Chương 16: La Pucelle (9)
The anguish was palpable, the sound of dripping blood reverberating in the room with each hoarse breath and maddened gibberish. Caster Gilles's long nails had pierced into the skin of his palms, smearing them red even as his body trembled.
"Curse you! CURSE YOU!" Veins popped over Caster Gilles's forehead, his eyes bulging in his fury and growing malice.
"The ravings of a mad man leave little to be impressed or threatened over." Lev, or Flauros was indifferent to it all, and this only infuriated Gilles further.
Veins popped over his skin, pale complexion colouring purple as the spell book held in his grasp began to gather magic energy at an alarming rate. At a glance, the sheer bulk of it was already enough for anyone to infer that Caster couldn't endure it. His skin ruptured, pools of blood gathering underfoot, yet still he didn't stop.
"Gilles, old friend stop! Don't!" Jeanne cried out in alarm, trying to reason with the man she once called friend but was led astray in his grief. She feared he was about to make the same mistake.
"Jeanne, dear Jeanne. Your Gilles has failed you again! This pain, this torture means nothing to your pain!" Gilles ranted, hands balling into fists as all the power siphoned into his spell book actualized its mystery.
"Jeanne, get back!"
Martha pulled Jeanne away just as the area around Caster Gilles exploded, massive tentacles erupting from his spell book that dwarfed the entire room. The sheer mass and bulk instantly had the summoned monstrosity's appendages pressing against the walls until they collapsed and shattered. The roof was no exception, causing the floors above and beyond to cave in and utterly destroy the room.
Dust fell from the ceiling, giving way to jagged debris and massive stone arches.
Standing dumbfounded, Olga didn't realize the danger she was in until she was picked up by Archer and hauled away into safety in his arms, princess-style.
"Archer!" She called in alarm, eyes widening as she realized that Archer had only moved to save her.
"Master!" Mash's voice sounded just before Olga was forced to shield her face from the audience hall's collapse.
"Dammit, Romani what's their status! Romani! Respond!" She called out anxiously. However, it didn't matter how much she urged them. Lev's magical energy combined with the horror Caster Gilles had unleashed was interfering with the signal.
"Relax. They'll be fine," Archer comforted while leaping from side to side to avoid the rubble. One final jump had him landing outside castle Orleans where he could get a better vantage point as an Archer.
"What do you mean relax?!" Olga strained against Archer's hold. "We need to go back. They might have been caught in that!"
"They're Servants. Something like this won't kill them."
"But Ritsuka's-"
"Look," Archer pointed out, cutting Olga off while directing her to stare in a certain direction where Mash was piggybacking Ritsuka. Following the two were Elizabeth and Kiyohime who had likely shielded Ritsuka from harm.
Martha and Jeanne were disorientated, but they ended up meeting with Ritsuka and the rest half-way through getting out of the room. Although the fact that everyone managed to get out was worth celebration, the situation was quite dire.
"Accursed thing! Let go!"
Lev in his Demon Pillar form was being grappled relentlessly by a towering octopus-like abomination. There were hundreds of tenacles forming eight large limbs that wrapped and tangled around Lev, barbed with sharp edges.
The battle between the two was destroying all of castle Orleans, the large appendages of the abomination sweeping over the structure seeking stability, but finding nothing. Regardless, Caster Gilles manning the abomination from within it, literally hurled himself at Lev, the two giants tumbling over into the adjacent hillside. The problem was, this placed their battlefield right over top where Ritsuka and the others had escaped towards.
"Caster won't last," Olga stated analytically with a critical eye.
Even now, as Caster Gilles used his monstrosity to engage Lev, beams of demonic energy and power scalded and at times bisected the monstrosity's tentacles. Falling towards the ground, the tentacles deconstructed into smaller abominations that didn't differentiate between friend or foe.
At this rate, Caster was bound to lose, and this couldn't happen, as no one else could produce something large enough to physically occupy Lev.
"Caster's defeat would be a problem, but Caster's power just isn't enough," Archer gently put Olga down and frowned heavily. "No amount of his rage or hatred will make a difference in their magic energy sources. Lev has the Grail while I suspect that Caster has tapped into Orleans's Leyline. It's the only way he could sustain such a colossal Phantasmal."
