Holy Grail fragments, Tsukumo’s plan, and Kanata’s role
Major spoilers for Fate/type Redline and its predecessor, Koha-Ace GO: Teito Seihai Kitan. What follows is my theory about the story’s mysteries.
Hi, I’m Piyotake. I originally picked up Fate/type Redline because I wanted to read a story featuring Okita Souji. Trying to understand Maxwell’s Demon eventually led me much further: to the history of the Holy Grail War, Tsukumo Fujimiya’s intentions, and what is happening inside her grandson’s body.
The question that kept getting in the way was simple. In the history Kanata Akagi knows, the Imperial Capital disappeared on May 8, 1945. Yet he arrives there in August of the same year.
What if someone had already changed the past before Kanata arrived?
My eventual theory was that Maxwell’s Demon, the story’s Caster, had lost the Holy Grail once and gone back to avoid that outcome. But that would explain only part of the story. Tsukumo’s attempt to recover the lost capital, Kanata’s unusual magecraft, and the possibility of the Counter Force’s involvement all need their own reasons. Here is how I think those pieces may fit together.
The Mystery of May 8, 1945
Kanata tells us that the Imperial Capital, Tokyo, disappeared on May 8, 1945. In his present, the site is covered by the sea. The city he reaches in August should therefore no longer exist. This contradiction is already presented by the manga; it is the problem the theory has to explain.
I will call the history Kanata comes from the original timeline, and the one he enters in 1945 the altered timeline.
Kanata’s actions after arriving in August cannot, by themselves, explain why the city survived May. Whatever caused that difference was already at work before he got there.
May 8 also marks Germany’s surrender and the end of the war in Europe. The Imperial Capital disappearing on the date associated with the Third Reich’s collapse caught my attention.
Yet when Kanata arrives in August, the Third Reich’s faction is still active in the Imperial Capital. What if the Reich’s use of the Grail caused the original disaster, and the course of Germany’s defeat changed in the altered history?
If the Grail was used in that disaster, who lost the chance to use it?
Why a Supply of Magical Energy Was Not Enough to Explain It
An earlier idea began with the Third Holy Grail War in 1943. It ended abnormally: the other Servants vanished, while Oda Nobunaga remained. Yet the Fourth War took place only two years later, in 1945.
I considered whether the Demon had remained manifested since 1943 and supplied magical energy for the next war, perhaps also sustaining Nobunaga. His presence before the Fourth War is the key to this explanation.
Preparing another Holy Grail War takes magical energy; completing the Grail as a wish-granting vessel also requires Servant souls. In this scenario, the Demon supplies energy while using the results of Nobunaga’s battles to bring the Grail closer to completion. Each is pursuing his own interests.
That might explain how another war became possible. But it still does not explain why the capital vanished in one history and survived in the other. What would make someone want to change that outcome?
Why the Demon Might Have Gone Back in Time
Going by the earlier work, it’s hard to see the Demon acting for the Third Reich’s victory. He seems to be using the Reich—and perhaps Nobunaga—to pursue his own wish.
Suppose the Grail was used by the Third Reich’s side during the original disappearance of the Imperial Capital. For the Demon, that would mean losing the very thing he had been working toward, before he could use it himself. Bringing the ritual closer to completion would have achieved nothing if someone else spent or destroyed its result for another purpose.
That led me to this possibility: during the disappearance of the Imperial Capital, the Demon obtained a fragment of the Holy Grail and used its power to travel back in time.
The crucial point is his motive. He had already lost his chance to fulfill his wish. Going back would give him another.
Now the two histories begin with different conditions. In one, the Demon does not know how his attempt will end. In the other, he remembers losing the Grail and has a reason to avoid the same outcome. His changed actions could alter the course of the war before Kanata ever arrives.
Why Did the Demon Ask Izou About Kanata?
After considering that possibility, I returned to the Demon’s interest in Kanata. At first, I had read it as concern about an ability that might threaten him. Knowing the earlier version of the Demon makes that an easy interpretation to accept.
But the order of his conversation with Okada Izou matters.
The Demon has heard a report about Saber, but wants information about the magi accompanying her. Izou begins explaining Tsukumo. The Demon interrupts him and asks about the other person—the boy, Kanata. He does this before Izou has described Kanata’s unusual ability.
Only then does Izou report that the boy became transparent and that objects seemed to fall unnaturally slowly. The Demon responds with interest and asks him to elaborate.
There are two separate moments: first, the Demon singles out the boy; only afterward does he learn about the strange phenomenon. He is interested in who Kanata is before he hears what Kanata can do.
