A Demon Lord's Hero

by Fahad09

When I sold my soul to the Devil, I thought I was prepared for anything. I wasn't. I didn't expect him to be a her. Or dressed up as a magical girl carrying a pink wand tipped with a cheerful yellow star. Her being a prankster however didn't come as much of a surprise. You know, the Bible would have been a whole lot more interesting if they included stuff like this. Complete AU

24. Chapter 24:The Continuation of the Dream

Chapter 24:

The Continuation of the Dream

---

One night, many years ago now, a man who would one day become my father stepped into a fire, searching for someone, anyone, he could save.

Without a thought for himself he walked through a forest of blazing flames that could only be described as Hell, just so he could save a life.

And he did.

He walked back out again, carrying a child in his arms. The sole life he had managed to save out of countless that had perished. And though he had failed to save anyone else, Emiya Kiritsugu smiled for that single life he managed to save.

A boy who would one day become Emiya Shirou.

I still remember the smile he wore that night, the tears running freely down his cheeks as he thanked me again and again for being alive. At the time, looking at that smiling face, I could not help thinking that even though I was the one being saved, it was I who was truly saving him.

The smile he showed me that night was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

I decided then and there that I wanted to see that smile again.

I think that may have been how my dream came to be.

It never began from some noble ideal. Rather, it came from a child's simple desire to see that smile once again. And if it was possible to make someone smile like that just by saving them, then that was what I would do.

To see something so beautiful as that smile again, one that could make a dying child forget about the Hell he found himself in, I decided to become a Hero.

Perhaps that was why, for as long as I can remember, I have always admired Kiritsugu Emiya.

To me Kiritsugu was a Hero, and nothing I learned about him afterwards ever changed that. To me, Emiya Kiritsugu would always be what I strived to be – my Ideal.

And to think, after all this time I would find another one.

There was nothing truly remarkable about him. Nothing to make him stand out: no powers, no outstanding presence. Even his appearance could only be described as ordinary. But nevertheless, in my eyes he was every bit a Hero as Kiritsugu.

Hyoudou Ichirou...huh.

Just as a man had long ago walked into a fire, hoping to save someone, he too had walked into the unknown to do the same. Where the first went to save a child that would become his son, the second went to bring back the child that was his daughter.

He had done it without a drop of power.

But it still wasn't enough...in a way, he had failed.

Just as Kiritsugu had done.

It was almost funny how hard it was to truly save someone.

You can walk into a burning fire and dig through fields of burning corpses with your bare hands until you find a dying child barely managing to cling to life before taking him to safety, and still not manage to save a single life. When Kiritsugu walked back out of the fire, he thought he had managed to save at least one person.

He had not.

Not entirely.

Though he managed to save me from the fire, even my father could not save me from myself.

Kiritsugu carried the boy that would one day become his son out of the fire, and though he had saved him, something was left behind in the flames. A tiny but crucial piece of him was scorched out, leaving the child incomplete.

Broken.

Distorted.

It was like the ticking of a clock with a missing gear. Though the hands kept moving, it was ever so slightly off. While indistinguishable at first, the difference in how it was supposed to be and how it truly was only grew more apparent with time. The minute hand lagged farther behind with every passing year, until the difference was too large and could no longer be ignored.

But by the time you finally realised that there was something very wrong, it was already too late.

And like the ticking hands of the broken clock, Emiya Shirou kept living like everyone around him, only ever so slightly off. And as time ticked on so did the difference between him and everyone around him grow, widening until he became something that could no longer be called 'human'.

Yet, even as others tried to warn him, their words never reached him, and so Emiya Shirou ended up walking down a path that would end up ruining him, smiling all the way.

It was a path with no end, an unachievable goal where victory was simply not possible, yet he still followed it, driven forward without pause until the day he died. And even then he would not stop, rising up from beyond the grave to keep walking down the same road.

That was how the Counter Guardian Archer came to be, a man who was forced to walk an eternity through Hell.

Which was why, though I felt exhilaration at hearing what had happened between Ichirou and Karasuba all those years ago, I felt no relief.

It was not over.

This was something that only I – a person whose life had been saved while my humanity was left behind – could understand. Just because you were saved did not mean you were not broken. Just because your heart kept on beating, did not mean you were alive.

There was more to living than the beating of the heart.

Just as Kiritsugu could not save me from myself, Ichirou couldn't save Karasuba from herself.

Though the boy emerged from the fire, something of him was left behind in the flames.

Though the girl was saved from the claws of the Dragon, something of her was left behind in its jaws.

The job was only half done.

And now, as Karasuba finished speaking and raised her sword once more, I knew it was time for me to finish it.

---

All this time, it had been right under my nose.

I simply never noticed.

In front of me Karasuba charged, throwing herself completely at me, putting her entire weight behind every strike and grinning manically as she immersed herself in the heat of the battle. First Kanshou then Bakuya leapt up from my side in reply, matching each blow sent my way with one of their own. It was like a dance, the way we moved around each other in a whirlwind of steel, the ebb and flow of the battle, as we each took turns to attack only to fall back onto the defensive as the other retaliated, our lives balancing on a knife's edge.

I noticed none of it, too absorbed with the revelation I had stumbled upon.

In the back of my mind I felt everything come together, all the pieces falling into place. It was like the coming dawn clearing the mist from my thoughts, granting me for the first time a glimpse of the landscape I stood upon.

I understood now. It was so simple.

I finally figured it out.

I knew why Karasuba had come after me.

"...It was never me, was it?"

"Hmm?" Karasuba managed to give me a perplexed look between her strikes, looking as if she had no idea what I was on about. Despite her reaction I only felt my certainty grow and I pressed on.

"What you have been chasing after this whole time. It wasn't me. You were never chasing after me. What you were looking for was something else. I just happened to be carrying it."

I should have pieced it together sooner.

I was never that special. In both this world and in the last, there were many who stood leagues above me in ability and strength. Who were more unique, more powerful. Compared to them, I was nothing. Little more than an odd curiosity at best. There was simply nothing about me that would have warranted the obsession Karasuba had developed, especially not to the point where she'd willingly ignore the existence of the likes of Serafall and Sirzechs.

So it couldn't have been me,

Then if it wasn't me she was after, if it wasn't my fighting abilities, then what was it? What was it about me that caught her attention?

Well, there was only one unique thing about me. One thing that I could do that no one else could.

I could create a world full of swords.

From there, it wasn't that much of a leap to put the pieces together.

"So it was you all along," I realised, so engrossed in my thoughts that I no longer noticed the battle raging. "I had almost forgotten, but I remember now. There was someone else there. When I fought Kokabiel, there was someone else that I ended up dragging into my Reality Marble. That was you."

Months ago, I had killed an Angel.

With twelve great wings jutting from his back, he hung above me like a black star, a legion of Fallen soaring around him, so numerous they were almost beyond counting. I still remembered how their wings blotted out the stars in the sky and feathers fell like rain.

To combat such an army I had to call upon my strongest weapon: my Reality Marble. The manifestation of my soul and the source of my strength. And with their numbers so high, both Fallen and allies alike, it was impossible for me to pick and choose who to bring with me and who to leave behind. There were simply too many.

So I decided to simply bring them all.

And in my haste I mistakenly drew in a bystander, someone who belonged to neither side, caught up in our conflict by pure chance.

And now, having stood on its fields of grass, walked through the endless rows of swords and gazed upon its crimson sky where gears of iron hung in the air among the clouds, here she stood before me.

"Is that what you call that place?" Karasuba didn't even try to deny it as she pressed her attack. "A Reality Marble?"

I should have known it was her the moment she brought up Kokabiel.

She had mentioned a twelve-winged Fallen descending on Kuoh, pointed right at the school as she said it, almost as if she had seen it happen with her own two eyes. She probably had. By all reports she should have been back in the city by then, and yet I don't remember her being anywhere near that battle. And for the life of me I couldn't even imagine Karasuba ever walking away from a battle of that scale.

Turns out, she was there alright. I had just failed to notice.

"You've seen it."

It wasn't a question. If she had been there, then there was no doubt that she had seen it.

Karasuba paused, no longer pressing the attack as she hesitated, processing my words with a strange look on her face. Straightening up from her stance, Karasuba set the flat of her blade on her shoulder and turned her sights upwards, to the multi-coloured sky nearing twilight. Her eyes seemed to momentarily lose their focus as she stared, seemingly lost in its memory. Her hair was caressed by a stray breeze that picked up, pushing it to one side, before her eyes drifted shut as she smiled.

"Yeah. I have."

The smile she wore was a thing of beauty, so open and pure, one I could never have imagined coming from her. And just like that, any lingering doubts I had melted away like snow before the sun.

My Reality Marble, as fantastical as it could appear, could never have garnered such a reaction. Therefore it wasn't the Unlimited Blade Works itself that had captivated, but something in it. And for all the countless treasures contained within the Unlimited Blade Works, there was only one thing it could have been.

One sword that stood above any other.

It really wasn't me she had been after all this time. It had been the light of the sword.

"Excalibur," I breathed. "It was never me you were after. It was Excalibur. I just happened to be carrying it."

She had seen it, the Sword of Promised Victory, the blade that resided within the heart of my soul. She stood among the endless steel set in swaying fields of grass in a world of perpetual twilight and gazed upon its light.

That sword, it shines, rejecting none from its light, welcoming all into its embrace. Beautiful in a way that the word 'beautiful' could not begin to describe. There was no way one could look upon it and remain unchanged, for it embodies what we all chase after.

"So that's it. That's what this is all about. You were chasing after the dream."

That was what she was really after. She was only looking for her promised victory, her happily ever after.

Karasuba lowered her head so that she was staring right at me, uncharacteristic smile still in place.

"What did you see?"

Her lips quirked. "Yume," she admitted, using the word for 'dream' in Japanese, but somehow I got the feeling it meant so much more than that. "Nothing more than a beautiful dream, a fantasy so dazzling that it made me forget everything else."

She fell silent for a moment, turning her eyes to the sky again. "Hey," she almost whispered. "What I saw back then...can you make it come true? I want to see it again. For real this time."

I knew what she was asking, and I also knew it was beyond me.

"No." I shook my head. "That sword was never meant for my hands to wield. I'm not the promised King. I can't deliver the dream."

"Then where is he?" Not looking my way, she asked. "This king?"

I found myself hesitating to answer. "….Gone," I admitted, feeling the familiar pang of sorrow echo in my chest. "And she is never coming back."

"...I see." Her grey eyes still searched the skies, tracing something I could not see. "I had a feeling that might be the case. It always seems to turn out this way for me."

When she finally looked away from the sky I found myself staring into a pair of grey orbs set in a blank face, empty of any emotions. Eyes wide open, I felt them boring into me like a physical force.

Then she grinned. "Oh well." Eyes disappeared behind narrowed lids. "I guess there isn't any point in all of this anymore, is there?" She glanced to her right, towards the setting sun nearing the horizon – less than half an hour till sunset – before raising her sword off her shoulder with one hand.

"Hey, Emiya!" Shooting me an almost cheerful look, she called out. "Our time is almost up. Let's end this with one hell of bang before we die, shall we?"

Before I could even process her words I found Kanshou and Bakuya before me, my body instinctively raising the blades as it readied itself for the next attack.

Only this time, Karasuba tried something different.

