CHAPTER FOURTEEN

When I came to be, I jolted awake.

I righted myself at once, my eyes wide and mouth agape, as I saw Sanzang dismantling before me. She was dissolving in motes of light, the woman that managed to take me away from the pain, the companion that gave me unwavering support while I was lost. Dissolving. Going away. The knowledge of what she used hammered in my mind, unwelcomed, for it told me it would be her last act there.

"Sanzang, you…" I said, raising a hand to caress her cheek. It broke under my touch, like wind blowing against a dandelion, flakes of bright light gently flying away. "Not you. Please, not you."

"It was a pleasure," Sanzang said, smiling, more melancholic than sad. "So ask them to summon me again in Chaldea, would you? I want to see them again," Sanzang shook her head. "I want to see you again. Can you promise me that?"

"Anything," I said, gulping as her expression brightened. "Anything."

But she was already gone.

All that remained was a petal in the palm of my hand.

I got back to my feet and closed my eyes, leaning my forehead against the cave wall and spreading my hands against it, the coldness helping me think clearer. My fingers felt no resistance as they closed into fists like I was carving through water instead of bedrock, and I exhaled a ragged breath from my mouth.

I had failed, failed, and Sanzang died for it. I —

I had to make it count.

That new, yet familiar power, seeped through my touch readily. There was a tearing sound as a portal opened before me, leading right into my inner world. I could feel it, like a part of me that had been there the entire time but only got discovered now.

"Okay," I said, more to myself than anyone else, and turned to the civilians, forcing my lips into a reassuring smile. "You must go through this to a safe place. There'll be water and a place to stay while we sort things around here, so off you go."

Maybe it had been Cortana doing her boot camp of nightmares or Sanzang preachings that made us look like pious, vengeful angels with an alarming penchant for eating Englishmen's livers. It could even be that they remembered how the last time a guy got resurrected inside a cave around there, after three days, turned out.

They hastened to obey, mothers clutching their children closely, old men and women supporting each other, all going through the portal; I could feel every single one as they stepped inside my inner world. However, I paid no attention, my own mind loud enough by itself.

I should've been better than that. I should've saved Sanzang. I should've saved them all.

"Sahib! Thank you!" An old woman said, touching my shoulders before she went in. She hesitated for a moment, her face morphing into a stern look. "Now you go there and make them pay for our home. I saw you carrying more weight than a horse! Flying! You make them pay for all of us, you understand?!"

Something — Stress Defense, Sanzang, my past life conditioning — allowed me to swallow my guilt down and smile back at this tough old battleax, but she had already stepped inside, followed by the rest. Until there was only me, and I closed the portal.

My senses expanded, and I took the world in. The entirety of the battlefield, that eerie presence amidst my allies, who — I stiffened as a chill ran up my spine. Cortana, bleeding. Da Vinci, untainted. Mash. Bleeding. Arash knocked down. Bedivere, with only a faint heartbeat. Gabrielle, whole but shaken. Sanzang, dead.

I was already moving before thinking about it.

My Heat Vision blazed as I took the skies, incinerating those enemies in my way as I accelerated, the creature standing near the ones I loved getting closer. The warped strands of his DNA told me who it was, and my Mana allowed my perception to spread into the arcane, watching that scorching energy, a spark of divinity, coursing through his veins. How his Noble Phantasm had been seared into his arm so he couldn't lose it again like the last time.

Tristan.

I slammed against his midsection strong enough to throw him through a mountain.

"Da Vinci, Cortana, you, you…" I skidded to a stop and shut my mouth, taking stock of them. Cortana had an enormous gash in her belly that would've killed an average human, while Da Vinci still looked whole — but knowing how a Servant could regenerate, that wasn't much to go for. Mash and Gabrielle were a bit far away as Gabrielle hugged her like a lifeline.

Mash had half-healed bones and internal bruising, mending slowly.

Bedivere and Arash were also here, laid down. Arash had a concussion, while Bedivere had been knocked out, sweating as if overheated; he had to have used Airgetlám repeatedly to be damaged like this.

I wanted to be angry, but all I felt was sadness.

"I'm sorry. I'm an idiot!" I babbled, embracing Cortana and Da Vinci tightly, old wounds bleeding with newer ones as my eyes stung with tears. "I love you, I love you so much it hurts! I'm so fucking sorry, please don't leave me, not you two too —"

"Shh, I'm here. I love you," Cortana said, embracing me tightly. "I love you."

