and reality seeped through the shards.

Ector must have noticed something was wrong. Totorot had definitely noticed something was wrong. Neither of them said anything about it. It was not until the girl calling herself Mash arrived in our time, that my mind finally understood.

Rayshifting and sending something back in time using the Water Mirror were fundamentally the same spell. However, in order to send a person back in time, one needed to possess the ability to create a fantasy. In the future, I'd forged myself into the fantasy tree, or rather, a descendent seed of it. In doing so, the Lost World's past became a history that I had dreamed of.

To this dream, I had thrown my problems. I had caused myself so many issues. Maybe my entire outlook was the result of throwing my problems into my dreams, allowing them to gnaw away at that dream within me. Each calamity we had faced had eaten away at my own mental state. I had been the cause of my own disasters.

Mash, though, was earnest. She had revealed herself as from the future immediately. I, on the other hand, remained on autopilot. I had called myself Aesc, as I was so used to. I had told her to not speak of the future.

Why did I not act to change anything? Why was I so impotent?

It wasn't until we had attempted to see the depths of the pit that I understood, Mash's body covered in curses. I had not acted because I could not break the script. Even if reality crumbled, because this fantasy was just that, a dream with a predetermined outcome, I could not act in a way that would deny the ending of the play.

I acted to save Mash. My hands ripped the curses free of her body as I worked to save her. In doing so, the script, the dream, finally broke. In his own way, the Beast God had granted me a gift. My breath hitched in my breast, as I realised that Cerunnos was a being that existed on a plane beyond this one. I may be a spirit of the Great Mother of Us All, but Cerunnos was a God. He was an authority above even me.

And so, to Cerunnos, now, then, before all occurred simultaneously. Yesterwhen and tommonever were things he also existed within. Even if the possibility was eternally denied, Cerunnos was blessed with its knowledge.

Tears dropped from my eyes.

Cerunnos granted me what I needed. Free will. The ability to act. To take an action that might save myself. It was a curse, but also a blessing. The curse of the Beast God burned my hands, but that pain brought clarity of purpose.

"What happened?"

Bless little Mash, her first words was to ask what had happened. I just smiled at her, in the citadel of Salisbury. My mouth opened, and I spoke. For the first time in longer then I truly understood, I spoke, and I spoke my own will.

"You descended into the pit. You found the curse that bears down on us." I whispered. "Forgive us our sins." The words brought a hollow laugh to my lips.

"I don't… but I saw something. Huge and with fur."

"Yes. Cerunnos. Our curse. But you brought us something even more important." I answered. "Hope."

"Hope?"

"Yes. You can never go home, after all. Not as you are." My eyes fell on Mash. She did not understand. Her face was so very full of hope. Hope that she would one day go home to see the foreign mage. A hope I both could grant and dash in equal measure.

"Not as I am?"

"… Two paths are open to us. One, I put you to sleep." I mutter. "After all, you cannot exist. Not until…" No, the details were unimportant. "I can save you, Mash. You are maybe the first person I can truly, genuinely save. But there is a cost. A painful cost. Miracles do not come cheap."

"What is the cost?"

"You must walk the path again. Your journey would be erased. You might even feel like a puppet in your own body on occasion. Until you reach that day again in Orkney, you must walk the path, its highs and lows, even if it does not line up with how it went in your memory." I leaned forward, just a little. I was lying. This was not the best path forward for her.

It was the only path to salvation for me.

She was suspicious, rightly so. Yet her hand lifted up and met mine.

And the heroic girl inheriting the spirit of Galahad understood. For her lips started to twist into a smile, and she nodded.

And I saw the truth she had discovered.

She was not saving herself. In fact she was cursing herself to more suffering in ways she was yet to understand. All for a faerie girl she'd barely met.

For Mash chose not to deny me and save herself, but instead to save me.

A faerie who had no spring.

Please.

Forgive me my sins and grant me salvation.

So begs Rhongomyniad( Tonelico) .

[ ] Accursed City of Flames: Fuyuki
[ ] The Mist City: London
[ ] Vengeful Demon's Wail at the Prison Tower: Prison Tower Château d'If
[ ] Silent City Fuyuki: Accel Zero Order

Ritsuka Fujimura is...
[ ] Male
[ ] Female

The Faerie of Paradise may not reach for Spring. The Faerie of Paradise may never know Spring. The misery of the Faerie of Paradise reflects your sins. So forgive us of our sins and grant us salvation.

