I pulled back behind the tree line, gesturing for Jeanne and Nobunaga to hold up.
"Give me a minute," I said, keeping my voice low. "See that guy across the street? The one by the park railing with the orange hair? He's an enemy Master."
Jeanne's gaze snapped toward the sidewalk, her shoulders squaring instantly. "I'll handle him. Stay behind me, Master."
"No, wait," I said, putting an arm out to stop her. "Look at him. He's totally out of it. No Servant backing him up, no bounded field, nothing. He doesn't even know we're here. If you jump across the street waving a spear in broad daylight, we'll cause a riot. Let me go over there, bait him away from the crowd, and handle it."
Jeanne frowned, clearly unhappy with the idea. "You shouldn't be putting yourself in harm's way when you have a Servant standing right next to you. It's reckless."
Nobunaga leaned on the pommel of her sword, grinning. "Oh, relax, Lancer. If the kid wants to hunt down a commander on his own, let him take the shot. You can't wrap him in cotton wool forever. Let him see what he's made of."
"This isn't a game, Archer," Jeanne fired back, turning on her heel to face the warlord. "An enemy Master is still a threat. We can't just stand here and watch."
Nobu tilted her head, eyeing Jeanne's flushed cheeks and tense posture with growing amusement. "Man, you're really hovering today. What's the deal with you two, anyway? You guys partners or something? Like... together?"
"Yeah," Jeanne said.
I looked straight ahead at the asphalt and didn't make a sound.
Jeanne waited a second for me to back her up. When nothing came, her head whipped around, her eyes narrowing as she caught my blank expression.
Nobunaga took one look at my face and doubled over, howling with laughter.
"Gahahaha! Look at him!"
"Master!" Jeanne hissed, grabbing my jacket by the collar and giving me a sharp shake. Her face was turning bright red. "Why are you quiet?! Why aren't you saying anything?!"
"Because we haven't actually talked about that yet," I pointed out, gently prying her hands off my coat.
Jeanne froze. Her mouth opened, closed, and then she crossed her arms tightly, turning her back to me with a heavy pout. "Fine. We'll discuss that later."
"Looking forward to it," I said. "Now stay back and blend in. If things go sideways, step in. Otherwise, let me work."
I left them by the edge of the road, shoved my hands into my pockets, and strolled across the street toward the park.
Up close, the guy looked like any other slacker drifting through town, but the gut feeling I had wasn't wrong. He was leaning on the metal rail, lazily chewing gum, watching the neighborhood kids on the swings with an unsettling focus.
I leaned on the rail a couple of paces away, acting like I was just taking a breather.
"Pretty loud jacket," I remarked, tossing a casual nod his way. "Not a bad shade, though."
The orange-haired guy blinked, surprised to be spoken to, then broke into an easy, cheerful grin. "Right? Thanks, man! Most people think it's way too bright, but I feel like bold colors keep things interesting. You gotta have flair in this world."
"Can't argue with that," I said. "Just out taking a walk?"
"Kind of," he said, scratching the back of his neck. "I'm working on a big art piece right now, so I've been wandering around hunting for inspiration. Trying to find that spark, you know? Something fresh that really makes you feel alive."
"Art, huh? What medium?"
As he lifted his right hand to gesture, his oversized sleeve pulled back against his wrist.
Right there, bright red against his pale skin, were three sharp, angular crest strokes.
A Command Seal. No doubt about it.
I smiled back, matching his relaxed rhythm without missing a beat.
——
"You seem pretty cool," I said, gesturing down the path that led away from the street toward the wooded trails behind the park. "I've got some time to kill before I need to meet up with my friends. You want to hang out for a bit?"
Ryuunosuke followed down the path without a second thought, his hands stuffed lazily into his pockets as he hummed that aimless little tune under his breath.
We turned past an overgrown chain-link fence, slipping into a narrow service alley wedged tightly between the brick walls of two shut-down storage depots. The muffled rumble of city traffic faded behind the brick. The second we cleared the corner and fell completely out of public sight, I planted my boots and stepped directly into his path, cutting him off mid-stride.
Ryuunosuke stumbled to a sudden stop, blinking in confusion.
"Whoa, man, what's up? Dead end?"
Looking at his clueless, cheerful face made my stomach churn. The guy was a walking atrocity, an unrepentant piece of human garbage, and every breath he drew was an invitation for his Servant to catch on. I had no intention of giving him the chance to scream.
