IBHJ 1393

“By the way,” Shirou said, glancing up, “did you solve the energy supply problem?”

“Oh, that?” Gaia smirked. “Solved it a while ago with a shortcut. I just didn’t tell you because I knew you’d go charging off anyway. Honestly, you’re worse than I was at your age.”

“A shortcut?” he squinted at her. “You can take shortcuts with energy supply? Wait—don’t tell me—”

Something clicked. His tone shifted. “You made connection points?”

“Bingo. Moromaya used Moon Cell and my sensory data to lock them in. Seven connection points that should’ve collapsed—we stabilized them. Then I burned them.”

He stared at her. “You burned seven connection points.”

“At that point, they were no different from full-blown parallel worlds,” Gaia said, still casual. “Wiping them triggered a sort of cosmic big bang each time. The raw output from that was more than enough for a round-trip… and enough to fund a proper war.”

Shirou’s expression hardened. "This is no different from proper history. Once you start down this road, there’s no walking it back.”

“Obviously. We hit the Golden Universe hard. They’re not going to sit quietly and pretend it didn’t happen. So forget second-guessing. Start planning.”

He sighed. That part, at least, made sense.

But something about it still felt wrong.

Almost like they were walking straight into the Lord of Salvation’s hands.

Gaia turned back to her console. “You should go. I’ll let you know when the analysis finishes.”

“Alright.” he stepped out of the Star Brain chamber and left her to it.

…

London

Midnight.

Rain hammered the streets in steady sheets, cold and colorless. It soaked through coats, stung bare skin, and turned the gutters into slow-moving rivers. Winter wasn’t here yet, but it was close enough to bite.

No one was out. Not even the locals who treated cold drizzle like background noise. Tonight was different. The city felt… wrong.

Above the rooftops, something hung in the sky.

A swirling black vortex, pulsing faintly with flickering, deeply unsettling images. People didn’t need to understand it to know they should stay inside. Instinct handled the rest.

The cathedral stood near the end of an old stone street, worn down by time but still intact. Rain hit its surface with soft, irregular taps. Inside, a baby was crying. Not loud, just enough to make the place feel emptier. At some point, the sound faded. Maybe the child fell asleep. Or maybe no one had ever been there in the first place.

Ayaka Sajyou stood under an umbrella near the entrance, staring through the glass at a half-crumbling statue of the Virgin Mary.

This was London—the center of the magical world. The place every magus dreamed about. She’d dreamed about it too.

And now that she was here, all she felt was cold.

She’d crossed worlds to get to this city. But it wasn’t hers. Her world ended the day her sister tried to summon the Lord of Salvation. This one looked the same, but it wasn’t.

There was no space in it for the people who came from somewhere else.

Even so, she hadn’t been completely alone. Altera. Kiara. Maybe the three of them stuck together because they didn’t fit anywhere else. That was enough, sometimes. For the first time in a long while, Ayaka had something that felt like hers.

“Ayaka.”

She turned.

Arthur stood next to her. Rain sliding down the shoulders of his coat. His voice was quiet. “It’s time to go.”

She nodded.

Then stepped away from the cathedral and followed him into the dark.

Like her, this Arthur wasn’t supposed to exist in this world.

He came from somewhere else—a version of the King who had no place in the clean, ordered flow of Proper Human History.

Ayaka stood beside him in the rain, watching it blur the cathedral’s silhouette behind them. Her fingers tightened slightly around the umbrella’s grip. “Arthur… do you think we can win?”

The final enemy had already shown its face.

A black hand, stitched together from the ruins of forgotten ages. A shadow born from the beginning of everything—older than myths and strong enough to choke the very future out of existence.

The enemy wasn’t a monster or a god.

It was the origin’s own reflection.

The part of creation that wanted everything to end.

A voice answered—but not Arthur’s.

“Isn’t that inevitable?”

A figure stepped out from the edge of the shadows, gold gleaming beneath the dim streetlight. He leaned back against the stone wall, arms crossed and perfectly at ease.

Gilgamesh.

King of Heroes.

And the last person to ever offer comfort—except now, somehow, his words didn’t sting.

