Chapter 045 [Inverted V] 45

"Hell Gate, open the gate - well, the cursed tool originally planned to seal Gojo Satoru is now used to seal Abe Haruaki, the 'person who maintains balance'. It's not a loss. In fact, it's a big gain compared to sealing Gojo Satoru - it's just that it's not very conducive to the advancement of my plan."

However, Yumenjiang still lay on the ground without any reaction.

"Huh." Abe Haruaki casually lit the paper man-Shikigami he had been holding, and turned to look at the noose that was being licked by the flames as the paper man-Shikigami burned. "You are the holder of the Jigokumon, but you don't even know that it is in the digestive state after the seal ends? By the way, can I burn this guy directly, Master?"

"...At least we should kill the original body first and then cremate the body he stole, right?" Fujimaru Ritsuka sighed helplessly and showed Abe Haruaki one of the documents sent by Chaldea. "I think if we burn them together, it will cause a commotion like the one when Enkidu's body was disposed of—"

"It's not that difficult..."

Okita Souji and Emiya exchanged a glance - then the red archer directly grabbed the brain that was trying to escape by opening its skull in the flames, and imitated his other black self to change the usage of the Noble Phantasm, completely separating the madman who was planning to create a new world from the Holy Grail in a physical sense.

"The Holy Grail has been recovered—" Fujimaru Ritsuka took the Holy Grail back from Emiya's hand and asked the control room about the current status of the anomaly, "What is the current situation of the Shibuya anomaly?"

"…It has not shown the characteristics of self-repair after the Holy Grail has been recovered." The serious voice of the head of the medical department came from Chaldea's communication. "Do you have any ideas?"

"I roughly know what to do next." Fujimaru Ritsuka closed his eyes and looked at Jigokumon Kyo, "This world still has no future, and the anomaly cannot be eliminated. Then, we just need to ensure that after this anomaly ends, this world can still move towards the future."

"The answer lies in the Hell Gate." Abe Haruaki and Fujimaru Ritsuka exchanged glances, and reached a positive conclusion from each other's gazes. "I don't agree with waiting until the Hell Gate is digested and can be 'opened' before resolving it - let's not talk about the future of this world, the most important problem is that the Master cannot maintain a sufficient inherent barrier for a long time to provide magic."

"Then there is only one way left—" Roman hesitated and looked at Lancermello standing beside him, "Do you want to try to use instruments to analyze the data and build a model experiment to unlock the seal?"

"No." Lansemello shook his head and looked at Fujimaru Ritsuka's figure in the communication. "She already knows what to do - and we should start preparing for their return."

——Magic, Yin Yang magic, alchemy, witchcraft... no matter what the name is, no matter whether it is the mysterious side or the scientific side, as long as it is a certain process in operation... there must be energy to support its operation. Just like as long as the singing is interrupted, the release of magic will inevitably be forced to interrupt.

"It's not about the nature of the chant being a magician's self-suggestion."

The person who appeared in this memory was Kirshtalia, who appeared face to face for the first time in front of Fujimaru Ritsuka, starting from the interstellar city mountain range in the Atlantic Novel Belt. The blond magician was sitting on the ruins of the destroyed Orbital Temple at that time, watching the New Chaldea of ​​pan-human history approaching Chaos in the void, while calmly smiling at the younger generation he met for the first time.

"In the plan of the leader of the Hidden Ones, although he will be the last human, based on the contract with Giant Atlas, the characteristics of the Illusionary Tree, and the existence of the Great Command Spell—" Kirshtalia turned his head and looked at the Illusionary Tree that contained Giant Atlas, waiting for the arrival of the Alien God, "The magic power of this ritual will undoubtedly need to flow through his body."

"I think you know the magic of tuning the heaven, earth and man - so you should be able to guess that Wodam has become an anchor point for the great magic of all mankind becoming gods."

"Although Belial is a descendant of a witch, he has a tendency to do whatever he wants like a fairy... but he is very good at disguising himself and deceiving others - otherwise, Wodeym would not insist on handing over the British Lost Zone to him." Kirshtalia closed her eyes and mourned in advance for her peers who still chose to follow the same fate. "So even if Belial's original plan was to just burn down the Fantasy Tree... but he will always choose to wipe out 'my' existence after hearing this plan."

"Because that kind of world doesn't meet his expectations - Beryl can't feel happy in that kind of world from the bottom of his heart."

"Ah, let's get back to magic." Kirshtalia smiled and looked at Fujimaru Ritsuka and Mashu who were standing together. "Interrupting the chanting is equivalent to directly interrupting the magician's mobilization of magic power. The flow of magic power stagnates as the chanting stops. And destroying the anchor point, or destroying part of the magic - this is destroying the channel for the flow of magic power, so that the magic will also end up ineffective."

"Of course, the same applies to the scientific side. Although Chaldea is a fusion of science and magic, the explosion in the control room was an accident that was intended to bring Chaldea to a standstill."

