A mental landscape—Unlimited Blade Works.
The sky burned crimson. Vast iron gears turned slowly overhead, their grinding thunder like a countdown carved into fate itself. Below stretched an endless wasteland, studded with tens of thousands of blades—swords, spears, knives, sabers of every shape and era.
Each weapon was a gravestone.Each weapon was a history.
This was Emiya Shirou's inner world—an inferno made only for forging, where nothing existed but steel.
And at the center of that wasteland, two powers capable of tearing space apart were colliding without mercy.
BOOM—!!
Ottar—Orario's summit—looked like a tyrannosaurus rampaging through a porcelain shop. Fully beastified, he radiated a dark-red pressure wave, and every swing of his Overlord Black Blade—new as it was—sent up storms of steel. Even that fresh weapon was beginning to crack under the strain.
"Useless!" Ottar roared, swatting aside dozens of incoming projected Noble Phantasms as though they were dead branches. They shattered in midair, fragments scattering like sparks.
This was Lv.7's raw tyranny.
Before absolute numbers, "quantity" stopped meaning anything.
"…Then how about this?" Shirou stood atop a mound of swords. His face was pale as ash, but his eyes were bright enough to burn.
"In this world, I don't need chanting. I don't need mana loading."
He raised his hand.
"This… is my home field."
He slashed his palm downward.
"Full Open—All-Directions Barrage!"
The swords embedded in the earth answered like a choir.
One hundred.One thousand.Five thousand—
The sky disappeared behind steel.
It wasn't a "rain of swords" anymore.
It was a river.
Countless blades converged into a silver dragon and surged at Ottar from every direction, screaming through the air with murderous clarity—enough to strip even a real dragon to bone in an instant.
Watching through a divine mirror, even Hermes couldn't help blurting out, "That's cheating! That's not how adventurers fight! In that space he's basically running infinite ammo and zero cooldowns!"
Faced with a torrent that should have erased anything alive, Ottar didn't retreat.
Instead, he threw away the greatsword whose edge had already begun to roll.
Then he settled into a stance—one hammered into him by countless battles at the boundary between life and death.
Ottar let out a roar that shook the very Reality Marble.
His muscles swelled to their limit. His skin darkened until it looked like black iron.
"Hildis Vini—Full Counter Mode!"
His fists became a blizzard of afterimages.
He was punching the sword-dragon head-on—bare-handed.
Each strike shattered a projected treasure.Each blow dispersed a slice of the storm.
And he kept moving forward.
Step by step, he advanced through infinite blades like an icebreaker forcing its way upriver, smashing anything that dared stand in his path with violence too unreasonable to be real.
So this is… the strongest?
A chill crawled up Shirou's spine as he watched that blood-soaked figure refuse to fall.
Inside this domain, every blade launched at Ottar was a B-rank to A-rank projection. A normal adventurer would be crippled by a graze.
But Ottar had endured thousands upon thousands of cuts with his body and still wouldn't go down.
"EMIYA SHIROU!" Ottar bellowed, closing to within fifty meters. "Is this all your 'infinity' amounts to?! If this is your limit—then shatter!"
He stomped.
The ground collapsed.
Ottar became a black cannonball, punching through the swordstorm and appearing in front of Shirou in an instant. A blood-smeared iron fist, packed with unquestionable intent to kill, drove straight for Shirou's face.
There was no room to dodge.
At this distance, even a miracle wouldn't be fast enough.
And yet—
Shirou didn't move.
He didn't run.
He smiled.
"Finally…" his lips formed soundlessly, eyes narrowing with cold satisfaction. "You walked right into it."
"What—?!" Ottar's instincts screamed.
In the instant before the fist reached Shirou—
The dark-red katana in Shirou's hands—Tsumukari Muramasa—released a strange, silent pulse.
It wasn't mana.
It was an absolute severing force aimed at divinity and causality itself.
In this Reality Marble, every sword was a fake.
Only this one wasn't.
This blade—fused from ancient dragonbone, a moon goddess's fragment, and Shirou's own soul—was the single true thing in a world of replicas.
And just moments earlier, Shirou had used that spectacular sword-flood to hide what he was really doing.
He had compressed every stray particle of mana drifting through the Reality Marble…
…into this one sword.
This strike wasn't meant to kill you.
It was meant to—
—sever your "invincibility."
"Tsumukari—!!"
