[Late night, Emiya Mansion]

After Ryuu, Haruhime, and the goddess Artemis had all fallen asleep, Emiya quietly left his room.

After bathing he knocked gently at another door.

"Tiamat-sama, it's me."

"Come in."

Emiya pushed open the door. Tiamat was sitting at the bedside with knitting needles in hand; the slender silver needles deftly wove through the fabric between her long fingers.

Her blue hair fell like a waterfall and shimmered softly; strands lay on her shoulders and swayed with her small movements.

Her eyes were lowered, concentrated on the cloth in her hands; long lashes threw faint shadows across her cheeks.

"Ah, Shirou, you're here," The goddess looked up and smiled sweetly, "This scarf will be done by tomorrow. Don't forget to take it when you leave."

Emiya nodded lightly, "Okay."

He sat by her bed. After a while he spoke, "Before, I thought the dungeon's divine power came from Gaia."

Tiamat paused in her knitting and then laughed lightly, "If it were Gaia, Ouranus's divine might would be more effective."

Gaia, like Tiamat another creator goddess, was indeed a great deity, but unlike Tiamat, Gaia's divinity tended toward "earth," "darkness," and "chaos," which counterbalanced the sky god Ouranus.

Tiamat's divinity included not just earth but also sky, that black dragon was the manifestation of such authority.

If the dungeon's power had come from Gaia, before that creator descended to the lower world Ouranus could, by the sky-vs-earth mutual constraint, have stably suppressed the dungeon. There would have been no abnormality.

"The dungeon's true form is my child, or rather my split form. It's the embodiment of my divine power I left in this world," Tiamat said calmly as she knitted, revealing a surprising truth.

"I created this world initially. I used one percent of my divine power to make an 'automatic device' and let it evolve life in this world."

As a supreme goddess who had created countless worlds, Tiamat sometimes used "lazy" methods in creation.

"That was a hundred million years ago. I returned to the divine realm, took a short rest, and woke to find an accident."

The first accident was the individual consciousness of divine power.

Tiamat's divine power was so vast that even one percent exceeded ordinary deities. As a result, the portion of divine power that existed as an "automatic device" developed an individual consciousness.

This was an event with a probability of one in a hundred million, a thousand million, even a quadrillion to one. Even Tiamat hadn't imagined such a thing.

She couldn't understand why this had occurred and could only consider it coincidence.

But for this world it seemed inevitable under the tide of fate.

Because the structure was incomplete, the consciousness generated by the "automatic device" was not entire, more like instinctive love.

It was only a small part of the creator goddess's power, and thus could not form a true divine mind.

"I named her, my creation, my child, my split form, the 'Beast · Tiamat'," Goddess Tiamat said.

The so-called "monsters" of this world were the earliest life nurtured by Tiamat.

Using "magic stones" as cores (nuclei), filling bodies with life essence (cytoplasm), they had the simplest stable life structures and the most basic sentience, these primordial lives left the womb (the great hollow) and came to the surface.

The primordial lives lived on the land; through Tiamat's efforts an ecological system gradually formed.

Then, with time, a second accident occurred.

Several great fae (demi-gods) accidentally entered this world and lived with the primordial beings for a time.

The newborn lives didn't understand "hostility," and the fae were friendly toward them. They lived together for a long while, then at the gods' summons left this world.

The fae stayed only ten thousand years, but they triggered unexpected change. Because of contact with different kinds of divine power, the primordial beings began to evolve.

Hearts replaced magic stones; vessels and nerves replaced magical matter... life became closer to the fae, or in other words closer to gods, and gradually birthed beings to take the world as their own.

Originally, after life's self-evolution completed, the "creation device" should have ceased operation. But because of the fae's influence, evolution progressed far faster than Tiamat had set.

Without a confirmed shutdown command, the Beast · Tiamat, driven by maternal instinct, continued the creative mission.

The result: acting according to her inner love, Tiamat kept birthing primordial life and became the enemy of the new life.

The new life, as children, rebelled against their mother and drove out their "older brothers", without "malice," only with instinct. The primordial beings retreated.

Tiamat gently tolerated the children's actions because her love for them was greater than anything.

Tiamat still naively remained deep in the great hollow and didn't know what had happened on the surface. She merely followed the creation device and kept birthing life.

Until one day, the fully surface-dominant new life, humans, stormed into the great hollow they had hated for millennia.

Those humans, who had lost kin, lovers, and friends to the monsters spilling from the great hollow, attacked the source of the world's disaster with tears, rage, hatred, and loathing.

Tiamat was stunned.

With her incomplete divine mind she couldn't comprehend what was happening.

Why were her children killing their "older brothers"?

Tiamat restrained those primordial lives still under her control and ordered them not to hurt people. But the new life only killed more, and the mother goddess shed blood-tears.

To stop the slaughter among her children she appeared before the humans.

Driven by instinctive love, Tiamat embraced them. Yet, frightened humans fought with all their strength and attacked the huge beast appearing in the deepest hollow, trying to tear it apart with claws.

Hatred, loathing, sorrow... finally the instinct-only Tiamat was overwhelmed by those emotions.

The humans who stormed the hollow were almost annihilated.

Afterward, the humans who came to dominate the surface gave Tiamat a name, "Mother of Beasts."

They seared the goddess's true name with the world's terror and hatred.

A "true name" carries enormous significance.

Tiamat had nurtured countless lives and had been loved by beings. Yet her children used her as a stepping stone and left her.

