After a brutal battle, the group finally reached the feet of the Goddess Tiamat's draconic body.
"Are you ready?"
At Shirou's question, Quetzalcoatl nodded confidently, while Ritsuka bit her lip.
"Quetzalcoatl..."
"Don't make that face~! Just leave everything from here on to your big sis~!"
She exchanged a knowing glance with Shirou, then leapt from the pterosaur's back.
"I'll be right back. I'm just going to burn the ground completely clean~!"
The advancing Goddess Tiamat paid them no attention whatsoever.
From beginning to end, her goal had been Uruk, which lay ahead beyond the black mud. She had no reason to care about the insects flitting around her.
But Quetzalcoatl was no insect.
She was the supreme deity of South America, the great Winged Serpent.
"...Goddess Tiamat."
The Sun Goddess stood suspended in the air, her voice low and stripped of its usual cheerfulness.
The wind howled past her ears, yet her words carried clearly across the entire battlefield.
"You are the Sea of Origins that wove the very foundation of humanity, and yet you would reject humanity and seek to rebuild the world. That fills me with profound sorrow."
She raised her right arm as though she intended to tear open the sky.
Above Quetzalcoatl's head, a vast Summoning Array overflowing with light unfolded.
"But this is already humanity's world! Without reason, without consciousness, without a heart!
I will never accept someone who would devour my children for nothing more than 'hatred'!"
Quetzalcoatl let her long hair whip through the flames as she shouted.
"The gods of South America live alongside forests and Beasts! The blessing of the sun exists not for destruction, but for life!"
"The past is here. The present is here. The future is here!"
The sky began to change color.
From the Summoning Array above Quetzalcoatl, a golden stone that seemed to be made from concentrated light descended into her hand.
"Come winds, come lightning!"
The wind began to roar.
No.
That was not wind.
It was a solar storm from beyond Earth's atmosphere, a stream of plasma erupting from the surface of a star.
Through her divine Authority, Quetzalcoatl drew the fury of the star itself down to this place.
"When the morning star shines... let all know the Sun's light reaches every corner of the Earth! Piedra Del Sol!!"
Clutching the Piedra Del Sol, Quetzalcoatl plunged toward the earth.
BOOM—!!
A colossal cloud rose like the mushroom cloud of a nuclear explosion. The shockwave erupting from its center was so violent that Shirou and Mash were forced to defend themselves.
In an instant, the surrounding air soared to thousands of degrees, and the ground became an endless sea of blazing magma.
As a result, millions of tons of the pitch-black tide were vaporized in the blast.
"The Goddess Tiamat has stopped moving! It worked!"
"Quetzalcoatl is still sustaining her Noble Phantasm!"
Good news poured through the Chaldea communicator.
"Good, we bought ourselves some time," Da Vinci said.
Dr. Roman nodded. "Exactly. At this rate, we've won..."
"Hey! Don't raise a flag like that!"
The moment Shirou complained, another abnormality occurred.
"What... is that...? That's so cool... No, no, no! This isn't the time to be impressed!"
The Goddess Tiamat, who had stopped moving, started again and began to transform.
Her enormous beast horns, already several times larger than her main body, split apart like the end of a rocket.
Pale blue energy erupted from the openings.
The Goddess Tiamat's feet lifted away from the sea of fire.
She began to fly.
Ishtar's face went white. "Impossible! Mother is the Goddess of the Earth's Foundation! She shouldn't even be able to approach the sky!"
You're the last person who gets to say that.
Shirou thought to himself.
Ishtar-sama, Mesopotamia's Earth Mother Goddess and Goddess of Heaven!
"Forget that! If she can fly, doesn't that mean we can't make her fall into the Underworld anymore? Our whole plan will fail!"
Mash shouted anxiously.
"......I told you before, didn't I? Weapons belonging to the Mesopotamian world cannot harm her."
A voice came from the sea of fire below.
Quetzalcoatl released the crumbling Piedra Del Sol and slowly rose to her feet.
"But! This body carries the Divinity of a distant land of Mystery... So what if she's the Mother of Mesopotamia?!"
Quetzalcoatl's eyes turned pure gold.
Her body began to shine.
No.
It began to burn.
Golden flames engulfed the goddess.
It was the manifestation of her solar Divinity, the ultimate brilliance produced by divine energy compressed to its absolute limit.
In an instant, the sea of fire and magma created by the Piedra Del Sol flowed back toward Quetzalcoatl, becoming her strength and Authority.
"Quetzalcoatl... She can still fight in that state?"
"Of course. She's a bird of fire, isn't she? As long as she still has wings, she can take flight again and again."
Shirou looked toward Ritsuka.
"Ah, I understand!"
The Command Spell on the back of Ritsuka's hand began to glow, pouring Mana into Quetzalcoatl.
