Fate Of A Gamer

It's very much a normal night. The sun had set quietly, and the night had slowly gone on with no interruptions. The stars littered the night sky above, uncaring of what horrors the world it shined down upon carried.

Watching all that, Zouken can only smile.

Another day had gone by in the life of Matou Zouken, the currently and only living member of the falling Matou lineage. Sadly, he was not picked by the grail to join in the battle, but that was fine.

Silently, he basks in the moonlight seeping in from the windows, resting as he lets the worms from his pit slowly generate the needed od to keep his elderly form alive.

Tohsaka Sakura had been a wonderful find. Though not as strong as her sister, she is very much a daughter of the Tohsaka, and her magic circuits are many and of high quality. She'd been bleeding then, laid down by the roadside with blood quickly pooling around her. Her eyes were lifeless, her breath shallow, and on his whim he decided to take her in.

Perhaps it would've been a mercy to the girl if he'd left her back then.

Sadly, he isn't much of a moral man.

Shaking his head, he pushes away the odd thought and looks back to the night sky outside. "It's quite the beautiful night, isn't it?"

"...It is." He hears a slow, reluctant answer. Zouken smiles as he stands and turns, seeing for the first time one of the intruders who'd gone into his compound.

And he was very much surprised.

Who stands before him is a normal girl, with light brown hair and green eyes, wearing clothes none too impressive. Her magical strength however far outweighed many he'd seen in his lifetime, easily matching the league of the servants of the throne. The od pulsing within her leaks into the air, creating an invisible pressure keen on pushing him down against the floor.

"Welcome. I hope you enjoyed the bugs I left for you." He sees her face wrinkle slightly in disgust, and he smiles. "It took me years to cultivate them."

"...Sure." She says, uncertainly, her grip on the staff in her hands tightening. Strange, why is she so cautious before him? With her strength, no magus like him should pose a threat-

...Ah, so that's it.

He smiles, with the wisps of shadows around him coiling, twisting like a thousand snakes waiting to pounce their prey. The girl clearly notices them, her green eyes flashing to a bright ocean blue. The heavy presence the girl carries with her is opposed by a new one, one dark and malicious.

One coming from him.

"I wondered where Assassin was." She begins, her eyes set on him. "Now I know."

"So you do." His elderly body begins to melt, falling onto itself and melding into the shadows. Then, out from them comes a young man, with slick black hair and dull grey eyes, wearing a strange white uniform with a yellow scarf tied around his neck. He smiles kindly, though his eyes say otherwise.

"I suppose I should introduce myself. I am Erebus." At the mention of his name, the girl's eyes widen, as if a puzzle had just fallen into place, and she quickly backs away. Her staff shining with brilliant light.

In truth, he is not Erebus. The true Erebus is darkness, a primordial deity existing before the world. No matter how twisted and tainted the grail has become, it would never summon a deity as strong as it, especially one as obscure and information starved as Erebus.

But at the same time he is Erebus. He is a beast created by the wishes of mankind, of their want and dėsɨrė to attain death. He is the one who had crawled out of the abyss of time to touch the goddess of night, to bring about the fall and fulfil the wishes that had given him form. .

He feels quite nostalgic honestly. The light shining from her is far brighter than many he'd seen, perhaps even rivalling the light from the boy who'd sealed him behind that golden door.

Memories foreign and familiar rise within his mind, and he can't help but smile.

He'd fought long and hard to bring about the fall, but that boy had stopped him, and that strange elevator attendant had continued to foil his plan. Now, Angra Mainyu had called upon him to initiate the end once more, and he shall not fail.

