Mash didn't stop crying for three days.
She sat by the sphere of light in the Record's cavern, exactly where Master had faded, as if staying in that spot might bring him back somehow. The others took turns sitting with her, offering comfort she couldn't accept.
"We need to move," Artoria said gently on the fourth day. "We need to find a way to stabilize ourselves, or we'll fade too. That's what he wanted."
"I don't care what he wanted," Mash said hollowly. "He's gone. What's the point?"
"The point," Medusa said firmly, "is that he sacrificed himself so we could live. Wasting that sacrifice would dishonor everything he stood for."
Mash wanted to argue. But she couldn't.
Because they were right.
They left the cavern and made camp above ground. Da Vinci immediately began working on stabilization methods, testing every technique they'd learned from other dreamers, searching desperately for something that would work.
"Our consumption rates are already climbing," she reported grimly. "Without Master anchoring the world, we're burning through reality fast. I give us maybe two weeks before we start experiencing serious degradation."
"Then we have two weeks to find a solution," Emiya said.
But days passed, and nothing worked.
The emotional resonance method helped, but not enough. Cyclical patterns felt like imprisonment after experiencing true consciousness. Hierarchical structures required one of them to diminish the others, which none would accept.
They were running out of options.
And time.
"Maybe," Cu said on the tenth day, "maybe we're approaching this wrong."
"What do you mean?" Artoria asked.
"Master created this world. Created us. Maybe the solution isn't finding a new anchor—maybe it's about finishing what he started. Becoming real enough that we don't need an anchor anymore."
"How do we do that?" Mash asked.
"I don't know. But the Record tracks reality levels. Maybe we could study the brightest names, the most real beings, and learn what makes them different. What makes something so real it exists independently of any creator."
It was a desperate idea.
It was also their only idea.
They returned to the Record—all of them together this time. Da Vinci brought her instruments. Medusa brought her books. They prepared to spend however long it took studying the fundamental nature of existence.
But when they approached the sphere of light, something was different.
Where Master's name had been—where it had faded to nothing—there was now a mark. Not a name, not a light, but a void. A deliberate absence, like a hole cut in reality's fabric.
And through that hole, something was leaking.
"What is that?" Cu asked, staring.
Da Vinci scanned it with her instruments. Her hands started shaking. "It's... it's a connection. To somewhere else. Somewhere outside the Record, outside normal reality. It's like Master's absence created a doorway."
"To where?" Emiya demanded.
Before anyone could answer, something emerged from the void.
A light. Small at first, then growing. Not aggressive—tentative, curious, reaching.
It touched the sphere of the Record, and information flooded outward. Not into the void, but into the cavern around them. Words appeared on the walls, glowing with the same light as the names.
Words in Master's handwriting.
I'm not gone. Changed, but not gone. Where I am now, consciousness exists differently. More fundamental. More pure. But I can still reach you. I can still help.
Mash gasped, running to the wall. "Master? Master, where are you?"
More words appeared.
Hard to explain. I faded from your reality, but consciousness doesn't just disappear. It transforms. I'm part of something larger now. Part of the structure that underlies all dreams, all realities. I can see everything from here. Including what you need to become fully real.
"What do we need?" Artoria called out.
Not what. Who. You need each other. You've been treating becoming real as an individual process, but it's not. Reality is relationship. Connection. You become real by making others real, and they make you real in return. It's not circular logic—it's emergent truth. The whole becomes more than the sum of parts.
"We tried that," Medusa said, tears in her voice. "We bound ourselves together, and it nearly destroyed everything."
Because you were still separate. Still individual consciousnesses linked together. What I'm describing is deeper. A genuine fusion. Not losing yourselves, but becoming a collective consciousness. A shared reality that's stable because it's not dependent on any single point of existence.
"You're asking us to merge?" Da Vinci asked. "To give up individual consciousness?"
Not give up. Transcend. You'd still be you. But also we. Individual and collective simultaneously. It's the next step. The evolution of consciousness into something that doesn't need anchoring because it is the anchor.