Lightning God Form surged.
Blue static flared down my spine in a violent jolt. The Yamato cleared its scabbard straight from the Gate of Death in a single, blinding silver arc.
Ryuunosuke never even saw the draw. His head slid clean off his neck, striking the pavement with a wet thud an instant before his body crumpled into a heap against the brickwork.
Before the blood could even pool, the shadows behind me tore open.
A wet, screeching hiss filled the alley as a mass of slimy, purple tentacles whipped violently toward my spine. I didn't bother turning. I pivoted on my heel, drove my left hand backward, and unleashed a thunderous arc of blue lightning straight into the cluster. The sheer voltage detonated the flesh on contact, vaporizing the limbs into smoking, sulfurous ash.
"RYUUNOSUKE—!"
A shrill, operatic shriek battered the masonry. Stumbling out of the dark came Gilles de Rais, draped in heavy, rotting ceremonial robes and clutching a grimoire bound in human skin. His bulging, bloodshot eyes locked onto the headless corpse on the pavement, his clawed fingers digging into his own pale cheeks until the flesh tore.
"My dear friend! My muse of supreme blasphemy! Cut down like common vermin before our grand canvas could be finished!" Gilles collapsed onto his knees, clawing at the dirt, weeping openly with theatrical, howling despair. "What unfeeling cruelty! What hollow, sickening irony! Oh God, is this your answer?! Is this the divine mockery you rain down upon our glorious stage?!"
I rested the flat of the Yamato against my shoulder and waited. I stood there in complete silence, letting him scream, sob into the gravel, and tear his robes until the hysterics finally sputtered out into ragged, wheezing gasps.
When the alley finally went quiet, Gilles dragged his bloodshot gaze up from the corpse to glare at me.
"How many kids did you kill?" I asked, my voice flat and quiet.
The manic rage melted off Gilles's face in an instant. An eerie, reverent calm washed over him. His eyes softened into a distant, dreamy haze, and a small, fond smile curved his cracked lips as he gently tapped his fingers against the skin of his grimoire, counting them like precious treasures.
"One hundred and twenty-four," Gilles whispered, practically purring the number into the cold air. "One hundred and twenty-four tender, fragile little lives offered up to the sublime theater of death."
A thick wave of disgust hit me square in the chest, foul enough to turn my stomach. To hear that number spoken with genuine, nostalgic pride was sickening beyond belief.
Then, something in my brain snapped.
"Pfft..."
A sharp breath escaped my nose.
"Ha... haha..."
I dropped my head, my shoulders beginning to tremble. The chuckle scraped out of my throat, rough and disbelieving at first, before it cracked wide open.
"Hahaha! Ah—ahahahahaha!"
I threw my head back, clutch-gripping my stomach with my free hand as raw, unrestrained laughter tore out of my chest. It echoed off the narrow brick walls, bouncing sharp and jagged between the dumpsters.
"Ahaha—ha! Holy shit! A hundred and twenty-four?!"
I bent at the waist, howling into the empty alley until tears pricked the corners of my eyes. It wasn't amusement—it was the pure, mocking, manic laughter of someone looking down at an insect that thought it was a human.
Gilles's serene expression twisted. The fond smile vanished, replaced by a trembling, outraged snarl. "You laugh?! You dare stand in the presence of exquisite tragedy and laugh, you insolent whelp?!"
"Haah... ha..."
I choked down the last of it, wiping a tear from my eye with the back of my sleeve. The humor drained from my face in a split second, leaving my expression cold, dead, and entirely merciless.
I lowered the Yamato, pointing the gleaming silver tip directly between his bulging eyes.
"My name is Kenji Sato," I said, stepping right over Ryuunosuke's corpse to close the distance. "I am the Master of Lancer. Jeanne d'Arc."
Gilles went completely rigid. The grimoire in his hands dropped an inch, his jaw going slack as his pupils shrank to tiny, frantic pinpricks. "J-Jeanne...? My holy maiden... you... you possess her soul...?"
"Yeah. Your maiden," I sneered, leaning down into his face with a venomous grin. "And after I rip that disgusting book from your dead hands, I'm going to pin you to the floor, pry your eyelids open, and make you watch as I fuck her one hundred and twenty-four times."
