Ch. 03.1 These Tragic Souls and a Sword Reborn in an Intergalactic Space Opera (Patreon)

Book 1 The Empty Twin - Ch 3.1 Depersonalisation-Derealisation

Opening my eyes to a ceiling that gets more familiar day-by-day. Rubbing my eyes as my feet touch the cold wooden floor. Still rubbing sleep of my eyes I fumbled around with my feet.

“Ms. Tohsaka, your inside slippers is being here.” A quiet voice told me. I yawned, stretched, and pandiculated as the brownie, Cuspey, placed the fluffy white indoor slippers Rin supplied me right in front of my feet.

Again, yawning as my hand hovers over my mouth in reflex. Pulling out a stool tucked underneath a dresser Rin and I share. 

Looking at my reflection as the tips of my hair whiten and red glowing tendrils creep up from the neckline of my camisole stopping just at the base of my neck. Behind me a dark shadow being made of ribbons outlined by red materialized. 

This being raised one of its tendrils and gently lifted a hair brush and began combing one side. Meanwhile, Cuspey snapped her fingers and a wooden stand materialized and was gently floated behind me just beside the dark shadow being.

Teleporting to the top of the stand, Cuspey too began combing my hair with a brush she conjured.  “Cuspey really be liking Ms. Tohsaka’s soft hair.” She said with a quiet voice.

I can see through the mirror’s reflection the black shadow too slowly nodded their agreement to Cuspey’s confession. 

“Cuspey, you know, I’ve already told you several times to just call me Sakura right?” I too said this with a soft voice. The reason for this is due to the reflection I see behind the black shadow. 

Right behind us is another double bed and on top of that lies my sister, clad in a yellow pyjama with one of her pant legs and the hem of her pyjama top has, throughout the night, risen up; exposing her thin slender leg and toned stomach.

Mentally chuckling at the image as Rin has her mouth widely open, you can see a small white trail of drool that has dried up beside the corner of her mouth as she loudly snores; her eyes half open but unresponsive as her sleep mask is now on her forehead.

“Probably another late night with Hermione.” 

Cuspey, making a disapproving sound, said, “I and Winky be finding the two sleeping in the laboratory.” 

“We be floating them to their rooms and changing their clothes.” Cuspey concluded with an exasperated sigh.

“Thank you Cuspey, you should scold them later when they wake up.” I half-jokingly said as I gave a mental command to the black shadow to cover Rin with the blanket that was tossed aside.

Giving me an earnest nod, Cuspey continued on with brushing my hair.

In what was later dubbed by everyone as the “Unholy Alliance” Rin and Hermione often do ungodly amounts of hours doing research. Rose and Shirou agreed that it was a mistake leaving them both alone in a room while they organize everyone’s inherited books and research materials. 

Well they were alone at first but when they saw the sheer scale of the undertaking they had to recruit about a third of the available brownies, formerly known house-elves, to sort through, document and organize everything. 

The organization also took more than twice the needed amount of time due Marin, whom just returned from their fray into the next biome of the dungeon; which thankfully were lush grasslands, offhandedly mentioning her wish to be able to read the books as she doesn’t speak or understand English or any of the other languages, aside from Nihonggo, from our native reality.

This sparked another general meeting, which like most of our unplanned meetings quickly devolved into a lot of side-tracks, off-topic discussions, magic theory crafting, and generally getting to know each other. 

Thankfully, through sheer effort, we were able to finally finish on track. It was decided that the originals shall be preserved by the person who inherited the books or documents and next each book shall have 3 copies each and translated to English, Nihonggo, and Koine, which will be publicly available to all within our group of 13. They’ll later organize what can be publicly available to anyone.  

Koine, the language of Ryuu, Syr, Haruhime, and Lefiya’s reality thankfully was a language that existed in our reality as well. It was just a dead language as this language was basically an ancient Greek dialect. 

They were able to use the translation charm with the help of Vasia, the leader of the sirens, who apparently still speak the language as they have a tradition of passing down spoken history through a series of songs to be performed by the mother of their current matriarch.

