[Hereafter] Chapter CCLXI: The Lion King’s Judgment (Patreon)

Chapter CCLXI: The Lion King’s Judgment

Bedivere arrived into the tension left behind by this knight’s words, and he stumbled to a halt some dozen feet or so to the side of our group, staring. His chest heaved and sweat was beading on his brow, but his arms were still steady and his body still upright. Surprise more than anything seemed to be what brought him up short.

“Sir Tristan,” said Bedivere. “Even you… Even you have become one of the Lion King’s butchers.”

Tristan… Yeah, that was my guess. The only Knight of the Round Table I knew about who was famous for his archery, for his bow, Failnaught, although that didn’t look like any kind of bow I’d ever seen before. 

“Ah…” said Tristan, and his head turned to Bedivere — his eyes, I realized, were closed and had been closed this entire time. Had he navigated this mountain with his ears alone? “I came here merely to collect the heads of the troublesome rebels staining this land, and yet, here, I find yet more nostalgic faces. How sad. I would not have even dreamed that you would come to stand and oppose us, Sir Bedivere.”

And I didn’t care about any of that. I wanted him out of the way as quickly as possible, because Arash was still alive, still hanging on, and we could still go and maybe save him, and this guy was standing between us and that. The instant I tried to run, I had no doubts he would cut me down, or at least try it, and I wasn’t going to give him a free shot at my back.

“That bow,” said Emiya, staring intently at it. “You don’t actually fire arrows with that thing, do you? No. You pluck the strings and create a vacuum that ‘cuts’ your targets — not only do the notes create a distraction, but the invisible blades are almost impossible to see, making them difficult to block or dodge.”

Tristan’s head swung Emiya’s way. “Your eyes are sharp indeed, foreign Heroic Spirit. To think that you would see through my attack so easily… You must be a skilled bowman yourself.”

“Heh.” Emiya didn’t even acknowledge the praise. “That means… You were also the one who killed all of those people in the wasteland, weren’t you? The ones we buried after exorcising the lingering grudge of Hassan of the Intoxicating Smoke. That’s why their wounds were so unusual. It wasn’t that the blade was blunt, it was that your methods didn’t use a material blade at all. The cavitation is why there was all of that strange bruising around their wounds.”

Mash gasped at the same time as Rika choked out a strangled, “What?”

“You came upon that scene, did you?” said Tristan, unbothered. “How sad. What of it? They were not worthy of a place inside the Holy City. To remove them in such a way was the only mercy I could afford them.”

“You!” Bedivere took a step towards him, sword quivering in his hand. “Sad? That is all you have to say? You slaughter innocents and destroy the villages of a people merely trying to eke out a life upon this inhospitable Earth, and all the more you can do is call it sad? Sir Tristan! Have you abandoned all pride as a Knight of the Round Table, as well? Have you no sense of remorse remaining within your heart? Or are you merely following the orders of the Lion King?”

Tristan shifted. His eyes remained closed, but his expression twisted into something like disdain. “What a fool you are, Sir Bedivere. Do you truly believe that no Knight of the Round Table would raise his sword against an innocent commoner? Do you believe that we never once shed blood that was guiltless of any crime? It is truly sad that you do not understand — our king certainly warned against excesses. Unnecessary bloodshed was to be avoided, if it was possible. However, not once in the entirety of the history of our glorious Camelot did King Arthur forbid us from it.”

His head titled as though he was looking down on Bedivere. “Your eyes only perceived the king’s glory, Sir Bedivere. You blinded yourself to his horror. Do you not remember what I said, at that time? The king does not understand people’s feelings!”

“Tristan…!” Bedivere snarled.

“You’ve got it the other way around,” Emiya said, and before he could throw himself at Tristan, Bedivere stopped, head whipping around. “Or more like… No, it’s certainly true that King Arthur didn’t really understand the people all that well, but that was only half of the problem. Tristan of the Round Table… The real problem is that none of you knights ever understood her feelings either.”

Tristan’s face froze. “Who are you, foreign Heroic Spirit?”

“Of course, it’s not like I have much room to talk, do I?” Emiya said ruefully. “I never managed to save her heart. That’s the thing that separates me…from the guy about to cut you in half.”

I didn’t understand for half a second, because there was no one coming up behind Tristan, and then, Tristan turned and dodged to the side like there really was someone there, coming to take his head off. Emiya leapt forward, heading not towards where Tristan was but where he was about to be, and mid-step, his familiar twin swords manifested in his hands, and they took aim for Tristan’s neck.

A metallic clang echoed; at what seemed like the last possible instant, Tristan’s free hand came up and pulled the sword sheathed at his waist up to catch the edges of Emiya’s falchions. The thin blade, despite looking more like a needle or a rapier, held them off with no apparent difficulty, bare inches away from his skin.

“An Archer who wields twin swords?” said Tristan. “And one who utilizes such underhanded tactics, as well. You are an unusual Heroic Spirit.”

“Aren’t you one to talk?” Emiya retorted. “Using a glorified harp as a bow…and carrying a sword with you, too. You’re not exactly what I’d call an ordinary Heroic Spirit either.”

A volley of daggers flew in from the side, aimed at Tristan, and Tristan threw himself back and out of the way of them, directly into the path of Nero, who brought her sword down in a heavy, overhand slash. As though he could see it coming, Tristan stepped to the side, backed away to give himself a little distance, and plucked at three of the strings on his bow, producing a trio of musical notes. Nero, Emiya, and Serenity all tried to dodge, but Serenity couldn’t quite manage to avoid the counterattack completely, and a nasty looking cut carved itself into her left shoulder.

“A valiant effort, Emiya!” Nero praised. “Mm-mm! It is unfortunate it was not successful enough to guarantee this cur’s defeat!”