I held up my left hand, curling my thumb and forefinger into a circle, and casually shoved my right index finger through the middle of it.
In and out. Once. Twice.
"Actually, my bad," I smirked. "I lost count. I already fucked her yesterday. Multiple rounds, really. Ruined the sheets, had her against the shower wall, even took her on the damn toilet." I rested the flat of the Yamato on my shoulder, letting out a dry chuckle.
The alley went dead silent.
Gilles didn't scream right away. His jaw hung slack, the color draining from his face until he looked like a drowned corpse. Then the blood vessels in his bulging eyes ruptured, dark crimson bleeding across the whites. The sheer, suffocating pressure of his killing intent hit the alley like a blast wave, spider-webbing the brickwork. The stench of rotting sea life and spoiled viscera rolled off him in waves.
"I WILL FLAY YOUR SOUL INTO A THOUSAND SCREAMING SHARDS!"
Gilles shrieked, his voice cracking into a ragged, inhuman roar.
His grimoire snapped wide open. The fleshy pages fluttered wildly as a dozens-thick tangle of barbed, purple tentacles erupted from the concrete, whipping straight for my head with gnashing maws and sickening speed.
Lightning God Form surged.
Blue static exploded across my skin. My nerves ignited, supercharging my reflexes into a blur. I kicked off the asphalt, dodging the first cluster by inches, vaulting over a sweep of slimy suction cups and bouncing off a metal dumpster with a sharp laugh.
"Too slow, bug-eyes!" I taunted, weaving through the writhing mass like it was nothing.
The mocking laughter pushed his broken mind completely over the edge. Gilles swung his arms frantically, dragging more horrors out of the void, blind to everything except ripping my throat out.
I waited for the opening. The instant his torso leaned forward to command another strike, I pushed the voltage into my heels.
I blitzed. A jagged streak of blue-white light closed the twenty-foot gap in a heartbeat, the Yamato swinging in a clean, lethal arc meant to sever his spine.
CLANG—SQUELCH.
The blade didn't bite. A dense, calcified shield of hardened tentacles surged out from beneath his tattered robes, clamping down hard on the steel. Before I could yank it loose, a secondary tendril whipped around my left forearm, locking onto my wrist like a freezing vice.
Pain flared through my arm, but I didn't panic. A grin tugged at my mouth.
I was never trying to solo an ancient Caster and his horror book in close quarters. I just needed to make enough racket to draw the cavalry.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
A deafening volley of gunfire ripped through the alley. Glowing red rounds shredded the tentacles holding my wrist, blowing chunks of smoking, burnt meat across the brick walls.
"GAHAHAHA! Throwing a party without the Demon King, Master?!" Nobunaga's booming voice rang out from the roof of the warehouse. She stood on the ledge, blowing smoke from the barrel of a floating matchlock rifle, a savage grin plastered on her face. "Not on my watch!"
Before Gilles could even register the shots from above, the air cracked open.
A streak of pale, blazing energy dropped from the sky like a mortar shell. Jeanne crashed down with terrifying force, her twin spears flashing in a silver cross aimed straight for the madman's throat.
Gilles shrieked, throwing his entire body backward in a frantic, uncoordinated scramble. The spear tips missed his neck by a fraction of an inch, carving deep, smoldering trenches into the solid concrete where he'd just been standing.
Jeanne didn't chase. In one fluid motion, she spun her weapons, stepped back, and planted herself squarely between me and the Caster.
Her stance was an iron wall. Her twin lances crackled with dark, suppressed mana, and her pale eyes bored into Gilles with merciless disgust.
"Lay another finger on my Master," Jeanne whispered, her voice colder than ice, "and I will burn you into ash."
Gilles lay sprawled in the dirt, clutching his skin-bound grimoire to his chest. Trembling, he dragged his bloodshot eyes up from the cracked pavement—past the spear points, past the dark, battle-scarred armor, straight to her face.
The breath hitched in his throat.
The manic rage completely shattered, replaced by a twitching, horrific collision of disbelief and breathless ecstasy.
He saw the dark iron of her cuirass. The predatory, unyielding stance devoid of celestial peace. And above all, the fierce, possessive way she shielded the boy behind her—an intimate, protective devotion that no pure, unyielding saint of the Church would ever offer a mortal man.