Instead of charging at me or firing off another thrust of her sword, Karasuba pointed her sword down to one side and-

...opened her mouth? For one long, uncomprehending moment I just stood, staring, as I braced myself for her next attack and felt just a tiny bit silly as Karasuba simply held her open mouth towards me. I had absolutely no idea what she was trying to do. Something flickered. It danced, a flame so tiny that I had to strain my eyes to see it. A spark, smaller than a single grain of rice, hung before her open jaws. Even the magic held in it was so insignificant that it was all but undetectable, lost in the ambiant magic generated by this artificial dimension. Even as I watched it flickered and wavered, as if it was about to puff out at any second.

[Boost!]

Then it doubled in size.

Again and again.

Like a balloon held under a faucet, the mote of light expanded, swelling as it doubled with each passing beat of a heart, until a spinning ball of pure energy the size of my fist hung before her open mouth, glowing with all the majesty of a tiny sun.

Alarms bells rang in my head as I took in the level of magic held in the tiny sphere, and realised just how much power it contained. Enough that I had no faith in my body's ability to take it and remain standing.

Somehow, despite holding her jaws open, Karasuba still managed to speak.

"Dragon shot."

Then she fired it.

Far faster than any mortal eye could track, it shot through the air, a crimson beam of light tearing its ways towards me like a bolt of lightning.

The single glance I caught as it flew told me that this wasn't something that I could take head-on and remain standing from afterwards, not with the waves of power radiating of it like a star. And it was already far too late for me to dodge. There was only one option left for me if I wanted to walk away from this unscathed.

Without a hint of hesitation, I allowed Bakuya to slip from my fingers as I raised my now empty right hand before me, palm forward, and intoned a single verse.

"His body was made entirely out of swords"

Hidden from any prying eyes, all 27 of my circuits burst to life, flooded with Prana as I brought the manifestation of my Unlimited Blade Works into my very being, changing my body of flesh and blood into something more.

When the beam slammed into my hand with all the force of a speeding truck, as if it were a physical thing rather than a construct of pure energy, my limbs did not bend. My hand held it back without giving way to the strain. Beneath me the road shattered, fracturing into a web of cracks as it cratered, forced to bear the burden of the pressure I place on it as I refused to be moved, the scarlet beam pressed into my palm releasing prisms of light in every direction.

The entire standoff lasted for a brief second before the beam began to fluctuate as it destabilised.

The eruption that followed immediately afterwards made me feel as if I was standing in the heart of a sun. Everything around me disappeared, swept up in a sea of flames, leaving me surrounded in it. It parted around my hand like liquid fire, falling to either side of me as if I held back the waves of an ocean.

The heat was suffocating, my body instantly bursting out into sweat only for it immediately evaporate before it could do much to cool me down, while my cloths began to smoke, scorched from the flames as they tried to wash me away like a tide, but otherwise leaving me untouched. My body's defences and innate magical resistance, further enhanced by the massive influx of Prana pouring through every fiber, protected me from the worst of it.

The light of the flames, however, left me near blind, so dazzlingly bright that I could barely make anything out beyond the fire, my hand nothing more than a silhouette held before my face. What little I did manage to make out through the light was the flames, surrounding me entirely. It was as if I stood in a world drowned in fire.

Despite its ferocity, the entire attack ended barely a second later.

The beam tapered off, leaving behind only fire and destruction as proof of its passage. Flames clung to the surface of the road, surrounding me with a lake of liquid fire, temporarily cutting off my view of the surroundings. But without fuel to sustain them the flames could not last and they quickly began to extinguish themselves, dimming until nothing remained but scorched earth and embers.

Once I was certain than it was over and no other attack was about to follow, I lowered my hand from before my face, the action feeling far stiffer than it was supposed to. My limb resisted the motion as the joints of my arm refused to bend, and I was forced to exert more effort than I was used to.

As I lowered my hand I caught a gleam of metal peaking from beneath the scorched flesh of my palm, where the attack had managed to break skin, the brief glimpse leaving an impression of overlapping steel. I focused my attention deeper into my body. Beneath my skin all twenty-seven of my circuits continued to hum warmly as they churned through more Prana than they had in a while before I stemmed the flood of Prana running through them. The sensation of my limbs responding freely to my commands now that they were no longer made of blades left me with a feeling of immediate gratification.

Ignoring the trickle of warmth I felt running down the palm of my hand, blood dripping freely from the wound now that there was flesh and blood beneath my skin, I turned my attention forward, back towards-

"...Karasuba?" I blinked, nonplussed when I found myself staring at an empty spot of land where the grey-haired girl had been standing. Blinking again, I glanced around myself, spinning in place only to discover that I was completely alone on the deserted street. Not even with my other more esoteric senses could I find her, her magical signature having disappeared entirely once more. Once again she must have temporarily disabled the effects of the Boosted Gear, reverting her magic supply to its near non-existent levels and rendering her completely invisible to my magical senses.

And left alone in the street of the empty city, I couldn't stop a sensation of dread from building up in the pit of my stomach.

Something was very wrong.

I did not know what was happening, but every second I stood there in the abandoned street without being attacked set alarm bells ringing in the back of my mind. This didn't make sense. Karasuba had no time left. It was almost sunset, and if Karasuba tried to make this another game of cat and mouse where she tried to bait me into a trap I would win by default. There wasn't enough time. If she tried that then it was almost as if she was fighting like someone who had already given up on winning.

And if there was one thing I couldn't imagine happening it was that Karasuba would surrender a fight.

But as continued to I stand there alone on the street and no attack came, the sense of wrongness only grew stronger and I felt terror tighten its grip on my heart.

Karasuba was going to die.

I did not know where that thought came from, but every minute that passed in silence only reaffirmed that impression. It continued to grow in my mind until the faint premonition I had had resolved into the absolute certainty that the grey-haired girl I had been fighting was going to die.

Another image flashed through my mind, this time of me standing over the corpse of a teenaged girl, dyed crimson under the light of the setting sun.

Karasuba was going to die.

Again the thought flashed through my mind, and this time I couldn't pretend that it was a figment of my imagination. No matter how hard I tried to shake my anxiety off the feeling continued to build in my chest like a sludge.

And like a nightmare coming true, I heard her voice echo through the city.

"I, who am about to awaken,"

Words were just that: words. Sounds, syllables, vibrations through the air. They held no more weight or power than a clap of one's hand or the barking of a dog. The only meaning they hold is that which we give to them.

As a Magus, whose words can hold more meaning than most people's, I knew well that whatever those words portended could not possibly be good.

A primal part of me, the part of my brain that held no language, more animal instinct than thought, screamed out in terror. The fear of a child knowing with absolute certainty that there was a monster hiding beneath his bed, just waiting for an opportunity to grab their ankles and drag them under. Of cavemen huddled around a fire knowing that a predator lurked in the darkness, that a monster on a scale beyond imagining stalked the night waiting for them to step beyond the safety of the light cast by the camp-fire to devour them whole.

If ever there were words of power, they were these. It felt as if I could hear them with more than just my ears, the words reverberating in my very soul and stirring a deep part of myself that made me want to do nothing more than find a dark corner to hide in. There have been times when I found myself reacting, my body moving without thought, driven entirely by instinct, often saving my life. Then there were the times, such as when I gazed on Berserker's mad visage for the very first time, when the sight of such unmatchable might before me was so beyond my understanding that my brain simply shut down.

This was one of those times.

For a single heart-stopping moment I couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't even so much as think as my mind struggled to cope with what was happening, disbelief warring with the reality I was forced to face, frozen in place as an overwhelming wave of pure power washed over the entire city.

My head whipped to my left, eyes locking onto the peak of an apartment complex a few blocks away – one of the last buildings that remained standing for miles – where I could sense the build-up of incomprehensible power. For a brief instant, I could almost convince myself that despite what I had heard I misunderstood, that she wasn't about to do what I feared she was going to do.

Then those hopes were dashed.

"Am the Heavenly Dragon who has stolen the principles of domination from God,"

Juggernaut Drive.

The forbidden power that lay hidden within the depth of the Boosted Gear, granting the user a means to remove the limits placed upon the Boosted Gear and call forth the full might of a Heavenly Dragon.

And Karasuba was about to unleash it upon the city.

Whatever paralysis that gripped me left then and I burst into action, the earth shattering beneath my feet at the force with which I flung myself forward. Prana filled my limbs as I pushed them to the edge of their limit, uncaring for the consequences, knowing I wouldn't even have the chance to deal with them if I didn't manage to get to her in time.

The world was a blur as I moved as fast as I ever had, closing the distance towards the apartment complex with supernatural speed, not bothering to slow down and waste a single second even as I reached its base.

Instead, I leapt.

"I laugh at the 'Infinite' and grieve at the 'Dream'"

Once again the ground cratered, my legs flexing before I launched myself into the air without the aid of my wings, not willing to waste the minuscule amount of time needed to unfurl them. Propelled through the strength of my legs alone I tore through the air, whipping past dozens of floors in less time than it took a normal person to climb one. I thanked whatever instinct that guided me then, for I had angled my trajectory just right and I found myself just managing to clear the lip of the building before my momentum ran out.

It was then that I caught sight of Karasuba.

It was one of those timeless moments where everything seemed to slow down, when split seconds could stretch out for days as time simply ceased to function. I hung in the air, having just cleared the ledge of the complex and waiting for gravity to take effect and pull me down so my feet could find purchase on the rooftop, when my eyes locked with hers.

She was on the other side of the rooftop, standing right on the opposing ledge, ponytail drifting in the air as it was carried by the wind. She was facing towards me, her back towards the drop, so she had a clear view of my arrival.

At the sight of me she smiled – and there wasn't a drop of malice anywhere to be found in it, only an emotion that I could not identify – her arms already held open in welcome as if she had been waiting for my arrival.

Then she spoke.

"I shall become the Red Dragon of Domination,"

The world began to tick on as time returned to its natural state.

Gravity took effect, and I dropped onto roof. The instant my foot touched its surface I launched myself towards her.

Fear gripped my heart as I ran, the roof disintegrating beneath my steps as I dashed forward, just as much for the girl before me as for the consequences of what would happen if I didn't stop her. Once the Juggernaut Drive began there was no stopping it. It would carry on running, wiping everything out of existence around it until it burned through the life of its wielder. The only chance I had of stopping her was right now, before she managed to fully activate it.

After that, no matter what I did, Karasuba would die. If I wanted to save her, I had to do it now.

Unfortunately, the girl in question wasn't going to make it easy for me.

Even as I narrowed the gap between us, Karasuba took a tiny skip backwards and fell off the side of the building. Our eyes locked once again, a moment before she fell over the edge, and she gave me one final smirk before disappearing from my sight.

I threw myself after her.

Unwilling to slow down I flung myself forward, latching onto the ledge of the roof just as I cleared it, using it to alter my trajectory and swing myself downwards. Dropping like a stone I rocketed downwards with all the speed I could muster, going as far as unfurling my wings and using them to propel myself faster.

Karasuba was staring up to me as she fell, her back to the ground. She actually looked like she was about to laugh at the sight of me, her lips curved upward.

Even now, you still smile, Karasuba?

Instead of trying to figure out what was going through her mind I focused all of my efforts into reaching her. Straining my wings, my hand stretchered out before me, fingers open in preparation to grab her, now only a few short feet away.

I didn't make it until it was far too late.

"And I shall sink you to the depth of crimson purgatory!"

At first,I thought it was a blade.

The line of light, so tall it reached up to the clouds behind me, shooting past my head and into the heavens. A shining beam of white so straight and narrow that I had almost mistaken it for the polished metal of her sword reflecting the sunlight. It pierced the sky, passing through the gap between my head and shoulder, stretching from the earth up to the heavens.

