Giant and Girl

Bai Cangshu’s frenzied smile gradually twisted. After several stabbing pains, he realized that the turmoil inside his body seemed to have stopped.

Bai Cangshu frowned. The next instant, he stretched out a hand and, with a wet squelch, stabbed it into his own chest.

The reason Bai Cangshu had dared to devise such a mad plan was because the Lesser Grail he had seen was Illya. Unlike her mother, Illya had been artificially modified into a Lesser Grail; she had not been born as one.

More precisely, Illya’s heart was the core of the Lesser Grail.

And Bai Cangshu had long transcended the limitations of ordinary lifeforms, where losing one’s heart meant death.

Squelch!

Flickering lightning and spraying blood struck the ground, leaving scorched cracks across it.

Bai Cangshu’s Heart of the Thunder Emperor was directly carved out. Sure enough, it now gleamed with intense magical power.

It resonated with the burst of magical light from the ruins of Enzō Mountain in the distance.

That was where the Greater Grail lay.

The Greater Grail had in fact been constructed by the Einzbern Family’s ancestor, the Winter Saintess Justeaze, using her own body as the ritual’s core, along with Command Spells provided by Matou Zouken (Makiri), and Enzō Mountain and the spiritual veins beneath Fuyuki City provided by the Tohsaka ancestors.

The Winter Saintess was an artificial lifeform created by the disciples of one who had once mastered the Third Magic, the Heaven’s Cup, in their pursuit of research into the Third Magic. But that was not because they had mastered the Third Magic or its techniques.

It had merely been a once-in-a-lifetime accident.

The Einzbern Family itself was a product of such research and experimentation.

In pursuit of the true Third Magic, the Winter Saintess used her life and body to activate this ritual.

And under the witness of Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg, the Master of the Second Magic, the Jewel Mage, and the Type-Moon World’s foremost magus, the Marshal of Magic, it finally took shape.

On the surface, it was a war in which magi and Heroic Spirits slaughtered one another to fulfill their wishes. In truth, the immense magical power capable of granting wishes was merely a byproduct of the ritual.

The three families of Einzbern, Makiri, and Tohsaka all sought to exploit the hole pierced through space-time when Heroic Spirits returned from the Lesser Grail to the Throne of Heroes after the Holy Grail War, then stabilize it using the magical power accumulated by the leylines over sixty years.

And thereby reach the Root!

Bai Cangshu raised his heart high, yet he could feel that the impact of the Heroic Spirits was insufficient. Not only had the so-called space-time aperture yet to fully appear, even the Greater Grail had not fully unfolded.

His gaze swept around before settling on the black giant, Heracles.

The black giant did not continue fighting Bai Cangshu, nor did he go far. He seemed only to be guarding Illya from a distance.

Step, step…

Bai Cangshu started forward. The next instant, the silver-haired, red-eyed girl spread both arms and blocked his path.

She frowned, her face filled with confusion and reluctance. Her eyes refused to look at the heart Mercenary Tao held in his hand.

"Assassin, what are you… doing…?"

"Berserker is my Servant. I will not allow you to kill each other!"

Bai Cangshu remained completely unmoved. With tremendous force, he dragged Illya along with him as he moved; it was hardly more difficult than carrying a cat.

The Command Spells on Illya’s body lit up. Bai Cangshu frowned and stopped of his own accord.

Illya’s entire body was covered in Command Spells. Theoretically, she truly was one of the few people here capable of killing him.

But the girl did not seem to intend that. From her expression, Bai Cangshu could tell that she merely wanted to use a Command Spell to stop him from killing Heracles.

The pain of his soul being torn apart continued. Just as Bai Cangshu hesitated over whether to enter the Consciousness Space himself, something seemed to have changed within his Consciousness Sea, and he heard heavy footsteps.

The Berserker corrupted by Black Mud was actually walking toward him on his own initiative, dragging his heavy, enormous axe-sword along the ground.

