IBHJ 1026

As Shirou approached, Arcueid spotted Artoria and nearly collapsed in fear. She wanted to run, but Beast VI had already adapted to her infinite Moon Fall. There was no escape.

Shirou stopped in front of her.

Arcueid forced a smile, trying to swallow her fear. "L-long time no see..."

"Yes. It's been a long time indeed, Miss Moon Princess who returned to Earth after fleeing to the moon," Shirou said expressionlessly. "I'm sure Kariya would be overjoyed - the writer who scammed advance payment and then ran away can finally return to the dark room to catch up on updates."

"Please don't tell Kariya!" Arcueid's hair stood on end. "I'll die... I can't be an author anymore, that's just— Wait." Her panic switched to confusion. "Are you Shirou or Artoria?"

"What do you think?" A smile played on his lips.

"Oh!" Arcueid's eyes lit up. "Now I get it! You're what happened when Shirou and Artoria's legends merged - ShirouArt!" She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively. "Didn't know you were into that sort of thing."

Shirou: "..."

"I'll deal with you later." He glared at her. "Now, hand it over."

"Hand what over?"

"Your Demonic Sword. And your authority."

"Oh, that? Sure, here." She passed him the sword. "But what are you planning?"

He gripped the Demonic Sword with complex emotions flickering across his face. Then he looked up at Beast VI. "I'm taking that thing down."

"Taking it down? Maybe you should hide behind me, ShirouArt."

"Why?"

"Because ShirouArt is so weak," Arcueid said bluntly.

"Still as tactless as ever, aren't you?" He replied calmly. "And if you call me ShirouArt one more time, I'll make sure to pluck out all your hair until you go bald."

"Oh..." Arcueid shrank back, finally realizing who was really behind Artoria's face.

But what was he thinking? Even as Ultimate One, she couldn't beat Beast VI. How could Shirou possibly do it?

She wasn't looking down on him, but... Heroic Spirits were just too weak.

Shirou turned to Tethys at Fujimaru's side, gripping the Demonic Sword.

"Tethys, I don't know what 'light' you were talking about. But watch - this is my light, my unfinished work!"

Before anyone could stop him, Shirou drove the sword into his chest.

"Shirou, no!" The cry went up from all sides.

His blue eyes blazed brighter and brighter, like flames in the dark. Deep in his soul, the formless vortex began to spin faster and faster.

"That's—"

Tethys froze, then smiled. "So that's your answer, Shirou."

She turned to Gilgamesh, who was battling Ozymandias. "Gil! The Tablet of Destiny—give it to me!"

"What do you want with that useless thing?" Gilgamesh blocked Ozymandias's strike with his golden blade, eyebrow raised at Tethys.

"That's not useless at all," she smiled. "It's a record of divine revelation - the answer we've been searching for. A bridge to the past."

Gilgamesh didn't get it, but he pulled the Tablet from his treasury anyway, tossing it her way.

She caught it and immediately threw it to Shirou. "Take this. Maybe you'll find the answer we couldn't find."

The Tablet vanished into Shirou's light.

Then—

"Raaaargh!"

The world-destroying dragon Nidhogg burst through the light as Runes of Wisdom etched themselves across it like living tattoos.

Around Shirou, a sea of mud churned in three colors - black, silver, and red - and beautiful flowers bloomed one after another.

Faint sparks danced across his body - faint, but everywhere. These were more than just sparks; they were the goddess's final gift to her student.

Sacred light rose from beneath him, carrying with it the ancient songs of the Holy King - raw power that spoke of absolute authority.

The red moonlight swept in last, pulling everything together. The elements twisted into a vortex, like Beast VI's but different. Where Beast VI's vortex was dark and backward-turning, Shirou's blazed with light, spinning forward. It bridged past to present, reaching toward tomorrow. This was Tethys's vortex, not the Lord of Salvation's darkness.

Gilgamesh and Arthur turned toward him, for once without words. Even Ozymandias lost his will to fight and just stared with his mouth open.

None of them could make sense of it.

None of them had ever seen anything like it.

What were they watching? How was this even possible?

"This is Shirou's answer," Tethys said. "The path he chose toward the light."

Fujimaru watched the glowing figure, struggling to find words. "What... what am I looking at?"

"That is... Eternal King," Mordred said.

"Eternal King..."

The words hit differently now. He'd heard them before, but seeing this light, something stirred in him. He felt a foreign yet intimately familiar emotion.

Now he remembered. Back in that dark tunnel, when everything was fading, when death was approaching, when his soul found its way...

It wasn't just emotion. It wasn't just light or salvation. It was becoming whole again.

It was becoming light itself.

"I failed before," Shirou said, his eyes locked on Beast VI. "But not this time. Not who I am now." His voice rose to a shout: "Come together, all our hopes!"

Past flowed into future. Every wish, from then and now, came together in this moment.

And with it came something impossible - all of Shirou's light gathering into one, his unfinished journey as a foreign soul finally taking form.

...

Back at the Sanctuary...

The battlefield was in ruins. The monsters had been brutal, but the guild members fought desperately for their home. Together with the adventurers, they'd somehow pushed back this wave of attacks.

"At least this part of the city is under control now."

