IBHJ 1387

After what felt like hours of scanning and drifting through the vast nothingness, Shirou leaned back in his seat and shook his head.

“No sign of anything. Let’s pull out, Tiamat.”

“Understood,” Tiamat replied, exhaling as if she'd been holding her breath the entire time.

The Golden Universe was already suffocating in its own way, but this place—this silent, starless abyss—was worse. It felt wrong, as if they were trespassing in a space that had never been meant for life.

All she wanted was to return to the brilliant warmth of the Gaia star system—somewhere where light still meant safety.

Then it happened.

The ship shuddered.

The emptiness around them began to vibrate, not like matter reacting to energy, but like something living had noticed them.

Space rippled—folded inward like an eyelid opening.

And from the tear, a wormhole bloomed open, wide as a planetary orbit.

From within it emerged a colossal insect head, jagged and alien, covered in twitching sensory spines. It didn’t simply look at them.

It hungered.

“M-Master…! That’s one of the cosmic gods!”

Shirou’s eyes narrowed. “Get us out of here.”

Tiamat initiated a jump—but the ship refused.

Alarms lit up across the console.

“Jump failed,” she said, panic creeping in. “The entire sector's space-time domain has been sealed off!”

Shirou’s gaze flicked to the monster ahead.

No planets. No civilizations. Nothing but their single ship.

“You’re chasing us?” he muttered. “You think we’re worth this much trouble?”

The creature didn’t answer. It simply reared back, a hundred tendrils writhing in anticipation.

“Fine. Tiamat—open fire.”

“Understood!”

With a high-pitched whine, the ship's planet-annihilation cannon fired.

A beam of condensed destruction lanced out, slamming into the creature's grotesque body. A small part of its limb and outer carapace detonated, black ichor spilling into space.

But that was all.

Its head reared back. It let out a hideous, hissing shriek—and charged.

“You’re too useless, Tiamat.” he said flatly.

“I-I’m sorry… I tried…”

“We don’t have time. Let me out.”

Shirou stepped out of Tiamat’s starship, boots gliding weightlessly into the vacuum.

Before him loomed one of the many cosmic gods—a titanic, insectoid monstrosity barreling toward them, its body twisting with interstellar hunger, its mouthparts glistening with corrosive vapor.

Unfazed, he raised a hand.

Akasha Arrow appeared between his fingers—its form simple and elegant. As soon as his thoughts focused, it ignited with golden light.

A wave of golden light erupted from the Akasha Arrow.

In an instant, the starship behind him was swallowed in a veil of light.

HIIISSSKKRRAAAAH—!

The god recoiled. The moment it sensed Akasha Arrow’s presence, panic overtook it. It tried to turn mid-charge, twisting its titanic body in retreat—but it was too late.

The inertia of its colossal form carried it straight into the radiant field.

The moment it touched the golden light—

“Pop.”

Like a soap bubble hitting a needle, the cosmic insect disintegrated.

Not exploded.

Not wounded.

Erased.

The vast creature’s form unraveled into specks of dust, then faded from existence entirely—swallowed by a force it could never hope to understand.

Shirou exhaled and lowered the arrow.

“Let’s go.”

He turned toward the ship—ready to return to the cockpit.

Then he stopped.

A voice echoed.

It rolled across the void like thunder in a cathedral, resonating through space itself. It wasn’t shouted—it was declared, like the voice of a monarch addressing creation.

“I see now… the First Cause resides within you.”

Standing atop the starship’s hull, the Akasha Arrow still gripped in one hand, Shirou scanned the void.

Nothing.

No life signatures. No presence.

And yet, a bead of cold sweat rolled down his temple.

“Who’s there?” he demanded—not vocally, but through a high-level information pulse, casting his will into the system-wide communication layer.

Silence.

Then—

Boom.

Tiamat’s starship began to shake violently beneath his feet.

Shirou crouched low, stabilizing his stance, eyes narrowing. “Tiamat, what’s going on? Are you losing control?”

“No, Master!” Tiamat’s voice rang with panic. “It’s not me shaking—it’s the star system! The entire star system is vibrating!”

“What…?”

Shirou froze.

And then he saw it.

The dark void around them began to glow—suffused with a golden hue, as if someone had spilled divine sunlight across the fabric of space itself.

And then—

They appeared.

Two colossal golden hands, emerging from beyond the void’s horizon—so massive they stretched across star system distances. Their movement was slow, deliberate, terrifying. Like a god reaching down to pick up a delicate sphere.

The hands grasped the void itself.

The very fabric of space began to bend, folding like paper in those celestial fingers.

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

Tiamat's ship rattled like an insect caught in a sandstorm. The entire sector was trembling.

And then—

A face.

A face so vast it swallowed the space.

Golden. Unfathomable.

Not a planet. Not a star. Not a lifeform as Shirou understood it.

But something shaped like a face. It gazing down upon the pocket of space they occupied.

“What the hell is this…?” Shirou muttered, eyes wide.

All at once, the strange lifeforms he’d encountered since entering the Golden Universe—the rootless darkness, the star-eating void insects, the golden humans—flashed through his mind.

And now… this?

A golden giant whose very face could eclipse constellations?

“We’re leaving. Now!” he barked.

“Understood!” she replied, already initiating emergency protocols.

The universe was too vast, too dark.

And in that endless void—things lurked that no logic could explain.

Shirou didn’t know what the appearance of the golden giant meant. But he knew one thing clearly:

This vacuum-star system was dangerous.

…

“I can’t, Master!” Tiamat’s voice trembled through the ship’s interface. “The space-time phase has been locked! We’re trapped!”

Shirou’s eyes narrowed. He turned his gaze back toward the boundless, expressionless face that loomed over the horizon like a god watching insects.

Then—

The flames in his eyes ignited.

And suddenly, he saw them.

Countless Root threads, interwoven like threads of fate and law, humming in and out of phase with reality.

Shirou reached out—and swept his hand across them.

“Crack.”

A single fissure split across the dimensional barrier of the void.

“There. Tiamat—go! Break through that fissure!”

“Understood!”

Tiamat’s starship leapt toward the fissure, light peeling off her hull like stardust—sleek and desperate, a silver ghost racing against the collapse of space itself.

…

“Return the door—!”

The golden giant’s voice shook the dimension. It was not a command—it was a law, spoken into being.

The massive hands clenched, and space groaned under the pressure. Black lightning raked across the edges of the star system, forming a storm of golden entropy.

The void ignited.

Light—sickening and divine—rippled like molten paint, staining reality gold.

And it began to fall—onto the fissure.

Like living platelets, those rays of impossible light began to seal the exit.

“Tch—” Shirou gritted his teeth.

He raised his hand—and summoned Caliburn.

The blade flashed into existence.

He swung.

Clang.

The sword struck the Root threads—and shattered.

Fragments of Caliburn scattered like glass, some of them embedding into the hull of Tiamat’s ship before dissolving into golden ether.

Shirou’s eyes widened.

When had Death Lines become this resilient?

There was no time to think.

He summoned another Holy Sword. Its blade flared in his hand—and he slashed again.

Clang—!

The impact rattled up his arms. His hands went numb.

The threads didn’t budge.