“How sad,” said Tristan, “that you believe your numbers guarantee your victory. They do not. You are all equally insignificant before the Gift bestowed upon me by the Lion King. It does not matter that you have two Knights of the Round Table amongst you, for I will cut you all down just the same.”

Okita took a bracing step forward, but before she could dash towards him, his fingers twitched and thrummed another set of notes on the strings of his bow. Mash braced herself in front of us Masters, but the rest of our Servants scattered, diving out of the way as a series of vacuum blades carved divots into the dirt beneath us. Several smashed into the surface of Mash’s shield, but she barely grunted to block them.

Bedivere was the first to swoop back in and brave the chance of a counterattack, and Tristan turned his bow to use the lower limb and block Bedivere’s sword.

“Does that include me as well, Sir Tristan?” he demanded. “You, who amongst all on the Round Table, matched my step most closely. You, who remained closest to my side during battle. My friend, Sir Tristan, do you mean to cut me down as well?”

Ishtar began to float upwards, but I yanked hard on my bond with her and told her, Arash is still alive, for now. He’s on the upper terrace at the far side of the village. Go. Check on him.

She twitched almost violently. You don’t want me here to help? This guy isn’t someone you can take lightly!

Tristan’s brow furrowed. “It would break my heart, Sir Bedivere. Truly, it would. And yet, you brandish your blade against me, you carry in that arm of yours a potent Noble Phantasm…and you are determined to stand against His Majesty, are you not?”

We can handle him for now, I replied. But Arash needs help, and I can’t afford to put myself in Tristan’s crosshairs.

Ishtar clicked her tongue. Fine.

She floated backwards slowly, retreating out of direct line of sight, and then floated off to go check on Arash. Tristan didn’t seem to notice, preoccupied as he was with Bedievere, but Emiya’s eyes flicked towards her briefly, then to me, and he arched a silent, questioning eyebrow. There was no time for me to explain it, and saying it out loud would risk revealing it to Tristan. 

Plus, it looked like this was the kind of guy we wanted to fight up close, above all else. If we could force him into close range, force him to use his sword instead of his bow, then we would be at a much greater advantage.

“Yes!” said Bedivere. “If you say these deplorable acts are the will of the Lion King himself and you are merely his instrument, then that is all the more reason why I need to stand before him and seek justice for these people! Even if you are my friend, Sir Tristan, if you would stand before me as a knight of the Lion King and perpetuate these horrors…then I will walk over your corpse, if I must.”

Tristan’s head dipped. “How sad, Sir Bedivere. You say that you will stand against the Lion King? That itself is an unforgivable act. I can think of no sadder tale than the one of the knight who stood against his king. Then, even if you are my friend, Sir Bedivere, in the name of the king’s justice, I will cut you down where you stand, and I will not hesitate.”

He threw himself backwards and away from Bedivere, strumming the strings of his bow again, and Bedivere clumsily flung himself out of the way at the same time as the others did, too. Bedivere, however, was not quite fast or agile enough to completely avoid Tristan’s vacuum blades, and one smashed into his chest and tore a gasp from his throat. It knocked him back several feet and sent him tumbling, and when he stopped, on his hands and knees, he struggled to draw down heaving breaths.

There was no blood, however. Tristan’s “arrow” had hit hard enough to hurt, but hadn’t gone through Bedivere’s armor.

“First Aid!” three of us chanted at once, and Bedivere sucked down a grateful breath an instant later as the wave of healing magic spread through his body.

“Thank you,” he rasped.

The others swerved around and chased after Tristan, but he kept his distance and played the strings of his bow until something like a melody began emerging, a soft, mournful tune that might have been tragically beautiful if it wasn’t also sending invisible “arrows” every which way in a constant stream. They chased our own Servants down, carving more divots into the ground, and all Emiya, Okita, Serenity, and Nero could do was dodge them as best they could and try to get around to close the distance. With Tristan constantly dancing away and firing more of those “arrows” of his with every second, that was a bit of a tall order.

But even their best wasn’t enough to avoid all injury. Okita was fast enough to steer clear of every one of those arrows that came her way, but Nero, Emiya, and Serenity weren’t nearly as agile. Some arrows, they managed to dodge completely. Others, however, sliced thin lines across arms, legs, shoulders, cheeks — never a solid enough hit to cripple or kill, but a slow death by a thousand cuts. That might have been all Tristan could accomplish with so many Servants on his tail, and yet, it was enough to keep himself safe.

The maddening thing was that he could even fire faster than Arash that way, because Arash still had to pull his bowstring back for every arrow, no matter how fast he could actually do that. Tristan only had to pluck the strings of his bow, a motion that required minimal movement of his hands and arms and nothing resembling a full draw.

“This guy’s got a screw or two loose,” Rika muttered. We all winced as half a dozen of Tristan’s arrows slammed into Mash’s shield, producing one of the highest pitched metallic clangs we’d ever had to put up with in one of these battles.

Bedivere slowly pulled himself to his feet. “Sir Tristan has always been possessed of a melancholy nature. His heart was the most sensitive of those on the Round Table — hence the tragedy with the Lady Iseult. Even so, he is still one of the most talented knights to ever sit on it.”

Rika gave him a dubious look. Under her breath, she said, “Not sure you can really call what he’s doing ‘talent.’ It’s definitely something, though.”

Something, but I wasn’t sure it was the strangest thing we’d yet seen a Servant do, and however ridiculous it might have sounded, it was effective, if nothing else. The mere fact that the arrows were invisible to the naked eye was making it difficult for our Servants to close the distance, because they had to keep dodging in wide, jerky movements that took them off of a straight line towards Tristan himself, and Tristan was showing no signs of slowing or fatigue or even needing to take a break for a second and readjust his grip or something. 

