Chapter 109: "Sudden Onset of Death"
Effort does not guarantee a reward.
This is a truth one doesn't understand as a child, always innocently believing that trying hard is enough. However, after living for a while longer, one learns. It has nothing to do with what one has done or what will one has practiced. It is simply that the world, as an object, has no feelings.
Only humans hope for something. Only the living. The world does not develop a bias based on whether a will is good or bad. Good people aren't immune to accidents, and villains aren't guaranteed to face retribution; radiant things vanish, and calamities can linger for a long time.
Therefore, Shirou did not feel this was unfair. Even if the fact that effort goes unrewarded remains unchanged, if others find happiness, it creates a special meaning. However, in its lack of bias, "Death" is the same. Whether it's a piercing wound to the chest, bleeding out, or a blow to the head that causes consciousness to vanish in an instant—from the perspective of life, the ending is identical. It is the living who feel the latter is more frustrating.
Because Shirou was mentally prepared, it would be someone other than Shirou who felt that way. Now, before Shirou's eyes, a mist rose that even lamplight could not penetrate.
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Near Snowfield City Central Hospital, beside the Church
The last trace of prana dissipated.
To be precise, a certain soot of prana emitted from the release of a Noble Phantasm had vanished from the area around Richard and Saber. A portion had already blown into the distance the moment it was released. While they didn't know how many familiars it would reach or how many people would be informed, that was no longer the concern of Saber and the others.
Richard stood straight upon the messy earth. First, he earnestly lowered his head and gave a simple bow.
"Actually, I originally wanted to kneel and pay respects to the Great King of Knights as a knight myself. But if I did that, not only would it be a bit embarrassing for my subjects, but my companions would likely complain incessantly. So, I was only permitted this meager level of etiquette," Richard said with a wry smile. Though he seemed to be alone, his expression was serious as he spoke those seemingly nonsensical words. It was as if he truly valued these "seemingly non-existent figures" by his side.
"Do not worry, Saber." Saber shook her head. "Besides, my mission as a King ended long ago. You may consider my existence here as merely a guardian spirit temporarily residing in this world." Her emerald pupils wavered under the night sky. As if to specifically demonstrate this, her battle skirt slowly vanished, returning to her casual clothes.
For some reason, Richard showed an even more excited expression, as if thinking, "Oh, as expected!"
"Please allow me to introduce my companions to greet you," Richard volunteered upon seeing that Saber was not resistant. Then, as if sharing glory, he began to solemnly call out his friends one by one.
"This is Pierre." Though the space behind him was empty, there was an inexplicable sense of someone bowing. "This is Marshall, this is Locksley, this one you can call Ivanhoe, and there are two others who are quite shy and seem unwilling to greet you face-to-face; I hope you can forgive them." Richard listed his friends' names one by one; his delivery was neither overly excited nor overly humble.
Finally, he reached out to invite the girl running toward him from the Church. Though Saber was familiar with her, their identities were different now that they met again, so Richard took this into account and re-introduced her:
"This is Ayaka. How should I put it... well, she is actually the reason I can remain in this world (in a physical sense), and she is also the person I am protecting."
Ayaka's face immediately turned crimson. "Wh-what kind of nonsense are you talking about!?" She then turned to Saber and bowed. "Miss Artos, even though I still don't quite understand what happened—or rather, I'm very confused right now—thank you for saving Saber!"
'...Richard, is this your usual style with other girls?' Saber silently moved one centimeter away.
Richard looked around, saw another person nearby, and continued casually, "And this is... who are you?" Richard stopped mid-sentence, tilted his head, and looked surprised, a metaphorical question mark appearing over his head.
Appearing beside them was a man with an eye patch, a cross around his neck, and black hair tied back. It seemed no one had ever seen him. The eye-patch man blended into the "post-battle results" group with a perfectly natural expression.
"The supervisor of the Holy Grail War, Hansa. Thank you for the introduction. I was also staying in the Church earlier."
"Oh, oh." The difference in treatment was blatant.
The eye-patch man ignored the differential treatment and addressed Saber: "It is my honor to meet you. However, I see. To encounter a Servant who is not part of this Holy Grail War within
one—given my meager life experience, I truly couldn't have imagined it... Isn't this a bit inappropriate?"
"It's much better than the Church supervisor himself being a Master, don't you think?" Saber responded calmly.
"..."
"Haha..." The priest, the new supervisor, scratched his head thoughtfully as if just confirming a certain realization. "Anyway, I already wear a patch over one eye, and my other eye seems to have had a bit of a decline in vision lately."