Olga pursed her lips at Archer's words, knowing full well what they entailed. Lev was already powerful in Fuyuki after considering that he was some sort of Demon God, but him having the Holy Grail of this singularity on top of everything left her with only crippling despair.
Grudging as she was to ask this, she really felt like she had no choice, her mind coming up blank. "W-What should we do?"
"Oh?" Archer raised a brow. "Finally asking me for advice, Master?"
The light in her eyes flickering, she gnashed her teeth and kept silent, turning her gaze away just in time to have Archer save her from a close encounter with a wyvern's breath attack.
She paled, visibly alarmed at what could have just happened. Her heart hammered in her chest, her throat constricting, causing her to pant.
"The wyverns and Dragon are likely under Caster's instruction after the fake Jeanne's demise. However, I doubt he's in a state of mind to control them to differentiate between us and Lev."
"Y-You didn't answer my question Archer," Olga mumbled.
"Ritsuka has the idea down already, it would seem."
"What idea are you talking about?!" She spat, tired with the vagueness of it all. What did Archer want from her and why mention Ritsuka? Grumbling, her attention shifted to her fellow Master.
In the distance, Elizabeth and Kiyohime could be seen fighting back-to-back with Mash, Martha, and Jeanne as support while Ritsuka activated his combat Mystic Code, pulling Servants in and out of combat at will. Meanwhile, the two Servants Saber Alter had appeared with were fighting alongside them in a hastily made alliance.
Ritsuka was doing rather well which shocked Olga into silence when she compared herself.
"For a third-rate Master, he's keeping his cool and holding his own better than you are right now, yes?"
"…"
"Do you still want my advice despite seeing that Ritsuka may not even need it?"
Olga hesitated, indignant, but clashing with her inner self. Archer was practically forcing her to get over her own pride and ego, and what was worse was that he may have been doing intentionally. Was it so wrong to have a high-opinion of herself? What another third-rate magus could do, she could obviously do better…except right not it was clear that she wasn't doing better. She knew alright! She knew from the start that she was deemed almost useless as a Master, but somehow the chance and opportunity had landed on her lap.
Was her vanity worth it? Would her father have praised her for it? The answer was all too evident.
"You're my Servant. Get on with it!" She practically snarled, putting aside her own self-regard to seek the opinion of others.
"That wasn't too hard, now, was it?"
"Archer!"
"Fine, fine. Might I first suggest to call on your other Servants and defend Caster to keep Lev distracted? Unless those Command Seals you have are just for show- oh, did you happen to forget about them? My, my Master, you truly are a cut above the rest. Such bravery and mettle to power through on your-"
"Shut up you insufferable man! Is this fun?! One mistake! It was just one!" Red faced, Olga was on the verge of spluttering as she had indeed neglected this aspect, but she powered through. "Assassin, Berserker, by the power of this Command Seal, come to my side!"
Space twisted and bent before Sasaki and Spartacus immediately appeared at Olga's summons. However, Sasaki was perplexed by the exceedingly complicated expression on his Master's face. It was equal parts mortified as it was resolute, a peculiar combination he would have to dwell over as his Master was proving to be quite demanding.
"Assassin, Berserker! Protect Caster!"
Sasaki merely nodded before heading off to his newest task with an overeager berserker intent on spreading his love.
"There! Happy? Now continue, what else?" Olga demanded, arms crossing, a foot tapping incessantly over the ground.
"What else? Well, that's a question that you don't have to concern yourself over."
"What?" Olga blinked unabashedly before indignation bled into her features. "What's that supposed to mean?! Even if we protect Caster, that doesn't change anything if that Flowerist or whatever still has the Grail!"
"Leave him to us. This is personal."
Olga opened her mouth in sheer frustration, only to pause as she realized a difference in wording.
"Us? Y-You want me to go and face that? I-I'm not crazy like Emiya!"
Archer scoffed and didn't bother with Olga anymore as she made excuses, swirls forming over her eyes. Instead, he wordlessly said nothing more and stared to his left where a pile of debris over Castle Orleans's central throne room was suddenly uprooted and tossed aside directly next to them.
