Rapid analysis, full-power replication.
In the brief span where time seemed almost imperceptible, Sakutsuki endured the stabbing pain of mana within his body and chanted softly:
"Sword Barrel Full Open!"
Azure streams of light flew from behind him, forcing Angelica's Noble Phantasms back into the treasury before she could fire them.
"Again, before they could even be fired, even though he isn't inside a Reality Marble...!" Having fought Heroic Emiya before, Angelica had already realized what her opponent was about to do. Without hesitation, she retreated and drew out a massive shield in front of herself.
"Too slow!" His boots struck the ground, his headband fluttered, and the young man roared. Bracing his left hand against the great shield, he vaulted over it like a great bird, then—upside down—drew his bow and nocked an arrow!
The modified spiral arrow rested upon the bowstring. Without needing to aim, it shot forth like lightning under the golden Heroic Spirit's furious gaze.
"Caladbolg II!"
The instant the arrow left the string, Sakutsuki clenched his hand hard.
"Broken Phantasm!"
The spiraling arrow raised a blazing torrent of mana in midair, then exploded upon reaching a certain limit.
The instantaneous eruption of immense destructive force carried flames with it, raising a colossal mushroom cloud. At the edge of the blast, a figure was hurled backward, rolling flames reflected in his pupils as he drew another arrow.
If his opponent could have been easily defeated by that chain of attacks, then his seven days and seven nights of flight would truly have been a laughable farce.
Angelica did not disappoint the wary Sakutsuki. Before the smoke from the explosion could disperse, her cold voice pierced the dense haze, accompanied by expanding golden ripples—
"Come forth, Hell Scythe, Dust Saw!"
Heaven and earth darkened in an instant. Even Sakutsuki's pale golden eyes went dim for a moment, obscured by two enormous and towering shadows—
Like wings of dawn spread wide, burning with flames of purification: a blazing greatsword said to cleanse and purge all matter.
Like something carved from emerald, covered in black earth: a boneless greatsword said to be capable of carving a path through a thousand ravines and mountains.
This was the end of sky and sea, the ultimate form of the "realm of dissolution and fusion," a divine construct that burned and purged even the myriad seas.
This was the principle that absolutely separated heaven from earth, a divine construct that did not merely cut with its blade, nor merely carve a path through sheer mass.
Its name was Hell Scythe, Dawn Horizon that Incinerates All Seas.
Its name was Dust Saw, Verdant Horizon that Cleaves the Thousand Mountains.
The twin swords wielded by Zababa, the god of war from Mesopotamian myth, crossed as they descended. With their majestic forms stretching for thousands of meters, they bestowed divine judgment upon a tiny insect.
Sakutsuki tore his gaze away from the divine constructs. He closed his eyes, then opened them again, brilliant golden light nearly overflowing from them.
"As long as I have enough mana, why can't I forge divine constructs with my own hands?!"
Veins bulged on his hands as the white-haired, golden-eyed young man roared as though he were tearing heaven and earth apart:
"Aaaaaaah—!"
The killing intent of the blades made his skin ache. In a daze, Sakutsuki's memories overlapped with Emiya's, returning him to the sensation of using Projection for the first time.
Yes, just like this.
Mana flowed through his circuits, analyzing an object's structure in an instant, then materializing his understanding—
Even if it was only the outer shell, that was enough!
Amid his roar, Sakutsuki finally tore apart the invisible shackles with both hands. Mana roared, surging behind him and condensing into two equally savage greatswords. They crossed against their identical counterparts and collided!
"Screeeech!"
"Rumble!"
After two thunderous crashes, the four greatswords fell like meteors. Judging by the extent of the damage alone, the genuine Hell Scythe and Dust Saw had undoubtedly won. The two greatswords Sakutsuki had projected had been cleaved in half from top to bottom.
But such a victory held no meaning. A weapon's performance was not the decisive factor in battle. For Sakutsuki, as long as he could alter the trajectories of the two greatswords, he had achieved his objective.
Angelica looked up at the magnificent sight without any joy in her eyes. Instead, she silently withdrew, avoiding the aftershock of the falling greatswords.
But...
Whoosh! A blade cut through the air in a cold arc.
"What...!" Angelica spun around in shock, attempting to block the sudden flash of steel with her armguard.