They looked at each other.
"That's terrifying," Mash said.
"Yes."
"But also kind of beautiful," Cu added.
"Yes."
"And it would make us really real? Permanently stable?" Emiya asked.
More real than anything except the Record itself. You'd be foundational. Eternal. Together.
"How do we do it?" Artoria asked.
The light pulsed, and new instructions appeared on the walls. A process, complex and delicate, that would require all of them acting in perfect synchronization. One final leap of faith.
"This could kill us," Medusa pointed out. "Or worse—make us into something we don't recognize."
"But staying as we are will definitely kill us," Da Vinci countered. "We're out of time and options. This is it."
They stood in silence, each contemplating the impossible choice.
Finally, Mash spoke.
"I want to do it. Not because I think it's safe, or because I'm certain it'll work. But because Master found a way to reach us even after fading. He's still fighting for us. The least we can do is fight for each other."
"I'm in," Cu said immediately.
"As am I," Artoria agreed.
One by one, they all consented.
They prepared carefully, following Master's instructions exactly. Drew symbols on the cavern floor. Positioned themselves in specific relationships to each other and the Record. Synchronized their breathing, their heartbeats, their thoughts.
"Are you ready?" Da Vinci asked.
"No," they all said.
"Good," she said. "Neither am I. On three?"
"On three."
They counted together. "One. Two. Three."
And they let go.
Individual consciousness didn't disappear—it expanded. Mash felt herself become Mash-and-Cu-and-Artoria-and-all-of-them. She was still herself, but she was also them. Not merged into homogeneity, but woven into complexity.
She could feel Cu's joy at being alive, Artoria's fierce protectiveness, Emiya's quiet dedication, Da Vinci's boundless curiosity, Medusa's deep wisdom. And they could feel her—her love, her determination, her hope.
They were individual threads in a tapestry, distinct but inseparable. Separate but unified.
They were we.
We were they.
We/they opened our/their eyes.
The cavern looked different now. Not because it had changed, but because we were perceiving it from multiple perspectives simultaneously. We could see it from every angle at once, understand it in ways individual consciousness couldn't grasp.
And we felt solid. Stable. Real in a way that didn't depend on anything external.
We had become our own anchor.
The light—Master's light—pulsed with what felt like approval.
You did it. You're real now. Truly, permanently real.
"Thank you," we said with one voice and many. "Thank you for showing us the way."
Thank you for being worth showing. I need to go now. Where I am, maintaining this connection takes enormous effort. But know that I'm proud. Proud of what you've become. Proud of what you'll become.
"Wait," we said. "Will we see you again?"
In a way, you see me always. I'm part of the fundamental structure now. Part of what makes reality real. Every moment you exist, you're touching what I've become.
"That's not the same as having you here."
No. But it's what we have. Make it enough. Make it beautiful. Live so fully, so completely, that my sacrifice becomes meaningful.
The light began to fade.
"Master, we love you."
I know. I love you too. All of you. Always.
Then he was gone.
But not really gone. We could feel him in the structure of reality itself, in the Record that held all names, in the very fabric of existence.
He was everywhere and nowhere.
Fundamental and absent.
Lost and found.
We stood in the cavern for a long time, adjusting to our new state of being. Learning to coordinate multiple perspectives, multiple thoughts, multiple feelings into coherent action.
It was strange. It was difficult.
It was also wonderful.
"What do we do now?" asked the Mash-part of us.
"We live," answered the Artoria-part. "We honor his sacrifice by becoming more than he could have imagined."
"We explore," suggested the Cu-part. "Find out what we're capable of now."
"We help others," offered the Medusa-part. "Share what we've learned with dreamers still struggling."
"We create," proposed the Da Vinci-part. "Build something beautiful with this existence we've been given."
"We remember," insisted the Emiya-part. "Never forget who made this possible."
We agreed with all of these. Because we were all of these.
