"This... how did it turn out like this?" Waver's face instantly turned deathly pale.
At the Clock Tower, the high and mighty Professor Kayneth always looked at his papers with disdainful eyes, using arrogant rhetoric to shatter his dignity.
Waver had fantasized countless times about proving himself in the Holy Grail War, giving this man a resounding slap in the face.
But now, seeing the once imperious man curled up in the mud, even the air he exhaled laced with fragments of his internal organs...
Waver felt no pleasure, only a bone-chilling sorrow.
"Is this... a battle between magi?" Waver's voice trembled.
"Boy, look closely." Iskandar patted Waver's shoulder, his tone as steady as a mountain. "This is war! No matter how illustrious one was in life, when they fall, they are nothing but an empty shell!"
Waver suddenly looked up and tightly grabbed Iskandar's cape, tears welling in his eyes. "Save him..."
"We have to take him away! We can't let him die here. Dying like this... is too cruel for a man as proud as him!"
Iskandar paused slightly, then revealed a gratified smile. "Oh? Extending a helping hand to an enemy? As expected of my Master, you truly possess the magnanimity of a king!"
"Idiot! I just... I just don't want to lose my teacher before I even graduate!" Waver shouted, his voice thick with tears.
Iskandar laughed heartily. With a shift of his body, he swept across the battlefield like a red whirlwind.
Before the Assassins could even react, he grabbed Kayneth by the back of his collar and tossed him onto the rear seat of the Gordius Wheel like a torn sack.
"Avenger, I shall take this wretched Master away to settle him down. You have no objections, right?!"
Ah?!
The Assassins' expressions changed drastically.
They suddenly realized that the Avenger had already arrived before them, radiating murderous intent.
"Take him. He has nothing to do with this war anymore."
Hearing Asuka say this, Waver breathed a sigh of relief, but then looked at the King of Conquerors with concern. "I just don't know if a normal hospital can treat these kinds of injuries..."
"If you trust me, you can take him to the Matou Family," Asuka said as he continued walking forward. "Tell that old man to do a good deed, otherwise he'll easily end up in hell when he passes on to the next world."
"Also, tell him that worm healing is strictly forbidden."
Asuka stood before the Kamado mother and daughter, sweeping a cold gaze over the surroundings.
"As for you lot, it seems you've been taking quite good care of my Master."
His voice caused the Assassin clones surrounding Sumire Kamado to instantly freeze in place.
Before they could react, Asuka's figure vanished.
A few flashes of silver blades flickered fleetingly under the moonlight, leaving only black afterimages on their retinas.
*Slash—!*
The breathing of the three Assassins stopped.
A fine crack appeared simultaneously in the dead center of the skull masks on their faces.
Immediately after, black Reishi gushed out from the cracks, and their bodies instantly disintegrated into countless fragments, dissipating into the night breeze.
"Ah... Ah..."
Sumire Kamado's hand, still gripping the baseball bat, hovered in midair. She hadn't even seen how Asuka drew his blade before the terrifying enemies who had just been trying to kill her were reduced to ash.
"This is the speed of Thunder Breathing pushed to its absolute limit. It's quite useful for dealing with small fry caught off guard," Asuka explained as he turned around, flicking his bloodless blade.
He looked the somewhat disheveled mother and daughter up and down. "Are you two... alright?"
"Mr. Asuka!"
Seeing that familiar back, Sumire's legs gave out, and she nearly fell to her knees.
"I... I'm fine, but my mother..."
"It's just severe magical exhaustion, coupled with internal injuries from the shockwaves of that silver whip."
Though Asuka offered comforting words, he saw through Haruri's condition at a single glance.
He stepped forward and placed his palm against the center of Haruri's back, feeling the turbulent magical energy rampaging within her body.
'This unpleasant magical energy... It seems this foolish woman really did implant Crest Worms.'
"...Tch, step back."
He let magical energy seep from his fingertips, guiding the restless demonic worm near Haruri's heart to slowly float up along her esophagus.
A moment later, a hideous, writhing worm appeared between her teeth.
"What is that?!" Sumire gasped, covering her mouth.
Asuka didn't answer. He pinched the worm's body with his fingertips, intending to forcefully yank it out.
But the creature was incredibly stubborn, clinging desperately to Haruri's flesh and refusing to let go.