The two looked at each other and smiled. The new supervisor dazed off in place, while Richard and Ayaka continued talking. Since a moment ago, for some reason, the situation had turned into everyone greeting and paying respects to the King of Knights, but in truth, Saber didn't want to spend this moment doing that.
'I wonder how Shirou is doing?'
Saber was somewhat worried, so she ignored their chatter and began to walk. The supervisor remained in place, while Richard and Ayaka immediately followed. Along the way, Richard looked at Saber's expression; he was uncharacteristically quiet.
Understanding roughly what he was thinking, Saber explained matter-of-factly: "I am not worrying about him. No... I should say that while I am concerned, I am not in distress. The presence of the being Shirou went to fight has vanished. It is Shirou's victory."
Richard spent a few seconds observing Saber's reaction. After confirming the statement was true, he finally struck up a conversation as if liberated. "I grew up listening to the stories of King Arthur! May I ask if I can inquire about some secret histories? Would it be insolent?"
As she walked toward the hospital, Saber answered with a default, casual tone, "Talk as we walk."
Richard's face was full of glory, his expression thoughtful. Finally, he brightened up and asked his first question: "Among the Knights of the Round Table, who is the strongest? Is it Gawain or Lancelot, as the legends say?"
"When you personally ask all of them yourself, I believe you will receive a fair answer."
A good answer. If one can understand by meeting all the Knights of the Round Table, then when exactly can one meet all of them?
"Do you hate Mordred?" Richard continued to ask.
Saber pondered for a moment and then shook her head. Richard's eyes flashed with admiration. Finally, mixed in with the ordinary questions, Richard lowered his voice as they both faced the hospital.
"There is one more thing I am very curious about!... How is the progress between you two currently?"
"..."
Saber smiled gently. "Richard."
"Yes, I overstepped!" Richard raised his hands and apologized with great self-awareness, then shut his mouth. Saber pulled the corners of her mouth down helplessly, chasing away the heat brought by the previous words.
Even if she were to answer such a thing, it would have to wait at least until after confirming Shirou's injuries and rescuing the unconscious Tsubaki Kuruoka. Just as the two were preparing to rush toward the hospital grounds together, the anomaly occurred.
"Wait... what is that!?" Ayaka suddenly shouted a warning.
Of course, Saber and Richard, the two Sabers, looked at the same time a moment before her warning. What they saw was a scene beyond comprehension.
A tide of black mist was surging toward them at high speed; nothing could be seen behind the great fog. However, it was clearly coming from the direction of the hospital.
"...!!"
"Eh...!?"
Saber's eyes widened, and Richard let out a muffled grunt; both drew their swords almost instantly. The hospital had vanished. What about the people who were originally in the hospital?
There was no time to think about this fatal question. The thick blackness that occupied heaven and earth was about to arrive. It was spreading with an accelerating, explosive force; the reaction time left for the Heroic Spirits was one second at most.
"Saber, protect Ayaka beside you!"
The sword in Saber's hand instantly lit up. Without needing words, Richard's sword also glowed at the same time. In the next moment, two ribbons of light were swung out together, interlacing.
Facing them... was only the "ink" that submerged the chessboard, impossible to dissolve.
Vision went completely dark. Every scene in the world vanished simultaneously at a certain moment. The light cut through the darkness, but that was all. At the end of the light was total blackness.
Heat was lost, sound was lost, connection was lost.
The outermost edge that the light could reach was filled with an abnormal blackness. In this space, there was only the pitch-black illuminated by radiance. When the radiance faded, the
white and black would turn back into indissoluble darkness. The light, lit temporarily like duckweed, was like the glow of a firefly, submerged in the ink that swallowed the entire "area."
If one had to say, the only surprising thing was—only this specific light did not vanish.
She would not let it vanish.
To this end, she poured her entire body's prana into it, extending the duration of the Noble Phantasm. Even if she couldn't increase the output in her haste, it didn't matter; she was fearless even in challenging a limit she had never attempted before.
The King of Knights refused the flipping of the stage. She did not choose to enter the "Reverse Side."
In terms of the final result, she succeeded. However, Saber might have felt a brief moment of regret, just for a fleeting second before she actively suppressed her feelings.
—It would have been better if I had been taken down together at this time.
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Regarding the natural phenomenon of mist, humans living on this planet occasionally feel uneasy. They care about its scale, they can't see clearly, and they suspect whether something harmful to humans is lurking within it.
