The alliance had been hunting Dracula for forty-eight hours straight. Every lead was a fight, every fight a test of how long the truce could hold before someone decided the other was a bigger threat than the vampire.
They'd chased him through the industrial district, across the riverfront, into the old cemetery. Each time, they'd bloodied him, and each time, he'd slipped away, leaving more corpses in his wake.
By the end of the second night, Medea's scrying had narrowed his feeding pattern to a single point: the abandoned crypt beneath the burned-out cathedral on the city's eastern edge.
The crypt doors groaned open, the stench of blood and rot rolling out like a living thing. Inside, the vaulted chamber was lit by guttering braziers, the walls lined with coffins cracked open like eggshells.
On a throne of shattered stone and bone sat Dracula — taller now, his armor veined with crimson light, his eyes burning like coals. Around him, dozens of pale figures stirred: soldiers, civilians, magi — all turned into thralls.
"You've come to kill a king," he said, his voice echoing. "How quaint."
Saber stepped forward, her invisible blade humming. "You're no king."
His smile widened. "We'll see."
The thralls surged forward in a tide of pale flesh and steel.
Rin's jewels detonated in precise bursts, tearing gaps in the horde. Kotomine moved like a shadow, his Black Keys flashing, each throw finding a throat. Lancer laughed as he waded in, his spear a crimson blur that punched through three bodies at once.
Shirou fought alongside Rin and Kotomine, cutting down thralls before they could flank the casters. Rin's voice was sharp over the din: "Keep them off Medea!"
Medea's staff flared, walls of violet flame sealing off the Masters from the worst of the swarm. "Go!" she shouted to the Servants. "I've got them contained!"
Saber reached him first, her strikes a storm of steel. Dracula caught her blade in one hand, his strength monstrous, and hurled her back. Archer's arrows hissed past her, forcing him to twist aside.
Rider's chains lashed out, wrapping around his arm — but he yanked her off her feet and flung her into a pillar. The stone cracked under the impact.
Dracula's laughter rolled through the chamber. "Is this all?"
Shirou was in disbelief, "How the fuck is he so strong?!?"
Dracula smirked, "If you must know, I turned my master into a thrall and had him use all 3 command spells to empower me tonight."
Just as everyone absorbed that piece of information, the first shell hit the outer wall like a thunderclap.
The ceiling shook as a tank rolled into position outside, its cannon swiveling toward the crypt. The roar of rotors followed — attack helicopters circling overhead, their searchlights cutting through the night.
"Contact! Multiple hostiles!" a voice barked over loudspeakers. "Engage at will!"
The first burst of heavy machine gun fire tore through the thralls — and into the alliance's flank.
Rin cursed. "They think we're all the enemy!"
Dracula's smile widened. "More guests."
The battle dissolved into chaos.
Thralls hurled themselves at the JSDF, tearing soldiers from their feet. The tank's cannon boomed, the shell obliterating a section of the crypt — and half a dozen thralls with it. Medea's wards strained under the shockwave.
Shirou, Rin, and Kotomine moved as a unit, cutting down soldiers before Dracula could reach them. Kotomine's voice was calm even as he slit a soldier's throat. "Efficient."
Rin's jewels flashed, dropping a squad before they could reload. "Don't let him feed!"
On the upper ledge, Archer's bow dissolved into twin blades — Kanshou and Bakuya — which he hurled in a spinning arc through a cluster of thralls. They returned to his hands in a flash of steel, only for him to draw a new weapon: a cursed arrow.
A red spiral of energy coiled along the arrow's shaft. "Hrunting," he murmured — and loosed. The cursed projectile curved mid-flight, tearing through a helicopter's cockpit and sending it spiraling into the river.
Medea's voice rose in an incantation, her staff blazing with runes. The air thickened, the ground trembling as a magic circle the size of the chamber flared to life.
"ZUES'S WRATH!!" she cried.
The circle erupted in a storm of violet lightning, arcs leaping from thrall to soldier to tank. Armor blackened, weapons shattered, and the air filled with the smell of ozone and burning flesh. The surrounding crypt falling apart, leading into a courtyard outside.
Even Dracula staggered under the onslaught, his armor smoking.