Flinging Mash back into human history was a complicated ritual. Within the tree of fantasy, she had no hope of survival. Within my dream, she had no hope of survival. The coming disaster meant there was no hope of survival for any of us. After all, my window to act was very quickly running out.

Mash was human. Humans had limits to what they would accept. Being within the phenomena of no-when within the incineration of humans that came before the bleaching of the outside world gave me some advantages to work with, but even so, there was a limit to it all.

We would miss Uther's crowning.

…

I can do without seeing that again. I see it in my dreams too often as it is, or rather, my waking nightmares. When did I last sleep? Really sleep? I'm not sure I have. Humans have dreams. I just remember things at inopportune moments.

Maybe little Artoria could explain that better then me. She had a bit more time with a real human, after all. Mash was a real human, true blooded, but my eyes could easily discern that her origin was twisted.

Beryl didn't count. The man had cast off his humanity so long ago that I had to wonder if he had ever been truly human.

We made the journey to the Tree of Fantasy. There was only one place in the land where the grand arcana I was to cast could be done. Mash was wrapped in a great cloak, one I recognised would one day be used by one of my knights. Her body was still wracked with curses. Even my best efforts did not remove them all. Casting my mind back to that day, I hadn't been effective in removing the curses then, either. The Beast God's wrath had clung like a sticky miasma, and had only been banished by the hundreds of years I had allowed Mash to sleep. She would have to carry those curses with her.

"Are you sure?" My voice felt so very tiny as we made our way towards the tree. It loomed on the horizon, massive, spiralling into the heavens. Totorot, dear Totorot, floated on her spinning wheel near Mash's shoulder. She was protective of the girl.

My heart ached just a little. I would be separating them for good, wouldn't I? Could we take Totorot? Was that even possible?

My mind raced through the possibilities, overactive in the extreme as always. In order to bring Totorot into the history of humans, she would have to be engraved in their history. Engraving me there was comparatively quite easy, so long as I placed my name within Mash's shield and granted her the name of a Tam Lin. Mash would take the name Tam Lin Galahad with her back to human history, and I would enact the reverse of the summoning ritual in order to drag me out of fantasy and my own dreams and into reality. It was actually a fairly elegant solution.

Why hadn't the other me considered it?

Right, because I was so obsessed with ruling Britain. I'm not sure why it was such a drive. It was… no, calling it a drive is wrong. It was a spiteful obligation that I was too stubborn to give up on.

"I'm sure. It's the right thing to do." Mash answered. Her lips set into a line. Her armour was gone. The iron burned her skin right now, after all. Her clothes had once been mine, when I needed to hide from others. Tan leather that wrapped around her form in a sort of simple dress. It reminded me of little Artoria.

We were the same faerie, after all. No doubt that played a role in our lives being mirrors of each other.

"If you're sure, Mash. I think cutting down the tree is too difficult. You can barely stand." Totorot's opinion was well known. "Aesc, shouldn't we have at least brought Ector?"

"Ector would not understand why this was so important."

It was a lie. The real reason why I hadn't brought Ector was guilt. I couldn't bare to look at his face, knowing I was about to throw everything about this land away. Yet nothing we did in this time mattered. So long as the Tree of Fantasy survived what we were about to do, then what I was doing was a wayward dream.

I had given some thought to cutting it down and changing history, but…

I actually don't know if it is possible. If I wanted to leave, then I needed something to offer. A peace offering. Perhaps before those from the outside knew they might need it, but I had such an offering. The grand arcana, Rhongomyniad( Spirit Vein Closing Armament) .

They would rightly be suspicious. I just wanted to run away. To be anywhere but here. I couldn't stand to look at this world, knowing my failure was now pre-ordained. After all, by cutting down the tree, I had morphed this hell from an alternate possibility to an alternate history, a singularity. My death in the singularity means I was destined to die at that point. If I somehow survived being betrayed, then I would just die in another way. The only way to avoid the Life Pruning Phenomena was to simply not be present. I needed to be outside the singularity when the moment of my death occurred.