Although naturally occurring mist is purposeless—if it is deliberate, swelling to such a scale, making it impossible to see one's surroundings, and bringing danger, what kind of monster does it signify?
Humanity's fear of this natural phenomenon gave birth to Berserker's Noble Phantasm, [The Mist: Like London at Dawn, Like Death by Extinction], and Assassin's Noble Phantasm, [Unfeeling Agility].
In that case...
Was the reason it could spread in the form of black smoke because humans link "mist" with "death," while simultaneously fearing the "death" brought by "darkness"? This was Shirou's guess, but it couldn't be concluded.
Before Shirou was a massive black orb that had already obscured the building. It was roiling and expanding outward explosively; at least at "this moment," it was still in this stage.
The smoke, which felt like a living thing, was faster than the wind. It even ignored the wind. From the moment the earth-shattering abnormality occurred before Shirou's eyes, clinging to the ground, the distance between it and Shirou decreased to zero in just one second.
Shirou was too close when things began. If there was a reason Shirou couldn't cope, this was it.
This brief instant was only enough for Shirou to release his most urgent True Name; petals were quickly pulled in front of him. Deploying a defense for the third time in less than an hour caused an intense migraine; brief dizziness was only the most basic side effect. As he began to actively inject prana, his nerves began to flicker, and a paralyzing pain streaked through his central nervous system.
"..."
Shirou converted even this dull pain into wrath, and converted that wrath into power to strengthen the prana of the Noble Phantasm. Regardless of how he felt, the movements of his hands did not stop. Furthermore, a cool sensation covered the pain a beat late, gently neutralizing Shirou's burden.
The purple shield deployed instantly, setting up seven layers of barriers in the direction of the smoke. In just a fraction of a distance, the black mist would make contact with it.
In reality, Shirou was not confident he could block it. To face such a threat, the most appropriate method would be to sweep it away with an Anti-Army or Anti-Fortress Noble Phantasm. But in his caught-off-guard state, Shirou had no time. There was still time to project a sword by omitting all steps, but he would be swallowed halfway through injecting prana.
This great mist was far too sudden, like a curtain forcibly dropped from heaven, or a method of death that pierces through the head. Whether it was the strongest corner that evicted human history, the combined combat power of seven Servants, or the determination accumulated over years and months—all were irrelevant, independent events in the face of this great mist. It seemed that this mist, as long as it appeared, would forcibly end everything. If one did not perceive the signs of the invisible mist in advance and prepare a means to stop the "black mist that covers the sky" from appearing, it would lead to the "sudden death" of being swallowed.
Shirou felt this was a stage device used as a reason to temporarily change the play.
"Sorry, it looks like that goal won't be achieved so easily... Tohsaka."
The world was like this. Death comes suddenly, effort doesn't necessarily bring a reward, and no matter how much one pushes themselves, deep-seated dangers won't become gentle; there are countless things that don't go as one wishes.
Even so, Shirou believed that her complaint was a noble wish that would one day be fulfilled. Even so, Shirou—
His heart hadn't stopped pumping; his thoughts were exceptionally calm. If the great mist of unknown effect swallowed everything around him, [Rho Aias] wouldn't necessarily be able to block it all. Holding the shield and waiting with eyes wide open—that was all Shirou could do.
However, in reality, there was no need to consider the darkness that might fill the space behind him. Because before that, the black mist in front and the barriers intersected—and then, as if seeing through them, the mist passed straight through.
[Rho Aias] is both a Conceptual Armament and, essentially, a Bounded Field Noble Phantasm. It fits the classification of a Bounded Field, an example of one that functions on a boundary line. The significance of a Bounded Field in magecraft does not lie in the division between inside and outside, but in the effect it exerts. The effects held by different Bounded Fields vary—for example, "detecting intruders" or "intercepting enemies."
As for the Bounded Field [Rho Aias]—its effect was related to "defense."
"...This isn't an attack."
He only had time to say these words before, next, Shirou was completely submerged by the black smoke. Without any meddling accidents, he was swallowed into the indissoluble ink without suspense.
His body fell into the "Reverse Side."
Far from the surface of the sea, he sank endlessly downward. The darkness remained in a state of wrapping him densely and without any gaps. His spirit was sealed in the center along with the closing of his vision, waiting for the moment of release to reboot.
It was a bit like entering someone's shadow; there was a familiar feeling.
From this moment on...
Solely in terms of lexicographical definition—"Emiya Shirou has died."
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