Elsois Ruins—no, the very center of the world's impending destruction.
Calling it a "hellscape" didn't even begin to cover it. It was as if every final boss fight from every AAA game had been mashed together, then someone—utterly unhinged—flipped on Hell Difficulty + One-Life Clear.
"ROOOOOAAAR—!!!"
The demon-god Antares bellowed and the sky trembled.
The "goddess statue" fused into its back had turned completely black. Countless tendrils—like veins—burrowed into the earth, siphoning the planet's magic itself. It was no longer a scorpion, but a moving fortress of annihilation.
"Not dead… still not dead…""I will… devour everything…"
"Is this thing running an invincibility hack?!" Hermes screamed from behind a boulder, clawing at his hair as he stared at the monster that refused to die. "Its heart is out and it's still moving! This isn't science! This isn't magic! This is a lawsuit!"
"Stop whining and think of something!" Hestia, pale with terror, still forced herself to shield Lili and Asfi behind her. "Shirou… Shirou, he—"
Everyone's eyes turned to the red-haired boy at the cliff's edge.
Emiya Shirou.
His condition was so bad that even the best retoucher in the world couldn't "fix" it. The right half of his body was charred black. His left arm was twisted at an impossible angle. His magic circuits, burnt beyond overload, flickered like melted wiring—sparking dangerously.
HP: 1 (approximately).MP: 0 (absolutely).Mental state: one step from snapping (maybe).
And yet he stood.
In his hand was the moonlit lance—
Orion's Arrow.
"Do it, Orion!" Artemis's voice trembled in his ear, pleading through tears. Her remnant—made of longing and fragments—hovered close, translucent and fading. "Kill me! Only then can it be stopped!"
"I know…" Shirou's voice was rough, like ash in his throat.
He raised the lance.
His arm shook—not from fear, but because his body had already crossed the line. Muscle fibers tore. Bone screamed. Still, he forced it up.
"Aim… correct…"His Mind's Eye (True) was screaming error after error, red warnings flooding his vision. But among the red, there was one tiny blue point.
Antares's core.
And inside it—
Artemis's heart.
"Go."
Shirou threw.
He poured the last of his life into that single motion.
"Gáe Bolg—" he rasped, and then coughed blood. "No… wrong. Orion."
The lance became a pale-blue meteor, ripping through air, ripping through the storm of magic, ripping through the thick "divine shield" around Antares.
It struck true.
No hesitation.
No deviation.
The moonlit spear pierced Antares's chest and punched straight through the dark-red core.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAA—!!!"
Antares shrieked. Its movements locked. Cracks spiderwebbed across the core, and stolen divinity burst out like a ruptured dam.
"W-We did it?!" Ais cried, hope flaring in her gold eyes.
But then—
The cruel rule of "smoke means nothing" returned, wearing blood instead of dust.
Gloop… gloop…
The crumbling stopped.
The lance—still embedded in the core—was swallowed.
Black tendrils wrapped it, devouring it, assimilating it, turning it into fuel.
"…No…" Artemis's face went white. "It… it consumed even the godslaying spear?!"
Antares's voice deepened, distorting into something worse.
"Delicious… this power… Orion's power…"
Its body swelled again, and the black goddess-statue on its back opened its eyes—
Eyes that looked like Artemis's…
But filled with chaos and madness.
"Thank you… for delivering… the final piece."
A divine pressure ten times greater than before detonated outward.
The Elsois Ruins began to collapse completely. The sky bled into crimson. A halo of ruin formed behind Antares, and within it, a world-ending beam—"the Arrow of God"—began to condense.
"…We're done," Hermes whispered, his weapon falling from numb fingers. "This is… actually game over."
True despair.
The last card had been played—and the enemy had eaten it.
There was no "next move."
And then, in that dead silence—
a faint voice.
"Trace…"
Shirou.
He had fallen to one knee. Blood ran from his eyes, ears, nose—his consciousness tearing apart at the seams.
And yet he kept chanting.
"…Not… over…""As long as… I'm breathing…"
"Idiot—stop!" Ais tried to surge forward, but the divine pressure pinned her down like gravity itself. "Your body is already—!"
