Chapter Text
V : He Meets Love and Destroys a Junkyard
For a long, frozen second, Shirou's heart hammered against his ribs. The urge to speak her name—Artoria—welled up in his throat like a physical ache.
Then, his senses caught up with his heart.
He noticed a few things that were different from the Artoria he knew.
First, was her physical presence.
The woman sitting before him looked to be in her mid-twenties, more developed in certain aspects and possessing a fully realized, regal maturity. She was not the fifteen-year-old girl frozen in time by the pulling of Caliburn, the king who had sacrificed her youth for her people.
Second, and far more definitive, was her scent.
When Shirou looked at Artoria Pendragon, his nose always recognized the underlying breath of her existence: a mixture of dragon's fire, pristine nature, and the gentle, starlit warmth of the Fae.
The woman before him smelled of rich chocolate, heavy perfume, and crushed velvet.
There was only one Greek deity who radiated such an unmistakable aura—especially one sitting in a luxury limousine accompanied by the God of War.
The Goddess of Love
Aphrodite.
Shirou swallowed hard, burying the sudden, phantom pang in his chest beneath the years of hard-earned discipline.
He straightened his back and offered a low, formal bow of his head.
"Lady Aphrodite."
The goddess waved a delicate, manicured hand dismissively, a small, knowing smile playing on her painted lips. "Please. 'Aphrodite' is quite enough, Shirou."
Shirou did not immediately reply. Though he knew who stood before him, he couldn't force his eyes away from her face—from the features he had spent a lifetime holding close in his memory, missing with a quiet, endless grief.
Aphrodite tilted her head, her expression softening as she observed the raw, unspoken depth in his bronze-and-steel eyes. "Lost in thought?" she asked softly.
"I apologize," Shirou said, his voice quiet, carrying a rough, grounded honesty. "It has been... a very long time since I last saw her face."
The Goddess of Love let out a soft breath.
The sharp, teasing edge in her posture melted away, replaced by a gentle, surprisingly somber tenderness. She gestured to the plush leather seat across from her.
"Sit," she murmured.
Shirou complied, sitting on the edge of the cushions, his hands resting on his knees. He sat in silence, wondering why the Goddess of Love wanted to talk to him.
"May I ask why you sought me out, Lady Aphrodite?" Shirou asked, his voice polite but distant. "I doubt the Goddess of Love has much business with a person like me."
Aphrodite leaned back, resting her chin upon a delicate hand as she stared at him. Her gaze burned with a sudden, searing intensity—as if she were peering directly into the depths of his soul, dissecting every thread of his being to inspect something she found completely, utterly fascinating.
A heavy, lingering silence stretched between them.
"Tell me, Shirou Emiya," Aphrodite finally spoke, her voice velvety and soft. "Who do you see when you look at me?"
Shirou blinked, unable to truly grasp the intent behind the question.
Seeing his genuine confusion, a soft, amused smile touched the goddess's lips.
"As the Goddess of Love, I am a deity seen as desirable to all who behold me. Because of that, my appearance shifts constantly, taking the shape of whatever fleeting desire rests in the heart of the person gazing upon me."
Shirou's eyes widened slightly as her words clicked into place.
"To the rest of the world, I am a passing shadow of what they want," Aphrodite continued, leaning in just a fraction. "A reflection tailored to their eyes, A constant shift of desires. But for you, Shirou Emiya... that is not the case, is it? In your eyes, I appear as only her."
Shirou offered a faint, silent nod.
Yet as he looked at the divine figure across from him, he couldn't suppress a quiet pang of pity.
To be desired by every soul across the cosmos, yet never once truly seen for who she was—it felt like a lonely existence for a god.
Aphrodite caught the subtle shift in his expression, her eyes softening as if recognizing the silent empathy in his heart.
"I am the goddess of Love. The patron of passion, of devotion, of the fragile yet indestructible threads that bind souls together across the cosmos," she spoke smoothly, her voice echoing like a quiet melody in the velvet darkness of the car.