——In short, if you encounter something difficult to deal with, and your goal is just to change its state... why not choose to destroy it directly?

"Ms. Iwanaga, I have a question." Fujimaru Ritsuka glanced at Abe Haruaki who was studying the prison gate, and walked up to Iwanaga Kotoko. "Suppose we destroy the prison gate directly - that is, violently remove the seal, without considering whether it can be used again in the future... If we do this, will it affect the 'balance'?"

"No." Iwanaga Kotoko shook her head and told the people of Chaldea more information. "Although the Hell Gate has the characteristic of being 'alive', it is just a cursed object - that is, an object without subjective inclination. On this basis, its threat to balance is caused by the action of its owner, who sealed Gojo Satoru with the noose."

"And without a holder, whether it is intact or destroyed, it will not affect the balance between ordinary society and non-humans. However... the cursed tools that can destroy the gates of hell - that is, the properties of blocking cursed energy - seem to have been destroyed by Gojo Satoru himself a long time ago."

"It's not a big problem." Fujimaru Ritsuka touched his chin, and while asking for advice from the control room, he learned more about the prison gate from Iwanaga Kotoko. "The existence of the anomaly can be observed stably now, right? Is Senior Kirshtalia free to come over? By the way, Miss Iwanaga——"

"Besides the fact that he's 'alive', is there any other information about the prison gate?"

- First, the Hell Gate cannot be opened from the inside; second, there are thick curses inside, and the spellcaster's power will be weakened by these curses; third, the time inside the Hell Gate is chaotic; fourth, it can be sealed as long as certain conditions are met; finally, after the seal is completed, it will maintain a certain period of digestion state. Before the digestion state ends, the Hell Gate cannot be opened again from the outside.

"...It's really rare to use such a simple and crude solution." Blue spirit particles gathered behind Fujimaru Ritsuka. Kirshtalia, who had just completed the spirit particle transfer, looked at Kashuu Kiyomitsu who was held by Okita Souji. "But it is true that when it comes to the problem of 'staying alive', the simplest solution is always 'killing'."

In Kirshtalia's field of vision, a black line obliquely divided the prison gate into two halves - so he knew that the death of the living seal had come before everyone, waiting for the hammer of the gavel to pronounce the verdict.

"Lord asked me to remind you that it's time to prepare to say goodbye - this singularity will * * allow some memories to be engraved into the real history..." Kirshtalia borrowed California Kiyomizu from Okita Souji, walked to the front of the prison gate, and slowly unsheathed his sword. "About this, there will be an explanation after we go back. But now, I don't think you want to say goodbye to someone who just met you just a short time ago."

"After you have said your farewells, I will open the gates of Hell along the line of death - and then we will return to Chaldea."

"If that's the case..." Abe Haruaki glanced at Jigokumon Kō who was lying on the ground, and walked towards where Fujimaru Ritsuka and Iwanaga Kotoko were. "I have something I want to say - but I hope you can avoid talking to her for a while, okay, Master?"

Fujimaru Ritsuka took everyone from Chaldea - including Kirshtalia who had just arrived, of course - and ran to a place far enough away, giving Abe Haruaki enough space to talk to Iwanaga Kotoko in peace; as for the presence of Sakuragawa Kuro beside Iwanaga Kotoko, he was not to be avoided.

"…The above is what we have deduced from the information we found in Shibuya." After everyone had gone far enough, Abe Haruaki finally spoke to Iwanaga Kotoko about what she really wanted to say, "Also, I hope you can give a few words to the guy who came out of the Jigokumon area—"

So, finally, the silver-white blade light crossed the border of the Hell Gate, and divided the border of the Hell Gate into two halves along the death line seen by the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception - at the same time, Abe Haruaki released the second treasure, and they returned to the blood-filled subway platform; Chaldea's spirit particle transfer system began to operate, bringing all those who went to the Shibuya anomaly back to the control room.

“…Sure enough, the time of the entire world has begun to flow forward.” Lansemello watched the red light of the anomaly disappear from Chaldeas, “This time, the record will say ‘Continuation of human rights protection completed’ – ah, I hope Fujimaru has read the action record of the Traum anomaly provided to us by New Chaldea. In that case…”

"She will then understand the commonality between 'failure to prove' and Shibuya's uniqueness."

Amid the sea of ​​blood and corpses in Shibuya, the last three people who survived walked out of the subway station.

Iwanaga Kotoko held up her beret with her hand, and walked out with Sakuragawa Kuro, waving her hand as she relayed the message from the white fox's son to the tall, white-haired, blue-eyed male sorcerer who was standing at the subway station entrance and was obviously in a daze.

"Oh, this is what someone asked me to tell you - the dead cannot be resurrected. Even a decapitated dragonfly is just the memory of its own flesh and body at work... The living should stop thinking about the dead."

"The memories of the living will only become a curse that will keep the dead from resting in peace forever."