If Josuke hadn't used [Crazy Diamond] to forcibly rip the pavement from the ground and construct a thick, improvised wall of stone...
He would have been seriously injured by the rain of steel.
"Man... she's specifically avoiding my vitals. It seems she's not as cold hearted as I thought."
Crouching low behind his barrier, Josuke peeked his head out to catch a glimpse of Miyu, who was still standing in the middle of the empty lot. He began to run through his options.
The gap was nearly a hundred yards.
With her long distance offensive style, he would never be able to reach her if he just tried to charge in on foot. He'd be cut to ribbons before he got halfway.
"Is there only going to be one opening?"
He reached into his pocket and felt the cool metal of the watch. A tactical plan began to form in his mind.
"..."
Miyu watched the boy hiding behind the rubble. She had no intention of letting the fight drag on.
The power granted by [Sakuzuki] had a strict time limit.
Without a secondary backup to install, she had to end this with her [Projection Magecraft] before her current energy reserves were exhausted.
Her only regret was that even with access to the records of Emiya Shirou, the variety of weapons she could "Countersign" remained frustratingly limited.
Having the projection power of a hero didn't mean she inherited his thousands of hours of combat experience and theoretical knowledge.
Consequently, the number of blades Miyu could actually manifest was relatively small.
She could handle standard designs with ease, but recreating legendary or famous swords was an impossible task without first performing a detailed structural analysis.
'But that doesn't mean I'm out of options.'
Her gaze turned to the knives scattered across the ground from Sakuya's earlier throws. She began the process of structural deconstruction.
Using the [Emiya Shirou] record had one very specific and powerful advantage.
By projecting a weapon, she could momentarily tap into the physical "Stats" and the "Technique" of the weapon's original owner.
If the situation demanded it, she could even unleash a fragment of their Noble Phantasm or their signature moves.
Miyu slid several daggers between her fingers, her hands mirroring the graceful grip of the maid. She began to download Sakuya's proficiency with throwing blades.
WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!
While she couldn't replicate the maid's mastery over the flow of time or the advanced technique of making knives multiply in flight, the combination of her own magical power and the downloaded skill allowed her to achieve a similar level of lethality.
"!"
Watching Miyu's fluid, professional movements, Josuke felt a jolt of alarm.
The way she held those knives was an exact copy of Sakuya's style. It was beyond eerie.
"It seems she's getting serious now."
"Fine. I won't be holding back either."
Josuke summoned [Crazy Diamond] once more and slammed a fist into the ground beneath him.
The shattered concrete erupted into the air, only to be instantly restored by his Stand's ability. A heavy, curved shield of stone formed in front of him.
Using the reinforced barrier as a mobile cover, Josuke began his sprint toward the girl.
CLANG!
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Two shadows flickered through the courtyard of the scarlet mansion, their movements so fast they appeared like phantoms flashing in and out of existence.
Both Homura and Sakuya were pushing their temporal acceleration to its absolute limits. The clash was happening at a speed that left the rest of the world at a standstill.
A long series of knives whistled through the air, converging on Homura from both the left and right. She was stunned by the precision of the trajectory.
'She closed off all my escape routes in a single second.'
Sakuya within this mansion was a significantly more dangerous opponent than she had been on the city streets.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
Homura unleashed a rapid-fire burst from her handgun, the bullets punching through the formation of knives and creating a narrow gap for her to slide through. She dove behind the ornate stone lip of a fountain.
"Is this really all you have?"
"Don't misunderstand."
"I was only holding back earlier because fighting at full strength in the city would have resulted in too much collateral damage. I have no desire to kill innocent bystanders."
Before Homura could even speak, Sakuya cut her off, as if she had already read the magical girl's mind.
"In this place, however, I am free to be as destructive as I need to be."
As she spoke, Sakuya stood atop the mansion's steps and tossed two small knives into the air.
In that same instant, the entire world seemed to be filled with steel. Hundreds of knives manifested in a 360-degree sphere, their points all converged on the fountain.
"!"
The sheer volume of the attack was staggering.
There was no physical way to dodge.
If she didn't find a way to neutralize the incoming fire, she would be turned into a pincushion in a heartbeat.
Homura attempted to apply a reversal effect to the space around her, but Sakuya had anticipated the move.
"Too slow!"
The knives were imbued with a surge of temporal acceleration, punching through the field of reversal before the effect could fully take hold.
The collision of acceleration and reversal caused the kinetic energy to "Cancel" in several spots, but the sheer momentum of the blades was still too much to overcome.
"This is enough!" Homura muttered through gritted teeth.
She had managed to buy herself a fraction of a second. The points of the knives were less than a yard from her flesh when they suddenly hit a wall of frozen time.
She had slowed the flow of reality to a near standstill within her immediate vicinity.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
Knowing that touching the blades would be a risk, Homura used her machine gun to unleash a horizontal sweep of lead.
The bullets hung in the air, aimed toward the gaps in the shifting cloud of knives. The moment time resumed, they would collide with the incoming steel.
"A futile effort. As long as you remain trapped in that zone, you will eventually be hit."
Sakuya watched the performance with a look of cool detachment.
"Is that so?"
"I've learned more from you than just how to manipulate time."
Homura's lips curled into a faint, knowing smile.
The lock on time expired. In that heartbeat, Sakuya's eyes widened in surprise as the bullets, which should have flown in a straight line, suddenly refracted and split, spiraling through the air in unpredictable paths.
CLANG! CLINK! CHING!
The sharp, staccato sound of lead hitting steel echoed through the courtyard as the bullets and knives collided in a chaotic web of sparks.
"I have as many magical bullets as I need. And now that I have your memories of how you manipulate your knives..."
"Replicating the way you bend trajectories isn't an impossible task."
Homura ran a hand through her hair, her posture a picture of resilience despite the blood staining her outfit.
She didn't have her own "Daggers" to throw, but she had an endless supply of ammunition.
Using bullets to replace the knives was a transition she had mastered within seconds of the recording being installed.
"I admit... being able to achieve that level of proficiency in such a short time is impressive."
"But you're celebrating far too early."
SHTUCK!
The shift in Sakuya's tone gave Homura a sudden, cold sense of dread.
The heavy thud of a blade piercing flesh echoed through the clearing. A single throwing knife was buried deep in the back of Homura's skull.
"!"
The shock of the impact was absolute. Homura hadn't even sensed the attack coming.
Clatter.
The sound of a small blade hitting the ground drew Homura's gaze.
She looked down to see a knife protruding from the dirt right at Sakuya's feet.
'Was it from then?'
She remembered Sakuya tossing those two knives into the air earlier. At the time, she had been so focused on the massive cloud of blades surrounding her that she had lost track of where the first two had gone.
Now she understood. Sakuya had calculated that she would be able to defend against the first wave.
She had set a trap for the second.
By using refraction to bounce the knives off the mansion's walls and applying a dual delay of acceleration and reversal, she had coordinated a sneak attack to strike from behind at the exact moment Homura felt she had gained the advantage.
"Even if we both possess the power to manipulate time..."
"I have absolute confidence that my own mastery is superior to yours."
"This is the level of perfection I have pursued as a maid."
Seeing the blade embedded in the magical girl's brain, Sakuya knew the fight was over.
Ten years of experience with a throwing knife was not something a normal person could overcome through mere mimicry.
Even with identical powers, Sakuya remained the supreme architect of her domain.
At that exact moment, the deep, resonate toll of the mansion's bell began to echo through the silence.
Dong...
[Translated and Rewritten by Shika_Kagura]