"What I enjoy most in all of creation is watching the love between mankind. I have watched it for millennia. I have seen it twisted and unhealthy, dark enough to drown empires. I have seen it peaceful and fleeting. I have seen it burn with a soft tenderness, and I have seen it consume people until nothing remains."
Slowly, she sat up straight, locking her gaze directly with his.
The illusion of Artoria's face remained, but the eyes looking back at Shirou were no longer those of his King.
They were the ancient, boundless eyes of a deity who governed the absolute domain of human emotion.
"Yet in all my long existence," Aphrodite continued, her tone dropping into a reverent whisper, "I have never seen a love that burns quite like yours. Yours is not a fleeting spark, Shirou Emiya. It is like the sun. Forever burning. Unyielding. Refusing to dim, even through the endless march of time, after enduring trials that would break any mortal soul."
A hungry, predatory gleam flashed briefly beneath her emerald gaze—a divine fascination with an emotion so absolute it defied the very laws of mortal fragility.
"It is such a magnificent sight," she whispered, her lips parting slightly. "So pure, so terrifyingly concentrated... I admit, a part of me hungers to taste it. To pluck it from your chest and see how bright it truly shines."
She leaned closer, her eyes glittering with a dangerous, captivating allure. "I would love nothing more than to test it—to see just how unyielding that devotion truly is. To throw temptation after temptation in your path and watch whether that fire of yours would ever wilt for another woman."
Shirou did not flinch, his bronze-and-steel eyes remaining steady, unflinching against the full weight of the Goddess of Love.
Seeing his unshakeable resolve, Aphrodite's expression smoothed out. The hunger faded, leaving behind a peaceful, almost sorrowful calm.
She looked at him with an expression that was profoundly sad.
"Do you know what it takes for your path to reach its end?" she asked quietly. "Do you truly understand the crushing weight of the hardships you must face?"
Shirou remained silent, offering no defense or protest.
Seeing his unyielding quiet, Aphrodite simply let out a soft sigh and leaned back into the plush leather.
She stared intently into his bronze-and-steel eyes—her own divine gaze swirling with a deep, ancient sorrow, yet underlined by a faint tint of quiet expectancy and joy.
"For the two of you to reunite..." she whispered, her tone carrying the absolute weight of a decree, "it would require two miracles. One must wait endlessly, and the other must pursue endlessly."
The air in the limousine seemed to freeze.
Shirou froze.
His breath hitched in his throat as the exact conceptual truth of his fate was laid bare by the Goddess of Love herself.
"They must realize that it is impossible to succeed," Aphrodite continued, her voice soft, full of heartbreaking beauty. "Yet at the same time, they must be capable of enduring patiently."
She smiled sadly at the white-haired young man.
"Do you truly know what lies ahead of you, Shirou Emiya?" she asked softly. "Do you understand the weight of the road you walk? The endless, agonizing trials? The cold, lonely march through infinite dust and fading memories just to reach the everdistant horizon? Are you truly willing to endure all of it?"
Shirou closed his eyes.
In the dark behind his eyelids, the memories surged violently to the surface.
He felt the phantom weight of a thousand battlefields pressing down upon his collarbones.
He remembered the blood, the mud, the stench of burning iron, and the endless, crushing weight of a world that demanded everything from him.
He remembered walking through landscapes of ash, fighting wars that never seemed to end, holding the weight of humanity's salvation while his own soul cracked under the strain.
He remembered the sheer, bone-deep exhaustion of a man who had marched until his feet bled and his name was forgotten.
Then, the storm of war cleared.
In its place arose a golden hill bathed in the serene, eternal light of an unblemished sun.
Sitting beneath the rustling leaves of a great tree, was Artoria.
She was waiting for him. Her expression was peaceful, her smile filled with an infinite, gentle warmth, her emerald eyes looking toward the horizon with unwavering faith.
Waiting endlessly for him.
Shirou opened his eyes.
The hesitation, the ghost of grief, the lingering fatigue—all of it was gone. His bronze-and-steel eyes burned with a clear, terrifyingly absolute fire.
"I am," Shirou said.
Aphrodite looked into his eyes, and a small, breathtaking smile bloomed across her face. "I knew you would say that," she whispered softly.
