The moment the corrupted steel slammed into Rikka, her small body was violently launched through the air. She flew backward like a broken doll before crashing heavily into one of the massive steel shipping containers.
BAM!
The deafening impact left a deep, jagged dent in the thick metal. With a sickening crunch of shattering bone and tearing flesh, Rikka's battered, bloodied form slid down the side of the container, slumping motionless against the ground.
Irisviel's eyes widened in sheer horror. She slapped both hands over her mouth, a muffled gasp escaping her lips as she stared in shock at the gruesome sight of a little girl being so ruthlessly crushed.
Hidden away in the shadows, even Kiritsugu's emotionless expression faltered. A brief flicker of genuine disturbance crossed his stoic features as he witnessed her broken condition.
Not even a second later, Saber, Rider, and Lancer descended upon the black knight.
Driven by outrage, all three Servants simultaneously launched a furious counterattack against Berserker.
Rider leaped down from his chariot, drawing his straight short sword to strike.
Lancer thrust forward, wielding both of his deadly spears with lethal precision. And right beside them, even with her heavily injured arm, Saber swung her invisible blade with everything she had left.
Saber, Rider, and Lancer descended upon Berserker all at once, their killing intent suffocating the air.
But even faced with a coordinated assault from the three of them, Berserker did not falter.
Berserker moved like a blur. He swung his corrupted steel pole with terrifying precision, effortlessly parrying Rider's sword strike before immediately pivoting to deflect Lancer's twin spears.
His Eternal Arms Mastership burned through his madness, allowing his body to react purely on unparalleled combat instinct.
Saber lunged into his blind spot, sweeping her invisible blade toward his neck. But Berserker simply dropped to one knee, letting the gale of her sword pass mere inches over his helmet.
Without missing a beat, he thrust his jagged steel pole upward, forcing Saber to leap back to avoid being skewered.
He was completely overwhelming them. Despite being outnumbered, Berserker dictated the entire pace of the battle, weaving through their attacks like a shadow.
Lancer stepped in, fiercely thrusting his crimson spear, Gáe Dearg, toward Berserker's chest.
But Berserker had anticipated the move. With a swift twist of his body, he slammed his iron pole directly onto the shaft of the red spear.
The sheer kinetic force of the blow shattered the ground beneath them and sent powerful shockwaves up Lancer's arm.
The impact was too much for him. Lancer's grip failed, and the crimson spear slipped from his hands, spinning into the air.
Before the spear could even begin to fall, Berserker's armored hand shot out. He snatched Gáe Dearg straight out of mid-air.
The moment his gauntlet wrapped around the crimson shaft, foul, blood-red veins of dark mana aggressively pulsed over the weapon, claiming it as his own.
Moving with blinding speed, Berserker instantly pivoted on his heel and launched a vicious, sweeping slash with the stolen spear toward Saber.
"Ah!" Saber cried out in agony.
The cursed crimson blade sliced cleanly through her armor, striking her already heavily injured hand.
The sudden, intense burst of pain forced her fingers to open. Saber's invisible sword slipped from her grasp and hit the concrete.
The moment it left her hands, the swirling barrier of wind enveloping the blade rapidly dissipated.
With a brilliant flash of light, the invisible air completely vanished, finally revealing the breathtaking golden form of Excalibur to the world.
But its divine radiance didn't last long. Berserker callously discarded the red spear, his armored hand instantly darting down to grab the golden hilt of the holy sword.
The moment he touched it, a torrential wave of pitch-black mana erupted from his armor.
The holy golden light of Excalibur was violently swallowed by darkness, infected by pulsing red lines that corrupted the divine construct into a weapon of pure madness.
"No!" Saber gasped, watching her sword be defiled.
But Berserker didn't give them a single second to recover. With a thunderous roar, he launched himself directly at Rider.
Before Rider could even raise his short sword to defend himself, the corrupted Excalibur tore through his chest.
Blood sprayed across the docks as Rider let out a choked gasp, his massive frame collapsing heavily to the ground.
"Rider!" Lancer shouted.
But Berserker was already moving. He ripped the dark blade free and spun like a hurricane.
A terrifying arc of black magical energy severed the air. Lancer's eyes widened in shock as the corrupted holy sword cleaved cleanly through his defenses, cutting him down in an instant. He crumpled, his body hitting the concrete with a lifeless thud.
