Omake: One Punch-Servant 8
It was a sword…and yet it wasn't.
That's what Shirou's pained mind told him the moment his gaze settled over the thing that Gilgamesh had brought out of the deepest part of his Gate, the cylindrical and three-segmented abomination he was now wielding.
It was a 'blade' that had existed even before the Concept of Sword had been created, forged from metal that fell from beyond the stars and blessed with powers Divinities could only dream of. It did not have a name, not a real one, at least, even if the King of Heroes, its only and one true owner, called it 'Ea', probably in reference to the Ancient God that had existed before the World was what it is today. It was the strongest Noble Phantasm of this Multiverse, the one that was the pinnacle of that concept, and the one that made even the strongest ones possessed by all other Heroic Spirits from this World seem like toys in comparison. The energy contained just within the blade would be enough to devastate the Earth.
And yet, none of that was what truly made the instrument so terrifying. It was because of the true devastating force it contained within itself.
It was [Truth]. One of the most powerful Concepts of Reality. The true power of the weapon called Ea was to call upon it, the 'Truth of how the World was before Creation itself', and as such to reduce everything it touched to the state of nothingness and destruction it had before the Beginning, literally 'Splitting apart Heaven and Earth', like this cosmic force had done when Creation started.
It did not destroy. It unmade all of Creation it could touch, able to tear through the very fabric of space-time and wound Reality itself when used. Just unleashing a bit of [Truth] would be enough to destroy the World seven times over.
All of it had the power to vanquish galaxies.
Emiya Shirou knew he shouldn't be able to know this, to see any of this. Somehow, a part of his burned and pained mind and his shaking body just knew that he shouldn't have been allowed to see into the secrets within the Star of Creation, even if his Marble was still unable to reproduce or accept it, for his soul would never be able to copy such alien and nigh-absolute power on any level.
And yet, he could see. He could understand that which shouldn't be understood by human minds. Because he had already seen and understood such things and more, through the memories of his Servant, through the weapons and, later, even the Concepts of the things he had fought.
He has seen Heathcliff's Fake-Divine form. He had witnessed Death Gun's monstrous power.
He had seen Equinox unleashed. He had seen the Concepts of Reality wielded as weapons against enemies equal or superior to them.
He had seen Administrator's true soul. He had seen the Avatar of the Almighty.
He had seen [FATE]. All through the eyes of a boy that started not much different from him, except that he didn't have a traumatic past or wished to be a Hero. And he had seen all of it, as an observer and from his own viewpoint.
He had seen Kirito at his brightest. He had seen Kazuto at his lowest.
As such, he couldn't stop it and his mind SAW it too. There, reflected in the depths of the spinning weapon called Ea by mankind's oldest Hero, he saw [Truth].
The Concept was too much for his mind and, in a vaguely familiar moment, Emiya Shirou felt how, on the back of his mind, something cracked with painful force. On the world inside his soul, giant gears stopped spinning before shattering in a thousand pieces, raining to the earth bellow like a storm of devastation that swept everything away…
Illya's scream made Savior turn his eyes away from his enemy just for an instant, in time to see his Master falling down on his back as the Einzbern heir and her two Homunculi, one carrying the other, ran at his side. The red-haired boy wasn't moving, and there was blood leaking from his eyes.
"Shirou, what's wrong?! Answer! Onii-chan!" shouted the white-haired girl with a mix of fear and despair, clearly not wishing to lose the only person that could still tell her the apparent truth about her life.
"…Lizeris. Take them away." softly whispered the Caped Hero with a voice filled with authority.
Shocked, Illya turned around as she saw a figure descending and materializing between shards of Prana besides her and her maid. She also realized that this was the first time she actually saw Savior willingly activating his Noble Phantasm, instead of someone just coming to his aid.
The half-homunculus was still wondering if that meant some of his companions didn't really like working with him when her gaze settled over the newcomer and her eyes widened in surprise.
The young girl wasn't taller than her, and didn't seem older than the apparent age of the Einzbern's own decaying body, like that of a ten-year-old, her skin almost as milky white as that of the ex-Master, her eyes and short, curly hair being of the same brown-chestnut color. She was wearing a magician-like robe with velvet-like luster and a greatly inflated hat made from the same material, which oddly reminded one of the attire people would wear in the graduation ceremony of some prestigious college.