The shadows around him grow, and at his command, they rush forward.

~~~

'How deep is this place?'

It's been...10 minutes? Yeah, 10 minutes since Shirou first descended into the 'basement' and felt all connection to the real world cut off. The stairs soon stretched into a long hallway, and he began to wonder if he somehow stumbled into a maze-like bounded field, but the sheer scale made him think otherwise.

As Merlin said before, "No normal magus should be able to do this."

Not only that, large insect-like monsters roam the halls, becoming hostile as soon as he comes into their sights. Thankfully, he can bolster his speed and kill them before they can act, but with the seemingly endless number of monsters filling this place, it's beginning to strain his prana to continuously draw upon his od so often.

As of now, he's rushing forward with the Kojiki Kiyomitsu held in his hands and Okita's favored haori draped over his shoulders. It's something he's come to call [Spirit Embodying], with him infusing the essence and memories of a certain individual he has in his mind and bringing it onto his body, though he's only using a weaker version in an effort to reduce his prana usage.

It's also why he can only use it with Okita, as she's the one he's had and used for the longest. The way it happened and the mechanics behind it are rather complex, and Merlin said that she'd rather not explain herself, so he left it at that.

Though she did say that he shouldn't mention this to other magus, stating that they'd 'maim his body and open him up for research'.

Either ways, with Okita's partial embodying and stretching his structural analysis to its utmost limit, he swiftly navigates through the winding maze, taking sharp turns when necessary. Currently, he's headed for the next set of stairs he's spotted in the distance while making sure to avoid the insect monsters as much as he can.

They're everywhere though, so that doesn't mean much.

"They're strangely resilient." He hears Okita comment, and he can't help but agree. From the explanation Hanami gave, Matou Zouken is a magus, a strong and old one sure, but a magus. The monsters here are as strong, maybe even stronger than many of the mid-tier dragons roaming in the ID Hanami brought them into some time ago.

He swings his sword forward, and another monster falls, green acidic blood falling from the wound and splashing onto the stone floor below. He lands, and reinforcing his leg, he leaps forward, cracking the floor as he jumps.

It's strangely calming actually. Big and wide this 'basement' may be, but with his structural analysis mapping the path he'll need to take and monsters to cleave, it's almost like a routine, just that the objective is much more dire than usual. That, and the calming effect of having his and Okita's spirit merge is probably helping that as well.

It is slightly eerie though, especially with how there is no sound, whatsoever. All the insect bodies that dropped made no sound, the blood that splashed was silent, and even the wind he expected the hear as he moved isn't there.

'Oh well.'

Soon, he lands on the next floor, and just like before, another maze stands before him, waiting for him to get lost like most would. Sadly, he isn't like most people, and his structural analysis stretches across the entire place, mapping the area and giving him time to plan the most optimal path towards the next set of stairs.

Only, this time, the monsters here are much bigger, and much stronger. If the previous floors held monsters with strength similar to medium-sized dragons, the ones on this floor are as strong as the larger ones.

And one has appeared before him.

It is massive, towering over him unlike the previous insect-like monsters he faced. It's mantis-like body is bright purple, with strange, almost tribal black markings decorating its body. Prana flows out from it in ways, and instantly he knew,

A [Phantasmal Beast] stands before him.

That brings up even more questions, but it answers some previous suspicions. Zouken is not a magus, plain and simple. No modern magus would have enough power to create an underground so deep and vast, and none would definitely be able to fill it with creatures from the age of gods.

Perhaps something else entirely?

Whatever the answer may be, there stands a monster between him and the path forward, and that's all that matters.

With a human in sight, the monster shrieks and charges forward, drawing the attention of all the insect monsters roaming the maze and causing them to begin closing in on him.

However, though much stronger, he and the spirits dwelling within him had faced monsters of greater strength and importance. Shirou rears back his sword, and drawing a short breath, he leaps forward, reinforcement sharpening Okita's katana to its utmost limit, before he delivers a clean cut right through its torso. The insect is cut in two, green acidic blood bursting into the air, but Shirou had already rushed forward, and the acidic liquid merely dropped onto the cold stone below.

