Chapter 285: Parallel Reunion

Unbeknownst to Unicorn, the act of Shikikan teleporting her would send her away from this "phantom", a mirage of the timeline that had already occurred. Fortunately, someone caught her this time.

Her small body landed on the arms of the black-robed man. His glowing amber pupils met her dull eyes as inexplicable amounts of emotion passed through it.

The robe he was wearing has an obfuscation function in it, but he chose to turn it off ever since he entered this world. After all, being recognized was his goal all along.

His oversized hood covered most of his face, but she sensed his aura. Just by that, she could see beauty that should not have existed. Although, it was such a person that gave her a sense of familiarity.

"Who... are you..?"

The man did not reply, instead taking out a golden cube. He threw it midair, causing it to open its interface.

"META... Such a flawed concept should be corrected." He softly mumbled. "You will be able to see soon."

"I... see..?"

His words confused her. All these times, she lived by 'sensing' her surroundings—an intuition of sorts. The side effects brought by the META state was something designed to stay with them forever.

[Scanning... Wisdom Cube located.]

[Current state: Afflicted]

[Permanent Altercations had been detected. Analyzing...]

[Results concluded.]

[In exchange of a 'cost', the target shall gain a stronger power.]

[Affliction: Blindness. Removes the color out of the possessor's memories.]

The [Genesis Cube] sent the results directly to Shiro. Upon receiving it, he understood that META is a replication of the state he was in—the quantized state. However, theirs was a half-baked one that was only achieved through a certain sacrifice.

It was the main reason why META ships could travel between timelines without any repercussions.

It was a forced choice to begin with.

Out of 300 KANSENs who participated in this project, only more than 180 lived. The rest had their Wisdom Cube destroyed, eliminating their existence in this world. Even, the ones who successfully became a KANSEN paid a price for it. Over the years, ship girls that could no longer hold on followed their footsteps.

"It has been hard on you."

Her situation was similar to the ship girl from before, but milder. Still, it was enough to make a child suffer. He patted Unicorn's head while carrying her towards his chest.

"..."

The little girl was silent as she thought of something. In the end, she could no longer hold herself back.

"Hic..."

Tears began falling on the ends of her eyes. Her entrapped emotions began gushing out as she truly felt that everything is now alright—all of their efforts had not gone to waste. All these times, she had not cried much, so as to not make her sisters worry. Seeing many of her acquaintances and friends disappearing had been hard on her.

Suddenly, the line that she envisioned herself saying came naturally—her words that she would say once he came back.

"Welcome back... Onii-chan."

*****

What would be a normal person's reaction when they saw a black-robed man holding an innocent-looking girl?

"That girl..!"

After a dozen minutes of fighting, it is still a stalemate. The two could not push back Akagi nor could they injure her. They even had a thought that Akagi was simply toying around with them.

Bam-!

The sheath of her wakizashi parried Ember's katana once more. Though, the latter was not aiming for her this time around.

Swooosh-!

She changed her trajectory to the hooded man—to be exact, to rescue the purple-haired girl at his arms. However...

Tap.

'Eh..?'

The hooded man stopped her blow with two fingers. He sandwiched her blade between them, hindering the impact that was about to reach him and the sleeping girl.

Bam-!

Waves of impact came from nowhere and sent her flying away. It was non-lethal and only caused her slight injuries.

"Captain..! That's her sister!"

Unexpectedly, her reliable captain stood there, frozen. Her instincts which had activated before flared up once more. Upon seeing the faint smile that the figure wore under the hood, she felt another sense of deja vu.

The next moment, her sight caught the golden cube that appeared behind his back. The man seemingly interacted with it before it disappeared.

"The next time we meet..." His soft voice rang across the sea. "It shall be the end."

An aurora curtain appeared and submerged both him and Akagi, leaving the two behind.

"The end... Are they planning something bad?"

To Ember's surprise, a single sentence escaped from Ash's mouth.

"It.. can't be true..."

*****

Tic.

Toc.

Seeing the lights out inside Chaldea, Romani caught wind of the time.

"It's been half a day already... This is the longest, for sure..."

He checked the chat group, but he nor the other members saw the return of the ones who went into the unknown mission.

"Sigh... If something happened..."

His overthinker trait took over his mind once again. Now that he was a normal human, he faced their struggles, unlike his time as the perfect king who presided over Israel.

"Right. I still have my appointment."

Scrolling to the [Travel] function, he saw a bunch of worlds that they had visited during the missions. There were also worlds associated with it.

[Travel to Fate/kaleid prismer Illya?]

[Yes/No]

Clicking [Yes], he was surrounded by motes of white light before disappearing from the director's office. By the time he opened his eyes, he was now inside an old-fashioned room. It has a moderately-sized bookshelf containing books related to magecraft, a desk filled with a bunch of miniatures around the world, a grandfather clock, and so on.

Simply put, it made an impression that the one residing here was an old man.

Click.

The door opened, revealing a dignified old man in Victorian clothes.

"I was not aware of any visitors today." He said.

"I do apologize for the unannounced visit."

The two of them smiled at each other as they gauged the other's purpose. For once, Zelretch was not expecting Romani, a man from another timeline, to barge into his office. What's more, he is not someone that could be disregarded by him.

"It's been a long time."

"Indeed, it is. More than two thousand years, perhaps?" Zelretch commented. "I did not expect to see teacher again."

"We all have our fair share of problems."

Romani waived it off as he sat on the seat gestured by Zelretch. Meanwhile, the latter also sat down.

"What brings teacher here?"

"Nothing much. I might have heard that you made a magical girl project not long ago."

"I do."

Zelretch tried to mask his surprise as Romani asked about a completely unexpected thing. True, he created a 'magical girl project' in this world, but that was to conform to its rules regarding the grail war.

"I take it as that you are familiar with them?" Romani asked.

"That's right. Do you require my assistance regarding them?"

"Yes."

Unfortunately for Zelretch, his other selves who had witnessed Romani's tendency to magical girl idols chose not to share their memories with their other selves, perhaps to preserve the image left by him during the Age of Gods.

Then again, Romani was asking for his help due to a completely different matter.

"Do you mind teaching in a school specialized for them?"

For a moment, Zelretch's thoughts halted.

*****

A/N: Just a small flashback. Romani established a Mahou Shoujo school in Madoka's world while they were gone (roughly during the Fate arc). He taught them ways to utilize their skills as well as combat styles with the other chat group members (who teaches whenever they have the time). Since his work is becoming tighter at the end of Babylonia Singularity, he decides to hire another permanent teacher. I mean, who is more suitable as a teacher other than prismer Illya Zelretch???

Anyways, the next chapter opens up to some new world outside of the chat group mission. As to what it is, you are free to guess ;)