It was as though a starving, vicious beast that had wandered the endless wilderness for thousands of years had finally found a warm "nest" where she could sleep in peace.
And the owner of that "nest" was the very man standing before her, the man with the genial smile on his face whose true nature was more dangerous than any demon's.
"Looks like you're quite good at taming monsters," the Feathered Serpent said, a note of self-mockery in her voice.
"No, I never tame." Seiji shook his head, correcting her. "I simply give them the thing they want most."
"Gorgon, or rather, Medusa, what she wanted was just a place where she'd no longer be seen as a monster, where she could read in peace."
"I gave her a castle and a library."
"And so she became mine."
"So then, beautiful Quetzalcoatl..."
His gaze sharpened again, like the most precise probe driving straight into the depths of her soul.
"...what is the thing you want most?"
"Freedom from the curse?"
"Or the joy of engaging in hot-blooded wrestling once again with the humans you love?"
"Or perhaps..."
The corner of his mouth curved into a meaningful arc.
"...an evenly matched opponent who can take your full-strength blow head-on?"
That last sentence was a spark dropped into a powder keg.
In those golden eyes, an unprecedented light, scorching and dazzling, erupted in an instant.
Fighting spirit!
Pure fighting spirit, carrying no killing intent whatsoever, craving a battle fought to utter exhaustion. Fighting spirit at its absolute peak!
"Haha... hahahaha!"
She suddenly threw back her head and laughed, the laughter hearty and full of power, shaking dust loose from the temple's domed ceiling.
"Interesting! Too interesting! You, this guy!"
She pointed at Seiji, and the expression on her face was no longer wariness and struggle, but a heartfelt excitement and admiration at having met a worthy match.
"That's right! You're absolutely right!"
"Power! Joy! Freedom! I want all of it!"
"But the most important thing! I need an opponent against whom I can hold nothing back and use my full strength!"
"An opponent who can let me enjoy the very best Lucha Libre!"
In this world she was invincible.
Her wrestling was wrestling in the domain of gods.
No human, not even any god, could withstand her throws, brimming with "love."
So she had always been "alone."
And now this man before her, the man who could gravely wound the Bull of Heaven with a single sword stroke, the man who could tame one of the Gorgon's kind...
Perhaps he really could...
"Good!"
The Feathered Serpent clapped her hands together and made her decision!
"I accept! I'll make this deal with you!"
Her face was full of candor and resolve.
"But! I have one condition!"
"Name it."
"I want to fight you first!"
She dropped into that powerful wrestler's stance, the divine flames across her whole body blazing up once more.
"Without that creepy black armor of yours! And without those helpers behind you!"
"Just your own body! Fair and square, you and me, a man and a woman, one on one, in the very best Lucha Libre!"
"As long as you can take my Noble Phantasm head-on and remain standing."
"Then forget about merely helping me deal with Gorgon..."
A moving, wild flush rose to her face.
"...I, Quetzalcoatl, soul and body and all, will be entirely yours!"
"But if you lose."
Her gaze sharpened once more.
"Then you'll obediently join us, the Three Goddess Alliance, and become my subordinate!"
"How about it? This deal where everything's on the line, do you dare take it?"
...
Faced with this sudden wager from the Feathered Serpent, so brimming with the style of a hot-blooded shounen manga, both Medea and Rider showed a trace of worry on their faces.
They both understood all too well just how terrifying this goddess's close-quarters combat ability was.
It wasn't mere power and technique.
It was a rule-level "divine art" that contained the Authorities of "Sun" and "Wind"!
To take a chief deity's Noble Phantasm head-on with a body of human flesh and blood?
That was nothing short of suicide!
Yet there wasn't the slightest hesitation on Seiji's face.
On the contrary, what flickered in his eyes was the pleasure and confidence of a hunter watching his prey step fully into the trap he'd so carefully laid.
This effect was exactly what he wanted.