And so continues his swift run through the maze, slashing and cleaving through the incoming horde of insect-like phantasmal beasts as he followed the path towards the stairs he'd graphed out in his mind earlier.

But the monsters quickly grow in power. Soon the singular strike he made to kill them turned to two, the corridors became tighter and tighter, and the insect-like monsters soon came towards him in large waves. He even needed to break through some of the walls to avoid fighting, because while progress was being made, the many little chips of od he used in each battle soon grew, and he found himself slowly growing out of breath.

Thankfully, the stairs themselves were empty, and once he reached it he swiftly made use of the lull and let himself rest. It'd been a while since he last moved this much, and his muscles ache from the sudden burst of complex movement. Still, while he let his body rest, he sends out his od and analyzed the path downwards.

Only to find nothing.

Confusion quickly sets in, and the rest of people inside his head joined in, buzzing his head full of noises he didn't bother to try and understand. Instead, he continued to survey it, using structural analysis on that nothingness, and just like before nothing came up.

Panic ensues, and he begins to wonder if he'd somehow gone the wrong path down, but something else catches his attention, something that smells rather...like a worm.

His eyes widen immediately. Hanami had called Zouken a 'worm', and the Matous are a magi family specialized in familiars, or more precisely, worm-based familiars.

His body somewhat sufficiently rested, he stands and bolts down the stairs, once again equipping Okita's haori over him and gaining strength increase of the worn Noble Phantasm. As he dives further in, sounds begin to return. The howls of wind sounding as he flies down grows louder, and he can distantly hear the sound of something crawling, a sign of him approaching his target.

Then, with one last leap down, he reaches the 'nothingness' he found before, and as he previously analyzed, the area he stands in now is completely black.

But as he reinforced his eyes, he notices some of the darkness before him wriggling, and after some observation he sees an almost square-shaped area where the darkness wriggled. Carefully, he pushes his sword forward into the dark,

And stabbed something, before a loud screech follows and a swarm of deep black worms rush out to eat him alive.

"[Avalon]!"

He quickly calls, and the artifact appears before him, creating a barrier of light and burning away all the incoming worms. The other black worms in the pit begin to recede, and in the far bottom of it, he sees a small figure, tucked away under the massive pile of wriggling worms, her arms spread out and the worms freely entering and exiting her body.

Shirou stills.

It's quite unlike him, but at that moment rage overtakes him, filling every corner of his mind with red, and Avalon glows in response, suddenly widening its territory and quickly burning away the scrambling worms. He sees Sakura clearly now, still just a small child, yet with eyes so painfully empty.

He takes a slow calming breath, and with his reinforced eyes he finds a small set of stairs hidden in the dark. He begins his descent, letting Avalon burn away the accursed worms. Step by step he descended, and quickly the od he used up was piling up into a severe problem, but he can't back down now, not when he's so goddamn close.

And finally, extending his hand and taking hold of the frail girl, he pulls her out of that hellish pit, pulling away the remaining worms on her body and letting Avalon do its work. The dirt and grime on her unclothed body is washed away, and the small scars and scrapes she'd gained in her time being swallowed by the worms are removed. It even removed some of the latent affects the worm had done, turning a small patch of her hair back to its original black.

But the scars on her mind and soul don't heal so easily, and it tears him apart.

Because if she'd been suffering this from so young, then how much had she gone through when he first met her?

How the fuċk did he miss this?

Looking back, he remembers how strange Sakura was. He remembers how much she liked staying at his house and avoiding hers. He remembers the occasional emotionless eyes she had. He remembers the one time she came with a large bruise on her cheek, and how she had said that it was her falling on the pavement.

He remembers it all, and he can't help but feel terrible.

