"I am the bone of my sword."

Archer begins his chant, his personal prayer that he uses now as he has so many times before now. On so many battlefields and lands distant that they have become too numerous to count, his memory flooded by their layers of pain and regret. And still, he must proceed, proceed as if the weight of so many lives, so many failures does not weigh upon his soul.

"Steel is my body and fire is my blood."

He has returned. Back to where it all started, back to where it all began. Back to the first time when he failed his resolve when his resolve was most strong. He'd seen to that when he looked into the eyes of who he was and into that woman's eyes as he'd carried her off, his own words inspiring his older self onto the doomed path he knows he will follow. Still, for her... he'd damn himself a thousand times over. And die a thousand times over he thinks, as he looks over towards Illya and her hulking servant, Heracles, the berserker.

"I have created over a thousand blades," he continues. "Unknown to death, nor known to life."

Words that can not ring truer as through the darkness he can see Illya's pale skin, the glimmer in her eyes as she smiles wickedly down at him, having spotted him in the shadows. The memory of who she is seems so far distant to him now and yet it stands before him all the same. Her monstrosity of a guardian raising his massive blade, Xyphos, towards him. An end to it all, he knows. The start of failure...

"I Have withstood pain to create many weapons."

Swords to defend the weak. To defend the strong. Yet, meaningless are they if they can not succeed at their endeavors and protect even those closest to him.

"Yet those hands will never hold anything."

A truth burned into his heart, borne there after so many struggles and losses. Born in this place and time, with his greatest failure!

"So, as I pray. ¡Unlimited Blade Works!"

His circuits burning with prana now explode in a shower of energy, washing over castle Eisenborne to pull in the giant fiend and the small girl into his altered reality. Here, they both stare in wonder at the desert landscape with the grinding gears of the clock high above in the sky, the field covered in blades of different shapes and sizes. All forgeries of a thousand dead warriors and more.

As he looks down at the beast, Heracles, its muscles bulging, as if wanting to tear through its own skin and flesh, he can only smirk, looking at the stupid dumb founded expression on the brute. So ironic, so sad, that he who has mastery of this world, will fall to such a being. Even if he were at full strength he doesn't believe he'd have the strength to take him down, then again... maybe he would.. Maybe he can!

He shuts his eyes and breathes slowly, letting the air out in a calculated breath.

"What you see before you is the pinnacle of my abilities! My unlimited blade works! Now prepare yourself berserker! In here I am sure I can take down two or three of your eight lives!"

He summons a blade, one which he has grown familiar with through his many lives waged in battle. One which she inspired him to bring, through the use of her own dark blade. One forged in opposition to her own. A weapon of light and power, it burns in his hand as he draws it forth, tracing the projection in his hand, Caliburn!

Tracing the blade and letting it develop, coming forth from his hand, the length of the blade as long as his torso is tall, he swings the blade forth and smiles. It is the same weighty thing, the same as the burden behind that woman's stubborn eyes. The same as his own heart...

Now it is time to pay for the weight of all those lives...

He rushes towards berserker, the giant's roar deafening even within his reality marble and he swings his blade as the brute's own sword comes crashing down. Despite his desires, he knows this is his last battle and where he will fall. Still, he will fight all the same and rushes into battle despite knowing the outcome. For that is the only way he knows to fight, as a hero of justice!

Heracles' blade comes down and cleaves his spine in two, dropping him into bottomless darkness.

Slowly, feeling returns to his limbs, a burning sensation that makes him groan, feeling an ache in his body as all his limbs still feel like bits of cooked noodle. So loose and heavy at once. Yet, even so, he feels something soft and warm beneath him and can feel fingers tracing through his hair, smooth skin touching his sweaty forehead.

No, he thinks, it must be illusion. He doesn't deserve such satisfaction. Not after what he did. Not after that...

From the beginning, he can recall all the deaths, all the blood since he took on the red mantle of a hero of justice. But what of its worth. For all those he killed, whose blood he spilt, how many were saved and was it worth the cost? And even if he could justify it, is that any better than his first failure, the one who wished to embrace the grail and become the dark king, not only of her land, but his as well?

