Road to “Magic God”

(A/N: Scáthach has to be powerful to fulfill her role as the protagonist's master. This also aligns with the established power system in this story.

Nasuverse's Scáthach isn't the same as her original mythological self. In canon, she's a "being who has transcended the world." She was meant to be a backdrop character, but Fate/Grand Order made her summonable just to sell gacha pulls thereby weakening her drastically in the process. Blame FGO's devs and Nasu for that characterization.

The Awakened, as defined in this setting, surpass even the constraints of the Nasuverse's multiverse. They are leagues beyond things like Magic Gods. This means that while Nasuverse has a very high ceiling, it also has a painfully low floor.

I won't be explaining these things anymore outside the story. Better to let the characters reveal it through dialogue.)

People often say that no one understands you better than yourself. But very few ever actually achieve such clarity.

Scáthach was one of the rare few who did.

Unlike those who surrender to mediocrity after recognizing their own limitations, Scáthach was fully aware of her extraordinary talent. She knew she was not like ordinary mortals, and she fully harnessed that difference.

Always growing stronger. Relentlessly advancing. If one word could encapsulate her talent, it would be: growth.

In the distant Age of Gods, when heroes forged their own epics and divine beings ravaged the earth, Scáthach was not yet this powerful. That's why, upon discovering Cú Chulainn, a once-in-an-era prodigy, she had pinned her hopes on him, hopes that he might end her cursed existence, condemned by the gods.

The moment Scáthach first laid eyes on Cú Chulainn, she saw it clearly, his fate. She knew he was destined to die. And yet she hoped. She hoped this rare genius could defy destiny and reverse her death.

But alas, the Hound of Culann, the only one who ever had a chance to slay her, ultimately succumbed to the chains of fate. In that moment, Scáthach understood, that no one who could kill her remained in this world.

With each passing age, she continued to grow stronger, her talent propelling her beyond mortal limitations. Eventually, she and her Land of Shadows transcended the world entirely, slipping into a plane beyond all creation, into eternal solitude.

Perhaps she would only truly meet her end when the world itself was no more. Until then, she would endure, existing alongside this fading world.

(A/N: This is how her lore is written.)

"Where is the one who can kill me...? Heh, they likely don't exist anymore—"

The lofty queen murmured in a voice both haughty and self-deprecating, yet still hauntingly beautiful.

"Moses Parts the Sea!"

Empowered by the Authority of Godspeed, Roy's body became as swift as lightning. With death in his heart and resolve in his soul, he brought down a blade-hand strike infused with divine might, one powerful enough to split the sea itself, directly at Scáthach!

"To ordinary people, your speed may be astonishing. But to me… it's still far too slow."

Her voice was calm and composed. With a simple shift of her body, Scáthach avoided the divine strike. The force tore through the Land of Shadows, ripping open a gaping trench that extended to the horizon, cleaving cliffs in two and shattering stone structures into rubble.

Yet Scáthach was not completely untouched. The edge of Roy's myth-imbued strike sheared off a few strands of her deep violet hair, which scattered like dandelions into the wind.

"There is divine force in this move, enough to rival a Servant's Noble Phantasm. But you didn't develop this technique yourself, did you? You only know its form, not its essence. Your execution lacks flow. Lacks rhythm. You could have refined it, but you don't yet understand how."

As she observed Roy's "Moses Parts the Sea," Scáthach's rose-hued eyes gleamed with interest. Her unmatched intellect and experience instantly told her this was a stolen technique, one Roy had seized from another. And yet, he had adapted it, fusing into it the power of Bible. That alone confirmed it: Roy was a rare genius in his own right.

"Wrestling with God!"

Having realized that his Authority of Godspeed was ineffective, and that Scáthach could match him effortlessly. Roy abandoned hit-and-run tactics. Instead, he went all in, unleashing every technique he had in a do-or-die flurry. Against a foe like her, he had no time to hold back. He would pour out every ounce of power before she ended him, fighting to the edge of death, searching for that fleeting glimmer of survival.

Wrestling with God was the strongest technique in Roy's The Hand of Jacob—a re-enactment of Jacob wrestling the Lord, weaponized as a divine-killing strike.

Roy lunged forward, hand outstretched, aiming directly for Scáthach's shoulder. No matter how she twisted and spun, she found herself unable to dodge.

"To invert causality… so no matter what I do, I can't evade it? And there's divine-type damage layered within. Truly... a splendid move."

The Wisdom of the Abyss allowed Scáthach to see straight through the conceptual core of Roy's technique, Wrestling with God. As the indomitable Queen of the Land of Shadows, she handled it with elegance, fending off Roy's ultimate move even as she lectured him mid-battle.

