Multiversal Movie Night: Fate/React Order

by TheCuriousOne64

Summary:

Servants and Masters across the wide Fate franchise react to the adventures of Fujimaru Ritsuka (Fem). But before that, they will have their reunions.

Chapter 1: Prologue Part 1

I wrote this about 3 or 4 years ago. Originally wasn’t going to publish it, but it was better than I remembered.

 

For maybe the thousandth time in his very eventful two decades of life, Emiya Shirou raised his eyes to the sky, and asked God: why?

 

The first time, the sky may have been an ugly crimson red, but every time after that, it had the decency to be some shade of blue. Sometimes there were even those fluffy white clouds to sweeten the deal, though Shirou swore a few of those aloof masses of fluff vaguely resembled a raised middle finger. 

 

Shirou was always convinced those fingers were premonitions no matter how many times Rin told him it was just his imagination. And unfortunately, as he stared tiredly into the endless expanse of white which surrounded him from every conceivable angle, ruining both senses of distance and direction; he knew he was right.

 

He was regrettably, miserably right.

 

Unsurprisingly, victory tasted like sawdust. He couldn’t even enjoy the aghast expression of his opponent in this matter, standing at his side.

 

It was probably because he was making the same face.

 

“Rin…”

 

“Yes, Shirou?” The no-longer-twin-tailed magus answered as pleasantly as she was able, despite the obvious twitching of her face and the slight shaking of her body. 

 

She was furious, like a whistling pot about to blow, a ticking time bomb with a second left on the clock, a perfectly filled cup a drop away from overflowing, a balloon pumped to its absolute elastic limits. 

 

It was glorious. She was furious, and it was glorious.

 

Shirou couldn’t refuse the opportunity to tease her, not even in this dire situation, Archer’s own smirk overlapping with his own inner expression. He knew from years of intimacy with the Tohsaka heir that this was the perfect time, like picking ripe fruit straight from the vine.

 

“Where are we?” he asked in that dense, clueless voice he loved using on her (which she loved so much).

 

“The hell would I know?!” Rin shouted, her fragile calm bursting like a weak soap bubble.

 

“You are the heir of house Tohsaka, shouldn’t you have an idea?” Tugging on her sense of pride. Nice, Shirou.

 

“I-I, this is an entirely different plane! Some kind of parallel dimension or space created by… something. It’s on the level of True Magic, or at least a complex matrix of spells from the Age of Gods! And to abduct both of us from different continents, the range must be global! And—and—” Rin quieted her frenzied ramble, glaring angrily at Shirou. “And we went over this ten minutes ago.”

 

Shirou battled the spirit of Archer within him—and it was a battle as difficult as any in a grail war—and tried desperately not to smirk. But even as the unconventional magus gave this fight his all, he still could not control the twitching ends of his lips.

 

“Well, I wanted to see if you figured out anything new about this place. It’s been a while,” he said sheepishly. He counted about a half hour since they ‘arrived’. 

 

Rin’s eyebrow twitched. “And how, exactly, would I ‘figure out anything new’, Shirou? In case the overuse of your magecraft has burned your eyes out, there is literally nothing here for me to analyze!” she screamed in frustration, gesturing angrily with her arms toward the empty white space surrounding them from all sides.

 

Unfortunately, Shirou was inclined to agree. Nothing about this place felt too divorced from the norm, despite its unnervingly hollow nature. Sure, the mana density was a little higher than normal; and his nose couldn’t pick up on any smell but Rin’s and his own, but when compared to some of his more remarkable adventures within the moonlit world, this much was little.

 

“This isn’t nearly as weird as the workshop of that cross-dressing Dead Apostle I fought in Hong Kong last year. That, was much, much worse.”

 

Not that it was much of a consolation. He had to fight off a small army of gender-bent doll replicas of himself in that encounter. There were so many questions he had—still has; why dolls, why him, why genderbending, just… why? 

 

Yet, back then, Shirou could at least analyze the situation through his Structural Grasp magecraft: the near-perfect analysis of any object’s history of creation and use, mainly swords. 

 

Using this ability on a doll provided him vital information on the magecraft of the offending Dead Apostle; providing him a firm grasp of the nature of his predicament—leading to the defeat of the formidable-but-eccentric vampire.

 

Structural Grasp carried Shirou through every one of his hardships. From battles with Servants to fixing household appliances at the student council clubroom. He could analyze much of anything with it: weapons from the Age of Gods, automatic rifles, rice cookers—probably the most useful one—but Divine constructs like Excalibur were beyond him. 

 

And apparently, so was this place. When he placed his hand on the ground and attempted to grasp the properties of the ground, there was no reaction at all. Not so powerful it overwhelmed his nervous system. Not so complex as to be beyond his comprehension. Just nothing.

 

“Nothing.”

 

“Nothing. Just nothing?” she asked incredulously. Shirou nodded.

 

“So… what now?”

 

His significant other proceed to smash her palm into her skull.

***

In a world of endless white rested the unconscious body of a small girl dressed in a purple winter coat and boots. The top of her head was covered in a similarly-colored hat with a plateaued top. One would think that the girl was dressed for a harsh winter if not for the medium-length white dress exposing her legs from the knee down. 

 

Her clothes, while not entirely orthodox, were overshadowed by her unnatural physical appearance: Long white hair the same shade as the great expanse which surrounded her, and ruby red eyes provoking a striking contrast against the former.

 

In the moonlit world, there was only one magus family whose members, while sharply dressed for winter, bore such a strange appearance.

 

Their name?

 

The Einzberns. The white-haired ruby-eyed magi of Germany, situated in the midst of an ancient, snowy castle, obscuring a horde of cursed dragon’s gold acquired in ages past.

 

These mages expanded their numbers not by conventional human reproduction, but with cloning techniques passed down from each previous “generation”, the creation of Homunculi. While their members were emotionless and utilitarian—some bred to be so—others indoctrinated from a young age, their present and historical prestige could be described as nothing but top class. 

 

And the homunculus sleeping in this white world just so happens to be a member of this prestigious family.

 

But even she was far from the most unusual creature in this place. 

 

An eight-feet tall giant of a man, covered in rippling muscle and thick dark skin stood to her side with a fierce resolution. With a stony expression and body, the giant gave off the appearance of an inhuman-yet-stalwart beast.

 

This man—no, this beast was the greatest hero of Greek mythology. The conqueror of the Twelve Labors, the hero whose single achievements rivaled that of the great heroes Achilles and Perseus combined. 

 

He sailed with the Argonauts, facing many an adventure with his comrades at his side. Like a great pillar, strong and stout, he was their backbone, their greatest strength.

 

He was the master of all weapons, with strength far surpassing the limitations of mankind. His skill in combat surpassed that of his mentor Chiron. 

 

With strength capable of shattering mountains and cleaving chasms through the land, he strangled a beast impervious to the weapons of man.

 

With speed and accuracy surpassing the twin gods of the sun and moon, a hundred heads were shot down in a single breath.

 

With courage and determination surpassing all, twelve trials were conquered, and eternal glory earned

 

This was the man respected by the gods, mortals, phantasmal beasts, and the world itself. The greatest figure in the lands of Greece.

 

This was the great hero Heracles, son of the great god Zues—ruler of the skies and lightning.

 

And although this version of the hero was a deranged heroic spirit of the Berserker class summoned from a mere record of his deeds, resting deep within the Throne of Heroes, Heracles’ heart—the core of his spirit and will—remained stalwart and unchanging. 

 

The white-haired girl under the careful protection of the giant was a Master from a war of ages past. And although this was the case, his memory of their exploits was fresh even in his limited, fragmented mind. A highly unusual occurrence for a Heroic Spirit, but no more irregular than his Master’s presence in this the world of white.

 

Soon, after a few moments, or perhaps it was a thousand years—Heracles could hardly tell the difference—the child-like Einzbern rose from her slumber.

 

“What… is this place?” she asked, confused. 

 

Looking around the endless expanse of white on all sides, the girl could not help but feel slightly dizzy from both the lack of directional senses and her abrupt awakening. Her body felt slightly sore all over, and her head was spinning so much that nothing seemed to make sense.

 

Staring down at her purple-gloved hands, the girl shook her head in confusion. 

 

“This is wrong. I was wearing the Dress of Heaven when I saved… Shirou?” she shook her head.

 

“No, I fell asleep in my house, with Shirou and Taiga,” she corrected.

 

“No, that’s not right either. I was. I was—” the girl suddenly clutched at her chest, the portion directly in front of her heart. A strong phantom pain erupted from her chest, a spike of pain interrupting the dull sensation of nausea affecting her mind. The girl found herself beginning to hyperventilate, falling to her knees.

 

“Berserker! Berserker, where are you?!” she shouted desperately. Anxiously, her eyes scanned her surrounding like ruby headlights filled with fear, until she finally found the subject of her search.

 

The dark, imposing giant stood just a few meters from her, his stoic, beastly features shifting into something more tender as he turned to face the girl. This would be the first time Heracles would move even the slightest since his arrival. 

 

Crawling towards the giant with pained desperation unbefitting of an Einzbern, the girl’s outstretched hand gripped his muscled leg as hard as she could. It was as if she wished to crush the limb under her grip like a stress doll.

 

However, despite the white-haired girl’s best efforts, the thick and robust leg more resemblant of a tree trunk than a human limb held firm, and its owner continued to stand rigid and unmoving like a statue. 

 

In a world where “up” could be confused for “down”, and “right” was indistinguishable from “left”, the undeviating Heracles served to be a familiar landmark, a grounding anchor in the middle of a turbulent sea. 

 

“Let’s stay together forever. Right, Berserker?” 

 

The mad giant growled as gently as he could. For him, this must have been the most delicate affirmation possible.

 

With grateful eyes and a weak smile, the girl’s breathing slowly returned to normal, her hand clutching her chest with less intensity with every moment, signified by the uncrumpling of her purple coat. 

 

Her protector had returned her sentiments. And although any other magus would have simply interpreted his actions to be that of a mindless servant’s, the girl knew the truth. As his Master, she understood the weight and intended intimacy of his actions.

 

And that was why she could tell, why she could conclude—

 

“He remembered.”

 

Somehow, even after his—no, both of their deaths, he remembered her. As her lips rose into an emotional smile, her watery eyes shook with joy.

 

But this was not the time to celebrate. She would be a failure of a magus if she allowed herself to remain in such a compromised state of mind inside of potential enemy territory.

 

After several minutes of labored breath and tensed muscles, the Einzbern hesitantly released her guardian, rising to her full height on shaky legs.

 

Having composed herself, she wished to give voice to the many hundreds of questions on her mind. Why did she possess so many conflicting memories? Why was she brought here to this white world? Why was the Heroic Spirit Heracles, whose death remained one of the only non-conflicting truths she remembered in her compromised memories, alive and well before her?

 

But first, there was something she must say.

 

There was something the Master, Illyasviel von Einzbern must say. 

 

A token of gratitude to her chiseled and beastly guardian. A proclamation of confidence, faith, strength, and a mutual bond between master and servant; the protector and the protected.

 

“Berserker is the strongest in the world,” she stated, a soft smile on her lips. 

 

There was no hesitation in those words, even if her conflicting memories contained the records of his defeat multiple times by many opponents. Nothing short of the world’s end could shake her faith in him.

 

A subdued grunt exited the giant’s lips as he acknowledged his Master’s faith. As if to affirm that trust, Heracles took Illya in his arms, the thick slabs of stone-like muscle scooping her up by the legs. The girlish magus was gently repositioned onto a sitting position on his shoulder, where she held onto his head, not as a way to keep herself steady—she trusted her Servant too much to believe he would allow her to fall—but as a sign of affection.

 

“I’m still not sure what’s going on… I remember that I was originally fighting against Matou Sakura, and she transformed into the corrupted holy grail. I—I sacrificed my life to give Shirou a new body with the Dress of Heaven,” Illya recalled.

 

“At least, that’s the memory closest to me. This body remembers those sensations with the greatest amount of familiarity. But those other memories… they’re definitely real too,” she muttered as she played with a lock of Berserker’s hair for comfort.

 

“The more serious question is where we are right now and how you were summoned here. Is this a dream? Some kind of strange reality marble?”

 

Heracles suddenly pointed towards Illya with a massive finger. His digit was so thick that she could barely identify where on her small body he wished to indicate. 

 

But Illya’s tight bond with her Servant remedied this issue, and she was able to decipher his crude message.

 

“My—body?” Illya looked down at her body, checking for any irregularities.

 

It was pale white and clear, without any blemishes or scars, just as always. A small body that had remained the same for ten years, devoid of growth or development. 

 

It could be said that this body possessed no irregularities, but that was an irregularity onto itself.

 

It was the same body her father gently lifted onto his shoulders a long time ago, when they looked for walnut branches together. Back when life was simple and happy. Back when her father was alive. Back when she wasn’t in constant pain for the sake of becoming an inhuman machine, when she didn’t feel that terrible, soul-wrenching pain with every breath taken, when she didn’t scream on the inside for every second of every minute of every hour of every day begging for him—pleading for him to please come back.

 

“…Ah, he abandoned me.”

 

“That’s strange. Why did I… think of the way I was back then?” she questioned. Realistically, it had only been a few weeks since the start of the war, only a few weeks since her body was devoid of those invisible red lines only she could see; the crimson patterns of her command spells.

 

“Back then, I was alone. I didn’t have Berserker, or Shirou, or Taiga or anyone else. I was just a hateful, cold, and merciless tool. I see… so that’s why—” 

 

And then, she realized she had glossed over something very important.

 

“Wait—wait a minute! I didn’t notice before, but what’s this?!” Illya exclaimed, her decade-old sorrow replaced with surprise.

 

As a magus who did not usually lose her composure, this sight was rare on the Einzbern. But her surprise was for a good reason.

 

After all, her command spells—the Master’s ultimate authority over their servants—had disappeared. Regardless of any sentimentality or emotional impacts, it was no laughing matter. Entangled in a storm of her own harrowing memories, Illyasviel had forgotten the foremost implications of this loss.

 

Suddenly, another important detail she had overlooked in her state of panic struck the Einzbern in quick succession, its conspicuous nature making her curse her own lack of attentiveness.

 

She could not feel the bond between herself and Berserker through her magic circuits. 

 

During the Fifth Holy Grail War, Illya felt her od drain with every swing of Berserker’s sword. Even simply maintaining his defensive noble phantasm, God Hand, enkindled the sensation of a syringe drawing blood.

 

“It’s normal to lose these once the Holy Grail War ends, but if Berserker is here and he recognizes me, then that has to mean I’m his master, right?”

 

“Berserker! Berserker! Are you still my Servant?” she asked with her mouth to his ear.

 

Heracles gave a stout nod, and Illya was sent into a state of confusion once more.

 

“But how? If you’re not bound to me by command spells, and this isn’t a Holy Grail War, then what is this? How can you be here, and how can you remember me? Those spells symbolized our contract. If they’re gone… who’s providing you with mana right now?!” Illya asked, conveying both shock and disbelief.

 

A thousand thoughts ran through her head at once, hundreds of possible scenarios considered and discarded in mere seconds.

 

But no matter what she estimated, no matter how she attempted to rationalize the situation, there were far too many possibilities to calculate an ideal response to the situation. Nothing made sense. No puzzle could be pieced together if she only had two pieces!

 

Illya’s crimson eyes scanned the world around her nervously. Even though Berserker was tall enough to hold her over eight feet in the air—more than enough to tower over the tallest of men—she felt very small. In a world where distance and depth seemed to be irrelevant, and the claustrophobic feeling of closeness permeated through every inch of space, this was very natural. The Einzbern knew this. But even so, she was beginning to feel oddly like a small animal trapped in a tiny box.

 

She was thankful to have been granted a second life, and even more grateful that her protector had been resurrected along with her. However, Illya could not help but think that there was a sinister, ulterior motive to this. 

 

“No. Calm down, Illya.” 

 

The homunculus took deep breaths, gathering her thoughts. Maybe she should concentrate on one thing at a time.

 

First, the issue of the unknown environment which surrounded her. Now was not the time to obsess over the impossibility of summoning a servant with its memories (towards her) intact. 

 

Too many impossible scenarios had already occurred in her life. 

 

Mana permeated the air around her in greater densities than even the Einzbern castle, enveloped in layers upon layers of insulating spells and surrounded by dense stone. However, before considering its usage, Illya considered the possibility that undetectable poisonous substances, much like carbon monoxide, could be as equally present as the abundant mana.

 

She may have been overly paranoid, but such suspicion was considered praiseworthy for a magus. The moonlit world was a place with diverse abilities and techniques. Sometimes, the method of a murder could only be analyzed and understood after its purpose has been fulfilled.

 

However, even as Illya began to take precautions against the possible poison, she paradoxically shrugged off its implications. After all, if she had been breathing it in all this time, perhaps it would not be long until she felt the effects. 

 

“There’s nothing I can do about that,” she thought as she swung her legs on Berserker’s huge shoulder, an arm extended into the furthest reaches of the giant’s blade-like hair. 

 

“But unless it’s an emergency, I shouldn’t use any spells that siphon mana from the atmosphere, at least not with a magic circle.”

 

In most circumstances, modern magecraft involved the beginning of a magic formula by an investment of od: a subdivision of magical energy generated from inside the body of the magus, produced by the magic circuits. After this investment, mana: magical energy originating from the planet itself, is siphoned from the atmosphere to power the remaining processes of the spell.

 

Many spells—including a few Illyasviel wished to cast at this moment—involved the siphoning of that mana into her own body as a catalyst. This process could be mitigated if she was in possession of certain alchemical materials, but needless to say, those materials were not brought into this world.

 

Sophisticated reconnaissance spells involving determining the “nature” of this world suddenly became unavailable. 

 

The Einzbern had no idea who was the ruler of this strange realm, or if there was a ruler in the first place. She had no idea whether the place was even sustainable under the laws of Gaia.

 

Illyasviel found herself barred by the same conundrum before. For all she knew, the world could self-destruct at any moment, imploding and taking her with it. 

 

She concluded that it would be best to search for others for now. If Berserker was here, and he was not connected to her, then it left open the possibility of others being present also. 

 

If they were hostile, then she would simply have to deal with them when the time comes. Even if Heracles was no longer contracted to Illyasviel, she was confident of his strength. In addition, she was no pushover either. 

 

Nothing short of a Servant could defeat her, and no Servant short of the King of Heroes could defeat Berserker. 

 

“Maybe I should send a few familiars.”

 

A reconnaissance party. Even if some were destroyed, no harm would come to anyone. On the other hand, if it was well-received, and if she could gain an ally, then it was a worthy investment. 

 

Illyasviel was the ultimate product of Einzbern alchemy in the form of a single girl. She possessed enough od in her body to power a large-scale ritual usually involving the mass-siphoning of atmospheric mana. 

 

With her power, she kept Heracles, a massive prana-guzzler, materialized for the entire duration of the Holy Grail War. 

 

For the Einzbern heir, animating a few familiars and propelling them for a few hundred kilometers was nothing short of child’s play, requiring a single drop of od from her oceanic reserves.

 

And thus, a hundred strings of snow-white hair detached from Illyasviel’s little head, twisting themselves into the shapes of see-through birds the size of sparrows, emitting faint cerulean energy as they flew through the air faster than the fastest peregrine falcon. 

 

Eight of these birds zipped laterally from Illya in eight different directions before suddenly rising leagues into the air after a hundred meters of flight. 

 

As the eight streaks of light exited from eyesight, leaving behind symmetrical trails of light in the likeness of a thin-pedaled flower, Illya slumped into the side of Heracles’ head, swinging her dangling legs leisurely from his shoulders in an attempt to hide her apprehension.

 

Thankful of her resurrection, yet wary of the current situation, Illyasviel von Einzbern quietly promised,

 

“We won’t lose, Berserker.”

 

A mighty roar was the answer to her conviction, echoing across the endless expanse of white.

***

Once upon a time, there was a man who praised the beauty of the moon.

 

Once upon a time, there was a fool who sought an impossible dream.

 

Once upon a time, there was a murderer who fought for justice.

 

With crimson hands and a soul despoiled, the murderer reached for the purest of ideals, a brilliant star hanging from the black canvas which stretched endlessly from horizon to horizon.

 

But alas, the distance from that vaunted prize seemed to increase with every drop of red falling from his dirtied hands. Wrinkling his brow, the sinner mourned in silence, lamenting the inequality of the world that permitted and provoked such cruelty; inconspicuous of the puddle of filth quaffing greedily at his swiftly sinking legs.

 

When he finally looked down and acknowledged the voracious abyss which threatened to swallow him whole, it was already far too late. 

 

No, perhaps it was too late from the very beginning. After all, the skin of that glistening fruit contrasted horribly with the dull, viscous red oozing from those unworthy hands.

 

And as the man pondered the situation once more, he could do nothing but recognize this fate as just. No longer ignorant of his own state of being, he could do naught but embrace the evil oozing from every pore.

 

A despicable killer. 

 

A soulless murderer. 

 

A hollow-eyed butcher. 

 

A black-clad reaper, indulging in a routine of slaughter and sacrifice, justifying his depravity under the guise of the “greater good”.

 

What could such a creature hope to hold in its bloodied hands? Within that dull stone heart, what impossible glimmer of light could hope to retain its shine? 

 

“My methods cannot save the world.” 

 

This was his conclusion. The answer to his lifelong query. An answer derived from every life taken in the name of the greater good. 

 

Perhaps he was too harsh on himself. Perhaps he was too harsh on the world. Perhaps the world was too harsh on him. 

 

Whatever the truth may be, his idealization of heroics and his cold-hearted methodology were equally set in stone, no matter how conflicting they may seem. And neither his victims, his beneficiaries, nor himself assumed for an instant this hollow butcher was anyone resembling a hero.

 

Once, there was a boy who aspired to be a hero of justice. A man stood in his place now, as far from that ideal as he was from the sensations of satisfaction and repose. 

 

He remembered the words of a girl who told him he could change the world, and every time they occupied his mind his face would be split by an ironic smirk, an expression of unadulterated self-loathing occupying a usually-blank visage.

 

There comes a point where one cannot even lie to one’s self anymore. And the killer had reached that point years ago.

 

He had given up on becoming a “hero of justice” a long time ago. That ideal was an unreachable fantasy, ill-suited for the cutthroat world that was his reality.

 

And thus, gifting the fruit of peace to that world—changing it, was beyond him.

 

Relinquishing his goal and entrusting the execution of his “justice” upon a wish-granting cup, the man convinced himself that he was doing the right thing once again, that while the world would never be graced with the impossible existence of a hero of justice, it would be saved by the desperate hope of a single murderer. 

 

He believed in the righteousness of this endeavor more than even the surety of death, even if his faith was fraught with desperation.

 

He would sacrifice his wife, he was willing to be kept from the smiles of his daughter for the rest of his life.

 

He would bet every chip, use every resource, commit any atrocity, just for the sake of this one last mission.

 

All this, for the sake of a better world. A world free from tragedy, from despair, from the pain of having to choose ten over one, a hundred over a ten, a thousand over a hundred.

 

He fought for the sake of a world no man would ever reach, a world obtainable only through the greatest of miracles.

 

In the end, it was supposed that he did receive something of the sort.

 

…And, as the man’s miracle razed his world in a sea of flame and mud, he could swear he heard fate’s cruel laughter ringing in his ears.

 

Once upon a time, there was a murderer who fought for justice. His justice took his light.

 

Once upon a time, there was a fool who sought an impossible dream. His dream took his love.

 

Once upon a time, there was a man who praised the beauty of the moon. Having lost everything, perhaps he gained something in the end.

***

Emiya Kiritsugu woke in the bounds of a great white expanse. Dragging himself to his feet, his calloused hand brushed his shoulder with practiced movements, searching for dust particles to send to the ground.

 

Shoving that same hand into the pocket of his long black coat, the man’s muscle memory prompted him to reach for a cigarette and a lighter, years of practiced motion executed with nothing but subconscious input.

 

But Kiritsugu would soon realize that there was no cigarette, nor was there a lighter, and any dust he may have swept onto the ground could not be distinguished from the sheer whiteness of everything. 

 

Groaning as if in the middle of a migraine, he arched his back and covered his face with a palm, his blank expression betraying its stoicism to reveal a pained grimace.

 

“Where… am I?” He questioned, not that there was anyone to answer. 

 

Attempting to recollect himself and to resolve his inquiry, Kiritsugu collected himself, hands searching his clothing for weapons all the while. When he found nothing, his confusion was amplified.

 

“Shirou… I remember I was with Shirou, looking up at the moon. Then… I died,” he said clinically, as if his own death meant nothing. Although to the Magus Killer, perhaps such a statement was not far from the truth.

 

After checking his body for signs of irregularity or distortions, Kiritsugu was mystified to find absolutely nothing. 

 

Following the aftermath of the Fourth Holy Grail War, Kiritsugu’s body was corrupted by the darkened grail. He immediately lost his magecraft, and whatever strength he had left faded across the next few years. His limbs turned lame, his mind dulled, and his sight, taste, and hearing all failed him.