Amid scattering golden fragments, she was sent flying back in disarray. Blood poured from her left hand, which no longer had the strength to rise.
"Just as I thought, the ability to displace space is incredibly useful." Sakutsuki, having succeeded in his sneak attack, held black-and-white twin blades. Without waiting for Angelica to rise, he charged again and slashed at her vital points.
"Admit it. I'm stronger now!"
A miscalculation.
A complete miscalculation.
The golden-haired woman lying on the ground turned her head with difficulty, watching the white-haired young man crash toward her like a cold wind.
The doll called "Angelica" did not possess the emotion of "regret," yet this humiliating reality had indeed forced her to the edge of crisis.
Influenced by the Hero King's power within the Class Card, even if she could discard all emotion, she had still unconsciously made the mistake of underestimating him. She had overlooked the greatest difference between the man calling himself "Sakutsuki" and Shirou Emiya—
The thousand-year crystallization of the Einsworth Family's wisdom: Displacement Magic.
As long as he displaced space faster than she could, he could launch an attack before she retreated.
It was not as though she had been wholly unaware. She had been on guard before the battle began, yet why had she forgotten such a crucial variable during the fight?
...Perhaps the Hero King of ancient Babylon would rather see her defeated.
For that incomparably proud Heroic Spirit, was Einzbern, who had forcibly stolen his immense power, not also a despicable usurper?
Her thoughts lasted only an instant. Before the young man's blade could reach her, Angelica acted.
"Chains of Heaven!"
Layer after layer of ripples spread out, and countless chains lunged forth like serpents, swiftly closing in around Sakutsuki.
The response to that Noble Phantasm was the man's thunderous shout:
"Wishful thinking!"
The blades he projected in the blink of an eye trembled. Sakutsuki swung Gan Jiang and Mo Ye in his hands, shifted his footing slightly, and the displaced space caused the flying chains to lose their direction.
Before an ordinary human, the Chains of Heaven—said to be capable of binding gods—were nothing more than somewhat sturdier chains.
"You're merely a counterfeit who stole the Hero King's power! You have none of a king's majesty, none of a king's solitude, none of a king's pride—you have no right to wield the key that governs the laws of kings!"
Shouting his rebuke, Sakutsuki broke free from the overlapping layers of chains, only to find his opponent nowhere in sight.
But when he looked up, what he saw were golden ripples symbolizing the opening of the treasury!
"Damn it!" His blades spun. Borrowing the force of their collision, Sakutsuki rolled out of the Noble Phantasms' attack range. Yet before he could rise, another Noble Phantasm came flying from his side, determined to pierce him through!
"Rho Aias!"
Seven petals spread open and were swiftly shredded apart by the storm of blades. Yet in that brief stalemate, Sakutsuki had already retreated, reappearing some distance away through Displacement Magic.
"Angelica..." The white-haired young man's gaze was as sharp as an eagle's. He quickly spotted the golden figure standing atop the Chains of Heaven. With a sweep of his right hand before him, he projected an endless barrage of blades.
"Sword Barrel Full Open!"
Yet unexpectedly, the figure atop the Chains of Heaven was effortlessly struck down by the rain of swords. What fell from the sky before Sakutsuki was a lifeless doll.
Just like the one that had once fallen before Angelica.
"Damn!" By the time he realized he had been outplayed, a sturdy two-handed sword had already slammed down. It struck the hastily blocking Sakutsuki and sent him flying with ease.
He rolled across the rough ground. When Sakutsuki staggered to his feet, Angelica was already approaching at an unhurried pace, her left hand hanging at her side while her right held the greatsword alone.
"Just as I suspected—although your mana has increased to an extraordinary degree, your physical abilities have declined greatly in comparison."
As she spoke, Angelica plunged her greatsword into the ground. Vast earth-element mana surged out as spikes of earth, launching the unsteady Sakutsuki into the sky.
Before Angelica's greatsword could descend, Sakutsuki barely projected a shield before himself. Then, like a baseball struck by a batter, he was violently sent flying, coughing up a mouthful of blood in midair before crashing into a nearby residence.
Planting his blade in the ground and forcing himself upright, Sakutsuki wiped the blood from his lips and could not help letting out a bitter laugh.