"Regrettably, I possess no divinity. Like you, I am a slayer of gods... Reversing causality is troublesome, yes, but your execution is crude. Flawed. Breakable."

Her tone grew increasingly sharp. Suddenly, Scáthach raised one of her cursed spears, and with its tip, drew a rune in midair. It was a deceptively simple sigil, yet it radiated such profundity that Roy's senses reeled. As multiple arcane runes followed, his eyes widened in shock, his causality-defying technique began unraveling.

The concepts he had forcibly reversed were forcibly realigned, restoring the natural sequence of cause and effect. With only a minute shift of her shoulder, Scáthach elegantly dodged the attack that should have been unavoidable.

"The Primordial Runes?!"

Roy froze in place, his voice filled with disbelief.

Runic magic was a foundational pillar in the mystic arts. Roy himself had extensively researched them in the world of Campione, but—

"How do you know the Primordial Runes?! Those are Odin's forbidden secrets, runes he alone mastered! Even the runes used by modern magi are but pale imitations. Could it be that... you're connected to Odin? No, that can't be right. You're a figure of Celtic mythology!"

Roy couldn't wrap his head around it.

He had expected silence or evasion. But to his surprise, Scáthach spoke as though she were a teacher, patient and meticulous:

"…Odin exists even in foreign lands. Tell me, do you know of the Poetic Edda?"

"Of course. The Poetic Edda is one of the most important literary relics of medieval Norse culture, a cornerstone of Western myth outside of Greece and Rome."

Roy answered solemnly, his knowledge of history and mythology made such ignorance impossible.

"Then you know of Hávamál, the second section?"

Scáthach raised her spear like a tutor's rod and pointed it at him, quizzing him with intent.

"Hávamál...?"

Roy paused—then his expression lit with understanding:

'I know eighteen runes, and not a word more will I share—

Let no girl nor wife seek to learn them from me.

Each rune is for me alone to know,

Its wisdom known only by a single woman...

One I have held or one who is of my blood!'

This was Odin's own declaration, his account of the original eighteen runes. He swore never to teach them. Yet even he admitted that one woman had received his legacy.

If that woman was Scáthach, then her mastery of the Primordial Runes made sense. But how could she be connected to Odin? There was a Norse goddess with mythological ties to her… Could the myths in this world also be subject to such transformations?

Roy was briefly left reeling by the implications.

Sensing his confusion, Scáthach didn't offer further clarification. Instead, she turned the tables with a curious question of her own:

"…Is there also a Scáthach in your foreign land?"

Even the Wisdom of the Abyss could not pierce the veil of foreign worlds.

"There is, indeed."

Roy replied with certainty. As a heavily detailed figure in Celtic lore, Scáthach absolutely could manifest in the world of Campione, likely as a Heretic God, a deity who had rebelled against their divine nature.

"But the Scáthach over there is nowhere near as powerful as you. In fact… you're absurdly strong! In myth, you were Cú Chulainn's teacher, a mighty warrior, yes, but not someone who slaughtered gods or transcended the world itself!"

This Scáthach was utterly broken by comparison. If she had been only the figure from the legends, Roy was confident he could have defeated her.

"Do not be confused, foreigner. For the Scáthach standing before you… is the most exceptional among all her countless counterparts in the parallel worlds!"

The violet-clad queen declared loftily, her voice laced with resolute pride, and a faint trace of mournful irony.

"Siddhārtha Gautama attained enlightenment beneath the Bodhi Tree, conquering Māra's army with wisdom and becoming the Buddha, awakening beyond all limits, transcending the universe.

"I am like him, but among countless Scáthachs, I am the one who awakened through slaughter. I could not transcend the cosmos like the Buddha. I have merely transcended this world… and reached outer world."

Scáthach, it seemed, relished playing the teacher, eager to dispel ignorance.

"…I could not cross the Abyss. But as I gazed into it, I obtained the Wisdom of the Abyss. And so, while I remain Scáthach, the warrior who guards the gates of the Land of Shadows, I alone among them am different!"

The Queen who truly comprehended herself spoke with bittersweet finality. She was proud of what she had become, but saddened by the chasm she had created, one so vast that none who followed could ever reach her.

I remember Aiwass once said that Aleister also tried to cross the Abyss. That's why he summoned the Great Demon Coronzon… to leverage its power and achieve transcendence. Does that mean that to become a Magic God… one must cross the Abyss?

But what even is the Abyss (Abyssus)?

At that moment, Roy felt a jolt of excitement, he was learning so much.

It was true, only by conversing with those who had reached the pinnacle, could one widen their own perspective…

…And glimpse the vistas that lay beyond.