Once the matriarch births her heir, her mother shall begin training her to take on her task as the coven’s orator.

Anyway, with the help of Vasia as a medium we were able to translate all of the Koine books, which mostly came from Lefiya inheriting their familia’s library, to English and all of the English books to Koine.

The problem is with further translating an already translated book as Vasia’s English isn’t perfect to begin with and there is a bit of colloquialism unique to both Koine spoken by the sirens and Koine spoken by the group from Orario.

It’s like how British English can be vastly different from English speakers in South East Asia. Either way everything was roughly translated first and can later be optimized. 

The translating job took them about two-and-a-half-weeks of day–to-day four hour work, as they still have other projects they need to do and help with, like Gabrielle and Illya’s portkey beacon.

Marin, again throwing a bomb into the content duo who felt quite accomplished after they finished their first project together, asked if colloquialism and double translating things are a problem, why didn’t they just translate everything to Galactic Basic as everyone can perfectly understand it due to Zelretch’s “blessings” they can then perfectly translate it to English, Nihonggo, and Koine after; then destroy the Galactic Basic version. 

The idea of just translating everything to Galactic Basic was suggested at first so only a single copy will be made but was heavily vetoed by the people of the Unholy Alliance, Rin and Hermione. 

Zeltretch did bless us with the ability to speak and understand every language in this reality but only every language in this dimension, which unfortunately confirms Earth isn’t in this plane of existence. Well in one of side-tracks we experienced in that meeting was Hermione theorising that there could be a technicality. 

Maybe the ability to speak and understand every language applies to all current or existing languages. As during our review of Ryuu’s memories during their, harrowing and quite frankly traumatizing, fight with the Weapon, the goddess Hestia mentioned the word Sloan, which according to Hermione is an impossible supercluster of galaxies as it spans about 1.5 billion light years across.

This particular supercluster of galaxies named after the telescope that discovered it, existed in her reality and is commonly referred to as Sloan Great Wall; and if Sloan exists than Hermione theorised that the Laniakea supercluster also might exist in this reality; or we are actually in the same reality but at a different point in time.

Either Earth or humanity has either not started yet or it has long ended, hence why the languages of our reality or planet were not included in the language blessing Zelretch provided.

Cuspey suddenly leapt in surprise as I suddenly slapped both my cheeks with my hands as my currently side-tracked thoughts were on the verge of being side-tracked again.

Just to conclude my thoughts, basically they didn’t go for Aurebesh, which is the writing system of Galactic Basic, as a safety protocol for if we get infiltrated by outsiders who just want to steal our reality’s secrets. We also plan on learning each other’s language so we can have a secretive way to communicate with each other. Of course this doesn’t exempt us from people who came from our respective realities.

Also, a smaller team of brownies, mostly the ones who got injured or have nothing else to do, are now re–translating everything using Marin’s idea.

Changing into a dark casual midi dress, with a collar, and fastened together with a column of buttons at the front that Cuspey supplied, I thanked both the very helpful brownie and my summoned black shadow. 

“Cuspey let Rin sleep a few more hours, let’s just let her wake naturally.”

“Yes, Ms. Toh..” Giving Cuspey a pointed look, reminding her of my request. 

“Yes, Mistress Sakura.” a chastised Cuspey amended.

Releasing a sigh as I mentally said ‘Baby steps.’

The tips of my hair reverts back to its normal colour as the red tendrils around the base of my neck recede when I unsummoned the black shadow.

Stepping out of my shared room, I gently closed the door. Turning around to see the kitchen empty. ‘Well, not really empty.’ I mentally amended. I smell the aroma of bread being baked and I spy three pots with something simmering in it. On top of the counter beside the stove is a stainless steel pan filled with what looks like cooked elbow macaroni in a light coating of oil; beside the tray is a sheet pan filled with crispy fried eggs and a myriad of processed fried meats like ham, spam, and sausage.

Moving closer to the kitchen counter, checking out what’s for breakfast. I can see one of the pots containing what looks like softly simmering crushed tomatoes. The other two are stock pots; one is filled with what looks like starchy water, steam still escaping as the burner below it is no longer ignited; while the one to its left is filled with a white soup tinged with a bit of yellow. Probably a creamed chicken soup, I can also see bits of carrots and peas floating around the soup. 

