"Is that... really Shirou?"
Only after everyone had calmed down did doubts begin to surface.
His appearance and presence were unmistakably Shirou's, yet at the same time, he gave off a feeling completely at odds with the boy they knew...
"There's no mistaking him... Hmph. Judging from this, it seems that guy finally found something he wanted to do as well."
Gilgamesh lowered his gaze.
"That piece of scrap metal..."
"Kingu..."
Ishtar and Quetzalcoatl had also realized where Shirou's Divinity and Authorities had come from.
"Sorry, everyone. I'm late, but Eridu managed to hold out in the end."
As Shirou descended from the sky toward the Oceanographic Observatory, he continued.
"Some of the citizens escaped to Uruk, while the rest took shelter underground beneath the Eridu Divine Tower.
They should be able to hold out there for another day. Even the Laḫmu won't be able to break through easily."
Ritsuka tilted her head in confusion. "By the way... what happened to you, Shirou-san?"
Mash added, "The chains wrapped around Shirou-san look just like the ones King Gilgamesh used..."
"No, Mash, that's not the part you should be surprised about..."
At that moment, Dr. Roman, watching the screen from the Chaldea control room far away, broke his silence.
"Shirou-kun, that abnormal Spirit Origin reaction... Don't tell me you've become a Grand..."
Quetzalcoatl cut him off with a smile. "Is this really the time for idle chatter?"
"R-right! We're still in the middle of a briefing!"
They agreed, but the girls still could not stop staring at Shirou.
The dignified divine presence now radiating from the red-haired boy was simply overwhelming. To Ritsuka, it looked just like the aura surrounding a Super Saiyan after transforming in Dragon Ball.
"Back to that pitch-black ocean."
Ishtar picked up where Gilgamesh had left off.
"Mother... The Goddess Tiamat possesses all kinds of Authorities, including Self-Modification, self-replication, and biological fusion, but the strongest among them is [Amino Geas].
Once that mud swallows you, no matter what kind of Servant you are, Mother will pull you over to her side and corrupt you instantly."
"Very well. Now for the second point."
Gilgamesh continued, "The observatory where you are now can measure not only water quality, but also water level and wave height.
At present, the water level is behaving abnormally. Ever since the Holy Grail was taken from you, it has been rising by the minute!
According to our calculations, that observatory will be submerged in three hours. After that, the pitch-black tide will become waves that spread across and consume the land.
The Great Flood once destroyed Mesopotamia, but something even worse is about to happen. A black sea of mud that transforms every living creature it touches into a monster!"
"If that happens, Uruk... No, human history itself will be finished!"
Romani Archaman looked anxious. "Ritsuka! Mash! No matter what it takes, we have to stop Tiamat!"
"Dr. Roman, do you have some kind of plan?" Shirou asked.
"Hmm... I'm not sure it really counts as a plan..."
Dr. Roman continued, "Just a moment ago, we detected a Spirit Origin reaction on the surface of the Persian Gulf!
There's also a Holy Grail reaction, and its Mana exceeds the combined total of seven Holy Grails. It's a super, super, super Magical Energy Reactor!
Our best estimate is that this must be the Spirit Origin of Tiamat, the primordial Magical Beast that gave birth to the Mesopotamian world!
If this anomaly, this entire ocean, is Tiamat's Authority, then there's only one solution. Defeat Tiamat herself!"
Ishtar was startled. "Whoa. So the tremors in the atmosphere really are the aftereffects of Mother surfacing from the sea..."
Gilgamesh stroked his chin. "In other words, if we defeat the main body, the black mud should naturally disappear."
The group quickly reached a consensus.
Compared to defeating hundreds of millions of Laḫmu or stopping a tide capable of swallowing the world, defeating a goddess who had only just awakened seemed far easier.
...
...
The group mounted the pterosaurs and headed for the coordinates Dr. Roman had sent them.
Ritsuka and Mash shared one pterosaur, Quetzalcoatl rode another, while Shirou and Ishtar flew under their own power.
Meanwhile, Laḫmu continued pouring endlessly from the sea.
The group ignored them and pressed straight toward the Goddess Tiamat's location.
The Indian Ocean had already become a vast Magical Beast factory producing monsters without end. Humanity's only chance of survival was to defeat Tiamat as quickly as possible.
"Abnormal Spirit Origin reaction confirmed! Here it comes! Two hundred meters until contact with the target!"
Dr. Roman reported.
"You should be able to see it with the naked eye now! The source of the anomaly is right ahead, on the surface of the sea!"