She gestured with her hand. "Come closer, mortal."
Shirou blinked, slightly startled by the sudden shift, but he leaned forward across the small space between them.
Aphrodite reached out, wrapping her arms gently around his shoulders, pulling him into a soft, fleeting embrace that smelled of sweet flora and spring rains.
She leaned in and pressed a light, lingering kiss onto his forehead.
A sudden, overwhelming surge of warmth rushed through Shirou's veins.
It was not the invasive, mind-altering charm of a love spell, but a profound, revitalizing current of pure, unadulterated spiritual strength.
It settled deep into his core, wrapping around him like a protective mantle against despair.
Aphrodite pulled back, looking down at him with genuine joy shining in her eyes. "May you find the strength to reach her," she murmured softly. "And may you find peace at the very end of your long road."
Shirou sat back, utterly stunned. He touched his forehead, feeling the faint, lingering hum of divine grace.
"Why... why would you give me a blessing?" he asked, genuinely bewildered. "I am a stranger to your pantheon. I hold no devotion to your name."
Aphrodite let out a bright, musical laugh—a sound so pure and joyous it vibrated like silver bells in the quiet car.
"Oh, Shirou," she smiled, her emerald eyes glowing with warmth. "I am the Goddess of Love," Aphrodite said, as if stating a simple, absolute fact.
Shirou merely blinked, his dense mind still failing to grasp what the goddess in front of him was implying.
Watching him genuinely struggle to connect the dots only made Aphrodite laugh harder, her voice filled with pure joy and mirth.
"Who else but I," she laughed softly, "would bless a hero striving for the impossible, searching endlessly for the one whom he loves most?"
Outside, the desert air hit Shirou like a shock of cold water as he stepped out of the limousine.
A few paces away, Percy Jackson stood stiffly, glaring with absolute hatred at Ares. The God of War was leaning against the hood of the car, a cruel, mocking sneer plastered across his face.
"Shirou!" Percy called out the moment he spotted him, taking an anxious step forward. "Are you okay? What happened—"
"I'm fine, Percy," Shirou replied calmly, closing the limo door behind him.
Percy opened his mouth to ask a dozen more frantic questions, but before he could speak, Ares stepped up to the limousine, knocking his knuckles lightly against the tinted glass.
The God of War listened for a second, nodding to a quiet voice from the darkened interior. He then grabbed the door and pulled it open, gesturing for Percy to step inside.
"Mind your manners, Jackson," Ares grunted lazily.
Percy shot a final, dark scowl at the War God, but he climbed into the plush back seat without another word. Ares snapped the door shut tightly behind him.
Ares turned his body fully toward Shirou, his arms crossed over his leather-clad chest.
The War God’s hidden eyes—concealed behind dark wraparound sunglasses—locked onto the white-haired young warrior. Through the divine authority of his domain, Ares felt the air around Shirou shift.
It was a sensation that made the blood in the god's veins run hot.
Ares sensed it instantly: the thick, unmistakable stench of conflict etched directly into the mortal's soul. Images flashed through the War God’s mind, unbidden and raw—visions of the mortal facing down entities of myth and legend:
The primal, suffocating terror and reckless defiance against the Hound of Ulster.
The crushing sense of powerlessness as he was shackled in chains by the Gorgon.
The absolute, unyielding stubbornness against the greatest, Herculean son of Zeus.
The righteous, burning anger against the dark sorcery of the Witch from Colchis.
The wary, but deep-seated respect traded between blades with a phantom swordsman who possessed no name.
The cold, visceral contempt for a golden king who claimed ownership of all creation.
The fierce, blinding adoration and devotion for the King of Knights.
And the bitter, complex collision of ideals against a cynical, red-cloaked archer.
Yet the battles did not stop there.
Visions continued as the man in front of him walked through battlefield after battlefield. Endless landscapes of ash, rusted iron, and broken sky unfolded in a horrific, majestic continuum.
Forever non-stopping.
Forever non-yielding.
He marched through conflicts that never knew peace, taking upon his shoulders the blood and agony of a world that refused to save itself.
