We left Argentium in the grey hour before dawn, when the city was still sleeping.
No grand farewell this time. No promises to return. We simply walked out the northern gate, past guards who nodded sleepily, into the world that stretched beyond.
The mountains rose before us, dark shapes against the lightening sky. I'd seen them from Argentium, but always as background, as scenery. Now they were our destination. Our test.
If I was creating this world, would the mountains exist as more than a painted backdrop? Would there be passes and valleys I'd never imagined? Towns I'd never conceived of? Or would we reach some invisible boundary where my imagination ended and everything just... stopped?
"You're spiraling again," Cu observed, walking beside me. "I can see it on your face."
"How can I not spiral? Everything depends on—"
"Nothing depends on anything," he interrupted. "That's the point. We're here. We're walking. The mountains exist whether you imagined them or not, because we can see them. So stop trying to figure out the metaphysics and just walk."
He made it sound so simple.
Maybe it was.
We walked for three days before reaching the foothills. The landscape changed gradually—farmland giving way to scrubland, scrubland to forest, forest to rocky terrain where trees clung stubbornly to improbable angles.
I watched carefully for signs of... what? Inconsistency? Places where reality seemed thin? But everything held together with frustrating solidity.
On the evening of the third day, we encountered someone.
An old shepherd, tending a flock of mountain goats on an impossible slope. He looked at us with the wariness of those who rarely see strangers but nodded a greeting.
"Travelers?" His accent was thick, unfamiliar.
"Yes," I said. "Heading north."
"Through the pass?" He gestured upward. "Dangerous this time of year. Rock slides. Bandits, sometimes. You armed?"
"We can handle ourselves," Artoria assured him.
He studied her, then shrugged. "Your funeral. But there's a shelter about half a day up, if you need it. Stone building with a red door. Used to be a waystation before the trade routes changed. It's empty now but solid."
"Thank you," Mash said.
We moved to continue, but I turned back. "Can I ask—have you lived here long?"
"All my life. My father's life before that. His father's before that." The old man smiled, showing gaps in his teeth. "My family's been in these mountains since before Argentium was built. Before the Empire, even. We remember the old days."
My heart raced. Before Argentium? Before an empire I'd never heard of?
Either he was improvising a backstory based on expectations, or this history existed independent of me.
"What were the old days like?" I asked carefully.
He launched into a story about ancient kingdoms and forgotten wars, about dragons in the high peaks and spirits in the deep valleys. Details upon details, a complete mythology I definitely hadn't created.
Unless I was creating it right now, in response to the question?
"Thank you," I said when he finished. "That's... very helpful."
"Safe travels," he said, already turning back to his goats.
That night, we made camp in a clearing that overlooked the valley below. Argentium was a smudge of light in the distance, already feeling impossibly far away.
"Did you know about the empire he mentioned?" Da Vinci asked me. "Or the ancient kingdoms?"
"No," I admitted. "I've never heard any of that before."
"So either you're creating history in real-time," Emiya said, "or history exists independent of your knowledge."
"How do we tell the difference?"
"We can't," Medusa said simply. "That's what makes this so difficult. Even if we find a thousand things you didn't know, you could always have created them unconsciously. There's no definitive test."
"Then what are we doing out here?" The frustration burst out. "If we can't prove anything, why are we bothering?"
"Because," Mash said firmly, "we're living. We're experiencing things. We're growing and learning and existing. Even if you're creating it all, even if none of this is 'real' in some absolute sense—we're still having the experience. And experiences matter."
"She's right," Artoria added. "We could spend forever questioning the nature of reality. Or we could accept that some questions don't have answers and focus on what we can control—our choices, our actions, our relationships with each other."
"That feels like giving up."
"It's not giving up," Da Vinci said. "It's accepting uncertainty and choosing meaning anyway. That's not weakness—it's the bravest thing anyone can do."
I wanted to argue. But looking around at their faces in the firelight, I realized they were already living the philosophy they described. Already accepting uncertainty while finding meaning in the moment.
Maybe they were wiser than me.
Even if I'd created them.
We reached the pass on the fifth day.
The shepherd had been right—it was dangerous. Narrow paths with sheer drops, rocks that shifted underfoot, wind that tried to tear us from the mountain. But we were careful, and we had each other, and we made it through.
On the other side, the world opened up.
A vast plateau stretched before us, dotted with lakes that reflected the sky like mirrors. And in the distance, partially obscured by afternoon mist, I could see structures. Buildings. What might have been a city.
"I've never imagined this," I whispered. "Never even conceived of something like this existing."
"So maybe," Mash said hopefully, "maybe it's real. Maybe it exists independently."
We approached slowly, cautiously.
The city—if it was a city—was strange. The architecture was like nothing I'd seen, all flowing curves and impossible angles, built from material that might have been stone or might have been something else entirely. It looked ancient and alien and utterly unfamiliar.
"This is wrong," Cu said, hand on his spear. "Something about this place feels wrong."
He was right. The air here was different. Heavier. Reality itself seemed to... bend around the structures.
"Should we turn back?" Emiya asked.
I almost said yes. But something drew me forward. A feeling that this was important. That answers waited here, even if they weren't the answers we expected.
"Carefully," I said. "We go carefully."
We entered the city.
It was empty. Completely empty. Buildings stood intact but abandoned, streets clean but lifeless. No signs of recent habitation, no decay, no weather damage. Just perfect, eerie preservation.
"This is a museum," Da Vinci breathed. "Or a monument. Something meant to be remembered but not lived in."
We explored for hours, finding nothing alive but everything carefully maintained. Libraries with books in languages I couldn't read. Workshops with tools I couldn't identify. Homes furnished for people who'd never arrived.
In the center of the city, we found a plaza.
And in the center of the plaza, a mirror.
Not a normal mirror—this one stood twenty feet tall, perfectly smooth, reflecting us but also reflecting something else. Shadows that moved wrong. Colors that shouldn't exist.
"Don't touch it," Artoria warned, but I was already moving forward, drawn by something I couldn't name.
I reached out.
My hand met the surface.
And the world shattered.