[Kenji Sato (MC) POV]
I let go of his collar and took a step back, shaking out my stinging hands.
Arthur stood there on the sidewalk, rubbing his neck and coughing into his fist before breaking into a hearty, sheepish chuckle. He wasn't even winded. Of course he wasn't. The man was a legendary Heroic Spirit clad in casual denim; my human fingers trying to crush his windpipe was basically the equivalent of an aggressive deep-tissue massage.
"My apologies, Kenji," Arthur laughed, offering an apologetic grin as a pair of terrified high schoolers gave us a very wide berth on the sidewalk. "It simply slipped my mind for a moment. But I remember the route now! Follow me!"
"You're lucky you're pretty, Arthur," I muttered under my breath, rubbing the bridge of my nose.
Beside me, Jeanne gave Arthur a deeply unimpressed side-eye, her hand resting casually near where her lance usually dematerialized. Nobunaga, on the other hand, was practically strutting down the pavement, her scarlet cape billowing behind her as if she owned the entire prefecture.
We cut away from the bustling commercial avenues, weaving through winding asphalt roads that steadily inclined into the quieter, heavily forested outskirts of the city. The noise of traffic faded, replaced by the whispering hum of wind through cypress trees.
Eventually, the road ended at a pair of rusted, wrought-iron gates hanging crookedly off moss-covered stone pillars. Beyond them lay a sprawling, hillside graveyard. Weathered headstones, cracked stone monuments, and forgotten stupas stood scattered beneath the shade of towering trees. Crow caws echoed in the stagnant silence.
I stopped at the threshold, staring out across the endless rows of graves.
"Arthur," I said flatly, looking over at him. "Why did you bring us to a cemetery?"
"This is where the signature anchored itself," Arthur explained, his playful older-brother demeanor instantly sharpening into knightly vigilance. He rested a hand on the pommel of his concealed blade. "Old burial grounds naturally align with dormant spiritual veins. When a curse like Angra Mainyu seeps into the earth, it gathers where death has already worn the boundary thin. It is still here. Close."
"A place thick with the stench of endings," Nobu hummed, resting her palm against the hilt of her katana, her sharp eyes scanning the weathered stones. "Fits a tyrant's taste, but it's foul nonetheless."
"Master, stay behind me," Jeanne murmured softly, stepping ahead of me with her senses fully flared.
"We need to find the pool before it bleeds into the lower aquifer," Arthur instructed quietly. "Spread out, but remain within earshot."
The four of us fanned out among the cracked stone tombs. My boots crunched over dead leaves and dry gravel as I stepped through the quiet aisles of the cemetery. The air felt uncomfortably cold—not the crisp chill of autumn, but the heavy, numbing draft of a freezer door left wide open.
My [Danger Sense] gave a faint, rhythmic pulse behind my temples.
I followed the chill, cutting around a massive, ivy-strangled stone crypt near the edge of the tree line. The grass behind the monument wasn't green; it was black, withered, and rotted to ash. In the center of a sunken, collapsed grave plot sat a shallow depression filled with thick, oily sludge that bubbled without heat.
"Over here," I called out under my breath, though the sheer pull of the dark mana was already humming through my veins like a siren song.
I reached out, rolling up my sleeve, and plunged my right palm directly into the bubbling, black sludge.
"Come on," I muttered, bracing my core.
[Curse Absorption] flared to life.
The dark mud erupted into motion. Like an iron spike driven straight into my marrow, a tidal wave of pure, unfiltered human malice violently surged up my arm. It didn't trickle in like before—it slammed into my magic circuits with the force of a detonating bomb. Millions of screaming, hateful voices scraped against the inside of my skull.
The air vanished from my lungs. My vision instantly tunneled, the edges bleeding into static black.
[Ding!]
[Curse Absorption has leveled up!]
[Curse Absorption has leveled up!]
[Curse Absorption has reached Lv. 54!]
The blue notifications flickered wildly before my eyes, but the world was spinning away from me. My knees gave out, slamming into the dirt, and as the sound of Jeanne's frantic voice screaming my name echoed through the trees, the darkness violently pulled me under.
The crushing weight of a million screaming curses didn't kill me. In fact, the screaming just sort of... vanished.
I blinked my eyes open, groaning as I lifted a hand to shield my vision. Expecting the damp dirt of the cemetery or Jeanne's frantic face leaning over me, I found myself staring up at a sky so impossibly, flawlessly blue it looked painted.
I pushed myself up onto my elbows, completely bewildered.
"Where the hell...?"
I wasn't in the graveyard anymore. The stench of rot and rancid black sludge was entirely gone, replaced by the crisp, sweet aroma of fresh rain and crushed nectar. I was sitting right in the middle of a boundless sea of flowers.
