Act 13: Swordmaster's Afterimage, Hell

This is the Waxing Moon's true Vessel!

This is the flower that blooms in the pits of hell!

The Waxing Moona forgery of a Tree of Emptiness!

Did Edo Castle just turn into an...enormous tree...?

？！

Rider! What is the meaning of...this...

Khh... (Gasp!)

Shousetsu!

Oh my. Please calm down, my liege. You'll only make your injuries worse.

Rest assured, you need only be patient a little while longer.

Soon, the Waxing Moon will be full, and the Tree of Emptiness will blossom.

A Tree of Emptiness!?

...Now I see.

We knew exactly where and when this latest Singularity was taking place.

And yet, Trismegistus II continued to have doubts about the data we were observing.

This explains why.

Yeah. It looks like it's the same kind of Pseudo-Tree of Emptiness we saw in Heian-kyo.

Which means...this Tree is trying to transform this Edo from a Singularity into a new Lostbelt!

That aside, I can't believe how easily they managed to fool us...

Reveal the trick, and you see how cheap it is. A clumsy facade, like something a child slapped together.

But, such is the nature of a hoax.

...Oh no! I'm seeing several powerful magical energy signals headed your way at high speed!

They seem to be

My true desire is nothing less than the desecration of crown and throne alike with so much worthless detritus!

What the hell are these things? A new kind of monster?

Senpai, those are Tree of Emptiness seeds! And this voice...!

...Count.

Relying on the shadow puppet trick once again would be gauche, so I thought I would build a more elaborate stage this time.

What did you think? Did you like it?

Elaborate stage, my foot!

You're just ripping off the Caster of Limbo!

Haha. This audience is difficult to please, I see.

But, nonetheless...I do hope you will stick around to the very end of the show!

Look out, Master! They're about to attack!

...Oh no! I'm seeing several powerful magical energy signals headed your way at high speed!

They seem to be

What the hell are these things? A new kind of monster?

Those are Tree of Emptiness seeds! Look out, Master! They're about to attack!

Were those all Shousetsu?

What's going on? Why are there so many Yuis?

All right, Ushi Gozen. I leave this to you.

I will begin preparing the next stage for Chaldea's "entertainment."

..."Next stage"? There will be no next stage.

I will right everything through destruction. Chaldea... The Foreign God... Everything.

What the...? What...were those things?

Why did those monsters...look like me...?

Surely you understand, Shousetsu.

You are an artificial life-form. You were never human to begin with.

...!

What's she talking about, Gramps?

...That's right. I hadn't told you yet, had I?

Yui Shousetsu is actually a homunculusa man-made life-form created by Mori Souiken.

A homunculus...

That's right. A homunculus is an artificial person made with Western magecraft like alchemy.

And that is what Yui Shousetsu isa man-made life-form created by Mori Souiken.

？！

Shousetsu. Your flesh and blood was designed to be perfect in every way.

...

Your innocent way of life led to you ascending to Heroic Spiritdom, where it then sublimated into a Noble Phantasm.

It is that which

...

Shousetsu!

Shousetsu? Is something wrong?

...Have you fallen asleep, my liege?

...Yui.

Ahh, my liege. My poor, pitiful liege.

So, you've lost yet again. But, worry not.

Let us attempt this Ritual as many times as it takes. Let us kill as many Heroic Spirits as we must.

For there will always be more!

More powerful magical energy signals are headed your way!

Rejoice, my liege! Yui Shousetsu!

Do you see the pile of corpses you have created? The pile of your own corpses you have left behind?

Now, at last...the Waxing Moon will become full.

Rider! You despicable

Damn! We're completely surrounded!

Ahahahahahahahaha!

Get back here, Rider!

？！

...We'll just have to fight!

All hostiles have been eliminated.

Ushi Gozen is...nowhere in the area. She must have escaped.

Damn you, Rider...

...

So...that's the Waxing Moon.

...It really is hell on earth.

(Om, nom, nom, nom!)

More, please!

Saber... How can you eat at a time like this?

(Om, nom, nom, nom...)

(...Gulp) It's like they say: you can't fight on an empty stomach!

We have to do something about the Waxing Moon. So I'm going to eat as much rice as I can to keep my strength up!

(Om, nom, nom, nom...) More, please!

Well, you do have a point. We've got a hard battle ahead of us.

Here, Fujimaru. You should eat something too.

Don't worry about it. You're human.

You need to eat when you can, or your body won't hold up.

... ...

All right, listen up, you two. You can keep eating if you like, but pay attention to what's being said.

Ooh! Impressive appetite, Master of Chaldea!

...Unlike us, you're still a flesh-and-blood human.

So you need to eat lots of rice and keep your strength up even more than we do!