"You regret so, but what has been done is done." He hears Merlin say, "You were, and still are young. The girl hid her plight behind her pleasant lies, and you'd been stuck on your idealistic dream."

He winces slightly at the comment. He'd already seen the broken ending his dream would lead him to from EMIYA, but he can see that he'll never truly reach it, not if he couldn't even notice something as vile as this.

With regret still weighing on his heart, he turned to ascend back to the surface, but stopped when he noticed the strange yellow fog lining the abyss' floor. Furthermore, the black sky above is no longer empty, now filled with strange, blinking orbs, decorating the sky like a blanket of stars.

He hears something crashing behind him.

"Shirou…" Okita whispers, her voice shaking.

Another crash sounds, and another, and he soon realizes that they are steps, coming from something enormous enough to make such a loud sound.

"...It seems the beast has awoken."

An aura of dread falls upon him as the thing behind him takes another loud step, sending the yellow fog under him flying away. Cold sweat pours down the back of his neck, the hairs on his skin standing.

He'd faced corruption. He'd seen hell.

But the thing behind him is unlike any other.

Slowly, he turns around, and before him stands a beast, far larger than anything he'd ever seen. It's horse-like body is completely black, made of a strange wisp-like substance, causing its body to look strangely fluid. Two heads sit atop it, each with glaring red eyes and teeth eternally shaped into a wicked smile.

Structural analysis fails to understand, but he doesn't need it. The beast standing before him is human, perhaps even far more human than him. Intrinsically, instinctually, he knows it, understands it.

For what stands before him is Erebus, the beast of humanity, molded by man's wishes of death.

It's already quite a harrowing prospect, especially considering Shirou is only a single person, but his already somewhat drained od pool dipped his chance of survival further than he would've liked. He can't feasibly run away either, as the stairway leading back up to the surface seems to have disappeared into the darkness.

"Well, isn't this quite the predicament?" He hears Yorrmir speak for the first time in a while, amusement bouncing off. Shirou can already feel the wide grin the titan has plastered on his face. "How are we going to escape this, Shirou?"

Any suggestions? He tries to ask, and immediately,

"Nope!"

"None now, master."

"Don't know."

Three voices sound at once, and he can only groan as he summons the Kojiki Kiyomitsu, Okita's haori following suit and appearing over his shoulders.

"Might I be of ȧssistance?" Merlin says, her voice still as light as ever. Shirou nods, and Merlin happily continues. "The beast before you is Erebus, and though the inhabitants of this world would call it a phantasmal beast, in truth its origins are much bigger."

'This world…?'

"It is a beast that knows not of death, for it had been given birth and kept alive by the whims of humanity. As long as humans live, it too will continue to live."

"But what if we brought it to a place where humanity doesn't exist?"

...what? Shirou blinks, surprised, and then blinks again at the outlandish idea, and how they could even accomplish something like that. The only thing he knew could do that was [Kaleidoscope], the second true magic, and he definitely didn't have something like that.

"Hmm, what a terrific idea, archmage!" Yorrmir shouts, and he can distantly feel Sasaki and Okita nodding along, which only leaves Shirou as the one clueless. Of course, Shirou being Shirou, he doesn't quite get it, even with Avalon pulsing within him and Merlin's explanation repeating in his head.

"Oh, for goodness sake."

"Um…" He doesn't quite get a say in as Avalon suddenly manifests before him, shining brightly and illuminating the darkness of the void. Erebus stops for a moment, staring at the impossibility before it.

"[Garden of Avalon]!"

Avalon gives another shine, before light pours out, swallowing everything and forcing Shirou to close his eyes. The sickly, foreign feeling of the void disappeared, instead replaced by a gentle breeze, like the wind in the dawn of the morning. Slowly, he opened his eyes, and he's greeted by a familiar, flower-filled world.

"...Ah." He finally says, the puzzle he couldn't quite solve finally clicking into place.

"I can see why Hanami called you a sword-head now." Merlin mutters in annoyance, her hair flailing slightly as she shakes her head. Shirou only scratches his cheek in response, feeling somewhat embarrassed. "...At least I'm good with swords…?"

"...Whatever. An idiot you might be, but you at least have a brain, much unlike those idiot saxons." Shirou winces slightly at the comment, but he lets it slide, instead turning to Erebus, who's looking around at the flower-filled world with confusion, its glaring red eyes narrowed.

