Shirou took another look at the woman who was now fully fainted on the ground. He couldn't help but feel relieved.
After fighting Hinako, he understood once more that True Ancestors were not to be provoked.
Arcueid - he truly couldn't handle her. As for Hinako here...she was simply a maniac!
He had never seen someone fight like that before, rushing in from the very start with one self-destruct attack after another.
Just a continuous string of self-destructs!
Fortunately he had Avalon, so he simply observed Hinako's endless suicide bombing attempts from inside its protection.
He had thought she would give up, yet this woman was stubbornly single-minded, blowing herself up over and over, trying to blast through Avalon.
Yes, the reason Hinako had finally fainted was not because he had struck her too hard. She had purely exhausted herself into unconsciousness through her own efforts.
As for her Servant sprawled unconscious on the ground, that was indeed his doing.
However...
It seemed that madwoman had only started her consecutive suicide bombing after he had knocked out the guy.
Still, Hinako's endless suicidal frenzy...
To be honest, it really was somewhat frightening.
And now, he no longer needed to dwell on these matters, because he was about to leave this connection point.
The member of the Council who had summoned him here was making a move!
However, that was fine too. Adam had brought his main body closer to this place anyway.
Shirou intended to go greet that good friend who had summoned him and showed him thanks, so there was no need to linger any further.
Taking a slight step, he walked into the black shroud that appeared after he used his connection with the black ring in the sky, causing his body to blur and gradually disappear.
"Wait, Eternal King!" Mordred shouted loudly. "Why did you give me such humiliating pity?!"
"You think that was humiliating? Hmph, what a silly kid."
However, seeing Mordred so energetic, he still felt a trace of satisfaction.
"I'm not silly!" Mordred gnashed her teeth as he disappeared from view. Gripping her sword, she roared, "You're not getting away!"
The darkish-red sword in her hand swelled with mana, on the verge of firing—
"Excalibur Morgan!"
The starlight as dark as the night sky streaked toward Mordred first.
Seeing this, Mash raised her shield almost on instinct, blocking before Mordred to withstand the blast.
"Galahad can be such an eyesore sometimes," an aloof yet helpless voice rang out.
Mo-chan stared at the sinister sword in her hand, which was faintly glowing with an ominous aura.
"Could it be..." Her eyes went wide.
Salter slowly emerged from the shadows across the massive cavern. Though different from Mo-chan's memories, she recognized her with one glance.
"Fa...Father?" She stammered.
The woman before her—it was her King Father!
Salter glanced at Mo-chan before slowly walking toward the black shroud.
"Stop right there!" Mordred and Mo-chan shouted simultaneously, hoping to prevent their leaving.
But Shirou pulled out Rhongomyniad and blasted them, allowing the two to vanish successfully.
The only things left in the now empty cavern were the unconscious Gao sprawled on the ground and a small, jet-black cup - the Black Grail - signifying this connection point had been resolved successfully.
However, no one felt any sense of happiness or accomplishment. Not even Mordred or Mo-chan, who were typically indifferent about matters unrelated to themselves. Kiara, Mash, and the others also felt no joy.
Because their original goal hadn't been met. Their purpose in coming here was not to subjugate this connection point, but for the sake of Shirou.
And now, Shirou had left the Black Grail behind but departed from this connection point after being summoned away.
"Damn it...Eternal King!"
Mordred gnashed her teeth, utterly unwilling to accept the situation yet utterly helpless to change it.
"What should we do now?" Mash asked.
Mordred took a deep breath. "Let's head back first."
The others nodded, preparing to leave the collapsing connection point.
Mordred noticed Mo-chan standing in a daze, watching the Black Ring in the sky gradually crumble. "Let's go, Mo-chan!"
"Oh..." Surprisingly, Mo-chan didn't talk back this time. She took one last look at the crumbling Black Ring, murmuring "Father..." to herself before turning to leave.
As they prepared to depart, Mash looked at the unconscious Gao while Kiara held the fainted Hinako in her arms.
