At the far edge of the eastern continent lay the sea.
In this age of myth, the sea did not mean sunshine, beaches, and girls in bikinis. It meant unknown terror… and limitless ingredients.
"Waaaah! It's the sea! A real sea! A salty, endless sea!"
The moment the heavily modified Argo-go, now so altered by Shirou Emiya that its original design was all but unrecognizable, burst out of the forest and came to a stop at the cliffside, Argo was the first to leap down. Like a husky just let out of its cage, he spread his arms to the fish-scented wind and let out a howl so loud that the nearby seagulls nearly dropped out of the sky.
"I wanna see too! Me too!" Oona followed right after him, the Amazon still shouldering her lightning-wreathed greataxe. She planted herself on a rock at the edge of the cliff and stared down at the storm-tossed sea below, drool practically spilling from her mouth. "So many fish… so much meat…! Is this the legendary all-you-can-eat seafood buffet?!"
"What a bunch of country bumpkins," Yuris muttered, leaning against the carriage with his arms folded. His voice was as sharp and prickly as ever, but his wildly swishing wolf tail gave away just how excited he really was. For a wolfman raised deep inland, that boundless "basin of water" really did carry an irresistible charm.
"All right, enough gawking." Shirou hopped down from the driver's seat and stretched. His left hand remained nimble and sure, while his right—the dragonbone prosthetic—was still wrapped in special bandages, faintly glowing beneath them. "Since we've made it to the shore, let's get camp set up first. Tonight…" He smiled. "We're eating well."
"Woohoo! Long live Shirou! Long live the divine chef!" Argo cheered.
"I want that one! The thing with all the legs! The gross-looking one!" Oona pointed enthusiastically at a giant crab scuttling along the beach.
"That's called a crab. And it's not gross. It's delicious," Shirou corrected with a sigh.
Half an hour later, by the beachside camp, it looked less like a seaside holiday and more like an episode of mythic-age survival TV.
"Trace."
Shirou pressed one hand into the sand. Mana flowed. Several thick stone pillars thrust up from the earth, while planks of wood locked themselves into place, and in the blink of an eye a sturdy windbreak stove rose from the ground.
At this rate, if he returned to the future, he could probably win some kind of "Outstanding Architect of Orario" award.
"So amazing…" Aira sat on a reef with her chin in her hands, watching Shirou work with stars in her eyes. "No matter how many times I see it, Shirou's magic feels so mysterious. It's not like Fianna's people, where they chant. It's not like the spirits, who commune with nature. It's more like… he just takes what's in his head and pulls it out into the world."
"Because he's a cheating player," Fina muttered as she adjusted her bowstring. The half-elf's voice was dry, but her gaze lingered on Shirou's back with a trace of worry. "That ability of his—changing matter without a chant—is basically a mockery of proper mages. And…" She lowered her eyes. "His mana… it's getting more unstable. Like a cup that's about to overflow."
"Hey there, beautiful ladies, what're you talking about?" Argo came trotting up, clutching two giant lobsters that were still snapping their claws. "Look! I caught the tyrants of the deep! These bastards tried to pinch my nose just now! Pure suicidal stupidity!"
"Please stay farther away," Fina said coldly. "Don't bring the smell with you."
"Waaah… Fina's so cold…"
"All right, hand me the ingredients." Shirou took the lobsters from him. A kitchen knife flashed into existence in his hand. "Tonight's main course is…"
He turned slightly, the sea breeze catching his hair.
"Shirou-Style Supreme Seafood Curry."
"C-curry again?" Crozzo, carrying that heavy iron anvil even now, looked skeptical. "I mean, it does taste incredible… but isn't it getting a little repetitive?"
"That's where you're wrong." Shirou's smile turned knowing as he began cleaning the lobsters. "Curry is infinitely inclusive. Wild boar from the mountains gives it one kind of savage flavor. Seafood gives it something completely different. It's…" He glanced up with a grin. "The taste of unlimited possibilities."
As the fire roared to life, a tyrannically rich aroma—blending spices with the sweetness of the sea—began to spread across the shore. Oona and Yuris, who had still been fishing a moment ago, instantly came scrambling back ashore like they'd had their souls hooked.
"Is it time to eat?!""My fish! My crab! Throw them in too!"
"Don't rush. There's enough for everyone," Shirou said, already slipping into the role of kindergarten teacher.
And then, just as they gathered around the pot and settled into that rare moment of peace and comfort—
The sea changed.