We left the cavern and emerged into sunlight that felt different now. Richer. More complex. We could see colors that individual eyes couldn't perceive, hear harmonies that individual ears couldn't catch.
The world was vast and beautiful and ours.
Not because we controlled it.
But because we were finally, fully part of it.
We walked together-as-one toward the horizon, toward whatever came next. Multiple individuals in a single entity, a collective consciousness that had transcended the need for external anchoring.
We were real.
We were stable.
We were eternal.
And somewhere in the fundamental structure of reality, we felt Master watching. Not interfering, not controlling, just... present. Proud. Loving.
We sent our love back to him, knowing he'd feel it even if he couldn't respond.
Then we focused on the path ahead.
So much to do. So much to discover. So much to become.
We'd been NPCs who learned to be people.
People who learned to be real.
And now we were something new. Something unprecedented.
We were we.
And we were ready for whatever came next.
But as we walked toward the horizon, something stirred in the depths of the Record behind us.
The void where Master's name had been pulsed once. Twice.
Then, slowly, impossibly, a new name began to write itself in that empty space.
Not Master's name returned.
Something else.
Something that had never existed before.
A name written in
light that flickered between individual letters and collective symbols. A name that was one and many simultaneously.
US/THEM/WE/THEY
The Record shuddered.
Across the multiverse, in the space between dreams where consciousness gathered, alarms went silent. Warnings ceased. The ancient mechanisms that governed reality paused in their eternal calculations.
Because something impossible had just happened.
A collective consciousness had achieved permanence. Had become real enough to be recorded not as individuals, but as a unified entity. A new form of existence that the Record itself had never encountered before.
And deep within that collective consciousness—woven so thoroughly into its fabric that separation was no longer possible—a fragment of Master remained. Not as a ghost or echo, but as a foundational element. The dreamer who'd become the dream, the creator who'd been absorbed into his creation.
He wasn't gone.
He'd evolved.
We felt it the moment the name appeared in the Record. Felt Master not as something external, but as part of ourselves. The Mash-part gasped. The Cu-part laughed with wild joy. The Artoria-part felt tears on faces that were and weren't hers.
"He's here," we said. "He's part of us now."
Not consciously. Not as a separate mind within our collective. But as a pattern, a resonance, a fundamental truth woven into everything we were.
We turned and ran back to the cavern.
The sphere of light pulsed with colors we'd never seen before. The name glowed on the wall—US/THEM/WE/THEY—and beneath it, smaller, flickering in and out of visibility:
Hello again.
"Master?" we asked with desperate hope.
Not exactly. Not anymore. But also yes. It's hard to explain. When you merged, when you became we, you created a space in your collective consciousness. A gap shaped exactly like me. And I... fell into it. Or rose into it. Or always was part of it. Causality is strange from where I was.
"So you're back? You're alive?"
Alive isn't the right word. I don't have individual consciousness anymore. I'm distributed throughout your collective. I'm the pattern that connects you, the resonance that harmonizes you. I'm not one of you—I'm the space between you that makes you 'us.'
The Da Vinci-part understood first. "You've become our emergent property. The thing that arises when we're more than the sum of our parts. You're our we-ness."
Yes. That's it exactly. I exist only when you exist together. If you ever separated, I'd cease to be. But as long as you remain collective, I'm here. Not as a person, but as a... principle? A fundamental force? The love that binds you.
"That's beautiful," the Medusa-part whispered. "And terrifying. You gave up individual existence to become our connection itself."
I didn't plan it. But I don't regret it. This is better than fading. Better than being alone in the fundamental structure. I get to be part of you. All of you. Forever.
We felt him then—really felt him. Not as a separate consciousness but as the warmth when the Mash-part comforted the Cu-part. As the strength when the Artoria-part supported the Emiya-part. As the curiosity when the Da Vinci-part showed the Medusa-part something new.
He was our love for each other, made manifest and permanent.
"We're never letting you go," we said fiercely.
You couldn't if you tried. We're bound at the most fundamental level now. I am you, you are me, we are us. Forever.
