Of Swords and Redemption - Servant_Saber - 無職転生 ～異世界行ったら本気だす～ - 理不尽な孫の手 | Mushoku Tensei: Isekai Ittara Honki Dasu (2024)

Chapter Text

It struck like lightning.

A flash of the dark abyss, an arc of pitch-black shadow raced towards his head. In the darkness of the cavern, it might as well have been invisible, and the only way one could properly see the corrupted blade were the lines of crimson running down its edge.

They glowed grotesquely, pulsating angrily like veins of blood. Perhaps it was a manifestation of all the lives that sword had taken, the culmination of all the sins it had committed in its master's name finally staining the once pure and holy sword. The rivers of blood from the mountains of corpses it had created were now brought forth, freely displayed for all to see as they flowed down the magical sword.

CLANG!

The sharp pitch of steel impacting steel echoed throughout the cavern. The blackened blade was stopped. Spiny, murky gauntlets clenched even harder, bringing the weapon down with enough force to shatter mountains. Nevertheless, the twin swords held, trembling and quivering but not wavering despite the indomitable force they were facing. Knees buckled, brought right to the edge of collapse but not breaking. Pale emerald orbs widened the slightest amount, and for a moment, shining amazement flashed through them before that baleful gaze returned.

The ground cracked beneath their feet, a crater forming from the sheer force of the blow. It was a strike meant to end the battle, strong enough to kill a man hundreds of times over. A single slash from the sword could have ended beings that resided at the precipice of power, the realm of the absolute strongest.

She gazed impassively at the figure in front of her. His clothes were tattered, torn to near shreds by the countless injuries he had sustained. Bloody cuts littered his form, streams of crimson fluid dribbling down his limbs. Those very hands were clenched, tight fists holding on to the pair of weapons as if letting go meant death, which it very well might have.

Her scrutiny moved upwards to the boy's head. His eyes were wide open, gigantic orbs of amber shining like lanterns in the darkness, the entirety of their intense light focused solely on her. They followed her like spotlights, not once deviating from her form, observing her vigilantly since the true start of the battle. Not once have they closed since the start of the battle, not missing a single moment. They remained open, their gaze ever-present capturing everything in his field of vision like a camera.

The rest of his face was taut, focused and determined. His mouth was closed in a straight line, short and tight, and his expression gave no indication that he was even processing besides what was in front of him. His focus was centered entirely on her, and despite the fact that this was a battle – a war – his face only showed impassive resolve.

She moved back, one deft step taking her dozens of meters back, and she had just hit the ground when that familiar creak of blades on blades rang throughout the cavern. A moment later, and she braced her sword across her chest, those twin falchions impacting them not even a millisecond after, threatening to carve her open. She skidded a few steps back, the tranquility of the dual blades a mere façade for the strength behind them.

No human could have matched her. It was a simple fact, a way of life. Just as the sky was blue and water was wet, she herself was an existence beyond the grasp of mortals, seated amongst the peaks of absolute power.

It was a wonder, then, just how the boy still stood in front of her. Every time she had increased the tempo of the battle, he had not been far behind. The boy was continually exceeding his limits over and over, following behind her without a hint of regard for rules or impossibility.

But the boy in front of him was not human. He had discarded his humanity long ago, the skin he wore disguising the sheer utter wrongness underneath. Agony and pain clung to his soul, driving him to the abyss of damnation. His gaze was empty, a blank mirror of amber that revealed nothing underneath. A man long past the point of death, a mere husk moving for the sake of moving. Those eyes spoke of an accursed existence, a mere tool of fate, tragedies untold and innumerable littering its painful life.

And yet, why was it that those orbs burned with a fervent fire? The amber depths that laid within his sockets drew her in, pools of gold enchanting her. She dove deeper in his gaze, far past the mirror of nothingness he displayed.

An infinite world of mysteries greeted her, far beyond her comprehension. She could have waded in those eyes for days on end and still be unable to grasp their true breadth.

Acceptance and denial, selfishness and gratitude, salvation and condemnation, grief and happiness, all clashing yet co-existing. An endless sea of contradictions laid in his soul, its waves forever churning and swelling yet only adding to its beauty. He was an impossible paradox, complete understanding of the myriads of twists and turns of his existence laying far beyond her grasp yet somehow sitting right on the tips of her fingers. And yet, maybe that fact made him all the more captivating.

She hated that it was only now that she was able to begrudgingly see that Gilgamesh's words had held some truth to them—those that are unattainable only added to their beauty.

She moved her glance downwards.

Two blades: one as beautiful and captivating as the purest of moonlight, the other as elegant and mysterious as the blackest of nights. Twin existences, yin and yang, the same yet opposite. They were the signature weapons of a red knight long passed, having been passed down to his successor. They were the embodiment of humanity, the very meaning of sacrifice given form, their keen edge having been tempered by the strength of human emotion. Anguish and love, the duality of the human spirit was beheld by the pair of falchions. And perhaps it is that very fact that made its choice of a wielder even more fitting.

Yes, that was it.

The endless struggle for happiness, the perpetual yearning for salvation, the self-destructive and contradicting nature of the light and darkness within the human soul, he was the very embodiment of humanity itself.

He, who was unknown to death nor known to life, who lived the endless cycle of pain and grief, was both the furthest from humanity, and yet was also closest to it. His life was a fake, his ideals a poor mimicry and a mere fleeting hope. Day by day, he existed amongst the masses, emulating but unable to truly masquerade as them. However, in his effort to be real, amidst his futility to live the life that was denied to him, he shone far brighter than the very humans he mirrored.

"Just come back, Saber. Back to us, back to me," he pleaded.

She shook her head, his request impossible. "Sakura wishes this, Shirou, even if it's not what she truly desires. I cannot deny her."

His swords came down on her harder, his spirit growing even more emboldened at her words. "Fine. I'll save you, then I'll save her," he promised. His words were simple, yet the strength they carried felt as if he was carrying the world on his shoulders. She allowed herself to be swept up in the courage and steel in his voice, her heart soaring for a moment before she reigned it back in.

"Not yet."

She flexed her wrist, and their brief clash ended as both combatants jumped back. He immediately dashed to the side, blurring from her vision until he re-appeared in her periphery. His swords were crossed defensively, his counterattack ready for her strike. She peered behind him where the servant of the mount laid, bloodied and injured but alive, nonetheless. Her eyes were closed, and her breaths were shallow and erratic, the poor spirit on the brink of death.

He stood over her, an ever-vigilant guardian, her sworn protector. His eyes glinted even brighter, daring her to attack only to meet his impenetrable defense.

Even in her accursed state, she allowed herself a small smile at the sight. A hero, through and through indeed.

One last test then.

"I see."

She took in a deep inhale. Whatever the result of the night was, it was certain that everything would end here.

What a pity. Even if it wasn't for very long, she had enjoyed her time in this world, with him. Alas, fate had other plans.

Regardless, she had no regrets.

"You've grown so strong, Shirou," she whispered, her words unheard by the man across from her.

This power had always been inside of him, dormant and waiting but present nonetheless. The strength of his will knew no bounds, forever persevering, through tragedy and fate. He would always move forward, the only road left to him now. His capabilities woefully limited yet inexplicably vast, the infinite potential of humanity at his back.

There was nothing that could stop him now.

"It means nothing if you're not there by my side. I'll drag you over here myself if I have to!" Determination flashed in his eyes, a reminder of what had made her fall for him in the first place. Their brilliance ignited the buried feelings deep within her. Her heart stirred, her body begging to return to him, her soul aching to be with him once more.

But she couldn't. Not yet.

"If you believe you can do so—"

Malevolent darkness swirled around her blade, coalescing into a shroud of malicious black. She turned her magical output to its maximum limit, and her eyes blazed with a menacing glow to match his golden light.

"—then step forth, Emiya Shirou. Show me that you have understood the meaning of your journey—the lessons you have learned, the bonds you have forged, the conclusion you have reached. Defeat me. Command me to step aside. Force me to acknowledge your strength. Prove to me you are worthy of the title you bear."

Excalibur rose in front of her face in a duelist's salute, the ominous red glow of the blackened blade illuminating her face in a scarlet tint.

"Sever these twisted threads of fate that enslave and bind us, and re-weave them to create the miracle you so desperately yearn for. Then, and only then, can you truly find the salvation you seek."

She brandished her sword, Excalibur pointed to the challenger in front of it. Amber orbs burned defiantly in response, unyielding determination blazing brightly.

"Come at me, Emiya Shirou! Your justice—show it to me, hero."

BOOM!

Boulders as sharp as spears flew like shrapnel as they soared through the air, a slight tilt of her head barely causing one to miss as it passed by her cheek, leaving behind only a harmless shallow cut that closed as soon as it appeared, her connection to her master allowing her regenerative abilities beyond compare.

CRACK!

BOOM!

The telltale sound of swords and other weapons whipping through the air at breakneck speeds was one she was quickly becoming accustomed to, a dangerous habit to have considering the danger they indicated. One direct hit and even one such as her would not be able to recover from such a blow quickly, and in this battle, one solid opening was all it would take for either side to claim victory.

She bounced off her feet once again, sensing another weapon coming for her. Smoke and dust obscured her vision, and the sound of weapons being traced and sent towards her was slower than the weapons themselves, their speeds far surpassing sound itself. In that case, all she could do was rely on her instincts, a plan that had not failed her so far in her life, but even she was worried that this battle would spell its first and final failure.

She could feel him beyond her vision, waiting for an opportunity to strike. While she used energy and stamina dodging his projections, he was lying in wait away from her eyes like a predator. He was constantly moving, the signature of sword-like magical energy thickly blanketing the area, covering it in thorns and masking the presence of his magecraft. She felt like livestock, being encircled by a pack of wolves and ready to be devoured, though in this case, she had only one enemy to worry about, a fact that did little to comfort her.

She landed, one foot planted onto the ground, but before she could get both limbs firmly underneath her, another explosion rocked the cavern, its tremors causing her footing to weaken ever so slightly. Her eyes widened at the almost imperceptible opening in her defenses, and her arms raised themselves instinctively as her sword was suddenly pressed against her face, twin falchions screeching and grinding against her blade. She looked up at their owner, his eyes shining wrathfully from the passing of the gorgon, but his expression was still determined and focused on taking her down.

However, she could see the weariness in his face, the constant barrage of broken phantasms wreaking havoc on his reserves. He could not keep this up forever; his decisive blow would need to be delivered soon, or else her near infinite endurance would prevail.

She shook him off, pushing him off her and leaping forward to keep him engaged and in front of her, but he deftly twisted his body, Excalibur sliding past him harmlessly. Before she could pursue him, he obscured himself back into the cloud of dust surrounding her, his retreat covered by another shower of weapons that obscured her vision even more.

She batted them aside, the heat from their explosions causing burns on her pale face that were gone in the next moment. A dark humanoid shadow moved through the cloud, and she turned her head towards it only to be met with another flying sword. Her own moved to block it, but the cheap projection exploded in a ball of fire before she could even deflect it, sending her almost a step backwards.

"He timed overloading the broken phantasm?"

She turned to behind her, Excalibur coming down in a downwards chop to slice through the pair of black and white blades that she knew were racing towards her neck. Shards of metal flew between them as the noble phantasms could not hold up against her own. The man did not look the slightest bit surprised that his trickery didn't quite work on her, immediately relinquishing his hold on his swords that had been broken in half before summoning another pair to replace them and hiding once again.

It was a bold strategy. Knowing that a head-on fight with her was not to his advantage, he instead chose to use deceit and surprise to stack the deck as much as possible in his favor. It was not a bad choice. The man was becoming very adept at coordinating his attacks with his projections, the projectiles becoming almost an extension of himself. While her attention was occupied on either him or his swords, the other would quickly come from another direction, a one-man pincer maneuver.

It was quite impressive for him to think of such a strategy in the middle of a fight, especially in his current state of mind.

It was maddening, his style of attack. Where most battles were like a dance, this one was the exact opposite. There was no rhythm to it. At some moments, he would attack like a mad dog, prolonging a melee exchange coupled with a barrage of swords in rapid fashion. Other times, he would bide his time in his cover, peppering her with projectiles while he laid in wait as she slowly was lulled into a false sense of security before striking with a particularly hard and fast blow.

It reminded her of Rider's hit and run tactics. But where the servant of the mount had used her blinding speed to disorient and outmaneuver her enemies, the man she was facing was using guile and trickery, his physical capabilities not quite able to reach those of a servant.

It was genius.

It was also not enough.

While his tactics were commendable, his blades still have not found her neck. He had found a way to stalemate her, yes, but she herself did not need to do anything. Time and energy were against him, and the longer he fought her, the further his objective slipped from his fingers.

There was no need to chase him into his cloud of dust that he was so skilled at navigating inside of and utilizing to his advantage.

Twice now, she had tried to dispel it with a blast of energy from Excalibur, and twice now she found herself back inside of it. She supposed it was ultimately a side effect of his method of attack, complimenting his melee combat with ranged artillery. Invoking Excalibur's name could have worked… if she ever had the opening to use it. The fact that she had considered using her ultimate weapon on him was not lost on her.

"This isn't enough, Shirou!" She called out to him, a plea for both him and herself.

Both of them knew of his quickly dwindling time limit. He needed to act now, and it was for that reason that the pit in her stomach widened.

The end to their battle was coming. She clenched her jaw, a feeling of frustration overcoming her. How strange, why was she mad?

Excalibur shone a malevolent black and red, and she swung the blade in a horizontal arc around her, sending a shockwave of pure destruction outwards. The shroud of dust stood no chance, being blown away in an instant, and now there was no longer a way he could hide his movements from her.

"Ah, there you are."

The last of the cloud was dispelled, revealing the figure of a man who had seen better days. He was panting heavily, his face weary and his disposition haggard. His eyes were sunken and red, the stress from overexerting his body evident from the way he precariously leaned on a longsword like a cane. He was on the verge of collapse, his soul and body on the brink of death.

But nothing could have hidden the golden steel orbs peeking out from underneath a curtain of red. Even now, despite the fatigue and weariness settling in them, they still blazed brightly like a pair of suns, promising her nothing but defeat. Her eyes crinkled in an imperceptible smile before they widened as she saw just what he had been hiding from her.

Swords.

Countless swords.

The smoke had obscured her eyes and scattering his energy throughout the cavern had dulled her ability to sense them.

He had traced them all, hiding them from her vision until this very moment. They were all around her, encircling her like a death trap. Many were nameless blades not even worth a glance, but there were also countless magnificent treasures. Some were beautiful, showcasing near peerless blacksmithing skill as their beauty was almost magnetic. Others were grotesque and disgusting, more fitting stashed away from view than anything else. A few others were generic and bland, barely catching her eye. However, they all had one thing in common: they radiated power. Not merely ordinary weapons but noble phantasms, some low-ranked and others of higher grade, but she could not deny their strength.

It was only now she realized that his tactics were more than just to equalize the gap in strength and speed between them. He had realized that his guerilla strategy amounted to nothing more than annoyance, merely mosquito bites in the face of his opponent. No, his true aim had been for this one moment, a sure-fire strike that would bring him victory, a move that could spell death even for someone of her caliber.

It was a bold strategy, one that would never work twice. But in this moment, where she had foolishly let him fulfill his machinations and was now caught unaware and unprepared, the man in front of her held all the cards in his hands.

"Amazing... To think you still had another level to reach..."

The man's arm rose, and all the swords that littered the cavern from floor to ceiling, their sharp edges shimmering like little constellations in the dark night sky, pointed their deadly tips straight at her. Her hands tightened their grip around Excalibur, and a hint of trepidation swelled within her before she quickly squashed it.

To elicit this kind of reaction from her… he had truly come far.

Excalibur ignited in a black flame of energy, and at the same time, the man's arm fell.

The heavens themselves descended upon the earth, the sky bringing its full weight down upon her as shards of steel rained down in a shower of meteorites.

A wave of her arms destroyed one volley, the dark cavern lighting up in a brilliant show of fireworks. Without missing a beat, she spun on her heels, her arms an invisible blur as she continuously deflected the oncoming stream of steel that came at her from behind.

More explosions rocked the cavern, the man unleashing his entire arsenal to take her down. She jumped as the floor below her shattered, sending giant chunks of stone flying in the air. Her feet landed on one, right before she leaped again as the mid-air perch she was on burst into fine dust as more armaments pierced it from every direction.

She never stood still for staying motionless was death. A moving target is harder to hit, and while his aim was impeccable, her speed troubled even him. In a cave where steel blades occupied every available space, the swordswoman carved out a dome of emptiness around herself with nothing but her raw speed and skill, constantly dodging or slicing apart anything that came her way. Even now, she was still untouched, not a single wound to show for the man's efforts.

She had to endure this onslaught of metal. His magical energy reserves at this point must have been near exhausted. There was no point in saving any energy for the future if he did not get past her, something that would require him giving everything he had into this fight. If she could survive this one last, desperate gambit, then nothing else could stand in her way.

Her eyes narrowed at the realization, her chest tightening as she saw the path of her victory laid out before her. It was a strange feeling; there was no sensation of euphoria or excitement that came with envisioning her triumph. To her, this battle was one that she fought out of necessity, not desire, but her master wished this, so fight she shall.

She flipped through the air, soaring through the cavern at breakneck speeds as her dance continued, evading every attack he aimed at her, her movements merely a slight blur in reality to the human eye. She hopped from boulder to boulder, using the flying debris as momentary pauses of reprieve as the world exploded in rock and fire around her.

Suddenly, the sharp whistle of a distinctive pair of blades reached her ears, and she threw her head to the side as black and white falchions spun past her from behind, the monochrome buzzsaws harmlessly taking off a few millimeters of her hair.

At this point, she knew what to expect, and Excalibur came up in a defensive stance as another pair of weapons slammed into them, and golden eyes peered at her from past his blades.

"You'd fight me head-on?"

"If I'm going to beat you, I need to put everything on the line!"

It was suicide. This kind of straight forward confrontation went entirely against him. This time, there was no cover he could retreat behind, and by going into melee range of her, he risked blowing himself up with his own projectiles. Any wrong move by him could end in him being skewered by his own weapon, but in a battle like this, logic and common sense were long discarded, and such risks had to be taken in order to win.

She sliced at his head, Excalibur plowing through both of his swords as it arced towards his face only to abruptly stop its deadly attack as she dashed backwards, a mundane sword flying in the space where her head had just been. The ordinary steel of the sword bulged and trembled from \ infused magical energy before it promptly exploded, swallowing both of them in a ball of smokey fire.

She exited the obscuring cover at the same time as her adversary, singed hair and burnt patches of skin indicating he had not escaped unscathed from his own attack.

He quickly remade his blades and rushed at her, one sword coming at her from either side. Excalibur blocked one while her armored gauntlet barely managed to stave off the other, the darkened metal creaking but holding on against the white blade. Another whistle, and she had to end their deadlock by jumping backwards as a greatsword lanced through the air where she just was, piercing the ground up to its hilt.

Sensing blood in the water, another volley of blades descended. Several were aimed at her feet, trying to make her landings from the air was difficult as possible. In tandem with the others that were aimed at more lethal areas like her head or chest, it made even the slightest of mistakes possibly her last.

But she wasn't a servant for nothing, and her ability to survive such an attack was one reason why her existence belonged amongst humanity's greatest.

She quickly spun around, Excalibur already blazing black and red as she sent another blast of energy directly in her blind spot. The man quickly dodged out of the way, his surprise attack unsuccessful as the cavern rumbled and shook, threatening to collapse from her strike.

Miniature suns blotted out the darkness as night became day for a brief instant, the destruction of many swords from her missed attack encasing the area in a fiery light.

She side-stepped another shower of swords, quickly racing towards where her opponent was still reeling from the abrupt dodge. He barely managed to bring his own blades up in time before she could cleave him in half. She put the full weight of her strength behind her sword, and in the moment after, his dual falchions were nearly pressed against his face, the weapons screeching and dimly flashing as he rushed to reinforce them as much as possible.

Like clockwork, more projections came from above to interrupt her, ending the clash early as she hopped backwards. And just as expected, she had to start running away from him as the collection of weapons in the ceiling threatened to skewer her.

It was impressive. She was constantly on the backfoot, and any exchange that she initiated with him was always bolstered by his projections, forcing her to block from multiple angles and retreat early before she could press her physical advantage. It was an equalizer in a sort of way, a constant bombardment of steel was constantly driving her into a corner. It didn't feel like she was fighting a person but rather a storm of blades, where an attack could strike her from any direction at any time. In this cavern where they were little she could hide, she was stuck in a dance of dodging and deflecting.