On her hand, a staff longer than her own height was firmly gripped, the materials it was made of seemingly carrying otherworldly power, while minuscule, round glasses sat over her nose. Beyond them, Illyasviel saw her eyes.
And they terrified her.
Just looking at those eyes made one feel like they were sucked into a depth with no definite end, as if they held endless and forgotten knowledge that man was never meant to know and that most certainly didn't belong to a little girl, which the half-homunculus realized the Pseudo-Servant 'was' as much as she herself.
"…must you always get into messes that threaten the very stability of the World?" spoke the little girl without even turning to look at the Servant of the Cape, with a cute voice befitting her looks, though with a somewhat elderly manner of speaking that revealed her true nature.
"You know how it is." nonchalantly replied "Fate just hates me." a dry chuckle seemed to escape from the Pseudo-Servant's mouth at that, as if it was some kind of personal joke that Illya had no idea about. "Take them to safety, please."
Nodding while still staring only towards the Einzbern heir, the bespectacled girl casually stomped the ground with her staff.
Reality itself shifted and the half-homunculus had to suppress a scream of shock when she felt an ungodly amount of magical energy being moved around without effort. At her side, she faintly heard Sella muttering something about impossible even as Leysritt just muttered in amazement.
For a moment, Gaia herself stiffened as she felt that someone, somehow, was tapping into her own power.
Then, a door formed itself behind the group out of thin air, dragging the attention of the girls as it opened, revealing a courtyard behind.
"You…ah…" started to say Illya before the Pseudo-Servant just shook her head.
"Call me Librarian, if you must. And ignore whatever attempts this idiot behind us makes to call me with a name that doesn't belong to me." simply said the bespectacled girl before pointing forward. "Now, we got to move."
As she said that, the Einzbern heir had enough time to squeak before she felt herself, her maids and Shirou's unconscious body being dragged through the door, defying the laws of space-time and landing on the courtyard of the Emiya household with a soft thud, dragging the attention of everyone that had remained there.
Only then did the Librarian turn around to look at the scene behind.
Standing unmoving, his cape flapped on the wind, the seemingly unimpressive young man stood, facing against a wall of gold that dwarfed skyscrapers and had enough power to level the country, with a madman standing on its center and wielding a weapon that dwarfed even all of that.
The Pseudo-Servant shook her head, walked through the door and, as it closed and vanished, smiled softly.
"…you didn't try to attack them." finally spoke Savior while staring towards Gilgamesh, who only answered his cold words with a strange smile.
"I can take care of those mongrels later. Now, though…I'm going to defeat you, Hero." announced the golden king as his blood slowly continued dripping down, his remaining arm tightly grasping Ea's hilt. "I want to see the power of the one who could gain the admiration of that girl to the level of following his soul into eternity. And I want to see how it vanishes under my power."
"…drop that thing." was all that the Caped Hero answered while tightening his fists, his gaze never leaving the abomination on the Servant's hand.
He didn't need any fancy superpower to know what that thing was. The sheer feeling it emitted, that of absolute power beyond mortal comprehension geared towards destruction only, was something he had seen and felt before in his life, and it had never been something good by itself.
Seeing it on the hands of an egomaniac who thought himself king of the world and didn't care for anyone was something akin to a nightmare.
"Never." grinned Gilgamesh as the Sword of Rupture continued to spin, calling forth more and more of its true power.
And then destruction shot down from the sky, the Gate of Babylon unleashing its full might and literally vomiting a flood of ultimate weapons towards the Servant of the Cape.
Savior moved, understanding his enemy's intentions but being forced to go along with them, lest he allowed a catastrophe to happen.
In a fraction of a second, he punched away and shattered a sword that could split mountains and a ballista meant to shoot a hundred arrows faster than sound in just an instant. The next fraction, he backhanded a divine spear that could never miss its target, even defying the World to do so, and kicked a blade that could unleash light strong enough to burn a hole in the heavens. The next fraction of a second, the Caped Hero realized it wasn't going to be enough.
So he went faster.
Impossibly and seemingly unstoppable, weapons and treasures able to tear entire landscapes apart shot forward from within the Gate, in a number too massive to even be imagined.
And the Servant of the Cape was there to intercept, destroy and deflect all of them, the King of Heroes looking on with a grin of wonderment how solid afterimages of the boy appeared in the air by the hundreds, his body going so fast he was literally breaking space-time to be able to do so. Gilgamesh could feel reality straining and cracking as he did so.