"We love you," Da Vinci said, tiptoeing, her voice warm as she kissed my forehead.

"I'm a complete failure," I cursed, shaking my head.

Cortana promptly grabbed my face. "You look here!" She exclaimed, her eyes blazing. "It's not your fault! Da Vinci had to knock this in my head, and believe me when I say I'll do the same to you if I need to!" I looked at Da Vinci, who nodded, "It's not your fault, my fault, anyone's fault! Hell, I even had a fun time when that thing tried to hurt me after I turned my pain receptors off! So you stop with it right now!"

She paused, breathing heavily from her rant as I just held them.

"Sanzang?" Cortana asked in a lower voice.

I shook my head, my eyes downcast.

"Satan! Actually Satan," Gabrielle screamed, dragging Mash behind her, and I promptly pulled him into our group hug. She hung onto me like a limpet, forcing me to let out a choked laugh despite myself. "You're here! I knew you'd be there! Nothing can ever take down the Lord of Darkness, I say, and I was right! You're here!"

"We believed!" Mash added and put an arm around us, the other still holding her own chest gingerly. She smiled wide, even as her eyes brimmed with tears. "We did! I didn't tell him anything, even when it hurt so much and —"

Mash let out a sob, hiding her face in Gabi's hair. "I didn't tell him."

"I know, I know," I said, kissing the top of her head. "You've been incredibly brave, eh Mash?"

All of them had been, really.

I took my time just basking in the feeling of them being here, if not whole, still alive and well. Even with Bedivere and Arash still unconscious and Sanzang… having those four in my arms gave me much-needed reassurance, showing me I hadn't failed completely yet.

Taking a step back, I broke the group hug, giving another look at their wounds.

"Who?" I asked, my voice very low. "Who did this to you? If it was Mordred —"

"Not really?" Cortana shook her head, her expression lighter now. "Mordred's in our team! Gabi managed to convince her… you should've seen it, it was inspired! Turns out that, in the end, Mordred was just trying to find someone who could care."

I blinked. "Sorry, but didn't we kinda try to kill each other?"

"That's Mordred," Da Vinci said, reaching our fallen comrades as a soft glow emanated from her open hands. "She probably took it as foreplay."

That made a frightening amount of sense.

"If it ain't her, it's Zombiecunt then." I connected the dots and cracked my neck, already tracking where I had thrown him in my mind. "I'll be right back."

"James," Cortana began saying.

"I'm just gonna see if I can shove my foot so deep inside his ass he's gonna need to use shoe-polish as toothpaste, really. It'll take only a wee little moment."

"James," Cortana grabbed my arm. "Before you go, I want you to think about all these people," she gestured to where the soldiers were mopping up the survivors. "They fought for the village, they fought for us. Please, while I do want to know that worm suffered after what he did to Mash…" She shook her head. "Just think about them, first. About us."

She probably didn't intend it, but those words hit me like a punch in the gut.

"I'm a slow learner, Cortana," I said quietly, still tracking the thing's movement as he jumped back in our direction. "But I still learn. I'm not going to abandon any of you anymore, doing it once was already one time too many." I paused, wanting to make it clear. "Trust me in that."

"With my life," she answered promptly, still trusting me, and caught sight of Tristan's silhouette approaching from upwards. "Don't take too long, okay? We missed you."

I forced a smile. "I'll be back before you know it."

My smile drained from my face as I turned away and —

Moved.

While finally, finally, rage filled my entire being.

I crashed against the monster like the hammer of god and grabbed him by the throat, dragging him with me. We rocketed forward, going through everything standing in the way. Through their knights, a mountain, two, a dune — I accelerated further and further, a whirlwind of sand following in my wake. Scorching fire came from my eyes, my Heat Vision giving form to my hate as his skin burned off, flaked off, the sweet scent of burned meat wafting up.

Tristan screamed as his carbonized midsection fell off amidst a shower of gore.

I snarled. That was not nearly enough!

Fingers that could bend steel like clay tightened around his neck as I put more and more speed... every drop of blood coming from Cortana? Every broken bone from Mash, creaking as she moved? Every ragged breath from Arash and Bedivere? I heard it all. I could smell. They were like drums in my mind, pushing me forward.

There wasn't a sense of excitement. No joy at fighting a worthy enemy. Nothing.

I felt almost empty.

I just wanted to hurt him.