It should be impossible.

I don't care.

I can do this. Clinging to this final thread of hope that Mash had granted me was all I have left.

"I think sir Ector would be more understanding then you think." Mash spoke up. I glared at her. She saw through my lie.

"Not when it comes to grand magic." Thankfully I had a rebuttal. "Remember the last time I used Rhongomyniad( Spirit Vein Closing Armament) ?"

"The last time you decided to sear off your skin, yeah." Totorot's response was blunt and dark. It was the desired response. Mash took the wrong inference from it, but did not question further. Totorot, on the other hand- "Wait, you mean to use THAT!? But you'll-"

"I'll be fine. I've had a few centuries to get better at it."

I hadn't practiced it at all.

Actually. I hadn't perfected it at all either.

Rhongomyniad( Spirit Vein Closing Armament) was the same spell, all the way to the day I died. All that changed was I got lazy and forged a throne to cast it properly for me. Perhaps that is something I should work on.

Rhongomyniad( Spirit Vein Closing Armament) was fundamentally a spell that saved the world. Of course it would be devastating to the caster. It is an imitation of the shadow that would one day be me. The shadow of the Sacred Armament to save the planet. It isn't a real spell in the sense that you can give it to another person. Heck, I'm not sure that I can really use it. In the future, I'd made divine forgeries in order to contain the aria, and used my throne to supply enough magical energy to fire one.

The last time I'd fired it without the throne…

Well, Totorot was right, I'd incinerated a good chunk of my skin and destroyed my right arm. I'm lucky I am made of such stern stuff, and little Artoria was even more durable still, as the Avalon le Fae that had to oppose me. Artoria's body was strong, and her mind was like steel. It was necessary to be the faerie that opposed me.

… Neither of us really understood why we kept walking forward, did we? Or maybe-

Perhaps all of this was a sign that Avalon le Fae would one day find Spring. What a disgusting, treacherous hope?

But it was one I was willing to pursue. If I failed, well, at least I could be reasonably sure I'd get oblivion instead, as opposed to living on forever, even after death. I was not a human. I was not fortunate enough to reincarnate. I would be a bloody stain forever, or worse, become the bones of the world, the land beneath our feet.

It was disgusting.

"You're lying."

I blinked. I glanced at Mash. Her cheeks had puffed up. It was kind of adorable. She was right, though, I had lied.

"It'll be fine, Mash."

"But-"

"I promise." That was enough to assuage her. We were getting closer to the tree at this point. This was not the first time I'd contemplated something like cutting it down. Wryneck and I had tried to do so, rather halfheartedly, some… three hundred years ago, I think?

The day hadn't seemed important at the time. Really, we had just been preparing for the day that I would cut it down. My half-hearted dithering appears to have played to our advantage in this case. If I'd already set in motion its collapse, then we would have no hope. My own conflict in this age over how to proceed, whether to be the heartless king that Morgan's memories had said I would be, appears to have worked in my favour.

A part of me wanted to swing over to Wryneck and ask him to come with us. However, Totorot had an equivalent in human history. It might be possible, if difficult, to save her.

Bringing Wryneck with us would simply designate us all immediately for pruning. If I was bitter, I might consider it the ultimate revenge on the foreign mage, for it would certainly take them with us.

…

I am bitter. I seriously considered it for a moment. Yet Avalon's directive for me overrode that. Live.

"Why Aesc, anyway?" I blinked. Mash's thoughts must have taken a new turn. The tree stretched into heaven before us. It reminded me of a great old ash tree. My lips curled just a little at the thought.

"Just me reminiscing." I answered. "You are probably aware that Grimr and I met some time ago. We travelled together for a time."

"Grimr the Sage. I am aware of him, but…" Mash pursed her lips, her finger touching her cheek. "He's a friend?"

"Hardly. The next time I meet him, we will be enemies, I think." I answered. "But I felt a connection of sorts, I will admit. He…" I paused, before shaking my head. "In truth, he bears the Allfather's Authority."

"Huh? Wait, Grimr is a Servant from-"

"Yes." Don't say it, Mash. "Now give me a moment. I need to think."

"Does Aesc mean anything?"