"But you still can't win like this, Shirou," she called out to him amidst the cacophony of blasts, the same words she had said earlier echoing once again.

It was true. At this point, she had adapted to his tactics, and while he had stubbornly and surprisingly survived to this point, she was no closer to being defeated than she was at the start of the night. On the other hand, the man was reaching his limit—no, he had surpassed it long ago. He had pushed his body and soul far beyond what it was capable of, and it was only now he was finally slowing down. His chest heaved as his lungs worked to take in as much precious oxygen as possible, and his bloodshot eyes strained to look at her. His body and soul had already burnt itself out from channeling as much energy as he had up to now.

She had seen similar occurrences in soldiers on a battlefield—men that briefly overcame their limits to go out in a blaze of glory to save themselves and their comrades, but it was the brightest of flames that always burned out the quickest. The man in front of her had trespassed in the realm of impossibility for too long, and now he was paying the price.

He grimaced at her words, clenching his teeth as he sent even more weapons her way, an attack that proved unsuccessful as she casually and almost dainty pirouetted, letting them fly harmlessly past her.

"That should be the last of them." She looked upwards. Darkness greeted her, the stark black of the cavern ceiling showing nothing but emptiness.

Was this it?

Was this all he had to offer?

She had been taken off-guard time and again earlier, his continuously evolving capabilities astonishing her as the gap in their abilities closed with every clash.

But that was all he had done.

Catching up to her, but never truly surpassing her.

He had broken his own limits, but he had to do more than that in order to win.

"It's time."

Excalibur blazed to life, eerie and vile energy coating it once more as she poured mana into the sword.

It would all come down to this.

I had managed to delay this moment with my shrewd tactics, but now my trump card was gone, and my energy had emptied long ago.

I had made a mistake.

I had been unable to eviscerate her, thousands upon thousands upon thousands of swords failing to leave a lasting mark on her. The precipice of my strategy had hinged on that one move. One by one, using the cover of darkness and smoke, I had meticulously traced countless blades, from ones of no notable power to ones crafted by incomprehensible deities and wielded by legendary kings and warriors.

But it had been all for naught; despite blanketing the area with a constant barrage of steel and fire, my opponent now stood in front of me unharmed and unperturbed.

With dreadfully precise movements, she raised her wicked sword in the air, its name dancing on her lips as she announced his coming death. Her eyes were sullen, her visage blank but still conveying the disappointment in her spirit.

"Ex—"

This was it.

I was going to die.

"I'm sorry, Rider. I couldn't…—"

Regret, shame, a myriad of emotions and more filled my heart. I clenched my fist, drawing blood as my earlier words echoed back in my mind, all the promises and oaths that had left my mouth turning out to be nothing more than lies and false bravado.

The image of a bloody and broken body flashed in front of me, Excalibur buried up to its hilt through her stomach and exploding out the woman's back.

"You got it from here."

She had said those words in her final breath, choosing not to curse her enemy but to depart with a sincere smile. That took a great deal of bravery to do—to not have let bitterness and anger be her last moments, instead deciding to let bravery and happiness define her farewell.

My mind lingered on that image before I made my decision.

"Trace, on."

I couldn't think like that. While I still lived and breathed, I had to fight. There was no other choice. Otherwise, everything that had come before—every battle, every wound, every drop of blood, every sacrifice—would have been for nothing.

I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath before fixing my steely gaze upon my corrupted servant once again. Her sword shone brightly in her hands, bathing the cavern with its wicked glow.

It was her strongest weapon, her ultimate attack. Amongst all the combatants in the war, it was nearly unrivaled in destructive power. There was nothing in my arsenal that could match it.

"You are a maker, not a fighter. If you cannot beat something, imagine something that can."

I needed something that could beat it.

My gaze remained forward, looking at my enemy as she prepared to kill me. I see through it, her unbeatable sword.

Be warned: it was a divine artifact, a relic of a civilization far past humanity. Attempting to understand and synthesize it could be disastrous. Most likely, my brain would explode from trying to trace it.

But I was never entirely human in the first place.

I focused on that image, beginning to sift through its composition, its history, its memory. Almost immediately, a searing hot pain stabbed me through the brain as if someone pierced my head with a molten rod. I prepared to move forward, uncaring for the unbearable headache, knowing full well I would die.

Suddenly, I felt a probing in my mind, as if something was calling out to me. It gently prodded inside of my head, kindly reminding me of its existence.

They say your life flashes before your mind in your final moments, but the memory that appeared in my mind wasn't mine. Instead, a distant dream I thought I had forgotten resurfaced once again.

And in that moment, I found my answer.

My hands shot forward, channeling magical energy as I poured everything I had into this projection. No, not a projection—it had to be perfect, without a hint of error. Anything else would be too weak.

Sparks of energy danced in my hands, the weapon in my mind slowly becoming reality. But its image was too weak, too brittle. The form was still shapeless, nothing more than a vague memory.

Midway through unleashing her final attack, the woman in front of her looked on blankly. A trace of unease flashed across her face before it disappeared.

"—ca—"

Those sparks intensified before solidifying into an outline—a sword.

But as the weapon encroached on the barrier to reality, the faint feeling of uneasiness returned to the woman's expression, casting it a glance of familiarity. The joints on her gauntlets creaked and squealed as she held onto her sword tighter, carrying on with her attack.

The dream was of a lonely girl standing on a plain of golden grass, pulling a breathtakingly beautiful sword from stone. But that blessing was a curse, and in accepting the gift and knowing exactly what it would lead to, she had become something inhuman, sacrificing herself for the country she loved so much, intertwining and binding herself to fate forever.

"I promised to free you from that, didn't I?"

Energy became mass, and what was previously just an empty image had transformed into solid steel.

Her eyes widened, and a gasp left her involuntarily as the servant's eyes recognized the brilliant golden steel and striking royal blue in his hands.

It was only fitting that this sword be the one to meet its successor.

I brandished the newly traced weapon, the handle fitting snuggly in my hand almost as if I had been the one to wield it in the past. I held it in a two-handed grip, the sword guiding my movements as I grasped it over my head, my mouth parted open as I uttered its name.

"Ca—"

"—li—"

I gripped it tighter, willing the energy from my body to flow into the sword. My body and soul protested, their capacity having been reached long ago. I pushed past the wall, creating something from nothing, squeezing every drop of energy from an empty vessel.

I let out a cacophony of coughs. My eyes were bloodshot, bulging in their sockets, a moment away from bursting. My pupils grew and shrunk erratically as I forced more power through my body. I stumbled, more coughs almost bringing me to his knees before I caught myself. Chunks of organs and coagulated blood raced up my throat, nearly spitting themselves out before I drove them back down.

The sword in my hands ignited in a burst of sunlight, a pillar of golden flame engulfing the holy blade.

Sweat dripped down my head as my face was flush from exertion.

Across from me, my opponent's eyes were wide in shock, surprise marring her face as she looked at the sword in my hands. Her movement paused, hesitation gripping her for one singular moment before she pushed it down.

"—li—"

She took a step forward, heavy black metal crunching into hard rock below, the black sun braced at her side.

I mirrored her movements, the memories within the sword—her memories—flooding into me and steering my body. The holy star held above me pulsated with power and radiance.

Scorching winds buffeted us, the heat from the weapons in our hands supercharging the air around us.

And finally, the decisive moment.

"—BUR!"

She brought the sword down, like a king passing judgement, sentencing her enemies to death.

Excalibur sang as it flew through the air, releasing a wave of black light towards me. The deadly arc of vile energy tore up the cavern, carving a deep trench into the solid rock as it aimed to destroy everything in its path.

It was her strongest attack, a blow meant to guarantee victory.

Naturally, I had to meet it with my own.

"—BURN!"

I brought my own sword down in an executioner's slice.

Caliburn soared through the air, shining brightly as it let loose its own pillar of majestic light. Holy flames exploded forward, enveloping the cavern in white as it vaporized everything in front of it.

The two lights met at the center of the cavern, contending with each other for supremacy as their clash threatened to destroy the entire cave. The world shook and trembled, and I was nearly thrown off my feet as reality unraveled and tore from the might of the two holy swords. Boulders larger than me fell from the ceiling, and one stray rock was all it took for either of us to lose focus and be turned into nothing but dust.

I planted my feet as firmly as I could into the ground, the force of the blasts nearly blowing me off my feet. I gritted my teeth and pushed, fueling the sword with everything I had to try and overpower my unbeatable opponent.

"… How…?" It was only a whisper, a quiet remark by the black knight.

She was right. Caliburn was not a true sword but rather a symbol of authority representing the king and her glory, her reign and majesty given form. In pure strength, it was weaker than Excalibur.

And, yet despite its inferiority, the dark light could not overwhelm it.

There was something else fueling the weapon.

Maybe that it was battling its replacement.

Maybe that it was facing its corrupted former master.

Or maybe something else entirely…

She grimaced, fire burning within her body as more and more energy coursed through her body, empowering the fabled sword in her hands.

They were at a stalemate, neither weapon backing down as their rays continued colliding in a show of light and fire.

She couldn't keep this up forever. Her limit was quickly approaching.

Despite the gap in weaponry, the battle was still a draw. She knew Excalibur was superior to her old sword, so the only possible explanation was that there was a gap within their abilities as wielders—one that was in his favor.

To think, he was capable of even this. By now, she should have learned to stop being so surprised, but she couldn't help but be amazed every time. A small smile decorated her face, proud of what he had achieved.

"Well done, Shirou."

The beams of light disappeared at the same time, their owners no longer able to sustain them. Without any more energy to fuel them, the clash of lights in the center of the cavern fizzled out into nothingness.

A draw.

That was the result of their clash, the contest between light and dark ending at an impasse.

Neither unrelenting darkness nor unyielding light had triumphed in the end, and with both their strongest moves exhausted, the cavern was bathed in an eerie, unsettling silence.

Molten rock oozed and glowed, the ensuing heat from both holy swords melting and fusing shards of ground together. An immense crater had been carved into the earth in the middle of the cavern as if an angry god had scooped out the ground in a fit of rage, and a long, thick trench was gouged at her feet, the large ditch reaching over to the other side of the cavern where it disappeared in a cloud of dust kicked up from their attacks.

The black knight panted, even someone such as herself needing time to recover the energy expended from her noble phantasm. As she greedily breathed in gulps of air, she stared blankly ahead, her mind racing at the sight she had witnessed.

He had brought out her favored sword, matching her noble phantasm despite Caliburn being more than a decoration rather than a weapon. To think he had been able to bring out its full potential… he was truly extraordinary…

"Close… but not enough."

And yet despite all that, she still lived—

CLANG!

A soft boom echoed in the air, and her arms moved before her mind could comprehend what was happening as a streak of gold and purple lanced towards her. Sparks flew, the black steel of her sword meeting the ferocious weapon head-on. Nevertheless, the beautiful sword continued its trajectory, her feet gouging out the earth as she fought to keep her own weapon in front of it as it pushed her backwards.

"How—?!"

CRACK!

There was the distinctive sound of swords slicing air, and she looked past the almost sentient sword in front of her. She saw the familiar blur of moonlight and darkness fly from the dust cloud, whistling through the air like buzzsaws as they traced a beautiful cross through the air.

She clenched her jaw, and angling her weapon to the side, she swatted away the sword that had been launched at her with incredible speed. Caliburn embedded itself into the ground next to her, buried halfway up its blade.

With fractions of a second to spare, her arms swung in the opposite direction, the shockwave of the parry jarring her skeleton as she batted away the pair of falchions that had been sent towards her neck. They continued soaring through the air somewhere behind her, their trajectory safely diverted away from her, allowing the knight to give her attention to—

"—Fast!"

Her vision was suddenly filled with red hair and golden eyes, and he was upon her, the two-pronged attack giving him the opportunity he needed to close the distance. There was a determined look in his eyes, an almost frantic and maniacal frenzy in his gaze, and for the first time in their battle, she felt the vice grip of death clamp around her throat.

His left arm lashed out towards her, and she noticed the moonlit blade was once again in his hands as he aimed to sever her neck.

Excalibur once again came across her body, reaching over to her right side to deflect his attack. The noble phantasm met the falchion in a resounding clang of steel, stopping it in its tracks. She flexed her arm, and the pristine white sword was marred with hairline fractures as the corrupted blade bit into its edge until with a final twist of her wrist, his weapon exploded in a shower of white shards.

WHOOSH!

She heard that damned sound again, and her instincts screamed at her of a threat of behind. Still in the follow-through of her previous attack, she twisted her body, spinning on her heels with Excalibur held defensively as she barely caught a black falchion from splitting her head open. Magical energy pulsed through her veins, and the weapon shattered into countless pieces.

"—He has more!"

She hastily turned around, her balance precariously holding as one misstep would spell her doom. Her turn was a moment too late, feeling his sword speeding towards her. She imagined where the strike was heading towards, blindly flailing Excalibur on a hurried prediction in hopes of blocking the incoming weapon.

Her intuition proved correct, and she was almost sent reeling back from the force of his blow. Regardless, his attempt proved unsuccessful, and the black light in her hands roared as she pushed through, breaking the other black blade in half and sending its broken metal flying harmlessly to the side.

"Another one—!"

She couldn't breathe. She awkwardly coiled her torso, her arms reaching behind her at an unnatural angle as Excalibur narrowly reached in time to block the final strike aimed at her back. The weapon sawed at Excalibur, its sharp edge threatening to cut through the holy weapon before it finally clattered to the ground, its kinetic energy spent.

Time froze.

The corrupted knight analyzed the situation at hand.

His attack had failed. She had blocked four simultaneous attacks from four blades at once. Three were destroyed entirely, and one was left without its partner.

Her enemy was at his limit. The battle had been drawn out to this stage. From the look in his eyes earlier, he had known that was his final chance. She doubted he could conjure more weapons. Right now, he was unarmed and defenseless.

But she was unable to seize the initiative. She had put everything in her defenses, blocking all four swords at the cost of leaving herself open. The synchronized attacks had taken inhuman reflexes and skill to counter, but now she was left vulnerable and in a precarious position.

It was a draw.

No, it was her victory.

In a second, she will have recovered, and his options will have run dry.

"This is farewell, Shirou."

The words flashed across her mind, and her mouth opened to bid her beloved master goodbye.

Suddenly, there was the sound of steel sliding out from stone.

"From earlier—?!"

Her expression froze. Her blood ran cold.

It was a familiar sound, one that had marked that fateful day when she pulled the sword from the stone, condemning herself and her future for the sake of her country.

It was fitting that this sound would be the one to send her off.

"Saber—!"

He took a step forward, splintering the ground beneath him. In his hands was the sword she had redirected earlier, its keen edge glowing with a dazzling luster as he brought it forward to skewer her heart.

The corrupted knight was still recovering from blocking the final attack from behind her. She contorted her body, turning around to face her opponent. The black sword drew a crimson arc through the air, the woman putting every ounce of strength into bringing it in front of her before she could be impaled.

It was futile.

He knew it.

She knew it.

She would not reach it in time.

She watched as the sword neared her, held straight and true in a stab to pierce her heart. Right before it reached her, she saw it—the ugly reflection of her own visage upon her once sacred blade. It was an unsightly thing, a permanent mark of her darkest betrayal, another stain accumulated onto her already dirty soul.

She closed her eyes, a small smile blossoming on her lips.

And for the first and final time in the battle, the attack from Emiya Shirou landed.

The sword entered her with a nauseating crunch, holy steel piercing the darkened metal of her armor, easily parting it and cutting into the tender flesh underneath. She could feel its steel shredding the flesh inside of her, eviscerating bones and muscles before burying itself inside of her heart. A gasp left her, and the golden blade exploded out her back, crimson rivers tarnishing the beautiful weapon.

"Ah… Ah, haa….—"

How ironic was it that she would be defeated with her own weapon, and her very own blood would be decorating its length?

The strength left her fingers, her arms dangling uselessly at her side as her own weapon clattered to the ground.

"What a splendid technique. To best me with my very own sword… Even now, you continue to surpass your own limits."

They were servants, the very pinnacle of humanity and far beyond it. They were not meant to be beaten by mere mortals. To have mimicked the counter guardian's sure-kill technique, one refined over countless battles, required inhuman ability. Her defeat was the very proof of his extraordinary accomplishment.

"To be struck down by my own sword… Heh, is this fate?"

Caliburn, the Sword of Promised Victory, the very blade that signified her right to rule… It had been broken before when she had betrayed the ideals of chivalry. To have come back now, to be the one impaling her chest in this moment, striking down her corrupted self after she had betrayed herself and her master…

"I… I—... What am I…—What have I…?" His voice was weak, hardly a hair above a whisper. Golden eyes were wide in shock, his pupils darting between the weapon embedded in her chest and his hands soaked in her blood. His face was disbelieving of the situation, his mouth opening and closing repeatedly like a fish's. His mind tried to formulate the proper words to say, but the only thing coming out of his throat were the choked sounds of pained, barely restrained screams. His hands trembled and shook, his brain unable to reconcile with reality.

"…I'm sorry… I'm so sorry…" She could hear the weakness in his hushed speech, the sheer uncomprehending undertones of his words agonizingly obvious. Reality had not quite sunk in yet, so the only thing he could do was repeat himself, incapable of thinking of anything else.

Slowly but surely, the sword was pulled out of her. If it was even possible, his eyes enlarged even further, every centimeter of the blade excruciatingly removed from within her revealing more and more of his sin. The very sight of it was absolute torture, especially to him of all people, who wanted nothing more than to save her.

Finally, she was freed from the sword, and she stood precariously for a moment, her body swaying dangerously and threatening to fall over until a pair of hands planted themselves on her shoulders.

The wound was fatal, even to someone like her. She would not be able to regenerate from such a blow. Not that she would have wanted to. She would be joining Rider early, it seems. It was a tragic turn of events, but she doubted the gorgon had any regrets in her last moments.

Yes, her journey would end here.

She could already feel herself being consumed by the Shadow, its stranglehold on her beckoning her back inside of the grail. But not yet… she would not allow it. This much, she could do.

Those hands pulled her closer to him, her head settling itself on his chest—was it always this broad and firm?

It had been so long since she felt his touch, the warmth and kindness she longed for only presenting itself when she was with him. She wanted nothing more to give in, to surrender her body and soul to the man in front of her, but fate wouldn't allow it. Not yet.

"It… It wasn't… supposed to be… this way…" His knees trembled and weakened as he lowered himself onto her. Her arms rose in response, capturing him in her own embrace as he placed his head in the crook of her neck. He sobbed uncontrollably, shudders racking his body as she felt his tears wet her skin. One of her hands grasped the back of his head, gently caressing the scarlet locks between her fingers as she softly pushed him further into her.

Despite the one with the bloody hole in her chest, living her last moments in this world, she was the one supporting him from collapse.

Servant and master stood in the middle of the cavern, both knocking on death's door but unwilling to give in quite yet. There was so much to say, but words alone could never hope to convey their true feelings. The truth was something that could not be simply said, for human emotion was incomprehensible and vast. And yet, even if it was impossible to encapsulate everything, they still had to try because she would not leave this world without giving the one she loved the closure he needed.

"It's okay, Shirou. Everything happens for a reason... This is simply... the course of fate," she consoled.

The world was a stage, and they were merely actors within it. Their lives were a story, and fate the writer. They all had their roles to play, following the script given to them by forces beyond them.

He chuckled, the echo of his laugh bitter and cynical. "Fate, huh? That's what it all comes down to..."

"Fate is a cruel mistress. It alone stands undefeated," she confirmed.

After all, fate had not saved her kingdom.

"I thought… I could fight it… that I could finally do it…" His voice rose, the man of steel choking on his sobs, anguished screams rumbling in this throat. He was a simple man, someone who wanted nothing more than to save others, even at the expense of himself. To have failed saving the ones that mattered the most to him, to have failed to save her, one who was trapped by fate itself… what had he even accomplished?

The small smile on her face could only be described at bittersweet as a flood of recollections comes upsurging within her: the memories they had forged together, the battles they had fought side by side, their sweat and blood mixing as they spilled them onto the ground, the nights they had shared underneath the calming moonlight as they confided into one another…

He was wrong… so wrong…

She pulled away from him, just enough so she could see his face. Streaks of tears stained his visage, his eyes trying their hardest to imprint her image into the deepest recesses of his mind. Even now, she could see the regret and frustration bubbling in those orbs as he silently cursed at himself and the world.

Her hands, pale and delicate yet the very same ones that had wielded her blade with impunity and were covered with the blood of countless bodies, came up to wipe at his tears. Not once straying away from her touch. Not once had he judged her for her sins.