There's that thing Superman said about feeling like the world was made of cardboard, and it was true. It was. I had to hold Cortana and Da Vinci with utmost care to not break them, leash myself to not destroy everything around me with hands capable of ripping mountains apart… I had to be careful. So contained, so restrained —

Not this time.

Tristan was rammed against the walls of Camelot with a sound like thunder, the impact blowing a hole open in the sand under us as they held. Camelot had their field up against invaders turned on, a dome closed above the holy city, but I couldn't care less about that, focused on the sound of every bone in the body of Tristan shattering at once.

More.

I held him against the wall with one hand, cocking my fist back. The wretch flailed in my grip, a dead thing that didn't know it was finished yet, still trying to say something through a crushed trachea — not that I could've heard it through the rush of blood in my ears.

My first punch broke the sound barrier.

For Cortana.

The fifth splattered my face with gray matter. The twentieth set my fist aflame with friction.

Da Vinci. Arash. Mash. Bedivere. Gabi. Sanzang.

The walls of Camelot had been lauded as unbreakable, but this creature was connected to Rhongomyniad, giving me enough of a loophole to try. At the hundredth, less than a second after I began, the wall had been stained red. Cracks spiderwebbed around the stone, caving in behind Tristan's body as filthy things trickled down my fist. I didn't stop, each punch slamming the thing further through the wall, a cloud of dust and rocks falling on us. I couldn't stop.

No, I went further.

Faster than a human eye could see, again, and again, and again.

By the thousandth, the wall gave in.

Tristan garbled something as we went through the hole, his hands flailing as he tried to scratch my face in vain — one of them, the metallic, weird one, got near my mouth, and I bit his fingers, shaking my head like an animal and spitting the torn flesh at his face. I headbutted him, cracking his mended cranium again, feeling his blood trickling down my head and knowing the taste of it.

His flesh bubbled, trying to mend itself, and the civilians of Camelot screamed as they ran away.

I slammed Tristan's head into the ground and ran, carving a trench here with his face. He was feeble, like a doll caught in a hurricane, and couldn't resist as I flew up to the Red Tower, his limp body flapping in the wind.

The Lion King was up here, inside that red barrier and watching me with ever stoic eyes, a statue more than a person. Her remaining knights flanked her — Gawain, shining with the sun itself and holding a flailing Mordred, just for his arms to slacken as he saw me. Agravain, with an expression of extreme loathing, a strange, blackened arm attached to his stump.

Mordred herself stepped back, wide-eyed. I gave her a minute nod.

The rest of them, though?

I'll show them why they should fear the man in the sky.

I gave Tristan time to reform, almost looking human again, while pressure started building behind my eyes; for a moment, I considered throwing him at them, but Mordred was here and, apparently, tried to help my friends while I couldn't. Not worth the risk, and I wanted to end it myself. All Tristan was, had to end now. My voice was a whisper, yet resonated as if I had screamed as the air itself thrummed and I couldn't contain the heat anymore —

"Burn."

The world went red.

I roared as the twin red beams engulfed Tristan with such an intensity they were like a physical force. Even from here, the Red Tower went incandescent as everything burned, the heat irresistible, angry, as gigawatts of processed sunlight poured through my eyes.

Tristan's form flaked inside the blast, darkening and flaking off. I couldn't hear him screaming, charred by heat powerful enough to make the clouds above us evaporate. I knew that this thing in his chest was as close to the divine we could find around there, but I cared not as it sparked and twisted into itself, screaming as pieces flew in the wind, incapable of taking me on.

I wanted the Lion King to witness as I unmade Tristan.

Every part, every particle, every singular molecule of his being.

All of it burned and burned —

Until there was nothing more to burn.

I opened my hand, and only ashes drifted away from my grip. The Lion King said nothing, still watching me intently, but her hand holding Rhongomyniad was smoking and shook minuscule, but she couldn't hide it from me. Before I could feel any sense of elation, however, a golden portal appeared under her hand, and energy poured inside it.

A drop of rain hit my face.

There was no need for me to turn back to know that, above the village, the point of a colossal spear made of pure gold would soon puncture the clouds. She dared?! I itched to rip through all those pesky barriers that made her feel safe, to feel her warm blood in my hands as I tore her still-beating heart from her chest —

Think about us.

No. Even if I was a slow learner, I could still learn.

Giving a scoff of derision at the possessed doll playing at being a king, looking so tiny from there, so insignificant, I blasted away so fast the world twisted around me.

