The roar of the blackened holy sword drowned out all thought. It was the sound of a star screaming as it died. The pillar of dark light extended into the heavens, tearing the clouds apart and bathing the temple courtyard in an apocalyptic violet glow.
"GET BACK!" Cú Chulainn roared, grabbing Ritsuka by the collar and practically throwing him behind Mash. "Shield girl! If you've got a miracle in that big slab of metal, now is the time to find it!"
Mash planted her feet, the shield slamming into the cracked pavement. Her face was pale, sweat beading on her forehead. The pressure from Saber Alter was immense, a physical weight crushing her spirit.
"I... I can't..." Mash stammered, her hands trembling on the handles. "The True Name... I don't know it! I haven't established the invocation! I can't deploy the Noble Phantasm without the name!"
The air around them began to ionize. The heat was rising.
Min-jun stumbled back, limping into the formation behind Mash. His right arm hung uselessly, the bones likely hairline-fractured from the earlier punch. His mana reserves were a dry well. He was a spent battery.
He looked at Mash's back. He saw the tremor in her shoulders. She wasn't afraid of dying; she was afraid of failing *them*. She was a tool searching for a user manual that didn't exist, frozen by the logic of magecraft that required a True Name to function.
"Mash," Min-jun said. His voice wasn't loud, but it cut through the din of the charging blast.
She flinched, glancing back over her shoulder. "Mr. Min-jun! Please, stay behind me! I'll try to—"
"Stop trying to find the words," Min-jun interrupted. He stepped closer, placing his good hand gently on her armored shoulder. "Logic won't save us here. You don't need a name to protect. You just need the will."
He leaned in, his voice calm, technical, grounding. "The shield isn't the Noble Phantasm, Mash. *You* are. The metal is just the conduit for your heart. Forget the chant. Focus on the reason you're standing here."
*Excalibur Morgan* reached critical mass. Saber Alter lowered the blade, aiming the devastation directly at them.
"Vortigern..." she whispered, the name of the abyss.
"Here it comes!" Cú shouted, bracing his staff to add a layer of runes to the defense.
Min-jun looked at the incoming annihilation. He looked at Mash, who was still wavering, paralyzed by the missing piece of her identity.
*She needs a catalyst,* Min-jun realized. *She needs a reason to stop thinking and start acting.*
He took a breath. It was a stupid breath. A reckless, suicidal breath.
He stepped out from behind the shield.
"MIN-JUN!" Ritsuka screamed.
Min-jun ignored him. He limped past Mash, positioning himself directly between her shield and the corrupted King. He stood alone in the path of the beam.
"Mr. Min-jun, what are you doing?!" Mash cried out, horror flooding her voice. "Get back!"
"I told you I'm the foundation," Min-jun shouted over the roar, not looking back. "If the wall isn't ready, the foundation takes the load!"
He planted his feet. He forced his screaming, broken right arm to rise. He clenched his fist. He pulled it back to his hip, crouching low.
It was a ridiculous stance. It wasn't a martial arts pose. It wasn't a magical ritual.
It was *Janken*. It was Rock, Paper, Scissors.
He was mimicking Gon Freecss. The *Jajanken*.
It was the only way he could think to channel the last dregs of his spiraling energy into a single point. He needed to bluff. He needed Mash to believe he was about to try and punch a nuclear explosion with his bare hand.
"SAISHO WA GU..." (First comes Rock...) Min-jun roared, the words raw in his throat.
A tiny, pathetic spark of golden light flickered on his bruised knuckles. It was nothing. A candle against a sun.
"JAN..."
Saber Alter's eyes narrowed. She didn't hesitate. She swung the sword down.
"EXCALIBUR... MORGAN!"
The world turned black and violet. The beam fired—a horizontal tsunami of destruction erasing the air, the ground, and everything in its path.
It rushed toward the lone, broken man playing rock-paper-scissors with death.
"KEN...!"
"NO!"
The scream didn't come from Min-jun. It came from behind him.
It was a scream of pure, terrified denial. A rejection of loss. It bypassed logic, bypassed names, bypassed the rules of magecraft.
Mash Kyrielight didn't think. She simply *moved*.
Faster than thought, faster than fear, she surged forward. She slammed her shoulder into Min-jun's back, knocking him flat onto the ground behind her, and planted the great shield into the earth with a force that cracked the bedrock.
She didn't have a name. She didn't have a command code. She just had a desperate, screaming need to keep him alive.
"NOBLE PHANTASM... DEPLOOOY!" she shrieked, her voice tearing at her throat.
The black beam collided with the white wall.
