"Mmh?"
Consciousness returned in a daze. Jonouchi bolted upright.
"Huh?"
Below him, the shimmering wreckage of the city stretched into the distance. He stared blankly.
"I'm flying?!!"
Startled, Jonouchi nearly panicked but relaxed when he realized he wasn't falling. He pressed a hand to his chest and exhaled.
"Ahahaha!! What are you doing?"
A familiar laugh from nearby. Jonouchi whipped his head around, eyes brightening.
There she was. Sakura Kyoko, dressed in casual clothes, floating in the air beside him.
"You..."
"We're out, Jonouchi. We've been eliminated."
Her laughter faded, replaced by a look of quiet regret.
"But... hearing that you'd stop me, I was so glad."
"Thank you."
Turning to gaze upon the devastated city and its weeping citizens below, Kyoko's voice dipped low, then rose again.
Her expression held both sorrow and defiance.
After Witchification, she'd been nothing more than a helpless passenger, watching Ophelia run rampant.
Watching it kill people had been agony beyond words.
In her darkest moment of despair...
It was Jonouchi who'd pulled her back from the abyss.
Until the very end, he hadn't abandoned her. He'd still chosen to save her.
That willingness to die alongside her. That life thrown on the line.
It was profoundly moving.
Because of him, Sakura Kyoko had never succumbed to despair.
'I'm partly to blame for not stopping you sooner.'
'So I'm going to shoulder that mistake with you!'
Those words alone were enough to make her want to cry.
"Huh?"
A light fist pressed gently against her cheek. Kyoko blinked.
"I told you, didn't I? You messed up, so I'm hitting you."
"Don't think being a girl saves you."
His earnest expression made Kyoko puff out her cheeks in protest.
"Whose fault do you think this is?!"
"If you hadn't lost your cards, I wouldn't have needed that thing!!"
"Heh. If you hadn't gotten blown up by Rider, I wouldn't have been in that situation."
"Maybe do some self-reflection first."
They bickered. And then, in the very next breath, both burst into laughter simultaneously.
"Pfft!"
"Hahaha!"
The graceless, full-throated laughter spoke of mutual release and relief.
"But really, we owe an apology to everyone who got caught in the crossfire."
"I know!"
Kyoko understood the weight of what had happened. She had no intention of running from it.
"Too bad that card you gave me didn't work."
"Oh? Monster Reborn? Probably because we died together, so it couldn't trigger. Whatever, it's not a big deal."
After a period of solemn reflection, Kyoko remembered the unused card.
Jonouchi didn't care about Monster Reborn's failure. It didn't matter anymore.
"So... is this an out-of-body experience?"
"Who knows?"
Jonouchi examined their translucent state. Kyoko shrugged, equally clueless.
"Saber and the others can't sense us either."
"Hey! What's going to happen to us?!"
Floating cross-legged in the air, Jonouchi looked down and called out to nobody in particular.
"Is this what being an earthbound spirit feels like?"
"That's way too creepy a way to put it!"
With no answers forthcoming, both were at a loss.
Clap.
But a sound from behind drew both their attention.
"What a beautiful friendship."
They turned. A figure in a white robe, face obscured, stood in the air behind them.
"That voice..."
"It's you!"
"It's YOU!!"
Neither could ever forget that voice.
This was the one who had invited them to the "Dragon Ball War" in the first place.
God.
"What do you want?!"
"Easy now. I just noticed you two seemed uneasy, so I thought I'd offer a brief explanation."
The voice was flat, unhurried. Distinctly inhuman.
"Well, as I said from the start, this war is designed to fulfill the victor's wish."
"But only the victor can remain standing until the end."
"Sending you back early would be... problematic for future events."
"What does that mean?"
Jonouchi tilted his head, completely lost.
"Idiot! He means we'll stay here as spectators until the war is over."
"We have to witness someone winning and making their wish before we're sent home."
Kyoko hadn't expected this kind of "treatment." The entity's diligence was almost surprising.
Shouldn't a god be capricious and self-centered?
This one was oddly responsible and charitable.
"Oh? Is that how it works?"
"Correct. If I sent you home now and you told everyone it was fake, that would be quite troublesome."
"I don't intend to hold this tournament only once."
"Once a victor emerges and makes their wish, you'll be returned to your own worlds. Simple as that."
"Oh."
It clicked belatedly for Jonouchi. But when he and Kyoko blinked, the figure was gone.
"So we might get another chance to participate?"
Kyoko caught the implication buried in the entity's words.
This time was a failure. But there might be another "summons" in the future.
"I don't really get it, but basically there's still a chance?"
"Tch! Next time, I won't go down like this!"
Lancer and Caster were eliminated.
Two Servants had finally left the stage.
But every faction that participated paid a heavy price.
Archer was nursing wounds somewhere unknown.
Rider's injuries were severe enough to render him immobile for the foreseeable future.
Only Assassin, Saber, and Berserker emerged in relatively decent condition.
The worst damage, however, was to Fuyuki City itself. The "panic" Ophelia had caused was an administrative nightmare. Even the Church's emergency cleanup operations were barely sufficient.
Both the Tohsaka and Matou families had to dispatch personnel for damage control.
Memory manipulation through magecraft, scene sanitation, evidence erasure, none of it was simple work.
The Witch had left genuine devastation and casualties in her wake.
As a result, every Master-Servant pair tacitly agreed to an unofficial ceasefire.
"Ah, I understand your situation. Let's meet once everything settles down."
Tohsaka Tokiomi disconnected from his familiar-linked call with Risei, well aware of the overseer's frantic state.
An incident of this magnitude would draw the Mage's Association's ire.
Allowing "Mystery" to be exposed so flagrantly, without clean containment, was the kind of failure that couldn't be resolved with a simple apology.
"A miscalculation!"
They had underestimated Lancer and Caster's combined strength. It had taken five Servants and enormous sacrifices to bring them down.
"Still, at least the most unpredictable variables have been eliminated."
There was a silver lining. Had they continued without knowing the duo's true power, the consequences of a surprise ambush could have been catastrophic.
The strength those two Heroic Spirits possessed was genuinely terrifying.
"Now then. The only remaining priority is Berserker."
The plan hadn't gone as designed, and the process had been disastrous. But the objective was ultimately achieved.
All that remained was locating Berserker's Master.
That was the final obstacle between Tohsaka Tokiomi and ultimate victory.
[Translated and Rewritten by Shika_Kagura]