Ritsuka and the others looked up and saw a beautiful woman standing amid the burning sea.
"Enemy confirmed! But... is that really...?"
Her appearance and size were both nearly identical to those of a human woman, making it difficult to reconcile her with the evil dragon of Sumerian mythology that had created the world.
Mash stared with her mouth half-open.
"She's incredibly beautiful... and so sad... It's hard to believe she's the mother of all those Magical Beasts..."
Ishtar spoke in a cold voice. "There's no mistake. This is the first time I've seen her too.
But that is unquestionably the Goddess of Creation, Tiamat."
The original womb that had been discarded after creation was complete, the soil from which life itself had been nurtured.
Myth claimed that the gods had killed her, but the truth was slightly different.
She had been abandoned.
Abandoned by the entire world, by the children she herself had given birth to.
Ritsuka noticed that the Goddess Tiamat standing on the sea had her arms and legs bound like a mummy.
"Yes, the Goddess Tiamat can't move freely... This is our chance!"
The group immediately descended.
"AAaaaaa, aaaaaaa!"
"!!"
The pterosaurs shuddered violently in midair, and the girls riding them felt as though something had seized their hearts.
"My body... I can't move...!?"
"This is bad! A massive Mana reaction is forming inside the Goddess Tiamat! Its output exceeds that of a hydrogen bomb!"
Da Vinci's voice rang in their ears.
"If she fires it as a projectile, she could blow Uruk away from all the way over there!"
"No... It's too dangerous to get any closer! Leave this to me!"
Ishtar stopped the others as they prepared to descend further.
Her black hair streamed behind her, and a confident smile appeared on the Goddess of Venus's face.
She glanced back at the red-haired boy behind her.
You'd better watch me closely, Shirou~♡
Ishtar gracefully raised one slender arm.
"Gate Open!"
As her Authority was unleashed, the sky under the goddess's dominion split open like a zipper, forming a rift hundreds of meters long.
Beyond that opening lay a brilliant starry sky, completely unlike the dark, cloud-covered heavens around them.
An enormous golden celestial body slowly descended.
It was the Noble Phantasm possessed by the goddess Ishtar when summoned as an Archer.
In Sumerian mythology, Ishtar's most "destructive" and "cruel" deed was the destruction of Mount Ebih.
Simply because she "didn't like the look of it," she trampled the sacred mountain feared even by the King of the Gods and left the entire mountain dead. That legend had become her Noble Phantasm.
According to Mesopotamian mythology:
Ishtar stormed Mount Ebih, increasing her divine might with every step. In the end, she seized the mountain's summit with one hand and drove her spear into the heart of its ley lines, completely destroying the Ebih mountain range.
Ishtar exercised her authority as the Goddess of Venus and drew the conceptual celestial body into her grasp.
At that moment, the concept of Venus became the goddess's bullet, loaded into the Boat of Heaven Maanna and fired.
Ishtar raised her right arm and pointed her slender fingertips toward the singing Goddess Tiamat.
"Be shattered! An Gal Ta Ki Gal Šè (Kindling of Venus that Shook the Mountains)!!"
It was a torrent of heat connecting sky and sea.
The Noble Phantasm fired from the bow of the Boat of Heaven Maanna pierced straight through the pitch-black ocean and, naturally, swallowed the Goddess Tiamat along with it.
"Amazing, it worked...! Confirmed! Tiamat's Spirit Origin in the sea is collapsing!"
Romani Archaman checked the readings on his instruments. "The Magical Energy Reactor has stopped too! Ishtar's attack defeated that Goddess Tiamat along with the mud!"
"Did... we win?"
"Yes. Now we just have to wait for the seawater to return to normal and recover the Holy Grail, and the mission will be complete!"
"Thank goodness..."
Completely exhausted, Ishtar let out a sigh of relief.
Maanna dematerialized, and Shirou quickly moved forward to catch her in his arms.
Mother... was defeated that easily?
Amid the cheers around him, Shirou frowned.
He could not bring himself to be so optimistic. When the goddess in his arms tried to sneak a kiss, he pressed a finger against her lips.
"Ishtar..."
"Huh...? W-what?! What's wrong with wanting a kiss on the cheek? I worked really hard just now!"
"Hold on to me. We're getting out of here."
"Huh?"
The next instant, the sea directly ahead of them suddenly began to distort.
"An e-earthquake!?"
"It's not an earthquake. It's a spacetime quake."
