Summer arrived with storms.
Not the gentle rains of spring, but violent thunderstorms that rolled in from the mountains and shook Argentium's foundations. Lightning split the sky. Thunder rattled windows. The world reminded us it wasn't always gentle.
I liked it.
There was something honest about the storms—raw, powerful, indifferent to human concerns. They were real in a way that demanded respect rather than control.
I was walking back from a late lecture, drenched despite my cloak, when I saw her.
A woman stood in the middle of the street, completely still while rain poured around her. She wore clothes that didn't belong—too fine, too strange, shimmering with something that might have been water or might have been starlight.
Everyone else hurried past, hunched against the weather, not seeing her.
But I saw her.
And worse—she saw me.
Our eyes met, and I felt it. That god-like recognition, that awareness of being observed by something that understood what I was. What I'd been.
She smiled.
Then she was gone, vanished between one blink and the next, leaving only rain and the growing certainty that something had changed.
"Master?" Mash found me standing frozen in the downpour. "What's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost."
"Maybe I did," I said.
That night, I dreamed for the first time since the festival.
Not pleasant dreams of tomorrow. But vivid, overwhelming visions of the garden—our garden, the one we'd created in Chaldea. Except it wasn't empty. The woman from the street stood there, examining the flowers Medusa had made, the fountain, the bench.
"Impressive," she said without turning. "You built quite a lot before you abandoned it."
"Who are you?"
"Does it matter?" She turned, and I could see her clearly now. Ageless, beautiful in a way that was almost threatening. "I'm someone like you. Or like you were. A dreamer. A god. Someone who shapes reality instead of living in it."
"I'm not that anymore."
"Aren't you?" She gestured, and suddenly I could feel it—that old power, dormant but not gone. Sleeping inside me like a giant waiting to wake. "You've been playing at being human, but you're still what you always were. A reality anchor. A consciousness powerful enough to create worlds."
"I don't want that power."
"Want is irrelevant." She walked closer, her footsteps leaving no prints in the grass. "The question is—what are you going to do when someone tries to take it from you?"
I woke with a gasp.
The room was dark, silent except for the rain still pattering against the window. Normal. Real. Safe.
But I could still feel her presence, like a fingerprint on my consciousness.
I didn't tell the others immediately.
It felt like admitting to a weakness, or maybe to a lie—that I wasn't as changed as I'd claimed. That the god I'd been was still lurking inside, waiting.
But over the next few days, I saw her again. And again.
Always at a distance. Always watching. Never approaching directly, but making her presence known.
In the market, standing perfectly still while crowds flowed around her.
At the University, sitting in the back of a lecture hall, eyes fixed on me.
Outside the inn at night, looking up at my window.
Only I could see her. When I tried to point her out to others, they looked confused. "Where? I don't see anyone."
She was haunting me. But not with malice—with patience. Like she was waiting for something.
On the fifth day, I broke.
"There's someone following me," I announced at dinner.
Everyone stopped eating.
"Following you how?" Cu's hand went to where his spear would be if he carried it everywhere.
I explained. The woman in the rain, the dreams, the constant observation. How no one else could see her.
"She's like me," I finished. "Or like I was. Someone who exists outside normal reality."
Emiya frowned. "Why would someone like that be interested in you? If you gave up your powers, if you're just human now—"
"Am I though?" The question burst out before I could stop it. "Da Vinci can still create things. Small things, but still. What if I never actually lost my power? What if I just... stopped using it?"
Silence fell over the table.
"Would that be so bad?" Medusa asked quietly. "Having power but choosing not to use it?"
"It is if someone wants to use it for me," I said. "Or through me. Or—I don't know. I don't know what she wants, but it feels important."
"Then maybe," Artoria said firmly, "it's time to ask her directly."
That night, I stood in the middle of our common room and spoke to the empty air.
"I know you can hear me. I know you're watching. So stop hiding and tell me what you want."
Nothing.
I tried again. "You said I'm still what I was. A reality anchor. A dreamer. Prove it. Show yourself. Talk to me."
Still nothing.
"Fine," I muttered. "Be mysterious. See if I—"
The air rippled.
She stepped through it like walking through a curtain, suddenly present in our room with that same ageless, unsettling beauty.
