The stone corridor was cold, but it wasn't the temperature that seeped into my bones. It was the silence. The screams from the battlefield outside—the dragons, the explosions, the noble phantasms—were muffled here, reduced to a dull, rhythmic thrumming in the floorboards.
I didn't run. I didn't sneak. I walked down the center of the hallway, my boots clicking against the flagstones with a steady, metronomic beat.
Click. Click. Click.
My hands were in my pockets. My posture was relaxed. The smell of dried blood. The psychic residue of terror. The knowledge of what Gilles de Rais, the Bluebeard of legend, actually did in history.
He didn't just kill. He played. He turned human beings into art projects. He treated life like clay. I remembered the Red Diary. I remembered the feeling of being an object.
The tank filled up. Not with sadness. Not with fear. It filled with a cold, black, viscous wrath.
"Gilles," I called out.
My voice was soft. conversational. It bounced off the damp walls."Where are you, you bug-eyed freak?"
I turned a corner and found the heavy oak doors of the inner sanctum. They were slightly ajar. A sickly purple light spilled out from the crack, accompanied by the chanting of a man who had long since abandoned sanity for something far worse.
I pushed the doors open.
The room was a cathedral of madness. The walls were lined with flesh—not architectural stone, but throbbing, organic matter that pulsed with the Grail's corruption. In the center of the room, standing before a grotesque altar made of bone and shadows, was the Caster. Gilles de Rais.
He was exactly as I remembered him from the game, yet infinitely more repulsive in person. The bulging eyes that seemed to look in two directions at once. The robes stained with fluids that no detergent could ever lift. He was holding a golden chalice aloft—the Holy Grail—and muttering to the ceiling, his voice trembling with ecstatic devotion.
"Oh, Jeanne! My holy virgin! Do you hear the screams? Do you hear the music I am composing for your return?!"
He didn't even notice me. I was beneath his notice. I was just a fly buzzing in his cathedral. I walked down the steps. "Hey."
Gilles paused. He slowly lowered the Grail, turning his head with a twitchy, insectoid motion. His great, bulbous eyes fixed on me.
"A rat?" he hissed, his voice sounding like wet paper tearing. "How did a rat crawl into my sanctum? No matter. The horrors will—"
I didn't let him finish. I didn't want a monologue. I didn't want his backstory.
I smiled. It was a small, calm thing. A slight upturn of the lips that didn't reach my eyes.
"ZaWarudo."
BVVVVV-TICK.
The purple light froze. The pulsating walls stopped moving. The dust motes dancing in the air hung suspended in the grey void of stopped time.
I walked up the steps to the altar.
Gilles was frozen in a sneer, his mouth half-open to summon some eldritch horror. He looked ridiculous. A clown in a costume of nightmares.
I stood in front of him. I didn't wind up. I didn't take a stance. I just drove my fist into his face.
It wasn't a killing blow. It was a wake-up call.
Then, I reached out. I wrapped my fingers around the stem of the Holy Grail in his hand.
I pulled. It slid out of his frozen grip with no resistance.
I took a step back. I examined the cup. It was heavy, gold, encrusted with gems that felt too warm to the touch. It hummed with infinite magical energy, a device capable of rewriting history. "Flashy," I muttered.
"Time resumes."
TOK.
Reality crashed back in.
The force of my punch registered instantly. Gilles' head snapped back. A spray of blood erupted from his nose. He stumbled backward, tripping over his own robes, and fell hard onto the stone floor of the altar. "GAAH!"
He scrambled up, clutching his face, his eyes wild. "What?! Who?! When did—"
He reached for the Grail. He reached for his catalyst.
His hand grasped empty air. Gilles froze. He looked at his empty hand. He looked at the floor. Then, slowly, terrifyingly, he looked up at me.
I was standing ten feet away, leaning casually against a pillar of throbbing flesh. I was holding the Holy Grail in one hand, tossing it gently up and down like a baseball.
"Looking for this?" I asked.
Gilles let out a sound that wasn't human. It was a high-pitched keen of despair. "MY LIGHT! MY HOPE! GIVE IT BACK! YOU FILTHY—"
"It's a nice cup," I interrupted, turning it over in my hands. "A bit gaudy for my taste. Gold is so 1400s. I prefer stainless steel. Maybe some matte black finish."
I stopped tossing it. I held it out by the rim, dangling it over the stone floor. "You know," I said, my voice dropping an octave, becoming conversational and deadly. "I was confused, Gilles. In the story I know... Jalter is the Grail. Or she has it inside her. She's a living bomb."