It was only when the beam began to descend and brushed the edge of the building we leapt from that I finally realised what it was.

The grey concert wall of the apartment didn't split at its touch, it didn't melt, it was vaporised, disappearing into a haze of mist. The light continued to descend on the building, cleaving it entirely in two, leaving behind a molten sludge that burned a fire red at the edges of its passing.

It didn't stop at the building.

The beam of light continued onwards, literally stretching toward the horizon, disappearing somewhere in the distant sky where even my eyes couldn't see. Then, as if the sky itself had been cut, a tear in the sky trailed after the beam, as the beam managed to punch through the boundaries of the artificial dimension we fought in, allowing me to catch a glimpse of what lay beyond. A never-ending landscape, iridescent ripples fading in and out of existence – the Dimensional Gap – a sight that hurt the eye just to look upon.

Thankfully for both our sakes, the artificial dimension seemed capable of mending itself and it repaired the damage. The rend in the sky faded away almost as quickly as it had appeared as the fabric that made up the boundaries of the dimension pulled itself together.

And as for everything that stood between us and the sky? Gone, mowed down by the beam. Nothing had even slowed it down. From the nearby buildings to the distant hills, everything gave way to the narrow beam of light with equal ease, evaporating instantly at its touch.

Even compared to the destruction Karasuba brought down before, it all paled compared to what she was capable of now.

My eyes snapped forward, tearing away from the sight of the beam and onto the quickly approaching ground that I was about crash head first onto. Flipping myself over, I dismissed my no longer needed wings and continued to drop through the air like a stone. My previous momentum carried me through until I crashed to the earth, fracturing the pavement and sending pieces of concert sailing through the air.

Around me, superheated clouds mingled with the dust of my descent, forming a billowing cloud that obscured my vision - the clouds of vaporised concrete from the now-ruined apartment complex Intermixed with my kicked up dust and rubble. The air around me was scorching hot, scalding my throat so that it almost hurt to breathe. I wasn't sure if it was caused by the attack or not, but the temperature of the air was heated to the point where I would have outright died had I still been human. As it was, the heat still irritated my lungs.

Though the clouds obscured my sight, it didn't matter. I didn't need to see her to know exactly where she was. The level of power she was exuding was so mind-boggling that she could have been standing on an entirely different continent and I would still been able to sense her.

Turning to face the direction where I knew she was standing, I warned her, "You'll die."

"I don't care," came from the haze before Karasuba stepped through, revealing herself to my eyes.

There were scarcely any reports available on the Juggernaut Drive. Its destructive and suicidal nature assured that any witnesses unfortunate enough to lay eyes on it were unlikely to survive. But what little of them did survive all agreed on was that the Juggernaut Drive took the form of a full-bodied armour crudely moulded into the form of a Dragon – crimson armour for the Boosted Gear and a pale blue for the Divine Dividing. While there may have been some variations between wielders, they were usually cosmetic in nature. For all intents and purposes the physical forms of the Juggernaut Drive were identical copies of each other.

Naturally, Karasuba's resembled nothing like those from the report.

Just as with her Balance-Breaker, her Juggernaut Drive was not a visually impressive sight. I might have even gone so far as to call it underwhelming were it not for the suffocating level of power that she wore around her like a cloak.

Incandescent lines ran beneath the surface of her skin, emitting crimson light that shone through her flesh. They criss-crossed over her body like tattoos, stretching over every inch of skin, engraved lines of geometric patterns that immediately brought to mind magic circuits. The air around her body shimmered as she moved, as if her skin was made of fire.

"I've decided." The words fell smoothly from her lips, unhinged by her sharpened teeth, while slitted pupils watched me carefully through emerald eyes. "Fuck it all." She spat the words out even as her eyes crinkled in amusement. "Let's end this all now."

She had given up.

I don't know why it surprised me so much, but it did. Whatever her plans and intentions were at the start of the fight, they simply no longer mattered anymore.

Karasuba had given up.

The Juggernaut Drive was known as the Boosted Gear's ultimate technique for more reasons than its power. It was a suicidal ability. It fed on the life-force of its wielder, granting them immeasurable power at the cost of shaving away their life. It was like burning a candle on both ends but a thousand times worse.

Only unlike a candle, there was no way to put out the flame.

Even as I watched, I could sense her life-force dwindling away at an alarming rate. What should have lasted a life time could now be measured in minutes. The Juggernaut Drive was killing her as surely as a knife to the heart would. And there was no stopping it now that it had begun.

Karasuba was dying.

There was no stopping this.

Even as the realisation struck me, my thoughts began to race. Mentally I began to search through my Unlimited Blade Works, looking for a solution, something, anything that might be able to save her. And while my mind rushed through the innumerable blades held within me, I tried to stall for a little more time.

"Karasuba," I began, trying to say something that would stop her from using the power and burning through more of her life-force, anything that would give me even a few more seconds to think of a way to save her, but I couldn't think of anything and simply settled on "why?"

"Who knows?" She replied, never taking her slitted eyes off me even as her voice held a tint of amusement. I caught a hint of razor sharp incisors peaking between her lips. "Maybe I simply refuse to lose. Victory, even at the cost of my life." Then there was a shift in her expression, and she smiled, eyes narrowing into slits. "And here I thought you'd be happy."

I don't think whatever expression I managed to wear could have properly managed the sheer incredulity I felt. "How the Hell is this supposed to make me happy?"

"Because, Hero," she purred, "this will solve all your problems." The crimsons lines running over her body seemed to pulse as she held her arms open once more. "A monster stands before you, one that will bring death and disaster wherever she goes. And here's your chance to stop her. All you have to do is kill the monster before she has the chance hurt anyone else...if you can."

The pragmatic part of me – the part that spoke to me in Archer's voice – pointed out that she was right. And I couldn't help but loathe myself a little bit for even thinking it.

In a way, it was the ideal solution. Let one girl die in order to save everyone else. One for the lives of many.

Even if I managed to find a way to stop the Juggernaut Drive – which I wasn't sure was even possible – I couldn't allow Karasuba to remain as she was. If she stayed in Kuoh, everyone in the city would suffer. The disasters that flocked to her would make sure of that. Even if she moved, all she'd be doing was taking the danger someplace else. There would still be victims, only different ones, with different names and different faces. No matter what I did, sooner or later, people were going to die. The only way to prevent it was to stop it at the source.

Once she was dead, everyone else would be safe and the Boosted Gear would be lost for another generation at least, posing no danger to anyone else until it was once again reincarnated back into the world. If I wanted to save the maximum amount of people, there was only choice.

I had to kill Karasuba.

"So, Emiya Shirou," she spoke, as if reading my mind, "will you kill me?"

It was as if the whole world froze as she asked me that question, and a memory of someone who spoke those same words to me came flooding through my thoughts.

"Emiya Shirou." Under the swaying leaves, he sat on the bench across from me, sunlight falling down on him like the rain. The Angel was smiling at me with such kindness, I felt as if nothing could be wrong in the world. "Will you please kill me?"

I did not know how long I stood there, lost in the memory of the Angel I had killed, but before I knew it I found myself clenching my teeth together so tightly that my gums had started to bleed.

Again! Am I going to let it end the same way again?

Is that all I am capable of doing? Is the only way I can save anyone by cutting someone else down? Is the only why I can save everyone is killing someone? No, I refuse to believe that. I refuse to allow that to happen again.

"No, not this time. Even if you're fine with it, even if you could end up dying with a smile, I won't accept it. I refuse to let anyone die. Not like this. I won't allow it. I'll create an ending where everyone can go back home alive."

There was no expression on her face. Karasuba simply stared at me, eyes fully open on a face deprived of emotion. "...Man, I hate you." She said at last. "But it doesn't matter, it's already too late. I'm already dead. And I'm going to take you with me."

"No, you're not." I stepped forward as I poured every bit of conviction of into my words. "I won't let you die. I will save y-"

---

I must have blacked out. It was the only explanation I could think of.

Some people compared losing consciousness to falling asleep. It wasn't like that at all. While there were many similarities between them to an outside observer, they were two fundamentally different states. For one thing, you don't dream when you fall unconscious like you do when you sleep. Your mind doesn't create the brainwaves necessary to dream, so most people have no memory of the time they lose consciousness. To them, it is like no time passes at all from the moment they fall unconscious to the second they wake up. From their perspective it feels like they blinked, only to suddenly find themselves someplace else.

Which was why when I opened my eyes and found myself hurtling towards the side of a house, I knew I must have blacked out. And while that knowledge was in some ways comforting, in the sense that I wasn't completely confused by my situation, it didn't make the following seconds any less painful an experience.

The wall erupted into splinters, the speed my body was hurled through it enough to cause it to disintegrate on contact before I went blasting through the rest of the house. I tore through a half dozen more walls and who knows how many pieces of furniture, all in a blink of an eye, before I broke through to the other side of the house and crashed into the road.

Even then I didn't stop. My momentum was so strong that I ended up breaking through the tarmac, my body partially burying itself into the earth beneath, and still I kept going. Like a comet crashing onto the earth I tore a trench through the road for a good hundred feet before I finally slowed to a stop.

It was an odd experience to find myself half buried in the earth, mouth tasting like dirt from the soil I accidentally ended up swallowing, while every inch of my body ached and I had only the vaguest idea how I had even gotten there. The killer headache I had wasn't helping either, nor were the spikes of agony that I felt running through my chest whenever I tried to breathe. Fractured ribs, my mind helpfully supplied. And as if that wasn't enough, there was a spot on the left side of my torso, a little bigger than a fist and located about a foot under my shoulder, that felt like I had been hit by a battering ram.

All in all, it was safe to say I felt like crap.

Slowly, so as not to aggravate my injuries, I began pulling myself out of the earth. That wasn't as easy as it sounds as I was actually buried in it, with most of my upper body under ground level, making it almost impossible to gain any leverage. So to pull myself out, I had raise a hand up to the edge of the broken road I had torn through and use it to pull myself up and out of it.

Carefully, I got back onto my feet, doing my best to fight the wave of dizziness that hit me as I stood up. Broken pieces of tarmac spilled off me as I took the opportunity to look around and regain my bearings, spitting dirt from my mouth as I did so. A quick glance told me I was standing on a long stretch of road situated between a tiny shopping district and rows of old-fashioned wooden houses, and for the life of me I had no idea how I got there considering that my last memory was of me standing nowhere near this place.

Okay. What the Hell happened?

It was only a second later, when I glanced through the hole I had made through the house, that I had my answer. There were only a few moments in my life when I can honestly say that my jaw dropped in shock, and this was one of them.

Correction, it appears I was wrong. I hadn't been knocked through a house. I had been knocked through houses. As in several dozen houses. Most of which did not look much of a house any longer because, after having my body crash right through them like a wrecking ball, have collapsed into jumbled heaps of splintered wood.

It took more than a little bit of will power to force myself to look away from the ruins of what were once people's homes, some of which were still in the process of falling to the ground, and up to the figure of what could have only been Karasuba standing at the other end of destruction.

She must have been miles away at the very least, nothing more than a tiny speck in the distance. Forcing Prana into my eyes I reinforced my sight, causing my vision to zoom in towards Karasuba as her image was immediately brought into focus. Just in time for me to see her wave cheerful directly me – somehow able to see me despite the distance separating us – before she lifted her nodachi and pointed it at me.

Having experienced being on the wrong end of that particular attack enough times already, my body reacted immediately to the threat. Without conscious thought the married swords Kanshou and Bakuya leapt into my hands, appearing into existence, and knowing exactly what was coming I crossed the two blades before me, right in front of my chest-

"Huh?"

