Around the time the Hanging Gardens froze.
Arjuna appeared and made a request to Achilles.
"Are you the Rider?"
"Mikon? Isn't that Arjuna?"
"I must go there at Karna's request. I'd like to ask you, Rider, could you give me a ride?"
Achilles clicked his tongue as he examined Arjuna's condition.
"A warrior's promise?"
"Yes…."
Just by looking at Arjuna's injuries, Achilles could guess that great heroes had fought.
The look in Arjuna's eyes was one of a mission he had to accomplish even if he died, so Achilles had no choice but to acknowledge it.
"Well, it's not like giving you a ride wears anything out, so I don't mind…. What promise did you make?"
"I requested the rescue of my former Master."
Achilles nodded as if he roughly understood.
Apart from this Master, the Masters here each summoned one Servant. He had never seen their faces, but they were still his former Masters.
Achilles wasn't so cold-hearted as to leave the Masters who summoned him to die.
"Might as well help, now that it's come to this."
"Thank you."
As Arjuna expressed his gratitude with full courtesy, Achilles made an awkward gesture and spoke.
"Whoa, whoa. I was also concerned about my former Master. At the very least, even if I couldn't see their face, they were in dire danger. We should rescue them, right? It's not like the Master betrayed us first or crossed a line. I see it as a hero's duty."
At Achilles's words, Arjuna could only nod.
"Mikon? Then what about us?"
"No, if too many go, the garden's owner will definitely notice. It's clear that the garden freezing now is absolutely not the owner's doing, but the Master's."
"Is that so? I wanted to see the Master fighting directly with my own eyes…. This is disappointing."
"If you don't want to freeze to death, it's better not to go. Even I, who am immortal, don't want to go in. I'm only going because I'm concerned about my former Master."
"Chirp, it's frozen hell after regular hell."
"Well, I think all we can do is wait for Akira to return."
"As you say, I believe we have no choice but to trust and wait for Akira."
"If Papa Mama trusts him, then there's probably nothing to worry about!"
At Mordred's words, Artoria also acknowledged it, but she had one concern.
"The worry is… why he went forward alone. Akira is clearly a modern person…. Yet he surpassed a Servant…. We don't know if Akira doesn't trust us, or if he wanted to fight himself…. But I want to ask about this matter."
Everyone agreed with Artoria's words, and Mordred shouted.
"Making Papa Mama worry. That bastard… hiccup."
When Mordred said 'that bastard,' everyone glared. Mordred hiccupped.
No matter how tough Mordred was, being glared at by numerous Heroic Spirits was startling.
Since Artoria was among them, Mordred couldn't help but hiccup.
"I meant, hiccup, the bad guy who made her worry."
They roughly understood what Mordred wanted to say, but their gazes held only a warning.
"Anyway, my name is Achilles. What's your name?"
Achilles had heard Arjuna's name, but he wanted to hear it formally.
"It's Arjuna."
"Board the chariot. I'll show you the speed of Achilles's Troias Tragoidia!"
At Achilles's words, Arjuna smiled, boarded the chariot, and said.
"Then, let's depart."
"Right! Let's go in a flash and come back!"
The chariot moved at high speed, and within minutes, they infiltrated the aerial garden.
The garden was completely frozen, and the cold was severely chilling.
The cold that could freeze the garden itself was far too dangerous.
"The Master is also impressive…. It's surprising that he can create cold this severe…. Is this the Master's full power?"
"I don't know. I might get kicked out for being unheroic from the start. We made a contract, but he's a Master whose thoughts are impossible to read…."
Arjuna also agreed with Achilles's words.
"I can't help but agree with that."
Achilles surveyed the surroundings with his chariot and arrived at a likely location for the Masters. He stopped the chariot and opened the door.
"Tsk, subdued with poison."
All the Masters were alive, but asleep from the poison.
Achilles took out his spear, created a gust of wind to push away the poison, then grabbed and threw the Masters onto the chariot. Arjuna seemed quite flustered as he caught them and laid them on the chariot.
"Aren't you treating them too much like objects?"
"I'm not a hero who treats men gently. If they were ladies, maybe."
At Achilles's words, Arjuna nodded in understanding.
For himself, he was helping due to Karna's request, but for Achilles, it strongly felt like he was saving them because he felt uneasy leaving them.
He carried the female Masters and laid them on the chariot. After all preparations were complete, he shouted to Arjuna.
"Arjuna! Hold onto the Masters so they don't fall off! Then we depart!"
Arjuna almost lost his balance at Achilles's words.
Partly because they started suddenly, but as they escaped the aerial garden at high speed, Achilles thought.
'That aside…. Surely in this situation, there would be bombardments or something…. Why isn't anything happening?'
Achilles assumed the Master and Servant were just facing each other. He was curious about how the fight was going, but since rescuing the Masters here was the priority, he decided not to dwell on it.
