"I appreciate the concern, but it's more important that we defeat Walpurgisnacht, and you can't be out there defeating it if you're in here rubbing my back. I've got plenty of Grief Seeds to spare if I need them."
You hate to leave Homura and her friends in their current condition, but she has a point. Defeating
Walpurgisnacht is the reason you're here, and you can't do your job if you're sitting around giving Homura special treatment. You'll make it up to her later, somehow.
After this is over, you're thinking a nice, relaxing family dinner will do her and Kirika some good. Hell, invite the others along while you're at all, and give everyone who needs it the reward.
"Alright then, it looks like it's my turn." You draw back until your bowstring is taut. Ready?
"Caladbolg!"
In rapid succession you loose nine broken
Caladbolg from the bow of Heracles. Your projectiles swerve,crashing into and piercing through the falling buildings as they rain down, colliding against
Walpurgisnacht in a sequence of nine pounding thunderclaps. In addition to scoring nine direct hits on the witch, you've done most of the hard work for McRemitz and Cú Chulainn, who are soon joined by a procession of buzzing silver spheres sent by Mikuni to serve as assistance in the building defens, at least as far as you can assume; and your attack has given Lancer the time she needs to prepare another elemental bomb.
Swerving out of the line of fire, Lancer returns to her position at the fore, activating her runes to once more envelop
Walpurgisnacht in a dome of swirling elemental chaos. Her body shines with silver and blue as she controls her runes against the massive size of her target, and she pulls back once her attack has reached the breaking point, allowing the elemental bomb to explode with great fury around
Walpurgisnacht.
"... and the poor tanuki never saw his balls again." You, as well as five other pairs of eyes, glare at Saber as her impromptu attempt at entertainment falls flat on its face. Saber puffs her cheeks, saying "Well, at least I tried. Are you girls just a really tough crowd, or what?"
"On top of that story being
completely inappropriate for a group of teenage girls to be hearing, this is neither the time nor place for you attempts at humour," Nagatsuki Miyuki says. "Buddha, I could use a drink after hearing that."
"I mean, I don't mind a bit of crassness, but only when it's about two girls, not some stupid rodent with a ballsack the size of my head," Kirika says. For her troubles, Kirika is met with disapproving stares from both Tomoe-san and Mikuni Oriko. "And like, don't you have anything better to do than sit around telling us this crap? Isn't there something you could be doing out there with what's left of our servants?"
Saber shakes her head, saying "Unfortunately, if I leave
Book of Earth goes with me; and we're in no position to be leaving you girls unprotected while that Bounded Field of Wallyburger's is up."
"Tomoe-san, I want you to have these." Tomoe-san and Mikuni Oriko have been silent for some time now; you can only imagine what the two of them have been planning between one another.
But you think you have an idea. Tomoe-san cocks a curious eye towards Mikuni Oriko as the latter extends her hand. "I imagine you'll be needing them in order for Caster to deliver the strongest possible attack."
"Are you sure, Mikuni-san?" Tomoe-san asks. "Are you okay with sharing your burden with me like this?"
Mikuni Oriko nods, while outside of Saber's barrier the sound and fury of the raging battle rocks your shelter to the foundation. "How can I live and be penitent for the lives I have taken, if I don't live long enough to see the end of this battle?" Mikuni Oriko shakes her head, saying "I cannot, and that is why winning is more important now than shouldering my burden alone. Hold out your hand, Tomoe-san."
Tomoe-san does as Mikuni Oriko instructs her, holding out her hand to receive the gift of two additional Command Seals. She stares at the two new additions to the back of her hand, a pair of jagged crescents shaped disturbingly like biting jaws.
It makes you sick. "Thank you, Mikuni-san," Tomoe-san says. Clenching her fist tightly and pressing it against her breast, Tomoe-san says "Caster, if you can hear me, I order you to unleash your strongest Noble Phantasm against
Walpurgisnacht. I'm giving you the power of these Command Seals, so by my command I order you to destroy
Walpurgisnacht."
"I hope you and the others are watching," Archer's voice says inside your head.
"Because you're about to see a show unlike anything you'll ever see again."
"I hope you and the others are watching," you make sure to say to Homura.
"Because you're about to see a show unlike anything you'll ever see again."
You've given the girls all the heads-up you can. Now, it's on them whether or not they watch as Caster draws the sword that splits heaven and earth.
Babylon opens above Caster's hand, depositing into his waiting grasp a key so massive and ornate it could scarcely be called a key anymore. Caster turns the key, and the world is torn asunder in a powerful display of light, and a crimson spiderweb extends upwards towards the heavens. A single mote of light descends, traveling down the long web lain out for it, and the weapon emerges hilt-first from an orb of light. It is a sword from before the concept of
sword existed in this world, a divine weapon given to only ever to one man, the King who stands before you.
Caster accepts the divine gift given to him, gripping it tightly as golden plate forms around his body. As the sword of rupture is drawn, Caster appears to you as the Archer servant you knew him as in life. All around Caster, you can feel the radiating power of not just his own weapon, but of the presence of two Command Seals surrounding him, empowering his strike.
The three segments spin, starting slow and building to a roaring climax as Caster points the weapon skyward, proclaiming
"I shall offer this one strike as the ceremony of separation!" A crimson whirlpool surrounds the weapon, and your heart flips back and forth between admiration and terror. You've stared down the might of what is to come, and knowing that now you stand on the side about to use it your mind is unable to process how you should be feeling.
"I speak of the beginning. Heaven and earth are divided and nothingness celebrates Creation. My Sword of Rupture rends the world apart. The vortex that turns the stars, this heavenly hell signifies the end of the eve of genesis. Subside with death!"
"Enûma Eliš!"
The attack is as powerful as it is instantaneous. A spiraling vacuum wave tears apart everything in its path; the buildings being thrown at you,
Walpurgisnacht's anti-
puella magi Bounded Field, even the very air itself is unable to escape being torn asunder by the star of creation as it races towards
Walpurgisnacht, who is struck with the full force of a twice-Command Seal-boosted
Enuma Elish.
Nothing could survive that, is what you would think were optimism still a luxury this fight would allow you to have. But as the smoke clears from the explosive burden of Caster's attack, you know in your heart that it won't be enough.
A single
laugh is all the prep time you're given before a dozen pillars of light tear to shreds the thick cloud of smoke which chokes the skies. As wide around as skyscrapers, each beam punches through everything in its path as easily as a hot knife might through a stick of butter. The collateral damage is immense, and not unlike the aftermath of
Walpurgisnacht's previous attack after Fragarach shattered it. When the smoke and ruin subside,
Walpurgisnacht is revealed. The monstrous witch is not unharmed, but the
Enuma Elish has done far less than you had hoped it might.
Walpurgisnacht gives one final laugh as, with a sickening sound, the doll half snaps off of its central pillar, plummeting earth and laughing all the way down. As the broken doll collides with the ruined pier, it shatters, breaking apart into a wave of thick black corruption which washes over whatever hasn't already been stained oil-slick black. With the central pillar broken, each of the smaller gears falls off in succession, each one after the other repeating the pattern of the broken doll as they crash to earth and break apart in waves of black corruption, until only the massive central gear, with its third of a kilometer diameter, remains to challenge you.
Buildings, fire, and ruinous light stare you down, as
Walpurgisnacht readies for its next attack.
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