The alliance was fraying. Lancer was bleeding from a dozen cuts, his grin gone. Rider's chains hung in tatters. Saber's armor was cracked, her breathing ragged.
The JSDF called for reinforcements over the comms. More engines roared outside — another tank, more troop carriers. The ground shook as they rolled into position.
"Move!" Saber's voice cut through the ringing in Shirou's ears. "We can't fight him pinned in here."
They spilled into the ruins of the cathedral above, boots crunching on broken glass. The moonlight revealed the scale of the JSDF's response — armored columns advancing down both main streets, spotlights sweeping the rubble.
The courtyard was a furnace of gunfire and magic. Tracer rounds stitched the night, tank shells turned stone to dust, and the air was thick with the stink of burning fuel. Dracula was everywhere at once — a blur of black and crimson, cutting down soldiers and thralls alike, feeding in the chaos.
"Hold him!" Saber's voice was raw, her armor cracked. "If he slips away now, we'll never corner him again!"
Rider's chains lashed out, tangling one of Dracula's arms. Lancer vaulted over the wreck of a troop carrier, his spear driving the vampire back a step. Medea's wards flared, sealing the exits in a lattice of violet light.
From the far street, the JSDF commander's voice barked over loudspeakers: "Alpha and Bravo, advance! Crush everything in that square!"
Three tanks rolled forward in formation, their cannons swiveling toward the alliance. Infantry poured in behind them, rifles and grenade launchers spitting fire.
Rin ducked behind a shattered pillar as a burst of rounds chewed through the stone. "They're not going to stop until we're all corpses!"
Kotomine's smile was thin and cold. "Then we oblige them… just not in the way they expect."
From the cathedral's roof, Archer's voice cut through the chaos. "Clear me a line."
Saber and Rider broke left, Lancer broke right, and Archer drew his great black bow. Mana flared along the arrow's length, the air warping around it.
"I am the bone of my sword, Caladbolg" he said — and loosed.
The Broken Phantasm detonated in the air, the spiraling blast tearing through the lead Helicopter and wiping out the surrounding aircraft in a cloud. Without pausing, Archer switched to Kanshou and Bakuya, leaping down into the melee to carve through the infantry with surgical precision.
Medea's voice rose in an incantation older than the city itself. "Age of Gods — Unfurl!"
The ground split, swallowing the second tank up to its treads. A storm of violet fire rained down, frying comms, detonating ammo belts, and sending soldiers screaming into the dark. The third tank's crew bailed out just before a stream of fire turned the vehicle into molten slag.
Dracula tore free of Rider's chains, snarling. "You think you can cage me?"
"Trace. On." The other 50% of Shirou's Od flooded him as he stepped into his path, twin blades materializing in his hands — black‑patterned Kanshou, white‑hazed Bakuya. The moment they formed, Archer's memories slammed into him: the rhythm of the blades, the way they moved as one, the countless battles fought with them, a technique shown through.
His voice was steady, cutting through the din:
Spirit and technique, flawless and firm
The first pair left his hands in a perfect arc. Dracula deflected them with a contemptuous sweep — exactly as intended.
Our strength rips the mountains
Our swords split the water
The second pair was already in Shirou's grip. He closed the distance in a blur, slashing in a relentless rhythm. Dracula caught one strike, parried another — and in that instant, the first pair curved back, drawn by their twin's pull, biting into his back.
Our names reach the imperial villa
The two of us cannot hold the heavens together.
The third pair flared brighter, edges lengthening into Overedge. Shirou blitzed in with a mana burst, crossing the blades in a downward X‑slash that tore through armor, flesh, and the magic holding Dracula together.
The force drove Dracula to his knees. The embedded blades locked him in place. For the first time, his smile was gone.
"You—" he began, but Shirou tore the blades out and slashed him once more, scattering his form into ash and crimson mist. The thralls collapsed instantly, bodies crumbling to dust.
The surviving JSDF soldiers froze, staring at the spot where Dracula had stood. Archer didn't give them time to recover — Kanshou and Bakuya spun from his hands, cutting down the front rank. Lancer's spear impaled two more before they could raise their rifles. Medea's lightning finished the rest, the courtyard falling silent but for the crackle of burning armor.