I tilted my head. "But here you are. Holding the cup. And she's out there fighting. Which means... this Singularity is a little different, isn't it?"
Gilles stared at me, trembling. He looked from the cup to my face, his madness warring with confusion. "She... she is the Prime!" he shrieked, saliva flying from his lips. "She is the Masterpiece! But a masterpiece needs a gallery! I need more! I need infinite Jeannes! An army of Saints to burn this godforsaken world to ash!"
He extended his trembling hands toward me.
"With that cup... I can make them! I can pull her shadow from the ether again and again! I can make a legion of Avengers! I can make her die and be reborn a thousand times until God himself weeps!"
I went still.
The information settled into the hollow tank in my chest. An army.
He didn't just want her. He didn't love Jalter. He didn't even love Jeanne.
He wanted dolls. He wanted mass-produced toys to break and use and throw at his enemies. He wanted to take the trauma of a woman burned at the stake and photocopy it until it lost all meaning because of obsession.
It was so... efficient. So industrial. So familiar. I looked at the Grail. I looked at Gilles.
I tossed the cup.
It clattered loudly onto the stone floor, spinning and coming to a rest right at Gilles' feet. He blinked. He looked at the cup. He looked at me, utterly bewildered.
"Pick it up," I said.
Gilles didn't hesitate. He scrambled forward on his hands and knees, snatching the Grail to his chest, cradling it like a lost child. "Oh, my precious! My conduit! You fool! You absolute fool! You gave it back!"
He scrambled to his feet, his confidence returning in a rush of manic laughter. The purple light in the room intensified.
"You think this is a game?!" he screamed, his eyes bulging. "I will show you! I will show you the power of true obsession! I will summon her right now! A fresh hatred! A new vengeance!"
"Do it," I said.
I stood there, hands at my sides.
"Summon her. Show me your 'art'."
Gilles grinned, a twisted expression that stretched his face to the breaking point. He raised the Grail. Mana surged. The air screamed as reality was torn open.
"COME TO ME!" Gilles roared. "OH, MAIDEN OF ORLEANS! HEAR MY CALL! DESCEND AND BRING HELL WITH YOU!"
The Grail flared with blinding light. Shadows coalesced. Black mud bubbled up from the floor, taking shape.
It formed legs. A torso. Armor. Pale, white hair.
A new Jeanne Alter. A fresh copy, born from the Grail, eyes blank and confusing, holding a sword that hadn't yet tasted blood. She stood there, a doll fresh out of the packaging, blinking in the harsh light of the sanctum.
"Where... am I?" the construct whispered, her voice identical to the one fighting outside.
Gilles was weeping with joy. "Yes! YES! Another! Another perfection! Kill him! Kill the rat!"
I looked at the new Jalter. I looked at the man who made her.And I started to giggle. It bubbled up from my throat, involuntary and sharp. "Heh..."
Gilles paused. "You laugh? In the face of death?"
"Heh... hehe..."
The giggle turned into a chuckle. I covered my mouth, my shoulders shaking. The absurdity of it. The sheer, banal evil of it. He was just a kid playing with action figures, except the figures screamed.
"Hahaha... HAHAHAHA!"
I doubled over. I clutched my stomach. I wheezed, tears pricking at the corners of my eyes. It was hilarious. It was the funniest thing I had ever seen. The idea that he thought this gave him power.
The idea that he thought making more of them made him strong. "Oh, god..." I gasped, wiping a tear from my eye. "You... you really don't get it, do you?" I straightened up.
The laughter cut off instantly. It didn't fade away. It didn't taper off. It was severed.
My face went slack. My jaw set. I looked at Gilles.
I didn't summon The World. I didn't need the golden armor. I didn't need the theatrics of a pose.
My irises, usually a dark, muddy brown behind my glasses, shifted. The mana flooded them. They burned. A deep, luminous crimson. The color of dried blood. The color of a warning light in a reactor that is about to melt down.
"ZaWarudo."
BVVVVV-TICK.
The silence returned. The new Jalter froze mid-step, her sword raised. Gilles froze with his finger pointing at me, his face twisted in triumph.
I walked forward.
I moved casually, but with purpose. I stepped up to the newly summoned Avenger.
She was perfect. A perfect copy. A perfect victim.
I looked at her face. It was blank. She hadn't suffered yet. She hadn't felt the fire yet. She was a blank slate destined for misery.
