[Bonus Chapter: 5/8]
However, no matter how much raw strength Illya had gained…
No matter how fast she moved, or how quickly her wounds regenerated…
She was still no match for a servant –Much less this one who was a Counter Guardian.
Archer was not a simple warrior.
He has immense experience honed through death and time.
He was the blade forged by countless battles.
And Illya?
Illya was, in the end, still a girl, not a trained fighter.
Not yet anyways.
The garden was painted in streaks of blood and dirt, its neatly trimmed hedges now charred husks, sliced and scorched.
Archer's swords had been relentless—some had even exploded point-blank on her face.
But she didn't fall.
She didn't even slow down physically.
But mentally…
That was a different matter.
Her breaths were uneven. Her jaw clenched. The manic glint in her eyes was now slightly dulled.
"Why don't you just stop?" Archer asked between clashes, tone calm yet firm. "Drop the barrier. Walk away. You're not a part of this war."
He wasn't pleading. He was stating facts.
And Illya hated that he was right.
She needed to retreat.
But she couldn't.
Not yet.
That fragile ego…
The ever-present need to feel in control.
To win.
That pride swelled up like venom in her throat.
"You talk too much," she muttered, her eyes glowing faintly.
Her arms lit with mana as her circuits flared—a cascade of magical light spiraling down to her hands.
She suddenly lunged forward, clasping her hands around Archer's throat, the aura crackling between her palms like caged thunder.
Mana gathered, dense and hot.
It mimicked the beams of Leo's Devilcraft—unrefined, unstable, but devastating.
"Don't underestimate me!" she screamed.
Then her arms detonated.
A flash. A roar. A shockwave.
The entire garden vanished under the explosion, a ring of fire incinerating everything within fifty meters.
Parts of the mansion were blown to rubble, the air saturated with smoke and mana residue.
The earth itself seemed scorched and cracked, blackened like volcanic rock.
Illya stood amid the destruction, arm reforming slowly, healing with gruesome efficiency.
She looked around.
No Archer in sight.
But she knew better.
He's not dead.
The man was annoyingly hard to kill.
But… the objective was complete.
She turned, stepping over ash and broken tile, and saw the blood trail Rin had left in her retreat.
The magus had gotten away—but the knife still stuck in the ground, filled with her blood.
"Tch… she ran fast."
Illya crouched, plucked the blade from the dirt, and tucked it in her coat.
From her pocket, she pulled out the phone Leo had given her.
She dialed the only number saved.
It rang once.
"Bazett right ?" Illya said flatly, not waiting for a response. "Leo said bring a car to the Tohsaka mansion. Backyard. Now."
She hung up.
The fight wasn't a loss.
But to Illya, who measured everything in personal pride , it felt like one.
Still, she had the blood sample. Leo wouldn't be angry.
He probably wouldn't care how she got it.
That made it a little easier to hide her unnecessary battle.
---
[Location: Russian Airspace – Near a Classified Base]
[Time: About 5 minutes after Leo had "borrowed" and assimilated a dozen Su-57s into the Devilcraft]
ATC Officer (in Russian):
"Unidentified aircraft, you are violating restricted airspace! Identify yourself immediately or you will be fired upon!"
Inside the Devilcraft, Leo leaned back in his seat, flipped a random switch that did nothing, and pressed the radio button with a smirk.
Leo (in an exaggerated, absolutely atrocious Russian accent):
"This is, ah… Comrade -Eagle-69, reporting in! I fly for glorious Motherland, yes? Just... sightseeing! Very cold, yes, very windy. Vodka keep me warm."
There was a pause on the other end.
ATC Officer:
"What is your clearance code? There is no flight plan filed under that call sign."
Leo:
"Clearance code? Ah, da, I left it... in second bottle. Or maybe with third wife. Hard to tell these days. But I am loyal pilot! Flying above base to salute comrades!"
ATC Officer:
"Are you intoxicated?! This is not protocol—!"
Leo (pretending to hiccup):
"I only drink when I fly! Helps me see better. You want bottle too, brother? I send one down—parachute and everything."
Meanwhile, on his screens, Leo was watching in amusement as not a single alert went off about the missing jets he had already integrated into the Devilcraft.
The whole process had been silent, seamless, and hilariously effective.
ATC Officer (gritting teeth):
"Turn around now or we will dispatch interceptors!"
Leo:
"Too late, my friend! I already see the bear! Big bear! With jetpack! Flying through clouds! Is this classified Russian weapon?"
ATC Officer:
"THERE IS NO BEAR WITH JETPACK, IDIOT!"
Leo:
"Ah. Must have been the wind again."
ATC Officer (snapping now):
"Last warning! You will leave military airspace immediately, or we will engage. This is not your private sky!"
Leo (still in his bad Russian accent):
"Alright, alright, no need to get your ushanka in a twist, comrade. I go now. Turning around like good boy. Do svidaniya, glorious eagles of snow."
ATC Officer:
"You are being tracked. Do not deviate from exit path."
Leo (pretending to be shocked):
"Track me? How rude! In my country, we call that flirting."
As the Devilcraft slowly turned—purely for show—Leo tapped a few buttons, sending false readings to all local radar systems.
His jet showed on every screen, showing a perfect, compliant retreat path.
