Silence lingered in the hospital room, so complete that even the distant chime of the hallway clock seemed unusually clear.
Elias looked around at everyone. His eyes, usually calm and composed, now carried a heaviness that could not be hidden.
"It seems our earlier suspicions were correct," he finally broke the silence, his voice low and steady. "This Holy Grail truly possesses a power that does not belong to humankind. It can grant wishes—but every wish it fulfills carries an unseen cost."
Everyone nodded silently.
"Exactly," Livia murmured, her eyes slightly narrowed as though trying to summon a memory. "And from the way Father acted—from everything he did… it's clear he really intended to use the Grail to resurrect my mother. But then, why wait all these years? Why has he suddenly become so desperate now?"
She raised her head, looking at the others with a troubled and conflicted expression in her eyes.
"Could it be…" Adrian furrowed his brow, speaking cautiously yet sharply, "that he's actually been taking action all along? That everything we've experienced—from the resurfacing of the Grail shards to Eryx's mobilization—might all have been part of his plan? Maybe we were too focused on fragments before, only now starting to piece together the full picture."
The air seemed to freeze for a moment at that idea.
"It's possible," Elias said thoughtfully. "A man like Edgar wouldn't just sit back and do nothing. Unless… he's been waiting for a trigger. A specific moment when the Grail would truly awaken—when the fragments would begin to converge."
"I've had several brief encounters with him," Marcellus spoke up then. His voice was hoarse, but his tone had returned to calm. "He never explicitly asked for cooperation, never mentioned the Grail. He always acted like an observer. But just recently, he came to me—on his own. That moment, I knew… something must have changed. Something told him the time had finally come. A time he's waited over ten years for."
"And we have started finding the fragments," Livia added quietly, as if affirming the outline of some looming fate. "That base piece, and the one we found before… they joined together in the vault without hesitation. No ritual, no incantation. They just—fit. Like they had never been apart."
She remembered that moment vividly: the soft click of fusion in the dim vault. It sounded like a lock turning. Like a gate swinging open. Like fate crossing a threshold that could no longer be undone.
"This is no coincidence." Her voice was firm, decisive.
"And according to the journal," Elias continued, picking up her thought, "the gemstone—the core embedded in the base—is the true heart of the Grail. It might carry more than just its power. It may be the Grail's connection to the human soul."
"But now it's gone," Adrian said, frowning. "Which means… the base has lost its core. The Grail hasn't regained its full strength. And thank God for that…"
He didn't finish the sentence, but everyone understood what he meant:
If that gemstone had still been there, Adrian's episode that night might have been far more than just a temporary loss of control. He might never have come back.
"But the real problem is," he went on, "what do we do now? We have no clue where the gemstone is. We can't just sit here hoping the other fragments fall into our laps."
As his words faded, the atmosphere in the room seemed to grow heavier.
Livia looked around. Everyone's expression had darkened. Even Elise, who had been quietly listening, couldn't help but speak up in a soft voice:
"We're walking in the dark right now… It feels like only the Grail itself can lead us."
She lowered her head immediately, as if realizing how absurd that sounded.
But no one laughed. Instead, silence settled once again—as if they were all trying to parse the same contradiction.
Guided by the dark…
Something stirred in Livia's mind. A flicker—like a beam of light through fog. A thought not yet formed, but tugging insistently at her.
"Maybe we're thinking about this the wrong way…" she murmured, half to herself, half to the room. "If the fragments of the Grail are drawn to each other—if they're bound by some magnetic force or resonance—then maybe we can reverse it. Maybe… we can create that resonance."
"You mean… use the shards we already have as bait?" Elias immediately caught on.
Livia nodded, a sharp light rising in her eyes again.
"We can't afford to wait any longer," she said, her voice low but resolute.
"It's time for us to strike first."