Grail's inner world was isolated from the wider world outside. In this place, no world existed to suppress my reality.
[Unlimited Hope Works] erupted without limits. Expanding and expanding and expanding. Concrete intertwined beneath us in waves like a sea of grey. Walls rose from it, connecting to ceilings, and windows materialized alongside those walls, reflecting the silhouette of each falling Ultimate.
Black mud swarmed up, trying to seep through concrete and climb walls to corrupt our domain. Sky-blue light burst from tiles and paint in response. The mud vaporized in seconds, like it had encountered its very anathema.
"AHHHH!" That thing recoiled back while wrapping her arms around herself, face twisting in agony.
"W-What is this!?" Her voice shattered into a sound composed from thousands of distorted voices, an amalgam of countless people screeching together.
The sky above us had been running with black veins and arteries, pulsing every second like a beating heart.
Rifts raced across it now, splitting that membrane of flesh and mud apart. Through those gaps bled ordinary daylight—soft, mundane, the kind that fell through classroom windows on a quiet afternoon.
"What kind of monster are you!?"
She roared, swinging her arm upward, and those faces behind her surged skyward to drown everything under endless sins of humanity.
I looked down at her.
Behind her were endless sins. Behind me were endless Ultimates.
It had always been despair against hope.
But this time... I had chosen a side.
My hand came down, pointed at her, fingers spread apart.
Artoria followed my arm and gazed below.
Cracks started to expand across Hope's Peak.
They spread from where it fell behind me—fractures rushing along corridors, splitting through classrooms, splintering every wall and window until none were left. Everything our reality had constructed was folding inward, collapsing toward a single point further down where our domain clashed with the black sea.
Sky-blue particles leaked from every fracture. They fell with us like snow drifting, catching light that had no source, and each particle carried the weight of a single talent.
Chiaki's figure flickered beside me. She looked at her own hands—already turning translucent, breaking apart into those same sky-blue motes.
"...I see." She smiled, closing her eyes. "Our ultimate attack, right?"
Nagito laughed through his dissolving form, spreading his one good arm wide. "To be used by hope itself—what more could trash like me ask for!"
Junko folded her arms as her body fragmented, grin never wavering. "Guess you're stealing my finale after all, huh?"
Kyoko simply looked at me. No fear. No regret.
"...You'll be fine."
One by one, every Ultimate shattered into sky-blue radiance. Celestia. Mondo. Sonia. Peko. Fuyuhiko—all of them unmaking into pure mana.
The whole of Unlimited Hope Works trembled.
Artoria turned to me, emerald eyes wide. She understood what I was about to do.
"Master—"
"It's alright."
I closed my fingers.
And Hope's Peak detonated.
Sky-blue radiance consumed everything—rushing outward in a tidal wave of mana that made the Grail's hellscape scream.
Everything we were, released in a single instant.
My reality. Hope's Peak. That bench where I used to sit while eating protein bars. All of it exploded in a rain of flakes, each falling on black mud and dissolving it where they met.
"AHHHHHHHHHH!"
That thing wailed, half of her face already disintegrated.
But our wave didn't distinguish between friend and foe.
Sky-blue brilliance swelled outward in every direction—a part of it crashing up toward its source. Toward us.
I moved.
My back twisted toward the oncoming torrent. Arms already shifting, already repositioning, hands finding Artoria's waist.
She realized my intention.
"Master, don't—!"
I lifted her above me.
Excalibur vanished from her hand.
Her fingers dug into my forearms. Hard. Desperate. The same way they had curled into my coat minutes ago—but this wasn't her body betraying her mind.
This was her knowing exactly what I was doing and refusing to accept it.
I looked up at her.
Sky-blue light reflected in those emerald irises, growing brighter, closer, swallowing every other color until her face was lit like a final sunset.
Artoria stared down at me, and her composure shattered.
The impact hit my back.