Shirou's premonition had been confirmed. He immediately shouted to the girls behind him, who had already started discussing what to eat for dinner.
"The real Goddess Tiamat is coming! What we defeated just now was only her mental form!
That was Mother's final remnant of self-restraint. Now that those shackles have been broken...
Beast II, Tiamat, driven by the instinct for revenge, is coming!"
"!!!"
Without hesitation, Ritsuka and Quetzalcoatl fled from their original positions. Their trust in Shirou was absolute.
The moment they cleared the area, the previously calm, pitch-black sea erupted into towering waves.
They easily exceeded a hundred meters in height, a phenomenon that should have been impossible under Earth's natural conditions.
When the waves finally receded, everyone saw it.
The silhouette of an evil dragon standing upon the sea.
"Confirming Spirit Origin reconstruction...
No. It's changing from a diffuse state into a Megastructure. Its Scale is increasing...
Impossible. How can a creature like this exist? This isn't even a living being anymore. It's... It's..."
"A mobile biological factory, carrying enough Mana to sustain interstellar travel over hundreds of thousands of years.
And the immense store of primordial genetic information contained within its body... That is the very Tree of Life that gave birth to Earth's civilization."
Shirou spoke calmly. "In science fiction films, when Earth's resources have been completely exhausted, humanity pools all its wisdom and unites to build an interstellar mothership...
An Ark of Hope carrying the flame of human civilization. That is the true nature of the Mother of Origins, Tiamat."
"AAAAaaaaaa—!!"
The song of the Goddess of Creation became a roar that seemed to tear heaven and earth apart, summoning a tsunami.
"The Oceanographic Observatory... It was swallowed in an instant..."
Mash stared in shock. "The waves haven't stopped. They're continuing toward Uruk..."
"That's right. It's deliberate! She intends to keep going straight ahead and swallow Uruk!"
"Ah, Tiamat is moving... She can actually move!? With that weight? With a body that huge!?"
"Guh..."
Ishtar looked miserable. "I mean, sure, we managed to survive, but what are we supposed to do now?!"
"For now, retreat is our only option."
Quetzalcoatl stared at the Goddess of Creation's draconic body.
"Quetzalcoatl! As the supreme deity of South America, can't even you defeat Tiamat with your Noble Phantasm?" Dr. Roman asked.
"......"
Quetzalcoatl shook her head.
"Yes. It would be cruel to let you cling to false hope, so I need to say this clearly.
Neither Ishtar's Authority nor anything else currently available in Mesopotamia can inflict even the slightest injury on this Goddess Tiamat."
"...I see. Thank you. I understand the situation now."
Romani Archaman exchanged a glance with Shirou, then spoke in his capacity as Chaldea's Commander.
"Fujimaru, I know how frustrating this is, but we have to retreat!
Return to Uruk immediately and regroup with King Gilgamesh! If we're powerless against her on our own, then our only choice is to gather every bit of fighting strength we have!"
And so, the group raced back toward Uruk alongside the advancing black tide.
...
...
Inside the Divine Tower of Uruk, soldiers were reporting the latest developments to Gilgamesh.
"The black mud has already swallowed the city of Gishur, and it's spreading toward Umma and Uruk!
It's like a tide of black flames. Umma's walls can't stop it at all! What are we supposed to...?"
Gilgamesh rose from his throne. "That's enough. Siduri, prepare to set sail!"
"Yes!"
The Head Priestess made her way to the observation tower and fired the signal flare in her hand.
Several kilometers away, the pitch-black Primordial Tide swallowed everything in its path as it surged straight toward Uruk.
There was no stopping it.
Even Uruk, which had repeatedly driven back hordes of Magical Beasts, seemed painfully insignificant before a natural disaster of that scale.
And yet...
Just as the waves reached the outskirts of Uruk, countless enormous beast fangs suddenly rose from the plains.
Packed tightly together in orderly rows, the gigantic fangs formed a barrier like a dam, blocking and diverting the raging tide.
The [Fangs of Napishtim].
The ultimate defensive fortifications King Gilgamesh had secretly spent the past six months constructing.
Long ago, Mesopotamia had once been destroyed by the Great Flood.
The King, having already foreseen that a natural disaster would someday strike, had naturally considered the need to prepare for such a possibility.
It had originally been little more than a gamble. No one had expected this "anti-Great Flood weapon" to actually prove useful.
Uruk managed to cling to life, temporarily escaping destruction.
Even so, the impact of the black mud had inflicted tremendous damage on the fortifications.
