After months of going back and forth,
Fou finally brought me good news.
"Everything's ready. All I need now is for you to supply the Magical Energy."
"That's really all it takes?"
When I asked in surprise, Fou nodded.
At the center of Hongseong Palace, there were only Fou, me, and Tengen, who was busy watching TV.
Shuten-douji and Ibuki-douji were outside the barrier's root.
They were waiting right in front of the underground tunnel leading into Hongseong Palace.
"Yeah. Though I think I'll need to draw quite a lot. Will that be okay?"
"That's fine. But did something happen? Your expression looks off."
"You can tell that much?"
"Just a feeling. But seriously, what is it?"
Fou's face was so grave I couldn't help asking.
We were about to part ways anyway, and I could have let it go, but I didn't want to leave behind anything unresolved.
A farewell should be clean.
If neither side had regrets, the lives waiting for us afterward would be easier to bear.
"The truth is..."
In the end, Fou let out a sigh and explained.
The world he was supposed to return to had, for some reason, stopped in a state of suspension.
Olga Marie was there, serving as director of that world.
And the protagonist, and Mash.
Even the homunculus loli Da Vinci, shortened to Robinci, had gathered in Chaldea.
'There's still more after all that?'
The point when I had possessed this body was right after the finale of Part 2.
In other words, after every ending had already played out.
So I had seen the in-game ending credits and the short animation that followed, but...
I never imagined there would be more after that.
Given the company's circumstances, there was no way the service would end.
A different story.
Or maybe a continuation with a different protagonist.
I had figured they'd keep the game going somehow.
Even so.
I never imagined it would actually continue like this.
"Then shouldn't I go too?"
"You don't have to."
Fou shook his head firmly.
Cute, sure, but not exactly dignified.
"Still, if there's more going on, it feels weird to just sit here and watch."
"You've already done more than enough. You survived in a world like this by sheer luck, and because of that, we were able to meet like this."
Haa...
Fou trailed off for a moment and sighed.
"Just knowing you're alive will be a huge comfort to them too. So you should stay in this world and live happily."
Live happily.
Once he said that, I had no answer.
Goredolf, who had served as Chaldea's director all through Part 2, was gone.
The fact that Olga Marie had taken that seat left a lingering ache, but it wasn't a bad thing.
She really had...
suffered so much.
I truly wanted her to be happy this time.
"Will Olga Marie be okay?"
"Hm? Before, you kept calling her Director, and now you're casually using her name."
"After everything she went through, it feels different. More importantly, is there really nothing I can do to help?"
"Just supply the Magical Energy. The substitution experiments are finished, and we've already exchanged contact with the other side. Since the whole thing is based on exchange, something like a phone call was impossible. Letters were the best we could manage."
Fou glanced back and tapped his forepaw against the floor.
It looked like he was urging Tengen on.
At that, Tengen nodded, picked up the square sheet of letter paper resting on the table, and flicked it through the air.
The letter drifted down and landed neatly in front of me.
I picked it up and asked,
"This is...?"
"Yeah. A letter from Chaldea. We got lucky. Their Heroic Spirit Summoning System is still intact too. And the Servant you wanted has already been summoned."
"You mean BB?"
"She was more than willing to agree to what you wanted. She already had a favorable impression of you, so it probably wasn't difficult."
A favorable impression, huh.
ServantFes, the summer event where BB's alternate version, Summer BB, first appeared.
I had been pretty aggressive there.
And before that, there was SE.RA.PH, which had been both an event and the first Singularity of Part 1.5.
After that, all sorts of things had happened too.
I liked female characters with big breasts, and because of that, I'd focused heavily on raising BB's Bond level.
My first alternate, swimsuit BB, had narrowly reached 14.
The welfare original BB had stopped at 10, but...
Then there was BB, the one implemented in Ordeal Call 3 after the end of Part 2.
The so-called Dubai BB had an even higher Bond level.
They were both at 14, but Dubai BB only had 30,000 Bond left until 15.