 

So it was quite a shock to find absolutely no irregularities in his body. In fact, he seemed to be a portrait of good health.

 

His magic circuits were just as perfectly healed as his physical body, and the previously-thought lost Emiya crest was with him as well.

 

His mind was as sharp as it was in his prime. When Kiritsugu performed a series of IQ and memory checks, involving arithmetic problems and memory tests: he found that the processes impossible for his previously degraded mind took but mere seconds to complete. 

 

“Ressurection, reconstitution of the body and mind, restoration of magic circuits, replication of family crest,” he reported, mind turning like a well-oiled gear. 

 

True to his analysis, his body seemed to have returned to its state prior to the Fourth Holy Grail War, albeit with memories for years after its end.

 

The Emiya easily accepted this information without a second thought. Unlike other magi or even other humans, he never bothered to follow anything other than his targets down to their roots.

 

Kiritsugu was unbothered with the theories and hypotheses any other magus would have attempted to form for this world of white. He was not concerned with the “whys” and the “hows”, but with the “whats”.

 

And although he was alarmed by this strange development, thankful for his resurrection, and suspicious of the world around him; this was not the atypical nor the most unexpected circumstance that had been encountered across his life.

 

Limiting his emotions like he had done so many times before in his missions, Kiritsugu decided to move.

 

With no access to his technology and knowing his magecraft to be incompatible with reconnaissance, the former Magus Killer decided to do what he could. 

 

If he was brought to this place, there was a possibility others were too. And even if this was not the case, he may eventually find a clue capable of giving him a sense of drive and direction. Granted, he had no idea what this “clue” would look like, but anything apart from the homogenous whiteness would be a good start.

 

“The alternative is starvation, huh?” Kiritsugu mused, already beginning a fast-but-even stride in the direction in front of him.

 

“A healthy body, and not a cigarette to be seen”, he thought. How unfortunate.

***

Irisviel von Einzbern woke from her slumber in the likeness of a bear from hibernation.

 

Slowly and lethargically, she opened her red eyes with a tired moan. Whilst rising from the ground where she lay, the woman’s limbs felt they would fail her and buckle under the weight of her own body.

 

Eventually, after what felt like millennia; she finally stood upright.

 

Her waist-length hair, the color of snow, resembled a bird’s nest in the winter.

 

The Einzbern magus ran her gloved hands through her hair as best she could, being especially gentle and amicable as she encountered the many tangles along those snow-like strands.

 

Eventually, as her hair was straightened out, Irisviel allowed herself to move on to a more useful endeavor. While she was still groggy from waking mere moments ago, her mind was rational enough to recognize the current situation to be potentially dangerous. 

 

As her ruby eyes focused on the white world around her, Irisviel could not help but unleash her childish side.

 

“Eeeeh?! What is this place?!” she shouted in disbelief. 

 

Unbefitting of both magi and Einzbern; the woman’s reaction was neither paranoid nor analytical. Above all else, it was certainly not controlled. 

 

“I-I thought I died back then, after that man wrapped his hands around my throat. Even if I merged with the Holy Grail as I died, h-how is it possible to be brought back from that state?” 

 

Frazzled, Irisviel’s tense gaze surveyed the area around her, as if searching for a source of knowledge to quell her curiosity.

 

But there was no such source to be found anywhere near her proximity. Only the blank homogeneity of white awaited those searching eyes. 

 

And yet, before she thought of safety and caution, Irisviel von Einzbern could not help but remark that the world she had been dropped into felt so very empty. 

 

The world was utterly silent, devoid of the most reticent of sounds. The same could be said for all else. There was neither the soft hair-swaying breeze of Fuyuki nor the bone-chilling cold of the German mountains. There was neither the boisterous and constant activity of the busy city streets nor the grand, reserved scenery of the countryside. 

 

It was simply empty.

 

In addition, the black-clad form of her husband, the man who brought meaning to her life, was nowhere to be seen. Illya, her little bundle of joy who she treasured more than all else, was equally absent.

 

If anything—and even if Irisviel thought this presumption to be silly—this world seemed to be mocking her with its color palette, so very close to the shade of white present in both her and her daughter’s hair. 

 

She suddenly felt very alone, and thus pondered for a moment, just a moment, why she was even brought back to life. Without her husband and daughter serving to complete her, to fill her heart with love, was there even any meaning to living on?

 

In all honesty, Irisviel did not even expect to live past the Fourth Holy Grail War. From the very moment of her birth, she understood her sacrificial role in the Heaven’s Feel ritual. No matter what, the homunculus called Irisviel von Einzbern would complete her duty and become the Holy Grail, a sacrifice to bring her husband’s vaunted dream to fruition.

 

While possessing no wish to serve the Einzberns in the slightest, Irisviel accepted her fate, and resolved to do as she was made to do. Not as her family’s tool, but as a proud wife and mother, fulfilling her husband’s ideal of a peaceful world, subsequently ensuring her daughter’s happiness. 

 

She was not used. She was not a tool. She was treasured. She was loved. She was… happy, even if her life would be cut exorbitantly short.

 

There was a certain flame, a certain resolve burning at the center of her breast. The same sort of warmth martyrs carried to their deathbeds. As long as that tender flame—stoked by two loving flametenders—did not fade, there would be no hesitation, no fear.

 

But now, the dreaded day of demise had already passed, and that tender flame had been snuffed out in an ocean of mud. Now, how could there be any warmth left in her heart?

 

Irisviel never thought it out that far. Sure, she had briefly entertained many fantasies—quickly stifled—where she lived past that war; a future where she and her family would be able to live out their days in peace. Surely Kiritsugu thought those same thoughts, and violently dashed them even faster than she did. Illya would think the same, although out of a sense of innocence neither parent had the heart to shatter.

 

But in the end, those fantasies were simply that. Fantasies. Unrealistic and far-fetched by nature. And without her family, Irisviel could not even hope to approach even the most grounded ones.

 

She was left without purpose and alone, devoid of any source of which she could draw her strength.

 

But—

 

“Even so, I have to move forward. I have to believe that they are waiting for me.” a steadfast voice rang through the void. 

 

The soft and quiet sounds of gentle footsteps were soon the only noise audible in the world of white. And as the sound echoed and echoed without interruption, an exaggerated illusion of trudging was produced, as if the woman’s feet were as weighty as iron.

 

And yet, perhaps that exaggeration was not far from the truth.

***

“A plane of endless white, without diversity of color, living organisms, and natural phenomena. Impossible to tell up from down, left from right.” thought the Magus Killer, hands shoved in the insides of his coat pockets.

 

“How ironic. If this is meant to be the punishment for my sins, God must be blind.” he concluded. Even if the world he had been unceremoniously tossed into was indeed not some sort of afterlife, he would never take back the later half of that thought. 

 

A murderer like him should have been sent straight to hell. Or what? He was spared from that fate because his life had already been a living hell? Surely, God wasn’t that kind. 

 

They say that you can gleam into the intricacies of an author’s personality through his writing. Kiritsugu thought that if this was the case, then God was a sadistic bastard.

 

“Why would I even think about that? I am the furthest possible thing from a Christian. And the actions of humanity have nothing to do with God. If anything, if His existence was proven, then He would just become a scapegoat for humanity’s own cruelty.” Kiritsugu chuckled. “Ironically, isn’t that what I’m doing right now?” 

 

The empty priest must have rubbed off on him all those years ago. That could not be good. While Kiritsugu despised himself and his path, he would never envy that unnatural man.

 

Bringing these meaningless thoughts to a close, the Magus Killer brought his focus back towards the logical analysis of his situation and state of being.

 

“They say that a man can live three minutes without air, three days without water, three weeks without food. This world has plenty of the first, but none of the rest. I can feel my throat parching already, and my stomach won’t stop growling.”

 

Kiritsugu could not help but think that he would die of thirst in this place, and that his second life would come to a meaningless and distasteful end.

 

It was not as if the spellcaster feared the possibility of a slow and despairing death. After all, the latter part of his former life could only be described as such. Nor was he disturbed by the isolation. He had acclimated to solitude many years ago—normalized it, even.

 

If there was one word to describe his thoughts towards the possibility of this sort of death, it would be senseless. Would he die empty again, having accomplished nothing? Just like last time? Or was that emptiness the point of the whole affair? 

 

In that case, was not this just a mockery? If so, then whichever god who chose to invest their time on him was just beating on a dead horse. Fate itself had mocked Kiritsugu’s ideals more than anyone ever could, but perhaps there was a deity somewhere with a fetish for trodding on the downtrodden. 

 

…Kiritsugu could not help but think that it was a waste. That was why the swift rhythm of his stride did not halt. He did not hold high hopes, but he was not devoid of it either.

 

Besides, there was quite literally nothing he could lose at this point. Perhaps this world was an endless wasteland of white, a great dimension of nothingness, trapping the souls of the dead in an endless purgatory. Even if such was the case, what was the alternative? Accepting his death? Cursing his fate? 

 

Did it do him any good before?

 

And so, the days passed. 

 

Kiritsugu’s throat was as dry as a summer dessert. His legs wobbled with every step. His confident stride was nowhere to be found, and in its place was an unsightly gait resembling that of a crippled old man. 

 

The Magus Killer found it difficult to keep his eyes open, and his eyelids felt weightier than his guns. He could not allow them to close, as the last time they did, his legs buckled and sent his body crashing to the ground.

 

An hour—or was it a minute ago, the stinging, burning cramps in his muscles had suddenly lost their intensity. Now, he could barely feel anything. 

 

He was dying.

 

It was exactly like his later years in that city. A corpse-like body, drifting in and out of consciousness, unable to determine if he could even last for the next few seconds.

 

“Damn it,” Kiritsugu unsuccessfully tried to choke out, punished for the act by a scorching pain. His throat was no longer able to release even the faintest of sounds. Any attempt to do so felt as if someone was shooting a bullet using it as the barrel.

 

This is not where he wanted his second life to end, so reminiscent of his first. Dying of his body breaking down, having accomplished nothing. 

 

Again, he could not discard the assumption that this was all just a sick joke. A flat, humorless excuse for a joke, that is. What was even the punchline?

 

Slamming his fist into the floor of the white void that was somehow solid, Kiritsugu used every remaining ounce of strength he could muster to rise. Consciousness rapidly receding, he tried to tell himself he would not fall to the cruel whims of this world.

 

But mere seconds later, for all his determination, the man could no longer hold up the twin sheets of lead covering his eyes, and they came crashing down, consigning him to an eternity of darkness. 

 

To think that his body had been at the peak of health just some days ago. How meaninglessly tragic, he thought, almost humorously, coming to a morbid realization.

 

Perhaps this was the punchline. It was so simple, so obvious, that he chided himself for not seeing it before. 

 

The lack of meaning was both the joke and the punchline. It applied to his old life, and it applied now, but in a much less subtle form. Unable to change anything, unable to save anyone. That was an apt summation of his last life. Why should it change now?

 

Why did he even think for a second that it would be different this time, that he would finally be able to accomplish something now? He died already! What more was there after that!?

 

And then, a series of choked, dry, grating sounds were resounded across the endless space around him. Vexing, haunting noises that never seemed to stop. Cruel, despairing sounds. The death throes of a pitiful, wretched creature that should have passed long ago.

 

“Ah, I’m… laughing,” Kiritsugu noted, not admitting to himself that any of this was slightly funny. But the motions of his body did not lie, and an uncharacteristically wry grin was plastered on his face—a jarring contrast to his dead, corpse-like eyes.

 

But his eyelids hid those dead orbs, now mercifully light. Perhaps they knew their master no longer had the will to open them. 

 

The laughter, if you could even call it that, lasted scant few seconds before declining to silence once more—recoupled by a hollow echo, dispersing a mere moment later in a similar fashion.

 

“Of course,” the man thought with the same wry grin, finally recognizing—for the second time—that his foolish hopes had been dashed once more.

 

“It would have never amounted to anything.”

 

Having thought this, the man went limp, leaving himself in the pitiless embrace of death.

 

…and as the time passed once more, a series of footsteps could be heard from over yonder, a light, crisp sound cutting through the melancholy of the void.

 

There was a rhythm in those steps, pitter-patter sounds that sounded so strangely familiar. Sounds which seemed to grow faster and faster and faster with every passing second—

 

But Kiritsugu was beyond caring. He had not the strength nor the interest to open his eyes, and although his ears heard, his mind was utterly empty.

 

His consciousness was already fading, and even if he had the strength to resuscitate himself from the brink, he had no heart for it. Those footsteps—if not the result of a dying man’s feverish delusions, were surely just another mockery of the world. 

 

And even though the desperate, worried cries of a feminine voice—a familiar voice, pierced his idle eardrums, it was not until he felt the soothing sensation of healing magecraft on his body that he finally stirred with curiosity.

 

In his mind’s eye, he saw the image of a crimson-eyed woman with hair like the winter snow, persisting for a scant few moments before dispersing, like a soft ripple on the surface of a moonlit lake. 

 

Surely, it was just a feverish delusion. Surely, it was simply another false bait from cruel fate, lacking in all substance. 

 

“But maybe—” the thought was quashed before it could even complete itself. 

 

And yet… 

 

And yet… 

 

And yet…

 

Even when he knew it was a trick, even when he knew it would amount to nothing, just like before.

 

Even when he knew… even when he knew that—

 

…Why did he feel tears trail down his cheeks?

 

“Kiritsugu…” trailed that soft, lovely voice. So strong, so willful, yet concealing a strange, wistful sadness only he knew the meaning of. 

 

In an instant, the man was battered by a thousand memories at once. A recollection of joys and sorrows in a snow-covered castle. A scant few years, a lifetime of happiness. A father, a mother, and a child. Memories… overflowing.

 

And from those memories, Kiritsugu could do nothing but conclude…

 

It was her. 

 

It was really her.

 

No matter what his experiences told him, no matter how disillusioned he may be, Emiya Kiritsugu could no longer mistake the voice of his own wife.

 

And as his eyes opened once again, they saw nothing but a red-and-white blur, obscured by the buildup of their own tears.

 

The voice was shaky now, like the speaker was desperately maintaining a front of composure, struggling against a tsunami of raw emotion.

 

“I-it’s alright, Kiritsugu. Everything—everything’s alright now,” she cooed gently, trying not to fall apart.

 

As she finished healing him, Irisviel placed her husband’s head into his lap, lovingly brushing back a piece of disheveled hair to hold his tearful face in her hands. 

 

Hers was the love of a wife, a warm and accepting embrace, melting away the despair of men and stripping them of their brave fronts.

 

And before that all-encompassing love, his heart was laid bare.

 

Cradled in the lap of his beloved wife, Emiya Kiritsugu cried until he could cry no more.

***

Irisviel felt tears drip from her eyes, mixing with the streams running their courses down her husband’s cheeks. 

 

It would seem that the world was kind once again, bringing them together again. 

 

What was that saying again? She couldn’t quite remember. Something about broken clocks or a blue moon.

 

When she first found him—which was far from difficult, the man’s black clothing contrasting sharply with the white to all sides, Irisviel found herself unable to breathe or think, her mind vacated of all thought. It was as if her mind knew that the space would soon be flooded to the brim with boundless yearning.

 

It was one of those moments one cannot help but cherish, a feeling of pure indescribable joy birthed from the most passionate and heart-wrenching love. A feeling so raw, so visceral, that it felt as if her soul was being torn from her chest.

 

“KIRITSUGU!” she had screamed uncharacteristically, running towards him faster than she had ever run before. To Irisviel, even this pace felt as if it were a snail’s crawl, as if time was slowed in the likeness of Kiritsugu’s magecraft. 

 

Even if she had surpassed the speed of light then, it still would not be enough. Her yearning was so vigorous, so potent that no speed could deliver her to his side with adequate swiftness.

 

He was on the ground, lying as if waiting for death. The sight of her husband’s dying form corrupted her delight with the darker emotions of fear and worry.

 

“K-Kiri—Ahh! Kiritsugu! Kiritsugu!” she choked out in a strangled voice, wracked with sobs. 

 

Almost unconsciously, she worked her alchemy on his arid body, which she discovered to be severely dehydrated.

 

For a magus of the house of Einzbern, healing mere dehydration was but child’s play. Irisviel did not even need to sow together rent tissue or stitch together shards of bone. In fact, healing magecraft itself was unnecessary in this scenario. A small amount of transmutation alchemy—converting the dense mana in the air into water, was able to resuscitate her husband.

 

This was not the first time she healed him as he was injured or even on the cusp of death, but hopefully, it would be the last.

 

Cradling his head in her lap, Irisviel waited until Kiritsugu opened his teary eyes.

 

And once he did, she felt her heart swell once more, filling with love and adoration at the sight of those empty-yet-willful eyes. Lovingly, she brushed back a lock of his disheveled hair.

 

“I-it’s alright, Kiritsugu. Everything—everything’s alright now,” she cooed, holding together her composure using every last ounce of will. 

 

And then, just as Irisviel thought the world could not surprise her anymore to this day, she was proven wrong again by her husband, who had begun to act in a way she would have never imagined him in his wildest dreams. 

 

He was sobbing. Not merely allowing his trails of tears to run down his stoic face, The sort of sob a child would make in the midst of being comforted by their mother. A fit of wailing honest and raw, devoid of dignity and composure, so strong that it sounded as if he was drowning—and even though Irisviel’s heart ached at the sounds, she could not help but note its irony.

 

Irisviel was glad—certainly not because her husband was in a state of distress, but because he was finally letting loose his forcibly-bottled emotions. 

 

She was glad… that her husband no longer needed to be so strong.

 

And as the fit of emotional wailing continued, Irisviel, too, allowed herself to break down. 

 

What started as a gradual shiver of the body evolved into a quivering of the lip, eventually transforming into full cries.

 

The couple cried together, both basking in the joy of their reunion, yet mourning the precious things lost. They refused to show weakness, to disclose their suffering until reaching the other 

 

But once they did—once the noxious capsules of negativity within their hearts were relieved of their unsavory content, they would always be the better for it.

 

Irisviel knew that this was the time to release it all. Her fears, her uncertainties, her regrets. Not only gained after her awakening in this world—she was only recently summoned, but for the entire duration of the Fourth Holy Grail War.

 

She knew her husband had been through more than just the war. With but a glance at those aged, teary eyes, she could tell.

 

“He mellowed out,” Irisviel wondered if that was thanks to his experiences—perhaps the influence of Ilya, who she assumed Kiritsugu raised alone after her death, hopefully far far away from the Einzbern magi.

 

The thought of it made Irisviel smile in satisfaction and self-vindication, although the latter emotion, in turn, elicited from her a reaction of guilt. Even though she could not raise her daughter alongside her husband, surely her sacrifice meant something. Surely, Kiritsugu told Illya all about her brave and kindhearted mother.

 

Soon, Irisviel would ask him all about these things, all the events in his life she had missed. But first, she would wait this out and let her husband cry. After all, she needed this too. 

***

In the past, she was the one who understood him most. He had treated Maiya too much like a tool, Saber with too much hostility. They had observed only his mercilessness, and barely any of his kindness. Illya too, although her situation was the opposite.

 

Iri was the closest to comprehending the man called Emiya Kiritsugu. Even if she could not connect his cruel actions with his noble goal, she never lost faith in his dedication to that goal. 

 

And thus, Kiritsugu always knew he was right to tell her everything, from his deepest insecurities to his greatest joys—once in a blue moon.

 

That was why, after their emotions had run their course, he told her everything. He told her of the destruction of the cursed grail and his inability to save Illya from the Einzberns. He told her of a broken dream in a city of flames, and how he was saved by a single red-haired boy.

 

Irisviel listened in apt silence, too shocked to even prod with clarifying questions. Kiritsugu supposed she felt numb—the disbelieving sort that comes with shock. He felt the same. To this day, it was still difficult to believe everything ended so tragically. 

 

Even after he had told everything that was worth telling, Irisviel gave no reaction, only staring blankly forward. Kiritsugu didn’t know if she was too shocked to think, or if her thoughts were so abounding that they drove her into her own little world.

 

The Magus Killer could not help but note, sadly, that the happiness in his wife’s expression had receded.

 

“I—Illya. The Einzberns… Illya is being raised by the Einzberns?!” she finally asked, with eyes that screamed with helpless desperation.

 

“Yes, Iri. She is. But I set explosives in the cavern containing the Lesser Grail. They’re timed to detonate at the start of the fifth war. She won’t become the next Holy Grail. I-it won’t be an easy life, but she should be—”

 

“But she’ll still be raised by them, right?” there was no anger, only despondency.

 

“I… yes. She will be. There was no way to infiltrate the Einzberns’ bounded field. If there was, if I could still use my magecraft, then I—then I…” Kiritsugu couldn’t finish. He couldn’t help but think he was trying to make excuses for his inadequacy. 

 

“How pathetic.”

 

Irisviel, as always, remained more sympathetic.

 

“It wasn’t your fault, Kiritsugu. These circumstances were all out of our control. You had no idea the grail was corrupted until the very end, and you tried… you tried everything in your power to save our daughter.” 

 

“I should have investigated beforehand. I should have brought Illya somewhere safe! I should have—”

 

“You had no idea this would have happened! The Einzberns would have never allowed us to take Illya anyways. Don’t blame yourself for this, Kiritsugu. It was just another cruel twist of fate. We—” she choked at the unfairness of it all, “We can’t blame ourselves.”

 

Kiritsugu drove back his guilt to the innermost corners of his mind, forcibly curbing his expression and returning it to its emotionless state. Irisviel frowned in disappointment. She knew he was still convinced. But for now, she would accept his self-hatred, already satisfied with the joy of their reunion. But this discussion was surely not over.

 

A stagnant silence filled the air, producing an awkward atmosphere where neither member of the couple wished to restart the conversation. Kiritsugu felt unworthy to speak to the mother whose child he had failed, and Irisviel was fraught with frustration towards her inability to resolve the issue. 

 

Regardless of the fact that both of them were living on borrowed time, without food or water, neither black nor white found the strength to make the next move. 

 

The silence in the air stretched on for what appeared to be hours, and it soon seemed as if divine intervention would be necessary to break this congestion.

 

And then, a bird—no, a familiar in the shape of a bird was suddenly above them, glowing with a blue, magical light. There was a trail behind the thing, like the contrails of an aircraft, dissipating in scant few seconds.

 

It stopped, then, staring at them in place—flapping its wings to stay afloat. It was almost as if it was shocked at their presence.

 

The familiar was an artistic thing, made from a large amount of masterfully-interweaved strings. An eloquent creation, created by the most expert of artisans.

 

But Irisviel was not focused on the craftsmanship of the familiar. No, for she had noticed something far more significant than that, and more significant than even the presence of an actual living organism in this seemingly-empty world. 

 

After all, she herself used the same type of magecraft.

 

The stagnancy was dispelled. Eyes narrowed, her voice almost a whisper, she called to her husband, “Kiritsugu. This is an Einzbern familiar. They’re watching us.”

 

Kiritsugu nodded, suddenly on guard. He was not new to the Eizberns’ magecraft. Looking closely, it was obvious the materials of the construct consisted of magically manipulated strands of snow-white hair.

 

“We should first establish communications.”

 

In full honesty, Kiritsugu could not be certain their observer was not hostile. And yet, there was no other choice but to take a calculated risk.

 

This was first contact. 

 

Knowing the Einzberns, this path would end only in betrayal. But it would be a preferable alternative to starving to death with no information on their surroundings. If there was even a chance their observer knew something of this world, they needed to drag that information out of them. 

 

Irisviel seemed to come to the same conclusion, stepping forward to address the magus behind the bird.

 

“My name is Irisviel von Einzbern, and this is my companion. As fellow members of the clan, I request a civil discussion, face to face. We must determine the nature of this world, as well the purpose of our presence within it,” she spoke. Her eyes were no longer red from crying, possessing an unbreakable will.

 

Irisviel knew better than any other not to show weakness towards an Einzbern, especially not as one of their homunculi. Suddenly, her mind was invaded by a cold, snowy mountain and a veritable horde of vicious predators.

 

“That’s right, Iri. Make yourself seem strong, like you have something to offer. That way, they won’t write you off even if you’re an eyesore,”  Kiritsugu thought.

 

Irisviel expected an acknowledgment of words or actions, a refusal, or even violence. Her body was tense and her magic circuits were halfway to activation.

 

However, to her confusion, the response towards her offer of collaboration was neither peaceful nor hostile, but shocked, as if it could not fathom their very existence.

 

“Maybe the Einzbern has been here so long they can barely fathom the presence of another human.” While he maintained a perfect poker face, the man grimaced in his mind. 

 

The familiar was suspended midair for a few seconds its small, deceptively delicate head whirling back and forth between Kiritsugu and Irisviel, lingering more on the former. 

 

The bird’s delicately-weaved wing began to flap without rhythm, and it sporadically rose and fell, unable to maintain its steadiness. 