Bedivere, apparently recovered enough to keep going, leapt back into the fray and rejoined the fight. He was much more cautious than before, I noticed. Maybe taking that hit had cooled his anger enough that he had decided better against rushing Tristan full of vim, vinegar, and righteous fury. To Tristan, it didn’t seem to make any difference.

The question we still didn’t have an answer to yet was what his Gift was and how it worked. He’d already all but confirmed that it was something he could use in battle against us, but he hadn’t been so generous as to tell us the intricacies of its functions. 

So what could it be? Gawain’s and Yvain’s were both relatively simple, in that they were just blessings that covered up glaring weaknesses in their own abilities, but Mordred’s was a pretty strong advantage with a devastating side effect and Bertilak’s was the kind of trump card that could have gotten us all killed if we’d found out too late exactly what it did. Where did Tristan fall between those two ends of the spectrum? It was impossible to say. Without knowing what he was capable of at his baseline, there was no way of knowing what was enhanced or altered by his Gift and what was just something he had always been able to do.

I was assuming that the sound arrows thing he was doing was something he had always been able to do. Bedivere didn’t seem surprised by it — by anything Tristan had done yet, except slaughtering the villagers — so that was probably a good bet.

Another volley of his “arrows” came a little too close for comfort, splashing off the surface of Mash’s shield again, and I couldn’t hold in the wince.

I don’t think he’s getting up anytime soon, Ishtar suddenly announced, and my lips pursed as I closed one eye so I could look through hers and see for myself.

Arash was still there, still hanging on. He wasn’t dead, at least, but he wasn’t moving either. The puddle of blood beneath him had seeped into the soil, but the darkened patch, illuminated by the fires and the last guttering light of dusk, was big enough that a living human probably would have bled out by that point. Ishtar had done me the favor of rolling him over to check the wound, and my stomach threatened to rebel, but I held it in, because I’d seen worse.

Having seen worse didn’t make it any less bad, though. Again, on an ordinary human, that was an outright fatal wound, and even on a Servant, it might kill him eventually. In fact, the only thing holding him together might have been his Robust Health skill, because that wound was nasty enough that I think any of our other Servants except Karna and Siegfried probably would have been cut in half.

Arash murmured something and squinted up at Ishtar with a pained grin on his face, but I wasn’t borrowing her ears, so I couldn’t hear what it was. Knowing him, some kind of self-deprecating joke.

I couldn’t heal him just then, and I couldn’t go to him to help him out. In that state, if an Enforcement Knight came across him and realized he was still alive, they might decide to change that for him, and I wasn’t ready to let him go again so soon after I got him back.

Stay with him, I told her. If any soldiers or Enforcement Knights come after him, feel free to do whatever you want to them.

You certainly know how to sweet talk a girl, Ishtar said.

She had the much easier job either way. Tristan was still dancing around our Servants and the others were still dealing with the rest of the Enforcement Knights and soldiers, but at least we’d managed to get most of the people evacuated at this point. I was hesitant to commit too much to Tristan until we knew more about how his Gift worked, although I thought we could at least say that it wasn’t something that would punish us for actually hurting him.

Unless he was trying to lure us into a trap. I couldn’t have said for sure either way, but he didn’t feel like the kind of person to fight that way.

“Damn, he’s slippery,” Rika complained. “It’s like trying to catch an eel!”

“It’s the arrows,” Ritsuka said. “If they were regular arrows or even something like what Emiya does, then everyone could just block or deflect them, but since they’re invisible…” He grimaced. “Senpai. Do you have any ideas? When the others join in, that might be enough to pin him down, but…”

But if he realized what we were waiting for before the others eliminated all of the Enforcement Knights, then he might just try and slip away. That might be a win condition of its own, but giving him the opportunity to sneak off meant that we would never be safe in this village again and neither would any of the villagers. He could come back with the full might of the Round Table at his side and destroy us all completely.

We needed to kill him.

“A few,” I said.

The solution might just be to bring in Siegfried or Karna, someone who could take Tristan’s shots head on without flinching or worrying about being wounded. He’d probably find it a lot harder to stay out of reach against someone who didn’t have to bother dodging his arrows.

“I’ve got one,” said Rika, something almost savage in her tone. “Mind if I give it a shot, Senpai?”

There was no reason not to. “Go ahead.”

A grin spread across her lips, and she cupped her hands around her mouth, shouting, “Hey, Best Buddy! Just like we practiced! Cut loose!”

They’d practiced something?

“Mm-mm! At once, Praetor!” Nero called back, and then, she retreated away from the fight as magical energy began to pour off of her in waves. She brandished her sword, performing a flurry of exaggerated strikes that looked more for show than anything else. “Behold my glory! Hear the thunderous applause!”

Tristan seemed to realize what was happening, and he turned immediately to focus on Nero. His fingers danced along the strings of his bow, and the steady melody he’d been building was interrupted by sudden, discordant notes. Nero did nothing to avoid the incoming attack — she didn’t have to, because Emiya threw himself in the way of the “arrows” aimed at her, arms crossed over his chest and twin swords angled so the flats protected his face. Another dozen cuts opened up across his torso, arms, and legs, spurting red blood into the air, and Emiya took it all without much more than a grunt.

“Sit down and praise my Golden Theater!” Nero cried, and she stabbed the tip of her blade into the  dirt. “Aestus Domus Aurea!”

And like a blooming flower, Nero’s infamous theater unfolded. Red carpet and luxuriously painted brick spread out across the ground, etched and lined with golden filigree. Banners of crimson cloth sprouted like weeds, hung on gilded flagpoles, and the walls that climbed upwards towards the sky pushed out the burning buildings and the jutting cliffs until no sign of the carnage Tristan and the Enforcement Knights had committed remained, at least not visibly. Balconies and extravagant seating carved out three tiers along the walls for an audience that wasn’t there, two grand staircases led up from the floor into the seating, gilded, just like almost everything else in the entire building, and at last, capping it all off, the roof formed and blocked out the sky. 