"Don't cry, Shirou… It's unbecoming of you… Someone like you… So strong… You have nothing to fear…"

Her words came out between painful heaves of air, and the man's countenance tightened in fear as he realized what it meant. Death was approaching, but even it could not stop her from doing this much.

"Strong? Me? How…?" He clenched his eyes shut tightly, his voice faltering and spirit breaking as her words and reality refused to coincide.

"Even now… you do not see it…"

She smiled at his ignorance, the gesture small and fleeting but beautiful nonetheless. He was so focused on others that he could not even see the changes within himself, one of the many endearing traits she enjoyed discovering about him. It was truly a shame that it was coming to an end.

She could see the denial in his eyes. How ironic that those orbs could grasp so much yet still be so blind.

"How could I possibly be strong…? You all keep telling me that I've changed, I'm still the same weak idiot kid from back then. Nothing's changed, Saber! I couldn't do anything then, and I can't do anything now!"

She took in his frustrations, responding by gently shaking her head. "How could you say that? It's sad you can't see how much you've grown... From when I first met you... to now... You've become so strong, Shirou..."

He had managed to carve his own life out of the script written for him. With his own hands, he had taken back his life and made it his own.

Another scornful laugh tinged with resentment escaped from him. "And what has it been for? I'll tell you—it's all been for nothing, Saber!" His voice rose, his frustration and anger at the world and at himself bubbling to the surface at last.

But she kept her calm. Her own voice was weakening by the moment, her final moments approaching. If only she could make him realize the fruits of his labors, that would be her final wish.

"And what… of me? What about Rider and Illya? Sakura and Rin?... You've done so much for us... for me... Are you telling me that it all… meant nothing to you, that we… meant nothing to you...?"

Her words came out between pained, feeble gasps, but it only accentuated their weight, each one hitting him with a force greater than any servant could muster.

"I…—"

He looked away, traces of shame shadowing his face. The mere thought of discarding them, they who he held onto so dearly, left a sickening taste in his mouth and a painful ache in his heart. How could he even think of such a thing, repaying their kindness with indifference? He had been a walking husk until now, nothing more than a robot programmed to repeat its daily functions with no thought or regard for anything else. His heart of glass had only started beating when they had come into his life, the fulfillment he so fervently sought only appearing at the cusp of his fingers when he was with them.

Her lips curled into a knowing smile.

"Of course not… But as for what we mean to you… Only you know…"

In the end, this was all she could do. Words were all she was capable of right now. She had come to terms with her past, finding solace from her failures with him. She no longer wished to rewrite history, content with what she had done. Her success and failures, they were all hers, and only now could she look back upon them with pride instead of shame. He had taught her that, one of many lessons he had imparted into her in their brief time together.

However, if there was anything resembling regret still within her, it would be her and the others inability to truly give him the salvation he craved for. His words had reached them, but they failed to save him. If there was such a thing as a second chance, she would have used it unhesitatingly for him. To genuinely live out the life they had given him… yes, that would have been nice. Unfortunately, it was but a fleeting dream now.

Her legs gave out underneath her, and she crumpled to the ground. Just as she expected, those strong arms caught her once again in his warm embrace, and she internally lamented that this would be the last time she would be able to enjoy it.

He gently lowered her to the ground. Her head was in his lap as he kneeled on the ground, uncaring of his discomfort. She feebly turned her head to the side, gazing at her weapon. Excalibur laid next to her, and a wave of sickness and shame overwhelmed her. She had been bequeathed it by the Fae themselves, forces greater than her entrusting the very weapon of the planet itself to humanity. She had been there when its pristine edge shone with the holiest light as it emerged from the lake, entrancing all who saw it with its captivating light. Not once in battle had it disappointed her, cutting down her enemies without fail.

And yet, in the end, it was her that had disappointed, falling short of the lofty expectations placed upon her. As a result, Excalibur, the will of the planet manifested, was corrupted. The blade next to her now was a disgusting insult to its former glory, a painful reminder of what she had done.

But it was fine.

She would not cry. She would not break. She would not falter.

She refused to die with such regrets.

She would not let such detestable emotions sully this moment.

Even this, she had faith. Faith that he was strong enough to overcome everything that stood in his way. Despite destiny and fate, through tragedy and sorrow, there was a flicker of hope within her chest that she clung on to. Somehow, someway, he would persevere and overcome everything in his path. She may not know much of this cruel world, but that much she was sure about.

She looked up at him, large emerald orbs, diluted and stained but beautiful beyond measure regardless, sparkling far brighter than any gem. His eyes were beyond even her own, and when she peered into their depths, she felt it: the familiar weight of wishes and dreams, infinite and unnumbered, their radiance brilliantly glimmering in his eyes. He carried countless memories, the lives of every single wielder of every weapon within him, and it is through him that those who have passed live on, freely and eternally. Their burden was greater than any human could hope to carry. She knew of its heaviness and its crushing weight, and it had left her a cold and ruthless being.

It spoke of the difference between them that he had managed overcome that burden to now stand before her, the luster of his eyes not fading in the slightest at having lived through lifetime upon lifetime, and it was that fact that finally allowed her to come to terms with everything, her question finally answered, and a singular decision made in her mind.

The dying servant weakly reached out, and her fingers shakily clasped themselves around the familiar yet different handle. She raised her arm, the trivial movement proving immensely difficult for her in her sorry state.

"… But why…?" he questioned as she softly pushed the weapon to his chest.

She coughed, even more blood splattering onto their already bloody forms.

"Be the hero you were meant to be," she insisted, nudging Excalibur further into him.

He looked at the weapon solemnly, realizing what she was asking him to do bluntly hitting him.

He gently pushed it back to her.

"I can't. I don't want it. I want you!" he cried out, his voice laden with desire and desperation.

It was unfair. It was a travesty that this ending was the result they had achieved.

Her weapon found itself back to him, the petite girl summoning whatever strength was left inside of her for this final act. "Please… Shirou. It has to be… this way."

The sword was her legacy, her legend given form. It was the crystallization of her story, salvation given form, the chapter of history that was her life written out. To be willing to entrust it to another meant far more than a simple gift.

But she was more than willing to give him her soul. She would do so gladly.

"I'm not worthy, Saber. Why me of all people?" he questioned, his face twisted in regret and self-loathing.

She smiled at his refusal, seeing through his excuses instantly. "If not you… who else…? Who else could have the right… to wield my sword…? I could think of no one else worthier… than you… Shirou…"

Perhaps the Fae had been a thousand years too early. Regardless, the image of him with her sword just seemed so fitting in her mind. There was no one else she would rather see holding Excalibur.

He was silent, and when he finally answered, it was with a voice just barely a whisper. "Do you know what you're asking me to do?"

She understood his doubt. What she was asking him to do was an impossibility. The sword was summoned as a part of her and would disappear as soon as she was absorbed back into the grail. A mere human could not just wield a noble phantasm, never mind a divine construct of the Fae. It went against the very foundations of magecraft and the rules of the world.

But he was not an ordinary human, and the rules never truly applied to him.

Most of all, for the boy, accepting her sword now was the same as acknowledging she was going to die, the encroaching reality that boy was trying his hardest to deny. To take the sword now meant taking on the burden of carrying on her legacy and the hopes the sword symbolized. For someone such as him, who had lived solely to bear the responsibility of another's wish, who wanted nothing more than a peaceful, mundane life…

Her request was a selfish one, but she would still ask him of it. She sought only his happiness.

"I know you… I know the burden you carry… But I want to save you… just as you…—" she trailed off, not quite trusting her voice.

The dying woman frowned at the sorry figure he cut. He had pushed himself far beyond his limits to match her, his frail human body not meant to house the indomitable power it held within. To practice magecraft was to constantly walk the line between life and death, and he had jumped far past that. At this point, the damage was more than just his physical body; she was no expert, but she would not have been surprised if his very soul was in disrepair at this point. If he strained himself further, it was likely he would be a mindless corpse by the end of the night.

"You still have… something else to do… right…?"

He flinched in realization.

"Sakura… Rin… You have to save them… Shirou… Or else our…" Her words remained unspoken, but both of them knew what she was going to say.

That's right. If Sakura was not saved, then the entire point of this night was moot. In order to not let her and Rider's deaths be in vain, to preserve whatever was left of what he held dear, he had to keep moving forward. Severing the connection between the grail and Sakura and then ending this farce of a war, that was the only way left to salvage the night. And to do so, he needed a weapon of sufficient strength. Projecting one would only lead to a premature death. If there was any hope of saving him, so he could at least enjoy a fraction of the happiness she wished upon him, then she would grasp that chance with everything she had.

She sensed the stubbornness in his eyes waning, and for one final time, she nudged Excalibur into his chest. This time, one of his hands came around to tentatively receive her gift. His fingers shook uncertainly, his doubt evident by his hesitation in gripping the ebony handle. He peered at her, eyes darting between meeting her insistent gaze and her weapon.

Eventually, logic prevailed in his mind, and he firmly reached out. His hand came around hers, a perfect fit made by the heavens themselves as their fingers sat snug against each other. He firmly gripped the weapon still enclosed in her hand, staring at her unwaveringly all the while.

"I'm giving this back to you, no matter what."

She smiled. That was impossible, but she had long abandoned all pretense of knowing what was to come next when it came to him. His words clashed against the logic in her mind, but somehow when he said it, she couldn't help but be swept up in his determination.

"I'm sure you will."

A frigid cold sensation started in her legs, and she looked downwards. A black pool of malice and evil laid beneath her, and her legs slowly fell into the ooze of nothingness.

Ah, her time had arrived. It was time to make her exit. One way or another, the curtains would be closing on this tragedy tonight.

"I'm sorry I couldn't save you…" One final apology left his lips, laced with all his regret and lament. In accepting her request, he had allowed himself to say those fateful words.

Such defeatism didn't suit him.

In response, she smiled. It was a beautiful thing, so simple yet undeniably so pure and sweet. In her final moments, she tried to convey to him all the gratitude and joy he had given her, returning to him the very salvation he'd granted her.

She had come into his world uncertain and remorseful, the failures of her past haunting her every waking second. She had intended to use the grail to undo history, to rewrite the fabrics of the world and give her people the king they deserved. And yet, upon her summoning, she had met a boy, one so similar to her that he might as well have been her reflection. The burden they carried had crushed them utterly, but he had lifted that weight from her soul. Through him, she had discovered the folly of her wishes, and a world that once felt so paltry and insignificant, serving only as a torturous reminder of her shortcomings, now held no shortage of new wonders and mysteries to uncover and unravel.

A chuckle escaped her, airily light and carefree, a spark of the freedom and innocence she thought she had long forgotten returning to her at last. Her laugh, sweet and melodious, was a surprise even to her. She had believed that she had abandoned such delightful emotions and sensations, but she supposed it didn't surprise her that he had managed to elicit them from her once again. She looked up at him, her eyes glimmering with that familiar entrancing emerald glow, and as she drew her last breath, she gave him a gentle smile, a glimpse of a miracle they had created together.

"What are you talking about, Shirou? You've already saved me…"

The woman slipped from his arms, escaping his grasp and slowly falling into the black void. All the while, he held her gaze, the woman unconcerned with anything else but peering at him. She was relaxed, a look of serenity gracing her features, as if she was falling onto a bed of flowers. He seared her image into his mind, branding her smile into his soul until at last, she was gone completely, leaving nothing behind except the weapon still in his hand.

He wasn't sure how long he stayed there. Perhaps a few minutes. Perhaps an hour or two. Maybe even a day or century or millennia.

It didn't matter to him.

His time had stopped. His mind was numb, and even the feeling of the rough ground painful stabbing into his kneeling form didn't feel real.

Their final moments played in his brain over and over and over again, unable to truly process what had happened but unable to.

The boy let out a sigh before standing back up.

There was something he still needed to do.

"Be the hero you were meant to be," she had commanded.

He would engrave those words into his heart.

Her words were a reminder of his duty, a solemn oath he had sworn himself to when he accepted her sword.

One final wish upon the countless he already bore.

Excalibur was in his hand, steadfastly held in his grip. True to her words, the sword remained anchored in reality, not disappearing alongside its previous owner.

He gazed at the spot where she had once been before averting his eyes, turning them towards the darkness deeper in the cave.

"I can still save the rest," he thought to himself, his tone almost reassuring.

The boy grimaced at how he himself was unable to believe his own words.

How long had I been walking? I lost track of all sense of time since Rider and Saber's departure. My mind was preoccupied, filled with vivid scenes of blood and tears, heartfelt goodbyes and heartbreaking apologies echoing in my ears.

My legs moved on their own, some hidden force driving them forward.

Ahh, that's right. Sakura and Rin, I still had to save them.

Save them…

Like how I saved Rider and Saber?

An image of their bloodied bodies invades my mind, and I fought the urge to vomit then and there. Rider… I didn't even get a chance to say my farewell. My time with the blindfolded women was briefer than the others, but she still had a very special place in my heart. I had at least chance to say my goodbyes to Saber—unwilling or not—but the poor gorgon woman was not even given that much mercy by fate. The gods had wronged her, and her life had been one of struggle and strife, continuously wronged time and again by the world.

I supposed, in some twisted, sickening way, it was not entirely unfitting that she had died in such a manner—outmatched with nothing but a sliver of hope for victory. In the end, her true wish had gone unfulfilled, and the second chance at life she sought had not come to fruition.

Ah, but then again, she had done what she did to save me. I had been too weak; Rider played her part perfectly, but it was me who had been lacking, and in order to have a chance of winning, she had sacrificed herself.

Rider… She did not deserve such an ending.

She knew only suffering, and this war was her only chance to live the life that fate had cruelly ripped away from her clutches. And now…

"You would entrust your dream to me, Rider?"

She had given her life for me, placing her trust in a mere boy. Just like how Saber had done so, she too chose me over themselves. Someone who couldn't live for himself was given the lives of others.

I looked down at the sword in my hand. While its radiant golden edge had been corrupted into a raven-black blade, and its inspiring, soothing aura was twisted into sickening wickedness, the meaning behind the very fact that I now held it was not lost to me.

That familiar feeling came back once again. The suffocating sensation of helplessness as more and more weight piled onto me, the overbearing pressure on my chest to reach these expectations hopelessly out of my reach, it was all coming back.

It was a cycle of hope and despair, of promises made and broken, yet in the end, it all came back to me.

Where does it end?

When would it stop?

Or perhaps… it simply wasn't meant to…

It was like I was drowning, trapped in a bottomless well, slowly sinking to the bottom as I watched the light of the surface fade further and further from me. The darkness rushed inside of me, pulling me under, clinging to my very soul, suffocating me under the weight of the very ideals I had chased for so long. And no matter how much I struggled and swam, I would inevitably sink down and down and down and down and down and down—

The rhythmic sound of my foot coming down on the rocky ground was the only indication that time was passing and the world around me wasn't just a never-ending void of darkness.

One foot in front of another.

That's right. I couldn't afford to lose focus. Not now. I still had people waiting for me.

CRUNCH!

A rock underneath my foot instantly turned to dust beneath my step.

I had to let go of unnecessary emotions. It would only cloud my judgement. There would always be time to grieve later, but the people alive right now took priority.

The advice I was telling myself was sound. It was logical and pragmatic, correct in every sense of the word.

But it didn't unclench my fist or stop my teeth from gnashing together or get rid of this unbearable pain in my chest.

Suddenly, the cavern around me was far brighter than before – or had I simply not noticed it growing brighter? – and I found myself in a room far larger than the arena I had encountered Saber in. It seemed to stretch on forever, but even despite the seemingly boundless space, what really drew my attention was one thing only.

Off in the far distance, I saw it: the Holy Grail. Somehow, the real thing was even more sickening than the Shadow it had spawned. It was a malevolent thing. It was darkness reborn, a black even darker than the corrupted Excalibur or the obsidian tint that stained Saber's armor. It was far more than black, swallowing light itself. Even from here, I see it twisting and distorting reality, space bending around the malignant relic. And that was not even considering the pure aura of wrongness emanating from it. It was a vile feeling, making the pits of my stomach writhe and my skin crawl.

And yet somehow it was a familiar feeling. One that had haunted me for so many nights over the years. To finally see the source of those nightmares in person, to bear witness to what had created me in the first place…

I couldn't deny that a small portion of me was morbidly curious about what it truly was.

I turned my eyes to the figure standing at the crest of the ramp leading to the grail. The light emanating from behind it cast it into a dark silhouette, preventing me from discerning its identity, but I didn't need to see it to know. It was still a ways off from the vessel itself, but there was no doubt in my mind who it was. If Saber had been guarding the entrance of this area, and the grail was off in the distance, then there was only one person that figure could be.

Sakura.

One of three reasons we had delved into this underground hell hole in the first place.

In comparison to the large grotesque thing far behind her, she was quite small, both in size and in presence. It was not nearly as overbearing as I remember.

I walked towards the figure, and the sword in my grasp suddenly became eerily heavy. My hands felt clammy, slick with sweat, and it wasn't until I looked down at them that I realized that the shaking had returned.

One step. Two steps.

As I approached the still figure, it became evident that it was not one person but two.

The crunching of rocks stopped as I was rooted in place by the sight before me. I had found Sakura, just as intended, but in my stupidity, I had forgotten about the other sister who had gone ahead to rescue her.

"… Tohsaka…?"

The red-clad magus was in Sakura's arms, but the horrifyingly large amounts of blood covering her made it difficult to tell it apart from her iconic scarlet sweater. Her body was mutilated to a nauseating degree. Her torso was torn open from large bloody wounds that snaked from her hips all the way up to her shoulders.

They were large enough that I could see hints of organs and the white of her ribcage peeking out from gaps in the flesh. Her arms and legs were broken in several places, bones jutting out from the torn skin like white sharp rocks jutting out from a crimson sea. Her limbs were bent in unnatural angles, much like a marionette with its strings cut. Her head was hanging limply, the half-severed muscles and tendons of her neck barely managing to keep it connected to the rest of her mangled body, and her head had fallen in such a way that it was facing towards me, showing me her face.

She was deathly pale, enough that the veins in her face stood out like sanguine scars on a canvas of unhealthy white. Her eyes, normally shining with untold mischiefs and prodigal intelligence, were glazed over in a blank dead stare, and her lips that had sputtered countless embarrassed deflections and sarcastic insults were slightly agape as if she was speaking to me.

"Why did you not save me?"

I could almost hear her voice leveled at me in accusation, those red lips opening and closing at haunting words of betrayal were launched at me.

She could never do that… but looking at what happened, I couldn't help but wish she was speaking those words to me now. To tell me that I failed. To confirm what I had tried to escape from. To judge my failures. To tell me she couldn't forgive me for being a bad person.

Instead, I only had silence to answer me.

Tohsaka never would have asked for help, the twin-tailed magus far too proud for that, but it had gone unsaid between us that we would be fighting the final battle together. We had entered this cave side-by-side and had every intention of leaving it in the same manner.

"Emiya-kun, I'll leave Saber to you. I don't know what will happen, but I believe in you. You better live up to my expectations. If you want to save Sakura, don't be too late, okay? I'll be waiting."

Before we parted ways, she had left me with that message. Coming from the proud magus, who hated depending on others and lived her life based on her own convictions, such words were not easy to say, a confession of the unshakeable faith and trust she had placed in me. She truly believed that despite all odds and impossibilities, I would weave together a miracle and meet her here where we would overcome the final hurdle together.

I wondered at how long she held onto that hope. Tohsaka was a self-proclaimed realist, but she was more naïve and hopeful than she said she was, a trait I found endearing and admirable.

When her body was torn to shreds and she saw her very innards spilled across the cavern floor, did her trust in me ever falter? When she was impaled over and over by the sister she loved more than her own duty, did she continue clinging onto that fleeting dream? When her body was smashed over and over like a ragdoll until her bones broke, did her faith ever waver, wishing for a miracle that never came?

In her final moments, did she die calling my name in her dying breath, believing in the end of a hero that would rescue her from this cruel world?

That's right, Tohsaka was far more optimistic than she gave herself credit for. She would never have let go of the hope that I would arrive to save her. She wouldn't have felt the slow, growing pit of despair as the crushing weight of the truth slowly dawned on her. She wouldn't have felt the utter anguish in her soul as her eyes widened in agony and her hope turned to ashes in her mouth. I could only hope that Tohsaka was able to die without feeling any of that, never realizing that her hero was merely a delusional fantasy, that she had entrusted her dream to nothing more than a fake.

I had sworn to bring her sister back to her side, but I let her die before she could see it. She had waited here vigilantly for me, but I did not arrive until it was far too late. I had promised to stand by her side for all of eternity, but I abandoned her in the darkness when she needed me the most.