A cloud of dust and grime expanded out, but wind quickly blew it away before a figure emerged through the haze and created hole.
A pair of hands grasped for purchase before finding leverage and hoisting up a tattered and sorry looking figure.
Archer's nose twitched, no one knowing whether his exact positioning was intentional or not, but one thing was clear as the figure emerged and dusted himself off.
"E-Emiya!" Olga poignant reaction said it all, but Archer gave credence where it was due.
"Took you long enough," Archer derided.
"Archer," Shirou grimaced in response, not expecting to crawl out from a dark abyss just to see EMIYA's ugly mug. However, there were more pressing matters that he was just now realizing while staring in Caster Gilles's direction and who he was combating against. "Lev. He was alive?"
"You missed a lot you fool, but you may have arrived just in time. Can you fight? You don't look the best, but what did I expect from you."
"I'm not at my best, but does it matter when I have a promise to keep?"
Archer grew solemn, fervor and traces of killing intent bleeding into his demeanor. Wordlessly, he grunted before standing side-by-side with his younger counterpart, the two of them sharing the same expression and air.
Olga who was speechless at Shirou's abrupt arrival was only now working herself out of her relieved stupor only to receive another mental blow.
"Sorry to ask, Director," Shirou sheepishly scratched at the back of his head. "But may I borrow your energy again? I'm kind of low at the moment."
Olga's mouth shut tightly, grudgingly, pitifully. However, the Animusphere Magic Crest shone before tagging itself onto Shirou's shoulder before Shirou nodded in gratitude and turned his attention back to Lev.
All the while, Olga's eyes were hollow, her features strained in self-deprecation.
"A-Am I really just a battery…?" she mumbled, nearly sobbing before she had enough of these two. One actively undermined her, while the other more likable one would do so unintentionally. "You're both idiots! You're both planning to charge that thing together, aren't you?!"
"You heard the lady," Archer smirked, all but verifying Olga's conjecture. Bending his knees forward into a crouch while facing Shirou, he snorted. "Can you keep up?"
"'Can you keep up?' You bastard! Right back at you!" Shirou mirrored Archer's movements to perfection, the two of them blasting forward simultaneously. "You're the one who's gotta keep up with me!"
"Tch. Just don't disappoint me and make me regret my own decision."
'So, Archer really was waiting for Emiya!' Olga inwardly screamed. Regardless, she couldn't poke at Archer with her realization as he and Shirou had already taken off.
Twin blurs of red sped across the battlefield, zipping over hills, wyverns, and writhing tentacle horrors with terrifying efficiency, and drawing no small amount of attention. For Jeanne and the other new Servants, they could hardly fathom how a human Master was capable of competing alongside a Servant. "So that's Saber Alter's Master," she murmured in slight awe.
Meanwhile, Mash and Ritsuka reactions were much brighter.
"Shirou!"
"Emiya-Senpai!" Mash cheered while blocking with her shield.
"You!" Lev shouted in recognition for the very one who ruined everything in Fuyuki and Chaldea. "Emiya Shirou!" He yelled before batting Caster Gilles away with a magic blast.
Taking a minor lead over Archer, Shirou assessed Lev with an air of simmering anger. This was the man who likely killed everyone he ever knew in Fuyuki's alternative timeline. The people in the Fuyuki Singularity may not have been the people he was associated with, but all the same, to them, he was their Shirou and Lev had been the one to kill them.
"Archer," he called out, but it would prove unnecessary.
Far hated enemies, the level of synchronization between he and Archer was unimaginable in their compatibility. One perfectly complimented the other, understanding dawning between them even without words. Things such as experience or skill didn't matter when it involved them. One would lead while the other may stumble or fall, but would all the same catch up and match the other's rhythm.
A blade dance with actors performing upon a mirrors edge.
"I am the Bone of my Sword." / "I am the Bone of my Sword."
Married swords formed in their hands, a blade of white in Shirou's right and a blade of black in Archer's left. Their other hands were left unarmed.
