<h4>Chapter 1379 - Great Divide</h4>
At the location designated as C-17 in Chaldea’s archives, ackadaisical looking man with shaggy brown hair, a child-like girl with pure white hair, and a buxom woman wearing a stylish kimono all appeared on a metallic tform in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Simr to the child-like girl, the woman in the kimono had pale hair but, instead of being white, it had undertones ofvender.
Next to the peculiar trio, five cylindrical containers, each roughly the size of coffins, were arranged neatly in a row. They were each marked with serial codes and numerical designations ranging from 001 to 005 and, even while sealed, a powerful aura radiated out from each of them. As a result, the clear skies overhead began to darken and, a stark contrast to their former calm, the sea began to roll with violent waves in a very short period of time.
Taking in her surroundings, the kimono-d woman lightly hummed before musing, "So, this is the past, eh? It doesn’t seem like the dystopic ce you imed it to be. You realize I won’t hesitate to cut you down if you lied to me, right?"
Hearing the buxom woman’s question, the shaggy-haired man snorted before making a gesture as if to push up sses. Finding the ridge of his nose barren, he settled on pinching it whilezily stating, "This is the furthest point we can jump back. Tracing back all future timelines brings us to this point, like a reverse Quantum-Lock. We need to find the source of the singrity and destroy it. The future of all words depends on our sess..."
Without minding the shaggy-haired man’s exnation, the woman wearing the kimono turned her attention to a point in space, her peculiar eyes flickering with a myriad of blues, pinks, and light greens. Then, faster than anyone present could perceive, one of the four swords tied to her obi had already been unsheathed. At the exact same moment, seemingly without any time passing at all, a small spherical probe fell from the sky, bisected cleanly in two despite having been several hundred meters away.
Seeing the probe fall, the shaggy-haired man snorted once again before asking, "Still think this world is normal? The technology of this era shouldn’t be able to detect us at all. This proves my conjecture. Something, or someone, created a singrity within the past. If we don’t remove the cause, all future timeline will cease to exist. Trillions of potential lives, infinite possibilities, will be lost..."
Instead of agreeing with the man outright, the kimono-wearing woman just lightly hummed as she looked around the area. Then, with another sh of her sword, another probe, this one emerging at a distance of several kilometers, was cut down. The fact their enemies had the ability to send out a series of invisible probes, each seemingly capable of teleporting short distances, was a cause for concern. It wouldn’t take long for them to be swarmed and, while she was supremely confident in her abilities, protecting others had never been her forte.
Deciding it was best to change locations, she sheathed her sword before picking up the white-haired girl and saying, "We need to move. I feel something...dangerous. If we stick around here for too long, don’t me me if your ns fail before they can even take off."
Shaking his head in response to the woman’s words, the man pulled out an egg-shaped device and, after pressing a series of runes, a spherical barrier surrounded the tform before it vanished into thin air. Momentster, a purple-d figure emerged from the void, two scarlet spears at the ready as her equally red eyes scanned the area.
Sensing her enemies had faded, seemingly without a trace, Scáthach couldn’t help but furrow her brows. For a brief moment, she had sensed a phenomenally powerful opponent, one that stirred her dormant fighting spirit. Though the Chaldea Security Forces were well on their way, she preempted their arrival after using her irvoyance to determine all but one of them would have died. She knew Vahn wanted to avoid casualties as much as possible so, in order to prevent him from brooding, she decided to change the future by interfering in the present.
After failing to find any traces of their enemies, Scáthach squinted her eyes slightly before turning her back and preparing to teleport away. It was at this exact moment that a ripple, so subtle as to be non-existent, appeared from the void. This caused Scáthach’s eyes to widen and, despite her best efforts to evade the invisible wavepletely, it ended up passing through her left arm faster than even her perception could follow. At the same time, a deep crevasse appeared in the sea, seemingly cutting through the entire ocean and bisecting it in two.
Though the pain of losing an arm didn’t influence her at all, Scáthach clenched her teeth as a pale-gold spear appeared in her right hand. Then, with a form beyond perfection, she threw the spear, seemingly toward nothing while shouting, "Gungnir!!" in a venomous tone. In response to her cry, the spear shed with a brilliant golden light before vanishing into thin air, a ck void left in its wake...
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In a non-existent location within Imaginary Number Space, the kimono-d woman, despite the protests of the shaggy-haired man, stood with two ornate katanas drawn. She had created a link between a future timeline and the present, attacking from the future to strike at the dangerous opponent she had sensed pursuing them. Her eyes allowed her to actualize the sess of any strike, irrespective of the time and ce it took ce. Simply by knowing when and where an opponent would be, she could strike their expected location before they reached it; leaving a lethal attack waiting for them while she was nowhere, and nowhen, to be seen.
Despite this sure-kill move, her instincts told her that the enemy pursuing them wasn’t the type to be taken down so easily. Thus, despite the fact attacks shouldn’t be able to reach them within their non-existent location, she didn’t drop her guard. This ended up being the correct choice as, around two hours after her attack, a brilliant sh of light illuminated the Imaginary Number Space. At the same time, a spearrger than a mountain appeared, its tip barreling towards their location at near-lightspeed.
