Mirror Alice. In the grand scheme of Sacred Gears, it wasn't considered especially significant. A tool with very limited uses on its own, it allowed the user to block the attack of an enemy, only to then reflect that attack back right at them with twice the power. It of course had a limit, but that limit was one barely anyone could expect to meet, unless they were battling the strongest beings in the world.

Freed Sellzen was not one of those beings. And even wielding an Excalibur closer to its true power than the world had seen in over a thousand years, that too was not sufficient to overcome it. While it may not have made Tsubaki a natural Queen piece in raw power, it made her a near-impenetrable last line of defense for her King, and theoretically, a match for near any opponent she might come across.

And so, the wave of destructive force from Excalibur crashed into the conceptually reflective surface of Tsubaki's power, and returned it twofold. The wave that had dug a furrow in the street stopped and reversed course.

The target, the source of the attack, was already gone, however. With fused Excalibur in hand, he had many advantages and he intended to make use of each and every one. Freed was gone. Not just moved. But invisible. The power of Excalibur Transparency rendered him unseen, and the power of Excalibur Rapidly hastened his movements. To the devils and humans present, Freed could have been anywhere.

To most of them, at least. "Lulu-nya!"

Lelouch's eyes widened. His hands opened, palms downward as he dropped. His options for defense were few. The devil Power of Destruction was questionable at best against a legendary holy sword, and not even knowing what was coming magnified the difficulty of formulating a response. The best he had was to quickly create a thick, solid barrier, raising the ground in front of him. As the stone began to rise, he leapt backward. The expected explosion of shattered stone happened just as he predicted.

"He's still coming!"

What?! Still?! Why would he–?

Thoughts snapped together. A span of instants of first response, the following span of instants let him process the facts. Freed was going for him exclusively. Lelouch wasn't the one in control of this situation. Sona had clearly taken the reins. She would have been the obvious target. Or Irina. Or– There were many more obvious options. But Freed deliberately targeted him instead, twice, even when he knew Lelouch would be aware.

He leapt aside–

"Lulu-nya!"

Still! Mash was moving. Ana lost concentration on her countermeasures. All Lelouch could do was take to the sky–

He heard a slam, the sound of a blade cutting into flesh. In a direction he hadn't expected, Freed had attempted to quite literally cut off his escape.

Instead his blade, still unseen, met a muscular blonde woman in a black leotard. They couldn't see the weapon doing the cutting, but they could see the smoking gouges carved into her crossed arms, having broken right through the stone shell around them. Sara's teeth ground together, her eyes holding an inhuman focus, like her body was moving before her brain could command it to. "Target acquired. Eliminating."

"WHOOPSIE!" Freed yelped as the centuries old devil backflipped in an attempt to crack his jaw with her boots. She didn't stop as he retreated. She couldn't see him. It didn't matter. Her other senses told her all she needed to know even if she wasn't actively processing it. Everything she needed to protect her master. A low kick that found only empty air, a lunging upward fist that was split carved cleanly in two. The mangled hand did absolutely nothing to stop or even slow her down. Instead if anything it made her more aggressive, her body flipping to aim a kick at his head before she turned that into a rotation, her body spiralling at the invisible opponent with great force.

She hit nothing. Freed retreated.

And attacked Lelouch from another angle. He was still trying. Sara once again intercepted him and received yet another injury as a result. She wouldn't be able to keep this up forever.

He came for Lelouch. Again. Even more opposition. Even more ready defense. "It was him," Lelouch said under his breath. Lelouch had interrogated the Archbishop, assumed he and Freed were in the conspiracy together. Valper Galilei didn't know anything, was working for his own ends in association with only the Fallen. But Freed... Freed was working with the Fallen. He was working with Valper. He was working with Diodora. Lelouch had dismissed it so easily, the man was mad at best. But that caused the Bael prince to ignore how the madman was the single connecting figure, aided Diodora's games as well as the Fallen's. Lelouch thought he had found a mastermind of this scheme. He still hadn't. That still wasn't Freed. But he had found an agent of it.

And Freed knew that Lelouch knew more than he should. He had proven it himself with the interrogation. And for these sorts of schemes, those who knew too much were removed. Freed might have wanted the fifth Excalibur, but he needed Lelouch dead far more.

But the preparations were complete. The weaker pieces on the board were evacuated. And more, Anastasia's dedicated focus on her spellwork came to a close. "Embrace the Winters of Petrograd!" Her hand cast skyward, a series of intricate spell circles forming a tower of glowing blue. Through them a light mist filled the school grounds, above them clouds formed from nothing, the air chilled considerably.