**BOOOOOOOOOOOOM!**
The sound was beyond hearing. It was a physical pressure that flattened Ritsuka and Cú Chulainn against the ground. The temple walls disintegrated. The trees on the mountainside were vaporized.
But in the center of the storm, a triangle of safety remained.
Mash stood firm. Her heels dug trenches into the stone, sliding back inch by inch, but the shield held. A nameless, brilliant white light flared from the cross on the shield, eating the black mana, refusing to break. She screamed with the effort, her voice mixing with the roar of the energy.
Min-jun, lying on his back where she had shoved him, watched in awe. He saw the ethereal walls of a castle shimmering around them—phantom battlements that had no title, only purpose.
And then, as suddenly as it began, it ended.
The black beam sputtered and died. The violet light faded, leaving only steam and the smell of ozone.
Mash collapsed to her knees, panting, her shield clattering against the stone. Ritsuka scrambled over to her. "Mash! Mash, are you okay?!"
"I... I held it," she whispered, looking at her hands in disbelief. "I didn't know the name... but it worked. It held."
Min-jun sat up, groaning. He looked across the devastated courtyard.
Saber Alter was still standing. Her armor was smoking. *Excalibur Morgan* rested point-down on the ground.
But she was fading.
Her legs were turning into motes of gold light. The corruption was peeling away like burnt paper.
"What?" Min-jun blinked, confused. "We... we didn't hit her. Why is she fading?"
The fight had barely lasted two minutes. A few exchanges, his wormhole punch, and the Noble Phantasm clash. Servants usually had more endurance than this. Even if Excalibur drained her, the Grail should have refilled her instantly.
Saber Alter looked down at her chest. At the dent Min-jun had put there moments ago.
A spiderweb of golden cracks was spreading out from the impact point, glowing with the faint, rhythmic pulse of the Spin.
"I see," Saber murmured, her voice sounding strangely light. "The rotation... it didn't stop."
She looked up at Min-jun, who was scrambling to his feet.
"You didn't just punch the armor," she said, a trace of respect in her fading eyes. "You punched the core. That spiral... it kept drilling. Even while I charged the sword. It disrupted the Spirit Origin from the 'present' me inside."
She let go of the sword. It vanished before it hit the ground.
"Infinite rotation," she mused, her body dissolving faster now. "It seems my core was drilled through before I even fired. A fitting end for a corrupted dream."
She looked at Min-jun one last time. The scary, gluttonous tyrant was gone. In her place was just a King, tired and ready to rest.
"Well fought, Chaldea master," she said softly. "Next time... I would like some food...maybe something greasy."
And with that, the King of Knights shattered into light, leaving the Holy Grail floating in the empty air where she had stood.
Min-jun stared at the empty space, his jaw hanging open.
"I..." He looked at his bruised fist, then at the floating cup. "I punched her so hard she disintegrated on a delay?"
Cú Chulainn walked up, leaning on his staff, looking equally impressed. "Delayed reaction internal destruction. Nasty. Remind me never to let you high-five me."
Ritsuka helped Mash stand. The two of them looked at the Grail, then at Min-jun.
"We won," Ritsuka said, a breathless laugh escaping him. "Min-jun... you were crazy back there. But you saved us...or well, mash did but you were cool there!"
Min-jun slumped, the adrenaline finally leaving him. He sat down hard on the rubble.
"I didn't save you," he muttered, adjusting his glasses which were now missing a lens. "I just played Rock, Paper, Scissors with a nuke."
He looked at the Grail. The Singularity was collapsing. The mission was over.
"Let's go back to chaldea quickly," he whispered.
But the path home led through the heart of the mountain.
The Grail wasn't just floating in the courtyard. The golden cup Saber Alter had left behind was merely a vessel, a terminal. The true root of the Fuyuki system, the corrupted Greater Grail, lay deeper, inside the cavern beneath the temple. That was where the Singularity had to be severed.
They descended the stone steps behind the main hall, entering a cavern that smelled of sulfur and old blood. The air was thick and humid, sticking to Min-jun's skin like a second, unwanted layer. His right arm was in a sling made from a torn piece of his uniform, throbbing with a dull, insistent rhythm.
"This place gives me the creeps," Ritsuka muttered, staying close to Mash.
"It's a cavity in reality," Cú Chulainn grunted, his eyes scanning the shadows. "The mana density here is enough to melt a normal human's lungs. You kids hold your breath if you have to."
They reached the central chamber. A vast, underground lake of blackened mud bubbled sluggishly. And standing on a rock outcropping in the center, looking as out of place as a tuxedo at a funeral, was a man in a green suit and a top hat.
Lev Lainur.
