A sense of wrongness.
Ever since the battle with Passionlip began, Shiomi had been feeling it—an unsettling incongruity.
It wasn't just the strange aura she gave off, so different from ordinary Servants. It was also those enormous, menacing claws.
They were Noble Phantasms.
But Shiomi couldn't recall any hero from legend or history who might possess weapons like those. And what made the claws truly dangerous wasn't just their size or brute force.
"Is space... being compressed?"
After a few clashes, Shiomi realized not only was he unable to deal effective damage without killing Passionlip, but his movements also felt constantly restricted, like he was seconds away from being captured.
"That's Passionlip's unique ability, id_es. Its trait is 'Trash & Crush,'" BB's voice came through the communicator. "She can compress whatever she sees into cubes and throw them into the Imaginary Number space in her chest."
"You could've mentioned that sooner." Shiomi widened the distance again.
It seemed to function like a conceptual Noble Phantasm—once the conditions were met, the compression would trigger.
But those conditions weren't as simple as BB made them sound.
Though her mask suppressed both her voice and her reason, Passionlip could clearly see Shiomi. But to physically compress him in defiance of spatial laws, he had to remain in a fixed spot for a certain amount of time.
Based on his own sense of time, Shiomi estimated she needed more than two seconds for a precise lock, and likely three to begin the compression process without allowing escape.
Now that the Singularity in this digital realm had stabilized, his speed gave him a clear advantage over Passionlip, whose abilities leaned more toward power. As she was, she couldn't capture him.
Focusing too much on Shiomi alone meant neglecting the other three—and risking a coordinated counterattack.
The others hadn't jumped in immediately for a reason. Shiomi wanted to analyze her abilities firsthand.
"Too dangerous up close? Then let's keep it ranged." Morgan raised a hand, dark mana gathering in her palm.
More than ten meters away, a matching pulse of mana flared at Passionlip's chest.
"Ugh—!"
Passionlip let out a startled whimper. She tried to compress the incoming magic into her chest's Imaginary Number space, but—just as expected—she was a moment too slow.
As Morgan crushed the condensed spell, the matching surge of mana detonated at Passionlip's chest, forcing her back two steps under the surprising, focused impact.
"Magic Resistance... probably somewhere between C and B..." Scáthach murmured, lifting a hand to inscribe Runes.
The activation of Magecraft always triggered a surge of mana. Passionlip immediately sensed it and snapped her head toward Scáthach.
She clenched one of her hands into a fist and aimed it at Scáthach's position.
"Huh?" Shiomi blinked in surprise.
At first, he thought she'd miscalculated—but then, that hand suddenly detached from her arm and launched like a cannonball.
It collided with the spell that had just completed but hadn't yet fired.
The ground rumbled violently, as if it might collapse at any second.
From the thick smoke, the severed hand shot back and reattached itself to her arm without resistance.
"That hand... it's no ordinary weapon. More like a divine construct—or better yet, a Divine Spirit's Noble Phantasm," Scáthach muttered, stepping calmly from the smoke.
She'd dodged just in time, unscathed. Only her hair had been tousled by the blast, and her clothes were dusted with debris.
Brushing herself off, Scáthach looked toward Artoria, who was locked in close combat with Passionlip.
Though Artoria had the edge in technique, Passionlip's sheer strength was slightly overpowering her. Even with Mana Burst, she was struggling to keep up.
She fought while retreating, not fully committing to the battle.
Scáthach and Artoria alternated in engaging Passionlip at close range, keeping her distracted and off-balance—buying time for Morgan to unleash her spells.
After all, they needed to bring her down without killing her.
"But keeping her alive isn't exactly easy," Scáthach said, her expression devoid of any ease.
Shiomi pressed BB, "You planning to keep hiding this? Passionlip isn't a normal Servant. Even I can feel the divine response from her Spirit Origin."
"To be exact, it's a divine core—something only goddesses possess," BB explained. "She's a composite Servant, created from Mooncell's database by fusing three goddess-type Servants. Her Class is Alterego. As for those arms she fights with, they're physical manifestations of the ten divine weapons of Durga—one of the goddesses incorporated into Passionlip."
"Alterego?!" It was the first time Shiomi had heard of such a Class.
"Put simply, it's the result of illegally modifying a Spirit Origin," BB said. "It's not exclusive to high-level AIs, either."
"I see." Shiomi tapped the ground with the butt of his spear.
A cluster of runes lit up, releasing chains that shot out and wrapped around Passionlip's upper arms, pulling her in the opposite direction of her exertion.
Scáthach and Artoria seized the moment and struck hard at the massive arms, which together weighed at least a ton.
The arms were pushed back over her head, sending Passionlip toppling. As her body lost balance and hit the ground, more chains erupted from all directions, latching onto her limbs and body, completely locking her down.
Her tremendous weight—far beyond that of a standard Servant—was both her strength and her fatal weakness.
With Morgan applying wide-area gravitational pressure through Magecraft, the arms that could've broken free moments earlier could no longer even lift. The masked girl's face remained hidden, but she let out a pained, muffled cry.
"That should count as neutralized—at least she's not dead yet," Shiomi said cautiously as he approached. "So what now? Are we formatting her and retrieving the core?"
"No need for that."
Before BB could respond, Morgan cut in.
"Only part of her Spirit Origin is corrupted—it's something artificial, implanted after the fact. That mask is the physical expression of it."
"You can see all the way to the root of a Spirit Origin with fairy eyes?" Shiomi asked, a little envious.
Morgan rubbed her temple with practiced elegance. "Only because of you. Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to use them right now."
"Huh?"
"In any case, now that I know the source of the issue, removing it is simple surgery. It'll hurt a bit—just help me keep her restrained—"
Morgan was just about to begin purging the foreign element from Passionlip's Spirit Origin when a surge of noise erupted around them, making her pause.
Hundreds of hostile program monsters surged in like a pack of wolves, surrounding the group.
And that wasn't all.
A familiar katana flew toward them—Shiomi casually raised his hand and deflected it.
"Looks like we meet again, huh."
Suzuka Gozen appeared once more, flanked by the two Knights of the Round Table.
...
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