And a blanket of snow fell onto the campus. Continued to fall in an ongoing mild blizzard.

And small piles of snow landed on thin air. Right above a conspicuous pair of bootprints with no one standing in them. "Wuh-oh!"

"Got you!" Kiba exclaimed, striking with a pair of blades, only to again hit nothing. "Tch!"

"Watch the footprints, watch how he gathers the snowfall!" Lelouch warned. This was the best response he had to Transparency. There were limits to how accurate Shirone's callouts could be, as had been proven. But now, if everyone followed their senses, they could stay aware of his location, even his movements to an extent. The steady snowfall disturbed by his presence could tell them where he was. Because of this, Excalibur Rapidly became a double-edged sword, moving so quickly he disturbed more snow and more easily revealed his position.

Of all people, the next person to find contact was one of Sona's peerage. A black tongue-like line lashed out and made solid contact with empty air. "I got him!" Saji exclaimed, "See how you like this, weirdo priest!"

"Ahahaha! Ahahaha!" Freed continued to evade Kiba's attacks as he laughed at the Pawn. "Go ahead, licky-boy! Gimme that big suck!"

Sona realised it first. "Saji, stop!"

"President, why?! I got–! I–..." The boy's words came out in awkward heaves.

"STOP, NOW!"

The line released, but the damage was done. The Pawn collapsed to his knees, dry-heaving, until it was no longer dry. Blood and bile poured from his throat to stain the snow. Absorption Line hadn't caught the priest himself, but the sword. Genshirou Saji had absorbed holy power directly into himself.

"Aww, he liked sucking off a guy as much as I like getting sucked off by guys!" A metal coil wrapped around nothing. "Eh?"

"We're putting an end to this!" Irina shouted, Excalibur Mimic outstretched from her hand in a whip-like form. "In the name of the church, we're putting an end to your evil! Xenovia!"

"Come to me!" Xenovia called, her healed arm sweeping to one side. From within a golden seal, a chained blade of blue and gold emerged. And with a simple movement, the blade shattered the chains like they were merely ornaments. "Vanquish the evil within my sight! Durandal!"

"Wah! Daddy! Freedy's in a jam!"

Galilei frowned. "I'm not sure what you want me to do about it."

"Haha! Oh right, you're a shitty wimpy old fart! My bad, my bad! Up to me then!" With what strength he had while still evading the Gremory Knight, Freed pulled on his snared weapon. Let the one holding it try to keep him in place, before reversing his movement to go with hers. It would have been an ordinary sword swing, unimpressive, but the power of Excalibur Destruction turned that awkward swing into a devastating explosion of force aimed right at the brunette exorcist. "Hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo! Oh no! The gallant Freed is freed again and now he knows about your super badass sword! It's so cool! And blue!"

"Knowing won't change the outcome!"

"Keh-heh-heh!" The stray exorcist cackled, watching her come at him, and finally all of the devils could see it. "I'm bored of this one! Let's try something new!"

"Silence, heathen!"

From her meditating position away from the fight, Shirone's eyes snapped open. "He's not there!"

The legendary blade Durandal came crashing down on the madman, only to find no target. Instead it passed right through him.

"Just joking!" came Freed's voice from elsewhere. "I like all my superpowers! They make my peepee hard, playing with all of you sluts, getting you all hot and sweaty!" It was the voice alone. Despite that, there was no disturbance of the snow.

Because once again, the real him was intercepted by Lelouch's Rook. "GAH GOD DAMMIT BITCH, what's with you?!" Freed screeched. "How do you keep doing that?!"

"I will protect my master, no matter what."

Lelouch cursed under his breath. This was ridiculous. They had to trap him. To stop his running and hiding. While Freed was cleverer than Lelouch had given him credit for, Freed hadn't been aware enough to simply flee into the school to escape the revealing snow...Yet. 'Mash,' he said through telepathy as Freed once again escaped.

'Yes, Master!'

'You and Kiba. You're going to pin him down. You're the only two here who are fast enough. Here's what I need you to do.'

The pieces began moving once again. An ongoing battle against the most annoying swordsman in every sense of the word. But beyond how similar it seemed on the surface, the shape of the conflict began to shift. The wounded were once again removed. Xenovia stopped trying in vain to chase down the stray exorcist. Instead, the ones chasing him were solely those who could keep pace with Excalibur Rapidly. Even then, for such high-speed and frantic combat against a foe they struggled to perceive, there was no ground gained. One blade clashing against another, achieving little. The only positive seemed to be neither had received any wounds.

