"Looks like we'll have to manage on our own." Shogo had witnessed what happened between the two girls from afar.
Now that the dragooun had been struck to the ground, it was easy for the undead swarm it all over. It seemed that part of Lloyd's plan was genuinely working, the creature was greatly overwhelmed by the horde. Even when the only thing everyone could see was the horde, they were able to notice the dragooun gradually shift back in size due to the amount of undead being stacked on top of each other increasing.
"Dammit! What do we do?" Nathan was in a dilemma.
There was the option of manually seizing it but the horde was too much to get through, and there was no telling that it would remain in its small size. Juno's chant was truly their only trump card to winning this… but that was what everyone thought, when in reality, it wasn't the only one.
After all, they had Shogo Kuroiwa… a living trump card.
"Guess it's time to share in on the scores, fellas. I'll have to reward myself with a warm drink afterwards though, that cold coffee did not sit well with me. (Maybe I can invite you guys as well… my treat, of course.)"
He leisurely walked in the dragooun's direction, breaking through the horde with ease, before proceeding to pull out his treasured pen, which he hadn't used much for quite a while. But this whole matter was practically begging for him to interfere.
— That guy… Can't get enough of his troubles, if it's either him or Lloyd.
Nathan was at his wit's end, and so was almost everyone. The only two that were embracing the experience to its fullest and enjoying their time were Shogo and Lloyd. But it was time to close the book and move on to the next. The fun doesn't last for too long, Shogo believed.
"Tell Lloyd to break free of the folio!" Shogo ordered Nathan as he himself began writing forth what he was about to do on his own.
When Shogo Kuroiwa worked, all ceased.
Nathan looked at Lloyd from afar and swung his arms in a cross, signaling him to stop with the scenario and come down. Everything was under control.
"Falsus Sator." Shogo whispered with a still smile on his face.
It was the keyword to trigger the effect of his most reality-bending power yet — never underestimate him. Just like the aspiring writers before, he finished off his writing with quite the swing, showing off the confidence in his ability.
[Recto-Verso Brace]
In an instant, the horde coating the dragooun was swelling up. It wasn't the dragooun acting out on its own, rather, it was Shogo's writing taking effect. His target was the dragooun, so it was only natural something like this would happen. The undead began to fall off as a black spherical void bolting with lightning emerged from underneath them all. Inside it was none other than the Wonderland creature itself sealed within.
That was the power of the Recto-Verso Brace.
Unlike the expansion method, which a lot of writers had the commonality with, the brace method was completely different. The brace was essentially a light version of the expansion, creating a small folio either within an existing normal folio or in reality. That folio worked very well as a seal of its own.
Given that the dragooun had shifted back to its original size, it took almost no effort to seal it within that small folio. Even if it tried fighting back, the folio would easily negate its powers. Shogo brought forth the sphere near him to take a closer look. Within it was the little dragooun, back to its former endearing self that would have children fawning over it.
"So you caused all this? They gave you too much credit…" He smiled.
"T-That's it? You caught it?" Nathan couldn't believe himself.
The creature that caused so much destruction, proving to be a formidable and hard to catch foe from the start, was caught just like that like a mouse in a trap without any effort.
"What? You expected something flashy?" Shogo held onto the sphere from the tip of his pen, and was very careful not to get caught up in the lightning surrounding it. "Folios are spheres on the outside, you know. Imagining one-percent of a world within a world is an easy endeavour no matter how you think about it. All it takes is grasping one page of that world, overwriting it on your own, and voila… like catching a butterfly in a bubble."
Why Shogo was refusing to help them from the start was beyond Nathan's comprehension. That man truly lived up to his fame.
"Now…" He stretched his back outwards. "How about "The Seven Potterys"? I'm craving something more than cold or hot coffee this time, gotta take a break once in a while, eh. And I hear it's quite the hostelry in Lakesbrough. Lisa told me they got this Apple Ci— No wait, you guys are not eighteen yet. Even with non-alcoholic beverages, I doubt they'd let you in…"
— Like you can talk… You're barely even twenty-one. How can he think of such things when we're not even officially done? The things I'd do to get another leader.