I had a lance to catch.

CORTANA

The rain had started abruptly while James was busy, probably ripping Tristan into pieces.

[CALCULATING INCOMING VECTORS]

[PRIORITY: SELF-REPAIRING PROTOCOL COMPLETED]

[SWITCHING SERVOS…]

[BATTLE PROTOCOL IMPLEMENTED]

I had found Virtuous Treaty, and we had moved back inside the village. There were still some stragglers from the army here, but I didn't pay much attention to them even as I sliced one in half. James had arrived like a hurricane in human form, a force of nature, bringing hope to us. Yet, knowing Sanzang was gone due to our mistakes — even if I ensured she'd be summoned in Chaldea the instant Gabrielle got there?

That hurt.

Seeing him looking lost and holding onto us like that hurt even worse.

His anger should've scared me, but it couldn't. It was James.

Tristan's attack had failed to take me down as the stupid creature hadn't even noticed I wasn't human. The Orichalcum cage around my Black Box, the only thing that I couldn't repair, had protected it from any lasting harm. And every second he thought he was hurting me had been one second less for him to break Mash.

One of the knights tried to come behind my back, and I spun to meet him, my feet dragging in the mud —

There was the rumble of thunder much closer to the earth as James hit the knight at Mach 7, so fast the man got turned into red mist. As James skidded to a stop, his head turning from side to side in search of any danger to us. Drenched in red, dripping down his body with the rain, and smelled like smoke and burning embers.

I wasn't surprised to see Rhongomyniad coming down, shining brightly as it punctured the darkened clouds.

"James, James," I called him, touching his chest, feeling giddy as my mere touch made his head snap back to me. "We're safe, this was one of the last ones… but you need to deal with that thing up there," I caressed his cheek and gave him a wet kiss on his lips. "Can you?"

A muscle pulsed on his jaw as he turned to Da Vinci. "Do you have enough energy?"

Da Vinci smiled from where she was using one of her Mysteries to help Arash and Bedivere heal back into shape and puffed her chest. "Of course I do, Master! Three days worth, more or less — with you back here, I, the Super Omnipotent Servant Da Vinci-chan, am ready!"

"Excellent." James let out a smile of amusement and yelled, "Hullo, Mash?!"

"Yes?" Mash asked, looking much better as the clamminess was gone from her skin. She and Gabrielle were hiding in a verandah, away from that chilling storm, and hugging each other.

"I'm gonna need your shield for a little bit," he told her. Mash didn't hesitate, the good girl she was, promptly throwing Lord Camelot at him. James plucked the shield from the air as if it didn't weigh anything, and the weapon vibrated, golden and reddish veins spreading through it, glowing from within. James let escape a noise of pleasure, his eyes going half-lidded. Seeing him taking something as his through Astra Astartes had always been hot. "Oh yeah."

I blushed at the memories of when he made me his by different means.

[QUERY: REPLAY '#JAMESTANA BED-BREAKING LASER-ORGASMING SEX TAPE'?]

[QUALITIES AVAILABLE — 4K | 3D | VR]

Negative!

[CONFIRMATION: ADDED TO 'WATCH LATER' PLAYLIST]

Ignoring it for now, I kissed his cheek. "Go get them, James dear."

However, James hesitated for a second, a bizarre action from him. Standing there, with his hair matted down and droplets of water cleaning the blood from his face, he looked almost innocent.

"Are… are you sure?" James asked, his voice quiet.

"Yes!" I said firmly. "Don't worry, we believe in you! Go!"

He grinned, that shadow vanishing from his eyes, and flew up — the blast from his take-off blowing my hair back and throwing mud in my frayed uniform. I still smiled, watching him go.

Go show them that a man could fly.

See, something James didn't know — he was a horrible blabbermouth as he slept. Of course, I never told him, but I had known about his past for a long while. All the reasons he liked Superman so much, and he never remembered saying anything in the morning. It was cute how much he thought he was protecting me, and I let him believe that because James was someone who needed to have somebody to save.

"Wah, the shield isn't mine anymore! I can't feel it," Mash said, perplexed. "He —"

"Actually Satan's gonna shove it in the Lion King's ass!" Gabrielle exclaimed as she looked up.

And all around us, the people did the same. I had told the truth; between our soldiers, Lancelot's group, and ourselves, all that remained of the enemies were pockets of stragglers peppering the field far from there and who were being dealt with promptly. The battle had been won. Our people were flocking back in, looking up even as the scent of damp earth overpowered the one of blood and smoke.

