I blinked.
Our bench crumbled first—legs buckling, wood splintering inward like it had never been solid. The fountain nearby cracked down its center, water freezing mid-arc before fracturing into nothing. Hope's Peak Academy split from roof to foundation, bricks detaching in clusters, drifting upward instead of falling.
Gone. All of it.
Wind slammed into my face.
My hair whipped back in a violent curtain. That pillar of crimson and black—already falling.
Sky above it had unmade itself, fissures radiating outward like a shattered mirror. Air itself seemed to flee from that descending annihilation, shockwaves flattening the forest in concentric rings outward from its rotation.
A crack echoed from deep within me. The chain around my heart gave way.
I glanced back. Artoria was closing the distance between us, jaw set and face determined.
Kilometers behind her, a shell of light hung motionless mid-air.
Unlimited Blade Works.
Deeper inside—Medusa was on her knees in that desert of swords, blood in her eye, still turning shield after shield to stone. Medea was above her, circles unraveling and cracking, each deflected blade demanding faster Divine Words than what even her mind could sustain.
I turned back and walked forward.
The pillar fell.
My voice. Alone.
"I am the vessel of every talent."
A dome started to expand around me. Reality inverted itself—soil and debris dissolving, replaced by concrete expanding from beneath my heels in patterns, slabs interlocking with geometric precision, spreading outward in a wave.
Sky-blue flakes coalesced ahead of me. Drifting downward like snow, each flake carrying a fragment—here a window frame, there a handrail, that a desk. They assembled themselves in real-time, building something new.
A figure materialized facing me. Brown, spiky hair catching wind. One eye green. One crimson.
Hajime.
"Artificial is my body—"
I continued.
Hajime strode toward me. I strode toward him.
The concrete spread faster beneath us, corridors and classrooms rising from its surface like memories surfacing from oblivion.
His green-and-crimson eyes found mine. My crimson-and-green found his.
"—and apathy my blood."
His voice. Alone.
He said it like a confession. Not pride. Neither acceptance. It was a quiet acknowledgment of someone who remembered what it felt like to have feelings drained from his veins, to wake up with every emotion replaced by hollow indifference.
That apathy wasn't his nature. It was what they left behind.
And he was still walking anyway.
Our shoulders brushed, contact lasting a heartbeat.
Then he was past me.
Hajime walked toward Unlimited Blade Works.
His walk broke into a stride—then a sprint—then a surge, corridors erupting in his wake, lockers slamming into existence along fresh walls, ceiling lights buzzing to life one after another in a chain reaction chasing his silhouette toward that distant shell.
I stopped.
"We have mastered over a thousand disciplines."
His voice overlapped with mine.
Artoria had reached me now, eyes wide with wonder and grip tight around Excalibur as reality continued to override around us.
I spread my hand toward Enuma Elish. A blue sky overpowered the fractured night, my reality surging upward to meet that descending annihilation—barely slowing it down, getting dissolved at their point of contact.
"Unknown to Struggle."
I had been born on the summit of every mountain, and I would never know what it meant to climb.
Cracks started to appear across Unlimited Blade Works sky, making Archer's expression shift.
"Nor known to Failure."
Every attempt I had ever made had succeeded. There was no trial, no error, no slow and grinding ascent toward competence. Just instant mastery. Just the summit, again and again, without ever having earned the view.
And that was its own kind of nothing.
Hajime's silhouette had reached Unlimited Blade Works.
Our reality followed him, crashing alongside him, straight into Archer's.
UBW groaned, geometric blocks of concrete bled inside it from the edge, overpowering barren soil and dead sand to take their place.
Swords buried hilt-deep parted ways, buildings rising from beneath earth, sending sand and gears flying in all directions.
Archer felt it immediately. His head turned toward the intrusion, eyes narrowing with gravity.
"Have withstood erasure to create Ultimate Hope."
Hajime took a step forward.
The ground beneath his foot was desert. His shoe pressed into sand, blades grazing his ankle on either side.
He lifted his foot.
Concrete.
Another step.
Another tile.
Archer's jaw tightened.
Medea snapped her gaze at Hajime as our domain encased her and Medusa within, making every projectile much weaker than it should be.
"Master?" She asked.
Medusa closed her eyes and tilted her head in Hajime's direction.
He did not reply.
His focus was forward. Only forward.
A sword near him wavered, its steel form flickering between blade and locker frame before settling into a locker.
Archer moved.
He closed the distance in a single burst of speed, planting himself directly in front of Hajime.
Archer and Hajime stood face to face, eyes locked with each other.
A line appeared—thin as a hair—running directly between them.
Behind Archer, a barren desert stretched beneath yellow sky, swords rising from dead earth in endless rows. Hundreds. Thousands.
There was no one behind Hajime.
"Yet, these hands will forever reach for the future."
The contrast was absolute.
