C279: End of the Beginning Pt1.
Alt title Teaser: Hollow
Date published: 8/15/2025.
It's finally here. Sorry for the anticlimactic end but that is because we arent done just yet.
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The entire party reconvenes with no known enemy in sight thus far, Luna takes this time to heal everyone's wounds.
The most obvious case being Washio who had to be the vanguard for multiple servants. Even within his dragon crown armor, he can be seen panting as it takes tremendous amounts of his mana to sustain.
"Dispell the armor, you can rest now, young master. We have enough servants to finish the fight."
"No, I can still" Washio tries to argue against it.
"AGH" Unfortunately, Rin takes out a pen and casts a rune on it then pokes Washio, sending an electrical bolt through his spine that paralyzes him and snaps his concentration, draining the last majority of his mana as he was holding back his armor's full power.
That weakens Ruler due to the lack of mana but she makes no complaints as she begins to pull her master away to a safe spot that Luna then reinforces with walls and magical barriers to prevent either lancer or Caster from ambushing them.
Washio can only glare at Rin but the paralysis prevents him from speaking or doing anything until he can overpower it. Rin had enchanted the paralysis to be both strong and long lasting to counter his draconic resistances but his lack of mana certainly helped keep him down.
"Sorry," Rin seriously states as she walks away, standing beside her own servant, she briefly ponders the current situation and how she could potentially team up with Caster to betray everyone but she soon shakes her head.
It would be akin to spitting in her teacher's face, facing off against her sister as well as the combination of 1 pseudo grand caster as well as another ancient magus with a much larger variety of spells than she herself knows.
She knows she is vastly outnumbered but she still hopes in her heart that she can get her own wish fulfilled but she is also aware that her teacher is in possession of the lesser grail.
Having kept it since he extracted it from Illya.
Of course the war is not over yet, Angra Mainyu is not technically dead, simply paralyzed in agony over his mutilated saint graph and then there is Caster and Lancer who gradually come out of their little bunk to face off against the enemy group.
Lancer has a resolute expression as she wields her trident, staring down everyone across from her, ready to die for her friend. Caster brought her cowl back up, retaining her gloomy atmosphere around her yet she is not as resolute as her friend.
If anything, this battle revealed to her her own greatest desire, as such, she already has everything she needs and only has one desire left, and that is to not die."
She bites her lip on how to go about to about this. She turns her head to look at each person facing across from her: Rin, Luna, Sheba, Sakura in the far distance, there is also technically the paralyzed Washio and Ruler. Too many for her to neutralize, the battle would progress far faster than how it did against Heracles.
Caster already knows that she is about even…. No, she is no match for Sheba as their previous confrontation revealed a standstill but even then she was feeling immeasurably pressured in their fight.
It had to be noted that she was on the offensive back then as she has few defensive spells that could possibly deal with any of Sheba's abilities due to the sheer versatility of her single magic ability, and that is to control smoke from her incense burner.
Medea lowers her head as she turns slightly, her hand gently clasping Caenis' who looks shocked by the action.
Medea has them both lower to their knees as she places her other hand over her heart and making a request. "I yield, my only desire to leave with Lancer by my side. I apologize for all my actions these past few days. I must have put you all under intense hardship"
Contrary to Medea's words, Caenis still has a feral expression as she has not sated her battle fury but she can feel the tightening grip on her hand which reels her back as she too lowers her head.
The nature of the request is not too shocking to an intelligent being as the odds are vastly against the duo but what is shocking is that they became so meek simply from the brief moment they spent together.
All share a look of bewilderment amongst each other as Luna is the first to calm down and step back from the engagement.
"Lancer, Berserker, Archer, Caster and Assassin, Saber, Ruler. Of these 7, five of them had died in the previous war which was cut off early, their souls still remain in the grail. Now we had Lancer, Berserker, Assassin and Saber killed, once Avenger is taken care of, that will be 5 souls. Long meeting the grails requirements."