Every clash, every drop of blood spilled, every broken bone and shattered blade flashed through Ares's mind in a staggering crescendo.
And beyond the battles, Ares saw the central pillar holding the boy together: a singular, terrifying purpose.
To protect.
To save.
An image of a starry night swept through the god's divine perception—a young, traumatized child making a promise under the quiet watch of the moon and stars, swearing to become an Ally of Justice.
It was a grandiose, utterly absurd dream.
No one, not even the gods, could save everyone.
It was a mathematical impossibility, a foolish fantasy that always got mortals and demigods killed before their prime.
Yet Ares did not laugh.
To laugh at a warrior who had marched through hell for his creed was the highest form of dishonor to the God of War.
Ares respected the blade that had been tempered in real fire.
He stared at the mortal before him, noting how Shirou did not flinch, did not bow his head, and did not break eye contact. The boy’s bronze-and-steel eyes burned with a terrifying, absolute clarity.
Ares let out a low breath, his sneer fading into a deadpan, serious line.
"That's hell you're walking into," Ares said.
Shirou froze. A sudden, quiet laugh escaped his lips—a short, breathless sound, like an inside joke shared across time and space with a ghost he knew all too well.
"I know," Shirou said simply.
"And yet you are still willing to walk that road?" Ares asked, his voice gravelly, probing.
Shirou didn't hesitate. He gave a single, firm nod. The fire in his eyes burned hotter, unyielding.
Ares looked at him for a long, heavy moment. Then, stepping forward, the God of War placed a heavy, gloved hand onto Shirou’s right shoulder.
The arrogant, mocking deity was gone; in his place stood the ancient patron of combat, extending a rare, solemn honor.
"May your sword strike your enemies true," Ares grunted, his voice carrying the faint, resonant hum of a divine decree. "And may you have the strength to cut through every obstacle in your path."
The god withdrew his hand, a broad, feral grin returning to his face as he slapped Shirou's shoulder hard enough to rattle a normal mortal's teeth.
"I'll be expecting greatness from you, kid," Ares chuckled. "Don't disappoint me."
Shirou walked across the empty street toward the newly lit taco stand, where the rest of the group was gathered around a picnic table, eating freshly made tacos with absolute, ravenous gusto.
'For people who were not so willing to leave,' Shirou thought with a subtle, amused twitch of his lips, 'they certainly adapt quickly when food is involved.'
"Shirou!" Thalia called out, wiping salsa from her chin as she set his taco down. "You're back! What did Ares want? Who was that in the limo?"
Zoë, Bianca, and Grover all paused, looking up at him with anxious, curious eyes.
Shirou opened his mouth to answer. "It—"
Before the first word could fully leave his throat, the world lurked violently.
The neon lights of the taco stand flickered and died. The smell of fried tortillas and sizzling meat vanished instantly, replaced by a sharp, suffocating wave of rust, cold iron, and ancient dust. The asphalt beneath their feet dissolved into jagged gravel and mountain paths.
In the span of a single heartbeat, the ghost town of Gila Claw vanished entirely.
The group stumbled, grasping for balance as they suddenly found themselves standing deep within the towering, labyrinthine canyons of the giant junkyard. Towering mountains of scrapped machinery, rusted girders, and broken metal monoliths stretched up toward the night sky on all sides, blocking out the horizon.
"Woah!" Percy yelled, who appeared next to them, drawing Riptide as he spun around. "What just happened?!"
"A spatial displacement," Zoë said sharply, her dark eyes scanning the looming heaps of scrap metal with intense vigilance. "We have been dragged into the heart of the waste."
As they began picking their way carefully through the narrow, rust-dusted paths between the mountains of metal, Thalia looked over at Percy when he told the group who he had met in the limo. "You talked to Aphrodite? What did she tell you?"
Percy shifted nervously, his eyes darting away for a fraction of a second. "Uh... nothing much. Just... told me to be careful in Hephaestus's junkyard. Said there were things here we shouldn't touch."
Shirou noticed the slight hitch in Percy's posture—the subtle shift of a boy hiding something personal—but chose not to call him out on it.
