She goes to see him that night.
Rin and Shirou don't need her there, making things awkward with her presence. Something has grown between those two in the time she has been apart from them – something soft and gentle that needs space and privacy to flourish.
It is better that she absents herself from their company tonight.
The streets of Fuyuki are deserted as she makes her way to the graveyard – the city holding its breath as if anticipating the evil that will take form here.
Birds take flight from skeletal branches when her footsteps disturb the evening's quiet, their shrieks of protest accompanied by the startled beat of feather and bone. A small, shrivelled part of Saber wishes that she could join them – wishes that she could simply fly away and forget this whole wretched conflict.
(She knows now that wishing is a double-edged sword.)
The small sheet of directions that Fujimura-san pressed into her hand earlier (soft, sad smile and a 'give him my best') crackle in protest with every step that jostles her coat pocket. It almost mutes the drumming tattoo of her heart.
The grave is small but neat.
The headstone suits him more than they probably realise, all form and function with little thought given to decoration or frivolity. Kiritsugu may have mellowed somewhat in the years after their forced parting, but there was still some fragment of the Mage-Killer in the man buried before her.
It feels right, in an awful, hollow way, to be standing here with him at the end of it all – the fallen Servant and the reluctant Master. They couldn't save his wife or child, couldn't stop the devastation ten years ago. In the end, all they accomplished was senseless killing. What a mess their pact made.
Still, he left behind a better legacy than she.
"It's been a long time, Kiritsugu."
There's no one here to answer her but the sharp gusts of wind and black marble staring back at her, but this is something that needs to be said.
"Shirou-" She sighs, feeling foolish. "He's going to do it – what you and I couldn't. He'll avenge Irisviel and Illyasviel, and he'll prevent the destruction from last time," Her mouth is unbearably dry. "He won't make our mistakes."
Our mistakes? she thinks, bitterly – old fury rising, sharp as lemons, in her throat.
"I- I understand now. I know why you gave me those orders, but I-" Her voice is thick with anger and hurt, shoulders trembling as her hands fist at her sides. "I still can't forgive you, I just can't."
Forgiveness would be the noble option, she knows; especially since his betrayal was made with the best intentions – but Saber can still remember that cold steel in his eyes whenever he looked at her, the way he addressed her as if she were but a tool to be used and then discarded.
Ten years is not enough time to close all wounds.
She had not meant to cry, but bitter tears soon obscure her vision, turning the epitaph on the headstone blurred and illegible.
She watches the kanji fade from legibility with guilty relief. Like this, with his name obscured and the past washed away, she can pretend to put this ghost to rest; to move on as best she can and find some sort of peace within herself.
And if it is a lie, well – she never claimed that Kings should always tell the truth.
The setting sun paints the grave in russet and orange as she stands there in silence, letting the wind pluck at her hair and the fraying hem of her skirt. The tears, when they dry, leave itchy salt trails in their place.
She doesn't wipe them away.
Perhaps it is because she is seeking composure, or maybe she is just warier after their last encounter, but this time she senses him long before he arrives.
"Don't you have a Grail to prepare, King of Heroes?" She calls, unable to tear her eyes from the resting place of her last Master.
The sight of his smug face would probably force her to start their final battle here and now.
"Don't you have a grubby pair of teenagers to babysit, King of Knights?" He shoots back, coming to stand some feet away.
She wonders if he means to irritate her to death, "I will not dignify that with a comment."
Gilgamesh hums noncommittally, walking closer now that she's made no overt act of aggression. He stops close enough behind her that she can feel the warmth against her spine.
"Oh, visiting old acquaintances, I see," He says, leaning over her shoulder to get a closer look at the grave. "That's just what I would've expected of you, Saber, loyal to the last."
She is painfully aware of his closeness, can make out his profile at the edge of her vision. All it would take is the smallest rise of her shoulder – nothing more than a slightly deeper inhale – and she would brush the underside of his chin. Conversely, he would need to dip his head but a little to rest his jaw on the soft cotton of her shirt.
The thought is disconcerting.
Saber turns, the sudden movement enough to push him back slightly. There is comfort in the newfound distance between them, a gap which his damnable warmth cannot not cross.
If he is surprised by her abrupt action, his ever-present smirk gives no sign.
Irritated by his arrogance, she favours him with a glare. "Why are you here, Gilgamesh?"
"To ask you to join me."
Her eyes narrow, "What did you say?"
He huffs out a soft laugh at her expression, amusement written in the sharp lines of his smile, "Your integrity is commendable, but there's no need to play coy with me. We both know that you cannot win. I defeated Iskandar; I defeated Heracles. Why continue to fight me when victory is hopeless?"
"Perhaps I have more faith in our strength than you do," She snaps, although she cannot quite stop the sinking in her stomach when he mentions his powerful (dead) opponents.
"Ah yes, your ever-present hope," He scoffs, pinning her where she stands with a look that is both pitying and malicious. "The last time you placed your valued trust in something it turned out to be an abomination masquerading as a miracle. Tell me, King of Knights, how well has your faith served you in the past?"
His eyes are too knowing, his tone too bitter – and in that moment, Saber realises that this man (god, monster, both) knows more about her than she could have ever fathomed.
Uncomfortable with the intensity of his study and angry from his mocking, she looks to the well-trampled ground, her shaking hands fisting in the faded cotton of her skirt, "I don't have to explain myself to you."
She hears his shoe scuff in the dust, and then he sighs, his hand threading through his gold-spun hair in frustration. "My apologies, it was not my intention to make you angry tonight."
