"Charge!"
A thundering chorus of men and steel echoed as brothers-in-arms sieged the walls and shattered through the gates of Rome. Walls of magic energy that sought to push them off rose in retaliation, but a sword of black and red magic energy cleaved down and carved a path forward.
"Hurry, before the path fades!"
The soldiers roared and raved, arms raising swords and holding shields aloft as they barrelled through on the path forward.
"For Rome! For glory! SPQR!"
As the men charged forward on blind faith, the barrier surrounding Rome aimed to force back the infiltration, but a corresponding authority denied the effort.
"I came, I saw, I conquered!"
Julius came charging on an ethereal chariot, his stallions neighing as they advanced. The magic energy around Julius surrounded the charge, beating back the black flames as he clenched his jaw from the weigh of duty on his shoulders.
"Follow 'Nero!'" Julius declared, all eyes pointed towards the brooding woman leading the charge and those that ran along with her.
With swords manifested around him and rapidly firing out towards tentacles of demonic pillars, they pierced through and exploded on impact. Metal warped and bent before heat reduced them into heated embers flying out.
The shrapnel and debris threatening to harm the army were then defended by a billowing white banner that a woman held aloft. A white shield manifested from the banner, basking the army in the warm glow and healing them of fatigue and injury.
"The Lord is with us!"
The maiden of Orleans stood firm with faith in her heart.
Beast of the end.
Beast of the Apocalypse.
Martha placed a hand over Jeanne's shoulder and channeled her own magic energy through Jeanne.
A cooperation of the Saints against the Beast of Genesis.
"Jacob's Limbs empower me!" Martha punched through a building that was uprooted and thrown at the army.
"Watch out ahead!" Mash warned while running with her shield in front of her.
Jeanne's face whitened when seven demon pillars sprung up from the ground and aimed a concentrated blast of magic energy through their jeweled eyes at her and Martha. She didn't fear their power, but the lack of magic energy reserves she and Martha had to shield the army before even reaching Nero Alter.
"Dragon's breath!"
"Ákafiloga All-gríð!"
On draconic wings, Jeanne Alter pulled on the reins around Sieg's maw and aimed Sieg's dragon breath to cover the army's advance. The blue flames burnt and reduced the seven pillars obstructing the army's advance into cinders.
Without nary a word of boasting, Jeanne Alter and Sieg were forced into evasive aerial maneuvers as beams of magic energy continued to fire at them.
"Tch," Jeanne Alter flared her magic energy in a mana burst and channeled the power down into his Dragon Witch Skill. "Fly!"
With one beat of his massive wings, Sieg and Jeanne Alter shot out into the clouds while Jeanne hung her head low.
Jeanne realized now that Jeanne Alter really was the better partner for Sieg given her skill class…
"Buck up, and never waver in faith," Martha consoled Jeanne. "The Beast before us takes precedent."
"Y-Yes!" Jeanne refocused.
Julius rode through the crowd, spurring morale as the next check point came within view.
He drew his sword from its scabbard and pointed his steel ahead.
"Cross the Rubicon, and into the heart of Rome!" Julius yelled, acting as a military general while the advance group pierced through the storm.
Without warning, a huge demonic pillar shattered the bridge that spanned the length of the Rubicon River, preventing any further access.
Julius clicked his tongue, cursing as he tried to devise another way forward, but this wasn't an impasse.
"Shirou!" Ritsuka and Mash yelled to their compatriot.
["Redirecting Chaldea's supply of magic energy, have at it, Emiya!"]
Reinforcing his body and striding ahead of Saber Alter, Shirou leapt into the air and raised his right hand above his head under Julius and Arthur's eyes.
"I am the Bone of my Sword."
Focusing within himself, a potent strike of lightning struck down over Shirou's outstretched palm as pure magic energy was channeled through him. Fingers clasping at an imaginary hilt that would never fit a mortal's hand, Shirou swung down as a looming shadow flickered all the way up to the heavens.