My companions reacted instantly. Cu grabbed his spear (when had he gotten that?). Artoria moved into a defensive stance. Mash raised her shield.
"Relax," the woman said, sounding amused. "I'm not here to fight. I'm here to offer a choice."
"What kind of choice?" I demanded.
She gestured, and the room changed.
Not dramatically—just enough to remind me what I could do. The walls became transparent, showing the garden from Chaldea. Then Argentium's streets. Then landscapes I'd never seen—mountains and oceans and cities that shouldn't exist.
"This world," she said, "the one you're living in now. Do you think it was always here? That it existed before you walked through that door?"
My stomach dropped.
"No," I whispered.
"No," she confirmed. "You created it. Just like you created Chaldea. You needed an escape, a place to be real, so you made one. And you populated it with people—real people this time, not NPCs. People with full consciousness, complete lives, genuine autonomy."
"That's impossible."
"Is it?" She looked at my companions. "Ask them. When did their lives begin? Can they remember anything before you arrived?"
I turned to Mash, desperate for her to contradict this.
But her face was confused, struggling. "I... I remember the village. And the road. And arriving in Argentium. But before that..." Her eyes widened with panic. "Master, I can't remember anything before we walked through the door. I thought I could, but the memories are... they're not there. They're just fog."
"Same," Cu said, sounding shaken. "It's like my life started on that hillside."
"No," I said firmly. "No, that's not true. You're all real. You have to be. You make your own choices, you have your own thoughts—"
"They do now," the woman interrupted. "Because you wanted them to. You gave them consciousness, autonomy, realness. You created a entire world of genuinely real people because being a god among NPCs was lonely." She smiled. "It's impressive, actually. Most dreamers can't manage that level of complexity."
"Why are you telling me this?" My voice shook.
"Because you're wasting your potential." She stepped closer. "You could be creating universes, exploring infinite possibilities, becoming something transcendent. Instead, you're playing house. Pretending to be ordinary. Limiting yourself."
"I'm not limiting myself. I'm choosing—"
"A comfortable cage." Her voice was sharp now. "You've just built a prettier prison. You're still controlling everything, you've just added more steps and convinced yourself it's freedom."
"That's not true!"
"Isn't it?" She turned to my companions. "Ask them. Did they choose to come through that door? Or did you decide they would? Did they choose to stay in Argentium? Or are they here because you needed them to be?"
I looked at Mash, at Cu, at all of them.
They looked back with expressions I couldn't read.
"The choice I'm offering," the woman said, "is simple. Come with me. Learn to use your power properly. Create real things, not elaborate self-deceptions. Or stay here, in your dollhouse world, pretending to be human while the people around you pretend to be real."
"They ARE real," I said desperately.
"Prove it." She gestured at Mash. "Ask her to leave. To walk away from you right now and never come back. See if she can. See if any of them can."
"Master..." Mash's voice was small, frightened. "I don't... I don't think I can. I'm trying to imagine leaving, and it's like... like the thought won't form properly."
"Because he won't let you," the woman said. "Because deep down, he's still controlling all of this. He's just gotten better at hiding it from himself."
The room spun.
Everything I'd believed—about growth, about change, about becoming real—was it all just another layer of the dream?
"I'll give you three days," the woman said. "Three days to decide. Stay in your comfortable cage, or come with me and become what you were meant to be." She started to fade. "Choose wisely. Because if you stay, you'll eventually realize what you've done to these people. And that knowledge will destroy you."
She vanished.
Leaving me alone with my companions—my friends, my family, my creations?—in a room that suddenly felt far too small.
"Master," Artoria said carefully. "Whatever she said, whatever she implied—we're still here. We still care about you."
"Because I made you care," I said hollowly. "Because I was lonely and I needed you to."
"You don't know that's true," Emiya argued.
"Don't I?" I looked at him. "Try to leave. Right now. Walk out that door and don't come back."
He moved toward the door.
Stopped.
Tried again.
His hand wouldn't reach the handle.
"I can't," he said, sounding shaken. "It's like you said—the thought won't complete. It's like trying to imagine a color that doesn't exist."
One by one, they all tried.
None of them could leave.
I'd trapped them here. In my comfortable cage. In my elaborate self-deception.
I'd created them to love me.
And they had no choice but to obey.