Chapter 225
"That woman... smells delicious."
A barely audible whisper drifted from an extremely well-hidden corner of the night.
"Hehe. I bet her heart tastes wonderful."
The voice belonged to a little girl—clear, sweet, and innocent.
The words themselves, however, were soaked in enough bloodlust to give any ordinary person nightmares.
The speaker was Jack the Ripper.
Several days earlier, after being summoned into the Assassin Class, Jack had followed the Grail’s call and arrived in Sighișoara.
Her current Master, Rika Rikudou, was an ordinary human incapable of supplying her with sufficient magical energy.
More importantly, Jack possessed an instinctive urge to kill and devour.
And so, throughout this historic city, she had begun hunting.
Under normal circumstances, she should have been able to continue rampaging for several more days.
Unfortunately for Jack, a certain walking spoiler had given Jeanne advance warning.
Not that Jack minded.
She had already grown somewhat bored of eating ordinary humans and mediocre magi.
Now there was a high-level Servant right in front of her.
She could hardly wait to try something new.
...
The instant those malicious eyes locked onto her, warning bells erupted in Jeanne’s mind.
An inexplicable chill climbed from the base of her spine all the way to her scalp.
But remembering Kiriya’s warning—and knowing how cautious and cunning Jack the Ripper could be—Jeanne forcibly suppressed her reaction.
Her face retained the innocent curiosity of an ordinary student.
She merely glanced around as though she had sensed nothing unusual, then continued wandering through the streets.
Jeanne knew Jack could recognize her as a Servant.
But given Assassin’s murderous nature, even the possibility of danger would not necessarily drive her away.
If anything, the prospect of hunting another Servant would only make the prey more exciting.
Jeanne simply needed to avoid revealing too much of her strength before Jack came close enough to escape.
"Oh?"
From the darkness came the delighted voice of a child who had just discovered a fascinating new toy.
"She noticed something."
A soft giggle followed.
"I wonder what kind of face she’ll make when my knife goes into her chest and I pull out her heart."
Hidden within the shadows, Jack activated her Noble Phantasm and began stalking Jeanne.
...
Jack was supremely confident.
Her Presence Concealment ranked at A+, and when combined with the advantages granted by The Mist, approaching an unsuspecting target should have been effortless.
Jeanne felt equally confident.
As Ruler, she possessed exceptional detection abilities, and Jack’s movements were already visible to her.
Assassin believed herself hidden in darkness.
In reality, Jeanne was watching every step she took.
Both of them reached the same conclusion.
’This is going perfectly.’
"Hm?"
Jeanne had been preparing to wait until Jack approached and then counterattack without warning when wisps of white mist appeared around her.
At first, the fog was thin.
Within moments, however, it thickened into a dense white blanket that completely obscured the street.
Her vision was not the only thing affected.
Jeanne’s perception range contracted sharply, suppressed by the strange fog surrounding her.
’Assassin of Black’s Noble Phantasm?’
She immediately understood and began watching her surroundings more carefully.
"Hehehe... Big Sister."
Jack’s childish voice came from directly ahead.
"You don’t have to pretend anymore."
"You’re a Servant, aren’t you?"
Jeanne instinctively focused her attention forward.
At that exact moment—Jack’s small figure appeared behind her and a knife flashed toward Jeanne’s slender neck.
CLANG!
Metal struck metal.
A tremendous force hurled Jack backward.
She twisted nimbly in midair and landed on her feet before looking at Jeanne with genuine admiration.
"You noticed at the very last second?"
Jack smiled.
"You’re really good, Big Sister."
She looked at the banner in Jeanne’s hands.
"With that kind of weapon... Lancer?"
"Remarkable assassination technique."
Jeanne drew a slow breath to steady herself.
"If Revelation hadn’t warned me, that attack might actually have worked."
She fixed her gaze on Jack.
"Assassin."
"You have slaughtered civilians indiscriminately, disrupted the order of the outside world, and endangered the continued operation of this Holy Grail War."
Jeanne raised her flag.
"In the name of Ruler, I will remove you."
"Ohhh."
Jack tilted her head.
"So you’re Ruler."
Her expression brightened with understanding.
"No wonder you’re so strong."
"You’re completely fine even inside our mist."
"I’m afraid my Magic Resistance is somewhat high."
Jeanne surged forward with her battle standard.
"But, Big Sister..."
Jack drew a short blade in each hand and met her charge.
"If you want to get rid of us, you’ll have to do better than that."
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Within moments, the two had exchanged dozens of blows.
Jeanne soon discovered, to her surprise, that she could not easily defeat Assassin.