Trace. On.
A massive sword wider than any ever before seen manifested above Shirou's arm and began falling down on the flat of its blade.
"Ig-Alima!" Shirou yelled.
The Mountain Felling sword.
The earth rumbled, shadows looming as the weapon's sheer weight pushed back the black flames and bridged the Rubicon's gap from river side to river side. Reverberations travelled through the ground, nearby marble structures and buildings shedding layers of dust from the impact.
Julius fell silent at the spectacle while Arthur's expression grew more curious.
Beyond the objective and aspirations driving Arthur on his quest, the answer to how Caliburn could allow Shirou to wield it remained. Once there was a time Arthur had considered if someone else could have saved his Britain, but there had never been another candidate chosen by the sword of selection…until now. Past doubts and regrets had begun to resurface ever since his disagreement and quarrel with Saber Alter.
Arthur tightened the grip he had on Excalibur.
"M-Mars above." The Roman soldiers exclaimed at the divine nature of what they'd just witnessed, but Julius finally snapped himself out of his stupor.
"Forward!" Julius declared.
Raising a battle cry, the army advanced on the flat of Ig-Alima's blade.
Slowing down to run side by side with Saber Alter, Ritsuka, Mash, and the others, Shirou released a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. His features were dim as he reflected on what he could have down better to avoid all of this.
A Hero is one who saves, not one who brings another to despair. The mystery of the Servant he'd summoned was something he'd not forgotten.
What was her objective? What meaning did all of this have?
The demonic pillars that were running rampant in Rome did little to ease Shirou's mind.
Upon crossing the Rubicon, what lay before the army were shadows construed of the black flames surrounding Rome. Beyond them, and visible on the horizon, was Nero's Golden Palace.
The Palace itself was shrouded in a red aura that constantly continued to grow larger and larger.
["That energy confirms it. A Beast. An Evil of Humanity."]
Romani's voice came through as he read the analyst report funneling into Chaldea's data bases.
The words confirmed Arthur's thoughts. Beyond returning the favour to Julius, the matter here in Rome was now closer to personal.
"Advance!" Julius ordered. "Nero will lead the way and cut the throat of the enemy!"
"Orah! For Rome!" The legions responded the moment Saber Alter fired another blast of her Noble Phantasm to clear a way through.
However, this time was different.
Regardless of the counteractive properties of Julius's Noble Phantasm, the figures created from the black flames did not recede. Rather, due to the proximity of the Golden Palace, the energy maintained their forms.
"Go ahead," Julius took full command of the army. "We will hold the enemies back here."
"How do we move forward, though?" Mash pursed her lips.
The way Saber Alter had tried to cleave with her sword to the Golden Palace was still filled with an army of black flamed figures.
"Leave that to me." Julius had never forgotten the purpose of his summon and the will that the Founder passed on to him for the sake of Rome.
Julius stepped off of his chariot.
'For the Senate and the People.'
There was a reason he'd always claimed that being summoned in the Saber Class was a mistake.
"For ambition, guile, and cunning.'
To bring an end to a republic and the emergence of the Divine Right to Rule as children of Venus, that was the highlight of his tale.
Julius was a conqueror, the plague of the Gaul's.
Julius's chariot vanished from behind him, the red overcoat he was wearing splitting off into swaying dovetails at his back. His magic energy soared, his pupils dying blue in the glow.
"Imperator," Julius intoned, raising his sword aloft to represent his triumphs paraded through the streets of Rome. "He who sheds the name of Julius, and ushered in the end of the republic."
The red mantles around Julius flickered violently as he took a step, riding on tumultuous wings of wind carrying the scent of sea-shells of the Goddess Venus.
"I am the rise and the fall!" Julius's magic energy erupted outward in a circle around him, changing his current appearance from that of the impetrating general, to the robes he wore upon becoming Rome itself.
His commanding blade grew wings on the hilt, fashioned in Roman gold.
