9 Theories & Ritual

It has been a few days since the divorce was finalized between Iris and Kiritsugu.

During those few days Ryker had continued to spend time with Iris, Illya and Saber, in a leisurely manner. Yet their leisurely time, had to be put on hold for the day, as Ryker needed to do something important to ensure the future happiness of his family.

Ryker had been thinking about how to remove the grail from Iris without harming her, and transfer it into a new vessel. He had also wanted to remove any connection Iris and Illya had to the grail going forward. To do this, he ended up making use of his [Library of Creation] skill not to long after he had come to this world, which allowed him to 'read books about anything he needed knowledge on'. He had looked for information pertaining to the world as well as ways to remove the grail from Iris.

He felt like he had reached a breakthrough in his knowledge gathering a few weeks ago and to make sure things went as smooth as possible he had been organizing all of the information he himself knew from his past life and the knowledge he learned from the [Library of Creation] skill, with regards to the Holy Grail War and the world as a whole. He knew that the Holy Grail had been created by the Tohsaka, Matou, and Einzbern families, as a means to reach Akasha, otherwise known as the Root, something that Ryker was directly linked with, and even had his own version of.

The Root was a location within the universe that exists at the top of all things in every dimension, as well as the source of all events and phenomena in the universe. It is the place where every souls, including those of heroic spirits recorded on the Throne of Heroes, originated from and where they will return to after their death.

Ryker, with his knowledge regarding the existence of the Watchers who regulate and monitor entire sections of the multiverse, began to think deeper. He theorized that maybe the Root, was something that had been created by the Watchers in order to stabilize the universe. With the Root serving as this universes 'system'. Its own version of the cycle of life and death, that suited the concept of heroic spirits and mages.

It wasn't that far fetched of a concept as the Watcher he met had told Ryker that he could go to any world that he wanted to. Yet it was impossible for every world to possess the same laws, and systems. A world full of only mortals would need to be regulated differently then a world full of immortals.

Which must be where the different levels of gods came into play. The Watcher mentioned that there were multiple lesser gods here who watched over the world, yet Ryker had yet to have any contact with them, preventing him from asking the questions he needed answered.

He wondered if maybe they were located within the Root itself. Otherwise he couldn't think of any other location as to where they could be, yet not have been discovered by any other inhabitants of the world. All in all he needed more information before he could put everything into perspective, and understand the truth of this world. Meaning he would probably need to make a trip to the Root in the distant future, as he wasn't in a rush.

For now however, Ryker needed to focus on the task at hand. Changing the grails vessel to something other then Iris and or Illya.

He knew that the servants that got killed during the grail war, were returned to being 'pieces of energy' and disappeared from the time axis. Yet the Lesser Grail created by the Einzbern's was able to serve as a vessel to temporarily stop that process and store the souls within itself, and once the vessel is filled with energy, the Great Grail can start the ritual that will open a 'hole' to Akasha.

Yet, the ritual required the presence of all seven servants. Meaning all seven servants would need to die, including the victors, making the process flawed, and reducing the grail to wishes that were within the concept of the world. This prevented others to reach Akasha which existed 'outside of the world'.

Ryker began to questioned, hypothetically if the ritual was able to get the energy of all seven servants, would it even work as intended with him being one of the servants? His skills had lead him to believe that he might not even be fully classified under this worlds 'system' but rather existing in an incomplete state.

As 'lesser gods' were beings belonging to a higher system then the one found in the Nasuverse. He believed he, as a 'lesser god' and a 'servant', was placed in a position of existing both in this universes 'system', yet also belonging to a higher tier 'system', at the same time. This allowed him to not be rejected by the world, yet capable of achieving things beyond this worlds limitations.

Based on that theory, the breakthrough he had in his research was that, if he used his [Item Construction] skill to make a new vessel for the grail, he may be able to, by making use of his [Maker of Gods] skill and tapping into the Akashic Records, separate Iris from the grail.

All he would need to do then is place the grail within the new vessel, and keep Iris' soul within her own body. The only downside to this is that Iris and the grail are 'connected'. Iris being a homunculus herself, was created by use of an organic body which has had the inorganic Holy Grail broken down and then fused with her organs. Meaning if Ryker did 'separate' them, although her body would remain intact, there may be internal side effects, and in worst cases, death.

In order to solve this problem, he needed to make use of the [Maker of Gods] skill once again, to grant Iris some form of regeneration ability which would prevent her organs from suffering damage during the split.

This was Ryker's plan for Iris, for Illya he wasn't quite sure what he was going to do yet. Illya was born from Iris's womb and isn't quite the same as other homunculi. Rather then 'covering' the Grail within her like Iris, Illya was born with the ability where her physical body itself is capable of becoming the vessel.