Finally, Berserker turned his glowing red visor toward Saber. Clutching her bleeding hand, she looked up at the towering monster wielding her own corrupted sword.
"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅!"
With one final, distorted shriek of absolute madness, Berserker brought the dark blade crashing down, completely engulfing the docks in shadows and blood.
The suffocating darkness that had engulfed the docks was suddenly pierced by a blinding, overwhelming light.
On top of the docks lamp, Gilgamesh looked down upon the blood-soaked concrete with an expression of absolute disgust. Behind her, the air began to distort. Golden ripples materialized one after another, multiplying by the dozens, and then the hundreds.
The sheer radiance of the Gate of Babylon illuminated the night, turning the entire sky a brilliant, burning gold that completely washed away the shadows and blood Berserker had just created.
With a single, dismissive flick of her wrist, the King of Heroes unleashed her treasury. A torrential rain of legendary swords, spears, and halberds fired from the golden portals, hurtling toward the black knight like a devastating meteor shower.
But Berserker didn't even flinch.
Wielding the corrupted, pitch-black Excalibur, he became a vortex of pure destruction. He swung the dark blade with impossible speed, effortlessly batting away Noble Phantasm after Noble Phantasm.
Deafening metallic clashes echoed across the docks as priceless treasures were swatted out of the air as easily as mere flies.
Amidst the blinding golden barrage, Berserker's free hand suddenly shot out.
He snatched a beautifully ornate spear cleanly by its shaft the exact second it entered his range.
Without losing a fraction of his momentum, the mad knight spun and hurled the weapon straight back at its owner with terrifying velocity.
Gilgamesh's crimson eyes widened in shock. The spear tore through the air toward her, forcing the golden King to immediately abandon her vantage point and leap high into the air to evade her own stolen weapon.
But that was exactly what the mad knight wanted.
Using the momentary opening, Berserker kicked off the ground with enough force to entirely shatter the concrete beneath his boots.
He launched himself directly into the sky like a cannonball, intercepting Gilgamesh in mid-air.
Genuine surprise flashed across the King of Heroes' face as the towering, shadow-drenched monster suddenly eclipsed her golden light.
Before Gilgamesh could even summon another weapon to defend herself, Berserker swung the corrupted holy sword.
A massive, ruthless arc of black magical energy cleaved through the sky.
In a single, flawless strike, the dark blade severed Gilgamesh's head from her shoulders.
Her golden armor lost its brilliant luster as her lifeless body plummeted toward the cold docks below.
Berserker landed back on the ground effortlessly. He looked toward Gilgamesh's headless body, then turned toward Rikka, who was still lying in the exact same position, surrounded by a growing pool of blood.
Saber, Rider, and Lancer were dead as well, all of them overwhelmed by his relentless assault.
But there was still one person left. He turned around and saw Irisviel, trembling with tears streaming down her face.
Berserker walked slowly in her direction, still wielding the corrupted Excalibur. He dragged the dark blade along the concrete, the horrifying screech of metal serving as a terrifying intimidation.
It wasn't long before he loomed right in front of her.
The sheer, suffocating terror forced Irisviel to collapse backward onto the ground.
Berserker raised the dark Excalibur high, staring down at her. His glowing red visor pierced through the ominous black smoke that constantly enveloped his armor.
And with one effortless swing, he cleaved her in two.
After the final, brutal strike that claimed Irisviel's life, an eerie, suffocating silence descended upon the docks.
Save for the pools of blood expanding across the cold concrete and the broken bodies of servants scattered like discarded toys, the harbor was entirely still.
With Saber, Lancer, Rider, and Archer all slaughtered in a matter of minutes, the Holy Grail War had seemingly reached its conclusion on the very first night.
Slowly, the towering black knight lowered his gaze to the weapon in his hand.
The corrupted, pitch-black Excalibur hummed with dark mana, but beneath the vile veins of corruption, the undeniable shape of his King's holy sword remained.
Staring at the blade violently dragged the mad knight's shattered mind back in time.
The overwhelming weight of his unbearable guilt, the deep shame of his treason, and the catastrophic betrayal that had torn the Knights of the Round Table apart came flooding back to him.
The catastrophic consequences of his fateful decisions that starting the ruin of Camelot still haunted him, chaining his soul even across time into this modern era.