Now consider the difference between the two histories: in the original history, Saber’s Master was Tsukumo. In the altered history, it is Kanata.
If the Demon remembers the earlier history, Tsukumo is someone he expects to find in that role. Kanata is the unexpected person. Asking about him first would make sense even before hearing what he can do. The ability report would then give the Demon an additional reason to pay attention.
The conversation looks different through the time-reversal theory. Perhaps the Demon notices a change in the participants before he discovers a new threat. His interest in Kanata may be a clue that he remembers the earlier history.
Another Reading of Okita's Remark About an Unusual Heroic Spirit
Okita’s suggestion that a Heroic Spirit may be involved under unusual circumstances also looks different through this theory.
Sakamoto Ryouma is the obvious candidate: Redline depicts him as a Servant without a Master. That unusual position gives Okita’s remark a natural explanation.
However, if the Demon remained manifested from 1943, he too would be present by a route different from a fresh summoning for the Fourth War. If he also carried experience from a previous history, his involvement would be unusual in another important way.
What interests me is how both scenes offer immediately plausible explanations: Ryouma for Okita’s remark, and dangerous magecraft for the Demon’s interest in Kanata. Those first answers are so natural that a second meaning could slip past us. If deliberate, it would be subtle foreshadowing.
Tsukumo's Separate Attempt to Change History
Tsukumo may also have used a Grail fragment to interfere with the past.
Older Tsukumo returns to the site of the vanished capital and waits. I came to wonder whether she was waiting for a person at all. What if she was waiting for the Imperial Capital itself to return?
If history can be overwritten, she might never see the city return. It would simply have existed all along. That possibility made her waiting feel different to me: she could be working toward a result she would never witness as a sudden change.
My theory is that she studied and used Holy Grail fragments associated with the lost capital, eventually preparing a way to send her grandson Kanata into the past.
This gives the two attempts different purposes. The Demon lost the Grail he needed for his wish. Tsukumo lost the capital. Both may have drawn on power left by the same disaster, but the Demon returned himself, while Tsukumo sent Kanata.
For the Demon, preventing the disappearance could be a way to keep the Grail available. For Tsukumo, recovering the lost city is the point.
The Hourglass, the Book, and the Fragment Inside Kanata
Tsukumo’s involvement initially seemed to require an extraordinary amount of power. The hourglass sends Kanata through time, Records of the Imperial Capital (Teito Senki) changes its text, and Kanata himself displays physical abnormalities. Could one magus have created all of that unaided?
Tsukumo could have studied a Grail fragment and built a device that uses its power. In that case, the design would be her work, while the power behind its effects would come from the Grail.
At first, I thought the book was future Tsukumo’s account of her experiences. That could explain its original contents, but an ordinary account of her memories would not keep rewriting itself as events changed around Kanata.
But if the book is a Mystic Code derived from a Holy Grail fragment, and Kanata also has a fragment inside his body, the changing text has another explanation. The power in the book and the fragment within him resonate, allowing changes in events to appear in the text.
Whether a fragment became the book itself or was incorporated into it, the book would carry Grail-derived power of its own. That power resonates with Kanata’s fragment, while Tsukumo’s memories or records may provide the book’s original contents.
Kanata becoming transparent when young Tsukumo is in danger also suggests that his existence remains tied to what happens in this past. The changes to his body and the book may be connected through the same Grail-derived power.
The hourglass could likewise have targeted an event rather than a date: Okita’s summoning. If the timing of that event changed, Kanata would arrive with the summoning. This brings the hourglass, the changing book, and Kanata’s arrival into the same explanation.
Under this model, Tsukumo’s preparations send Kanata into a history the Demon has already altered. Her intervention becomes the unexpected addition to his second attempt.
Why Kanata May Be a Countermeasure Against the Demon
That still leaves another question. Why does the person Tsukumo sends possess an ability that seems relevant to the Demon?
At first, I wondered whether future Tsukumo had developed magecraft specifically to counter the Demon. That would require her to understand his nature and his plan. I eventually focused instead on what drove her to act: the Imperial Capital had vanished, and she wanted it back.
This is where the Counter Force could come in: the world’s defensive response to threats to its continued existence or humanity’s survival. Its reason to act would be different from Tsukumo’s.
In Koha-Ace GO: Teito Seihai Kitan, the Demon sought to manifest an artificial god. If his wish in Redline follows a similar direction, obtaining the Grail could threaten the world on a scale far greater than the loss of the capital.
