"But besides climbing up, I don't know what to do either..."
Takumi scratched his head in the air.
In this broken place, every moving living creature was not an existence capable of normal communication. The only Count was a riddler again. What could he do? He was also very desperate!
Thinking this, Takumi looked at the Count with a trace more resentment.
"Fine, fine, fine! I won't lecture you on this!"
The Count's anger obviously hadn't dissipated yet because he hadn't reached the part that made him angriest.
"What was with your look just now? I'm asking you, what was with your look just now?!"
"Ah, I knew you would definitely help me—you definitely thought like that just now, right?"
The Count walked up to Takumi in two or three steps, pointing his finger at Takumi's nose.
Halfway through, he even used Takumi's usual tone to say a sentence theatrically, then changed his face like magic, continuing to point at Takumi.
"Did I not make it clear enough? I am an Avenger, a demon of vengeance! Not worth trusting, and you shouldn't trust me either—"
"So I ask again! What exactly was with your look just now?!"
The Count glared angrily into Takumi's eyes.
He felt his personality as an Avenger was insulted!
'Damn, is my face really a display screen?'
Takumi, having his inner thoughts accurately stated by the Count, couldn't help complaining in his heart.
"Because... I just felt you would help me?"
Facing the Count's direct gaze, Takumi turned his head uncomfortably, thought for a moment, and said tentatively.
Silent for two seconds.
"Ha, haha..."
The Count lowered his finger, suddenly laughing with relief.
"Uh, I just purely feel that Count, you are a trustworthy partner. Probably only I think so here. Count, you shouldn't be discouraged, right?"
Feeling that the Count seemed to care about his identity as a demon of vengeance, Takumi comforted him slightly along his lines.
"...I'm not discouraged. And rather than caring about me, you might as well care about yourself."
The Count took two deep breaths, saying weakly.
"This is your second time passing the Seventh Hall. This time isn't like playing around before. So will the second clearance allow you to escape this 'Prison Tower'?"
"Don't want to try and see?"
The Count was too lazy to make those meaningless expressions, just raising his eyebrows at Takumi.
Takumi didn't know.
But the road was right there. So Takumi dragged his steps, which were already strenuous even for walking, stepping onto the stairs leading to the higher level.
And behind him where he didn't know.
The Count suddenly grabbed his own head with his hands, shaking it frantically left and right.
He was going crazy.
Twice, Takumi saw the surprise blooming in his eyes like the midday sun, shining directly and undisguisedly on him, this demon of vengeance.
Yes, he was indeed sent by Goetia to give Takumi the final judgment.
But here comes the question? Who is he?
He is the freest Avenger!
You, a Beast, just say a few words, use some summoning-style control on me, and I will listen to you?
Dream on!
So the Count's goal from the beginning was to help Takumi, this last savior of the Human Order.
It's just that even the Count didn't expect...
That surprised gaze at first sight would be so blinding.
Making him, this demon of vengeance, unable to help looking away.
Takumi's performance all along also made him both uncomfortable and... delighted?
Complex and strange emotions piled up in his heart, making him, whose personality was more or less awkward, very irritable.
Wanted to curse loudly and make a scene, but seeing Takumi like this, he had to suppress these emotions in his heart.
So much so that now...
The Count really wished he hadn't acted so fast just now. Wouldn't it be better to torture the black shadow just now a bit more?
Oh, if not fast enough, Takumi might die?
Then it's fine.
After venting his displeasure slightly, the Count hurriedly followed Takumi's pace.
In this broken place, he also had to follow Takumi honestly, otherwise he would definitely encounter some bad things.
...
"Back again..."
Takumi looked disappointedly at the cell he was familiar with to the extreme.
But what made Takumi feel wondrous was that this time the cell door—was actually open again?
"So? What do you plan to do?"
The Count asked with interest.
"...I don't know."
Takumi was silent for a while, spitting out three words.
He couldn't understand this "Prison Tower." It seemed endless, trapping him here firmly.
"Then just try again. Maybe it will end this time."
The Count looked up at the sky, suggesting nonchalantly.
Takumi looked at the Count suspiciously, but finally walked towards the "living room" at the corner without saying a word.
'Other cell doors are also open...'
Looking at the scenery along the way, Takumi walked with full confusion.
Could it be the first seven floors open, the next seven floors closed, then another seven floors open... alternating back and forth like this?