Later, after the Masters regained their senses, perhaps because they were surrounded by Servants, they expressed their intent to surrender from the start and fell silent. As the frozen aerial garden fell from the sky, Astolfo, Akira, Jeanne d'Arc, and the two frozen people arrived on the Hippogriff.
The incident was concluded.
The surviving mages returned to the Mage's Association, which was pleased that no mages were sacrificed.
Akira had no voice. The discussion with the Mage's Association was postponed until tomorrow, and the disposition regarding Yggdmillennia also needed to be considered.
As a result, this situation was interpreted entirely as Danik's unilateral action. Reports came in that Danik made a last desperate attempt, became a vampire, and was dealt with by Shirou Kotomine. The Yggdmillennia family group was pardoned on the condition of being disbanded.
In fact, Danik had declared independence, and it was also Danik who ordered the killing of mages. There was a point where everyone had no choice but to accept it. He was called Danik of the 'eightfold tongue' (a silver tongue/deceiver). To put it bluntly, he was close to a fraudster. The conclusion was drawn that everyone was tricked by this one person's words into gathering. The Yggdmillennia family was closer to being automatically disbanded rather than purged.
Akira also created a pretext for the family's dissolution: as a price for releasing the mages, everyone except Danik was pardoned, so except for Danik, they were concluded to be innocent.
Later, Gorde Musik, perhaps finding this news hard to believe, shouted for a while asking to be protected. When Fiore asked if her Magic Circuits could be restored, Chiron said, "Medea might be able to," and they headed for Fuyuki.
As for others, Celenike Icecol might have died while becoming a vampire, but anyway, she died. The Caster's Master, perhaps dead from three Noble Phantasm hits, wasn't even found. Caules Forvedge went to become El-Melloi II's student.
The remaining Servants all returned to Fuyuki. The only one, Arjuna, closed his eyes and departed on his own.
The Yggdmillennia homunculi all headed for Fuyuki. Later, through Medea's treatment, their lifespans were extended, but some were treated as terrifying beings who would be startled just seeing Medea.
The disposition of the Assassin and Shirou Kotomine was….
Left as is.
The two ultimately surrendered. Since they were no longer in a situation to use the Grail, they surrendered. They could either live happily or seek another Grail and depart for another battlefield. But Shirou Kotomine gave up as his 60-year plan came to nothing.
"You said your goal was to recover the Grail. What do you plan to do with the Grail?"
"Prepare for the next Grail. That's the answer, I suppose."
"I see. A saint who is not a saint…. I am actually close to an Avenger myself…. But I was summoned as a Ruler…."
"When you were summoned as a Heroic Spirit, were you the only one summoned?"
"No, I was summoned alongside Angra Mainyu. That youth was just an ordinary person. I heard he was blamed and resented by all people for evil, and died…. But at his end, he showed a saint-like appearance, as if understanding why they did that. He was born and lived as a youth, but lived under the logic that he shouldn't have been born, designated as evil by people. As time passed, he didn't resent them and forgave them. Even I was surprised by that…."
Akira understood Shirou Kotomine's words, and Shirou Kotomine continued.
"Then, one last question. Was that magecraft really magecraft?"
Akira pondered at Shirou Kotomine's words but told the truth.
"No, it wasn't magecraft."
"Did you receive power from an Outer God?"
Akira pondered at Shirou Kotomine's words.
If asked if it was an Outer God, it seemed absolutely not, but he wasn't sure.
"I don't think so."
"It must be your own ability then. Seeing that you can't even pinpoint it…. But it's better not to use it. That power was clearly a double-edged sword."
Akira nodded at Shirou Kotomine's words, and Shirou Kotomine continued.
"Now, what do you plan to do with me?"
"I won't do anything. My goal is already achieved. There's no reason to kill you, right?"
"I see…. One last thing I was curious about. What are you fighting for? And was my wish wrong?"
"It might just be a fight to move forward. Your wish isn't wrong, but if the world has merits, it has demerits, right? From your standpoint of hating humans but loving humanity, if you apply the Third Magic haphazardly to everyone, I think it would be a calamity. Even if souls are intact, unable to withstand the erosion of emotions by the passage of time, they might end up desiring stimulation from each other, or they might become playthings of Outer Gods, don't you think?"
"Merits and demerits…."
Afterwards, Shirou Kotomine, with a satisfied expression, left without a word and departed Fuyuki with Semiramis.
And the remaining Servants were incarnated and each left their posts.
Those who wanted to join Akira's faction did so, and those who didn't were given the freedom to choose, with their human rights guaranteed.
Being a human of a different category with a mindset different from mages, they were flustered by the unexpectedly large number of incarnations, but some Heroic Spirits refused incarnation and departed.
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