"I know," Shirou said, and the smile that appeared was broken and savage.
Of course he knew.
His circuits weren't just burnt—they were melting. His soul itself was collapsing.
But if he didn't stand here—if he didn't swing—
then the goddess who'd smiled and said "The moonlight is beautiful tonight" would truly be lost.
"I'm… a hero of justice."
Shirou forced himself upright.
Gold began to flood his pupils, swallowing the old amber. Not just magic anymore—something older, deeper.
Something like the essence of a Heroic Spirit—a bridge toward a throne that recorded legends.
"If this world's weapons… aren't enough…""If the spear isn't enough…"
"Then… we use that sword."
Shirou shut his eyes.
In the endless wasteland in his mind—far past the horizon of countless blades—he reached for a light he had always chased.
Not his sword.
The king's sword.
The sword he had once admired, once pursued, once sworn to protect.
"I am the bone of my sword."
But this time, it wasn't the projection of a cheap imitation.
It was truth descending.
"Steel is my body.""Fire is my blood."
The air vibrated.
Golden particles rose from nothing, circling him like breathing starlight.
Antares sensed it and screamed.
"Die… DIE DIE DIE—!!!"
The demon-god fired everything.
Beams of ruin tore down like judgment.
Shirou didn't dodge.
Golden light spread, becoming a barrier—conceptual, absolute, impossibly gentle.
A name surfaced, like a legend returning home.
Avalon—even if only as a projected concept, it stood between him and a god's wrath.
"Unaware of loss.""Nor aware of gain.""Withstood pain to create many weapons…"
Shirou opened his eyes.
In his hands—
a sword.
Hilt, guard, blade, all wrapped in gold so intense the metal itself couldn't be seen.
The world shuddered under its sanctity.
The Sword of Stars.
Not merely a "sword of victory."
A planetary armament, forged to save a world at the end of its lifespan.
Excalibur Proto.
Artemis stared at it as if her very soul was trembling.
"That is…!"
Shirou's voice was vast now—layered, as if overlapping with a distant king.
"Unseal it."
And then—
Seal Thirteen — Decision Start.
The Round Table convened in spirit, and the sky itself seemed to listen.
"—This battle is a battle for survival. (Kay)"Acknowledged. The golden pillar ignited and tore crimson from the heavens.
"—This battle must be against one stronger than oneself. (Bedivere)"Acknowledged. A mortal raising a blade against a god—condition fulfilled.
"—This battle must not be one that strays from the path of humanity. (Gareth)"Acknowledged. For protection. For love. For justice.
"—This battle is one of subjugating evil. (Mordred)"Acknowledged. Antares—an evil that would erase the world.
"—This battle is a battle without selfishness. (Galahad)"Acknowledged. No reward, only a wish to save a sorrowful goddess.
"—This battle is a battle in pursuit of truth. (Agravain)"Acknowledged.
Six restraints fell.
But against the fully godlike Antares—
it still wasn't enough.
Shirou looked at the monster.
And then at the goddess-statue on its back—
where tears streamed down a face that still resembled Artemis.
"Artemis…"
"You said you wanted to see the Lower World.""You said you wanted to fall in love.""You said you wanted… to live."
"So then—"
He raised the sword that had become a beam of pure light.
"—This battle is the battle to save the world. (Arthur)"
Acknowledged.
The seventh restraint shattered.
More than half the bindings released.
The Sword of Stars revealed its fully awakened radiance.
"EXCALIBUR—!!!"
For that single moment, Shirou was no longer simply Emiya Shirou.
He was light.
He was hope.
He was—a hero.
"CUT!"
The blade came down.
And what followed could not be described as an "explosion."
It was purification.
A golden flood swallowed Antares, swallowed the ruins, swallowed everything.
Antares's defenses dissolved like snow under sunrise. Its divinity flaked away. Its body—its very existence—was erased by the concept of a world-saving sword.
It didn't even get to scream.
Because there was nothing left that could scream.
…
White space.
A field of flowers. A sky like quiet starlight.
Shirou stood there, whole again. No burns. No blood. No broken bones.
