Chapter 596: · The Great Whore of Babylon

["Sister?"]

[Ayaka Sajyou woke up at the opportune moment.]

["W-what's wrong? Where... where is this..."]

[She could not comprehend the current situation.]

[Why was the sister she had always admired grabbing her collar and dragging her along?]

[Where was this vast, unseen space?]

[What were those turbid, pitch-black shadows possessing such immense magical energy?]

[And what about the young girls lined up on the cliff?]

["Eek—"]

[The next moment, chaos flooded Ayaka Sajyou's mind, transforming into a terror that assaulted her consciousness.]

[She began to tremble as if her skeleton were being rattled, her teeth clattering together irregularly. Her blinking frequency spiked briefly, but in the end, she widened her eyes. Staring at the sacrificial offerings, tears gradually welled up in her clear eyes.]

["I hate this, I hate this, what is this... I'm scared, Sister..."]

["Stop being willful, Ayaka."]

[Still wearing a smile, Aika Sajyou stopped moving.]

[She no longer gripped the younger girl's clothes, but pointed straight ahead.]

[Without a word, she issued instructions to the sacrificial offerings.]

[Advance—]

[The sacrificial offerings began to walk, one by one, they began to fall.]

[Without pause, the teenage girls shed tears of despair; they were not even permitted to beg for help before they were swallowed into the pitch-black darkness. Not only their bodies, but even their souls were chewed to pieces.]

[This was exactly what Caster had described: the most efficient material replenishment process.]

Househusband: "Damn it!"

Was I still too late...

It should be said that trying to save everyone from the start was already too difficult.

["Everyone, don't fight, just go in order. However, Ayaka is different."]

[Aika Sajyou bent down and whispered in Ayaka Sajyou's ear with a mischievous tone: "Jump down right now and become material. You—you aren't special in the slightest, are you? Then you have no choice but to go down. Because, other than that, mortals are of no use."]

[Ayaka Sajyou completely collapsed; she could not understand how the sister who had once been as dazzling as the sun could have become like this.]

["No..."]

[Tears streamed down.]

["Don't—"]

[Why. Why. Why. Why?]

[Sensing the fragility characteristic of a mind falling into madness, the sea of flesh, greedy for the sacrifices, writhed.]

["Being willful again, despite being hopelessly ordinary, to think you'd still act like this..."]

[Aika Sajyou grabbed Ayaka Sajyou's hair without a second thought and dragged her toward the edge of the cliff.]

[Cruelly, without even a hint of emotion showing at the corners of her lips.]

Rin Tohsaka: "...She's insane, this woman is truly insane."

Caules: "Just because her sister spoke to Saber, she's going to sacrifice her without mercy."

Jinako: "I can't Matsuwanko Matsuwanko Take it anymore either... 'Love-brained' and 'yandere' types are fine to watch in anime and games, but I don't want to actually run into one."

Gordes: "Phew, Aika Sajyou really has pushed the malice of a magus to the extreme."

[—Oh, Great One. As expected, you are indeed the Mother—]

[The underground space was now filled with an emotion akin to joy.]

[That's right, the Beast currently gestating had already birthed its most basic consciousness, and it saw everything happening right now.]

[At this moment, the shallow suspicion she had always held toward the girl who was about to crack the eggshell of the Holy Grail and bring her into the world completely vanished.]

[This girl held no affection for her own kin.]

[Look at her reaction to her sister.]

[There was no warmth born of blood ties, no mockery, and no malice.]

[It was no different from witnessing the myriad phenomena of the world.]

[The sky, the earth, plants, flowers, animals, insects, humans, family—]

[All were equally powerless and illusory existences.]

[All were equally small and pitiful existences.]

[All were equally, piles of valueless matter.]

[All were equally, not worth mentioning.]

[In the girl's eyes, there was only one thing in the world that had value.]

[If the world were colorless and transparent, then only the pale knight possessed color and held unique value. Everything else was colorless, so thin and weak as to be nearly transparent.]

[Although present everywhere, they lacked substance, equivalent to nothing.]

[The Holy Grail, too. Miracles, too. Even this pitch-black darkness, about to be born from the waves rising without wind from the other shore!]

[—Great Babylon—]

[—You are the return of artifice and decadence, the mother of all whores and abominable things—]

"Babylon... Whore..."

Nero furrowed her brows; that strange feeling, both familiar and alien, was becoming increasingly intense.

Ciel: "The Great Whore of Babylon! Could it be that one from the 'New Testament: Revelation'—"

Amakusa Emiya Emiya Shirou: "In the end times, she will hold dominion over the kings of the earth, riding upon a scarlet beast with seven heads and ten horns, dressed in purple and scarlet, holding a golden cup filled with the filth of fornication, with a name written on her forehead: 'Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots and of the abominations of the earth.'"

Waver: "That's right, which is why she is also known as the Great Whore of Babylon."

Waver: "According to records, she drank the blood of the saints and those who bore witness to Jesus; her sins were monstrous, but in a single day, she would meet death and sorrow, and be consumed by fire."

Zabiko: "In short, she's an entity that opposes the Church, right?"

Waver: "Yeah, I thought it was the Great Red Dragon, but to think it's an existence even more troublesome than that."

Amakusa Emiya Emiya Shirou: "Come to think of it, this harlot is generally considered a metonym for the Roman Empire, as her misdeeds and fate reflect the extreme hatred the Church held toward the Roman Empire in the latter half of the 1st century AD."

Nero: "What!"

Nero: "Umu! This is preposterous! How dare they insult my Rome like this!"

Zabiko: "Alright, alright, calm down."

Waver: "..."

Actually, there was one thing he hadn't said out loud.

The Great Red Dragon was also known as the Beast of 666, and this title was also bestowed by the Church after Nero stepped down.

The Great Red Dragon, the Whore of Babylon, Rome, Nero—this series of connections had already formed.

A terrifying conjecture had formed in his mind.

["What are you doing, Aika!"]

[A familiar male voice rang out, not that of the old Saber.]

[Why would he appear here?]

[It was not a coincidence, but an inevitability.]

[The one attempting to stop the girl with words was not the Jewel Jewel Mage's Association, nor the Holy Church, but the girl's father, Hiroki Sajyou.]

[Faced with the atrocities his daughter was committing, he did not lose himself, was not overwhelmed, and was able to speak uprightly; one could say he had considerable courage.]

[It was not the mentality peculiar to a magus.]

[Was this, the power of a father?]

Jinako: "I didn't expect the father to be the first to arrive."

Blonde Rin: "Both are fathers, why is there such a huge difference in how they act?"

Tokiomi Tohsaka: "..."

["Asking me what I'm doing... This is the true usage of the Holy Grail, Father."]

[Releasing her wailing sister, Aika Sajyou turned around leisurely.]

[She was exactly like a daughter who had defied her parent's demands, yet offered a logical rebuttal.]

["What 'granting wishes,' do you really believe that airy-fairy talk?"]

["It's not belief, it's a fact."]

[Hiroki Sajyou clenched his fists: "The Holy Grail is the bridge to the Root, our wish for a thousand years, and the hope that will continue for another thousand! To think you would use it for this—for your own personal desire!"]

["Pfft!"]