There was the sound of heavy steps splashing through shallow mud as someone walked toward us. "Lady Cortana, I guess?" he asked, and I recognized that calm voice even without looking.

Lancelot was there, Arondight held aloft and some of his men trailing behind him. Tall and well-built, his dark-blue armor, cape, and sword were splattered with blood and dirt. He came right from the battlefield, yet he looked unharmed.

"That's me, a pleasure," I said, extending my hand to him, which he kissed in a courtly way.

"You three, go give aid to those downed Servants," Lancelot said over his shoulder, making his soldiers burst into movement in the direction of Arash and Bedivere. They were still being healed by Da Vinci, the ground under them a reddish-brown. Lancelot looked at the sky. "I don't mean to be impertinent, but with our help, we should be able to relocate most of the people from here before it hits."

"Nah, no need," Gabrielle said with a shrug, sitting down. "Satan's going to take care of it."

Lancelot raised his eyebrows. "Wait — there's someone up there?!"

Mash hid a giggle behind her hand, her eyes shining with rare mischief. "Yeah, it's Onii-sama."

This time, Lancelot did take a step back. "What."

"I've done all I could for those two and duty beckons," Da Vinci declared, letting the soldiers take Arash and Bedivere to safety as she walked to us, only pausing to pat Lancelot's shoulder; her gauntleted hand clinking against the pauldron. "And indeed there is someone up here, Sir Lancelot," she tutted. "For shame, not recognizing your own son…"

Thunder rumbled in the sky.

I giggled as Lancelot made his best impression of a fish, after which he started pointing his finger repeatedly from Mash to Da Vinci. "But, but, but she, I…" he rambled, looking bewildered, and spread his arms wide. "Why? Why do I suddenly have another son, and why is he being called Satan?!"

He shouted the last part, breathing heavily and with wild eyes.

"Actually Satan," Gabrielle corrected. "The Actually part is very important."

Poor Lancelot closed his mouth with a click. I could see his mind suddenly shifting gears back into a saner topic as he forcibly tried to change the subject. "Even then, it'd be prudent to relocate. There's nothing a single man can do against such an abomination."

"Not a man, no," I couldn't resist saying and smiled. "Superman."

Lancelot blinked.

"Now, please close your mouth — it's unseemly, you know — and be quiet," Da Vinci said, putting on her glasses. She pointed her staff at Rhongomyniad, and the scent of ozone wafted from the Saint Quartz as it lit up like a supernova. Bathing us all in an unearthly blue glow as droplets of rain swirled around her slowly, a glow that kept getting brighter and brighter, the sheer density of the energy causing ripples on the ground. "I need to focus."

Up there, James flew even higher, a rising star through the night sky —

Ready to show us something incredible.

JAMES

The humid wind felt welcome against my skill as I soared up and gripped the shield tighter, my eyes narrowed against the storm. Astra Astartes had drowned the Noble Phantasm, charging it further as I got closer to Rhongomyniad. From the ground, it had already looked enormous, but from here? It was all-encompassing, a weapon fit to crush a planet, made from rotating bands of golden light woven into a complicated tapestry.

And it had power. So much energy that it made the hairs on my arm stand up.

But that was alright for me. Not clever subterfuges, anything else, just me against this, in a simplicity of action that felt marvelous now. There was an ever-increasing sense of resistance as I went nearer to Rhongomyniad, a mixture of the whirlwind caused by its movement and sheer presence. I grinned, soaked to the bone, seeing each drop of the water that touched Rhongomyniad sizzle into steam almost beautifully.

I was so close I could almost touch it —

"Roses are red, violets are blue," I chanted as the energy inside me burst out, pushing inside the shield like a bunch of thugs and forcing it to answer. It started with a barely visible glow, only visible due to the darkness, nothing against the coming from the Divine Lance. "The Buddha brought me back to make you pay what's due!"

Lightning illuminated the sky as I stopped before Rhongomyniad, an almost manic laugh bubbling from my chest.

Here's for you, Sanzang.

"Rip and tear…!" My voice turned powerful, visceral. "LORD FUCK YOU!"

What came from it wasn't a wall, it —

Rhongomyniad hit the shield with godlike strength, the metal screeching and sparking as it pushed my back. My arms buckled under the strain as I tried to stabilize myself, my teeth bared as, for a moment — barely a second really — I had to hold the Lance at the End of the World through physical strength alone.

