Passing by a cluster of Sphinxes and walking down a long, luxurious corridor, Takumi was finally led by Nitocris to the heart of the temple.
Sitting high upon the throne was a man with slightly dark skin and brown hair, much like Nitocris. He was languidly... or perhaps wearily, rubbing his eyes.
This was the Sun King, Ozymandias. As for why he looked so exhausted while merely sitting on his throne, the reason was quite simple.
—Because his head had been lopped off by a certain Grand Assassin. The only reason he was currently alive and kicking was thanks to his high Divinity coupled with the powerful blessings of his temple complex, which allowed him to survive decapitation.
However, because of this, even he couldn't step a single foot outside of the temple complex. The moment he did, it would spell his death.
"...O Pharaoh, I have followed your previous command and brought the Master from Chaldea before you."
Nitocris offered a slight bow and spoke respectfully.
"Ah, We are aware. You may step back."
"Yes."
Once Nitocris retreated to the side, Ozymandias finally looked down at Takumi, who was staring back up at him.
"The Master of Chaldea, the last human, the one who has corrected the anomalies of five eras... we know of you."
Resting one hand on the armrest and propping his face up, Ozymandias narrowed his eyes and spoke.
Hearing this, Takumi wasn't surprised that a Servant like Ozymandias was aware of his movements. After all, he roughly knew the script.
"Just as we know of your existence, We assume you have a general understanding of Us and the anomaly of this era, yes?"
Takumi nodded.
He naturally understood the situation of the Sixth Singularity.
In short, before Takumi's arrival, the original Crusaders in this Singularity had already been utterly annihilated by the Knights of the Round Table led by the Lion King. Even Jerusalem had been conquered and replaced overnight by the Holy City of Camelot, built by the Lion King herself. The vast tracts of land outside the Holy City had been scoured into barren white wastelands where not a single blade of grass grew.
As for the Holy Grail originally held by the Crusaders, it had fallen into the hands of Ozymandias.
Thus, the current state of the Singularity was a three-way stalemate:
The Goddess Lion King, wielding the Holy Lance, held overwhelming supremacy and was Takumi's greatest adversary here.
Ozymandias, holding the Holy Grail, barely managed to stand as an equal opposing force against the Lion King. He was a potential ally Takumi could win over.
The Hassan faction of the People of the Mountains—who, assuming King Hassan didn't intervene, were the weakest and poorest faction—was also a potential ally to be won over.
And the reason Takumi had come to find Ozymandias was, naturally, to secure his aid.
"Excellent. Then we shall not waste breath on dull and meaningless matters."
Receiving Takumi's confirmation, the corners of Ozymandias' mouth ticked upward slightly. With a casual motion, he pulled the Holy Grail from within his body and tossed it lightly in his hand.
"Let us be clear from the start. We hold no hostility toward you. We are even willing to display a fraction of the Sun King's majesty to lend you aid. Even this Holy Grail, which we care little for, can be bestowed upon you without cost."
As he spoke, Ozymandias casually tossed the Holy Grail up and caught it again.
"However—"
As expected, Ozymandias' tone suddenly shifted. He looked at Takumi with utmost seriousness and gravity, declaring:
"—O final Master of humanity from another world, with what resolve have you come here?"
"When even we, the Sun King, find ourselves at an impasse, by what right do you claim you can defeat that Lion King and save this era?"
"Come, speak. So long as your answer satisfies us, the Holy Grail is yours, and the majesty of the Sun King shall take you under its protection."
Finished speaking, Ozymandias quietly observed Takumi, awaiting his answer.
"...Resolve, huh..."
Hearing Ozymandias' words, Takumi absentmindedly chewed on the word, suddenly feeling as if a lifetime had passed.
Hearing this cliché yet novel term now, Takumi realized he had never actually thought deeply about it. He had merely been pushing forward on his own.
Unable to help himself, Takumi reached up, rubbing his eyes and temples to relieve the exhaustion weighing on his mind and vision.
After thinking for a moment, Takumi spoke up, sounding almost as if he were making casual conversation:
"...I don't even know if what I have counts as 'resolve.'"
"At first, I just went to sleep in my bed, only to wake up inexplicably in an entirely empty Chaldea. After experiencing the anger, madness, and despair any normal person would feel... I accepted my fate."
