“No, that’s not what we—”
Kal’tsit started to explain on reflex — she didn’t want Babel, already under so much pressure, to end up on bad terms with yet another powerhouse before they’d even figured out where he stood.
But the moment she met Leon’s eyes, she understood.
That was exactly it — whether out of concern for the girl’s safety, their own suspicion of him, or their wariness of the Military Commission.
The end result was the same either way — they wanted to know Leon’s actual strength, for real.
Kal’tsit felt a flush of embarrassment she hadn’t experienced in a long time, as if that calm, level gaze had seen straight through her.
Guess that’s what you’d expect from someone who might be a relic of the Predecessors, huh?
Not just powerful, but sharp with it too…
It was Theresa who picked up where Kal’tsit’s words had trailed off.
The Demon King folded her hands in front of her stomach and admitted, plainly:
“You’re not wrong.
I apologize for the poor showing — until we witness it with our own eyes, we simply can’t help ourselves from doubting.”
But privately, she was deeply confused.
As improper as it was, she still couldn’t resist reaching out with her Demon King’s Art to touch Leon.
Except the usual flood of information she was used to reading felt like it had been filtered through something else entirely, when it came to him.
Only the barest trickle of information leaked through — less, even, than what she could pick up just from reading his expression.
And once he shifted into a combat-ready stance, even that trickle vanished completely.
The tendrils of her empathic sense felt like they’d run into a slab of pure, inert steel.
Then, right as the standoff grew more and more tense, that slab of steel spoke.
He’d heard Cartus quietly apologizing, and scooped her up, settling her onto his shoulder.
“There’s one thing I need to make clear — you all hurt little Amiya’s feelings.”
He drifted forward, and as the crowd parted around him, set Amiya down next to the Doctor.
“I completely understand your concerns, but you should’ve explained your reasoning to her honestly, instead of treating her like some foolish child holding a dangerous weapon.
Otherwise, a decision a bunch of grown adults made quietly among yourselves ends up making the kid blame herself for not asking more questions before bringing me in — that’s a little underhanded.”
He tapped a finger near Amiya’s slightly damp eyes:
“Perfect timing, actually — you did say you wanted to be able to fight alongside everyone else someday, right?
Might as well start learning now.”
With that, he drifted lightly back to the center of the training ground.
“Enough talk.
Come at me.”
Reading the dismissiveness in his posture, he lit the fighting spirit of every participant present.
Scout, Ace, Pith, Mantra, Logos, and Ascalon — mustering her courage for a second try — all stepped forward.
Roughly speaking, this was already a lineup capable of taking down the Royal Court, even Theresis himself.
Facing Leon, who stood with his hands clasped behind his back, they struck in perfect, unspoken unison.
“Listen up, little Amiya — if you ever actually walk the path of a fighter, remember this: a group beatdown is the most dangerous thing there is.”
Leon opened up the group’s private voice channel.
“Countless arrogant powerhouses have died right here — they always assume individual strength can outmatch a numbers advantage.
In the end, two fists can’t outmatch four hands.
No way to guard against everything.”
Bam!
With an impossible sideways glide, he slipped past Ace’s attack, along with Ascalon’s follow-up strike under his cover.
Pith and Logos’s combined, chanted Originium Arts, woven together and unleashed at once, got dispersed with a single wave of his hand.
“See?
Without a way to respond, you get stuck on the back foot, and it gets ugly fast.”
Ugly how?
Amiya and the nearby operators all asked at once, in unison.
But nobody there was a pushover.
Realizing a straightforward assault wasn’t working, they switched up their approach.
They’d clearly rehearsed dealing with high-strength targets like this countless times before, given they had actual Royal Court members to worry about.
Ace raised his shield to hem in Leon’s movement, Scout fired a special disruptive round, and Ascalon materialized to fill the gap left behind.
Pith and Logos, the two Arts masters, swapped up the order of their techniques and incantations.
Under a faint shimmer of light, a mind-weakening Art took hold on Leon.
The finishing blow came from Mantra.
A swaying serpent tail, a carefully constructed rhythm, teasing at Leon’s emotions, trying to stir up whatever pain and fear lay buried inside him.
The impact of that kind of assault was strong enough, presumably, to freeze even a Royal Court lord for a few seconds.
Everyone present had the eye for reading a fight.
If there was any chance left to turn the tide, this had to be it —
Except, at least for that one instant, Mantra felt her own will simply vanish, like a clay ox sinking into the sea.
And in the very next instant, hundreds of millions of voices screamed at her all at once.
Pain, despair, grief — an ocean’s worth of emotion from countless souls surged in and drowned Mantra’s consciousness instantly.
At the same time, watching from the sidelines, Theresa’s Black Crown flared up despite herself, an endless tide of crimson and black surging skyward across her vision.