Then a leviathan shook the heavens as it roared awake.

See, Lord Camelot was fuelled by willpower. Mine? It used another emotion entirely.

A tidal wave of crimson flooded from the shield. Twisting and howling, big enough to drown the stars as it coalesced in the form of a fanged, gaping maw. Large enough to eat a whole mountain, each tooth bigger than my entire body. A deafening screech made my ears ring as it lunged forward and snapped shut around the lance, an immovable object against an irresistible force.

It seemed impossible, but slowly, almost imperceptibly, Rhongomyniad started slowing.

Thunder ripped through the sky.

My construct was ravenous, savaging the spear and snarling like a living creature, its slavering fangs puncturing the delicate lattice of gold and ripping chunks of Rhongomyniad. Beads of sweat trailed down my face, mixed with water, and my arms felt like they were going to break, buckling and trembling under the weight of that thing. I felt feverish, even in the middle of that chilly thunderstorm, as my muscles bulged and my veins were visible under the uniform. I slammed my shoulder against the shield for leverage, putting my entire body behind a single-minded objective.

My spine screamed in protest; every ounce of my superhuman strength tested as never before.

I snarled,

As Rhongomyniad stopped and,

For a moment, I was Atlas, holding up the sky —

Blood dripped from my nostrils, the capillaries bursting under pressure as I pushed back.

LANCELOT

My world had stopped making sense a long time ago.

Even since I had been summoned, in fact.

It was a darker form of madness that brought me here, brothers killing brothers, the Lion King turning against her own sister, an aspect of my mother, and casting her down in an act that filled me with shame to be part of. A mockery of what Camelot had been, standing again and undoing the sacrifices of my comrades. In contrast, the madness I found in this village was softer. All those wonderful lunatics (my own son-turned-daughter amongst them. Who, apparently, wasn't the only one of those I had!) laughed freely, full of joy, as we witnessed what was happening in the sky.

Because it was madness, too, but one of a third kind — the kind people made religions around.

"Unbelievable," I whispered, my gaze firmly locked on that scene. A single man, looking ridiculously small from there, holding back the Lance at the End of the World. The Noble Phantasm he had borrowed (and wasn't that a surprise!) from Lady Kyrielight turned into a ravenous pair of jaws, big enough to eat an army whole and clamped around the King's Light.

Ridiculously bright among the heavy clouding streaked with lightning.

I never had been one for flights of fancy, but that? That was supposedly one of my children?!

What's about this place making them so incredible? The kind Miss Kyrielight, empowered by my son Galahad and whose kind nature belied the steel within, standing tall before myself and the Sun King. Now this new one, who I hadn't even known, contesting Rhongomyniad…!

If I managed to make another, he'd probably spank the Lion King like an unruly child.

Even as the soldiers released their weapons and fell to their knees in the mud, I noticed Rhongomyniad finally pushing down again. He had done something worthy of awe, but nobody could hold back the world alone.

"He can't hold forever," I told Lady Cortana, my eyes widening. "He can't —"

I was surprised as Lady Cortana laughed again.

"He doesn't need to hold it forever," she said. "Just enough."

Lay Cortana beamed, lovely both from the inside and outside, as droplets ran down her face, her striking white hair flat against her head.

"Analysis complete!" Lady Da Vinci, no less gorgeous in a different way, exclaimed, throwing her glasses away. Her staff shone so brightly it hurt to watch, the wind and water swirling around her like she was standing in the eye of a nascent hurricane. Her entire being seemed to become ethereal, cloaked in an aura of unseen power. smile still on her lips as she made minuscule adjustments to her aim. "Three Wise Men of the East. The Great God of the Norse. The Fruit of Wisdom. My intellect, my omnipotence, surpasses all forms of wisdom!"

The water turned into steam around her.

There was a foreboding whine as the ground under her feet collapsed, splattering me with mud. Cratering as if she was holding something burdensome, and it became impossible to look directly at her without going blind. However, I could still listen, and her voice sounded profound, a legion chorusing as one. "I hope you choke on it, you bitch! Uomo Universale!"

Even with my eyes closed, I still saw the searing light from a second sun as the magic erupted.

I was forced to stab the point of Arondight in the ground as I got buffeted back by powerful winds, the shock wave almost throwing me bodily. Fissures spread around Da Vinci, the ground flash-drying and shaking as a pillar of blue cut a line against the night sky from there.