She would never condemn me, but a small part of me wished she did, to free me from the suffocating weight of her lofty expectations, so that I wouldn't have to fail over and over at living up to the ideals she put on me.

I tore my eyes from the magus, diverting my attention to the person below me.

Sakura was just as I remembered, except that overbearing malicious aura I had felt had been reduced to a pathetic whimper. That feeling of utter wrongness had lost its evil bite, a far cry from the menacing figure she had cut earlier. The last time I had seen her, she had been standing over Tohsaka's bloody body in my backyard with the intent of killing her, and the very same girl was laying tenderly in her lap.

The darkened girl was quivering uncontrollably as her chest rose and fell erratically. Her head was bowed with her long hair covering her face, and she held onto Tohsaka in a death grip as her fingers dug the woman.

"… Sakura… what did you do…?"

Hearing my question, Sakura's head snapped up towards me. Her cheeks were marred with dried streaks of tears, and her eyes were unfocused and dilated, quickly darting between me and her sister before they suddenly widened. Realization dawned in her eyes, and right after it, panic and horror, until I saw something snap within her.

Despite the ominous rumbling of the grail behind her, it was almost unnervingly silent in the cavern. Suddenly, Sakura let out a chuckle, slow and unsettling, before letting out another, then another, then another. She threw her head back, her lips spread wide in an unhinged smile as she roared in hearty laughter. The disturbing chortles seemed to stretch on for hours before they slowly morphed into pained grieving, and before long, Sakura was heaving out strangled sobs, her face dry as her tears had long since run out.

"Senpai…"

She lowered her head back down, her face sporting an unreadable expression as she gazed at Tohsaka's corpse. Her head was a storm of inexplicable emotions, and her mind was teetering precariously on the edge of insanity.

"You said you couldn't forgive me if I became a bad person, right, Senpai?"

I slowly nodded, confirming her words.

If Sakura became a bad person, I couldn't forgive her. In fact, it was precisely because I loved her so much that I would rebuke harder than anyone else.

But in my eyes, she was never a bad person, only a victim of fate. She had never asked for any of this. She only wanted simple happiness, surrounded by a loving family that was taken from her and a close circle of friends that she was denied from. The circ*mstances she had lived under were never her fault to begin with.

Sakura couldn't see that. She had done bad things, but she was never a bad person. She was just any regular girl, pushed to her limits by the cruelty of reality and forced to commit evil.

The Shadow and her were one, an unfortunate result of forces far beyond her control. While I had always separated the two in the past, to deny it now was to deny what was in front of me. Sakura believed the same, the very reason why she didn't want forgiveness in the first place. She longed to be punished. She sought to bear the weight of the sins she had been forced to commit. We were alike in that regard, and it was perhaps that connection that had drawn us to each other in the first place. We both thought of ourselves as sinners, living the unjust lives that were thrust upon us by fate.

Yes, Sakura and the Shadow were one and the same. All the people it had killed had been at her hands despite her best intentions. That was an irrefutable fact. Just as it was my decision to spare her at the church, condemning more people to die for no reason other than the simple fact that I chose the one I loved over them. The blood of innocents stained my hands and hers, and the sins she bore were mine to carry as well.

And that was fine.

Because now…

"The things you've done can never be erased. The people you killed can never be brought back."

I went down to one knee in front of her. One hand came around to wrap around hers that was supporting Tohsaka's head. I gingerly stroked her hand, rejoicing in the feeling of my skin against hers. How much had slipped through these fingers, I wonder. How much had she been forced to let go? What kinds of things had she done with these soft, gentle hands?

The scales of justice would weigh heavily against us both. I'm not sure Sakura could ever forgive herself. I had no intention of forgiving myself. We were both murderers, but Sakura could still find her salvation.

"You'll need to spend the rest of your life atoning for what you've done."

So it made sense for only one of us to bear this burden.

"But for now, just live."

A flash of blue motes of light coalesced in my hand, and a familiar dagger appeared in my right hand.

Rule Breaker, the weapon of the Witch of Colchis, Medea.

The dagger wasn't a true weapon. Its blade was jagged and crooked, the edge blunt and thin. It could hardly be called a weapon. As it was, it could barely kill a regular person. It was more ceremonial than anything else, more suited as a decorative piece at someone's waist. However, one look at the weapon revealed its true value.

There was only one reason on why a witch such as Caster would carry such a weapon around. Its iridescent, ominous edge held a mystifying gleam that displayed its true worth as a Noble Phantasm. For someone who always hid in the shadows and struck in the most indirect ways, Rule Breaker was the perfect weapon for the Witch of Colchis.

My vision flashed white, the world around me blurring for an instant before I snapped back to reality, and I groaned at the feeling of my soul being strained to its utmost limits. I moved past the overwhelming wall of pain lancing through my head as my body screamed at me for overusing my magecraft. I threw all caution to the wind. All that mattered right now was freeing Sakura from her curse.

My hand rose, the wicked dagger in a backhanded grip poised to gently stab Sakura, and I planted its blade into her chest. It dug into her flesh for perhaps a centimeter or two, and for a second, I thought that the weapon our entire plan hinged upon did not work.

The darkness-wreathed girl gasped as her body was covered in a blinding light. The shadow that had consumed her for so long was being swallowed in turn. The light intensified, and I involuntarily shut my eyes closed. One hand remained interlocked with hers, trying my hardest to give her the strength she needed to cast off the Shadow. The other held a vice grip on the dagger, determined to not let go. I had to see this through to the end, no matter the cost. To create a world where she could be happy, I had to be completely sure she was free from any connection to Angra Mainyu.

White light concentrated itself further into the girl, and there was a brief moment of tranquility before the bubble burst, and an eruption of energy exploded out from Sakura.

I braced myself, and the blast of light only lasted for a second before it disappeared as quickly as it came. Whisps of the darkness that had tainted her soul floated in the air before they burned away to nothingness.

As expected, Rule Breaker had done its job. Sakura was still in the same position as before, her mouth agape in surprise at the sudden turn of events before she slowly tilted her head downwards until her gaze landed on the weapon still inside of her.

"… Oh…"

It must have been liberating. The sensation of freedom, of casting off the shackles that had constrained her for so long. The constant nagging at her soul was gone, and from now on, she was free to live her life as she pleased.

Yes, that must be nice.

"You can't give back all the lives you've taken, but it's for their sake that you can't throw away yours either."

She looked at me, confusion clouding her crimson orbs. "You say that… but what about you?"

I was a hypocrite, through and through. The same words I was saying to bring Sakura salvation were the very same ones I cast aside. Archer had accused me of that very hypocrisy, Rin had lectured me on the damning end that path would lead to, and I had listened to their words back then… but they were gone.

"… I'll save you, that's all there is to it. I'll protect you from everything, so just focus on enjoying your life from now on."

It was an unfair thing, atonement.

Sakura had never wanted this. None of this was her fault, but the fact of the matter was that she had committed crimes. Justice demanded that she atone for her sins, but it was borderline blasphemy to judge someone who never truly did anything wrong. I knew the crushing weight on her shoulders, and I didn't want that beautiful smile I cherished so much to wilt into something bitter and jaded.

Forcing her to atone by living for others was a terrible thing, but as long as she lived, she could never truly wash off the stains on her soul. It would be a debt she could never pay back, a never-ending cycle of suffering that would haunt her for the rest of her life. For someone like her who only knew misery, such unfairness was nothing new, but I wanted to change that. That's why I wanted her burden to be mine—so that she could live for herself, savoring a life she was never able to until now, existing without a care in the world for what may come next.

When I chose to let her live just to fulfill my selfish wish, choosing to save the one I loved instead of exacting justice, I had chosen to be a greater evil than she ever was. The blood staining her hands were now on mine instead.

My path was set in stone, and my soul was already forever damned. Every falsehood she had committed, every life she had taken, if it meant her being free, I would embrace it gladly.

Emiya Shirou would endure the weight of the world, if nothing else.

My words took a moment to settle into her mind, and then she slowly placed both of her hands around my right hand, grasping onto the dagger that was still embedded in her chest. Her fingers pensively traced mine, her eyes darkening in contemplation.

I felt something wet drop onto my hand, and it took me a moment to realize it was a teardrop. Another one followed it, then another, and it wasn't long before our hands were drenched with tears as Sakura's sobs filled my ears. After what felt like an eternity, she finally looked back up at me. Tears streamed down her face, conflict written plain as day in her expression. Those once lovely amethyst orbs, now more akin to bloodstained rubies, were clouded in doubt, and I grimaced at the clear agony haunting the eyes of the one I loved.

"Was I the cause of that pain?"

Her hand tightened, and I saw the briefest flash of determination in her eyes before they clenched shut.

"… I'm sorry, Senpai."

The sickening sound of steel entering flesh echoed off the cavern walls as Rule Breaker pierced through Sakura's chest and buried itself inside her heart.

"… Ahhh...—"

The darkened girl in front of me gasped, her body stilling in. Her eyes were wide, and her lips were parted slightly as a small trickle of blood leaked out from her mouth. While she had prepared herself for this outcome, the realization of her actions had not fully set in yet. Her black dress was drenched in red, her blood masking the ruby hilt protruding out from her chest.

Ah, it's happening again.

I cast a pensive gaze onto the hand still wrapped around the weapon. Rivers of blood ran off it and pooled onto the ground below, a waterfall of crimson decorating the scene in front of me. Strangely enough, a sense of calm clouded my mind, and a small part of me, one who was always watching and judging, could not help but feel that this was not a surprising turn of events.

In fact, it might even be fitting. In some perverse, cruel way, such an ending was completely expected from the existence that was Emiya Shirou.

Once is simply how it is.

Twice is coincidence.

Thrice is the machinations of the world.

Four times… is fate.

By now, it felt almost routine, like the world itself was going out of its way to spit upon my life, dumping its collective misery on my being. The uncanny happenings of this night made it almost feel surreal, like a nightmare I was forever trapped in, before I realized that it was simply reality. There was no escape from the cruel machinations of the world.

"Sakura… why…?"

I wanted to know. I've accepted her actions for what they were. It was hard not to with the undeniable truth in front of me.

Sakura wasn't a bad person, but she sought punishment regardless. She never wanted forgiveness or atonement. The weight of her sins, the blood on her hands, she wanted it to be hers and hers alone. I had wanted to release her from the responsibility of crimes that were never hers, but she wanted to bear the weight of an evil that she was never at fault for.

Regardless, I needed to hear it from her. I had to hear the words directly from her lips, if only to sate this craving within me—that I wasn't the hero she envisioned me as, that I never could or would be, merely a poor imitation of an ideal.

"Because…" A hoarse rasp came out from her mouth, her voice reduced to a feeble whisper as she croaked out her words. Blood continued to spill from her lips, and guilt swelled within my chest at what my request was doing to her, but even so… I needed to know. "You… You don't deserve something… so sad… Senpai…"

I… didn't deserve it…?

Suddenly, she fell sideways, snapping me back to reality, and I instinctively caught her, one arm wrapping around to her back as I stopped her from meeting the unforgiving rocky ground.

She gazed up at me, scarlet orbs clouding over as she slowly but surely bled out. She weakly reached up with one hand, the limp slick with warm blood as it almost slipped from my grasp. She turned her head towards me in gratitude at the gesture, and what might have been a near silent plea of thanks instead turned into a mess of heart-wrenching coughs as she choked on her own blood.

"You… you're always trying… to help others… by sacrificing yourself…" The digits of her hand softly tightened around mine, and I could feel the pit widening in my stomach as the warmth of her body seeped away into an unsettling coldness. "You're… a true hero… Senpai… Someone like me… I can't… catch you…"

Hero… the word that left her lips might as well have been a sword through my heart, a blade of turmoil lancing through my body and soul. But it was nothing I already knew, nothing that was already not apparent. Yet, that word only made my body feel cold and numb, and when tears fell from my face onto the dying girl below me, I could not help but feel that the strength I felt before was nothing but a lie.

Her lips curled up into a small, heart-wrenching smile. "Ah… I finally… made you cry… I'm glad… you've changed so much…"

I shook my head, scattering tears off to the side, but Sakura gave no indication of pity or judgement, though I couldn't help but wish she did.

"You're wrong. I haven't changed… Nothing's changed," I finished softly.

Her smile grew at my consternation, and just like the woman before her, her face had the same knowing expression. Were it not for the current circ*mstances, it might have even been considered smug. She reached up, her arm trembling in the air before it settled on my face, wiping away another tear falling down my cheek.

"Even now… I'm sorry… You've done… so much for me… but I could never… repay you…"

"… Don't say that. You've done more than enough." My hands trembled, my fingers instinctively digging into her body to stop the shaking. "You have nothing to be sorry for."

A second of silence passed, yet the dread in my heart only grew. The ache stung with the agony of a fresh scar, a burning remembrance of what I had already lost.

"You still… can't see it…?" A look of disappointment flashed across her face.

"Both you and Saber see things I don't," I gently rebuked her words.

"Your eyes… they grasp everything around you… so easily… yet you still can't… see what's in front… of you…"

The smile on my face could only be called rueful. "And look at the result."

Her eyes dulled even further, regret brimming in her gaze as she looked past me.

"It's not your fault… Nee-san… she waited for you… but I killed her…" she wheezed out, the words only a feeble whisper. "I… I killed her… she was trying to save me but I…" She trailed off, her words dying in her throat at the memories of her sister.

"It's not your fault, Sakura," I consoled. My voice softened at the thought of what she went through. "It never was."

A look of hurt flashed across her face, and her hand tightened around mine.

"And I suppose… it's yours…?" she questioned almost mockingly, as much as the blood pooling in her throat would allow before she let loose another fit of coughs, more red soaking into my shirt as small chunks of coagulated blood splattered everywhere. "Always… burdening yourself… Always so… heroic… but that's who you are…" Her gaze lost focus again, and I could see the shattered remains of her dream in her eyes. "If I wasn't so… selfish… if I wasn't so… weak… we could have had it all… but I…—"

Her eyes brimmed with tears, choking back sobs of regret as her life flashed before her. My hand snaked around to the back of her head, caressing her violet locks as the lonely girl below me failed to hold back her tears as she quietly cried away her pain.

"Senpai," she started, her voice wavering and uncertain. "Am I… a bad person…?"

"No." My answer was instant—my response firm. "You've done bad things, yes, but you are not a bad person, Sakura."

She took a moment to digest my answer before a regretful smile slowly broke out on her face. "Still… going on about that… You don't know the things… I've done… but you still say that…"

"And I'll say it as many times as you need to hear it. I'm not giving up on you."

She paused before a look of resignation crossed her face. "That you still believe in me… after all this time…"

Even if I had failed every promise I made, even if I was left with nothing at the end of it all, even if every choice I made was a mistake, I couldn't find it within myself to regret my love for her. Saving her meant forsaking countless more people, yet I could look past that. I made that choice gladly, and I would do so again if given the chance even if it meant more blood on my hands. Despite the irrefutable truth that it eventually led me nowhere, the happiness and joy I found nothing but a fleeting, ephemeral feeling that left as quickly as it came, the mere fact that someone like me was able to experience the wonders and preciousness of life was a miracle in itself. Just for this short-lived spark of hope… I couldn't find it within me to call it wrong.

"Even if the world turns against you, even if you lose in yourself, I'll always be here, Sakura."

The words came out of my mouth easily, my message one of the few things I still had faith in. It was a foundation of my soul, an unwritten law of the universe. A world where Emiya Shirou turned against her was simply unfathomable; in a reality where the impossible was possible and physics and logic were casually turned on their heads, my loyalty to her was something I could not imagine ever changing. I couldn't even picture her without me at her side, the image in my mind coming as naturally as the sun rose every day.

"I… I'm sorry… I can't…not anymore… I can't—"

Sakura was stunned, her eyes wide in disbelief before she let out a cry of agony. Her eyes swelled with tears before they quickly flooded over, streaming down her face as she started bawling hysterically.

"I'm so sorry Senpai! I couldn't keep a single promise! —Not a single one!" She suddenly lurched up and forwards, burying her face into my chest and clenching my shirt with a strength I didn't know she possessed. "It's always you, never me. You keep saving me, time and again, even when I'm at fault, even when I don't deserve it! You keep saying you'll always be there, but I'm the one that left you and ran away. Do you know how it feels? To be able to feel everyone I've killed, all their memories swimming inside of me when I swallowed them but being told it wasn't my fault?! You say it'll all be okay. You've done so much for me, and I… I—"

Sakura choked and sputtered, her words becoming nothing more than gurgled sobs. That too eventually became too much to bear, and the anguished girl looked up at me and screamed out a strangled cry of defeat and hopelessness.

"—And I. HAVEN'T. DONE. ANYTHING!"

She let her head drop, limply bracing it against me as I felt her tears soak through my shirt. Her shoulders trembled as the raw unbridled emotion coursing through her. My arm rose, and a hand tentatively hovered over her as I contemplated what to do before I threw caution to the wind, letting it rest against the small of her back as I embraced the sobbing girl.

"Even now… you're still with me," she croaked out, her voice a whisper as she kept her head down and away from my eyes. "I dragged you into this mess. I've killed countless people… I corrupted Saber. I killed my sister. The grail is going to destroy the world, but you're still going to tell me none of it is my fault, even though I know it's all just a lie. Despite all that… even if I don't deserve it, I want so badly to believe…"

The fatigue and frustration in her voice was clear; it was the voice of someone who had experienced far too much at an age far too young. Despite everything that I had said and done, Sakura had crumbled under the weight of the world—maybe even long ago, and it was only now that I was seeing the pieces.

Sakura had never wanted salvation. She didn't want forgiveness; just the chance to atone for everything she had done would have been enough. She never wanted absolution for her sins. I had forgotten that. While I never believed she had done anything wrong, ultimately it was up to Sakura to create and face her own judgement, the only one that truly mattered.

In my selfishness, I wanted her to live freely, unencumbered by the chains of fate that weighed her down, just as they had once enslaved me. But Sakura never wanted that; she wanted someone to walk alongside her, living life to its fullest despite sharing the same sinful existence, as if it was a personal outcry against the unfairness of reality. Ultimately, it was my desire to be her hero and save her that alienated her and led to this tragic outcome.

"…It's not fair," Sakura lamented. "Just when I finally got the courage… to confess to you… it all comes crashing down… I wanted to keep living my life with you… Waking you up in the morning… Cooking meals for you… Walking home from school… And even talking to Nee-san again… It was all because of you… I was able to enjoy those things again… and now I'll never be able to do those things again… It's not fair… Why me…? What did I do…? Why I am always the one… that can never be happy…?"

A feeble fist thumped against my chest, more a gesture of weakness than anger. I could feel the smoldering frustration in her voice but also the sheer weight of helplessness that snuffed it out.

"I… I'm sorry…" The words barely left my mouth, my will faltering in the face of the undeniable results of my actions. "I'm sorry I couldn't save you…"

My words echoed what I had said to Saber. This time, I thought I could at least save Sakura, but I was proven wrong yet again.

"You have no idea… how much it hurts me… to hear you say that… Senpai…"

Finally, it came. The last remnants of the strength that Sakura had left were gone as she became slack in my grasp. Something in my chest withered and died, and the freezing, numbing void returned, spreading throughout my body. I ignored all that, giving the girl below me my full attention.

Her eyes wandered to the side, and sensing her intentions, I gently picked her up, carrying her a few feet away before gingerly laying her on the floor next to her sister. Sakura's body was limp, and the only thing she could do was weakly toss her head to the side until she was facing Tohsaka.

Even in death, the dead magus managed to look graceful and serene. Her expression was calm, not troubled like one normally would when they die. Perhaps the fact that it was her own sister who dealt the fatal blow was the reason she was able to accept it so easily.

"Sorry, Nee-san… Looks like I'll be joining you now."

She tilted her head up towards me. I had taken my place near the heads of the two sisters, silently watching Sakura come to terms with the end. My nails dug into my palms, almost deep enough to draw blood, and my jaw clenched to the point of almost breaking teeth. Despite my wavering resolve and waning spirit, my eyes were steady as I kept my gaze trained solely on the scene in front of me. Sakura deserved as much, and since I wasn't there for Tohsaka when she passed, I owed it to her to see this through to the end. No matter how much my spirit waned and ached, I had to etch her final moments into my mind.

I was unable to save her, that much was certain. The only thing I could do now was to keep her memory alive, as a token of the time and experiences we had shared together. Even if my time in this world was quickly expiring, she'll live on within me, and when I finally die, we would do so together.