All right, never mind the bottomless stomachs there. We need to discuss our next steps.

？！

...That being said, there's so much going on here, I'm honestly not sure where to begin.

Hey, when you get right down to it, our job hasn't changed.

You mean, stopping the Waxing Moon?

Exactly.

Yes, our objective has changed from retrieving a Waxing Moon Holy Grail to cutting down a Waxing Moon Tree of Emptiness.

And yes, that means the situation is more difficult and serious than we'd thought...but that's still what it comes down to.

？！

...So, you're really going to cut down a tree that huge?

That's the problem. How do we go about approaching this latest Tree of Emptiness?

Right. According to our records, Trees of Emptiness can't be cut down via standard methods.

...I can cut it.

Uh... Did I hear that right?

I said, I can cut that thing down. Just leave it to me.

What makes you so confident?

Hmph. It's not that much bigger than Rider's huge monster.

Besides, it's just a tree!

I can handle some overgrown plant!

...Well, I suppose you're not wrong. The situation IS actually quite similar.

Take a look at this.

Now that the castle has transformed into this Tree of Emptiness monstrosity, it's disturbing the leylines all throughout Edo.

Edo Castle has always been located at the junction of all the leylines in Edo's eight provinces...

...but now, the Tree of Emptiness is using those leylines to rapidly absorb telluric energy from those provinces.

It's a tremendous amount of magical energy. Unless we do something, we'll never be able to get close to the castle, not with that powerful Bounded Field protecting it.

All right, Gramps, we get it. Looks like you were right, Fujimaru.

Yes! So all we need to do is sever the leyline connections to the Tree of Emptiness!

Which means this is just another turf war!

We are monitoring the flow of magical energy towards the Tree of Emptiness on our end as well.

In particular, the largest currents that essentially surround the Tree of Emptiness flow in these four directions...

All right, let's liken these key points supporting the major leylines to Edo Castle's topography.

We have Ohtemon, the rabbit Spirit Font.

Tayasumon, the rat Spirit Font.

Hanzomon, the rooster Spirit Font.

And Sakuradamon, the horse Spirit Font.

If we can cut off these four major leylines, that should open a path to the Tree of Emptiness!

There's probably not much time until this Tree of Emptiness thing blossoms.

We should split up and tackle these four leylines all at once. But I don't think we have the manpower...

Won't be a problem. We can ask the local Rogue Servants for help, like we've been doing.

That'll be a huge help. Then, Fujimaru, you can head to Tayasumon!

？！

I'll take Sakuradamon.

Then I'll take Ohtemon. That still leaves Hanzomon, though...

We can entrust that one to the Rogue Servants.

Right. Fujimaru, please choose a few Rogue Servants that can

No need. I'll go to Hanzomon.

Huh!?

？！

You!?

...Lancer.

But Chiemon's dead. What are you Oh. Right.

Chiemon was never your Master here, was he?

That's right. I'm just another Masterless Servantan ordinary Rogue who found herself summoned to this Singularity.

So why do you want to join our side now, Lancer?

Isn't it obvious? I want to stop the Waxing Moon from causing disaster, too.

Oh? Then why were you so keen to unleash hell on earth before?

I still have my records of the last Ritual, which is why I wanted to stay with Chiemon until the end. You see, I understood how hopeless he was.

If he wanted to see hell, I would have gladly followed him there.

...But now that he's gone, there's no point in doing that anymore.

...

...Jeanne, you warned us the last time we saw you.

Does this mean you and Chiemon had already realized the truth?

...The Tree of Emptiness's hell is not one either of us wish to see.

I've asked the Archer of Kanagawa Port and the Assassin of Yokosuka for help, too. They should be here soon.

We'll handle Hanzomon.

So this is what you were up to while we were fighting Shousetsu...

Then it's settled.

Fujimaru will take Tayasumon in the north. Miyamoto Iori will take Ohtemon in the east.

Yamato Takeru will take Sakuradamon in the south. And Jeanne d'Arc will take Hanzomon in the west.

Our goal is to capture these major Spirit Fonts and sever the leyline connections. Once that's done, we'll begin our assault on the Tree of Emptiness Waxing Moon!

？！

Before we go, let me give you another warning.

The real Yui Shousetsu was guarding Edo Castle's Bounded Field.

Now, all that's left of her are clones made from Tree of Emptiness seeds.

I'm sure they'll all be guarding the Spirit Fonts now.

Yui...

But they are only mindless tools, pitiful souls trapped by the Waxing Moon, reduced to hollow Servants.

There's nothing you can do to save them. So don't let their faces stay your swords...

？！

Yeah. Let's do this, Fujimaru. Saber.

...Right. Let's go stop Yui.