A voice calls out from the side as they find a rolling chair facing away from both groups. It had seemingly come out of nowhere, the figure sitting within is also wearing a hat and mask to prevent their identity from being known yet all can clearly recognize his voice.
At most his performance receives a few eye rolls. The most visceral reaction is from Caster who seems to heave a sigh of relief that their deaths are not 'required'.
"You're not a very good mediator, Master" Sheba calls out and the seated figure rolls the chair around as the hair and outfit is vaporized into nothingness. Axel raises his hands to around shoulder height like a cop told him to freeze.
"I know right, it's like the Magus Association had crapped out their own brains to choose me, I had even sent them a list stating how my own son and student were part of the masters list. I could never be 100% holding back in such a scenario."
"Nepotism at its finest" Sheba responds blankly.
"Now you're going too far there" Axel points a finger at Sheba, a scowl on his face as he meets her eyes. She just shrugs in response.
Axel then turns to the duo in awe.
"Once you leave here your magic may falter a bit as you are considered outside of the grails territory. Use this as a long term mana source to just not die from mana deficiency. You hide your ears, You dress normal. Here is a set of tickets to your new home. Goodbye" Axel explains the situation to the two as he then gives brief advice to the duo with Caenis taking offense for her half exposed groin. He ends it off by waving them off with his blessing.
The duo are still in shock as Medea nearly fumbles the stone she was given that she can feel a vast amount of energy. Caenis takes the tickets and is pulled away by the Caster far away. Her cowl flew down in the wind as her first true cheerful smile radiated across her face.
It is obvious now why Luna began to leave. Her unique skill had informed her that she had accomplished a task for her 'lord' and as such, she had no need to take further action.
As a simple pragmatic, she simply begins to float away back home and resume her regular duties of quietly grinding minor issues to steadily grow her own power.
She wouldn't even bother with the whole show he just put on as he did not 'make' her listen.
Everyone else is still confused over the whole situation but they eventually realize that the war is technically over. While some, specifically Washio, are off put by how casual the whole situation was dissolved and even without his input.
The dragon was still quite pissed at Medea for having stolen two servants from him as well as being butthurt over his previous loss. It's primarily his pride as a half dragon that is rearing it's head. Yet as he keeps his gaze upon his father, for a split second he feels an ominous sensation pass over him.
His fathers face temporarily morphs into that of his own half dragon state, engulfed in flames, a mirage of different elements hovering around him before the scene disappears as if it had never happened.
Only Washio experienced this, a hint from his bloodline that he is still only just a welp of a dragon, far from being able to stand alone in the grand scheme of things. A harmless lesson to introduce a bit of fear between them.
Axel did this after all this, he plans to return to adventuring and he will send off this child as well for his own little adventure. He isn't stopping Washio from getting his wish and settling down with Sakura, just that he should not be content with himself even if he has reached the upper scale of his homeworld.
All of Axel's children have tons of untapped potential and he has high hopes for all of them, this is why he incentivises them to all take on their own paths, be it for their potential partners or even to grow stronger overall.
Overall the fateverse has a high ceiling but only when it actually involves the throne of heroes this is why Axel chose this specific time to get involved in two major historical events, anything else was a cherry on top.
Axel continues walking towards the group when he waves his hand and the lesser grail appears before him, still overflowing with mud like before. All perturbed by the fact that he hasn't purified it yet but the next second they understand why.
Angra Mainyu is suddenly teleported in front of them all. Still gripping his chest where the finger stabbed him. His incessant groans constantly heard by all…at least until Axel lowers his hand and a shadow like flow of energy emerges from it and envelops the tattooed child.
Those few who have special blood or are saints themselves like Sheba and Martha can feel how holy energy is being released inside the dark orb, the sheer contrast helps heighten the purification until just a moment later the dark orb is released and there are two things before them all.
The first being the sleeping and uninjured form of Shirou Emiya who has returned to normal. In fact his memory of the past few days has been erased as well, allowing him to potentially return to his original fated state.