Reaching over to Shirou, Archer grasped his left hand with his right and hurled him across the opposite side of Lev where he landed and Traced an identical black blade in his free hand. Archer's movements were identical, the grooves carved into the dirt almost knee-deep.
A pregnant silence descended in the minds of those spectating, the winds picking up speed and furor.
The ground crunched underfoot, but through it all, what would occur was beyond anything written in legend. For if legends were the objects of stories and fables heard and seen, then the tale of a nameless hero had yet to truly leave its mark, it's unrecorded history.
Archer leapt right while Shirou leapt to the left, a beam of concentrated energy phasing past them and leveling the hillsides.
"Spirit and technique-" Archer intoned, hurling out his pair of Traced swords at Lev each possessing anti-demonic properties.
"Flawless and firm," Shirou continued, tossing out his own pair of swords while weaving through Lev's attacks.
Kanshou and Bakuya, the married blades of Yin and Yang. They were swords without history of battle, but made only superior in their craftmanship, questioning the very idea of their forgery.
Regardless, the make and quality of these swords was genuine; the sentiment persevered within them guiding them towards the other forever more. Kanshou and Bakuya would seek the other out with an effect akin to magnetism.
Gravitating around Lev, the throne pairs cut and sawed in their pursuit of each other.
"Our strength rips the mountains-"
"Our swords split the water."
Pincering Lev on either side, it was impossible to defend from one without taking blows from the other. Worse, Kanshou and Bakuya's anti-demonic properties could pierce into Lev's flesh, irritating him to no end.
Archer dodged, maneuvering high to hurl another pair of Kanshou and Bakuya forward while Shirou strafed around Lev and entered a mad dash.
"Our names reach the imperial villa-"
"The two of us cannot hold the heavens together."
Noble Phantasms were crystalized legends of mankind's greatest heroes. Ordinarily, they were strong enough as they were, but there was another means of using them at the cost of their destruction:
Overloading, and Broken Phantasms.
Charging low to reach the base of Lev's Demon Pillar form, Kanshou and Bakuya in Shirou's hands shattered and elongated into feathered fragments held together by motes of energy. They resembled wings, lustrous and captivating, they belied a power brewing set to detonate upon impact.
Similarly, from the sky, wings of light and shadow seemed to form over Archer's back as he descended with his own pair of swords. With the bulk of Lev's body, there was no dodging.
"Crane Wing: Three Realms!" / "Crane Wing: Three Realms!"
The impact was deafening.
As Kanshou and Bakuya made contact with Lev's body, they fragmented into glowing shards that pierced and slashed through Lev in an instant.
Tears and cuts littered Lev's large body, leaking potent magic energy out to the environment and earning a pained yell. Despite this, the Holy Grail at Lev's core was already closing up the damage.
"Not yet!" Shirou called out to Archer in alarm.
"Way ahead of you!"
Shirou and Archer once more found themselves on opposite sides of Lev, sharing a look that only they could interpret in an instant.
"Trace, On. Barrel Lock-"
"Senpai, look the sky!"
Olga fell on her butt in the distance. Disbelief and exhaustion from the sheer drain both Shirou and Archer were causing on her and Chaldea's reserves to project so many Noble Phantasm, causing her knees to wobble.
"Fire!"
A torrent of steel rained down from the heavens, cutting directly away at the barriers of magical energy Lev so desperately erected. There was a reason why the famed King of Heroes was feared, and it pertained to the vastness of the Noble Phantasms stored within his treasury.
On the other hand, Shirou and Archer's arsenal was practically uncountable, limited only by energy consumption.
Seconds passed followed by several tense minutes of continuous barrages until it finally abated with Olga collapsing onto the ground in exertion.
Lev's body had been turned into a pincushion, yet the Holy Grail's energy persistently sought to repair everything ever still.
"Cursed humans! It's no use! You're only delaying the inevitable. With the grail in my hands, I possess a near incomparable supply of magical energy to harness and draw from. Even now I recuperate from your feeble resistance!"
There were no denying Lev's words, but even so, the light did not die from Shirou's eyes. To Lev, this was unnerving.
"You think this is enough?" Lev raged. "It's not even close!"