"Old Ash Tree, roughly. Actually, he used it instead of Ansuz." I answered without really thinking about it, my mind and mouth disconnecting as I considered what needed to be done. Really, all I needed to do was similar to the human history incineration. I just had to take some of the history of my dream and burn it for power. In the process, though…

This place was a Lost World. We were before the cutoff where equivalents could move between here and human history. This would be a complex bit of magic.

"… Aesc doesn't like her original name." Totorot spoke up. "It reminds her of-"

"That's enough, Totorot." I cut her off before she could say it. "… Tonelico."

"Sorry?"

"My name. You'll need it, I think."

She will not. Under the Servant summoning system of the prime history, I would be impossible to summon. Even if I was given the Spirit Origin of a servant, it would not resemble any class that they would know. That is simply how it is.

My hand lifted, and I started to gauge the size of a particular branch. It was a long branch, consisting of maybe four hundred years of history. Its incineration would give me enough energy.

"… No. I won't." Mash's answer made me pause. "It doesn't work that way. We often don't know the name when they arrive."

"Know what's name?" Totorot's curiosity was precious. I nodded and tuned them out for a moment. How could I bring Totorot with me? How could I bring…

No. It would be cruel to hunt her down and bring her with me. Like it or not, for the moment, Baobhan Sith was someone I could not save. One day, maybe, I could, but if I saved her now…

There just wasn't the time. If I didn't act now, before my will broke, and Uther's death I knew would break it, then there would never be a chance. I loved Baobahn Sith, but for the moment, I could not save her. Right now I didn't even know where to look for her.

"Right." The words tumbled out of my lips. "I can do it." It was a statement of fact. I knew my measure. This would certainly hurt, but I could do it. I was about to pull a fast one on everyone, even the world, a fast one I could only pull because I was the Faerie of Paradise. The planet acknowledged that I could exist yesternever or tomorrowhen, and such, even if the Lost Belt should be my prison, and that of Mash, it was possible to escape.

In hindsight, maybe I should have sent Mash away when she first arrived, but it would have been so very cruel. Perhaps that in and of itself was an indication that I was not quite Morgan le Fae. She would have done it without a second thought.

"Do it." Totorot repeated. Her eyes narrowed. "Wait, you don't intend to cut it down."

"No. I don't." My patterns ignited. There was no world that this was not going to hurt in. "I'm about to deny the cosmos for about thirty seconds, Mash. Be ready." I paused, glancing at her. Mash simply nodded.

"I… I am ready."

"Not yet you aren't." I drew a deep breath, gently tapping my finger to her breast. "I name you Galahad. Hero and pure. Let this name follow you forevermore. Into yesternever and tomorrowhen." She blinked. Just once.

"Wasn't I… already-"

"An extra blessing never hurts." The blessing itself didn't matter. After all, the real important thing was that I, Tonelico, gave it. Technically, as far as I know, I never actually gave her the name Tam Lin. I'm pretty sure she always had it.

Where did she get it from? A detail considered unimportant in the past, but now-

"Thank you, but-"

"How does that help? One moment. Put this inside your shield." I offered her my staff. "Do I understand your summoning ritual correctly?"

"Well, yes, but-"

"You will be as you were." I continued. I needed to. If Totorot caught on before I finished, this would start becoming trouble. Her small face was covered in confusion as I stepped forward. "But the shield, the Round Table, exists everywhere simultaneously. It is one of the great arcana's of the planet in that way. Anything I do to it here, will be everywhere so long as you remember it."

"You said I'd be like a puppet, right?"

"To a degree. You will be trapped in a script. Wait, bide your time. Let the inconsistencies build. When they get too much, you'll see your chance to break the script." My fingers popped as I stretched them. It was now or never.

"… How will I know it's you?"

"…" That was a good question, I suppose. There was every chance her summoning would hit someone else. She needed something only I could know. Something…

No. I knew what to say.

"I am the faerie of paradise. I know no happiness." I admitted. "One day I will become something else. Something dark, but full of hope. The name of that thing, that is how you will know me."

"Aesc!" Totorot's eyes lit up. Damn. Maybe she was catching on. I had to hurry up.