Carrying a guess like solving a problem, Takumi stood at the door of the "living room."
That black shadow inside was still standing there.
"This..."
Takumi looked at the Count.
"Why look at me?"
The Count spread his hands.
Takumi had no choice but to grit his teeth and rush into the room with his head down.
Under the accumulation of fatigue, his movements were unstable, his speed barely gaining an upper hand even against an old man.
The black shadow also waved its claws attacking Takumi like before, speed unchanged.
Crack!
The Count snapped the black shadow's neck with black lines all over his head.
Cursing angrily like hating iron for not becoming steel:
"Idiot! Moron!"
"Can't you use your brain more? Could you beat him with your state just now?!"
"Also, if I say climb the tower, you climb the tower? Wouldn't you question it? Or if I say you can get out of here by committing suicide, you would believe it too?"
After the black shadow died, another layer of fatigue added to his body. Takumi, somewhat unstable on his feet, sat on the ground.
Just resting for a while and hearing the Count say this, he couldn't help raising his hand, saying weakly:
"If you said suicide could get me out, I would still question it..."
The Count: "..."
He had lost count of how many times he was this speechless.
"...I'll tell you the truth. If you just climb up like this, you can never get out of here no matter what!"
"Moreover, every time you pass a floor, the curse will attach to your soul once. With your current state, you will collapse directly in a few floors."
The Count also realized that indirect hints were useless for someone straightforward like Takumi. Rather than continuing, it was better to be open and honest.
Moreover, accumulating until now, he felt it was about enough.
"Then is it as long as you help me..."
Unknown why, Takumi just felt that as long as the Count helped him, he could leave here.
The Count interrupted Takumi's words.
"Yes! ...This is also the point I find hardest to accept—as long as I open my mouth to say I'll help you, then pass the Seven Judgment Halls as you initially thought, you can get rid of that Beast's curse no matter what and return to reality."
Saying this, the Count couldn't help covering his face and sighing.
He had long reached a conclusion: Takumi himself wasn't willing to advance anymore, but if a trusted companion pushed him, he would try again—
"But doing that is meaningless!"
"After all, if I do that, isn't it equivalent to pushing you to go to the reality you yourself despair of?"
Finishing speaking, the Count glanced at Takumi, his eyes becoming complex.
Takumi was a weirdo.
This was the Count's thought from beginning to end.
After all, where is there a normal person who, when encountering a demon of vengeance like him, gives trust from the moment of meeting?
The Count, who could feel Takumi's trust, asked himself.
Moreover, this trust was enough to entrust one's back. Even if he stood by and watched, laughed to his heart's content, commented casually, and even played missing, this trust didn't diminish.
"—So I won't help you. That's just sending you to die."
Recalling everything that happened in this short time, the Count's tone carried unquestionable firmness.
There was no spark of hope in such a future ahead. Only darkness destined for death awaited the traveler.
"...Then how should I get out?"
After listening to the Count, Takumi's eyes were full of confusion.
"I said long ago, ask yourself, not me."
"Let me ask you a sentence first. Do you think this is the Prison Tower?"
The Count spread his hands, showing this space to Takumi.
"I remember you said this is the Prison Tower..."
Takumi wasn't sure, but his memory was quite good.
"Hahahaha, think carefully again. Did I say this is the Prison Tower?"
The Count laughed. Staring into Takumi's eyes, carrying a vague smile, he asked back.
"How could it not be..."
Takumi just wanted to refute, but memory fragments from back then flashed through his mind at this moment.
As if seeing something incredible, he was instantly stunned, the second half of the sentence stuck in his throat.
"Remembered now, right?"
Takumi, finding the truth, suddenly felt his throat a bit dry. His Adam's apple bobbed twice: "...It was me... who 'forced' you to say it..."
Barely finished the sentence.
"Correct! From beginning to end, I never truly said—this is the Prison Tower!"
The Count snapped his fingers, looking at Takumi with a hint of mockery in his eyes.
"Although all facilities here are identical to the structure of the Prison Tower, it is not the Prison Tower."
"Then where exactly is this? And who trapped you here?"
"Is it the King of Magic? Is it that Beast? Or me?"
The Count guided patiently, casting expectant gazes on Takumi.
"—This point, I also said before."
Takumi constantly recalled what the Count had said, pushing back from the present continuously, finally... locking onto a sentence when they first met.
