We advanced through the forest devastated by earlier clashes. Nearly every tree within a kilometer had disintegrated into ash, and large patches of soil had been superheated into black sludge. The ground itself had sunk several feet.
I glanced back.
Medea moved with unsteady steps, supporting half of Medusa's weight while the latter kept her eyes closed.
Artoria limped ahead of them.
My brow furrowed.
"Medea, take Medusa and fall back. You both need rest, we'll handle things from here." I said, turning to continue on my way.
"Are you certain, Master?" Medea asked. She nearly stumbled on her next step, her gaze darting between my back, Artoria, and Medusa.
"Go."
Medea looked at me one last time and snapped her fingers. A violet magic circle traced itself beneath her, flashing with light. A sudden fracture in its structure made it tremble, but a quick gesture reinforced the spell, and they vanished within its radiance.
Artoria still limped behind me, her unsteady footfalls resounding in my ears.
Thud. Thud.
I stopped and turned.
Artoria tilted her head.
"Master?"
I didn't reply. Instead, I closed the distance, wrapped my arms around her waist, and lifted her.
Excalibur dissolved from her grip at my action.
"M-Master, there is no need—I can walk." She protested, her composure fracturing even as her arms unconsciously looped around my neck.
"You're injured." I looked down into her eyes. "Let me."
Her breath caught—just for a moment, a tiny hitch I still noticed.
Artoria curled her fingers into the back of my coat. Tight. Then tighter, body betraying her mind before it could catch up.
I held her gaze.
She turned away.
Ruins of the forest stretched ahead—ash, sludge, nothing worth looking at. She looked anyway, fixing her gaze on a distant blackened crater and holding it there.
"...Very well."
Silence stretched between us as I carried her.
We passed a petrified clearing. Trees turned to stone. Bushes still like sculptures. Stone birds with their bodies fixed on branches, wings spread toward a sky they'd never reach. Medusa's unguarded gaze had petrified everything here, even while fighting meters away.
Further to our left, an entire part of this area had been hollowed out—violet scorch marks ran in straight lines through rocks and roots alike. Mostly Medea's attacks from their clash with Gilgamesh before I arrived.
Another section to our right had simply ceased to exist, an enormous crater with golden afterglow still rising from it. Certainly Gilgamesh's Noble Phantasms that I had deflected mid-fall.
After walking for some time, we reached the base of that hill carved with countless trenches. Shattered stairs ascended from our position to its peak, where Ryuudou Temple stood, having survived the aftermath of our battles.
We began to climb, moving past crushed stairs and scattered debris.
Artoria swept her gaze around and asked,
"Master... where are we going?"
"We're going to finish this war." I vaulted over a broken step, keeping her secure in my arms.
"Has it not concluded already?" She brought her eyes back to me.
"There is still one enemy left."
Her body tensed, arms locking around my neck. She snapped her face left, then right, scanning for any remaining threats.
"Master, who remains?" Artoria asked, her voice low.
"You'll know in a bit." I replied, stepping onto the same step where I had faced Gilgamesh shortly after arriving in this world.
I paused there for two seconds before resuming our ascent.
The silhouette of Ryuudou Temple sharpened as we climbed. A fracture split its main structure from roof to base. Shattered tiles blanketed its courtyard. Dust coated everything, most brown walls chipped down to grey.
I strode into the courtyard and stopped at a specific spot. Under Artoria's bewildered gaze, I swiped a finger downward.
Soil and earth parted as a fissure opened just beside us, connecting to a passage carved into the hill itself.
"This is...?" She asked.
"A network of pathways built inside this hill to house the Greater Grail." I answered, adjusting her posture against me.
"How do you know this, Master?" She tried to peer inside, but only darkness was visible from here.
"An Einzbern owed us a favor for sparing her life."
I tipped forward into the fissure.
Darkness swallowed us.
Wind screamed past my ears—a suffocating gale that felt like hundreds of beings whispering in unison, rushing up from depths that shouldn't exist inside a mountain.
We fell.
And I cut.
My finger moved—a horizontal swipe that cleaved air and the whispers, continuing in a downward arc to split whatever solid surface rushed up to meet us. Rock. Concrete. Dormant magic formations.
My feet hit a platform. Stone cracked in a ring beneath my soles and gave out, vibrations traveling up through my shins. But we were already descending again—
A sudden mana barrier sprang up ahead. I didn't react. Didn't need to. Artoria's palm bloomed with gold, punched through.
More barriers were already swelling in our vision, natural and magical.
Earth. Barrier. Earth.
Dismantle. Burst. Dismantle.
And we fell deeper.
My finger continued to move. Each swipe carved a line through whatever stood in our path, the lines overlapping and crisscrossing, dicing everything into symmetrical cubes.
Those whispers were louder now, becoming a drone. That drone escalated into a roar. The roar collapsed into pure pressure, detonating near our ears.
A particularly thick barrier loomed ahead—ten layers overlapping one another. Traps even further down activated, launching javelins of rock at us.
