83: The First Move

After saying that, Professor Velvet pauses for a moment, and stares into the center of Kongming's feather fan… that's right, that thing was a divination tool, wasn't it? Finally, he lowers it, and speaks again

"A final confirmation, before the first move," He says, his eyes shifting towards Jeanne. "Master mentioned you were missing one of your Noble Phantasms, a sword. What is the nature of that weapon?"

She speaks with a slight hesitation. "...It's a suicide attack. A conceptual weapon that interprets my burning at the stake into an attack. It-"

"That's enough. El-Melloi had already guessed as much, I just wanted to confirm." He says. Wait, El-Melloi!? Then the one in charge right now is- "Now, I'll have you all follow my orders for now. Drop the shield!"

"Y-yes!" Mash relaxes for a moment, letting the chalk wall drop-

"Merry, your sword!" He shouts, beginning to walk straight towards Dark Jeanne.

Berserk Avenger flickers forwards-

"Y-yes milord! [Frankreich Über Alles - Fleur de Lys]!" She shouts, and Edmond Dantes staggers to a stop behind me, clutching his eyes.

"Y-you! [Enfer-!" He starts to shout-

"Like hell! [Minya]!" I shout, tearing at his body with purple crystals-

"-Château d'If]!" He finishes, and vanishes. This fucking guy!

"Jeanne, take the Vampire. Mash, Saint Martha is yours. Merry, deal with Dantes if he comes back." Kongming barks out, continuing his stroll towards Dark Jeanne.

"[Kazikli Bey]!" "[Luminosite Eternelle]!"

"[Tarrasque]!" "[Lord Chaldeas]!"

A forest of spikes and whirlwind of fire both manifest, and are both repelled.

But with everyone else occupied, this means his plan is-!?

"Ha. Ha, ha hahaha! You're kidding, right? You've got to be kidding me!" Dark Jeanne laughs. "You're gonna face me? You, a Caster, the weakest class in direct combat, are going to fight me? And not even from far away!? You should be running away, but you're approaching me?"

"He can't beat the shit out of you without getting closer!" I call out reflexively.

There's a burst of motion. A spray of blood. A flag erupts from Kongming's back.

"Don't make me laugh, you fucking morons." Dark Jeanne says as the Tactician slumps forward, his limp body flopping against hers.

Then his arm reaches up and attaches a Fulu to her back, and she starts screaming.

"AAAH! AAAH! What is this what is this whatisthiswhatisthis!" She wails, writhing on the ground, reaching in vain to try to get the talisman off as some kind of black smoke starts to emit from her skin. "It burns! I can feel- my soul-!"

"Soul? Heh. HehehahaCK!" Kongming coughs up some blood, slumping a bit further down on on the flagpole embedded in his chest. "Do you really think you even had one of those?"

"Shut up! La Grondement… Grondement - what!? Why isn't it-? Ahhh!" She howls. "My Magic Resistance… what!?"

"Your Magic Resistance was the same as Jeanne's - and hers can be bypassed by Church Sacraments. Did you think that rejecting the Christian God would expand your resistance?" He lets out another wet chuckle. "It just gave you more weaknesses. Just about any purification ritual will get through now."

"P-purification!?" She shouts "What are you even-!?"

"I'll spell it out. You are a creation of the Holy Grail. Something made with the hatred of Gilles de Rais and bits and pieces stolen from the real Jeanne d'Arc. If she had accepted you, if you had found a sympathetic ear among living humans - that might have been enough. You might have become a real Heroic Spirit." Kingming's eyes are cold as he stares at her still writhing form. The flag melts into a cloud of golden dust and he falls to his knees. "But! You found- me! I've got enough baggage with creatures pretending to be human to reject you outright. I'll call you what you are. Your most significant component, the sword that embodies the burning of Jeanne d'Arc. You are a cursed… sword. The Japanese would call it… a Tsukumogami."

"Ah! Aaaaahhhh!" She screams, trying to cover her ears.

"That talisman… purifies Yokai." Kongming mutters, feather fan once more materializing in his hand. "And this fan… purifies desires."

"Gilles…" Her final whimper as the fan is laid upon her face is so pathetic that I feel my heart stir with pity, if only for a moment.

The spirit that claimed to be Jeanne d'Arc pops like a soap bubble. Gently glistening, the golden crystal of the Holy Grail floats gently to the ground.