Shirou gripped the katana with both hands and swung, meeting Ottar's fist with a cut that wagered everything.
There was no explosion.
No sound.
Only a thin red line that slipped through space like a hairline crack.
The world… shifted.
Ottar's fist stopped one centimeter from Shirou's nose.
Not because he chose to stop—
Because his strength was simply… gone.
SHNK.
A line of blood bloomed across Ottar's chest.
Then it erupted, spraying like a fountain. His "absolute defense" split open, the wound carved so deep the bone beneath was visible.
Worse—
He felt it.
The Blessing inside him—his link to his god—had been forcibly severed.
Beastification collapsed.Mana dispersed.Lv.7's overwhelming protection… failed.
"This… is…" Ottar stared, eyes wide, at the boy before him. He couldn't understand it. Why had his power vanished in an instant?
Shirou dropped to one knee, bracing himself on the katana like a crutch, blood spilling from his lips—mana exhaustion shredding him from within.
"Because this is my world," he rasped. "In here… I decide."
"I cut the causality connecting you to the outside."
"For this one moment…"
He raised his eyes, gold-and-amber burning through the pain.
"…you're just a man."
"A man…" Ottar echoed, stunned.
Then—slowly—his severe expression softened into something almost relieved.
"I see."
Dragging the battlefield into a mental landscape… then using a true-name divine armament to sever causality.
This wasn't only victory by power.
It was victory by warcraft.
Around them, the world began to crumble. The red sky fractured. The gears overhead stilled. The wasteland dissolved.
Shirou's mana was empty.
The Reality Marble could no longer hold.
And then—
They were back in the real plaza.
Their poses hadn't changed.
Ottar's fist hovered before Shirou's face.Shirou's katana had cut across Ottar's chest.
All of Orario held its breath.
Who won?
Ottar exhaled. He drew his fist back. His body swayed… and then the strongest in Orario dropped to one knee.
"…I lost," he said quietly.
The plaza exploded.
"He won!""The red-haired kid won!""Lv.5 beat Lv.7—are you insane?!""This is the biggest upset in Orario history!""A miracle—this is a miracle!"
But Shirou didn't celebrate.
He turned and looked behind him—toward where Freya Familia's banner had been planted.
It was gone.
Long before anyone noticed, the moment Shirou expanded his Reality Marble, he'd projected a pseudo Spiral Sword, used the blind spot, and blasted the flag away.
The duel with Ottar had been, in the end, to buy time…
…and for the sake of a man's pride.
Victory by the rules.That was Emiya Shirou's battle aesthetic.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
Clear applause drifted down from Babel Tower's highest level. Even from hundreds of meters away, everyone could hear it—like a bell striking bone.
"Splendid."
Freya stood on the balcony, violet gown whipping in the wind. There was no rage on her face—only the ecstasy of someone who had discovered an incomparable treasure.
"You severed my Charm… and even defeated my trump card."
"Your radiance… exceeds my imagination."
She lifted a hand and blew Shirou a kiss.
"As agreed—this time, you win. Loki Familia is safe."
Loki Familia erupted into sobs and laughter, clinging to each other.
They wouldn't be wiped out.Their "chef" wouldn't be stolen.They had survived the goddess's madness.
But Freya's voice returned—sweet, sticky, and deeply unsettling.
"Don't think this is over, my beloved."
"This was only the first stage of my 'proposal.'"
"Now that you've proven your worth…"
"I'll pursue you with methods more passionate—more direct."
Her eyes gleamed like a blade wrapped in velvet.
"I will watch you."
"Wherever you are. Whatever you do."
"My eyes… will always be on you."
"Until you… come to my side of your own will."
With that, Freya turned and vanished back into the tower, leaving the plaza frozen in collective disbelief—and a red-haired boy feeling his spine turn to ice.
That wasn't romance.
That was an obsessive stalker's ultimate declaration—broadcast to the whole server.
"Shirou!"
Ais Wallenstein sprinted to him and caught him as he staggered, arms tight around his waist.
"Are you hurt?"
Shirou forced a crooked smile, feeling the hollow ache of total depletion.
He'd won.
But the price was savage.
His right hand was starting to turn faintly translucent again—only temporarily, the backlash of empty mana, but still enough to make his stomach drop.
And the sensation of being watched by that goddess—
It was worse than dying.
"Let's go home," Ais said, gripping his hand like she'd never let go. Her golden eyes were steady, unshakable.
