All the way up the long stone steps of Ryuudou Temple rising beneath the ash-gray sky, a heavy silence wrapped around our group.
Mt. Enzou, which should have smelled of clean mountain air and thick greenery, had been turned into a silent graveyard strewn with the corpses of burned trees and black ash.
Only the sound of Cu Chulainn's footsteps at the front and the weighty clunk of Mash's shield occasionally broke the stillness.
I climbed those gray steps in silence.
"...Master, aren't you tired?"
Baobhan Sith, stuck tightly to my left arm as she walked, looked up at my face and asked with visible unease.
Normally, if I showed even a hint of fatigue, she should have mocked me for being weak. But the red eyes staring up at me now as she clutched my sleeve were filled with nothing but blind concern for me.
It was the gaze of a child afraid I might collapse, or disappear somewhere and leave her behind.
Yes. This was Baobhan Sith's true nature. This was probably what she had originally been like, before Morgan planted evil into her for her own sake.
"I'm fine. I got enough rest earlier."
Without stopping, I lightly placed a hand on Baobhan Sith's head and stroked her hair.
"More importantly, thanks for earlier. If it weren't for you, things could have gotten really bad."
"...Ah."
At my calm but sincere praise, Baobhan Sith's pale cheeks flushed red in an instant.
Rather than avoiding my touch, she leaned her head into my hand like a cat, a smile of pure delight spreading across her lips that she couldn't hide.
"Obviously. Who do you think I am? I'm your perfect Fairy Knight. Trash like that oversized beast? If you want, I can tear apart a hundred more."
It was an arrogant and cruel line, but the end of her voice trembled strangely.
Seeing her so overjoyed just because I had acknowledged her, she looked less like a cruel fairy and more like an ordinary girl starving for love.
"Good grief, this is so sickeningly sweet I can hardly stand to watch."
At that moment, Shuten cut in, gently wrapping herself around my right arm.
Along with the soft press of her small chest came a waft of intoxicatingly sweet alcohol. Shuten cast Baobhan Sith a sultry sidelong smile and rested her chin on my shoulder.
"Husband, don't go giving too much affection to that fairy tramp who just rolled in. I'm the one who guarded your back and gave you a lap pillow. You ought to pat my head too and tell me I did well."
"W-What?! Get off him, you vulgar monster! Master's place at his side is mine!"
"Hah? So the new stone thinks it can push out the old one? You've got a filthy mouth. Want me to rip you apart?"
The two Servants each claimed one of my arms and growled at each other. Yet even in the middle of that murderous standoff, I felt a strange sense of peace.
All my life, I had never once received another person's warmth. To me, this whole situation, with them fighting over who got to stand beside me, felt like an unreal miracle.
Even if the world called them fiends and wicked temptresses, to me they were the only wall shielding me from the world's hatred. They were no different from family.
"You both did well. If Shuten hadn't taken care of Archer, it would've been hard for Baobhan Sith to shine too."
When I mediated by stroking both their heads in turn, the vicious killing intent between them melted away like snow, and both of them let out pleased little hums.
Watching from ahead, Kojiro chuckled.
"Haha, your shoulders must bear quite a burden, Master. It's like walking around with two famous blades at your waist."
"Sometimes I get nervous I might get cut."
At my light joke, the Servants burst into amused laughter.
It was obvious how I must have looked to Mash and Olga Marie behind us, and to Cu Chulainn leading the way, walking along while joking with evil spirits.
Even so, at least in this moment, their gazes didn't frighten me or hurt me at all.
Before I knew it, we had passed the main hall of Ryuudou Temple and arrived at the entrance to the massive cavern leading down into the greater hollow.
"From here on, we're right in the middle of enemy territory. Don't let your guard down, pal."
Cu Chulainn lit the tip of his wooden staff with blue runes and stepped into the cave.
The inside was far worse than outside. The air itself was thick with unpleasant magical energy.
Every breath felt like heavy molten metal was pouring into my lungs.
"...Ugh."
As a short groan slipped out of me and I frowned without realizing it, Shuten and Baobhan Sith reacted immediately on either side.
Baobhan Sith wrapped the air around me in red magical energy as if purifying it, while Shuten used her demonic aura to push back the pressure filling the cave.
"Endure it, husband. This rotten stench will be over soon enough."
Shuten was right. After walking down the long, pitch-black slope for quite some time, the view suddenly opened up, revealing a vast underground chamber.
At its center stood the silhouette of a single person.
"...So we've arrived. At the one responsible for this mad Holy Grail War."
Cu Chulainn tightened his grip on his staff and muttered under his breath.
Black armor. A pale face drained of color. And golden eyes like those of a burning beast.
The waves of magical energy pouring from the jet-black holy sword in her hand radiated a dreadful pressure on an entirely different level from the Shadow Servants we had faced so far.
