The Juggernaut's scream was like fingernails scraping a blackboard—sharp, grating, and laced with a shriek that seemed to claw at the soul.
Even as a low-grade mimic summon, Juggernaut was still absurdly fast—so fast it looked like the world was dropping frames.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Emiya Shirou's twin blades became a black-and-white cyclone, barely catching the monster's frenzied bone claws. Every collision felt like taking a siege hammer head-on. Sparks burst. His palms split. His arms went numb to the bone.
"Isn't this supposed to be a DEX build…?" Shirou hissed through clenched teeth, boots plowing two deep trenches into the earth as he skidded backward. "Since when does a 'speed type' hit this hard?!"
Even with a Level 3 body pushed into the grotesque territory of all-stats-overcap, he was still forced into pure defense.
Far away, Jura waved his single remaining arm and laughed until he choked on his own spit.
"Useless! Useless! It's over!"
"The Destroyer is invincible! It's the final weapon evolved solely for slaughter!"
"Stop struggling—your fate is to become meat paste!"
"Shut up, one-armed uncle," Shirou snapped, eyes sharpening as Mind's Eye (True) fully opened.
"Left—no, feint—RIGHT!"
"Trace—Overload!"
Kanshou and Bakuya swelled in his hands, their forms distorting into heavy, wing-like blades. Instead of blocking, Shirou made the most reckless choice possible—
He traded blows.
BOOM!
The impact blasted him off his feet. He crashed through a tree and bounced across the ground, coughing blood.
But the Juggernaut's bone claw—
For the first time—
cracked.
A thin fracture line spread across the "unbreakable" armor.
"Emiya!" Ryuu shouted, gripping the silver bow—Failnaught–Sirius—her voice tight with panic.
"Don't worry about me! Shoot!" Shirou spat blood and forced himself upright. "Its magic reflection only covers the surface! The joints—its sensory nodes—those are weak points!"
Ryuu's fingers trembled.
Five years ago, that nightmare had eaten her whole life. Alise. Kaguya. Every one of them—reduced to fragments under those claws.
Fear wasn't just in her memory.
It was carved into her bones.
"RYUU LION!"
Shirou's roar cut through her flashback like a blade.
He stood in front of the monster with his back to her, soaked in blood, breathing like a broken engine—
and yet his body, small as it was, felt like a mountain in that moment.
"Look at me!" he shouted. "Not the past—NOW!"
"I'm here! I'm still alive!"
"As long as the sword in my hand hasn't snapped, you have no right to despair!"
"Give me your back—"
"—and use your arrow to pierce it!"
Ryuu froze.
Those sky-blue eyes reflected the sight of him fighting while bleeding out.
A human she'd only known for a short time.
A meddlesome idiot who had no business dragging himself into her abyss.
So why—
Why did his words feel like an anchor?
"…Yes," Ryuu whispered.
She inhaled, deep and steady. She closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, the fear was gone.
In its place was the blade-like clarity of Gale.
"I am… an elf."
"I am wind."
"And wind does not kneel to fear."
Failnaught–Sirius sang in her hands. Silver-white limbs glowed; green vine-like patterns lit up across its body. The air around her began to flow—spiraling, gathering at her fingertips.
No physical arrow.
Her Mind would be the arrow.
"Luminous Wind—Form."
Green radiance condensed into a long, elegant light-bolt. It settled into place as if the bow had always been waiting for this.
"Go."
Whoosh—!
The shot didn't fly straight. It carved a predatory curve through the air like a hunting wolf, slipping around Juggernaut's frontal coverage—aiming directly for the right knee joint.
Juggernaut sensed the mana and tried to angle its armor to reflect—
And in that exact moment—
"Don't you dare!"
Shirou moved.
He flung his twin blades—no, not to cut, but to jam.
Kanshou and Bakuya wedged perfectly into the monster's motion path, halting its movement for a fraction of time.
Not even a full second.
0.1 seconds.
That was all.
Thk!
Ryuu's bolt pierced into the narrow seam of the knee joint—no reflective plating, only tendon and internal structure.
Juggernaut shrieked. Its right leg buckled.
It dropped to one knee like a guillotined statue.
"Beautiful!" Shirou grinned, blood at the corner of his mouth. "See that? That's the value of 'sure hit'!"
Ryuu didn't stop.
Now that she'd crossed the wall of fear—
she would smash it into dust.
A chain of shots followed, each one blessed by wind, each one surgical: shoulder joint, wrist seam, ankle gap—
Juggernaut's armor remained terrifying, but under this "operating-table" assault, its movement collapsed.
It twitched.
It convulsed.
It couldn't advance.
Jura stared like his brain had stopped working.
"How… how is this possible?! That's the Destroyer! How can a human and a crippled elf suppress it?!"
"Because you're stupid," Shirou answered, voice suddenly colder than the smoke. He was still fighting, still moving—yet his peripheral awareness never stopped tracking the real enemy.
"This thing is strong, sure."
"But it's an empty puppet."
"And we—"
Shirou launched upward, mana roaring through his body like a furnace about to detonate.
"We're idiots with something to protect!"
"Trace—!"
This time the weapon in his hands wasn't a sword pair.
It was a massive spiral greatsword, shaped like a drill.
Caladbolg II.
But he didn't fire it like an arrow.
He treated it like a boring tool.
"If your shell is hard—"
"Then I'll punch a hole through it."
Shirou fell like a meteor, gravity compounding into killing force, and drove Caladbolg down toward the top of Juggernaut's head—where a crystalline node gleamed like a control core.
Juggernaut sensed death.
It heaved its intact left arm up, trying to reflect the strike—
"RYUU!"
"I understand!"
