He finished introducing Chaldea to the new Servants, and then Sho called Yu Miaoyi to the storage room, saying he had something to discuss with her.
His excuse was that they knew each other from before. Of course, Sho had never had any contact with Akuta Hinako in the past.
"First off, is it alright if I call you Senpai?"
"Senpai, huh? How random."
"Well, you're my senior here in Chaldea, aren't you? And my senior in life, too."
"You're so formal about things like that. Call me whatever you want. So, what's the reason you wanted to see me alone?"
Sho took a moment to put some eye drops in, blinked a few times, and then looked at Yu Miaoyi and asked.
"Senpai, you know me, don't you?"
At Sho's question, Yu Miaoyi made an indifferent face. She slowly lifted her right leg and crossed it over her left.
"… I do. I know you very well."
Sho nodded at her answer. He fumbled with the bottle of eye drops for a moment, hesitating, before putting it down and asking bluntly.
"You've met me before, haven't you? And the 'me' you met is different from the 'me' I am now."
"Different, yes. Different in many ways."
Yu Miaoyi used her abilities to create something like BB's command baton and poked Sho lightly in the solar plexus with it.
"Your appearance, for one. You look different from the you I know."
"Was he perhaps a teenager with black hair and blue eyes?"
"… What? So you knew?"
"That was Ritsuka. This is probably my real appearance."
Sho roughly understood what kind of trope this was. He didn't know if it was a real possibility or not, but at the very least, this was his deduction.
She was the Yu Miaoyi from the game he had played. No, perhaps the other Servants were, too. But it seemed that only Yu Miaoyi had those memories.
"Ritsuka. Yes, that was his name."
"It must have been me, using the texture of 'Fujimaru Ritsuka.' Probably?"
"Hah. I see. So the 'you' here is the real one? That's not a common case."
Yu Miaoyi understood the expression "texture." There had been many beings who hid their true identities or used different appearances in such ways.
It wasn't an impossible story for Sho, either.
Her expression asked how that came to be. But Sho just shrugged, conveying that he truly didn't know either.
"I won't ask how you know that. At the very least, you have the memories, even if you didn't experience it, right?"
"A game."
"Huh?"
"To me, all of it was a game. A mobile game."
Yu Miaoyi hadn't intended to hear everything. She was trying to be considerate in her own way, but Sho told her everything honestly.
"That's how I remember it. Perhaps these are false memories, too. But it's the truth as I know it. A game called Fate/Grand Order. I was a player—the Master—in that game."
"A game... How absurd. I suppose a parallel world like that could exist. But to hear it was a game... it's just dumbfounding. Are you saying you were the player controlling that Fujimaru Ritsuka?"
"From my perspective, yes."
"... And why are you telling me this?"
"Because I don't want to lie. And I don't want to hide it from you, Senpai."
"You're honest. You really are the same foolish junior I knew."
"Thank you for accepting me as your junior. Even though I'm probably a lacking and unreliable one."
"You know yourself well."
"Aren't you surprised?"
"Of course not. From your perspective, it might have been that way, but for us, it was real. And the you who is here right now... you're real, aren't you?"
Perhaps because she had lived for ages as an immortal, Yu Miaoyi didn't seem surprised at all. She readily accepted words that would have shocked or been denied by anyone else.
"Aren't you accepting this a little too easily?"
"You wouldn't lie to me, would you? Whether it was a game or not, you told me the truth from your perspective. Besides, even if it really was a game over there, for us, it was our truth, our reality."
Seeing her so easily believe and trust him, Sho gave a faint smile.
"I'll definitely try to summon Xiang Yu next time."
"You promise?"
Sho said slyly that it depended on luck. In response, Yu Miaoyi whacked him on the head with the baton.
"If you put your heart into it, he'll come!"
"Hey, it's not like I can control it!?"
"Just show me you're willing to try! Show some effort!"
"Wow, such a nag."
"Are you talking back to me? A junior should respect their senior!"
Yu Miaoyi hit Sho with the baton. Of course, she wasn't serious, so it didn't hurt Sho much, stinging more than anything.
