"Hehe, I've got you now, haven't I?"
"Enkidu, I won't miss this time! Take this!"
Under the bright moon, Ishtar laughed maniacally as she stood atop her celestial boat, Maanna, which reflected the light like a massive Venus.
"Noble Phantasm—An Gal Ta Kigal Shē!"
Following the Sword of Rupture, this massive, descending planetoid was visible even from neighboring cities.
Because her Master was the Magus Aoko Aozaki, a clash of Noble Phantasms of this magnitude ultimately came down to who had more mana.
However...
"Hmph. I knew you wouldn't just sit idly by. But you're not the only one." Gilgamesh sneered. "Your timing is perfect. Saves me the trouble of making another trip."
He raised the Sword of Rupture in his hand, and the cylindrical blade began to rotate.
"Sing, Ea! A requiem for this foolish goddess's brain!"
Two immense torrents of mana collided, locked in a stalemate.
But... after a moment, Gilgamesh's Ea began to lose ground.
He frowned.
"Useless mongrel!"
While Ea itself could never lose to that useless goddess, it was incredibly mana-intensive, especially at full power.
And Tokiomi simply couldn't supply that level of mana.
With a look of impatience, a golden ripple flashed, and a golden cup fell into Goldie's hand.
The moment Irisviel saw it through her familiar, she gasped.
"...The Holy Grail?!"
Of course, she recognized it. After all, Irisviel's very essence was that of a Lesser Grail; her current appearance was merely an external shell, much like Gray's Rhongomyniad.
"That's the Great Chalice of Uruk, the prototype of the Holy Grail," [Illya] explained calmly.
"That big brother I don't like has something like that in his golden ripples?"
"Well, it is the Gate of Babylon. It's said to contain the prototypes of most man-made weapons in human history. It's full of all sorts of weird and wonderful things. Even Goldie himself doesn't know everything that's inside."
"That sounds amazing... wait, then doesn't that mean he has no need to pursue the Holy Grail?"
"Well, that's because he cares more about the outcome than the Grail itself."
"Not every Servant participates in the Holy Grail War for the sake of the Grail."
"Take that lemon-haired Lancer, for example. He's only in this war out of interest. Though the appearance of Enkidu must have been a pleasant surprise for him."
"Eh?"
"It's fine, but I'm not very good..."
"By the way, why the sudden urge to play chess?"
"Well, I guess I'm just in the mood."
"Besides, we can still gather intelligence while playing a game."
"Alright."
"Ahem~ This is Xiangqi, a game from the Orient. Don't worry, I've already packaged all the rules and sent them to you through your Revelation skill."
"..." Jeanne's expression was a little complicated.
She felt like her Revelation skill was being used for some very strange purposes.
But...
It did seem rather interesting.
As a military woman at heart, Jeanne had a natural affinity for such a war-like game. She also proved to be exceptionally talented at it.
The pieces moved across the board, one by one. [Illya] rested his chin on his hand and smiled faintly.
Meanwhile, the battle between Ishtar and Gilgamesh had reached a tense deadlock.
Empowered by the Great Chalice of Uruk, Gilgamesh was spamming a full-power Ea as if it were a basic attack.
At the same time, his target was Enkidu, who was holding off the Sphinx of Abu el-Hol with the Chains of Heaven.
Being tied down by Ishtar, Enkidu seemed to be struggling somewhat.
While Ozymandias had little interest in taking advantage of the situation—especially since Enkidu was cutting off his ley line mana supply—he wasn't just going to stand by.
"Hmph."
He noticed Vimana, which seemed to be preparing something. That Noble Phantasm was autonomous and could carry out its objectives even without a pilot.
"You think you can defeat me with that, King of Heroes? You're not the only one with a flying machine! Shine, my Solar Barge of the Dark Night! This night sky is your stage!"
Vimana launched... an ancient nuclear warhead!
In response, the Solar Barge of the Dark Night fired a scorching beam of equal power.
In that instant, it was as if a sun had appeared in the skies of Fuyuki. A giant mushroom cloud rose into the air. The searing heatwave annihilated the surrounding forests near the pyramid, turning them to dust.
The sight made Miss Illya tremble.
I have to fight people like this?
She felt... like even her Firefly battlesuit wouldn't stand a chance against opponents like these!
"Master..."
[Illya] paid it no mind, casually placing a chess piece as if nothing was happening.
But Jeanne couldn't sit still. She fretted:
"If this goes on..."
Honestly, she wanted to rush out there and mediate... but she felt like her small frame wasn't nearly enough to stop those titans.
Even someone like Jeanne felt a little intimidated seeing such an exaggerated spectacle.
Moreover, her life-saving Noble Phantasm, Luminosité Eternelle, had already been destroyed by [Illya]'s Elemental Saturation Cannon.
"Of course it will."
"After all... this was someone's goal from the very beginning," [Illya] said, sighing and shaking his head as he glanced at the hellish scene outside.
"Eh?"
As the three of them looked on in confusion, [Illya] captured Jeanne's Chariot on the board.
Almost in the next instant.
On the screen, a torrent of dark, ominous mana surged upwards.
"Lancelot!"
As Irisviel cried out, Lancelot, shrouded in black mana and wielding a dark lance, charged toward Goldie, who was still locked in his struggle with Ishtar.
The latter was shocked and enraged, caught completely off guard.
"So it's you, you mad dog!"
He instinctively tried to use the Gate of Babylon to block him, but its response was unnaturally slow. The strange feeling sent a jolt of fury through Gilgamesh.