But that image lasted only a moment.
In a fraction of a second, Leon, expression utterly unbothered, had already flickered behind the Phidian woman.
A light tap with his hand-blade knocked her out, physically.
Off to the side, Ace was staring blankly at his own shield, now twisted into the shape of a taco.
Ascalon, sent tumbling through the air, forgot entirely to adjust her center of gravity and landed flat on the ground.
“Very nicely executed decision-making — no wonder you’re all Babel’s elite.
Just, maybe don’t use that one again, it’s a bit of a waste of people.”
Seeing that the group had lost their will to keep fighting, he decided the test had passed.
Going through a token gesture or two, he drifted over to Amiya to wrap things up.
“So, take group fights seriously — always prioritize taking out the highest-threat unit first.
Like just now — that mind-based Originium Art they used was genuinely dangerous.”
“Was it really that dangerous?
Leon, I don’t think I really saw—”
“It was.
It really was.”
Everyone staring right at him was making it a little hard, honestly, and Leon took half a step back:
“At the very least, the thought process was correct.”
He ruffled the little bunny’s hair and scooped her back up.
At the same time, he turned to Theresa, Kal’tsit, and the Doctor, still not quite recovered:
“Alright then, no time to waste — shall we get going?
Anyone care to come along?”
“Are you sure that’s alright?” You are reading on g.com, the official source.
Theresa was the first to step forward.
The Demon King’s pale pink eyes took in Leon’s face — one that rarely changed expression — and were filled with a boundless, sorrowful compassion.
Through her Black Crown, she’d once listened to the wailing of the myriad souls, and witnessed that dazzling, tragic tide of spirits firsthand.
But an ocean many times vaster than that, contained within a single person — how was that even possible.
Even catching just a glimpse of the edge of it left her more than a little shaken.
“Of course it’s fine.
That car’s got plenty of room, if I remember right — should fit all of you without any trouble.”
A total non-sequitur of an answer.
Theresa pursed her lips.
And from within the crowd, Lucille protested, indignant:
“Your Highness!
That’s my brand new car!
Those animals over at the Commission don’t know how to handle things gently — what if they wreck it?!”
“In that case, I imagine Mr.
Leon will help you get an even better one back.”
The Demon King smiled and gave Leon’s sleeve a little tug beside her.
What was that supposed to mean?
A bit puzzled, Leon went along with it anyway, following her up to the top deck.
There was a large cargo lift up there, big enough to carry vehicles.
Finally, under Lucille’s bloodshot glare, he hoisted the car up.
Once aboard, Theresa and the other two seemed rather thrilled, while Kal’tsit alone looked like a cat stuck up a tree.
Leon, meanwhile, gazed off into the distance, toward Kazdel.
Theresis was out there.
Word was, he was the strongest swordsman among the Sarkaz — possibly ranking near the top across all of Terra.
Honestly, he was a little looking forward to it.
(A crossover joke post from a fellow group member, transcribed here for completeness — heavy meta-humor referencing unrelated franchises, translated but flagged in the notes below as clearly non-canonical filler content.)
“Why is it that whenever I get bound to a system, it’s either Cat Guest’s Hex System or a chat group?
Can’t I get one of those quick, cheap, efficient cheats where I don’t even have to eat beef?”
Well, fine, the Hex System handed me a three-color fruit platter shaped like my own harp — let me see who’s actually in this group first.
The T0 information-broker-tier “Village Return” Orochimaru!
Defected, then came crawling back to apologize to Hiruzen Sarutobi in person, eventually becoming the Fifth Hokage — Uncle Snake, making his grand entrance!
The legendary Great Sword Sage, Azure-Blue Star.
During a group livestream, her red-blade dragon-ascension attack got interrupted by a monster’s charge — so, thoroughly humiliated, she threw down her greatsword and beat the female Rathalos to its knees with her bare fists instead, dragging it home to make it her OOO!
The Cult Leader from a Five-Fold History.
Starting from zero, about to pass through the Gate of Three Points within five years — opens the show by plunging an entire city into midwinter, an absolute riddle-wrapped ultimate!
Crashing into Snowfield: Kiritsugu Emiya.
What’s he even planning?
Is he seriously going to speedrun all thirteen Masters in one night using Time Alter and back-to-back Origin Bullets?
Last one — how the hell is the BYD a Kartia Tower, feels worse than the Traveler…
sleep quality, I mean.
Whatever, forget it — I’m the streamer here, watch my moves!
…
Years later, standing on a street in Snowfield, Lancer Mai Rou would look back and remember that distant afternoon Kiritsugu Emiya took him to go watch some flashy little punk get elbow-dropped into powerlessness.