I blinked, feeling oddly cold, barely noticing the drop of blood that spilled from the side of my mouth and down my chin. My eyes had a little trouble focusing, my vision oddly fuzzy, so I had to blink a couple of times before I could focus my sight on the oddly grey, thin line that stretched all the way from Karasuba to me. It was almost as if someone had tied a grey rope between the two of us, and for several long seconds I honestly had no idea what I was looking at.

Until I lowered my head and turned my confused eyes downwards, to my chest.

"Oh," I mouthed, both in comprehension and disbelief.

Piercing straight through the middle of both the married swords was a thin metal blade, Karasuba's nodachi. It had punched through not one, but two Noble Phantasms, and after that it clearly had no difficulty doing the same to me as I found the blade burying itself into my chest. Though I couldn't see it, I could feel the point of the blade exiting my back – missing my spinal cord by about an inch instead of cleaving it in two – the steel grey of its metal no doubt dyed red with my blood.

And yet, despite having a long column of steel running through me, it was not the sight of the sword skewering me that left me so shaken. It was the sight of the hole poking through the middle of the black and white Chinese swords that my had mind reeling.

These were not ordinary swords but Noble Phantasms, weapons out of myth and legend crystallised into physical form. They were only copies to be sure, but copies good enough to stand by the side of the originals and not be left wanting. And yet when they met the thrust from a nodachi made of mundane metal it was they that gave way. They couldn't even slow it down. I had felt no impact in my arms when the nodachi had shot through my blades, no resistance. Karasuba's blade managed to pierce through Kanshou and Bakuya as easily as if they were made from air. I may as well have been holding nothing at all for all the difference it made.

It was a sobering reminder of just how powerful Ddraig really was.

I spent a few seconds longer than I should have staring down at the nodachi that skewered through both my chest and my swords, before I finally managed to force myself to look away and up to Karasuba – only to find her lowering the nodachi down to her side, the blade having reverted back to its original length.

My mind, still numb with shock, was only beginning to realise what that meant when I felt my body began to fall. Without the nodachi pining me in the air and propping my body up, my legs could not find the strength to support my own weight and they gave way as they folded beneath me. Kanshou and Bakuya slipped from my nerveless fingers and clattered to the ground as I dropped to my knees, just barely managing to stop myself from falling any further and collapsing onto my face.

"Emiya," I heard coming from right behind and above me.

The sound of her voice was enough to shock me from the lethargic state that clouded my thoughts and my head snapped up, eyes widening with surprise. It almost sounded like Karasuba, but that couldn't be possible because Karasuba was right in front of -

She wasn't there.

The spot where she had been standing on the other side of the line of ruined houses was empty, which meant…

Slowly I turned my head back, and looked up the figure looming over me.

Karasuba smiled down at me, her mouth disturbingly wide and full of teeth, as the lines drawn across her skin continued to burn like pseudo circuits. Whatever cuts and bruises she had received throughout the fight were gone, all having healed, while to my senses her body continued to radiate power. So much so that I had no doubt she could have wiped the entire city off the face of the world in seconds if she had so wished.

Were it not for the way I sensed her life-force dwindling at an alarming rate, I would never have believed she was dying.

Karasuba made no move to attack. She just stood there watching me through reptilian emerald eyes that looked so wrong on her face, with that disturbing smile sitting on her lips, while she casually thumped the side of her nodachi on her leg as if lost in through.

Then I found the edge of the nodachi set against my throat.

I could barely to begin describe what happened. She didn't blur, that would have implied that I saw her move. I hadn't. One moment her nodachi was by her side, beating a rhythm on her leg, then it was at my throat, and I had no idea how it got there.

It was less like she had moved and more as if she had flickered out of existence in one place and reappeared in another. It reminded me of one of those old fashioned movie reels played on an antique projector, only with several frames cut out from the film so that characters kept jumping from place to place on the screen without anything linking the movement together.

And right now here I was, on my knees with a blade pressed against my throat, a hole punched through my chest, with the only thing keeping me alive and my head attached to my shoulders the whim of this grey-haired girl.

Normally, I would have felt certain that I was all but dead.

But as I stared up at Karasuba, who in turn smiled down at me, I knew she wasn't going to kill me. Not yet. Not until she had her fun. I recognised the look she was giving me all too well. It was something I had seen on Illya's face in the early days of the Holy Grail War.

The face of a predator wanting to play with its food.

This wasn't about winning any longer, not to her. In her mind she had already won. All that mattered to her now was about drawing out as much pleasure as she could before she killed me.

Had this still been a battle, a fight between equals, I would already be dead. At this point there was nothing I could do to stop her from taking my head off, not with the massive difference in speed between us. But this wasn't a battle any longer. It had stopped being one the moment she drew out the Juggernaut Drive. Now this was a hunt.

A game where one side could only run and hope to get away before it was eaten. And though she could end the game right here and now, a single twist of her blade and I'd be dead, like a bored cat she wanted to play with her food for a little longer before she ended it.

And with that flash of insight, the start of a plan began to form in my mind.

Arrogance and pride were both things I knew how to take advantage of. All I needed was the right weapon to make it work.

And I had a lot of weapons.

A hundred Noble Phantasms flashed through my mind, eagerly answering my call, ready to come into reality with a thought, and I began to search through the treasures of legend for the one most suited to the task.

Karasuba looked at me with a knowing smile on her face, taking pleasure in my reaction as I took in my situation. Her grin grew just a little wider and she dug the edge of the blade into my throat, the blade easily parting my flesh and allowing blood to spill freely, but no further than skin deep. She held the sword there for a long second, as if to make sure I understood my position. Then, with the same flicker of invisible movement, the nodachi was by her side again.

Most I ended up discarding immediately, as they were lacking the one trait that I needed the most. Speed.

"Are you done?" She tilted her head and smirked down me, her emerald eyes dancing with mischief and sadism.

"Not quite," I answered, mind whirling.

My thoughts lingered momentarily on Excalibur Rapidly – one of this dimension's Excalibur fragments – but after a brief instant of consideration I dismissed the fragile blade almost as quickly as I had the others. Too slow.

"Oh~?" She arched a brow, smirk widening. "And what do you possibly expect to achieve by continuing?"

Despite her question, she looked quite pleased by my continued desire to keep fighting.

"To save you."

Balmung, the sword of the German hero Siegfried the Dragon slayer. Forged from the legend of Gram, the sword of its origin, it was both a holy and demonic weapon. Which aspect of its dual nature it reveals depends entirely on the nature of its wielder. Having tasted the life blood of the Evil Dragon Fafnir, it was bestowed with Anti-Dragon properties in an addition to the potential, upon activation, to capture Karasuba within the range of its attack. But that very same wide-spread destructive nature would leave nothing of Karasuba behind should it hit her, and it was thus cast aside.

The Trap of Argalia, beloved lance of Argalia, knight and prince of the kingdom of Cathay. Lacking the capacity to pierce thorough plated armour or enchanted defences, it was nevertheless said to be capable of bringing anyone to their knees. A single touch would cause the finest of horsemen to stumble off their steed, and make even the mightiest heroes fall. A perfect weapon to capture an enemy alive. But in resolving the lethality issue of Balmung, it lacked the ability to counter Karasuba's speed. Still it held some promise, so I mentally set it aside before I carried on to the next.

The Cursed Spear of Cu Chulainn, Gae Bolg – with its power to reverse causality – I didn't even bother to consider before immediately rejecting.

"For the last time, Emiya, I can't be saved." Karasuba held out her hand, bringing attention to the crimson lines that adorned it. "Once the Juggernaut Drive begins it can't be stopped. I'm going to die," her smirk grew hungry, "and I'm taking you with me."

"We'll see about that." I fired back with a grin of my own. "I've always been bad at dying," and wasn't that the understatement of the century, "and I'm even worse at standing by and allowing others to die in front of me."

More weapons whirled through my mind, hundreds, then thousands, then more, all laid out before me as I looked for the perfect possible blade.

Within me, Avalon's power continued to bolster the already supernatural healing abilities granted to me as a Devil. Already I could feel strength return to my body, my wounds repairing themselves and sealing shut. Discretely I twitched the toes of my feet, confirming that I had regained at least some control over my legs again. Just a few seconds more and I'd have recovered enough to fight.

"Even if I have to cut each one of your limbs off and pin you to the ground before ripping the Boosted Gear straight out of you, I will save you," I declared, looking straight into her eyes.

Fragarach – Gouging Sword of the War God -, Aestus Estus -The Embryonic Flame – and Ascalon – The Blessed Sword By Which Force is Slain – were equally considered, assessed and discarded.

No, not enough. I needed something faster.

"No," Karasuba replied almost sadly, her smile dimming. "You won't." Her smirk returned in full force. "But promise me one thing."

Daishintou – Sword of Transcendent Wisdom and Knowledge –? No, faster still. Kazikli Bey – Execution Lord –? Even faster! Diatrecon Aster Logche: Spear-tip of the Star Traversing the Skies–? Faster!

"What?" I asked.

Within the darkness of my mind it gleamed, like the moon reflecting off the surface of a lake, the length of its steel edge defying common sense.

I felt myself smile.

Perfect.

Karasuba's smirk turned bloodthirsty. "Try not to die too quickly."

I was already moving before she finished speaking, rising up to my feet and spinning to face her in one fluid motion even as my hands curved around the hilt of a sword that wasn't there. But only for the moment. It came into existence in a flash of turquoise light, a blade so long it could only be described as absurd. A weapon forged from the legends of man.

How could I describe the sword in my hand other than 'long' and 'elegant'? Both words were true yet they failed to adequately describe the blade. It was simplicity itself in design yet managed to hold a refined beauty, almost like a work of art. Cobalt blue cloth wrapped around the hilt of the weapon that may have been called a Katana were it not for its ludicrous length, its flawless blade taller then some men and equally as sharp as it was fragile.

This was the Monohoshi Zao.

And it was not a Noble Phantasm.

Though this was a sword from legend it was not a 'crystallised mystery', nor was it the symbol of a Heroic Spirit. There was no Hero tied to this sword, only a myth of a man who had never even existed. A legend born from pure fantasy. Thus it lacked the power to match the weapons of true Heroic Spirits. In the end, for all of its beauty, it was only a mundane sword.

And yet it in my mind it could still stand among the ranks of Noble Phantasms and not be found wanting. The true value of the sword lay not within the make of its steel but in the history engraved upon it. In the skill of the nameless swordsman who bore the false name of 'Sasaki Kojirou'.

And as I held it in my hands I drew upon the skill of the man who failed to engrave his name into legend and yet whose godlike swordsmanship was unparalleled even among Servants. A man who could stand among gods with nothing but a mundane blade in his hand. And now, as I swung the sword at Karasuba, that fabled skill was mine to wield.

What began as a single flash from the sword turned to three as multiple simultaneous strikes converged on Karasuba, the laws of physics bending not from magic but from skill alone. Each strike followed curving paths, graceful arcs that did not flow in straight lines, imprisoning Karasuba.

It should have been slow, these curving strikes that did not travel the shortest path to the target, but they weren't. Each swing came so blindingly fast that even Servants of Saber's calibre had trouble following them. Each strike converged on my target from three different angles simultaneously, blocking any hope of escape. Should she try to escape from one, the other two would reach her.

This was called Tsubame Gaeshi – the fabled human technique that could match a Noble Phantasm.