With the heavy sound of armor, she slowly turned toward us.
"So you have come, watchers of the stars."
The underground chamber echoed with the cold, cruel voice of a tyrant stripped of all emotion.
At that overwhelming presence, Olga Marie gasped and staggered back, while Mash hurriedly stepped forward and raised her shield.
"So you're the one who twisted this Singularity! We'll defeat you here!"
Mash declared war in a resolute voice.
Saber Alter's golden eyes turned toward Mash. Her gaze seemed to linger for a moment on the massive cross-shaped shield in Mash's hands.
"...That shield. I see."
But that was all. Saber Alter showed no further interest in Mash.
In the eyes of that tyrant, Mash seemed to be nothing more than an annoying pebble to be swept aside, and her indifferent gaze passed right over her.
Then her eyes reached me, standing behind Kojiro and the other Servants.
"......"
Saber Alter's eyes widened ever so slightly.
The indiscriminate killing intent pouring from her black holy sword suddenly subsided, and even the flow of air in the cavern began to warp in a strange way.
Her golden eyes locked fiercely onto me.
As if drawn by a magnet, she completely ignored Mash and Cu Chulainn and slowly, steadily walked a few steps toward me.
"Master, get back."
As she approached, Kojiro drew his sword, and Shuten and Baobhan Sith also stepped in front of me, releasing fierce killing intent.
But Saber Alter paid no mind even to my Servants' hostility. She simply stopped and stared at me alone.
"...What a truly strange soul."
In the tyrant's once-cold voice, there was now, unbelievably, a deep admiration and feverish heat.
"A terrible curse, rejected by all beings that are not the embodiment of all the world's evils. A loneliness so cold it seeps into the bone, where your very existence becomes an object of hatred..."
Saber Alter murmured as though she could see straight through my soul.
My constitution, to her, worked in reverse, becoming an uncontrollable and violent attraction.
"And yet, even while bearing such a desperate curse... why do your eyes still hold a light of reason so firm it borders on arrogance? In a life like a pit of mud, enough to make you hate humanity and shatter the world, why have you not fallen into a beast?"
Saber Alter's pale cheeks flushed faintly. The tip of the holy sword in her grasp trembled ever so slightly.
It was not bloodlust toward an enemy. It was fascination at encountering something wholly alien, and an instinctive urge to submit before one who ruled over a darkness akin to her own.
"...Ah. How dazzling. What a truly desirable soul."
Saber Alter let out a quiet breath and lowered her black holy sword to the ground with a dull tap.
It wasn't that she had lost her will to fight. It was an action meant solely to convey her true feelings to me. Mash and Cu Chulainn could only stare at the grotesque sight in shock.
"Answer me, boy. What is your name?"
"...Togabito Yaiba."
I answered in a dry, calm voice. A faint smile spread across Saber Alter's lips, subtle yet breathtakingly beautiful.
"Togabito Yaiba. A blade that bears sin. A name that suits you perfectly."
As if reciting a tragic poem, she continued in a voice both sorrowful and weighty.
"If... I had not been summoned as a guardian. If we could have met beneath different starlight..."
Her grip tightened around the hilt of her holy sword. For a fleeting instant, regret passed through the eyes of that arrogant tyrant.
"I would gladly have offered this sword to you and become the knight who guarded your back from every enemy in the world. I would have cut down all things that loathed you with this blade and made those steadfast eyes of yours turn toward me alone."
That confession was so heavy and desperate it seemed to shake the underground of Ryuudou Temple itself. Mash stood there with her mouth open, and even Cu Chulainn looked so dumbfounded he nearly dropped his staff.
Baobhan Sith and Shuten exploded with killing intent, looking ready to tear Saber Alter to pieces on the spot.
"Where'd some black-armored bitch crawl out from to wag her tail at my husband?!"
"Shut that filthy mouth! Master is mine. You're going to die here full of holes!"
I lightly placed a hand on each of my enraged Servants' shoulders to calm them. Then I stepped forward and met Saber Alter's golden eyes without wavering.
The world called me evil, yet these fallen and wicked Heroic Spirits were the ones trying to offer me everything they had. It was a truly ridiculous and sorrowful twist of fate.
"...I'm grateful for the sentiment, King of Knights."
I answered in a flat but unwavering voice.
"But if our positions were different is a meaningless assumption. You have to protect that Holy Grail, and I came here to restore this Singularity."
At my answer, Saber Alter closed her eyes for a moment. Then she opened them again, her burning golden gaze flashing as she raised her black holy sword.
"...I see. What a cruel fate this is. Then I shall test with my own blade the weight of the dreadful karma you bear."
The magical energy in the cavern began to whirl like a storm as it was drawn into the black holy sword.
"Come, Yaiba. Defeat me and prove your path!"
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