Shaking her head, Merlin looks up to the beast, her trademark sly smile back on her face. "My, you seem confused, Erebus. How does it feel to be in a world where no humans can stand?"

'Wait, what?'

Shirou nearly asks, but then he remembers his previous conversation about the topic, about how Hanami has evolved beyond being human and he's following in her footsteps.

He just didn't expect it to be this fast.

Coy Merlin may be, but she doesn't lie, and after some probing around himself, he too found himself surprised. Though he knows only the bȧrė minimum to make him a magus, he knows that one's magic circuits are permanent, unchanging and eternal.

Then where the hell did the other 13 circuits come from? Why are they suddenly of better quality? Why can he feel the beginnings of a magic core inside him?

And why the hell did he not look into this before?

'...I guess I really am a sword-head...'

Either ways, it's numbers are still nowhere close to Hanami, or even to Tohsaka, and they're quality are still average, but he's increased his od pool, and that's...quite strange.

Then again, he has two heroic spirits, a titan, the sheathe of ever-distant utopia, and Merlin of all people resting inside him, so everything about his life is strange.

Erebus continues to look around, but then its eyes settle on Merlin, and the red of its eyes seem to impossibly grow red. Merlin smiles at it, but quickly summons her staff to her hands and hits away a shard of ice, sent flying at her just fractions of a second ago. The ice bounces right off the staff and into the ground, creating a large hole before it finally stops.

"Now, why don't we start, Shirou?" Merlin says, smiling, before it slips to a sigh. "Is what I want to say, but I'm quite tied at the moment. I must maintain the Garden at my own expense, so I fear I may not be able to move much."

"Do not worry however. Still I may be, I'm not defenseless, okay? Now go and take it down, hero." She says, and he stares at her before giving a small reluctant nod.

"Be careful Shirou. That ice shard...it was almost as fast as us." Okita says, and he nods. If what Merlin says is true, then Erebus can no longer evade death, but there are still countless more problems he still needs to deal with.

Taking a deep breath, he reaches deep into his soul, and his magic circuits flare to life, the depleted od somewhat replenished by Avalon's effect. His red hair turns a pinkish white, his golden eyes shift to a pale yellow, and the rest of his clothes change, now too wearing the hakama and shorts below Okita's beloved haori.

The shine of his katana brightens, the life and soul of it reestablished.

How long can we hold?

"Not long. With Merlin occupied and that beast being brought into Avalon, your regeneration has been slowed." Okita states, her voice now soft yet stern, carrying the strength held only by captains and warriors of old. "All tactics are viable, but I do not suggest using Uriel's Noble Phantasm, at least not instantly."

Alright then, He nods, and he can feel her nod back, a confident smile on her face. Let's do this.

Shirou tenses his legs, and with a powerful kick, he launches himself forward, past the storm of hail raining down from above. Flowers under his feet bloom, sparkling with magical energy and cloaking Shirou, deflecting all the tiny and nearly invisible shards of ice that Erebus had created around it.

Erebus sees the human quickly advancing, passing harmlessly through the veil of ice shards it'd placed around it, each with enough magical energy to blow a human apart from the inside.

As ice is useless, fire comes next.

Suddenly, the flowers around it shrivel and burn as heat surges outwards. Fires of old flare from Erebus' body, burning everything it touches, comparable to the fires of the great extinction. Shirou, being who he is, tries to rush right through, but with no flowers under him, the protective cloak the flowers granted him disappears, and though his body is bolstered by Okita's Saint Graph, it was still not enough to defend against the flames of humanity.

Pain shocks through his system as blisters form on his skin, but he pushes onwards, using the wind he created from his speed to blow a narrow path through the hellfire. He pulls his arm back, and with Okita's sword pointed forward, three narrow strikes are made, launched at the exact same moment.

Surprisingly, the attempt works and the wind from the Noble Phantasm blows away a small portion of the fire, creating a path just big enough for him to dash right through.

In the distance, Merlin can only sigh at Shirou's act, before continuing to maintain the Garden of Avalon as best as she can.