Percy quickly turned his head toward Shirou, eager to change the subject. "What about you, Shirou? What did she want with you?"
"She... spoke to me about my path," Shirou replied carefully, rubbing the back of his neck. "And then she gave me her blessing."
The group came to a sudden halt. The demigods—minus Bianca, who simply looked confused—stared at him as if he had suddenly grown a second head, utterly unable to comprehend the words that had just come out of the white-haired magus's mouth.
"She what?!" Grover bleated, dropping the half-eaten tin can he had been munching on to ease his nerves onto the dirt.
"Her blessing?" Thalia asked, her jaw dropping slightly. "Are you serious? Gods don't just hand out blessings to random mortals Shirou! Not even to demigods! Especially not to people who aren't even their own kids!"
"Is it really that unusual?" Bianca asked, blinking in genuine confusion.
"It is virtually unheard of," Zoë interjected, her voice laced with profound astonishment as she looked at him. "A divine blessing grants physical and spiritual fortification. For a deity—let alone the Goddess of Love—to bestow such a favor upon a male warrior who does not serve her... it is unprecedented."
They all looked at him, waiting for an explanation, expecting him to reveal some grand secret.
Shirou didn't answer. He couldn't. His mind was still echoing with the quiet, sorrowful words Aphrodite had whispered in the quiet luxury of the car:
'For the two to reunite, it would require two miracles. One must wait endlessly, and the other must pursue endlessly.'
'They must realize that it is impossible to succeed, yet at the same time be capable of enduring patiently.'
Seeing the sudden, deeply solemn shadow that fell over Shirou’s face, the group quietly backed off. The heavy, grief-laden silence around him was too profound for any of them to press further.
They continued marching in silence, navigating the winding pathways of the metal graveyard.
As they walked, the demigods' eyes began to catch glints of strange, magical objects scattered carelessly among the junk. Percy spotted a polished silver shield that glowed with a faint, inner light; Thalia noticed a bronze spearhead that hummed with static electricity; Grover gasped at a set of golden pipes resting on a pile of crushed gears.
"Hey, look at these!" Percy said, reaching his hand out and grabbing a beautifully crafted, silver-plated dagger lying atop a rusted engine block. "These look totally fine! Why would anyone throw this stuff away?"
"Put it down!" Shirou's voice cracked out like a whip, sharp and commanding.
Percy froze, his hand clutching the hilt of the blade.
"Drop your hands, all of you," Shirou warned, his eyes scanning the surrounding heaps of scrap with intense Structural Analysis. "This isn't just a junkyard. It's a trash heap for the divine. Everything here is infused with residual mana, unstable enchantments, and defense triggers."
"What, are killer refrigerators going to jump out and bite us?" Percy grumbled, though he did slowly put the weapon back where it was.
"Put it down, Percy," Thalia said with absolute seriousness, stepping up beside Shirou. "He's right. Something feels off; dangerous."
"For once, I find myself in agreement with the daughter of Zeus," Zoë added, her voice sharp as her hand rested upon the grip of her hunting knives. "There is a reason the Lord of the Forge hath discarded these items here. To touch them would surely rouse whatever guards this place."
Reluctantly, the demigods nodded, keeping their hands strictly to themselves as they picked their way through the mountains of what seems to be beautifully crafted objects.
Thirty minutes later, the narrow scrap-metal walls opened up into a massive, wide expanse.
As they walked past a towering mountain of copper and bronze, Percy paused, squinting at a row of thick, curved metal pillars protruding from the ground near the edge of the path.
"What are these?" Percy muttered, stepping closer. "Looks like... massive steel columns?"
Shirou stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes structurally analyzed the massive, hollow channels of divine bronze, the dormant magical ley-lines running through the metal, and the terrifying, colossal scale of the construct beneath the dirt.
"Those aren't columns," Shirou said, his voice dropping into a cold, deadly whisper. "Those are toes."
Grover choked on his breath. "T-Toes?!"
"A prototype," Shirou continued, his brow furrowing as the blueprint of the ancient machine mapped itself in his mind. "An automaton built by the God of the Forge himself. A prototype of Talos itself."