I could see the surprise in Karasuba's face, the sheer disbelief she felt as her mind struggled to comprehend what her eyes were telling her. No matter how much power she held or knowledge Ddraig had bestowed upon her over the years, watching a mere sword strike fueled not by magic but pure skill alone as it disregarded concepts such as time and space would have given anyone pause.

And in the that slight pause, all three strikes closed in on her.

Normally, all three strikes would have been aimed to kill. The first strike coming with overwhelming speed created a circular horizontal arc, while the second slightly slower vertical slash cut off the escape route, and the third vertical strike kept the enemy from escaping to the side, all strikes working in tandem to overwhelm the enemy and create an unavoidable attack.

But that wouldn't have worked against Karasuba.

In the end, she was simply far too fast. Even with Tsubame Gaeshi's space and time bending powers it wouldn't have been enough to catch up to the divine speed of the Boosted Gear. Even factoring in the delayed reaction cause by her shock it wouldn't have been enough. I had no doubt that if it came down to a race between these sword strikes that would have given even the fastest of Servants pause and her currently augmented speed, she could easily manage to outpace all three strikes. That was how overwhelmingly unfair an advantage the Juggernaut Drive granted her.

Which is why I altered the course of the strikes. Instead of making an inescapable web of strikes, I made one that covered escape from the side and the front, leaving a single escape path behind her. It was a deliberate opening, a way out that I was practically inviting her to take. All Karasuba had to do to escape from the web of strikes before her was to take several steps backward and momentarily retreat.

In other words, run away.

Pride could kill a man as easily as any weapon, and Dragons were ever a prideful race, rarely ever willing to run or bend knee to anyone no matter how hopeless a situation they found themselves in. And though Karasuba was still physically human, I was banking that there was enough Dragon in her to have inherited their pride.

Perhaps if I had been someone she considered powerful or even an equal at her current state, it may not have worked. There was no shame in backing away from a truly powerful enemy. Even Ddraig wasn't reckless enough to challenge the Great Red, for there was no loss in Pride by avoiding one such as he. But what about prey? Was there such a thing as a Dragon willing to back away in fear from its prey?

At this moment, Karasuba no longer saw this as a battle. It was a hunt. Karasuba didn't consider me an opponent that could challenge her but as mere prey she could take down at any point, kept alive only to entertain her before she killed me. Just like a cat playing with a cornered rat.

But what would happen if, instead of running away in fear, the tiny insignificant rat tried to bite back? Now that the rat she had cornered was about to clamp its fangs around her throat, what would she do? Jump away in fear and out of the little rat's range, or stand her ground and take the blow even if it meant her life?

In the last moment, in the brief instant just before the strikes landed, I could see the shock clear away from Karasuba's eyes, replaced with comprehension. Along with hesitation. She knew she had to make a choice, either to stand or to retreat. Be cut down or run away. It should have been an obvious choice, but for a creature with a Dragon's Pride it wasn't. Then the hesitation cleared away from her face, leaving behind only a manic smile, and I knew then that she had made her choice.

Karasuba wouldn't retreat.

The first strike came from her left in a slight angle, aiming to sever her hand at the elbow, the second was a low horizontal swing that was set to cut both her legs from under her, while the last was a vertical strike that would have cleaved through her right shoulder.

I was about to cut all of her limbs off.

It was a drastic measure, but one that had to be taken. I needed to find a way to deactivate Juggernaut Drive before she burned away more of her life-force, but I couldn't look for one and fight her off at the same time. I already planned to put her back together later – reattaching limbs was a simple procedure when it came to magic – but for now I needed to put her down and stop the Juggernaut Drive, no matter the cost, even if I had to turn her into a quadruple amputee to do it. Everything else could wait until that was done.

Each of the three strikes landed on target, and I could feel the impacts reverberating up the sword as its edge bit into the flesh of her skin and -

Fragments of steel spun through the air, reflecting my shocked visage like so many broken pieces of a mirror. I couldn't help but stare in disbelief at the hilt of the sword, where only three inches from the shattered blade remained.

"Oi, Emiya." Karasuba's smirking visage was there to meet me when I looked up. "I already told you, didn't I? My Sacred Gear's internalized."

On Karasuba's arm was a jagged tear above her left elbow, proof that my strike had landed, revealing the flesh beneath.

It was then I saw them.

Scales.

Countless overlapping scales.

They burned crimson, the colour of blood in sunlight, peeking out from beneath the parted skin. Without having to be told I knew that they covered every inch of her body, surrounding her flesh like a second skin and protecting it like armour. The crimson scales of the Welsh Dragon Ddraig that even the fists of Gods could not shatter.

Even as I watched her wound healed.

The edges of the cut began to pull themselves close, drawing into each other as if they were being zipped up from both ends. A haze of Steam began to appear from where the edges met, obscuring the wound from sight, only to disappear a heartbeat later, leaving behind unblemished skin where once was a jagged cut.

"Do you see?" Karasuba bared her fangs, "This is why you don't save monsters, Emiya." A wind happened to blow then, obscuring one half of her face with her hair. The single emerald eye that watched me was like a shard of ice.

"You kill them."

Twin swords birthed to life in my hands, blades of fire and darkness that seemed to send ripples through reality. A streak of red tore through the air, drawing a line of fire with flames hot enough to burn through even a Dragon's scales. The flaming sword leapt at Karasuba but before it could reach her its advance came to an abrupt stop as I found a hand clamping onto my left wrist, trapping my arm. Then, before I could even think, she snapped my arm in two. A scream of agony threatened to escape my throat as I swung with my other hand, a blade so dark it seemed to absorb light held in its grasp.

Karasuba didn't even bother looking as she caught my other wrist. Her emerald eyes remained locked onto my face while her unoccupied hand seemed to vanish and I found my right arm stopping before it could deliver a blow, held in place by her unrelenting grip.

However, before it could share the fate of my other limb, I tilted my head to the right, and I took great pleasure in the look of shock on Karasuba's face as she caught sight of the golden lance shooting towards her face.

Her eyes widening in alarm, Karasuba released my limbs and dodged in time to avoid getting skewered by the ornamental weapon, hidden until then by my head, and I wasted no time taking advantage of my newly found freedom. As the lance shot past me, I latched onto its shaft with my remaining working hand and swung, even as I projected Excalibur rapidly in my non-functioning hand to bolster my speed. I thrust three times before twirling in place and swinging the weapon wide, not in an attempt to land a telling blow on Karasuba but simply touch her with the lance – the Trap of Argalia – and bring her to her knees. I knew that if I could just stop her from moving for a moment, I could end this.

But Karasuba proved impossibly agile, refusing to be pinned down. She easily swayed out of the way of each of my strikes even as I brought the lance twirling around, bending over backwards almost double, somehow managing to remain firmly on her feet as the ivory and gold lance sailed over her face, missing her by inches.

Then in that flicker of impossible speed, she disappeared from before my eyes, and I found myself holding the shaft of another ruined Noble Phantasm, the lance having been cleaved entirely in two. I barely had the time to let go of the now worthless weapon and begin projecting a new one when I caught sight of Karasuba standing next to me.

Considering the speed with which she could move, I was certain the only reason why I saw what she did next was because she let me.

Releasing her grip on her nodachi, Karasuba curled each finger of her right hand into a fist, a vindictive smile sitting on her lips, before cocking her arm over her shoulder in an obvious wind-up.

The Aria was already on my lips as I spun towards her, my entire body turning to iron and sharpened steel as I held my arms crossed in front of me in a guard, left arm over right. When Karasuba's clenched fist crashed into my arms with a punch so fast that I did not even see her hand move, it was not flesh and bone that she fund meeting her knuckles but wrought iron and steel.

It still didn't stop my bones from breaking.

My left forearm snapped, contorting around her fist as it rammed my crossed arms with such devastating force that it drove my arms into my chest, like a steering wheel in a car crash, before completely lifting me off my feet and launching me through the air.

The following several seconds were nothing but a sensation of weightlessness followed by a blur of pain as I bounced off the road like a stone flung over water, skipping on the tarmac at speeds that would have stripped the flesh from my bones and pulverised my organs had they not been made of iron instead of blood.

As it was it only hurt.

A lot.

In the time between bouncing off the road and sailing through the air like a human bullet before crashing briefly against the ground again, I managed to come to the conclusion that this was probably what happened when Karasuba managed to knock me out the last time.

Somehow, despite literally tumbling head over heels, I managed to coordinate myself enough to twist my body and land feet first. And still I wasn't able to stop myself, the momentum pushing me back with enough force to send my feet skidding against the tarmac as I continued rocketing backwards. It was only after I leaned forward and buried my feet so hard into the ground that they literally buried themselves into the tarmac that I managed to bleed enough momentum to grind to a halt – leaving another set of trenches in the road.

I had just barely managed to bring myself to a complete stop, only to look up and find Karasuba already standing before me, nodachi pulled back in a thrust that would have ripped a hole through my throat had it landed.

I didn't even have the time to call upon any of my swords and was forced to shield myself with just my arms, raising them into the path of the oncoming blade. It pierced through my already mangled left forearm with ease, the blade hardly slowing as it carried into my right arm and still showed no sign of stopping. In a fit of desperation I twisted my forearms, turning them in opposite directions in an attempt to lock the blade in place before it skewered my throat. And, miraculously, with a screech of metal, the blade began to ground to a halt, impossibly sharp tip stopping less than an inch away from my Adam's apple.

Swallowing, I ignored the sensation of the blade brushing again my throat and focused my attention on Karasuba, whose eyes where wide open in stunned shock.

"Emiya," she began, emerald eyes wide as they locked onto the shredded skin of my arms, where metallic blades found their out into the open. Slowly she managed to pull her gaze away from my arms, a look of astonishment that bordered on awe plastered on her face. "Just what the Hell are you?"

"A sword," I answered simply.

It was even the truth.

Her eyes narrowed as she searched my face, trying to gauge my sincerity. She must have seen something there because all of a sudden she lost her grip on her sword, wrapped her arms around her waist and laughed. A surprisingly pleasant sound.

"You know," she began, chuckling as she straightened up, a touch of wonder still colouring her voice, "I think I just might believe you."

The Boosted Gear needed direct physical contact to share its power. Without Karasuba maintaining her hold on the nodachi it had reverted back to being mundane steel instead of a physics-defying weapon. With nothing more than a twist of my wrist it shattered, freeing my limbs as I yanked my arms apart, and with a single quick leap back I put some distance between us – not that it would have mattered seeing how fast she could move.

Never taking my eyes away from Karasuba, I tried to examine the state of my arms from the periphery of my vision and had to repress the urge to grimace at what I saw.

My left arm was ruined. Everything from the elbow down was a mangled mess. Had I any blood left in my veins, I was sure I would have quickly lost it through all the holes I had in that particular limb. The only relative bright spot of the entire situation was that my right arm had managed to come away relatively okay. Other than some missing skin and the narrow hole running through it, which was already quickly being filled by more blades, it was completely functional. But that only meant I was further handicapped to fighting with only one arm against an opponent that was thoroughly kicking my ass when I still had two.

I had to finish this fast before I found myself in even worse condition.

If Karasuba was at all bothered by the loss of her weapon she didn't show it, having already pulled out a new sword, holding it down to one side. Her eyes narrowed as she smiled at me, seemingly content to wait and see what other tricks I might be able to pull out of my hat.

Taking advantage of the brief lull, I took the chance to look over Karasuba's condition.

What I found was not encouraging.

