Under Ritsuka and the others' helpless gaze, the firelight from the Noble Phantasms' detonation surged skyward, lighting up the city's night.
Ophis sprang out of the smoke without leaving so much as a trace, landed lightly on the ground, then turned back to look into the churning center of the haze.
"So you managed."
She withdrew her gaze, unsurprised.
Mash had been in there, after all. Ophis had sealed every escape route, but not a single Noble Phantasm had truly been aimed at them. If they'd just stayed put—even without resisting—they would, at worst, have been knocked out of the fight. They wouldn't die.
Even so… Ophis gave them a small nod of approval.
As the smoke thinned, Mash, Waver, and Artoria stood on the scorched ground without a scratch.
Blocking with the shield while Artoria used a powerful Mana Burst to deflect the incoming trajectories… basic execution, but you'd need absolute faith in the people behind you to dare hand your back over completely.
Then again, perhaps that was only natural.
Someone who could wield that shield freely had to possess a heart so pure you couldn't find the slightest flaw. And if she held that shield, trusting her king was only to be expected.
The fact that Lily and Mash could form a pair capable of pushing through seven Singularities was never just luck.
The Master being exceptional was part of it—but the near-perfect compatibility between sword and shield was just as crucial.
Now Lily had been swapped out for Artoria, and that synergy didn't seem to have dropped much at all.
"That should count as passing, then."
Ophis didn't even know what, exactly, they'd "passed," but if they'd endured this far, she had no interest in clinging on and grinding them down.
That was her view, anyway. The others had no way of knowing.
Seeing everyone safe, Ritsuka first let out a breath of relief—then quickly ran over to regroup with Lily. Together with Artoria, they formed a pincer around Ophis.
With the speed Ophis had just shown, plus that special ability no one could stop, they'd already proven that simply ditching her and escaping was impossible.
Even with Waver—now wielding Zhuge Liang's power—he still hadn't fully inherited Zhuge Liang's tactical genius. In the moment, he couldn't come up with a clean answer.
Not unless he finally committed to the one option he still couldn't bring himself to use: calling in Heroic Spirit reinforcements.
They had Ophis surrounded, yet it felt more like Ophis was the one surrounding all of them.
Ophis tilted her head slightly.
Go on—run. If you run again, I won't chase. Why aren't you running now? What are you staring at me for? If you won't leave, I'm the one who wants to go. If you still won't go, I really will start fighting.
Ophis didn't have anything that complicated in her head, but an unmistakable sense of trouble did flicker through her.
"Aaaarrrrrrrrrrrr!!!"
Just as Ophis was about to leave outright, a muffled roar erupted from the side.
She'd only just turned toward the sound when a suit of black armor slammed into her, ramming her off to the side with brute force.
"…Go!"
Ritsuka and the others froze for half a beat, then snapped back to themselves and immediately called for everyone to take the opening and get out.
They didn't know why Berserker had appeared now—but if it created a chance, that was enough.
Sure, Ophis could shake Berserker off the way she'd shaken Lily and chase after them—but after getting blindsided like that, even she would probably be annoyed enough to deal with the black knight first.
Either way, they couldn't waste the opportunity. Even if the gamble didn't pay off, things couldn't get much worse than they already were.
After Ritsuka and the others fled at full speed, the black knight traced a clean parabola through the air and crashed into the ground, carving out a huge crater like a spiderweb.
In the next instant, Ophis appeared beside it in solid form. With casual indifference, she stepped on the black knight as it tried to rise, stamping it back down and leaving a smaller crater within the larger one. Then she looked toward the man nearby—the one she'd seen a few times before—and a faint feeling of annoyance surfaced again.
That goddess who loved dropping the ball… was she truly incapable of finishing anything cleanly in one go?
"Sakura… It was you, wasn't it? You're the one who ruined the Matous, aren't you?! Sakura—what did you do to Sakura?! Where is she?! Tokiomi Tohsaka… yes, Tokiomi Tohsaka ordered you to do this, didn't he? He wasn't satisfied with having Sakura abandoned by her family—now he wants to strip her of the right to even exist in this world?!"
Muttering a story he'd invented in his own head—and believed with absolute conviction—Kariya Matou stared at Ophis, eyes wild.
The man had completely lost his reason. Even Sakura, the one thing that had barely held his faith together, had vanished from before him. With his anchor gone, all he could do was pin his enormous obsession on the great enemy he'd designated as his scapegoat—Tokiomi Tohsaka.
In Kariya's mind, the best revenge was to make the Holy Grail War Tokiomi had prepared for with all his strength fail in the most miserable way possible. And with Tokiomi hiding in his residence, striking down his Servant to force him out was the most direct method.
As for feasibility… Kariya rarely considered such things in the first place. And now, he didn't have a shred of reason left to consider them.
"Kill her, Berserker!"
As if speaking only to himself, Kariya issued the command to Berserker—never waiting for an answer from Ophis, because he'd already imagined one.
...
Diarmuid was hemmed in by heavy, writhing tentacles. Panting, he stared at Caster, who had stopped moving and now raised both hands, chanting under his breath.
"Has something happened on Saber's side…?"
Diarmuid refused to believe a knight of Saber's caliber would abandon an ally or ignore an agreement. If she still hadn't appeared by now, then something must have gone wrong.
That meant he could only stop Caster himself.
Even so—even though he'd gone earlier in the day and retrieved Gáe Dearg, miraculously unbroken—having only these two spears left him with no wide-area options.
"So it comes down to a single throw…"
He tightened his grip on the crimson spear, eyes locked on Caster as he measured the distance between them.
Calling it a "single throw" didn't mean he lacked the ability. He'd held back until now only because of his Master's orders and cautious judgment. If he truly committed, Diarmuid had absolute confidence he could land the hit.
He swept away another tentacled abomination as it surged in, seized the opening—and the crimson demonic spear screamed through the air, launched straight toward Caster.
---
T/N: kariya is a chud
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