"Then that's fine," Shirou panted out behind clenched teeth, forcing himself up onto his feet. "What matters is that it's enough for an opportunity!"
"…What?"
"It's not us that you should be worried about!"
"-!"
The fires rage upon this dull tepid land, acrid smoke rising from the depths beyond that in which the brightest light is snuffed out by the dark. O sacrilegious decree, o hateful spite and loathing in the tainted pith of man, burn. Burn! In this unholy fire, in this blasphemer's twisted idea of pittance, dance and frolic upon this pyre!
'All evil shall gather here…'
An eruption of magical energy and power scorched the air from the opening of a large fissure in the palace of Orleans where a flickering red flame grew ever larger, ever stronger. The searing heat of it all distorted the air, creating mirages of a sinner's inferno.
"This flame...!" Jeanne's eyes widened from where she was fighting while Caster Gilles and his very abomination froze.
From the ashes, Jeanne Alter rose; her long and pale hair fluttered in the blaze, a confident sneer adorning her lips. The clanking of metal echoed, a sword flourished and raised in the smouldering wrath of malice.
"Aim for the Grail at its core!" Shirou yelled at once. He couldn't allow Lev the time to recover from this assault.
Due to Shirou and Archer's combined offensive, a breach had been made through Lev's dense amalgamation of magic energy. It was a hole no bigger than a man's head, but beyond it lay the glow of the Holy Grail shining within Lev's core where Archer had injured Lev critically previously.
Jeanne Alter said not a word, staring at Lev with an expression that belied the vendetta formed between them. Hatred and scorn were spirits of vengeance, and she, their arbitrator and collector.
'The time of retribution has come.'
The flames answered, crackling and writhing; tendrils reached out to the skies above and deep into the ground beneath her feet. Mounds formed around Lev, bubbling up into glowing orange pits before exploding into pillars, torrents of fire erupting into a cage.
"No!"
For the first time since his appearance, Lev's demeanor faltered. There was no accelerating his healing process, nor was there a means to subvert the damage Shirou and Archer had already done to him. He couldn't move nor put up a reasonable defence even if he wanted to. There was just no escaping, and everyone could see this.
"Thy path has long since reached its end! Hear me as the Saint of the Damned! I will grant your comeuppance in the blackened carapace of your demise!"
The fires intensified, spiraling gouts of heat producing embers that danced in the wind.
'All my rage…'
Flesh and blood as tinder!
'All my anger…'
Bones and skin as coal and fuel!
Her sword pointed forward, directing the congregated mass of fire behind her into a raging inferno sweeping across the entire battlefield heedless of any in its way.
Lev roared. If he couldn't defend, then Lev chose to attack without hesitation. The numerous eyes upon his body narrowed in on Jeanne Alter and produced a sphere of potent demonic light. Arcs of lightning and electricity spiraled out from its origin, suffocating all in its vicinity and buzzing with the potential to slaughter any and all caught in its glow.
[The light that they saw on that day, granting them with such joy and bliss…]
A figure moved without care nor hesitation, willing the abomination to his bidding. Towering tentacles rose and curled around Lev's attack, sizzling and burning away without any mind for consequence.
"Innocent Jeanne, beautiful Jeanne…your Gilles will never let you shoulder the weight of it all on your own again," a voice bereft of madness echoed in the wind, touching at the core of both Jeanne and Jeanne Alter who heard it.
This was the regret of a man which drove him to madness.
Sometimes, one man's light could be as simple as having that single person by their side…their radiant sun.
The tentacles quickly blazed and faded into cinders, but it was enough to forcibly dissipate the build up of the attack, leaving behind only a bloodied Caster Gilles who fell from within his fading abomination and crashed into the dirt.
"No. Noooooo!"
The path was clear once more.
'Thank you, Marshal Gilles.'
The coursing flames instantly crossed the distance, the landscape sinking into the pits of hell and damnation. The clinking of heeled greaves echoed in the inferno, magic energy erupting in full over a single point.
Once more, Lev and Jeanne Alter stood across from each other.
The devil cries from within the abyss, cast from grace, and welcomed only by torment. Cruel mistress, adjudicator of the unjust, the unheard wails of the wretched and the falsely execrated proclaim their grievances here!