The second being the dark soul of Angra Mainyu which hovers over Axel's palm. The soul has reverted to it's original pseudo-shadow form as it no longer has a host. Akin to a shadow of a stickman figure.
The shadow is returned to the lesser grail as the black mud intensifies but it can not escape it's sealed space. Instead a nebulous energy begins to converge around it as purified energy of multiple elements gathers to reverse the nature of the black mud, returning the unholy back to holy.
Axel utilizes his connection to the throne of heroes to further amplify this as the grails tainted nature only works on the connection between the grail and throne but not on the true essence of the heroes. The purified energy begins to flow in reverse of these corrupted links to undo all of it's work.
Corrupted Assassin, Corrupted Heracles, Corrupted Iri. One by one, this timelines corrupted heroes are undone. Allowing the original nature to be reborn and empowered once more.
Humanity will still have its darkness but it is at least much shallower as it is now under Axel's purview. He does not mean to annihilate darkness but diminish the darkness that he can at least bear witness to. As for the rest, it's up to the soul fragment he shared with Alaya to do as he wishes.
It takes about a minute for the grail to be purified. It would have been less if not for someone attempting to link to Axel. he had to split his attention to momentarily block the connection until he finished his work. He then showcases to all the true Holy Grail, worthy of it's name once more.
The accumulated energy inside it then finally bursts forth under Axel's motioning. At this very moment, Washio also finally snaps out of his paralysis and bets up, slowly walking towards his father.
The Greater Grail then manifests as everyone stands aside to allow the final victor of this war to lay claim to his prize.
As he does, Axel finally allows the connection to link him back to [Raphael].
["It has found us. I sense it not far from you"] Axel's original cheerful mood falls into a somber one as he extends his energy in all directions covertly to find the trace that [Raphael] is pointing him to.
He soon departs from the location as he gets a lock onto the energy but his mood is not good as this energy is overwhelming another just nearby. One that he knows quite well and just saw moments ago.
"LUNA"
Crunch
Axel teleports over but even with his fastest speed, he is still but a step too late as he sees a humanoid figure, slightly hunched over, seemingly in the form of a rabbit…biting into something.
Plop
The 'something' falls to the ground as Axel arrives, the bunny figure slowly turns around. It's jagged maw covered in blood as it seems to grin at him. Axel can make out the ashen hair that belongs to Luna..now died in red from her blood.
"F̵̧̟̤̿ö̵̭́̀u̵͔̘̟͔̓̇̆̌ń̶̡̡͖̦̮̏̍d̴̨̧͖̈̋̅ ̷̡̛͎̭̭͇y̵̲̲̗̗̅̅̃͝o̷̭̯̬̰̕ṳ̵̌̂́͜" The creature states with a shrill like voice which feels like the combination of three different voices combined.
It then gulps and seems to revert out of it's strange state as it speaks what constitutes normal, it explains, "It's been so long since our…reunion. I just had to take a little bit, I'm sure you won't mind. Afterall, we have so much to catch up on. So let me just…say hi"
The rabbit seems to split into two halves as a cloaked figure comes out from the middle. It stands up tall at around 6' 5" inches. Just a bit shorter than Axel in his previous demi-god state. Yet what is most confusing is that while there is a hood covering the figure, it is an extension of a certain type of signature robe.
The robe consists of a robe and haori to be more precise. On the back of the haori is a calligraphied 0 with a slash through it. (⌀)
Two swords rest on the either side of the figure's waist as he steps out of his shell. It dissipates behind him. The outfit is fairly icon to Axel who knows about a multitude of worlds.
That is a Shinigami outfit…yet it's been inverted of it's coloring, black becoming white and white becoming black.
The figure soon points a pale finger at Axel and says one word,
"Cero"
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Word count: 2552
Drop a comment if you wanna judge my writing or the story. I'll try to respond, especially if you're confused or anything.