With the Witch of "Silence" gone, the boulder crushing everyone's chest finally lifted.
But the air still stank of scorched flesh and blood—afterimage of a hellscape that made it painfully clear: what just happened wasn't a hallucination.
"Gulp… gulp…"
Emiya Shirou sat like a collapsed sack on a pile of broken stone and finished the last drop of the Elixir (Bixir) he'd "talked" out of Alfia.
The golden liquid had no bitterness. It was warmth—instant, invasive, absurd.
Bones snapped back into place with crisp pops. Torn muscle reknit like someone fast-forwarding a repair montage. Even the "contact-bad" state of his magic circuits—fried by overdraft—clicked back into clean operation like someone poured oil into rusted gears.
"Hah… alive again." Shirou wiped his mouth, staring at the empty crystal vial. "This stuff is ridiculous. It's literally a full HP/MP potion."
He sighed, then muttered like a man reviewing a broken game balance patch:
"That 'auntie' carries this around… is she keeping herself as a portable blood tank or something? She's a mage, for God's sake…"
"Emiya!" Ryuu limped over—cloak shredded, bandages exposed, face streaked with dirt and blood that hadn't even dried. "Are you alright? That potion… that mana signature… that's not normal."
"I'm fine. I feel like I could barehand a Minotaur." Shirou rolled his shoulders; joints clicked. "You guys—how bad?"
"We're okay." Alise stood with her Crimson Lotus Sword as a crutch. The blade was rolled and battered, durability screaming for mercy, but her eyes were still bright.
"Your 'Unlimited Shield Works' kept us to scrapes," she said, then looked west—where flames still climbed the sky.
"But the real problem… is over there."
If the North District was "magic artillery," the West Gate was something older and uglier.
A pure, nauseating feeding site.
"Crunch… chew…"
That chewing noise crushed the battlefield's clamor under its heel.
Zard stood in the breached gate, one hand holding a freshly killed giant ogre—summoned by the Evils—like it was a snack.
He bit into the ogre's skull like a biscuit.
"Disgusting." He swallowed and grimaced. "Meat's old. Mana's thin. And it reeks like sewer sludge."
He kept eating anyway.
Because he had to.
His body was a furnace burning through life itself; if he didn't feed, his own power would "digest" him from the inside. That was the curse of being strong enough to stand at the top.
Opposite him, a boar-man warrior dragged himself from the rubble—blood-soaked, ribs broken, one arm clearly ruined.
Ottar—not yet the man called "Mighty One."
Just the captain of Freya Familia, the strongest candidate of Orario.
In front of Zard, he looked like a child handed an adult's war.
"What's wrong, Ottar?" Zard tossed the ogre remains aside—not mercy, not contempt—a lure. "This is the ace Freya boasts about?"
He lifted the cleaver-sized blade Ogre Killer, gray toxin winding along it—Zard's venomous "distillation" made weaponized.
"If you're only this much…""Then you'll be my appetizer."
The cleaver fell.
No flourish. No technique display.
Just a slab of inevitability that turned air into a wall.
Ottar's instincts screamed: can't block.
But he couldn't retreat.
Behind him was the road toward the Tower—toward his goddess.
So he did something insane.
He threw away the broken sword.
And charged in with bare fists.
"Trading wounds? Stupid." Zard smiled.
The cleaver bit into Ottar's shoulder, sinking toward the collarbone—nearly splitting him diagonally.
Blood exploded across Zard's face.
But Ottar didn't drop.
He locked the blade in place with muscle, bone, will—then drove his blood-soaked right fist into Zard's abdomen with everything he had left.
"MOVE…!!" he roared.
THUD—!!
Zard's mountain-body… shifted.
Half a step back.
A thin line of blood at his mouth.
Zard looked down at the fist mark, then at Ottar's eyes—eyes that didn't contain fear.
Only hunger for strength.
"…Good." Zard's expression turned genuinely interested. "That flavor… reminds me of a certain 'weakest' I once knew. Still raw, but the bones are hard."
He pulled the cleaver free, kicked Ottar away—
And didn't finish him.
Because he sensed it:
A sign of evolution.
"Get stronger, Ottar," Zard said, turning and continuing into the city, shoving rubble and stone into his mouth like it was ration bread.
