The more Broly thought about it, the angrier he got. Why was the other guy allowed to throw things while he…
"Eh?!"
A little spark went off in his head. Broly suddenly realized he could throw things too.
He raised his small hand, took aim at the golden-haired man in the sky, and gathered his ki…
What is he doing?
Gilgamesh felt a sudden pang of unease.
He shifted his footing and quickly moved from where he had been standing.
A moment later, an energy blast swept right through his former position.
The Noble Phantasm he'd been standing on was instantly vaporized.
Gilgamesh: ?!
He snapped his gaze down.
Broly blinked like someone who had just discovered a new world. He lifted his other hand—just as he happened to look up.
Their eyes met. Broly flashed an innocent smile that clearly said, "Now it's my turn to throw things at you." Green light bloomed in both his palms.
Boom boom boom…
A string of explosions echoed through the roar of the rain, water vapor flashing into a thick fog in midair.
And because "no smoke without fire" held true, a gold‑and‑green flying craft burst out of the mist.
Gilgamesh stood on the Vimana. If he had not reacted fast enough to summon a pile of defensive Noble Phantasms, he would have been blown to bits by the kid's energy blasts.
Even so, he looked more than a little disheveled. His arms‑folded kingly pose was gone. The magical barrier that had been keeping off the rain had vanished, and his hair and face were soaked.
Worse, that monster child had launched into the air again. Green light gathered in his hands as he gave chase, flinging those terrifying energy spheres just as Gilgamesh had flung his treasures.
The difference was, Gilgamesh's Noble Phantasms had barely scratched the boy. A few good hits from those blasts, and Gilgamesh would be done.
Behind the Vimana, strings of green light flared, the violent explosions parting curtains of rain.
On the ground, the people already aware of this fight could only stare, dumbstruck. Only the downpour muffled most of the noise, and the modern internet did not yet exist. Otherwise, this spectacular aerial bombardment would have been all over the world within hours.
Gilgamesh pulled the Vimana up and plunged into the thunderclouds. Lightning flickered through the dark masses, while the blasts from behind continued to chase him.
Vimana does have lightning protection.
He thought as he glanced back.
Just then, a bolt of lightning flashed down at Broly.
Too fast to dodge, it struck him squarely.
Smoke curled off him as he dropped.
"Even a monster is no match for the power of nature."
Gilgamesh murmured. Once upon a time, he had also tried to defy the natural order of life and death—and failed.
No sooner had he sighed than another explosion cracked behind him.
He looked back to see the boy who had just fallen smoking was once again tearing after him full of energy.
Broly's whole body tingled, but he was otherwise fine.
At that, Gilgamesh's mind went blank, but there was no room to complain.
All he could do was continue luring the boy toward denser clusters of storm clouds.
Lightning came again, drawn by the charge still clinging to Broly.
This time, however, it did not stun him.
A green barrier flared around him in advance. Carrying the bolt of natural lightning on his body, Broly just kept on chasing the ship ahead.
"Did the fallen age of myths leave something behind in this world?"
Gilgamesh wanted to ask. Only those terrifying beings from the mythic age could have possessed the power to contend with the forces of nature.
Of course, lightning alone was not the strongest face of nature, but to tank it with nothing but flesh was unnerving enough.
The chase and bombardment continued. As Broly grew more and more comfortable fighting at range in the air, the pressure on Gilgamesh only increased.
Tokiomi was an excellent magus, but even he was starting to fall short under the constant bombardment of Noble Phantasms and the Vimana's fuel‑hungry evasive maneuvers.
After half an hour of aerial dodgeball and cat‑and‑mouse, Gilgamesh had no choice but to pull mana restoratives from his treasury and drink.
By the one‑hour mark, with the rain easing and the lightning all but gone, Broly had driven the Vimana up to ten thousand meters.
"Wait."
Just as Broly was about to hurl another blast at the ship, Gilgamesh called out.
Any other opponent would never have stopped here.
But Broly was different. Curious what the man wanted to say, he actually halted.
"If we keep going like this, we'll just waste each other's time. How about we settle this in a single strike?"
Gilgamesh proposed.
