Chapter Two – Eternal Mad Empire: Septem.
"ECG reading. Normal. Vital signs check. Normal."
There was chaos in Chaldea's medical bay. The leishift to a dangerous singularity point was already keeping everyone on edge, and now Fujimaru Ritsuka – their only hope – had returned injured. Fortunately, it was only a fracture of his right arm, but it required immediate treatment.
"I'm fine, Romani."
"Fine?! Did you even look at the X-ray? Your entire right arm is pulverized. There are almost no Magical Circuits left, and regeneration will take an eternity, so don't you dare play the hero!" Romani became overly verbose when he was worried or lost his temper.
A normal person in such a situation would have fainted from pain repeatedly, but Ritsuka remained unnaturally calm and even tried to smile. Fool… He was just enduring with all his might so as not to worry Mash and the others. Romani, as the head of the medical department, couldn't help but understand this.
"One thing I can admit for sure: your will, Ritsuka, is stronger than any mage's. Perhaps that's all you have, but it's this will that has allowed you to come this far."
"Thank you, Doctor."
Ritsuka lay on the bed, rubbing his casted and tightly bandaged right arm. He needed rest now. To stop the burning of humanity, every day counted, but one couldn't push people so hard. A short respite was needed. Besides, Mash blamed herself heavily for not being able to protect him.
"Tell Mash that I'm fine."
"I will. If you truly believe so…" Romani faltered. Mash relied entirely on her senpai. Not just as a Servant to a Master, but as a comrade and junior colleague at Chaldea.
"Rest."
As soon as Romani left the ward, Ritsuka, finally succumbing to the overwhelming pain, gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut. He writhed, trying not to make a sound, desperately fighting the agony. "I can't scream. If I feel bad, it will be even harder for others." Ritsuka clutched the sheet and bit his lip. He bit so hard that blood appeared.
"Ah, Mash. Are you going to Ritsuka?"
Meanwhile, Romani, resting in the hall, noticed Mash, who was heading to the infirmary with an extremely worried expression. The girl politely greeted him and sat down next to him.
"I couldn't protect senpai. If only I had performed better as a Servant…"
"You're doing great. You're just not used to the role of a Demi-Servant yet. It's beyond your current capabilities, so don't blame yourself."
Romani put his arm around the trembling Mash's shoulders, trying to calm her. She relied on Ritsuka more than anyone, so such a reaction was natural. That's precisely why he had to protect Ritsuka – she, Romani himself, and all of Chaldea's staff.
"Hey, sorry to interrupt such a tearful scene, but will anyone remember me?"
"Pool-san… You have a healing factor, don't you?"
Deadpool, appearing out of nowhere, watched them with a displeased expression, pouring soda directly through his mask so that it streamed down.
"So what, you'll send him to the next singularity tomorrow?"
"We're not that heartless, although time is pressing…" Romani's face darkened. They had barely stabilized two singularities. Five remained. But time was running out. Far beyond Chaldea, humanity was already perishing in hellfire. To fix the future, they had to hurry.
"The kid's injured, and that snake princess went wild – her eyes were burning with fire. I barely calmed her down, I even broke a sweat. I wanted to knock her out and put her in a bottle of sake, but I held back."
Kiyohime, who remained in Chaldea, was horrified to see the injured Ritsuka and began to rush around, vowing to kill anyone who dared to touch him. If Deadpool hadn't pacified her, Chaldea would have been torn down brick by brick.
"Pool-san… I wanted to ask. About what happened then."
"About what exactly? About that pillar of guts or whatever it was?"
She merely nodded at his question.
"I'm curious too. It only took a moment. How could a God-Demon be destroyed in an instant? Two fallen Heroic Spirits, Lev Lainur himself, and the Grail, which absorbed the mana of Servants summoned across the singularity… How did you manage to defeat the embodied God-Demon, born from all of that?"
Deadpool looked irritably at the suddenly talkative Romani. He couldn't stand those who talked more than him. However, understanding that he was asking out of genuine curiosity, he decided to let it slide.
"You received one Command Spell from senpai and just snapped your fingers. What exactly did you command?"
Deadpool scratched his head in confusion, not knowing how to explain.
"Well, maybe we should go back to that moment?"
Deadpool drew a finger through the air as if on a touch screen, and the image changed. Frames flashed in reverse, as if rewinding time: the injured Ritsuka, Deadpool picking up the Grail among the ruins, and finally, the moment the colossal God-Demon appeared in rays of light.
"By the authority of the Command Spell, I command! Me, Deadpool… to remove all restrictions!"
And then – a snap of fingers.
Blinding light enveloped the God-Demon, Deadpool, Ritsuka, and Mash. Soon, only two remained in the snow-white empty space: the monster and the mercenary.
"What are you planning? You intend to trap me in a simulated space? Fool. I am a God-Demon, standing above human comprehension. The attempts of a mortal to restrain me are futile! I am inevitability itself!"
Hundreds, thousands of the God-Demon's scarlet eyes focused on Deadpool, emitting invisible rays. Like a salvo from an alien armada, streams of energy rained down on him, reaching their target.
However, taking the blow at point-blank range, Deadpool remained unharmed. More precisely, he floated in the air, and he was no longer wearing his usual red costume, but something else.
"Look at him, it's May 6th, and he's already spilling spoilers. Where did you leave your conscience? In some 'Nowhere'?"
