Orario's dusk bled red across the horizon.
For some reason, today's sunset was unbearably crimson—like an omen for the long night about to swallow the city.
"The air feels… dirty today."
Emiya Shirou walked through the North District with arms full of bulging shopping bags, packed with high-calorie supplies meant for wartime. The Guild had issued multiple evacuation warnings already, but people still had to live—so plenty of vendors stubbornly kept their stalls open.
"I need to get back fast," he muttered. "If I miss dinner, Alise will probably tear the kitchen apart."
He quickened his pace.
Then—
A sound made him stop.
Crunch… gulp… crunch…
It wasn't the sound of a person eating.
It was the sound of a large beast pulverizing bone.
Shirou turned his head.
In front of a stall that had been selling roast whole pig sat a "mountain."
No—literally.
A giant of a man, well over two meters tall, muscles piled on muscle like carved granite. He wore a battered gray trench coat, hair a tangled mess, eyes dull and unfocused.
Before him lay the skeletons of more than a dozen roast pigs.
And he wasn't picking meat off the bones.
He was eating everything—meat, bone, even the decorative greens and the rim of the serving platters—stuffing it all into his mouth, chewing, and swallowing.
The vendor had crawled under the table, trembling like a leaf.
"Hey," the giant rumbled, voice low as thunder. "Got more?"
"This isn't even enough to fill the gaps between my teeth."
"N-no! That's all! Please, sir—have mercy!" the vendor cried.
"Tch. Useless." The giant grabbed a bucket of raw water and chugged it in one go.
Gluttony.
Zard.
The last remnant of the Zeus Familia. A Level 7 pinnacle—and a monster who kept his dying body moving by devouring everything in reach.
Shirou's True Mind's Eye screamed alarms.
This presence… was more violent, more chaotic than Alfia's.
If Alfia was a silent abyss, this man was a volcano mid-eruption.
"So this is… Gluttony."
Shirou tightened his grip on the shopping bags.
Logic said: turn around and leave. Now. Disappear. Do not get noticed.
But as he watched the emptiness in the giant's eyes—an emptiness no amount of food could ever fill—
The chef's instinct in him flared.
Before he knew it, he was moving.
"Um…"
Shirou walked over and set his bags on the table.
"If you don't mind… would you like to try this?"
Zard stopped chewing.
Slowly, he turned his head.
His murky gaze locked onto Shirou—and in that instant, Shirou felt like a tyrannosaurus had found him.
"Kid…" Zard sniffed the air. "You stink of that woman."
Alfia.
"And you've got a good smell too."
"A smell of iron."
"You know her?" Shirou asked carefully.
Zard's lips peeled back in a jagged grin, teeth white as knives.
"Yeah. You could call it… a cursed connection."
Then he pointed at Shirou's bags.
"Since you're a friend of hers, I'll give you a chance."
"If I don't like it…"
"I'll eat you. Along with the bags."
"Your standards are brutal," Shirou sighed, but he didn't back away.
He pulled out a huge slab of meat from the supplies—intended to be tonight's main dish.
Wyvern tenderloin.
"Boss," Shirou called to the vendor under the table, "mind if I borrow your grill?"
"P-please! Use anything you want! Just don't kill me!"
Cooking began.
For someone like Zard, delicate cuisine meant nothing.
What he needed wasn't refinement.
It was mass—and impact.
"Trace."
A massive cleaver appeared in Shirou's hand. Normal knives couldn't even bite into monster meat like this.
His movements became a blur.
Breakdown. Debone. Strip sinew. Marinate.
He crushed a heavy mix of spices into the meat—using the rest of those devil peppers he'd been hoarding—then lit it with mana flame and seared it hard.
"Heat… all the way up!"
Boom!
Fire roared into the sky.
This wasn't normal grilling.
This was alchemical cooking—Reinforcement magic sealing in juices, explosive heat forcing instant doneness.
Five minutes later…
A slab of meat nearly as tall as a person—radiating suffocating aroma and wicked spice—landed in front of Zard.
A super-sized tyrant roast.
Shirou wiped sweat off his brow.
"Please. Special 'feast-in-one-dish' edition."
Zard stared at it.
Golden-brown crust, fat sizzling and popping.
When the surface split, the steam burst out like a mushroom cloud.
He didn't use utensils.
He reached out, grabbed the scalding slab with his bare hand, and took a bite.
Crunch!
Crisp exterior.
Juicy, tender inside.
The rich meat and devil-pepper burn detonated across his tongue.
"…!"
Zard's pupils snapped tight.
Hot. Spicy. Violent.
And yet—
"Now that's what I'm talking about!"
He roared and began devouring it like a starving beast. For a moment, it didn't feel like he was eating just to survive.
It felt like he was tasting what it meant to be alive.
"Is it… good?" Shirou asked, cautiously.
"Don't ask stupid questions."
Zard finished the entire slab in a handful of bites—bones and all—then licked grease and spice from his fingers.
"Kid. What's your name?"
"Emiya Shirou."
"Emiya…" Zard stood up.
His shadow swallowed Shirou whole.
"Your food is better than the cooks Hera used to keep."
"If I'd met you earlier…"
"Maybe I wouldn't have turned into a monster that only knows how to eat."
He pulled out a battered coin and flicked it at Shirou.
"Payment."