Vibrant, electric-blue blossoms stretched out in every direction as far as the horizon could reach, undulating in gentle waves beneath a warm, phantom breeze. Millions of delicate petals swayed softly, their indigo glow reflecting against the edges of my soaked clothes.
I scrambled to my feet, spinning in a slow circle. There were no trees, no skyline, no ruined crypts. Just an endless expanse of azure.
"Arthur?!" I called out into the open expanse, cupping my hands around my mouth. "Jeanne?! Nobu?!"
Nothing answered. My voice simply carried over the sea of petals and faded into the quiet air. I flicked my wrist to summon the system interface, but the blue screen didn't appear. No inventory, no status, no multiversal chat. Whatever this place was, I was entirely cut off.
I started wandering, wading through the knee-high flowers with no destination in sight. Every step kicked up tiny specks of pale, luminous pollen that drifted lazily in the wind.
As I walked, a sudden, heavy prickle settled in the center of my chest.
A creeping, suffocating sense of deja vu washed over me.
It wasn't a memory from my old life in California. It was something foreign, etched straight into the bone and marrow of the body I was wearing. The curve of the horizon, the specific shade of the blossoms, the surreal, dreamlike silence—it felt like a place I had never visited, yet somehow intimately recognized. A scene ripped from a nightmare I hadn't lived through yet.
I froze mid-stride, hairs standing up on the back of my neck.
Before I could turn around, a high, musical voice—practically vibrating with pure, breathless excitement—spoke from directly behind me:
"Arthur! You've finally come back to me!"
I spun on my heel, my mouth already half-open.
"Look, lady, I'm not—"
The words died in my throat.
Standing in the sea of blue petals was a young girl with long, soft, wavy blonde hair framing a face as delicate and pristine as a porcelain doll. Beneath long eyelashes, her wide, crystalline blue eyes shone with an unearthly, innocent radiance—the gaze of someone born directly connected to the Root of all existence.
Manaka Sajyou.
A wave of icy panic crashed through my chest. Why the hell was she here? Was this a pocket of the Grail's core, or the boundary of the Root itself? Then the pieces slammed together: Angra Mainyu. Arthur was hunting the remnants of Beast VI, the very calamity Manaka had tried to summon into the world.
Manaka didn't care at all of my silence. Her face lit up with a breathtaking, radiant smile.
"I knew it," she murmured, her voice trembling with pure, breathless adoration. "I knew you wouldn't leave me, my Prince."
She took a light, buoyant hop toward me, her shoes skimming over the indigo blossoms. Before I could take half a step backward, she launched herself forward.
Oof.
Her arms wrapped tightly around my neck, her small, delicate frame crashing flush against my chest in a desperate, clinging embrace. She buried her face into the crook of my shoulder, inhaling deeply, clinging to me as if she had spent an eternity wandering the dark just to find this exact warmth.
My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. Every single alarm bell in my head screamed at me to push her off, ignite my Lightning God Form, and sprint for my life.
Yet, in the back of my mind, my [Danger Sense] remained dead, terrifyingly silent.
Why wasn't the skill firing?
I forced every muscle in my body to stay completely rigid. I didn't dare move. I didn't dare breathe.
I kept my mouth shut tight. If I spoke in my own voice, if she noticed that my eyes were golden rather than emerald green, if she realized the boy in her arms was just an imposter wearing her beloved Prince's face... she wouldn't just tear me apart. With her connection to the Root, she could erase my concept from reality with a single thought. So I held my breath and played the statue, praying for anything to break the contact.
Eventually, Manaka slowly pulled her head back. Her hands slid down to my chest, fingers curling gently into my soaked shirt as she gazed up at me, her blue eyes filled with tearful, reverent worship.
"Arthur..." she whispered, lifting a hand to softly trace the line of my jaw. "Now, we can finally—"
A violent, sickening jerk seized the center of my soul.
It felt as if a colossal iron chain had hooked into my chest, violently yanking me backward into the void. The sheer momentum tore Manaka's grip clean off my collar.
The serene, dreamlike sea of blue petals instantly shattered, webbed with jagged, pitch-black fractures as the space collapsed in on itself.
"Wait!" Manaka gasped, genuine horror cracking her porcelain composure. Her serene expression vanished, replaced by the frantic, raw panic of a child watching her entire world get stolen away. She stumbled forward, reaching out desperately, her fingers clawing at the dissolving air as she tried to seize my sleeve. "No! Don't take him! Arthur—!"
The azure blossoms burst into blinding white static.
Gasp!
My eyes flew open.
I shot straight up, hacking and coughing as a lungful of damp, earthy air rushed down my throat. Cold sweat drenched my skin, dripping from my chin onto the rotting leaves and cracked stone below. My chest heaved violently, my fingers digging deep into the cemetery mud as I frantically checked my surroundings, shivering and gasping for air.
———
[(Author: short chapter but I'll post another later just got to do some things today then I'll pose maybe two or three more of this one)]