Though the golden spear seemedpletely unstoppable, the kimono-d woman, with a casual smile on her face, shifted her stance ever-so-slightly. Her feet traced a gentle crescent, seemingly moving in slow motion despite the fact the movement waspleted before the spear reached the tform she was standing on. By the time it actually reached her, the spear’s forward momentum had beenpletely arrested, stopping mid-motion as two distinct lines ran through its length.
With an approving nod, the woman brandished her swords before slowly sheathing them and musing, "I can’t wait to see what else you’re capable of. Unfortunately, you’ll have to do better than this if you want to trade blows with me~."
Following her musings, the womanpleted sheathing her swords, causing a slick ’chnk’ sound as the metal ovepped. Immediately following this sound, the massive golden spear exploded into a shower of magical fragments before dissolving into the Imaginary Number Space, its form shattered to the point of non-existence...
Seeing the shower of golden light, the white-haired girl issued a monotonous ’ooooh~’ while the shaggy-haired man, without even bothering to watch the exchange, continued working on the five containers. His power was several orders of magnitude lower than his sword-wieldingpanion so, if she couldn’t stop their enemies, there wasn’t much sense in mustering his own defenses. He would rather focus on important tasks than bother with matters outside his ability to influence.
With this in mind, the man interfaced his device with the 001 container, inputting a runic-based code to overwrite the failsafes keeping the entity inside sealed away. This process took nearly five hours toplete but, from the perspective of the outside world, little to no time had passed. Then, with one final input, the previously mirror-like surface of the cylinder developed a crease along its side before abruptly opening amidst a cloud of icy cold vapor.
Following the unsealing of the container, the aura emanating from inside increased exponentially for a brief moment before ultimately vanishing entirely a momentter. Then, from within the hazy mist, a delicate white hand emerged, grasping awkwardly at the air. This caused the shaggy-haired man to furrow his brow in annoyance but, deciding to keep his thoughts to himself, he grasped the hand to help the person within extricate themselves.
From within the sealed container, a young woman with cream-colored hair and vibrant amber eyes emerged. She was attired in a ck formfitting bodysuit that looked like something out of a science-fiction movie while, near the bottom of the container, several pieces of equipment and armor were neatly arranged and waiting to be worn. Instead of focusing them, however, the woman looked into the shaggy-haired man’s eyes, stating in a dull monotone, "Food..."
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Sensing the connection to her projected [Gungnir] being severed, Scáthach’s eyes turned cold. She then ced a rune on her arm to prevent it from bleeding out before sending a telepathic message to Vahn, exining the situation. Though she would have preferred to deal with things behind the scenes, this wasn’t an enemy they could afford to keep hidden from Vahn. Rather, everyone would need to be prepared as the attack which had bisected the sea was something only a handful of them would be able to deal with...
Considering who had been injured, Vahn issued an emergency summons of his war council, picked the children up from school, and retrieved Olga and Semiramis from their usual habitats. There was no way of knowing when and where their enemy would next appear as their ability to move through Imaginary Number Space meant they could, quite literally, appear anywhere.
Since most of the operations of Chaldeas could be managed without being on-site so, Vahn felt better having the two close until they discovered the purpose of this unknown group of enemies. After all, someone that could cut off Scáthach’s arm, despite her being virtually immune to damage, couldn’t be looked down on. If not for the fact she was still a Heroic Spirit, there was a good chance the limb wouldn’t have regrown due to the lingering ’sword energy’ that prevented even time-based healing spells...
Fortunately, there were only so many people in all of recorded history who could meet the standards of performing such an attack so it didn’t take long for them toe up with a list of suspects. Then, with thebined efforts of Sherlock, Merlin, and Scáthach herself, they narrowed the field down to one of three people, the most likely being Miyamoto Musashi. The technique used against Scáthach carried a distinctly ’eastern’ feel to it so, if it wasn’t Musashi, the only otherparable swordsmen were Suzuka Gozen and, somewhat awkwardly, the original Okita Souji.
Regardless of who the attacker was, there were a few things they could be certain of. First, someone had been able to ess the Throne of Heroes and, based on the Temporal Anomaly detected by the SHEBAwork, it was all but guaranteed they were from the future. This was troublesome in various ways as, despite knowing of the existence of time travel, Vahn hadn’t ounted for the fact that he would have to face attacks from the future.
Though they wouldn’t be able to travel further back than his current present, the fact any number of people from the future could interfere with his ns was an extremely troublesome matter. After all, this meant, if his enemies were capable, they could summon Heroic Spirits, send them back into the past, and then repeat the process. Even if it took them several years to summon each Heroic Spirit, it only took sending them to the same point in the past for them all to converge together. It was an extremely vexing realization as, with everything else that was going on, thest thing Vahn needed was an assault from time-traveling Heroic Spirits...
(A/N: Alternate Titles: ’A strong enemy appears!?’,’Outside of time, space, and even existence...’,’Vahn and Thanos would have a lot to talk about’)
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