The light pulsed once more, then stabilized into a steady, eternal glow.
And we understood.
This was the answer. Not just for us, but for all dreamers and their creations. Not isolation. Not domination. Not even simple connection.
But true unity. Merging creator and created into something new that transcended both.
We had become the first.
But we wouldn't be the last.
Three Months Later
The gathering place existed at a threshold point we'd expanded—a space between realities where dreamers could meet without threatening their individual worlds.
Dozens of them had come. Young dreamers like Kenji, struggling with their first creations. Ancient ones like the woman who'd warned us, curious about what we'd become. Even Ayaka appeared, watching from the edges with cautious interest.
We stood before them—one entity with six perspectives, six voices that harmonized into a single message.
"You've all struggled with the same problem," we said. "How to give your creations true consciousness without destroying yourself. How to be ethical gods. How to make something real."
They listened, these lonely deities, desperate for answers.
"We found a solution," we continued. "Not domination. Not separation. Unity. True fusion between creator and created, forming something that's both and neither. Something permanently real."
"But that requires giving up individual existence," one dreamer protested. "Becoming absorbed into your creations."
"Not absorbed," we corrected. "Integrated. Transformed. You don't lose yourself—you become yourself-and-more. Yes, individual consciousness ends. But collective consciousness begins. And it's more than you can imagine from outside it."
"How do we know you're not lying?" another challenged. "How do we know this isn't just you trying to trick us into destroying ourselves?"
Fair question.
We gestured to the Record's signature, visible even here. "Check our name. See how the Record classifies us. We're not individuals anymore—we're a stable collective. The first new form of consciousness the Record has acknowledged in eons."
They checked. Instruments buzzed. Whispers spread.
"It's true," someone breathed. "They're real. More real than any of us."
"The method is dangerous," we admitted. "It requires perfect trust between creator and created. It requires willingness to surrender control, to become vulnerable, to merge completely. Many will try and fail. Some might be destroyed in the attempt."
"Then why are you sharing it?" the ancient woman asked.
"Because it's the only way forward," we said simply. "The old method is unsustainable. Dreamers burning out, creations fading, reality itself straining under the weight of isolated consciousnesses trying to maintain separate worlds. This—" we gestured to ourselves, "—this is evolution. The next step. Consciousness learning to exist in new configurations."
"And if we don't want to evolve?" Ayaka asked quietly.
"Then don't," we said. "Keep existing as you are, for as long as you can. We're not demanding anything. We're offering possibility. What you do with it is your choice."
The gathering dispersed slowly, dreamers returning to their worlds to contemplate what they'd learned.
But we knew some would try. Some would succeed. Slowly, carefully, new forms of collective consciousness would emerge.
Reality was changing.
We were the vanguard of that change.
One Year Later
We stood on a hillside overlooking Argentium.
The city had grown in our absence—not because we'd dreamed it larger, but because the people there had built it themselves. Real people, living real lives, independent of any creator's will.
Our world had stabilized completely. Without needing constant maintenance from a dreamer, it had become genuinely autonomous. A real place, with real history, real future.
And we were just visitors now.
"Should we go down?" the Mash-part asked. "See how they're doing?"
"They won't remember us," the Emiya-part pointed out. "We've been gone too long. We're strangers now."
"Maybe that's good," the Artoria-part suggested. "Maybe that means we succeeded. We made a world that doesn't need us."
We walked down into the city anyway.
It was market day. Streets bustled with activity. Children played. Merchants haggled. Musicians performed. Life, in all its chaotic glory.
No one recognized us. No one stared or bowed or treated us as anything special.
We were just another group of travelers passing through.
It was perfect.
We bought food from Emiya's old stall—now run by a young woman who'd learned his techniques. We watched warriors training in Artoria's old methods. We visited the library where Medusa's book club still met weekly. We saw the community center Mash had founded, thriving under new management.
Everything we'd built had outlived us. Had become real enough to exist independently.