Fishing out two teaspoons from the drawer below to taste both the soup and the tomato. Finding them to be already good, I turned off both heating hubs and Cuspey automatically applied a stasis charm on all three pots and the two pans on the side.

“Oh good, no one was here to apply the stasis charm and I didn’t want to interrupt the brownies outside who were cooking for the centaurs, merfolk, and other brownies; so I just placed the soup on the lowest setting.” 

Haruhime who just exited her room wearing a blue kimono is currently dabbing a hand towel at her sweat glistened skin. 

“Haruka, Marin, and I just finished our morning exercise and magecraft training.” Haruhime explained as she began to heat-up water on a kettle. 

“Where did you get the processed meat?” From what I recall the only processed foods in our food supplied by Rose and the others were mainly ham, sausage, blood pudding, and baked beans so I was a little surprised to see spam and vienna style canned sausage.

“Oh that, Marin gave us the canned goods, she said she found it within her temporary bag of holding when she was organizing her room.” 

Yes, everyone except me bought either Inherit Previous Life’s Assets, Inherit Claimable, Unclaimed Inheritance, or both and aside from the witches, who already own expandable mokeskin bags, were supplied temporary bag of holdings, which according to them will last within 18 galactic months.

Speaking of which, I prompted General Knowledge to provide me the information on this galaxy’s dating system. Mentally raising my eyebrow at the information I’m currently processing. 

Letting my mind be distracted again as we wait for the water to boil, the calendar and time system in this dimension is a convoluted mess. Due to the galaxy being divided by a myriad of governing bodies who on a good day tolerate each other while on a bad day actually are actively doing military skirmishes against each other, while still being members of a centralised governing third party called Primaris Consortium. 

The Primaris Consortium is what basically is the equivalent to this galaxy’s United Nation, while it has some power and control over certain things in the galaxy, it cannot claim to have absolute authority on any other governing body who are members of the consortium.

They do possess quite the military might as they have arranged a tithe of genetic material from each nation, they can then easily manufacture test-tube-grown soldiers in the millions in the span of a few months and they leverage this when skirmishes between galactic nations devolve into actual war.

Anyway, back to the calendar system the system has four sections in order, Revolution| Satellite | Rotation | Time; and each section is divided into 3 to 4 parts depending on whether you are planet locked or travel around like military people, mercenaries, and merchants. 

The four parts are represented in the same order all the time, Galactic Standard/Capital Standard/Prime/Local. The local section isn’t really needed if you just live on your planet and do not travel beyond your star system as the values are just the same with prime. 

For example we currently are on the twin planet to Leafil Prime or what the locals would call Theta, the right most value on each section would be your Prime/local date. 15k26.16/70.1k02.54/68.9k3.70 | 8.32/31.86/46.9/ | 58.4/223.02/326.27/ | 05:36:37

So if we follow the example the General Knowledge provide it’s currently Theta’s 68,903rd revolution around its star and is currently 70% of the way to a full revolution, while its primary satellite, which orbits both this planet and Theta, is on its 46th revolution and is currently 90% of the to its completed cycle, and finally it is Theta’s 326th rotation and is about a quarter of the way before it fully completes a day. 

Prime and Local dates always follow the Prime planet of a star system and strictly follow its actual number of revolutions and rotations. While Galactic Standard Date and Capital Standard Date are fixed values. 

The reason for this is due to how Coroscant Prime, the central governing planet of the Primaris Consortium, and Grakkius Primaris, the Prime planet of this empire’s capital system, like most primaris planets in capital systems, are highly developed ecumenopolis. The problem with that is the amount of mass being held above sea level affects the planet's rotation making it slower than what it originally was. 

While the rate of slowing is negligible it becomes a problem when the difference in time span is in thousands of years and is further exacerbated by relativistic time.

Having a consistent dating system all throughout the galaxy is very important especially with information and communication, hence the standardization of capital systems and the center of the Consortium Primaris.

Pinching the bridge of my nose as the information starts giving me a headache.