"This is the howl of a soul filled with hatred!"
The flames roared in ascent, eager and impatient, they formed into several towering cursed barbed stakes shimmering in the twilight.
Roar, O Rage of Mine!
"La Grondement Du Haine!"
The flames engulfed all within its pillars. Skin peeled, flesh sizzled, and the looming barbed stakes impaled Lev from the ground up, each one striking at the Holy Grail at his core. One, then two, each new stake pushed the Grail further and further out of Lev's body until the final stake pierced all the way through and dislodged the magic vessel.
It was true that Lev possessed magical reserve greater than all present combined, but it was also true that he needed the Grail. Without the Grail to help stabilize and tether Flaurus's already crumbling existence, there was little he could do to maintain his form.
"No! Y-You but you were dead!"
In a desperate gambit, Lev tried to reach for the descending grail, but a shot arrow quickly made the notion impossible, curtesy of a panting Archer.
Panicking, Lev could only turn his sights onto the abundant number of wyverns in the air with Fafnir occupied with Sieg. However, even that would fail at the most unlikely of interventions.
In the distant hillside, a noble figure in silver plate carrying the banner of the Saint of France issued his orders.
"For the Holy Maiden, for France! Fire!"
Jeanne's eyes moistened in emotion at the voice.
The thunderous drone of gunpowder echoed beyond the expanse, canon balls batting against the wyverns and driving them off too far away for Lev to influence or reach. Hence, the last source of energy Lev was so desperate to assimilate was warded off and snuffed out by the mere humans of this singularity he'd never even considered a threat.
"T-This isn't possible! I can't accept this!"
Even with all his gathered power, Archer had already dealt Lev a lethal blow in Fuyuki. His form could hold on no longer and began dissipating into particles floating in the wind.
Meanwhile, Caster Gilles shuddered terribly before forcing himself to his feet, body fading in and out, but just barely stabilizing. The sight of this and Lev's defeat couldn't have been anymore euphoric to Jeanne Alter.
"Applause! An applause for our hatred!" Her sword raised to the air, her flag billowing at her side as she cackled madly in the fires, reveling in her triumph.
/-/
The dislodged grail hovered into Olga's arms where she shakily reached her hands out and cupped it over her palms. She shuddered, her lips pursing, but more than anything, her eyes were shining with elation.
Mission accomplished.
Relief visibly took hold of everyone present, working through their systems and easing away tensions. Even Archer let out a soft smile, and didn't bother commenting on Olga's child-like happiness at the face of success. Honestly, Archer likely wouldn't have known what to think if he ever actually found out that most of Olga's excitement originated from a desire to be praised. If anyone praised her right now, she'd practically light up, beaming with pride and purpose, all-the-while denying everything for the sake of professionalism and image.
Unfortunately, Archer was too exhausted, allowing himself to sprawl on the ground onto his back and stare at a simple jewel he held in his right hand. Where once the jewel had amassed a considerable degree of energy, now there was nothing left but a husk and a memory…
Archer had failed in many things, but a promise was a promise, and a dying one meant all the more reason. He snorted, trying to decide what he'd do from here and toying with the prospect of joining this 'Chaldea' on their Grand Order. However, he was conflicted with the notion of putting up with his younger self, granted this one didn't seem quite as hopelessly naïve as the one he met in Fuyuki.
Archer shut his eyes, and chose not to dwell on such things yet and took the time to recover instead.
"Vivre le France!"
A voice shouted exuberantly from the girl in a large red bonnet seated over a flying glass horse. The musician behind her seemed equally amused if not pleased with the fact that the younger girl was happy.
In any case, none of this detracted from the elation of a hard-fought victory though.
Soft winds blew, the heat from the distant flames creating a warm draft that enveloped all. France's natural beauty and landscape was almost serene, if not for the dangers that still existed upon it.
Something obviously wasn't quite right with this victory here.