"RUMBLE—"
The once-restless waves suddenly began to boil as though the ocean itself had turned to soup. Enormous pillars of water erupted skyward, crashing up as far as the cliffs. From the depths of the sea rose a foul magical pressure, something ancient, rotten, and monstrous.
"W-what's happening?!" Argo squealed, nearly face-planting straight into the curry pot. "A tsunami? An earthquake?!"
"No…" Shirou's expression sharpened at once. His Mind's Eye screamed a warning. That pressure… it was even worse than the Black King. Worse than the stitched-together Minotaur. This was no mere monster.
This was a calamity.
Then came the roar.
A sound like something from the pit of the abyss.
A colossal tentacle burst up from beneath the sea. It was thick enough to blot out the sky, and lined with eye-like suckers, each one oozing purple toxin. Then a second tentacle. A third. More and more, until an island-sized mass of flesh finally hauled itself free of the ocean—covered in eyes, writhing limbs, and ancient malice.
Ancient Kraken — Juvenile Form.
Though "juvenile" was almost insulting. In this era, it was the sovereign of the sea. Level Six? No. Fighting in its native waters, its combat power easily rivaled a Level Seven.
"What… what the hell is that thing?!" Oona stared up at it, her greataxe nearly slipping from her grip. "An octopus? A squid? It's way too huge! If we turned that into teppanyaki, we'd be eating till next year!"
"Now is not the time to talk about food!" Yuris snapped, every hair on his body standing on end. His instincts as a wolfman were screaming that this thing was death. "Run! Against something like that, there's no way we can win!"
"We can't." Fina pointed grimly at the coastline. Smaller tentacles—each still the size of a wagon—had already begun to rise, cutting off their retreat. Worse, the creature's countless eyes were fixed not only on the camp…
…but on the curry pot.
"It came because of the curry smell?!" Argo shrieked. "What kind of development is this?! How did our gourmet seaside episode turn into a kaiju disaster movie?!"
"Battle stations!" Shirou didn't waste time. Twin black-and-white blades materialized in his hands. He knew the odds were terrible, but there was nowhere to run.
"Oona! Yuris! Cut down any tentacles that get close!""Fina, Aira! Use ranged attacks and blind it!""Crozzo! Argo! Protect the caravan!"
"Got it!"
"Trace Overload!"
Shirou moved first, his paired blades spreading like black and white wings as he rushed the nearest tentacle.
"Crane Wing—Triple Slash!"
His knives sliced through it cleanly. Purple blood exploded into the air—
—and the severed stump regenerated instantly.
Not only that, it split, bifurcating into two new tentacles that whipped toward him at even greater speed.
"Infinite regeneration?!" Shirou's heart sank. It was even more absurd than the deep-abyss fusion monster. To kill it, they would need to strike the core. But where was the core? That body was so vast it was like trying to find a magic stone inside a mountain.
"Damn it! It just keeps multiplying!" Oona roared, her axe already nicked and bent. Purple blood covered her from head to toe. "Is this thing made of water? The more I chop, the more there are!"
"Then burn it!" Crozzo hurled all his remaining flame swords. Explosions erupted across the shore—only for seawater to surge over them and snuff the fire out in an instant. This was the sea. The Kraken owned this battlefield.
"It's over… we're really done for this time…" Argo clutched his lightning-wood sword, trembling so hard his teeth chattered. "My hero's tale… is it really going to end here? Getting digested by a giant squid is way too pathetic a death!"
Then, suddenly, Crozzo looked at Shirou.
No—more precisely, he looked at the projected blades in Shirou's hands.
"Shirou!" he shouted. "Can you lend me one of your magic swords?"
"Huh?" Shirou glanced back, stunned. "Why? You're out of stock, aren't you?"
"No! I don't want one of those disposable bombs!" Crozzo's eyes blazed with fanatic intensity—the soul of a craftsman burning at full force. "I want a real magic sword! I want to forge one… one that can boil this entire sea dry!"
"Here? Right now?" Shirou stared. "Have you lost your mind? There's no forge, no anvil, not even proper materials!"
"I have!" Crozzo slammed a hand against his own chest. "I have fire! My blood is my fuel! My bones are my anvil!"
With that, he drew a dagger and slashed his own palm open. Blood spilled onto the sand with a sizzling hiss.
Shirou's Mind's Eye pierced straight through it.
That bloodline… It wasn't spirit blood. Not exactly.
It was the cursed, impossible talent of the line destined to become the first true Magic Sword Smiths.