"Weeeee!" The exorcist seemed to be having the time of his life though. "Woo-hoo-hoo!" Each lightning-fast clash getting a cheer from him. Some real, some illusory. But each interaction let the two sword-wielding devils get a better read on him, learning more and more about his habits, learning more and more how to manipulate him. His tells. His reactions. How he would block. Where he would evade to.

Mash glanced toward Galilei.

"Head in the game, pink slut!"

She raised her shield to block the blade, only to be blown back by a blast from Destruction. Her shield shattered, leaving her with only her father's sword.

None of it mattered. It was all part of the plan.

Unseen by Freed, the nekoshou he had not needed to pay any attention whatsoever had been focusing her energies. Not on sensing the energies of the world. Instead, she had been preparing for exactly this moment. There were many abilities known to youkai. Magics that strayed from any well understood concepts of other schools. Her hands moved through a sequence of mudra, forming shapes to channel her energies and her focus in certain ways, all for a single desired effect. "Youjutsu," the nekoshou stated in an atypical flat and emotionless tone, "Cursed Mud of the Underworld."

Freed's battle shout as he struck the Bael Knight were joined by a sickening squelching sound. The sucking sounds of a bog directly under his feet. "Ewwww!" he complained, lifting his leg. Another way to detect his true position, he likely assumed. And yet his foot barely raised a handful of inches before it was sucked right back into the bog with a slurping splorch. He sighed. "Again?"

"NOW!"

"Haaaaaaaaa–!" Xenovia charged, finally getting her opportunity. Durandal flashed, swinging downward onto the weapon in Freed's right hand.

And so, Excalibur Mimic, currently in the form of a shield, was broken. The famed weapon of Roland kept going, not at all halted by the sheet of metal.

"AHHHH!" Through Freed's arm. All of the stray exorcist's focus withered away due to the crippling injury. And so the devils and clergy could all see the grotesque stump of his arm. "You bitch! You cut off my jerkoff hand!"

"Call it payback." The holy weapon came back around with her words, aiming to end the madman and shatter the fused sword in one swing.

"You whore! You–!"

There was no great flash of light, no explosion of power as the fused Excalibur was struck by the blade of Durandal. For such a legendary weapon so close to completion, it still met its own end just the same as any other sword. Its constituent parts fragmenting even as Durandal carved through.

"Ngh!" And just as Excalibur broke, so too did the illusion. Revealing the desperate Freed hugging against the still binding mud. Revealing the magic circle below him. "I'll get you for this!" he exclaimed. "I'll fuck your ass so hard you'll need diapers!" As Xenovia raised her sword again, he sat up, smiling up at her. "Look forward to iiiiiiiit!"

And in a flash of light, he was gone.

Kiba looked on in wonder, in awe. It was everything he had wanted since his escape. Since Isaiah died and was reborn as a servant of Gremory. Mimic. Rapidly. Transparency. Nightmare. Destruction. Five fragments of Excalibur, each and every one destroyed right in front of his eyes. It would only have been more true to his ambitions if he had done the deed himself. The need to see this moment, it had consumed him.

And yet, as he saw it, he experienced no joy. No satisfaction. No righteous retribution. It was a broken weapon. Just as Mash had told him. The destruction of it didn't change anything. Didn't mean anything. It didn't alleviate him of his guilt as the only survivor of the horror they had all experienced as subjects of the Holy Sword Project. It didn't undo what had been done.

"NOOOOOOOOOO!" Heedless of the danger to himself, Valper Galilei rushed into the courtyard, screaming in horror as he dropped to his knees before the broken shards of Excalibur. "NO! My, my beautiful Excalibur! I was so close! You can't–! You can't be broken! Even the, even the fragments! No! NO!"

"Galilei..."

The fallen Archbishop continued to weep over the broken blade. "Not like this, I... It can't end like this...!"

"Valper... Galilei..."

"WHAT?!" Galilei snapped, looking up at the blond Knight with tears in his eyes and fury on his face. "What do you want, you ignorant child?! Can't you see I'm in mourning?!"

"Mourning...?" Kiba asked, his voice hollow. "You killed...All of us. And you think you can talk about mourning?!"

"Enough of your pathetic whining!" Galilei snapped. "Don't you know what it is to have a dream?! What were any of you worth compared to what I was trying to achieve?! You were nothing but raw materials, ore that I forged into iron!" He snatched the light crystal from his robes and threw it at the devil. "What did any of you matter but as a step toward..." The old researcher choked out a sob, gathering the metal fragments together. "Toward this... It was going to be perfect... Beautiful... And you ruined it. YOU ALL RUINED IT!"