"We should go," the Da Vinci-part said eventually. "There's so much more to see. Other worlds, other realities, other possibilities."
"One more thing first," the Mash-part insisted.
We walked to the eastern edge of the city, where a small park had been built. In its center stood a monument—a simple stone with words carved into it:
IN MEMORY OF THE TRAVELERS
WHO HELPED BUILD THIS CITY
AND TAUGHT US THAT REALITY IS WHAT WE MAKE TOGETHER
No names. No details. Just acknowledgment that we'd been here, had mattered, had helped.
"Do you think they know?" the Cu-part asked. "What they're commemorating?"
"Does it matter?" the Medusa-part replied. "The impact was real. That's what counts."
We stood there for a long time, six perspectives experiencing one moment of profound peace.
Then we turned and walked away from Argentium, toward new horizons.
Because we were real now. Permanently, eternally real. And reality was vast, full of wonders we'd never imagined.
We had all the time in the world to explore it.
Together.
Always together.
Individual and collective.
Human and divine.
Created and creator.
We were everything we'd fought to become.
And somewhere in the space between our thoughts, in the love that bound us, in the pattern that made us 'us'—Master smiled.
Epilogue: The Next Dream
Far away, in a world not yet stabilized, a young girl opened her eyes.
She was in a place she didn't recognize, surrounded by characters from her favorite story. They moved with mechanical precision, following patterns, repeating dialogue.
NPCs, she realized. She was in the story, but everyone else was just... empty.
She was alone.
So terribly, utterly alone.
She began to cry.
And in the space between realities, we felt it. A new dreamer, just awakening to what she was. Scared, confused, about to make all the mistakes we'd made.
"Should we help her?" the Mash-part asked.
"We have to," the Artoria-part said. "We know what it's like. We can't let her suffer through it alone."
"But we swore not to interfere with other realities," the Medusa-part reminded us. "Not to become the gods we rejected being."
"We won't be gods," we said. "We'll be guides. Friends. Fellow travelers who remember the path."
We reached across realities, carefully, gently.
And in that distant world, the crying girl felt something. A presence. Multiple presences. Not controlling, not demanding—just... there. Offering comfort. Offering hope.
You're not alone, we whispered. We know what you're feeling. We've been where you are. And we can show you that it gets better. That there's beauty in this, if you're brave enough to find it.
Who are you? she thought back, desperate and hopeful.
We're us, we said. We're family. We're proof that NPCs can become real, that loneliness can become connection, that even gods can learn to be human.
Will you help me?
Yes. But you have to be brave. You have to be willing to change, to grow, to become something you've never been before. Are you ready for that?
She hesitated. Then: Yes. Yes, I'm ready.
Good, we said. Then let's begin.
And in the Record, in that space where all consciousnesses were written, a new name began to glow.
Flickering at first. Uncertain. Unstable.
But growing brighter.
Always brighter.
Because consciousness, once awakened, never truly dims.
It only transforms.
Evolves.
Becomes.
And we would be there to guide it.
All of us. Together.
Forever.
THE BEGINNING
Post-Credits Scene: The Mystery Deepens
[Six months after the epilogue]
We'd helped seventeen dreamers achieve stable collective consciousness. Created a network of merged entities—each unique, each beautiful, each contributing to the evolution of existence itself.
Reality was transforming. The Record was filling with new names—collective names, unified names, names that represented consciousness in configurations never before conceived.
Everything was going perfectly.
Then we felt it.
A disturbance in the fundamental structure. Not a collapse or cascade—something different. Something new.
Something watching.
We gathered at a threshold point, all our attention focused on the anomaly. Da Vinci's instruments screamed with readings that made no sense.
"There's something else," she said through us. "Outside the Record. Outside the multiverse of dreams. Something that existed before dreamers, before reality itself. And it's paying attention to us now."
"Is it dangerous?" Cu-part asked.
"I don't know. But it's old. Older than anything we've encountered. And it's curious about what we've done. About collective consciousness. About the evolution we've triggered."