"Linking Divine Patterns. Tolling the Bones of the World. The time of Pilgrimage has come." I declared. My magic started swirling. Burning. My flesh seared as my body began to churn. Even with my magical energy, my reserves if you would, the spell I was casting was too much. I had to convert part of my very flesh into magic. Three fingers and two toes tore apart at the seems. "Even if the Star remains Distant, continue your march towards that sacred place. Forgive me my sins and let me walk to paradise! Rhongomyniad( Spirit Vein Closing Armament) !"

The world erupted immediately. Twelve lights of green formed around me, lengthening, seizing, as the wrapped and twirled around each other into a great spear of divine magic. Then it fired, and the tree in the distance exploded.

Severing a single branch was easy. It burned as it fell.

"Mash! Stop her!" Totorot was moving, but Mash, blessed Mash, had taken her in her arms. My eyes were burning with tears. It hurt so very much.

"Today. Tomorrow. Yesterday. Never. Somewhere. Somewhen. In the distance. In the star. March forever. Forward and backwards. To the sky that you know. To the Star you will protect. Walk to that precious thing and never look back. Crack. Shatter. Be not. Be!" My will overwrote the will of reality. The cosmos of Britain was denied for but an instant, as I seized the Tree of Time itself, and shook it until I found its roots. In a moment, my mind burned, overloading. This would hurt and I probably was about to do some serious damage to my memory.

But it had to be done. In order to send Mash back to her journey before, I had to walk the path from the very root of the tree. I experienced that magical tracing in about four seconds. From the inexorable march to the day of destiny, to the slaying of the White Titan, to the rise of humans, the fall of Britain, to the frozen land.

Humanity suddenly blinked. For the briefest moment, I caught sight of Mash again, in a city of flame. Facing down with the anchor I was using to find her. The black shadow of Britain formed into the shape of a blade. A hammer of fell energy crashing down on Mash and the Foreign Mage in a burning city.

To complete the spell, all that was needed was a resonance.

"Mash! Deploy your shield!"

"But-"

"Now! Please!" Don't waste this brief chance. I could never succeed in doing this again. The world's will was now on me. If she did not act, then I myself was a target for elimination. If she did not act, the will of the world would likely presume I was an external threat and designate my for immediate destruction. Even being in this hellish dream of my own making would not save me from that, for the world wished to continue living for now.

I heard the shield that was the Round Table crash into the ground. My breath caught.

"That which heals all wounds and grudges! Our glorious distant star! This is the castle of fantasy that holds many paths and wishes! Answer my call! Lord Camelot!"

Mash's scream rang out. The event of neverwhen overlapped with somewhen. The walls of the castle of Lord Camelot overwrote the shield of Lord Chaldeas. The world stopped, and it was like the planet's very breath skipped a beat.

Now was the moment of truth. If the Great Mother of Us All was not aware of me, then she certainly was now, and she was certainly able to destroy me. My patterns were splayed across all of human history. It would be trivial to annihilate me to the very core, to deprive me of even non-existence. To-

Perhaps I should trust in our Great Mother more. She was patient, silently pulling my patterns back across time and space, nowhen and somewhen, until I was back before the tree. Back where I should have been.

She had to know what I intended to do, but she did not betray anything.

"Mash!? Mash! Where is she, Aesc!? Where is Mash!?"

Totorot's voice was loud. But my lips just twisted. Mash was gone. It had worked.

The first step was done.

I did it.

My first steps. Steps so very hard, but I did it. My legs gave out and I collapsed.

"She's back where she needs to be." I whispered. "With her friends, on the outside." There was no point hiding it. This place was now a true dead end. One I wished to cut away myself. My flesh sizzled, but I could only smile like a lunatic. The rush of performing arcana that should be completely impossible, that would never go away. No wonder the Morgan from that history chose to use Rayshifting to accomplish her objective. It was the act of proving that the impossible was easy that drove some of her actions. It was an egotism we shared, in hindsight.

At least my goal actually was supposed to be impossible.

"But… Oh Aesc, your skin. Hold still." I whimpered as Totorot, blessed Totorot, started rubbing my burned flesh with salves. "You gave up fingers this time. How many toes do you have?"

