Sakura stared at Kiyohime, her tiny face darkened by rage. Kiyohime lowered her head and played dead. Only Okita seemed completely thrown off by what she'd just heard.
"Miss Illyasviel…" she said with a trembling voice.
"W-Why… why did you call Kiyohime 'Mama'?!"
What she couldn't say aloud was—
Why is she Kiyohime Mama and I'm just Okita-oneesan?! She was the first to arrive! She was the first to be summoned! She was the one who had spent the most time with Master! So why… why had things turned out like this? Had she… completely lost?
"Ah…!" Illya immediately covered her mouth with both hands.
"No! Aoko-nee—er, I mean, Miss Aoko told me I can't reveal too much!" She shook her head vigorously, clearly unwilling to say more.
"To avoid creating a time paradox, there are limits on what she can tell us," Su Mo said, understanding her dilemma. Illya nodded with all her might. "Okay then." Su Mo turned to look at everyone present.
"Don't keep pressing her for answers," Su Mo said casually. "Even if that's the future, things can still change. So, there's no need to worry too much."
He himself remained quite calm. With the cheat-like power of the Mist Realm, even he couldn't predict just how far he might go in the future. But one thing was certain—his future would be far beyond anything he could imagine now.
So, his curiosity wasn't particularly strong.
Hearing him say this, even someone as stubborn as Okita had no choice but to back off. Sakura bit her lip, clearly struggling to let it go, but obedient as ever, she simply glared once at Kiyohime and refrained from asking more.
Kiyohime, on the receiving end of her little Master's cold stare, looked utterly pitiful. But she couldn't say anything back and could only give a weak smile in loyalty.
Seeing that everyone had quieted down, Su Mo finally continued, "We'll stop talking about the future for now. But Illya—your appearance here must be mission-related, right? Is that something you can talk about?"
Illya visibly relaxed at that question. She completely ignored Okita's teary-eyed expression and instead gave Su Mo a bright, sweet smile.
"That part I can explain," she nodded. "Before coming here, I followed Papa's instructions and reorganized the entire Einzbern family."
"Right now, Papa, Mama Iris, and I are the absolute highest-ranking authorities of the Einzbern line!" The words she spoke were absolutely earth-shattering.
"…???"
"You… you reorganized the Einzbern family?!" Irisviel's expression froze in disbelief. Even she didn't know this had happened! But now that she thought back, ever since Illya had been summoned, the head of the family, Jubstacheit, hadn't issued a single order regarding the Holy Grail War…
"Ehehe~ I did it without telling you, Mama," Illya said with a sheepish smile, scratching her head. "But Grandpa Jubstacheit gave up the position willingly, so it's fine, right?" Unlike typical magus households, the Einzbern family was something else entirely. The entire clan was composed of homunculi—artificial beings. Even their family head, Jubstacheit, was a homunculus.
All of them had one single, programmed objective: to reach the Heaven's Feel and fulfill the wish of the Winter Saintess. To the Einzbern homunculi, the Third Magic was their eternal pursuit. In that sense, they were less like humans and more like machines bound by a single directive.
So why was Illya able to take over the family the moment she was summoned? Aside from being a direct member of the Einzbern line, the real reason was—
"Because I am the Heaven's Feel! I am the Third Magic!" Illya said proudly, puffing out her flat little chest with confidence.
A living manifestation of the Third Magic. An optimized version of the Winter Saintess herself. Because Illya had already fulfilled the Einzbern's long-held dream just by existing, she was naturally granted full authority over the family.
Irisviel was left completely stunned by this revelation. Her daughter… was the living embodiment of the Third Magic? Su Mo, too, was taken aback.
—So you're telling me… my future daughter is basically a grail? Did he really have that weird a kink in the future?
…Wait, no, his current self was already weird enough.
Okay, fair.
"So, what you're saying is, I gave you the Third Magic in the future—something like that, right?" Su Mo summarized quickly.
In the Nasuverse, the Five True Magics were said to transcend modern sorcery. And among them, the Third Magic—Materialization of the Soul—stood apart. Anyone who had mastered it could turn souls into physical matter—either their own or others'. That meant they could turn someone into a "living" Third Magic.
However, those who received this power weren't actual owners of the Magic. They were simply products or wielders of it—like Phantasmal Beasts or Heroic Spirits. Only Su Mo, the one who truly mastered it, could grant or strip someone of this power at will.
And only he could deepen the Third Magic's connection to the Root, pushing it further than anyone else.
Given all that, if he really had fathered Illya in the future, then granting her the Third Magic for her own protection made perfect sense. Besides, a magical girl version of Illya was undeniably cute.
So, the origin of the Third Magic in Illya made sense.
"Papa's absolutely right," Illya nodded. "Aside from reorganizing the Einzbern family, the biggest reason I came here… was to deliver this to Papa!" With that, she reached under her skirt and pulled out a leather-bound magical tome.
"What's this?" Su Mo asked, flipping through the first few pages. His eyes immediately lit up.
"Divine Summoning Techniques?!" This was exactly the subject he'd been researching recently!
The Su Mo from the God-Slayer world needed a reliable method to summon deities stably. Just yesterday, he'd been poring over the Matou family's Heroic Spirit summoning data, but progress had been slow. And now, Illya had shown up with the complete version?
"A lot of this content isn't from the Holy Grail War system at all…" He flipped through more pages, quickly noticing something.
"These look like complete, systematized magical theses. If I'm not mistaken… these are secrets from the Clock Tower's Department of Summoning, right?" The Clock Tower, of course, was the most powerful magical institution in the entire Nasuverse.
"For me to get my hands on this kind of classified research in the future… did I just take over the whole Clock Tower or something?" he asked, only half-joking.
Illya really wanted to make a sarcastic comment like—Who at the Clock Tower would even dare to go against you? But remembering her mission not to tamper with the timeline, she held her tongue. Meanwhile, Su Mo eagerly studied the material.
The Divine Summoning system laid out in the book didn't rely on the Grail War's flawed mechanisms. Instead, it utilized leyline magic and mythological correlations to form rituals. The result was a highly versatile technique. Even if he used it in another world, as long as that world had gods tied to similar myths, the summoning would likely succeed.
"This data is incredibly useful. Thank you, Illya," Su Mo said, deeply appreciative.
"Hehe, if it helps Papa, then that's the best reward!" Illya beamed with joy at his praise. By now, Su Mo had finished flipping through the first half of the book. The section on Divine Summoning only took up one portion of the volume. The second half? It was all about Saint Graph Manipulation.
"Divine Summoning is definitely something I need right now…" Su Mo muttered, confused. "But why include techniques for manipulating Saint Graph too?"
Even though Su Mo had been thinking about adjusting Okita Souji's Saint Graph, it was never something urgent. Once he fully mastered the Third Magic and had enough understanding of souls, modifying a Saint Graph would be a trivial task—child's play, really. There was no pressing need to do it right now.
Hearing Su Mo's comment, Illya gave an embarrassed little smile.
"Actually… this part was something I begged Papa to let me bring along!" she admitted, scratching her cheek.
"It's for a tiny, tiny little wish from your obedient and well-behaved daughter."
"…What kind of wish?" Su Mo asked, genuinely puzzled. At that, Illya glanced over at Irisviel and hesitated. Then she leaned in close and whispered right into Su Mo's ear.
"Papa, I'll tell you about it when I come find you tonight, okay?" she said with a playful glint in her eyes. "But you have to promise not to tell Mama Iris!" Seeing her daughter blinking rapidly at him, clearly trying hard to keep the secret mysterious, Su Mo considered for a moment… then nodded.