"So this is… the afterlife?" he muttered, scratching his cheek like it was a minor inconvenience. "Guess I finally overdid it."
"Idiot Orion."
A voice behind him—warm, gentle, smiling through tears.
Shirou turned.
Artemis stood there.
Not a fading remnant.
Not a thought.
A true goddess, with a real body, in a white dress, smiling like moonlight made human.
"Artemis…"
"Thank you," she whispered, touching his face. "Thank you… for saving me."
Saving…?
Shirou's mouth twisted into a bitter smile. "I… killed you."
"That was my salvation." Artemis shook her head. "And you didn't kill me. You… woke me up from the nightmare."
She gestured around them.
"This is within my divine core. In the final moment, your sword purified Antares… while preserving my soul."
Shirou's eyes lit up. "Then you can revive?!"
Artemis's gaze softened—and saddened.
"No."
"The core is broken," she said quietly. "I have to go back."
"…Back?"
"To Heaven," Artemis answered. "And after that… I will be reborn, perhaps after a very long time. Perhaps I will descend again someday."
Her voice shook.
"But by then… I won't be me anymore."
"I will forget."
"This journey… this pain… this love…"
"And… you."
Shirou fell silent.
That was the rule of gods.
Rebirth meant reset.
Memory, erased.
But then—
Shirou smiled.
He took her hand.
"Then it's fine."
"Even if you forget…"
"I'll remember."
"I'll remember the goddess who cried under the moon.""I'll remember the one who liked barbecue more than she admitted.""I'll remember the idiot who said she wanted to date me."
"Orion…"
Artemis's tears finally spilled.
She stepped in close, rose onto her toes—
and kissed him.
This time, it wasn't a blessing.
It was a real kiss.
A farewell kiss between human and god, in a sea of flowers beneath starlight.
"I love you," Artemis whispered against his ear.
"Even after ten thousand years…"
"Even if I become someone else…"
"I will find you again."
"Goodbye… my Orion."
Her body broke into countless motes of light and drifted upward—like stars returning to the sky.
…
Reality.
The ruined remains of Elsois.
"Cough—!"
Shirou's eyes snapped open.
Blue sky.
White clouds.
And several faces looming far too close.
"He's awake!""He's alive!""Thank the gods—!"
Hestia was crying. Lili was crying. Even Asfi looked like she'd aged ten years.
Ais wasn't crying—
but her eyes were red, and her grip on Shirou's left hand was so tight it hurt.
Hermes sat on a broken slab nearby, holding a dull, lifeless lance—Orion's Arrow, now nothing more than ruined metal.
"Hey, hero," he said, voice rough. "Congrats on clearing. The cost was… unpleasant."
Shirou tried to sense his body.
Mana empty.
Bones screaming.
Right arm… ruined.
He'd be bedridden for months.
But he was alive.
"…Artemis?" he rasped.
"She's gone," Hermes said, pointing at the sky. "Back up there. But… she went peacefully."
Shirou stared into the bright day, and somehow—somewhere—he felt the moon.
Then Ais spoke, quiet and sharp.
"Shirou. Your back…"
"Huh?"
Hestia, in a panic, yanked at his shredded clothing (and absolutely tried to cop a feel).
There—beside the emblem of the Loki Familia—
a new mark had appeared.
A crescent moon.
Artemis's Blessing.
Nighttime overall ability up. Increased resistance to abnormal states. And—somehow—
a promise carved into his very existence.
"That idiot goddess…" Shirou murmured, fingers brushing the mark, smiling with aching tenderness. "Saying she'd forget…"
"This is her way of making sure I don't."
He tried to sit up—Ais immediately shoved him back down.
"Don't."
Shirou laughed weakly.
"…Alright."
He looked at them—his loud, reckless, stubborn companions.
"We go home."
"Back to Orario."
"And then—"
"We eat something good."
"YES!!!" Hestia screamed through tears.
And amid broken stone and soot and sunlight, the party—bruised, exhausted, alive—began the long road back.
The godslaying was over.
But in the quiet warmth behind it—
the world continued.
....
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