It's the closest to an admission of fault that she's ever heard from him, and she looks up in surprise, eyes wide at the King of Heroes' unexpected humility.
But the set of his jaw tells her that he clearly has no intention of elaborating on said apology, and so they stand in silence for a moment, the gentle rustling of branches the only sound in the graveyard.
"Would… would you humour me one more question?" He finally asks her, his expression thoughtful as he gazes down the lines of headstones.
She steels herself, unwilling to let him any further under her skin. But- "You will not know until you have asked."
This smile is soft, filled with fond amusement and exasperation that he should not bear for her. In the space where he chooses his words, she feels every hair on her nape stand to attention.
"If the Grail is destroyed, you will return to your own time."
"I will."
"You will die," The fading light must be playing tricks on her eyes – because there is no reason for the pain she sees in his face.
A shrug, "If that is my fate."
"I will not allow it."
She faces him, frustration making her bold, "If you mean to challenge destiny for my sake, Gilgamesh, by all means, have at it. But I will not stand idly by and watch this farce."
She makes as if to leave, brushing past the unmoving figure of the King of Heroes.
His hand snaps out faster than she can react to, catching her wrist in a vice-grip. The force of the motion drags her back to him, crushing her captured arm between their chests.
"Foolish woman," He hisses, looking like he wants to shake her stubbornness out of her, "Are you so eager to perish?"
Her efforts to rescue her hand amount to little, and she stops tugging in favour of glaring up into his furious red eyes, "And why are you, a man who desires the end of the human race, so interested in my continued survival?"
His smile is positively feral, "Tell me honestly how your impending demise makes you feel, and I shall consider answering your question."
She resists the urge to stamp on his foot.
"Of course I don't want to die," She snaps. "But what choice do I have? The legend says that King Arthur dies at Camlann, and so I must!"
Gilgamesh frowns, and for a moment she feels an insane urge to trace the furrow between his brows with a questing finger. "So you'll just accept your death? Because some stories say you must?"
He sounds so much like a petulant child deprived of his favourite toy, and she can't quite stop the smile that his incredulous tone invokes. "Aren't we all just stories in the end?"
"That's not an answer."
She sighs, smirk falling as the mood between them sobers, "My death is an unfortunate side-effect of ending this war. I cannot remain in the world without the Grail, and I refuse to remain in a world where it still exists."
"Your stubbornness is infuriating, woman," Gilgamesh huffs, dropping her hand and turning on his heel. "So there is no chance of swaying you to my side?"
Saber looks up from cradling her wrist (from where she can still feel the gentle press of his fingers along the bone), "None, King of Heroes. I will fulfil my pact with my Master and finish this tonight."
"And go to your doom obediently like the loyal little Servant that you are, yes you made that quite clear."
"A true King would be gracious in defeat," She reminds him, tone mockingly reproving.
He chuckles, kicking at the dirt path, "I believe we already decided that we have different views of kingship and what behaviour befits a ruler."
The reminder of their banquet (a decade ago and a world away) makes something in her chest ache. "Perhaps we are both wrong," She says, almost too quiet for Gilgamesh to hear.
Surprisingly, he doesn't argue. The corner of his mouth curls, "Perhaps."
Not a true agreement, but an acknowledgement of all that has passed between them.
They are silent for a moment; before he sighs and speaks up again, "Well then. Ready your mighty forces, King of Knights, and let us end this fight tonight."
She nods, unease a cold malady in her gut, "On the battlefield, then."
"I look forward to it, Saber," Again with that smile that promises both damnation and salvation.
Feeling shaken, she turns to leave.
Before she can, his hands settle like warm weights on her shoulders, tugging her back into the solid lines of his chest. Hot breath whispers against her ear and she barely controls the shiver that races down her spine.
"I will save you from your self-destruction, Arturia, even if I must damn you to achieve it."
She does shudder then, from hope and fear and something dark and terrible that she will not name. Instead, she steps out of his grasp (is almost surprised that he lets her) and tries not to give into temptation, "And if I don't want to be saved, King of Heroes?"
Gilgamesh laughs, an ugly, bitter thing, "We both know that's a lie."
His words are salt in the rawness of her wounded pride, and the worst part is that it is true (that maybe she has grown tired of only saving and never being saved).
But she'll never admit that he's right.
"You presume too much," She tells him, and flees before he can unravel her further.
Her heart does not calm its racing until she stands in the shadow of Shirou's house, one hand fisting in the fabric of her skirt while Excalibur begs to be released in the other.
Damn him. Damn him and all his poisonous words. How cruel he is, to offer her salvation when she has already tried to reconcile herself to her end. Does he mean to tear her apart at the seams? If he weren't already consigned to die at the end of her sword tonight, she would cut him down for the impertinence.
'And then what?' That treacherous little voice (that sounds more and more like him with each passing day) at the back of her mind asks, digging its claws in deep at her doubts, 'You go die like the loyal little Servant that you are?'
His words rattle about in her empty skull.
"I'm dead, already," Saber snarls, and stuffs those thoughts down where they cannot gain more traction. My soul just hasn't realised it yet.
She cannot be saved – because there is nothing left to save.
That's what she repeats to herself as she climbs the worn stones of the Temple's steps, the sky dark and red with the birth pangs of the Grail.
A nightmare will be born tonight – with only three children to stand in its way. Saber thinks that Iskandar himself could not fault her for the trepidation rolling in her gut. The Grail is a fearsome foe, but her looming Death is an even greater one. Of course she is scared.
"Dead already," She whispers under her breath, and tries very hard not to think of golden kings and their honeyed promises.