"I don't want to be dead weight forever!" Crozzo roared, his red hair whipping like living flame. "I don't want to keep standing in the back, throwing bombs and praying! I want to be a hero too! I want my sword to protect the people I care about!"
"Shirou! Help me!""Use your 'Unlimited'… as my hammer!"
Shirou looked into those burning eyes.
Then he laughed.
A bright, fearless laugh.
"Gladly."
He flashed to Crozzo's side and placed his gleaming dragonbone right hand on the smith's shoulder.
"Listen, Crozzo. A magic sword isn't about destruction. It's about a wish.""What do you want to burn?""What do you want to sever?""Pour that wish into the blade."
"Trace Sync!"
Their circuits linked.
It was reckless. Dangerous. There was a real chance they'd both overload and die on the spot.
But in that moment, who cared?
"Materials," Shirou said. "I've got them."
With a sweep of his left hand, fragments of broken swords—stockpiled remains of previous prototypes—rose into the air, along with one final treasure he had looted from the Black King's vault and never found a use for until now:
The Heart of a Fire Dragon.
"We forge here," Shirou declared. "Now."
"—Open the furnace!"
A crimson barrier erupted around the two of them. Any tentacle that touched it was instantly vaporized by the heat.
"This… this is Shirou's world?" Crozzo panted, feeling the torrent of mana running through him. It was overwhelming. But he didn't hesitate. He seized the Fire Dragon's Heart in his bleeding hand.
"Burn… my blood.""Let this body be the furnace.""Let this soul be the fuel."
Hammerless, every beat of Crozzo's heart became a strike. Each thundering pulse smashed into the molten mass forming in the air before him, while Shirou guided the raging energies with minute precision, keeping the shape from collapsing.
The Ancient Kraken sensed it at once.
It knew.
Something capable of killing it was being born.
Its tentacles went berserk, slamming again and again against the crimson barrier, trying to crush the two humans inside.
"Hold it back!" Oona bellowed, entering a full berserk state. "Don't let it interrupt them! This is a man's forging scene!"
Yuris. Fina. Aira. Even Argo.
Every last one of them threw themselves forward, using their bodies to form a final line of defense.
"Hurry up! You have to finish!" Argo cried, eyes squeezed shut as he swung his sword wildly. He was terrified, but he didn't take a single step back.
At last—just before the barrier shattered—
"It's done!"
Crozzo let out a scream so fierce it sounded like he was tearing his own lungs apart. He raised both arms.
In his hands now was a sword.
A crimson blade, its body flowing like molten magma, wreathed in ruinous heat.
This was no disposable, one-shot weapon.
No brittle imitation that would shatter after a single swing.
This was the first true blade of its kind.
A magic sword with growth, with soul.
The origin of Crozzo's line.
"My sword…" Crozzo stared at it through tears of blood.
"Its name…""Crimson Moon."
"Go, Crozzo!" Shirou dropped the barrier and shoved him forward. "Show that monster what a smith's rage looks like!"
"Aaaaaaah—!"
Crozzo gripped the sword in both hands and brought it down at the island-sized beast.
There was no slash.
No visible blade light.
Only flame.
An endless torrent of crimson fire so hot it felt capable of boiling the whole sea away.
"BOOM—!"
A pillar of fire erupted skyward, punching through the clouds. Then it spread. The ocean began to boil, surging into white steam. Every tentacle the flames touched burned like dry kindling and collapsed into ash.
The Kraken shrieked in panic. It tried to dive back into the water.
But there was no water left around it.
The sea itself had been evaporated by that stroke.
"Burn!""Burn to ash!!!"
Crozzo swung again.
This time the flames took the shape of a gigantic fire dragon and swallowed the Kraken whole.
The sound that followed was enough to make anyone's scalp crawl.
A few seconds later, the sea's tyrant—this monstrous ancient thing that had seemed untouchable—was nothing but a gigantic, smoking slab of blackened charcoal.
Silence.
The sound of the waves returned.
And the heat still hung thick in the air.
"W-we won?" Argo staggered back to his feet, staring at the huge smoking carcass, jaw hanging open. "That… that was a magic sword? That was a volcanic eruption with a handle!"
"Ha… ha…" Crozzo sank to the ground, holding the dimming sword in his hands. But it didn't break. It didn't crack.
He stared at it, smiling like a man in a dream.
"I did it…""I really did it…""A magic sword that doesn't break…""My masterpiece…"
"Well done." Shirou walked over, pale from mana depletion but grinning with unhidden approval. "That blade… deserves to go down in history."