Chaldea's Command Spells differed from those used in the Holy Grail War. They were weaker as tools of compulsion, but far more convenient when used as concentrated blocks of Mana.
The Sun Goddess launched herself upward.
After climbing several thousand meters into the sky, she plunged downward like a golden comet piercing the heavens.
"Goddess Tiamat! Taste the power of our South American underworld, Xibalba, the great impact that drove countless forms of life to extinction!"
It seemed impossible, yet there was no mistake.
For the first time, the Goddess Tiamat, who had ignored them all until now, raised her eyes and looked directly at the star falling toward her from beyond the heavens.
The goddess's roar thundered across the sky.
"Let this body become burning stone! Become the comet that kills the earth! Ultimo Tope Patada!!!"
The second impact struck.
The flying kick into which Quetzalcoatl poured her conviction exceeded even the Piedra Del Sol in destructive power, evoking the Cretaceous catastrophe that wiped out the dinosaurs.
It was a reenactment of the celestial body that struck the Yucatán Peninsula sixty-five million years ago, the fifth and most devastating mass extinction in Earth's history.
The golden meteor tore through the sky and fell with enough force to annihilate everything before it.
"AAaaaaaaaa!!!"
The Goddess Tiamat managed to deploy a Mana barrier in time.
Even so, the sheer force of the impact smashed her out of the sky and back onto the ground.
Quetzalcoatl immediately pressed her advantage and unleashed the second stage of her Noble Phantasm.
"Burn, fighting spirit! Blazing flame, burn even the gods to ash! Xiuhcoatl—!!"
The Sun Goddess raised one leg high and shattered the Mana barrier created by the Goddess of Creation.
The world vanished beneath light and heat.
It was the sight of the sun crashing down upon the surface of the Earth.
The magnificent radiance of a goddess burning herself away.
The shockwave raised a tidal surge of Mana thousands of meters high.
The earth split apart.
The sky shattered.
Forget Eurasia. That world-ending impact could likely be felt even across the distant ocean in the Americas.
The light released by the Winged Serpent Goddess outshone even the sun itself.
When the radiance finally faded, everything fell silent.
All that remained was an enormous meteor crater that would never cease burning.
And...
The Goddess Tiamat, kneeling amid the flames, without a single visible wound.
"How can that be...?!"
Ritsuka forced the trembling words from her throat.
"Even an attack like that still couldn't hurt her?"
Standing atop the pterosaur, Shirou raised one hand without expression.
A golden feather drifted down on the wind and landed softly in his palm.
"Yeah. Leave the rest to me."
As he spoke, Shirou tightly closed his hand around the feather containing Quetzalcoatl's Divinity.
Several more crimson divine markings appeared across the boy's skin, drawing him another step toward an even deeper abyss.
"...Shirou?"
Ana looked up at him and blinked.
Shirou shook his head. "It's nothing. It's our turn now. We can't let Quetzalcoatl show us up."
"Mm! If I'm with Shirou, I feel like we can't lose!"
"Perfect. I feel exactly the same way. Then... by my Command Spells..."
...
...
"Quetzal... Quetzalcoatl-san's Spirit Origin reaction has disappeared..."
"Beast II has been pushed back slightly... No damage to the main body. Minor damage detected on the beast horns..."
"Quetzalcoatl's final Noble Phantasm... failed to break the Goddess Tiamat's horn..."
Ritsuka bit her lip and silently listened to the reports coming from the Doctor.
After Quetzalcoatl disappeared, a fresh Chaos Tide surged from beneath the Goddess Tiamat's feet.
She should have realized it sooner.
Even if the seawater that had flooded onto the land was vaporized, the Mother Goddess who embodied the ocean itself could simply produce more black mud on her own.
And that was not all.
The Laḫmu were also rushing toward them.
"What should we do... Senpai? Please give me an order! I just can't... run away like this!"
"You feel the same way, Mash...? All right. Deploy your Noble Phantasm! I want to buy just a little more time!"
The girls quickly made their decision.
Ritsuka's face was deathly pale. Her Mana was almost completely exhausted, and she could barely remain standing.
Even so, when she thought of everyone who had sacrificed themselves to stop Tiamat, she could not bring herself to simply run.
But just as the girls prepared to fight to the bitter end...
The black mud below suddenly began to surge.
"Something's coming out of the Primordial Tide! That's...!"
"AAAaaaaaaaaa!!"
Countless enormous black serpents erupted from the mud.
They coiled around the Goddess Tiamat's arms and legs and dragged her back down from the sky.
"Incredible... Mother is actually losing a contest of strength...?!
What is that thing? Where did it come from?!"
A new and extraordinarily powerful Mana reaction appeared.
Standing between the girls and the Goddess Tiamat was a figure with the monstrous lower body of a giant serpent and the golden wings of a deity.