A heavy, suffocating panic swept through the group.
"Walk," Zoë commanded in a fierce, barely audible whisper. "Do not run. Do not touch anything. Just walk smoothly toward the exit."
Moving as softly as humanly possible, the group treaded past the massive bronze toes, creeping toward the far edge of the junkyard where the desert sand finally met the open horizon.
Step by step, they edged closer to safety. Ten yards. Five yards. Two yards.
Finally, their boots hit the soft, natural sand of the open desert outside the junkyard perimeter.
Grover let out a massive, shuddering sigh of relief, sagging against a rock. "Oh, thank Pan... we made it out. We actually—"
CREAAAK.
The earth beneath them violently shuddered.
A deafening, deep sound of grinding metal, shifting gears, and colossal bronze plates sliding against each other echoed from behind them, shaking the very rocks of the canyon.
The group whipped around in horror.
Rising from the towering mountain of scrap metal was a colossal, bronze giant. It towered over fifty feet into the air, its polished brass skin gleaming beneath the cold light of the moon. Its head was a featureless, terrifying dome of smooth metal, and in its massive right hand, it held a bronze broadsword the size of a telephone pole.
"Talos!" Zoë yelled, her voice filled with grim dread. "It's the prototype!"
The giant automaton let out an inhuman, screeching noise—a high-pitched, metallic roar of grinding gears and venting steam that hit them like a physical wall of sound. Percy, Thalia, and Grover instantly clamped their hands over their ears, wincing in agony as the sound vibrated through their teeth.
Slowly, terrifyingly, the giant turned its featureless head toward the small group standing at the edge of the desert. The bronze giant took a massive step forward, crushing a mound of scrapped cars into flat sheets of metal, and raised its massive sword high into the night sky.
"RUN!" Grover shrieked.
The group didn’t need to be told twice.
They scattered like leaves in a hurricane as the bronze giant's sword came crashing down, shattering the ground where they had been standing a second prior.
"Why is it attacking us?!" Thalia yelled, dodging a shower of flying gravel as she scrambled up a boulder. "We didn't take anything!"
Percy ran alongside Shirou and Bianca, his eyes darting frantically toward the younger girl. He noticed how tightly Bianca was clutching her jacket pockets, her hands shivering uncontrollably.
"Bianca!" Percy shouted over the deafening stomps of the giant. "Did you take something?!"
"N-No!" Bianca cried out, her voice trembling with tears. "I didn't mean to!"
"You did take something?!" Percy yelled incredulously. "Why in Hades' name would you do that?!"
Bianca tried to say something, but instead screeched in sheer panic as the massive bronze blade slammed down directly between them, the pungent scent of rust hitting them full in the face.
Percy threw himself sideways, narrowly missing the crushing edge of the blade by a fraction of an inch, only to be sent flying through the air by the sheer force of the wind gust the titanic swing created.
He tumbled hard across the dirt before scrambling back to his feet.
"Throw it away!" Percy roared over the grinding of metal gears. "Whatever it is, toss it!"
With shaking fingers, Bianca reached into her pocket and pulled out a small, metallic figure—a tiny, detailed statuette of a god.
"It... it was a gift for Nico!" Bianca sobbed, tears streaming down her dusty cheeks. "It's a Mythomagic figure... the only piece he didn't have! I just wanted to give him something!"
"Are you insane?!" Percy yelled, dodging another massive footstep that sent shockwaves through the dirt. "How can you be thinking about Mythomagic at a time like this?!"
"Stop arguing!" Shirou’s voice cut through their panic like a steel blade.
He didn't slow his pace for a second, forcing Percy and Bianca ahead of him as the advancing titan's shadow stretched over their path.
His mismatched eyes remained sharp, scanning the giant's mechanical movements even while running full tilt through the uneven terrain.
"Arguing won’t solve anything," Shirou said calmly, his breath steady despite the frantic sprint. “We need to bring it down, fast—or none of us are getting out of this desert alive.”
As the giant swung its titanic bronze blade once more, Shirou's eyes narrowed, his mind instantly racing to evaluate their options.