Power surrounded her, one that would be paid for with her life, but she appeared fearless. Even as the Boosted Gear burned through her life-force, there was no hurry, no rush to end things. She waited patiently, almost serenely, not a single hint of concern for herself as she quickly died, her life slipping through her fingers like grains of sands in an hourglass. Instead she stood before me with all of the confidence of a conquering empress surveying her lands, holding herself with all the surety of one knew that she could not be touched. All the while she drew from a well of power so vast and deep that it felt as if it had no end.

I knew better.

The strength that she carried herself with was an illusion, no more real than a dream and just as fleeting. Already I could tell that she had lost entire years from her life, perhaps even decades. Her life-energy was literally being dissolved into the power she was bathing herself in. At this rate by the time everything ended there wouldn't be anything left of her to save.

Unless I wanted to be standing victorious over the corpse of a sixteen year old girl, then I had better win soon.

It was time to put an end to this.

"It's over, Karasuba," I told her. "It's my win."

"Really?" She smirked, all teeth. "How do you figure that?"

Instead of answering with words, I lifted my good arm and pointed straight up to the sky.

Karasuba arched an eyebrow, clearly bemused, but nevertheless obediently complied with my unspoken request and looked upwards.

I could tell the exact moment she saw them.

The entire time we were fighting, I knew I could not win. Not in a straight up fight. Not against someone fully empowered with the might of a Heavenly Dragon, a beast so powerful that it was capable of driving away the entire might of any of the Three Factions alone. I had no illusion of the results of such a confrontation. I had never been the most talented fighter, and I never will be. My strength did not reside in my skill with arms, but in the weapons themselves.

The countless blades that lay in my Reality Marble, my Unlimited Blade Works, were my true strength, my most powerful weapon. I was sure that if I fought in there, there was no enemy I could not match, no matter how strong they may be.

That brought me to the crux of the problem.

Karasuba knew that too.

She had seen my Reality Marble at work, stood beneath its golden sky filled with ever-turning gears, walked among its fields of blades. She had seen what befell Kokabiel and knew the danger it poised should I bring it to bear. And most importantly of all, she had heard my Aria.

The moment the words left my lips, I had no doubt she would cut me down before I finished a single verse.

The greatest weakness of the Unlimited Blades Works was the time needed to summon it, time that she wouldn't give me. However, there was a solution to that problem.

They had gathered in the sky as we fought, hanging above out heads, unseen by all.

It first began with one. Shining like a star, a single golden sword hung in the sky. Then came a dozen more. God-forged steel and Dragon-slaying blades alike. Thrice-cursed steel followed by blessed iron. They numbered in the hundreds, the thousands, and still more came. Masterpieces of metal, treasures of old, they hung in the sky, stretching out for miles, shining like an ocean of stars. Each was a blade out of legend, a Noble Phantasm, and every one capable of piercing a Dragon's hide. It was a sight that would have put the world's greatest treasure vaults to shame.

Just because I couldn't bring her to my swords didn't mean that I couldn't bring my swords to her.

A single mental command caused a ripple to run through the curtain of steel, as every sword began to tilt on its axis, only stopping when all their tips were pointed down at us and all that surrounded us.

"My, aren't you full of surprises." Karasuba only gave the swords above us an amused, lingering glance before looking back at me, completely unconcerned by all the weapons pointed at her.

I could not tell if it was confidence that was the source of her calm or arrogance, but without waiting to see how she would act, I spoke. "Trace bullet, fire."

From the heavens they rained, treasures that would see the world rich a dozen times over. Near twelve thousand swords fell, streaking to the ground like shooting stars. They didn't descend one at a time or in groups but all at once in a single massive wave. They fell as an avalanche of steel, leaving no place to escape on the ground below.

When quality cannot do the job, use quantity.

If I couldn't land a hit with a single blade, then I would use a thousand and carpet bomb the entire area with me right in the middle of it. I had nothing to fear from my own swords. A single thought would dismiss any projections before they could come close to hurting me, and I could do the same to any immediately lethal blows to Karasuba. Even under the hail of sharpened steel, I was safe, but anyone else around me? Not even the scales of a Dragon would keep them safe from harm.

There was nowhere to run. Even with her speed Karasuba would not be able to escape the range of the bombardment. The only choice left to her would be to try to cut the blades down before they reached her but even that would not work. There were too many falling too fast and too close together, each one crafted with felling a Dragon in mind.

Whatever Karasuba chose to do, run or stand, her fate would be the same.

Naturally, Karasuba chose to do neither.

She simply stood there, uncaring for the arsenal of blade falling upon her head.

They fell, shining like streaks of light as they converged on the grey-haired girl who showed no sign of reacting. She didn't try to run or even lift her blade to defend herself. Instead she continued to stand with the supreme confidence of one who knew that they could not be touched.

And in the very last second, just as she was about to be ripped to shreds by a dozen swords and I prepared to de-construct some of them so that she might survive the experience, when their edges were about to brush the edge of her skin, Karasuba acted.

She spoke a single word.

[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[Boost!]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]

The swords disappeared.

All of them, an entire treasury of weapons, gone as if they were never there at all. Wiped from existence, leaving the sky clear.

Even as I craned my neck, I couldn't find a single one. Not in the skies, not on the ground, not even towards the horizon. They were gone. I would have believed she had erased them from existence were it not for the tentative link I held with all of my weapons telling me they still existed somewhere in this world.

I could still sense them, though barely, as if we were separated by some great distance. Though exactly where they were, I had no idea. So I turned to the only one who knew, the grey-haired girl who calmly stood before me.

Seeing my confusion, Karasuba simply smirked and pointed just as I had a minute ago, upwards, towards the sky.

I understood.

Turning my gaze up the empty sky once more, I reinforced my eyes, flooding it with as much Prana as I dared to. It was only when my vision was enhanced to the limit, when I could see hundreds of times further than any human would be capable of, that I saw my swords.

Falling to the earth like shooting stars.

Karasuba, hadn't erased the swords. She had Boosted them, or rather, she had Boosted the distance between them and her. Sending them so far away that they might have been in the stratosphere for all I could tell.

In a single instant she had Boosted the distance between the swords and her from inches to miles.

This was Ddraig's power.

The power of the Heavenly Dragon that brought Gods low, the unrestrained might of the Crimson Emperor that sent an entire Faction fleeing in terror. It was at that moment, when I was finally beginning glimpsing the scope of the power I faced, that I began to comprehend the bitter truth.

I realised then and there that I could not win. If I pitted my strength against that of Ddraig, it would be I who would be found wanting every time.

High above the swords continued to fall, only gaining further momentum as gravity pulled them back to the earth, but the angles were all off. With the added distance from the Boost, their trajectories would take them miles off target. So instead of crashing around us in our immediate surroundings, they fell across the entire city like a bombardment.

What little remained standing in the city fell before the onslaught, buildings and towers alike crumbling to rubble as tens of Noble Phantasms tore through them with no more resistance than if they were paper, only to continue and ram into the earth with such force that tremors ran through the city,leaving behind craters meters wide. It was like a meteor shower, a storm of shooting stars falling throughout the city like rain, wiping away everything that stood before them on their way to the ground. Even the husks of the fallen skyscrapers were not spared, erupting into fragments of rubble as Noble Phantasm tore through their fragile frames.

Even what was not directly hit was destroyed. The shockwaves made by the blades as they passed or hit the ground were so strong that they shattered every window in the city. Cars were propelled down the road by their force, slamming into each other or flipping over entirely when they were no longer able to keep traction on the ground before they were buried as buildings came tumbling onto them.

And in heart of all it all stood Karasuba, untouched by the destruction that befell the city. Not a single one of the twelve thousand Noble Phantasms came close to reaching her.

When the wave of swords finally ended, all that was left were the crumbling remains of what once was a city and a cloud of debris so thick it blotted out the sun as it rose up to the sky and spread throughout the ruins. Before I knew it I was surrounded by a thick blanket of dust that left me blind to my surroundings, so thick that I couldn't even see the sky.

All around me the sound of collapsing buildings could be heard, the destruction of the city still ongoing even after the rain of steel had ended. But above even that noise something else could be heard.

Footsteps.

I stared straight ahead at where the sound came from, steadily growing stronger, just as a silhouette could be seen approaching through the haze.

"Is that it?"

The dust trailed after Karasuba as she stepped out of the haze, unwilling to relinquish its hold on her. It trailed behind her like a cape, clinging to her back, and instead of dispersing only seemed to grow larger with her every step. It began to fold into itself, morphing into something far larger, hints of what looked to be scales appearing in the swirling pattern of the haze.

Soon it began to take a shape, and what it was could no longer be denied. Looming over Karasuba, it trailed behind her like a shadow come to life. From the crumbling dirt and debris its reptilian head formed, swinging from side to side on a long, serpentine neck with every step it took.

Ddraig grinned.

"In the end, is that all you could do?" Karasuba's emerald eyes burned with an inner flame as they regarded me with cold indifference, paying no heed to the shade of the Dragon trailing behind her.

I didn't answer, or rather, I couldn't. I wish I could say that I was setting up another trap, that I had another trick up my sleeve but the truth was that I had nothing. Everything I had tried had failed. All the plans I could think of would no longer work now that I knew what she was fully capable of.

I was all out of cards to play.

I racked my brain, looking for a single desperate plan or strategy that might be able to turn things around, only to come up empty.

I had nothing.

She drew closer, her steps calm and steady. "This is what I am." The look she wore on her face was a cold promise of death. "And in the end, not even you could change anything."

Then she grinned.

The rage on her face washed away, slowly fading until it was as if it were never there, leaving behind something I could not quite name. "Ha! I don't know what I was expecting." She shook her head with a smile. "Guess it was my own fault. I already knew it would end up like this, but I couldn't stop myself from hoping."

Now its time to extinguish that hope.

I'm not sure if it actually spoke or if I simply heard it in my own mind, but the words sounded as if they came from the Dragon that loomed over her head.

Whether or not Karasuba heard Ddraig speak, it didn't matter, because in the end she simply laughed."I get it. I get it already, I-"

There was something on her face. An emotion that I could not identify, as she screamed out so loudly that it echoed throughout the empty city.

"I – AM – DRAGON."

It was a boast, a warning, a wail of despair, a roar of defiance and a cry for help all wrapped into one.

Her scream didn't end until she ran out of air to scream with, and just as her voice died out a pin-prick point of light appeared before her open jaw.

[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[Boost!]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]

A sun was born.

The haze of dust was swept away, a shockwave of displaced and superheated air pushing it back, leaving behind a pocket of crystal clear air. And in the middle of it all was a miniature star that seemed to flood the world with light.

It felt as if I was looking at the dawn after an endless night, an eruption of light so overwhelmingly bright that it made everything appear dark in comparison, casting the rest of the city in shadows. The fist-sized sphere of light hanging before Karasuba's open mouth released so much energy that the air around her shimmered, heated by the mere proximity to the tiny star as even Karasuba's clothing began to smoke from being so close. She wasn't even aiming that attack at me. Instead it was pointed downwards, straight towards the earth a few yards ahead of her, as if she intended for the attack to detonate there and simply wipe everything in the area out of existence.

With one look, I knew there was nothing I could do to stop the attack. It had already formed, the gathered energy just waiting for the right trigger to set it off. Even taking Karasuba down now wouldn't be enough to prevent that tiny sphere with power enough to erase entire mountain ranges from detonating. And we were standing on what was about to be ground zero.

As if matters weren't bad as it enough as it was, I sensed Karasuba's life-force dip considerably, as if she was literally fueling the attack with her own life.

It was then, paralysed with indecision, unable to think of a way out, that I heard his voice.

