"..."
"..."
Silence met silence. Kariya Matou fiercely shielded Sakura behind him.
Because Guinevere hadn't launched a surprise attack, because he needed something from Kenneth, and because he believed Guinevere was Kenneth's Servant...
He didn't use his last Command Spell to recall Lancelot, who was already too preoccupied to be distracted.
"You're Miss Caster, aren't you? I'm Kariya Matou."
Having at least attended school, Kariya knew how to act when asking for a favor. He pulled his hood lower, trying to hide his body, where bulging veins pulsed beneath his skin.
After studying them for a long moment, Guinevere found she no longer had the heart to vent her anger on them.
They were undoubtedly pitiful souls. In her past life's memories, Kariya's conscience had not only failed to save Sakura, but his participation in this Holy Grail War had led to...
He would even strangle the woman he had loved his entire life with his own hands.
But...
Kariya's condition is the same as in my memories, but how could Sakura have avoided the worms' infestation? Has some deviation occurred somewhere?
Doubt flooded Guinevere's mind, but now didn't seem like the time to ask. She tilted her head, continuing to listen as Kariya spoke after his self-introduction.
"You say you're dying? And you want to entrust this little girl to Kenneth? The payment is your last Command Spell and Berserker?"
Crouching before Sakura, Guinevere looked into her slightly timid eyes.
A moment later, when Guinevere placed her hand on Sakura's head and channeled Mana into her for a more detailed examination, her brow furrowed. She sensed a decaying life force emanating from the girl's heart.
For some reason, the Old Worm didn't modify Sakura's body, but he still hid his main Crest Worm in her heart?
Combining this with her memories from her past life, the answer became self-evident to Guinevere.
With this thought, she glanced at the sky, estimating that Lancelot could hold out for much longer. Then, she looked back at Sakura and ruffled her hair again.
Since she hasn't undergone the modifications, Sakura still has her black hair.
As a Servant summoned only two days ago, Guinevere didn't know what had altered the fate Sakura was meant to face a year ago. But today, she could save Sakura a little more—by helping to kill the disgusting Old Worm that made her skin crawl.
"Second Noble Phantasm, activate! Falsification of Reality: Reality Fabrication! The little girl I touch has no foreign matter in her body and is perfectly healthy."
As the Noble Phantasm activated and the words fell, a massive amount of Guinevere's Mana vanished, purging the foreign entity from Sakura's heart. The cost was far greater than she had anticipated, as if the entity within Sakura's heart was fighting back.
He must have sensed it, she thought. Once my fabricated reality is complete, he will temporarily vanish from the world.
And for him to return after being temporarily erased...
If a falsified object was inanimate, it would revert to its original state once the illusion was dispelled by anti-magic. But if a falsified entity was alive, it would likely die long before it could return, even if it eventually did.
Things erased by this fabrication existed in a superposition of existence and non-existence. They would still age, starve, and grow tired...
In terms of its effect, Guinevere's Second Noble Phantasm was more akin to a form of magic—one that could alter the surface appearance of the world at will.
"Little one, how do you feel?"
Noble Phantasms are sublimated from heroic deeds and granted by the Human Order. In the end, it still triumphed over the foreign entity within Sakura.
Just three seconds longer than it would have taken for a Falsified Inanimate Object, Sakura's heart was restored to health. The foul stench of worms was completely gone.
But even after Guinevere had finished, Sakura remained dazed. She had no idea what Guinevere had done to her, let alone that there had been worms in her heart.
Ignorance, in this case, was a blessing for Sakura.
However, while Sakura remained unaware, Kariya Matou suddenly understood something as the worms inside him writhed in agitation. A look of ecstatic joy spread across his contorted face, and with a speed Guinevere couldn't react to, he performed a deep, prostrating bow.
But midway through the bow, Kariya's body arched like a cooked shrimp, and he began coughing up blood laced with worms.
"Kariya Matou, do you wish to live?"