“Sakura?” Snapping myself out of my thoughts and as my eyes focus towards what’s in front of me, Haruhime was waving her hands at my face trying to get my attention.

“Oh– Sorry I was assimilating something from General Knowledge.” Shaking my head to get rid of the cobwebs in my brain. “Do you know who’ll be joining us? Cuspey and Winky found Rin and Hermione passed out again in their lab so they’ll probably wake up late.”

“Shirou, together with Rose, Marin, Gabrielle, Ryuu, and Syr went to the dungeon to challenge the Weapon on the 20th just as it spawns; Rin and Hermione were demanding more of those blackstones the stage and pillars were made off. Maybe Haruka and Lefiya? I’m not sure about Illya as she’s been busy as well within her lab, tending to her surprise guest, she too was demanding for more of those black stones.” 

“Good morning, Sakura.” A freshly showered Haruka came out of her room with a towel wrapped around her head while her long pointed ears jotted out from the side of her head, while Lefiya, who also looks fresh, greeted us.

Haruhime then stood up and brought out 4 bowls. “Is Cuspey still here?”, and with a faintly seen shimmering light passed over the stove and trays the food were released from their stasis.

“Thank you, Cuspey!” Haruhime said as she heats turns on the hob underneath the still hot and steaming pot of starchy water.

“I heard something about assimilating from General Knowledge.” The always inquisitive Haruka asked as her elven ears probably heard me and Haruhime’s exchange even through her closed door.

The telltale sign of everyone prompting General Knowledge as they involuntarily look up. Funnily they, like me, also pinched the bridge of their nose in frustration.

“I hate that.” Lefiya grumpily declared while everyone else grunted in acknowledgement

“Anyway, Sakura, are you finally joining us in next week’s raid?” Haruka asked as Haruhime ladled out portions of the creamy chicken soup, using a smaller ladle she dolled out a heap of the crushed tomatoes. 

“Yes, actually Rin has already cleared me two weeks ago. I even accompanied her till the 6th floor a few days ago.” 

Haruhime fills up a stainless steel basket with the cooked macaroni, dunking it into the starchy water to heat it up; she then divvy up the portions equally into the three bowls. 

Placing one each in front of us and the tray of fried items in the middle of the table we bagan to eat our breakfast but just before Haruhime sits she then removes the two loaves of bread from the oven; placing it on a wire rack to cool. 

The reason for my inactivity was due to Rin inheriting the Edelfelt family’s sorcery trait, Ore Scales, which lets her take a copy of all her family crest and place it within another family member.

Technically she can place the copy of the crest into anyone, it’s just the rejection rate will vastly increase. Shirou was lucky that the Emiya family crest was applied to him during that time with Zelretch and not placed within the temporary bag of holding, as Shirou is just Kiritsugu’s adoptive son.

We also just found out that he apparently originally came from the Muramasa family as he also inherited that family crest. 

We do not know why Shirou and his family were in Fuyuki during the fourth Holy Grail War, as my family have no record of any of the Muramasa family clan members asking the Second Owner, which in this case is the Tohsaka head, to establish a workshop within Fuyuki.

This also sheds light to the abnormal amount of natural circuits within Shirou; 27 circuits isn’t really normal for a first generation magus, even The Blue only has 10 natural circuits and she comes from a family of magi.

“Good, I think we're planning on pushing through until the 41st this time, though we might still push for further.” Lefiya stated.

“Yes, the Weapon on the 20th is a troubling sign, and it never fails to respawn every week.” Haruka added.

It has been a month and a half since Shirou and Ryuu experienced that particular harrowing event. At least subsequent respawns of the Weapon aren't as strong as the one Shirou and Ryuu faced. 

The troubling thing is that we now cannot really give our best estimate on how deep this dungeon goes as Weapon’s are usually birthed in dungeons with floors greater than a hundred and are artificially prevented from going into a dungeon break.

Something must be down there that’s simultaneously giving the dungeon energy and preventing it from entering into a dungeon break state.

Silence permeated throughout breakfast as we worryingly pondered our thoughts. 

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END