Seeing this, Asuka let out an angry shout. "Get out!!"
Under the weight of his malice and vengeful will, the Amplification Worm shuddered uncontrollably and instantly lost its strength.
*Squelch—!!*
With a spray of blood, he yanked the grotesque thing out of Haruri's body.
"..."
With the demonic worm removed, a bit of color instantly returned to Haruri's pale face, and she began coughing violently.
"I told you not to trust Zouken. You really are a fool!"
Asuka pinched the demonic worm in his hand, feeling the restless flow of magical energy within it, his brow furrowed in anger.
In just three short days, this worm had absorbed such a massive amount of magical energy...
Although Asuka's will had influenced it, allowing Haruri to have so much magical energy for it to drain, it was still terrifying.
If he had intervened any later, this foolish woman would have been sucked dry by it!
But since things had already come to this, he couldn't let it go to waste.
"Nugata, eat it!"
He placed the Amplification Worm on Nugata's blade, and amid a series of retching sounds, the sword completely devoured it.
Subsequently, a pure and massive surge of magical energy flowed into his body. Asuka immediately placed his hand on Sumire, guiding this power to slowly flow into her Magic Circuits.
Fortunately, it wasn't too late.
At the cost of nearly half her life, Haruri had managed to improve the quality of Sumire's Magic Circuits.
Although there were still only twelve, they had now gone from Rank D to Rank B, and even showed promise of breaking through to Rank A.
This way, even Sumire herself would have the ability to perform magecraft independently.
"Phew..." Asuka breathed a sigh of relief, looking helplessly at the pale Haruri. "If you want to turn Sumire into an orphan, feel free to pull a stunt like this again next time."
"..." Haruri remained silent, but still cast him a grateful look.
Hearing Asuka say this, the previously tense Sumire also relaxed a bit. "As long as Mom is okay... By the way, is your battle over, Mr. Asuka...?"
Asuka nodded and was just about to say something.
But his movements halted.
He abruptly raised his head, casting his gaze toward the pitch-black night sky above.
It wasn't just him. Everyone present, even Kiritsugu Emiya and Kirei Kotomine fighting in the distance, felt that soul-trembling, terrifying fluctuation at the exact same moment.
*Rumble—!!*
That wasn't the sound of thunder.
The sky was weeping, the atmosphere wailing as it was forcibly compressed by some colossal entity!
A surge of magical energy, filled with evil frenzy and profound malice, poured down from ten thousand meters above like a breached celestial river!
"Is this... that guy from the Tenth Division?!"
Asuka's pupils contracted violently.
He was far too familiar with this aura; it was the Spiritual Pressure of a Soul Reaper.
But within that familiar Spiritual Pressure, there was now a sickening scent of a Hollow mixed in.
At this very moment, high above Fuyuki City.
Berserker hovered in the void, and the bone mask that originally covered his face was now growing wildly.
The white osseous matter spread down his neck, covering his shoulders and chest like armor.
A hoarse voice emanated from beneath the mask: "[That meddlesome Soul Reaper's will has finally collapsed!]"
He raised the trident in his hand high, pointing it at the glittering Vimana before him, and issued a declaration that changed the color of the world.
*Thump!*
The heart of the world beat heavily once.
Immediately after, the sky was swallowed by an even deeper darkness.
A suffocating, heavy, and sinister black liquid instantly erupted with Berserker at its center!
It was seawater composed of high-density Reishi.
In a mere instant, a massive black water sphere over several kilometers in diameter appeared out of thin air above Fuyuki City!
The surface of the water sphere was covered in giant swirling patterns, slowly rotating like a black death star that had suddenly descended upon the World of the Living.
It blotted out the moonlight and the stars, casting the Mion River banks below into a shadow of absolute despair.
"Wh-What is that thing?!"
On the ground, Sumire Kamado tilted her head back, looking at the massive black sphere that almost took up her entire field of vision, her body trembling uncontrollably.
The oppressive feeling was simply too strong.
Even from this distance, she still found it hard to breathe, as if all the air in her lungs had been sucked away by that black sphere.
Asuka's expression turned incredibly grim.
"That's... Bankai..."
He could feel that some terrifying transformation was taking place inside that water sphere.
At this moment, Gilgamesh, who was located inside the water sphere, was experiencing a predicament that even he found troublesome.