From the mother's sadness the primordial beings felt "anger" and "humiliation"; from that moment they gained the concept of "malice."

Thus began millions of years of monster-versus-human slaughter; only the sorrowful mother cried unceasingly in the deepest hollow.

Because of Tiamat's blessing, the monsters effectively lost the concept of death; even if killed they could return to the womb and be reborn countless times.

Without the mother's protection the new life was easily defeated by primordial beings sharing the creator goddess's authority.

Monsters from the great hollow swept the world until over ninety percent of the land fell under monsters' dominion, and that was the beginning of recorded human history.

In the face of annihilation humans started to produce individuals called "heroes," whose deeds attracted the attention of fae and even gods.

The Wild Age, the Pioneering Age, the Fae Age, the Hero Age... up to the present God Age.

"Only when I awoke did I realize what had happened, but it was too late," Tiamat paused knitting, her hands still, a dazed smile appearing.

"The world had become a paradise for gods."

Many deities had already come down; rules banning the use of divine power were established.

Even the creator mother could not counter the will of the assembled gods alone. At that time Tiamat could do nothing.

She could not even descend, because her divine will itself would massively stimulate and amplify the Beast · Tiamat.

If the goddess Tiamat came to this world, the Beast · Tiamat would quickly awaken and grow; the doomsday clock would flip rapidly toward the end.

"Until, child, I learned of your existence," Tiamat put down her needles and took Emiya's hand.

"Shirou, you possess the ability and determination to slay gods..."

The goddess's meaning was not for Emiya to kill the mother-beast.

In this world where divine power was banned, the Beast · Tiamat was invincible; as a cornerstone of the world she was not bound by the divine-power ban. Even without complete divine intellect, the absolute gap in 'magnitude' made people helpless before her.

The great god Ouranus's divine might only suppressed Tiamat's instinct because she still retained love for humanity (her children).

Even if Emiya were Lv.10 and struck a life-consuming blow, he could not harm one ten-thousandth of Tiamat.

As for Tiamat's abilities as mother goddess, [Immortality (immune to instant death; cannot be directly killed)], [Eternity (each life-check instantly returns to max, ignoring all abnormal states)], [Creation (extreme resistance to any artifact or weapon created post-creation)], [Return (as long as creations exist she can resurrect infinitely)], etc. there was no way to tackle them.

She was not an entity that "beyond" class fighters could contend with; many gods with smaller divine power and poor combat ability wouldn't stand a chance.

"Tiamat's only weakness is me," Tiamat gently stroked Emiya's face.

"After that world-threatening [Black Dragon] is eliminated, Shirou, my child, take me to the dungeon's deepest place and there kill me."

"The chain of divinity will grant the 'Mother of Beasts' the long-sought end."

The Beast · Tiamat's status far exceeded the world's limits. Even if Emiya, from now, ascended a level every week until Tiamat awoke, it still wouldn't be enough to challenge Her.

Thus Tiamat believed this was the only workable method—

"The time to part has come; by this the world must be abandoned."

"Afterwards Ouranus will become the divine pillar to maintain the dungeon's existence. A safe, controllable dungeon that won't cause disaster again."

"In ten thousand years more we will be reborn in the divine realm. For one of my hundred-billion-year lifespan, that's but a blink."

Tiamat embraced Emiya, "My child... please, grant your mother redemption."

Emiya put his arm around Tiamat's shoulders.

He said nothing, seemingly consenting to the goddess's request; for no matter how one looked at it, this seemed the only viable course.

However—

"Sorry, Goddess Tiamat," Emiya whispered in his heart.

"I will not let you die... and I want to save her."

Goddess Tiamat wanted to bargain away her life to kill the Beast · Tiamat.

Emiya's thought was that he would not give up either side.

"Because she already called to me for help..."

At that time, Emiya had heard that cry from the dungeon's deepest place.

Now, looking back, he thought that was the reason he returned to that time node.

Before the goddess he said nothing more.

Tiamat held Emiya tightly and did not let go. Gradually their breaths mingled.

Though divine power was sealed and her body's strength was only that of an ordinary person, the goddess with mother-god authority had the capacity to take everything upon herself.

That night the sky was extraordinarily bright, as if countless stars were falling from the heavens.

———

As a result, the next day Tiamat hadn't finished knitting the scarf.

Emiya lightly kissed the goddess's cheek and left the room.

Not long after, Tiamat awakened slowly; she smiled and said, "What a greedy child... huh?"

Her smile froze.

She placed a hand on her abdomen and murmured, "How could this be?"

'A god and a lower-world child, a transcendent and a human, should be impossible... no, wait. If it's him...'

'Demeter, Ishtar, Hera... plus me. Tiamat, the fertility blessings on Emiya are too many!'

Moreover, as creator goddess, in that instant Tiamat's subconscious wishes and desires had added an extra "fertility" image to his existence. Nurturing the land, abundant blessings, flourishing branches, a thriving lineage.

"What now?", Tiamat was dumbstruck.

As a mother goddess, how could she possibly go through with exchanging her life for the Beast · Tiamat under these circumstances.

"Tiamat-sama," Emiya returned to the room with breakfast, seeing the goddess in a daze he asked with concern, "Are you all right?"

"No, don't worry, it's nothing...", Tiamat answered feigning calm, though inwardly utterly bewildered.

[T/N: For those of with, let's say, lesser understanding, the gist is: Tiamat is pregnant and you know who's the Daddy of the child.]

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