"It's so… cold… Everything is so… dark…" Sakura said, her voice quivering in fear. I fought back the urge to cover her body with mine, to tell her that everything would be okay. "Senpai… are you still there…?"

"…I'm here, Sakura… I'm here… I've always been here…"

Somehow, I managed to prevent my voice from trembling.

Violet orbs had dulled to pale, dull balls, a far cry from the radiant amethyst that had once shone so brightly even in the darkness that had settled in this city. Her skin was deathly white, and I could see her blood coursing through her veins, the current of vitality slowly but surely coming to a stop.

"I'm… glad… You've always been there… like the sun… so warm… Everyone around you reached out… yearning for you… But I… wanted that light… all for myself… For once… I wanted to be happy…"

Her right arm rose, small and fragile yet nevertheless reaching out towards the sky only to meet the rocky, thorned cavern ceiling. Her hands were open, her fingers slowly trying to stretch them higher.

"… Nothing," Sakura rasped out. "I… achieved… nothing… I forsook my humanity… I destroyed my home…"

Images of Tohsaka and I arriving at the destroyed Emiya household filled my mind, the newly transformed Sakura who had fully accepted the malicious whisperings of the grail into her heart standing amongst the fire and rumble.

"I abandoned my family… I killed her… without a second thought… even when she was already gone, I kept going… all because she chose to save me instead of herself… this whole cave will be our grave… because of me… the only people to ever help me… and this is how I repay it…"

Her hand closed, grasping nothing but air. A bitter smile spread across Sakura's face.

"Is this… what I became a monster for…? Did I kill… all these people… just out of anger… and rage…? And yet… even with sacrificing so much… tossing aside everything… I couldn't achieve anything… Senpai… you told me that you would create a world… where we could all live together… happily… peacefully… but your eyes… I could never see that same world you were seeing… I tore it apart… with my own hands… destroying everything we had built…"

Her arm fell limply by her side.

"You reached out to me that day… You changed our destinies from the moment we touched… You're… the most important person in the world to me. You've changed so much… defying fate… while I was never able to escape it… you're so strong… you told me even the smallest and frailest of us could be happy…"

She peered at me with those soulless purple eyes, dull violet conveying more emotion than her mouth could possibly say.

"Why was I never able to obtain that strength…? Why couldn't I become something more I was…? Why are you and I… so different…?"

One last tear drop trailed down her cheek, its drop to the ground almost deafening in the quiet cavern.

"Why on Earth… was I even born…? Tell me… Shirou…"

One last shuddered breath left her body before Sakura finally stilled. Her eyes were glazed over, eternally gazing straight at me as her final question echoed within my mind.

Once again, time lost all sense of meaning as my body stilled. I couldn't find the strength to avert my eyes from the scene before me, two of the people I had failed laying in front of me, unmoving and unliving.

At last, my body moved. I crouched down, one hand tenderly coming over to stroke Sakura' cheek one last time before I closed her eyelids. She didn't deserve to have died with her final sight being of me, of the nasty reality that had forced this on her.

Standing back up, I walked over to Excalibur, the weapon having been momentarily forgotten but now taking its place in my hand.

I gave one last look at the sisters. It was a cruel irony. In life, they had been separated, unknowingly distancing themselves from each other over their own assumptions. They had nothing more than to be together, but little did they know that the feeling was mutual. It was only in death that they could finally be reunited, another one of life's cruel jokes.

The sight was heartbreaking, a sinking feeling swallowing me from head to toe. But I fought past that, engraving the image of the dead sisters into my brain and all the emotions that came with it.

I focused onto one in particular, the feeling of frustration at my inability of being unable to save the ones I loved. I held onto it like a lifeline, the searing pain that came with it cutting through my conscience like a hot knife. That was fine. Pain was good. Pain reminded me that I was still alive. I couldn't fall just yet. There was time for that later, but I still had something I had to do.

My focus had to be clear, even if it was a lie.

I couldn't save them, but I swore that I would finally put an end to this. That much, I could do.

Was this what you had meant, Archer?

"You're wrong, Sakura." The words left my mouth, even if its intended audience was already gone. "You're strong, far stronger than you believe. Far stronger than me."

It was something we disagreed on, even in the very end. I could only hope that in whatever afterlife awaited us, I would be able to convince her then.

The sound of clapping resonated throughout the cavern, the sharp slap of flesh on flesh almost mocking. It grated on my ears, the gesture of applause contemptuous and taunting.

"Haha—ahh—"

A bloodied and battered man stood in front of the Holy Grail, his tall figure cutting an imposing silhouette on the ruddy glow of the blasphemous artifact. His hands were still together mid-clap, and though his face was hidden by the shadow of the grail, I knew that his lips were curved into a small, unnerving jeer.

"Kotomine Kirei."

I spat out his name from my lips like a slur, the words leaving a bitter aftertaste on my tongue as my face scrunched up in a scowl.

My reaction to his unsightly presence only made his smirk grow.

"Good evening, Emiya Shirou. I must applaud you; that was a splendid performance. It was quite the moving spectacle," he congratulated, his tone genuine but I knew it was anything but.

My anger rose at his nonchalant tone, and my eyes narrowed as I prepared to cut down this final obstacle. "Cut the bullsh*t. What are you doing here?" I didn't bother reciprocating his pleasantries. It was only a façade after all.

"Oh my, what a scary expression," he mocked. "What's wrong? The conversation has only just started, but you already look like you want me dead. I'm glad I could illicit such a strong reaction from you so quickly."

He ignored my words, a gesture I answered by brandishing the sword in my hands menacingly at him, the threat unspoken yet known.

A deep chuckle emanated from him as his smile continued to enlarge. "You're getting flustered over nothing. It's not like Emiya Shirou to be so emotional. You've changed—" he paused, his eyes narrowing as he found the words he was looking for "—you're getting weak."

"I won't ask twice. What are you doing here?" I responded almost hastily, the truth in his words stinging a bit harder than I anticipated.

He let out one more chuckle before finally deciding to end his games.

"Every hero needs a villain to oppose him. But as for why I'm here," he hummed thoughtfully, "answers, Emiya Shirou. For both you and me."

I scoffed at his words. "Don't lump me in with you. I'm here to destroy the grail. I'm not so lost that I would orchestrate this hell hole just to find answers," I spat out. Was this what Saber, Rider, Rin, and Sakura had died for? All the most important people in my life, for answers?!

His thought process and motivations were completely unknown to me, the man choosing who to fight and who to aid almost whimsically. When I first saw him, his mere presence radiated an aura of wrongness that had sent chills down my spine. I was convinced that he would prove himself an enemy eventually, no matter what Tohsaka had said about him being a firm ally as long as you knew his goals. When he removed the crest worms from Sakura and helped rescue Illya, I had begrudgingly regarded him as a temporary ally. However, he still exuded a sense of distrustfulness, so the fact that he now stood before me was not a surprise in the slightest.

"Oh? Aren't you the slightest bit curious? The truth behind you and me, the reason for our accursed existences, this aching hollowness that resides within us, it all lies within its birth." He remained calm, his voice even and steady, as if this was something he had been anticipating for a long time. Knowing him, it almost certainly was.

I brandished Excalibur at him, its dark edge still tainted even now but an unparalleled weapon nonetheless. However, I didn't have the magical energy to invoke its name and tap into its destructive capabilities. Such a strike would end this fight before it even started, but I didn't have that luxury. Thus, this duel would be decided in close quarters combat. In that scenario, I didn't fancy my chances against him.

I examined the man in front of me. His clothes were tattered and bloodstained, and his chest had a blackened and bloody hole where his heart should be. He was clearly half-dead—not that I was any different—but he still managed to cut a menacing figure. Sensing my resolve to see my mission through, he let his arms fall to his side, procuring a set of Black Keys. His hands clenched around them a vice grip, hard enough to turn his knuckles white. He was a master of combat with those weapons of his, and even if I managed to disarm him, he was still an expert in martial arts. Physically, he was still superhuman, and I lacked the magical energy to properly reinforce myself to the levels that had allowed me to just barely match Saber. Yes, while Kotomine was on the verge of death, he was a dangerous enemy, nonetheless.

The only thing I had going for me was Saber's last gift to me. It was still a noble phantasm; one clean hit would kill Kotomine for sure. And more than that, I could feel her traces in the blade. All swordsmen always left an imprint of themselves in their weapons, and Saber was no different. I could feel the almost sentient pull of Excalibur, its dirtied and sullied edge trying to bury itself into my enemy. It didn't contain Saber's otherworldly skill. It was something far more primal, an instinctual longing left behind by the previous owner of the blade to protect its wielder.

My thumb caressed the hilt tenderly, and I let out a deep breath.

It was one of my last reminders of her. Even now, she was still protecting me. It wasn't much, but for the sake of her memories and everyone else's, it would have to be enough.

Both he and I were dying, that was for a fact. Whichever one of us was closer to death, neither of us knew. However, the priest had the advantage of objectives. He was here to bear witness to the birth of a god, evil incarnate, while I aimed to prematurely kill it. He was on the defensive, and thus he had no reason to attack first. If I let him, he would be content to sit there and let Angra Mainyu be born without lifting a finger. Since our bodies were both falling apart, I couldn't risk being the one to die first, so I had to take the initiative.

"I have no need for logic or reasoning. I thought you of all people would understand that much," I replied.

The fact disgusted me, but it was undeniable that I could sense a kindred spirit within Kotomine Kirei. It was revolting to admit, but he and I were the same. We were both empty and hollow existences, merely wading through life without purpose or direction. However, while he took pleasure in pain and misery, I once fulfilled myself through aiding others. Two sides of the coin now faced each other here at the end of the world, vying for goals that went far beyond their lives.

"When presented with the opportunity to finally glimpse my true self, to finally understand why I am the way I am, how could I possibly refuse? You know it all too well, the void in our lives that grates upon your soul every day. If I can attain the truth that has eluded me for so long, perhaps I may be able to finally transcend this limited existence I was cursed with," Kotomine explained. While on the outside, he remained calm, I could see the cracks in his demeanor. It was a sixth sense born from our mutual understanding of each other, a gift I utterly despised but used nonetheless.

His arms shook slightly, his grip on his weapons constantly changing with every passing second. His stare was firm and tranquil but upon inspection, one could see the minute trembling of his irises. His jaw clenched and unclenched repeatedly, and if he had a heartbeat still, I was certain that it would have been erratic.

The priest was nervous. For someone as normally composed as him, every word and every gesture measured and calculated, such behavior was extremely out of character, betraying his frantic excitement.

For Kotomine Kirei, this was very much something he had long been waiting for, and now the lone thing standing between him and his long-awaited salvation was myself.

"Don't lie to yourself, Kotomine. You cannot possibly equate yourself to a god. Your dreams will die here, along with that thing's wretched existence."

He shook his head. "I don't want to be a god. I just want what was denied to me." He pointed a black key at me. "And what of yourself, Emiya Shirou? You, who had vowed to be a Hero of Justice but had thrown it away for a chance to be something more, now stand here before me denying me the same opportunity you had so desperately pursued. You've experienced life's unfairness and injustice. Who are you now to oppose me?" he countered.

"Someone who doesn't want the end of the human race. Your goal will benefit only you. I have no need for answers, and I'm certainly not going to exchange them for the lives of countless people."

He sneered at my words, and his response came at lightning speed. "Oh? And what of Matou Sakura? You saved her, did you not? You allowed her to live, knowing what she was and what she could do. In the end, she killed hundreds of people, hundreds that you voluntarily chose to throw into the abyss in the name of love. The people she killed, they died because you wanted to be more than just a shell. Your hands are no less bloody than mine—far moreso, even. What makes you better than me? What gives you the right to condemn me for wanting something in my life when your crimes are far greater than mine?"

"Don't feed me that bullsh*t," I growled. "She had no choice. Because of people like you, she had to suffer. Because of this damned world, she could never smile. You? You once had a caring father, a loving wife, mentors and pupils. And yet, you tossed away everything just for this one chance. A chance that you'll never even be able to cherish. You'll die here along with me. You'll achieve nothing, and whatever enlightenment"—I spat out the word like it was poison—"you'll receive will disappear alongside you!"

It was utter insanity. It was illogical to the highest degree, actions made with no regard for what came after. Even if Kotomine fulfilled his desires here, seeing the birth of All the World's Evils through, he would gain nothing in the end.

"You said it yourself. You and I never needed a reason. Logic is something that evades us. What of you, with your hypocritical ideals? You once swore that as long as people were saved, you were content with whatever came after. And yet you turned your back on those words in the end, seeking something greater only to find only ruin. Your journey was for naught, nothing but a circle back to where you started."

He spreads his arms wide, gesturing to everything and anything.

"For people like us, this outcome was inevitable. We were born with nothing, blank and hollow, sinning over and over trying to find something to fill the emptiness, and when our end comes, we depart this world with nothing. Even if we accomplish our goals, the final result is the same. You and I, we were never meant to be truly human. That is why your ideals failed you, bringing you here before me now. There is no logic here. There is no sanity. You're right. There is nothing for either of us to gain. We'll both be dead soon. This battle? Meaningless, nothing but useless folly. Everything we've done, the lives you and I have experienced up to now, all of it has been worthless. But for once in my life, I feel something, a calling of my spirit, a desire that moves my body, and I will chase this feeling to its very end."

He was right. There was no winner here, only participants in a lost battle. He and I would die here, and the consequences of our duel would be beyond either of us. There was no reason for us to fight, but for some inexplicable reason, here we stood.

His words echoed within my head, and I felt a wrathful fire flickering to life within me.

"Meaningless, you say?"

I took a step forward, my first aggressive move since we began exchanging words.

I knew it was foolish to engage in a verbal battle with him, but I couldn't help but take in his message. It annoyed me, and I could feel my lips pulling back in a snarl as I bared my fangs at Kotomine.

"Take. It. Back."

"You know it is the truth, Emiya Shirou. You need only see the results of your journey."

His eyes wandered off to the side, past me and into the far distance. His gaze settled on the Tohsaka sisters, cold and gone.

I instinctively stepped into his line of sight, blocking his view of them. "They were not meaningless, you damned priest."

I took another step forward, Excalibur held out in front of me in an unfamiliar two-handed stance.

"They swore to help, but they failed. You were unable to obtain what you were seeking all along, and now you're back to where you started."

I leapt at him, the action bringing a searing pain on my legs as I jumped into the air at him. His Black Keys came up to block my strike, my sword sliding off his easily.

I planted a foot forward and spun, momentum carrying me into a whirlwind of death as black and crimson came around towards the man once again. His weapons crossed over his chest to block, but his guard was hastily made. Excalibur powered through his defense, and while his own swords prevented it from cutting into him, Excalibur still battered into Kotomine with near superhuman strength.

The blow sent him flying, and I made to chase after him but winced as my legs froze in place. It was not a surprise; my bones and muscles had long been worked past the point of no return. It was a miracle they had lasted this long in the first place.

Kotomine recovered quickly, getting up as if expecting another blow. He wiped at the blood dripping out of the corner of his mouth, the dark crimson staining his fingers. I could tell his body was in no better condition than mine. This duel would be a race against time, a test of who could endure the longest.

He pounced at me, his dual blades coming at me from either side. Excalibur swiped at them from left to right. It spoke of my weakened physique that instead of cutting straight through all eight keys, I only managed to bat them aside.

"Ah—hah—"

False. My swing lost power near the end, and two blades had managed to slice my arm. It was an ugly wound, flesh coming apart like ribbons, but it wasn't fatal.

However, with his retaliating blow, he had overextended himself, and I planted a foot onto his chest, kicking him back several meters where he skidded and fell over. I hissed at the fire racing up my right leg; broken bones stabbed into me from within, but the pain was only temporary. If anything, it helped me to focus.

Kotomine got back up, panting and hurt from the way he cradled his chest. His head was down, and his hair shadowed his eyes, but he looked up just enough to fix me with a half-lidded stare.

"I must confess: I have felt something before."

He fully looked up at me, his face in full view.

"You."

"What are you mumbling about now, priest?"

Before I could get an answer, Kotomine lunged at me once again. He was fast, even in his zombie-like state. Steel flashed on my left, and it was only instincts that saved my face from being shredded. His other hand came up to swipe at me only to meet ebony steel, and I quickly jumped away before his unoccupied limp could retaliate.

He didn't bother following up his attack, content to remain between me and the grail. "From our first meeting, I knew I could sense something within you—or perhaps, it is more accurate to say I sensed the lack of something. After your affirmation to be a Master in the war, I knew that I had found someone who also shared the same curse of hollowness as I did. I had thought that your father was the same, but I was wrong. He valued justice above all else, so much so that his pursuit of it left him empty. You, however, are very much different from him. You never had desires or anything to hold dear. In that respect, we are the same. And yet, we both lived through life, merely existing, knowing everything was wrong but still trying to free ourselves from these chains. "

Two steps forward brought me face to face with him, Excalibur rising in an upwards slash that threatened to bisect him from hip to shoulder. He evaded it casually, and my secondary slice that should have cleaved him in two was merely sidestepped as well.

"I've watched you closely over these past few weeks, partly due to my obligation as overseer, partly because of my status as a competing master, but mostly due to my own personal interest. I wanted to see for myself how someone else who shared my condition lived," he confessed.

Ah, so that is why we ran into Lancer so many times.

"It wasn't quite happiness, but I was… satisfied at what I saw, how you went about life aimlessly, yearning to correct the wrongness we've felt since our birth." His smile turned wicked, the image of pleasure looking wrong on his lips. "I saw how you buried yourself in your hypocritical heroism, at how it failed to quench the hunger within. Despite knowing salvation would never be granted to you, you persevered, believing it was right, not knowing any other way of living."

Kotomine went on the offensive, disappearing from my sight in an instant. Suddenly, a flash of color appeared out of the corner of my eye, and I instinctively brought down Excalibur in an overhead chop.

Church garbs were torn in two, but there was no priest underneath it. My blade passed through the harmless cloth, and I only had the time to barely turn my head in the other direction before I felt a scorching pain in my stomach as Kotomine drove his fist into the tender flesh of my torso.

"Haaaah—guh…!"

Spittle and blood flew from my mouth, the force of his punch enough to momentarily launch me in the air. Lightning struck as Kotomine launched me several meters upwards with a swift kick. My vision spun as I freely flew through the air, and upon reaching the apex of my launch, the world came to a brief pause before I descended back down like a comet.

Kotomine stood below me, and I fell invitingly onto his awaiting knee as I felt my organs burst and rupture into paste. His fist came next, and it was only through the faintest of reactions that I managed to bring up Excalibur in a hasty guard, one hand flat against the blade to help defend. His blow landed, the sheer force behind the strike enough to shatter the bones in my shoulders, but I managed to stop him from caving in my skull.

Regardless, I was still sent backwards away from the grail, landing in a crumpled mess. Despite the quaking of my knees, I planted my foot down to the ground and forced myself back up, anticipating a blow that never came as instead Kotomine remained where he was. It was strange of him to give me this moment of reprieve, but I looked into his eyes, and I could feel the slight sense of smugness and satisfaction from the normally stoic man.

"He's enjoying this…?"

Perhaps for a person like Kotomine, this fight must have been liberating. No pretenses to uphold, no lies to maintain, no facades to hide underneath. Underneath the haunting glow of the grail behind him, the true Kotomine Kirei was finally allowed to surface.

"… I must admit. This feels quite cathartic." He slowly walked forward, the sound of his footsteps emanating a certain weight behind it yet somehow feeling as invisible as air, fitting for the man known as Kotomine Kirei. "I am finally able to relieve all his anger and frustration. This envy in my heart… if the world will not give me what I crave, then it can go burn."

I flexed my arms tentatively, groaning at the excruciating pain. That was fine. As long as my limbs worked, that was all that mattered.

"So this is all because you can't be happy? You sound pathetic."

"Do not forget that a large part of this ending is due to you, Emiya Shirou. Your pursuit of happiness led to the full manifestation of the grail. In the end, you lost the one you sacrificed so many people for. All you can do now is cut your losses and see if you can save the world you tossed aside."

I clenched my sword even harder, his words bearing down on me suffocatingly. No, engaging in verbal debates with Kotomine would do nothing to me. He was smarter, and he had years upon years to build his resolve and determination. Not to mention, he was completely correct.

He continued, "Besides, this is also me taking out my anger on you."

Suddenly, his footsteps quickened for a brief moment—had he been at full strength, there would not have been a warning—and the priest disappeared again.

This time, I was ready, and Black Keys flew out from the darkness at my face only to be batted aside. I spun on my heel, Excalibur lashing out in a deadly arc to my side just in time. Kotomine jumped back, his forearm bloody and cut. In the last second, his punch had been pulled back, and what should have been a lost arm was only a minor wound.