 

In the next moment, as Irisviel took another step forward to inspect the seemingly malfunctioning familiar, it sped off in a flash of blue, leaving behind it the same trail of magical energy as it did during its entrance.

 

Without hesitation, Kiritsugu sprinted for the bird, following the trail it left behind. He took the surprised Irisviel’s hand and pulled her along, the woman almost falling as they moved.

 

“We’re going, Iri,” he let her go after a few steps, prompting his wife to run of her own accord.

 

Giving her husband a short nod, Irisviel complied, following his lead. She was not too thrilled to meet her callous clansman. But any sign of life in this world could not be ignored.

 

Besides, she was curious. Why would the magus be so bewildered because of a simple chance encounter? Was it surprise towards the discovery of their clansman, the Magus Killer, or even just a sign of life at all? 

 

Or… could it be something more personal?

***

Keeping a close eye on a multitude of familiars was not an easy task for the common magus. But for Illyasviel von Einzbern, such a light degree of multitasking was but child’s play.

 

Sitting on her guardian’s broad, musclebound shoulder, she swung her dangling legs back and forth while humming a relaxing tune.

 

Her ruby eyes looked straight ahead while her arms acted as tiny pillars as they pushed on the giant’s rugged skin, keeping her balance.

 

As the minutes passed and her familiars flew, Illya grew more and more bored of their visual acquisitions.

 

“It’s just the same. So much white…”

 

And white was exactly what the birds observed. Nothing but white, to an endless and maddening scale. It was enough to drive a man insane, the sheer homogeneity of it all.

 

Illya was not ready to simply give up and dispel the families, of course, but she could not help but wonder if there was a point to her endeavors in the first place.

 

“What if I’m all alone here? I-I mean, I have Berserker, but he’s not the talkative type. Maybe I can survive off the atmospheric mana if I convert it into nutrients, but then what? Play peek-a-boo with Berserker to pass the time? The boredom will drive me insane!”

 

The Einzbern sighed. If she was alone again, wouldn’t that be just like before?

 

“No, don’t even think about that! The situation is already bad right now. I can’t ruin my own mental state on top of it.”

 

Illya let her spine fall backward, assuming a laying-up position on Heracles’ shoulder. Her hair fell freely from the elevated position, snowy strands dangling like a curtain of white silk. 

 

She remembered her big (little) brother’s handsome smile, and the wholesome warmth kindling in her breast every time he displayed it. She remembered that rowdy household, full of strong personalities. She recalled Rin’s brashness, Saber’s uprightness, and even the chaos that was Fujimura Taiga—even though she was completely insane!

 

Illya soon heard a round of amused chuckling echoing across the void, absentmindedly recognizing it as her own.

 

“It hasn’t even been a day and I already miss them,” she noted. 

 

With a brewing concoction of frustration in her heart, Illya actually stood up on Berserker’s shoulder, stomping her foot angrily on his rippling muscles. 

 

If Shirou had been here, he would have thought it adorable.

 

“How long is it going to take for my familiars to find something?! Just how empty is this place?! If I have to wait another—ano—”

 

And she promptly fell backward, nearly landing on solid ground if Berserker did not secure her landing with his hand.

 

But Illya did not particularly care if she fell and injured her head. The girl was far too stupefied to notice such a thing, to the point where she was choking on her own spit.

 

“W-what the hell? H-ho—how?!” she screamed in disbelief, shaking her head as if to deny the very possibility of her vision.

 

No one could blame her. After all, it was not every day that a girl saw her dead parents from the eyes of a magic bird, alive and well.

 

Indeed, one of her familiars had encountered two other entities suspiciously similar to the two individuals who had haunted her dreams for ten years of her life. She knew the man in black. She hated him—or at least she used to until his valiant efforts to rescue her had been revealed. 

 

The other figure, a woman, was the mysterious silhouette whose face the girl could never quite recall. The only memories she had of the woman consisted of the warmth of her motherly embrace, and two ruby eyes twinkling with maternal affection.

 

A dozen emotions erupted from the neatly-tended shelves of her psyche, threatening to consume her all at the same time. It was a chaotic line, with every member cutting and scrambling to be served.

 

“W-wha—huh? Why… why now?!” 

 

Panicked, Illya quickly called for the retreat of all her familiars, even the birds whose reconnaissance was devoid of results.

 

With the advent of these new orders, her familiars swiftly zoomed back towards her. Soon, they would be back, and the man and woman would quickly follow. 

 

“W-What do I do?! Do I tell the familiars to go another way? Do I run? Do I—do I face them?” Illya pondered with no small amount of trepidation contaminating her mental faculties. 

 

While the girl found herself trapped in a purgatory of her own making, her guardian decided to take matters into his own hands.

 

Unleashing a mighty, bestial roar, echoing through the void and nearly shattering Illya’s eardrums, Heracles forcefully snapped his charge out of her self-made prison like the most terrifying alarm, releasing her back to the folds of reality. 

 

Illya flinched, rubbing at her ears.

 

“You’re right, Berserker. I need to stop panicking,” she concluded.

 

While her tumultuous emotions were still far from processed, the Einzbern magus forcefully quashed them. And although she was still nervous, the girl felt she possessed just enough strength to make one single decision.

 

Gesturing for Berserker to plant her on his shoulder once more—which he did, Illya pointed in the direction her familiars encountered the two figures with a shaking hand, doing her best to ignore the pit in her stomach in the meantime.

 

She barely noticed when Heracles began to move.

 

What would she even say to them? There were so many things—too many, but where could she even start? Not to mention she tried to kill her own adopted brother! How could she explain that part? 

 

What could she say to the mother she had lost at such a young age, whose mannerisms would be a mystery to her? There would certainly be a bond, yes. But they were essentially strangers! Could she truly inflict the awkward pain of that meeting onto herself? 

 

“Oh, hello… Mom.”

 

“It’s been too long, my… er… daughter?”

 

Just thinking of it made Illya want to rip her hair out!

 

Would it feel real, she wondered. Would her mother feel motherly? Would her father feel fatherly, after all this time? Would she experience that warm, secure sensation she felt back then, back when everything was simple and she was so happy? Could she really go back to that? Experience that snug, nostalgic warmth once more?

 

Would it feel real?

 

Swallowing excessively in a desperate attempt to remove the lump in her throat, Illya’s eyes pointed forward, scouring vigilantly for any black or white dots in the distance.

 

Her lips quivered. She wanted to cry.

***

“Big,” 

 

That was the thought that came to mind as Irisviel saw the giant for the first time.

 

He was just a dot. A big, grey dot over yonder, across the vastness of the white expanse.

 

But even as a dot, Irisviel couldn’t help but think he was something large and threatening, it simply gave off this… imposing aura that reached them from afar. No doubt Kiritsugu thought the same. He reached for his nonpresent guns and scowled when his hands came up empty. Irisviel would have chuckled if the pressure exerted by that imposing figure, from so far away, did not drain the humor from the situation.

 

Even if neither husband nor wife could quite make out its features, both were subject to an inherent sense of dread in their psyche due to its presence, animalistic fight or flight instincts vying for control.

 

And then, as it got closer, and closer, prompting Kiritsugu to hiss, “Iri, we should run!”

 

Irisviel shook her head, for she had noticed the speck of white on the edge of the grey.

 

“Whatever that creature is, it is probably being used as transport for the Einzbern. Maybe a golem?” she guessed.

 

“I see,” Kiritsugu answered. “Then we need to stand our ground.”

 

He certainly did not look comfortable with the commitment, especially not without his weapons, but he stood his ground nonetheless. He seemed to accept this as a risky-but-necessary plan. The stoicism which had accompanied him during his missions had found its master once more. Gone was the broken man, stewed soft in hardship. In his place was the Magus Killer as he always was, calculative and utilitarian.

 

The small grey dot expanded with every passing moment until it grew slowly into a humanoid silhouette, although it seemed to be malformed—as if a second, smaller silhouette protruded from its shoulder region.

 

Both Irisviel and Kiritsugu suddenly came to realize that the Einzbern was sitting on the giant’s shoulder.

 

Still over a hundred meters away, the silhouette was growing in size, and after a short few seconds, Irisviel could make out its visage.

 

The giant was as large as she expected, with tough, stony muscles in addition. A masculine, humanoid beast, the creature wore nothing but a pair of gauntlets and a large pteruge on its broad waist. 

 

As well as her husband, Irisviel knew again that she should have been more focused on the giant. It was the more dangerous one of the two strangers. She knew this. And yet, for some unknown reason… she seemed unable to concentrate on it—him… whatever it was. 

 

Instead, her eyes always drifted onto the Einzbern atop its shoulder, as if there was something special about the magus that was not just borne of their family name. There was an unordinary connection between them, beyond the superficial blood ties of their brood of clones. Although for the life of her, Irisviel did not know why. The female—and she knew it was a female because of her long hair—may have been someone she met before. 

 

But she couldn’t recall any member of the family who made such an impact on her with the exception of Jubstacheit, the family head—but he was male.

 

As such, there remained only a single possibility. A single, fantastical possibility Irisviel’s mind could not force itself to contemplate, as the potential disappointment caused by its probable inaccuracy would be too crushing to bear. She didn’t want to hurt herself like that, no mother would.

 

But eventually, as the giant’s stomping steps delivered its apparent mistress fifty meters closer, Irisviel could no longer deny the validity of that so-called possibility.

 

Kiritsugu felt the same. She heard a heavy thud at her side. Her husband’s knees gave out in shock, no doubt. 

 

For what must have been the tenth time this day, a choked, wet sob escaped Irisviel’s lungs.

 

The giant stopped suddenly at the frenzied taps of its mistress, and if Irisviel didn’t know better, she would have thought for a second that it was scrutinizing them with its void-black eyes.

 

The girl, whose ruby eyes and snow-white hair mirrored Irisviel’s own, stared at her with a dumbstruck expression, slowly shifting her sight to the kneeling Kiritsugu.

 

Her gaze shifted between them, disbelieving. It was the same gaze Kiritsugu leveled towards her, and when their eyes met, it imposed upon her the impression of a reflection across a mirror.

 

And at that moment, she knew. This girl… this girl was Illyasviel von Einzbern.

 

Her daughter.

 

Irisviel’s mouth was dry. She felt lightheaded. She tried everything in her power to speak to the girl—her child, but released nothing but a choked whisper.

 

Kiritsugu stopped functioning altogether, as if he was a broken machine, a puppet with ruined strings. Yet in contrast to his deactivation, the man’s perpetually-empty eyes now shone with a faint, hopeful light. 

 

Illya, still too shocked to speak, slowly trudged to the kneeling Kiritsugu, her legs trembling with mental effort. Still standing, her gaze aligned perfectly with her father’s due to her child-like height. Her hand caressed his cheek, cleanly-shaven but rough, and she could feel the ticklish stings of little hair stumps poking into her skin.

 

“Illya,” Irisviel finally whispered, having swallowed the lump in her throat. “Illya!” she repeated, louder this time. And with a jerkish swerve of the neck, sending long strands of snowy hair sweeping wildly across the air, her daughter finally looked her in the eyes.

 

Silence again. But this time, Illya did not even have the opportunity to move. 

 

For she was caught in a back-breaking bearhug from her father.

 

Ruby eyes widened as a small pair of feet rose from the ground, levitating into the air above.

 

He buried her face in his coat as he began to cry. 

 

And yet, there was a growing dampness on that coat, and Illya shuddered as a thousand memories returned to her in an instant.

 

Loving, tender warmth she had not felt since she was eight. So, so different from the castle’s perpetual chill—from the agonizing scorching of her magic circuits as she “trained” them. “Not even Shirou’s warmth can surpass this,” she thought. Even he could not reproduce this familiarity, this nostalgia, this rightness. 

 

“Kiritsugu…”

 

The man’s eyes widened as his soft cries became sobs.

 

“Papa…”

 

Those sobs escalated to loud, heart-shaking cries as Kiritsugu broke down for the second time this day.

 

“Illya!” her name was stretched across a long cry, wet and cracking.

 

As if a spell had been broken, the family’s collective shock dispersed.

 

Irisviel’s mind suddenly registered the tears trailing down her cheeks and her sob-wracked body. She joined the hug, wrapping her arms around both her daughter and husband, allowing no passion to be hidden in secrecy.

 

Then they cried together. They just did. There was no exchange of words, no ‘It’s been so longs’ or ‘I love yous’. Their love, their longing; the unexpected joy of reunion, preceded by a decade of suffering—was simply impossible to express in language. Even their tears seemed far from enough.

 

A family, long broken, was made whole this day. 

 

And perhaps, like a broken clock ticking right twice a day, fate had finally released them from her torturous grasp.

 

Heracles looked on with his crazed eyes. And for a fraction of a moment—if one was perceptive enough—they would have seen the smile on those stony lips.

***

The king of Britain found herself alone in the middle of a seemingly infinite void. There was no human before her to claim her as their servant—and when she looked down, the similar sight of a summoning circle was equally absent. In their place was a sea of endless white, an ominous field of nothing, absent of sight, smell, sound, taste, and wind.

 

An irregularity atop an irregularity. Even if she was summoned into a formal Holy Grail War, Artoria would have still doubted her eyes. She was resting in Avalon, after all, with her auburn-haired lover at her side. It shouldn’t have been possible to summon her after that, not when the woman finally found her peace, having relinquished her wish for the Grail.

 

And yet, as she walked hand in hand with Shirou in that mystical land, supremely grateful just to drink in his presence once more—the love and devotion in his eyes producing fluttering butterflies in her stomach… she was unceremoniously snatched away, left with a mere half-second to react as her soul was ripped from Avalon and sent to another plane.

 

The panicked expression on her lover’s face made Artoria grimace.

 

The sensation was far different than a Servant summoning. This summoning—no, this nonconsensual ripping of the soul, was more forced… violent, in fact.

 

Still, in the mere moments before Artoria’s materialization, as her soul still traveled along whatever pathway her abductor intended, she assumed it would be an irregular summoning by a highly-ambitious master. 

 

After all, during the Third Holy Grail War, the Einzberns had invoked Angra Mainu, the man who corrupted the very artifact responsible for his existence. The summoning system itself was cursed with more loopholes than Artoria could possibly imagine. All this in addition to the rule-breaking, probability-defying natures of Heroic Spirits. 

 

The King of Knights had long accepted the rules of this goddamned ritual were as malleable as gold. An apt metaphor, she mused. 

 

But this time, there was no such ritual. She still had knowledge of languages and customs front the previous wars, but this time, she had been given nothing.

 

“No master, no grail, no enemy, no information. This situation grows more ominous with every passing moment,” Artoria thought, furrowing her brow.

 

Then, as if mocking her skepticism, the world decided to respond to Artoria’s suspicion in the worst of ways.

 

Suddenly, the King of Knights felt her head split open by an agonizing migraine, as if information—in its most pure and condensed form, was injected into her mind in the barrel of a gargantuan syringe.

 

“Ugh!” she cried, allowing no more misgivings to exit from her mouth. The pain, was much, yes. But years of training and experience—coupled with her own will, allowed the king to ride out the pain with nothing but a few seconds of gritted teeth.

 

Then, the pain stopped; and her mind was cleared of a great leaden fog to reveal a great wrathful tide, sweeping aside all coherent thought and structured reasoning, receding only when its wrath was all but spent. 

 

What was left behind on the shores of Artoria’s mind was a chaos of jumbled memories. some were joyful, some contradictory. Others were… dark to say the least. 

 

In one world, she found love and the boy who completed her. In another, a pair of friends and a worthy death. And in the last… she died a blackened tyrant, the embodiment of tyranny.

 

“Timelines,” she thought. “These are different timelines.” 

 

Merlin was not the most appropriate of father figures, but he had taught her enough of magecraft for her to understand the concept of parallel worlds. 

 

And with the full knowledge of three timelines at her disposal, Artoria marveled at the sheer amount of mysteries revealed in each.

 

“Rider is Medusa. Archer… is Shirou. Sakura, that timid girl was…”

 

So many surprises… but now was not the time to indulge herself in contemplation. She was in an unknown world with unknown properties, summoned at the behest of an unknown entity. She had but the time to make a single, momentous decision. 

 

“From which timeline do I belong? Or am I truly an amalgamation of these three possibilities in one?”

 

Artoria could not consider herself an amalgamation no matter what. After all, the third timeline; where her tyrannical self wreaked havoc on her master and allies, was an absolute embarrassment, a stain on the honor of a knight. Besides, Shirou was—

 

The moment the image of her lover reached the forefront of her mind, she was reminded of the auburn-haired boy waiting for her in the land of fairies, whose innocent smile resembled the most luminescent of sunbeams. The man whose heart she had captured, the man who had captured hers. That heartful, sincere man who she knew she did not deserve, who would surely declare he was the one who did not deserve her in the face of that sentiment. 

 

He did not stop chasing after her until the end of his life. 

 

In the face of such love, such devotion, was there even a choice? 

 

Artoria chuckled at her own folly. 

 

“How foolish. I am Artoria Pendragon, beloved of Emiya Shirou. The other timelines are but glimpses of alternative paths. Paths which cannot be compared in joy nor fulfillment with my own. As such, I choose him. I choose love,” she declared, announcing her identity with certainty. 

 

If any of her knights had seen her now—so expressive, so in touch with her own humanity; they would think her a woman possessed. Artoria did not mind. If anything, this would be naught but a display of her own maturity.

 

“I must return to him, then. After I am finished with this world.”

 

And so, with a shrouded Excalibur gripped firmly in her hand, Artoria marched staunchly on, stout as a mountain and confident as a goddess. 

 

One way or the other, she would see him again.

***

Mordred looked around her with the confusion of a child, not horribly unfitting in her youthful visage. 

 

“Huh?”

 

There was nothing particularly wrong with anything she saw. After all, her master was next to her, healthy and unbloodied. Sure, the world may have been replaced with an endless expanse of white, but there was nothing els—

 

“WAIT!”

 

Mordred’s eyes bulged as they observed the fully-intact form of Shishigo Kairi, her jaw hanging without her notice.

 

“MASTER?!” she shrilled. 

 

Kairi, his sunglasses dull from the lack of bright lights around them, cringed and muffled his ears with his hands.

 

His eyes trailed to his chest, which was now suspiciously free of blood. His pockets felt too light, and the man did not take long to realize that his weapons had vanished.

 

But even so, this was not the time to be panicking, especially when his former partner was doing it for him.

 

“Calm down, Mordred! You’re going to make me go deaf!” he shouted.

 

“Eh?! But you died!” she paused, taking another look at him like she couldn’t process the fact he was still alive. 

 

Kairi felt a metallic, gauntleted hand groping at him, searching and squeezing for wounds or tricks.

 

He waved her off, separating himself from his former Servant before adjusting his coat.

 

“That’s right. I died. Or… I was supposed to. I guess someone had other ideas,” the spellcaster paused, taking an inquisitive look at Mordred. “What about you? Anything different?”

 

The Knight of Treachery closed her eyes. To her, she had died mere moments ago, dissipating into faint particles of magical energy whilst Kairi bled out next to her. He lit a cigarette, then, dropping it as he died. 

 

But now, both of them were fine and dandy, right after their deaths too! 

 

She could understand if only she was resurrected. Magi were known to do crazy things to spirits, after all. But a human? Even if he was a necromancer, there was no way he would be able to resurrect himself without a scratch on his body or soul. 

 

And what was up with the weird white-looking world they had been placed in? Just looking around her pissed her off!

 

But now was not the time to be obsessive over any of these details. Back in the Great Holy Grail War, she had acknowledged Kairi’s strategic prowess. She would be a fool not to trust in his orders now; especially since she couldn’t tell how dangerous this world could be for them. 

 

“Well, I don’t remember putting this armor back on or taking my helmet off. And I’m… not sure what magical source I’m currently anchored to.”

 

Kairi’s eyes widened. His eyes trailed to the back of his hand, now uncomfortably bare of any markings or symbols. 

 

“The Servant Mordred has been resummoned, but I’m not her Master.”

 

Kairi displayed the back of that hand to his partner, his face grim. To Mordred, the meaning behind this action was clear.

 

“You… you’re not my Master anymore?” she asked in a hushed tone, her face uncharacteristically sober. There was suspicion in her eyes. The sort that comes whenever one was forced to confront an illusion. She seemed to realize just how unnatural the situation was, and how unlikely it was that the man before her was truly her master and not a flimsy puppet of a particularly deceptive magus or fairy.

 

Kairi understood that suspicion. He had dealt with illusion-focused magi before; hadn’t trusted anyone for a month afterward, and only the words of a dear friend snapped him back to reality.

 

“Bad luck with magi tricksters. I know the feeling.”

 

“Appears so. Are you going to kill me now that I’m not useful?” Kairi replied, trying to lighten the mood.

 

“What the hell?!” 

 

Kairi chuckled. 

 

“Well, since I’m not useful as an energy source, you could always keep my heart around as emergency food,” he returned, an easy smirk on his face. His humor had long been corrupted by his occupation as a bounty hunter, every bit as bleak as the arduously-gathered corpses he processed into weaponry.

 

Mordred shuddered, recalling the wretched girl-like servant who sustained her existence through the viciously harvested hearts of magi in the war.

 

“Like hell I would do that!” the knight shouted, her face stretched into an expression of outrage. It softened somewhat after she heard Kairi’s amused chuckling, before it became a smile just like his. 

 

She looked at him again, staring at those tacky sunglasses and the gangster-like jacket and pants covering his scarred muscular frame, scrutinizing his laugh and the way his face seemed to turn a little fatherly during it.

 

Mordred came to a conclusion once she had seen enough. 

 

“This man… he’s really my master,” she thought, reaffirming her loyalty. The knight was unsure what assumptions had taken root in her mind beforehand. The possibility of this all just being an illusion had crossed her mind. If one would spend time with the sorcerers Merlin and Morgan, they would be just as suspicious as her, if not more so. 

 

But those suspicions, while not baseless, would do her no good here. Her previous master seemed to be true to his identity, and Mordred would accept him as he was, at least until proven otherwise.

 

“So, partner, what do we do now?” Mordred asked after both of them returned to normalcy. Well, whatever sort of normalcy there could be between a terrifying necromancer reeking of gunpowder and an overemotional destroyer of kingdoms.

 

“We just move,” answered Kairi, his brows furrowed. “I don’t have enough information to make a plan.”

 

“Wow. I never thought I would see the day when you’re lost on what to do. Guess there’s a first time for everything, huh?” Mordred marveled playfully.

 

Kairi scowled in an equally lighthearted way. “There’s not enough information. If you’ve got a better idea, be my guest.”

 

“Hmph! I would have us march forward, arms ready to destroy any enemy! If there are any cowards hiding out there,” she gestured to the white expanse around them with Clarent in her hand, “I’ll just kill them all!”  

 

“So the same plan as mine, then,” deadpanned Kairi.

 

“Of course not!” Mordred retorted. “You made your strategy that way because you don’t know what to do. I made mine because I’m not afraid of the enemy. Because I know that I can handle anything that comes my way, and that I can face them head-on without resorting to cowardly tricks! That’s what it means to be King Arthur’s successor! That’s what it means to be the future king of Britain!”

 

“Riiiiiight,” Kairi deadpanned again, exasperated. He subsequently gave up on arguing with his servant. “Well, my king, allow this unworthy necromancer to escort you to your glorious destination.”

 

There was another ‘humph’, although Kairi suspected that it was more of an act after he saw the look in Mordred’s eyes.

 

“Ok. I suppose you can come with m—”

 

There was a shift in the air. An indescribable feel of animalistic bloodlust radiated from the formerly-joking knight in murderous tongues of blood-red lightning, uprighting every hair on the back of Kairi’s neck at once.

 

Suddenly, the girl was entirely armored, Secret of Pedigree shielding her small body in the likeness of a great fortress wall. Clarent was held with both hands in an aggressive swordsman’s stance, trembling in Mordred’s shaking hands. 

 

Kairi’s eyes widened. Was Mordred… afraid?

 

“She’s serious. Whoever she just sensed, they’re an enemy we will probably lose against, judging by the shaking of her hands.” 

 

He gulped nervously, scowling when his unconscious movements to reach for his gun bore no fruit. He knew he was helpless against anyone Mordred considered a threat, but without his weapons, Kairi couldn’t even fool himself into believing that he had a chance.

 

His eyes scanned his surroundings, out of both the desire to take his mind off the fact of his own powerlessness and curiosity over the identity of the individual who could strike fear into the heart of his haughty servant.

 

And then, he saw it. A dot of yellow and blue, over what must have been hundreds of meters away. 

 

Even from that distance, he could sense the might of that thing. It couldn’t have been human, not from the sheer amount of power that radiated from it over such a vast distance. 

 

Kairi felt the towering might of a hurricane crushing his body from afar. It was the most powerful wind magecraft he had ever experienced, superior to the ability of any modern magus in the Clocktower, and perhaps even the dead apostles.

 

But that was not all. In addition to that oppressive wind, a radiant kingly power compelled the spellcaster to drop to his knees, and in his mind’s eye, he saw the image of a roaring crimson dragon, sending fearful shudders down his spine.

