Even within the Clock Tower, knowledge of the secret passage connecting it to the British Museum's underground was limited to a handful of core Magi—mostly the Lords of the Twelve Departnts and their close associates.
Shiomi only knew of it because of his connections with two of the Lords from the Democratic Faction.
It wasn't the kind of secret that was particularly large or small.
As the headquarters of the Magus world, even a full-scale assault by the Holy Church wouldn't guarantee its fall, making this passage seem almost irrelevant.
But the situation in the London Singularity was far beyond any previous assumptions.
"...As expected, most Magi—including the Lords—had already left London before the monsters descended, all for various 'legitimate' reasons," Shiomi murmured as he flipped through the Clock Tower's access records.
Only a small fraction of Magi perished alongside the ground-level facilities of the Clock Tower.
The truly influential figures had all made their exits under perfectly reasonable pretexts.
What was the true significance of this quiet exodus? Shiomi wanted to discuss it with Morgan.
But interference from the underground archive was too intense—any contact with Chaldea was impossible.
Had Shiomi not known how to disable the auto-triggered magical book guardians, Mordred and Artoria wouldn't be standing watch at the entrance—they'd be fighting to hold back the library's defenses.
He'd have to make a ntal note of this and bring it up later.
With that thought, Shiomi stood up and called out to Sakura, who was assisting with the search.
"Sakura, find anything on your end?"
"Eh? Ah, yes, I've already found it..." Sakura snapped out of her thoughts and responded quickly. "The materials related to the Boundary Record Belt that Dad ntioned—soone already sorted and grouped them all together. They were really easy to locate."
"Soone organized them?" Shiomi looked at the stack Sakura had laid on the table.
So soone had co here before them, reviewed the sa materials, and thinking they might be useful to future visitors, had intentionally arranged them in one place.
Who had it been? Shiomi had no idea.
But with no sign of them remaining, no clues left behind, he had no way to track them.
He picked up one of the docunts and glanced over at Sakura.
"You're curious too, right? About why that person sorted these records—what their goal was?"
"...No, not really," Sakura admitted, sounding slightly embarrassed. "I was just thinking... is it really okay to leave Saber and Lancer on guard together?"
"If you're worried, go take a look," Shiomi said with a slight smile. "Since the data's been organized, we'll finish this quickly anyway."
"They're our Servants, sure, but their relationship as parent and child... it's not really sothing we should interfere with," Sakura said, frowning a little. "I just don't really get it."
"Don't get what?" Shiomi asked as he flipped another page, scanning for relevant information.
"Saber's like . We didn't get to choose who our parents were. From the mont we were born, our paths were already set." There was a note of quiet understanding in Sakura's voice.
Shiomi realized then—eting Makiri Zolgen earlier must have stirred up mories for her.
"We can't choose where we co from," Shiomi said softly, "but I always hoped that you and Caren could choose where you go."
That had been his thinking when he ca to Chaldea as well. The Antarctic was too far removed from the rest of civilization. Even for a Magus, coming and going wasn't easy. He'd feared it would make seeing family too difficult, and had nearly refused.
But in the end, Sakura and Caren had joined Chaldea of their own volition, with their own strength—and beco his colleagues.
"That's why I don't understand," Sakura finally voiced sothing she had never dared to ask. "Why did Dad choose ? Caren was your friend's daughter. She was still a child when she was adopted, so that made sense... but what about ?"
Not asking didn't an she hadn't thought about it. If anything, becoming a Magus made such questions even more inevitable. The deeper your understanding of the world, the more clearly you grasped the shape of your place in it.
But Shiomi had never treated her poorly. That's why Sakura had buried the question deep down and never let herself dwell on it.
"There wasn't really any special reason," Shiomi said, knowing it was hard to explain. After all, the whole thing had originally been set in motion by BB for reasons still unclear—but for Sakura's sake, he needed to give a proper answer. "...I just wanted to pass on what my master taught . Instead of having a child with uncertain potential, I thought it made more sense to directly choose soone with exceptional talent..."
He paused, a hint of guilt in his tone. "Pretty lazy of , huh?"
"That sounds exactly like sothing you'd do." Sakura smiled, a little troubled but warm. "But... why not get married first? Try having a kid that way?"
"Well, I had just split from Touko at the ti... We were close, yeah, but calling it a relationship would've been a stretch," Shiomi said as he flipped through a stack of docunts. "And even if that weren't the case, suddenly being told to go find soone to marry isn't exactly easy. I couldn't approach it like a Magus would, with pure pragmatism. But I also didn't want to drag an ordinary woman into all this—turn her into a vessel for a Magic Crest."
"I see..." Sakura responded softly, a little lancholic.
"Besides, I always knew where I was headed. When my ti as a human ends, I'll return to the Land of Shadows," Shiomi said with a shake of his head. "I didn't want to leave behind anything too complicated... though, in the end, that didn't go as planned either."
Looking back, his life had certainly been more complicated than that of most Magi.
Still, "There's one thing I'm truly grateful for," he said with a quiet smile. "That you and Caren beca my family. That makes
happy."
"It's the sa for us." Sakura smiled back just as warmly. "Also, Dad... didn't you forget about Gray?"
Shiomi shook his head. "She's different. We helped her escape the fate she was born into. Until she resolves everything with King Arthur, Gray will keep moving forward, trying to beco soone entirely her own."
As he spoke, he flipped through a few more pages, then grabbed two worn volus from the side. Laying them open to the sa section, he began cross-referencing them—and then let out a low gasp.
"I knew it... Heroic Spirit Summoning wasn't sothing the Tohsaka, Matou, and Einzbern families ca up with on their own. The Holy Grail War was just a repurposed version of an already existing guardian system, twisted for selfish gain. The original summoning ritual was created to combat 'a great enemy,' using 'the seven strongest humans' as a weapon..."
"Wait... are you saying...?"
Sakura imdiately pushed aside her earlier lancholy and leaned in to examine the material with him.
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