"Captain!" Zoe shouted as she descended down the fire escape of one of the buildings that were still intact.
— Oh, to be as fond as you, Zoe
The only one who still maintained a considerable amount of respect to Shogo within the team was Zoe. Never once did she call him by his first name, it was either by his title or his last name — with an added "Mr." at the start, which he did not favor at all and supposed it made him seem older than he actually was. As for the others, they were either close enough to be friendly with him or barely tolerate him, the latter mostly for Nathan. Juno might disagree with him on some points in his personality, but when he got down to actual business, she respected him greatly. It was Shogo Kuroiwa after all. Lloyd and Emiya, on the other hand, viewed him as the older brother they would quarrel with and make peace later over a meal.
"Ah… Zoe!" He approached her as she ran up to him, "You seem to know your stuff when it comes to food. Know any good places around? (I wonder if I should raise the budget…)"
Mentioning the word "food" was enough to halt the clockworks of Zoe's mind. "Oh! Hmm… Now, you see, there is Orchid Port, but all they serve is either seafood or vegetarian stuff, which are great, if I say so myself — I know! It's a real bizarre mix. Although, if you are aiming for…"
She went on and on like a hole that was unplugged.
That was when Lloyd and the others finally showed up. Emiya and Juno were both extremely tired; Lloyd had to use his concealed path method from earlier to get them down — he couldn't carry two people, and certainly not while trying to get them to a lower level. They descended down as if emerging from the gates of Babylon, thanks to Lloyd's overly-dazzling sparkles that coated its blank surface.
Nathan hurried over to help. He carried Juno, who was completely out of it due to her energy depleting from the effort exerted in saving Emiya. As for Emiya, she rested one arm on Lloyd's shoulder as he aided her in walking down, she had a small ounce of energy within her.
"We're… not square yet…" Emiya told Lloyd.
Being aided by him was but a small favor she did not want. Even with her almost out, she wouldn't forget her provocation, especially if it was against Lloyd. From the moment they met, she developed an antipathy for him (for his recklessness and ignorance for what writing was), which eventually turned to tolerance and rivalry that somehow made them on friendly terms in some cases. Her objective had been to beat him in a fair fight. But instead of doing exactly that, fate had them always owe one another, and before they knew it, they were both drowning in favors.
"Yeah yeah whatever…" He said. She almost slipped out of his reach, but he caught her and helped her up once more. "I know how you're dying everyday for a chance to kill me and get rid of me once and for all, but that should really be the least of your worries for now."
— And another favor to the list.
"I'm sick of…"
"All right. Forget about the favors, I'm tired of them as much as you are. You'll get your damn fight… once you're back on your feet. So shut up and listen for now."
Shogo clapped his hands together from afar, "Chivalry! Equality! I like it!"
"It's not…" Lloyd said.
"No…" Emiya said.
If anything, Lloyd would be more than happy to drop her and leave her for the undead.
— Oh the undead!
After all was said and done, the undead were still scourging the streets. As long as the folio continued to exist, then their limitless numbers would never die out. Lloyd, along with the others, stood in the intersection that was just formed as the trap for the dragooun. It was no wonder why many undead were especially surrounding that place.
That would be the case if their objective was just the location… but, in fact, it was the dragooun itself, just exactly as Lloyd pictured. They were mindless creatures, so even if the dragooun was sealed; they not having it meant that their mission was not over yet.
"I think it's time to bring a conclusion to all this, Lloyd." Shogo yawned, "As much as I'd like to stick around and relive House of the Dead, I'm more inclined on resting first."
Lloyd himself had grown tiresome of it all.
— No wonder demon kings strive further.
He held his pen back up to write an epilogue to the scenario… but the paragraphs weren't there.
The scenario itself had disappeared from his sight.
Normally, a world-builder would continue to see their scenario as long as it was still active, enabling them to alter it, add to it, and even finish it. For a scenario to completely disappear, that was impossible.
Be that as it may, panicking was way too early. Lloyd brushed it off and wrote the concluding paragraph as if nothing was wrong.
Nothing happened.
— Maybe it's not convincing enough?
