Chapter 60: Steel and Ash
The air was still.
Not with peace, but the kind of hush that comes before lightning strikes.
Embers drifted lazily across the charred street as Rin stood at the center of the ruined intersection, eyes locked on the figures standing before her.
Robin and Cú flanked her in a loose triangle, weapons drawn but motionless.
A breath, then two—no one moved.
Not yet.
Rani stepped forward, robes barely brushing the ash-covered concrete.
Her expression was unreadable, lips a thin line, eyes devoid of anything like hate.
She wasn't angry.
She was resolute.
Lu Bu followed beside her, war spear already gleaming with red light.
Steam curled from his shoulders, a furnace of violence held back only by her stillness.
Rin exhaled slowly, flexing her fingers.
"So... that's how it is."
"It is the Tower's rule," Rani said softly.
"I bear you no ill will."
"Don't act like this is a formality."
Rin snapped, her voice sharp but hiding a tremor.
"I get it."
"You made your choice."
"You did what you had to."
She stepped forward, defiant.
"But just because I understand it doesn't mean you won't pay for it."
"Well see about it" Rani replied.
Robin stepped forward.
His bow was already drawn.
"You picked murder," he said.
"You killed my master on Floor Two."
"You smiled when you did it."
Rani blinked. "I did not smile."
Robin said nothing.
The arrow in his bowstring glowed faintly.
Cú tilted his head, cracking his neck with one gloved hand.
"Tch."
"This is dragging."
"Can we get to the part where the big guy and I bash each other in, or are we still pretending this is diplomatic?"
Rin smiled with a flicker of fire sparked in her eyes.
"Try not to die, dog."
"You wound me, princess."
Rani raised one hand.
"Lu Bu."
The ground exploded beneath his feet.
He lunged forward in a blur, war spear raised, and Cú met him with a roar of iron.
Their weapons clashed in a flash of blue and red, the shockwave blasting back dust and loose rubble.
Cracks spidered beneath their feet.
They vanished into the ruins in a flurry of strikes and counterstrikes, metal against metal.
Robin stayed low, sprinting left across the battlefield.
Rani's eyes locked onto Rin.
Only Rin.
Her voice was calm, devoid of emotion.
"You are my final obstacle."
Rin stepped forward, chin raised.
Her heart pounded, but her hands didn't tremble.
"So I'm just a rock on your ladder?" she said, voice sharp but steady.
"A stepping stone?"
"Yes," Rani replied without hesitation.
Her voice was devoid of malice—just calm, detached logic.
"Of the remaining Masters on this floor..."
"You are the weakest."
"You will be the easiest to remove."
"Once you're dead, I will ascend to Floor Six."
The words weren't cruel.
They were clinical.
An equation already solved in her head.
Rin didn't waver.
Her lips pressed into a tight line.
"You're not wrong," she said quietly, prana building at her fingertips.
"I'm not the strongest."
"But I'm still here."
Rin didn't look away.
She didn't flinch.
"If you realy want to kill me..."
"Then come try it."
Blue light sparked at her fingertips, prana gathering like fireflies in a storm.
Her stance was proud — unyielding.
"I'm not dying here."
"Not to someone who sees people as equations."
"Not when my Riya is waiting for me."
She raised her hand — and magic screamed to life, lancing toward Rani in a sudden, brilliant strike.
Rani caught it with a barrier, knees buckling slightly from the force.
Dust kicked up in all directions, and for the first time, Rani had to adjust her footing.
"You understand your position," Rani said.
"Yet you persist."
"I understand exactly what this is," Rin snapped.
"Out of the two of us…"
Rin's voice was firm, low, and full of fire.
"…the one dying today isn't going to be me."
She stepped forward, prana humming in her veins, her stance unshaking despite the odds.
Farther back, Robin was climbing the remains of a scorched overpass.
He had line of sight now.
Cú and Lu Bu blurred through the ruins, each strike louder than the last.
Cú's movements were savage but precise—sliding past Lu Bu's brute strength with speed and finesse.
But the berserker didn't slow.
Every hit that landed cracked the ground or sent metal groaning.
He was a walking siege engine.
"You sure like to swing big!" Cú shouted, blocking a downward strike that forced him to one knee.
"Too bad you're all muscle!"
Lu Bu didn't speak.
Up above.
Robin nocked an arrow, breath calm, eyes narrowed.
Below, Cú clashed with Lu Bu — spear meeting glaive in a frenzy of sparks and brute force.
The two warriors were locked in a brutal exchange, steel screaming with every blow.
Now.
Robin raised his bow — and prana surged.
"Tree of mourning, bare thy fangs!" he whispered, the wind catching his cloak.
A glowing green sigil bloomed beneath his feet.
"Yew Bow!"
He loosed.
The arrow shimmered midair, glowing brighter, then split — an explosion of emerald energy roaring through the battlefield.
Lu Bu turned just in time to take the blast full-on.
The explosion swallowed him, hurling debris and fire in every direction.
Cú leapt back, landing in a skid as smoke billowed across the street.
Robin exhaled, fingers still tingling.
"That better have hurt," he muttered, already drawing another arrow.
The blast from Yew Bow hadn't just struck Lu Bu.
It had stirred the battlefield itself.
Green smoke billowed through the ruined intersection, swallowing broken cars, shattered glass, and the twisted metal of a collapsed balcony.
The world turned gray, the heat of combat hidden behind curtains of ash and steam.
Rin's hand was raised, ready to fire—when she paused.
She couldn't see.
"Damn it…" she muttered, eyes flicking around, trying to spot shapes in the haze.
That's when Rani moved.
Silently, she stepped backward, letting the veil of smoke curl around her like a shroud.
Her face was unreadable—calm, emotionless.