Their bickering made them look like they had known each other for a very long time.
"Tsk. Then, what about the Fujimaru Ritsuka from this side?"
"She's the protagonist of this world. Fujimaru Ritsuka."
"I can see that. I'm asking what your relationship is with her."
At Yu Miaoyi's words, Sho lowered his head for a moment in thought. How could he describe his relationship with Ritsuka, what he thought of her?
After a few seconds of thought, the answer came.
"She's my most precious friend in the world. I want to protect her, to become someone she can rely on... That's our relationship."
"A precious person, huh."
Yu Miaoyi leaned back in her chair, thinking of Ritsuka. It seemed Parvati had noticed it too, but this world's Fujimaru Ritsuka was somehow fundamentally different.
A transcendental being that was human, yet couldn't be called human. Yu Miaoyi had seen several such beings before. But she didn't bother telling Sho.
It wouldn't do him any harm, at least.
If anything….
"You're the same everywhere, aren't you? Are you really fated to be loved by Beasts?"
"Huh?"
"Nothing. Just that you're consistent. Take it as a compliment."
"Ah, yes, ma'am."
Sho didn't understand what she meant and tried to think about it.
Then it suddenly occurred to him that in the game he played, most of the Servants from the lineage called 'Beast' had reached Bond 15 with him.
But he brushed it off, thinking that couldn't be it, and moved on to casual conversation, briefly telling Yu Miaoyi about his future plans.
And... watching all of this through a security camera was BB.
"I see. So that's what Senpai was hiding."
She had heard the entire conversation with Yu Miaoyi. The fact that, from Sho's perspective, this world was a game. The possibility that Yu Miaoyi and the other Servants were the game characters Sho had commanded.
"Hmm, so that's why you knew so much."
The Sho from the previous run had hidden many things. Knowledge from an unclear source.
Of course, she never distrusted Sho. She believed in him and figured he would tell her the reason someday. BB had speculated that he might be a recipient of the Counter Force, but she was a little surprised to find out she was completely wrong.
"A reincarnator. Well, nothing is too strange at this point. It's similar to the phenomenon known as a Changeling."
This was a world where the Changeling phenomenon existed in the first place. A case like Sho's wasn't all that surprising.
If anything, knowing the truth only made it sadder.
For him, this world was a reality based on the game he used to play.
Yet, he had come to this reality only to suffer. The man who would have been a hero as a Master in Yu Miaoyi's world came to this twisted one, suffered, and met his end.
The secret he was keeping was worth keeping. How hard would it have been for BB and Ritsuka if they had known back then? In fact, finding out during those difficult times would have been hard to accept, and it might have only twisted their relationship with Sho.
But now, she could accept it. How nice it would be if this twisted world were fake instead.
"Why does this world have to be the real one? So annoying."
For this place to be the real one. The concept Sho had presented, the "erotic doujinshi worldline," was truly a disgusting parallel world.
But what could be done? This was the world they were born and lived in.
"At this point, it doesn't matter. This world will eventually change according to our will, after all."
She looked at Chaldeas, glowing in the center of the control room. And then, she let out a smirk.
"Right, Senpai?"
BB called Chaldeas "Senpai." Their plan was not something as simple as regressing to get revenge.
That was just a bonus. The real plan was different.
BB blinked once, and unlike the original BB, a sigma (Σ) symbol appeared in her pupils.
"My role is Human Order Correction, after all. Not Chaldea's way, but our way."
As BB spoke with a smirk, Ritsuka walked out from Chaldeas's direction. She, too, had heard the entire conversation between Sho and Yu Miaoyi.
"It doesn't matter, does it? Still, I'm relieved. Sho is the Sho I know, after all, right? He said I'm the most precious person to him in the world. That's all that matters, isn't it?"
The truth Sho spoke of didn't matter to her. As long as she was number one to him, nothing else mattered.
"How about we make him a bento box before he goes tomorrow?"
"Oh, what a lovely idea."
The grand undertaking ahead could wait for now. Right now, making a homemade bento to eat with him tomorrow was more important.