This changes what a successful alteration of history might mean. Keeping the city from disappearing would also keep the Demon from losing the Grail. He could then proceed toward the very outcome that endangers the world.
Tsukumo wants to prevent the capital’s disappearance. The Counter Force may need to stop what happens if the Demon actually gets his wish.
Modern Knowledge and the Ability to Slow Motion
The earlier version of the Demon is difficult to defeat in an era that cannot refute the concept sustaining him. That makes 1945 more than a historical backdrop.
In physics, Maxwell’s Demon is imagined as a being that sorts fast and slow gas molecules, creating a temperature difference. Later scientific explanations brought information processing and the cost of erasing memory into the picture. The difference between the knowledge available in 1945 and the explanations developed afterward may be crucial to the Demon in Fate.
Kanata comes from 2020, an era with access to scientific explanations that emerged after 1945. His modern perspective could matter in a confrontation that strength alone cannot settle.
Kanata also has magecraft that can slow an object’s motion. The Demon sorts molecules by their speed; Kanata changes how quickly a target moves. That connection is what first drew me to his ability.
The parallel made me wonder whether Kanata’s unusual magecraft, combined with modern knowledge, could challenge the Demon in a way ordinary attacks cannot.
If the Counter Force can act through Kanata’s abilities, his magecraft may become part of its response to the Demon. Under this theory, Tsukumo brings him to 1945 to recover the capital, and the Counter Force gives him a role in confronting the danger ahead.
Two Purposes for the Fragment Inside Kanata
Having an unusual ability is one thing. Having a body that can withstand it is another.
Young Tsukumo notices that Kanata’s magecraft and physical condition are abnormal. He can use particular magecraft despite his limited training, and the bodily suffering she would expect in connection with a transplanted Magic Crest is absent. Her reaction makes the ease with which he uses the ability part of the mystery.
This is where a Holy Grail fragment inside Kanata’s body could matter again. It could explain why using that magecraft does not cause him the suffering young Tsukumo expects.
That separates the two roles: the Counter Force may be involved in his unusual ability, while the Grail fragment supplied by future Tsukumo may allow his body to endure it. Tsukumo’s concern would be how to protect her grandson as he used that power.
But was that protection intentional? Perhaps she gave him the fragment for time travel and its protection was merely a side effect.
Young Tsukumo already recognizes the abnormality in 1945. Her older self has spent many more years studying magecraft and has known Kanata personally. It seems unlikely that she would simply fail to notice what her younger self could see.
That led me to propose two purposes for the fragment: sending Kanata through time and protecting his body when he uses his unusual magecraft.
Under this theory, the treatment prepares Kanata for what comes after the journey: using his powers, fighting, and surviving in the Holy Grail War.
Why Would Future Tsukumo Perform Such an Abnormal Treatment?
Young Tsukumo regards what was done to Kanata’s body as abnormal even by a magus’s standards, and questions the relative responsible. If that relative was her future self, the same observation takes on a different meaning.
Future Tsukumo would be entrusting her wish to a grandson sent into the kind of war she had experienced. He might have to use his exceptional magecraft repeatedly. Recognizing what that could do to his body would give her a reason to take exceptional measures herself.
Young Tsukumo’s alarm and older Tsukumo’s intention to keep him alive could both be valid. The younger woman sees how unusual the treatment is without yet knowing the circumstances that could lead her older self to perform it.
I read the treatment as future Tsukumo’s attempt to let Kanata fight and survive the danger she was sending him into.
One Theory Connecting the Mysteries
In this theory, the Demon returned to reclaim the Grail he once lost, while Tsukumo used fragments of that same Grail to send Kanata back and restore the capital. If the Counter Force is involved, Kanata’s unusual ability could be the world’s answer to the danger of the Demon finally getting his wish.
The Demon wants the Grail. Tsukumo wants the Imperial Capital back. The Counter Force would be responding to a threat that could extend far beyond the city. Their separate purposes meet in one person: Kanata.
This is also why I keep coming back to two scenes. The Demon asks Izou about the boy before hearing what the boy can do. And young Tsukumo recognizes something extraordinary—and troubling—about the treatment of Kanata’s body. One scene may hint at someone who remembers an earlier history; the other may reveal how a grandmother prepared her grandson to survive the history she hoped to change.
Did Maxwell’s Demon return for a second attempt, only to find Kanata where he did not expect him? That is the possibility I will be watching as Fate/type Redline continues. I would be interested to know how other readers interpret those two scenes.
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