Summer BB had needed around 100,000.
Maybe that was why I couldn't help feeling close to BB.
Close enough that she used the title Senior for me, a title she should originally have reserved for the protagonist.
Anyway.
Now that BB was finally coming, I was worried and glad at the same time.
"That's a relief. If BB's here, she'll know all about diving too. Then we should be able to develop the Magecraft formula quickly."
The Magecraft for diving into a person's inner world had ultimately failed.
Maybe it would have been different if we'd had more time, but right now, I couldn't see a solution.
Even the failure of the all-purpose secretary Koyanskaya.
Maybe because of that title, both Koyanskayas had been visibly dejected.
So I'd had to spend a lot of effort cheering them up too.
A whole lot.
"Right. You still have things to do here, so stay. You can't just turn your back on the people you've come to know in this world, can you?"
Fou said it while meeting my eyes.
He was right.
Perfectly right, with no room to argue.
In my heart, I accepted it too.
"...Sorry."
In the end, sorry was all I could manage.
"It's fine. Come on, let's begin. Give me some Magical Energy."
"Got it."
I nodded and pressed my hand to the floor.
Fou's forepaw came down over it, and in an instant, my Magical Energy began to drain away.
The end had finally come.
The thought of saying goodbye left a bitter taste in my chest, but I still smiled.
"Fou. Take care. Things are probably still dangerous and chaotic over there, but live well there too."
"You too. We'll probably be able to keep in touch by letter now and then. It'll be closer to one-sided instructions than a real conversation, but it's not like contact will be impossible."
Fou looked up at me and smiled with his eyes.
The warmth of his paw and the softness of his face eased something inside me.
Vast Magical Energy. Delicate control. A Magecraft formula.
Only when all three came together could someone barely cross beyond the boundaries of a setting itself.
Which meant this farewell was, in all likelihood, our last meeting.
Finding another source of Magical Energy with infinite reserves like mine was practically impossible.
Whoooosh.
Soon, wind began to blow through the sealed interior of Hongseong Palace.
A hole opened behind Fou and slowly began to widen.
It looked exactly like the aperture from a Rayshift cutscene.
In Fate/Grand Order, their base, Chaldea, changed many times.
At first, it had been the Antarctic base, Chaldea.
After that, the vehicle used to escape the base, the Shadow Border.
Then the wandering Sea of Imaginary Numbers' base, which clung only to ancient Mystery.
And from there, the giant aerial vessel, the Storm Border.
And finally, even a return to the Shadow Border from there.
Looking at it that way, Chaldea had never really been a place.
It was the people themselves.
The staff who supported it. The Servants.
The Master who went into the field, and their partner.
As long as they were there, that place was Chaldea.
Just like now.
"Oh my. Looks like the signal's coming in."
At the very beginning of the Grand Order, in its earliest days.
Inside the command room of the old Antarctic Chaldea from Part 1.
With everyone gathered there,
one woman smiled with her eyes and spoke with easy composure.
A black dress with one leg exposed and the chest cut daringly open.
Her most striking feature was the ribbon-like braids tied on both sides of her head.
That woman's name was BB.
There were far too many complicated circumstances behind her, but simply put, she was a being different from the original BB.
And if she fused with the original BB's transformed state, Cosmos BB, she would become Golden BB, but...
Anyone who didn't know the circumstances would have had a hard time understanding any of that.
They'd probably wonder what the hell any of it was supposed to mean.
The important thing was that the woman with the ribbons was BB.
More precisely, what mattered was that she was Golden BB wearing the face of BB.
"That really surprised me. I never thought Kadoc would actually be alive."
Behind BB, a rift in space churned and twisted.
Standing before it, a man laughed as if drained by the absurdity of it all.
The protagonist of Grand Order.
In the original game he had no name, but at some point he had come to be called Fujimaru.
"Another world. And not just that, a world outside even parallel worlds. It sounded impossible. I'm still not sure how he could even return from there to here."
"Maybe it was only possible because it was Fou?"