 

There was something majestic about that figure, something compelling to the fundamental level of his humanity.

 

“That’s a king. No doubt about it, that’s a king. But no normal king could make Mordred shake like this. She would be wary, sure, but not this emotional. Who could it… oh… oh shit.” he remembered the image of the dragon. The red dragon. 

 

And then, Kairi understood. What king could be associated with the red dragon and induce this emotional—dare he say personal—reaction in Mordred? If one put their mind to it, they could only come to one conclusion. And if that conclusion was true—Kairi gulped—then Mordred would surely pick a fight with Him. A fight she couldn’t possibly win. After all, He was…

 

“Oi, oi, are you serious?!” 

 

“Shut up for now, Master,” Mordred ordered, tone deceptively calm. There was something seething under her voice, like a whistling kettle whose lid was dangerously close to blowing off.

 

Kairi gulped and stood rigid. Very, very rigid, yet tense in equal measure. Again, he desperately wished for his guns back. Even with his phantasmal-beast hide clothing, he felt naked and vulnerable.

 

Mordred had stopped shaking now, her expression hidden under the sinister helmet of Secret of Pedigree. But Kairi was sure that in the heart of his partner boiled a tidal wave of rising fury, a world of resentment the color of freshly spilled blood. What could he do to quell her fury? He had no command seals, and no words could get through to the girl now, not when she was like this. 

 

Both of them waited then, the knight wallowing in a viscous pit of murderous intent like a ruined sponge in a pit of mud. The necromancer, who was once again subdued by his own lack of ability, stood behind her, his eyes never leaving the dot of yellow-and-blue which ominously increased in size with every passing second. 

 

Naked, powerless, and weak, he was a man trapped in a storm of boiling blood. 

 

And even though he was certain his words could no longer reach his rage-possessed partner, Kairi felt it was his duty to at least caution her at this critical time. It was the absolute least he could do. He could only hope that the bond they had forged between themselves could allow his words to shear through the bloodlust clouding her heart.

 

“Don’t lose yourself, Mordred. No matter what, remember your dream, the one you told me in those last moments. Whatever happens, don’t lose hold of it.”

 

His advice was met with total silence, just as he feared. 

 

“This mess is going to turn into an absolute bloodbath,” he cursed inwardly. “I just hope when the dust settles, she’ll be the one left standing.”

***

The knight Mordred, before her father, could best be summarized as a raging beast of blood and lightning. 

 

Tongues of fell crimson lightning lashed the air around her, each individual strand containing a lifetime’s worth of resentment towards the man she once called king.

 

The moment she sensed that majestic aura, her mind had blanked before filling with nothing but hatred and anger. Forced to make room for the volatile emotions, all other thoughts and emotions were forced into tiny corners in the back of her mind. 

 

And even as she knew, even as she knew that her true dream was one of filial devotion, to take the crown from her father’s head, not in scorn, entitlement, or greed, but out of a benevolent desire to lighten his weighty burden; the years of apathy and disregard from her target of devotion had damaged her psyche far beyond reason.

 

Those suppressed, logical parts of her psyche screamed in defiance, but the anger was too strong, too overwhelming to penetrate.

 

At this moment, Mordred was neither a son, a knight, nor a girl. She was a beast of hatred, a bloodied monster with a single-minded obsession to commit the most heinous of crimes.

 

Every fiber of her body screamed in violent intent, to thrust the tip of her blade into the petite throat of that blue dot at the center of her vision, to stain that blue dress crimson with his blood, in her colors.

 

“Not yet,” the betrayer growled. “Not yet,” it cursed. There would be no strike until she saw the whites of her father’s eyes. She wanted to see his face before she struck him down. She wanted to watch him die.

 

And as the crimson beast stewed in her hatred, she waited. She waited until that accursed face so resemblant of hers finally entered her sight.

 

On that face was an expression of shock, even as the king continued to step towards her. Her former Master was shouting something to her now, but she couldn’t hear him through the heartbeat pounding in her ears.

 

THUMP, THUMP, THUMP, THUMP, the booming rhythm of a dreadful, savage engine, a rhyme of murder and violence, the harbinger of regicide and patricide both.

 

Mordred remembered the time when the appearance of that visage filled her with a sense of joy and glee, when she would have died a thousand deaths for the tiniest of smiles on that reticent face, when in times of privacy, she would admire her own face in the mirror and it would feel like her heart would jump through her own chest and burst out in sheer pride and awe, because… because, she was King Arthur’s son. 

 

And yet, why?

 

Why, even when her face was already enough to prove her identity? Why, when she had dedicated her sword to his kingdom? Why, even after so much blood was spilled, so many she slaughtered in his name?!

 

Why? Why?! Why?! WHY?!

 

Why had she been rejected?! Were those years of service worth nothing?! Was her loyalty, her devotion… utterly meaningless in the end?

 

Arthur. The father who never once gave her as much as a sideways glance. Arthur, the ‘oh-so perfect’ king of Britain, so devoid of humanity! Arthur, the brilliant king sitting atop his glistening throne! What other choice was there but to drag him down into the mud?

 

Back in the present, King Arthur reached forth a gauntleted hand, slowly inching forward, as if to caress her face. Unknown to Mordred, her mask had already retracted into her helmet so that she could confront her sire face to face.

 

The proximity of that draconic aura, sharing similar properties as hers, taunting her with its likeness, its regalness, its superiority—a griffin to a hyena. 

 

And then, for the first time since their final battle, her father spoke. 

 

“Sir… Mordred,” he softly whispered, as if she could not believe her own eyes. And the expression of guilt and regret—one he should have never been able to make—leveled at Mordred blew away her rage and hatred like a mighty gust, leaving behind only shock in its wake. 

 

Ah. He finally looked at me.

 

How long had she waited for an expression like this?! How much had she sacrificed, how much had she destroyed, just for the sake of this moment? 

 

She saw her face reflected clearly in his viridian eyes. Those stargazing orbs, always looking past her, past her people, towards a horizon unimaginable to any of them. 

 

The King of Knights had been dragged down to earth. His gaze, long surpassed the realms of man, descended upon his unworthy subjects at last.

 

Mordred found herself laughing at the irony in the cruel emotions swirling in her chest. The most delectable-seeming candy bore the most bitter of tastes, and there was an ominous aftertaste behind that bitterness.

 

She should have been happy, truly. She had gotten what she wanted, saw the emotions in Arthur’s eyes. 

 

And yet, as the Knight of Treachery remembered the times she had spent with her father, she could not help but think it was all too easy. 

 

After all, King Arthur was the perfect monarch. His face could never twist in guilt, nor could it be marred with any imperfection. Those eyes—they were meant to stay aloof! Only when faced with a worthy challenger, a destroyer of kingdoms, could they finally descend and render judgment upon the sinner!

 

Impossible. Impossible impossible impossible impossible impossible impossible impossible impossible impossibleimpossibleimpossibleimpossible IMPOSSIBLE! shrieked the voice in her head. 

 

King Arthur had rejected her, and he would continue to do so until she wrenched the holy sword free of his cold, dead hands. That was the way he wanted it! That was the way he declared it to be!

 

If such was not the case… then what was he life worth?. For what meaning did the knight Mordred live?

 

None. There was no meaning. Not if it was so easy. She dedicated her life fighting for that recognition, that vaunted prize; what fool would accept being given such a thing? 

 

So this… this mockery could not stand. Mordred could not let it stand! 

 

Heart filling with hatred, the Knight of Rebellion knew only one objective: to wipe that ill-fitted look off her father’s face. Once she overwhelmed him, made him acknowledge her power, only then, would king Arthur finally acknowledge her as his son. Only then, would their bloody game reach its rightful conclusion. 

 

She pushed off her back foot, swelling her body with crimson mana to the point of rupture and propelling herself towards her father like a blood-stained comet.

 

Clarent swung in a trajectory to meet with the king’s neck, Mordred let loose a guttural scream that would begin the second most climactic battle in all her lives.

 

“ARTHURRRRRRRR!”

 

But no matter what she did, no matter how much rage she mustered from her body and soul, she could not burn bitter taste from her mouth. In fact, the sensation had been expanding since its inception.

 

***

 

Artoria did not know what to think when she first encountered her wayward ‘son’. It was the most unexpected meeting she could have conceived, nearly unimaginable even in the midst of a Holy Grail War if not for the appearance of Lancelot.

 

Mordred… Morgan’s successful ploy to destroy her and everything she worked towards. An artificially-born homunculus made from her Merlin-conjured sperm incubated in one of Morgan’s eggs. 

 

Mordred was not her son, at least not in the way any mother could see their child. In the days of Camelot, the knight had hidden her face and body in thick metal plates, only revealing herself to her king after establishing a relationship between lord and knight.

 

How was Artoria supposed to react then, when a trusted soldier suddenly proclaimed themselves to be her son? Was she supposed to welcome them with open arms, shouting ‘my son!’ and pulling them into her arms like the plot of some sappy soap opera?

 

No, she repelled the girl as gently as she could—which in hindsight, was not very gentle at all… 

 

Shirou had changed her, made her a better person, exploiting the cracks in the steely guard to reach the soft underbelly containing the restrained yoke of her humanity. Artoria could no longer go back to who she was; that armor was never coming back, and she was all the better for it.

 

And thus, as the new Artoria examined her outrageous actions back then, she soon found that she was afflicted with as many blemishes and imperfections as the dark witch Morgan and the blackguard Vorteigern combined. And her subjects would still extol her as a perfect savior? Artoria wanted to scoff. She was aware of half her weaknesses even as she fell to them!

 

Was she too harsh on herself? Perhaps. But for what happened to Mordred, this self-loathing was surely deserved.

 

Artoria could forgive herself for Guenivere, could forgive herself for Lancelot. After many days of self-discovery, she could even forgive her past self for shrouding her own heart. She was learning, and not many kings could have done better. The king may have owed her people a lifetime’s worth of apologies, and they may never pardon her for what she did. But for her acts as king, she had already pardoned herself.

 

Yet, if there was something Artoria could never forgive herself for, then it was her treatment of Mordred. For she did not fail moderately in the capacity of a king, but catastrophically as a father. Even if she did not consider herself the homunculus’ sire, her poor spawn was at least deserving of a civilized discussion between equals, not to have her lifelong desire be brushed aside like the whimsical complaints of a drunkard. 

 

For her service, for her loyalty, she deserved more. Perhaps Artoria did not feel for the girl the way a mother felt for her daughter, but she had not the right to neglect someone who looked upon her with such devotion.

 

And then—Camlann. Her actions gave rise to the vengeful beast who took her life, the vengeful beast who split her beloved kingdom in twain. And although Mordred bore the bulk of the responsibility for her own sins, a great amount of them fell atop Artoria’s own overburdened shoulders.

 

She had transformed her loyal knight into a monster. The same monster charging towards her right this moment, her stolen sword swung murderously in a crimson arc.

 

Artoria had spoken her daughter’s name unconsciously, and she had been attacked for it. The King of Knights would not give her reproach; she understood the girl now. Yet, she could not allow herself to fall, not before pulling Mordred back into the light. It was the least she could do to repent for her negligence.

 

Sidestepping the blow, Artoria undid the shroud of Invisible Air on her sword as Clarent viciously split the air, electrifying it in crimson lightning, its mistress growling in frustration at the fruitless attack.

 

Excalibur was fully revealed, its regal light giving the Knight of Rebellion a moment of hesitation before she leapt into the offensive once more. Artoria found it useless to obscure her sword, as her opponent was familiar with both its identity and its dimensions.

 

Mordred’s next swing was propelled by years of rage and hatred, a one-handed blow splitting the air with blood-curdling ease.

 

Artoria batted it aside with Excalibur, turning her sword to deliver a blow to the head of her spawn. 

 

It was promptly dodged, and Mordred leaped back, creating distance between them.

 

What occurred next was a battle one would only see once in a lifetime. The holy blade of an elegant king against the cursed sword of a traitorous beast. The majestic swordsmanship of a practiced knight against the ramshackle-yet-powerful swings of an adaptive brawler.

 

For the first ten swings, they were even. For the first twenty, Artoria was hesitant. Surprised, guilty, and unwilling to kill, the King of Knights held herself back from injuring her disgraced knight. 

 

On the twenty-first swing, however, the dynamic between the two fighters had irrevocably changed. 

 

Artoria knew by then that there was nothing she could do to calm the knight before her other than a thorough beating. Mordred was too furious, too deaf to reason; and thus, it was time to let loose all her restrictions.

 

On the twenty-first blow, the wind-empowered Excalibur clashed against a lightning-enhanced Clarent, the awesome might of the mana-charged holy sword transmitting painful tremors into Mordred’s arms. 

 

Taking advantage of this moment of debilitation, Artoria let loose her left hand from the grip of her sword, unleashing a punch with the might of a cruise missile against the side of Mordred’s armored belly.

 

The Knight of Rebellion was blasted hundreds of meters away, her armor around the area of impact denting under the power of her father’s blow. She never fell, even as her bruised organs sent agonizing signals to her brain. Stabbing Clarent into the bleached ground to lessen the momentum of her body, Mordred looked up, only to see her father a single foot away, divine blade halfway complete in its swift journey to her head.

 

Raising Clarent on its hilt, its grip reversed; Mordred deflected the strike, if barely. Excalibur glanced off the pommel of her sword, and yet even the fraction of the king’s swing imparted onto Mordred’s weapon hammered it into the ground once more like a carpenter's nail.

 

Another howitzer shell of a punch slammed into the center of Mordred’s unprotected face, pancaking her nose into her face with terrifying ease and carving a crater resembling the aftermath of a fallen star onto surrounding bits of flesh. The knight’s grip on her sword was enough as to take it with her, but once again, she blasted away, brain squished against the back side of her skull.

 

Artoria wore an apologetic expression on her face as she ceased in her attacks.

 

Ah. I went too far.

 

Mordred could surely walk off this blow, and yet inflicting it left a sour taste in Artoria’s mouth. She did not want this confrontation to be a violent one. But… it was Mordred. That Mordred.

 

Violent to a fault, awfully impulsive—and despite Artoria’s undisputed negative influences, a perpetrator of many sins. The King of Britain reminded herself of this fact once more. Both her and Mordred deserved a beating or two.

 

She went to help up her knight, lying in a twitching heap about fifty meters in front of her.

 

But the crimson berserker was not done yet. Picking herself off the ground and using Clarent as a cane to stay upright, she spat a glob of blood to the side, wiping her bloodied face with a gauntleted arm before flaring her crimson lightning. Her nose was still broken, but her face no longer resembled a meteoric crater.

 

“That is enough, Mordred. I have no wish to fight you! Please, let us stop this!”

 

Mordred responded by holding her sword high in the air, both hands firmly gripping the blade. A contraption near the crossguard opened, and a gargantuan pillar of crimson flame shot into the air. 

 

In but a few moments, the magical energy in the pillar stabilized and concentrated, an all-powerful beam of bloody energy stretching to the very heavens. 

 

The Knight of Treachery prepared herself to unleash the noble phantasm specifically made for her father, one formed of crystalized malice towards the target of her rage. Fuelled by her fury and hatred, a searing conflagration of crimson would drown all in its wake.

 

“With this, father,” she spat violently as if the word was poison, “I’ll take the throne from your corpse, and prove to be a better king than you ever were!”

 

Artoria stepped back, wounded by the poison in Mordred’s voice. She disagreed with Mordred’s insinuations, but such hypotheticals did not matter now. Britain as she knew it fell long ago and she was no longer its king.

 

“Perhaps Mordred, but I am no longer king! Camelot is no more, we both saw to that!” she shouted into the storm of crimson, desperate to get through to her knight.

 

“Shut up! shut up! SHUT UP! I’m worthy of being king! You’ll see! When I beat you into the ground, you’ll see!”

 

Artoria’s disappointed expression hid ominously behind her bangs. 

 

“I see. Mordred, she is not speaking to me, but a demon within the confines within her own mind: the image of me, asserting her unworthiness—hammering it, deep into the epicenter of her heart. She will no longer listen to words, only violence.”

 

The king’s next words were solemn, every syllable dripping with self-confessed guilt. And yet, within those same words laid the resolution for atonement. “It was my own actions that drove you to such madness, Sir Mordred. I swear upon the white walls of Camelot, I shall drag you out!”

 

Raising Excalibur above her head, Artoria breathed deeply, composing herself. She needed to reduce the power of her noble phantasm, or Mordred or herself would die without ever moving further.

 

“CLARENT—”

 

The sword of silver descended in an arc of red, dragging the sinister pillar of flame with it like the snapping strike of a long staff.

 

“BLOOD ARTHUR!”

 

“Let there be no miscalculations in this strike!”

 

“Excalibur!”

 

The Knight of Treachery shouted the name of her attack with such raw and forceful fury that her throat tore from the strain. Her magical energy reserves, the constitution of her body, the very stuff of her soul; all exhausted to the breaking point for this singular strike. Her magic circuits cried out in pain, her blood vessels burst from strain, her saint graph—the core of her spiritual body, nearly cracked from the exertion. There had never been and never will be another blow from Clarent equal in potency to this strike, nor would there ever be one more self-destructive.

 

The raging torrent of red rushed forth to drown its target in its potent tide. Overwhelming, monstrous, and utterly violent, it was a force of nature that would suffer no impediment from any material in the world. Its target: a short lean girl, even if she donned a suit of armor, would surely be drowned in that tide, her minute form scorched to ash by the torrent of hate-filled flames.

 

And then, like a painting or telling of the legends of old, a spark of light cut through the bleached void. It was just a spark, merely a coat of brilliance on a broadsword. And yet, the quality of that spark, the substance of it, was of a far greater quality than its mighty challenger.

 

For the mighty light of Excalibur embodied the hopes of all warriors, past and present. And its nobility far outshone the dirty, hateful flames of its contender.

 

The king’s sword was swung, and for the first time, this world would know the meaning of light.

 

In an instant, a great pillar of light, far more potent than even the empowered flames of Clarent, cut straightly through her flames like a javelin to wet paper. The beam which could only be described as magnificent was far thicker, far denser than its opposition.

 

Mordred’s hatred, all her resentment, all of it would surely be cut down by that overwhelming power. She suddenly felt small, her emotions—insignificant. The greatest strike in her life was being easily countered by an effortless release of her holy sword. To her, this was not a fight to the death! It was barely a battle!

 

Suddenly, a bizarre association came to mind. A father, disciplining his unruly child with flippant ease. The child’s heartful tantrum cut short as casually as the swatting of a fly.

 

Mordred seethed. 

 

“Don’t—DON’T YOU MESS WITH ME!”

 

She put even more into her noble phantasm, forcing back the light of Excalibur for a few feet. The knight smirked as sweat dripped from her brow, her confidence returning. 

 

But her effort would prove worthless as the light of the holy sword intensified mercilessly, dashing whatever hopes she may have had in an instant. Clarent Blood Arthur was completely overwhelmed, reduced to naught but a candle’s flame in a mere moment. 

 

Gritting her teeth, Mordred desperately vied for one last push, but it was to no avail. 

 

The light overwhelmed her, her armored shattered in the face of its violent brilliance. The Knight of Treachery looked on into a world of blessed light with wide eyes, reaching forward with a shaking hand.

 

“Father…” she uttered weakly, reaching for the king who she loved and hated more than any other. 

 

“In the end, it was always meant to end this way, huh?”

 

And she knew only darkness.

***

“The battle is won,” thought Artoria, although she was not particularly flattered about her victory, if it could even be called such. The whole ordeal was more akin to beating down a feral animal than a battle between two knights. 

 

This world was a different place from Earth, as Artoria noticed immediately after her arrival. As a Servant, the king should have needed an external source of magical energy in the form of a Master, a layline, or even one as grotesque as a magus’ heart.

 

But here, not only did the world tether her saint graph to itself so that no Master was necessary for her continued presence, but it also supplied her with ample energy.

 

Artoria’s current state could be compared to when she was alive, the noisome factory of her magic core pumping its owner full of od. No doubt the same could be said for Mordred. That was why they could battle with their full power.

 

And at full power, it was utterly impossible for Mordred to defeat her sire. Not only did she only have nine years of experience compared to Artoria’s decades, not only was she forced to pick up her bestial, ramshackle ‘swordsmanship’ from the fields of war, but the very specs of her body were also objectively inferior to Artoria’s.

 

Less experience, less training, less strength, speed, durability, magical energy production, a far inferior noble phantasm… her loss was predetermined before the battle even began.

 

This was why the King of Knights could not help but feel guilty for her rough treatment of her knight. Perhaps she overdid it.

 

Mordred’s acquaintance, the gruff man wearing a pair of sunglasses over his eyes, seemed to agree. As soon as the battle ended he sprinted to Mordred’s prone body, checking her for life signs with the desperation of a father who thought their child lost. Most curious. What was their relationship?

 

Sighing in relief after he felt a heartbeat, the man scowled at Artoria, standing over Mordred’s body with his hands stretched out to his sides protectively. Did he think she would finish her off?

 

The king dispersed her blade into particles of mana, signifying her lack of violent intention.

 

“I do not wish to do her any more harm. Too much blood has been shed between us already.”

 

The man’s scowl only deepened. He had no trust for her, that was only natural.

 

“J-just stay where you are, King Arthur!” he shouted. He must have been unsettled due to the fact of his own lack of power. If Artoria wished to kill him, he wouldn’t even have the time to react before his head slid off his shoulders.

 

“This frustration… it is the frustration of a father helpless to protect his child,” she wondered again what kind of relationship they had. Judging by his attire, Kairi was from the twenty-first century. The only way Mordred could have met him was if she was summoned during a Holy Grail War. 

 

“I understand. You are her master, are you not? During a Holy Grail War?”

 

The man bristled.

 

“So what if I was? You won’t get anything out of killing either of us now. I don’t even have command seals.”

 

Artoria wanted to sigh. She would need to be delicate with him. After all, Shirou would have done the same as he did. 

 

The king began a slow walk towards her traitorous retainer. Her Master tensed, probably preparing a desperate last assault on her if she decided to attack. She noticed that he did not even warn her to stop, knowing there was nothing he could do to enforce the warning.

 

When she reached Mordred, close enough to touch her face so alike to the reflection of a mirror, she plopped down, waiting for the rebel to open her eyes. She could smell the rank scent of cold sweat dripping down her Master’s back, even as he forced a confident smile on his face.

 

There was an awkward silence in the air. There were many things both sides wished to ask, but Kairi was too guarded to answer and Artoria knew that whatever he said would be half-truth at best. 

 

It would be better to wait for Mordred to awaken. After the knight reclaimed her bearings, then she would explain herself without the man’s irritable suspicions devaluing her words. 

 

If Mordred’s intellectual capabilities would still be compromised after her awakening, then even if she explained the situation to him, he would still be incapable of calming down his servant, as the last battle clearly determined.

 

—and speak of the devil, just as Artoria’s thoughts approached the possibilities after her awakening, Mordred immediately rose in the spirit of a thrumming chainsaw. 

 

She was on her feet before half a millisecond had passed, armor crackling intensely with crimson lightning. A second later, she regained her rationality, and froze as she felt the presence of Artoria behind her.

 

The king was unfazed, although the man next to her flinched back in shock, a hand reaching into the pocket of his jacket. Artoria noted this display of experience and committed it to memory. 

 

“F-Father…” Mordred choked, as frozen as the mountain peaks in winter. 

 

Artoria’s voice was as tranquil as a lake, clear and even, allowing no misunderstanding. “Sir Mordred, our battle has ended. It ended on that hill all those years ago. Now, I will not ask again. Cease your hostilities,” it was the voice of a king, every word carrying upon it the mighty will of Camelot. Even the rebellious Mordred—especially the defeated Mordred, could do naught but kneel before the weight of the royal decree.

 

“Y-yes, father,” answered the traitorous knight, who plopped down into a sitting position facing her sire. The anger had left her, rationality filling the void left in its wake. This was not to say she was not stunned. There was simply no time for Mordred to process anything that had just transpired, so her fury-less mind simply defaulted to knightly obedience at the command of her king, as it was in the early days of her service.

 

Artoria nodded, satisfied. Her cowlick flicked adorably as if it possessed a will of its own. Mordred’s master looked at her questioningly, and Artoria returned his sentiments with a puzzled tilt of her head.

 

Shaking his head in frustration as if to censure himself, the man scooted over to Mordred and put an arm in front of her as if to protect the Servant.

 

“So, your… majesty, am I correct to assume you won’t be beating the life out of my Servant anymore?”

 

Mordred scowled, “She did not ‘beat the life’ out of me!”

 

Kairi turned to her, “Then why did half of the bones in your face shatter while she doesn’t have a scratch on her?” he retorted.

 

“W-well—” 

 

“Well, nothing! You shouldn’t have picked a fight you had no chance of winning! It hasn’t been an hour since our reunion and you want to die again?!”

 

“What’s up with this nagging?! What are you, my father?!”