Ryuu's gaze went distant, empty of everything but intent. She poured what remained of her Mind—every last drop—into Failnaught–Sirius.
Moonlight flooded the bow.
"This shot… is for everyone."
"Failnaught—!"
BOOM!
A beam far thicker than before erupted—slamming into Juggernaut's raised left arm.
Some of the energy reflected.
But enough remained.
Enough to shove that arm aside by half a meter.
A half-meter—
that became an open gate.
"Take this!"
Shirou's spiral sword screamed as it drilled straight into the head-core crystal.
No resistance.
No miracle save.
It sank all the way in.
"Broken Phantasm—internal detonation!"
KRAKABOOM—!!
It didn't explode outward.
It detonated inside.
Juggernaut's body bulged violently like an overinflated balloon. The outer armor held—still hard, still intact—
but the inside became a blender of mana and shrapnel.
Organs, structure, marrow—turned into powder.
"…G—?"
A final, meaningless sound escaped it.
Then the massive form collapsed into black dust.
A large, cracked magic stone hit the ground with a dull thud.
Silence.
The battle was over.
Shirou landed hard, Caladbolg dissolving into light. His muscles spasmed. His mana tank was empty again. Every fight lately had been life-burning insanity.
Ryuu lowered the bow. Her knees wobbled—but her face held a smile she hadn't worn in years.
"We… won."
"…Yeah." Shirou stepped in, catching her before she fell. "Good work, partner."
From the ash-strewn ground, a trembling voice leaked out.
"No… no way…"
Jura sat on the earth, staring at the remains like his world had been peeled open. His eyes were hollow.
"My masterpiece… my revenge… how could it lose to something this—"
"Because you picked the wrong person."
Shirou walked toward him, every step heavy, every word colder.
"You used corpses to build a monster."
"You tried to feed the last survivor to it."
"Jura—hell won't even take you."
"D-Don't come closer!" Jura scrabbled backward, whipping wildly with the beast-tamer's lash. "I'm a Dark Faction officer! I still have a card left! I still—"
He fumbled out another magic stone—an emergency summon core.
"If I can't live—then we all die together!"
He raised it to crush—
Slice.
A wind blade flashed.
Jura's wrist separated cleanly. The stone tumbled away.
Ryuu stood over him, short blade in hand, eyes colder than winter.
"This ends… now."
"G-Gale…" Jura sobbed, clutching the stump. "Please… for old times' sake…"
"Old times?" Ryuu's gaze softened—only for an instant—into grief.
"Because of old times…"
"I can't let you stain Astraea Familia's name any further."
Her blade moved.
But it wasn't a killing cut.
The flat of the blade slammed into the base of his neck.
Jura's body went slack.
He collapsed unconscious.
Shirou blinked. "You're not killing him?"
"…Killing him would dirty my hands." Ryuu sheathed her blade, voice quiet but clear. "And compared to death…"
"Letting him face the Guild's judgment—rotting in a cell for the rest of his life…"
"That's the punishment he deserves."
"And… I think that's the justice Alise would want."
Moonlight filtered down through shattered ceiling rock, washing Ryuu in pale silver.
She wasn't a revenge phantom anymore.
She looked like someone reborn.
"Thank you, Emiya," she said softly, cheeks faintly pink. "If you hadn't come…"
"I might've become the real monster."
Shirou scratched his head awkwardly. "I didn't do much."
"Mostly the bow is just really good."
"No." Ryuu shook her head, stepping closer.
Then, before Shirou could react—
she rose onto her toes and hugged him, light and brief, like a wind gust carrying a confession.
"You're my… hero."
"…I hate to interrupt the emotional climax," a flat voice cut in from the trees, "but the Guild support team is almost here."
Aiz Wallenstein stepped out, sword in hand.
Behind her was Liliruca, wearing the face of someone who had discovered the world's best gossip.
"If we don't want to get arrested as accomplices," Aiz continued, "we should leave. Now."
"Aiz?!" Shirou jolted. "Why are you here?"
"Finn told me to 'clean up your mess.'"
Aiz's eyes flicked to Jura, then to the bow in Ryuu's hands—lingering a little too long, as if she sensed what it contained.
"…Looks like I won't need to swing."
"E-Emiya-sama is totally a playboy!" Lili puffed her cheeks. "He said he came to rescue someone, and he still captured another girl's heart!"
"Why is it 'still'?!" Shirou protested.
"Enough." Aiz grabbed Shirou's hand—firmly, decisively, like staking a claim. "We're going home."
Shirou exhaled and nodded, then looked at Ryuu.
"Ryuu… coming with us?"
"No." She pulled her hood up again, hiding her expression. "There are things I must do."
"And… right now, I still can't stand in the sunlight."
She lifted Failnaught–Sirius and gave it a small shake.
"I'm keeping the bow."
"As proof… of our secret."
Then she vanished into the forest—like wind.
Free.
Not lost.
Shirou swallowed and felt heat on the back of his neck.
Two stares.
Aiz and Lili.
Burning.
"…So," he said quickly, "how about we go back and make a late-night meal? I'm starving."
"Potato croquettes," Aiz answered instantly.
"Premium steak!" Lili piled on without shame.
"Okay, okay—fine. Both."
Under the moonlight, the three of them headed for the exit.
Wounded. Exhausted.
But walking lightly.
Because in the Dungeon's cruelty, hope still existed.
And from the shadows of Floor 18, a masked figure watched—amused, satisfied.
Hermes' smile curved.
"Well done, Emiya Shirou."
"You didn't just save that elf."
"You saved Orario's conscience."
"…But."
He glanced down at the information in his hand, eyes narrowing slightly—like a man who had just found the next page of a disaster.
....
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