Blinking black spots off my vision, I saw those immense jaws breaking apart, freeing Rhongomyniad again for barely a second before Lady Da Vinci's attack reached it. I rubbed the water from my eyes with my forearm, my gaze locked there.

And hoped against hope to see another miracle.

JAMES

I had a vast amount of bones with hairline fractures. My left shoulder was dislocated. I felt more bruises than I could count and my body seemed fit to burst.

I couldn't hold for much, but I didn't need to. Not anymore.

I twisted to the side, avoiding getting caught in Da Vinci's supercharged Noble Phantasm. The shield shrieked, sliding against the sides of the spear, and every single part of my body was screaming in protest, unable to go further, the coldness seeping through my bones. Uomo Universale met the incoming spear with equal, but opposite power focused on only one thing.

Destruction.

I had managed to hold the Light of Judgment for a while, but Da Vinci's attack stopped it dead.

Three days of my ever-regenerating Mana freely given to Da Vinci before it all went to shit were translated into a mighty pillar of power, almost as wide as the Red Tower. It seeped deeper inside the lance, almost viral in its hunger as the Lion King's construct twisted; tumor-like growths swelled inside it, and the frayed holes my attack had torn open venting blue flames. The entire thing bulged, looking deformed, sick. It inflated, more and more, until it simply —

Came undone.

Thunder rumbled around us as Rhongomyniad lost cohesion, the bands of golden light coming undone and waving like colossal tentacles as it unwound itself. Da Vinci's precisely calculated Noble Phantasm managed what nothing else could and shattered the manifestation of the King's will. A star shone inside the torn walls of gold as l held my breath.

The silence was broken by the sound of a nuke going off.

I held the shield before myself; all I could as the explosion blew me away like I was but a leaf in the wind. The thunderstorm was blown away by an impact that shook the entire world, a kilometer-wide hole forming in the cloud layer and allowing the first rays of sunlight to shine down on the earth.

My cape was blown away, almost ripped off by the sheer force caused as collateral.

And back there, where Camelot was, the Red Tower went out for a single second.

I couldn't quite believe my eyes.

Suddenly, I was the only thing in the sky, flying between a shower of gold.

The sound was the first time to hit me as I looked down. The crowd went wild. Gabi was hugging Mash, screaming like a madwoman, while Cortana was holding Da Vinci up, her smoking staff and the crater under her the only thing showing how much power she had just used, smiling wide. Lancelot was also there, his gaze locked on where I was, disbelief warring with elation in his face and mouth hung open. Even Mr. Mother Clucker and Fou, both of them looking alarmingly bloody, appeared on a rooftop.

I saw Cursed Arm, hurt but whole, helping a limping Serenity back home. Arash and Bedivere, their vital signs much better, lying down inside one house. To the west, I saw the civilians of Hundred Faces village, coming from their caves and paying no attention to the devastation around them as they looked up there. Close to them, before the gates of a shrine, a hulking form with a skull for a face gazed at me with incandescent blue eyes, hands resting on the pommel of an old sword stabbed on the ground before him.

The Sun King had stepped outside Ramesseum Tentyris, sipping wine from a goblet while Nitocris flanked him. While I watched, he held his cup up in a toast, smiling smugly and knowing he had my attention for a moment.

In Camelot, deep within her tower, the Lion King had been brought down to a knee, sweat dripping from her brow. Her arm smoked, angry burns visible on her hand, and his lance glowed cherry red even as Gawain helped her up, Agravain was looking paler ever, and away from them, Mordred cut her way away to freedom. The Red Tower pulsed with a heartbeat, looking almost alive.

And a flicker of fear passed behind the Lion King's eyes for the first time.

I saw —

The village soldiers shouted with one voice as they ran to find their friends, relieved and joyful. They were dented, yes, but unbroken still. And here, above it all, still holding this smoking shield and with every single part of my body screaming with pain, I felt my lips spreading into a genuine smile.

I saw hope, fragile yet tenacious, spreading beyond all belief.

We had faltered, those lessons wouldn't be forgotten anytime soon, and we'd get better from it. Even after we stumbled, fell, and picked ourselves up again, even after the sacrifices we made along the way — we still won. We made a god bleed.

A shattered mote of golden light dissolved on my fist as I held it up and roared.

Sanzang, I hope you're watching this.

Because this singular, extraordinary moment, was the first time I truly felt like Superman.