 

“I-” 

 

“He is more of one than I,” interjected Artoria, and from what she had seen, the king knew she was right.

 

Their eyes widened.

 

Artoria took a deep breath, and stared willfully and directly into Mordred's eyes, a maelstrom of raw emotion churned under the cornea of her veridian verbs. The crimson knight listened in apt attention.

 

“Mordred, I can neither give you my throne or claim you as my son.”

 

Kairi winced, hissing painfully through his teeth. Mordred’s eyes were concealed under her hair, her body shaking tremulously.

 

“I can give you neither of these things because I have already lost the right to both. I am no longer the King of Camelot, and I cannot… I  have not the audacity to call you son.”

 

“Nonsense!” Mordred shouted, scowling intolerantly. “As long as King Arthur lives and breathes, he remains the lord of all Britons!” her voice softened, suddenly reflecting a childish naivety. “And what do you mean you’re not my father… just look at our faces, they’re the same aren’t they?”

 

“Mordred, I—”

 

Mordred’s anger drained from her again as she relived painful memories from an age long past.

 

“It’s mother, isn’t it? It’s what she did to you, the damage she caused to your kingdom, the way she gave birth to me… haha… hahahaha,” the knight laughed hopelessly, as if attempting to shrug off the coating of a foul taint. Then, she seemed to remember something, and her laughter became ominous. “And my rebellion didn’t make it any better!” 

 

Artoria grimaced as Mordred equipped her armor and sword, although the younger knight had still not risen from her seat. Then, the energy seemed to drain from the crimson knight all at once, and Artoria’s mind could not help but make a grisly comparison from her expression with that of a victim of a soul-eating beast she had once slain by the light of Excalibur. 

 

Mordred’s change in mood was swift, sudden, bombastic, and strange in all manner of ways Artoria could not understand. It was as if she had undergone a series of life-changing realizations over the course of minutes, every realization invoking her anger before sapping her of it with exponential efficiency.

 

She stared at her sire with exhaustion and melancholy in her eyes, and Artoria knew her anger had drained entirely by now, never to return. Her spawn suddenly looked weary, like a veteran of many costly wars. Artoria knew she was, but her rambunctious and over-energetic personality had never displayed the sort of wariness that came from her experience, the… resignation. 

 

But now, Mordred was resigned. If her face was not unobscured by her helmet, Artoria would have thought her a suit of enchanted armor, actions lethargic and unwilling, as if under the magical grip of an malevolent witch.

 

“You’ve changed, Father. You don’t look so alien now, you don’t look down on us now, like you’re above us. That’s fine, that’s… good. It’s—it was, all I wanted. Back then, I would have been satisfied with just that. But now, I can’t go back. I know my destiny. I am your son, and I will take your throne from you as proof. I must, it’s the only thing I have left.”

 

She looked close to violence, channeling blood-red lightning into Clarent once more, albeit with not a hundredth of her enthusiasm in the battle prior. Artoria wanted to stop her, to stop her knight from standing and swinging that blade, to stop her from ruining her much-overdue apology. But most of all, Artoria wanted to bring back the old, energetic Knight of Rebellion, the one whose eyes weren’t so dull and devoid of purpose.

 

But before she could do anything, the man who was apparently Mordred's former master acted in a way Artoria would have never expected from someone who knew—and survived a meeting with the volatile knight. 

 

He punched the Servant squarely in the face, and the resounding crack near his wrist told Artoria he had broken something in the impact. Mordred, however, was shocked at the surprising turn of events, bewildered eyes focusing on her Master with a rapid twist of the neck. 

 

“Mast—”

 

“You idiot!” he shouted, cutting her off as he practically slid toward his Servant, face inches away from hers. The pain in his hand was all but forgotten, such was the intensity of the man’s wrath. “You told me the only reason you wanted the throne was so you could lift the burden from your father’s shoulders! So what the hell are you doing now, when she has no burden left?! What are you even fighting for?!”

 

Mordred blushed as her Master peeled back the layers of her complex wish, revealing its unprotected core to her father. Resignation forgotten, she sputtered with embarrassment, “W-What are you doing you bastard?! King Arthur is right there!”

 

“Who cares about that, you idiot?! You were about to fight her again, despite having no reason to—”

 

“Sir Mordred… you sought the throne… to free me from my burden?” interrupted Artoria. This was becoming a common occurrence now, but the king could not allow herself to stop.

 

“She did,” Kairi answered before Mordred could, staring directly into Artoria’s eyes, his sunglasses folded and resting atop his lap. 

 

The king pondered for a moment, expression obscured by her bangs. She had already come to this conclusion after reflecting upon her past experiences. Recalling the expression on the knight’s face as she was impaled on the shining length of Rhongomyniad, so ironically pristine that it glistened even as thick lifeblood coated the lance’s waving patterns. 

 

She recalled the expression Mordred had then, an expression Artoria’s experience allowed her to understand immediately. It held the truth of Mordred’s character, the hard, grim truth which could only be revealed moments before death. 

 

And as the Knight of Rebellion reached a weak, wavering hand towards her, as the blood gushed from her mouth as profuse as the river Thames, Artoria had realized she was just a little girl, seeking naught but her father’s warmth. 

 

But Artoria was no father, but a king, stoic and impersonal. Although her policies exuded kindness as benign as the gentle touch of a cherub, dispensing mercy to both peasants and nobility with equal consideration, the woman herself was cold as the northern icelands, expression unnaturally static—mask-like, even. Those frozen emerald eyes pierced through any man unfortunate enough to cross their field of vision, and those men would never in their lives feel as insignificant as they did in that moment, which seemed to last an eternity.

 

Mordred had concluded that the throne made her father this way, forced her to be cold. Thus, she intended to drag the king down to free her from the prison she built around herself. 

 

Her desires were at their core, innocent. However, as they were shrouded in a crimson storm of hatred and resentment and bloodlust, and as thousands fought and died for it, these desires became rotten and corrupted, the formerly-superficial storm of blood refusing to disperse even as its insidious core did.

 

And this ‘storm’, latched its wicked tendrils around Mordred’s mind even now, even after the true reason for her reason had disappeared. This was why she still fought, even now; this was why her resistance was so fraught with lethargy—her eyes, so dull. 

 

“I see…”

 

Artoria understood now. She understood the situation with perfect clarity. 

 

And this was why, as the Master and Servant pair continued to argue, she rose from her seat with an ominous sense of purpose, armored plates clanking softly at the deceptively soft—almost gentle movement.

 

A moment later, a large cluster of azure particles materialized in the palm of her hands, extending outwards as she adopted a swordsman’s pose, forming the entirely unobscured form of Excalibur.

 

Kairi immediately spun back, experience and instinct compelling the man in equal measure. His eyes widened in disbelief, unconsciously shouting a warning to his Servant even as he propelled himself backwards into safety.

 

As for the traitorous knight herself, she was simply resigned. She understood this would be all that was between her and her father—accepted it, even. An endless cycle of violence, resentment, and hatred. 

 

Clad in steel armor, she hefted Clarent clumsily on one shoulder, the movement appearing so arduous that it presented the appearance of an ogre hefting a heavy club. 

 

Any good cheer Kairi had bought was dashed. Her eyes had returned to their dead, resigned states. 

 

In her mind, Artoria cursed. She did not want any more misunderstandings between them. And yet, there was only one solution.

 

“Come, Sir Mordred. If the throne is what you desire, then you must take my head.”

 

“Didn’t you just say you weren’t the king?!” Kairi asked, utterly confused at the rapidly-changing response towards her knight.

 

As for Mordred? She simply gave her sire a wild grin, “Yeah. Now we’re talking. You finally understand, King Arthur!”

 

In the next moment, their battle began anew.

 

Clarent clashed against Excalibur in an instant, a crimson streak of lightning burning a bleeding hole through the air, a trail of scorched ozone left in her wake.

 

Artoria felt a force enough to obliterate a castle wall strike against her guard, prompting the king to use Invisible Air liberally to halt the offending blade’s descent. A moment later, she relaxed her grip on the top of Excalibur’s hilt, allowing Clarent to glance harmlessly off to the side, off-balancing her opponent.

 

Mordred took the deflection well, and even as she stumbled forward, a gauntleted hand already swung her accursed blade in a vicious arc, empowering her next attack with an energy born of her weakness.

Artoria caught that blow as well, the one-handed strike again glancing pitifully towards the tip of Excalibur in a shower of sparks until it left the shining lane of the holy blade, the redirected momentum behind the strike unbalancing its mistress once more.

 

A one-handed strike from an opponent physically weaker than her was of no threat to Artoria’s guard. And although her former knight left enough chinks in her defense the king could have eviscerated her a hundred different ways, she simply prepared to guard against the next attack. This was the core component of her plan, after all.

 

Mordred unleashed a brutal punch as her next attack, targeting Artoria’s gut, the blow imbued with as much magical energy as to cleave through the steel hulls of an aircraft carrier. 

 

Artoria caught the blow with one hand, wind-tinted magical energy swirling around her in a tornado of overwhelming power. There was now an effort in her defense, and the King of Knights could feel her muscles tense against the crimson force pushing furiously against it. 

 

If she was still Shirou’s servant, the Master having no way to empower her with mana, she would have been forced to evade the devastating blow at all costs, lest she wished to risk the destruction of her armor, bones, and organs. 

 

In contrast, Artoria’s od was now generated freely from her magic core, the overwhelming abundance of magical energy positively pouring into her body and surroundings. She was even stronger than she was under Rin’s command, as strong as she was in life, resemblant to the great dragon whose blood flowed through her veins.

 

Mordred’s blow would have been stripped of its momentum in but a moment’s time if Artoria continued to push back against the force, but she decided not to fight the momentum, pivoting to the side and guiding the fist to its intended direction, now distant from her body. 

 

Crimson lightning mixed with dense wind as Artoria imbued her own arms with magical energy, releasing Mordred’s fist as it reached the height of its momentum and power, sending the traitorous knight clanking and scraping across the ground for hundreds of meters through her own strength. 

 

After Mordred recovered, she went for the kill once again in a manner that induced a sensation of deja vu. But this time, Artoria’s reactions would not be the same. 

 

Excalibur met Clarent head-on in a shower of sparks and an explosive release of clashing red-and-blue magic energy. Then, they clashed. Again and again, velocity increasing with every swing until they were but mere blurs in the wind, countless shockwaves emitting from the center of impact.

 

The ferocious Mordred put her all into every blow, her hands and arms straining, bones creaking even under all her armor. On the other hand, Artoria imbued her blows with significantly less force, only just enough to match Mordred blow for blow. She was barely winded.

 

Observing this difference in power yet again, Mordred roared in defiance and refocused her all into her swings, desperate yet determined to penetrate her sire’s guard. She knew Clarent Blood Arthur would be useless in this situation. The blood-red flames of the cursed sword were and would always be a poor match for the peerless light of Excalibur. That sword, that radiant, perfect sword that fit perfectly in the palms of a radiant, perfect king. Just thinking of it rekindled a crimson flame in Mordred’s breast. 

 

The rain of blows increased in power and speed, and Mordred could feel massive globs of stamina leave her inner pool through every swing and thrust. Her creaking bones began to fracture, and her blood vessels burst with splatters of burning red. She fought it all, her exhaustion, her inferiority, the weakness of her strained body.

 

But in the end, even after a thousand rounds, no matter how many times she rose, Artoria simply deflected her blows, never once striking, yet always victorious.

 

Eventually, the king’s dress-like armor bore the marks of dozens of cuts and indents, and her breathing was as rough and quick-paced. There was a certain-but-small level of damage Mordred had inflicted onto the king of Knights. 

 

Yet, the Knight of Treachery could not enjoy the fruits of her labors, as she was a tired, sweating, damaged mess on the ground. Muscles torn and bleeding, bones fractured, it was clear that she could rise no more.

 

But, even as she lost, there was a certain satisfaction, a certain joy in this fight sorely lacked in any of her previous conflicts with her sire. Something light and warm, unlike the scorching heat of lightning, delicately aflame in her chest. Why was that, she wondered? What made this time so different?

 

“You did well, Sir Mordred.”

 

And then, she understood.

 

“Father… you finally looked at me.”

 

Back when they were alive, Artoria had never once met Mordred’s eyes with her own. Not on the battlefield, not even as she killed her. And in their previous battle in this bleached land, the king was clearly in a state of distress, and her eyes clearly displayed no intention to fight. Her expression was frazzled, panicked, unbefitting the face of a king like a raw slab of meat on a lord’s dining table.

 

This fight… this fight… even if all she did was defend, even if she had not landed one blow, the king’s eyes had been resolute, stalwart. And most importantly, they never left her own.

 

This battle, it was not knight versus knight nor son versus father. It was knight against king, and the king had demonstrated his superiority in a manner which permitted no dispute over its existence. 

 

One may have assumed that it was precisely because of this manner of battle that  Mordred developed the infuriation she took with her beyond the grave. However, those who knew her well knew that her qualms were not with a battle with the king, but a battle with a god. A silent, callous god, never once acknowledging her as an opponent.

 

In contrast, a king was still superior. Oh, that was of no doubt. But he would not be so aloof. 

 

Ah, so this was defeat! She may have dragged her father down from the heavens, but the king still stood head and shoulders over her. 

 

She should have felt infuriated. She should have felt cheated. At least this was what the storm of crimson within her mind relayed to her. And yet, that storm was beginning to thin. And beneath its rough, violent tides, burned a flame. Small, but oh so bright.

 

Loyalty.

 

In the next moment, Mordred rose on shaky knees, her limbs threatening to crumble beneath her at any moment. Her broken armor crumbled around her in steely chunks, the insides gushing with warm blood, her now exposed skin mired in the crimson fluid before it leaked from the armor’s openings.

 

And then, the Knight of Treachery knelt on one knee, her head bent low as the intimidating horned helmet of Secret of Pedigree retreated into its connected armor via its enchanted mechanisms.

 

Artoria smiled as she understood her knight’s intention, her features relaxed in relief as she finally penetrated through the storm of Mordred’s rage and resentment. 

 

This is where everything should have ended. The king should have given a few words of acknowledgement before once more claiming the girl as her knight. But Artoria was more than a king now. 

 

She was a lover, a friend, a mentor, and perhaps… a father.

 

And this was why she knelt down to Mordred’s height, disengaged her armor, and embraced her spawn in a warm-but awkward hug. Strange, since warmth should not have been transferable through Mordred’s own armor. 

 

Then, she spoke.

 

“Sir—no, Mordred. Forgive me, for my past transgression against you, as well as my neglect. To you, more than any other, I was a horrible king, and an even worse father.”

 

The knight’s mouth opened in what appeared to be a protest before whatever words she may have spoken were muffled in white cloth as Artoria pulled Mordred’s head into her chest. 

 

“And yet, I must rescind my previous words to you this day. Then, I told you I had no right to be your father. But… perhaps I was wrong.”

 

Mordred’s hot breath penetrated the fabric of Artoria’s shirt. It tickled. 

 

“Perhaps I did not have the right to deny you, after all your years of service.”

 

Mordred strained as she pulled away from Artoria, her eyes bewildered even as tears of joy streamed down from their sockets. 

 

“Even if you were not… produced with my consent, even if you are a project of Morgan’s specifically tailored to destroy my kingdom, um…” Artoria choked, knowing what to say next, what she wished to say next. But the sheer awkwardness of the sentence she wished to speak was enough to give her pause.

 

And then, Mordred called her “father’. 

 

Not in her usual hateful way, but childlike, vulnerable. And with that show of trust from her child, Artoria knew she had to continue, to see this through. 

 

She took a deep breath, preparing herself.

 

“Even if our relationship is anything but normal… you are still my child, Mordred. And as such, will you grant me the opportunity to love you as a father?”

 

The Knight of Treachery, finally looking her age, widened her already-strained eyelids even further, moisture gathering as her stunned mind considered the implications of Artoria’s request.

 

And then, after biting her lip in order to resist breaking down, Mordred’s visage depicted a child-like smile so pure, so sincere, it rivaled the golden sunbeams which bathed the wheat fields of Britain. 

 

No more masks, no more hiding. No more rage, no more hatred. Her recognition had been granted, and for the first time in all her lives, she was truly satisfied.

 

So, without any further interruption, there was only one thing to say. The conclusion of Mordred’s rebellion was right before her. 

 

“Yes,” she said, and in that moment, it seemed like the most important word ever spoken.

***

Waver Velvet would have given his own magic circuits for a lit cigar in his lips right now. 

 

Eyebrows twitching in irritation, the clocktower’s professor struggled to comprehend the sheer impossibility of his current situation. 

 

If not for the presence of his student, Grey, he would already be in the process of cursing up a storm. 

 

He was like a bottle violently building up pressure, threatening to explode at any moment. His grey-haired student, sensing this, attempted to placate him with clumsily-made comforting gestures.

 

“S-Sir, please calm down…”

 

Waver’s anger towards his situation mounted. Gesturing to the endless expanse of pale white surrounding him from all sides, he rebuked, “It isn’t that bad?! We’ve been forcefully relocated to potentially another dimension! Nothing less than a magician could have cheated the fundamentals of thaumaturgy to this large a scale! And worst of all, we have no idea who they are, and what they want! We have no idea if we will starve to death in this God-forsaken place even if we attempt everything in our power to escape! It is ‘that bad’, Grey!”

 

The girl winced, and for a moment Waver felt a hint of remorse… which was then immediately drowned out in yet another tide of rage.

 

“In addition, I have a class today! Whoever they are, why did they have to abduct us early in the morning?!”

 

“Sir…”

 

Waver sighed, cursing his luck again. Everything in his life was like this. One exceptional phenomenon after another, from the fourth Holy Grail War to his discovery of Grey. From the events of Rail Zeppelin to the affair of the Spiritual Tomb of Albion.

 

“If one were to observe every last irregularity in the life of Waver Velvet, they would come to the conclusion that this event is just another bead in a sequence.”

 

The Clocktower professor told this to himself as a form of self-comfort. Gritting his teeth, he brought a gloved hand to his migraine-afflicted head, stepping forward as his other hand sought out Grey’s deceptively fragile-seeming wrist.

 

He grasped it hard and pulled the girl with him as he advanced through the homogenous bleached landscape. An ignorant bystander would assume he was being rough, but the reality was the opposite. The girl whose arm he was pulling could have overpowered him in an instant.

 

“S-Sir, where are we going?” Grey asked, eyes darting from side to side, cautiously observing her environment. 

 

“She’s on guard,” Waver remarked. He smirked. At least she wasn’t complacent.

 

“I have no idea. But anything is better than staying still and starving. I’ve already run all the tests I could on the atmospheric mana. It’s more potent than in London, but that was the only conclusion I could make. Utterly useless. Without my tools, I can’t do anything more.”

 

Grey frowned. 

 

“I… also can’t discover anything of notice, Sir. As you said, the mana is more potent, but other than mana, there doesn’t seem to be anything else in this world except for the flat bleached ground at our feet. No spirits, no signs of native life, no—.”

 

“Well, that’s fine. We just need to— Grey?” the clocktower professor questioned, confused. 

 

For one, his hand was no longer holding the girl’s wrist. Second, the girl was no more.

 

In her place, stood a reaper of souls, eyes piercing and muscles taught. Within twin calloused hands, a silver sickle primed and readied for its frigid purpose. For a moment, Waver’s self-deceiving eyes observed a hooded skull leering at him in a morbid smile, the pernicious glare of virescent orbs piercing his very soul.

 

For a moment, the professor swore he felt the cold steel of a sickle on the skin of his throat.

 

He knew what this was. Grey had sensed a potential source of danger. They were not alone.

 

“Grey, what is it? Tell me everything your senses are observing right now. How powerful is it? What kind of aura does it exude? Does it seem to bear us ill will, or does it even notice us at all?”

 

Before answering him, Grey gestured for Waver to move behind her. He noticed she was facing his direction, eyes glaring past him into the distance. 

 

As he repositioned himself safely behind his disciple, she finally began her report. 

 

“I’m sorry Sir. I don’t know much, and I can’t answer many of your questions. But I am certain of one thing.”

 

To his shock, the ground began to shake ominously, as if forewarning a stampede headed in his direction. He gulped nervously.

 

“That being is… strong!”

 

As that last word was spoken, the crackle of thunder echoed across the land, and Waver could swear he saw azure tongues of lightning in the distance, cutting into the dull white fabric of the world with the fury of a wrathful god.

 

Such power, such violent majesty would render any a man stupefied with its presence alone. However, Waver found himself stunned for another reason entirely. A reason all too personal.

 

He knew that lightning. He would never forget that lightning. How could he, when he could still remember those same bolts of majestic blue cracking in the moon-lit city? When he could still smell the pungent scent of ozone every night, as his thoughts drifted towards him?

 

“Ah—”

 

There was a red dot in the distance, serpent-tongued bolts extending from its advancing form like the eye of a turbulent storm. And that dot, in all its tempestuous glory, seemed to be increasing in size with every passing moment. 

 

“This can’t be…” although Waver’s words were unbelieving, there was a hopeful smile on his lips. If he had looked through a mirror in that moment, he would have remarked that his face resembled a certain bumbling fool who stumbled into a certain war a decade ago.

 

“Sir! What do we do?! Sir!” Grey shouted in worry. When he did not answer, rendered speechless by hopeful possibility, the girl grew desperate, calling upon her power. 

 

“Add!” 

 

Formerly a little cube in a cage with little eyes and an animated mouth, the newly-transformed scythe responded with a pulse with flaxen light, particles of the same color dispersing into the air, floating yet stagnant, constellation-like clumps surrounding the girl like a ring of star-stuff around the heart of a galaxy.

 

Grey closed her eyes, and the chant began.

 

“Pseudo personality suspended. Mana yield exceeds regulation. Second state restraint rescinded. Seal Thirteen… Decision, start!”

 

It was at this moment that Waver chose to snap out of his stupor. And when the teacher saw his student preparing to assault the man he treasured the most in his life, it would not be an exaggeration to say he nearly had a heart attack.

 

“Wait wait wait!” he scrambled forward in hurried desperation. His hands grasped Grey’s shoulders and began shaking.

 

“E-E-Eh?! Sir, what are you doing?!” she asked indignantly, her concentration broken. The yellow particles dispersed instantly, and Add returned to its cubic form within its cage.

 

“What’s the big idea, Mr. Spoilsport?”

 

“You idiot! Don’t make rash judgments without investigating first! The man you see before you is not an enemy!”

 

“M-Man? What do you mean he’s not an enemy? He’s charging at us with lightning crackling around him. Isn’t that a sign of aggression?”

 

Waver sighed, lowering his head, although Grey could see that there was a fond look on his face, even if it was masked in exasperation.

 

“That’s just how he is. Loud like thunder, and just as boisterous. His personality is so larger than life he looks bigger than he really is. He’s annoying on a good day and uncooperative on a bad one, a stranger to secrecy and restraint. Always causing trouble and ranting about world domination, uprooting the lives of common men and whipping them into frenzy. He’s a genuine annoyance, and you can’t keep a steady circadian rhythm under his antics. And yet…” 

 

“Sir… do you know this person?” Waver ignored the interjection.

 

“He’s a man who inspires, a man whose words echoed across the entirety of western society, whose deeds have been lauded and admired for over two thousand years. He is a man, who in the face of great challenge, laughs with an eager glint in his eyes and a burning flame in his heart. He is a man who inspires, who lights the flame of ambition in the hearts of his followers, a man who commands the respect of even the King of Heroes.”

 

Then, Grey finally understood. “Sir, there is only one person you would speak of so eloquently. There is only one person, one figure, you would compliment this sincerely. That man, could his name be—”

 

“His name is—”

 

And then, he was upon them.

 

“My name is Iskandar, King of Conquerors! Would the both of you be interested in joining my army?”

***

Gray gawked at the bulky, red-haired man with wide eyes, her jaw loose and drooping. He towered over her and her teacher like a goliath, and although he was not large enough to be considered a giant, his powerful aura, accompanied by his confident body language, added to his size in a way incomparable to mere biology.

 

And yet, what impressed Gray the most was not the majesty of the king before her. No, the reason she was so impressed was because she had realized the man’s identity. 

 

Iskandar, the King of Conquerors. Servant of Waver Velvet during the Fourth Holy Grail War. He was the man her Sir looked up to more than any other, the only person whose name was capable of penetrating his cynical persona, inducing in him the rare emotions of optimism and glee. 

 

She knew how much her teacher valued any possibility of a reunion between him and his former Servant, and thus, she was one of the only people in the world who understood the true significance of this moment.

 

When she thought about it logically, this was an impossibility. A Servant should not have been summoned when they were not within the confines of a Holy Grail War, with the rare exception of Hephaestion. Even more unlikely that it should be the Servant so coveted by her teacher. 

 

But upon further inspection, Gray found her entire situation before Iskandar’s appearance just as bizarre as his appearance. Being forcibly teleported into a strange dimension when she was under the protection of the Clocktower’s magical defenses? It was on the level of True Magic! Much crazier than the appearance of a heroic spirit!

