The opening of the door echoed throughout the indoor amphitheatre. Though half her face was covered in blood, and her mind still halfway blank from her fight with Lancelot, she had pushed on. Immediately, her eyes fell upon the golden chalice that hovered above a huge, gaping hole in the floor. And just as she saw it, she realized who she had found. Her heart clamped in her chest, and all she could say was her name. "Iris…viel…"

A familiar, and unwelcome voice came out of seemingly nowhere. "You're late, Saber."

After being ripped out of her temporary grief, she gripped the hilt of Excalibur with both hands, readying herself for yet another intense battle.

"I knew you were frolicking with that rabid dog of yours. But to keep me waiting so long wasn't very prudent of you."

"Archer," she growled.

He chuckled. "Look at your face. It's the face of a ravenous wild dog."

"Get out…of my way." She said in a low, dangerous tone.

"The Holy Grail…belongs to me!" She raised her blade to position.

But not in position to block the sword that came flying into her leg. She cried out from the pain of the blow, then fell to her knees.

"Saber…" Archer began, shaking his head, almost as though fond of something. "Even when delusional and crawling on the ground, you are still a beautiful woman."

She clenched her teeth. What an insult. She was probably more of a man than he could dream to be.

"Lay down your blade and be my wife."

Saber's jaw dropped, and she stared at him like the maniac that he clearly was. Right after she had gotten the thought that she was more manly than he in the ways of righteousness- and here this madman was, asking her to marry him? He had officially upgraded from capital cock to lunatic.

"A Grail that grants miracles? Why obsess over something so improbable? Abandon your foolish ideals and vows. From now on, seek only me and be sustained only in my presence. If you do so, as king of all the world, I will give you every pleasure there is to have."

At those words, she forsook the stage of shock for a heart full of rage. Standing, she said, "You…You would take the grail from me…For something so ridiculous?" She practically roared the words, her anger at such stupidity beginning to become uncontainable.

Some weapon came flying at her again, but this time she managed to block. The force of it, however, sent her flying backwards.

"I wasn't asking for your opinion." He sounded mildly irritated. "This is what I have decided upon! Now, give me your response!"

Pushing her torso up from the rubble she'd landed in, she began, "I refuse! I'd never-"

She bit back her gasp as an axe slammed its blade into her flank armor.

"Is it simply that you are too embarrassed to accept?" He chuckled again. "That's alright. You can give the wrong answer as many times as you like. In order to know the joy of serving me, you must first learn pain."

Bloody tyrant! What the hell's the point of asking for a response if you'll just refuse it!? Not only that, but where is Kiritsugu?

It didn't matter. Yanking the sword that had first penetrated her leg from her flesh, she took her own in both hands. And she prepared herself. She wasn't about to ordeal herself, after having killed her friend, and not being able to say goodbye to another. The last thing she was going to do now was make everything harder on herself. It would be a fair enough match anyways. If he wanted to, he could just fling another lance or sword at her, kill her there, let it all be over with.

But first, she had to find an angle from which she could strike from without destroying the Grail on accident.

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Kiritsugu was panting as he went up another flight of steps and swung open the next door.

He had let his mind wander in grief and despair-You never got to say goodbye-Neither of them-You shot them! Her blood was on your face!-her screams and curses echoed in his head. Everything that happened, he saw-the debris falling out of the sky, the gulls squawking for whatever scraps of flesh they might could find- All of those people-bodies strewn across the deck-because you killed them-Pull the trigger. Pull the trigger. Pull the trigger. Pull the trigger, pull the trigger, pull the trigger-That wasn't Irisviel! I didn't kill them! That was just the Grail-Pull the trigger. -as he had tried to make his way back to the amphitheatre, but, somehow, he hadn't paid any attention as to where he was going. He had gotten lost. When he finally pulled his head out of his ass, he had nearly gone into a panic. He needed to get to wherever the Grail was as soon as humanly possible.

Damn it! Still the wrong room.

Again and again, he checked whichever doors he thought might lead to the amphitheatre. Each time, it lead to some hall, or some parking garage.

Finally, he picked up the sound of clanging metal, and an awful lot of shouting.

Gee, I wonder.

Up another flight, and another, and still another, each flight, the yelling and fighting growing louder, and louder still. Before he reached the floor he believed them to be on, his heart pitted out. He heard Saber call out the name of her sword, followed by a huge blast of an unnatural source.

It had to be the next door.

He opened it, and sure enough.

The bloodied body of Archer was just beginning to disintegrate into misty oblivion. And the last remaining Servant knelt on one knee, huffing and catching her breath nearly as much as he. Before he could think, her hand was already reaching for the Grail. He screamed, screamed for her to stop, his voice teetering on the verge of insanity. The convictions he threw onto himself still overlapped one another in his head-he couldn't think, even if he tried- And still, the Grail didn't stop floating towards her hand. And so her hand didn't stop reaching for it. It was as though she couldn't hear him.