Artoria let out a tired breath and went to wipe her forehead - then stopped mid-motion. She stared at her hand, small and feminine again.

"Artoria!" Morrigan gasped. "You're... you're back to normal!"

Artoria touched her palm, then her chest, feeling the familiar shape of her own body.

The vortex's power had faded. She was back in her original body.

"Back to normal..." Artoria frowned. "I just hope Shirou and Mordred isn't getting into trouble."

...

A rainbow-colored light erupted in the sky, painting everything in many colors. The display split the sky—one half blazing with every color imaginable, the other still drowning in Beast VI's absolute darkness.

Through the silence, voices began to sing.

Human voices joined with fairy songs, spirits's melodies mixed with phantasmal beast calls, and divine hymns rose up...

The sounds shouldn't have worked together - mortal and immortal, earthly and divine, mundane and mythical. Yet they wove together, harmonizing impossibly into something transcendent. Each voice strengthened the others, building into a symphony that shook the air itself. The resulting chorus wasn't just music - it was a beautiful tribute.

"Who's singing?" Misaya asked softly. "It sounds amazing."

"Everyone," Perseus said. "Fairies, humans, phantasmal beasts, even the gods themselves. The whole world is singing."

"Look!" Misaya pointed down. "The flowers!"

They all glanced at the ground. Where there was only darkness before, flowers had sprung up everywhere. Reds, greens, blues, purples... every color imaginable.

The flowers stretched as far as they could see, covering the dark earth in a blanket of color.

Medea breathed in deeply. "These smell like flowers from Colchis."

"No," Perseus said, "They're from Corinth."

"Aren't they from Britain?" Arthur frowned.

"You're all mistaken," Gilgamesh said. "These grow in Uruk."

"No." Ozymandias smiled - actually smiled - as he picked one of the flowers. "These bloomed in the gardens where Nefertari and Moses walked..."

"Sun King—"

Arthur and Gilgamesh stared in surprise as flowers began sprouting across Ozymandias' body, washing away the corruption that had taken hold of his soul.

"I remember now..." Ozymandias's body started to fade, but his smile grew stronger. "These flowers... they remind me of something beautiful..."

Then he was gone, that peaceful smile being the last thing they saw.

Gilgamesh stayed quiet for a moment. "These blooms have cleansed his soul of its taint. Such is the power of light - it burns away all shadows of regret."

"Not quite," came a light laugh. "They're just flowers."

Everyone looked up to find a fairy perched on Gilgamesh's shoulder, smiling.

Gilgamesh didn't react as he usually would. Any other time, someone on his shoulder would have faced his fury and been chopped into a thousand pieces. But now he felt strangely at peace. He wanted to smile. He wanted to embrace the world.

That's when he realized - this was what it felt like to be moved.

"Who are you?" Arthur asked.

The fairy smiled and disappeared.

Around them, laughter and voices filled the air. Everyone looked up to see something amazing.

Divine Spirits sang while fairies danced through the air. Phantasmal Beasts ran free across the ground. Humans and spirits sat together, deep in talk about science, and steam trains whistled by. The magical and the ordinary lived side by side, in perfect harmony.

"Those spirits..." Arthur said.

"That's light," Fujimaru said.

"And the fairies?"

"Also light."

"The magical beasts?" Perseus asked.

"Light."

"The humans and spirits?" Medea asked.

"Everything is light."

"But what does that mean?" Misaya whispered.

"It's emotion." Tears filled Fujimaru's eyes.

This peace, this sense that everything fit together - this was the light he'd seen before death.

This was what had saved his soul from darkness. The light had been emotion all along.

He'd never really lost it.

Tethys spoke softly. "Watch closely, Shirou. The person you see - it's both you and not you. It's the answer he found."

Mordred's hands tightened into fists. "Eternal King..."

"Grrrooooaaarrrr!!"

Beast VI thrashed in rage. This perfect world felt wrong, felt twisted. This beautiful world was anything but beautiful to it. Because it was rejected. Rejected by the world. Rejected by everything.

Yet flowers still bloomed across Its body.

—I'm the only one! Only I am rejected!

"No. You are not rejected."

Someone answered It.

—Who are you?

"And who are you?"

—I am Beast VI! The Beast of Revelation! The King of Evil!

"No. You are Manaka Sajyou."

—Who are you?

"No one special. Just Fujimaru Shirou."

Flower petals drifted through the air as the world itself seemed to sing - human melodies blending with beast cries, fairy songs, and the celestial hymns of divine spirits.

From that brilliant light, a person slowly stepped out.

He looked ordinary - just a man in simple white clothes, with nothing remarkable about him.

The only thing that stood out was his smile, and those eyes that burned like flames.

"Those eyes..." Gilgamesh couldn't look away from Shirou's gaze. "They're like white flames. But what am I seeing? Is it his soul? A Noble Phantasm? Some kind of awakening? I can't tell."

His confusion only deepened as he tried to understand what he felt from Shirou.

Gods carried their aura of divinity. Humans had their aura of humanity. Beasts possessed their bestial nature.

But this Shirou before them was different.

"I don't understand," Gilgamesh said. "It's not divine, not human, not bestial, amd not evil. What are you?"

Arthur watched in equal bewilderment.