"Only eight." I admitted. "I can't…"

"You will not move." Totorot's face was cross, but-

"I can't. I'm on a time limit." I whispered. "Please, Totorot. If you care, help me. I need to go to the dragon's corpse." The great tunnel. The spiritual tomb. That was the path forward now. I needed to be in that tunnel, or Mash's summoning spell would have no target. I had to firmly not be inside of Britain. Totorot's face was cross. Her hands found her hips.

"After that!? I should take you to Wryneck, he can-"

"Please, Totorot." That would be a cruelty beyond cruelties. My knight's face softened.

"It's important to you." She whispered. "I understand. But…"

My hand, with only two fingers, reached out to her face and stroked her cheek. She was real. She was very much real. Very-

Wait. That was it.

"Come with me." My voice was parched. Hoarse. "Away from here. Somewhere else."

Anywhere else.

That was my wish.

Yet-

Totorot shook her head.

"You will be coming back one day, right?"

My heart broke.

"Yes."

"Then I will wait here until you do." She answered. "That's what you need, right. Besides, I never got to see you in your dress." My breath hitched. I wanted to cry. In that moment, I understood how badly I had wanted Totorot to come with me, yet-

"You will have to wait a long time."

"That's okay."

"You might not remember us." She would one day. But only after we met again. Only after I could return the seed of a forgotten fantasy. Totorot shook her head.

"I will one day, right, Tonelico?"

My name.

She used my name.

She took this seriously.

"Yes."

"Then there's no time to waste. Get up. My wheel can't carry all of you."

I just laughed.


I had no idea when I would be called. If I wasn't inside the Spiritual Tomb, then I would miss the call. That would be devastating. I didn't want to think of such an outcome. Totorot was gentle. She let me push so very hard, picking me up when I stumbled. It took us three days to arrive.

We did not sleep.

She let me collapse against the walls of the spiritual tomb. Her face was full of concern. Rather then scold me, she cared for me. She helped me keep eating and breathing. She tended to my scorched flesh and watched over my fading life. I hadn't pointed it out that day, but there was a good reason why this was a one time deal. I knew, when I cast my spells, that I was no longer long for the world.

After all, I was now established as a being from outside. I was designated for removal within the possibility of my own dream.

"Aesc, are you okay?"

A dumb question. What Totorot really meant is 'have you gotten worse?'.

"… I lost another toe." My voice was soft. I was going to expire soon. My right arm had started crumbling. Totorot did not possess the means to save me. I was causing her sorrow, yet… "Soon, Totorot."

"How will I know?"

"I'm not giving up." My voice betrayed the fierce emotion that was bursting in my chest. "It will be sudden. I will be, then I won't be. In that instant, you'll know."

I was the Faerie of Paradise.

I was not allowed to have happy memories.

I cannot have a Springtime.

Yet those painful days where Totorot tended to me. Those, if they had been anything else, those would have been a pleasant Spring. How sad my life is, that…

"I forgive your sins."

The script broke. Totorot froze. Even she had heard the voice of salvation. The world itself stopped for a heartbeat. The Faerie that was me, staring from distant never, glanced back, into fantasy, and suddenly, inevitability occurred.

The cosmos would be denied. I knew that now, for it was now akin to human history and subject to pruning.

The singularity would be conquered. The calamities would be averted. The-

It was like a gentle wind caressed my face.

"See you on the other side." I whispered. "Tam Lin Habetrot."

Habetrot's streaming tears were too much for me to bear.

"I will, Tonelico."


Mist. That was the first thing I knew. The second, was that there was a battle happening. The third, was that I was splayed across human history like string. Retrieving myself was easy. My Divine Patterns lit up, betraying the origin of this body as a spiritual vessel for servants, and I dragged all of me from history to here. From within my dream, I ripped free, and became real.

I was not afraid. This was a better path. I will be back, one day.

… Of course I was still in Britain. The stones and bricks around me might be alien, but-

No. I needed to strike. A shadow in the mist. Before it harmed Mash. I could see the foreign mage too. She was younger now. I could appreciate only now that her journey had aged her greatly before her time…

You are forgiven of your sins. Descend, incarnate crown. Avert Incineration.

[ ] Lancer.
[ ] Caster.
[ ] Pretender.