On the rooftop, Guinevere pointed a finger toward the sky, and the heavens obeyed her command, unleashing a downpour. Drenched by the rain...
The King of Heroes frowned, his anger surging. He felt an overwhelming impulse to draw the Sword of Rupture, Ea, regardless of the consequences.
But the King of Heroes abandoned the idea, deeming these two mongrels unworthy of facing the Sword of Rupture.
Meanwhile, drenched in the rain, Tokiomi Tohsaka unexpectedly regained consciousness. He was first startled by fragmented thoughts, then realized the King of Heroes was right beside him.
Soon, his composure returned, and he immediately adopted the posture of a loyal vassal.
"My King, allow me to shield you from this rain."
"Tohsaka, you should first assess the situation before you."
With the rain providing real-time detection, creating new illusions was pointless. The countless Noble Phantasms the King of Heroes fired at Lancelot were utterly ineffective against Guinevere and Lancelot's combined efforts.
"Lancelot, you are far more formidable than the historical records suggest. And Guinevere, you are nothing like the woman I know from history. How could someone with martial skill surpassing Lancelot's be merely a promiscuous woman?"
In that short time, the King of Heroes had already launched another three thousand Noble Phantasms, yet none had found their mark. Worse, the rain falling upon him began to transform into ice spikes.
If this continued...
"I cannot win by merely projecting ordinary Noble Phantasms."
The King of Heroes was arrogant and confident, so much so that he wouldn't even spare a glance for the courtship of gods. Yet, he could also face reality and accept the fate of Uruk perishing alongside him.
Such a king, once he committed to a serious course of action and fought with all his might, would readily admit when he had failed.
At the same time, because he had always maintained a sense of leisurely detachment, the King of Heroes had noticed Guinevere's appearance the moment it happened, witnessing what she did to Kariya and Sakura.
The Magecraft Guinevere used on them was of a type he had never seen before.
"My King, what is this...?"
Aboard Vimana, Tohsaka saw the bombed-out restaurant, the citizens across the city gazing upward, and the crater left by the "nuclear bomb" explosion in the outskirts of Fuyuki City.
He also saw Sakura sleeping beside Kariya, the dying Kariya himself, and the scattered remains of worms littering the ground.
At the sight of the worms and Kariya's condition, Tohsaka suddenly realized what Sakura might have endured at the Matou House—he had been utterly unaware of how far the Matou family had fallen.
His hands trembled slightly. He hated himself, yet felt a profound sense of relief that Sakura had not been altered.
At the same time, he realized it could only be that Kariya had taken Sakura's place. Otherwise, the Old Worm would have had no reason to wait a year while Sakura remained untouched.
"My King, please withdraw," Tohsaka pleaded. "If this continues, it will become impossible to conceal the Holy Grail War."
As Tokiomi Tohsaka spoke, he also understood the reason for the gaps in his memory.
"Tohsaka, do you believe I am no match for them?"
"No, my King. It is that I, your humble servant, am grateful to Berserker's Master. He saved my daughter's life, and his own is now at its end. I wish to grant him a peaceful conclusion."
Tohsaka's words were an acceptable reason to the King of Heroes. Moreover, he did find the now-sane Lancelot and his ally, Guinevere, to be a troublesome pair.
Without using the Sword of Rupture, the King of Heroes lacked the confidence to face them both simultaneously.
"Tohsaka, I shall grant you this favor. But it is not yet time to withdraw. I will witness Berserker's disappearance with my own eyes."
The Vimana remained motionless, and the golden ripples ceased to appear. Tokiomi Tohsaka walked to the front of the airship, bowed elegantly to Guinevere, and signaled for a truce.
So, a truce?
Kariya wouldn't last much longer. Once he died, Lancelot would disappear. In the short time remaining, it was obviously impossible to kill the King of Heroes.
Besides, her main reason for demanding Lancelot's sanity was to ask him a question.
After accepting the truce, Guinevere raised her phone, activated the video recording function, and asked Lancelot:
"What do you hate me for? Do you regret the price you paid for the King?"