Artoria.

Can this possibly make up for his failure to save her? To save his very servant from her own blood lust and desires? The pull of the grail had been so strong that she had pushed him aside to tried to take it, even if it meant that her humanity would be forever lost when she gave in to it? All to save her country in the past and rule.

Even so, even if the reason was right, he still remembers having to thrust his blade, a copy of caliburn, into her warm body before her fingers could grasp the grail. He still remembers the resistance of her flesh and how her bones grated beneath the blade, her lips leaking that blood as pale eyes stared back at him in shock and surprise.

Even before she faded, she had smiled at him, while she bled, his sword embedded in her flesh, and even so, she'd raised her metal hand and stroked his cheek as if comforting him. Her first.. And last smile.

She'd whispered words he was unable to hear, words of regret or desire... he could never figure out in all his years as a mortal, then as a counter guardian and now as an archer. The only word he'd caught was "hero," and he can only imagine it was her regret, for failing to have succeeded in her mission to be a hero. But he'd had to stop her. He had to keep her from the grail which was tainted and would have only brought her a worse pain than before with its powers. Still... the pain never left, even now, as she died in his arms, it yet brings a pain he can not forget.

"You were always too emotional for your own good... Shirou," she says, a finger trailing under his eye and wiping away a wetness from an unseen tear.

His eyes snap open, heart racing suddenly as he stares up at the woman above him, her amber eyes boring into his own even as his vision clears.

"Saber..." he says, rising slowly, "but how?"

She looks to her left a moment before saying one word, "Avalon."

Avalon. The sheath of the blade that allows him to heal faster, put into his flesh by his father, Kiritsugu. It has been his for as long as he can remember, but before then it belonged to her. Artoria Pendragon. He wonders if even now, after so many years, it still pulls her towards it, wishing to reunite with its former master?

How horrible. Even in death she can't be separated from her fate.

"So the sheath within me drew you to me?" he says, turning away from her in shame. After all this, and he's still causing her pain? How disgusting. "I'm sorry."

"So even though I told you not to, you still bore the mantle of a hero and the pain that came with it."

He hears her words, stated not as a question, but as fact. He clenches his fist and opens it slowly, letting out a slow breath.

"Yes."

"Why?" she says, her tone growing cold. "If you loved me, why did you defy this one wish?"

"Because I loved you," he says, gritting his teeth, biting back his tears. "I had to... to make it up to you for failing to save you. I..."

He feels her hand on his cheek, turning him to face her. He looks into her amber eyes and the drawn down turn of her lips as she frowns at him. He wants to scream. How could he have failed her so badly?

"But Shirou... you did save me."

"What?" he says, eyes widening. She must be lying. He remembers when his blade thrust into her body, just beneath her heart. A fatal wound, to keep her from the grail. How was killing her saving her?

"Don't you remember what I said to you in our last moments?"

"I..."

He remembers her whispers. Her words as she'd stared at him, her hand on his cheek as she tried to comfort him even as she faded and he only saw her lips moving, a low buzz of sound coming away from her that he could not hear.

"No. I could see your lips move, but the words you said, I could not hear. I'm sorry."

The blonde narrows her lips in a pout and sighs. She leans forward and kisses him lightly on the lips.

"What was that for?" he ask, bewildered.

She smiles, a soft thing that raises his heart as he only saw it at the end of her life and he'd never understood given the situation under which he saw it. Why would she smile when she was dying?

"I said, as a little girl, I'd always dreamed of seeing a real life hero. I was glad to finally see one."

He sees her lips curve, her smile growing wider, a beautiful light sparkling in those amber eyes.

"Saber..." he says quietly.

She leans forward, her face inches from him as her expression grows more serious. "Come. We have much lost time to make up for and you have made me wait more than long enough... hero."

She says this last part in an almost teasing manner. Before he can answer, her lips are closing over his, embracing him in a passionate manner as she pushes him back against the floor. He does not know what he did to deserve this, but his heart is glad. Even if it is only for this moment or if it is an illusion, he is glad to see her again... Saber.