Lavish luxury and laurel crown that gleamed in the light. It was the very image that so set Cleopatra's affection and ideal image of her man.
Skill: Incitement EX.
"For the glory of the Empire! Stand and fight! Mere shadows and flames, we are the great eagle that soars above!" Julius planted his sword down in front of him, creating a boundary that separated himself, the army, and Shirou and the others.
"Dies Longi Cultri," Julius intoned, activating his Noble Phantasm as he who ushered in both the beginning of the empire, and the end of the republic.
The Day of the Long Knives.
"Imperium Incepit!"
Birth of an Empire.
He who should have been the first emperor of the Roman empire, yet was not. He who was the last of the republican era, yet didn't live to see his day.
His end, and his beginning were synonymous with the name 'Caesar.'
"I am Julius-Augustus!" Julius declared.
First Emperor of Rome, and he who embodied the brilliant military stratagem of Julius, and the arts of Augustus.
"I am Caesar!"
The boundary Julius-Augustus created through his Noble Phantasm manifested in a rampart that separated the old and new Rome. Its existence itself pushed back the black flames and figures encroaching Rome.
In this boundary, all things favour Rome, and paint the image of restoration. To restore the image of a ruined Rome.
The fires, ruin, and destruction within Rome were reorganized into marbled architecture, the boundary creating Rome's foremost glory after the restoration. And in live enactment, figures of the Legions that followed Ceasar into Rome manifested along with a horse beneath Caesar's feet.
"Go!" Julius-Augustus said to Shirou and the others.
Saber Alter didn't bat an eye, and headed straight off. The sooner this ended, the sooner she could return to normalcy. This was true for everyone.
Nodding their heads in acknowledgement, they ran towards the Golden Palace.
"You too," Julius-Augustus turned to Arthur who hesitated and stayed behind.
Arthur's debt was to Caesar, and that meant protecting him.
"Go, our debt for meat will now be cleared." Julius-Augustus said in contradiction to Arthur's resolve.
Opening and closing his mouth, Arthur soon set his expression into one of determination.
"Worst terms of employment I've ever agreed to," Arthur grunted before taking off.
Julius-Augustus snorted and turned back while leading his army.
Staring at the figures created from black flames, he sounded the horns of war.
None, including those demonic pillars would be able to intervene.
Nero Alter hardly reacted as the sound of footsteps approaching echoed through the hall of her palace. Instead, she languidly got up from her throne and summoned her sword. The once vibrant red flames that coated her blade were replaced with black ashes and dark fire.
A familiar group quickly appeared before her, standing in a line as if a hero party standing against a demon king.
Narrowing her eyes, Nero Alter glared at Saber Alter who was standing at the forefront.
Nero Alter opened her mouth, but there was nothing be said between fellow rulers.
Saber Alter blasted forward, blackened Excalibur cleaving down with another burst of her Noble Phantasm.
Clang!
Nero Alter locked blades with Saber Alter, sparks grating as the magic coating both swords vied for dominance. With a sneer, Nero Alter exponentially increased her output. Her source was both the Holy Grail, and the magic circle she'd laid down throughout the Golden Palace.
Saber Alter winced as Nero kicked her in the gut and set her sprawling back into Jeanne's arms.
Martha came forward, fists glowing with radiant light, her staff left forgotten in wake of her divine haymaker.
Nero Alter swiveled, raising a palm to catch Martha's blow.
The sound of evaporating water echoed as Martha's Holy energy fought against the evil in Nero Alter's black flames.
"Annoying."
Nero Alter flung Martha away, a hand raising to create a curtain of magic energy that blocked a deluge of Dragon breath raining down from up high.
It was all useless.
Mash came running up to Nero Alter, her shoulder pressed to her shield as she attempted a disorientating bash attack, but that too failed.
Nero Alter sung her sword, and a slash of black flames smashed against Mash's shield, blowing her back and smashing into the palace's walls.