All because Savior knew that, if he just evaded the weapons, they would destroy everything with such power that the city, far away from them, would be damaged by the shockwaves, countless dying from it.
Some of the godly treasures were destroyed, others deflected into the sky and some were redirected towards the sea.
The forest was exploding, catching fire, being torn asunder and also obliterated with each second that passed, all around the two clashing Servants. All the while, the Golden King's grin only widened.
The Servant of the Cape, for his part, just growled in rage even as he punched away some Indian Noble Phantasm that, if used correctly instead of as a missile, probably would have destroyed all of Japan, lighting and thunder exploding as he did so.
This sucked. Unlike Sugu, he didn't have 'wings' that could take over the laws of Space and Time. If he wanted to do so, he would need to actually go faster while opposing Reality, and while he knew he could do it, he also knew that if he tried to go faster than this then he would start damaging the World itself…
That's when his instincts took notice of a serious threat to everything. Looking down, as he continued moving through the endless barrage of weapons, he saw Gilgamesh pulling his arm backward.
[Truth] had just been awakened…and the King of Heroes still called for more of its power.
Gritting his teeth, the Caped Hero knew there was no other option. Willing his body to move, he went faster still, enough to be able to handle the thousands of raining Noble Phantasms and start moving towards the other Servant at the same time.
Shields sprout on his way, all of them ready to impede and delay his advance. Some were of divine origin, others had been blessed by spirits as ancient as the World and others could even deny space-time phenomena. The Golden King was really taking this seriously.
He punched through them, cursing everything under the sky, and only the notion that Reality had started to break around him stopped Savior from going faster still. Gritting his teeth, he continued on, stopping the endless barrage of legendary weapons and moving towards their owner at the same time.
Strange and spinning disks that spat lighting stood on his way when he reached closer than 20 meters, moving as if having a life on his own. He ignored them, taking the electricity strong enough to kill lesser Servants head on and continuing forward.
Broken chains meant to hold back the heavens coiled around him, abandoning their King to try and give him even one more second. The Hero clad in black and white broke through them in less than a fraction…and Gilgamesh vanished, away from his senses and even those of the World.
He had enough time to realize he had used some Noble Phantasm to hide his presence from everything and everyone before the King of Heroes' voice loudly echoed around him.
"It's over, Savior! Vanish into oblivion and bow down before your King!"
"There you are!" screamed the Servant of the Cape while moving again, fist reared back as the Golden King manifested again, standing in the air atop what seemed like an alien construct made of stars and gold. He was before him less than a second later.
Too late.
"This is the [Truth]! Begone! ENUMA ELISH!"
Gaia and Alaya screamed, as the power to end Creation was unleashed.
Savior cursed everything again, rearing back his fist with all his might even as he felt the Universe screaming at his ears. He ignored it before declaring without any of the drama or fancy of his opponent...
"Ultimate Skill. True Punch."
[Truth] met [PUNCH]. The results…weren't pretty.
All around the world, every single supernatural being or creature magically aware, from lowly Magus to the Dead Apostle Ancestors, snapped their heads towards Japan.
In half of the world, the sight of a massive gap tearing into the heavens could be seen, opening into a black [Nothingness] and continuing farther away. In outer space, any satellite that happened to be over Japan was erased from existence when the massive fissure bleeding into Unreality reached that height, before stopping just short of touching the Moon and creating a catastrophe of biblical proportions.
Then, the minuscule portion of the clash that hadn't been absorbed by the other plane of existence kicked in, tearing most of the trees in the forest where it had originated from their roots and shaking the earth.
The ocean went wild as waves hit the coast with raging ferocity, slightly flooding the docks. Every single window in Fuyuki shattered and it seemed for an instant as if an earthquake of the highest degree was taking place…
But the instant ended and everything calmed down again, leaving a city full of fear and confusion in its place, staring towards the phenomenon in the sky.
On the courtyard of the Emiya household, Rider was the first one to stand up again, followed by Leysritt and, after some seconds, Rin and Illya. She was about to go inside and see if Sakura was okay, for she had insisted in staying inside after they brought the other Einzbern maid and Shirou, before her Master rushed out herself, seeming a bit shaken but also staring towards the massive crack in Reality, something that frightened the gorgon even more than the Gods had done once upon a time.
The only one who hadn't fallen down and barely seemed to react to the world-shaking event beyond pursing her lips slightly was the mysterious Librarian, who was floating a meter in the air as she stared towards the massive gap.