Kotomine stepped over a fallen soldier, wiping his blade clean. "And that," he said, "is how you end a war."
Shirou stood over the fading remains, the Overedge blades dissolving into motes of light. His breathing was ragged, but his eyes were steady. He knew that the only reason he won, was because the other servants tired him out, he was distracted, and begrudgingly, Archer's experience with the weapons.
Rin approached, her voice low but edged. "Who knew you would grow so desperate as to use someone else's move."
Shirou met her gaze. "All that matters is that it worked, and if you have a problem with copying, then you should have a word with your servant."
Archer watched from the shadows, unreadable. "You've learned more than I thought," he said at last. "Maybe more than you should."
The night was quiet now. No thralls. No soldiers. No Dracula.
For the first time in days, the alliance stood alone in the city.
The Next Day
The alliance didn't disband so much as it simply… stopped showing up in the same place.
By unspoken agreement, they took the day after Dracula's death to breathe. No patrols. No strategy meetings. No tense standoffs over who was holding back information. Just a fragile, temporary ceasefire with no one willing to admit it existed.
The temple courtyard was warmer than it had been in weeks. The winter sun filtered through bare branches, catching on the steam rising from the tea Medea had set out.
Rin sat cross‑legged on the engawa, sipping from her cup. "I still can't believe we're all still alive."
Kotomine, leaning against a pillar, smiled faintly. "Speak for yourself. I've been dead inside for years."
Lancer barked a laugh from where he was sprawled in the grass. "Finally, something we agree on."
Even Saber allowed herself a small smile at that, though her eyes kept drifting to Shirou — and the way Medea sat just a little too close to him.
Medea poured Shirou another cup without asking. "You're terrible at resting," she said.
"I'm fine," he replied.
"You're lying," she countered, but her tone was warm. "Drink."
Rider, passing by with a plate of sweets, smirked. "Careful, Caster. Keep mothering him like that and people will talk."
"They already do," Medea said without missing a beat, and Shirou nearly choked on his tea.
Rin rolled her eyes. "Some of us are trying to enjoy the peace without gagging."
It hadn't gone unnoticed that Illya and Berserker never appeared during the battle. The truth was simpler than anyone expected: Illya's bounded field had been breached two nights earlier by a scouting party of thralls. Berserker had been forced to hold the line at her castle, cutting down wave after wave to keep her safe. By the time the fight at the crypt began, they were still surrounded.
Gilgamesh's absence was stranger — until Archer explained, quietly, that the King of Heroes had been seen on the outskirts of the city, intercepting a convoy of magical artifacts being smuggled in by an unknown faction. Whatever his reasons, he'd chosen to keep that threat from reaching the battlefield. For once, it wasn't about pride — it was about preventing a second disaster.
Later, Saber found Shirou alone, watching the sun dip toward the horizon.
"You killed them all without hesitation," she said.
"I couldn't allow him to feed," Shirou replied.
"That's not what I'm asking."
He didn't answer, and she studied him for a long moment before turning away. "Be careful, Shirou. There's a line you can't come back from."
From the shadows of the corridor, Medea watched them, her expression unreadable.
By nightfall, the news had broken. Footage from the battle — grainy, chaotic, but unmistakable — flooded the airwaves. Tanks burning. Soldiers cut down by impossible weapons. Lightning storms erupt in city streets. The JSDF's annihilation was no longer a rumor; it was a fact.
Governments scrambled to respond. Some called it terrorism. Others whispered about "unidentified military technology." A few, behind closed doors, spoke the word magic for the first time in official briefings.
In the Clock Tower's shadowed halls, the Magus Association convened in an emergency session. The veil had been torn, if only for a moment, and the mundane world had seen too much. They decided to deploy enforcers to suppress witnesses and seize all physical evidence, tighten control over the Grail War's remaining participants, and, most importantly, identify and monitor the "Steel‑Eyed Raven" — whose actions had not only ended Dracula, but also wiped out an entire JSDF force in full view of the world.
In the temple courtyard, the winter sun slipped below the horizon. The day of peace was over. The next move belonged to no one — and everyone.