["Don't attack blindly! Look down, there's a magic circle tied directly to Nero Alter, you have to stop it if you want to get anywhere! Any damage will just be healed from that ridiculous amount of Magic energy otherwise!"]
"Understood," Ritsuka replied, staring down at the magic circle around the Golden Palace, but froze in the same instance.
Across from him, Nero Alter was smiling wretchedly, her mouth curved from cheek to cheek.
"Finally noticed?" Nero Alter preened. "Umu, it matters little. You have no time left."
The magic circle was drawing forth all the magic energy in Rome towards it. The sheer scale was warping the air, creating distortions in space itself.
Jeanne dashed forward, trying to strike Nero Alter with her banner in tandem with Martha on either side.
Pulling herself from out of the wall, Mash joined in on the assault, while Saber Alter slashed down with Excalibur Morgan.
"That selfish-!"
Martha could barely get the words out before Excalibur Morgan swallowed Nero Alter, including Jeanne, Martha, and Mash. Jeanne barely had enough time to deploy her Noble Phantasm to take the brunt of the damage.
A flicker of light surrounded Nero Alter before the attack landed.
The impact blasted the roof of the Golden Palace away and left Jeanne panting for breath when she put down the white barrier that defended herself, Martha, and Mash from Saber Alter's strike.
In contrast, Nero Alter swiped a finger and put away the shield of pure magic energy that absorbed the blow on her behalf.
"Feeble." Nero Alter craned her chin up, and then vanished in a blur of speed.
Her sword struck rapidly against the entire group, trails of blazing black fire at her wake.
Saber Alter's lip twitched in growing frustration. Nothing they were doing was working. It was like a group of hyenas was trying to bring down an elephant.
They needed more power, and most of all- Saber Alter glanced at her Master.
"Senpai, we need your help!" Mash insisted, her arms trembling from exertion while holding her shield to block Nero's blows.
Contrary to how Shirou had been before in front of Nero Alter, he stood silent and pensive.
His focus was on the magic circle Nero Alter had crafted with the grail's help around the Golden Palace. A single prick from Rule Breaker would be enough to break it and prevent its use. It would instantly reduce Nero Alter's combat power and give everyone a fighting chance, and yet, he didn't lift a hand.
"Shirou!" Ritsuka called out, the situation growing dire as Nero Alter was gaining more and more ground.
"Nero," Shirou chose to speak rather than fight. "What are you trying to achieve?" He asked directly.
Saber Alter swung her sword, and Nero Alter blocked it with her own. Despite fighting, both of their attention was on Shirou.
Nero Alter deliberated on an answer, while Saber Alter focused on a growing intuition that she wouldn't like Nero Alter's answer.
"From the start, it was wrong. Don't you already understand, Preator? What I aim to achieve?"
Shirou's expression hardened.
Indeed.
Nero brandished her sword in Shirou's direction, letting him lay his eyes upon it for as long as he wished. It was an act that revealed her familiarity with Shirou, at least from another world line where the Singularity was corrected, and the world led her to despair.
Her goal was blatantly evident.
Saber Alter hissed, while Nero Alter pushed her back and defended against Jeanne and Martha's renewed strikes.
Nero Alter's expression was twisted with determination and avarice.
Upon the magic circle's activation, Rome itself would plunge into depravity. All methods of correcting the Singularity would be impossible. The world line would be ruined and a new timeline would emerge.
A hypothetical Lost Belt.
She would create it and preserve this history through time.
A city of decadence and sin where a dream was possible.
No looming threats, no fate that pulls apart those that were destined to stay with each other. It would just be…
"A place for you and I, Master. Umu, Isn't it beautiful?" Nero Alter's smile cracked as she cackled. "You may admire this beauty for an eternity."
Saber Alter growled, redoubling her efforts as a mana burst had her swings cleaving through the ground on impact alone.
Nero Alter didn't budge an inch as she received the strikes, only glowering in annoyance when Martha and Jeanne struck her with Holy power.
"Feisty." Nero Alter was steadily growing frustrated.