Jack’s Agility was exceptionally high, reaching Rank A, and her movements were extraordinarily nimble.
Every reaction in battle was clever and precise.
That alone would have been manageable.
The real problem was the mist.
The dense fog carried a strange suppressive and corrosive effect that reduced Jeanne’s Agility by an entire rank.
Under those conditions, pinning down an Assassin as fast as Jack became extremely difficult.
Jeanne forced several openings, but each time she managed only to wound her rather than land a decisive strike.
"Mmm..."
Jack held her injured arm and puffed out her cheeks.
"You won’t just behave and let Jack take your heart."
"You’re being naughty, Big Sister."
On an ordinary child, the expression might have been adorable enough to make someone want to scoop her into a hug.
Coming from Jack, it inspired nothing but a suffocating sense of horror.
Jeanne’s expression sharpened.
Assassin was about to become serious.
"Night."
Jack lifted one finger.
"Fog."
Then she pointed toward Jeanne, her smile blooming brightly.
"And a woman."
"All the conditions are satisfied."
"What do you mean?"
Jeanne frowned.
Maria the Ripper was the D-rank Noble Phantasm possessed by the Heroic Spirit known as Jack the Ripper.
Its maximum number of targets was one.
Its origin was tragically fitting.
In the impoverished districts of nineteenth-century London, countless unborn children and abandoned infants had died before ever being given the chance to live.
Their resentment, grief, anger, and hatred accumulated into a legend.
That legend eventually became the Noble Phantasm known as Maria the Ripper.
Normally, it manifested through four D-rank knives.
But when three conditions were simultaneously fulfilled—
The target was female.
It was nighttime.
And the battlefield was covered in mist—The Noble Phantasm’s true effect could activate.
It would curse the target directly, tearing open the abdomen and dragging the internal organs outside the body.
The knives were merely symbols.
The actual attack was a curse and could be activated from as far as ten meters away.
Jack smiled with childlike delight.
"Then let us see what color your insides are, Big Sister."
"I’m sure they’ll be very pretty."
She released the Noble Phantasm’s True Name.
"Maria the Ripper."
Jack waited eagerly.
She wanted to see Jeanne’s body split open and her organs spill onto the street.
And then—
One second passed.
Five seconds.
Ten.
Nothing happened.
A night breeze drifted through the empty street, carrying several scraps of paper across the pavement.
The silence became painfully awkward.
"W-Why didn’t anything happen?!"
Jack’s expression finally broke.
"Looks like your Noble Phantasm doesn’t work on me."
Jeanne smiled faintly.
She was not particularly surprised.
Her unwavering faith, combined with Ruler’s exceptional Class protections, granted Jeanne extraordinarily powerful Magic Resistance—EX rank.
Maria the Ripper might possess an unusual and dangerous effect, but it was ultimately only a D-rank Noble Phantasm.
Against Jeanne’s resistance, the curse simply failed.
"I see."
Jack recovered remarkably quickly.
"You really are troublesome, Big Sister."
For all her twisted personality, Jack was still a legendary murderer.
And when survival mattered, she could be frighteningly rational.
If Jeanne could not be killed, then continuing the battle would accomplish nothing except accumulating injuries.
Better to retreat.
She could always kill a few people later and replenish herself.
"Well then."
Jack smiled innocently, like a child saying goodbye before going home for dinner.
"That’s enough for tonight."
"Goodbye, pretty Big Sister."
Her small figure quickly disappeared into the dense fog.
"Wait!"
Jeanne exploded forward at maximum speed, determined to stop her by force.
But by the time she reached the spot, there was nothing before her except endless white mist.
Her perception had been suppressed to its lowest point inside the fog, and even her sense of direction had become unreliable.
She changed course several times, trying to escape the affected area, but repeatedly found herself wandering through the same suffocating haze.
A minute later, the mist finally dispersed.
Jack was nowhere to be seen.
"So she escaped."
Jeanne’s eyes narrowed.
"But it won’t help."
"I’ve already locked onto your presence."
A faint red light flashed through her eyes.
Within her perception, a single point was moving rapidly into the distance.
At its current speed, Jack would escape Jeanne’s sensory range within another minute.
If that happened, finding her again would become much more difficult.
’For the lives of the people here...’
’And to preserve the order of this Holy Grail War...’
Jeanne’s expression hardened.
’Assassin of Black, I won’t allow you to escape.’
She launched herself forward.
Leaping from rooftop to rooftop, Jeanne raced through Sighișoara after the fleeing Assassin.
And just like that, a high-speed pursuit between two Servants began.
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