I was nowhere.
Not darkness, not light, just... nothing. An absence of space where I floated without body, thought without mind, existed without existing.
Then, gradually, I became aware.
I was standing in a room that shouldn't exist. Walls made of memory. Floor made of possibility. Ceiling made of dreams.
And I wasn't alone.
The woman from Argentium stood before me. But she wasn't alone either. Around us, other figures manifested—indistinct, flickering, barely there but undeniably present.
"Welcome," the woman said, "to the space between worlds. Where dreamers gather when they're ready to see truth."
"What is this place?"
"The only place that's truly real." She gestured at the others. "We're dreamers, Ritsuka. Each of us creating entire universes, populated with beings we convinced ourselves were separate from us. But here, in this space, we can't hide from what we are."
The figures solidified slightly. I could see them now—men and women and things that were neither, all with that same god-like awareness I'd felt in myself.
"How many of us are there?" I whispered.
"Countless," one of them said. A man who looked ancient and young simultaneously. "Reality is a dream. Consciousness creates worlds. You're just one dreamer among infinite others."
"But my companions—"
"Are real," another said. A woman with stars in her hair. "As real as anything is. You gave them consciousness, autonomy, genuine free will. That's not creating puppets. That's creating life."
"But they can't leave me. They can't choose to walk away—"
"Because they're bound to your world," the first woman explained. "Your creation, your reality. But within that reality, they're genuinely free. They make real choices, have real experiences, grow in real ways. You're their creator, but you're not their controller. Not anymore."
"How can you be sure?"
"Because," the ancient-young man said, "we've all been where you are. All questioned whether our creations were real. All struggled with the ethics of playing god. And we've learned that consciousness is consciousness, regardless of its source. Your companions are as real as you are. More real, maybe, because they don't spend their time questioning it."
I wanted to believe that. Desperately.
"Then why bring me here? Why show me this?"
"To give you a choice," the woman said. "The same choice I was given once. You can stay in your world, living among your creations, pretending to be ordinary. Or you can join us. Learn to create deliberately instead of accidentally. Become what you were meant to be."
"A god."
"A creator. A dreamer. A consciousness capable of generating entire realities." She stepped closer. "You've been running from your power, Ritsuka. Pretending it doesn't exist or that you don't want it. But you do. I can feel it in you. The desire to create, to shape, to bring things into being."
She was right. I did feel it. That dormant power, that god-like potential, waiting.
"What happens if I join you?"
"You learn. You grow. You create worlds beyond imagination. You become something transcendent."
"And my companions?"
"They continue in the world you made for them. Living their lives, making their choices. They'll be fine without you—you built them strong enough for that."
"They'll think I abandoned them."
"For a time. But they'll grow beyond you eventually. They'll become more than what you made them. Isn't that what you wanted?"
It was. I'd wanted them to be real, autonomous, free.
But I'd also wanted to be there with them.
"What if," I said slowly, "I don't want transcendence? What if I'm happy being small?"
The woman smiled sadly. "You can't go back. Not really. Now that you know what you are, you can't unknow it. You'll always feel that power, always be aware of your true nature. Staying in your world will always feel like playing pretend."
"Then I'll play pretend," I said firmly. "If that's what it takes to be with them, to live alongside them, to experience life as a person instead of as a god—I'll do it."
"You'll be wasting your potential."
"Maybe potential is meant to be wasted." I looked at the other dreamers, these beings who'd chosen transcendence over connection. "You all look powerful. But do you look happy?"
Silence.
"I thought so," I said. "So thank you for the offer. Thank you for showing me what I am. But I'm going back. To my companions. To my small, ordinary, potentially-fake life that somehow matters more than all of this."
"You'll regret it," the ancient-young man said. "Eventually, you'll realize what you gave up."
"Maybe. But I'd rather regret a choice I made than wonder about a life I didn't live."
The woman studied me for a long moment. Then she laughed—genuinely, warmly.
"You're either the wisest of us or the most foolish. I honestly can't tell which."
"Can't it be both?"
"Maybe." She waved her hand, and the space around us began to dissolve. "Go back, then. To your world and your companions and your small life. But remember—if you ever change your mind, we'll be here. The offer stands eternal."
"I won't change my mind."
"We'll see."
The nothing-space collapsed.
I gasped, stumbling backward from the mirror. Strong hands caught me—Cu on one side, Emiya on the other.
"Master!" Mash's voice was panicked. "You've been standing there for hours! We couldn't reach you, couldn't pull you away—"
"Hours?" I looked around. The sun had moved significantly across the sky. They all looked exhausted, frightened.
"What happened?" Artoria demanded. "Where did you go?"
I told them everything.
About the space between worlds, about the other dreamers, about learning what I truly was—a consciousness capable of creating entire realities. About the offer to transcend, to become something more.
"And?" Medusa asked quietly when I finished. "What did you choose?"
"I chose you," I said simply. "I chose this. All of you, this world, this life. Even knowing what I am, even knowing what I gave up—I chose to stay."
Mash threw her arms around me, sobbing. "Thank you. Thank you for not leaving us."
"I couldn't," I said, returning the embrace. "Even if you're my creations, even if this whole world is my dream—you're still the most real thing I've ever experienced. I can't give that up."