"I suppose so. He is one of the Beasts of Humanity, after all, so maybe he has something like Independent Manifestation. And on top of that, it looks like he somehow combined it with the spatial Magecraft he originally used..."
BB stroked her chin, then shook her head.
That wasn't what mattered right now.
What mattered was that they could go to Kadoc's world.
And that doing so meant saying goodbye.
Once they went to Kadoc's world—
in other words, the world of Jujutsu Kaisen—there was no telling when they would be able to return.
Thankfully, it probably wouldn't be an eternal farewell, but...
there was a good chance it would be close to one.
To begin with, Kadoc was someone they had believed dead.
Just confirming that he was alive was satisfying enough.
That was especially true for BB, who, unlike the original flow of events, had grown attached to Kadoc.
Shockingly enough, she'd even gone so far as to share a bed with him.
Kadoc had talked about how popular the protagonist Fujimaru was, but...
he himself was hardly ordinary.
"Mr. Fujimaru. I won't be here, but the information remains in the Saint Graph, so you should still be able to use me as a Shadow Servant. You know how alternate versions work, right?"
"I know. It's a little different, but I get what you're trying to say."
"Yes. That's enough for me."
Fujimaru smiled brightly and nodded.
A different aspect of the same person.
It was already familiar territory for the same individual to appear in another class.
"BB. Go and give Kadoc my regards. I wrote it in the letter too, but that won't be enough."
From above the command room,
the woman seated in the highest place looked down at BB and sighed.
A suit-like top and skirt.
White hair.
She was Olga Marie Animusphere, Chaldea's current director and its original one as well.
When she'd first heard the news that he was alive, she'd been dumbfounded, but now she was simply grateful.
In the end, someone who had paid such a terrible price had not died.
More than that, there were even people present who, in the original flow, should have been pruned away and vanished.
Sion Eltnam Sokaris.
Servant Nemo.
They had been reliable supporting figures throughout Part 2, and people who had moved hearts.
For various reasons, they couldn't exist within Chaldea itself, but...
luckily, they were in the wandering sea.
It was a place half-connected to the reverse side of the world.
An alien realm where the Mystery of the Age of Gods still breathed, and that made such a thing possible.
"Yes. I will make sure your voices reach him. So please, don't worry, and enjoy your journey of restoring Human Order in peace."
The moment she sensed the departure,
BB's body shimmered like a swarm of fireflies and vanished.
The wide-open hole shrank in an instant and disappeared.
In the place where BB had stood, it left behind a familiar little beast.
"Fou!"
Fujimaru scooped up the small creature at once, his delight plain to see.
Fou, too, poked at the bridge of Fujimaru's nose with his tiny forepaw.
'Originally, I was trying to go somewhere other than Chaldea...'
Fou cried out as he kept nudging Fujimaru's nose.
It hadn't gone according to plan, but this wasn't bad either.
"Looks like everyone's finally here now."
Olga Marie checked the list of Servants Chaldea possessed.
The information displayed in the Saint Graph.
[Golden BB: Link Lost.]
Thankfully, the data hadn't been destroyed or erased, but it couldn't be used.
It was as if the data had been sealed.
Maybe because she had crossed into another world.
Or maybe because a summoned Servant was not the original recorded in the Saint Graph, but a copied information body.
Olga Marie didn't know which it was, but she didn't dwell on it.
They had expected this. They had agreed to it.
"All right, everyone. This was something we discussed beforehand, and something we expected, so don't dwell on it any further. Right now, focus on breaking through our current situation."
Olga Marie clapped her hands, carrying herself with surprising composure.
She had grown too.
"Yes, Director!"
All the staff, Fujimaru included, answered in unison.
And a girl who entered the command room a beat later answered energetically as well.
Short hair tinged faintly pink.
Glasses.
The girl most people called Junior, Mash Kyrielight.
"Ah, Mr. Fou. Welcome back!"
"Fou!"
She welcomed Fou too, and Fou responded in kind.
He liked Mash's purity.