Someone's magecraft was delaying the Gate of Babylon's response time!
He shot a furious glare in a certain direction—where Morgan stood, her staff held high, faint ripples in space visible around her.
There were two ways to counter the Gate of Babylon. One was to use the Key of the King's Law to lock the gate itself, like Ishtar could.
Of course, the latter wasn't practical, since no one knew where that key was.
But...
For Morgan, it wasn't so difficult.
Ultimately, Gilgamesh had to connect to his golden capital to retrieve his treasures.
That being the case, all she had to do was seal off the space or delay its response time.
While she could do the former, it was a bit troublesome. So... if the Gate of Babylon was out of commission... hehe.
Realizing he'd been tricked, Gilgamesh instinctively tried to turn Ea, but that would only make things worse!
Instead, he pulled out a golden vajra with his other hand. A divine construct, Vajra, the thunder of Indra.
It was a divine weapon from Hindu mythology belonging to the sky god Indra, capable of unleashing devastating lightning sufficient to destroy an entire army.
"ONORE! SHINE! MAD DOG!"
He hurled the vajra, and terrifying lightning descended with it.
But when the lightning reached Lancelot, it simply veered away.
Protection from Lightning A!
In legends, spirits and gods would bestow blessings upon mortals, often granting them great power or convenience, like the doggo's Protection from Arrows or Saber's blessing from the Lady of the Lake.
And as it so happened—Morgan was the other side of the Lady of the Lake, a rare and powerful great spirit.
Though she despised that part of herself, she had no qualms about using its power. Lancelot caught the vajra and hurled it right back at Gilgamesh.
Enraged, Gilgamesh wretchedly summoned the Shield of the Gods.
It was the ultimate defense that had withstood [Illya]'s multiple Elemental Saturation Cannons.
But, in the next moment...
The dark spear in Lancelot's hand began to glow.
"Rhongomyniad!" Artoria gasped instinctively. Mordred, who was also watching, had a foul expression on her face.
After all, she had been impaled and killed by that very weapon in her previous life.
But...
That one shouldn't be the real thing.
—Without a doubt, it was a replica of the Holy Lance created by her mother with magecraft.
...However, even as a replica, it likely possessed most of the Holy Lance's power.
"It seems the King of Heroes is making his exit," Iskandar, also watching the battle, sighed with a hint of regret.
"This was a perfectly orchestrated checkmate aimed at those two."
Taking advantage of the moment Gilgamesh and Enkidu joined forces to blast Ozymandias's tomb, they had that goddess... no, they had that black knight go for the kill.
To be safe, they had even prepared specific armaments... they had come with the full intention of killing both of them.
But in the next moment, as Jeanne moved her Xiangqi Bishop...
The very earth of Fuyuki City began to tremble.
Enkidu could be seen with both hands touching the ground.
A terrifying amount of mana surged.
Then, his body dissolved, transforming into golden chains that gathered and shot towards Gilgamesh.
This was likely the largest-scale use of his Noble Phantasm ever.
The sky-filling chains simultaneously bolstered the attacks from above and below, blocking Lancelot's advance.
"Enkidu!"
Gilgamesh's face was a mask of surprise, which quickly turned to relief.
However...
"Check!"
In the distance, Morgan brandished her staff, then threw the Yellow Rose in her hand.
With a teleportation spell—at the exact moment Enkidu reached Goldie's side, Gáe Buidhe pierced straight through Enkidu's heart.
"...!?"
Normally, as a being made of clay, Enkidu had no vital points. Even being stabbed through the heart wouldn't be a problem.
However, that was Gáe Buidhe, the Yellow Rose of Mortality. Its essence was a curse of inevitable demise.
And as fate would have it...
In Enkidu's own myth, he died from a similar curse.
Without a doubt, in this long-premeditated ambush, Enkidu had been hit with a perfect counter.
Caught completely off guard, he looked down at his chest in surprise.
"NO!"
With his protection neutralized, Lancelot charged like an untethered wild horse, and with one strike, he severed the arm Goldie had raised to block him with Ea.
"ONORE!!!"
The turn of events drove Goldie into a blind rage, but in the next second, Lancelot yanked Gáe Buidhe from Enkidu's body and, with another strike, sliced Goldie in half at the waist.
In the next moment, the Chains of Heaven erupted, separating him from Lancelot.
By the time the chains dissipated, Gilgamesh's figure had also vanished.
Lancelot stood his ground, not making another move against Enkidu.
Blood trickled from the corner of Enkidu's mouth, his face filled with resignation.
"It seems I have to break my promise, Gil."
"I hope that with the other me by your side, you'll learn a lesson or two."
His body began to dissolve into spirit particles as Enkidu's form slowly faded away.
Morgan materialized beside Lancelot, her expression displeased.
"That mongrel actually got away!"
According to the plan, both of them should have been eliminated together!
"Master..."
As the blonde girl approached from behind a tree, she started to say something, but the girl just smiled and shook her head. "It's fine. It doesn't matter that he escaped."
"That man in the pyramid..."
"He is my cute little sister's Servant, after all. Since he wasn't taken out by those two, I suppose I can tolerate his presence for a little longer... But, Ayaka, I do hope you'll be a little more considerate from now on. Don't cause me too much trouble... Right now, I'm feeling a little... impatient."
"Oh, by the way~" Morgan said, her tone carrying an odd, cryptic meaning. "The last one."
"Yes."
"Though he's hidden himself well, a rat can't stay hidden forever."
"I've found him."