As though to say, “No, there’s still more,” intricately designed pots glittered into existence around the edges of the stage. They were filled to the brim with roses, roses that were constantly shedding petals that fluttered in a nonexistent breeze.

“Reality Marble?” Ritsuka mumbled.

“No.” Because I could still see it from the outside with Huginn and Muninn, a monolithic structure that took up the entirety of where the eastern village was supposed to be and then some. In the middle of the day, it would have been visible for miles around, a beacon the Lion King and her Holy City could have used to locate us and the mountain people. A Reality Marble like Emiya’s was its own self-contained world, and while this looked similar from the inside, it seemed more like the theater had been…layered over top of the village and the mountain instead.

“Boss Lady calls it a Greater Magecraft,” Rika explained. “The sort of thing that normally requires buttloads of prep, ginormous amounts of MP, and standing around like an idiot spouting gobbledygook for a whole minute.”

“A little help, Master?” Emiya asked, strained.

Rika blinked, then hurried to throw her arm out his way. “Ah! First Aid! First Aid! First Aid!”

With each cast, his wounds closed more and more, but didn’t quite completely heal. At least he didn’t look like he’d just been gored by an angry bear anymore, although I couldn’t see the full extent of his wounds from here.

The theater hadn’t just overlaid itself on the mountaintop, it had displaced everyone, too. Ritsuka, Rika, Mash, and I all stood at the base of the grand staircase while Ishtar and Arash were somewhere up in the stands. Nero, of course, was at the center of the stage, with Emiya, Okita, Bedivere, and Serenity all spread out across it, and by the sounds of it, the remaining soldiers and Enforcement Knights were elsewhere in the building, somewhere far enough away that only the faint ringing of their weapons and armor as they fought Altera, Sanzang, Shirou, Cursed Arm, and Touta could be heard.

Tristan, who had been mid-leap when Nero activated her Noble Phantasm, landed somewhere near the midway point between Nero and the far end of the stage. It was hard to make out the finer details at this distance, but he looked like he was scowling. 

“Now!” Nero swept her sword to the side, and the blade blazed with white hot flames as though fire was seething out of the dark, volcanic rock that seemed to make it up. “Prostrate yourself! Bow your head before Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus! I will accept from your lips only praise for my glory or pleas of forgiveness for your sins! Mm-mm!”

She kicked off the floor of the stage without disturbing a single brick or thread of carpet, fire and rose petals trailing behind her like a comet, and she made for Tristan, winding up for a killing blow. Tristan seemed almost frozen to his spot; he made no move to dodge or avoid her, no move to retreat, no move except to brace himself against the incoming attack.

“It’s over!” Nero proclaimed, and she swung her sword for his neck.

“Over?” Tristan asked with a deathly calm.

Nero’s sword slammed into the upper limb of his bow, fire and flame detonating and washing over him. It licked at his exposed skin, singed the fabric of his cloak and his clothes, and burned the edges of his tunic, revealing more of his chest and the ugly, dark thing embedded there like an old, diseased scar. And yet, he stood, holding off Nero’s sword with what seemed from here like not much effort at all.

“Eh?” said Rika, nonplussed. “He blocked it? But he’s supposed to be — !”

“Your Noble Phantasm introduces weakness into your opponent, does it not?” said Tristan. “How sad. How very sad. If you had been fighting most of the other Knights of the Round Table, perhaps it might have been effective. However, my king accepts no weakness from his subordinates, neither weakness of the heart nor weakness of the flesh. Your Noble Phantasm…” His eyes snapped open, and even from where I was standing, I could see the bright, intense yellow of them, hawklike and piercing. “…will find no purchase in me, Nero Claudius.”

He strummed the strings of his bow again, and Nero spun as blood fountained from her neck, from her arms, from her chest as though someone had taken a knife and started stabbing as many times as they could. She flew back, carried by the force of it, as her sword went the other way and clattered to the ground. Nero, however, managed to turn with her momentum and get her feet back underneath her, and she didn’t so much spin as pirouette, feet sliding across the ground in broad circles that bled off her speed. Her uninjured hand flew to her neck, against her carotid artery, and applied pressure as more blood seeped between her fingers.

“Best Buddy!” Rika cried.

“Do not concern yourself!” Nero said, even as she kept bleeding. “A wound such as this… Mm! I will not die so easily! Rome will not die so easily!”

Tristan’s eyes had already closed again when he regarded her without haste or worry. “Bold words. Then the solution is very simple to me. If cutting your throat isn’t enough to kill you, I’ll just have to remove your head this time.”

He reached for his bow again, ready to deliver that killing blow, but he’d been paying so much attention to Nero —

“Tristan!”

— that he didn’t notice Bedivere until Bedivere was already right in front of him, his silver arm ablaze with light.

“Ha!”

Bedivere swung his blazing arm the same way he had against Gawain and Yvain, with a ponderous weight as though it was far, far heavier than it appeared, so that it was less like he was swinging it and more like he was dragging it through something thick and soupy. Tristan took it head on, too late to dodge, and it flung him back almost all the way to the edge of the stage.

Immediately after, Bedivere collapsed and fell to his knees. Steam poured off of him, leaking out through the joints and gaps in his armor, and his chest heaved for breath as his shoulders and his flesh and blood arm shook.

Almost like a mirror, Nero fell to her knees, too, and the great theater flickered, then faded and died away, leaving us back in the mountainside village with the flaming buildings and the blood-soaked ground. 