"…he promised to never use that again on the surface of a planet." was all that the Pseudo-Servant said with a small sigh.
That was when Illya suddenly fell on her back with a gasp of pain, everyone's eyes shooting towards her as they rushed to her side.
"Illya?!" demanded a worried Leysritt while holding her mistress' hand, only to bit her lips at seeing her pale visage. "It's…grail?"
"Wait, what?! Don't tell me…she is the container of the Lesser Grail?!" shouted a shocked Rin as she looked towards the trembling girl.
"This…shouldn't happen…there are still many…Servants alive…!" growled the half-homunculus while trying to hold together her consciousness.
Of course, there was no way for the Einzbern heir to know that Gilgamesh's was so powerful that he alone equaled to the raw Prana of 3 Servants. As such, the moment his soul had been forced inside of her, Illya was essentially holding the equivalent of 6 Servants inside of her, and the change from the quantity of Prana had been too much, too sudden.
More than enough for her body to start breaking down and starting the process of turning into the Holy Grail.
"…the energy inside you is massive. Your body can't hold it…no, it was never meant to, at least not with you alive." idly whispered the Librarian while floating over the group, staring down at the shaking little girl with her deep eyes. "You have minutes left at most."
"No way…is there nothing that can be done for her…?" muttered Sakura while tightly grasping the hem of her skirt, even as Rider looked down in silence.
Leysritt, for her part, only felt tears gathering on her eyes as she continued holding the half-homunculus hand.
"I…I wanted to…to know the truth…at least…before this…" whispered the white-haired girl while trying to remember how to breathe. "I had to…ask Shirou…about…Kiritsugu a…and…and…"
"…as I said, you have a lot of raw energy inside you." spoke once again the bespectacled girl before landing at her side and touching Illya's chest with the tip of her staff. "Don't mind if I borrow it."
"…eh?" said everyone present at the same time as they stared towards the Pseudo-Servant.
"System Call." suddenly said the Librarian in perfect English, making everyone blink and/or gasp, as those that could felt how the words seemed to enforce a part of the World to obey. "Access Fluctlight Manipulation. Execute Synthesis Ritual."
A blinding light exploded from Illyasviel von Einzbern's body as she screamed, even as an extremely complex magic circle unfolded under the group and make everyone take a step back, even Leysritt letting go of her mistress in shock as they felt a massive amount of Prana being unleashed and then shoved back inside the girl's body, which had started to float in the air.
The strange process was over the next second, letting a panting Illya to fall to the ground on all fours, gasping and staring wide-eyed towards the bespectacled girl.
"Wha-wha…what the hell?!" questioned Rin as everyone looked towards the Pseudo-Servant.
"You…" muttered the battle homunculus as she glared at the Librarian, seeming about to jump at her with violent intentions. "Hurt Illya..!"
"Liz, stop!" suddenly shouted the Einzbern heir with a strong voice, making the maid and the rest turn to look towards her…who was now standing up, looking at her hands in shock. "What…did you do to me…?"
The wonder in her voice was somehow understandable. After all, she had gone from feeling as if she was about to die to feel…great. Better than ever, in fact. She felt awesome, she felt strong, she felt…more.
"I saved your life. At the cost of your humanity, though, but I think you would have preferred that over the alternative." revealed the pseudo-Servant while the half-homunculus kept staring at her hands. "Congratulations, 'Illyasviel Synthesis 0', now you can live a normal life without the worry of dying before your time…though you may find some problems adjusting to that new body."
As if to give the bespectacled girl the reason, Illya chose that moment to stomp on the ground, making it shake and the others to gap at seeing how she left a mark of her shoe several inches deep on the hard dirt.
"…awesome." whispered the Einzbern heir while looking at everyone with a massive grin.
That was when the sound of a loud echo reached the group's ears, making them turn around to see how the 'fissure' was closing itself from the top to the bottom at a terrifyingly fast speed.
Back on the desolated crater of what had once been the Einzbern forest, where the massive crack on Reality began…Savior shot out of the [Nothingness] with a gasp, shaking his head. His clothes were a mess and most of his cape was gone, but otherwise the Servant of the Cape seemed totally unharmed as he tried to recover his breath.