"I threw everything I had into studying knowledge I had never even heard of before. Day and night, I did nothing else. I lost track of how much hair I pulled out, thinking that as long as I desperately kept moving, I could ignore the suffocating reality."
"I even fantasized that I was some peerless genius who could understand and master anything at a glance. But the truth was, it took me months just to barely spark a flame through magecraft that was weaker than a cheap lighter."
"I had no idea how long it would take someone with my meager aptitude to truly learn magecraft and use it in combat. All I knew was that I couldn't stand being in that empty Chaldea for another second. So, like a headless fly, without even knowing if a normal Rayshift was possible, I initiated the Rayshift sequence I had blindly cobbled together..."
As he spoke, Takumi couldn't help but let out a soft laugh.
"Haha. Back then, I actually only had a tiny sliver of hope that I would successfully transfer. Mostly, I was just looking for a release."
"After all, leaving aside whether I could even survive the transfer, even if I did, how could someone with my half-baked skills possibly survive? To be completely honest, I just went there to die."
"I was just someone who refused to sit around waiting for death, who refused to commit a pathetic suicide. I chose to put in the effort so I could go out there and die—to die on the path moving forward."
Takumi answered his own question, yet a strange, vibrant light flickered in his eyes. A helpless, almost self-deprecating smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.
"But even so... I just couldn't stop myself from hoping. Especially after I realized I had some kind of special ability, I couldn't hold back that hope—"
"—I wanted to be a hero. I wanted to be the so-called savior, to rescue everyone from their suffering. I wanted to be a solitary savior."
Clutching his chest over his heart, Takumi looked up at Ozymandias and Nitocris and laughed again.
"Haha, sounds a bit childish, doesn't it?"
Neither of them answered his joke; they merely looked at him in silence.
In a corner where no one was looking, Nitocris gripped her staff so tightly that her knuckles turned white.
"...But that childish dream... it's stayed in my heart all the way until now."
Receiving no answer, Takumi lowered his eyes and softly spoke the second half of his thought.
Suddenly.
CLANG!
The sound of a hammer striking directly against the soul rang out once more. It echoed into the hearts of the two listeners, making them both involuntarily squeeze their eyes shut for a moment.
At the exact same time, the flames within Takumi's pupils unknowingly began to burn with fierce intensity.
Takumi continued:
"Where would I get some grand ambition or sense of duty to save all living things? I actually don't care all that much about 'saving the Human Order.' From the very beginning, I was just lost in my own childish fantasies—fantasizing that one day, I could become a hero, become a savior."
"And the only reason I had that thought was because I thought being a hero, being a savior, would be really cool. Really badass. That I'd get praised by a lot of people and satisfy my own vanity."
"'I want to be a hero too'—isn't that core motivation pretty cool?"
Takumi smiled as he said this.
But this time, he didn't give them time to answer. He immediately followed up with a self-deprecating tone:
"But my true core motivation now... my true wish... isn't cool at all."
"Becoming a hero is just a bonus to me now. My true wish and driving force are both laughable and boring..."
Takumi fell silent for a moment, his nose stinging.
"...But... I really, really, really just want to see them again..."
He sniffled, tears prickling at the corners of his eyes. Not wanting to let them fall, Takumi tilted his head back.
In his slightly blurred vision, Takumi almost thought he saw the silhouettes of Jeanne, Nero, and all the Servants who had ever helped him.
Lost in his desperate longing, Takumi fantasized:
"...I want to see them one more time. I want to show off in front of them. I want to defeat that enemy with them as my witnesses. I want to be surrounded by them when the dust finally settles, and listen to them praise me..."
Finishing his words, Takumi wiped the tears from his eyes and looked at Ozymandias on the throne with a red-rimmed, yet undeniably resolute gaze.
"That is why I absolutely refuse to let them disappear because of the Incineration of Humanity. I will bet everything I have to strike down every single enemy in my path. And at the very, very end, I will hear them say, 'I knew you could do it'!"
"So, for the sake of that wish, for the sake of everyone who has ever helped me—absolutely no one will stop me from moving forward!"
The moment the words left his mouth, a ring of transparent, immaterial fire suddenly erupted from Takumi's body. It expanded outward across the temple floor, only to vanish completely in the blink of an eye.
At the exact same time, the flames in Takumi's pupils violently flared, looking as if they were about to leap out from his very eyes.