Most of his mana had gone into flight, and he was nearly tapped. Meanwhile, the monster boy looked as vigorous as ever.
If this chase continued, it was only a matter of time before he lost. Better to use his strongest attack and decide it in one blow.
"Okay."
Broly agreed after only a moment's thought. His time was tight too. He had already wasted a lot of it on this guy who could throw lots of things and fly very fast. A one‑shot showdown suited him just fine.
"First, no sneak attacks before either of us unleashes our strongest move. Second, once we fire, neither of us is allowed to dodge the other's ultimate. Can you accept those terms?"
"Yes."
"Good. Then it's settled."
Seeing Broly agree, Gilgamesh let out a quiet breath.
His strongest move lay in his Deviant Sword, Ea, but to produce an attack strong enough to actually pierce this monster's defense, Ea needed to absorb mana for some time before release.
With the boy pressing him so hard and fast, he had not had the chance. Even if he had somehow fully charged Ea, with that speed it might not have hit.
That was why he had never drawn Ea—until now, with his back almost to the wall. Only then had he stopped and proposed a one‑shot duel.
Honestly, using a trick like this on a child—monster or not—was a little despicable.
But cunning was part of strength too. If the boy had agreed, it only proved he was young and inexperienced. Gilgamesh could hardly be blamed.
Ea fell into his hand, and he began letting it drink in the mana of the air around him.
Down below, Tokiomi had long since regained consciousness.
Beaten black and blue, he was told as soon as he woke that his Servant had taken the fight with the monster boy into the sky.
"Tokiomi!"
"King of Heroes, did you win?"
"No. He is a strong foe. I've agreed to decide this with a single blow."
Gilgamesh did not mention how close he had come to the edge.
"Use all your Command Seals. I need an enormous amount of mana to fully unleash Ea."
"Uh…"
Tokiomi balked. If he burned all his Command Seals, could he even still call himself a Master?
"Forget that worthless cup. If this thing in front of me isn't dealt with, you may not live long enough to see it."
Gilgamesh saw straight through his Master's thoughts and snorted.
"…"
Feeling like his body was falling apart, Tokiomi made his choice.
"By my Command Seal… O great King of Heroes, please defeat the enemy before you."
His voice whistling through his broken teeth, he repeated the words twice. The two remaining Seals on his hand vanished, turning into a vast surge of mana that flooded through the contract into his Servant.
Ten thousand meters up, in the stratosphere, the once‑calm air began to roil with the spinning of Ea's blade.
The Command Seal mana was not enough by itself. Gilgamesh used it to pry open the flow of all the latent mana over Fuyuki, drawing the loose energy in the atmosphere into his sword.
The result: the remaining storm clouds in the troposphere below began to spin as well. The area affected was enormous.
…
"Abnormal weather has been detected off the Kansai coast of Japan…"
Weather satellites in orbit over multiple countries had all picked up the anomaly.
"Director, we've got a situation."
At the USA Special Investigation Bureau, a spy satellite's feed of Fuyuki's upper airspace was thrown up on a screen at his subordinate's shout.
"OMG… a human did that?"
Watching the footage of the two figures at the center of the disturbance—especially the way Gilgamesh's Ea was affecting the atmosphere—staffers could not help but cry out.
"That's probably not a human. According to intel, three major magus families are conducting a so‑called 'Holy Grail ritual' in that city."
"You've got to be kidding me. This is what they call a secret ritual?"
"Uh…"
The intel officer had no answer. With a disturbance like this, any country with weather satellites would know something was happening over Fuyuki.
…
"Get in the cart."
"What is it, Rider?"
Waver had no idea what was going on when the big man suddenly tossed him onto the ox cart.
"Tactical retreat."
Iskandar said.
"Eh? Why?"
"See that hole in the clouds above us? Feel how the mana in the air is all rushing upward?"
He pointed overhead.
Waver nodded, still not understanding why they had to run.
"That's probably the King of Heroes going all out. And if he really drops his strongest Noble Phantasm from up there, judging by the mess he's making, the whole city might be wiped out.
"If we don't put some distance between us and Fuyuki right now, there may not be time later."