Illya as an embryo had the secrets of the Holy Grail implanted into her, and had Magic Circuits placed on her exterior. Not to even mention the fact that she was an experimental specimen for the Dress of Heaven which is the heart that controls the Great Grail and is capable of materializing the soul for several seconds. Allowing for the transferal of a soul into another container.

So if between the two, Iris and Illya, it was in fact Illya which had a greater connection to the grail, hence making it harder to deal with. Although he doesn't quite know what he will do, it didn't stop him from at the very least, coming up with a couple plans, as Illya is his daughter, and he wasn't content with leaving things up to fate to decide her survival.

The first plan he came up with was to just dismantle the Great Grail which was something he had been contemplating doing regardless. The second plan was even simpler as he could just summoning the grail and destroying it while making sure Illya was protected. He also had the option of just locking the new vessel of the grail that he creates, inside his [Heaven's Toybox] for all of eternity, but that might not be a solution.

Yet although he had begun to form plans, he first needed to take care of Iris, so he put his thoughts on hold for now.

Which is why Ryker, along with Iris and Saber, were currently within the forest a decent ways from the Einzbern castle.

Ryker didn't inform Kiritsugu of the procedure, as he wanted to keep as much of his abilities hidden as he could manage. He didn't really care if Kiritsugu learned of it later on, but he still thought it would be best to prevent others from learning how strong he truly was if he could help it. Of course this logic didn't pertain to Iris, as he trusted her whole heartedly, and she also kind of needed to be there for the whole thing to work…As for Saber, Ryker knew that she was a women of her word and once she stated she wouldn't tell anyone, she meant it. The only reasons she would tell anyone was he gave her permission or if she was order via command seals.

After traveling to where Ryker believed to be a good enough location, he created a soft single person bed using his [Armor of Akashic], and had iris lay down on it.

Both his [Armor of Akashic] and [Item Construction] skills worked in a similar manner to one another yet at the same time possessing a vast difference between them. With the [Item Construction] skill, there was a large amount of restrictions placed on what he could actually make. Most items he created using the skill, cost a decent amount of mana and required him to concentrate quite heavily on its creation. His [Armor of Akashic] on the other hand could be formed into anything instantly as long as it wasn't used to attack. As well as having a surprisingly low mana cost. Depending on the defensive object created, the mana cost can go up or down.

An example would be like when he created toys for Illya. The toys had cost almost no mana when made using his [Armor of Akashic] and he could keep them in existence permanently if he wanted to without needing to use any additional mana to keep them anchored to the world.

Where as with [Item Construction] if he created the exact same toys, it would take him nearly 5x as long, and nearly 10x as much mana, plus he would need to feed the toys mana every now and then to keep it from breaking down. He could always create the toys, with them having the ability to draw mana from the world to sustain themselves, however, this would require even more mana from him during the creation process.

When he used his [Armor of Akashic] to recreate Saber's armor, although it cost him much more mana then the toys did, it still was at an almost insignificant level, when compared to his total mana pool. The only downside to his [Armor of Akashic] was that he couldn't use it to 'attack' meaning that although he could use it to 'hit' someone, the thing he created wouldn't do any 'damage'. An example would be a shield. He could create a shield and use it to block, or even hit the enemy with it, but they wouldn't take damage from the shield, and if they did get hurt, it would be a result of their own attacks rebound, like an ordinary person punching a solid stone wall, you may be able to dent the wall, and the wall wont 'hit' you back, but you could still be injured due to kinetic energy.

Things worked differently if the situation was shifted to a shield with spikes as the example. Yet his [Armor of Akashic] couldn't actually make a shield with spikes, as it fell under the category of a 'weapon' which is where his [Blade of Akashic] came into play.

After iris was situated on the bed, Ryker sat on the edge as he slowly ran one of his hand through her hair, and held her hand with his other one, as he said "Everything will be alright, my little angel, I promise you I wouldn't even consider it if I thought something would go wrong."

Iris although slightly nervous, was comforted by his words and actions so after replying with a "Mmm" she began to just focus on his hand as it slowly stroked her head and it wasn't long before she relaxed completely. Seeing that she was ready, Ryker began the ritual.

Slowly his hand that was petting iris' head began to glow with a golden light. The light slowly spread to her whole body, as she began to glow with an almost divine radiance. After her whole body had been covered in the radiance, iris fell into a deep sleep. Seeing the first step was finished, Ryker's other hand, which was still holding one of Iris', suddenly began to glow with a deep red aura. The red aura slowly began to encompass the golden radiance around Iris, yet not disperse it.

Once the red aura had also covered her completely, It slowly began to sink into her alongside the golden radiance. Once they had fully entered Iris' body, Ryker pulled out from his [Heaven's Toybox] a golden chalice. This was what he had created to be the new vessel of the grail, as the inside of the chalice acted as a separate space, cut off from the laws of time.

After nearly 10minutes of waited, finally Ryker's [Maker of Gods] skill had completed its primary objective, before it began to move onto its secondary.