“Sir Bedivere!” Mash said at the same time as Rika called out, “Best Buddy, are you okay?”

“Perhaps I am…not so hale as I had first proclaimed,” Nero admitted.

“First Aid!” Rika incanted again. “First Aid! First Aid!”

And by the end of it, she was panting herself, although Nero’s wounds had at least mostly healed up. The blood didn’t disappear, but when she took her hand away from her neck, more didn’t come pouring out to soak her white undergown any more than it already was. 

“A truly horrific sound, flesh and bone burning,” said Tristan, and he was almost completely unharmed. His tunic or jacket or whatever it was had been ripped apart even worst, but the skin beneath it was only mildly burned with the beginnings of an ugly bruise crossing his belly in a diagonal line. Before our eyes, the damage was already disappearing. “Where it is you acquired an arm like that, I cannot begin to imagine, Sir Bedivere, but it is obvious to me that you are ill-equipped to handle it.”

Bedivere tried to turn his head up, but his neck quivered with the effort. “Guh… Sir Tristan… You…”

Tristan did not respond. He tilted his head to the side instead, like he was glancing over his shoulder. “Hm. It appears that Lancelot has already descended the mountain, as well. When he asked me to allow him to be the one to take on the Archer, I would not have imagined that he would truly take on only a single opponent before leaving. What a troublesome man he is. Of course…” He turned back to us. “Not that it will make a difference in the end result.”

“Serenity, attack him now!” Emiya barked suddenly.

Serenity was moving before he even finished speaking. “Yes!”

She threw a volley of knives from one hand, and then a second volley from the other, and then she reached into the equipment pouch hanging from her hips and retrieved a third volley that she threw the instant she was ready. Tristan deflected them with a few flicks of his fingers along the strings of his bow, but that was only a part of the distraction, because Sanzang came in from above and slammed the Monkey King’s staff down with cratering force, and Tristan dodged out of the way of that.

I saw the shape of his plan as it unfurled in front of my eyes, and I knew exactly what needed to be done to make it work.

“Okita, go!” I shouted, and as she rushed in to attack from the opposite side of Sanzang, I aimed a First Aid spell of my own — at Bedivere. It didn’t do much. A second didn’t do much more. But by the third, at least he was breathing a bit easier.

Tristan turned his attention to Okita long enough to force her off her attack run with more arrows from his bow, but that only left him open to Altera, who swept in with her whiplike sword, and he had to block to avoid its edge. It still threw him back, forcing him to stumble as he regained his footing, and Nero was already racing to retrieve her sword as Touta struck with his own sword. Tristan deflected it with the limbs of his bow, and before he could counterattack, Touta retreated, and Cursed Arm covered him with a volley of daggers of his own. Tristan had to strum his bowstrings to deflect those instead.

Nero rushed into the gap, leading with her sword, and Tristan scowled as he fired off another volley of his invisible arrows at her, chasing her as she dodged and juked to the side —

Except Emiya had been right behind her.

“Trace, on!”

And he manifested a familiar katana, a perfect replica of the same katana Shirou had been using to fight Mordred and Bertilak and every other Knight of the Round Table he had yet encountered. Tristan had only barely enough time to put his bow in place to block it.

“Did you truly expect this ruse of yours to work? How sad,” said Tristan.

But Emiya’s voice was smug when he said, “Don’t you remember? That guy…is about to cut you in half.”

Shirou arrived behind Tristan, appearing as though that was the whole plan all along, because unless I was mistaken, it was, and Tristan was boxed in. There was no room for him to dodge, not back, not forward, and not to either side. Shirou was already mid-swing. His katana cut through Tristan’s cloak, through his tunic, through his flesh and bone and every part of him as though he was slicing thin air, and along the line of the cut, everything parted — every piece of cloth or fabric, no matter what it was made of, every stitch, every scrap of leather. Everything, except for Tristan’s skin itself.

A moment later, the sword cracked and then shattered, the same way all of the others had previously. Like Emiya had said, it was still fundamentally flawed.

Tristan gasped. “What… What have you done?”

“What must be done,” said Bedivere as he pulled himself shakily to his feet. “Sir Emiya, if you would please move aside.”

Emiya glanced back at him, a frown pulling at his lips. “You know what that thing costs you.”

Bedivere nodded. “And yet, if there is one who ought to do this…it should be me.”

Emiya sighed and shook his head. “Fine,” he said, and he stepped out of the way.

As though Emiya’s resistance had been the only thing keeping him steady, Tristan stumbled, and behind him, Shirou muttered something under his breath, then stepped out of the way, too. Tristan’s free hand immediately went to his stomach, to the place where Shirou’s katana had passed through him, and just like with Mordred, there was a faint, pink line there, but no other sign of injury.

Bedivere hobbled his way over, clutching at the shoulder of his prosthetic arm with his other hand. His sword had been left on the ground, forgotten.

“Beddi,” Rika called after him gently. “You don’t have to…”

Bedivere was undeterred. He didn’t even look back. “I am his friend, Lady Rika. Whatever he may have done… No, it’s because of what he has done to this land and these people that I need to be the one to do this.”

Tristan tried to retreat, but he managed to back away a single step before his hand flew back to that same line across his belly, a harsh gasp tearing free from his mouth.

“Sir Bedivere,” he rasped. “How sad. How terribly sad that it would come to this.”

“Yes, Sir Tristan,” said Bedivere. “Yes, it is indeed.”

He wound back his silver arm, took a deep breath, braced himself, and then, as though it would somehow make it easier on him, shouted, “Switch on, Airgetlám!”