"Wait—you're saying Archer is doing this?"
Waver's eyes flew wide.
"Of course. I know his aura. Anyway, no time to chat. Hold on! Hyah!"
The oxen lunged forward, and the cart thundered off away from Fuyuki in a cloud of dust.
…
"Aren't you going to get ready?"
Once the mana had mostly gathered, Gilgamesh looked over and saw Broly just floating in place at his left, staring at him blankly. He could not help asking.
What am I supposed to do?
Broly was confused, then suddenly understood and immediately darted from Gilgamesh's left to his right.
"What are you doing?"
Gilgamesh frowned.
"On beam clashes, the left side always loses. So I'm standing on the right."
Broly answered with total seriousness.
Gilgamesh: …
He had no words.
"Aren't you going to prepare your own strongest move?"
"I'm ready. Look."
Broly opened his right hand and showed him a tiny, glass‑marble‑sized ball of energy.
He did not know what counted as his "strongest move," but he did know that compressing his ki would produce a more powerful blast.
That deep green bead was the limit of how much energy he could compress with his current control.
Gilgamesh: …
Judging a blast by its looks was not wise, but in that moment the King of Heroes still felt victory in his grasp—or rather, that it would be a rather cheap and hollow win.
Look at the storm he had raised, then look at the silent little bead over there.
"Are you sure you don't want to power it up more?"
"I can't compress any more ki into it. If I do, it'll blow up."
"Fine. Then… are you ready?"
"Yeah."
"Then listen well. 'I will now recount the genesis. When the world was created, the void, too, rejoiced. O sword of rupture that sunders the world itself—this time your foe is but one, yet he is mighty enough to merit your full release…'"
Enormous mana gathered in Ea. Red‑brown lightning crackled and raged around the blade.
"Your name was Broly, wasn't it?"
"Mm."
"Broly, here I come."
Gilgamesh even gave him a heads‑up before unleashing the strike, then leveled Ea at him.
"Enuma Elish!"
Red‑brown energy roared out of the sword like a flood.
In response, Broly simply tossed his compressed orb.
The instant energy met energy, the marble‑sized blast began to swell.
In the blink of an eye, the surging red‑brown wave from Ea was swallowed whole by the expanding sphere.
Gilgamesh's eyes flew wide as one thought flashed through his head: Does the left side really always lose beam clashes?
Then his body was ripped apart by the overwhelming energy.
Broly's compressed blast did not slow. It parted the planet of the Nasuverse in a neat center part, then streaked into space. Before it truly flew off, it skimmed the moon and neatly shaved a tenth of the lunar mass away.
A certain princess sleeping in the Millennium Castle shot awake, rushed to her window, and looked up to see the missing wedge in the moon. A chill ran through her—her own body had nearly been obliterated.
…
Gurgle…
The fight done, Broly's stomach growled. He had poured too much ki into that blast and burned through a lot of stamina.
He drifted down from the sky, clothes in tatters, but no one dared look down on him.
Food could wait. Someone else's old bastard father still needed finishing.
Broly raised his little fist and stomped back toward Tokiomi.
"No, don't come any closer!"
What followed was pure, unadulterated violence. The already‑mangled Tokiomi got another thorough beating, and under Broly's spectacular "physical persuasion," the whole foster‑daughter plan was quietly scrapped.
The more practical reason, of course, was that with his Servant gone, Tokiomi was out of the Grail War. Only a madman would still hand his daughter over now.
Zouken had his own designs, but when Broly's unfriendly gaze turned on him, he quickly plastered on a sycophantic smile and pushed Sakura forward with both hands.
Who would risk angering such a monster over a talented child? Was his life too long?
The sky after the rain was beautiful. Standing in the sunlight refracted by lingering mist, Broly turned to Sakura.
"I helped you take your home back. You can go home now."
Sakura stared, stunned, her Happiness Value spiking upward. Then she could not hold back any longer.
She threw herself at him, wrapped her arms around his neck, and sobbed.
"Big Brother Broly, I don't want to go home. That's not my home. I want to go home with you."
__________
(≧◡≦) ♡ Support me and read 10 chapters ahead – patreon.com/Mutter