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[Chat]:
[Going_Wild]: OH MY GOD. ARTORIA.
[Loving_This]: I feel like this Japanese woman is in serious trouble~
[Here_For_It]: here we go, here we go — my absolute favorite content: women fighting
[Fashion_First]: wait what version of Artoria is this outfit from?
[Tired_Of_It]: how many Artorias is Max going to put in this game?
[Betting]: Can Ushi Gozen actually win this?
[Analysis]: she's guaranteed to win — black mud boost, Randy's support, AND Artoria came in as the challenger. the math isn't in MHX's favor
The chat surged.
On the back of the Ox-King Great Divine Messenger, with lightning rolling through the clouds on all sides and the ground a distant blur far below, MHX and Ushi Gozen locked eyes.
The killing intent from both of them hit the air between them like a physical thing.
MHX spoke first. Her voice was completely level.
"Let me give you some advice."
A beat.
"When you tell someone you're going to kill them—" she raised the golden blade, "—you'd better have already done it."
"Exposing killing intent that obvious?" Ushi Gozen's grip tightened on the black blade. "I can't exactly ignore that."
"Shut up, you demon!"
Gold ions scattered across the sky.
Thunder answered from the dark clouds — not a response, just the storm doing what storms do. A bolt came down hard and fast, and Ushi Gozen's black blade met MHX's Nameless Blade in the same instant, catching the strike with a sound like a gunshot.
The block held.
But MHX hadn't committed to that angle.
Without giving Ushi Gozen a moment to wrestle for position, the Nameless Blade scraped down the length of the black blade and slid free — using the contact to redirect, not fight. MHX's entire body dropped at the same time, ducking under a counter-swing aimed at her ahoge by a margin that was technically adequate and aesthetically nerve-wracking. Then she shifted her grip to backhand and drove the Sword of Victory hard into Ushi Gozen's left flank.
A+ Agility. Full output.
There was no time to react. One moment Ushi Gozen's gaze was on MHX's face — the next, golden steel had already bitten into the black armor at her waist.
[Chat]:
[Speed_Check]: did she just — did you see how fast that was?
[Impressed]: A+ Agility is genuinely terrifying in close quarters
[Watching_Randy]: Randy is three feet away from all of this with literally nowhere to go
[Randy_Situation]: "fend for yourself" is going to hit different in about thirty seconds
"Die, Saber!"
"Bold claim!" MHX held the position, both hands on the hilt, pressing inward. "Roar — Thunder!"
It should have ended there. Against most Servants, a blade sunk that deep into the torso at that angle was a finishing blow. The follow-through alone would have done it.
But Ushi Gozen, remade through black mud corruption, wasn't most Servants.
The boost the corruption had given her wasn't just raw power — it was distributed across her entire parameter spread, including the equipment she carried. The black armor she wore had no official designation in any historical record. It had been assembled from materials that had no business being assembled together: unusual bones, stranger blood, the kind of components that ended up in weapons because someone had decided that function mattered more than classification.
Among other things, the armor carried a passive mental suppression effect. B-rank and below magical influence — negated outright. Emotional interference — nullified. What remained in Ushi Gozen while wearing it was exactly one thing: the desire to keep moving forward until everything around her stopped.
The armor also absorbed damage.
Not cleanly. Not elegantly. The blade had gone in. Ushi Gozen was bleeding — MHX could see it, a thin line of red at her waist where the Sword of Victory had cut through. But the bone-and-blood structure of the armor had compressed around the blade. Locked it.
MHX's expression shifted — not fear. Surprise.
It's stuck.
Ushi Gozen didn't say anything. She raised the black blade above her head with both hands and brought it down in the same motion, and a column of pitch-black lightning came with it, spearing directly at MHX's ahoge.
For a fraction of a second, Randy thought it was over.
Then a line of crimson light cut through the dark.
MHX's left wrist twisted — a fast, practiced motion — and a second Sword of Victory materialized in her grip. Black and red, humming with a different frequency than the gold one still buried in Ushi Gozen's armor. She brought it up in a sharp flick, not a full parry — just enough contact to knock the descending black blade off its trajectory.
The sure-kill became a near-miss.
Ushi Gozen stumbled back half a step from the deflection.
MHX didn't wait.