That silver arm flashed, then blazed with golden light, and just like all the other times before, he dragged it across the line of a slash with the ponderous weight of something much larger and heavier. The light extended outwards along the path of the swing, like a blade, like a beam, and it smashed into Tristan like a runaway train. Just like Gawain and Yvain before him, Tristan shot backwards as though fired from a cannon and slammed into the cliffside with so much force that the ground beneath my feet shook and the cliff itself rumbled threateningly. For a single second, he hung there, suspended against the side of the cliff, and then, he fell, tumbling to the dirt and rolling several feet until he stopped on his back, face up. Several rocks broke away from the cliff and rolled down to land on him.

But he was still alive.

“Damn,” said Rika. “He’s still kicking? These Round Table guys are built different.”

Bedivere collapsed again, more steam pouring off of him as he gulped down as much air as he could. “First Aid!” the three of us Masters chanted, and although it seemed to ease his pain a little, it was nowhere near enough to actually fix whatever damage he had just done to himself. Da Vinci had said he only had four or five uses of that thing left, and he’d used it twice since then. Just what did it actually cost him to use it? What was he doing to himself every time he used that Noble Phantasm?

I had an ugly feeling I knew. We had already seen one Knight of the Round Table willing to shave away her Spirit Origin one chunk at a time to keep using her Noble Phantasm, after all.

“Then I will finish him off,” said Cursed Arm, fingering one of his daggers.

“Cursed Arm,” Ritsuka began.

Cursed Arm didn’t want to hear it: “This man arrived in my village intent on killing my people, Lord Ritsuka. Even if it was on the Lion King’s orders, the Lion King is yet beyond our reach. I would have justice for the lives lost.”

Here, he lifted the bulky, linen-wrapped shape of his right arm and gestured out at the burning village and the dead bodies lying scattered about it. Ritsuka glanced where he was pointing and grimaced, then let out a sigh.

Taking that as permission, Cursed Arm stalked over to Tristan’s motionless body, peeled two spindly, spider-like fingers away from the handle of his dagger, and used those to grab the hem of Tristan’s tunic. With that grip, he dragged Tristan away from the cliffside and towards the center of the village courtyard, as though he intended to ritually sacrifice him before the restless spirits of the dead.

“Wait,” I said.

Cursed Arm turned his head my way. As always, his expression was unreadable. “Do you intend to stop me?”

I shook my head. “There’s no point in killing him just yet, not when he can tell us more about the Lion King and the Knights of the Round Table. Like which of the Knights is still alive serving the Lion King, whether or not Yvain survived, what their Gifts are and how to get around them. He might even save us the trip to find out the supposed truth of the Lion King’s nature.”

Understanding shifted Cursed Arm’s posture, and his head lifted minutely. “Interrogation, you mean,” he clarified. He looked back down at Tristan for a long moment, probably mulling it over, and then nodded. “Very well. Your suggestion is a sound one, Lady Taylor. Before we kill this so-called knight, let us extract every bit of useful information he might possess.”

Tristan, despite the fact that Cursed Arm had just implied torturing him, chuckled, weak and low. 

“You’re too late,” he said, voice thin. “The time for your judgment and punishment has come.” He lifted one arm shakily and pointed westward — it was impossible to say exactly from this far away, but that was the vague direction of the west village. Hundred Faces’ village. “Turn your eyes to the western sky and watch.”

We all looked. Huginn and Muninn’s eyes found it first, and then I saw it for myself, and my heart skipped a beat as a terrible dread rose up in my chest. 

“What…” Mash stammered. “Wh-what’s that light up there? There, cutting through the clouds! It’s…!”

A pillar of golden light, a familiar shade of gold that I hadn’t thought I would ever see again, not after Gold Morning. It descended through the cloud cover, pointed at the bottom and widening as it went, and it scythed its way through with the weight of inevitability, casting an eerie glow over the surface of the mountains in the distance. Despite the fact that it looked like it was happening slowly, I knew that was just my eyes playing tricks on me, because at this distance, at that size, the thing I was looking at had to be moving at hundreds of miles an hour, minimum.

A lance. It looked like a lance, stabbing down from the heavens to spear the Earth.

“Oh no,” said Rika.

“Hundred Faces!” Serenity gasped.

I yanked on my bond with Ishtar. Ishtar! Can you shoot that down with your Noble Phantasm before it hits the western village?

Of course I can! she replied, affronted. If you don’t care what happens to the people in it, that is! If I fire my Noble Phantasm at something like that, the backlash will wind up destroying the village anyway!

Shit.

There was nothing we could do as the tip descended. My mind raced for solutions, but we had none. That village was two days away, and even using a method like Arash’s, it was still minutes to get there, minutes the village didn’t have, so sending Mash over to defend it was an idea that died before it could finish forming. Summoning Karna was a possibility, but if Ishtar’s Noble Phantasm would cause a devastating clash that wiped out the village anyway, then so would his, and that meant the same went for any Noble Phantasm that could actually compete with something like that. 

In the end, it was over before I could come up with anything that might work. The lance of light touched down somewhere beyond our sight, somewhere past the horizon, and then, with a flash, it destroyed its target.

I had to assume it did, at least. Something that big containing as much energy as it must have wouldn’t leave much of anything behind.

Now I knew what had created those craters in the wasteland.

“The western village…” Ritsuka whispered, and this seemed to return Cursed Arm to his senses. He shook Tristan violently. 

“You!” he snarled. “What was that, just now? What did you bastards do to the western village?”

“Isn’t it obvious? That’s the Lion King’s so-called Judgment,” said Emiya, scowling up at the sky.

“It is,” Tristan agreed.

Mash stared at him. “Then…the other villages…”

He gave the answer I had already come to.

“Met the same fate. So very tragic. Just like the others, that village was destroyed, purified in the holy light of the sacred lance, Rhongomyniad. The mountain people living there disappeared without a trace.”

