"What…?!"
As soon as the words left the girl's mouth, the sky above them tore open.
Jeanne gasped. The golden meteor she had seen in the distance hadn't just struck the earth; its trajectory had carried it directly over their heads, crashing into the highway miles ahead.
A deafening roar, like the world itself splitting apart, rolled over the plains. The asphalt beneath Jeanne's feet buckled and heaved as a violent earthquake followed the impact.
"Wha…?!"
Caught off guard by the sheer magnitude of the tremor, Jeanne lost her footing. She was forced to drop to one knee, driving her hand into the cracked pavement just to keep from being thrown to the ground.
As she struggled to steady herself, a second phenomenon caught her eye. Far off in the opposite direction, toward the fortress of the Black Faction, a massive pillar of pure, white light erupted into the heavens.
"Is that... a Noble Phantasm?!" Jeanne whispered, her heart pounding.
It was absolute chaos. Multiple, apocalyptic-level clashes were occurring simultaneously across the region.
Then, the danger arrived at her doorstep.
The seemingly ordinary girl standing before her began to change. The strange, metallic ornament on her head shifted, its plates sliding apart with a mechanical hum to project a brilliant, multi-colored halo of light.
Instantly, a localized hurricane exploded outward from the girl.
The wind was violent, tearing chunks of asphalt from the road and whipping them into the air. Sensing the immediate, overwhelming threat, Jeanne abandoned her civilian disguise. She leaped backward, and in a flash of holy light, her casual clothes were replaced by shining silver armor. A massive, holy battle standard, her Noble Phantasm, Luminosité Eternelle, materialized in her grip.
But even fully armed, the gale-force winds were blinding. Jeanne had to raise her armored arm to shield her eyes from the flying debris, her golden braid whipping furiously in the storm.
She's hostile! Jeanne realized, gripping her flag tight.
Before she could attempt to dispel the wind, a heavy object plummeted from the sky, crashing into the road mere meters from her with a bone-jarring THUD.
Jeanne turned her head, squinting through the dust.
A man climbed out of the fresh crater. He wore skin-tight black armor adorned with massive, spiked plates of solid gold. He wielded a crimson spear, and his sharp, pale face was framed by messy white hair.
Jeanne's eyes widened. She recognized him instantly from the Grail's provided knowledge.
"You're... Lancer of Red?!"
Karna brushed the dust from his golden armor. He looked at the armored holy maiden, then at the swirling vortex of wind, his expression stoic but internally bewildered. He had been blasted all the way here from his previous position.
Before he could answer her, another figure stepped calmly out of the dust storm.
It was another girl with violet-blue hair. She looked exactly like the one generating the hurricane.
"Reminder: Unit 1. Your progress is inefficient."
The newly arrived girl, Unit 4, spoke with a voice devoid of inflection.
The girl generating the wind, Unit 1, sighed, her shoulders slumping in a very human gesture of annoyance.
"Rebuttal: Tonight is not the 'Final Day'. We do not need to be so obsessively efficient, Unit 4," Unit 1 complained, a hint of personality bleeding into her tone. "Honestly, you're all so stiff. Always walking around with a blank face, using that robotic tone..."
Unit 4 ignored the rant. "Reminder: Limit unnecessary communication. Priority is the mission."
With that, Unit 4 vanished.
A sonic boom shattered the air. Unit 4 reappeared directly in front of Karna, her purple greatsword swinging with the force of a landslide. Karna brought his spear up to block, but the kinetic impact was so massive that his feet left the ground. Unit 4 didn't stop; she drove forward, bulldozing the Son of the Sun God through the air and carrying him miles away into the distant horizon.
With Unit 4's departure, the blinding hurricane finally began to subside.
Jeanne lowered her arm, able to open her eyes fully again. The wind was still strong, but manageable. She watched the golden streak of Lancer and Unit 4 fade into the distance.
She turned back to Unit 1, her grip on her holy flag tightening. She had pieced together the fragments of the situation. These identical girls were systematically hunting down the Servants of both factions.
"Who are you people?!" Jeanne demanded, her voice ringing with holy authority. "Why are you interfering with the Holy Grail War?!"
It was the third time she had asked that question tonight. And as before, Unit 1 didn't seem inclined to answer.
"Seriously, why is everyone exactly like me?" Unit 1 muttered, shaking her head with a wry smile.
[Warning: Unit 1. Cease wasting time. Execute directives.]
The cold, absolute voice of the Main Unit echoed through the quantum network directly into Unit 1's processors.
Unit 1 flinched, her relaxed demeanor vanishing instantly.
"Understood," she murmured. "Since the Command Unit has spoken..."
She raised her hand. A tiny, highly compressed sphere of blue energy began to form in her palm. Because of the lingering winds, Jeanne couldn't see the exact nature of the spell, but her Ruler-class senses screamed that a terrifying amount of mana was condensing in that small point.
It was wind magic, derived from the grimoires of Frieren's world.
Using the manipulation of air currents, Unit 1 directed her voice perfectly into Jeanne's ears, whispering over the roar of the gale.
"Correction: Who we are is irrelevant. And our objective is not to destroy the Holy Grail War."
As she spoke, Unit 1 slowly floated into the air, hovering above the cracked highway.
That answer was unacceptable. Their actions were tearing the ritual apart. As the Ruler, it was her sacred duty to eliminate anomalies that threatened the war's integrity.
Jeanne planted her feet, lowered her stance, and leveled the tip of her flag at the floating girl.
If words would not stop them, she would have to use force.
….
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