Sensuous purple hair brimming with demonic allure.
A mature body wrapped in a pure white dress.
It was...
"Gorgon... Why is she here?"
"No... Could she be...?"
Ritsuka noticed another familiar figure standing on the goddess Gorgon's shoulder.
"Shirou-san is there? Then this Gorgon must be... Ana!!!"
Ritsuka cried out in delight.
The reply she received was ice-cold.
"Shut up. I'm not your Ana."
"...Huh?" Ritsuka's eyes widened.
Shirou explained with a wry smile, "It is Ana.
She's just a little embarrassed. She needs some time to get used to her new body, her new Spirit Origin."
"Master, how much longer do you intend to keep chatting? The enemy is coming."
With the appearance of the goddess Gorgon, the Laḫmu swarm went berserk.
"Let go! Let go! Let go! Let go of Mother! You filthy... impostor!"
Dozens of Laḫmu charged toward Gorgon, only to be caught in midair by black serpents that shot out to meet them.
"...Hmph. You're the filthy ones."
The goddess Gorgon spoke coldly.
"Nothing more than lumps of mud without selves of your own, and yet you dare laugh like humans."
Watching the Laḫmu get torn apart by the wildly thrashing serpent hair, Ritsuka shouted happily.
"Thank you, Ana! You really saved us!"
"You said... saved you?"
The goddess Gorgon glanced sideways at the Chaldean girl.
"I have absolutely no interest in your affairs.
I'm taking revenge on the Goddess Tiamat for my own reasons.
At the very least, stay out of what Master and I are doing, Fujimaru.
In your current state, you can't do anything at all. If you understand that, then hurry back to Uruk."
"...Yeah! I understand! I totally understand!"
Ritsuka Fujimaru smiled.
"Ana turned into a tsundere like Ishtar, right?!"
Gorgon fell silent.
"Mash, let's return to Uruk and regroup with King Gilgamesh."
"Yes, Senpai!"
The two girls decided to return to Uruk and participate in the upcoming operation to drop Tiamat into the Underworld.
"Mash!!"
"What is it, Shirou-san?"
"Galahad."
"Huh...?"
"Galahad, Knight of the Round Table! That is the True Name of the Heroic Spirit who entrusted his Spirit Origin to you!"
With his back turned to the shield-bearing girl, Shirou continued.
"The shield in your hands is none other than the Round Table where the knights of Britain once gathered!"
"Knight of the Round Table... Galahad..."
Mash stood speechless, her mouth half-open.
She still had countless things she wanted to ask.
But there was no longer time.
All she could do was watch Shirou's back recede farther and farther into the distance until it disappeared entirely.
...
...
"Why were you so harsh with Ritsuka and the others just now?"
After Ritsuka and Ishtar had left, Shirou asked.
"What's wrong with that...? That's simply how I normally act."
Shirou smiled. "So you really are embarrassed. You don't want them seeing you like this."
While slaughtering the approaching Laḫmu, the goddess Gorgon glared furiously at the Master standing on her shoulder.
"Shut up, Shirou... Do you want me to turn you to stone?
Besides, even you think the old me was cuter, don't you?"
Shirou answered without hesitation.
"Not at all. I love the old Ana and the Ana you are now just as much."
"...I-is that so?"
A faint blush appeared on Gorgon's lowered cheeks.
Maybe I really should give up on the tsundere act... Mm...
"AAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!"
The Goddess Tiamat roared.
One after another, the black serpents wrapped around her body were torn apart.
"This is bad... My hair can't hold her anymore! Think of something, Shirou!"
Gorgon still possessed one final trump card, Pandemonium Cetus.
However, with her current temporary Spirit Origin, using that Noble Phantasm would amount to suicide.
If she unleashed it here, she herself would also be destroyed.
That was why Shirou had forbidden her from using it.
"Got it! Leave the rest to me, Mama Gorgon!"
"I told you not to imitate Kingu!"
Shirou floated into the air.
At the same time, seven rings of colored light appeared around his body.
"Gil told me to conserve my strength...
But I'm about at the limit of my patience. I'll show just a little of what I can do."
The seven rings suddenly accelerated.
Gradually, they twisted together into the shape of a drill bit used for boring through rock.
It was the Divinity he had obtained from Huwawa, the Magical Beast of the Cedar Forest.
A cone of light overflowing with the Authority of calamity drove into one of the Goddess Tiamat's beast horns.
"AAaaaaaaaa—!!"
Shirou had deliberately aimed for the section that Quetzalcoatl had severely damaged earlier.
Under this new attack, the horn finally snapped completely.
Attacking the Goddess Tiamat's main body was pointless.
But at the very least, this temporarily destroyed her ability to fly.
After that, Shirou and Gorgon gradually withdrew while launching diversionary attacks, drawing Mother slowly toward their intended destination.
***
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