I clicked my tongue, brows furrowed and lips curled back.

Fire raced up my leg as I darted after him, sword poised at my hip to slash him in half. My sense of pain was still very much there, every instance bringing about even greater heights of agony. That was fine though; it meant I was alive, a reminder I still had to do something in this world.

Clattering of steel resounded throughout the cavern. I clenched my teeth and pushed past his guard, and his last pair of Black Keys shattered like glass. The priest had no more weapons to fight with, forced to use solely his fists. From now on, every strike of mine had to be evaded perfectly, or else the battle would end in an instant.

Unfortunately, my opponent was very much capable of that.

His legs crumpled as he ducked below a horizontal cut that would have cleaved him in two. Barely a fraction of a second passed before he was right in front of me, and my eyes widened briefly before my world exploded in white as Kotomine landed a devastating uppercut. I felt a rush of air before a hand harshly gripped my right hand.

"AHHHH!"

Excalibur clanged on the ground as it fell from my grasp. Kotomine held onto my wrist firmly with no intention of letting go. I may have destroyed his Black Keys, but he had retaliated by breaking my hand and wrist, disarming me in a one fluid motion.

I jumped into the air and spun, using my restrained limb as a pivot. My foot lanced towards his head. It was blocked by his free hand, but it allowed my other leg to rise and kick him under the chin.

He reeled back from the blow, and I launched myself at the dropped sword at his feet. He kicked me in the face in return, determined to not let me arm myself.

I got back up, wiping blood that trailed down my chin. Kotomine put a hand to his chin before sharply twisting, loudly cracking his neck.

I assessed the situation. He and I had both lost our weapons, and seeing how he stood over Excalibur, that fact would not be changing any time soon.

That meant this fight would be decided on martial arts. I could only throw a punch using instinct while Kotomine has had decades to refine his technique. He was also stronger and faster than me by a significant margin. Despite wielding a sword, I had been outmatched beforehand. Now, it was bordering on hopelessness.

"For all this time, I thought I had been alone, suffering in solitude. But then I met you and knowing that there was someone else in this world, struggling and fighting alongside me… perhaps it made the emptiness just a fraction more bearable. You can imagine how I felt then when you had succeeded where I had failed. You had found it, that something," he hissed, acid spitting from his lips as his mouth curled into a snarl. His eyes brimmed with hatred and anger, and his fists clenched hard enough to show the whites of his knuckles. "Something to fill in the void, not with malice or evil but with love. Something genuine and beautiful, a wish so radiant and bright that no one could scorn it. I could see the light in your eyes shining brighter by the day while mine remained dull and vacant. Your ears were filled with sincere vows of love and hope while mine could only hear the eternal whispers of evil. I could see your soul dancing jubilantly and triumphantly through your eyes while my heart has never even skipped a beat. It was a betrayal of the highest degree, the betrayal of oneself. To have someone who could finally understand me fly away from my grasp, bestowed a gift that I could never receive, it was utterly heart wrenching. The anger and loathing I felt towards you and myself during the war, I had never felt such emotions in my life."

He walked towards me, and suddenly I was being held up in his grasp by the collar of my shirt. I laid limp, unsure of how to process exactly what I was hearing. He raised me until our eyes were level, where I could see his blackened eyes, tainted by the grail, burrowing into my soul.

He pulled me closer, and our faces were near enough that I could feel his cold, dead breath on my face. It reeked of death, like a decomposing corpse let out in the sun. It was vile, giving off a stench of wrongness.

"To see you, Emiya Shirou, to see you writhing around in agony and misery, to bear witness to your failures, to have been proven right at the very last moment, at last I feel alive. I must thank you. It was only now that I was able to feel such emotions. You betrayed yourself, and fate responded. This is truly the only fitting end for you."

There was a pregnant silence.

Then finally, a chuckle escaped from my lips, a small gesture of amusem*nt.

It was absurd at how events had unfolded; I could hardly believe what was happening. Regardless, this was reality, and I had no choice but to accept it.

"Perhaps I may have misjudged you, Kotomine." I laughed in his face.

"Hmm?"

I placed a hand onto the arm that held me up. Kotomine's grip was iron, his strength beyond mine, but that didn't matter. I ignored the impossibilities of reality. The constant rumbling or falling debris didn't even register in my mind. The thoughts of the grail or what would come after faded away into nothingness in my mind.

Right now, there was only one thing I could do.

Defeating the enemy in front of me would be Emiya Shirou's last remaining purpose.

"I was wrong about you. You're not some evil mastermind."

My left hand rested on his, snaking between his fingers as I slowly pried myself loose from his grip. His other hand threatened to cave in my skull, but my right hand grabbed onto his wrist. It buckled and shook, but it held, and Kotomine gave a brief expression of surprise as I stopped his blow and continued undoing his hold.

"YOU'RE BATsh*t INSANE!"

Before he could kick my head off, I ripped his arm off me before kicking him in the chest. Kotomine skidded back a few meters, astonished by my show of strength. Registering his opponent was just as motivated as him, he stepped into a martial arts stance.

"It seems like you're finally here, Emiya Shirou. Now, let's settle this."

I could feel it: this would be our last exchange.

I braced myself for the onslaught of fists and kicks that would come. Despite managing to free myself, I was still at a disadvantage. A martial arts contest with Kotomine was suicide. He was still stronger and faster than me.

However, I had one final card to play.

We both stepped forward, muscles coiling and exploding as one step brought both of us into melee range of each other. My left hand was stretched forward into a fist, arcing towards Kotomine's face. His own fist met mine in a violent clash of flesh and bone.

My left hand shattered instantly, the excess force racing up to my shoulder to dislocate it from its joint. Kotomine rammed past my broken guard to slam his hand into my face. The entire left side of my face exploded in pain as knuckles as hard as steel drove itself into my eye. My mind turned to mush as my senses were overwhelmed. My ears rang, and the world blurred into white. A sharp jolt ran through my lower torso, and I felt my stomach rupture like a balloon.

It was fine. I could still move.

My left arm came down in a flash, and the arm that Kotomine had just punched with was now pinned between my own and my torso. There was a loud thud as my feet crashed against the cavern floor, and I saw my tattered and broken reflection, a small glint of metal appearing in the air in front of me.

I snatched the broken remnants of Kotomine's Black Key that I kicked up from the ground, ignoring how the sharp edge dug into my skin. Blood ran down my arm as I held up the crude weapon high over my head. I swung it down like a hammer, and I felt the satisfying pop as steel punctured skin.

I pushed downwards, carving Kotomine's flesh from his face as the makeshift shiv traced a jagged bloody line from his cheek towards his neck. Before I could bathe the both of us in an arterial spray of blood, his free arm came over to block me from gouging out his neck, instead letting me sever the muscles and tendons in his forearm, the priest's shrill screams barely registering in my mind as I made my way down into his chest and out his stomach.

Kotomine's face scrunched together in an agonized expression, his mouth open in a hoarse screech. The back of his hand slammed into my face before he thrusted a palm at my throat. My larynx caved in like paper as I dropped like a bag of rocks, letting go of the weapon and spitting out saliva as I choked back a scream that I couldn't let loose. I laid on the ground, coughing and gagging on air as Kotomine grimaced while holding his torn torso together with one arm to stop his organs from spilling out.

I forced my body back up, strings of willpower pulling my torso and limbs up into a pathetic fighting stance. I curled my ruined fingers into fists, hissing as bone fragments stabbed my body from the inside.

Both of us slowly walked towards each other, neither of our bodies capable of running anymore. We could fall apart at any moment now.

My body was at the brink of collapse, but his was too. Truthfully, I didn't know which one of us was going to die first. Still, I had to fight as if I could hold on forever. I couldn't let thoughts of dying get in the way of what I needed to do.

"Gah—!"

"—Gu, fu…!"

We threw our beaten and destroyed bodies at each other. We were like two madmen; there was now scarcely any technique in our strikes. All we could do was drive our fists forward.

"Ah, Ah—!"

"Gu—nu—!"

Blood flew. The sound of bones breaking upon bones and the feeling of them grinding and gnashing against each other in my body was all I could feel. I could barely breathe. I could barely think. Kotomine had beaten all sense of logic and thought out of me.

Why was I even here?

What did I hope to achieve by coming here?

Didn't I say this battle was meaningless earlier?

My fate was already sealed. Both him and I could disappear at any moment.

So why?

Why was I here?

What did I swear to do?

"Be the hero you were meant to be."

Words echoed in my head. Her name had slipped from my fingers, nothing but a vague recollection of whispered words and mumbles. Her image was flickering in my mind, threatening to fade away to nothingness.

Steel hardened. Resolved gathered. Determination blazed.

Her image was fading, but it was still there. I desperately held onto it like a poor man clutches his coins, that fragile lifeline the last thing separating me from insanity. The vision in my mind cut through the pain and despair, giving me strength in this final, desperate battle.

Emerald orbs that saw everything.

Blonde locks that flowed like liquid gold.

Not just her. There were more. I could hear their whispers in my ear, urging me from across time and space.

That's right. I still had a purpose. I couldn't afford to lose here. Not to him. I had a goal, something worth achieving. Kotomine was simply just mindlessly following his way of life. I had a reason to beat him, a reason to win.

I already failed in saving them. All I could do was honor one final request. There was no reason to live after this. This useless body had to at least try. I had to leave every ounce of my being here.

There was a blur of limbs, fists soaring through the air, loud grunts of pain as we both got hit. We tiredly panted, bringing in preciously small pockets of oxygen before we stepped forward again.

No, that wasn't right. My opponent's eyes matched mine, and I could see the dim glow of purpose in his soul. Something was driving his man, and perhaps the answer laid in his long-winded spiel earlier, but I didn't care about that. I had to crush him and extinguish that fire for good.

My head forcedly twisted as I took a punch straight to my jaw. My right arm connected solidly with his chest. Five digits spread out, my fingers pushing into the gaping open wound on his chest. They dug inside, grabbing a hold of the slab of flesh that was his torse and pulled.

"AHHHHHHHH!"

Muscles and skin tore. Kotomine screamed, the sound only encouraging me to continue as I knew that whatever I was doing was killing him.

His hand came around to grip mine, and the priest threw me off him. I landed barely on my feet, panting heavily. My opponent cradled his injured chest, coughing and breathing erratically as he struggled to recover. Finally gathering the necessary strength, he turned his body and tackled me, his shoulder driving into my sternum and knocking the wind out of me. He poised himself, co*cking back his rock-hard fists and lightning-fast legs before sending a flurry of blows at me.

"Tell me: what did you think would happen when you came here?!"

One blow and I couldn't see out of my left eye.

"GAH!"

"Did you think everything was going to magically work out?"

Two blows and I coughed up a disgusting mass of organs and blood.

"Bluh—!"

"Did you think you were some superhero from a story?"

Three blows and my ribcage splintered and cracked like a twig.

"—Ugh..!"

"That you were going to come in here—"

Four blows and I spat out teeth and blood.

"Fu—!"

"—rescue everyone, save the world—"

Five blows and my lungs ruptured and collapsed.

"—, Ah…!"

"—and go have your happy little fairy tale ending?!"

Six blows and I could sense my opponent slowing down.

"Ah, Ah, Ah—Ah…!"

"With such weak resolve? This is the height of arrogance, Emiya Shirou!"

The seventh blow was coming.

Kotomine co*cked back his arm, putting everything he had left into one final punch at my face.

He was winning so far. I was completely overwhelmed. My blows were either parried or dodged, and whatever strikes were landed were returned twofold onto me. His punches were devasting, and his kicks could blitz lightning.

I was going to lose. It was the unfortunate truth. The inevitability of this night was cruel. He was stronger than me, and despite both of our dying states, that difference in strength wasn't going to change enough to matter.

But if I didn't move, I would die. It was plain fact. I couldn't stand here and take his hits for nothing. If I was going to win, it would have to be through my own hands.

"This is the end, Emiya Shirou!" Kotomine screamed, and his fist flew towards me. If it landed, my head would explode instantly. There was no guard against his attack. Any defense I could put up would have been broken.

My legs weren't working anymore. I couldn't dodge. I had to strike him first before he could kill me…!

My body still moved.

I wouldn't die here.

This was my final chance. There was nothing left if I missed this opportunity. I had to put all my remaining life into this one miraculous hope…!

My right arm moved, my empty hand lancing towards him. But my reach was too short, and his fist would cave in my skull while I would hit nothing but air.

On the brink of death, my mind was barely working. Through the haze in my mind, a name rose to the surface, fighting through my clouded brain before shining brightly at the top, and a word slipped out of my mouth.

"Sa… ber…"

A bullet shot through the air, wind displaced at supersonic speeds as Excalibur rose from the ground, tracing a length of twilight across the cavern to dart towards Kotomine and I.

THUMP!

The familiar hilt of the sword meatily slapped against my palm as my arm continued its fatal sweep without missing a beat.

The sword's razor-sharp edge sliced through Kotomine's shoulder. The fist that should have crushed my head instead sailed through the air along with Kotomine's right arm, spinning end of end and spraying arterial blood like a fountain.

The priest's eyes widened slightly, and he bore through the pain with an agonized expression before launching an attack with his other arm.

Excalibur moved before I could, and the black blade intercepted the blow before it could land. Kotomine's left hand landed on the ground with a sickening squelch, his arm bisected from the elbow down.

"Ah—Impossible…!"

Get lost. Go to hell.

If I failed here, then everything would have been for naught.

How could I face them in the afterlife if I couldn't defeat him here?

It was a selfish wish. Saving the world? A centuries-old wish? No… All I cared about was completing at least one of the things I had ventured into this cavern for.

"Kotomine—"

I roared from the bottom of my obliterated lungs. He took a step backward, and I followed him with my own. I leveled Excalibur straight at his chest, where I knew his black and tainted heart still beat.

"—Kirei!"

I thrusted Excalibur forward. My strike hit true, the edge of darkness biting into Kotomine's chest. I pushed through, piercing through bone and organs and muscle, skewering the priest's corrupted heart before Excalibur exploded out of his back, dripping dark vile blood. I pressed on further, until the sword's hilt was flush with Kotomine's chest. I let the weapon sit inside of him for a brief moment before I stepped back, pulling out Excalibur with a quick flourish, sending an arc of his dirty blood off to the side.

The priest looked down at the hole in his chest, not too dissimilar to the one his servant had given me on the fateful day. His expression had reverted to his usual muted demeanor, his eyes glazed over in boredom and acceptance. To him, there was no use in denying what had just happened. The reality was as clear as day.

"… So this is how it ends. You were a traitor to the end. You were never alone." His eyes panned down to the sword in my hands, his face and eyes blank and void. Despite his words, there was no bite in his voice. "At least I was able to fulfill my role in the very end. It was brief… but I'm not dissatisfied."

He had lost. An unaccounted factor had been his downfall. As the overseer of the war, it was his responsibility to accept what happened and continue on with his duty.

"This is your victory, Emiya Shirou, if it can even be called that. Go. I suggest you hurry. You have preciously little time."

His delivery was monotone. It was the farthest thing from a congratulatory celebration. We both knew we had already lost the moment we had stood against each other earlier. All of this was for the sake of not losing any more.

"Kotomine…"

"You are the last Master. Go to the Holy Grail and fulfill your wish."

The last Master.

Even now, he found a way to make everything bitter. The man truly pissed me off.

He sounded disinterested, just like when he had introduced me to this war that night. That spark of life I had briefly seen in our fight was gone, and he had reverted to his usual self. Or perhaps the priest had died after imparting his final words.

"Whatever. Rot in hell, you damned priest."

I walked past him without another word.

Correction: I dragged my legs towards the grail. My legs no longer functioned properly.

The man didn't so much as lift a finger to stop me. Even if he could, even if he was alive, there was no point.

Before I could completely pass him, I saw his lips curve into a small smirk.

I scoffed.

Bastard.

The crunch of falling rocks and howling of the grail filled the cavern.

Up close, it was even more repulsive than from afar. The feeling of utter wrongness was far more magnified now, an almost primal sensation of unpleasantness hitting my body. Every iota of my being told me to run, to get away from this revolting thing, an instinctual fear engraved in every human.

There was no doubt about it.

This was Angra Mainyu.

The enemy of humanity, malevolence incarnate.

The Zoroastrian God of Evil.

The source of all evil in the world.

I could see the unborn god within the black pillar, its eyes following my every move as I slowly made my way towards it. It was almost magnetic; while I wanted to run away from it, a part of me was attracted to it.

"You too, huh?"

Angra Mainyu was the God of Evil, but before that, it had been just a boy from a village, chosen to bear the evils of humanity for not even his sake, but for the benefit of others. I'm sure he didn't have a choice, never had a say. It was something thrust onto him. He had been chosen for no other reason than because he was there.

It was created to be the greatest evil. The fact that it sought to consume the world, covering it in its sinful grasp, was something I didn't blame it for. It was only fulfilling its duty as humanity's scapegoat, a representation of the darkness they hold deeply in their hearts.

Kotomine had said that it was unfair to assume Angra Mainyu was evil. He had wanted to know the meaning of an unwanted birth, the worth of a worthless life. If it was okay to live despite being different from others, even if one's existence meant destroying and losing everything.

At first, his argument disgusted me, but now… I wasn't so sure.

Was it a crime to live, even if your birth was defective, even if you were unwanted, even if living meant destruction and chaos?

I had pardoned Sakura for her actions, believing in my heart that she never truly wanted any of this, that she was merely suffering from machinations of things beyond her. I had said that she was a good person, one of the purest people I know, and in the end, it was those words that had caused her to take her own life.

But pardoning Sakura and Angra Mainyu meant that I had to pardon Kotomine Kirei as well, the empty man simply doing what he did in order to fill the hole in his heart. Just as Sakura was forced to bear the curse of the Shadow and Angra Mainyu was made to hold to burden of humanity's evils, Kotomine Kirei was an existence that sought only to feel what he could not.

And by extension, what did that make of me as well?

Good.

Evil.

Justice.

Sin.

The terms spiraled around in my head like a jumbled mess. I let them sit on the tip of my tongue, finding their taste all too foreign. What did they even mean? In the past, the answer had seemed so simple but now… it was all so confusing.

But did it even matter?

Good and evil meant nothing to me now.

The justice I believed in disappeared when I decided to save Sakura. The answer I held in my heart vanished when the same person I wanted to save killed herself instead—her own salvation. In the end, Sakura had viewed herself as evil, judging her own worth with her own eyes.

"You were a bad person all along, Sakura." I looked up at the grail, the massive pillar of darkness towering over me. The distorted embryo looks down on me, sensing a change in my resolve. "I shouldn't have said you did nothing wrong. I'm sorry."

I wasn't sure if I would ever be able to agree with those words, but it wasn't my judgement that mattered, only hers.

Excalibur rose, my broken hands holding it in a loose grip. I had no more strength left in my fingers. It was all I could do to hold it up.

"It's okay. I'm a bad person too."

I had committed crimes to follow my own justice. What I thought was my conviction was just an excuse. For once, I wanted to be selfish, to fulfill what my heart longed for. But I already knew that, and I had never exempted myself from my sins, and neither had Sakura from hers. We both judged ourselves guilty but believed the other to be free of such crimes. Ultimately, it was an irreconcilable difference. We were hypocrites, through and through.

I could feel myself slipping away, my consciousness fading in and out. The world around me seemed so faint, colors dimming and lights blurring. I was hanging on by a thread, a fragile strand of sanity that could snap at any moment.

A deep rumble resonated throughout the cavern, no doubt emanating from the blackened catalyst in front of me.

"… It's okay. I'll free you from your burden…"

The Holy Grail must have sensed my resolve and in response, the shaking of the cavern intensified.

Unpleasantness and anger filled my stomach.

The feeling of a thousand insects crawling underneath my skin pervaded my senses.

It was a disgusting thing, a well-intentioned wish twisted into a grotesque shadow. A poor boy forced to carry the burden of all the evils of this world.

The grail continued shaking violently, the tentative calm between us broken. It roared and battered against its vessel, trying to be born into this world.

I would not let it.

How ironic. It craved life despite its sole purpose being to extinguish it.

Its body was not ready yet. It can't come out. By the time it can finish creating a suitable body, I will have already destroyed it.

A cough escaped from my mouth, and the pain sent me down to my knees. From the taste of copper on my lips, I knew that I did not have much longer to live.

My magic circuits had long since been burnt out, the power I had forced through them overpowering their meager capacity.

Tohsaka had once said that to be a magus was to walk with death. Magic beyond my limits would destroy me, she had once reminded. It was a miracle in the first place that I had made it this far.