"Don't die before the final act.""I want to taste you… fully ripe."
That was the night before the "Mighty One" is born.
Shirou's group returned as the sky paled. They'd survived Alfia, but Orario wasn't saved:
The Evils were still tearing through the city.
Zard was still feeding.
The Guild's lines were breaking.
Alise stared at the map, jaw tight. "If Zard and Alfia converge and hit the Tower… Orario ends."
Kaguya scanned the room—too many wounded, too many broken weapons. "We can't fight Zard. Hell, another Level 4-class officer would be a nightmare."
Silence spread—thick, sticky despair.
Like reaching the boss room and realizing: no potions left, and the boss has a second form.
Then—
"Not over."
Shirou's voice cut through it.
He stood in the kitchen doorway wearing an apron again—because of course he did—holding a kitchen knife, eyes steady as if he hadn't just been burned to charcoal an hour ago.
"You're hungry, right?" he asked, then pointed into the kitchen. "Then eat first."
Lylia exploded. "Eat?! Now?! We're dying out there!"
"Exactly because it's now." Shirou's tone was flat—unarguable. "If you're not fed, you can't create miracles. Steel needs fuel."
Metal clanged. A pot's lid rattled. The sound of "home" returned to a courtyard that had nearly become a grave.
"And this meal," Shirou added, "isn't just food."
An hour later, they laid a long table outside—rooftops were half gone, so the sky served as ceiling.
Roast meat, stew, even sashimi (ordinary fish—no mermaid supplier today).
But the centerpiece was a huge cauldron of golden broth, rolling like sunlight, thick with mana to the point it felt tangible.
Ryuu stared. Her circuits almost sang.
"What… is that?"
Shirou lifted the lid like a stage curtain.
"Emiya Special: Hero's Feast."
He said it plainly—then casually admitted the most illegal cooking method imaginable:
"All remaining stock. Plus… traces from that Elixir vial. And some 'blessing water' I'm not going to explain."
He held up three fingers.
"HP/MP restored."
"Negative status removed."
"And most importantly…"
His eyes sharpened.
"Pseudo Rank-Up (Pseudo Ascension). Duration: 3 hours."
Alise nearly choked. "Everyone… ranks up?! That's a forbidden miracle! You sold your soul!"
"It's just cooking," Shirou said, deadpan. "I extracted 'concept' from ingredients and put it into your stomachs. Less elegant than Haruhime's hammer, but higher throughput."
The courtyard atmosphere snapped.
The despair cracked.
Not because the world got kinder—
Because someone, absurdly, manufactured hope in a pot.
Kaguya drank first, wiped her mouth, and grinned. "This is insane… I like it."
"Me too!""Give me more!""I want strength!"
Bowls clinked. Laughter returned, fierce and raw.
Not a last supper.
A signal flare.
After breakfast, their condition was back to peak—worse: it was better than peak.
Alise's sword fire ran hotter. Kaguya's blade cut cleaner. Ryuu's aim steadied into something closer to "inevitable."
Before they moved out, Ryuu found Shirou quietly sorting gear.
She held out a short sword—crude, but earnest—made from remnants of her broken wooden blade and fragments of spirit wood, ground down and reforged by hand.
"It's not like your projections," she said, refusing to meet his eyes. "But it's… a charm."
She hesitated, then threatened him with perfect Ryuu logic:
"Come back alive. If you don't… I'll smash all your pots."
Shirou took it. Light. Warm. The hilt bore a small engraving:
Ryuu.
"…Yeah," he said softly, tucking it close. "This is the best equipment I've gotten. Better than any artifact."
He turned to the assembled Astraea Familia.
"Objective: West Gate ruins.""Target: Zard.""Operation codename: If We Can't Eat, We Flip the Table."
"Move out."
In the first light of morning, the little "justice" familia marched toward the monster that should be unkillable—
While somewhere high above, Freya watched through crystal, lips curling.
"Ottar… is really about to awaken."
"…But that red-haired boy is more interesting."
"Cooking as a Noble Phantasm…"
And the final stage of the Great Feud began assembling itself—blood, fire… and a pot of impossible gold.
....
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