Now that Shirou's passed the wall of fire, him and Erebus are at arm's length, and Shirou readies another shot of his Noble Phantasm, aiming it right at one of its legs.

Erebus' red eyes continue to glare at Merlin, though it too now took notice of the human quickly approaching it.

Well, that is fine for it.

For if the flame is too small, wind shall flare it to a forest fire.

With a tap of its hooves, an array of tornadoes form around it, forcefully pulling both Shirou and the fire around it. Already carried into the air, Shirou fails to stab his sword into the ground to hold him down, but in a flash of inspiration, he quickly snaps out of his [Spirit Embodying] and summons the [Monohoshi Zao] into his hands. With the longer blade of the katana, he stabs the blade into the dirt and forcefully pulls himself down, using the blade as a lifeline.

Still, without the increase of power from Okita's haori, cuts caused by the turbulent wind begin to form all over his body. Small as they are, but the sheer number of them begin to cause a problem, and the tornadoes trying to pull him back haven't stopped.

So, reinforcing his arm to its limit, he does a literal leap of faith, using the stabbed katana as a makeshift leaping pole to launch himself up towards one of Erebus' heads. Clearly surprised by the human's sudden movement, it opens its mouth, and from within a bright ball of light begins to build up.

'That's-!'

He swiftly summons Uriel in front of him, using it as a shield to block the beam of condensed electricity it fired from its mouth. Shirou winces, feeling some of the muscles in his arm begin to tear as he holds Uriel forward. Lightning crackles all around him, zapping some of his skin and turning it to an ugly black.

It doesn't really hurt though. He's suffered under Hanami's electricity, so this is nothing!

With a shout, he knocks the beam away and jumps from Uriel, finally rising above Erebus and landing on the back of its head. Erebus roars angrily, and shards of ice shoot out from every part of its body, creating more cuts all over, with one particularly large shard stabbing into the right side of his stomach.

But he endured, and summoning the Monohoshi Zao once more, he takes a deep breath, drawing upon the collective experience of the swordsman that held this unremarkable blade.

Who is Sasaki Kojiro? A wandering swordsman? A teacher? An ȧssassin? A dreamer?

Perhaps a master swordsman, perfecting his craft? A warrior, ending his life at the tip of his blade?

Or is he the savior of France, slayer of dragons? Is he a servant fighting against the end of humanity, fighting under the banner of Chaldea?

Maybe he is all of them?

Structural Analysis activates, spreading its reach through Erebus' body and finding the weakest section of its neck. Reinforcement activates, his prana reaching into every limb and extending into the sword, filling every possible space and strengthening it. His magic circuits flare, od reaching out from his body and cloaking the sword's edge, ready to explode violently upon contact.

His element and origin sing in tandem, and with it Shirou draws another breath, and takes a step forward.

Though a phantasmal beast it may be, if dragons are mere large swallows, then surely this is no different.

"[Tsubame Gaeshi]!"

Three slashes are made, launches at the same moment in time, a technique reaching into the realms of true magic.

A loud clang sounds, before the world grows silent. All fire and wind die down, electricity stops, and in the distance, Merlin smiles wryly as she watches one of Erebus' heads drop onto the dirt below, its face eternally etched with shock. Traces of ice can be seen on the back of the severed head, a reminder that the wall of ice it created on the back of its neck was nothing against the Noble Phantasm.

Erebus, now missing a head, looked around in shock, its glaring red eyes looking around violently, its act similar to that of an injured beast. It tries its hardest to call upon the sea of souls, to take in power from the void it came from, but no longer did it have anything to draw upon, no anchor to hold its existence down.

Then, it shrieks, and Shirou is violently thrown off its back when its body suddenly explodes with condensed fire. More blisters form on his skin, but the blast launches him right out from where its fire had burnt away everything, and he lands right atop a comfortable bed of flowers, one swiftly created by Merlin on his fall.

With Avalon's effects now touching him once more, the injuries he'd accumulated begin to heal. But the process is slow, the fae magic that it was made from seemingly slowed down by an unseen force.

"I would suggest you try and be more careful, but such words would only fall on deaf ears." Merlin huffs, both annoyed and somewhat exhausted, and Shirou simply chuckles. "Well, at least I did some damage." He quips back, and Merlin smiles. "That you did."

