Chapter 772: Touko Aozaki Joins the Battle

Gray trembled with fear. Among everyone in the El-Melloi classroom, the person she feared the most was Svin, and the action she dreaded most was when Svin, like a dog, would sniff her up close with his nose.

"Ah, Gray! Gray! Gray! You still have that sweet, gray, square scent that seems to cling to your body! It smells even better after exercise."

"…Stop, stop it!"

Gray was almost in tears, too overwhelmed to care about the enemy she had just sent flying. Of course, the golden husky-like Svin, completely captivated by Gray's scent, was equally distracted.

Flat, watching Atrum rise from the ground like a living volcano, finally had his intelligence kick in.

"Ahem, hey, Le Chien."

"Don't call me Le Chien!"

"But only a dog, Le Chien (dog), would sniff like that..."

"Ah!"

Svin suddenly realized, quickly stepping back three paces. Embarrassed, he said, "I'm sorry. I got so excited after being saved by Gray that I lost control and my reason evaporated."

Shinji and Reines, who were watching, were too exhausted to even make a sarcastic comment. They thought, "You were sent out to uphold the reputation of the El-Melloi classroom, not to embarrass us."

If Waver knew about this, he would surely get a stomachache.

Thanks to Flat's interruption, the group of teenagers finally remembered their mission and instinctively formed a triangular formation, surrounding Atrum. Although Gray's flying shield hadn't caused him much harm, the three-against-one odds were putting enormous pressure on him.

"Damn you, El-Melloi classroom!"

Atrum's face turned pale with anger, but it was too late for regrets now. He had to break out of this dire situation.

Just as he was about to go all out, Svin's fur suddenly stood on end as if he had received a huge shock, letting out a howl.

Turning his head, he was startled to find two people standing less than a meter behind him, a man and a woman.

The man was someone Svin knew, Matou Shinji, who was using the alias Levi Ackerman.

The woman, like Gray, was small in stature and wore a cloak. The difference was that her arm was not flesh and blood but a mechanism made from some unknown material.

The man and woman stood facing each other, the man holding the woman's wrist in an intimate gesture that looked like flirting—if you ignored the blade that had popped out of the woman's mechanical arm.

Seeing this, everyone immediately understood what had just happened.

The woman had somehow sneaked up behind Svin, preparing to attack, but was stopped by Shinji, who noticed and intervened in time. Svin's intense reaction was his animal instinct's warning of danger.

His current reaction was the same—the phantom wolf let out a constant growl, and its claws, sharp enough to easily tear through human flesh, flashed with cold light as they aimed straight for the woman's head and heart.

However, before the cold light could reach the woman's body, she and the owner of the claws were both sent flying backward at an even faster speed.

The boy, who suffered the same fate as Atrum, landed on all fours and stared intently at the woman's other hand.

It was this hand that had sent him flying. If you measured arm length alone, the woman's arm was naturally shorter than Svin's in his phantom wolf form, but it was a different matter if that arm was a mechanism capable of detaching and extending freely.

In the instant the phantom wolf leaped, the woman's arm suddenly detached at the elbow, shot straight through the gap between his claws, struck Svin's chest, and then retracted back to its original position, guided by chains connecting the mechanism.

The triangular nose twitched, finally letting out a doubtful snort.

"A mechanical doll?"

"Whoa, what an incredible doll! Hey, hey, Miss Doll, can I analyze you?"

Flat's eyes immediately lit up, his curiosity soaring through the roof.

In response to his eccentric behavior, Katou replied with a barrage of throwing knives, making Flat yelp while his eyes shone even brighter.

"Wait, wait a minute! Are those shuriken? Are you a ninja? A ninja doll? That's so cool."

Finally unable to bear it anymore, Shinji spoke up:

"Flat, Svin, if you don't want to die, stay calm. This isn't an opponent you can handle. Focus on taking down that upstart."

"Upstart!!!"

Atrum's expression twisted with rage at the insult, which wounded his pride even more than being called a magician.

Atrum's response to this insult was to throw a primal battery at them. This was his fastest form of attack because it would instantly release all the electricity stored in the battery, making it one of his most powerful moves. Even with his body significantly enhanced by the phantom wolf's abilities, Svin would struggle to withstand such an attack.

However, Shinji was not Svin. He had far more combat experience and was much stronger. If not for the need to train these exceptionally gifted students, he could have captured Atrum and all his subordinates within five minutes—alive, not dead. After all, it had already been confirmed that this guy would participate in the Fifth Holy Grail War, and killing him now would be a waste.

A gunshot rang out.

A bullet whizzed through the air from the silver barrel of a limited-edition Thompson Contender G2, shattering the primal battery just as it left Atrum's hand.

At this point, the electricity inside hadn't fully activated, so apart from some metal fragments and partial ionization, the shot didn't cause any damage to the surroundings.

Taking advantage of the moment when Shinji drew his gun, the ninja doll also seized the opportunity to free herself and, with a few quick leaps, disappeared into the forest. Speaking of combat experience, she had the most of anyone on the battlefield; she was the legendary ninja Katou Danzo, who had been active for over a hundred years, and her name was certainly not unearned.

Her disappearance made everyone's hearts leap into their throats. This doll was too dangerous, able to slip past even Svin's nose, meaning the others had no chance of detecting her.

Seeing this, Shinji smiled slightly and vanished into the forest after her.

"Leave her to me. Be careful, everyone."

Be careful?

Careful of what? Careful of Atrum? No, not at all.

Atrum alone might, at best, be able to use his experience to defeat one of them, either Flat or Svin, but he had no chance against all three of them.

What Shinji was warning them to be careful of was—

Svin's nose suddenly twitched, and a pair of blue-green eyes turned to look in the opposite direction of where Shinji had gone.

There, amidst the forest, a wisp of orange, made faint by the rain and wind, appeared at the center of the battlefield.

There, there was no tension of battle, only calm, as if isolated from the world in a serene bubble.

"…Hey, hey."

The figure spoke with a slightly troubled smile.

"Don't you think you're using a bit too much flashy magecraft?"

Her appearance caused the previously chaotic battlefield to fall into an eerie silence. Both Atrum and the El-Melloi classroom, as well as the ignored Byron, all felt a chill.

"Touko Aozaki."

No one had expected her to intervene at this critical moment.

"My apologies, Lord Byron, and the El-Melloi classroom."

The woman, without her glasses, walked across the damp ground and stood beside someone.

It was Atrum. Then, the highest-ranked magus in the Clock Tower, a Grand, turned to the youths and slowly smiled.

"Because someone asked me, I have no choice but to oppose you."