The sounds of Vlad III and Martha's assaults against my allies' barriers die down, and I see both slowly dissolve into clouds of golden dust.

"Ah!" Merry lets out a small cry as her existence pulses two more times.

"Hah… that's step one." Kongming says. "The rest is-"

I don't hear what he says next. A sonic boom drowns him out. The Tactician is engulfed in a pillar of fire. Another pulse from Merry.

The ██████████ pretending to be Fafnir arrives on the battlefield.

"[Lord Chaldeas]!" Fafnir's left claw meets the chalk brick of Camelot's wall. Something twinges in my mind. He leads with his left. It's always been the left claw.

Someone leaps off the dragon's back. A tall, lanky man, with familiar white hair and a neck tilted too far forward. Snatching up the grail, he turns to address us.

"Sorry. This body was a rush job. Even my tone of voice is all wrong. I promise I'll do better next time." He speaks, his voice a dull monotone. "I'll do something so that Avenger doesn't kill Francesca… but for now, Francis Prelati. A pleasure to finally meet in person."

As he rambles, the dragon continues its assault against Mash's wall - but its claws achieve nothing.

"Subaru, Mash." Jeanne speaks, and I realize that she's holding a sword. Wait, is that-!? "It was really fun. But I think this is where we-"

"Hang on just a moment, Ruler!" Director Olga Marie calls out, her face appearing on my wrist communicator. Hey, she looks a lot more healthy right now- "I'm not about to let you sacrifice yourself for nothing! Natsuki - that dragon, you fought it yesterday, right!? Mordred hit it with her Noble Phantasm, right!?"

"Uh…" I think for a moment. "Yeah, I think so."

"No one else remembers that!" She shouts, and my spine goes cold as the whole hideous puzzle falls into place. No, no, no… "Our recording of the battle has Mordred firing into the air for no reason! Siegfried the Dragonslayer's slaying of the dragon is omitted from his legend - there's a big blank space in our copy of the Nibelungenlied!"

There are two Fafnirs. He leads with his left.

How did I not notice? How did no one notice?

He carried off Saint Martha in his left hand, and I never saw her again. A leap into the air, even with no wings, that allows impossibly fast movement. There are two Fafnirs.

Of course they noticed. They just took it in stride, because Natsuki Subaru is someone who knows things he isn't supposed to. 'Fafnir was wounded yesterday' - that's absolutely the kind of information they're used to hearing from me. I never specifically clarified who did it, did I?

Someone told Prelati about [Return by Death]. A palm strike that bypassed Siegfried's magical defenses. He leads with his left.

Did anyone call the dragon Fafnir before I did, after our trip through Grand Illusion? No, only Ahab, who can't forget.

In the very first loop, Roy Alphard answered my call. Reid was secondary.

Is it her? It can't be her. She wouldn't dare piss me off again, not this much. Besides, they can't eat dragons.

But Fafnir is a dwarf, not a dragon.

"Senpai, I'm…" Mash says. Her face is pale. The chalk wall begins to fizzle - she's out of magical energy. I'm not shocked, not after we pushed her this hard.

It's not Louis Arneb. But-

"Next, try guessing, hero."

A forgotten taunt, from the sands outside the Pleiades Watchtower, in a failed loop. That was his voice, wasn't it? 'Next', he said. Of course he knew. Those siblings shared meals, after all.

The worst possible result. I wanted to see him least of all. 'Because I don't think I could kill a child again', I remember thinking. What a pathetic excuse for a lie. I just didn't want to admit the truth.

That what I regretted the most about sending Ram to kill this guy, was that I didn't get to kill him myself.

As Mash's shield falls, and she collapses to her knees, his name tears out of my jaws unbidden. My neck muscles hurt from forcing my face into such a furious expression.

"BATENKAITOOOS!" I scream. Ley Batenkaitos. Gourmet Archbishop of Gluttony. To be honest, I'm happy to see you. Because it means I'll finally get to see you die in person.

"FINALLLY!" Fafnir vanishes, and a black-haired boy flickers into existence. "He's solved it, discovered it, learned it, figured it out! So the command spell is over, we don't have to hide, we can FINALLY FEAST!"

Behind him, I see Francis Prelati hold the grail aloft. The sky begins to ripple.