Nevertheless, I pushed forward.

I was already dead. I had already accepted that fact.

I didn't need to think about what I could or could not do, only what I had to do. Probabilities and impossibilities no longer existed, only a mission and the will to see it through. I had failed earlier and even before that, but here and now… this, I could do.

I moved onward.

I would destroy the grail with every ounce of power remaining in my body. It didn't matter if I was out of energy. Emiya Shirou would simply push beyond his limits to find more strength.

"Are you ready… Saber?"

The true owner of the sword had already passed away. It was just me desperately clinging onto my last memories. Yet through this blade, I could feel just a fraction of her warmth. I let it wash over me, the sensation empowering me in these final moments.

It started out as just a speck of light, barely even perceivable in the darkness. One by one, it multiplied, each dot growing brighter and brighter like fireflies dancing in the night, until the mass of lights swallowed the blade whole.

It was a cozy heat, a fire that didn't burn, exuding a comforting glow that brought forth memories of better times. I could only look at the sword in wonder, confused by the phenomenon before me until my eyes widened at the miracle I was bearing witness to.

The black blade of Excalibur, tainted and corrupted by the Shadow, was slowly losing its ebony edge. Specks of darkness flaked off the weapon before vanishing into air, motes of light slowly but surely purifying the tainted sword.

The shadowy blade was gone, replaced by a length of sunlight illuminating the cavern and piercing the shadow of the grail. Black and scarlet gave way to royal purple and gold, the regal colors adorning the weapon once again.

This was the true Excalibur in all its glory, the favored weapon of the King of Knights, the greatest of all kings. The sword glistened and sparkled in my hands, and I couldn't help the small smile gracing my lips. How could I not? Its light was magnificent, purer than the clearest of waters and more captivating than a thousand sunsets. It was the very same light that blessed the servant of the sword, the woman that I had fallen in love with.

Even from the grave, she was truly extraordinary.

—Let's go.

There was still one final thing for me to do.

I forced my broken fingers tight around the handle, the searing pain of bone knifing into my flesh keeping me grounded into reality. I released the last drops of my magical energy, feeding it into the noble phantasm. At first, it was reluctant, knowing that I would die from it. I poured even more energy into it, my mind set on this method. It finally relented to my insistence, accepting that this was the only way, and drank in my energy, every sip from the blade bringing me closer to death.

Excalibur shone even brighter, its radiant sunlight causing the cavern to quake even harder as Angra Mainyu struggled to break free from the grail.

It was a meager amount. Excalibur could barely be considered charged, the magical energy in it currently merely a drop in the ocean that Saber could have provided. Alas, she was not here, and her weapon would have to make do with me. Regardless, it was sufficient to destroy the evil in front of me.

I took a deep breath.

Names had power. Noble phantasms could only be activated by their owners. Before, I had bypassed that rule, my ability to trace weapons and memories allowing me use invoke their true powers as if I had wielded them originally.

But that was with traced weapons. Excalibur was a divine construct, the most sublime weapon that I have ever held, and it was created not in my mind but handed to me straight from its owner.

And yet somehow, I felt that despite my protests, the sword had accepted me as its wielder, and such a thought would not be an issue.

Its name was on my lips, ready to be called, to put an end to this nightmare.

A slight pause.

I was going to die if I did this, that was a fact. I was going to destroy my mind and soul if I pushed forward.

I didn't mind. It might even be considered a relief.

But would they have wanted me to choose this ending?

The world that I wanted, with everyone here. To save them, I had to save myself as well.

—Impossible.

I had already failed them. There was no saving them, just as there was no saving me.

There was no point in returning from here. I had already lost everything. Whether or not I lived or died was of little consequence.

There was no other way.

"EX—"

I called upon the sword, victory bitter but for certain.

"—CA—"

Golden light swallowed the cavern.

"—LI—"

"I'll be seeing you guys now."

"You're not dying here, Shirou. I'll be the one who shuts down the gate."

Time froze.

Mechanically, arms still poised to strike, and my feet firmly entrenched into the ground, I twisted my torso to look behind me.

She was a fairy. No other words could describe the sight. Her small stature was only highlighted by the snow-white dress she had donned, the elegant cloth hugging her petite frame. In the light of Angra Mainyu behind me, she seemed to glow, her flowing silver hair trailing behind her like a ghost, looking every bit as ethereal as the mysterious little girl I first met in that park playground.

It was an impossibility, a glitch in the world.

"…. Illya?"

The name pierces through the haziness in my mind, her name finding its familiar home on my lips.

Illyasviel should not—could not—be here.

She should have been at home, safe, away from this chaos and destruction. She was perhaps the sole thing I had managed to protect in my life, one success amongst a mountain of failures. I had left her behind to ease my worries, and if all else failed, I at the very least knew that she was safe. In the chaos of the night, she had slipped entirely from my mind, and it was now that she was making her return.

If she was here…

"Illya… what are you doing here?"

She looked at me bewilderedly, a puzzled expression crossing her fair face. "What does it look like? I'm here to save you," she said. Her nonchalant reply only served to widen the growing pit in my stomach even further.

My eyes widened at her words, and I frantically shook my head in disbelief. "No… no… you can't…"

"Because you'll die."

The words go unspoken, the silent message clear between the two siblings.

"And I suppose you can?" Pools of crimson drilled into me, peering and scrutinizing, trying to burrow into the depths of my soul.

"You don't understand. The others… they're gone. I was too weak, and they died because of it. If I don't do this, what can I do?!" I inadvertently roared, immediately regretting my tone at raising my tone towards someone who didn't do anything wrong.

Illyasviel took it in stride, not bothering by my scream, her face as blank as ever.

—No, wait, there was a hint of hurt in those crimson pools, but not at my voice. At something else.

"So the others are gone, then," Illya stated evenly as if she was reciting the morning news.

"Rider saved me against Saber. She threw herself in front of me because I was too slow, too weak. And then Saber… I…—" My voice faltered, words failing me as I recalled the vivid memories prior.

Illya remained stone-faced, her expression unmoved.

"I thew away Rider's sacrifice for nothing… I didn't even save my own servant… and Tohsaka... she was waiting for me that whole time. By the time I got to her… her body was mutilated. I could barely recognize her corpse… But her eyes… I can still see them, telling me how much I failed!"

My knees wobbled before my legs collapsed entirely. I braced my arms, propping my torso up but not finding the will to stand back up. My fingers clenched, my nails digging miniature trenches into the ground as they bled.

"Sakura… I managed to cut off her connection to the grail… but she chose to kill herself anyway… in the end, I couldn't do a single thing!" My fist slammed into the dirt, sharp rock stabbing into my hands and cutting my body further open. "And now you're telling me to let you die too!"

Dainty footsteps became louder, the crunching of rock almost deafening until it stopped in front of me.

"Get up, Shirou."

Her words were blunt, not a trace of emotion within her command. But the harsh response jolted my body, and my legs straightened on their own as I rose from the ground. I stood back up, my back slouched and my head down, but I was standing regardless. I towered over the girl in front of me, but her presence dwarfed mine as her red gaze pinned me underneath those eyes.

"Pull yourself together. Don't cry over this. Don't disrespect their memories like that."

Her words hurt. They were like barbed arrows biting into my flesh. I could feel them cutting my spirit into pieces, but while my heart remained heavy, my body moved of its own volition.

"There's time to grieve later. You still have a mission to complete."

I could barely trust my voice, my response weak and pathetic. "… That's why I'm going to be the one to close the grail."

My one task. I couldn't save anyone, so I might as well have made myself useful.

Illyasviel shook her head.

"Did you forget the promise you made to us? The promise you made to me?"

It was a distant memory, a promise made what felt like an eternity ago. The words were jumbled in my head, the oath scattered to the winds of the Earth as they faded into nothingness. But the feelings in my heart, they were buried deep down. Like faint pinpricks in the back of my mind, distant but present, stirred awake by the one who had made them.

"Do you remember? You had sworn to save us all. You can't save us if you are dead. You have to live, for our sakes and yours."

A pang of hurt lanced through my chest as I recalled what had happened earlier.

Rider's sweet smile that showed not an ounce of regret of her sacrifice, only that we could not have spent more time together.

Saber's eyes of gratitude thanking me for everything I had done as she was swallowed by the darkness.

Tohsaka's face twisted in betrayal as the one she waited for never came.

Sakura's cries of lament as she bled out in my arms, questioning why everything had fallen apart.

"Everyone else is gone. There's no one to save, and you're still telling me that I have to save myself…"

It took everything I had to get to this moment. I had carried their memories to this point, not letting myself forget the feelings they had implanted inside of me. The weight of their hopes and dreams had been crushing, but I had persevered. Still, I could feel myself suffocating, slowly but surely being crushed.

Illya looked up at me, a sad, pitying smile on her face as her eyes peered into mine. "It's a selfish wish, I know, but you can't die here, Shirou. Not yet. You said everyone was dead? Did you forget about me? As long as I live and breathe, you can't die yet. Don't go throwing away your life while I'm still here."

She turned around, putting her back to me as she looked forward at the grail. Her silhouette contrasted against its eerie glow, the shadow of her petite stature seemingly larger than the expanse of the cavern itself.

"But you'll die here, so what's the point? I'll just die right after you. This way, I can at least save you," I argued.

My body was battered and broken. Blood poured out of open wounds, and my mind was slowly breaking down. My magical circuits were overloaded and burnt out. My very soul was damaged beyond repair. At least this one, I could save one important person to me.

Illyasviel turned her head half-way towards me, those crimson orbs coolly gazing at me in their periphery. "Like I said, you won't die here. I'll shut down the grail. As for what comes after, well, I'm not too sure—" Illya closed her eyes, her resolve wavering just the slightest bit before they opened once again, newfound determination present in her irises "—but I'm sure you'll find a way."

I smiled a sad smile. "You hope for too much."

Illyasviel shook her head. "If anyone can bring about a miracle, it would be you, Shirou. This world favors you, you know. All of us, we've always been awestruck at how you made things so easy, the impossible possible, bringing about change everywhere you go as if you commanded the winds of fate itself. You're dying, yes. Your soul damaged, yes. But you won't die. Somehow, some way, I can feel it in my heart. You'll pull through."

"… This world… favors me? After all this?"

She didn't make any sense. Just like Saber. Just like Sakura. She was going on about things that time and again were proven wrong to me.

"Do you believe in miracles, Shirou?"

It was a rhetorical question, one she followed up immediately.

"I do. Even with everything I've endured, all the misery I embraced, all the pain I shouldered, all of it was worth it because I met you Shirou."

Her words reached me somehow, yet I was unable to reply.

"I came to Japan to kill you, you know. And now, I'm leaving it to save you. What else could such a funny twist of fate be called?" She let out a melancholic sigh as memories of the past poured into her mind. "All of us, we're destiny's slaves. But you? You're different. You're a slave to nothing. You're free. If it's you, you can reach the end of your story in your own way. That's what I like so much about you."

She smiled and looked at the glowing weapon in my hands. "The miracle you gave me, Shirou—the miracle Saber entrusted to you—perhaps you can be saved as well."

Illya fully turned her body towards me, and I felt miniscule before the weight of her presence. Those scarlet pools peered at me, and in that instant, I knew that she completely believed everything she was saying. There was not an iota of deceit in her eyes, every word itself coming straight from the song of her truth.

"You failed before, but that has nothing to do with anything. Shirou, you resolved to be a Hero of Justice for us, so you must be a hero. You have to live no matter what, for us. No matter what it takes or what you have to sacrifice, this is the only way you can reach that happy ending you yearn for."

She made to speak again, but her words failed to come out of her mouth. Her hands trembled and shook, her fingers clenched in a fist as she recalled memories of times best left forgotten. Her eyes quivered, crimson orbs brimming with tear drops on the cusp of falling before she quickly wiped them away.

"Don't betray me, Shirou. Everyone in my life was a liar and a traitor. Everywhere I turned, it was all liars and fakes. People who wanted to exploit me for their own goals. I was surrounded by enemies. I had no one I could call an ally or friend. At least, until I met you."

Her words echoed clearly in the cavern despite the cacophony of buffeting winds and falling rocks in the cavern. She didn't raise her voice; the air itself carried her message straight to my ears. I could sense the hurt and hatred in her voice as she remembered her powerlessness, the feeling of the world bearing down suffocatingly.

"You changed that. I came here to kill you, but what I found wasn't some traitorous bastard child, but an empty person just trying to live. I pitied you, and I thought to myself, 'There's no way this is who I was abandoned for'. Then you started to learn how to be human, and I could finally see if maybe then you would reveal yourself to me."

Her voice softened, her expression vulnerable and delicate. I made to raise a hand, to stop her—if it hurt so much, then there was no need—but I could see traces of a small smile on her face, and my arm dropped.

Illyasviel… she needed this. Both for me and for her.

"I didn't know if I could trust you at first. I tried to let down my guard around you, to see if you would take advantage of me just like everyone before you, but you never did. You never saw me as an enemy or a tool or anything. You never really saw me as Illyasviel von Einzbern, master of the Holy Grail War. Only Illya, just a girl you met at a park. And it was after realizing that fact that I fell apart. You shattered me, tainting me with your song of miracles, showing me visions of truth and worlds of impossibilities. Just like Saber and Rin and Sakura and Rider, you broke me, bit by bit over time, until I couldn't help but be swayed by your tune. That's how I feel, and that's how everyone else felt too."

Illya steeled herself, shaking away the chaotic emotions in her heart. "So no, you can't die here. Don't make me an idiot for putting my faith in another person. I trust you with all my heart. Please don't go breaking it. This is your blessing as well as your curse."

She looked back at me, sorrow shimmering on the surface of her eyes before they hardened over in determination. Firm and resolute. Orbs of scarlet that would not budge. I would know; I had seen those same eyes before on myself. I knew there was no convincing her out of her decision. But every fiber of my being protested her choice, my very soul screaming out to stop her.

"… You know I can't just let you toss your life away, right?"

She smiled, anticipating my words. "I wouldn't expect anything else. But you don't seem to understand: my life was already forfeit. I'm going to die anyway. I might as well die on my own terms, saving the one I love."

Wait, what—

"You're going to… die…?" The words slipped out of my mouth, my brain unable to comprehend what I had uttered. The sound of something hitting the ground filled the silence before I realized it was the sound of my legs collapsing and my knees crashing on rock.

She gave me a smile tinged with sadness. "The Einzberns wanted the ultimate master. One that would win for certain. One that would not disobey them. They changed me, making me suffer, all for the sake of the grail. At best, I would have a year or two from now to live. But the time would be spent without you, so it would not be a life worth anything. Just mere empty experiences, no memories of worth. If that's the case, I'd rather die here."

My heart throbbed at her confession, and I clenched a fist, waves of anger and betrayal running through my body. "And why did you never tell me this? If you were going to die anyway…"

Then she never could have been saved.

The realization hurt. I had failed before I had even begun. There was no future where I could have saved everyone. All this time, my efforts had been in futility, and the dream I wanted to reach so desperately had always been out of my reach.

"I didn't want you to pity me. I just wanted you to treat me like a normal girl. Whatever was between us, I wanted it to be genuine. I didn't want any deceit, but I guess it was me who messed it up at the start," she admitted. "Well, it's fine. You forgot about me and our promise earlier. I guess we're bound to hurt each other one way or another. That's just the way things are, I suppose. Even still, I want to save you Shirou."

Her words echoed within me, resonating with the wish I held closest to my heart. But it was the exact reason that she and I couldn't ever agree on this matter. I could hear the slow, rhythmic sound of her walking away,

"… Wait…" My voice came out like a feeble whisper. I braced myself, planting one foot in front of me. My knee buckled and shuddered, but I managed to keep my balance. I stabbed Excalibur into the ground, using it as a cane to prop myself up. My other arm rose weakly, reaching out to stop the girl.

The pitter patter of her footsteps stopped, and my heart rose that maybe she had come to her senses. But then her hands balled into fists, her shoulders trembling in silent frustration. She twisted around, and I felt a void open in my chest at her expression. Her pale albino face was flushed red, and a rainfall of tears spilled free from her crimson orbs, her repressed emotions finally flooding out.

"Shirou, do you think this is easy for me? Do you think I want to die? Do you think I want to throw my life away?"

My eyes widened in surprise at her barely restrained anger, and my words died in my throat. What came out instead was feeble and hesitant. "Then don't…. You have a choice, Illya… Don't do this."

"Choice," she hissed. Baleful red eyes glared at me, and I paused at the maelstrom of emotions radiating from the small girl. "Don't talk to me about choice. I never had a choice. I never had the chance to do something I wanted. I never had my choice matter."

Just like before. My selfish intentions were hurting the ones I loved. Just like with Sakura, and now with Illyasviel. But I pressed on nonetheless. "I've giving you a choice now. Just run away and leave this to me."

"Do you even hear yourself?! How could I possibly do that?!" Her lips curled back in a snarl, and her magical output increased as blades of wind viciously swirled around her. "How could you tell me to leave you here, after everything you've done for me?! After everything we've been through?! You would have me leave you here to die when I can finally do something?!"

Her anger rose with each word, her fury evident with each scathing remark. Her long flowing white hair whipped around her, and the ground around her splintered and cracked as tendrils of prana lashed out. Sharp winds buffeted me, and small shards of rock sliced my body with shallow cuts. I involuntarily stepped back, only realizing my mistake after the fact and made to walk towards her.

It was reminiscent of my first encounter with Sakura's darkened self. She had been as silent as a ghost, almost a glitch in the fabric of reality, but her mere presence had sent shivers down my spine.

Waves of palpable suffocating rage radiated from the small girl, twisting the air around her into a miniature maelstrom, the girl in its center looking every bit the image of an enraged witch. Just as I feared she would unleash her pent-up energy, the violent storm of energy around her dissipated, and Illyasviel's body went slack as her anger subsided as quickly as it had appeared. She looked down, a long curtain of white obscuring her face, but her voice reached me nonetheless, a quiet whisper amidst the howls of the grail.

"I… I finally have a choice. I finally have the chance to do something that matters. It's a terrible choice, yes. I want nothing more than to stay here with you, replacing all these painful memories of loneliness and suffering with happy ones of you. But sometimes we have to choose the better of two bad decisions, and sometimes a choice isn't really a choice. Even though I'm a homunculus, this is a choice I'm making purely out of my own free will. Not as a tool for others. Not as a toy to play with, but as a human being, as Illya." Her eyes lingered on mine, each moment agonizingly stretched out to infinity, before finally drawing away, and Illya turned and resumed her walk.

It was no use. Illya wanted this. Her resolve was greater than mine. Neither of us ever had anything in our hands up to now in our lives.

The rumbling of the cavern increased. Boulders the size of men fell all around us, each one more than capable of crushing me into paste. The shaking of the cavern was like an earthquake, and I fell to the ground as the ground shook and rumbled. The aura of evil was at its peak now, and my chest tightened at the sheer wrongness that exuded from the grail.

Angra Mainyu was coming.

A particularly strong shake destroyed my balance, knocking me off my feet and sending my pathetically sprawling on the ground. I got onto my knees, and another earthquake brought to back to meet the sharp, rocky floor. Excalibur fell from my grasp, fingers weakly grasping at the weapon out of my reach.

Illya looked like she barely noticed, remaining standing and giving the large black prison a blank stare out of the corner of her eye, regarding it impassively with a hint of annoyance as if it was a minor nuisance. "I suppose it's time. The grail isn't going to wait much longer. I guess—" she hesitated "—this is our goodbye."

She looked like she had more to say, but she bit her tongue, her eyes holding my gaze for a few more lengthy moments before she pulled away. She spun on her heels, her dress fluttering behind her like the cape of a superhero. Her stance was rigid and strong, unwavering and unfaltering despite the monumental task ahead of her—to sacrifice her own life and defeat a god. The quaking of the grail and the maleficent aura radiating from it didn't deter her at all, and in that moment, I knew who was the stronger one between us.

I paused.

Everything made sense.

Illya said she was going to die. There was a slim chance I could still survive. Logically, it made sense for her to be the sacrifice.

I hated it.

It elicited an ugly feeling in my soul, a sense of hopelessness that I've felt over and over and over.

Another person I loved was going to die.

It made me seethe in frustration and anger.

—I paused.

Why did I come here?

Just to sit around and watch?

To watch as the last person I hold dear toss her life away for me?

No, that couldn't be it.

Shirou Emiya would not idly sit by when there was something he could do – even there if there was nothing he could do.

I came here to save the ones I loved.

A simple, dying wish, one that I still held on to.

—Then there was no reason to think about it anymore.

