The park is an eerily silent, completely deserted in the midday sun.
We have arrived ten minutes early, driven by a frantic, unspoken need to reach the meeting point, but the help we expected isn't here.
There is no Satoru, Suguru, or Shoko.
Only us and them.
We are sitting on a bench, still pretending to be oblivious to their pressence. The silence of the park is amplified by the rhythmic, stone-grinding sound of the Mountain God's teeth.
The three Curses haven't left us. They stand directly behind the bench, their shadows stretching over us like an umbrella.
The smell of rot is so thick now I can taste it on my tongue.
Miko has become a statue of pure willpower. She is holding her phone with such intensity that her knuckle have gone white, her thumb moving in a ghost-scroll across a screen she isn't even reading.
I lean back, trying to look like a bored teenager, but my mind is visualising what to do when Satoru and others will arrive.
If I deploy the Walls, the Mountain God will crush it in seconds. If I use Barbarians and Giants the Shrine Maidens will shred them.
I need the perfect opportunity to create some distance. Once Satoru and Suguru take the front line, I can provide long-range support using my Walls, Cannons, and Balloons.
Every second feels like an hour. My ears strain against the silence until, finally, I hear it.
Crunch. Crunch.
Footsteps on gravel.
We look up.
Walking down the main path is Satoru. He's mid-sentence, probably about to make a joke, but he stops dead. His eyes, usually so playful and arrogant, widen behind his shades.
This is the first time since I've met him, He looks genuinely stunned. He isn't looking at us. He's looking at the towering, eyeless nightmare and the twin maidens draped in malice right behind our heads.
The air shatters.
The Mountain God lets out a guttural, earth-shaking roar, its five-sectioned jaw snapping open. The Shrine Maidens hiss, their long sleeves whipping back to reveal obsidian claws.
They've spotted someone who can see them.
Satoru's shock lasts only a fraction of a second. His face hardens into a mask of lethal focus.
"Emiya! Move!"
Space twists.
Using Blue, Satoru vanishes and reappears in a blur of motion, landing directly between the bench and the spirits. Before the Mountain God can strike, a concentrated sphere of vacuum energy forms in Satoru's palm.
"Cursed Technique Lapse: Blue."
As the high-output orb of gravity screams toward the God's chest, I don't wait to see the impact. I lunged sideways, grabbing Miko around the waist and hauling her into a dead sprint, desperate to put as much distance as possible between us and the Curses.
Suguru POV
"How long till we reach the meeting point?"Shoko asks.
I check the map on my phone to see how much distance is left. I'm walking with Shoko, and the screen shows we're only 5 minutes away.
"Just 5 minutes."
Emiya POV
Skidding to a halt, my boots churning up the park's gravel as I put enough distance between Miko and the Curses to actually fight.
I spin around, my hand already hovering over to begin deployments, but what I see stops me.
The two Shrine Maidens are hovering in front of the Mountain God, their long sleeves outstretched.
They've projected a shimmering yellow barrier that is vibrating violently, straining against Satoru's vacuum sphere. It's clearly taking everything they have to hold it back, but they've blocked it.
I feel Miko's hand gripping my sleeve, her knuckles white and her breathing shallow. She's staring at the nightmare unfolding in front of us, her "statue" mask finally cracked under the pressure.
"Miko-chan, move at the back!" I tell her, my voice firm. "Don't come near us!"
She nods frantically, her face pale, and stumbles back. She retreats to the very edge of the park, staying directly behind me. It's the safest spot available—if the Curses want to reach her, they have to go through Satoru and my entire defensive line first. Now that she's clear, the crushing weight on my chest lightens slightly. I can focus entirely on the monster.
Then, the Mountain God moves. From behind the maidens, its massive, clawed hand reaches out and grabs the Blue sphere.
With a sound like grinding tectonic plates, the beast flexes its hand and crushes the high-output energy into nothingness.
The feedback shatters the Curse's hand into a spray of golden worms, but in the blink of an eye, the flesh knits back together. It's fully repaired in seconds.
Satoru skids back across the gravel, landing in a crouch beside me.
He isn't scared; that playful air is still there, but his posture is lethal showing he is taking this seriously.
Adjusting his shades, he fixes his gaze on the Curses that just tanked a direct hit.
"Emiya," Satoru says, his voice inquiring."Where did you let such 'incomplete' curses latch onto you two?"
I don't have time to explain the complex "God" lore. I just need to set the stage.
"It's from a shrine!" I said, "Let's excorcise them first, I will tell you later in detail!"
He gives me a nod, his grin returning as he cracks his knuckles.
"Alright, leave them to me. You just sit back and watch," Satoru says.
"I will hel–" Before I can finish, he vanishes.
He reappears instantly in front of the Curses.
The Shrine Maidens has drifted back behind the fake God to provide support.
As soon as Satoru appeared in front of the Mountain God, the maidens raise their hands, deploying a technique that locks him firmly in place.
Satoru tries to break free, but the restraint holds. The fake God doesn't give him a second to breathe and swings a massive fist at him.
"DEPLOY!"
I drop a Dark Grey Wall right in front of Satoru. The wall is crushed instantly by the impact.
But it has buyed just enough time, for a Wall Breaker that has appeared near the God's leg, to latche on, and blow up.
BOOM.
The explosion disrupts the monster's balance.
And then the two Level 5 Cannons that has appeared beside me and fire at the Shrine Maidens.
They jump back to dodge the blast, which is enough to break their concentration and cancel the technique.
Freed from the restraint, Satoru vanishes using Blue just as the fake God swings again.
He reappears beside me, exhaling a breath of relief.
"Phew. That was a hair's breadth."
I raise an eyebrow at him, not lowering my guard for a second. "What happened back there? You have Infinity. That punch shouldn't have even touched you."
"My Infinity isn't automatic," he explains, sounding a bit annoyed. "When I'm attacking physicaly I have to deactivate it for my own fists or kicks to connect. If it's on, it just creates an infinite distance between us, and my hits won't land. I turned it off to attack, and those maidens caught me off guard."
He glances back at the floating spirits with a newfound caution in his eyes.
"Their technique solidified the Cursed Energy in my body temporarily so I couldn't move or use any techniques. If Infinity was active, it wouldn't have reached me, but they timed it perfectly."