An overwhelming aura rose in an instant, like two Ferocious Beasts facing each other.

Illya was startled. She turned around as well, waving her hands repeatedly.

"Berserker, I will not allow you to fight Assassin either!"

"I want both of you to survive together…"

She actually knew that even if a Servant died, the Heroic Spirit would not truly perish.

But the end of the Holy Grail War would always be accompanied by death. She hoped that sorrow would be hers alone to bear.

Bai Cangshu sensed the girl’s thoughts. His eyelids lowered as he spoke coldly.

"Heracles, if someone like me does not end the Holy Grail War now, Illya is destined to die."

"No matter who ultimately wins the Holy Grail War, she will die."

Bai Cangshu’s voice was utterly indifferent, yet certain.

Step step step…

Amid chaotic footsteps, a black-haired man with lifeless eyes came sprinting from afar.

Perhaps the blood moon phenomenon now on display had finally allowed him to move without restraint.

Kiritsugu Emiya’s eyes immediately fell upon the terrifying Mercenary Tao, a Servant fixated on killing as he had never seen before.

He had even once thought that if he had joined forces with a Servant like Mercenary Tao in the Fourth Holy Grail War, he might have been able to end most of the battles through assassination during the early stages of the war.

But then he remembered that what the Greater Grail now contained was not a dream at all.

It was utterly twisted malice.

That thing absolutely could not be allowed to descend!

Kiritsugu Emiya ran on. He also understood that if Mercenary Tao had survived the previous battle, then there was nothing he could do.

The next instant, the running Kiritsugu Emiya saw the red-haired Shōnen collapsed beside a wall, clutching his neck, with what appeared to be blood seeping through his fingers.

His heart sank, and he was about to run toward the Shōnen. But in the next instant, he froze where he stood.

A silver-haired girl with ruby-red eyes identical to Irisviel’s stood timidly between Mercenary Tao and the black giant, arms spread as if trying to stop them from fighting.

Bang!

Kiritsugu Emiya instinctively fired directly at Mercenary Tao. Mercenary Tao instantly raised his left hand, and the bullet landed between his Two Fingers.

Mercenary Tao flicked his fingers.

Squelch!

The bullet pierced straight through Kiritsugu Emiya’s throat.

Illya…

Kiritsugu Emiya stretched out his hand. That was his daughter, his biological daughter!

After the Fourth Holy Grail War, he had gone to the Einzbern Family countless times, hoping to take his daughter away. But his body, gradually rotting away under the influence of Black Mud, had left him unable even to see her.

He had never expected to see her again at this moment.

The black giant slowly raised his hand, lifting the enormous axe-sword high.

"No, no, no… no!"

Kiritsugu Emiya once again recalled everything he had seen in that illusion.

The pain of losing his loved ones made him howl like a madman.

He no longer wanted to be a champion of justice.

He no longer wanted to choose.

He did not want to fight for anything anymore.

He only wanted… to stop losing people!

Like the mournful cry of a defeated dog, another man who had once harbored noble, cruel, mechanical ideals completely broke at this moment.

Squelch!

Blood sprayed forth.

Kiritsugu Emiya’s entire body stiffened.

Illya’s pupils dilated, her expression gradually twisting.

Bai Cangshu half-closed his eyes. The corners of his mouth seemed to smile, yet also seemed sorrowful.

He stretched out his hand and looked at Heracles as the enormous axe-sword cleaved into his neck.

"Yin spirit, enter my body!"

A powerful force of absorption surged like a storm. Heracles’s body instantly turned into black particles and poured into Bai Cangshu’s body.

The next instant, in the purest form of Reishi, it directly burst through Bai Cangshu’s flesh and soul.

As blood spurted from Bai Cangshu’s face, the heart in his right hand immediately emitted a golden radiance.

The Holy Grail had appeared.

"Berserker!"

Within Kiritsugu Emiya’s delighted smile came the girl’s desperate wail.