Deep within the Matou Family ruins, Kariya Matou heard his own heartbeat.
The battle had stopped.
After he used that Command Spell to restore sanity, the sounds outside had ceased.
Kariya Matou slowly opened his eyes. His dim gaze passed through the gaps in the rubble toward the darkened night outside.
Lancelot no longer wanted to fight.
He had gambled wrong.
With his sanity restored, the Knight of the Lake had laid down his weapon before his former king.
It was neither fear nor an inability to win. The guilt in his heart had outweighed his will to strike.
But Kariya Matou still lowered his head to look at Sakura in his arms.
Her purple eyes watched him, understanding nothing.
I'm sorry.
Kariya Matou said those words in his heart to a knight he had never met.
Then he raised his right hand.
The last Command Spell on its back still glowed a faint red.
"By my final Command Spell, I order you-"
His voice was almost gone.
His lips still moved, but only a faint breath escaped his throat.
"Berserker-use your strongest means-to kill Saber."
The final Command Spell shattered.
Red light surged from the back of Kariya Matou's hand, passed straight through space, and fell into Lancelot's Spirit Origin.
Command Spells were the three absolute commands the Holy Grail granted a Master.
Once activated, a Heroic Spirit had no room to refuse.
Lancelot's body moved.
This time, it was not of his own will.
His right hand rose.
Black magical energy gathered in his palm bit by bit, swirling and compressing.
Those points of light gathered ever more densely, soon taking on a distinct shape.
A sword.
Pitch-black throughout, it was a long, straight, double-edged sword.
Its shape somewhat resembled Excalibur, but its color was the complete opposite.
Not golden radiance, but a heavy, profound black.
Fairy script of the same origin as Excalibur's was engraved along its blade, but even the light those letters emitted was dark purple.
Arondight.
The unfading light of the lake.
It had originally been a holy sword as well. Like Excalibur, it had been forged by fairies and blessed by the Lady of the Lake.
But after Lancelot betrayed the Round Table, this sword had changed with him, becoming a demonic sword.
The instant he held it, Lancelot's Spirit Origin parameters jumped.
All of its wielder's base attributes rose by one rank.
Strength went from A to A+.
Endurance went from A to A+.
Agility had already been A+, and now it went straight to A++.
Even among Heroic Spirits, these values ranked at the very top.
Artoria saw that sword.
Her emerald eyes widened at once.
Not out of fear, but because she recognized it.
Arondight's shape, the engraving of its fairy script, the ornamentation on its hilt and guard-she remembered every detail.
During those days in Camelot, she had seen this sword many times at banquets, on campaigns, and in tournaments.
She had seen its owner grip it, hold it aloft, or plant it in the ground to rest his hand upon.
"Arondight..."
The name slipped from Artoria's lips.
If that truly was Arondight.
If Berserker held that sword.
Then there was only one possible true name for him.
"Sir Lancelot...?"
Artoria's voice softened on the final syllable.
Not from fear, nor from anger.
It was a reaction even she could not explain.
She did not understand.
In life, Artoria had never truly disliked Lancelot. Nor had she hated him.
As king, she had needed to deal with the affair between Lancelot and Guinevere, but as Arthur, she had not blamed him.
She herself had not been qualified to give what a husband should.
There had been far too many reasons for the Round Table's collapse. Lancelot was only one of them, and not even the most significant.
But Lancelot clearly did not see it that way.
He had taken everything upon himself.
He had carried it his whole life.
Even after death, he still carried it.
He had carried it into his summoning as Berserker, into the loss of his sanity, and into this moment as he stood before her.
This was not punishment.
This was walking toward death.
The noble, upright Knight of the Lake, the most perfect knight of the Round Table-how could he...
A voice came from beneath Lancelot's visor.
It was a voice forced out by the Command Spell, hoarse and broken, every syllable seeming to be wrenched from his throat.
Beneath the visor, his face twisted with strain as well, brows drawn tight, the corners of his mouth turned down, something flowing from the corners of his eyes down his cheeks.
But he still spoke.
He was reciting his Noble Phantasm.
"Reach-the end-"
Indigo light emerged along Arondight's blade.
It was no ordinary light.
Colder and heavier than Excalibur's gold, it resembled the color of water held down in the depths.
"Transcend-the limits-"
The light gathered along the blade and compressed.
A normal True Name Release of Arondight would unleash a full beam from an Anti-Army Noble Phantasm, with a wide range and tremendous firepower.
But Lancelot did not do that.
Relying on his A+-rank martial skill, he compressed all the magical energy that should have dispersed into the blade.
All its destructive power was sealed within. Not a trace leaked out.
It was an extremely difficult technique.
Compressing the firepower of an Anti-Army Noble Phantasm into a single strike against one person.
As long as that strike landed, all the energy would explode at once at the point of contact.
Not a slash.
A direct detonation.
"O king...beyond-"
By this point, Lancelot's voice was breaking badly.
The king beyond.
Within the incantation he was forced to recite, he had spoken that title himself.
"Witness...this light-"
There was another, more troublesome enhancement.
In life, Lancelot had slain an evil dragon with this sword.
That deed remained within Arondight's concept, granting it an additional anti-dragon effect.
Against an enemy with the dragon attribute, its power would double again.
And Artoria, altered by Merlin, had the power of a dragon within her heart.
She had the dragon attribute.
Doubled.
The energy sealed within Arondight for this strike had already far exceeded what an A+-rank Anti-Army Noble Phantasm should possess.
"All restraints severed-"
Lancelot gripped the hilt with both hands.
Indigo light completely covered the black blade, suppressing even the fairy script.
The air began to tremble. With Arondight at the center, all the surrounding stones and rubble floated into the air.
"Arondight-Overload!!!"
Lancelot vanished.
With his A++ Agility unleashed at full strength, he was already too fast to see clearly.
He crossed twenty meters in an instant, Arondight's tip driving straight toward Artoria's chest with enough power to overturn half a city block.
Artoria's A-rank Instinct had finished its assessment the moment Lancelot moved.
His speed is greater than mine.
His strength is higher too.
The total power of this strike exceeds A+ rank.
If I block with Excalibur, it won't hold.
With Arondight boosting his attributes, he already surpassed her. Taking it head-on would only leave both her and her sword pierced through.
There's no time to release Excalibur's true name and clash head-on, either.
His sword will be right before my eyes before I finish the incantation. I'm at least two seconds short.
Only one option remained.
The moment Lancelot took his first step, Artoria reached out with her left hand and seized Irisviel's right hand behind her.
Skin contact.
Spirit Origins connected.
Magical energy traveled down through Irisviel's body and into the conceptual Mystic Code that had lain dormant within her all this time.
"The ever-distant utopia-"
Artoria's voice was steady, without the slightest pause.
"Avalon!!!"
Golden light lit up within Irisviel's body.
Light poured outward from her chest. It was not magical energy, but something more like a concept itself. That Noble Phantasm, which transcended material form, was being released from its vessel.
Streams of golden light spread across Irisviel's skin, extending around the two of them, taking shape and layering together.
Barrier after barrier emerged in the air.
They opened like petals, then overlapped and closed layer by layer.
Fairy script flowed across every barrier, sharing its origin with Excalibur's and Arondight's, yet more ancient than the inscriptions on either sword, and closer to the Root.
Utopia.
Avalon.
The holy sword's sheath.
The defense of Avalon.
Its function was not simply to pile up defensive strength.
It isolated its bearer from the rules of this world.
On a conceptual level, anyone enveloped by Avalon was no longer within this world, separated from reality by an impassable divide.