TheFoxsCloak

Originally Posted by Comun

Ok, I have time now. Here's what the general deal with HimuTen is. Himuro no Tenchi is a yonkoma manga starring the normal girls of the track trio + Mitsuzuri, and the much less normal Sajou Ayaka from Fate/Prototype. As the "Fate/school life" subtitle implies, it's wholly slice-of-life, featuring its cast involved in everyday situations, the many original games they play, and supernatural shenanigans that they don't realize are supernatural thanks to Rin or Ayaka cleaning things up neatly.

Publication started in 2006 covering a story set 9 months before the Grail War, but then during its 2015-2017 run, it covered the Grail War from the perspective of people who didn't know the Grail War happening, and is currently set after the Grail War.

In terms of timeline, the main point of divergence that defines HimuTen is Kotomine's handling of Tokiomi's property. Like in the Fsn timeline, after the 4th Grail War, Kotomine was in charge of Tokiomi's finances until Rin grew up, but he made categorically stupid decisions on what to sell and what to keep, and his disastrous management was the cause of Rin's current money problems. But in HimuTen's timeline, while the outcome of Kotomine's poor management was still the same, what specifically he chose to sell was different. This results in two major consequences that separate HimuTen from Fate/stay night:

1)A lot of Tokiomi's less practically useful artifacts and Mystic Codes were sold to Makidera's father's antique shop, which often results in Makidera and her friends being involved in strange phenomena that Rin needs to take responsibility for.

2) A plot of land directly above Fuyuki's best leyline was sold to Sajou Hiroki, causing him to move with his two daughters to move to Fuyuki in 1994. By 2003-2004, Manaka already moved away from her father's house, and Hiroki himself never appears because he's always out of Fuyuki either meeting up with his mage buddy from Tokyo or dealing with Manaka situations, but Ayaka is a main character in this story, so that obviously has many ramifications.

Also, Ayaka's and Manaka's characters in HimuTen are pretty different from their Prototype counterparts. Fake Ayaka is about as much of a self-hating introvert with no self-esteem as Proto Ayaka, but she didn't get from the real Ayaka of this timeline.

The younger Manaka still had the same propensity to set the world on fire for her Prince Charming, but direct quote: "Her excessive omnipotence caused [REDACTED] to [REDACTED] because it was [REDACTED], thus [REDACTED] went completely off-rails, resulting in the collapse of her most confident plan. Catastrophic shipwreck. She learned that picture books are pictures books are for a reason. The Prince Charming of her dreams wasn't real. Disheartened, she [REDACTED]. [REDACTED]. She turned harmless."

Meanwhile, since Manaka never found her ideal hot man, this Ayaka has none of her Grail War trauma. Instead, she had the experience of witnessing depression turn her highly competent sister into an unproductive failure of a human being, and built an actual self-esteem from training in Fuyuki's best leyline, so she internalized that she needed to be the responsible sister.

And, relevantly to /strange Fake, Ayaka also left Fuyuki in the July-August 2003 period for a student experience in the Clock Tower. Waver naturally got interested in a new student with the same last name as Manaka, so they met and she was a temporary student in his class, where she also got to realize her Formalcraft talents from Proto and was advised to specialize in plants since she was so opposed to sacrificing animals.

The last major thing to talk about is the Grail War arc, although I think this was already discussed in the thread when FsF being a HimuTen sequel first came up. Due to the premise of the manga, we don't see anything of the Grail War actually happen, but from its consequences to the people around the track trio (Kuzuki's disappearance, Mitsuzuri's assault and hospitalization, Zouken's death, the Ryuudou family needing to move to the Semina Apartments after the collapse of the cavern under their temple, Medusa's post-war presence, Shirou's survival and relationship status with Sakura, etc.), it's completely that HimuTen follows Heaven's Feel Good End except for the minor divergences caused by Ayaka's presence. And those are only two:

1) During the weeks of the Grail War, Ayaka was teaming up with Ciel (yes, Ciel was there, but she isn't a character in HimuTen, she's just an incognito figure you find, exclusively during the Grail War chapters, talking to Ayaka in the background, appearing on the corners of pages, group shots, etc. and what is up with her cameos is only revealed in profiles outside of the story proper) to kept outside scavengers from interfering with the Grail War. Mashin's official statement is that together the thwarted 9 out of 10 invaders, and the 10th one that slipped past them would have consequences later in the United States. (This seriously implies that the Fsn timeline had a bigger number of scavengers profiting from the Grail War, which certainly will come up in some spin-off, probably the El-Melloi series)

2) Shinji lost a bet to Ayaka during that week, so he had to wear a magical wig that copied his hair, but slightly off-center, making people think he was wearing a wig all along. This protected his head from Sakura's attack, so in this timeline, Shinji was only injured rather than killed.

I suppose I could also talk about Tsunokuma since he cameoed here and how the reveal that the real Ayaka is currently studying in Romania is an extension of Manaka's and Celenike's relationship in HimuTen, but I'll stick to the Ayaka parts to keep this post as short as it can be.