“What… What madness!” Bedivere tried to stand, but he stumbled a single step, then fell back to his knees. It did not stop him from shouting at Tristan. “What lunacy has possessed the Knights of the Round Table? Have you all taken leave of your senses? You cannot possibly believe that…that is the work of King Arthur!”

Tristan heaved out a sigh. “Still, you do not understand, Sir Bedivere. It is so very sad that you labor under these delusions. Madness does not drive us, no, nor lunacy. Those are uniquely human vices. And in order to serve the Lion King, to become agents of His Majesty’s will, we could do little else except to throw away our humanity.”

My brow twitched, but I said nothing. Did none of these legendary knights understand what waited at the end of a decision like that?

“That doesn’t make what you’re doing any more excusable!” Ritsuka said.

“It does not,” Tristan agreed. “But judgment must not be clouded by sentiment. To create the world His Majesty wishes to protect, we carry out enforcement in his name and cast aside the weaknesses that would stay our feet.” His eyes cracked open a sliver. “Your own judgment is at hand. You did not believe that this village would be spared, did you? Whether we succeeded or failed, His Majesty was always going to lay this place low.”

Brilliant golden light lit up the village. It washed out the flames still smoldering in the houses, cast the dead in stark relief, and pierced through the cracks in the rocks as though it meant to reach into every hidden place to strike at whatever hid there, no matter how small. 

I looked up, already knowing what I would find there, and there, in the sky, the pointed tip of a lance of light was forming. It cut through the clouds and the night sky, bearing down in our direction, and for an instant, for a heartbeat, I was back in those terrible moments where the end seemed inevitable. It was not a lance, but a glowing golden man, hand raised, a point of searing light shining in the palm of one outstretched hand as he prepared to wipe us all away.

“Farewell, Sir Bedivere,” said Tristan. “We will not meet again.”

And just like that, he vanished, retreating into spirit form and then fleeing like a dog with his tail between his legs. Cursed Arm didn’t seem to notice. I noted it only in the periphery of my vision, because Tristan getting away wasn’t as important as the fact that a Noble Phantasm strong enough to blow away this entire mountain was about to strike us. He might not even be fast enough to escape the blast anyway.

Not like we were either. Arash might be able to get us out of range if he fired another of those giant arrows again, but he was in no shape for that.

“We have to get out of here!” Sanzang said. “Do you see that thing? No way! If we’re here when it hits, we’re toast!”

“How could we leave?” Cursed Arm croaked. And then, louder, “How could we leave? The villagers! They’re taking shelter in the cave! If the entrance collapses, they’ll be trapped in there!”

“I don’t think you have to worry about that,” Emiya said gravely. “If that thing lands, the whole mountain is going with it.”

Rika gasped. “Emiya! The Aias!”

Emiya’s expression twisted. “Not that I don’t appreciate your confidence in me, Master —”

“Rho Aias isn’t designed to take something that powerful,” Shirou concluded. “Even if we doubled up…”

“I…” Mash began. “Master, I will block that with my shield! I-I’ll need a Command Spell, n-no, maybe two, but…!”

“Absolutely not!” Marie’s voice said suddenly; she hadn’t even waited for the comms to connect, she’d overrode it. “The readings on that thing are way beyond anything you’ve ever dealt with before! Three million! Do you hear me? Most Noble Phantasms have a magical energy value somewhere between one and three thousand! If you try to block that, you’ll die!”

“If it protects Master, and Master, and Miss Taylor…!” Mash shouted back, a slight tremble in her voice. “Then… Whatever it takes, I’ll…!”

“Don’t you dare, Cinnabon!” Rika snarled. “We’re all getting out of this, you hear me? All of us!”

Up above, the tip of the lance slowly spread out streamers of light towards the sky. They began weaving together and pulled tighter, forming the shaft, and the looming lance took shape, still aimed towards us, still held back by the barest threads of whatever the Lion King was waiting for. Maybe she was still gathering the energy to release all at once?

“What if we blunt it?” I asked.

A bunch of heads turned my way. “What?” Marie asked.

“Karna and Ishtar and Emiya with Caladbolg,” I explained. “Throw every offensive Noble Phantasm we can at it and ride out the backlash behind Lord Chaldeas. Can we offset it enough to survive the fallout like that?”

Marie hesitated. “I… Maybe! But at that point, you’re just throwing more energy at the problem and hoping it doesn’t make it worse! Don’t forget what happened in America! This is going to be a thousand times worse, at least! Back then, all you had to worry about was being thrown halfway across the city! This time…!”

Mash grimaced and clutched tighter to her shield. “If we do that…and Master and Master use two Command Spells…and Aífe helps me with her runes again, then…!”

“I don’t suppose I get a say in any of this, do I?”

My heart skipped a beat.

“Arash!” Rika and Mash cried.

“You’re alive!” said Sanzang.

And Ishtar floated down to join us, Arash’s arm thrown over one shoulder as she carefully lowered him onto the ground. His wound hadn’t much healed. In fact, he still looked just as terrible now as he had when I looked through Ishtar’s eyes earlier, he just happened to be standing now instead of lying in the dirt bleeding out.

He offered us all a tight smile. “Hey, guys. Sorry to bust in on your planning session here, but things are getting awfully tight and we don’t have much time, so I’m just going to cut to the chase.” He jerked his head up towards the lance of light. “The one who stops that…it’s going to be me.”

I put the dots together immediately, and Ritsuka was only a second or two behind me. “Wait a minute. But the only way you could possibly do that is…”

Something inside of me trembled.

Arash sighed. “Yeah, that’s right. The only way I can stop that thing is with my Noble Phantasm.”

“Lord Arash,” whispered Cursed Arm, “but that would mean…”

“Getting all sentimental on me?” Arash teased him. “Look at me, Cursed Arm. This wound is already fatal, there’s no way around that. Maybe if Miss Genius was up and around, she might have what it takes to put me back together, but none of us has time to wait for her to figure something out.”