"Nero." Shirou interceded again, this time urging Saber Alter, Jeanne, Martha, and Mash to hold their attacks.
"What you want, is not going to happen." Shirou said with finality. "All of this has to stop."
"…" Nero Alter froze, feeling like someone was gouging her heart. As the negativity spiked, the influence of the Beast within her began to gain ground, but that spiral was halted monetarily by what Shirou did next.
Defencelessly, Shirou stepped into Nero Alter's range.
"Just for a few minutes, I want to negotiate." He insisted much to the shock of all.
Nero Alter's lips quivered, but her eyes were hardened into accusatory daggers.
"What is there to possibly negotiate when-"
"You are my Servant," Shirou cut Nero Alter off before she could even begin. "Whether or not this Singularity is resolved, you're stuck with me. Or has the thought never occurred to you due to the influence of the Beast? A world for us? What does that all matter when you're already bonded with me through contract?"
Now that Nero Alter thought about it…
"H-Hugh," Nero Alter cradled her head as damning realization dawned through the haze of her mental corruption. "Huh? U-Umu, you're right."
Then this entire thing was meaningless?
The Beast of Sin within Nero Alter raged and flared its magic energy, but Nero Alter was already starting to think.
If Nero Alter put her plans aside, then the Singularity was over. She had the grail which she could hand over to Chaldea, and the entire group could return.
"This cannot be happening," Martha felt as if her soul was leaving her body as she stared at Shirou in wonder.
What level of skill did that sinful man possess?
Sin attracts sin. Oh, the Lord was always right.
Martha gnashed her teeth.
What worked even better for the situation was that the Singularity's Nero was unconscious. When she wakes and everything resets, it would feel like a dream to her.
"I say we still kill her." Saber Alter glowered diplomatically, hands gripping tightly to her sword. "She's unstable and more importantly...unsuited."
Nero Alter sneered, gloating at Saber Alter.
"Fufufu, says the loser."
"Nero, focus." Shirou stressed, doing the mature thing and raising his arms in a show of 'no harm,' like he should have done from the start. He approached her further.
"Let's go to Chaldea. Together."
.
.
.
"M-Master, that's a Beast, an Evil of Humanity," Jeanne stressed to Ritsuka, wringing his head back and forth with her hands on his shoulders. Next to Ritsuka was a frozen Mash. "You really want to take that back to Chaldea?"
"It's a bomb waiting to explode," Martha said flatly, fists clenched.
Under pressure from the Saints, Ritsuka audibly swallowed as his nerves started to get to him, but it was clear that whatever Shirou had in mind was working.
Trust.
That was the word Ritsuka ended up believing in as Jeanne and Martha's words fell on deaf ears.
Nero Alter froze, staring at the hand Shirou was no offering here mere inches away from her body. The annoying rage of the Beast within Nero Alter was being drowned out by the palpitations of her heart.
She stared at Shirou, and Shirou stared back, coaxing her to his side.
It was almost cheating as memories came to Nero Alter's mind unbidden. Rejection and acceptance, culminating the to the man in front of her.
The person who had found her before the sun had set thrice.
With a trembling arm, Nero reached her hand towards Shirou's.
"I'm sorry from the beginning." Shirou ended up saying as Nero Alter's hand was less than a finger's length from his own. "It wasn't you I was wary of."
It was the black fire and aura shrouding her, Nero Alter could finally think clearly as she stared at the flames and blackened magic around her.
What had she been doing? The prize had always been hers from the moment she was summoned.
If Saber Alter was Shirou's sword and he was her Sheath, then Nero Alter was Shirou's passion, and he was her rest.
Make way for the actor.
Nero Alter grasped Shirou's hand, the two feeling each other's heat-
"This play ends here."
Shirou's pupils dilated along with Nero Alter's as a concentrated blade of magic beyond Shirou's understanding severed Nero Alter's arm.
With their hands still locked, Shirou held Nero Alter's right arm severed at the base.