"No—"
My coat disintegrated first—cloth unraveling inch by inch, sky-blue light eating through its material.
I felt myself come apart with crystal clarity.
My back burned.
My arms trembled.
But I kept them raised. Kept her above me.
"Izuru—"
My name. Not "Master." My name.
Her hands clamped around my wrists as if she could protect me through sheer force of will.
"You said I could stay with you—"
Her voice cracked.
My fingertips were turning translucent. Sky-blue particles bled from them, drifting upward past her face.
"Liar—"
She screamed.
"How can I—" A breath rattled in her chest. "How can I stay with you if you disappear!?"
I tried to answer. But my lungs were already dissolving into light.
Her arms pulled, crushing me to her chest, fingers buried in my hair, whole body wrapped around mine.
Golden light flickered from her.
"You cooked for me." Her voice broke between syllables. "You carried me when I couldn't walk. You told me to stay."
My coat was gone now. I could feel my black markings dissolving under pressure.
"So don't you dare—"
Her other hand curled into what remained of my shirt.
"—don't you dare leave me after that—"
A single tear fell on my cheek. Hot. Real.
"—Stay."
She wanted me to stay this time.
"Stay with me."
A plea from her heart. Something inside her pulsed.
I didn't answer.
[Avalon] did.
Gold bloomed around us.
A radiance that surpassed the sky-blue dissolution entirely.
The Grail's hell, the detonation still consuming my body, those screaming faces, that black mud, the fractures, the light—all of it fell away like we had transcended them fully.
My back hit grass.
Soft. Cool. Solid.
A clearing stretched beneath an unending sky. Golden flowers swayed in a breeze that carried the scent of nature. Sunlight—gentle, eternal, belonging to no particular hour—painted everything in shades of quiet warmth.
The Ever-Distant Utopia.
Avalon.
Artoria's arms didn't loosen. Her fingers stayed buried in my hair, her other hand curled on my shirt.
My arms came up from her waist to her back.
The motion took everything I had left.
"I'll stay."
Her armor faded as she pulled my face deeper into her chest.
My vision was blurring at the edges, shapes vanishing from my awareness with each breath.
"...I just need to rest for a bit."
It was the most human sentence I had ever said.
She didn't let go.
She'd never let go.
...
..
.
***
[200 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter]
[5 chapters ahead on P@tr3on = [email protected]/Not_Aaryan]
...
[Authors Thoughts]
She'd never let go. So true.
Now... some people might say, was it really necessary for something like this? I'll only say that it was necessary, friends. Why?
It's simple actually. First of all, Artoria might have feelings for Izuru but it would take a long time for her to accept them for what they are. Secondly, neither Izuru nor Artoria are the type of people who would take initiative in these kinds of things. So, their ship would sail but at a snail's pace, anything more would be breaking character for both of them.
So, then a dilemma came. How can Author-sama accelerate their shipping and strengthen their bond?
Thus this came to be. I had to become the wind in their ship's mast to make it sail faster.
Someone's value is only understood when they are absent or about to be lost.
...
Now, on to the technical part. Can a Reality Marble be detonated? The answer is that theoretically, it is indeed possible. Why?
I won't go into technical jargon and give a simple example. Archer can overload his swords with mana and throw them like explosives of mana called Broken Phantasms. Something similar is possible, flooding your own RM with so much mana that it exceeds its natural limits to hold. But doing that requires two things. An absurd amount of mana and no external pressure from the world, since mana is generally drained mostly when clashing against the world's rejection.
Both things are true here, hence it can be done. And don't forget, Izuru's mana is absorbed straight from the atmosphere through his pseudo-circuits, meaning his mana regen speed is off the charts, and where was he? Inside the Grail where its accumulated mana is stored...
GG.
...
One final thing before going... Thinking about the consequences for detonating your own inner world? Don't worry, there will be some but Izuru will come out stronger and more ready from it. Especially for Grand Order.