Gilgamesh had already ordered the craftsmen and soldiers to begin repairs as quickly as possible, but it would be difficult for them to withstand another wave.
Worse still, Tiamat herself would reach Uruk in little more than ten hours.
Just as the Wise King sat back down on his throne and rubbed the bridge of his nose, Shirou and the others returned to the Divine Tower.
"Welcome back, everyone."
Siduri took over for the exhausted Gilgamesh and briefed them on the situation.
When Ritsuka and the others heard that Kingu had died protecting Siduri and Shirou, shock spread across all their faces.
"Then, Shirou-san... your current appearance..."
Shirou glanced at the chains and divine markings wrapped around his body, then nodded solemnly.
Da Vinci analyzed him with great interest. "You inherited the power of the Law God from Enkidu, the mightiest weapon in Mesopotamian mythology...
At this point, Shirou-kun could be called [Mystic Code: Shirou Amamiya]... Hmm, fascinating!!
It might not sound particularly remarkable when you put it that way, but the fusion of a human and a Divine Construct... Is something like that even possible?
Huh? So it really is because of Shirou-kun's Reality Marble, his Mental Image World, [Unlimited Blade Works]?
Ritsuka! Once we get back, you absolutely have to complete Shirou-kun's Summoning! I definitely want to examine his body properly!"
"Leave it to me, Dear Da Vinci!"
"Hey... you two!" Shirou rolled his eyes.
"Excuse me, Siduri-san... What did you just say...?"
Mash's voice came out trembling and hoarse.
"At present... there are three hundred and six citizens remaining in Uruk.
Of those, two hundred and twelve are military personnel, and the rest are ordinary civilians.
Although the citizens initially refused to evacuate, His Majesty managed to persuade them, and they have now agreed to take shelter at the North Wall.
Among the civilians who fled to the North Wall, one hundred and fifty-seven survived.
After the Laḫmu attack at noon, only thirty-eight soldiers remain stationed at the North Wall."
Siduri spoke with quiet sorrow. "Five hundred people in total. That is all the human life remaining in Sumer."
"You're kidding..." Ritsuka covered her mouth.
Gilgamesh replied calmly, "She speaks the truth.
After two attacks by the Laḫmu and the encroachment of the sea, the First Dynasty of Uruk has already collapsed.
Even if we overcome the crisis before us, a kingdom cannot be sustained with so few people. From here, it can only decline."
"How can that be...?"
Gilgamesh raised an eyebrow. "There is no need to worry.
Even if we are destroyed, as long as Sumerian culture survives, successors will eventually appear."
"Exactly."
It would be disastrous if Ritsuka and Mash lost heart now, so Shirou tried to reassure them.
"As long as we defeat the Goddess Tiamat, Mesopotamian civilization, with Uruk at its center, still has a chance to survive and be passed on.
Human history will not be destroyed, and the King of Magecraft's ambitions will fail... We still have hope."
"..."
Siduri silently lowered her gaze and calmly considered the reality of their situation.
Even if they defeated the Goddess Tiamat, did Uruk truly still have a future?
Of the five hundred survivors, only thirty-eight were male soldiers, with fewer than a hundred male civilians. The remaining three hundred or so were women and children, many of whom were related by blood.
Such a small and limited gene pool was nowhere near enough to sustain a civilization. At best, within two generations, various hereditary diseases would drive them toward extinction.
If only they could introduce genes from outside Uruk to supplement the population, then perhaps...
Huh?
Siduri suddenly raised her head and looked toward the red-haired boy talking with the girls.
Shirou-sama...
Wasn't he a young foreign man whose genes could expand Uruk's gene pool?
"What's wrong, Siduri? Your face suddenly turned really red," Ishtar asked curiously.
"N-nothing! It's nothing!"
Siduri swallowed hard and hurriedly covered her burning cheeks with her black veil.
W-what am I even thinking...?!
Shirou-sama is the hero who protected Uruk.
He is a comrade acknowledged by both the King and Enkidu...
And yet I'm actually thinking of using him for something like this... How shameless can I be?!
Siduri was mortified by the shocking idea that had entered her mind.
But no matter how hard she shook her head to drive away those distracting thoughts, the heat gathering deep in her lower abdomen refused to subside.
As the Head Priestess entrusted with Uruk's future, and as a woman who served the Earth Mother Goddess Ishtar...
Should I... bear Shirou-sama's child?
Siduri began to think that perhaps this was the very reason, the mission, for which she existed here.
***
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