This was an incredibly, overwhelmingly powerful enemy.
Magical bullets and spells were deflected by the dense fog surrounding him. He could handle any range—close or far. Every advantage the magical girls had was surpassed.
This was, without exaggeration, the strongest enemy they had ever faced.
Both Miyu and Illya understood this. Realizing there was no way to defeat the swordsman, they decisively threw their staffs away, entrusting their hopes to the more experienced and powerful first-generation magical girls—Rin and Luvia.
Thus, a new transformation light erupted.
"Sigh, you really are a handful. But I can't just leave you like this, so I'll make an exception just this once."
"Took you long enough to say that. You should've done this from the start."
"Temporarily obtaining a license via anonymous login… Though it goes against my intentions."
"What are you talking about? This is how it should've been all along!"
The white-haired swordsman slowly turned around. Standing opposite him, their wounds healed and power at its peak, were the first-generation magical girls—Rin and Luvia in their transformed states.
Rather than a magical staff, Rin carried what looked more like a sword slung over her shoulder. She smirked. "Well then, let's have a real fight."
"Ah~ You're still the same as ever. Aren't you embarrassed wearing that outfit at your age?"
The cool atmosphere Rin had tried to create was instantly ruined by Ruby. Her eyebrow twitched, and in the next moment, she abandoned all pretense of dignity, gripping the staff with both hands and slamming it into the ground.
"YOU'RE THE ONE WHO PUT ME IN THIS!"
"...From an outsider's perspective, being a magical girl really is kinda embarrassing," Illya, still in her regular clothes, muttered with a wry smile from a distance.
With Rin and Luvia around, the tension never lasted long.
"Is that so? I don't feel that way at all."
"...Eh?"
Illya instinctively turned toward Miyu, but quickly realized—that voice didn't belong to anyone present. It was a man's voice.
The priest still lay motionless on the ground, his condition unknown. Eliminating all impossibilities, only one answer remained.
"The Servant from the Class Card... is speaking?!"
Not just Illya and Miyu—even Rin and Luvia froze, a chill creeping up their spines and spreading through their bodies.
Until now, they had believed the Servants from the Class Cards possessed only the most basic intelligence, like wild beasts guarding their territory, attacking only those who invaded.
But this swordsman shattered that assumption.
"Does it surprise you, ladies?"
The reversed holy sword hummed lowly. Though his face was hidden behind his visor, the girls could feel it.
—This Servant was laughing at them.
With a single swing, the swordsman unleashed an arcing slash that could only be described as an explosion. Whipping up storms of wind and mana, the mere shockwave reduced nearby lampposts and benches to dust.
Rin and Luvia barely dodged by twisting aside, while Illya, yanked down by Miyu, narrowly avoided the attack. All of them held their breaths.
"This is... utterly absurd."
Luvia forced the words out through gritted teeth, and everyone present agreed wholeheartedly. Not just because of the terrifying attack—what was far more horrifying was the fact that the swordsman had displayed rational thought.
This was an overwhelmingly powerful enemy. Every advantage the magical girls had was surpassed.
And now, to "strongest," another word had to be added: "dangerous."
This was, without exaggeration, the strongest and most dangerous enemy they had ever faced.
He wouldn't hold back out of instinct. He wouldn't mindlessly swing his sword just because his opponents were weak.
Once he recognized the threat they posed, as a Servant, there was only one thing the swordsman would do—!
"Retreat, now!" Luvia fired a volley of magical bullets before turning and sprinting toward Miyu and Illya, while Rin flew toward the black-robed priest lying by the riverbank.
But...
"Futile."
The declaration was delivered with icy calm. The magical bullets were deflected before they could even get close. Unnoticed by anyone, the white-haired swordsman's reversed holy sword had already begun to glow.
A massive, crimson-black blade of energy formed, raised high—and without hesitation, the Wild Hunt's king unleashed the sword's true name:
"Ex—calibur!!!"
There was no room for miracles. The light was devoured by darkness.
Illya and Miyu could only watch helplessly as Luvia, who had been reaching out to them with a desperate cry, was swallowed by the black torrent. Rin, who had turned back in horror, met the same fate, consumed by the raging darkness. Even the priest by the riverbank vanished silently from sight.
Steel twisted, the bridge crumpling as if crushed by an invisible hand. The river surged upward, defying gravity as though heaven and earth had reversed.
It wasn't just the straight-line devastation of the Noble Phantasm—the entire world seemed to tremble and wail under the sheer pressure of the sword's might. And for the two girls, their mental defenses shattered just as completely.
A Noble Phantasm.
The ultimate armament of a Servant, a miracle given form, the proof of a hero's legend.
Yes—if the Servant from the Class Card possessed intelligence, of course they would use it.
Connected to the ley lines, the Servant had an infinite supply of mana. In that case, unleashing a Noble Phantasm was the most logical choice. To be slowly boiled alive like a frog in warming water was the folly of a beast.
Then, from the very beginning, he would sever all hope.
This was the cruelest, yet most rational, form of annihilation—one only an intelligent being could execute.
Rain began to fall—the weeping of the Mion River, blasted into the sky and shattered by raw magical force.
The world fell silent. The two girls knelt where they were, despair etched into their eyes.
Before vanishing, Luvia had reached out to them in desperation.
But now, they had lost their family, their mentors—everything.
Only the sound of heavy armor echoed through the curtain of rain.
Clank. Clank. Clank.
The white-haired swordsman gripped his reversed holy sword, golden eyes behind the visor locking onto the defenseless girls.
Rin and Luvia had never been his true objective. Not even Miyu was the reason he had come here.
"Illyasviel von Einzbern."
"Illyasviel?" Miyu looked up in shock at the swordsman's murmur, then turned to her companion.
But the silver-haired girl seemed not to hear anything, hugging her own shoulders as if teetering on the edge of collapse.
The swordsman's oppression. The sacrifices of the adults. The despair of being unable to go back. Countless emotions surged forth, battering Illya's already fragile heart.
To Miyu, Illya seemed... strange. Her actions weren't just born of fear—it was as if she was desperately suppressing something.
No one saw it. But deep within Illya's heart, a tightly sealed lock quietly shattered.
Spiraling pillars of light intertwined, rising and twisting like a growing tree, until at last they unfurled like the wings of an angel, greedily devouring the ambient mana in the atmosphere.
"Finally here, huh?" Sakatsuki's lips curled slightly.
Confronting the white-haired swordsman, Illya parted her lips and spoke the truth in her heart.
"I... must defeat him."
***
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