"Mercy," I whispered.
I reached out. Ididn't punch her.
I wrapped my hand around her neck. My grip was iron. The strength of a Stand and something i felt when combining tusk and crazy diamon flowed through my human fingers.
I didn't hesitate. I didn't flinch.
I...pulled.
It was wet work. It was gruesome work. But in the frozen time, there was no sound. No spray. Just the resistance of matter yielding to superior force.
I separated the head from the body.
The body remained standing, frozen in time.
I walked over to Gilles.
He was still pointing. Still smiling.
I looked at the Holy Grail in his other hand. The cup he loved so much. The cup he wanted to fill with his desires.
"Here," I said softly. "Have a refill."
I placed the head of the Jeanne Alter into the Grail. It fit perfectly, a grotesque offering in a holy vessel.
I wiped my hands on Gilles' robe.
I stepped back to my original position. I put my hands in my pockets. I adjusted my glasses, which were now reflecting the crimson glow of my eyes.
"Time...resumes."
TOK.
Gravity caught up first.
The headless body of the summoned Servant collapsed. It didn't dissolve into gold dust immediately—the Grail was still sustaining its physical form. It just crumpled like a puppet with its strings cut, hitting the floor with a wet, heavy meat-slap.
THWUMP.
Blood—mana-infused, hot, and copious—erupted from the neck stump. It sprayed across the room. It sprayed across the altar.
And it sprayed all over Gilles de Rais.
"YES! KILL HI—" Gilles cut himself off.
He felt the wetness. He felt the heat.
He blinked, his vision obscured by red. He wiped his eyes. "What...?"
He looked at the floor. He saw the body. The black armor. The pale skin. The lack of a head. "Jeanne...?"
His hands were trembling. He felt the weight in the Grail. It was heavier than before. Slowly, with the jerky movements of a rusted machine, he looked down into the cup he was cradling.
He didn't see golden light. He didn't see infinite power.
He saw pale, white hair. He saw dead, golden eyes staring up at him. He saw the face of his "masterpiece," severed and stuffed into his precious cup like garbage.
"AH..."
The sound started low in his throat. "AH... AHH..."
He looked up. He looked at me.
I was smiling.
It was a smile of absolute, serene calm. A smile that said I had found my purpose.
My eyes were burning. Two crimson suns in the gloom of the dungeon. They held no pity. They held no hesitation. They held a wrath so deep, so ancient, that it made the demons in the walls seem like pets.
I looked like the thing that hides under the bed of the monster."You wanted an army," I said. My voice was gentle, almost nurturing.
I took a step forward. Gilles took a stumbling step back, slipping in the blood of his creation.
"You wanted to do it again and again," I continued. "You wanted to bring them here to suffer."
I gestured to the Grail with an open hand.
"So go ahead, Gilles."
My smile widened, exposing teeth.
"Summon her again."
Gilles shook his head, clutching the Grail, staring at me with the dawning realization that he was locked in a room with something he didn't understand.
"Summon her again," I repeated, my voice hard as diamond. "And I will kill her again. And again. And again."
I leaned in, my crimson eyes boring into his soul.
"We'll keep doing this over and over. Until you run out of mana. Until you run out of sanity. Until you realize that I am the one holding your life as a doll."
I tapped the side of my head.
"I have all the time in the world, Caster. Do you?"
Gilles screamed. It was a scream of pure, primal terror. He dropped the Grail. The head rolled out, wet and staring.
He scrambled back against the altar, hyperventilating. "What... what are you?! You are not human! No human has eyes like that! No human could match the...the..."
"The saint's strength you imagined." I said
I walked over to him. I loomed over him. I didn't need to touch him. My shadow engulfed him.
"You broke toys, Gilles. You hurt small things because it made you feel big."
I crouched down. I was eye-level with him. My red eyes pulsed.
"I'm the Toymaker," I lied. "And you look like you need to be taken apart and put back together."
I reached out and patted his cheek. His skin was cold and clammy. He flinched as if I had branded him.
"Pick up the cup, Gilles."
He shook his head frantically. "No... no more... please..."
"PICK. IT. UP."
Gilles sobbed. He reached out with shaking, blood-stained hands. He picked up the Grail. He picked up the severed head. He tried to put it back together, weeping, blubbering apologies to his saint.
I stood up. I watched him.
"Again," I commanded.
Gilles looked at me, tears streaming down his face, mixing with the blood. "Please..."
"Again."
He began to chant. Broken, sobbing words.
The light flared.