But just before he switched off the comms, Leo added with a sudden, curious tone:
Leo:
"By the way… Before I go, I must say, something is bothering me, tovarisch."
ATC Officer (suspicious):
"What now?"
Leo (tone mock-concerned):
"The Motherland's pride, yes? The Su-57. Where did they go? I fly over base… not single one in sight. Hangars look empty. As if… someone stole them."
ATC Officer (sputtering):
"WHAT?! What are you talking about?!"
Leo:
"Yes, yes. Very sad. I weep in cockpit for loss of Russian air superiority. Maybe you check, da? Maybe vodka bear took them."
ATC Officer (panicking now):
"Control! Scramble inspection teams! Repeat, scramble! Check hangars four through seven—NOW!"
Leo (cutting comms with a devilish grin):
"Glory to the skies, comrade. I hope you find your planes."
He leaned back, popping open a small bottle and drinking the vodka he just stole too.
---
Leo stood at the edge of the Devilcraft's extended mana platform, an obsidian-black drone resting in his palm.
Its sleek wings moved gently, a quiet sound of machinery.
He was just about to launch it toward the coordinates—the place where the Spider lived—when a voice interrupted.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you."
Leo stopped mid-gesture.
The voice wasn't menacing.
If anything, it was irritatingly casual.
He turned slowly, and the moment his eyes fell on the figure behind him, his entire face twisted in visible disgust—like he'd just caught a whiff of hell's worst garbage fire.
There, standing with a pleased smirk and far too much dramatic cloak flair for someone uninvited, was Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg.
The Kaleidoscope.
The troll vampire who always had an eternal supply of unwanted interventions.
"Oh my god," Leo muttered, barely restraining a groan.
"You don't look thrilled to see me," Zelretch said, brushing invisible dust from his shoulder. "I just saved you from marching straight into a bad timeline."
"You are in this timeline," Leo said flatly. "It's already as bad as it gets."
Zelretch chuckled. "Fair. But I'm not that bad."
"You're the reason the word 'irritation' needed an upgrade."
Zelretch put a hand over his chest in mock offense. "You wound me, dear Devil. Here I am, kindly stopping you from poking a multiversal arachnid horror with a stick—"
"It's a drone," Leo said, lifting it slightly. "Not a stick."
"Details." Zelretch waved him off. "The point is, I know the future and I think you know too don't risk this world for that miniscule chances of a success."
"How do you know I can see the future?" Leo asked, narrowing his eyes.
"Well," Zelretch began, casually inspecting a floating mana-thread like it was lint, "you're not the first Leo I've met. You're actually the third."
Leo blinked. "The third?"
"Yep. The first two were a real pain in the ass." Zelretch chuckled fondly like he was recalling a pair of delinquent grandchildren. "Can you believe one of them took Tiamat from Gaia? And the other took Venus."
Leo's mouth hung open for a moment.
"…Get out of my face."
"I'm serious," Zelretch said, eyes twinkling.
Leo pinched the bridge of his nose. "You know I don't believe any of that, right?"
"Oh I know," Zelretch said, with maddening confidence. "But that doesn't make it any less true."
"You're not fooling me," Leo said. His voice was colder now, certain. "I'm a singularity. There are no versions of me created due to timelines. There is only one 'me.'"
"Well," Zelretch said, holding up three fingers, "there is only one 'you.' But there are three Leos I know. And no, they're not timeline copies. They're... divergences. Outliers. Exceptions."
Leo looked away, muttering, "I hate this. I hate this guy so much."
"I know," Zelretch said cheerfully. "But hey, you're my favorite."
"Go die."
"I already did," Zelretch replied with a wink. "Didn't stick."
"Then keep dying..."
Zelretch turned to go away but stopped.
"I'll comment on something before I go," he said. "Why are you so weak?"
Leo didn't react for a second.
"…What?"
"You're weaker than the other Leos by a large margin," Zelretch repeated. "It's like you're intentionally holding yourself back. Sabotaging yourself. Putting limits where there don't need to be any."
Leo frowned. "You're seriously giving me a power-level lecture?"
Zelretch ignored the sarcasm. "I could say you're the most human among them."
There was a moment of silence between them.
"Considering one made a deal with an Outer God just to regain his emotions," Zelretch continued, "and the other one? He went so far into logic and control, he became a mechanical existence. A digital planet. He made himself its Type, its will, its system—then spent millennia micromanaging his internal sub-systems to such a degree that his sense of self blurred beyond recognition."
Leo's expression didn't change, but Zelretch could tell he was listening.
Leo folded his arms. "…So what's your point?"
Zelretch gave a half-smile. "You're the only Leo I've met who still feels like a person. That's rare. Maybe that's why you haven't exploded into a concept yet."
He turned back toward the edge of the platform.
"But it also means you will lose it , eventually—unless you start taking yourself seriously."
There was a long pause.
"You're afraid," Zelretch said over his shoulder. "Not of death, but of becoming something you can't understand... That's the real reason you're weak."
Leo didn't respond.
Zelretch smiled, the light already beginning to warp around him again.
"Just some old vampire notice," he said. "Do with it what you will."
Then he was gone.
Leo stood there for a while, unmoving, until finally he let out a slow breath and muttered,
"…I really hate that guy."
But he did take his advice packing up and leaving.
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