Through precise psychological profiling, he'd guided his opponent step by step from "an enemy to the death" into "a friend he could gamble with," and even into "a gambler he could place a bet on."
Turning a life-or-death war into a "game" whose rules he got to interpret.
"All right, I accept."
He smiled and nodded.
Then he slowly stripped off his black coat, revealing the simple white shirt underneath.
Flexing his wrists, he gave his orders to the Servants behind him.
"All of you, fall back."
"Retreat outside the temple. Things are about to get a little hot."
"Master!" Medea cried out in worry.
"Don't worry." Seiji turned back and gave her a reassuring look. "I never make a deal I'm not sure of."
After everyone had been cleared out, only Seiji and the beautiful war goddess, already trembling all over with excitement, remained inside the empty temple.
"Good! You really are a man with guts!"
The Feathered Serpent looked at Seiji, her eyes full of approval.
"Then, here I come!"
"Piedra Del Sol!"
She roared and unleashed her Noble Phantasm!
A vast, terrifying "sun" over a hundred meters across, formed of solar wind and divine flame, appeared above her head in an instant!
The entire temple began to melt violently under the glare of that "sun"!
This was her Noble Phantasm!
Raising her own Saint Graph to its limit, then summoning the "sun stone" that symbolized her Authority, she would deliver to her enemy a super-spec ultimate killing move, a string of wrestling maneuvers including flying kicks and throws, an attack carrying both physical and conceptual force!
"Come! Let me see your mettle, man!"
The Feathered Serpent roared, her whole body seeming to merge with that enormous "sun," turning into a golden, world-ending meteor that came smashing straight down toward Seiji!
Facing this apocalyptic blow, enough to utterly vaporize the entire temple along with ten miles of surrounding earth, Seiji only slowly raised his right hand.
On his face was still that serene, untroubled smile, as though everything were under his control.
"What... magnificent fireworks," he murmured.
Then, in the instant before the storm was about to swallow him, he slowly spread the five fingers of his hand toward that "sun" mighty enough to burn away gods.
"Pity, though..."
His voice was flat and cold, like a deity's final verdict.
"...your sun has no effect on me."
[System command: Absolute Authority unleashed!]
[Executing highest-priority command: Conceptual Usurpation!]
[Usurpation target: Heroic Spirit, the Feathered Serpent Quetzalcoatl.]
[Object of usurpation: Noble Phantasm, Piedra Del Sol.]
[Core concept to usurp: ownership.]
[Execution time: 0.01 seconds.]
[Executing... usurpation successful!]
Time, in that moment, seemed forced into slow motion.
That enormous "sun," carrying world-ending might, became in Seiji's eyes a series of frames, slow-flowing masses of energy he could clearly analyze.
He could see clearly how space was warped and vaporized by that scorching divine power.
He could see clearly how each strand of divine flame composing the "sun" leapt and burned.
He could even "smell" that primal scent of the sun, from the South American mythological system, brimming with life and destruction.
An invisible, brutal force of authority, transcending all the laws of this world, belonging to neither magecraft nor True Magic, composed purely of "I define," instantly enveloped the Feathered Serpent as she sprinted forward at full speed!
The Feathered Serpent's body went stiff.
She discovered, to her horror.
That the "connection" between herself and the "sun" overhead, the sun formed from her own Noble Phantasm and bound to her very soul, the absolute, self-evident connection that had existed since the moment of her birth, had actually...
Severed!
Vanished into thin air!
It was as though you'd thrown, with your own hand, a baseball you knew better than anything, one that had been with you your whole life.
But in the instant the ball left your hand, your brain and your soul were frantically telling you, in a voice from a higher dimension:
"Warning! You are illegally using a weapon of immense power that does not belong to you!"
"Warning! The ownership of this weapon has changed!"
This conceptual-level, absolute, utterly unreasonable "deprivation" plunged her into an unprecedented, immense confusion and stupor!