He turned as they entered, a pleasant, mockery of a smile plastered on his face. He clapped his hands slowly. The sound echoed wetly in the cavern.
"Marvelous. Truly marvelous," Lev crooned, his voice smooth and cultured. "I expected the blackened King to hold out longer, but to see the scraps of Chaldea actually reach the finish line? It defies all calculation."
"Lev!" Mash shouted, stepping forward, shield raised. "Why? Why did you sabotage Chaldea? Why did you kill everyone?"
Lev chuckled, adjusting his hat. "Why? Because it was time, Mash Kyrielight. Because the era of humanity is over. The Grand Order has begun. 2016 is the incinerator, and I am merely the one who lit the match."
He spread his arms, gesturing to the mud. "This Grail is the catalyst. It has already served its purpose. Human history is collapsing as we speak. You are fighting for a corpse."
Min-jun watched him from the back. He felt a cold, detached rage. This was the man who had murdered almost the entire staff. Who had tried to kill Ritsuka. Who, in the original timeline, had tossed the Director into the Chaldeas sphere to burn eternally.
He expected Lev to realize this. He expected the villain to rage about the missing Director, to ask where his favorite victim was.
But Lev didn't look for Olga Marie.
His eyes, three distinct colors of madness, swept over Ritsuka, dismissed Mash, ignored Cú Chulainn, and locked directly onto Min-jun.
The smile fell. A look of intense, clinical curiosity replaced it.
"However," Lev said, his voice dropping an octave. "There is an error in the equation. A variable that does not belong to the set."
He pointed a gloved finger at Min-jun.
"You. Kim Min-jun, was it?"
Min-jun tensed.
"You shouldn't be standing there," Lev murmured, tilting his head. "According to the observation... you died in the explosion. Your bio-signature was extinguished. Yet here you are, radiating a frequency of mana that tastes... ancient. Geometric."
Lev beckoned with his hand, a "come hither" gesture that was both inviting and commanding.
"Come here," Lev ordered softly. "Step forward. Let me see what you are. You changed the script. You denied me the Director's despair. I want to see what replaced it."
Ritsuka and Mash froze, looking back at Min-jun.
"Min-jun, don't!" Ritsuka warned.
*He wants to see what I am?*
Min-jun looked at Lev. He looked at the smug, arrogant face of the creature that viewed humanity as fuel.
He remembered the explosion at Chaldea. The fear. The pain. The hollow man he used to be.
He didn't walk forward. He didn't ask questions. He didn't offer a villainous banter.
Min-jun raised his good hand—his left hand.
It wasn't his dominant hand. The aim would be shaky. The Tusk energy was weaker on this side.
But he didn't care.
"You want to see?" Min-jun whispered.
He pointed his index finger.
"Take a look."
There was no preamble. No charge-up. Just the instant, violent release of rotational energy.
A golden drill shot Act 1 screamed across the cavern.
Lev's eyes widened. He had expected words. He had expected hesitation. He had expected the human desire to understand *why*.
He did not expect a technician to simply shoot him in the face.
**SPLAT.**
The golden nail struck Lev Lainur directly in the bridge of his nose.
It didn't just pierce; it drilled. The force snapped his head back with a sickening crack. The rotational energy tore through bone and brain matter, exiting the back of his skull in a spray of blood and grey matter.
Lev didn't even have time to scream. He collapsed backward, his top hat tumbling into the black mud, his body twitching violently as the Spin continued to ravage his nervous system even after death.
The silence in the cavern was absolute.
Mash covered her mouth. Ritsuka stared, wide-eyed. Cú Chulainn let out a low whistle.
Min-jun lowered his smoking finger, his face an unreadable mask of exhaustion and finality.
"Conversation over," he muttered.
Lev Lainur's body didn't stay a body for long. As it sank into the black mud, it bubbled and dissolved, not into flesh, but into something that looked like red fibrous roots—the remnants of a Demon God Pillar that hadn't had the chance to manifest.
"Good riddance," Cú Chulainn spat, walking over to the edge of the outcrop. He reached out with his staff and hooked the Holy Grail, which had been resting on a small altar behind where Lev had stood. He tossed it casually to Ritsuka.
"Don't drop it, kid. That cup's worth more than the planet right now."
Ritsuka caught it, fumbling slightly. The Grail felt warm, humming with a purified gold light now that its connection to the corruption was severed.
"This is it?" Ritsuka asked, looking at the ornate chalice. "This fixes everything?"
"It restores the foundation," Min-jun corrected, his voice raspy. He leaned against a stalagmite, clutching his sling. "The Singularity is a wound in history. The Grail is the needle and thread. Once we return it to the system or resolve the anomaly, the timeline snaps back. The fires go out. The people... well, the ones who died here stay dead, but the city itself is restored to its proper state in 2004."