The sheer agony of his sins burned far hotter than his madness, forcing his armored gauntlet to clench furiously, trembling around Excalibur's hilt.
"Lancelot..."
A soft, heartbreakingly gentle whisper suddenly drifted through the darkness of the docks.
Berserker froze entirely. The monstrous, chaotic aura violently leaking from his dark armor instantly vanished.
It was a voice he knew better than his own heartbeat—a voice that had absolutely no right to exist in this era.
With a violent, desperate movement, Berserker whipped his heavy helmet around, his glowing red visor piercing the darkness as he desperately searched for the source of the sound.
In the distance just beyond the reach of the flickering streetlamps, a lone silhouette stood in the darkness.
"Lancelot..."
The woman's voice echoed again, cutting through the heavy air and speaking directly to him.
"Arrghhh!" A distorted, agonizing sound tore from Berserker's throat. Bound by the curse of Mad Enhancement, his vocal cords failed him, reducing his desperate attempt to speak into a hollow, monstrous gargle.
His grip failed. The corrupted Excalibur slipped from his armored fingers, hitting the concrete with a heavy metallic clank.
The dark sword lay entirely forgotten as he slowly raised his trembling right hand toward the silhouette, his gesture filled with a desperate, agonizing longing.
Unconsciously, Berserker stepped forward. He walked blindly into the darkness, completely transfixed. With every heavy step he took, the shadows parted, making her figure clearer.
It was a woman. Her long hair cascaded down her back like liquid raven silk. She possessed a slender, elegant neck and high, noble cheekbones that gave her an air of fragile beauty.
Her eyes were a deep, soulful violet, fringed by dark lashes that cast soft shadows against her pale skin.
Standing there in the gloom, she looked like a masterpiece carved from moonstone.
It was a face Lancelot knew better than his own reflection. He immediately recognized the woman standing before him. It was the woman he loved. The woman whose very existence had started everything.
Berserker dragged his heavy boots across the concrete until he stood mere inches from her.
In the dim, flickering light of the streetlamps, he could only see the lower half of her face. The darkness clung heavily to her brow, completely hiding her eyes from view.
He desperately fought against the crushing weight of his Mad Enhancement. His jaw trembled beneath his helmet, and a broken, guttural sound ripped from his throat as he forced the words out.
"G... Grg... Gui...nevere..."
"Lancelot..." the woman whispered again, her voice painfully soft.
Slowly, agonizingly, he raised his armored right hand. His metal fingers trembled as he reached out, desperate to touch her cheek.
Driven by a sudden, subconscious fear of tainting her, the foul black fog that constantly radiated from his body abruptly vanished.
The smoke cleared entirely, revealing the man beneath the monster. His long, purplish-black hair fell loosely over the collar of his pitch-black armor, his face exposed to the cold night air.
His fingertips were just a breath away from her skin when Guinevere suddenly snapped her head up.
The shadows fell away from her face, and Lancelot's breath caught in his throat.
Her beautiful violet eyes were gone. In their place were blank, lifeless voids, weeping thick, continuous streams of dark blood that rolled down her pale cheeks.
There was no warmth or love in her stare—only a pure, suffocating hatred that pinned him in place.
"Why did you kidnap me, Lancelot!?" she shrieked, her voice twisting from a gentle whisper into a loud, venomous roar.
The words hit him harder than any weapon could. Lancelot's hand stopped dead in the air. He stood completely paralyzed, his mind shattering all over again as he stared in absolute despair at the bloody tears staining her face and the raw, undisguised loathing burning in her lifeless eyes.
A sudden, violent gust of wind swept across the entire dock. In the distance, the city skyline once illuminated by the warm glow of headlights and towering buildings abruptly went pitch black.
Everything beyond the harbor, even the sea, vanished into complete, suffocating darkness as if it had never existed at all.
The only remaining light came from the flickering streetlamps directly above the concrete.
Berserker stumbled backward. His shattered mind could not process the shifting reality around him, and Guinevere's venomous words only deepened his agonizing confusion.
As he frantically looked at the endless void surrounding them, the woman in front of him took a steady step forward.
"Why did you steal me from my life!?" she screamed. "Because of you, I lived in loathing and despair! I despise myself for following you, and I despise you for whispering the devil's words to me!"
