Reborn in Type-Moon: Starting by Adopting Sakura - Chapter 55

"—!?"

Both Emiya and Diarmuid went dead still.

"...A warhorse..."

The beast was a monster of steel and flesh. Moonlight slid over its white coat, every muscle sharp beneath armor thick enough to shrug off a tank round. Its hooves burned, leaving faint trails of mana with every step.

Even without unleashing whatever trump card it was hiding, that thing's charge could crush ordinary Servant like an insect. The sheer magical output radiating from both horse and rider made their skin crawl. This wasn't just another Servant—this was a walking catastrophe.

Neither of them moved or breathed. Their eyes stayed glued to the armored figure astride that horse.

Behind the knight sat another person—a woman, definitely human. Had to be the Master. But dragging her Master into a battlefield like this? That took either stupidity or absolute certainty that she could slaughter anything that looked at her wrong.

Given the light show they'd just witnessed, Diarmuid was betting on the latter.

His blood began to sing anyway. The old battle-hunger clawed at his ribs, demanding he test himself against this new threat. Every instinct screamed that this was the kind of fight legends were made from—the kind where heroes either ascended or got ground into paste.

"Lay down your arms..." The knight said. "Or face me as an enemy."

Emiya's hands shot up. "Hey, no problems here. Wasn't looking for a fight anyway."

But Diarmuid—Irish hero, spear of the Fianna—was too proud to back down. He just smiled. His grip tightened on his weapons, the thrill in his chest building to a roar.

The knight's eyes went cold behind her helmet. "I see."

She raised one gauntleted hand. Light twisted and condensed until a lance materialized in her grasp. Her mount's hooves burst into flames of pure mana, each breath from its nostrils coming out as superheated steam.

Emiya saw his opening and bolted—

Something shrieked overhead, trailing violet lightning like a broken power line. It slammed down right in his path, sending chunks of pavement flying.

A chariot. An honest-to-god war chariot pulled by two massive oxen, their hooves somehow finding purchase on empty air. Every step they took sent purple electricity crackling in spider-web patterns.

Emiya's stomach dropped into his boots. ‘Another Rider? Are you kidding me?’

The war chariot carved through the darkness, its twin bulls somehow managing to stomp across crackling electricity like it was solid ground. Each hoof-strike sent violet sparks cascading down to the ruined street below.

"My name is Iskandar, King of Conquerors!" The voice boomed out over the battlefield. "I enter this Holy Grail War under the Rider class!"

The man standing in the chariot was built like a fortress—broad-shouldered, arms as thick as tree trunks, radiating a presence that could make a child run screaming. He looked down at the scattered fighters with interest.

“You fight one another for the Grail, don’t you? But before you go spilling each other’s blood, there’s something I need to ask all of you.”

The battlefield went quiet for half a second. Every Servant trying to process this new variable, this massive disruption to their fight.

But Artoria didn't give a damn about any of it.

Her lance came down like a falling meteor, aimed straight for Diarmuid's chest. No warning, no hesitation—just death on horseback bearing down at full gallop.

Diarmuid's eyes went wide. He'd expected her to at least acknowledge the new arrival, maybe posture a bit. Instead, she'd decided to ram several feet of enchanted steel through his ribcage.

Even Iskandar did a double-take. The woman had completely ignored him. Him! As if a King of Conquerors was just background noise.

The knight and her mount hit Diarmuid like a freight train loaded with dynamite. Her lance carried enough force to level a city block, and all of it focused into a single, gleaming point.

"——!!"

Diarmuid ripped both swords from his back—the demon blade Moralltach and the magic sword Beagalltach—and crossed them over his chest just as the lance tip arrived.

BOOM!!

The impact sounded like the world cracking in half.

A shockwave ripped outward from the collision point, turning the air itself into a weapon. The ground didn't just crack—it disintegrated, chunks of asphalt and concrete flying like shrapnel. Trees that had stood for decades got chopped clean through their trunks, toppling in perfect synchronization like dominoes made of timber and leaves.

"Hhnngh—!" Iskandar's bulls reared back, their hooves scrambling for purchase as the blast wave hit them. Behind him, Waver grabbed his head and curled into a ball at the bottom of the chariot.

"What the hell kind of monsters are these people?!"

The aftershock alone generated winds strong enough to strip bark off trees and send debris spinning through the air like bullets.

When the chaos finally settled, they were looking at a perfect crater nearly a football field wide. The forest had been erased, reduced to a flat circle of exposed bedrock and smoking earth.

At the center sat the silver knight on her warhorse, both of them completely unmarked. Meanwhile, Diarmuid had been launched backward like a cannonball, smashing through three massive oaks before he managed to dig his heels in and arrest his flight. Splinters and sawdust covered him from head to toe, and blood trickled from a cut above his eye.

It wasn't just the lance that had nearly split him in half. There was something else woven into that attack—wind, compressed and sharpened into an invisible blade that had tried to carve him open from the inside. Diarmuid spat blood and ran the numbers in his head, trying to figure out how to defeat her.

Before he could finish his calculations, golden light blazed across the night sky.

Another figure appeared without anyone noticing—a bastard in gleaming armor perched on top of the treeline as if he owned the place. He held a stone tablet against his chest, and his red eyes swept over the battlefield with an arrogance that made people want to punch him on sight.

Another Servant. Because apparently this night wasn't complicated enough already.

"Oh-ho, now this is something!" Iskandar’s laughter boomed across the crater. "Five heroes, all in one place! When was the last time anyone saw a gathering like this?" He spread his arms wide. "What do you say we call a temporary ceasefire? I have a proposition that might interest all of you."

Zzzt-

The air started humming again.

While the King of Conquerors was still talking, the red-clad archer who'd been trying to sneak away suddenly wheeled around and drew his bow. Mana flooded into the arrow nocked against the string.

But he wasn't aiming at any of them. His target was something over a kilometer away, hidden on a distant ridge.

Diarmuid frowned. This was the same technique as before, but the magical energy packed into this shot was at least three times stronger. How much power did this guy have left in reserve?

More importantly—what the hell was he shooting at?

The question hit everyone at the same time, a collective moment of confusion that rippled through the assembled Servants.

On that distant ridge, Yuu crouched in a patch of underbrush for the past hour. He'd been watching the whole fight through night-vision goggles and military-grade binoculars.

Then a red glow appeared in his field of vision, growing brighter by the second.

His head jerked up from the scopes. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me! Why the hell is he shooting at me?!"