"Thanks to you, Shirou." Crozzo raised his head, eyes full of gratitude. "Without you guiding me, I never could have made something like this."
"I only gave it a nudge." Shirou shrugged. "The one who gave it a soul was you. Your wish to protect your friends."
"Hmph. Sounds nice," Oona said as she walked over, battered and bloodied but still full of energy. "Still, our seafood feast turned into charcoal-grilled octopus. And the extra-burned kind." She looked at the charred Kraken with deep regret.
"No problem. Scrape off the outside layer and the meat inside should still be tender," Shirou replied with total culinary seriousness. "Tonight… we're having teppanyaki."
"Yay! Teppanyaki!"
The whole group cheered again.
That night, after everyone had eaten their fill and fallen asleep on the shore, Shirou sat alone beside the dying fire.
He looked down at his right hand.
The white-gold dragonbone arm gleamed translucent beneath the moonlight.
And yet…
The rejection was getting stronger.
He could feel it clearly.
The world was speeding up.
His time here… was running out.
"Shirou."
A voice interrupted his thoughts.
It was Argo.
The clown hadn't gone to sleep. He sat some distance away on the sand, hugging his knees.
"What is it?" Shirou asked with a smile. "Still thinking about your grand heroic saga?"
"No." Argo shook his head. Then he turned to look at Shirou.
For once, the eyes that were usually filled with slapstick idiocy and shameless bravado held something else—something older, sadder, and startlingly clear.
"Shirou…""You're going to leave, aren't you?"
Shirou froze.
Of all people, it was the loudest fool in the group who had noticed first.
"…Yeah," Shirou admitted at last. "Probably in a day or two."
"To go back to your homeland?"
"Yeah.""There are people waiting for me there."
"I see…" Argo lowered his head, tracing circles in the sand with one finger. "That's too bad. I was hoping… you'd get to see the day I became a real hero."
"You already are one," Shirou said seriously."In the Black Iron Castle. In today's battle.""Argo—you're already a remarkable hero."
"Hehe… don't praise me too much, I'll get cocky." Argo sniffed, then abruptly stood up and pulled his tattered notebook from his coat.
"Here."
He held it out.
"This is…"
"The Argonaut Heroic Tale." Argo grinned. "It's not finished. And my handwriting's awful. But…" He looked away awkwardly. "I want you to take it.""As proof that we met."
"Take it to the future.""And tell the people there… that in this age, there was a fool named Argo, who once traveled with the best companions in the world… and helped save it."
Shirou took the notebook.
It was light.
And yet impossibly heavy.
"All right," he said quietly, tucking it into his chest. "I'll tell them.""I'll tell them that heroes aren't gods.""They're fools like you… fools who throw themselves into danger just to protect someone else's smile."
"…Good." Argo smiled.
A pure, childish smile.
"Good night, Shirou.""Good night, Argo."
The sea breeze swept over the shore.
Under the stars of the Mythic Age, two heroes from different times made their final promise.
And the next morning, when the first rays of sunlight spilled over the beach—
He was gone.
The red-haired figure who had always been in the kitchen, who had somehow ended up becoming the heart of their journey…
had vanished.
All he left behind was a spotless iron pot, polished until it gleamed, and a lavish breakfast spread out on the table, still steaming.
Beside it lay a note.
Thanks for everything.You were the best hero party I could have asked for.—From the passing cook
"Waaaaah! Shirouuuuu!" Argo's sobbing voice rang across the beach. "You liar! You said you were still going to teach me how to make pudding!"
"That jerk…" Oona bit her lip, eyes red. "Couldn't even say goodbye properly…"
"That's just the kind of man he was," Fina said, wiping at the corners of her eyes as she looked out over the sea."He came like the wind… and left like the wind."
"But…" Crozzo tightened his grip on Crimson Moon.
"The fire he lit… is still here."
"Let's go," Princess Ariadne said, rising to her feet, her gaze steady."Our journey isn't over.""If we don't want to betray what he hoped for…" she looked toward the horizon, "then we have to make this world a better place."
"Move out!" Argo wiped his tears away and raised his lightning-wood sword high. "Destination—the end of the world!""Argonaut Hero Party, advance!"
The caravan rolled forward once more.
One person was gone.
But the light called bond remained behind in this age of myth forever.
And far away, in the distant future—
in the Twilight Manor of Orario—
a red-haired boy suddenly opened his eyes.
....
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