"My Queen, I only resent that you caused me to become a woman, something that could have been avoided. But as for the King, I regret no sacrifice. Until my death, I will always pray for the King's happiness."
Ending the recording and putting her phone away, Guinevere looked at Lancelot's face, which was completely different from her memories.
He was beautiful, perfectly matching her tastes, but this was not how Lancelot should look.
"My Queen, I'm running out of time. Are we really accepting this truce?"
"What? Do I look like I can't kill him without you? Call me arrogant if you must, but that Goldie is nothing more than a walking corpse—I can kill him anytime I wish."
"Lancelot, since you're running out of time, go say goodbye to your Master and that little one. She seems very grateful to you."
Standing opposite each other in the air, Guinevere spoke casually, her words a mix of truth and falsehood.
That the King of Heroes was willing to accept a truce actually surprised Guinevere. In her memory, the Archer-class King of Heroes shouldn't have been this rational.
But Lancelot was truly out of time, leaving her no room to ponder it further.
She simply maintained her guard against the King of Heroes and, activating her Second Noble Phantasm, said to Lancelot, "Lancelot, return to your true form."
Pitting fiction against a reality born of fiction, Guinevere's Noble Phantasm proved stronger.
After a flash of crimson mana, Lancelot was forcibly reverted to his original form, losing the superimposed abilities of the Faerie Girl.
Now unable to fly, he plummeted toward the ground, kicking up dust as he crashed onto the rooftop of a building near Kariya and Sakura.
His sudden transformation finally made the King of Heroes understand the cause of his madness.
"Let's go, Tokiomi. I've suddenly lost interest in dealing with this mongrel. Tsk, pitiful fool—to be twisted by historical legend into the form of a Faerie Girl."
With a scornful laugh, the King of Heroes departed aboard Vimana, his interest lost. Once he was gone, Guinevere descended to the ground and dismissed the rain with a wave of her hand.
"Lancelot, are you satisfied with just this?"
She took out her phone and resumed the recording she had paused earlier. Now back in his familiar male form, Lancelot beamed, repeatedly touching his own body.
"Of course. This is more than enough."
The surrounding streets were already filled with noise. Even if the anomaly in the sky was ignored, the bombed-out restaurant would inevitably draw firefighters to the rescue and police to investigate.
If the rules of secrecy still mattered, the battle here was effectively over.
After their brief exchange, neither Guinevere nor Lancelot spoke again. As Lancelot had said, it was enough.
"Master, this is the end. Shall I see you off?"
He had landed on the adjacent rooftop and then dematerialized, reappearing beside Kariya. When he rematerialized, Kariya had already shaken Sakura awake. She stared blankly at the handsome older man, unable to accept that her white-haired big sister had transformed into this.
But when he gently ruffled her hair, Sakura recognized him—this was the same white-haired sister who had destroyed the Worm Pit and ended her and Kariya's nightmare.
"Ber... Berserker... thank you."
He said nothing, only smiling. But as he smiled, he gradually began to understand what had just happened here.
"Queen," he said, "has anyone ever told you that you're a real nightmare? Mordred was just a child then, and you told her she would one day bear the infamy of patricide and regicide.
"Just now, you even made Sakura stomp on those worms!"
The trauma of crushing the Old Worm underfoot had long since vanished, replaced by the exhilarating satisfaction of personally dispatching her tormentor. She still vividly remembered the terror that had paralyzed her when she merely watched Kariya being thrown into the Worm Pit.
But she remembered Guinevere's words even more clearly.
'Little one, you should crush your enemies, not harm yourself.'
Thinking of this, Sakura looked up, her mind replaying Kariya's transformation over the past year. A new resolve hardened in her eyes, and she spoke with earnest determination:
"Berserker, are there many mages in this world like... like that filthy worm?
"When I grow up, I want to crush more worms."
Under the watchful eyes of many, Sakura blossomed into a smile, embodying the elegance of the Tohsaka House.