Around the time the secondary phase was starting Saber who was off to the side watching the procedure, noticed a dark red substance begin to flow out from Iris' chest area. She was worried for a moment thinking that something could have gone wrong, yet when she noticed Ryker's still calm expression, as he just continued to run his hand through Iris' hair, she calmed down, yet still looked on with worried eyes.

The dark red substance flowed in a line to an area roughly 20 feet off the ground before it began to pool together in the air. It wasn't long before the pool of what looked like blood, reached a size capable of blocking their view of the treetops. After another 10 minutes or waiting, the [Maker of Gods] skill completed its secondary objective, as a golden radiance once more began to shine on Iris' skin.

With the appearance of the golden radiance, the red blood like liquid, stop coming out of Iris' chest as the pool created another tether to the chalice off to the side. It didn't take long before the pool of 'blood' in the sky was no more and all of its contents secured firmly within the chalice. The chalice was then restored by Ryker in his [Heaven's Toybox].

With the ritual having went perfectly, Ryker released a sigh of relief. Although he had confirmed that there was a 100% rate of success with his [Library of Creation] and was certain things would go smoothly, he still couldn't help but worry. After all it was his women who was literally having a part of her removed.

It didn't take long for Iris to reopen her eyes. What greeted her upon awakening was her body feeling a strange exhaustion liken to mana drain, as well as the fact that she was currently sitting within someone's lap as they had their arms wrapped around her. Knowing almost immediately who it was, due to many factors such as smell, aura and just knowing him to well. Still she attempted to raise her head which was resting on said persons chest, and look at his face, but she found moving to be a very difficult thing.

Yet at is sensing her struggles a hand was softly placed on her chin as it helped her lift her head up, to match the eyes of one of the two people she cared about most in the world.

Seeing the love and care on Ryker's face, Iris knew right away that everything had went perfectly. Feeling an overwhelming sense of happiness consume her, she wasn't able to prevent her tears from falling as she knew she would no longer be but a tool at the mercy of others. No longer a vessel to that accursed grail created out of the selfish wish of those desperate for power.

Seeing Iris beginning to shed tears of joy and feeling the happiness that seemed to radiate off of her, Ryker slowly lowered his head, and began to kiss her soft lips as a mixture of saliva and tears found its way into his mouth, yet it tasted oh so sweet.

Saber watching the two lovers kiss in shared happiness, couldn't help but grow happy alongside them. They were her closest friends ever since she was summoned and seeing them so happy and free of burden made her happy for them, as she thought back to her rooftop talk with Ryker, and began to wonder if it was okay for her to be free of burden as well. Yet she quickly broke off that thought, as she felt like it wasn't her right to feel that way. She still couldn't quite agree with Ryker, and believed she, above all else, needed to continue to bare her own and her peoples burdens. For that was what she felt a king's purpose was.

After the two broke off from the kiss which felt like it had lasted forever, Iris having stopped crying couldn't help but look at Ryker and ask, "So everything went well?"

"Indeed, everything went to perfection, the grail has been removed from your body and you are in perfect health, well actually, you're even healthier then before. The feeling of exhaustion you currently feel is a result of your body spending to much energy during the ritual and after a couple of nights rest you'll be able to move around just like before. Yet there will be some things you will need to adapt to." Ryker answer, smirking towards the end of his words.

Iris couldn't help but feel giddy at the start, yet when he got to the end of his words she began to grow confused, "Adapt? What will I need to adapt to?" she asked only to notice Ryker's smirk growing even larger. She began to grow slightly worried, not due to her not trusting him, but rather because Ryker looked like a kid who just got away with a prank and she was just wondering what he would make her do…

"You see as you were already aware of, the grail had fused with your organs. In order to counteract that I needed to give you a couple of things to make sure your life wasn't in danger when I removed them." Ryker was having a difficult time resisting the urge to laugh by this point and needed to use Iris' shoulder to block off his mouth in an attempt to contain his laughter.

Iris now very confused and beginning to grow slightly panicked thinking that she might grow two heads or something, although as long as Ryker didn't hate it, she wouldn't mind. Yet she knew Ryker wouldn't do something like that without telling her and It was most likely not anything major, she still couldn't help but feel like she got pranked.

"You see I ended up adding…"

(Authors Note: Okay please don't hate me >,< I just figured that since I did one of the things readers don't like, the dreaded info dump, then I mine as well do the next thing readers hate and leave you all with a small little cliff hanger >,< No need to thank me~! I hope you guys understand that this chapter was needed to flush out my own story, and that not all people who read fan-fic's know everything pertaining to the source material. Even I as the author don't know everything about the Nasuverse, so I wanted to try explaining a couple things which were key points in the story so some readers weren't lost. As for the cliff hanger you ask? It was of course to make the next chapter more entertaining!!!)

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