The wyverns were still fighting and Fafnir hadn't been called off, forcing Sieg to continue engaging. Meanwhile, the French Army continued to fire as Marshal Gilles, or Saber Gilles desperately made his way to Jeanne. The hope in his eyes was painfully obvious that anyone could image how difficult it was going to be for Jeanne to explain that she was already dead. Regardless, it didn't matter to Jeanne or to anyone else from Chaldea.
France was safe, and Human history would be corrected to its proper course. This was all that mattered now that they've secured the grail, meaning that the singularity was completed.
Lev was defeated.
"France's saved," Jeanne whispered before grinning. Saber Gilles was quickly making his way towards her, and practically nothing could ruin her mood at present.
Staring around at her allies, Jeanne could see Martha calling out to the two Servants that Saber Alter had arrived with, namely Queen Marie Antoinette and Amadeus Mozart. Mash and the others were reorganizing themselves, but Jeanne was amused to realize Mash was mainly trying to get Ritsuka out of Kiyohime and Elizabeth's grasp and failing.
Smiling to herself, Jeanne let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding.
"It's finally over-"
"Over?"
Jeanne stilled, rooted. How could she have forgotten? Shuddering, she whipped her head in the direction of the flickering flames where she saw Jeanne Alter staring intently at her.
"Over?" she repeated. "Not by a long shot it isn't! Gilles!"
Not needing to explain what Jeanne Alter wanted of him, Caster Gilles immediately commanded the wyverns to attack, forcing the other Servant to defend both the French army and their Masters.
Jeanne was appalled, trying to plead with Jeanne Alter whom she had effectively categorized as a bratty little sister to reconsider. "Jeanne, please. Things don't have to be this way-"
"Don't Jeanne me! Our battle isn't through! I may have been proven a fake, but who says a fake can't defeat the original! Now square up!"
Within earshot, Archer abruptly choked at such familiar words. He knew, he just knew whose fault this must be.
"S-Square up, no! We don't have to fight. Why does this even matter?! You must be low on energy by now, and the Grail is in our hands. There's nothing to gain from this!"
"Out of energy?" Jeanne Alter spat before chuckling confidently. "Master! Your promise!"
'Master?' Everyone's expression practically screamed.
They'd assumed that Gilles must have done something to aid Jeanne Alter previously but this was obviously wrong.
Grunting, all eyes turned to Shirou who forced himself to his feet and began hobbling.
Staring at Shirou, there was no disdain in Jeanne Alter's eyes, but an emotion and expression that Jeanne couldn't pin. It was almost fond, possessive, yet with a painfully excessive tinge of innocent affection.
Step by step, Shirou soon stood to stand at the side of Jeanne Alter and a weakened Caster Gilles. Across from them, Ritsuka stood in alarm with Jeanne and Saber Gilles, the other Servants occupied with warding away the wyverns and Fafnir.
"Shirou?" Olga called out dumbfoundedly.
"Emiya Senpai, why!" Mash asked in dismay, earning a flinch.
"…One last battle," Shirou said almost helplessly, but with resolve directed towards everyone else. "Please don't interfere between them. This means a lot to her."
"You heard him. Now enough dawdling!"
Jeanne Alter readied her stance, polearm flourished in her left hand, and a sword in her right even as Jeanne's features grew resolute across from her. There really was no skirting around this, the two sharing a look that only they seemed to mutually understand.
If there were no avoiding things, then let it be so.
One final match. One final bout between the two of them to decide the fate of France.
One a spirit of vengeance, the other a martyr of faith and fate, the Saint of Orleans.
If the meaning of one's existence can be carved through their efforts and actions, then surely the only way forward was through the verification of existence by the defeat of the 'you that is me.'
"Servant, Avenger, Jeanne d'Arc."
Flames erupted from over Jeanne Alter's figure, flowing over her skin and armour like a living aura as her eyes narrowed. Crackling and writhing, embers rose from the flames, illuminating her pale features set in determination.
"Servant, Ruler, Jeanne d'Arc."
In contrast, holy light shone down upon Jeanne from the heavens up high, basking over her with a holy resplendence in the name of her Lord. Her silk-like wheat-blond hair seemed ethereal in the light's grace.
Their features hardened simultaneously, their weapons drawn, their postures at the ready.
"En Garde!"
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