So where exactly was the mastermind behind all this?
The moment the question formed in Leo's mind, he already had his answer.
He'd changed the weather across the entire pocket dimension and blanketed Kuoh Town in a thunderstorm, yet even so, there was one place that seemed specially protected. While everywhere else was riddled with craters from lightning strikes, that one spot remained completely untouched.
A vast open plaza in the center of Kuoh Town.
Supermarkets, hotels, restaurants, and cafes lined its perimeter. A perfect recreation of a commercial district.
WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!
Figures cut through the air one after another as Leo and his group flew in and landed on the plaza.
No people here either. Not even the black monsters. Only a thin layer of fog drifting through the air, putting the entire Eligos peerage on edge.
"Over there!"
Yukino's magic detection locked onto the enemy's position almost instantly, and she pointed in their direction.
Sure enough, several figures emerged from the drifting fog and walked toward the group.
"Yo, long time no see, head of the Eligos family."
A young man in a hanfu was the first to step out. That familiar fearless grin sat on his face, and his eyes burned bright as torches as he looked at Leo's group, greeting Leo like an old friend.
He carried a spear over his shoulder, its length exceeding his own height. The holy aura radiating from it made everyone present feel goosebumps crawling across their skin, filling them with instinctive dread.
"Th-that spear is...?!"
Ravel couldn't hide her alarm, her voice trembling.
"Dangerous!"
Ram, Rem, Asuna, Utaha, and Mahiru all locked their eyes onto the weapon, as if they were staring down a natural disaster.
"The True Longinus..."
Yukino murmured, her voice tinged with wariness even she couldn't fully conceal.
Only Leo remained expressionless as he looked at the spear wielder and spoke.
"So what's the excuse this time for the Hero Faction teaming up with the Old Satan Faction?"
It wasn't really an accusation. More of an idle question.
After all, the Hero Faction and the Old Satan Faction belonged to the same organization but operated as two factions with fundamentally different ideologies. Their relationship was anything but friendly.
The Old Satan Faction was a group of warmongers who looked down on angels and fallen angels alike. Their ultimate ambition was to eradicate both and let devils rule the world. People like that would never respect a group of humans wielding relics left behind by the Biblical God.
The Hero Faction needed no explanation either. Driven to prove that humans could triumph over the strong, they viewed every non-human race as a challenge to overcome. The Old Satan Faction, with their obsession over devil bloodlines, was naturally a target they wanted to crush.
That these two factions could coexist in the same organization was a miracle in itself. If they didn't both want to use the organization's leader's power to achieve their own goals, they'd have been at each other's throats long ago.
Cao Cao's words last time had made it clear enough. The Hero Faction looked down on the Old Satan Faction.
Last time, with Lafei Trix, they'd only provided technical support without getting personally involved. This time, they'd come in person.
"Relax. The Hero Faction and those arrogant devils are still at each other's throats. We'd never work together."
Cao Cao tapped the spear against his shoulder and smiled.
"This time was simply too good an opportunity. They wanted to do something to the three factions' leaders. We were more interested in you. So we struck at the same time, but we're not working together."
"As you've probably already figured out, this pocket dimension only has your Eligos peerage. Everyone else is somewhere else entirely."
"So this battlefield belongs to us alone. The Eligos peerage versus the Hero Faction."
Just as Leo's group suspected, no one else was here. Whether in the real world or another pocket dimension, they'd been separated.
The Hero Faction and the Old Satan Faction had clearly agreed in advance to target their respective interests without interfering with each other.
"What's your goal?" Yukino demanded. "Why single us out?"
"Simple enough, Miss Yukinoshita." Cao Cao flashed a brazen grin at her. "Zenith Tempest, Incinerate Anthem, Absolute Demise, Blade Blacksmith, Create World... these rare and powerful Sacred Gears were supposed to be humanity's precious assets. The few weapons we weak humans have to fight back against the supernatural."
"If the Hero Faction had these Sacred Gears, our strength would grow immeasurably."
"The way I see it, all of you who hold these Sacred Gears should have been the kind of talent we'd kill to recruit. But instead, you let devils seduce you to their side. Don't you think that's a waste?"
"So we chose you as our opponents for three reasons. First, to show you the power of humanity and make you regret ever reincarnating as devils. Second, most of us are Sacred Gear users too, so naturally we're interested in people who hold rare Sacred Gears. And third, if we kill you here, those Sacred Gears will choose new hosts. Maybe next time, they'll end up on our side."
With that, Cao Cao raised the Holy Spear and pointed it at Leo.
"Of course, settling which is stronger between the first-ranked and second-ranked Longinus is another reason we targeted you. Though that one's a personal wish of mine, not the Hero Faction's."
Cao Cao's eyes burned with fierce battle lust as he stared at Leo.
That intensity was just as thick as Vali's had been.
Clearly, Cao Cao was a battle maniac at heart, same as Vali. Now that he'd set his sights on Leo, he wasn't about to let go.
"Last time wasn't enough, was it?" Cao Cao said cheerfully. "This time we can go all out, head of the Eligos family."
Leo smiled.
A smile completely devoid of warmth.
"You're going to regret not finishing me off last time."
"It's not too late."
Cao Cao shot back without missing a beat.
The two stared each other down, and the atmosphere turned razor-sharp in an instant.
