25 Chapter 24: Clash of Champions

"Moving on, I suppose order of the Campione would make mores sense than the order of encounter. Voban we've already told you about what happened," Shirou continued speaking.

Rider nodded sadly. Shirou had first encountered the oldest Campione when Voban first moved to force the descent of a heretic god. As hard as he tried to save the magic users Voban kidnapped, most had died or been driven mad during the experiment. Mariya Yuri had been one of only six that had no lasting damage. The heretic god side of Rider was a god of the underworld, but even she found the lives wasted in that ritual to be horrendous. Shirou had beaten Voban to the point that if Doni hadn't been nearby, it was possible that Voban would have died that day at the hands of the descended god.

While Shirou had taken care of Voban, his court had completely destroyed the magic organization that had kidnapped the magic users to discourage anyone from attempting to help with such a ritual again. The organization had been considered within the top 20 of magic organizations in the world, but it had only taken the four only an hour to kill all the elites and leave a message that chilled all who heard it to the bone: "If this organization still exists by the end of the week, all who are related shall not see the sunset of Monday." The organization collapsed the next day, with most survivors swearing off being involved in the magical side of things forevermore.

"The fight with Luo Hao was, without a doubt, the most difficult of the the fights with other Campione. I kept changing weapons and fighting styles until Luo Hao admitted defeat because I had proven that I had a wider skill set with weapons than she did, and since then she's been retraining herself out a shame of the fact that someone my age could give her a run for her money at skill."

Shirou hadn't told her the truth about his skills, but he felt that she didn't need to know how the skill with weaponry wasn't Shirou's. None of his court disagreed. Since then, Luo Hao had locked herself away to, as she put it, "advance her supreme martial prowess to levels unmatched by the 5th Campione". She could tentatively be called friendly, seceding Japan to Shirou without further arguement. A most accurate way to describe the relation between the 2nd and 5th Campione is that of rivals, at least compared to Voban and Alec's open hostility toward Shirou.

"As for the Black Prince, he lost any means of resistance after I countered his [Black Lightning] with the Noble Phantasm Raikiri. Nothing he has gained since would alter the outcome if he tried again. He won't be a problem, at least not anytime soon."

Given that Raikiri had reduced Alec to a smoking, twitching sack of meat on the ground, there really wasn't anyway that he could be a threat to Shirou even if he wanted to. He was and still is too reliant on [Black Lightning]. The first time they met, it had taken Alec an hour after Shirou walked away to regain complete mobility and another week to recover use of [Black Lightning]. Alec and Shirou had an agreement that neither would intrude upon the other's home and that the King of the End should not be revived at all cost.

"As for John Pluto Smith, our conflict could more accurately be described as a spar than as a fight, at least for Campione. We should have no problem with him anytime in the future."

Shirou had advised the 6th Campione about several weaknesses in his fighting style and how he could work on that. John Pluto Smith was also informed of the threat of the King of the End by Shirou and was to handle Guinevere if she ever went to the Americas.

"As for the idiot, don't get me started. Avoid at all costs, he's just a massive pain in the ass. You already knew that I'm guessing."

Indeed Rider did. Cutting a grimoire in two, just what did he think would happen. After Shirou trounced Perseus, he impaled Doni on a sword and left. Salvatore Doni couldn't defend using his authority from Siegfried because Shirou had stabbed the weak point, the spot where a leaf had covered when Fafnir's blood washed over Siegfried, according to Noble Phantasm Balmung's history anyway.