But behind her stillness, her mind flared to life.
The link between Master and Servant opened.
And she whispered across that mental channel:
"Now."
A pulse of energy.
Then a second pulse.
And through the gray, something red began to glow.
The smoke parted—not gently, but violently—as Lu Bu surged forward, his figure ablaze with molten prana.
His armor steamed.
Red light bled from every joint.
His spear—Houtengeki—crackled with an unfamiliar hum, twisting and folding in on itself.
It began to change.
Its haft split into three, rotating and fusing.
The blade retracted.
And in its place, a monstrous bow took form, forged from the same war-scarred steel and madness.
Rani's voice rang out, loud and clear, echoing with ritual purpose:
"Code: God Force Crawler!"
"The fusion of all creation, the purity of the soul which descends beyond the horizon of qualia!"
"Tincture Trismegistus… primary form—"
"SHOOT!!"
The air shattered.
From the bow's core, a crimson beam lanced forth, fired with divine fury—wide, screaming, and absolute.
It carved the air in half, burning its path straight toward Rin.
Her eyes widened.
Too fast.
Too much power.
But before she could move—
Robin Hood fell.
Literally.
He dropped from the wreckage above, cloak trailing behind him, and landed between the beam and Rin.
There was no hesitation.
Only the soft thud of boots on broken stone.
And a small smile.
"…Guess I don't get my revenge after all," he murmured, facing the burning light.
"…But hey."
"If someone's going to move on…"
His eyes flicked to her—just for a second.
"…Might as well be the one Riya fell for."
The beam hit.
There was no scream.
Just a flash of light, a shockwave that knocked Rin backward, and the scorched, empty air where Robin had stood.
The battlefield still burned.
Ash drifted like snow through the air, and in the fading red haze, Lu Bu stood.
Silence rang out.
The smoke was gone.
So was Robin.
Only fragments of green cloth fluttered to the ground, singed at the edges.
Rin froze.
Her hands trembled.
Then, slowly, she stood.
Her eyes blazed.
Rani raised her hand again, but this time, Rin was faster.
Her magic cracked through the air like lightning, savage and unrelenting.
"You killed him!"
Cú broke from the ruins, bloodied, snarling, and behind him, Lu Bu's bow returning to the form of a spear.
He turned, mechanical and monstrous, to face the last threat.
Cú Chulainn.
The Lancer stood tall in the dust, cloak fluttering, his red eyes blazing with cold, ruthless focus.
The crimson light of his spear—Gáe Bolg—pulsed like a living thing, hungry, inevitable.
No words passed between them.
Only the understanding of warriors.
Lu Bu roared—a final challenge.
And Cú smiled.
It was out of mockery.
It was out of joy.
But it was also something deeper.
Acknowledgement.
Rin pointed toward Lu Bu.
"End him!!!"
He raised his spear.
Magic surged around him, warping the air.
The very ground beneath his feet cracked and lifted from the sheer pressure of the cursed incantation building in his core.
And then—he chanted:
"Your heart is pierced…"
Red lightning arced from the weapon's tip to the sky.
"The target hit as I declare…"
The battlefield froze.
Even the embers in the air seemed to pause, the laws of cause and effect already unraveling.
"GÁE BOLG!!"
The spear moved.
No—not moved.
It vanished and reappeared.
The spear had already struck before the motion finished.
It didn't simply pierce Lu Bu's heart.
It erased the space within him, the cursed path of the attack rewriting reality itself.
Bone and armor detonated from the inside, a red bloom of blood and destruction exploding outward like a blooming death lotus.
Lu Bu took a step back.
Then another.
And then dropped to his knees—silent, defeated.
His body cracked, lines of red energy splitting through him.
He collapsed forward, his weapon falling beside him.
And then there was nothing.
Just silence.
Rani didn't retreat.
She simply watched.
Rani's footing faltered.
Her breath came shallow, her mana reserves spent.
Smoke curled around them in gentle spirals, scorched earth still glowing with embers beneath their feet.
She didn't raise a defense.
Didn't speak right away.
Just stood there, wounded but unmoved, eyes on Rin.
"I think I understand you" Rin said.
Her voice was quieter now, steady in its edge.
"You did what you had to."
"Just like I would have."
Rani blinked.
A twitch of the eye, the only flicker of surprise she allowed.
"We're not good people," Rin went on.
"We never were."
"We're just two women chasing something—clawing for a wish we thought would fix everything."
Rani said nothing.
"But here's the thing," Rin said, taking a step closer, her circuits glowing faintly beneath the grime and blood.
"My wish changed."
"I'm not fighting for pride anymore."
"Not the Tohsaka name."
"Not honor."
She looked up, and for the first time that night, her voice softened.
"I just want to be with him."
Rani's eyes flickered again, just slightly.
"Maybe in another life," Rin said.
"You and I could've been friends."
"Fought side by side."
"Won together."
A pause.
"But not in this one."
Rani gave the faintest nod.
No plea.
No fear.
Just acceptance.
And then—
Cú moved.
With a single motion, he hurled Gáe Bolg forward, the cursed spear tearing through the air in a red blur.
It struck true, piercing Rani's heart cleanly.
She staggered once, arms hanging limp.
No scream.
No collapse.
She simply… ceased.
Rin watched as her body slid to the ground, still and silent.
And for a moment, there was only the wind.
"Now..."
"Riya still has to still face the floor master…"
"I won't let him do that alone."
A few blocks away, Riya stood beside Richard, both facing the looming tower.
The last building.
Julius B. Harwey waited at the steps, calm and still.
Li Shuwen stood beside him like a drawn blade.
Riya narrowed his eyes.
"You ready for this?"
Richard nodded. "Always."
The final fight of the fifth floor loomed.
And they walked toward it in silence.