And the "sun" she had summoned, having lost the control of its "owner," lost its subsequent supply of energy, lost the "qualification" to be wielded...
just abruptly, less than ten meters from Seiji...
came to a hard stop, like a film frame with the pause button pressed!
That violent, all-melting scorching energy still churned and roared frantically in place, yet could advance no further.
Then, like a mirage that had lost its support, like a hologram with the power cut, it slowly dispersed into the air amid an unwilling hiss, scattering into golden specks of light across the sky.
It couldn't even stir a single breath of wind.
The whole temple returned to silence.
A deathly silence.
"..."
The Feathered Serpent held that flying-kick posture, hovering blankly in midair.
On that face which always wore passion and confidence, there now remained only an incomprehensible, pure "blankness."
What... happened?
My... Piedra Del Sol...
Gone?
"I told you, beautiful lady goddess."
Seiji's voice drifted to her ear like a referee ringing the bell on victory and defeat.
"Your rules have no effect on me."
"Your Noble Phantasm is excellent, full of power and beauty. I like it very much."
"So..."
A smile appeared on his face, as pure and as cruel as a child given a beloved toy.
"...now, it's mine."
"No... impossible..."
The Feathered Serpent muttered to herself, as if she'd lost her very soul.
This was beyond her comprehension.
It was even more terrifying to her than simply shattering her Noble Phantasm with greater force!
Because at its root, it negated the most core "meaning of existence" of her as a "sun goddess"!
A god who couldn't control her own "sun," what kind of sun goddess was that?!
And Seiji could no longer be bothered to admire this toy he'd played "broken."
He slowly raised his right hand.
Above his palm, a small golden flame, giving off the exact same aura as that "sun" from moments ago, kindled out of nothing.
"Now then, as per our earlier wager."
He smiled and stepped slowly toward the goddess who still hovered in midair, now thoroughly lost in confusion.
"Now it's my turn to take your full-strength blow."
He gently pressed that small "sun fire," belonging to the Feathered Serpent, against his own chest.
The flame, docile, melted into his body.
The next second, a "sun god's power" even vaster, more concentrated, and purer than when the Feathered Serpent had unleashed her Noble Phantasm erupted from within Seiji!
His hair was dyed a brilliant gold.
His eyes turned into golden slit-pupils, dazzling as the sun.
Behind him there even appeared a pair of enormous feathered-serpent wings formed of light and fire!
[Special application of "Heroic Spirit Armament," temporary synchronization with a Conceptual Armament!]
[Successfully analyzed and temporarily seized control of the target Noble Phantasm's core concept: the Sun!]
[Host has temporarily gained the Authorities: Wings of the Wind, Charm of Venus, the Majesty of the Sun God!]
"This power... not bad at all."
Feeling that unprecedented force surging within him, scorching and brimming with vitality, Seiji nodded in satisfaction.
Then he raised his head and looked at the beautiful goddess now utterly frozen in shock.
"Now, it's time to keep your promise."
His figure vanished from the spot in an instant!
The next second, he had appeared behind the Feathered Serpent, and with an extremely textbook, powerful wrestling posture, wrapped his arms tight around her slender, soft waist from behind.
"Allow me to present my very best Lucha Libre!"
He let out a hot-blooded roar, mimicking the Feathered Serpent's earlier tone!
Then, holding the soft, lovely body in his arms that radiated astonishing heat and fragrance, in a textbook German suplex posture, he slammed her down from high in the air toward the hard floor below, built from divine corpses!
A thunderous crash rang out.
The entire temple shook violently from it.
Dust and smoke filled the air over the temple floor, now cracked open from the impact.
When everything had settled, there was Seiji, pinning the Feathered Serpent firmly beneath him in an extremely textbook wrestling posture full of powerful beauty.
The once-arrogant, mighty chief deity of South America now lay like a beautiful, helpless leopardess, limbs limp and powerless, sprawled on the ground.
In those golden eyes, all the pride had vanished without a trace.
There remained only confusion, disorder, and a strange "flush" that even she herself couldn't understand.