"No matter what she tries…"
"I'll protect you."
Shirou nodded.
"Yeah."
No matter what came next… for now, he'd protected this place.
Three days later—Twilight Manor.
A grand victory feast filled the halls. It wasn't just for the War Game's result, but for Shirou's safe return—though he'd still spent two days in bed afterward.
"Cheers!"
Cups clinked. Laughter roared.
Even the girls of the Astraea Familia had shown up, drinking shoulder-to-shoulder with Loki Familia's members. Ryuu and Ais were quietly competing in the shadows, each trying to place more food on Shirou's plate. Haruhime watched the chaos with bliss on her face, tail swishing like a metronome of happiness.
"Emiya—come with me."
Finn Deimne pulled Shirou out onto the balcony when the "harem battlefield" inside got too intense.
"Captain?" Shirou brought a cup of juice with him. "What's up?"
Finn's gaze went to the katana at Shirou's waist—Tsumukari Muramasa—his expression deep.
"That blade… it's not a normal weapon."
"In that domain… I felt something even gods would hesitate to touch."
Shirou rubbed the hilt lightly. "Yeah. More or less."
"It's… a god-slaying blade. Made from dragonbone and a moon goddess's fragment. A sword meant to 'cut gods.'"
Finn gave a dry smile.
"You really never stop raising the stakes."
Then his face hardened.
"But with that power… that plan might be moved up."
"Plan?" Shirou's eyes sharpened.
"The clean-up of the artificial labyrinth," Finn said, looking out over the city's shadows. "Thanatos is dead. But the core—what they called 'the other side of the Great Hole'—still connects to an unknown abyss."
"And lately…" Finn's voice lowered. "The Guild detected strange tremors beneath the sixtieth floor."
Shirou's pulse tightened.
"You mean…"
"The sixty-first?" he whispered. "Or… deeper?"
Finn nodded.
"We suspect the so-called 'corrupted spirit' was only a tentacle of something bigger."
"The real body may still be sleeping in the depths."
"If it wakes…"
Finn's eyes were grim.
"That will be a true catastrophe."
Shirou fell silent, remembering the gaze he'd felt on the sixtieth floor—remembering the black-robed figure… and the pulsing cocoon of flesh.
"…So we don't get much rest," Shirou sighed, draining his juice.
Then he turned back toward the warm light and the laughter inside—toward the people he'd chosen to protect.
"It's fine."
"As long as everyone's together…"
"Even if it's the end of the world…"
"…I'll cut it down for you."
Finn's hand landed on his shoulder.
"Then I'm counting on you, Senji Muramasa."
Shirou grinned.
"Leave it to me."
Deep beneath Orario—far from lantern light—inside the sewers.
A man in a shredded cloak knelt before a massive altar. On the altar sat a black heart, still beating—slow, heavy, obscene.
"So you failed… Thanatos."
His voice was hoarse, jagged like rusted metal.
"Even Zald and Alfia… those two wastes… couldn't finish the job."
He lifted his head.
A face carved with scars and curses emerged from the shadows—
A face the world believed belonged to the dead.
"But it doesn't matter," he murmured, stroking the black heart as if it were a lover.
"The seed has already been planted."
"That red-haired boy…"
"His soul is the final key to awaken Mother."
"Wait, Orario."
"When the day of Eclipse arrives…"
"You'll finally understand…"
"…what real hell is."
He laughed, the sound ricocheting through the tunnels and scattering mutated rats.
And on the surface of that black heart, an eerie sigil slowly appeared—
A spirit wrapped in chains, crying.
A new storm was brewing.
And this time, it would be the finale—wagering the fate of the entire world.
Back at Twilight Manor, the feast was winding down.
Most people were drunk, sprawled across the floor in messy victory. Only a few were still awake.
"Ais?" Shirou felt a tug at his sleeve.
She stood beside him, eyes slightly shy.
"The moonlight… is pretty tonight."
Shirou followed her finger to the window.
The moon hung bright and calm—exactly as it always had, as if nothing in the world could touch it.
"…Yeah," Shirou said softly, smiling in a way that carried all the tired tenderness he didn't have words for. "It's beautiful."
He took her hand.
"With you here…"
"Every night's moonlight is beautiful."
Ais's cheeks flushed. She leaned gently against his shoulder.
Their shadows stretched long beneath the moon—quiet, steady, and warm.
....
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