 

Thus, Gray simply accepted that impossible things happened regularly. After all, her own existence laid loose within the realm of plausibility. Therefore, she would not question the situation anymore, just as her teacher had stopped questioning the strangeness of her own existence. She would simply accept, and appreciate the moment for what it was.

 

A reunion, between friends, even if they were separated by both status and time.

 

This acceptance did not come a moment too soon, as the great king of Macedonia’s eyes widened in surprise, the massive man exiting his bull-pulled chariot, his invitation forgotten on his lips.

 

Waver flinched, standing ramrod straight, and for a moment, Grey could not help but remark mentally that he looked a decade younger.

 

“Hmm,” the massive man mused, neck bent as he examined Waver’s body, deceptively intelligent eyes peeling back the professor’s mental barriers, scrutinizing his expression, appearance, and body language.

 

After what seemed to be an eternity, he straightened his back, frowning. 

 

“You… have I seen you somewhere before? In the Battle of the Persian Gate, perhaps?”

 

He paused, “No, your skin is too pale. Perhaps, Macedonia? Were you a sickly countryman of mine?”

 

“Er, he’s British,” answered Grey meekly, in an attempt to be helpful.

 

“The Tin Islands? I would have remembered if an ambassador from such exotic lands paid me a visit. No, you are not from the Tin Islands of my time. Perhaps, we were opponents during a Holy Grail War?”

 

“EHHHH?!” screamed Waver and Grey in unison. Not only was a Servant summoned into this world, but he could also remember his part in previous Holy Grail Wars? This was—

 

Gray inhaled deeply. She already promised herself she wouldn't dwell on it too much. Waver looked at her with an uncharacteristically shocked expression before forcefully shutting his mouth himself. Gray chuckled at the sheer impossibility of it all.

 

As if he had not heard their exclamations of shock, the conqueror thought his incomprehensible thoughts for a while, before suddenly presenting to the two a toothy smile, as if he had discovered his own strange revelation.

 

“Hahaha! What a strange twist of fate! The boy who I once called ‘Master’ in a war long past, came from this ‘Britain’ as well! Perhaps you reminded me of him!”

 

“E-Eh?” Waver exclaimed quietly with an unusually youthful voice. The man appeared very weak, as if he would faint from the slightest touch.

 

“Ah, I remember that boy! We took on the world together, conquering the city of Fuyuki in the dead of night, step by step, the trampling of my bulls imparting thunderous indents upon the strange roads of that strange land! Together, we faced the radiant King of Knights, the tyrannical King of Heroes, and everything else the world had to offer, from across time and space!”

 

His words took on a wistful tone, and his exited eyes seemed to look into the distance, towards the events and occurrences of another time, another place.

 

“He was quite spineless when we met, but across our journey, he underwent enormous growth. The boy grew into a man. And although we did not win the war, we satisfied our ambitions, for our conquest was short-lived but great, and that greatness shall forever be imprinted in the hearts of Masters and Servants alike, dare I say, into the very Throne of Heroes itself! Hahahaha!”

 

“Still, I wonder how he’s doing now, that boy… has he conquered his mother nation—that Britain—yet? Or the Clocktower place he was always talking about? Maybe it is both, and he has become king of both Britain and Clocktower, joining the two as I did Macedonia and the Achaemenid Empire?”

 

“Sir!” Grey attempted vainly to comfort a half-unconscious Waver Velvet, who had slumped into her shoulder by this point, unable to stand on his own two legs. The shock of the encounter, as well as the absurdities Iskandar was spouting, seemed to have robbed him of his strength. 

 

“And if he was unable to accomplish this, then I hope that, at least, he was able to accomplish what he set out to do. He had so much promise, that boy.”

 

“Rider…” 

 

“Yes, that was what he used to call me,” the conqueror paused.

 

“But let us stop reminiscing over the past, and pursue the future in its stead! Come, little girl, frail man! If you join my army, I’ll give you a ride in my Gordius Wheel!”

 

Waver, reclaiming his calm, walked forth on shaky legs and grabbed at one of the man’s cannon-like arms, gripping it with all his strength like a stress toy: an attempt to calm his frenzied heart, swirling in a storm of conflicting emotions.

 

“Do you seriously not recognize me, my king?”

 

“...no?”

 

Then, Waver completely lost self-control.

 

The teacher’s eyebrow began to twitch as he grew furious with indignation. Shaking Iskandar’s arm—thicker than his own legs—he shouted, “It’s me Rider! Have I really changed that much?!”

 

“I still can’t recall your name, man of Britain.”

 

“WAVER! It’s Waver! The ‘boy’ you were just complimenting a few moments ago! It’s me you big dumb idiot!”

 

“...Truly?” asked Iskandar in a whisper, thunderstruck. And this shocked reaction itself served to anger Waver further as he unloaded a shrill barrage of verbal abuse fueled by the frenzy of this reunion as well as a decade of strenuous, tedious labor. 

 

Something seem to light up in Iskandar’s eyes as he observed this behavior, causing him to exclaim, “It really is you, boy!”

 

“D-Did he just identify Sir from his verbal abuse?”

 

“OF COURSE IT IS!”

 

Completely ignoring him, Iskandar extended a hand to Waver’s head, patting it like a father to his son.

 

Waver blushed, his anger draining away in an instant.

 

“It’s like a lioness picking up her cub,” Grey thought.

 

Iskandar, after sufficiently ruining Waver’s hair, retracted his hand and examined his former Master with a fond, intimate warmth in his gaze. 

 

“You’ve grown well, boy. As I said before—although I never dreamt I would be able to ask this of you—have you accomplished what you set out to do?”

 

Waver cringed.

 

“Not particularly, no,” then he stared his former Servant square in the eyes and boldly claimed, “But I am certainly walking along that path, and I will continue to do so for the rest of my life. Not even death can bar me from this.”

 

“I see…” Iskandar nodded in understanding, a tranquil look of pride on his face.

 

And the two partners, Master and Servant, king and retainer, inspiration and the inspired, shared a silent moment together. There was no need for words, for their eyes did the talking for them. There was no need for action, for Waver’s very appearance told Iskandar all he needed to know. In this moment, there was only the two of them, and nothing else, as if the universe itself melted away, leaving behind nothing but two idiots with dreams too big for their small bodies. Fitting, albeit ironically, given the lifeless background which surrounded them.

 

“So this is the bond you share, Sir,” she smiled, “I see. I see why you are the way you are now. It’s all because of him, isn’t it? This man.”

 

…And then the moment was broken with a thunderous burst of joyful laughter, abusing Grey’s eardrums like repeated howitzer shots. If she didn’t know better, the girl would have thought her ears were bleeding.

 

Iskandar then walked behind Waver and gave him a meaty, earthshattering clap on his back which birthed a bony crack that made Grey cringe. 

 

“He didn’t break anything, right? Right?!”

 

Waver was sent sprawling onto the ground, cursing and sputtering as he nursed a possibly fractured—or shattered—spine.

 

Not a moment later, Gray found herself plucked from her position by the giant man with ease, as if she was light as a feather. She could see him doing the same to her teacher.

 

Iskandar carried the both of them over his shoulder towards his bull-pulled chariot, and before he unceremoniously dropped them inside of it. They groaned as their bodies unceremoniously hit the solid bronze walls of the vehicle.

 

Grey could not help but remark to her teacher, “Mr. Iskandar is an… eccentric person, isn’t he?”

 

Waver growled, his expression seeming to say, what an understatement.

 

Then, they both fell unceremoniously inside the chariot, groaning from the discomfort of the impact against the walls and floor of the bronze carriage.

 

Iskandar himself entered the chariot, cracking the reins to signal for his bulls to run.

 

“My name is Iskandar, King of Conquerors! Witness my glory, companions, as our thunderous steps echo to the ends of the world!”

 

And as the muscled charioteer rode towards a non-existent sunset, Grey heard a faint remark from her teacher, in a tone as soft as silk.

 

“What a foolish man.”

***

Artoria, Mordred, and Kairi traveled across the barren land for what they felt to be days, not that they could tell from the lack of celestial guidance. 

 

Across this journey, Mordred spoke of her battles during the dual-faction Holy Grail War in which she fought, and Artoria in turn, regaled her with her adventures in its counterpart in Fuyuki. 

 

They exchanged stories, elaborated on emotions, and even occasionally reminisced in their seemingly endless repository of spare time. 

 

But this was not to last.

 

For an ominous black dot, the antithesis of this world of white, entered their vision, its very presence seeming to paint the world dark.

 

Artoria’s breath caught in her throat. She knew—remembered this feeling.

 

“Is it him?”

 

Mordred frowned. “What is it, Father?”

 

“No, I cannot be certain. We will approach slowly, Mordred, and discern its identity upon closer inspection.”

 

And they wearily advanced hundreds of meters, until the dot became a silhouette, until the silhouette itself widened and cleared, revealing—

 

“Lancelot,” whispered Artoria quietly, as if afraid to draw its attention.

 

Mordred’s eyes widened. “WHAT?!”

 

Then, Artoria’s eyes met with those of a fiend in jet-black armor. A lean ebon knight, bloodlust and anger radiating from him in waves. Twin orbs of blood-crimson glared from behind an obscuring black visor, sending forboding shivers down Mordred’s spine. 

 

Mordred’s voice was quieter now, a shivering tone permeating through her words.

 

“That’s Lancelot? That—that thing, is Lancelot?”

 

Her father did not—could not answer.

 

The Knight of Treachery would proudly claim she feared nothing, she believed it too. But there was something uniquely horrific about seeing your former college changed, twisted, into something so removed from his former disposition that he seemed as if a mindless beast, something so ominously similar to a Berserker class Servant. 

 

Mordred was suddenly reminded of Spartacus, the senseless warrior, so devoted to a singular goal that his mind abandoned all reason and restraint. Lancelot seemed to be much the same; but in contrast to Spartacus’ almost jovial expressions of rebellion, the knight from her era embodied a much darker madness. 

 

Spartacus’ goal, the meaning behind his madness, was freedom. No matter what else, Mordred at least admired that. What sort of madness could this sinister creature embody? What sort of madness could taint the mind of the greatest knight?

 

Lancelot of the Lake, the greatest of knight, in body and mind. Valiant and bold. Noble and kind. Sworn servant of the king, defender of all maidens. His unbreakable spirit was the bulwark against all evil; his principles, as unyielding as the impregnable walls of Camelot. In battle, he was as tranquil as the lake of his namesake, and his skill with the blade was without equal.

 

Lancelot, that Lancelot… how could he possibly become this thing?

 

And in the next moment, Mordred’s image of Lancelot would be shattered even further.

 

The moment the crazed knight’s crimson eyes met his king’s own, he began to shiver and growl with unrestrained hostility.

 

“Ar… thur… Arrrr… thurr…”

 

Artoria summoned Excalibur. Mordred called for Clarent.

 

“ARRTHURRRRRRRRRR!!!”

 

Then, before Mordred could even react, Artoria was pushed back hundreds of meters into the distance.

 

In a tenth of a second, the battle began, and the King of Knights was barely able to defend herself, so shocked she was by her knight’s appearance.

 

The black knight punched and pounded furiously on Excalibur, his hands opening and closing in an attempt to grab it. 

 

Artoria in the meantime, struggled to catch up, unprepared as she was for this conflict.

 

Mordred checked for Kairi’s safety before attempting to enter the fray herself, but she was warned off by Artoria’s shouts.

 

“No, Mordred! This battle is between me and Sir Lancelot! Do not interfere!”

 

“But Father!” protested Mordred, cursing. Despite her desire to come to her sire’s aid, however, the knight stood down, understanding Artoria’s wish for this duel. But her sword was still unsheathed, and perhaps she would soon find herself joining no matter what her sire said. 

 

She just got her father back. There was not a chance she would risk losing him.

 

Knowing this, Artoria disentangled from Lancelot’s frenzied grappling, retaining some degree of muscle memory from his previous master of material arts, but none of his martial acumen.

 

She put her strength into a powerful swing, blasting Lancelot far into the distance, far from Mordred. 

 

Artoria meant what she said. She wanted this duel, needed it.

 

But there was another portion of her reasoning she could not explain to the Knight of Treachery. She simply didn’t want Mordred to see Lancelot like this. It would not be good… for either of them.

 

The knight’s honor and restraint were gone, he attacked in the likeness of a feral beast. His lake-like tranquility was no more, every attack wild and filled with anger. His tactical sense abandoned him long ago, leaving a hollow shell of uncontrolled aggression and shallow martial skill, like the eerie echo of a beautiful song.

 

During the Fourth Holy Grail War, when his identity was unknown, the blackened berserker was a fearsome threat, a deadly opponent. 

 

Then, he unmasked himself, revealing a pitiful thing. A former friend, begging her to punish him for the sins of antiquity.

 

She held an inherent position of superiority towards the knight, as dictated by his own desire: the desire to be punished for his crimes. Therefore, Artoria could not lose. Lancelot himself would not allow the embodiment of justice: his executioner, to lose.

 

Reconciling the image of the rampaging beast with her former friend, Artoria could not help but view the degradation of Lancelot’s skills with pity. On his lonesome, he was a powerful opponent indeed. But compared to the Knight of the Lake, this beast was nothing.

 

In addition, he was weaponless.

 

A hundred exchanges of blows ended in a dozen seconds. Artoria’s armor bore a few unremarkable dents, and her body bore several bruises, already healing. 

 

Her opponent, however, bore the mark of several significant slashes and thrusts upon his arms and chest, bleeding a dark liquid quite unlike blood.

 

His back straightened, his limbs relaxing.

 

“Yes, Lancelot. It is time to stop hiding behind your noble phantasm. Show me… show me your true self.”

 

Artoria knew what would come next, anticipated it the moment this battle began. The revelation of his identity during the fourth war, it would happen once more.

 

The black knight’s dark shroud peeled away like a dark fog, like a dark dream. And as the dreamer finally woke from his nightmare, he was met with the face of its source.

 

Before the King of Knights stood, finally, a man who could be aptly titled a knight.

 

The disheveled head of a well-sculpted man protruded from a suit of violet plate. His hair, the same shade as his armor, was long and unkempt. There would have been a sense of beauty to it if not for the form of the man to which it was attached. 

 

Lancelot sported a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth, and his eyes seemed to be dilated permanently, as insane as the crimson orbs hidden behind his former visor.

 

Distinct from his previous form, however, was the appearance of a certain weapon held in his hands.

 

Arondight, the Unfading Light of the Lake, blackened and oozing with malice, glared menacingly towards Artoria with its dark edge, held by its wielder in what seemed to be a genuine swordsman’s stance.

 

The king merely smiled a sad smile, glad for the appearance of something at least more similar to her friend than the mindless berserker she bested.

 

Lancelot still bore the injuries of their last bout, and they would slow him down significantly, but he did not seem to care.

 

He rushed towards Artoria wordlessly, his blade speaking all he needed to say.

 

The king met the blade with her own, lips stretched in a wry, nostalgic grin. She fondly remembered the rare spars with her most valiant knight.

 

Artoria remembered the clashing of sacred blades, the dull hum of Arondight’s soft, lake-like blade clashing against the bright, brilliant edge of Excalibur, the swift, no-nonsense blows of Lancelot, always leaving her a step behind, always maintaining his own rhythm above hers.

She always had to resort to strength back then, overwhelming him with sheer draconic might. It worked during their first few spars, but not the latter ones. He had adapted to it.

 

But she adapted to him as well. 

 

The two knights traded thousands of blows, hundreds of transitional blocks and parries-turned-counterattacks leading into one another like a lengthy chanin of martial prowess. Lancelot’s swordsmanship was efficient, cold, and utterly without embellishment. Yet, as he crossed blades with Artoria, even that straightforward swordsmanship became a gallant dance of sparks and steel. 

 

The sheer amount of knowledge both combatants possessed over each others’ skills induced a chorographical appearance in the duel, as if every movement and exchange were rehearsed hundreds of times.

 

And yet, even as Lancelot matched her blow for blow, Artoria found herself feeling unsatisfied. 

 

“Sir Lancelot. You have lost the will to wield that blade.”

 

The unkempt knight matched his king blow for blow, but such a performance was well below expectation. His madness had not left him completely. His rationality was still impaired. 

 

Yet, even if all of his skill returned to him, Lancelot’s performance would still be underwhelming when compared to his former strength. 

 

“Look upon Arondight, Knight of the Lake. See how it has lost its shine.”

 

Excalibur smashed into his sword with the force of a missile, its wielder not even bothering to round her enemy’s guard. Lancelot was blown back, snarling, even as his armor and the bones underneath them creaked in protest.

 

Once, Artoria would have been content to grant her friend his final wish, to punish him as he willed. But that was only during a Holy Grail War, where the only purpose behind both of their existences entailed, specifically, the death of the other. 

 

Now, there was no grail to fight for, no noble goal to be reached. Lancelot was not an obstacle, not an enemy; Camelot fell over a millennium ago, there was no reason to keep a grudge for his betrayal. 

 

So, why did Artoria fight? Why did she lock herself in this heartbreaking duel, where the slightest mistake would mean death for her or her friend?

 

The same reason anyone fought. To save, to protect.

 

With this goal in mind, the King of Knights leaped into the fray once more, smashing her blade like a club onto Lancelot’s guard again and again and again, the creaking protests of overstressed bone responding to every blow.

 

“You are slow, Lancelot, as slow as I. And if our speeds are equalized, even if your skill outstrips mine, all I need to defeat you is overwhelming strength,” Artoria taunted, neglecting to mention the deep slash wounds on Lancelot’s body from their first bout which served as yet another debilitating handicap.

 

The brutal smashing continued, as Artoria’s strategy shifted completely into leveraging her strength, striking through Lancelot’s guard with each swing, using just enough technique so that the force of the blow was not deflected to the side.

 

Soon, after a hundred of these crushing blows, Lancelot was driven back, his body protesting his every move. But still, he persevered, rising to his feet. 

 

Blood dripped from his armor like crimson streams, and his red-stained hair stuck to his opened eyes. 

 

Lancelot uprighted himself on shaky legs with Arondight as a cane, and leaped at Artoria once more.

 

“Can he even feel pain anymore?” Artoria thought, disturbed. This was not the willpower of a stalwart warrior, but the wild, final thrashings of a feral beast, blinded to its own injury by madness and adrenaline. 

 

In the end, it would appear this incarnation of Lancelot, no matter how much he resembled his old self, was no more than a rampaging beast imitating a knight. 

 

Artoria smashed through her knight’s guard once more, his arms too abused and damaged to take the hit. She forced Arondight to Lancelot’s chest piece at hypersonic speeds, using the flat of the knight’s own blade to shatter it, and a few ribs as well, judging by the spurt of blood he spat out.

 

Lancelot’s lungs were surely damaged, further reducing his combat capabilities. At this point, Artoria could push him back down with a single hand, like a child.

 

He knew this. Surely, he knew this as well. And yet, he still tried, desperately tried, to get up, even as his abused lungs heaved dreadfully, pleading for air, even as his broken bones pierced the very precious organs they were designed to protect. 

 

And eventually, he did. After several, agonizing seconds, each the duration of a lifetime, with his ears only hearing rasp, wet breathing, Lancelot rose.

 

Artoria’s hands shook.

 

“This will be the extent of your punishment, Sir Lancelot. I will do no more.” 

 

He struck.

 

Artoria parried, and pushed him lightly—as lightly as one could push with Mana Burst—and he fell to the ground.

 

Then, He rose.

 

Artoria pushed him down again.

 

“Lancelot—”

 

He rose.

 

Another push.

 

He rose.

 

“Stop it.”

 

She pushed.

 

He rose.

 

“Stop—”  

 

He rose.

 

As Artoria stared into the determined, maddened eyes of her retainer, her protests promptly ended. Years of their distant-yet-existing friendship came back to her in an instant, forcing her to reinforce the integrity of the decision she had already made. 

 

He would not stop rising, not stop fighting, but she would not strike him down. No more regrets. No more dead friends. No more words left unsaid. No more misunderstandings left unresolved. 

 

No more. 

 

No more. 

 

No more.

 

Lancelot raised his sword, and prepared to swing. Artoria made no attempt to dodge nor defend, her emerald eyes piercing yet sympathetic.

 

“When I heard, I wished the both of you nothing but happiness.”

 

He froze, and not of injury.

 

“She was always unsatisfied with me, a woman, unable to satisfy her in any way. There was no love between us, only a distant friendship.”

 

“Aaah—”

 

“How I wished for her happiness back then, prayed for it. Every time I looked upon her, I felt nothing but guilt and sorrow from knowing this maiden, this woman, was nothing more than the king’s tribute. A mere ornament to complete his image of kingliness.”

 

“She would never know love, no matter how she longed for it. She dreamt of a prince in shining armor, riding upon a dazzling steed, taking her away into the sunset.”

 

“Aaaaaah—”

 

“And all she got was me.”

 

“And that was why, Sir Lancelot; that was why I was glad when you took her away.”

 

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhh—”

 

“Her knight in shining armor had come to save her, to carry her off into the sunset, away from the prison of the foul red dragon,” Artoria smiled wryly, “A beautiful ending fit for a children’s tale.”

 

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

 

“I was elated, Lancelot. I couldn’t be more thankful. I may have saved the country from invasion and ruin, but you saved the one person I could not. The one person—though she was right beside me—suffering, an unreachable sore I could never relieve.”

 

“I often thought to myself, ‘what was the point of it all, this facade of honor and kingship, this claim to being the savior of Britain, if I could not even save a woman right in front of me, if I myself was the cause of her suffering—my own queen?’” Artoria wet her lips.

 

“So I suppose what I am saying is, Lancelot, you saved me,” Lancelot clutched his head and screamed.

 

“You saved me from my own hypocrisy, from my own inability to do what was right,” the knight shook his tear-stained face in vehement protest, undecipherable noises exiting rapidly from his mouth.

 

“Never have I been as proud to have you as my fri—”

 

“NOOOOOOOOOOO!”

 

“I—”

 

“No, my king! I—what I did, I did not out of my knightly obligation! I took Guienivere from you simply because I loved her, because I wanted her!” 

 

Lancelot whimpered regretfully, speaking brokenly, the sheer disagreeability of Artoria’s words forcing him to rebuke them through his insanity, “I took her away without measuring the consequences. I allowed the spirit of passion to consume me. I broke my vows to my king and my fellow knights. I murdered the family of the man I called friend. I gave in to my wants and shirked from my duties. I am disloyal, an oathbreaker.” 

 

His eyes were utterly unlike the burning red orbs of before. In their place, wept twin watery orbs, brimming with self-loathing. 

 

“I failed you, I failed Camelot, and I failed Guinevere—the very cause of my disloyalty—when I turned my blade against the round table. My king, I am a failure of a knight, deserving only of punishment. This… is the truth! No matter if you forgive me, no matter how you may mistakenly justify my actions, this is the truth!” 

 

“You still saved her,” Artoria whispered wistfully. “No matter your motivations, you still saved her when I could not. The circumstances being what they were, you still brought her happiness as a woman. That is enough.”

 

Lancelot chuckled bitterly, as if beholden to some foul, unknowable secret.

 

“...My king. Are you aware how Guinevere lived her life after I rescued her?” He asked, bitterness exuding from the man’s voice..

 

“She spent the rest of her life in perpetual guilt, apologizing to you every second, every hour, every day! Even in her sleep! …even in her sleep, she apologized to you, my king. Nothing I did could lessen my burden. Our love, our passion, all drowned in a relentless ebon tide of guilt and dishonor. And it was I who drove her to such a state.”

 

Artoria’s visage was hidden under her bangs, but she knew Lancelot could properly visualize the sorrow hidden on her face. 

 

“Even so, neither of you was wrong. At least, not your love.”

 

“N-neither of us was wrong?! Neither of us was wrong?! Everything we did was wrong! Our shortsighted passions, our sweet little nothings, everything drowned under those same waves of guilt! Guilt well deserved, at that! We drove Camelot to ruin!”

 

“But there was passion. You did share your sweet little nothings, at least before the end. Even if ended miserably, were those little moments you shared so wrong?”

 

“Yes! If I—if I knew where they would have taken us, I would have never pursued our relationship!” Lancelot shouted desperately, but he did not seem convinced of the truth in his words.

 

Artoria gritted her teeth in frustration.

 

“But you did know! How could you have not known?! Neither you nor Guenivere lacked the foresight to discern the risks of your affair! And yet you still decided to love!” 

 

“It is even worse, then.”

 

“Yes, but your love was not wrong.”

 

Lancelot laughed a despairing laugh, looking at Artoria as if she was a naive child, so stubborn he would never convince her of anything. 

 

Then, he tried a new approach.

 

“Then what about them?” 

 

Artoria flinched.

 

“What—what about Ga—Gawain’s family… Gare—!” Lancelot struggled to speak, his actions too horrible for him to vocalize, and yet, his inability to even put those atrocities into words was an atrocity in and of itself, furthering the guilt afflicting Lancelot’s broken heart.