With every syllable she spat, Lancelot's body violently jolted. The accusations pierced his chest like physical blades.
"I betrayed my own King and lived as a nun because of you! I never should have listened! It would have been better to die at my execution than to follow you and live my entire life in misery!"
The thick, dark blood weeping from her empty eyes began to spill heavily onto the ground. It flowed unnaturally fast, rapidly expanding into a massive, sickening pool of crimson around her feet.
Hearing the woman he loved blame him with such absolute hatred left Lancelot completely paralyzed. The agonizing regret and guilt that had consumed him since his time in Camelot finally boiled over. The very woman he had sacrificed his honor, his King, and his life to rescue was now damning him for it.
He kept walking backward, desperate to escape her accusing gaze.
His boots dragged past Rider's massive corpse on the ground. But the moment Lancelot stepped past it, the fallen Servant abruptly dissolved into a flurry of beautiful, fragile petals that scattered silently across the bloodstained concrete.
Lancer's body suffered the exact same fate, breaking apart into a sea of delicate flowers the second Berserker retreated past him.
As Guinevere continued her slow, relentless advance, the streetlamps along the docks began to violently flicker.
The light seemed to move with her, keeping her pale, bloodstained face illuminated.
But the moment she walked past a lamp, it abruptly died. The suffocating darkness instantly swallowed the space behind her, leaving Berserker completely trapped in a shrinking cage of dying light, falling petals, and the terrifying ghost of his past.
As he backed away from the weeping apparition of Guinevere, Berserker's desperate retreat was abruptly cut short. His heavy armor collided with something solid standing directly behind him.
"Sir Lancelot."
The voice was calm and unwavering. It sent a completely different kind of chill down his spine.
He slowly turned around. Standing in front of him, perfectly untouched by the blood and the creeping darkness, was Saber. But this was not the Servant he had just struck down. This was not the servant that fighting in the Holy Grail War.
This was Artoria Pendragon, exactly the same as she the one from his deepest, most agonizing memories.
She wore the majestic attire of a true King, a heavy royal cloak draped over her shoulders and a golden crown resting upon her head. She stood completely still in her commanding and with the holy sword Excalibur driven deep into the concrete in front of her with both of her hands resting solemnly atop its hilt.
Her emerald eyes looked up at him. There was no hatred or aggression in her gaze, only the quiet, crushing disappointment that had haunted him for centuries.
His jaw trembled. Exposed to the night air, his face twisted as he fought the madness crushing his mind, forcing out the words through a distorted, agonizing gargle.
"M... my... K-King..."
"Sir Lancelot," Artoria said, hearing her knight's broken voice.
Suddenly, Lancelot's vision violently shifted downward. The ground rushed up to meet him as his heavy armor crashed onto the concrete.
He hadn't even seen her move. Artoria had swung Excalibur in a blinding arc, cleanly severing both of his legs just below the knees.
He was now forced into a kneeling position before her, resting entirely on his severed stumps.
"You were right, Sir Lancelot," Artoria said, her tone perfectly even. With a quick, sharp swing of her arm, she flicked his blood off the holy blade. "I should have judged you the moment you had an affair with my Queen."
She looked down at him. "Letting you go along with my cheating Queen was a foolish decision I regret to this day. If I had not done that, Britain would not have collapsed and been destroyed because of you."
Her voice carried no hatred. It held none of the screaming venom or anger that Guinevere had aimed at him moments ago. Instead, her words were filled with something much heavier like the profound, absolute disappointment of a King looking down at her failed subject.
Lancelot stared up at his King from his knees, entirely broken. He couldn't speak. He could only listen as Artoria's cold, steady voice laid bare every sin that anchored his shattered soul.
"You betrayed your vows and laid with my wife, the Queen," Artoria said, looking down at him. "When the time came for her to face justice, you drew your sword against your own friends. You slaughtered two Knights of the Round Table just to steal her away from the execution stand."
Artoria took a slow step forward. "And when Britain finally burned—when the kingdom collapsed and our people bled—you did nothing. You hid away with her in your shame while everything we built turned to ash."
Behind Lancelot, Guinevere's bloody appearance leaned in close to his ear.
"Your fault," the dead Queen whispered. "Your fault. Your fault. Your fault..."
The chant repeated endlessly, overlapping with itself until it filled his entire mind.