If you cannot defeat your enemy with the weapon you do have, then imagine one with which you could.

Advice given to me long ago, from a man who wasn't certain if he wanted to kill me or save me.

As if summoned forth by his words, a weapon appeared in the forefront of my mind, waiting for me to call upon it.

A dagger.

An iridescent and jagged blade, it was thin, brittle, blunt. So unsuited to being a weapon it could not hope to kill a single normal person let alone one such as she.

A blade that could not kill, simply sever.

It was exactly what I needed.

With all the desperation of someone who knew he had no other choice, I ran. Dagger coming into existence in my hand, I charged towards the sphere of power, towards the girl who was about to unleash an attack that would snuff out both of our lives.

By the time I closed the gap, she had finished.

The sphere pulsed once before launching itself forward towards the ground, just as I reached her side and stabbed that dagger into her chest.

The world was drowned out with light.

---

My body burned.

It was as if I had been set aflame.

The sensation felt almost familiar.

A feeling from long ago.

Ah, I remember now. It reminded me of back then.

When I survived something that could only be described as Hell.

Once I walked through a place where everyone wanted to be saved.

But none were.

They just died.

Begging, pleading, they perished in the flames. Wanting to be saved, only to find no one there to save them.

I walked through the fire, ignoring their cries and their pleas for help.

I couldn't help anyone.

I couldn't save anyone.

Not even myself.

I didn't have any hope of surviving. All I could do was force myself onwards, just for a little longer, before I died.

That was all I could do.

At the time I felt that since I was still alive, I should try to live on, even if only for a little bit longer.

And when I couldn't carry on any longer, I fell to the ground to die.

I never had any hope of surviving in the first place.

And yet, I was saved.

Till this day, I do not know why.

Why only me?

Why was I the only one saved...when so many others died.

Why was Emiya Shirou the only one permitted to walk out of that fire?

I do not know.

I doubt I ever will.

But in the end, it doesn't matter.

Because of what I saw that day.

A memory, the one thing I remember other than the flames.

The smiling face of the man who saved me, even as I saved him in turn.

I knew, even then, that was my purpose.

"Hey."

A black boot made its way into my sight and I realised I was lying on the ground.

Though it hurt to move even a finger, somehow I managed to turn my head enough to look up.

He looked so different clad only in a black shirt and pants, his red coat nowhere to be seen.

His dark eyes watched me, and then he spoke.

"That's Hell you're walking into."

He was right.

This was Hell.

My body burned. My throat ached, my eyes stung.

But still-

"I know, Archer." My eyes drifted shut for a moment. It hurt even to speak. "I know."

My burns flared and I placed a hand onto the ground and pushed myself up, barely managing to lift my head off the ground. "But there is something in there that I have to do."

Somehow, despite all of my limbs shaking, I managed to get my feet under me.

"There are still people left in that Hell, crying for help."

My legs barely managed to support my weight, shaking so badly that they threatened to topple over any second, but I still managed to rise up.

"Even if there was no reason why I survived that day, then at the very least I will make sure that no one else will have to live through such a Hell ever again." I took a stumbling step forward. "I decided that was the reason why I – why Emiya Shirou survived. To save others."

Without turning to look his way I walked forward, barely managing to avoid stumbling.

"Even if such a life will be that of a machine?"

"You're wrong." I kept on walking, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. "It's not only them that I will save. I promised you, didn't I? I'm going to save myself too. I will make sure all of us make it out of this Hell together."

I didn't look back.

I wonder...what kind of face he was making?

But in the end, it didn't matter.

This was my only path.

---

I awoke to the sound of laughter.

My eyes slowly began to flutter open. My face was pressed to the ground. I could feel pieces of gravel digging into my cheek, and as I fully opened my eyes I found myself staring at a charred lump of metal. Everything was still a little blurry and I had blink a couple of times to realise that I was staring at my own hand.

Pinpricks of embers still burned in the blacked flesh as steam wafted from the limb. My skin was almost entirely gone, leaving the muscle, or what little remained of it, exposed to the open air. Most of it was gone, and what was left clung to the equally black bones of my arm. The smell was nauseating. Every breath I took filled my nose with the scent of my own burned flesh.

If this was the state of my arm then I didn't want to imagine what my back looked like. It had taken the brunt of the blast, as I had been facing away from the explosion, and I didn't imagine that it managed to come out in any better a condition. Thankfully I could not feel my back at all. Which in any other situation might have been mildly disturbing but, as of right now, I was quite grateful for the respite from pain. Though, with my luck, it was only temporary.

When I tried to stand, pain racked my body, forcing me to immediately give up. So instead I decided to remain where I was, lying on the ground as I waited for my wounds to heal.

"Hahahaha-!"

I managed to turn my head just enough to catch a glimpse of the source of the laughter. Karasuba was only a few yards away from me, also lying on the ground. With her head pointed towards mine we were almost mirror images of each other.

"Emiya." When she caught sight of me, she lifted a hand and pointed towards the sunset, heedless of her own burns. "It's your win," she gasped out before returning to happily laughing her ass off.

It was with a graceful smile that I set my head back onto the ground. Knowing she was still alive made it all worth it.

I wasn't certain that she would survive the experience. Rule Breaker can break any contract, no matter how powerful, but a Sacred Gear was already embedded into the seat of a person's soul. From a time before their birth it was there, a part of them as surely as their own heart and lungs were. The soul began adapting to it over time, growing alongside the Sacred Gear and making it a part of itself. This was why, once a Sacred Gear was removed, the soul typically could no longer sustain its form and collapsed onto itself, killing the host.

Once that happened, it was impossible to revive them. Not even the Evil Pieces could bring them back, not without returning the Sacred Gear to the host, as it was the soul that was damaged and not the body. It was why the idea of extracting the Boosted Gear had never occurred to me. Doing so should have been tantamount to killing her.

But it seemed like I need not have worried.

The Rule Breaker did not extract the Boosted Gear. It only severed the bond with the host, leaving the Sacred Gear in its proper place. And as Sacred Gears were designed for the purpose of attaching themselves to the nearest comparable soul, which in this case just so happened to be the soul it was already inhabiting, it re-established its connection almost immediately.

In the end all that Rule Breaker managed to do was temporarily disrupt the connection between the host and Sacred Gear, effectively resetting it.

Which was why Karasuba lived.

Even so, just because she survived her experience with Rule Breaker did not mean she had not been in any danger. Without the defences that the Juggernaut Drive provided her there was no chance of her surviving the aftermath of her attack. The Dragon Shot she fired was so powerful that I was certain that, for all of my natural defences, it would have vaporised my body had it so much as brushed me. As close as Karasuba had been to the epicentre of the blast, there was no way she would have survived.

That was why I used my body to shield her.

Filling my circuits with as much Prana as I could produce, I turned my flesh completely into steel and put myself between her and the blast.

It was barely enough.

But in the end it was worth it.

Karasuba was right.

With a groan of agony I flipped myself onto my back, my eyes taking in the evening sky overhead. The sun was setting.

This really was my win.

It was then that I caught sight of the crater

It began about a hundred meters away, in the direction where my feet were pointed. A massive bowl-shaped depression in the ground that stretched for miles, all the way to the horizon, it almost extended farther than even I could see. From this angle, I couldn't even see how deep it went. To think that a city once stood there, when nothing remained of it now but a hole in the ground.

At that moment, I had never been more thankful in my life for thinking ahead. If I hadn't insisted on fighting here instead of the real world, I couldn't even begin to imagine how much worse things would have gotten.

For the next few seconds, I just lay there, enjoying my well-deserved break as I stared up at the golden-red sky, Karasuba's laughter still filling my ears.

"Hey," I called once I felt I had waited long enough. "Isn't it about time to answer my question?"

Karasuba paused in her laughter to send me a perplexed look. "What?"

"My question," I repeated, still looking at the sky. "That was my prize."

When we began our fight, I managed to draw out a promise from Karasuba that, should I win our duel, she'd answer any single question I asked.

"Ah, that." Karasuba sounded a little absent-minded, almost as if she was trying to recall a long forgotten memory. I didn't blame her. It really did feel like it had happened a lifetime ago. "I had completely forgotten."

She laughed again at the thought before, with a grunt of what may have exertion but was just as likely to have been pain, she flipped herself onto her front. Reaching forward with a hand she dug her fingers into the earth and began to pull her body forward, dragging herself on the ground towards where I lay.

She didn't bother trying to stand and walk.

Or rather, she couldn't.

I had tried to shield her from the worst of the blast but, even using my body as a shield, I couldn't protect her from all of it. She hadn't come out of it unharmed. Burn marks littered her entire form, ranging from mild burns all the way up to deep third degree burns, bones peaking through where her flesh had been incinerated. It must have been agonising to carry those injuries, not that Karasuba seemed to notice with how much she been laughing.

But that wasn't the worst of it.

The upper half of her body was mostly intact, burned at places but whole. Her lower body however-

I couldn't cover her completely. With my frame there was no way I could have covered every inch of her and left nothing exposed. Which was why I prioritized her upper body, her head and chest, covering it as much as I could with my own body.

I managed to protect most of her, but not all of her.

Karasuba dragged herself across the ground towards me, the ruined stumps of her legs trailing uselessly behind her. Everything from her mid-thigh downwards was gone. Not even her knees remained. Unless she got immediate treatment by a powerful magical healer, she'd never be able to walk again.

But that alone was not the worst of her injuries – it was only the worst of those visible.

There was something missing from Karasuba, something crucial. It was not something that I could perceive with my eyes, but only with my senses. Within her, in the place where a person's soul may dwell, there was an emptiness where something was supposed to reside. A light that once burned so brightly had dimmed. The flame that was once a blazing inferno may not have been extinguished but was now barely an ember, threatening to sputter out with the slightest breeze.

Her life-force had been almost entirely used up. The Juggernaut Drive had been active for only a handful of minutes but it had drained her until almost nothing remained. How many years had she given up for using it? Decades at least. Even if Karasuba never used the Juggernaut Drive again, it was unlikely that she'd live to see thirty. She may not even make it to twenty, so little of her life remained.

But even so, when Karasuba finally reached me, dropping herself to the ground with her head parallel to my own before rolling onto her back, she still laughed.

Happily, freely, she laughed.

Somehow, I don't think she regretted it.

Turning my head so that I looked to my left, where Karasuba had laid her head next to mine no more than a foot away, I found her looking back at me. Her grey eyes shone with barely restrained mirth.

"Well," she began, lips set in an open smile. "Wasn't that something?"

Only to break down in a fit of laughter an instant later. It was a childlike sound, completely carefree, as if a great burden had been lifted from her shoulders.

I simply stared as she laughed, waiting for her to finish.

Seeing this, Karasuba rolled her eyes. "Fine," she relented almost petulantly. "Go ahead and ask. What is it that you want to know?"

That was the million dollar question, wasn't it?

When I had first made the deal at the beginning of the fight I had a completely different question in mind, but at some point during the fight I had already received the answer I was looking for. Several of them, as a matter of fact.

And now there was only one thing left to ask.

"What did you see?" Spotting her raised eyebrow, I clarified. "Excalibur. What did it show you? What did you see in the light?"

Karasuba stared at me for a long while, grey eyes no longer lidded, not saying a thing, before she looked away.

"Ha. So that's what you wanted," she said, sounding oddly tired. To her credit, she didn't try and dodge the question. "It was nothing." She dropped her head and looked up to the sky, the breeze pulling strands of hair over her face. "Just a dream. A lie that will never come true..."

