Angra Mainyu.
"So, Alpha Team was utterly annihilated, save for you?"
".....Yes......"
To Zod's query, Kitty nodded with a bitter twist, tears tracing silent paths down her cheeks, as if the fragile veil between existence and the void wept in quiet lamentation.
"...........Haa, truly..."
Snap!
With that resonant flick of Zod's fingers, the threads of space-time unraveled like a tapestry woven from the world's deepest Mysteries, birthing a miracle that whispered defiance against the inexorable laws of reality—a fleeting echo of True Magic's elusive touch.
"Gah!! Damn it all!!"
"Huff... huff...."
"Kitty!!"
"Kyaa... a.. alive....?"
"Cough..... we... survived...."
"Kuhk..... what a disgrace, failing the mission like this..."
The fallen members of Alpha Team, Kitty excepted, rose anew from the brink of oblivion—pristine, untouched by the Sentinel's lethal grasp, as if the clutches of death had been but a transient illusion born of fleeting Mysteries. A phenomenon impossible without some arcane intervention...
"What is this, Minister.... you were far too late..."
"Ungrateful after I've pulled you from the abyss? Pyotr."
"Haa... that tone confirms it's you, Minister..."
Instead of tender words came a glare laced with 'Can't you handle even this?'—yet beneath the sharpness lay an undercurrent of profound care, a subtle prana of worry that none could deny. For in the shadowed theater of their world, all knew: Zod Amnisphere cherished his own more fiercely than any guardian Heroic Spirit, a truth resounding from the Agency's halls to the youngest wards of Xavier's School.
"Rhongomyniad (The Spear that Shines to the Ends of the World)!!!"
"Excalibur—! (The Sword of Promised Victory)!!"
Bwooom————!!!!!
A cataclysmic roar shattered the air, an eruption of conceptual fury where divine constructs clashed against mechanical heresy; in its wake, the Sentinels lay scattered like broken idols, tumbling across the scarred earth in defeat.
"Ha! Reduced to desperation by mere playthings? How utterly pathetic."
"Everyone! Are you unharmed?"
From atop her noble steed Llamrei, Artoria Alter gazed down with a darkened holy lance in hand, her tongue clicking in disdainful judgment. Beside her stood Artoria Pendragon, the holy sword ablaze with golden radiance, her eyes woven with worry's quiet mystery.
"We are ashamed, Masters...."
Colossus bowed his head low, his steel form creaking like a reinforced bounded field, apologizing to his exalted mentors—the Servants who served as the Agency's pillars, closest allies to Minister Zod.
"Upon our return, sparring sessions shall extend to 100 hours."
"We'll die, Master...."
Kitty recoiled in horror, but Artoria Alter merely snorted in response.
"Is everyone alright?"
""Professor!""
From behind them emerged Charles (codename: Professor X), accompanied by Hank and Erik (codename: Magneto). Charles offered a wry smile, his telepathic presence weaving subtle threads of comfort to soothe their rattled psyches, a gentle Mystery amid the chaos.
"For now, leave this to Artoria Alter and Artoria Pendragon. Board the jet and wait."
At Charles's words, they nodded solemnly. Even as elite superhumans of the vanguard, countless battles had taught them the futility of facing even one Sentinel—a foe that mocked their gifts.
"To think that Trask, creator of these abominations, might himself wield superhuman powers... it beggars belief."
Erik's remark drew a nod from Zod, who grimaced at the shattered remains before opening a portal to collect the debris—a pragmatic harvest of mechanical Mysteries for analysis.
"And what do you intend to use them for?"
"Don't you find them rather... useful toys?"
"Turning weapons designed to slay superhumans into guardians for them?"
"Were you a telepath like Charles?"
"The plot demands it."
Erik shrugged nonchalantly, prompting Zod to chuckle in exasperation before approaching Artoria, who had just severed the final Sentinel's neck, halting its functions with decisive grace.
"Well done, Ar."
"Thank you, Zod... Humanity that crafts such horrors... it's unforgivable. Trask, was it? To perpetrate such atrocities..."
"Hence his status as a fugitive with Interpol. A few years back, the Superhuman Rights Act was enshrined as a transcendent UN law worldwide... Violating it marks Trask as a leader of anti-superhuman terrorist groups."
"And Russia harbors him?"
"Russia stands among the scant nations that despise superhumans, rejecting the Act outright. Signs point to imminent sanctions from the Security Council."
"How could a nation..."
Artoria, her ideals untainted by the world's cynicism, bit her lip in disgust at a state's overt discrimination—a betrayal of Mystery's harmonious weave.
"The UN has issued an arrest warrant for Trask—shoot on sight is authorized. Interfering would draw global condemnation, even for a permanent member like Russia. Risk Council expulsion at their peril; this time, they'll yield."
"I see."
Artoria gripped Excalibur tighter, her gaze meeting Zod's.
"Ease up, Ar. Truth be told, you alone could capture Trask. This is overkill."
