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Under the moonlight, Maverick and Dai stood on either side of Darius III like an honor guard that had not agreed to be an honor guard.
Their attire was unchanged from what it had been for the last several hours.
The chat registered this.
[Chat]: I'm not going to say it.
[Chat]: I'm saying it. it's been four hours. FOUR HOURS.
[Chat]: the inner femininity has awakened.
[Chat]: I'm hearing "Auntie Ya Ya" in my head and I cannot stop it.
Lü Bu, through his mask, surveyed the new arrivals. He had a gay man beside him who kept flexing his arm. He now had three more apparent perverts standing in front of him. The ritual hypothesis was gaining credibility.
Teacher Pu spotted Darius III.
Darius III spotted Teacher Pu.
There was a moment — a very specific moment — where the game's rendering of Teacher Pu's Emiya Kiritsugu face somehow still managed to convey the expression of a man who had been tightening bolts underground for three hours and had just found the person who had context for all of it.
"Berserker!!"
"ROAR!!"
Darius III took one stride and launched himself off the building. They met in the middle — Teacher Pu barely caught the impact, staggered backward, and held on. The hug had the structural integrity of a building collapse.
Maverick, watching from nearby, felt something move in his chest.
What a Master-Servant bond.
[Chat]: TOGETHER TOGETHER TOGETHER
[Chat]: I didn't expect this to be an emotional moment
[Also_Chat]: the Chief looks a bit more dignified now that he's regenerated some
[Counter]: bro he was charcoal twenty minutes ago
[Chat]: the farm equipment reunited with its farmer
[Correction]: HE IS A PERSIAN KING. please.
The reunion lasted approximately four seconds before Elizabeth launched her Dragon God Dive.
She had been waiting for someone to take her weight. The moment Dai set her down, she had her spear in hand and was moving — twin points aimed at the back of Lü Bu's head, Dragon God Dive's full momentum behind the thrust.
Nero, not to be outdone by her best friend, burst through a pile of debris at the same instant, flames raging.
Coordinated. Clean. Both attacking simultaneously from different angles.
Lü Bu tilted his head to clear Elizabeth's thrust. His free hand rose and caught the spear shaft. He registered Nero's approach, raised the halberd, and brought it down to meet her charge.
The ground under Nero's feet cratered. Her knees buckled. Blood ran from her palms.
"Forty percent," Lü Bu said, inspecting the exchange. "You can take forty percent of my strength. Impressive for your class."
"FORTY PERCENT AND I CAN'T FEEL MY ARMS."
He looked at Elizabeth — still attached to the other end of her spear, which he was still holding. He swung her. She became a projectile. She impacted a cluster of mechanical soldiers at speed, scattered them, and bounced up from the wreckage with dragon claws already extended and absolutely furious.
Dragon's Breath, at Lü Bu from the flank.
He split it with a forward chop. The two halves detonated the buildings behind him.
Darius III arrived, axes swinging at Lü Bu's waist. The impact pushed Lü Bu back sixty feet. He stopped, shifted grip, and returned force equal to what he'd received.
The sonic boom rattled every window left intact in a three-block radius.
Three Servants on Lü Bu simultaneously. He was suppressing all three.
[Chat]: in the original story this was a DRAW with Guan Yu and Zhang Fei and Liu Bei all at once
[Chat]: these three are not those three
[Chat]: Lü Bu is having fun
[Chat]: I think Lü Bu is genuinely enjoying this
On the rooftop:
"My name is Thomas Edison." The lion head smiled. Both hands still raised. "I have a way to neutralize the man down there. My Noble Phantasm will reduce his effectiveness to zero. I'll need one Command Seal from each of you in return."
Maverick's gun didn't waver. "If you don't use it, your Servants die and you're next. You'll use it regardless."
Edison's smile stayed warm. "That's fair. That's negotiation. So let's say — one Command Seal total. Compensation for the magical energy cost. You pay after the Noble Phantasm takes effect, not before."
[Chat]: Edison is too much of a capitalist
[Chat]: Maverick don't give in
[Chat]: one Command Seal to take out Lü Bu is actually not a bad trade if it works
Wei started to object. Edison's hand on his shoulder stopped him gently.
Dai reached for her Command Seal.
Teacher Pu reached for his.
Maverick stepped forward before either of them could move.
He looked at Edison's lion eyes and said: "Fine. One Command Seal, after the Noble Phantasm takes effect. Not before. If you want to negotiate, that's the floor."
Edison considered this for exactly as long as it took to determine that no better offer was coming.
"Deal," he said. He turned to face the battle below, stepped to the edge of the rooftop, and let the performance begin.
"Focus your eyes on me.
The grand entertainment is starting.
Every dark corner of this world — I am going to light it up.
Granting light equally to all. The sin every genius must bear.
World. Faith. Domination!"
The lights on his shoulders blazed. The lights in the formation blazed. The entire battlefield became noon.
Edison's Noble Phantasm operated on a principle simple enough to explain in one sentence: mystery requires the unknown, and Edison had spent his entire historical existence making the unknown known.
The light bulb pushed back darkness. The phonograph captured sound. The motion picture recorded the unseen. Three inventions that took the mysterious and made it ordinary — that stripped wonder from the world by explaining it to everyone simultaneously.
In Type-Moon logic, a Servant's power runs on mystery. The more unknown a concept is, the stronger the magical force attached to it. Artoria's dragon bloodline becomes mundane under Edison's light — the dragon-core blessings, gone. Nero's Imperial Privilege loses its foundation — the self-belief that could transform impossibility into reality, suddenly just a woman with a sword. The Aestus Domus Aurea would collapse to ash.
Edison was confident this covered Lü Bu entirely.
He met Lü Bu's gaze.
Lü Bu looked back at him with the specific expression of someone who has just been told the rain won't fall on him and is currently getting wet.
"How is this possible?" Edison said. "Why isn't it working?!"
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