The next second, both vanished from where they stood.
BOOM!!!
Almost simultaneously, a deafening explosion erupted above the plaza.
Leo and Cao Cao had rocketed into the sky. One unleashed a towering bolt of lightning, the other released a torrent of holy light, and the two forces collided midair, detonating into a shockwave of terrifying magnitude.
The shockwave pulsed outward like invisible stars colliding, rattling the air, shaking the earth, making the entire world tremble.
Under those conditions, Leo and Cao Cao launched into a furious battle in the sky, producing one explosion and shockwave after another.
"Master!"
"Leo-sama!"
The girls of the Eligos peerage moved to help, but they were cut off.
WHOOSH!
A figure burst from the thin fog at blinding speed, charging straight at the girls and swinging a pitch-black blade at one of them.
CLANG!
The black blade was stopped by a thick wall of ice, sending ice shards and sparks flying in all directions.
"You?!"
Yukino stood behind the ice wall, her expression shifting the moment she saw who'd attacked her.
"Me."
The girl smiled sweetly, but her body radiated killing intent.
Blonde hair, green eyes, foreign beauty, wearing a veil and a nun's habit, each hand gripping a fang-like black blade...
Who else could it be but Sharon Holygrail?
"We meet again, Yukinoshita Yukino."
Sharon's smile was beautiful and her voice honeyed, but her eyes were colder than the ice wall in front of Yukino. Cold enough to make your blood freeze.
"Tch." Yukino clicked her tongue openly. "You really don't know when to quit."
"I have you to thank for that." Sharon kept smiling. "If you knew I was this persistent, you should have killed me last time instead of just freezing me. All that did was give someone the chance to rescue me so I could come back for revenge."
The moment she finished speaking, Sharon kicked the ice wall apart and slashed at Yukino in a fluid motion.
The strike was gorgeous in its darkness, packed with visible technical precision, fast and vicious. Yukino could tell immediately that Sharon had gotten stronger.
But Sharon wasn't the only one who'd grown.
"You think I'm the same person I was back then?"
Without any visible movement, Yukino's form drifted backward as if carried by a gust of powdered snow, effortlessly avoiding Sharon's black slash while speaking.
"So you've joined the Hero Faction."
"That's right. I joined a while ago." Sharon's eyes narrowed as she watched Yukino handle her with increasing ease. A flicker of darkness crossed her face before the smile returned. "After your master nearly killed me at the Yukinoshita residence, the Hero Faction reached out. I joined their group of hero descendants."
"These paired anti-devil exorcist blades in my hands, the Devil Slayers, were provided by the Hero Faction."
"I'm not a Sacred Gear user, but I carry devil factors in my body. That's why they gave me these weapons."
"Last time, I volunteered to go into that labyrinth dimension."
Sharon bit her own finger and fed her blood to the fang-like black blades. They drank it with near-feral greed, then erupted with a sinister aura that enveloped Sharon's entire body.
She dropped low into a charging stance.
"This time, I will destroy you."
Sharon's voice was frigid and dripping with malice.
Before, that kind of intensity would have rattled Yukino.
But not anymore.
"You think I'm who I used to be?"
Yukino's eyes shifted to icy blue. Freezing air exploded from her body, and the three-meter-tall Ice Princess materialized behind her, her hair whipping in the frigid wind.
"This time, I'll settle our score for real and beat you properly."
The current Yukino had every right to say that.
Sharon said nothing. She kicked off the ground and launched herself at Yukino like a bullet.
At the same time, the other girls found themselves intercepted by Hero Faction members who appeared from the fog.
CLANG!
Asuna was locked in a furious exchange of sword strikes with a blonde foreign woman. Blade met blade with clear, ringing notes, sending sparks scattering in clusters before the two were knocked apart.
"You're a holy sword user too?"
Asuna stared at the woman's weapon in surprise.
It was a rapier radiating holy energy.
Without question, a holy sword.
"Hehe." The blonde woman smirked playfully. "These things? We can make as many as we want."
She extended her other hand and created another holy sword out of thin air.
Yes.
She could create holy swords too.
Asuna was stunned.
"Let me introduce myself." The blonde woman licked her lips and grinned. "I'm the inheritor of the soul of Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orleans. And like you, I'm a wielder of Blade Blacksmith."
Blade Blacksmith was rare and powerful, but it wasn't a Longinus. It wasn't unique. While two Blade Blacksmith wielders existing in the same era was extraordinarily unlikely, today that coincidence had come to pass.
"Just call me Jeanne, little sister." Jeanne's smile was bright. "Since we're both Blade Blacksmith users, why don't we have a nice, friendly exchange?"
Asuna didn't respond. Her eyes simply sharpened, and she got serious.
BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!
Elsewhere, a spectacular series of explosions rocked the plaza, sending shockwaves and blasts rippling outward.
The source was a massively built man.
He was throwing wild punches at Utaha. Everything his fists touched, whether obstacles in the area or her hastily conjured barriers, detonated on contact.
"Where did this walking bomb come from?!"
Utaha deployed barrier after barrier to block his fists, yelling her complaints.
"Who are you calling a walking bomb?!"
The man's voice was deep and gruff.
"I'm the inheritor of the soul of Heracles, and the wielder of the Sacred Gear Variant Detonation. Remember that!"