My body forced itself back onto its feet, like a marionette pulled up by its strings. Legs broken over a dozen times over creaked and screamed at its joints harshly grated upon itself, broken bones and torn ligaments roughly sliding against each other to move the dead body. Bloody fingers reached for the blade beside it, stabbing the weapon into the ground and using the blackened holy sword as a crutch. An ugly sound came from my body as I pushed myself fully onto my feet, groaning in agony as I slowly chased after the girl in front of me.

Illya turned back around, her eyes displaying not a single iota of surprise, instead showing equal parts sadness and acceptance tinged with another emotion I could not decipher. She reached up into her hair, dainty fingers plucking out two delicate strands of white. They floated through the air, slowly descending until Illya muttered a spell, and suddenly they morphed into her favored wireframe birds. A few strands of magical wire shot out, wrapping themselves around my wrists and ensnaring my arms. The magical wire dug into my skin, not cutting into the flesh as I knew they could but serving only to imprison the one they were attached to. They flew backwards, pulling me towards them, and it was all I could do to resist them, effectively immobilizing and keeping me in place.

"Damn it!" I pulled and tugged, but in my weakened state, I couldn't manage to free myself from Illya's trap. I barely managed to keep Excalibur in my grip, and I whipped my head towards Illya, my eyes wide in panic and frustration. "You'd go this far?!"

"Sorry, but this is for the best. The world is cruel, making me do this, but this is the only way to save you," she said sadly.

"Save me?! You're going to die! Doesn't that mean anything to you?! Don't you want to live?!"

Illya shook her head. "Living without you would simply not be worth it. This is just the logical course of action. And besides, I'm not really going to die. Not in the way that truly matters, at least. I was saved in the end. This is just my way of repaying that."

My hand clenched around Excalibur. I brought its sharp edge closer to the strings, my arms trembling as I excruciatingly came closer and closer to cutting the infuriating trap.

Suddenly, the unbearably small distance between the sword and string widened, and I sharply gasped in surprise as I felt an immense force pulling back against my right arm, one even greater than the magical constructs I was fighting against. My right arm was spread wide, and it took a moment to realize just where the new resistance was coming from.

"… Saber… you would…?"

Red eyes closed in finality as the result was decided at last.

"Thank you, Saber. I'll do my part as well."

My vision was filled with Illya's turned back, the final battle between us ending in her victory as she walked away. She held out her hands, a ball of light appearing in her grasp, a shining star in the pitch-black darkness.

"The point of living is to not leave behind any regrets. Even if it's all meaningless, even if you achieve nothing. As long as you love being alive, that's all that matters. And yet, people are like moths, eternally chasing the flame of gods and deities, unknowing that true salvation comes from within, but this light I hold in my hands is my very own." The star grew bigger, its harsh blinding light almost engulfing the girl.

I screamed myself hoarse out in anger.

Anger at the unfairness of it all.

Anger at the world.

Anger at myself.

I kept screaming, but my voice had already failed, nothing coming out of my mouth except for pathetic croaks.

"Hey Shirou, why do people live?" Illyasviel asked. "In the depths of that castle, that question was something that I constantly thought of. What did I do wrong? Why did I bear all this pain? What was the point of anything? Why not just end it all? I thought I knew the truth, and I let something evil and sinister be my answer—" her eyes darkened in regret and shame before they shone once again "—but you showed me the way. The reason why people cherish their lives and the ones around them with smiles on their faces—I forgot it was for something so simple."

I didn't care. All I wanted was to save her.

"Shirou, do you know what you have been entrusted with?"

The weight in my hands felt heavier at her words.

"You don't have to answer right now, but until you can find your answer, never stop moving. Agonize and think. That's your duty as a hero—to reach the end of your story in your own way."

What? What the hell was she talking about? What bullsh*t was she saying? What was more important than the present? Why couldn't she let me save her?

Illyasviel sighed wistfully. "It wasn't so bad after all. I'm glad I met you and everyone else. I wished it could have been for longer, but that's just the way things are."

"If that's how you feel, then don't do, idiot."

But my thoughts remained unspoken, and all I could do was watch helplessly.

"You said you'd protect me because the older brother protects his younger sister. But I'm the older sister, so I have to protect my younger brother."

I raged against my chains, a rainfall of tears flooding my eyes despite having thought of them empty and dried.

"It's just a fleeting hope… but maybe since we're family, I can create my own miracles as well."

And there, finally, amidst the light, I saw it: the flutter of her white hair as she looked over her shoulder for one final time, showing me the last smile of a girl free of regret.

"Hey Shirou, in your next life, remember us, remember me, would you? I hope you finally find your own happiness. But for now, this is goodbye. Thank you… for everything,"

Illya smiled goodbye.

"I love you, Shirou."

And light consumed the world.

In that moment, there existed two wishes.

One wanted to live happily in a world with the one she loved most.

The other wanted a world in which the one she loved most lived happily.

But the world was cruel, and destiny was as harsh as it was immutable.

However, the wishes were not made by any two ordinary girls.

The first wish was heard by the world, a plea to rewrite history so her savior could be saved. She sought to make the impossible possible, to change the course of fate in order to create the ending she desired. But her request was too much, and the wheels of fate she wanted to overthrow continued to turn unhampered. In the face of destiny, her powers were but a cog, unable to change anything.

It was a sad thing, an unfulfilled wish.

But through space and time, a similar hope was shared.

She wanted a world where her hero could attain the happiness that had always eluded him. Uncaring for anything else or even her own desires, she poured her heartfelt plea into that one wish.

She knew it was a fleeting hope, and she knew that she was praying for an impossible miracle, but she had to try.

The blood of magi ran in her veins, and the essence of magic sat at her fingertips, but despite all her gifts, the one who made such a desperate request was not the supernatural magician she was known as, but a simple, ordinary girl—a sister who wanted nothing more than her brother's happiness.

And despite all odds, she kept her promise. Even though they were family only by name, she too was able to weave together a miracle.

Illyasviel made a wish, and the grail answered.

Even though it was corrupted, the holy grail was still a wish-granting device. Despite the presence of the spirit inside of it, it could not deny its nature—to fulfill the desires of those around it. While it may realize those wishes indirectly, the end result is still the actualization of the wish.

Reality unraveled and twisted.

Space and time warped and bent.

And through it all, a singular, lonely existence made its way through the rift.

A single spark could ignite a firestorm.

A single wish could move the world.

And a single soul could change fate itself.

Like a raindrop falling into the ocean, Emiya Shirou joined the sea of souls of a world unknown to him.

The flap of a butterfly's wings, so small and menial in nature, could eventually become a storm that swallows the world.

History has always been dictated by the small actions of the many culminating into an upsurge of change that could alter the course of destiny itself.

But Emiya Shirou had always been an exception, and the addition of his existence to the world was akin to a meteor landing onto an ocean.

The sea of destiny quaked and raged in stormy turmoil and chaos as the giant waves made by his birth swallowed anything and everything. The threads of fate that governed the world and its people were severed and twisted, uprooting the foundations of reality itself. The story of a world whose history was gradually shifted over time by the mere addition of one man was blotted out and overwritten.

For better or worse, the birth of Emiya Shirou upset the fragile balance of the world that had been so delicately maintained.

"ILLYA!"

Previously closed eye lids snapped open, revealing the distressed amber orbs that laid beneath only to immediately close. I tentatively opened them again, fighting back a wince as an abrupt influx of light blinded my vision.

"—Where?"

I looked around for the white-haired girl, trying to stop her before it was too late.

Or rather, I tried to look around.

My head felt abnormally heavy, and my neck struggled to pivot the hefty weight. Through my partially obscured eyes, I could see I was no longer in the depths of the cavern that held the grail but in some sort of room, looking up at a rather plain-looking ceiling.

I placed my arm on the ground, pushing myself upright, but my efforts were in vain. In a split second, my strength failed me, and my back met some sort of cushion. I tried to swing my legs beneath me to spring myself upwards, but my body felt far too sluggish for such a maneuver. All I could manage was uselessly flailing my legs in the air.

It felt almost like paralysis. I couldn't really move except for minor movements of my extremities.

"Look! Paul, he's already talking!"

"He's quite a feisty one too. Not even crying. You can definitely tell he's my son."

Voices pervaded the air, though they were slightly jumbled. Blurred colored shapes were at the edges of my vision, going in and out of my periphery. I had to actively focus on the words in order to comprehend what they were saying. Now that I thought about it, my outcry earlier had also sounded strange, almost as if my vocal cords were unable to produce the sounds I wanted.

The light finally subsided as my eyes adjusted, and by almost throwing my head to the side, I could finally see what was going on.

Above me were two people. One was a well-built man with brown hair and green eyes. His hair was cut short, but a long ponytail was draped over his shoulders. He wore a white tunic that displayed a hint of the muscular chest underneath. He had an awkward yet gentle smile that showed his joy, but his physique and unmistakable glint in his eyes betrayed his character – he was a warrior, an experienced one at that.

However, I was far more interested in the figure next to him. She was a young woman, and her beauty was obvious at even the slightest of glances. Rich blonde hair framed her angelic face, complete with a bun, and deep blue eyes made sure any man kept their gazes firmly on her. Like the man next to her, she wore an old-fashioned top – a red tunic beneath a white corset.

However, her beauty was not the reason I was so focused on her. The resemblance was only in passing – any somewhat close inspection bellied the truth, especially the eye color – yet with her blonde hair, bun, and ahoge, she looked just similar enough to Saber that I had to look once again.

Saber.

Yet another reminder of my failures.

"Paul, he talked again! Oh, my baby boy is so smart!

Strange, did I accidentally say that aloud?

In sharp contrast with my angsty thoughts, the woman was particularly enthused by my words.

Wait, baby?

I brought my hands to my face, and two small pudgy hands connected to equally chubby arms greeted me. I tried to crane my head downward to see my legs, but like before, it would not obey me. If I was truly a baby, then it made sense – my neck would be too weak to be able to support the movement of my head. Thinking a bit deeper, I could tell I was in the woman's arms, wrapped up in some cloth, and my head was being supported by what felt like her hand.

"He's already so curious. I think that's a sign that he's going to be a smart boy, I heard."

The woman hummed in approval and started to gently rock me. Normally, the motion would be enough to lull any ordinary baby to sleep, but no amount of rocking could possibly quell the sheer number of thoughts going through my mind.

"Come on, say 'Dadda'!"

"No! Say 'Momma' first!"

I took a deep breath, and I could notice my heartbeat steadying as my panic died down.

Rin always said I needed to use my head more. Like a machine, as she had so kindly put several times before.

I had to approach this situation carefully.

First, it seemed that I was reborn. Specifically, I was a baby. Aside from the woman's words, who I assumed to be my mother judging from the way she held and talked to me, my poor motor control and mental capacity could be attributed to my undeveloped body and mind. Even analyzing the facts in this manner took far more concentration and effort than it should have.

My second conclusion was even more far-fetched: I either traveled back in time or was in another world. The man and woman's clothing were old, more befitting of medieval Europe than modern-day Japan. In addition, the mana in the air was thick, far more plentiful than Fuyuki. Thick and different as well, enough so that even a third-rate magus such as me could notice the difference. Either we were in a time period such as the Age of the Gods, or we were in another world where magic had not deteriorated significantly.

My head already hurt from thinking so much, but I persevered. If either of those two ideas were true, then I had left Fuyuki behind.

More specifically, I had left Illya behind.

The memories were still fresh in my mind.

Her long lustrous white hair billowing in the wind. Her determined march towards the grail. Her admittance of being my older sister. Her final warm smile as the light of the grail swallowed us both.

The scenes left a bitter taste in my mouth, and what felt like bile rose up my throat before I swallowed it back down. I let my head drop, the fresh feeling of defeat and failure sapping all energy out of me.

I failed.

It was an indisputable, immutable, undeniable fact.

Weak.

That's what I was.

We had a plan, one that carefully hinged upon perfect execution between Tohsaka, Rider, and I. Go in, defeat Saber, use Rule Breaker to sever the connection between her and Sakura, do the same to isolate Sakura from the grail, and destroy the damned artifact once and for all. Truthfully, we had all anticipated the battle between Saber and us to the precipice upon which the results of the night depended on. When Tohsaka had gone ahead to Sakura, trusting me to meet her later, I was hesitant but acquiesced nonetheless.

No, that wasn't it. I simply failed to live up to her expectations. It had been my honeyed words and soothing promises that caused this mess in the first place. It was me who had deceived and betrayed her.

I had been unable to defeat Saber by myself, forcing Rider to sacrifice herself to create an opening.

I couldn't beat Saber without killing her.

Tohsaka had been left waiting for too long for my arrival and was killed.

Sakura's grief had consumed her, perhaps long before that night.

Illya had been the one to shut down the grail in the end, paying for it with her life.

All people I had promised to protect and save. All people who died for my uselessness.

I lifted an arm, flexing my pudgy fingers, reaching for… something.

What was the point of saving me? There was nothing left for Emiya Shirou. Illya had said that a life without me was meaningless, but the opposite was true for me: a life without her—without them—was not a life at all.

Just mere existence, nothing but a machine.

But regardless, she had given me another chance, as useless as it was.

"What have you been entrusted with?

My thoughts lingered on her last words to me.

Going against my wishes at the cost of her life, she had manifested a miracle with her own two hands. This life of mine was hers as it was mine. It wasn't mine to simply throw away. It would have made her sacrifice meaningless.

No—their sacrifices.

That's right. They had died for me. I owed them everything, soul and all.

"Remember us. Remember me."

Their memories shone like gold within me. They were my greatest treasure, the only thing I had been allowed to keep in this new life. It was a precious thing, so fragile and ephemeral yet the weight of its presence was the only thing that felt real.

They had passed away, yet I could still feel them by my side.

Alone but together.

As long as I lived, as long as I carried their dreams and wishes within me, in a way, they were never truly gone.

But the pain of their absence and the ache of longing still hurt all the same.

"Reach the end of your story in your own way."

Illya wanted me to find my own answer—to scrutinize and agonize over my ideals. Is that why I was in a brand-new world—so I could start over from the beginning?

To be a Hero of Justice.

The ideals I had thrown away once again resurfaced within me.

I had discarded them at one point, believing that I had found my answer—of what is meant to be a true hero—but that path led to nothing but tragedy.

Now here I was, alone with nothing except for a world of memories.

"Be the hero you were meant to be."

I recalled Saber's parting message to me. She had entrusted me with her sword, knowing the burden I already carried yet still trusting such a treasure to me. In her final moments, she wanted nothing more than for me to be a hero.

Had she known all along that things would turn out this way?

Is that why she did what she did? Is this what she wanted for me?

Regardless, it didn't matter.

In the end, there was no running from destiny. Fate would simply not allow it.

I was supposed to have forsaken my ideals, and yet they seemed to have found their way back to me. The most beautiful of lies but a lie no less.

"I'll do it. I'll be a hero."

They had given me one last chance to make things right. If that was truly what I had entrusted with, then there was no other choice left for me.

I've been entrusted with a dream, the dream of many others. I thought it would only last one lifetime, but it seemed I would have to carry this weight in this new life as well. I had to see it through, all the way to the end, wherever it might be.

One way or another, in this life or the next, Emiya Shirou would become a sword.

And when I do, when I finally reach the end of this path… would I finally be free?

A/N: Haven't completely Mushoku Tensei yet (LNs are only up to Vol. 10) but I needed to satisfy my itch for this series. Please don't spoil the series for me.

I'll probably end up re-writing the prologue as well as this story depending on how the series progresses.

A/N (09/2023): Oh hey, is that me up there? Damn, feels like yesterday when I started this story off a very rough draft of another idea I had. But hey, I knew this rewrite was coming one way or another.

For new readers, welcome! This is my decently mediocre fanfic involving one story I know almost nothing about, but I liked the setting so here we go. Expect me to butcher the Mushoku Tensei canon for my own goals. I already hinted at it here but yes, expect many changes. The excuse is that Shirou is just so cool that everything has to change to keep up with him but feel free to just say I'm pulling sh*t out of my ass. Also in case you haven't noticed yet, I also have a certain… style of writing. Very long, philosophical, and pretentious. Not always a good thing, but I'm trying to get better at doing that while making the text easier to read. Still, sometimes I want to dedicate a paragraph or two to talking about philosophy. Can't be helped. Updates are hilariously slow. Oh, and this is none of the VN Shirou's you're familiar with. Not UBW, HF, etc.

As for past readers, I already know people are going to be very confused, and no matter what I do, I know people are going to be upset and whatnot.

Q: Why did you rewrite the prologue?

A: Because it sucked and was vague. It was mostly a draft for something else. However, now that I have a better idea of what direction I want this story to go, I rewrote it—to allude to future things in the story and to better reflect my ability as an author. Some people thought it was perfectly fine, but as the person who wrote it, the flaws were very apparent. Agonizingly so.

Q: Why did I upload this chapter as its own chapter instead of just replacing the original prologue?

A: Because this rewrite adds enough new content that I wanted people to be notified of it. If I could send an email for that, I would, but I don't think that's how it works so this was the next best idea. I felt that with how much more content there is to this chapter, I wanted people to actually read it since it's important, and I wanted some more critique since I added two fight scenes (both of which I still am not satisfied with) and I explored some of the fate characters a bit.

It's very obvious that this was not the original Heavens Feel timeline. I also changed a few details around to better suit some ideas and developments I was thinking of implementing. At their core, the characters should be the same, but let me know if there are things that stand out (not in a good way).

Q: When is the next actual chapter?

A: I'm bad with timelines. I'm going to be rewriting the entire story up to the latest chapter. It's not nearly going to be as extensive as this chapter, mainly because the advantages of keeping things vague is that there aren't many things that blatantly contradict each other. Off the top of my head, I wanted to change Shirou's perceived appearance as well as change Zenith's development. The latest chapter was a bit much I think, so I'll need to fix that. I also want to drop some hints about the world around Shirou. The last tidbit in this chapter is alluding that things are drastically different from the Mushoku Tensei canon. Partially because I'm too lazy to finish the series, partially because I wanted to add some things. We should be exploring the world outside of the house soon ish. Shouldn't take long but no guarantees either. If enough people clamor for new content, I may release a shorter chapter (5-10k words) just to appease everyone.

For the record, I never stopped writing. It's taken me this long from my last update to finish this chapter. But hey, I still got another 1.5 years until my predicted update for 2025 becomes stale.

Alright I think I got the questions I'll see the most out of the way. Onto what I think of the chapter.

Two fight scenes for me to whet my teeth on. I'm not too impressed with the Saber one, and I used the original VN to help outline the Kirei fight. Shirou's plan to mask his tracing is a bit… dubious at best, but it sounds cool? Rule of cool is very much something I practice. As for the end of the fight, well whether or not you think Shirou can activate Caliburn and if it can match Excalibur is up to you. Definitely some lore liberties there, though there's a small snip-it of Caliburn being able to equal Excalibur under the correct circ*mstances. Shirou also definitely should have run out of mana like 5 times this chapter, but like Gil said, running out of mana is lame.

The Kirei fight is fairly standard up until the end. As with all the fights I've written so far, I try to have Shirou on the backfoot. Partially to build dramatic tension, partially because I think it's better if he's a tactical fight as opposed to someone who out-stats his enemies, partially because he's basically dead and with no tracing available to him and Kirei is the better hand-to-hand combatant. As for the end, it's a little something I continually will allude to in this story. The weight of memories is definitely a theme I want to go back to over and over, and it's seen here with the memories within the sword. That's why it's able to do things by itself and purify Excalibur Morgan. It's pretty poetic, and Shirou's weapons having a degree of sentience depending on his connection to their original wielder is a cool thing I wanted to insert into this story. Lore accurate? Hell no but it's cool as f*ck.

Speaking of themes, I think you can definitely see them on full display here. I don't think they blatantly contradict Shirou's character, but it's definitely a different angle that I don't think many other authors have explored so far. I'll try my best to keep everything still mainly Shirou, but he's definitely got some sprinkles of other stuff in there.

Okay, I think that's all I wanted to address for this chapter.

Oh, and in case people don't check out my profile, I have my discord there for any pressing questions you might have. You're also free to volunteer to read chapters early as long as you provide some input on them. Some people have also recommended making a server; I'm not sure if there's enough traction for that idea but let me know if it's something that would interest people.

Hmm, yeah that's it for me. Hopefully I'll have the next chapter out soon ish. Thanks for reading, and as always, have a wonderful day!

Fun fact: you can see traces of Genshin Impact, Honkai Star Rail, Demon Slayer, Jujutsu Kaisen, and some other bigger and smaller works if you squint. It's probably the overly pretentious dialogue.