Nero Alter didn't even bat an eye. She was a Servant. With enough magic energy, she could heal so long as her Spirit Origin wasn't damaged.
What was more important was addressing the new arrival.
"You are?"
A figure hovered down from the roof of the Golden Palace Saber Alter had blown off with her attacks.
Appearing within view, Ritsuka and the others expressed confusion, but Nero Alter displayed fury.
The man was dressed in regal robes from an ancient era, his long hair swept back to free fall behind him, and his candid demeanor belying a hidden snake.
"Flauros has failed flawlessly. Tch." The man mattered sharply; chiseled features marred with anger. "Not just one Master surviving, but four."
"You, the tanned assassin!" Nero Alter's memories jogged back to the very beginning. The man that had landed a near death blow on Nero.
Nero Alter's impression of the man would never be good, but Nero Alter's stance meant nothing. The Beast within her almost seemed to relish the man's sudden intervention.
"You weakened Beast." The man derided, eyes staring into Nero as if directly speaking to her buried evil. "Perhaps a little help from a fellow sin can help you break out of that shell? Fortunately, I can't stomach the idea of Chaldea subordinating a Beast. You, you would be trouble."
"Step back!" Shirou acted before anyone else.
He positioned himself in front of Nero Alter and Traced a copy of Kanshou and Bakuya.
Just the nature of the scent wafting off of the man had Shirou on edge.
For someone who appeared like a wise man, his magic scent was that of a Demon's.
The others were slower to react, but the man gave it no mind as if he were dealing with bugs.
["…"]
"Doctor, who is that?" Ritsuka called for an analysis, but Romani was strangely chocked for words.
The man snapped his fingers, and almost instantly, his mastery of magic and magecraft manifested itself.
The magic circle Nero Alter had laid over the Golden Palace flashed an ominous black before the tainted energy began directly funneling into Nero Alter who was acting as the circle's conduit.
"U-Ugck!" Nero Alter cried, falling to her knees while clawing at her chest.
Mud and dark energy were pouring endlessly over her, pushing Shirou back towards Ritsuka and the others as a shockwave of wind was produced.
Jeanne hastily caught Shirou and shielded everyone behind her banner.
"Nero!" Shirou called out in concern as Nero's image vanished in the haze.
"Hehehehahahaha!" The expression on the wiseman's face split into a bastardized smile. His face broke apart and stretched as if a mere container to the evil within. "Know this Chaldea, your path was doomed from the start."
Turning his back to Shirou and the others, the man vanished into motes of golden light.
Left behind, the darkness engulfing Nero Alter pulsed with red light before gradually abating. The dark receded revealing a dramatic change to the woman standing within.
The inner and outer roles had reversed.
If the Nero Alter Shirou and the others were dealing with still resembled Nero's Roman aspects to an extent, then this one had discarded all pretenses. Wearing a revealing dress the colour of blood, horns sprouted ever larger from her head. Whisker like marks were drawn on her cheeks, and her teeth had turned into sharpened fangs.
"You called me wrong, Human."
The voice that spoke was both seductive and maddeningly depraved.
If Nero Alter's expression towards Shirou was one of affection, then the woman's, was one of sadistic avarice and sinful lust.
"I am the Whore of Babylon."
In the woman's hand, the Grail was held aloft. And from it, a black mud began to spew from a wellspring of unimaginable magic energy.
"Beast VI/S."
Sodom's Beast.
Omake: Alternate chapter end.
"You called me wrong, Human."
The voice that spoke was both seductive and maddeningly depraved.
If Nero Alter's expression towards Shirou was one of affection, then the woman's, was one of sadistic avarice and sinful lust.
"I am the Whore of Babylon."
In the woman's hand, the Grail was held aloft. And from it, a black mud began to spew from a wellspring of unimaginable magic energy.
"Beast VI/S."
Sodom's Beast.
"Your virginity is mine. All of them."
Shirou shivered, clenching his butt cheeks.
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