"So what now?" Cu asked. "We just... go back to normal? Pretend we don't know you're a reality-creating god?"
"No," I said. "We live with the knowledge. We accept the uncertainty. And we choose meaning anyway."
Da Vinci was examining the mirror carefully. "This is fascinating. It's a threshold point, isn't it? A connection between your created reality and the space where dreamers exist outside their worlds."
"I suppose so."
"Which means," she continued, "this world isn't just in your head. It's a real dimension, accessible from other dimensions. You're not imagining us—you're creating a genuine, stable reality that exists independently once you bring it into being."
"Does that make us more real?" Emiya asked.
"It makes the question meaningless," Da Vinci replied. "Real, imagined, created, autonomous—these are categories that break down at this level. We simply are. And that's enough."
"Is it enough for you?" I asked them all. "Knowing what you know now? Knowing that I created you, this world, everything you've experienced?"
They looked at each other, having one of their silent conversations.
"Yes," Artoria said finally. "Because you didn't create puppets. You created people. And people are always real, regardless of how they came into being."
"I still feel scared sometimes," Mash admitted. "Scared that I'm not really choosing, that I'm just following programming. But... but that fear itself proves something, doesn't it? Programs don't question their programming. People do."
"And honestly," Cu said with a grin, "I don't care if I was created yesterday or a thousand years ago. I'm here now. I'm real now. That's good enough for me."
"Besides," Medusa added, "every person is 'created' by their parents, shaped by their experiences, influenced by forces beyond their control. You gave us consciousness and free will. The rest—the choices, the growth, the becoming—that's on us. We're as responsible for who we are as anyone."
I looked around at them, these impossible people in this impossible world, and felt something settle in my chest.
Not certainty—I'd probably never have that.
But acceptance.
And maybe that was better.
"So," I said. "Do we continue exploring? Or head back to Argentium?"
"Continue," they said almost in unison.
"But carefully," Artoria added. "If there are threshold points like this mirror scattered around, we need to understand what they do before we touch them."
We left the abandoned city as the sun was setting, making camp in the foothills beyond. The plateau stretched before us, vast and full of possibility.
That night, sitting around our fire, we talked.
Not about metaphysics or reality or creation. Just about small things. Cu told a funny story about a bar fight in Argentium. Mash shared her plans for expanding the community center. Emiya complained about the quality of spices in the market. Artoria described a new training technique she wanted to try.
Normal conversation. Ordinary friendship.
Real, regardless of how it began.
"Master?" Mash said as we were preparing for sleep. "Can I ask you something?"
"Always."
"Do you regret it? Creating us? Creating this world? All of it?"
I thought about my answer carefully.
"No," I said finally. "I regret not understanding sooner. I regret the confusion and pain of not knowing what I was doing. But I don't regret you. I could never regret you."
She smiled, relieved. "Good. Because I don't regret being created. Even with all the uncertainty and existential questions—I'm glad I exist."
"Me too," I said. "I'm glad you exist. All of you."
"Even though it makes everything complicated?"
"Especially because it makes everything complicated. Easy answers are boring. You're all beautifully, frustratingly complex. Just like real people should be."
She hugged me goodnight, and I watched her return to her bedroll, settling in next to Medusa who was already reading by lamplight.
Around me, my companions—my creations, my friends, my family—prepared for sleep. Cu was already snoring. Artoria was doing stretches. Emiya was organizing tomorrow's supplies with meticulous care. Da Vinci was sketching the mirror from memory, trying to understand its mechanisms.
They were real.
Maybe not in the way I'd originally thought. Maybe not in some absolute, objective sense.
But real in the ways that mattered—real in their consciousness, their choices, their capacity to surprise me and challenge me and love me.
Real in their ability to exist independent of my constant attention, to have experiences I never planned, to become more than I'd imagined.
I'd created them.
But they'd created themselves too.
And that was the truth I could live with.
I lay back, looking up at stars that might be my creation or might be genuine cosmic phenomena. It didn't matter anymore. They were beautiful either way.
Tomorrow, we'd continue exploring this world I'd made. We'd find more threshold points, more mysteries, more evidence of either my vast subconscious or genuine external reality.
And it wouldn't matter which was true.
Because we'd face it together.
Real or imagined, created or discovered, programmed or freely choosing—we were here. We existed. We mattered to each other.
And in the end, that was the only reality that counted.
I closed my eyes and drifted toward sleep, feeling the warmth of the fire and the presence of my companions and the solid ground beneath me.
All of it real.
All of it true.
All of it mine and theirs and ours.
A world created by a dreamer who'd learned to stop dreaming and start living.
A reality built from consciousness and populated with people who'd become more real than anything I'd known before.
A home, imperfect and uncertain and absolutely, undeniably enough.
I smiled in the darkness.
And slept.
And dreamed not of creation or power or godhood, but of tomorrow—another day of small moments and ordinary miracles and the beautiful, complicated reality of existing alongside people you loved.
Whether you'd created them or not.
Whether they could ever truly leave you or not.
Whether any of it was "real" or not.
It didn't matter.
Love made it real.
Choice made it real.
Living made it real.
And that was the only truth worth believing in.