He watched as Thalia summoned a jagged bolt of electric lightning—only for it to harmlessly dance off Talos's dense metal hull without so much as leaving a scorch mark.
He saw Zoë's silver arrows strike true, yet they merely left minuscule, shallow dents in the thick bronze before shattering uselessly in the air.
Even Grover's frantic nature magic managed to sprout thick, writhing roots that halted the automaton's crushing stride for a brief second, but the giant snapped through them effortlessly.
Shirou ran through tactical projections in his mind.
He considered tracing a barrage of sharp, high-grade swords and launching them like projectiles, but structural analysis told him the giant's ancient, divine exterior would easily deflect standard reinforced blades.
Mystic Codes and lesser enchanted weapons would be equally useless; if the raw power of the child of Zeus couldn't breach it, ordinary magic wouldn't scratch the surface either.
What he needed was not a barrage of simple steel or weapons imbued with simple magecraft.
He needed a crystallized legend given form.
An invocation of a Noble Phantasm.
Yet Shirou could not help but hesitate.
Invoking the true, unleashed might of a Noble Phantasm would shatter the quiet veil around him. It would raise dangerous questions he wasn't ready to answer, and worse, the massive flare of conceptual energy could easily draw the eyes of the Olympian gods—or even the Titans creeping in the shadows.
His intense musing was suddenly cut short by a frantic voice shouting over the roar of grinding gears.
"I'll go inside!" Percy suddenly yelled, looking up at the giant's towering foot. "There was a manhole on its heels! It has to be a maintenance hatch! I'll climb inside and find a way to control the switches!"
"No! It's my fault!" Bianca cried with desperate resolve. "I'm the one who took it! I'll go inside!"
Shirou froze.
He looked at the two young demigods—kids, barely teenagers—stepping forward, each willing to throw their lives away to save the others.
He looked at the massive, crushing weight of the bronze titan looming over them, and he knew with absolute certainty that whoever stepped inside that machine would be crushed and fried to death by the internal gears and electricity if they conducted that suicidal plan.
They were willing to die. Right here.
In the dirt of a forgotten junkyard.
And he was certainly not going to let it.
Shirou closed his eyes.
He did not care about keeping his abilities hidden anymore.
He did not care if his magecraft drew the eyes of Olympus or the gaze of the Titans.
He did not care if the group later asked questions he would rather avoid answering.
If his existence meant anything, it was to stand between innocent lives and the senseless violence of the world.
Deep within his reality marble, Shirou searched his infinite armory for a weapon to destroy the construct.
A sword with a spiral blade twisted like a drill—a blade that contained the very light of the rainbow—thrummed with excitement within his soul at the thought of felling such a massive construct.
Caladbolg?
No. The spatial distortion of the Spiral Rainbow Sword was far too destructive. At this close range, the catastrophic spatial collapse would annihilate everyone in the vicinity along with the giant.
He needed something else.
Something that could unleash sheer, devastating power, but in a line far more concentrated than the Spiral Rainbow Sword’s explosive radius.
Then, a specific blade hummed violently within his mind, pulsing with an ancient, furious crimson light, begging to be unleashed.
A silver greatsword that rested deep within his soul, standing alongside the other noble arms tied to Arthurian mythology.
It was a blade originally forged for the purpose of royal succession, yet twisted by hatred into a bitter symbol of rage and rebellion.
Clarent.
The sword of the Traitorous Knight.
The sword of Mordred.
Shirou disliked the blade due to its dark, tragic history of betrayal and familial slaughter and its involvement with the Fall of Camelot and Artoria’s regret.
But his pragmatic mind recognized the absolute truth: When invoked its true name, it released the exact, concentrated anti-army destruction required to vaporize the giant in a single strike.
Shirou took a deep, steady breath, opening his soul to the infinite wasteland within.
He spoke the start of the mantra; the seven-letter sentence anchored to the very core of his being.
"I am the bone of my sword."
A wave of concentrated, invisible pressure burst outward from Shirou’s body, hammering against the desert floor. The swirling dust stopped mid-air. The wind died completely.