"...Anyways, what do we do now?" Shirou asks, staring at Erebus as it continues to look around frantically. The four elements it controls spark all around it, uncontrolled and wild, and a strange, ominous black aura radiates from its body, causing any flowers that tried to grow around to wither and die, before turning the dirt itself into a black, lifeless husk of what it was.

Despite that, the elements seem far weaker, its movements slower, and it even looks like it's limping. Another super-powered [Tsubame Gaeshi] should do it, maybe.

But his recent act has drained his od, and it's slowing him down. All the ache from his movements suddenly appear all at once, and all the repressed pain begin to return. His insides burns, feeling much like when he only used makeshift circuits, a feeling similar to plunging a hot iron rod down his spine.

Furthermore, that strange black aura surrounding it has him worried. The flowers that populate the gardens are temporary, mere additions from Avalon's fae origins, but for it to taint the ground itself?

That means that the strange black aura is capable of penetrating into Avalon. He can almost feel it inside his ċhėst, of how it feels like chips of his heart is slowly being turned into ash and blown away.

"Whatever we do, we must make haste." Merlin says, her eyes narrowing at the taint slowly growing under Erebus' feet. "Slow it may now be, left unchecked it will soon take over the entirety of Avalon." She looks to him, and her eyes shine with grim determination. "If that happens,"

"We'll both disappear." Shirou finishes as he stands, ignoring his aching legs. "But what can we do? I'm almost out of prana, and you're busy keeping the [Garden of Avalon] up."

"That's a problem indeed."

They ŀȧpse into a moment of silence, both thinking of things to do, but their ponderings are cut short when a rain of sharp hail suddenly falls upon them and they're both forced to jump back. Erebus is no longer panicking and it's now beginning to move towards them, its two remaining eyes glaring at the one that beheaded one of its heads.

But unlike before, the rain of sharp ice is endless and with only a small trickle of prana left in his system, Shirou only bȧrėly manages to defend against it, opting mostly to run and swerve out when possible. The cloak of protection from the flowers doesn't last long from the combined force and the shards begin to scrape through his skin. Even Merlin looks pressed, her brows furrowed in concentration as she forces herself to dodge, her mind focused on maintaining Avalon and staving away the seeping corruption.

Things aren't looking good.

And then a giant orb of white light, filled with something his Structural Analysis can't comprehend suddenly appears above Erebus, and things went from bad to worse.

"Take cover!" Merlin quickly shouts as she brings up a wall of flowers, and they swiftly move behind it. Erebus roars, and the white globe crashes onto the ground, creating an explosion far larger than anything Shirou had ever seen before. The wind and shockwaves that follow aren't kind either and it's only because he was both holding onto the wall and reinforcing his legs that he didn't get flung off.

Still, the sheer force of the shockwaves hit him hard, and he can feel several of his bones crack. Thankfully most of his more delicate parts are safe, but he's pretty sure several of his ribs and parts of his arms and legs are cracked.

Avalon's healing is still slowed down however, and he's forced to endure.

"But you've suffered worse, haven't you?" Yorrmir suddenly says, "Something as minor as broken bones would not stop you, would it?"

'Of course not.'

Yorrmir laughs. "Then go. You've slain monsters. You've slain dragons. Now it's time for you to conquer the abyss, hero."

'But I'm out of-'

"Let not doubt plague you." Yorrmir says.

"Don't let fear cripple you." Sasaki then says.

"Remind yourself of who it is you're fighting for." Okita finishes.

Shirou goes silent for a moment, before he takes in a deep breath and looks back towards Merlin's tower in the distance, and at the young girl sleeping at its top, a girl far too young to be scarred like she did. He looks back to Erebus, and at the taint it is spreading onto the soils of Avalon. Hanami is busy dealing against Zouken, so what will happen if he fails? What catastrophe would await if Erebus manage to escape from here?

He looks to Merlin and sees just how tired she is. Her breath is labored, heavy, and her back is bent slightly. Her eyes are narrowed, and sweat poured down her skin. It's the first time he's ever seen her so exhausted.

He turns to the skies above, and he sees the slight tremors passing through the sunless sky. With Merlin's exhaustion, the Garden of Avalon slowly follows, beginning to waver and recede back into the golden sheathe. Small cracks are visible at the sky, looking almost like an aurora, looking beautiful despite it breaking apart.