"Ah... ahhh..." Gilles whimpered, his clawed fingers tearing into his own hair.
A grotesque, trembling smile split across his face, thick tears of perverse adoration welling in his swollen eyes.
"It cannot be... and yet, it is!" Gilles wept, his voice rising in an operatic, feverish crescendo. "My holy maiden! The immaculate flower of France! Look upon yourself! You have thrown away your celestial halo! You have dragged your own wings through the mud of mortal sin! You stand corrupted, tainted, fallen... and you did so willingly!"
I stepped around to Jeanne's side, resting the flat of the Yamato on my shoulder.
"Hey, Jeanne," I murmured, keeping my voice low. "Since he was so proud of butchering a hundred and twenty-four kids... what kind of punishment fits a bastard like this?"
Jeanne didn't hesitate. Her eyes stayed locked onto Gilles, cold and entirely merciless.
"Force him to watch us have sex," she replied flatly.
A slow smirk spread across my face. "I like how you think."
Stepping directly into her personal space, we squared up together. We pressed our foreheads against one another, left hands resting firmly on each other's shoulders while our right fingers laced tightly together.
Then, breaking the pose, I slid my hand down and firmly gripped her waist and hip, pulling her flush against my chest and deliberately showing her off right in front of the kneeling madman.
Jeanne's face flushed bright red. For a second, the raw exhibitionism seemed to hit her, and she stiffened as if having second thoughts—
I leaned down and caught her earlobe between my teeth, giving it a sharp, teasing nibble.
Jeanne let out a tiny squeak, her grip tightening on my coat as she went completely quiet, leaning into me with burning cheeks.
Across the alley, Gilles looked like his skull was about to cave in from pure fury.
"NO! BLASPHEMY! UNHOLY SACRILEGE!" Gilles shrieked, clawing at his scalp until chunks of hair tore free. He choked on his own spit, his bloodshot eyes practically bulging out of his head. "TO DEFILE HER BEFORE MY VERY EYES—YOU FOUL, ACCURSED WHELP—!"
I slipped a hand into my pocket, pulling out the smartphone Arthur had given me. It was time to deploy my ultimate skill:
Summon Older Brother.
I unlocked the screen and brought up Arthur's contact, ready to drop a Saber-class tactical nuke on the alleyway.
I didn't even get to press dial.
Jeanne broke from my side in a blur of motion. Before my thumb could hit the green button, she lunged, cracking the pavement beneath her boots. With a brutal swing of her lance's haft, she shattered Gilles's jaw, sending his grimoire clattering across the asphalt. She followed through with a vicious knee to his sternum, planting him into the dirt, and raised the steel spearpoint right over his throat.
She was about to execute him on the spot.
Then, out of absolute nowhere, a heavy coil of coarse hemp rope landed on the ground with a dull thud.
Before my brain could even process where it had come from, Gilles was suddenly, thoroughly hogtied on the pavement like a prize pig, bound tight from his ankles to his shoulders, groaning pathetically in the dirt.
I stood there, staring down at the tied-up Caster with my phone still glowing in my hand.
I blinked once. Twice.
'Where did the rope come from? Was there an invisible cartoon character lurking in the alley, or was the universe itself treating me like a walking gag?'
I let out a sigh and pocketed the phone. "Whatever. At least he's tied up."
Now we had a logistical problem. Ryuunosuke was dead, meaning Gilles had no anchor. Normally, a masterless Servant would rapidly burn through their mana and fade back to the Throne within an hour or two. But because this psycho had harvested the life force of over a hundred victims, his internal mana reserves were packed to the brim. He wasn't going to vanish anytime soon.
Dragging a hogtied, squirming serial killer through the city streets in broad daylight was out of the question unless we wanted to blow the entire Grail War's cover.
"We have to wait until dark to haul him back to the estate," I said, glancing up at the sky. The afternoon sun was still hanging high. "We've got hours to kill."
A soft rustle sounded from above. Nobunaga dropped down from the warehouse roof, landing lightly on the concrete with her arms crossed, her crimson cape fluttering behind her.
She looked down at the hogtied, whimpering Gilles, glanced at Jeanne's lingering blush, and then turned her gaze directly onto me with a wide, wicked grin.
"Well," Nobu chuckled, elbowing me in the ribs. "Since we've got plenty of time until nightfall... you and I could always just go fuck in the meantime!"