Deadpool, or rather… Doctor One Red Lan Pool, was beside himself with rage. Channeling all his strength into the red ring, he created a colossal sphere of electrical energy and launched it at the Masinjyu. However, the discharge left not a single scratch on the demonic pillar.
"Did you really think that attack would work? I am inevitability, surpassing human perception…"
"Ah, this bastard is spoiling again!"
Immediately summoning a scarlet magic circle, he pulled out a long and thick sorcery rope from it, wrapped it around the massive column of the Masinjyu, and raising the ring to the sky, absorbed the lightning striking from above with all his might. Then, shouting, "Pika-Pikachu!", he unleashed the accumulated charge onto the enemy.
"Damn it, what a resilient bastard."
"I told you – it's useless."
However, Doctor One Red Lan Pool did not look worried. On the contrary, there was a certain nonchalance in his demeanor. The Masinjyu instantly fired a beam, knocking Pool to the ground. The mercenary's body turned into rags upon taking the hit, and he himself instantly became a bloody mess.
"How foolish."
"Who's foolish here?"
And then Doctor One Red… Pool stood before the Masinjyu again, his cape proudly fluttering in the wind.
"Regeneration? Or resurrection? Though, it doesn't matter. You will suffer eternally."
"You're the one who's going to suffer now, you bastard."
A sharp tentacle burst from the scarlet eye of the Masinjyu and pierced Pool's head through. Drenching everything around with blood and brains, the mercenary's body slumped lifelessly.
"Hey! I'm herPool reappeared. Enraged by his antics, Masinjyu unleashed tentacles, beams, and chain explosions, tearing the impudent man to pieces in dozens of ways. One moment he burned him to ashes, the next he cut him in half and crushed him into splinters. But he invariably returned alive.
"Wait a minute. You mean to say Masinjyu killed him like this? Again and again? Infinitely?"
The action momentarily returned to the present. Mash asked this with clear bewilderment. In her eyes, everything happened in a split second: a flash of light – and Masinjyu disappeared, leaving only an exhausted Deadpool in tatters before her. It turned out that in that brief moment, Deadpool had been killed by Masinjyu countless times.
"Fourteen million six hundred and five times."
"What?"
Mash tilted her head, not understanding the answer. Roman, standing next to her, instantly realizing the significance of this number, covered his mouth in horror.
"That's how many times I jumped on him."
"So...!"
Back again, into the memory. In the infinite space of imaginary numbers, Deadpool wore down Masinjyu in every possible way. By the tenth thousand death, the demon began to feel his strength gradually leaving him. And after the hundred thousandth repetition, Masinjyu finally sensed something was wrong.
"You... You looped time?!"
"Something like that."
Deadpool, whose body had just been pierced by tentacles and was bleeding gallons of blood, stood beside Masinjyu as if nothing had happened, rustling the hem of his cloak.
"Maybe we can make a deal?"
"Shut up!"
Thus passed a million deaths...
"Sauron's Tower! I've come to make a deal!"
"If you think you can wear me down with these endless deaths, you're greatly mistaken!"
Five million deaths.
"Resident error! I've come to make a deal!"
Ten million deaths.
"Illidan was right! I've come... wait, something's not right."
"Enough!"
Thirteen million deaths.
"What is it? Is that all? I only died fourteen million times."
"No... I... I can't... take... this..."
By the fourteenth million death, Masinjyu's strength had completely run out. He experienced a new feeling. Fear. In this loop of infinite time, he had faced death countless times, but this death returned to life again and again to torment him.
"How can this be... Why?! I... I have surpassed perception! I am an inevitable being, I am the one who burns the history of mankind..."
"Well, you yourself said that you have surpassed perception. Therefore, you should be aware of the existence of a time loop. An ordinary person wouldn't have noticed – they would have been babbling the same thing for all fourteen million times."
Masinjyu's scarlet eyeball trembled convulsively. It was precisely because of his supernatural nature that he was able to go beyond ordinary perception and realize that he was trapped in an endless cycle. A foolish mortal, trapped within the confines of his own mind, would have suspected nothing and would not have doubted his repetitive actions.
"You're in my trap, pal."
"No-o-o-o-o!"
Black Masinjyu, embodied through the body of Lion Lainur, fell into complete despair. Despite the proud name of one of the seventy-two demonic pillars of the King of Mages, his own ability became his curse, forcing him to realize the horror of fourteen million deaths and resurrections.
And so, after fourteen million six hundred and five deaths, Masinjyu, having exhausted all his strength, turned to stone and crumbled into dust, carried away by the wind.
"Pathetic."
Deadpool, as if nothing had happened, extended his hand, which held a shining blue stone besides the red ring. In Orléans, this stone had already helped him pull off crazy plot twists. But it seemed its power had been exhausted now.
"Ah, what's this little blue stone? You know yourselves." He lowered his voice:
"I tricked Loki and stole it quietly. What? Why does the blue stone do what the green one is supposed to do? Do you seriously think I'm going to use a 'green' ring? Just, uh... Anyway, even if the plot goes to hell, pretend it's all as intended!"
The blue stone disappeared, and the space of imaginary numbers began to collapse. The Doctor Odin Red Lan Pool costume melted away, returning the mercenary to his former appearance. Coming to his senses, he found himself lying on the ground, with Mash and Ritsuka leaning over him with tears in their eyes.
"Oh, we won."
He broke into a wide smile, looking at the Holy Grail clutched in his hand.
***
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