 

Artoria spoke with a pained expression on her face, “I was not referring to those events. You were right to love Guenivere, but you went too far then. And although Gawain may never forgive you, I have already—”

 

“How?! How can you possibly forgive me for that?! I butchered your loyal knights, your comrades! I-I killed m-my own attendant! Paved the way for the traitor Mordred to ruin your kingdom! Destroyed everything we built together! Everything!” He whispered brokenly, “How could you possibly forgive me?”

 

Artoria swallowed the lump in her throat, taking a deep breath shortly afterward.

 

“Because I understand you, both of you. I understand what it is like to bottle every emotion within yourself, to become nothing more than a virtuous machine. It pained me to no end to see Guenivere walking down the same path, so I cannot fault her for giving in to passion, nor can I fault the man who gave rise to that passion.”

 

“...Perhaps, if we possessed even an ounce of your restraint, Camelot would not have fallen. What good is passion if it leads only to darkness?”

 

“‘Good’ is irrelevant. Humans cannot be faulted for passion, for it is innate in all of us. It is better for a path to end in darkness than nowhere at all.”

 

“Your words are nonsensical. My actions caused the deaths of thousands, the deaths of my precious comrades. If the only justification I have is that it was all for my passion, then it is no justification at all, no matter what I felt back then.”

 

“Even so, you were not wrong.”

 

“No!”

 

“I do not speak of your acts against Gawain’s siblings; though the reasoning behind it was sound, you did too much. In that moment, you were certainly lacking in virtue, I concede. However, your lapse in judgment was your only weakness in life, one of the few mistakes you ever made as a man.”

 

“If a single mistake would tear our kingdom asunder, then it is enough.”

 

“Then my head should have rolled a dozen times over.”

 

Lancelot cringed at the thought, instinctively attempting to jump to his feet so he could properly scream in protest. But his injuries took him to the ground again. 

 

He whispered brokenly, “...you would blame yourself, after all you have done?”

 

“I would blame—I used to blame myself for failing my kingdom, for failing you. I was the very origin of your troubles. I thought if another king had ruled in my place, neither of you would have been subject to these misfortunes.”

 

Lancelot’s eyes widened until their lids bled, so filled with anger, so saturated in the spirit of rejection towards the words Artoria’s words that he unleashed a soul-piercing howl that made Artoria wince as her eardrums threatened to burst.

 

“NOOOO! NOO! NO! NO! WHY MUST YOU ALWAYS BE LIKE THIS, MY KING! YOU HAVE GIVEN EVERYTHING, SACRIFICED EVERYTHING! IF THERE IS ANYONE AMONGST US WITHOUT THE BURDEN OF SIN BEARING UPON OUR BACKS, IT IS YOU!”

 

There was a moment of silence, then…

 

Artoria chuckled, and after she could no longer subdue her innate humor, she began to laugh unrestricted.

 

Lancelot was stunned. For over twenty years, for as long as he knew her, the king never laughed.

 

“Hahaha, hahahaha! Ah, don’t patronize me, Sir Lancelot. I, don’t have sin bearing upon my back, you say? You would say that the destroyer of Saxons, butcher of Picts, the grand pillager of Britain, is innocent?” 

 

“You are! You are as innocent as could be. Everyone knew the truth, even those who would resent your rule, that king Arthur simply wished the best to her country. Even the harshest of your critics would not deny this truth.”

 

Artoria snorted, yet another of her actions Lancelot was utterly unfamiliar with. 

 

“Are you not being hypocritical, Sir Lancelot? You were regaling me with the notion of ‘results over intentions’ a few moments ago.”

 

“But I am not. I could have done better. I did not need to kill as may as I did in my quest to rescue Guenivere. G-Gareth, she was unarmed, bearing no intention to hurt! Yet I, I—I still…” He cringed. “This is the difference between us, my king. You, the ruler, with more responsibility, more power than anyone, would naturally have blood on your hands; I’d like to meet the king who doesn’t! But you did the best you could given your circumstances, so no one may fault you for your actions. I, on the other hand…”

 

Artoria bore a smile on her face, sad but amused. 

 

“Then we are the same.”

 

“Wha—”

 

“Did you ever think the reason you assumed I did the best I could, was simply because you never knew my circumstances in detail?” She paused. “Tell me, Sir Lancelot; if an outsider were to view your rescue of Guenivere with little attention to the specifics, would they not forgive your slaughter of your fellow knights, thinking it an unfortunate necessity? They were strong, Lancelot. How would these observers know if you were not forced by circumstance to kill them? After all, the Knight of the Lake, greatest and most virtuous of all knights, couldn’t possibly have lost himself in a murderous rage.”

 

“What? How is this in any way related to our situation? How would these hypothetical outsiders—” He flinched, looked at Artoria, really looked at her, noticing the ironic smirk on her face which used to be so emotionless, the clear signs of self-reproach in her body language, so unthinkably similar to his own. Then, he understood.

 

“I am the outsider, am I not? The one who doesn’t understand, who assumes the best of the object of my idolization?” Lancelot was shaking, a small suspicion hidden in the innermost depths of his heart finally brought into the light of day, validated. “Then, you say you have sinned as well, made mistakes inducing such guilt upon your person it would force you to assume responsibility for my—our, mistakes?”

 

Artoria sighed, already regretting allowing the direction of the argument to be changed so drastically, “...Lancelot, this is not where I wanted this conversation to go. This is supposed to about your—”

 

“This is about me, my king! It is about all of us, from the lowest of knaves to the most righteous of heroes! You are guilty?! You?! If such is the case, then all of us, every man, woman and child of Britain, would be unfit to drink from the muck of a fetid swamp! We would all be villains, undeserving of the very breath of life infused into our beings! How—why do you feel this way?!”

 

“This is about your guilt, not mine.”

 

“If I knew my king was suffering unjustly in mental solitude and did nothing, then the guilt of yesterday will be as a shallow pinprick to the lethal gashes of tomorow.”

 

Artoria could not help but notice Lancelot had regained most of his senses. His sense of wit, of all things, had seemed to return. Was this world stripping him of his madness? Nevertheless, she needed to bring this subject to a conclusion, and bring the discussion back onto its rightful course.

 

“...Lancelot. Do you remember Mordred?”

 

“Of course. That crimson knight, he betrayed you, did he not? Though I have no right to judge the man, as I myself am sinful in equal measure.”

 

“Mordred… was my daughter, borne from the magecraft of my scheming sister.”

 

“...What?”

 

“Her age was accelerated with magecraft, and she was sent to topple my kingdom by Morgan.”

 

“...Then she was a spy from the very beginning, just as the knave Agravain.”

 

“At first, she admired, idolized me, much like you have. She revealed her identity to me, claiming to be my son. Then, she hotly announced herself as my successor, my son. I rejected her.”

“Such insolence towards the king! You were certainly right to reject her for such disrespect.”

 

“Perhaps, but not as I did. I crushed her dreams instantly and mercilessly. She was a child, and I did this to her. Not a word of consolation or explanation, just immediate rejection. I did not want her on the throne because that curse was mine to bear alone. I could not accept her as my son because I could not be a parent and a king all at once. I should have explained this, rationalized it to her, told the girl her deeds and loyalty were still worthy of my praise, my recognition. Instead, I began a misunderstanding resulting in the Battle of Camlann, tearing my kingdom apart, and sealing my fate.”

 

Lancelot was silent, contemplative.

 

“How could I not blame myself for this? How could I not be guilty? This mistake, along with many others, had convinced me I was never suited to be king. When I became a heroic spirit, when I was summoned to the Holy Grail War, my wish was for my kingship to have never become a reality.”

 

“What?” Lancelot’s mind blanked. He could not think.

 

“Horrifying, is it not? You, nor any of your fellow knights would wish for such a thing. For your sacrifices to be invalidated, your memories desecrated. I know this now. A boy, my sheathe, has shown this to me.”

 

“...I see,” in reality, he understood nothing. His abused mind did not have the time to process so much information.

 

“I no longer wish for such a thing, Lancelot, of that you can be assured. However, my change of mind does not mean that my faulty wish, my guilt, did not exist—does not exist. I have simply made peace with my wrongdoings. Is it not time for you to do the same?”

 

Lancelot back a retort. He still could not find it within himself to blame the king for anything, but could not deny the existence of Artoria’s guilt. So he stayed silent.

 

Artoria seemed to want something from him. Perhaps she was waiting for him to make a connection between their experiences. But he could not, for his sins were of an entirely different variety, and in his opinion, unforgivable. His silence continued.

 

It was not until five minutes of awkward silence that Artoria finally gave up on the conversation. However, she did not give up on Lancelot.

 

“I see,” she conceded. “I firmly believe what you shared with Guenivere was not wrong, and I also believe you are of the same mind, deep inside. That is why you are guilty, because there is a part of you telling yourself that your motivations were just, and you cannot accept that.”

 

“N-No! NO! I do not believe that! There is no wa—”

 

“But, I can’t tell you to give up your guilt no matter how I absolve you, just as I cannot tell a finch to disassemble its nest—you have entrenched yourself too deep in it, integrated it into your very identity.”

 

In the next moment, Lancelot found himself hauled to his feet by a single of one of Artoria’s slender arms. Next, his king, a head shorter than him, wrapped her left arm across his armored waist, lifting him perpendicular to her like a sack of flour.

 

Then, she began to walk.

 

The scene was so random, so out of place, its mood so far removed from the serious tones in their discussions just moments before, that Lancelot’s barely recovered sanity threatened to fracture once more.

 

“W-w-Wha—” he felt as a maiden held in the embrace of a strong, gallant knight. He was supposed to be that knight! 

 

“Our discussion comes to a halt. But rest assured, it is not over. You will make peace with yourself one day and free your soul from this self-imposed curse. While I can see that I can not convince you today, who knows what tomorrow will bring?.”

 

Lancelot’s armored, bloodied limbs flailed helplessly under his king’s locked arm, the knight’s injured body too damaged to escape, or even walk—that must have been the reason she was doing this.

 

“But, have you noticed, Lancelot?”

 

He did not know what she meant.

 

“This world, dimension, whatever it is—has stripped you of your insanity during our conversation.”

 

Lancelot, attentiveness drilled into him during his knight training, had noticed the same. The fact he did so during a time of such great emotional stress was a testament to his capabilities. 

 

And so, he could confirm that his madness had been slowly stripped away during their conversation. He now thought in ways his mad self never could, articulated his reasoning with speech that mad beast would never even consider using. 

 

This world, perhaps empowering the effects Artoria’s words had on him, had dragged him back to the shores of sanity, removing the curse of madness enhancement from his person.

 

“This would never have happened in a Holy Grail War. Perhaps mere moments of it perhaps, but never to such a degree. Do you feel the madness returning?”

 

Lancelot was tempted to say yes, just so he could get Artoria to execute him here and now.

 

“...no.”

 

“Good, and what is your wish?”

 

“For you to execute me for my treachery.”

 

“Well, I suppose that was too much to hope for,” Artoria sighed, exasperated. This was yet another emotion Lancelot was unfamiliar with, and the uncomfortable notion he had never known his king at all crept up the treacherous portions of his mind.

 

His sense of unease grew to the point where he could not control his tongue.

 

“You have changed, my king.”

 

To his surprise, Artoria smiled. 

 

It was a radiant thing, that face, like the sun, its golden mane showering the land in a hail of sunbeams. The sheer charisma of it, the sheer beauty of it, juxtapositioned with the utter absence of it in Lancelot’s life was enough to move him to tears.

 

And with that smile on her face, radiant as Excalibur itself, Artoria replied, “Yes, Sir Lancelot. I have changed, changed for the better. I believe you should do the same.”

 

“Is that a royal decree?” Lancelot asked sardonically.

 

“No king could order anything of the sort. It is simply advice based on my own experience. Please take it.”

 

There was a minute of silence.

 

“What now, my king?” Lancelot asked, trying to change the subject.

 

Artoria noticed, but did not seem to mind.

 

“Now, we march once more, old friend. To where, I have no idea. But we will get there together, provided your insanity does not make an unsightly comeback.”

 

Lancelot shook his head, lips curled downwards. Why did she have to remind him of his sin? To continue to inconvenience his own king even in death, and he thought he could not be more ashamed!

 

Now that his sanity had returned, the knight could not believe he had the audacity to attack the king, to force him enact a punishment he wanted nothing to do with.

 

 He remembered what his mad self did in the Fourth Holy Grail War. He had been given another opportunity, by pure chance, to serve his king once more, to fight for her ideals, to redeem himself! And what did he do? How did he utilize such a God-given chance?

 

He attacked her, disgraced himself once more, made himself her enemy once more! And for what? His nonsensical, selfish desires?! He could have made things right, joined her at this new final battle! And yet… And yet!

 

Chuckling darkly, the Knight of the Lake came to a realization that no matter how accomplished he was in life, no matter how many bards sang of his virtues, he would always be the most selfish among the round table, the direct antithesis to his king.

 

“No, please find it in your heart to pardon my disgraceful behavior. I will not lie and say I do not wish to be punished, but in my unaltered state of mind, I fully and utterly condemn my mad self’s attacks on your person, my king.”

 

Artoria scowled at his tone and expression. She ignored his words, showing disapproval of the thoughts behind them.

 

“You are thinking dangerous thoughts, Sir Lancelot. Thoughts that will impair your mental recovery. You will never move forward like this.”

 

Lancelot was silent.

 

Artoria sighed. “Just—simply focus on me, is that clear? Do not allow yourself to venture towards darker places. I am in need of my knight, as well as my friend.”

 

Lancelot laughed bitterly.

 

“...Do you remember when we first met? Back on that battlefield?”

 

“How could I forget? It was there that I first laid eyes your person, valiantly leading your army in a charge against the enemy.”

 

“You joined me.”

 

“Which led you to grant me an audience with you. I was honored.”

 

“Not more so than I. I was elated at the prospect of such a virtuous knight fighting by my side.”

 

“Then I must have disappointed you greatly.”

 

“We just finished that conversation.”

 

“My apologies.”

 

Artoria continued to walk.

 

A pause.

 

“Today reminds me of that day.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Because it is a new beginning for us, my friend,” Artoria stopped, looking Lancelot in the eye. “And you, if you wish to join me, must redo your vow.”

 

“T-there is no need, my king. You know I am yours eternally.”

 

“No, we are different people from our past selves. We have changed too much. Renew your vows, Sir Lancelot.”

 

“I-I—yes, your highness,” he conceded.

 

Artoria gently lowered him to the ground, the knight taking a one-kneed kneeling position as she did. She summoned Excalibur, briefly touching his shoulders with its shining edge.

 

Lancelot knew she was trying to help him, to dampen the impact of his guilt by bequeathing him a fresh start in life. And yet, this kindness only served to fuel his guilt further, the knight condemning himself for betraying this kind saint of a king. 

 

And as the shining blade lightly touched his shoulder plate, the embodiment of justice itself, Lancelot could not help but wish for its brilliant edge to part the meat of his neck instead.

***

“Hey, Shirou. What’s that bird?”

 

“Huh, what are you talking about, Tohsaka?”

 

Rin scowled, pointing up.

 

“The bird familiar, that one!”

 

Shirou looked up, finally seeing the body of an artificial glowing bird, most likely a familiar, staring down at him.

 

His eyes widened in surprise before he pondered over its existence.

 

“How am I supposed to know what it is if you don’t know, Tohsaka?”

 

Rin hissed in frustration.

 

“Trace it, you numbskull! All you need to do is touch it and you’ll get its entire history in your head. Then we can see which magus sent this thing to us!”

 

He heard her whisper something about Einzberns under her breath. The familiar did look pretty familiar.

 

Shirou rubbed his head. The man was surprised enough as it is to see something other than white in this world after a whole day here. The shock had really impaired his planning.

 

Though, he wasn’t sure if Rin’s plan would work. How would he catch the bird if it didn’t want to be caught? The magus behind it could just have the thing fly away the moment he approached it. 

 

Reinforcing his legs, Shirou sprung up like a spring, hoping to catch the familiar off-guard. 

 

He did, although it was so eerily easy that he could not help but regard the bird’s inaction as a trap. Nevertheless, in the moments where Shirou’s fingertips met the deceptively delicate-seeming amalgamation of strings, he activated his ability.

 

“Trace on.”

 

The history of the familiar's creation came crashing down on his mind, a flood of tumultuous information like the rage of a furious river flow.

 

And in a moment, Shirou knew. 

 

The bird was only a few days old, its creation, so very recent. To Shirou, who had analyzed the legendary weapons of old, imbued with the souls of mystic smiths and perfected in the hands of mythical heroes, this creature was nothing more than a child’s toy.

 

And yet, that comparison was exactly what made this situation so momentous, so shocking.

 

Within the short span of the familiar’s history, Shirou observed the form of a snow-haired girl with eyes the color of rubies. A girl he would never mistake for anyone else. A girl, a possible ally, who was slain pitifully and gruesomely right before his eyes. 

 

“Illyasviel.”

 

Rin’s eyes widened. 

 

“What?”

 

“Illyasviel von Einzbern. Th—that is the name of the person who made this familiar.”

 

“We watched her die, Shirou.”

 

“W-Well, maybe she didn’t. Or maybe this is just someone else who took her body. But I know for sure the body, at least, is hers.”

 

Rin pondered over this, and attempted desperately to reconcile all the known laws of thaumaturgy with the death-reversing crazy talk her lover had just spouted. But there was just no way. Illyasviel died. They buried her. You couldn’t bring her back to life, except as some sort of reanimated corpse.

 

But, she reminded herself that the nature of the world around them needed to be taken into account. This place also did not seem to follow the ironclad boundaries of magecraft, and whoever sent them to this place had little respect for those rules as well.

 

Perhaps… they, whoever they were, discovered the Third Magic? Maybe they used it to revive the Einzbern?

 

Rin scoffed in her mind. These were outlandish hypotheses, and although their arrival to this world was nearly as nonsensical, she currently did not have enough evidence to believe the situation would entail genuine, bona fide resurrection. 

 

No, most likely, it was some nefarious magus, using the girl’s body as a corpse puppet. Or less likely, Shirou was wrong, and it was someone else, maybe another Einzbern. The homunculi all looked alike, after all.

 

So, should they approach this probable imposter, or would that just be a trap? But 

 

Roughly massaging her temple, Tohsaka Rin struggled to come up with a plan.

 

“What are you going to do?”

 

Shirou looked conflicted, strained, an old wound of the past freshly opened. He felt raw, vulnerable once more. 

 

He remembered the past when he first met her. The terror her Servant, Heracles, inflicted upon him with his presence alone. He remembered the coldness in her eyes as she ordered his death like a side of fries from a hamburger joint.

 

Yet, when she died, when Gilgamesh slashed out her eyes and stabbed her through the chest, when he heard her beg, plead for her guardian in her last moments in the darkness, it was as if something was torn from his heart.

 

He didn’t know her. He didn’t. Even if she looked like a little girl, she clearly wasn’t. It was unreasonable of him to feel so much when she died, especially when she had attempted to take his life. Hell, he didn’t know just exactly what it was that he felt, just that it was deep and instinctual; a specter ever elusive of description. 

 

Only later, after his arrival at the Clocktower, did he discover that Illyasviel was Kiritsugu’s biological daughter.

 

Both he and Rin remembered how he wouldn’t leave his room for weeks, how he missed more classes than he could count. There was never a time when Shirou felt more suffering, anger, and disappointment, with the exception of the Fuyuki fire. Suffering, at the loss of his own sister right before his eyes and not knowing it for so long after. Anger, towards that golden-haired bastard who murdered his sister so callously. Disappointment in himself, despite knowing clearly there was nothing he could have done. 

 

He remembered when Kiritsugu would disappear without a word once a month, only to come back in a weak, fragile mood, as if he was a touch away from breaking. Now, Shirou knew. For ten years, Kiritsugu had toiled to save his daughter from her fate, only to be punished with failure for every attempt.. 

 

How would his father react, he wondered, if he knew his own son allowed his daughter to be butchered right in front of him? 

 

Shirou knew there was nothing he could have done. He repeated this mantra every day. He knew Kiritsugu would never blame him merely for being powerless; after all, the man had been powerless to save those he loved for all his life. If there was anyone in the whole world who could understand and forgive Shirou’s failure, it was his father.

 

Still, the irrational, sentimental part of him still held himself accountable, no matter how illogical he understood his self-flagellation to be

 

This same irrationality, this mistaken spirit of repentance, drove Shirou’s actions today, alongside his sense of responsibility as Illyasviel’s brother. It pushed him to make an illogical decision, one Tohsaka Rin would have never allowed under any other circumstance. 

 

“We’re following it, aren’t we?” asked Rin, exasperated but understanding. One look at the man’s face, and she knew deterring him would be a lost cause.

 

Then, as if on cue, the familiar zipped away in a beam of blue light, retracted by its snow-haired creator.

 

No more words were spoken. Both magi sped after the ornate bird, reinforcement magecraft augmenting their speeds to superhuman levels. 

 

Gaze pointed forward, he wore a determined expression as naturally as his old baseball jersey.

 

Shirou would get to the bottom of this. He would never be able to face Kiritsugu otherwise.

*

Illya stood between her parents—Irisviel to the left and Kiritsugu to the right. Berserker towered over them from behind, his stout stature emitting an aura of security that Illya had continued to appreciate since those cold days in the German snow lands.

 

“So… Illya, what have you been doing for the past few years? Have you been eating well?” Irisviel attempted to break the awkward silence by starting an even more awkward conversation.

 

“I—” Illya suddenly cringed, pulling her hat over her head and looking away.

 

Kiritsugu gulped. He could imagine exactly what horrors his poor daughter had been subjected to. Even if he could laboriously push aside the immense burden of his own guilt in the matter, the Magus Killer would still rather gut himself than inform his wife of his suspicions. Her heart would surely break. What happened to Illya—what he allowed to happen—was worse than his infidelity. Much, much worse.

 

“M-Mama… I don’t want to talk about that right now.”

 

“Oh. Oh, alright. But I’m glad you’ve taken to calling me ‘Mama’, Illya.” Illya blushed.

 

“Y-Yeah.” She nodded in acknowledgement.

 

The awkward silence returned.

 

“So… Heracles, huh?” asked Kiritsugu.

 

Illya nodded, refusing to face him. Her giant’s affirming growl threatened to trigger his fight-or-flight instincts. 

 

Just as Kiritsugu thought the conversation had chilled once again like a bead of water in the arctic, Illya, surprisingly, elaborated.

 

“I got him for the Fifth Holy Grail War.” Kiritsugu’s eyes threatened to bulge out of his head.

 

“WHAT?!” Irisviel was similarly disturbed. Illya wasn’t sure what they were expecting. She had command seals and Heracles was a servant. She made that very clear to them an hour ago.

 

“How? I planted C4 in that cave! The war should have been delayed for at least—”

 

“Well it wasn’t!” Illya snapped, cutting her father off. Her resentment, misplaced as it was—she knew that—threatened to flare once more. This was definitely not a conversation she wanted to be having right now.

 

“Listen! Let’s talk about this once we find someone, ok?! This isn’t the time!” In actuality, Illya wasn't sure there would ever be a ‘right’ time. She wasn’t sure they would find anyone either. Her parents, with all their years of experience, surely understood that. They were tactful enough to shut up anyways.

 

Illya wasn’t sure how she was supposed to deal with this. She had only just made peace with the fact that her father hadn’t abandoned her all those years ago, that he had fathered a son merely one year her junior as she suffered the tortuous “training” of the Einzberns, and that he had died loving her. She barely remembered her mother and had accepted that she would be without one for the rest of her short, miserable life. 

 

Now Illya had both, a father she misjudged her entire life, and a mother who she barely even remembers past a few blurry images from childhood. What was she supposed to do? How was she supposed to react? The animalistic joy from their meeting had long since subsided, and the woman’s rational mind was at an utter loss.

 

“I, I… I—” What was she going to say? An apology for snapping? A rescindment of her delay of their much-needed heart-to-heart? The youngest Einzbern did not know herself. Perhaps she would make a fool of herself. Perhaps, she feared, that in an overemotional ramble devoid of any logic, she would profess to her beloved parents her misguided hatred towards them, for their abandonment of her. But the most likely answer, and the one she dreaded the most, was that she wanted to say exactly that, to voice her suppressed decade-long resentment no matter how ugly or unjustified it may sound, no matter what catastrophic effects it may—would have on her parents who loved her more than the world itself

 

Luckily for Illyasviel, and even luckier for her parents, her inner demons would not be unleashed this day.

 

“Red… hair?”

 

“Who is that? Do you know him, Kiritsugu?”

 

“Shi—Shirou.”

 

Because the final member of the Emiya family had picked the perfect time to join their little gathering.

*

When Shirou and Rin finally made first contact with the inhabitants of this strange land, well, the word “shocked” would be a grave understatement for the intensity of their reaction.

 

What the hell were you supposed to do when your own dead father and dead enemy rose out of their graves to give you one last encore? 