Karasuba seemed to lose herself in the memory, drifting into silence while her eyes seemed to see something that was not there.

"What did you see?" I promoted as gently as I could.

"...Home." She answered. "I saw home."

---

"Ex-

Karasuba turned away from where she was examining a sword protruding from the ground, just as a pillar of light ascended to the heavens.

She stood on the side of a grassy hill dotted with swords and looked upwards, eyes widening with wonder at what she saw. Her mind was unable to articulate what she experienced as she was bathed in its radiance. A light so golden and warm washed over the world, reminding her of-

A single arm found its way around her shoulders, wrapping around her protectively, filling her with a familiar warmth.

She did not need to turn and look to know who was standing there.

She did so anyway.

Turning to her left, she found him looking at her, a smile sitting easily on his lips as if he knew all the secrets of the world. His brown eyes gazed at her warmly, while he pulled her closer to his side with his single arm as if to protect her from the world.

Dad.

From her other side she felt someone else wrap their arms around her, burying themselves under her right arm and clinging to her side so fiercely as if she'd never let anyone pry them apart ever again. She was not surprised when she turned to look and found her mother gazing up at her, eyes filled with such love that she knew she could never deserve.

They were here, by her side.

Safe.

Somehow she knew that she could stay here and they wouldn't be in any danger. That they were here to stay.

She was finally allowed to stay by their side.

That alone would have been a miracle.

But there was someone else.

She looked ahead and found herself staring into a face she had never seen before.

She stared at an impossibility.

'Who are you?' -Though she had seen her before, though she knew that she had never met this person, that thought never crossed her mind.

She knew her.

When Karasuba met her eyes, instead of flinching back, she gazed straight back at her, smiling with open delight.

"Neh, Nee-chan," she said playfully, teasingly as she pointed at her wet cheeks, "you're crying."

So she was.

Tears ran freely down Karasuba's cheeks as she gazed upon her familiar features, ones she felt as if hadn't seen in a long, long time.

Brown tresses ran down the sides of her face, the same shade hers once were. Warm eyes shone, the likes of which she had only seen staring at her from her father's face. A face that was a blend of her father's and mother's.

Karasuba stood before her equal.

So similar, yet so different. A light to the shadow of her existence. A sun to her moon. Her opposite, but one that could stand by her on equal footing, matching her every step of the way. A twin, a sister, born the same day, the same hour of the same minute as her, who could stand before her unafraid.

How long had she wished for such as thing?

Her name-?

Yume.

That was her name – A dream.

How fitting.

She was someone that couldn't be real, had never been real, only a dream born from the depths of her heart, but under the light of that blade she stood before her as real as she was.

This was her dream – her Yume.

"-calibur."

Then she was gone.

As if she was never there.

And Karasuba was left standing on the hill of swords, utterly alone.

---

With that final piece the entire puzzle fell into place as I understood everything that had happened.

"Hey, Emiya..." Karasuba began, tossing an arm over her eyes. Hiding her face. "...That sword, it's cruel. Showing me something I can never have."

After a moment she removed her arm and stared up at the sky, eyes wet. "I know...I know I'm not allowed to stay by their side. That I don't deserve to. Which was why I spent all this time building up walls, trying to distance myself from them, all the while resigning myself to the truth that I had to leave."

Anger suddenly filled her expression, flaming hot, and her hand clenched into the fist that she hammered against the ground. "Then in a single instant, that accursed thing brought it all down." Her voice rose until she was screaming.

Just as suddenly as it came all her anger disappeared, and now Karasuba just looked tired. "Heh." She shut her eyes and chuckled to herself. "I hated that sword for giving me hope again only to take it away. I hated it so much." She chuckled again. "I was going to break it, you know. I didn't know where you had hidden it, but I was determined to break that sword even if I had to dig through every inch of you flesh, crack open your skull and draw out you marrow until I found it and snapped it in two."

"But," Karasuba sighed, "I guess it doesn't matter anyone. Its not going to change one God damn thing no matter what I do. There is no 'Promised Victory' – the Dream will never come true. There is no one left to deliver the Dream...is there?"

Karasuba drifted into silence for a long moment before speaking up again.

"Hey, Emiya."

"Yeah?" I replied, staring up at the sky alongside her.

"The king..." She hesitated." …the king really is dead...isn't he?"

"Yes….she's dead."

Karasuba didn't immediately reply. "...that really sucks."

"...yeah….yeah, it does."

Then we both drifted into silence, neither one of us having anything to say as we laid on our backs, heads side by side, each lost in our thoughts.

I see. So that was it. In the end it was so painfully simple.

It had never been about me, the reason why she had chased after me so desperately. It was to see if she could reach that dream. Even though she had no hope, though she knew it was impossible, nothing more than an ephemeral fantasy that would disappear with the morning light, she chased after it anyway. Hoping against hope for a miracle to occur.

In the end, all she wanted was to remain by her parents' side, and for a sibling – an equal – to understand her. A child's dream.

Truly, what a simple dream.

But there was no one left to deliver the dream.

She knew that. But she tried anyway.

Desperately, fragilely, while still believing it would all be for nothing, she chased after me.

Is that how much you wanted to stay by their side, Karasuba?

I shut my eyes.

Deep in my chest, I felt something resolve. An idea that had been stirring in my mind for too long, ever since I met an Angel in a park.

Perhaps it was at that moment that my dream came to be. No, I'm certain it was. The seed that had been planted in my heart by the Angel, it was finally beginning to sprout. I wonder if he knew what he had done that day? If he had planned all of this as we spoke under the swaying leaves?

He probably did. It would be just like him.

Kiritsugu once told me that being a hero was a limited-time thing. That the older we got, the harder it became to call yourself one. But it looked like he was wrong, because what I had to do had never been more clear. I knew what I had to do.

There had been times that I could not save anyone, but, at the very least, I could save this one.

My eyes drifted open.

"Would you like to see it?

I felt Karasuba's eyes on me.

"The Continuation of the Dream?"

With the remains of my magic, I summoned it, a summoning circle momentarily appearing over my hand before depositing it into my palm.

Ignoring the twinge of pain from my damaged muscles, I reached over and set the Queen Evil Piece on the ground between us.

"Let me save you."

Karasuba stared at it.

"...Is this a joke?" The threat in her voice was all too clear. Pushing herself up with her arms she turned to face me, a curtain of hair blocking her expressionless face. "Because I'm not laughing."

There was no anger in her tone or expression, just a face deprived of any emotion, but I knew if I said the wrong thing next then – legs or no legs – she'd try to kill me.

I didn't care.

"Once, man tried to match Heaven," I began, disregarding her threat as I raised a hand up to the sky, fingers open as if trying to grasp it. "They tried to build a Kingdom to match that of God. A Kingdom of Heaven. And though we never did, we came close to matching its splendour. Each attempt came closer to succeeding than the last. Babylon, Carthage, until Camelot. But somewhere along the way, we stopped trying.

"Perhaps it's time to try again."

Karasuba stared at me oddly. "Emiya, what the Hell are you going on about?"

I told her.

Under a sky turned crimson by the setting sun, surrounded by the remains of a ruined city, I told her of my dream. One given to me by an Angel under swaying leaves of green.

Looking at the colour of the sky as I spoke, I realised it had always been twilight. When I said goodbye to her, and later on when I first met her, it was always twilight. As if the sun was unable to decide if it was about to rise or set. A promise of a new day, or an end of one. It was no wonder that even the sky within my soul was one of twilight.

For a long time, I didn't know if my life was ending or beginning.

But for this child, to save her, I would make sure this crimson sky held the promise of tomorrow

As I spoke, the anger drained from Karasuba's face to be replaced with incredulity. Her eyes grew steadily wider the more I spoke, until she was staring at me with eyes so wide I could no longer see the white, her jaw hanging ever so slightly open.

By the time I was done Karasuba had been rendered mute, simply staring slack-jawed at me, unable to say a thing.

"...You're insane," she said at last, having finally regained her voice, sounding completely serious. "You are certifiably mentally insane."

I felt slightly insulted that she of all people would say that to me.

It wasn't long, however before her incredulity morphed into amusement, causing her to throw her head back in laughter. Not cruel one but clean and honest laughter born from genuine delight and perhaps even wonder.

When she finally managed to calm down her laughter to snickering, Karasuba turned to look at me. She simply stared at me for a time, a wide smile sitting plainly on her lips for all to see as she contemplated me. Then she shifted, moving so that she hung above me, her forearms placed on either side of my head to support her weight. Grey hair tumbled down, falling around us like a curtain as her face hung mere inches above my own, grey eyes focused onto my gold, while a tiny smile remained on her lips.

For a time, we stayed like that. Neither of us saying a word.

I wasn't sure how much time passed, but by the time she stirred the sun had almost completely set, the sky above painted a dark shade of crimson-red, threatening to plunge us into complete darkness at any minute.

Pushing herself back, Karasuba turned to consider the innocuous black chess piece sitting on the ground. A thoughtful look on her face, she observed the chess piece with an uncharacteristic amount of patience before reaching out.

Karasuba picked it up.

The moment she touched the Evil Piece, I felt my heart clench and something in the pit of my stomach twist, regret filling me. It wasn't enough. The Queen Piece wouldn't be enough to transform her. There had been no reaction through the link that bound the Evil Piece to me, none whatsoever, which meant that a single Queen piece didn't come close to having enough power to complete the job. With the utter lack of response, I wasn't even sure if two Queen Pieces would have been enough. And I only had just that one.

My eyes momentarily clenched in regret as sorrow filled me. I did not have enough pieces to transform her.

I had failed.

I could not save her.

Karasuba, unaware of my inner turmoil, continued to examine the chess piece. Holding it before her eyes, between her thumb and forefinger, she looked it over, turning it from side to side, a contemplative expression upon her face. When she was finished, she turned to look down at me.

Then she smiled.

I watched as her lips formed a single word.

[Boost!]

The sun disappeared beyond the horizon, plunging the world into darkness, just as the Evil Piece flared to life, burning crimson as it mutated.

---

*Chapter end*

Author's Notes:

So we come to the battle's close at last, and before anyone asks, yes, it was that Yume and yes, Karasuba is part of the Peerage as a Queen. And boy will there be consequences for it, but that's for another time.

And with this we have just about reached the mid-point of the current arc, and the action is about to pick up. The first half of the arc is what I mentally think of as the set up stage (Or question arcs using Umineko terminology), and the rest of the arc will be where we reap the rewards and have all the questions answered.

Next chapter we'll have a chance to see several of our favorite characters, as well as the announcements of all the match-ups for the Rating Game fights (I'll see if I can post a tournament chart somehow) along with the lead up to the first fight - and trust me when I say that the first Young Devil's Gathering fight is going to be between two people that a lot of readers have been looking forward to seeing for a long time.

In addition, this chapter will also marks a change in Shirou as a protagonist. So far, Shirou has been rather passive as a protagonist, reacting to situations rather than taking preemptive action. It makes sense as he didn't have a clear goal or purpose in the DxD verse (other than the vague one of saving people), and was more or less content to sit on the side lines where he had been moved around like a piece on a board, but now that's going to change. He's no longer content to set in the sidelines anymore, not when he has a goal, to see the continuation of the 'Dream'.

Expect to see a far more proactive Shirou from now on.

That's all for now. I sincerely hope you enjoyed the chapter, please tell me what you thought of it in the reviews.

Oh, and in case any of you are wondering what name of the current arc is, its -

ARC 2:-

The No Longer Distant Utopia