“The hero of this era has already set out on his final journey, hasn’t he?” he said, watching them both with sharp, half-lidded eyes. “When a true hero rises, the future bends to meet him. That’s how it’s always worked. Otherwise, what makes him a hero?”

“I figured he’d become this era’s champion eventually. But I didn’t expect the Root itself to be his final enemy.”

Ayaka looked at him. She didn’t need to ask who he meant.

“This war stopped being about humanity a long time ago,” Gilgamesh went on, still leaning against the wall like he was talking about a market collapse instead of the end of the world. “Heroic Spirits, gods, magecraft—we’re all background noise now. The scale’s changed. But it’s still Shinjuku Holy Grail War when you boil it down.”

He glanced at Ayaka.

“Same old pattern. The Grail’s still the core. Your sister’s still our enemy. And Fujimaru is still playing the same damn role. The rest of us?” He gave a short breath of a laugh. “We’re just the ones waiting for judgment again.”

Arthur frowned. “Archer—”

“Don’t mistake this for despair, Saber.”

Gilgamesh straightened slightly. “I hate it as much as you do. But this isn’t just about saving a city, or fixing a timeline. We need to be clear about what we are. That doesn’t mean we throw everything on one man’s shoulders and wait for a miracle. That’s not resolve. That’s cowardice.”

He looked past both of them. “Back when he was still weak, he said something ridiculous.”

A pause. Then:

“‘As long as I’m alive, I can do something.’”

He uncrossed his arms. “That’s still true. And for us, there’s only one thing left—hold the last anchor in place. No matter what it costs.”

Ayaka nodded slowly. “You’re right.”

Her voice was firm now. “This world won’t fall the way ours did.”

And no matter what the vortex above tried to take from them, she wasn’t going to let it win.

The Beast must have thought the same.

Ayaka’s hand moved without thinking, curling around the seed hidden in her coat pocket.

It had been given to her in South America—just before Koyanskaya was swallowed by Manaka. They hadn’t spoken for long, but Ayaka had grown to see her as a friend.

She’d kept the seed ever since.

Arthur glanced her way, saw something shift in her eyes. He gave a faint smile.

Then—

Applause rang out.

Just loud enough to carry over the rain.

“Who’s there?!”

Arthur and Gilgamesh turned instantly, eyes locked on the dark.

No warning. No clairvoyance, no instinct, no presence.

Even Gilgamesh’s eyes—so used to seeing beyond time—had seen nothing.

A shadow moved through the dark. Slim. Deliberate. Familiar.

Ayaka’s breath caught. “You… you’re—” Her voice shook. “Sister?!”

A soft voice answered. Delicate and bright, like a lullaby wrapped in knives. “I’m so happy to see you looking so alive, Ayaka.”

A golden-haired girl stepped through the gloom, hands still clapping slowly. She wore a pale blue gown that seemed untouched by the rain. Her eyes gleamed like polished glass.

“Manaka,” Arthur said under his breath, frowning.

Shfft. Shfft. Shfft.

Gilgamesh didn’t wait. His weapons moved in a blur. The Gate of Babylon roared open behind him—a bloom of golden light, and then a barrage of Noble Phantasms.

Divine constructs, ancient treasures, all flying straight at her.

They never made it.

The moment they reached her, they vanished. No flash, no impact—just gone, like raindrops slipping through a dream.

Gilgamesh narrowed his eyes. His hand closed into a fist as he detonated his Noble Phantasms.

Reality cracked.

The space where the weapons had disappeared fractured like glass, and the air detonated with a shockwave that should’ve wiped out the entire district.

But it didn’t.

The fire, the debris—everything melted away before it could land.

Gilgamesh clicked his tongue. “You’ve fused with that thing.”

Arthur didn’t wait.

“Ex—calibur!”

The blade ignited in his hand, a burst of light surging straight at Manaka. But the moment their eyes met—

The beam failed.

No explosion. No resistance. The light simply stopped, swallowed before it could even shine.

Manaka tilted her head, still smiling. “My, how passionate you are, my dear prince.”

She looked delighted.