"And the incineration of humanity?" Mash asked quietly.
"That," Min-jun sighed, looking at the ceiling, "is a problem for tomorrow. Today, we stopped the bleeding."
A chime echoed in the cavern—a digital, reassuring sound. A holographic screen flickered into existence in front of Mash.
*"Rayshift connection re-established!"* Romani's voice crackled through, sounding frantic but relieved. *"I'm reading the Grail secure and the Singularity stabilizing. Bio-signs are... well, they're terrible, frankly, but you're all alive! Initiating emergency recall sequence now. You have thirty seconds!"*
Light began to particle around them, a beautiful blue shimmer that contrasted with the grim cavern.
Cú Chulainn watched them, leaning on his staff, his silhouette fading as the connection weakened. He wasn't coming with them. His contract was tied to the land, to the Singularity itself.
"Well," the Hound of Ulster grinned, giving them a lazy salute. "It was a hell of a night. We burned a city, killed a King, and shot a traitor in the face. Not bad for a rookie run."
He looked at Min-jun.
"And you, Spinner. You're a weird one. You fight like a cornered rat with a nuclear weapon. I like it."
Min-jun managed a weak, tired smile. "Thanks... I think."
"Next time you summon me," Cú added, his body becoming transparent, "make sure it's the Lancer class. I want my actual spear. This stick work is murder on the shoulders."
"We'll try," Ritsuka promised.
"See ya, kids."
Cú Chulainn vanished into motes of light, returning to the Throne of Heroes.
Then, the world dissolved.
The sensation of Rayshifting was always disorienting—like being pulled through a straw while simultaneously being disassembled into data. Min-jun closed his eyes, letting the darkness take him. The pain in his arm, the exhaustion in his bones, the memory of the hole he had punched in his own reality... it all blurred into a static hum.
*Mission complete,* he thought, his mind drifting. *We survived. Olga is safe. History is saved. Now I just need to sleep for a week.*
...
**Chaldea Medical Ward.
Status: Recovery Phase.**
The first thing Min-jun noticed was the smell. It wasn't the sulfur of Fuyuki or the ozone of the Coffin Room. It was antiseptic, sterile linen, and the faint, bitter scent of healing magecraft.
He opened his eyes. The ceiling was white. Bland, beautiful, safe white.
He took a deep breath. His lungs didn't burn. He sat up slowly, expecting agony, but there was none. He looked down at his right arm. It was out of the sling, wrapped in clean bandages, but when he flexed his fingers, they moved without protest. The fractures were gone. The torn muscle from the wormhole punch had been knit back together.
"Advanced healing runes plus Romani's medical magecraft," Min-jun whispered, flexing his hand again. "God bless modern medicine."
He let out a long, shuddering sigh of relief. He was alive. He was whole. He wasn't dead in a cave in 2004.
He looked around. He was in one of the private recovery rooms. To his left, on another bed, Ritsuka was snoring softly, fast asleep. Mash was sitting in a chair between their beds, her head resting on the mattress, also dozing.
It was peaceful.
Min-jun swung his legs over the side of the bed, testing his balance. He felt weak, drained of mana, but physically fine.
He went to stand up, perhaps to find some water, but stopped when he felt a weight against his side.
He looked down.
There, curled up on the edge of *his* bed, was a figure he hadn't noticed because of the angle.
It was Olga Marie Animusphere.
The Director of Chaldea wasn't sitting in a chair like a visitor. She was slumped over on top of the sheets, her upper body sprawled across his legs, her face buried in the hospital gown covering his chest. She was fast asleep, her silver hair fanned out over his lap.
One of her hands was clutching the fabric of his shirt tightly, her knuckles white even in sleep, as if she were afraid he would vanish if she let go.
Min-jun froze, his brain screeching to a halt.
She was uninjured, thank god. But she was... incredibly close. Her breathing was soft and rhythmic, warm against his skin through the thin fabric.
*Why is the Director sleeping on me?* his mind panicked. *Did she wait here? Did she collapse from exhaustion? Why didn't Romani put her in her own bed?*
He raised his hands in a "I surrender" gesture to the empty room, terrified that moving would wake her and result in him getting fired (or incinerated).
Olga shifted in her sleep. She made a small, soft noise—nothing like her usual sharp commands—and nuzzled her face deeper into his side, her grip on his shirt tightening.
Min-jun stared at the ceiling, his face burning, his brain entirely unable to process the situation.
"...Eh?" he squeaked into the silence.