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Black electricity jumped from the grail to her fingertips just before they touched, and before she could pull away, they had already met.

Everything inside her suddenly screamed. Nothing was left inside her but a bottomless pit, an instant black hole that warped everything, sucked it all in.

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Kiritsugu stepped back as Saber let loose a howl that surpassed any he had ever cried- a scream so mad, he was unsure how any living being could make such a noise.

The moment her hand had touched the Grail, it had disappeared into a tiny, black orb, surrounded in building wreath of dark vermillion.

Saber, doubled over, and all her voice having been let out, she looked like she was still trying to expel whatever evil within her out her throat. Her sword clanged to the ground, and as she gasped for air and began to scream again, her hands went to her head, fingers raking through her hair.

He froze. At this point, there was no solution. All he could do was stand there. He was a boy again, unable to stop the horror that was unfolding in front of him.

Saber was in such agony that she was now lying on her side, tears streaking down her face, her hands trembling and held near her chest. Her mouth was constantly held open, wailing and crying aloud, though often not putting forth any sound at all.

Suddenly, the black orb shot up to the sky, Saber's Noble Phantasm having blown a hole in the roof. And in the sky, it opened up, its ominous mouth gaping, holding nothingness, with the halo of dark red mist swirling around it.

"Impossible…" he exclaimed quietly to himself. Hopelessness began to well inside of him as he stared at the thing. Now he knew true terror, more than ever before, as despair took its grip on his soul, squeezing all hope out of him.

And as he stared, from the black disc in the sky, circled in crimson and surrounded in purplish darkness, a terrible, black liquid came roaring, hurling down towards them.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Despite all her screaming and all her head groaning, she heard her Master call out her name. Over. And over.

"Arthur! Arthuria! Damn it, Arthur, Wake up!"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Awaken, Arthur! Arthuria, wake up!"

She was being shaken by her shoulders. The voice calling her name now was no longer that of Keritsuku-Keretsu- what was his name again? But it was a voice that she would have loved to hear earlier in the nightmare. That just occurred to part of her. It had just been a dream, but she had found it so horrific and real that she realized she was still screaming and flailing her arms and kicking at her brother.

The rational part finally conquered the rest of herself, and with Kay still holding her, trying to keep her from hitting him, she finally calmed down. She went through a list in her head.

There was Kay. He was real.

The moon- the real, white one, not the black one swirling in malignant colored clouds-was streaming silvery blue light in through the window. That was real.

A flickering candle sat on her small dresser-she assumed Constantine had brought it with him to avoid walking through darkness from his room to hers when she woke him- It was real.

An owl hooted in a nearby tree-That was real.

Her bed was real. The house was real.

Everything around her was real.

Kay, no longer being assailed by limbs, took Arthuria into his arms, and stroked her head. "Good Christ, Arthur. It was just a dream. There was no need for such screaming," he chided gently. "Why, I'd not be surprised if you'd woken even the ole town drunks."

She didn't respond to his silly comments. All she could do was be grateful for his presence, and tremble in his embrace as her body slowly tried to quench the fires of terror that still flowed like a swelled river within her. She noticed that she was burning up, yet where her body was largely exposed to the air, her clothes felt cool. She'd been sweating something terrible, and she honestly couldn't wait for a bath the next morn. She actually wanted one at that moment, hoping it might calm her nerves.

But all she had was her kinsman, the only one she ever really cared for. It seemed like forever before she could calm down any further. The whole time, her mind raced to review and remember as much of the dream as it could, no matter how horrific it was. Tears swelled behind her closed eyes, and it wasn't until she opened them again that she realized just how many had accumulated, as they all spilled out over her cheeks.

"What could you possibly have dreamed of that could frighten you so?" Kay asked.

Arthuria only shook her head.

"Was it truly that terrible?"

She nodded.

Kay sounded a bit thoughtful. "Hm…It's not like you to have night terrors…"

They were both quiet for a while.

"Just go back to sleep now, alright?"

Arthuria could tell now that poor Kay was tired- it was relatively plain in his voice. Despite her concern for his amount of sleep, she was honest with him at the moment. "I don't much think I can…"

"Well at least try," he said. He finally let her go, and got up. Before going to leave the room, he gave her hair a good ruffle, making more than just one strand of hair stick up from the rest.

She sighed. As he closed the old, wooden door behind him, she layed back down and left the blanket covering only one leg. She turned on her side, and stared out her window at the benevolent, silver moon. Seeing it instead of the pitch hole in the sky brought her a large measure of comfort.

After staring at it, the stars, and the rustling branches that danced outside the window, for quite a long while, her eyes finally began to dry out and tire of looking. Her lids grew heavy, and so a much sweeter sleep finally came to her.