"...Actually, the one trapping me is—"
"Me?"
Takumi's eyes were filled with disbelief.
Clap clap clap...
The Count couldn't help applauding.
Hey, Takumi isn't stupid!
—Uh, or does his way of speaking really have big problems?
"How is this possible?! If I trapped myself, how could I climb the tower so desperately?"
Recalling his actions, Takumi couldn't help refuting.
"Or is there another 'me' trapping me?"
That's too cliché!
(In fact, a few years ago, this setting was quite novel)
"...Having imagination is good, but your imagination seems to have flown a bit far."
The Count held his forehead.
"Then how are you sure you didn't trap yourself?"
"Just by doing useless work climbing up continuously, you feel you didn't trap yourself?"
Yes, the Count also admitted that Takumi's weirdness wasn't only shown in that inexplicable trust.
It also lay in this will to choose to move forward even though he had already decided he couldn't succeed.
After passing the seventh floor, the Count deliberately hid in a place Takumi couldn't see to observe him.
He didn't expect Takumi to have such a big reaction after he left.
But he also didn't expect that even so, Takumi didn't stay in place for too long, but ran straight to conquer the next floor.
Even when he was sweating for Takumi, Takumi rushed into the room without hesitation, trading injury for life with the black shadow.
The ferocity and roughness during combat made even the Count click his tongue secretly.
Then he numbly watched such a Takumi kill six black shadows all the way, until finally defeated at the seventh.
"Think carefully."
"I can tell you right now, this place originally called 'Prison Tower', which even I don't know what to call now, became like this because of you."
"It is now like a Reality Marble, covering and assimilating the original 'Prison Tower'. All changes within are because of you."
"Remember why it was pitch black before and after your location?"
"That's because this place exists because of you. As long as you don't go there, there won't be real objects in the location covered by darkness. It's just a piece of [Darkness] even I don't want to step into."
"Oh, those acquaintance friends of yours were probably also so funny because of your subconscious, right? Haha..."
Recalling the "performances" before, the Count couldn't help sneering.
All because of me?
Takumi recalled the strange behaviors of Jeanne, Nero, and others, suddenly feeling not strange anymore.
Indeed, only Takumi, who had experienced so much abstract baptism, would construct those scenes.
But why exactly? Where exactly did I trap myself?
Am I not working hard enough?
"I don't understand..."
Takumi sat on the ground with his head lowered in frustration.
"Then let me reveal your hidden thoughts—"
"Because you never believed you could defeat that Beast!"
"Why was the cell door open when I was there? Because I opened it."
"Why could you never escape from here, the floors above seeming endless? Because I wasn't leading you through the Seven Judgment Halls."
"Why did the cell door close again after I left?"
The Count questioned sternly and continuously.
Facing the Count's questioning, Takumi's heart seemed to be beaten by a huge hammer. The rusty shell on it was all smashed off.
Yeah, Takumi always believed from the bottom of his heart that he had no ability to defeat Goetia at all. So compared to believing in himself, he would trust the Servants who had helped him so much all along more.
So if there was help from Servants, then definitely...
The Count looked at Takumi meaningfully and said:
"Yeah, here, you give me your greatest trust all the time. But honestly, you actually don't trust us Servants in your subconscious, right?"
"Otherwise, why would all friendly Servants not lend a helping hand to your encounter? Screaming screamed, singing sang, watching the show watched the show..."
Listening to the Count's words, Takumi finally couldn't help refuting:
"No, no... I have always believed in them, never disbelieved!"
Takumi looked stubbornly into the Count's eyes.
Only this trust was definitely not a lie!
The Count looked away. Of course, he knew Takumi's trust was by no means fake, but he also had to break this trust with his own hands.
"...Correct, you believe in us Servants. Probably it won't fade for a long journey ahead."
"But what about that Beast?"
"Do you really think Servants are still worthy of your trust when facing that Beast?"
The Count grinned, staring straight into Takumi's eyes again.
Under the Count's gaze, Takumi's pupils contracted. The waist just straightened seemed to slowly lose muscle support again, bending down slowly.
[Nega-Summon]
Under this Authority, Servants were meaningless.
"...But if Servants can't help me, what do I use to defeat that Beast?"
Having his protective color torn off by the Count, Takumi, finally facing reality, seemed to lose all strength, saying lostly.
"Servants, we are not worth trusting!"