One side—swords beyond counting. Weapons that had vaporized mountains and carved legends. Nearly the entire history of human conflict, compressed into a single desert and waiting to be called.
The other side—concrete. Lockers. A broken water fountain that had never worked. The mundane architecture of a school that had produced no heroes, recorded no victories.
And the concrete was dominating.
Archer's eyes widened.
"Who are you?"
Hajime replied, voice even.
"Nobody special."
No self-pity. No false humility.
"That's the whole point."
Enuma Elish was close now.
I could feel it. Air around my raised hand had begun to disappear, leaving behind only dark emptiness.
Artoria stepped beside me. Excalibur came up, pointed ahead at primordial nothingness, golden light gathering along its edge.
It would not be enough.
She knew it. I knew it.
She raised it anyway.
"So as we declare—"
Our voices. Both of us. Hajime from one corner. Mine from another.
His against another reality. My against another inevitability.
"Unlimited Hope Works."
The school completed itself.
Hope's Peak Academy stood whole under a sky that was all blue, all memory, from another world.
Our domain solidified into reality. Every wing. Every floor. Every room. Identical to the original.
Enuma Elish did not stop.
But it was slower now. So much slower.
And for every inch that it dissolved, another inch rebuilt. Memory replacing memory.
A violet magic circle rotated at my other side.
Two figures emerged from it.
Medea first—feet touching concrete, circles still rotating around her wrists, her dress torn and sliced. She'd burned through more mana in the last minute than most magi used in a lifetime. Her mind was fraying. Her breathing was ragged.
But her eyes were clear.
Medusa followed, eyes closed. One knee buckled as she landed, catching herself against an open railing. Blood still dripped from her chin. Her ribs still let out cracking sounds with slight movement.
She straightened.
All of us shared a glance.
No words were exchanged.
None were needed.
Artoria already had Excalibur raised. Golden light gathered along its edge—ready for a full release at my word.
Medea's circles expanded around us, each one interlocking with others to form a new, more complex, more intricate magic circle than what she had ever made.
Medusa extended a hand toward me.
Her fingers were trembling. Her palm facing up—an offering, or a request.
My free hand met her palm.
A connection solidified between us.
Master and Servant.
I could feel all three of them now. And amongst them—
Medusa was exhausted. Her mana reserves nearly empty. Her body running on fumes and stubbornness.
But she was here.
Three Servants. One Master. Standing in a school that shouldn't exist, against a weapon that existed before creation.
Artoria's grip on Excalibur shifted.
"Once." She said. "We will have one chance."
Medea's circles compressed further into themselves. "I can help hold a path open alongside Saber for three seconds, maybe five if I give everything."
Medusa's hand squeezed mine. Her Pegasus's light started to gather around us, flickering and solidifying into a winged horse's outline.
One last charge. One last ride.
Crimson ignited from my raised hand. The last command seal on it brightened, blazed and burned.
Gold of Promised Victory covered Excalibur's edge.
Artoria brought it down and held it horizontally this time.
A pure white Pegasus loomed into being beside us, wings flapping, hooves dragging against concrete.
Medusa's hand left mine. She vaulted onto Pegasus's back in a single fluid motion—bone cracking, ribs protesting, her body defying itself through sheer refusal to stop.
I drove my foot into concrete. One push. A half-second of air.
My feet found Pegasus's back behind her.
Medea's circles had covered nearly half the sky behind us.
I looked at all three of them one last time.
Medusa's cracked ribs. Medea's fraying mind. Artoria's certainty in face of defeat.
"Win."
That was my command.
Artoria's eyes softened.
Medea said nothing, but her circles burned brighter.
Medusa ran a hand across Pegasus's mane, and her grip on it tightened.
Pegasus neighed, rising up on its hind legs, wings beating like it understood.
I stood straight-backed across its inclined spine, hands at my sides, riding the violent beating of its wings like shifting waves.
Somewhere behind us, Hajime held his ground against an army of legends crystallised into swords.
Alone.
I looked ahead.
Beyond Enuma Elish.
Beyond Unlimited Hope Works.
Beyond their clash.
Gilgamesh.
...
..
.
***
[200 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter]
[5 chapters ahead on P@tr3on = [email protected]/Not_Aaryan]
...
[Authors Thoughts]
So... can you all guess what this Reality Marble's Ability is? Those who keep pin point attention should be able to identify it.
...
I'm feeling emotional man. This stories' end is here. Anything after it will seldom have Hajime or just these three Servants.
Thank you all for staying with me till now. Its been one hell of a ride.
Writing two stories simultaneously is a really crushing work. Especially since I want my viewers to see something new and unique in every chapter, which is a herculean task by itself.
Still, if I could go back in time, I would still choose to write this story. It has taught me so many things, about writing and even myself.
Anyway... ignore my emotional ranting, have a spectacular day... everyone.