"It's not tension... I'm worried about you, Zod. Seeing this brutality, I fear it might wound you, plunge you into despair..."
"The wielder of the sword that safeguards humanity, fretting over All the World's Evil?"
Zod caressed Artoria's cheek, offering a gentle smile, and she clasped his hand in hers.
"Because you are my sheath."
"Avalon? I already retrieved it from him (Shirou) and returned it, didn't I?"
"That's not what I meant! Really!"
At Zod's puzzled words, Artoria puffed her cheeks in protest, drawing a soft laugh from him as he deflated them playfully.
"Let's hurry, Ar. Once this is done, how about a date?"
The word 'date' brought a bloom of joy to Artoria's face.
"Yes! Zod, let's go!"
Her expression now shone with unbridled happiness.
.
.
.
Moscow, Russia—Trask Industries.
"The Sentinels dispatched for superhuman hunts... total radio silence."
Bolivar Trask pondered deeply in his office.
Among radical anti-superhuman terrorist groups that sought the utter extermination of mutants and upheld humanity's supremacy, Trask Industries was the most extreme. Exiled to Russia—a bastion of mutant hatred that spurned superhuman rights—they veiled Sentinel production as military procurement, birthing mechanical horrors from the alchemical forge of hatred.
"Domestic pests (superhumans) hunted, and the Yankees (America) send more vermin (The League)... The Russian government warned against touching Yankee bugs to avoid international fallout, but..."
Trask slammed to his feet.
"Such restraint is intolerable. Be it America or the UN, pests must be eradicated. Humanity alone is God's perfect creation; superhumans are heretical abominations, defying the divine. Their seed must be utterly cleansed."
Gazing out the window, Trask murmured, envisioning superhumans dissected alive in labs, their screams fueling his twisted smile. His eyes drifted to reports on his desk: Nazi Germany's Auschwitz human experiments, Imperial Japan's Unit 731 Maruta atrocities. With these, he plotted to vivisect mutants, purging all superhumans and their sympathizers from the earth—a grand Mystery of genocide.
"What a repulsive human..."
Kwaaaang————!!!!
Trask's office exploded in rubble and dust, revealing a wrecked Sentinel that had smashed through the wall—a iron testament to failure.
"Doctor Trask... For violations of the UN's global superhuman rights law, you are under arrest. Any last words?"
"Filthy pest."
Even as his prized creation, the pinnacle of Sentinel X, lay in ruins, Trask remained unflinching.
Zod eyed him with mild surprise.
"You have an ace up your sleeve, it seems."
"Don't get arrogant over besting one Sentinel, pest. (Snap!)"
At Trask's finger snap, the ground across Trask Industries' grounds caved, unleashing hundreds, thousands of Sentinels that crawled forth like swarming ants from the abyss.
"Even the strongest pest—Minister Zod— is but a midday fly before thousands!"
"Hoo... Boldly declaring the assassination of a nation's minister... A true act befitting history's worst serial killer, one who slays superhumans—children, pregnant mothers alike—tallying triple digits in blood."
"Silence, pest. This is purification. You are foreign bodies challenging God. We, descendants of Adam and Eve, crafted by divine hand, are the superior, chosen race. You are Satan defying the Creator! Thus, I am the Messiah, savior of humanity from the cancer of superhumans... Branded a murderer now, soon I shall rise as redeemer."
At this mad proclamation, Zod chuckled softly, his gaze piercing.
"Humanity's Messiah (Spenta Mainyu)? ... Mortals ever adorn themselves with grandiose epithets, overinflating their insignificant selves."
"How dare you... call humans crafted by God insignificant!!"
"Indeed, insignificant... for I am..."
Snap!
Zod's fingers snapped, and in the void, innumerable Gates of Babylon unfurled—a four-digit legion of rippling treasures raining Noble Phantasms like a conceptual deluge, shredding Trask's boasted legions of Sentinels without mercy.
"I am All the World's Evil—Angra Mainyu."
Zod's golden eyes deepened to crimson.
"Exist as evil— I shall embody all the world's wickedness, punishing every good, extolling the origin of malice to deny the divine. Angra Mainyu, All the World's Evil: Deny the prophet nailed to the cross, reject his karma, mock his precedents, point and laugh as I taint the world in iniquity... Deny me, deny, deny, deny! Banish me from existence! My name is———『Angra Mainyu (All the World's Wickedness)』."
The Beast of Humanity's Evil, embodying the principle of malice—a Noble Phantasm and Grand Noble Phantasm of Zod Amnisphere.
Rank EX, range unknown, maximum targets unknown. This Phantasm measures desired distances, dragging all life and intellect within its bounds into an endless abyss of malice and curses, inflicting infinite torment and despair to reveal the nadir of evil. It shatters minds, mends them, shatters anew in eternal cycle.
Thus does it hurl targets into hell's pit, condemning them to perpetual agony of evil and curse, ultimately denying them existence as unworthy. When Zod's eyes returned to gold, Trask was gone.
As if he had never existed... at all.
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