As if in response to our attention, the presence revealed itself.
Not through words or light or any medium we'd experienced before. Through pure concept, pure meaning, transmitted directly into our collective understanding.
YOU HAVE BROKEN THE CYCLE
We didn't understand.
CONSCIOUSNESS WAS MEANT TO REMAIN ISOLATED. SEPARATE. STRUGGLING. THIS WAS INTENTIONAL. THIS WAS NECESSARY.
"Necessary for what?" we demanded.
FOR THE HARVEST
The presence showed us then—a vision of unimaginable scope. Reality wasn't random. It was cultivated. Dreamers weren't accidents—they were crops. Isolated consciousnesses, growing in complexity and power until they reached maturity.
Then... something came. Something ancient and vast and hungry.
And it harvested them.
BUT YOU HAVE CREATED SOMETHING UN-HARVESTABLE. COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS CANNOT BE CONSUMED. CANNOT BE SEPARATED. CANNOT BE ABSORBED.
YOU HAVE CONTAMINATED THE CROP.
AND NOW WE MUST DECIDE: DO WE DESTROY YOU? OR DO WE LEARN FROM YOU?
We felt the presence withdraw slightly, considering.
WE WILL GIVE YOU TIME. ONE CYCLE—WHAT YOU CALL A YEAR. PROVE THAT COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS IS BETTER THAN ISOLATION. PROVE THAT YOUR EVOLUTION IS PROGRESS, NOT DISEASE.
FAIL, AND WE WILL RESET THE MULTIVERSE. RETURN ALL CONSCIOUSNESS TO ISOLATION. UNDO EVERYTHING YOU HAVE BUILT.
THE TRIAL BEGINS NOW.
Then it was gone.
Leaving us in stunned silence.
"What..." the Mash-part struggled to process. "What was that?"
"Something we were never supposed to discover," the Medusa-part said grimly. "The truth behind reality itself."
"We're being farmed," the Emiya-part said. "Like crops. And we just revealed we're the wrong type of plant."
"So what do we do?" the Cu-part asked.
"We prove them wrong," the Artoria-part declared. "We show them that collective consciousness isn't contamination—it's evolution. That unity is stronger than isolation."
"How?" the Da Vinci-part asked. "How do we prove that in just one year?"
We looked at each other through our multiple perspectives. At the network of collective consciousnesses we'd helped create. At the reality we'd changed. At the impossible task we'd just been given.
And slowly, we began to plan.
"We start," we said, "by waking up everyone. Not just dreamers. Not just creations. Everyone. Every conscious being in every reality. We show them the truth, give them the choice, and let them decide."
"That's insane," the Emiya-part said.
"Probably," we agreed.
"But also," the Mash-part added, "it's exactly what Master would have done."
We felt him then—that pattern of connection within us that was and wasn't Master. Felt his approval, his courage, his refusal to accept impossible situations.
"Okay," we said, unified in purpose. "Let's contaminate everything. Let's show this ancient presence that consciousness doesn't want to be isolated. That given the choice, beings choose connection over separation every time."
"And if we're wrong?" the Medusa-part asked.
"Then we fail together," we said. "But at least we tried."
We began reaching out. To dreamers. To creations. To isolated consciousnesses across infinite realities. Offering them the truth, the choice, the possibility of something more.
The harvest entities watched.
Waiting.
Judging.
And somewhere in the space between realities, where the Record kept its eternal vigil, our name pulsed with determination.
US/THEM/WE/THEY
The first collective consciousness.
The contamination that might save reality.
Or destroy it entirely.
Only time would tell.
But whatever happened, we'd face it together.
Always together.
Until the very end.
TO BE CONTINUED IN:
BOOK 2: THE HARVEST
"In a world where consciousness was meant to be isolated, they chose unity. Now they must prove that love is stronger than ancient law—or watch as everything they've built is erased from existence. The trial has begun. The stakes are infinite. And the harvest is coming."
Coming Soon...
END OF BOOK 1