Kiara gazed down at the sleeping Hinako, taking in her sweet, calm face. A thought involuntarily emerged - Hinako-senpai looks cute when she's sleeping.
Around them, the connection point crumbled bit by bit. The empty Fuyuki City was gradually being destroyed.
In the factory manager's office of a medicinal supply plant on the city outskirts, a fierce gale howled outside. It flipped through the aged pages of a notebook on the desk, finally stopping on a densely filled page:
—Absolutely must not forget your True Name. Absolutely must not forget her either. Even if...
...
The black ring shot out a beam of darkness - the tether pulling Shirou away from this connection point.
Someone intended to tug Shirou to another location.
Yet he didn't resist. On the contrary, he was rather cooperative. Because he sensed the one pulling him was the original culprit forcing his summoning here.
So Shirou didn't resist. Instead he was exceptionally cooperative. He wanted to see what this summoner who called him here was up to.
Before that though, he once more used [All the World's Evil] to contact his main body and talk to Adam.
"Adam, any changes with the coordinates?"
According to the intelligence he had gathered, the connection points of the Council were anomalies formed from parallel worlds intersecting. If he were transferred to another connection point, his coordinates would certainly change too.
However, Adam's reply made Shirou frown in confusion.
"No Mr. Assassin, your coordinates haven't changed. You're still at the original coordinates," Adam answered.
This response puzzled him.
His understanding of the connection points came from information told to him by Mash and Romani. As they explained, the connection points were anomalies that formed where parallel worlds intersected. So in theory, traversing between them meant moving between parallel worlds, which should definitely change his coordinates.
Yet Adam said there had been no change.
Adam and Shirou's main body wandered the dimensional rift together. In other words, the World had exiled them to the gray region between the walls of the Worlds and the boundary lines.
Without the Second Magic, without the existence of coordinates, they would endlessly wander, lost in the endless dimensional rift. However, at the same time, there were many things within the rift that could be perceived even more thoroughly compared to inside the World. Like the shift in his coordinates right now.
Yet Adam's reply was very strange. His coordinates had not changed...
Could it be that this transfer was occurring within a single world?
If so, then where was he being transferred to? Outside of Fuyuki City was pure darkness, an untouchable region.
Shirou contemplated in his mind.
"Mr. Assassin, should I still hurry over to your side now?" Adam asked.
"Yes, come on over and bring my main body too."
"Understood, Mr. Assassin."
Adam brought Shirou's main body along, continuing to stride through this vast darkness towards that faint, illusory connection in the distance.
Shirou stopped guessing. The intelligence he had gathered regarding the connection points, the Council, and even Chaldea was extremely scarce.
The only information he had was second-hand, perhaps even third-hand, from what Mash and Romani had provided. It was insufficient to comprehend the Council's goals in creating these connection points, or to judge what he would soon face.
With inadequate intelligence, making overly rash judgements carried too great a risk of subjective assumptions. It was easy to end up trapping himself.
However... Glancing down at Salter following right behind him, Shirou helplessly thought: She's really sticking tight, huh?
As if sensing his gaze, Salter raised her head. Her dark golden eyes stared at him as she gripped her jet-black sword, Excalibur Morgan.
After Hinako had left the first time, Salter had ambushed Shirou again. Naturally, she was still overwhelmingly crushed by his barrage of firepower and easily defeated.
However, it was exactly because of that tremendous crushing barrage that made Salter realize Shirou most likely wasn't being controlled. After all, she should have died from that immense bombardment without Avalon's protection. Yet somehow she had survived. This was bizarre.
Additionally, Salter had carefully reflected on the few battles against Shirou. Only after careful thought did she realize one thing - whether it was her, Kiara, or Hinako, none of them had truly suffered lethal injuries.
—Assassin, I'm not sure whether you're being manipulated or not, and I don't know what you're thinking either. However, I absolutely will not allow your light to be tainted.
Salter gripped her Excalibur Morgan tightly.