Percy, Thalia, Zoë, Bianca, and Grover instantly froze in their tracks, their eyes widening in sheer, unadulterated shock. The oppressive, suffocating density of Shirou’s magical energy flooded the desert atmosphere.
It was the same terrifying pressure they had felt when he had bound the Erymanthian Boar in those mysterious golden chains—It was something entirely alien to the world, a raw, conceptual force that defied the laws of nature itself.
They knew with absolute, chilling certainty: something colossal was about to happen.
Shirou opened his eyes.
With a flash of blue light, a greatsword materialized into his outstretched hands.
It was a magnificent, yet sinister blade of radiant silver, its fuller deeply etched with intricate, crimson runes that pulsed like a beating heart. The crossguard flared outward like the wings of a dragon, radiating an overwhelming, palpable aura of anger, bloodlust, and violent power.
Crisp, jagged arcs of dark red lightning snapped violently around Shirou's body, sizzling as they struck the sand.
"What... what is that sword?!" Thalia yelled, shielding her eyes from the blinding crimson sparks.
Shirou did not answer. He planted his feet deep into the shifting desert sand, sweeping the greatsword back as the bronze titan loomed directly over him, raising its massive, mountain-like foot to crush him into the dirt.
A sudden, violent wave of malice surged from the hilt straight into him.
It wasn't his own anger—it was the ancient, festering rage of the Traitorous Knight.
The dark, scorching hatred Mordred had held for her father flooded Shirou's mind, twisting his usually calm, grounded focus into a ferocious, blinding fury.
His veins bulged along his neck, as the rage of the Knight of Betrayal not only effected his mind but also his body.
The skin around his knuckles cracked, blood welling up only to instantly boil away against the heat of the blade.
For a terrifying split second, the demigods didn't just see Shirou.
An image of a towering, demonic silhouette of a knight clad in spiky, silver-and-red armor overlapped over him, its helmet opening like a beast's maw to release a guttering howl of absolute, destructive wrath.
"Boil over, Wrath of the Planet!" Shirou growled, his voice dropping into an unnatural, guttural roar as the sword's madness bled directly into his mind.
"Feel the seething rage!"
The crimson runes etched into its fuller flared blindingly bright, unlocking the crystallized legend forged inside the metal.
Instantly, the sword responded, unleashing a violent, roaring vortex of crimson lightning that expanded into the pitch-black sky and illuminated the desert for miles.
Shirou yelled the blade's true name, igniting the dormant history sleeping within the silver sword.
"CLARENT BLOOD ARTHUR!"
Shirou swung the sword downwards in a sweeping, majestic arc.
A colossal, roaring torrent of crimson magical energy erupted from the tip of the blade.
It was not a simple beam of light; it was a towering pillar of sheer, unadulterated destruction, surging forward with the sound of a shattering mountain.
The crimson light erupted, swallowing the fifty-foot bronze giant whole.
The heat was blinding. The raw, violent force of the unleashed Noble Phantasm pulverized the sand into glass and shattered the surrounding scrap metal into microscopic dust.
For three breathless seconds, the night sky was dyed in a terrifying, brilliant crimson.
Then, the light faded.
The deafening roar died down, leaving behind a silence so absolute it felt heavy.
When the group finally lowered their arms and were able to open their eyes, their breath caught in their throats.
The giant was gone.
There was no debris. There were no broken metal plates, no crushed gears, and no lingering bronze toes.
The fifty-foot prototype of Talos had been completely, utterly atomized, leaving behind only a massive, glassy trench scorched into the desert floor that stretched for a quarter of a mile into the empty wilderness.
In the center of the glass trench stood Shirou Emiya.
The crimson greatsword had vanished back into his soul, fading away in a soft spray of blue particles.
He was bent over slightly, his hands resting on his knees as he panted heavily for breath, steam rising from his shoulders as his body cooled down from the immense surge of magical energy.
Silence hung over the desert.
The demigods stared at the white-haired magus, their eyes wide with a mixture of profound awe, utter shock, and a terrifying realization of what had just taken place.