Lancelot squeezed his eyes shut. Real tears finally breached his exposed face, mixing with the dirt and sweat of the battlefield. He was completely paralyzed by his own self-hatred.
Artoria slowly raised Excalibur, the golden blade catching the dim, flickering light of the single remaining streetlamp.
"I failed to punish you then," Artoria said, her green eyes hardening into ice. "So I will pass judgment upon you now. Not as your friend, Lancelot, but as your King."
As the holy sword reached its peak, the edges of the illusion finally began to fray. In the distance, Gilgamesh's beheaded corpse silently dissolved into a cascade of scattered flowers.
Beside it, Rikka's motionless, blood-soaked body did the exact same, breaking apart into delicate petals that drifted away into the dark.
High above the bloody concrete, standing silently on the edge of a shipping container, a lone figure watched the execution unfold.
It was a girl dressed in a pure white kimono. She looked down at the kneeling, broken knight, the neon blue and red rings of the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception glowing vividly in her quiet gaze.
---
---
---
"Is it working?"
Berserker stood frozen right in front of me, the jagged steel pole he had swung stopped mere inches from my face.
Fortunately, just before the blow could land, my Garden of Atonement activated, trapping his consciousness inside his own mind.
I had layered this magecraft over my body before coming to the docks. The moment an enemy intent on killing me closed in, their mind would immediately be flooded with their deepest regrets, paralyzing them in place.
It was a defensive measure meant to buy me enough time to cast my standard illusions and escape.
It wasn't a perfect spell. If my attacker possessed high Magic Resistance, they would only be stuck for a few seconds.
Saber, for example, had an incredibly high Magic Resistance if she had been the one to attack me, she would have broken through the illusion almost instantly.
But thankfully, the one that attack me was Berserker. His Mad Enhancement stripped away his ability to reason, leaving his mind completely vulnerable to psychological interference.
Depending on how heavy his accumulated guilt was, he could be trapped standing there for minutes or even hours.
"What happened?" Saber asked.
She had halted her desperate rush to intercept his attack, and was now just staring at the immobilized Berserker in confusion.
Lancer lowered his twin spears slightly, though his eyes remained sharp. "A mental binding spell? And a powerful one at that, to completely suppress a Berserker's madness." He glanced toward me with newfound caution "That is a terrifying trap you have laid."
Rider shared the sentiment. "Ho? Now that is a neat trick!" he boomed, stroking his thick crimson beard as he stared at the frozen knight. "To stop a Berserker dead in its tracks without even crossing blades..."
"Haha, I'm just lucky," I laughed nervously, scratching my head.
I turned toward Gilgamesh, who was still standing atop the streetlamp. "Your Majesty, I apologize if your expectations were not met. Your subject cannot fight against a Servant in the grand way you hoped. I can only use cheap tricks like this." I bowed my head respectfully.
Gilgamesh just stared down at me, and then at Berserker.
She seemed to consider something for a moment before a smug smile appeared on her face.
"Hmph. What a deeply anticlimactic end," Gilgamesh scoffed from her high vantage point, her golden armor shimmering in the dim light as she crossed her arms. "I expected a grand spectacle of blood and steel, yet you merely forced the rabid dog to take a nap."
Gilgamesh let out a dramatic sigh, though her crimson eyes shifted down toward me with a glint of genuine amusement.
"Still... to ensnare a Servant's mind so flawlessly, and at a mere eight years of age? You possess a terrifyingly beautiful poison, little guardian. I suppose I can praise you for knowing how to put a mad mongrel on a proper leash, even as you are now."
"Thank you, Your Majesty." Being praised by Gilgamesh actually made me feel good. I didn't know why maybe because in the original story, she only ever truly praised or recognized Rider.
"But," Gilgamesh continued, her voice echoing across the silent docks as dozens of golden portals rippled into existence behind her. "You still need to learn how to put down a mad dog that tries to bite you."
Before Saber or anyone else could react, a merciless rain of weapons fired from the golden treasury.
Swords, spears, and halberds shot downward, piercing straight through the paralyzed Berserker.
Because he was completely trapped within the Garden of Atonement, he didn't even try to dodge or raise his weapon.
Berserker was violently skewered to the concrete, his corrupted armor shattering under the overwhelming barrage.
Without making a single sound, his body finally dissolved into glowing golden particles, leaving the docks in complete silence.