Artoria's hand was about to move, golden flickers igniting across it when—
[Deca Accel]
We hung mid-fall. Two javelins remained frozen a foot away from my chest. Another hovered just inches from Artoria's face. Sparks hung mid-bloom around her palm like embers of light.
In this world, a skeletal black hand parted soil on a far wall in slow motion, trying to wrench itself free.
I looked at it.
My fingers moved. Hundreds of slashes covered us from every direction, forming a spherical shield.
Time snapped back.
The sphere exploded.
Hundreds of slashes flew in all directions. The thick barrier shredded apart like paper under dozens of overlapping cuts. The javelins were split so many times that they crumbled to dust.
We had already fallen past when that bone hand yanked itself out. A hairline fracture was already visible across its length, dissecting it in two.
Air ruffled our hair. My chin tilted down as I caught Artoria's eye.
"Get ready."
Her green irises sharpened. Excalibur materialized in her free hand, its light illuminating darkness around us.
"We're about to reach the place where the Greater Grail would be summoned." I said, falling faster now, wind tearing at my clothes.
"This is the only place where we can attack it."
Artoria's jaw tightened.
"But that also means—"
"It can attack us here too."
The cavern walls cracked like a painting whose canvas had been slashed. Through countless fissures, something seeped through.
Bones.
Black bones.
Ribcages—dozens, hundreds—jutted from soil, winding around like the skeleton of a dead monstrosity. They grew from walls in every direction. Left. Right. Front. Behind. Between them hung strips of dead flesh, stretched thin across bone and swaying without wind.
The ground rushing up to meet us shifted. Earth cracked open as dark mud seeped upward from nowhere. Pooling. Spreading. Rising.
A sea with no end.
And within it—
Faces.
Thousands. Tens of thousands. Human faces pressed against its surface from below, mouths open in silent screams, fingers reaching up, breaking through black like drowning victims clawing for air that would never come.
Their eyes were open.
All of them.
Every single one pointed at us.
The cavern. The hill. Ryuudou Temple—all gone.
In its place stretched a hellscape that extended to every horizon, built from evils of humanity.
A mental world. Inside the Grail.
Sky above was a dome of tangled veins and arteries pulsing with black fluid, beating at rhythmic intervals like a living heart.
Beneath it, thousands of faces reached up for us from the sea of mud. A single figure emerged from its depths. Black dress. White hair. Einzbern's face.
She looked straight at me, arms spread wide, a maniac smile stretched across her face.
"You're finally here... let me pour myself into every part of you!"
I looked at Artoria.
"Still want to wish for something from the Grail?"
She shook her head frantically.
The edge of my lips quirked up on their own.
I twisted my body, turning my face down toward that thing, Artoria still pressed against me.
"I am the vessel of every talent."
Sky-blue flakes started to drift around us.
The outline of Hope's Peak took shape behind me.
We continued to fall.
And beside me—
A figure flickered into existence. Pink hair. Handheld console pressed to her chest.
Chiaki Nanami. Ultimate Gamer.
She looked at me with tired, gentle eyes even as wind messed her hair. Then she looked down at the sea of screaming faces below.
"...That's a terrible final boss design."
Another figure. White hair, one arm in a sling, grin too wide for his face.
Nagito Komaeda. Ultimate Luck.
He laughed—a sound caught between reverence and madness.
"Even trash like me gets to stand beside the Ultimate Hope—what an honor!"
A girl with twin tails and a wild smile came next. Enoshima Junko looked down at that sea of suffering below and pressed a hand to her chest, mock-offended.
"Ugh. Someone's trying to out-despair me? That's so not cute."
Then came lavender hair, gloved hands, eyes like amethyst.
Kyoko Kirigiri. Ultimate Detective.
She wasn't looking at the hellscape below. She was looking at me.
"...Deduction complete. You're becoming human."
One after another. They came.
Dozens. Then more than dozens. Then more than counting could hold.
Every talent that had been fed into this vessel that became me.
They fell alongside me.
All of them.
Hope's Peak solidified around us. Corridors and classrooms slamming against mud and screaming faces.
My fingers closed around Artoria. The same way they had in that forest. Closing around nothing.
Not this time.
I opened my mouth.
Our mouth.
A thousand voices. One declaration.
"Unlimited Hope Works."
...
..
.
***
[200 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter]
[5 chapters ahead on P@tr3on = [email protected]/Not_Aaryan]
...
[Authors Thoughts]
Hahahaha! When I wrote this, I felt that I myself was falling beside Izuru and everyone! I even danced on my seat after finishing this chapter! Couldn't help it!!
...
And its done...
This concludes a volume of our Fate's story.
For those who are wondering. Yes, this is his Reality Marble's ability. To summon every original talent holder and have them exist independently from him, like pseudo-Heroic Spirits, with his existence acting as something akin to a Throne of Heroes of Danganverse.
Though it has many more uses, I won't spoil them right now.
Angra vs Every Ultimate in existence. Man I'm getting Bell vs Ares vibes from this.
Take care everyone, and have a wonderful day!