"Ah, of course, it's you," Cu Chulainn said with a knowing look as the next person took the stage.
Archer, carrying a small arsenal of Noble Phantasms, walked slowly towards Fafnir. He glanced at Cu Chulainn with a contemptuous smirk. "Heh, the great hero of Ireland, and his dragon-slaying skills are so pathetic. Wasting so much precious blood and flesh... just like you."
"What did you say, you dark-skinned bastard?!" Cu Chulainn retorted, but a glare from Mo Wang sent him sulking to a corner.
"Leave the professional work to the professionals," Archer said coolly. "A reckless brute like you should just watch from the sidelines." He approached Fafnir, and the dragon's eyes filled with terror.
"ROAR!!!" (Stay away from me!!!)
But it was bound by the Chains of Heaven and could not move.
Archer slowly laid out his "kitchen utensils": Siegfried's Balmung, Saint George's Ascalon, Sigurd's Gram, Heracles's bow... each one a legendary dragon-slaying weapon, each one promising a unique experience for Fafnir. (Come to think of it, both Siegfried and Sigurd killed Fafnir in the Nasuverse. Does that mean he was killed twice?)
At the sight of these weapons, Fafnir's scales bristled. "ROAR!!!!" (No, no! Jeanne, save me!!!)
...
In a distant castle, Jalter thought she heard something.
"Jeanne, what's wrong?" Caster Gilles asked.
"Oh, nothing. I thought I heard Fafnir. I must be missing him," she said, shaking her head.
...
Archer picked up Balmung. With a flick of his wrist, he expertly sliced into a gap in Fafnir's scales, and dark red blood welled up. "Even the hardest scales are just skin to a dragon slayer's sword," he said, catching the dripping blood in a container. "Dragon's blood is a prime alchemical ingredient. It cannot be wasted."
Fafnir whimpered, but its struggles were futile. Archer switched to Ascalon and began to carefully separate the muscle from the bone. "The backstrap is best for grilling. The marbling is perfect." He spoke as if he were butchering a common piece of livestock.
Fafnir's pupils trembled. It had never imagined it would be dismembered like this, not in a glorious battle, but like a piece of meat on a cutting board.
Archer then used the tip of one of Heracles's arrows to deftly carve out a piece of meat from near the dragon's heart. "The meat near the heart is the most tender. Suitable for eating raw or stir-frying." He weighed the piece of meat in his hand. "But a dragon's life force is tenacious. It won't die immediately from this."
Fafnir's breathing grew shallow. It could only watch as Archer used one dragon-slaying Noble Phantasm after another to dismantle its body. When he was finally finished, the dragon was on the verge of death.
"Hey, aren't you going to finish it off?" Cu Chulainn asked as Archer turned to leave.
"Of course not. I'm a chef, not a butcher," he replied calmly.
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"I mean, it's not my place to kill this dragon," Archer said, gesturing behind him. The final contestant was approaching.
...
Fafnir lay dying. It wished someone would just put it out of its misery.
"Painful, isn't it? Regretful?" Mo Wang's voice came from beside it. "But this is nothing compared to what you did to the people of this country. Don't worry, the next person will be the last. He will end your life."
Fafnir's eyes flickered to the side. The final contestant, glowing with a golden light, was Charlemagne. In him, Fafnir saw the shadow of the dragon slayer who had killed it once before.
"Evil dragon! Your reign of terror is over!" Charlemagne declared, his voice booming as he raised his sun-bright sword. "I, Karl, in the name of this country, will bring you your final end!"
The blade of Joyeuse ignited with a brilliant white light, and the phantoms of the Twelve Paladins appeared behind him.
"Joyeuse Ordre!"
As the holy sword descended, time seemed to stand still. Then, with a flash of golden light, the evil dragon's reign was over. The pillar of light shot into the sky, and the dragon's body turned to ash in the holy light.
A cry of "We've won!" went up from the crowd, and soon the entire square was filled with the sound of weeping.
As Charlemagne sheathed his sword, a single dragon scale fell into his palm.
"Hey, dark-skin," Cu Chulainn said, kicking at the dragon's skeleton. "How about some roasted dragon ribs tonight?"
"Use the part I cut with Siegfried's sword," Archer replied, for once not arguing. "It's the best."
The last thing Fafnir heard was the beautiful chorus of human weeping, a sound it had once loved. But this time, the weeping was filled with a hope it could never understand.
...
"Senpai," Mash said, her voice filled with awe, "did you plan for all of this to happen?"
"Huh? Oh, that?" Mo Wang replied. "Not really. I just thought it would be more fun this way. And besides, a heroic epic ending is just as entertaining as a wild party, don't you think?"
"It is," Mash said, a genuine smile on her face as she looked at the hopeful faces of the crowd. "Of course, it would be even better if you did things like this all the time, instead of all your usual weird stuff."
"I can't do that," Mo Wang said with a sigh. "A heroic epic is nice, but I prefer a lively scene where everyone can laugh out loud. Crying is something you should only do once." He hated tragedies. A happy ending was good, but it wasn't what he was striving for.
"Uh, Senpai, what do you mean?" Mash asked, a sense of foreboding washing over her.
"I mean, it's time to get this party started!" Mo Wang declared.
A symphony orchestra, led by Beethoven himself, appeared out of nowhere and began to play the final movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, the "Ode to Joy."
"The First Annual France Dragon Meat Festival—begins now!" Mo Wang's voice boomed over the triumphant music, and fireworks exploded in the sky.
The ground began to tremble. A procession of figures marched into the square, dressed in white chef's uniforms with crimson sashes. At their head was Archer, dragging a massive meat cleaver behind him.
Behind him was Shirou-Morgan, her eyes sharp, a slender boning knife in her hand. They were flanked by dozens of other chefs, carrying an assortment of fearsome-looking culinary weapons.
Their aura was even more terrifying than the dragon-slaying heroes.
"S-Senpai... who are they...?" Mash stammered. They look like they're from Jojo or Fist of the North Star!
"Oh, just some French chefs. It's normal," Mo Wang said with a smile.
"How is this normal?! They look like they're from a different dimension!"
"Well, cooking is probably the last bastion of French pride. This is to be expected," Mo Wang said with a shrug. You could say a lot of bad things about France, but you had to admit, they were good at food. Faced with a delicacy like dragon meat, it was only natural for them to go a little crazy. It had nothing to do with the spreading influence of Elation.
"Um, Senpai, one last question," Mash said. "Is Fafnir's meat really edible?" He was a poison dragon, after all.
"Don't worry, I've already purified it with my super purification body. A little poison is nothing," he said with a thumbs up.
"Hah, whatever," Mash said, giving up. She was used to it by now. But was it really okay for him to be single-handedly derailing the tone of an entire country like this? It felt more like a singularity than the Dragon Witch's attack.
"Emmmm~ Mash, I just remembered something..."
"What is it?"
"We've already killed Fafnir, right?"
"Yes?"
"Then where are the two dragon slayers that are supposed to be in our party?"
Achoo!
In a deserted fortress, a battered and bruised Siegfried sneezed. "I feel like... I've been forgotten."