As Guinevere spoke, she realized the Old Worm must have left a contingency plan within Kariya. But before she could activate her Second Noble Phantasm again, Kariya's abdomen suddenly bulged, and a disgusting maggot burst forth from his stomach.
In the blink of an eye, the maggot transformed into a Winged Blade Worm and tried to escape right under Guinevere's nose.
"Foul creature! Is the desire to not die all that remains of you?"
Guinevere couldn't deny that she cared more for Sakura than for Kariya Matou. That was why, even though Kariya's condition was clearly worse, her first instinct had been to help Sakura.
But it was fortunate she had helped Sakura first. Otherwise, had she healed Kariya instead, the even harder-to-detect Old Worm would have burst from Sakura's ruined heart.
Guinevere was confident she knew more about the Old Worm than anyone else in this era—perhaps even more than the Old Worm himself.
Five hundred years ago, the Matou Ancestor had been a bright, kind young man.
But over those five centuries, in his quest for enough time to reach his ideals, he sought immortality. After achieving it, he gradually degenerated into a rotting worm that remembered nothing but its own desire not to die.
Now, his main body, which had resided in Sakura's heart, was destroyed. Yet his external avatars still lived, meaning he wasn't completely eradicated.
"Foul creature, you are nothing but a maggot."
The creature, which had rapidly evolved into a Winged Blade Worm out of its desperate will to survive, reverted to its maggot form at Guinevere's words. The Old Worm's mind had long since decayed, leaving its resistance to curse-like pronouncements practically nonexistent.
As she watched the maggot struggle to crawl toward the edge of the rooftop, Guinevere glanced back at Kariya Matou. He was smiling even more brightly, despite the gaping cavity in his chest that guaranteed his death within minutes.
And Sakura? She was trembling, still gripped by the terror the Old Worm had inflicted upon her.
"Little one," Guinevere began, her voice gentle, "this might seem cruel, perhaps even disgusting. But I can sense that beneath your fear, you also harbor hatred for him. I think you'd very much want to kill him with your own hands."
Stroking Sakura's head, Guinevere took the girl's hand and then glanced at Kariya Matou, leaving him with a single promise: "You won't die from your wounds."
She then led Sakura to the Old Worm. The girl trembled for a long moment before breaking down, tearing at her own hair in despair.
"Little one, you should be stomping on your enemy, not harming yourself," Guinevere said, stopping Sakura's self-destructive act. "But if you truly can't bring yourself to do it, I won't force you."
Guinevere knelt, cupping Sakura's face and meeting her gaze. Suddenly, as if possessed, Sakura began to stomp wildly on the maggot, jumping again and again until it was reduced to a splattered pulp, its life extinguished.
-
Far away, several figures observed the scene.
"Guinevere... she truly is a demon," Kirei Kotomine murmured. At his feet lay Maiya Hisau, her limbs broken. He was waiting for Kiritsugu Emiya to appear.
Even by his own twisted moral standards, forcing a young girl to personally execute the very creature that had inflicted such profound psychological trauma upon her was undeniably demonic.
"Guinevere and Ryuunosuke Uryuu certainly share an affinity," Kirei mused. "But Ryuunosuke's cruelty is directed at everyone, especially women and children."
"Guinevere's cruelty, however, is reserved for those she deems enemies—and the weak among her own allies."
Another stomp landed on Maiya Hisau's knee, where the shattered bone was already exposed.
All the while, Kirei had kept the call with Kiritsugu Emiya open, hoping Maiya's pained gasps would soon provoke a reaction.
"Come, Kiritsugu Emiya," Kirei whispered. "You are my true opponent."
Kirei waited, filled with anticipation. Ever since he'd received Kiritsugu's file, he'd been desperate to understand what drove the man to throw himself into countless battlefields. If it were merely for money, he would never have chosen to fight when the fighting was at its most brutal.
"Kiritsugu Emiya, you truly haven't disappointed me," Kirei mused. "After the bombs on the hotel's upper floors were cleared, you had Maiya Hisau blow up the basement. Kenneth still overestimated your moral limits."