Shirou caught it.
An old coin stamped with Zeus's profile—an antique so rare it was practically priceless.
"And one more thing."
Zard turned his head, looking toward the distant Babel Tower.
His eyes sharpened, turning cold.
Killing intent poured out of him so thick the air warped.
"Go back, Emiya Shirou."
"The last supper is over."
"Huh?" Shirou froze.
"Can't you hear it?" Zard pointed toward the sky.
"The funeral bell."
The moment the words left his mouth—
BOOOOM!
A thunderous explosion erupted from multiple corners of Orario at once.
City walls.
Blown apart.
Then black smoke pillars shot up into the heavens.
Sirens. Screams. Monsters howling.
In a heartbeat, the entire city drowned in chaos.
The Great Feud—
had begun.
"It's started." Zard drew the massive cleaver-like blade from his back, a weapon like a door ripped off its hinges.
He didn't look back. He simply waved once.
"Go. Protect what you want to protect."
"And I…"
"I'm going to finish my final performance."
With heavy steps, the monster called Gluttony walked toward the battlefield where Ottar would stand.
Every footfall cracked the ground, leaving deep prints behind.
A hero of an old era—walking calmly toward destruction.
"Damn it…"
Shirou clenched the ancient coin in his fist.
No time to stare.
He turned and sprinted—straight for the Garden of Stardust.
"I have to make it in time!"
Orario had already become hell.
Members of the Evils poured out from sewers, alleyways, and disguised storefronts. They unleashed prepared monsters, lit buried explosives, and butchered anyone they found.
"Help!""Guards! Where are the guards?!"
Civilians stampeded through streets.
Shirou ran across rooftops, True Mind's Eye wide open, searching for familiar presences.
"There!"
At an intersection ahead, black-cloaked thugs surrounded a small group of civilians.
"Trace on!"
In midair, Shirou projected a longbow.
"Scatter shot!"
Three arrows snapped out at once, drilling neatly through the thugs' thighs.
"Get to the shelter!" Shirou landed, shoving civilians toward a safer route, then launched himself onward.
The Astraea Familia residence—
was under attack.
The gate had been blown apart. Monster corpses littered the courtyard.
"Hyah!"
Alise's sword burned with crimson flame as she cleaved an ogre in half.
"Everyone! Hold the line! Do not let them reach the inner yard—there are children sheltering there!"
"Understood!"
Kaguya's blade flowed like silver water through the enemy ranks, carving through throats and tendons with merciless efficiency.
Lylia braced behind her great shield, absorbing a half-beast's savage charge.
And Ryuu—
stood on the rooftop.
Her wooden sword—recently repaired by Shirou—was unsharpened, but every strike landed with surgical precision, knocking enemies unconscious.
"There are too many…" Ryuu panted, staring at the endless stream of black-robed attackers. "This is a full assault."
"Hold on!" Alise shouted. "Ganesha Familia reinforcements will be here soon!"
Then—
BOOM!
A section of wall collapsed.
Through the dust strode a man in black heavy armor, carrying a massive axe.
His presence—
Level 5.
An executive of the Evils.
Valletta's right hand.
"Ha-ha-ha!" he howled. "Astraea's little justice girls!"
"Today is your death day!"
"For our great cause—go die!"
He raised his axe and brought it down toward Lylia at the front.
That blow was brutal enough to shatter her defense; at Level 3, she couldn't stop it.
"Lylia!" Alise tried to rush in—
but enemies pinned her down.
"This is it…" Lylia shut her eyes in despair.
Clang!
A crisp metallic impact rang out.
No pain came.
Lylia's eyes snapped open.
In front of her stood a back that wasn't large—
but felt impossibly reliable.
Red hair.
Black clothing.
And in his hands—
twin black-and-white blades.
"Sorry," Emiya Shirou said, glancing back with a smile that made breathing easier.
"I'm late."
"Emiya?!" Lylia screamed, half crying, half laughing.
Shirou turned forward.
His smile vanished.
He looked at the Level 5 executioner, eyes icing over.
"Picking on girls," Shirou said flatly.
"Looks like you don't want that axe anymore."
"Huh?" The armored brute sneered. Shirou's presence—masked—looked like a Level 2 at best.
"Where'd this kid come from? Wanna play hero?"
"Know your weight before you swing above your class!"
"Weight?" Shirou's lips curved.
He lifted one hand and snapped his fingers.
"Trace—overload."
Kanshou and Bakuya swelled, expanding into winged greatblade forms.
His pressure surged—jumping from "Level 2" to something sharp enough to threaten a Level 5, even if only briefly.
"Try me," Shirou said, stance settling.
"I'll show you what happens…"
"…when a chef of justice gets angry."
Boom!
They collided.
Far away, atop the abandoned church's tower—
Alfia watched the burning city below.
Bodies lay at her feet—those foolish enough to attack her.
"It's begun," she murmured.
"Zard went to Ottar."
"Then…"
"It's my turn to move."
She turned toward the direction of Astraea Familia.
In her mismatched eyes, something complicated flickered—gone as quickly as it appeared.
"Emiya Shirou."
"Show me."
"On this stage called despair…"
"What kind of light can you, a counterfeit, truly produce?"
She raised her hand.
Gospel gathered at her fingertips.
"Your trial…"
"Begins."
....
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