"Agh…why would I hold my breath? I know it doesn't really protect me from the void, yet I keep doing so…" growled the Caped Hero while standing up, turning to look towards the gap that shattered Reality and Unreality. "Holy hell…I'm glad this ate most of that blast up or at least half the planet would have been totally devastated…"
Blinking, Savior stared towards the [Nothingness] once again, eyes narrowing.
Something was staring back at him. Something dreadfully familiar…
And then the fissure closed with a loud 'Boom!', strong enough to crack the earth around the area even more and almost sent him flying away from the sheer surprise. After several seconds of silence, the Servant of the Cape released a sigh while putting on a somewhat relieved smile.
"Well…that's done. I just hope that bastard never shows up again here or…"
A massive blast of wrongness and darkness exploded towards the heavens on the distance behind him, making Savior blink and turn around in disbelief, especially at feeling the evil presence emerging from it.
The Great Grail had been activated.
And then a scream that seemed to echo through the entire land reached the disbelieving Hero, whose jaw dropped open at recognizing it.
It seemed that that had been the last straw for Humanity. With a sound of pain and anger and Authority, Alaya unleashed her dogs into the world.
Masked as 6 different natural disasters, half a dozen Counter Guardians descended into the mortal plane, surrounding Fuyuki City as they prepared to exterminate everything and everyone within, so as to 'protect humanity'.
"This can't…you have got to be…AGH! Fuck you, [FATE]!" roared the Servant of the Cape to the heavens, even as he felt his body wanting to fall apart and vanish, the Prana that formed it seemingly unable to continue sustaining him with all the irregularities and after having crashed head-on with the [Truth] from before Creation, not to mention having escaped through Unreality. "Oh no, like HELL! Like hell I am letting you end it this way! UNITED HEROES ASSOCIATION!"
Everyone came. Every single one of them. Defying the limitations of his own Noble Phantasm with a shout and pure Willpower, Savior forced his link to the Throne open and all his companions, those which this Grail War had already seen and those that it hadn't, appeared again.
Even a giant flying elephant-jellyfish, with a slender and tall creature on its back, and a car-sized spider of onyx color and eight golden eyes.
The shocked faces of the group changed into grim ones at watching the devastation incarnate about to befall the city.
"Well…that's something." idly muttered Keita while walking to his leader's side, clad in white-burning armor and with a crimson battle-staff on his hand, which had the head of a snake biting over a burning orb of light on its top. "What are those things supposed to be?"
"Exceptional people that sold their souls to the collective consciousness of Humanity and became her slaves for the rest of Eternity, turned into devastating forces of Nature meant to protect the human race from everything, even themselves." quickly explained Savior without even blinking, reading the exact definition the Grail had supplied him.
Everyone blinked.
"…sure, why not?" snorted someone with icy cold green eyes, the boy seemingly annoyed. "It's not the weirdest thing we have ever seen."
"Uhm, Kirito…?" called someone with navy blue eyes that was ridding what seemed like a 6-legged horse. "Your…body…?"
At her words, the Servant of the Cape looked down at his arms and legs, which had started to break down as the World took its chance to reject his weakened existence.
Then the Caped Hero glared at it and enforced his own Willpower upon Reality, making Gaia scream as her influence was driven (Or punched) back and his body solidified again.
"There, done."
"…that HAS to count as cheating…" whispered someone in silver-golden armor with a blue cape.
"You know well that Incarnation is basically cheating Reality, no matter how you look at it. Now, can we please move? I'm sure that this body is not going to last much more whatever I do, and those things are going to murder all the innocents in the city." grimly declared Savior while closing his fists. "We have to stop them."
"Okay, delay the living forces of nature and try to drive them back while protecting all the people in the city, with probably extremely limited energy and bodies that sure as hell aren't going to last more than a few minutes. Easy." nodded Asuna while walking forward, unsheathing her two blades, stopping at the Caped Hero's side. "Anything else, Sensei?"
The Servant of the Cape had to remind himself they were in a situation of extreme seriousness to stop himself from smiling at her words, a rush of memories coming to his mind when remembering the last time he called him that, so long ago.
"…try to not cause more damage than them, okay?"
With those half-joking words said, the Heroes vanished, be it flying, in flashes of light, teleporting away or in a burst of super speed, heading to intercept the Dogs of Alaya.
And as chaos and fear started to fill the city of Fuyuki, both because of the slow awakening of All Evils in the World and the incoming visage of the Counter Guardians…Emiya Shirou's eyes snapped open.
With them burning as two newborn stars, the Last Hero stood up once again…