Jackie, I thought immediately, but the idea never left my lips. She could probably patch him up, sure, but if he’d already taken critical damage to his spiritual core, then it would be more cosmetic than anything else.

“So,” he went on, “if I’m going out anyway, it might as well be with a bang, don’t you think? I might not be a bigshot name like King Arthur or Sir Lancelot, but I think I have what it takes to stop that from killing everyone here.” He smiled at us and looked around our group. “You guys just have to get to that cave and take shelter with the villagers. As long as I know the rest of you are safe, then I can handle this on my own without worrying.”

“Lord Arash,” said Bedivere, sounding heartbroken, “you can’t mean to…”

Arash sighed again. “Yeah, turns out I’m a hypocrite, huh? Sorry, but that’s just the way I am, and there’s no changing it. It’s not like I can complain, though. You’ve got it way worse than me, don’t you? You reached your limit a long time ago, but you’re still going. It’s actually kind of admirable, really.”

Bedivere’s head drooped. “You give me too much credit. I deserve no such praise.”

“Man, even you don’t understand exactly how incredible you are,” Arash said. “Listen, Bedivere, I can’t tell you to lay down your burdens, so the least I can do is give you this warning. One swing. That’s all you’ve got left. Make sure you spend it where you absolutely need to, alright?”

“I…” Bedivere nodded. “Thank you, Lord Arash.”

Arash smiled, then nodded himself. “Alright, that’s enough chitchat. We’re running low on time —” because the lance above had finished forming and was beginning to descend — “so Cursed Arm, you get everyone to the cave and hunker down.”

“Yes,” said Cursed Arm. “Lord Arash… Thank you! There has been no greater ally in all the land than you!” To the rest of us, he said, “Come! We must make for the cave with all haste!”

“Mash, get Bedivere!” Ritsuka ordered, and Mash nodded.

“Right!”

Everyone turned. Cursed Arm started off in the direction where I knew the hidden cave to be and started leading the way, Mash ran over to Bedivere and lifted him up, slinging his arm over her shoulder, and we all began to head to safety. Sanzang went over and took Bedivere’s other arm to make it faster and easier, and Nero hovered next to Rika, ready and waiting to pick her up and run if necessary. Ishtar floated and tried to pretend she wasn’t being a mother hen counting her chicks, but wasn’t good enough hiding it that I couldn’t see it.

At first, I followed along, despite the twisting feeling in my gut. Halfway there, however, I decided, no, I wasn’t going to miss this, I wasn’t going to turn away, and I wasn’t going to let Arash disappear without anyone there to watch him go and say goodbye, so I stopped. As though he had some kind of radar for me and my more questionable decisions, Ritsuka noticed and turned to me.

“Senpai?”

“Go,” I told him. “I’m going to stay behind.”

Several emotions flashed across his face, but he ended on understanding. His mouth pulled tight, and he nodded, then turned and went to follow the others.

I turned back around and went back out into the village. The looming lance was growing larger in the sky, not because it was actually getting bigger but because it was getting closer, and I found the two of them, Arash and Touta, near the edge of the village, staring up at the shaft of light. Arash had already drawn his bow and seemed to be sizing things up, but Touta was sitting down and sipping from a jug of what I could only assume was Japanese sake. 

Arash noticed my approach first, and he looked over at me, goggling. “You’re here, too? I thought you were getting to safety!”

“I was,” I said. “But I thought about it and…I never got to say goodbye to you. Not properly.”

He huffed a quiet chuckle. “Man, what a pair we must have made! Kinda makes me wish I could stick around and find out exactly what kind of woman summons a guy like me.”

“You already know the answer to that,” I told him.

Arash shook his head ruefully. “Yeah, I guess I do.”

My ravens — recalled because the sky was about to become very dangerous for them — came down and landed on my shoulders as Arash lifted his bow and took aim. Almost unnoticed, Jackie shimmered into existence beside me with a quiet, “Mommy?”

I pulled her into my hip, hand around her shoulder, and watched, unblinking, as the hero who had stood by my side for so long prepared to sacrifice himself again. My eyes were wet. I refused to blink and miss it.

“Whatever the circumstances were back then, I’m sure that version of me only did what he had to do,” Arash said. “Can’t say I’ve got any right to speak for him, not when he knew you better than I do, but… If it means anything to you, Taylor, then I’m sorry things went the way they did. If that version of me saw any other way to protect you, I have no doubt he would’ve taken it.”

He pulled back on the string of his bow, and a twisting arrow formed there, a spiraling thing that seemed more like a pair of tree branches twined together. 

“Goodbye, Arash,” I said.

“Goodbye, Arash,” Jackie echoed. “We miss you.”

He glanced back at me long enough to smirk. “See you later, Taylor. And you, too, Jackie.”

He and I let go at the same moment, and then the arrow leapt from his bow…

“STELLA!” 

…and a shooting star struck the descending lance.

Trying something a little different this week. Let me know if this suits you guys more or if you'd prefer for me to keep posting the chapter in different file formats for you to download.

Anyway, whew! This chapter is huge. Ridiculously huge. Like, there are only two or three chapters of the same size or larger in this story, and that's mostly down to me wanting to fit everything in here into the chapter, so it just ballooned.

I tried to give everyone a shot at doing something against Tristan. I'm particularly proud of how I handled Nero's Noble Phantasm, because ordinarily, it would absolutely mess Tristan up, but Tristan's Gift is a hard counter to it, so she gets shut down. The part I'm most proud of, though, is the very end. "He and I let got at the same moment." Yeah.

EDIT: Moving down a tier. 10/24/26