What tore through the thick violet mist hanging over the intersection was the massive naginata of a giant warrior monk.
"Shaaaah!"
The force Benkei unleashed was as heavy and destructive as his huge frame. With a dull whoosh as it split the air, the asphalt was carved open in a long trench, as easily as slicing tofu.
But where that merciless blow landed, only acrid ash scattered in the air.
"My, my. Strong, but brutishly simple. You think such sluggish spearwork can cut me down?"
A trail as cold as moonlight flashed. Before anyone noticed, Sasaki Kojiro's Monohoshizao had slipped into Benkei's guard and ripped through his thick shoulder armor like paper.
"Graaagh!"
"There are two prey here, so I shall take this oversized monk."
With his usual easy smile, Kojiro rested his sword on his shoulder and fixed Benkei's attention squarely on himself.
Meanwhile, on the other side, an even more grotesque and one-sided kind of violence was unfolding.
Clang, clang!
Medusa charged in, furiously swinging her chained dagger. But not once did her relentless flurry so much as brush Shuten-Douji.
"Oh dear, where do you think you're showing off in front of my husband? A beast like you ought to be crawling on the ground."
Shuten-Douji leisurely brushed back her hair with one hand, while with the long nails of the other she lightly knocked aside Medusa's dagger and toyed with her as she attacked.
It was a languid, elegant motion, like swatting away an annoying fly.
"Haaah!"
Medusa let out an enraged shriek and cracked her chain like a whip, but Shuten-Douji merely snorted and kicked off the ground.
She moved too fast for ordinary eyes to follow. In an instant, Shuten-Douji was behind Medusa, grabbing her by the back of the neck and slamming her straight into the asphalt.
Booom!
"Kgh...!"
"The way you pant around with your eyes covered is just pathetic. I only want to show my husband my pretty side, so stay down quietly before I tear you apart."
The difference in strength was overwhelming. With one foot planted on Medusa's back as she writhed on the ground, Shuten-Douji openly sneered at her.
To her, this battle was not a desperate fight for survival. It was nothing more than a cruel amusement performed in front of a man she liked.
Watching that overwhelming, suffocating violence from a distance, Mash swallowed hard.
"Th-that absurd power... what in the world is it...?"
Even to her eyes as a Demi-Servant, the waves of mana pouring from Shuten-Douji were so dense and wicked that they made her skin crawl.
If that oni had attacked her seriously just now, with this much force behind it...
A cold sweat ran down Mash's back. She would have been smashed apart in a single blow.
"...Why? Why didn't she kill me?"
Mash's gaze shifted to the man standing behind Shuten-Douji and watching the battle with an indifferent expression: Togabito Yaiba.
Her first impression of Yaiba had been sheer horror.
The moment their eyes met, she had felt a visceral disgust crawling over her skin, and nausea like her insides were being twisted.
Never in Chaldea had Mash felt something this blatant and evil. Her instincts kept warning her.
That man was a monster whose very existence was evil, something that corrupted everything around him just by breathing.
And yet, a question pushed its way through that instinctive revulsion and reared its head.
"Why did he stop his Servant? If he wanted, he could have torn me and the director apart on the spot and walked through the Singularity without interference..."
His calm voice, shrugging it off as a rational decision.
The lonely-looking back he showed as he quietly turned away, telling them to carry out their mission.
In her head, she was certain he was a terrorist and the source of this disaster. But there was something strangely off about the actions she had seen from him.
That was when it happened.
Clatter, clatter!
An ominous scraping sound rang out from the rubble of the collapsed buildings around the intersection.
Drawn by the mana the Servants were releasing, dozens of Dragon Tooth Warriors began swarming toward the alley where Mash and Olga Marie were hiding.
"H-hiiik! It wasn't just Servants?! G-get away! Don't come any closer!"
Olga Marie screamed in terror and collapsed to the ground. Mash hurriedly shook off her distracting thoughts, stepped in front of the director, and gripped her massive shield tightly.