"So what you, who were originally alone, need to do is simple—believe in yourself!"
The Count took a step, approaching Takumi.
"Moreover... the power you haven't noticed has actually been helping you all along. You can perceive it, right?"
The Count poked Takumi's chest, then stood up watching him quietly.
...
Takumi lowered his head, reaching out to press the spot the Count just poked, his eyes somewhat trance-like.
This is the heart.
Why could I hear Jeanne Alter's "crying" from 800 meters away? At that distance, and that noisy battlefield, it should be impossible to hear...
Nero also said I have hidden power. At that time, I just thought that power was my Noble Phantasm.
But Takumi could still vaguely remember the miracle of that last sword against Romulus, that passionate feeling as if able to crush everything—like "Union of Hearts."
And she said, this is borrowing my power...
And Asterios—
At the end of that battle, heavily injured and dying, he didn't speak at all. How did I hear what he said?
Why do friendly Servants all have high favorability towards me?
And why can I use those Noble Phantasms as soon as I lay hands on them? Even using them much strangely than their original Noble Phantasms?
Charging while swinging the [Balmung], Roman towering tree, mobile sealing [Labyrinth]...
Why do I need to give myself suggestions to use two special abilities? And why are the effects of both special abilities stronger from time to time?
Why could I, who only wanted to escape, ignore various terrains and attacks in Singularity F?
...
Various anomalies unnoticed, or subconsciously ignored after noticing, flashed frantically in Takumi's mind.
Every question flashed, every scene, seemed to push open a door, tear off a layer of wrapping paper, bringing Takumi closer and closer to the [Answer].
Crack!
Crack!
Crack!
...
Sounds like flint striking each other rang out in the entire space. The frequency of the sound went from slow to fast, soon becoming as fast as setting off firecrackers.
...
Crack!
Finally—
'All this is...
Power of the [Heart]?'
Accompanying the last "crack" sound, a spark flashed in Takumi's pupil, a weak flame flickering within.
[Heart of Fire]—Ignited!
The Count, taking all these changes into his eyes, looked like he saw some peerless treasure. Instantly revealing madness, that ghost face appeared on his face again.
"Yes yes yes! Just embrace your true power like this! Give up trust in us Servants, rely on your own power..."
"—I don't want to."
This time it was Takumi's turn to interrupt the Count.
"...Hah?"
The Count's expression froze instantly, looking at Takumi blankly.
Only to see Takumi slowly stand up, his posture completely unlike the weakness just now.
Strength capable of splitting mountains and cracking rocks returned to his body. Warmth coming from the heart swept the whole body, making Takumi, whose hands and feet were originally a bit cold, feel warmth again.
"I won't give up trust in you guys. After all, how can such a thing be given up directly just by saying a few words?"
Takumi scratched his head, appearing very distressed.
Then Takumi looked at the Count's stiff expression, smiling knowingly:
"I will always trust you Servants, even if encountering Goetia again, so—"
"Count, lend me your power!"
Takumi extended a fist to the Count.
It was borrowing the Servant's power, but also different from previous forms.
And the Count stared blankly at Takumi's action.
Pupils flickering with illusory flames, a gentle but incomparable firm smile on his face...
"...Hmph hahahahahahaha!"
Looking at such a Takumi, the Count couldn't help covering his face and laughing wildly with his head back.
Goetia, you released him yourself!
Laughing wildly for a while, the Count instantly restrained his smile, also extending a fist to Takumi.
"—Could not wish for more!"
The Count's fist met Takumi's fist heavily.
He wouldn't lend his power to Takumi like previous Servants, and Takumi didn't need such power.
Obtained Skill: [Determination of Steel (EX)]!
Skill Change: [Escapist (B)]
→ [Tiger, Burning Bright (A)]!
—Not an [Escapist], but a [Heart Toward Freedom].
Under the connection of hearts, and also driven by Takumi's true determination, his most critical skill changed.
Then.
"[Tiger, Burning Bright (A)]!" 2x.
Under the uniform voice, the figures of the two turned into flowing light rushing straight into the sky, rushing towards the peak of the "Prison Tower" without dodging or avoiding.
Infinite transformed into finite. Ceiling, floor seemed nonexistent, all penetrated by the flowing light the two transformed into, not playing any blocking role.
As if a long time passed, yet as if only an instant passed.
The flowing light rushed out of the "Prison Tower."