Aozaki Aoko Case File

Hundreds of fairies in Edinburgh rebelled.

Not too many, not too few; after a brief skirmish with Cnoc na Riabh's soldiers, they broke out of Edinburgh under the command of someone quite skilled.

Fujimaru Ritsuka, Da Vinci-chan, and Fairy King Oberon led these fairies to rendezvous with other resistance fighters waiting outside the city, led by their longtime supporter, Redra Bbit.

"My contacts in Manchester are ready," Oberon said seriously. "We have enough manpower from Edinburgh. Once the Fang Clan fairies launch an internal rebellion, we'll coordinate from the outside and sweep away the Queen's troops guarding Manchester, along with their leader—Barghest!"

But Oberon's true aim was to generate more fairy deaths, increasing the density of curses and, by extension, his power, to advance the Great Calamity. The so-called Great Calamity is the fairy Britain's terminal wail that appears every thousand years. It floods the island with magical power, killing all living things until it stops.

It's like the pus that gathers in a boil, and when the pressure is too high, it bursts free and runs rampant. For Britain, the land's ley lines are the blood vessels, and any connected natural node is a rupture point.

Norwich's unexpected destruction had given Oberon, as Britain's apocalypse device, a massive boost in power. But for an extinction-minded bug, one city's fairies weren't enough, so he set his sights on Manchester, guarded by the Beast of Calamity, Barghest.

He wanted to force Barghest to reveal her true calamity form, causing mass death, curses, and despair, to trigger the final Great Calamity and bring Cernunnos's corpse back to the surface.

The earth's tainted blood would gather in the god's corpse and destroy Britain's last sinful life.

Only then could Oberon = Vortigern reach his peak, open the Abyss, and pull the whole planet in—granting all beings, fairy or human, an equal end, fulfilling his self-destructive wish.

…

"…Huff… huff…" In Manchester, near the city lord's manor, the fairy knight Gawain—Barghest—was locked in bitter combat. "You…! You're all Fang Clan kin—how dare you betray me, the Queen?!"

Dozens of high-ranking fairy corpses lay twisted and gruesome before Barghest, slain by her sword or torn apart by the black dogs she summoned.

"Who's kin with a monster like you?!" a Faing Clan fairy roared. "Your act disgusts me! I've hated you for ages—a fairy-eating monster pretending to be a knight?!"

"Yeah! Makes me laugh!" another sneered. "She's exhausted—if we attack together, we can kill her! Don't forget, we have people outside the city!"

Since Norwich's destruction, Barghest's condition had deteriorated. She'd lasted this long thanks to Aoko's Fifth Magic, but as the fairy deaths mounted, the tainted blood inside her eroded her sanity.

"Enough talk!" a fairy spat. "Attack! Kill her!"

Barghest gritted her teeth. Her usual ability to recover in battle now felt strange—each fairy she killed made her mind more muddled.

"…Unbelievable," Barghest mocked herself. "I never thought I'd feel exhausted in a fight like this…"

"Ahh… my body's so hot…" Her chains yanked an unlucky Fang Clan fairy close, and she tore off his head with her bare hands. Blood soaked her armor and ran to the ground. "…My horn feels like it's about to crack…!"

"Aaaaaahhh!"

With Barghest's mad roar, her colossal magical power burst forth, scattering the attacking Fang Clan fairies. Dozens of black dogs surged from her shadow, rushing at the rebels.

"Damn it! Let go, you monster!" Fairies bitten by the black dogs tried to beat them off, but the cursed hounds never let go, easily tearing chunks of flesh from their victims.

Explosions sounded outside Manchester—the signal for Chaldea's resistance to assault the city. The battered Fang Clan fairies gritted their teeth and pressed on with their shaky siege.

But fairies are like this: when chaos hits, they quickly descend into moral collapse. The last humans in Manchester were looted in the confusion, with even scenes of two fairies ripping apart a single human, ending up with one half each.

The fairies fought each other; what happened in Norwich was now repeating in Manchester.

The cries of fairies and humans filled every street. When Fujimaru Ritsuka, Oberon, and Da Vinci-chan rushed into Manchester, they were stunned by the scene.

"H-How could this happen?" Fujimaru said. "Weren't the Fang Clan fairies united to overthrow Barghest? Why are they fighting each other…?"

"Probably over who gets the remaining humans," Oberon said gravely. "Morgan monopolized most of the humans in Britain. She banned fairies from creating more, and the few left were managed by fairy knights like Barghest."

While they reeled from the carnage, a nearby building was suddenly smashed by fairy corpses. Barghest, shrouded in dense magical energy, slowly emerged from the breach.

"…My body's grown weary… the exhaustion's building…" Barghest murmured. "…My thoughts, scattering… Ah… Your Majesty…"

"Don't run…" She reached out as if trying to grab something. "You rebels… so self-righteous… After doing something so treasonous… you still want to escape?"

"Hahaha…" Blood trickled from Barghest's eye—but it wasn't a wound; it was the blood inside her about to burst. "You'll all die anyway… Might as well… let me eat you!"