The sky of Distorted London was a bleeding canvas of red and black, a city twisted into an endless battlefield where ruins floated like driftwood in a poisoned ocean of mana. Buildings folded into themselves, streets writhed like serpents, and the clouds cracked with flashes of sickly green lightning.
Ichigo felt it the moment they crossed the threshold from the scarred wasteland to this new broken world — a pull in his chest, a dissonance in the very air. This wasn't just a dead world. It was a world still actively dying, gasping for breath in the throes of a magical infection.
Julius hovered a few feet off the ground, golden gears spinning slowly behind him to stabilize the air around their group. Goku floated beside him, fists clenched, a steady golden glow returning to his aura — raw, wild, but no longer directionless.
Gojo tilted his head, his blindfold tightening as he scanned the warped skyline. "This place gives me worse vibes than a cursed spirit convention."
"No spirits here," Julius said grimly. "Only regrets given form."
They landed atop the broken remains of Big Ben, the massive clock face shattered into a spiderweb of frozen time. From this vantage point, they could see her clearly.
Saber — or what remained of her — stood at the center of a ruined plaza, her red cloak billowing in the toxic wind. The sword she held pulsed with a rhythm that didn't match any heartbeat known to living creatures. It was Excalibur, yet not Excalibur. Twisted. Reforged in darkness.
The corrupted Holy Grail floated behind her, veins of black and violet mana dripping from its fractured surface. It wasn't simply corrupted — it was starving, and Saber was its chosen herald.
Ichigo drew a slow breath. "She's… wrong. Everything about her."
Julius nodded. "She's been looping through this timeline longer than Goku. But unlike him, she surrendered. She let the corruption define her."
Goku cracked his knuckles. "Then we'll beat it out of her."
"No," Julius said sharply. "This isn't a fight we can win through brute force. We have to anchor her — pull her back to what she was before the corruption took root."
"And if she doesn't want to come back?" Ichigo asked.
"Then we end her suffering."
Gojo flipped a coin in the air. "Heads, we talk. Tails, we fight."
The coin landed on its edge, balancing perfectly atop a shard of broken glass.
"Figures," Gojo muttered.
Saber lifted her head then, sensing their presence. Her eyes glowed an unnatural gold, void of mercy. Yet somewhere deep inside, there was a flicker — a tremor in her stance, a crack in the mask.
She wasn't fully gone.
Not yet.
Ichigo stepped forward first, blades lowered, voice steady. "Artoria Pendragon. King of Knights. Remember who you are."
The name hit her like a hammer. She staggered slightly, the corrupted Excalibur vibrating violently in her grasp.
"You..." she rasped. "You speak of a name... that no longer carries meaning."
"It still does," Ichigo insisted. "You swore to protect your people. To defend the innocent. Not this. Not this nightmare."
Saber's laugh was broken, hollow. "There are no innocents left. Only ruins. Only echoes. I protect the memory of a world that no longer deserves to be remembered."
Goku floated up beside Ichigo, golden ki crackling around him. "That's not protection. That's giving up."
For a heartbeat, Saber's sword dipped.
And then she attacked.
She moved like a crimson meteor, crossing the distance in a blink. Ichigo barely managed to intercept her blade with both of his, the shockwave blasting the remains of the clock tower into dust.
Goku caught the falling debris midair and hurled it aside, while Gojo zipped around the perimeter, laying down invisible barriers to contain the battlefield.
"She's fast," Ichigo grunted, locking swords with Saber again. "Faster than before."
"She's drawing power directly from the corrupted Grail," Julius warned, glyphs spiraling rapidly around him. "She's not bound by mortal limits anymore."
Saber pushed Ichigo back with a surge of corrupted mana and turned, slashing a beam of black light toward Julius. Goku intercepted it, his fist meeting the beam head-on and detonating it in a burst of golden energy.
"She's not going to stop!" Goku shouted. "We have to break the connection!"
Julius nodded. "Buy me time. I'll sever the Grail's anchor."
Gojo zipped up beside Ichigo, hands glowing. "Team distraction it is."
The three of them moved in perfect synchronization. Ichigo engaged Saber directly, his twin blades dancing like flowing rivers against her corrupted strikes. Goku harassed her from the flanks, launching rapid ki blasts designed not to kill, but to disrupt her rhythm. Gojo manipulated the battlefield itself, creating walls of compressed space that deflected Saber's ranged attacks and boxed her into tighter quarters.
It was working.
Slowly, the cracks in Saber's armor grew. Her strikes became wilder, her aura flickering.
And behind her, Julius completed the circle.
Golden gears the size of buildings rose into the sky, forming a cage of chronomantic energy around the Grail. Chains of light lashed out, piercing the corrupted artifact and siphoning its malignant power.
Saber screamed.
The corruption writhed within her, fighting to keep its hold. Images flashed in the air around her — scenes of betrayal, of failure, of despair. Her knights dying one by one. Camelot burning. The endless burden of a crown she never wanted.
Ichigo felt it — her pain, raw and overwhelming.
He sheathed his swords.
Everyone else froze in shock.
"What the hell are you doing?!" Gojo yelled.
Ichigo ignored him. He walked forward, unarmed, eyes locked on Saber's trembling form.
"You weren't meant to carry it alone," he said softly. "You never were."
Saber staggered, her corrupted blade wavering.
"You had Lancelot. Gawain. Mordred. Merlin. They stood with you. They chose you. Not because you were perfect, but because you never stopped trying."
Tears, black as ink, welled in Saber's golden eyes.
"I failed them," she whispered.
"No," Ichigo said. "You lived for them. You fought for them. Even when the world told you to give up, you stood tall. You're not a tyrant. You're a King."
The corrupted Grail shrieked, a sound like nails raking across the bones of reality.
Julius shouted from behind, "Now, Ichigo!"
Ichigo moved without hesitation.
In a flash, he drew his blade — not to strike Saber, but to sever the chain connecting her to the Grail.
The world exploded in light.
The shockwave knocked everyone off their feet. The ground split open, swallowing ruins whole. The sky fractured like a broken mirror.
And when the dust settled—
Saber was kneeling, her sword plunged into the earth before her. Her armor was cracked, her cloak tattered, but her eyes were clear. Truly clear for the first time in what must have been centuries.
"I..." she whispered, voice shaking. "I remember."
[CHRONO ANCHOR 3 OF 7 SECURED]
[SUBJECT: ARTORIA PENDRAGON (X-ZERO) SYNCHRONIZED]
[KING'S GRACE UNLOCKED]
[REALITY CORRUPTION LEVEL: REDUCED]
Goku helped her to her feet. She hesitated at his touch, then smiled weakly — a small, battered smile, but real.
Julius floated down beside them, gears slowly retracting into his back. "Two anchors in place. The ChronoVerse is stabilizing. But there's still a long road ahead."
"Where to next?" Gojo asked, cracking his neck.
Julius's expression darkened. "An inflection point is forming. A realm consumed by war without end. A place where the strongest warrior has already lost everything… and became something far worse than a monster."
Ichigo felt a chill crawl up his spine.
"Name?" he asked.
Julius looked up at the bleeding sky.
"Uchiha Madara."