Faced with Marisbury's question, Steve did not answer immediately. Instead, he offered the same collected smile—as if agreeing that the initiative had shifted, for the time being, to the opposite side. Steve knew well that, to a man who viewed all as pieces on his chessboard, whoever revealed his hand first would always lose.
All he could do now was quietly await the answer Marisbury would discover from this abnormality before him.
As expected, after a brief pause for observation and analysis, Marisbury's scrutinizing gaze shifted from Steve to the entire peculiar team—like a scalpel dissecting each one.
His eyes first settled on Mash Kyrielight. Her face still bore traces of childhood, evoking a mysterious sense of intimacy from him. His mind quickly searched the memory palace, soon digging out the long-archived Demi-Servant Project at the heart of the FATE System. It was a plan to use genetic engineering to create ideal vessels for fusing with heroic spirits—so Chaldea would never, under any circumstances, lack both Masters and Servants.
So this shield girl before him must be the product of that very project.
I see…
Marisbury picked up on the stable spiritual core emanating from Mash—a clear proof that his successor plan in Chaldea would one day succeed.
Next his gaze fell on his—grown—daughter.
Olga Marie stared straight back, a complicated mixture of anger, sorrow, and determination on her face—an expression Marisbury had never seen. Even beneath her resplendent god-garments, a subtle Servant aura emanated. The daughter who should've been a test-tube baby, yet here she was—an adult, and a Servant, in 2004's Fuyuki City.
A wild, almost laughable theory struck him like lightning, smashing his common sense into pieces.
In that instant, all suspicion and guarded calculation vanished from Marisbury's face—replaced by a strange, feverish smile blending gratitude and excitement. At last, for the first time, he truly focused on his daughter.
"Olga Marie." His voice, though carrying only a slight, almost undetectable tremor, was gentler than ever before. Yet the excitement was not for family, but the rapture of a scientist seeing a lifelong project vindicated.
"Your current state…could it be, the final form of my planned—the CHALDEAS, the very soul of Chaldea?"
His words pierced Olga Marie's heart like a blade. All she had wished, all her life, was for her father to care for her—even a little—as his daughter. What she got instead was the recognition of a proof of success—not of a child, but of a tool.
She bit her lip, and bitterness slipped out for the first time on her usually haughty and strong face. She barely managed to nod.
"Yes."
One small syllable, costing her all her strength.
Hearing her acknowledgment, Marisbury's smile blossomed into a rich, honey-sweet grin. He laughed from deep within—a victor's triumphant laugh.
Stepping forward, he declared, in an almost operatic note, words his daughter had never once heard in reality but had waited for in dreams all her life:
"Well done! Olga Marie! You've done splendidly!"
He lavished her with praise. "You've managed to climb to such a position! This proves, beyond doubt, that my plans—all I have done—are, and always have been, absolutely correct! The survival of Human Order is guaranteed!"
For the first time in her life, the future director of Chaldea had won her father's recognition and praise.
But she felt no joy. That long-delayed recognition was granted not to a daughter, but to a tool.
In that moment, her heart went completely cold.
After the brief excitement, Marisbury's smile remained, but his tone turned sharply cold. "If my future succeeds so well…then I can guess your purpose here." His gray eyes, now utterly devoid of warmth, swept over the group with a sovereign's resolve.
"You're here to prevent me from making my wish, right? To force me to abandon the glorious beginning of all that is to come. Well, I'll tell you now: that's impossible. Anything that stands in the way of my ideals will be deemed an enemy and mercilessly eliminated—right here, right now."
After those harsh words, his gaze fell on the command seals etched in deep red on the back of Fujimaru's right hand. A thought crossed his mind, leading him to a different conclusion.
"And you, young man."
He now spoke with the steady, encouraging voice of a leader. "If you are here as a master, then you must be one of the candidates I hope to recruit in the Chaldea I will create. Did you come here by spiritron transfer? Remarkable technology. Clearly, my future self has solved quite a number of problems."
"Listen. I am no unreasonable tyrant. If you let go of your hostility, you have nothing to fear. If you can explain—truthfully—why my daughter stands here as a Servant, thus filling in the blanks of my plans, then as compensation…I will allow you future Chaldeans to survive in the new world I intend to build. You will not be swept away like dust by my hand."
The brand new world he spoke of was just such a future—a frigid, white wasteland, human order frozen. A future in which destruction was redemption, and sacrifice an acceptable price.
Faced with such hypocritical approval and arrogant mercy from her father, Olga Marie could no longer contain her anger. She stood straight, golden eyes blazing with divine dignity, the authority of the CHALDEAS erupting in full.
"Stop spouting that self-righteous nonsense, Marisbury Animusphere!"
Her voice rang out, full of resolve and power. "The so-called successful future you imagine is exactly the error we have come to correct! And the 'me' you so praise is the very one you have killed by your plans!
"From today, I am no longer your daughter Olga Marie! I am the Acting Director of Chaldea—U-Olga Marie!
"And here, in the name of New Chaldea, I swear to utterly destroy your ambitions!"
Even as her words ended, she raised her right hand high, surging magical energy taking form.
A war that transcended time and causality—had begun.