'Who I'm fighting for, huh?'

Shirou closes his eyes and he thinks back to that fateful night, when the bell to his door suddenly rang and a girl he only bȧrėly knew suddenly pulled him into the moonlit world. It was she who always pushed onwards, it was her that continued to stay by his side. It was she who gave him a prized Noble Phantasm, one that allowed him to develop his magecraft into something special, something that simply didn't create fakes.

Despite the horrors she's faced, despite the fear she has, despite the many nightmares she's had that left her awake at night, only able to cry into his arms, it was her that kept moving on. And it was through her that he can stand here now.

It's strange really. Months back, if it was to save another, he would've done so without through, uncaring of the life that Kiritsugu had so graciously saved.

But the thought now left him sick and dizzy, because if he died, then what would Hanami do? What would Hanami feel? For how strong and capable she is, she's very much human, much more so than him.

He'd seen through EMIYA what depths of hell one could fall into, and he could never let someone, especially not her, to experience something like that.

Never.

Opening his eyes, he summons Uriel to his hands, and the world goes silent as concentration overtakes his mind. Pain flashes through his mind as the weapon immediately depletes all of his remaining od.

But it is still not enough.

He takes a step forward, blood beginning to bleed out of his limbs as he reinforces them, sacrificing his body to further fill the Noble Phantasm in his hands with prana. He takes another step, and his hearing numbs, his inner ear filled with blood. Ice and fire bombard him from the air, but his nerves are far too fried for him to feel it.

Distantly he hears Merlin shout in worry, but he instead smiles,

For this is not the end for Emiya Shirou, but a beginning of his legend.

"An eternal song, a melody as old as time."

He begins his verse, and wind bellows out, blowing away the rain of ice and fire. Power from beyond oozes out, and the flowers beneath him glow in ethereal light. Merlin stares in shock, and Erebus glares as he roars, sending winds and storms with the power to level ancient gods.

"An endless battle, a chime of war that shall never end."

But the incoming storm doesn't hit him, instead blown away by a storm of bigger power. Erebus reels in shock, the sudden influx of power forcing it back.

"A titan of earth, and a beast of sky."

A giant orb of light appears in the sky, and Erebus roars, sending the globe of pure condensed energy down towards Shirou.

"Together they are, telling a tale never ending."

"I won't let you!" Merlin shouts, and a giant flower grows out from behind Shirou and blocks the incoming falling globe. As expected the giant flower quickly burns away, but its task is done, and Shirou opens his eyes.

"Ye who rose from the earth, bring down the skies, and let the earth rejoice!"

He pulls his sword back, its tip facing down towards the ground, and he calls out its name,

"[SHPALTN HIML]!"

Its name called, Uriel glows. The bronze metal sings as it begins to crack, shedding its muddy bronze for a proud metallic silver. Runes stretch all across the greatsword's blade, each telling their own tale and giving the sword its blessings. Magic from the age of gods flows through its rekindled body, and with it, Shirou swings the greatsword forward.

And all was no more.

For as Shirou had asked it to, the sky is split open. A giant cut now stretched throughout the sunless sky, and the Garden of Avalon begins to crack, fading away.

But that's simply the aftermath of what he'd done.

In his attack, a bright light follows, tearing right through the globe intended to fall and blow him up. The beam of light shot outwards, snaking across the gardens before reaching the beast of humanity, scaling up and right through the monster's injured body, before violently exploding, tearing the beast in half.

Now, what stands opposing him is not a beast, but a mere husk. Its large body is bisected into two, and the eyes that were once glaring red are now a dull grey, the life that once existed within it taken away.

And with nothing for it to anchor itself into, the corpse begins to fade away, turning into golden light before disappearing.

Shirou lets out a breath, blood falling out of every possible orifice, but his job is done. As Yorrmir had told him to do, he'd won against the abyss, and he can't quite help the smile on his face as he falls back onto the soft flowers below, all the exhaustion and injuries his body had taken finally catching up to him.

He closes his eyes.