Just as Angelica had said, aside from his mana far surpassing Shirou's former body, Sakutsuki's current body was vastly inferior in physical ability to Heroic Emiya, who had nearly fused with Emiya... At the very least, he was a whole level below the Heroic Emiya at the peak preserved in his memories.
Naturally, Sakutsuki did not know that this was due to the Counter Force's punishment lowering his parameters. But regardless, his current condition meant he could only fight like a Caster. It was precisely because he had such abnormally increased mana reserves that he had dared to strike back before fleeing, storm into the core of Einzbern Castle, and seize those Class Cards.
—And because of that, tonight's victory had been decided.
"Come to think of it, I ended up back here..." Sakutsuki paused and looked around at the surrounding walls and courtyard. Having inherited all of Shirou's memories, he smiled softly, his eyes full of nostalgia.
This was the northern residential district of Miyama Town in Fuyuki City, property owned by the Fujimura-gumi.
His father had once slept here peacefully. He had spent his childhood and youth here as well, and every moment he had shared with his younger sister Miyu had solidified here.
This was the Emiya Residence.
"...So, could we fight somewhere else, dear Miss Angelica?"
Pulling himself from his memories, Sakutsuki turned to the golden figure entering openly through the main gate and asked with a smile.
"No." The answer he received was a merciless refusal.
Staring at the white-haired young man's upright figure, Angelica declared without the slightest emotional fluctuation:
"I have already wasted enough time on you, Shirou Emiya—or should I say, Sakutsuki."
Amid a tremor like the wailing of heaven and earth, that rotating crimson-and-gold divine sword once again stood before the golden Heroic Spirit.
"Just as I said before—your existence contains a flaw."
Raising the blade of creation, Angelica continued delivering her final judgment.
"To the Last Myth of Old Humanity that we seek to create, you are a stain—that hateful ability, those magecraft rights you somehow possess, and the absurd fact that you stole our crystallized magecraft..."
With a tremor of the sword's body, the violent wind split into layers. The mere aftershock nearly blew Sakutsuki's headband away.
"I'll cut it all away!"
With her final words, the Primordial Sword known as Enuma Elish began to turn once more with a roar, raising a dazzling crimson vortex from the sky!
Even though this was already the second time he had witnessed such a sight, Shirou Emiya of the past, Sakutsuki of the present, still found his mind shaken.
His instinctive Projection analysis failed.
No Noble Phantasm capable of surpassing it existed.
The weapon bearing the name of the creation of heaven and earth was gathering power, intent on tearing Sakutsuki, that tiny stone in its path, into dust.
There was neither time nor possibility to chant Unlimited Blade Works. Before this weapon, a mere Reality Marble was even more fragile than paper.
But how could Sakutsuki, who had long known of this weapon's existence, possibly have made no preparations?
The Shroud of Magdalene snapped in the wind. The young man, his head already full of white hair, stared ahead without fear, and only the image of that sword remained in his golden eyes.
One was exhausting his future strength; the other had stolen the Hero King's Enuma Elish.
One struggled desperately to survive; the other stood here to fulfill a mission.
This had nothing to do with glory or dignity. There was no pride to speak of in this battle.
Then he would rack his brains, use every possible means, and pay any price.
As long as... he defeated it!
The brief charge-up ended. Angelica shouted the true name of her Noble Phantasm and swung down with her still-uninjured right arm:
"Enuma Elish!"
At the same time, Sakutsuki moved.
"Over these seven days and seven nights, I wasn't merely running away!"
"Displacement Magic, activate!"
The mana that had long been accumulated through the Ley Line erupted in an instant, flowing through magecraft patterns laid down long ago and tracing circle after circle of magic formations in seven locations.
At the center of these magic formations, which conformed to the ancient Indian theory of chakras and followed the principle of "fullness," stood Sakutsuki within the Emiya Residence, raising his left hand high!
The torrent unleashed by Enuma Elish halted before the red magic formation that rose from thin air before Sakutsuki. Through the combined operation of the seven grand magecraft formations, the violent mana was continuously broken down, then flowed separately through invisible pathways into the formations, where it offset the pure mana within the Ley Line.
"A super-large-scale magecraft constructed through Displacement Magic?" Angelica recognized the principle behind the formations at a glance, her expression still cold. "It's useless. Even if you have turned Fuyuki's Ley Line into the core of your magic formations, this ultimate destruction—will annihilate all of it!"
Before you continue