"Director, stay back! I'll stop them—"
Just as Mash was about to leap toward the Dragon Tooth Warriors—
"...Come forth."
Yaiba's lips moved as he watched the battle, and brilliant blue light burst from the Craft Essence card in his hand.
[Craft Essence [Chosen One] is released.]
Rumble!
With a heavy tremor that shook the ground, four enormous golems emerged through the gray smoke.
Rough-hewn yet flawlessly sturdy creations of rock and earth, shaped by Caster of Black.
"No way...! H-he summoned four golems of that level all at once, without even chanting?! But that man is just an ordinary person whose Magic Circuits haven't even properly opened!"
From behind Mash, Olga Marie stared in disbelief.
Even to her eyes as a Lord, the quality of those golems was far beyond anything a mere ordinary person should have been able to control.
"Go. Crush every last one of them."
The moment Yaiba's flat command fell, the golems all raised their heavy fists and charged at the horde of Dragon Tooth Warriors.
Crunch! Crack!
They were not on the level of Servants, but they had more than enough destructive power to pulverize mere Dragon Tooth Warriors.
Every time a golem swung its fist, three or four Dragon Tooth Warriors were blasted apart into clouds of bone dust.
"...!!"
Mash stood there with her shield raised, staring blankly at the scene.
Two of the four golems Yaiba had summoned were at the front, smashing apart the Dragon Tooth Warriors' advance, but the other two had formed a defensive line and were firmly guarding Mash and Olga Marie on either side.
"...He's protecting us?"
Mash's eyes shook violently.
People who had retched at the sight of him and poured disgust on him. Unwanted followers who never let go of their suspicion and wariness, treating him like a potential terrorist.
If he were evil—no, even if he were just an ordinary person—this would have been a situation where anger and abandonment were only natural.
And yet, even in the middle of this frantic melee, that man had willingly revealed one of his cards to protect them from danger.
"Why...? What is he planning?"
Mash was confused. Her instincts screamed at her to reject that man and push him away, but the actions she was seeing with her own eyes...
What cut through those tangled thoughts was the sound of a massive explosion.
Kojiro's sword flashed, and three streaks of sword-light carved through Benkei's huge body.
"How dull. Just die already!"
Shuten-Douji's sharp nails mercilessly pierced Medusa's Spirit Origin.
Without even leaving behind a dying cry, the two Shadow Servants dissolved into the air, leaving only dense remnants of mana behind.
The horde of Dragon Tooth Warriors that had filled the intersection had long since been reduced to nothing under the golems' merciless fists.
"...Haah. Is it over?"
Yaiba looked up at the ashen sky and let out a long breath.
[Main Quest: Shadow Servant subjugation complete. Rewards will be issued: Heroic Spirit summoning ticket (Evil alignment guaranteed) x1, Craft Essence selection summoning ticket x1.]
After checking the system window floating in the air, he calmly dismissed it. His strength had been replenished enough, but he did not seem to have any intention of using the rewards right away to see what he had gotten.
"Good work, husband. Just wait a bit. I'll gather up all the energy from those shadow scraps and turn it into mana for you—"
"No, it's fine."
Yaiba raised a hand, stopping Shuten-Douji as she moved toward him.
"I pushed myself too hard, so I'm tired... and more than anything, I'm hungry."
At his words, Shuten-Douji and Kojiro blinked at the same time.
In the middle of a blood-soaked battlefield, their Master casually rubbing his stomach and saying he was hungry was so absurd that both Servants let out quiet laughs.
"Well now, even a great general is helpless before hunger."
"Oh dear, were you hungry, husband? You should've said so sooner. Want me to search the whole area and see if there's a restaurant still standing?"
"No, a restaurant's probably impossible. For now, let's get inside a building with less smoke and rest a little. The golems should at least be able to stand guard."
Leaving the bloodstained alley behind, Yaiba started walking with heavy steps toward a shopping building that was less damaged than the others.
Behind him, the two steadfast golems still perfectly guarded Mash and Olga Marie, opening the way for them.
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