"You ruined it," Mash retorted. There was no anger in her words. If anything, she sounded just as mournful as the man weeping on the floor. "It was beautiful once. The Excalibur was a beacon of light and hope for everyone. A promise of a brighter future. A future where it wouldn't be needed."

"What do you know you stupid girl?!"

"More than you ever could. If you succeeded in reforging the True Excalibur with your methods..." Mash raised her own sword, the malevolence of the cursed holy blade Arondight radiating from it. "It would end up just as cursed as this. A holy sword forged from evil, what else could it become?"

"Who cares?! I would have done it! I would have brought a legend back into being! I would have–!"

"Stop talking."

Kiba stepped forward, clutching the blue crystal in one hand. "No one needs to hear any more from you. This ends now. Everything you've done, all of the lives you've taken, I'll make sure no one else suffers like we did because of you." In his other hand, a sword began to take shape, much like any other sword he could make with his Sacred Gear. And yet different. "A holy sword. A demonic sword. A cursed sword. None of that matters. A weapon doesn't choose how it's forged. All that matters is what it will do."

Mash smiled, just a little.

But the Archbishop didn't care at all about the young devil's words. He never had before and he still didn't. Though this time it was because of what Kiba held in his hand. "That sword... What is...?" He fixed his glasses, trying to understand what he was seeing. The holy glow, mixed with the malevolence of a demonic blade. "That... That can't be. That doesn't make sense unless–Hrk!"

The very object of his confusion plunged into his chest. With no vitriol. No righteous judgement. "I said that was enough talking." A simple stab. A simple withdrawal. Blood exploded from the man's wound, his heart bifurcated within his chest.

"Ha... Hahaha...! Ha... Ha..." The Genocide Archbishop's blood poured out onto the pure white snow. His life ended as he wept for the shattering of his dreams, and laughed for the great lie he had uncovered. Even the cruellest jokes could be worthy of laughter.

"Kiba," Rias said softly as she put a hand on his arm. "Are you alright?"

The boy let out a weak, wet laugh. "I am, Buchou. I'm more alright than I've been in a long time." His head turned toward her, offering her an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry. For all of the trouble I caused."

"We can handle your punishment later."

Xenovia stared in incomprehension at the scattered bits of metal before her. "I... Oh. Oh no." Her eyes were pools of horror and despair as the enormity of her actions finally hit her. She had personally destroyed five Excalibur fragments. Including the ones she and Irina were given. "Sister Griselda is going to kill me!"

Irina approached her partner on unsteady feet, Issei trailing behind her. "I'm sure she'll understand!"

"Yes! That's what she'll say before she kills me!"

Sona sighed. "Well, at least everything resolved well in the end. There'll be a lot of cleanup to do."

Rias gasped. "Wait, I just remembered!" With sudden fierce intensity, she approached her fiance. "Ah, Asia-chan, help heal Sara-aneki please!"

"Ah, of course!" The blonde former nun agreed without hesitation, except to wonder what exactly 'aneki' was supposed to mean.

"Anyway, Lulu-nii! Did your catgirl Bishop just cast a jutsu?!"

Lelouch blinked at her. "What?"

"She, she did the hand seals, and did a thing and she said jutsu! Did she–?!" The excitable redhead seemed to give up on getting a straight answer out of her oblivious lover, instead she flew up to the source. "Shirone-chan, did you do a jutsu?"

The catgirl blinked in similar confusion to her master. "Youjutsu, nya?"

Rias gasped and dropped into a dogeza pose. "Please teach me, Jirainya-sensei!"

Lelouch looked at Sona and both of them sighed in unison. "Anastasia," the Sitri heiress called, "Can you stop with the snow spell please? The situation is resolved."

"Oh, I'm not maintaining it. Master wanted it deliberately made to be self-sustaining so Freed wouldn't target me to end it."

Sona frowned up at the cloud. "I see. Well, we can wait for the temperature to fix itself but it shouldn't take much to stop the snow." She raised a hand, a blue mandala forming above her.

"Please," came a voice from far, far above them, deep and booming. "Allow me."

From within the cloud came a calamitous blast of air, dispersing the weather anomaly all at once. All the devils could do was stare in bewilderment as they witnessed the cause of the dispersal. A looming figure of ten feathery black wings.

"Devils of Bael, Sitri and Gremory," the fallen angel Kokabiel greeted in turn, meeting the eyes of the scion of each house. "On behalf of the Fallen, I thought I would offer my congratulations on your impending nuptials, and my condolences on your impending slaughter."

-(-)-

A/N: This chapter seen very early by my generous supporters on THE GREAT FORBIDDEN P! FEAR THE P! LOVE THE P!