With my hand upon my sword, I looked up at the dragon that had come to a halt before us—and at the Dragon Witch standing atop its head, banner in hand.
"...Damnation."
The field was ill-starred. We already had wounded among our number, and our strength had been scattered besides in the search for the dragonslayer.
There were six Servants here if Mash was counted among them, yet both Siegfried, the dragonslayer, and I myself were injured. That alone was cause enough for grave concern.
To face a dragon while both those best suited to slay dragons were wounded—there could scarcely be a darker omen for battle. My expression hardened as I raised my eyes to the witch who gazed down upon me.
Our eyes met. Her golden irises shimmered with a madness not yet spent.
I tensed, expecting her cry to herald the first assault. Yet she did not move. She merely looked at me in silence.
Sensing something amiss, I spoke first to Jeanne Alter, who continued only to stare.
"What is this? Have you something to say...? No, that cannot be it. We are hardly on such terms."
"...Indeed."
Jeanne Alter gave a small nod and affirmed my words.
"At first, I thought that when we met, I would curse you to your face and kill you. But now that I stand before you... it all seems meaningless."
Her eyes were hollow as the void itself. Seeing that freezing emptiness, I asked before I could stop myself.
"...What is?"
"...What, you ask? You should know. That I am but a false Jeanne d'Arc—a counterfeit saint fashioned by the Holy Grail."
The instant her words reached me, I understood them—and in all the time since I had been summoned as a Heroic Spirit, I had never known a shock so great.
How does she know?
My thoughts split and collided within my mind. Confusion seized me utterly.
She watched me with startled eyes and let out a dry, empty laugh.
"At first I denied it. I told myself it could not be true. But the more I thought upon it, the more the truth revealed itself."
The truth she had uncovered was cruel beyond measure. Memories filled only with the gaze of a third party, the very process of her own birth—everything declared that she was false.
"Do you know what it feels like to realize that the hatred in your heart, your will, your convictions—even your very existence—everything that makes you who you are is a lie?"
She was a being whose existence had been denied by the world itself. And then Jeanne Alter burst into wild laughter.
"Ahahahahahaha! When I think on it, everything I did to France was false as well! It was not that real woman who did it, but me—the counterfeit. What a pitiful, idiotic farce I have made of it all."
With one hand pressed to her brow, Jeanne Alter laughed on and on. Yet to me, she looked less as though she laughed than as though she wept.
There was something unbearably pitiable in that sight. As I stood silent, Jeanne beside me spoke to her.
"Then why have you come here?"
"Why?"
Jeanne Alter answered with a sneer.
"Simple. I finally understood what I must do."
Madness flashed in her eyes, fierce enough to burn the world to ash.
"If the world calls me false, then I need only destroy that which makes me false."
"You...!"
Jeanne's face twisted, as though she had grasped at once what Jeanne Alter intended. Mocking her, the black saint raised the banner in her hand.
At some point the heavens had filled with Wyverns—dozens upon dozens of them at a glance. They bared their fangs toward us, and the gale from their wings made the banner marked with the black dragon snap and billow.
"This is the first act I shall carry out in obedience to my own will—my will alone. Beginning with the erasure of the nation called France from this place, I shall carve myself into the world by force... until none may reject me. I shall prove that I exist."
"This is a battle for my survival, and a war to prove my own existence. What begins here and now is a War of Self-Assertion. If you live, I die. If I die, you live. Therefore... die."
"For my sake."
With those words, Jeanne Alter leveled her banner toward us. That was the signal. At once, every Wyvern in the sky folded its wings and descended upon us in a murderous dive.
At the sight, all prepared themselves for battle. I too took my stance. The situation had diverged from the tale I knew, and my thoughts were in disarray, yet the experience of my former life guided my body without fail. Even as I readied myself, I looked toward Ritsuka before me.
Her face was full of unease. Seeing that, I stepped before her. Ritsuka looked up at me.
"...Elius?"
"Do not fear, Master."
I turned fully and met her gaze.
"Do not doubt yourself. You can do this. And even if you falter, that too is no cause for despair. I am here beside you, and so are the other Servants. Therefore, believe in yourself—and in us."
"...Yes!"
At my words, Ritsuka seemed to steel her resolve. The anxiety clouding her eyes receded, and light returned to them.
Seeing that, I smiled and spoke once more.
"Then, Master. The Wyverns are upon us. Give your command."
At my urging, she looked to Mash, Kiyohime, Bathory, Marie, Mozart, Siegfried, Jeanne d'Arc, and at last to me, and began to issue her orders.
"...Jeanne and Mash, you excel in defense. Hold the front and endure the Wyverns' charge."
"Yes, Senpai!"
"Understood."
"And Bathory—"
Once given that small push, Ritsuka proved herself every inch the Master of legend, directing her Servants with practiced skill.
I too entrusted myself to her command and met the oncoming swarm of Wyverns.
"Kraaaaaargh!"
Slash.
"Silence."
I severed the neck of the Wyvern that came shrieking at me, then cast my eyes over the field. At a glance, it seemed a battle ill-favored for us, for we were outnumbered.
And yet, through Ritsuka's timely commands and the perfect accord of the famed heroes who obeyed them, that disadvantage was being overturned with remarkable ease.
"[Balmung]!!"
Even Fafnir, which had been loosing its breath from the rear, was struck in turn by Siegfried's Noble Phantasm, wielded with the advantage of perfect affinity. Little by little, the tide of battle began to lean in our favor.
Boom.
"What—!"
But battle is ever ruled by unforeseen turns. From the flank came a sudden rush of overwhelming killing intent. By instinct alone I raised my sword and caught the blow. The impact ran through the blade and into my hands like a thunderclap.
I knocked the weapon aside by force and turned toward the source of the attack. The moment I saw what stood there, my eyes widened.
"You...!"
"Krrrrrrrrrrrrr!"
Something like black mist cloaked its body, obscuring both its form and even the sword it held. Yet I knew at once, by instinct, who it was.
A Noble Phantasm that concealed identity. Black armor glimpsed through the haze. And that howl, one I had heard in life—a cry steeped in madness and hatred.
Realizing the enemy's identity, I spoke his name.
"...Traitor. Lancelot!"
"Eliussssssssss!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
At my cry, Lancelot roared my true name with the hatred of one beholding his most accursed foe, and swung his sword. I answered in kind.
Our blades collided.