This folio being a chasm for the dead, he had written a conclusion that the inner dungeon had called for the undead, summoning them back to the underworld. It was very much aligning well within the boundaries of the original scenario.
But the words disintegrated into nothing. The effect had died out. If it was a matter of spectral energy, then Lloyd was still in his prime and could very much go on for another scenario. He failed to understand what was going on.
Of course, with him, if one problem was done then another would arise.
Time was running out. The undead were closing in once again on the intersection. All of the team backed away into a circle in the middle, they were cornered.
"Uh… Why are they coming towards us?" Zoe was frightened.
"Could they still be after the little fella?" Shogo took another look at the sphere, the dragooun was there, safe and sound.
"Hey, Lloyd! We're waiting on you. How much time is this going to take?" Nathan was fed up. He disliked this idea from the start as he already foresaw this problem from the moment he saw those unsightly creatures walk.
"I-I'm trying… I swear."
No matter how many times he would write and rewrite the scenario, there was no effect whatsoever. It was all stitched to the folio with no change.
[Scenario Missing]
Seeing those words before him sent shivers down his spine. They were trapped within. If the undead did not eat them like they were instructed to before, then they would certainly die from being trapped inside.
Lloyd backed away, joining the others, "I can't… I can't do anything. Nothing's happening."
"What— Your pen out of ink?" Emiya asked, although it was her trying to crack a joke to make light of the situation that was going downhill faster than an arrow from a bow.
Realizing that, Nathan acted on instinct and manipulated the poles around to form a fence separating them from the horde. In that second as well, he used the debris from the surrounding buildings to attack the undead from behind. But with every creature that was down, three more would rise up to replace it.
"(Could it be? A block?)" Shogo sensed a far greater danger than the rest of them, and decided to act. "Zoe, take the sphere and be careful with it."
He pushed Lloyd back and gave him a wry smile, reassuring him that everything was going to be fine.
That was right. Shogo Kuroiwa was there. There was no need to be afraid.
Giving it much thought, he pulled his pen forward in the direction of the horde, before pulling another pen as well. He had two pens in his possession that both belonged to him. It was important for him to have another pen, not as a back-up, but for this one specific move.
However, fate would deem his secret within again. For now… help was coming from another path.
*CRACK*
Everything stopped. The team turned their heads up, they could see the sky, the end of the folio, cracking like glass would. However, that was not the work of any of them from the inside. Someone was breaking it from the outside. Another crack emerged, this time spreading the cracks throughout the sky like wildfire. And before they knew it, the entire shell shattered, leaving the sky shards to rain down.
From that strike, a person broke right through, jumping down at light speed right to their location.
Before them was a young woman, dressed in awfully casual attire, with a white overcoat covering the top of her body up until almost her mouth.
Without saying anything to the team, she proceeded further and faced the horde on her own, leaving Shogo fazed in the back by what was happening along with everyone. She was an author; one could easily tell, if not from the method she broke in with, it was certainly from the fancy pen she held in her hand.
She did not attack. She did not write a paragraph. She did not write a script. All she did was stand before the endless horde and wrote a single word.
"Redact!!"
Like a droplet in water, the ink flew out of the words. One touch from the ink to one of the undead and it disintegrated it, followed by another, and another. In a matter of seconds, the entire horde was withering away from a single drop of ink, being erased from the surface as if they never existed. It was like a wave of light purging the darkness.
Before long, the entirety of the folio perished into the abyss.
When they came to, the clouded dark sky had turned into clear twilight. The demolished buildings reverted back to slightly less ruined ones. And the empty district was soon crowded by not only civilians but by a large scale of authorities as well. The quiet town turned boisterous immediately. It was as if they were thrown right onto the front stage that has been playing for hours.
The barrier was down, and all was said and done.
The woman turned around and popped a gum in her mouth.
"Who did all of this then?" She said in a monotonous tone, almost mimicking Juno's.
No one moved an inch — even Shogo, the leader — they all stood in silence… until the peevish Emiya pointed fingers at Lloyd.
Lloyd moved aback from the shock. Even though one was injured and in need of medical assistance, the two reverted back to their usual demeanor toward one another and eyed each other death stares.
— I will kill you.
[— Bring it!]