"Holy crap, you two gods are actually going all out!"
As a mere staff officer, Sun Xi hadn't been present at the Chen estate battle — back then she'd been holed up in a distant manor directing operations. Other than deafening thunder and rain that lashed her face, she'd seen nothing, and could only listen afterward as Sakedo Mai exaggerated the story like some absurd movie plot.
But now, watching the remote surveillance feed, she finally got to witness firsthand just how breathtaking a clash between gods could be.
The massive water tanks roiled like raging seas, their torrents converging under unseen commands, trapping the panicked fish in midair. Glass and metal barriers shattered under invisible impacts.
The fish, flailing like terrified crowds, could not escape the watery cage — and the next second, a spreading chill froze everything solid. The aquarium's entire water supply transformed into glacial ice, and the fish became eternal with it.
The ultra-low temperature froze the aquarium's systems as well, and half the monitors before Sun Xi blinked out instantly. Only a few hastily installed cameras on the outskirts still worked.
She widened her eyes, staring at those remaining screens, and saw dragons of water and flame coiling over glaciers, their bodies wreathed in swirling blue fire and pristine ice.
As they brushed against the walls and supports of the aquarium, the structures collapsed like children's blocks, coated in frost and fire. The crashing destruction roared like a demolition site.
And then the last surviving camera blacked out with a final crack.
"…Tch."
Watching it go black halfway through was too much. Sun Xi stomped out of the now-useless surveillance room, grabbed a high-powered telescope, and climbed to the rooftop.
From atop the high-rise in the CBD, she gazed down at the titanic duel raging at the aquarium.
By now it was raining, and perhaps because a typhoon was approaching, the winds had grown fierce. Pedestrians hurried indoors, and no one else stood on the high rooftop to watch.
From up here, Sun Xi could see that the flat steel roof of the aquarium had been completely torn away.
Beneath the exposed roof, amid the dim gray rain, dragons of water thrashed atop frozen mountains, blue fire dancing in the rain like a beautiful, dreamlike glow, painting delicate whorls over the white glaciers.
The ice, at first covering the aquarium's entire expanse, grew wider and thicker as the blue dragons devoured it, spreading ever outward.
It wasn't simply growing — it was the elemental reactions merging, dragging the massive glaciers into a sticky, inescapable quagmire.
The dragons, directed by some will, began to use the endless ice as fuel to ignite brilliant blue conflagrations. In an instant, the disadvantage turned into dominance, as flames consumed the glaciers.
In the end, the colors and lines melded into a chaotic, three-dimensional tapestry of ice and fire that gradually came apart, fading away.
"Did… did he win?"
Sun Xi blinked. She'd been mesmerized by the special-effects spectacle and hadn't understood who was winning.
Frustrated, she realized she was too far to make it to the scene in time. At last she smacked her forehead.
"Ah, I'm such an idiot — why not just call Long Legs and have her check on the scene instead of me?"
———
"Stop calling, stop calling! I'm here already!" Sakedo Mai growled into her comm, sprinting on her long legs. "I can see Big Bro Shirou already!"
But Nono ran even faster, her magically-enhanced legs slender yet full of explosive power, leaving Sakedo Mai behind as she darted through twisted steel and shattered ice to where Shirou crouched.
"You okay?"
Nono waved her hand in front of his face, seeing no sign of the enemy nearby.
Instead of fussing about the enemy's whereabouts, she focused on Shirou's condition. He leaned against the upright Duanlongtai case, and she gently helped him to his feet.
"I'm fine… but the enemy likely escaped."
In his open palm lay a fragment of Leviathan's mask — cracked and cold.
During the fight, Shirou had realized something was wrong.
Leviathan's final move had been massive, and even Kuyoubi could only barely counter it by pouring everything into one strike aimed at the enemy himself.Yet Leviathan's figure dissolved into water and vanished, leaving the ice weakened and quickly consumed by dragonfire.
He'd managed to snag this fragment by sheer luck.
Shirou wasn't sure how much it had cost Leviathan to pull that trick, but he himself was heavily drained after all the projections and the Duanlongtai's output.
"I don't think this is over yet," Shirou said quietly.
It felt more like Leviathan had been testing him — drawing out his trump cards before retreating.
In other words, they were already planning their next move.
"Another mask?" Nono pinched the shard, damp and icy. "Odin wore a mask, now this guy… is this some mask-wearing organization…?"
Shirou shook his head. "It's not just a uniform. It's something more… like a ritual to borrow power, just like Odin's."
———
"Norton, why are you showing me a mask fragment?"
"I think you'd better hurry up and study Causal Disjunction. Look at Leviathan and Odin — both can use these alchemical masks in combat. Do you dare say how far along their research really is?"
When Yami arrived with her first Servant — Melusine — and reported that Leviathan and Odin had been working together, Norton's only reaction was to scold her for her poor progress.
"This mask? Is it that impressive?" Yami pouted.
Norton shot her a disdainful look, as though she were a dimwitted little sister.
"You don't even know about Causal Disjunction, one of the Seven Great Kingdoms of Alchemy? If I don't spell it out for you, you'd probably never bother to learn it in your life."
"Look closely. This fragment came from the Chen estate battle — I salvaged it myself. Its alchemical traces are faint now, but you can still see the principles."
"…??" Yami squinted, but saw nothing.
Norton's blood pressure visibly spiked. He wondered if partnering with her was really worth it, or if he should have just stayed at the Atlas Institute with his brother.
"Put simply, alchemy using Causal Disjunction can sever causality and link unrelated things. This mask, for example, projects a portion of the user's power and will across vast distances and even time. Just how far or how strong it can project, we can't tell yet."
"In other words: you're Body A, you make Puppet B and a mask with efficiency C. You put the mask on useless Puppet B and it gains C percent of Body A's strength."
"That's why I keep telling you to study Causal Disjunction. Summoning a Servant for the Holy Grail War requires technology to project part of an Heroic Spirit's power and will, with the Throne of Heroes as the database hub."
"In computer terms, it's like transmitting a data packet from a central server. This idea came from… well, a friend of mine. With the Throne system, there's no risk of permanent loss. Unlike Odin's 'Hall of Heroes' plan, which throws actual Heroic Spirit bodies into battle as disposable consumables. We can't afford that."
"…Ah, now I get it!"
Flustered by his disdainful look, Yami hurriedly changed the subject.
"Anyway, take a look at this Melusine. She seems to be part of their next-generation 'Heroic Warrior' project. Her base conditions are decent, her bloodline passable. Think she's good enough to be our plan's first Servant candidate?"
Having been thoroughly scolded by Norton just now, she no longer dared act smug. She just hoped he'd show her how to do it so she could copy his template later.
Fine, she admitted it — she wasn't good at research. But surely she could copy his homework at least, right?
(End of Chapter)
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