Mustang rammed into something. Resistance bled through its front bumper, climbing the steering column, rattling the wheel in my grip.
Ignoring it, I slammed my shoulder into the door beside me. It groaned, metal buckling, hinges quivering, bolts wrenching loose.
Another slam, and the door broke free.
It swung outward, hinges tearing from their sockets, panel screaming away end over end and vanishing behind clouds of smoke from a fire meters off.
Heels braced against the doorframe's base, I grabbed its top edge and hauled myself through, body folding, shoulders scraping metal, and rolled away from Mustang.
My back hit a pillar.
Concrete cracked on impact, fractures spider-webbing outward, chunks exploding in a spiral that mixed with drifting embers. My spine took the force and distributed it through both shoulders as the roll continued past.
"Central sector: Sealed. Containment in one-eighty seconds."
A synthetic voice.
And then a second pillar.
Ribs on my left side drove into concrete. I felt them buckle inward, bones bending to their limit before snapping. The pillar was already crumbling, fire eating through charred paint, and my weight finished the job. It split horizontally along the middle, top half tipping toward me, bottom half collapsing away as I kept moving.
"Coffin vitals: Baseline not reached across all remaining candidates. Transfer requirements unmet."
No third pillar stood in my way. Just two meters of open air and nothing to slow me down at all.
Then a reinforced gate.
Layered steel mixed with hard alloys, wreathed in flames yet nearly impossible to melt. Locked down like a shutter sealing a single sector.
I hit it at speed.
Metal shrieked and bolts sheared from their housings on both sides. My finger swiped down the middle, and the gate shredded open in a vertical line, momentum carrying me forward and through.
"Searching for qualifying candidates..."
Up and down flipped: ceiling, floor, ceiling, floor. Dust and soot floated through the air in all directions. Embers of crimson hissed on my coat, the collar igniting for a breath before guttering out as I ground across the floor.
I stopped.
A mound of debris caught me. Broken concrete slabs, rebar bent into hooks, mechanical parts shattered to pieces, all of it burning. My frame settled against the pile, blood running from my jawline to chin, dropping from there in beads that painted the floor beneath me red.
"Anomalous result detected.Candidate 2 does not originate from any registered applicant pool..."
"Point of origin: Unlisted."
"Cross-referencing against Pan-Human History: No match."
"Cross-referencing against all known talent registries: No match."
I glanced sideways and could make out the silhouettes of two other people behind a burning column. One of them was crushed under it from legs down, the other crouched ahead, hands clasped around that crushed person's hands.
Clocking them for now, I shifted my gaze upward. Through a hole in the ceiling, the sky was visible.
That rain of white monoliths was inches away from this facility, stretching from one edge of the gap all the way to its other edge. Their heat melting that hole's boundary white, its size growing with each breath.
"Re-running search. Expecting the anomaly to clear on re-check."
Wisps fell from the ceiling right above me. A boundary of white traced over it, trembling once, twice, then the whole section slid free, plunging toward me.
I peered past those monoliths to the strip of white covering the sky like an asteroid belt.
"...Anomaly persists."
That slab pressed down, the air of its descent pushing my body into the floor. Blue particles rushed toward me from the distance, coalescing mid-motion into an invisible edge already swinging, severing the slab in two, both halves flying away.
Gauntlets materialized next, followed by silver armour and a royal blue dress. Artoria.
She skated on her heels, coming to a stop beside me, one hand outstretched. "Get up, Master. It's unbecoming of you to lie there when we have a problem to solve."
At the word 'problem,' her gaze rose to those monoliths before returning to me, waiting.
"Compatibility reading: Exceeds all recorded thresholds. Scale unresolvable for now."
"Where are the others?" I asked, taking her offered hand, ribs protesting with a low grind, already half-healed.
"They should be on their way here." Artoria nodded, the corner of her lips lifting, pleased. "You gave us no warning before leaping from our car, Master. We were left to chase after you by faith alone."
I rose fully to my feet, spine popping back into alignment, the sound of shifting bones carrying across the area.
"So, Master... Any idea how we tackle something like... that?" she asked, her hand tightening over mine, chin tilting up toward the gap.
I shook my head. "We've already resolved it, and any move right now would have the opposite effect and put us in danger instead."
"... How so?"
"[Ultimate Clairvoyance] has been completely silent since we entered this place."
Artoria's eyes widened for a moment before narrowing, her gaze sweeping the area. "We're safe here, then."
"Yes, for now that is." I said, stretching my neck leftward, then rightward. "This synthetic voice, you should be able to hear it too."
"I can, Master. Loud and clear." she replied, pulling her hand back from mine to hold Invisible Air vertically beside her shoulder.
"Candidate 2's parameters: Still unresolvable. Reclassifying as unquantifiable. Definition update required..."
"Waiting..."
"Waiting..."
"Get ready." My natural magic circuits awoke, a green grid surfacing across my skin in sequence. "We might've been pulled into something way beyond our current limits, by the look of things."
"Overriding protocol: Candidate 2's designation reassigned as a Master."
"Summoning program: Start."
"Spiritron conversion: Start."
"Number of Singularities resolved: 0/7."
"Current destination: Singularity F (Fuyuki, Japan — 2004 CE)."
Artoria raised an eyebrow at those words, her voice incredulous. "Fuyuki? 2004? Didn't we just arrive from there?"
"It's a different one. A singularity, something outside normal space-time." I corrected, looking to my other side.
Another cluster of blue particles materialized there, tracing the outline of a tall woman. In seconds, long purple hair took shape, her blindfold back on, stake-chains clinking in her grip. Medusa.
"You're here." I nodded at her. "Did you see Medea on your way?"
"Hm." She paused, then shook her head. "I didn't keep an eye on... her."
"All procedures clear."
"She's fine and nearby, as far as I can trace through our connection." I brought my focus back to the present and warned, "We're about to be summoned to another Fuyuki, from what I inferred."
Artoria's body locked, every muscle coiled in vigilance. "That means seven enemy Servants."
"And we might get separated on arrival. Trace my location through our Master-Servant bond and try to reach me as fast as possible if that happens." I glanced up at the sky one last time.
"Transfer commencing in three."
Those two people in the distance had already begun to dissolve into particles.
Spiritron transfer, was it?
"Two."
Another Fuyuki should have another grail too. Enough mana to charge Justeaze full.
"One."
Let's go.
"Grand Order... Issued."
...
..
.
***
[200 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter]
[15 chapters ahead on P@tr3on = [email protected]/Not_Aaryan]
...
[Author's Thoughts]
And it begins, let's see where things go from here. I have something interesting planned for the Artroria's... Won't spoil anything right now. First, let's go and have some fun and great fights in Fuyuki, oh and Mash and Fujimaru too, making them gawk at different Ultimates might be fun.