 

Shirou and Rin were quickly following the Einzbern construct when they noticed four dots to their north: two black, one white, one purple. The bird flew towards the purple one.

 

The two magi quickly trailed the familiar, eager to reach its mistress, who they reasoned wouldn’t assault a potential ally in this unprecedented situation. Shirou resolved to stay his hand as well, even as he was faced with the possibility that Illya’s corpse was being desecrated by a conniving magus.

 

They expected Illya, of course, and knew she was the purple dot from the direction of her bird. However, they were not expecting another pair of magi to have accompanied her, nor the presence of her Servant in the Holy Grail War. 

 

Though, to Shirou, the presence of Emiya Kiritsugu was a far greater anomaly than even the greatest demigod of Greece. 

 

“K-Kiritsugu?” He asked in a whisper, moving to stand before the man. His eyes were wide and his expression unbelieving. The Magus Killer was the same, a flicker of light returning to his dead eyes as he reunited with his adopted son.

 

Rin paled as she realized just how dangerous this situation could be. Illya (probably fake) somehow, somehow, had access to a Servant. And if this violent eight-foot-tall break-dancing skirt-wearing menace wasn’t bad enough, he was accompanied by two additional magi! One of which Shirou just called Kiritsugu.

 

Wait, Kiritsugu? As in Emiya Kiritsugu? The Magus Killer?! Rin unconsciously backtracked, suddenly hyperaware of the distance between the black-clad man and herself. Cold sweat ran down her back as adrenaline flooded her bloodstream.

 

“W-wait! That’s Shirou’s father, right? I have no idea why he’s here, but he shouldn’t be hostile, right? Unless he’s mind controlled, or a reanimated corpse, or—” 

 

Rin promptly decided to stop thinking about it. It was too late to prepare for a fight. She had already resolved herself to seek out others in hopes of an alliance. This was simply the result of her own decisions. And Tohsaka Rin always lived by her choices.

 

She decided to shut up and let her boyfriend, who knew two of the magi (if they were who they seemed) intimately. 

As Illya and Kiritsugu’s eyes were both trained on the adopted member of their dysfunctional little family, Rin’s wandering eyes were captured by the gaze of Irisviel’s crimson orbs. The modern Einzbern’s brows were furrowed, expression puzzled, her thoughts utterly inscrutable. Rin responded with an uneasy smile, hands clasped at her waist in an effort to appear as unthreatening as possible.

 

Meanwhile, Illya’s little body was already airborne, a missile of magenta and white. She crashed into her brother’s inviting arms—reared instinctually—and giggled playfully, wrapping her arms around his neck. Unlike her parents, the youngest Einzbern learned of Shirou’s presence the moment her familiar discovered him. 

 

She was not in a proper state of mind to tell Kiritsugu this, but… well, he seemed to be taking it well enough.

 

Shirou’s eyes met with those of his adopted father’s, the two men nearly unable to comprehend the information gathered by their eyes. 

 

The auburn-haired magus wore the expression of a boy who thought himself indulging in the embrace of an impossible dream. 

 

The Magus Killer wore a fond expression, his visage gentle and kind. It was an expression reserved only for family, and the times the man would be caught in such a state could be counted on two hands. 

 

“Dad…” Shirou started, his voice failing him. What else could be said in this moment? What proper words of greeting, of reunion could be exchanged between this pair of broken, emotionally stunted men? 

 

“Shirou,” Kiritsugu replied, his eyes brimming with life. The stoic man spoke a thousand words in his silence, his eyes better orators than his voice ever was. 

 

Pride, joy, relief, and worry seeped through his gaze in equal measure. Kiritsugu may not have known precisely what his son accomplished during the years following his death, but he didn’t need to. Shirou wore his accomplishments like a body glove, the confidence in his posture and the life in his eyes telling a tale of a thousand pages.

 

His son had grown up, risen from the ashes of his circumstances, his trauma, like a phoenix of old. No longer was he that hollow-eyed boy whose very soul was a borrowed trinket. The boy’s uncertainty had been disrobed like a coat of rust, unveiling the glint of steel beneath. Shirou had grown into a healthy young man, and Kiritsugu could not be any prouder.

 

Neither Irisviel nor Rin moved to introduce themselves, fearing the disruption of this intimate moment of father and son. Illyasviel, however, possessed no such consideration. 

 

“Shirouuuuuu~” She whined, detaching herself from his neck only to hammer his stomach with her little fists. To the end of days, the youngest Einzbern would deny that her jealousy spurred this action. 

 

Shirou broke from his trance, ending his impromptu staring contest with his father. He lifted Illya—still pounding him furiously—by her elbows like an infant and lowered her to the ground much further from him.

 

“H-Hello.” He greeted his sister nervously, a sheepish expression plastered on his face. Illya was clearly not reanimated or possessed, but there was a distance between them, even when Shirou knew she was his sister.

 

The memories of the Fuyuki war sat fresh in his mind. The antagonism between them remained unsettled until the end of her life. Furthermore, even if this was not the case, he knew next to nothing about Illya. Not her favorite color nor her favorite food. Hell, he couldn’t even be sure how old she was!

 

Illyasviel, noticing Shirou’s unfamiliarity, stepped back, wide ruby eyes boring holes into her brother.

 

“You’re from the second timeline, aren’t you?” She asked in a tone that came off deceptively gentle. Tranquil yet impending, the calm before the storm.

 

“Timeline? What do you—”

 

“Leck mich am Arsch! You-you’re from the second—Scheiße! That was the worst timeline!”

 

Irisviel was shocked stiff by her daughter’s big potty mouth. Who taught her to swear like that?! What in the world had the Einzbern patriarch taught her daughter?

 

“You—oh—damn it!” Illya gripped her hair so tightly that she uprooted her follicles. 

 

“Wait, I can’t ignore that. What do you mean by ‘the worst timeline’?” Rin pitched in, brows furrowed in disbelief.

 

Groaning wearily, Illya answered.

 

“Ever since I arrived at this place, I’ve had memories of three timelines, three variations of the Holy Grail War. In some of those variations, we knew each other well.” She eyed Rin groggily, as if a reward had become a chore. “That goes for you too, Rin.”

 

“Hm? Why wouldn’t that ‘go’ for me?” Rin asked in genuine confusion. 

 

Illya winced.

 

“I really didn’t know you two in that timeline at all, did I?” 

 

“Are you implying there are timelines where you did?”

 

“Yes! That’s why I’m angry! In both other timelines, we were friends, or at least acquaintances!”

 

Rin leveled a skeptical look to Shirou. He returned it.

 

Before any of the two could say any more, Irisviel injected herself into the conversation.

 

“Stopppppp!” The womanly Einzbern crossed her arms in an x shape like a child, striding between Illya and her two magi acquaintances. 

 

Everyone but Kiritsugu was flabbergasted, especially Illya.

 

“M-my mother is really like this? I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, huh?” She cringed, ice-cold self-awareness piercing her chest like— On second thought, that was a very, very poor metaphor.

 

The two groups proceed to explain their relationships to the unenlightened Einzbern, her soothing-yet-sweet aura dispelling Shirou and Rin’s combined tension as well as Illya’s stress.

 

Mothers are convenient that way, aren’t they? Everybody’s been missing out. 

*

“So… you are Kiritsugu’s adopted son from one of the three timelines pertaining the Holy Grail War which Illya has observed, and in your timeline, you two did not know each other well—while in the other two timelines, you had a loving brother-sister relationship?” Irisviel summarized, scrutinizing him under a narrow-eyed stare. Shirou didn’t know why she formatted her summary as a question, nor did he know why she directed said question at him. 

 

Then again, when he thought about it, Irisviel’s prodding attitude towards him made a strange sense. He was unknown to her. She did not even know Emiya Shirou existed until a few minutes ago. They were strangers to each other, and yet—

 

“Yep!” Illya answered her mother cheerfully. 

 

They were strangers, but both Irisviel’s husband and daughter loved him like their own. Shirou supposed it must have felt like a surprise adoption notice for the elder Einzbern. Her reaction was understandable. He didn’t know how he’d react if his future adopted son popped out in the blue. 

 

Therefore, Shirou needed to make a good impression. The greenhorn magus did not understand what Illya meant by “different timelines”. He could comprehend the basics, but to think that there were other versions of himself who had come to different conclusions regarding his ideals—it was mind-boggling to say the least.

 

“Um, I’m not sure what these ‘timelines’ are, but I’ll be happy to tell you what happened after Kiritsugu adopted me, Mrs. Irisviel.” 

 

Irisviel’s face brightened.

 

“That’s wonderful, Shirou! Oh, but one thing first! Call me Iri.” 

 

“Sure, Ir—Mrs. Iri.” 

 

“Just Iri is fine, Shirou. We’re family after all.” 

 

Shriou’s jaw dropped. 

 

“Um, Mrs—uh, Iri, isn’t this too soon? We just met, and—” 

 

“If Kiritsugu and Illya consider you a part of our family, then I trust you as well.” The elder Einzbern’s tone had grown motherly. “Both Illya and Kiritsugu can both misjudge people on their own, but if they feel the same way about you, then they can’t be wrong.” Her words brimmed with trust for her family and for her fellow man, and although she emanated the aura of a sage, Shirou couldn’t help but feel she was a bit too naive. 

 

“Oh God, I’m turning into Archer.”

 

Irisviel proceeded to hug her adopted son vigorously, enveloping him in a warm embrace. Shirou sent begging looks to Kiritsugu, desperate for directions. The magus killer merely smiled and shrugged. He could have done something, but the man would rather demolish another hotel than interrupt the heartwarming scene before his eyes. 

 

For the past ten years, with the exception of freeing Illya, Kiritsugu had wanted nothing more than to introduce his son to his dearly departed wife. Even though it was an impossible dream, he still fantasized of that impossibility every day. He knew, he always knew, had she met him, she would have loved that boy like he did—or else he wasn’t her husband. He was right. Of course he was right.

 

Truly, it was a better sight than he could have ever imagined. 

 

Illya could never get used to how chipper her mother could be. While the Einzbern heiress didn’t know Irisviel that well, she found it peculiar that her own mother often acted more childishly than her. What made this behavior even more disconcerting was Illya’s emerging theory that said childishness was genuine, unlike hers. 

 

An ugly feeling filled Illya’s heart, and the young woman couldn’t help but cringe as she realized that she was jealous that her own mother was happier than her.

 

Kiritsugu, an attentive man and an even more attentive parent, rushed to his daughter’s side in an instant, gripping her shoulders with reserved force.

 

“Illya, what’s wrong?” asked her kindly father, kneeling down to meet her eyes.

 

Of course, there was no way in hell she could tell her father that she was jealous of his wife, or that she thought her own mother was immature; so, Illya would present another… interpretation of her instinctual cringe response. 

 

“Nothing. I… just remember the way I died in that timeline.”

 

Her father’s eyes widened to the size of dinner plates as his hands began to tremble.

 

“You—died?”

 

Irisviel’s breath caught in her throat, blood draining rapidly from her already pale face. She released Shirou from her embrace and turned to face her daughter. Her poor, tormented daughter, who deserved so much better.

 

For Illya, Irisviel may have been an acquaintance from a lifetime ago, but for Irisviel, she had only left her daughter a month ago. Seeing her like this, tortured and cynical and grown up, was already heartbreaking to the woman. But the thought of her Illya dying? After a decade of torture—which was exactly what her family patriarch inflicted upon her daughter, regardless of his intentions—she didn’t even get her well-deserved happy ending? 

 

It was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Irisviel shook, close to tears, seconds away from a complete mental breakdown. 

 

“Shirou. Is this true? Did Illya die? Did my daughter… die?”

 

Shirou tried to answer. He really did. He did everything in his power to force an affirmation past his lips, but one look at his new mother’s expression told him exactly how much damage his answer would inflict upon her. 

 

He felt as if his tongue had swelled to the size of his mouth. It became difficult to breathe, let alone speak. Shirou realized that he simply could not tell Irisviel. Not now, not when he was almost as overwhelmed as she was. Luckily for the young hero, he was in possession—or rather, in the possession—of a very supportive partner.

 

“Yes, Mrs. Irisviel. We saw it happen with our own eyes,” said Rin in an extremely uncomfortable tone. She did not know any of these people, but apparently Shirou did, and oh God, it was like talking to your in-laws. No, she literally was talking to her in-laws.

 

Rin gulped, realizing that this was the first time she even addressed Shirou’s new—old—dead—stepmom. This was the first time she spoke to the woman, and she had nothing more to say than ‘your daughter died’. 

 

In hindsight, maybe this was a bad decision and an even worse first impression.

 

Rin could be impulsive like that.

 

Words could not describe the anguish in Irisviel’s heart. She gaped tearfully at her daughter, defeated and guilty. 

 

The Einzbern had suspected it the moment she saw the pain in Illya’s eyes. She put it off then, naively assuming that it was nothing she and her husband could fix, but now she knew. 

 

It was too late, for her, for them. Her daughter had died, and Irisviel had done nothing to stop it. Tears welled in the Einzbern’s eyes, her hair obscuring her face like the branches of a willow tree. 

 

“Illya! Illya, I’m so, so sor—”

 

Heracles roared, interrupting Irisviel, the force of his booming voice threatening to rupture their eardrums. 

 

Illya was left trembling in anger, gritted teeth smashing together with the force of a hydraulic press. 

 

“Mother, you were the one who calmed me down during my outburst earlier. I guess it’s my turn now. Besides, I hardly want to talk about that right now.” 

 

Irisviel froze at her daughter’s glacial tone. She realized that no matter how difficult it was for her to accept Illya’s fate, it was infinitely for the girl herself to have experienced it. If Illya did not wish to share—if she was too damaged to share, then Irisviel had no right to force her. And if her despair caused Illya any measure of pain, then out of duty—out of penance, Irisviel had to bottle it.

 

“Alright Illya,” she spoke in a measured tone, concealing her sadness under a thin layer of calm. “Let’s move on.”

 

Illya sighed in relief.

 

“Alright, let’s stop talking about people dying. In this moment, at the very least, I’m not experiencing any abnormalities in my body. Is this the case for everyone else?” 

 

She was followed by a series of affirming nods and reassuring head shakes. 

 

The group proceeded to share information, particularly Kiritsugu and Shirou, who wished to catch up with each other. Rin and Irisviel chatted on the side while Illya stood in silence under Berserker’s protective gaze, pondering over how much she should tell them—or how much she could.

 

After an hour of discussion, the group decided to search for other abductees or natives. While they themselves did not move, Illya sent out another omnidirectional wave of familiars. 

 

With Heracles as their protector, there was nothing to fear even if her probes attracted some unsavory characters.

*

Artoria had borne witness to many strange things today. An entirely new world capable of sustaining her presence, memories of two different timelines in addition to her own, two of her own knights, and a human Master. 

 

Surely, she thought, this incessant flood of oddities had finally run dry. Surely, a day could only be so bizarre. 

 

But like most of Artoria’s assumptions in life, she was wrong. 

 

On her merry little trek to God-knows-where, complete with a depressed and droopy knight in very unshiny armor, a puppy dog woman-child, and a gruff magus looking like an 80s action star who got lost off-set; a streak of blue entered her vision, zipping towards her. 

 

The creature, which Artoria suspected to be a magus’ familiar, moved at a crawl. So slow that Artoria could clearly see that its body was woven from strands of hair, a glowing Cherenkov blue.

 

She stopped, alerting her unsightly companions to its presence. Mordred summoned her sword and prepared to strike it down. Lancelot stood, guarded but non-belligerent. 

 

“Wait, Mordred,” Artoria warned her knight. “That familiar is not a threat.”

 

Mordred frowned. 

 

“You know this thing, Father?”

 

Artoria paused, contemplative.

 

“Yes. I believe so. At least, I am well-acquainted with a family that makes frequent use of this magecraft.”

 

“Einzberns,” elaborated Kairi. “Ancient family, all homunculi. You never know what they’re thinking.”

 

Mordred growled at the mention of homunculi. She was suddenly reminded of the nature of her own existence.

 

“How were you ‘acquainted’ with these things, Father?” 

 

Nobody was suicidal enough to mention she was a homunculus as well.

 

“I was summoned by the Einzberns in the Fourth Holy Grail War, and fought against one of their members in the fifth. Some of them… some of them are better than others.”

 

Kairi completely ignored everything impossible in that statement. The cap of his impossibility meter had blasted off to space long ago. It was probably swimming with the aliens now.

 

The familiar had halted its movement as they talked, floating mid-air a dozen meters from Artoria, its beak glued in her direction.

 

Then, as Artoria decided to walk towards it, without warning, the bird zipped away, accelerating to full speed in an instant—yet still nothing but a crawl to high-ranked servants like Artoria.

 

“We follow,” Artoria ordered, proceeding to accelerate into a light jog. Lancelot followed.

 

“Wha- Mordre​​—oof,” Mordred picked up Kairi like a sac of potatoes, slinging him over her shoulder as she joined her father.

 

They now knew they had been scouted by a magus of the Einzbern family in this strange place. Artoria could only hope they would be as benevolent as her old friend.

***

“Oh my God it’s Saber!” Illya screamed as her friends and family gathered around.

 

“Saber?! As in our Saber?!” Rin demanded in disbelief. 

 

“She’s here? She’s really here?” Shirou shook his head in disbelief as his lips split into an amazed grin. 

 

“I see. So Heroic Spirits could also be summoned to this place. I assume this is the Saber-class Servant you summoned in the Fifth Holy Grail War?” Kiritsugu asked. His stomach churned as Shirou gave an affirming nod. The Magus Killer’s gut told him he would not get along with the Saber. Then again, the Magus Killer hardly got along with anyone.

 

“Say, Kiritsugu. Didn’t you place Avalon inside of Shirou to relieve him of his wounds?” Irisviel asked. 

 

Rin began to mumble irately under her breath about the absurdity of Kiritsugu’s actions, how he wasted one of the most precious Noble Phantasms in the modern day and screwed Shirou for life while he was at it. Everyone ignored her.

 

“What are you implying, Iri?” The pit in Kiritsugu’s stomach tripled in size. 

 

“Shirou,” She gestured to the auburn-haired magus. “Did you receive any catalysts for Servant summoning after Kiritsugu’s passing?”

 

“No, his catalyst was Avalon,” Rin answered for her boyfriend. “He summoned the same Saber you did in the last war.”

 

“Artoria Pendragon, the King of Knights.” Kiritsugu sighed in acceptance. He desperately wished for a cigarette. The former Master never thought he would meet his rebellious Servant again, but as always, Fate had other plans. 

 

Would she run him through with that brilliant sword of hers, Kiritsugu wondered, knowing he would not blame her if she did.

 

Shirou, Rin, and Illya chattered excitedly about the arrival of their friend while Irisviel listened attentively. Kiritsugu tuned it out, anxiously awaiting the reckoning that was to come.

 

And it did come, only seconds after the young adults’ conversation had halted. 

 

In all her radiant glory, the King of Knights finally entered his field of view. The gleam of steel armor. A tuft of golden-blonde hair. An aura of regality, as identifying as any opulent crown. And as she approached further, he saw the glint of recognition in those emerald eyes. 

 

Three others followed the ruler of Britain. To her left was a raggedy knight of lavender, whose armor was dull and his hair unkempt. To her left was a knight of crimson grey, whose horned helm and heavy armor obscured their body. 

 

They carried a magus on their shoulder like a sack of potatoes—a big man wearing a pair of sunglasses. Three claw scars marred his right eye. He wore a leather jacket, black khakis, and black military boots. 

 

Kiritsugu and everyone around him did not overlook the crimson pattern of the command spells on his hand. Personally, the Magus killer thought he should have hidden them better, like he did, by shoving his hands in his jacket pockets. 

 

The four of them—though only three were walking—stopped following Illya’s little familiar a few meters away from Kiritsugu’s group. The little bird flew into Illya’s hair, neglected by its knightly pursuers. It promptly unraveled, floating whimsically to the ground as a mess of snow-white strands.

 

For a moment, silence dominated the world. 

 

Emerald eyes widened as they registered the presence of far too many familiar faces, some more welcome than others.

 

“Shirou?” Saber asked, as if questioning the boy’s very existence. She strode forward and reached for him, clasping her gauntlet around his shoulder to reassure herself of his presence. 

 

“Uh, Saber?” 

 

“It’s good to see you again, Shirou.” Artoria was scanning his face now, searching for something she must have thought would be there. The auburn-haired man smiled awkwardly, trying his best to make it easier for his friend to find whatever she was looking for.

But Artoria’s brow soon changed to a concerned frown, and the thin smile on Shirou’s face evaporated in turn.

 

“Is there something wrong?” He asked, perplexed.

 

“No, nothing is wrong Shirou. At least…” Saber paused and sighed, desperately hoping she was wrong. “How many timelines do you remember?”

 

Shirou balked. 

 

“You too?” he asked incredulously.

“I, what?” 

 

“Three timelines! Do you also remember three timelines like Illya?”

 

“Illya?” Saber furrowed her brow and turned her head to scrutinize the Einzern, but not before giving Heracles a wary glance. Illya smiled awkwardly, waving at her former enemy with forced enthusiasm. “So you do not share in her knowledge?”

 

“Ah, no. I only remember one sequence of events, Saber. To be honest, this talk about timelines is crazy to me, but if you and Illya are both talking about it, it must be real somehow,” Shirou said, wearing a perplexed smile as he rubbed the back of his head.

 

Saber didn’t even try to hide her grimace, wiping the smile off Shirou’s face. 

 

“Then which timeline are you from?” Saber’s emerald eyes were pleading now. She desperately wanted something from Shirou, but he could not for the life of him fathom what.

 

“I don’t—”

 

“Shirou.” Saber interrupted. “How was Berserker defeated?” Artoria gestured to the towering demigod, who was surprisingly unoffended by the utilization of his death as a mere benchmark. Then again, perhaps he simply did not understand her.

 

“Um, the gold bast—Gilgamesh, killed him when he attacked Illya’s castle.” 

 

Illya flinched and Heracles growled, prompting Shirou to apologize sheepishly. Saber pursed her lips.

 

“I see. Then you are from the second timeline. So you are… betrothed to Rin?”

 

Both magi blushed a deep crimson. For a moment, their eyes met, deepening the red in their cheeks tenfold. Rin looked away, but Shirou just nodded.

 

A yes then.

 

Artoria sighed. “I understand.” Yes, this wasn’t her Shirou, but another man who had made different choices. Who had chosen another for his beloved. That was alright. Her sheathe would be waiting for her in Avalon. Her Shirou. 

 

The King of Knights shared a look with her former, former master and her daughter, measured the apprehension in their eyes, and sighed again. She would have to have a talk with Kiritsugu. After all they had been through, perhaps they would be able to understand each other after all. 

“Let us away. We can talk as we walk.” 

 

Artoria gave the group a few seconds more to reject her proposal. No one did. And so they walked into the white. The infinite, eternal white. Unaware of the purpose of this play, but happy for its script. They walked and they talked, their bonds solidifying with every step. 

Just as planned.

 

This Chapter:

Group 1: Shirou, Rin

Group 2: Artoria, Lancelot, Mordred, Kairi

Group 3: Waver, Grey, Iskandar

Group 4: Illya, Heracles, Kiritsugu, irisviel

 

Reactor list (Incomplete):

Artoria (Memories from all 3 fate routes)

Lancelot (Fate Zero)

Mordred (Fate Apocrypha)

Shirou (Unlimited Blade Works)

Rin (Unlimited Blade Works)

Iskandar (Fate Zero)

Waver Velvet (Case Files)

Grey (Case Files)

Reines (Case Files)

Illyasviel von Einzbern (Memories from all 3 fate routes)

Emiya Kiritsugu (Post Zero, Pre Stay Night)

Irisviel von Einzbern (Fate Zero)

Heracles (Memories from all 3 fate routes)

Sakura (Memories from all 3 fate routes)

Medusa (Memories from all 3 fate routes)

Hassan of the Cursed Arm (Heaven’s Feel)

Cu Chulainn (Memories from all 3 fate routes)

Gilgamesh (Memories from all 3 fate routes, Zero, and Strange Fake, and Fate/Strange Fake)

Medea (Memories from all 3 fate routes)

Kuzuki Soichirou (Memories from all 3 fate routes)

EMIYA (Memories from all 3 fate routes)

Bazett (Hollow Ataraxia)

Diarmuid (Fate Zero)

Sieg (Apocrypha)

Jeanne (Apocrypha)

Seigfried (Apocrypha)

Chiron (Apocrypha)

Atalante (Apocrypha)

Astolfo (Apocrypha)

Achilles (Apocrypha)

Karna (Apocrypha)

Caules Forvedge (Apocrypha)

Frankenstein (Apocrypha)

Sisigou Kairi (Apocrypha)

Enkidu (Strange Fake)

Richard I (Strange Fake)

Alcides (Strange Fake)

Hippolyta (Strange Fake)

Merlin (FGO current)

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 3 of Multiversal Movie Night