She transferred the red Sword of Victory to her right hand in one fluid movement. Her left hand grabbed the golden hilt still jammed in Ushi Gozen's waist. And then — simultaneously, from both sides — she drove both blades home.
The black armor let out a sound that wasn't quite metal and wasn't quite bone. Something structural giving way.
Both blades sank deeper.
[Chat]:
[Two_Swords]: TWO SWORDS. SHE HAS TWO SWORDS.
[Lore_Moment]: Galaxy Meteor Sword and the Nameless Blade — she's running dual Excalibur variants simultaneously
[Math_Check]: double slash on the same wound point. that armor is not designed for this.
[Ushi_Gozen_Fans]: I'm worried
[Randy_Update]: Randy has not moved. Randy is simply witnessing.
MHX shifted her weight, reading the angle — one more push and the torso division was complete.
The "ground" moved.
Beneath her feet, the Ox-King Great Divine Messenger lurched — not from the fight, just from its own movement, enormous and indifferent. The shift was small in absolute terms. For someone mid-maneuver with both hands occupied, it was enough.
MHX's posture broke by a few degrees.
Enough.
Ushi Gozen found the gap and took it. She wrenched her torso hard to the right — against the direction of the double slash, deliberately widening the wounds rather than protecting them, because she'd already calculated that the trade was worth it. The movement exposed her flank further.
It also freed her arms.
Both black blades came in from directly above MHX's head.
MHX felt the wind pressure and didn't move to dodge. There was no point — the blades were embedded, the positioning was locked, and in this range, speed didn't matter anymore. What mattered was something simpler.
Which one of them was willing to go further.
She wasn't going to trade blow for blow. That wasn't the plan.
Something massive and golden materialized behind her.
Golden Steed II.
MHX's mount. The source of her innate skill — Support Barrage, transmitted through a communication link that technically shouldn't have functioned in this world and did anyway, at reduced capacity. The damage output was a fraction of what it would have been in its home universe. In this context, that wasn't the point.
The point was one second.
She just needed Ushi Gozen's hands to hesitate for one second.
Golden fire poured out in a spread pattern. The impact rattled up through Ushi Gozen's arms, a vibration more than a blow — but enough. Her descending strike slowed by exactly the margin MHX needed.
"Kazda!" MHX's energy surged. "I win!"
"—" Ushi Gozen looked at the blades in her body. Then at MHX. Then at the situation in general. Her expression didn't change, because the armor prevented it from changing.
What came out instead was almost conversational.
"You really do have tricks." A short exhale. "But did you think this was enough to finish me? Don't underestimate me, you ahoge little menace." She tilted her head back, chin raised, speaking to the sky. "Be enraged, Ox-King Great Divine Messenger!"
She glanced once at Randy.
"My apologies, Master. Please fend for yourself."
The Noble Phantasm had already been responding to the fight instinctively, its massive frame shifting and crackling. Now it answered the direct call.
A bolt of lightning came down from directly above — not a strike, not a thunderclap. A river. A sustained column of electrical current wide enough to swallow both of them, descending in one unbroken line from the clouds to the back of the Ox-King's shoulders where MHX and Ushi Gozen were standing.
The target was both of them.
MHX had no time to move. The current hit and the sensation in her hands vanished instantly — nerves overwhelmed, grip strength gone, the force she'd been applying through both blades simply ceasing to exist.
White steam rose from Ushi Gozen in plumes. The current had gone through her too. Her armor took the worst of it, the bone-and-blood structure conducting and dispersing what it could.
Her movements didn't stop.
The poles reversed.
[Chat]:
[Screaming]: SHE CALLED THE LIGHTNING ON HERSELF
[Lightning_Logic]: the armor negates mental effects and absorbs physical damage — she calculated that she could take the bolt and MHX couldn't
[Cold_Blooded]: she literally told Randy to fend for himself before doing it
[Randy_Status]: RANDY STATUS UPDATE — still present, still witnessing, presumably airborne
[MHX_Status]: hands are numb. blades dropped. Ushi Gozen is moving.
[Terrified]: this is actually terrifying. she's not even angry. she just decided.
[Max_Input]: Max hasn't said anything in a while. he's just watching.
[Same]: honestly same
[End of Chapter 156]
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