Disclaimer: Fate/Stay Night, Fate/Extra and Fate/Zero are properties of TYPE-MOON, this is purely a work of fanfiction, I make no claim on these properties, etc etc.
"In the end, there is one thing I must tell you," she said, a voice full of determination.
The words were slow, and hesitant, and the eyes of Emiya Shirou twinkled as he spoke. "What is it?"
Saber's body wavered. She turned to face him. Her emerald eyes stared straight at him: soft, yet resolute. In a voice without regret, she said, "Shirou. I love you."
The wind blew into his eyes. When he opened them again, there was nothing but the sunrise that had been behind her; a brilliant golden, like the hair that he wished so deeply to feel once more. There was no surprise. He knew once he chose his path that they would part like this. All that was left was the open field. She disappeared without a trace, just as she appeared.
"Yeah, it really is just like you," he said, with the determined voice that she had spoken with. He squinted at the rising sun as the memories of the past two weeks flooded his mind. He stared at the horizon, hoping that he would never forget, that it would never fade away.
A distant land, glowing in sunlight, resembling the golden fields she once ran through.
[1.1: Gold Separation, End]
"Your highness, please stay here. I shall find someone right away." The knight, having cast aside his armor, laid the king under the shade of a large tree. The golden fields swayed in the wind, and each second he stood there, gazing at his majesty and gazing at the field, another second passed by without aid for the king. It would take him at least half a day to rush to the port where the rest of the army stayed. He knew himself, as much as he hated it, that the king's life would not last until the morning. Still, with as steady of a voice that he could muster, he announced, "Please endure until then. I shall certainly bring our troops here."
"Bedivere." The soft, almost sleepy voice stopped him as he turned for his white horse. He turned around immediately.
"Your highness? You have regained consciousness?" Though he tried to hide it, the joy raised his pitch by a key and a half. His eyes widen and the corners of his lips stretch toward his ears.
"Yes. I was watching a dream." She spoke slowly, faintly, yet warmer than any other time she had spoken to him. Perhaps it pained her to talk, but she betrayed no hint of pain.
"A dream?" He called out as if to search. Though the king spoke, he remained uncertain that she was truly conscious.
"Yes. I have not seen many dreams, so it was valuable experience."
"That is great. Please be at ease and rest. I shall retrieve the troops and return shortly."
She gasped, or she emitted a voice that sounded like a gasp. Bedivere's eyes widened in great alert. "Your highness? Have I been rude?"
"No, I was just surprised. I did not know a dream could be seen after awakening. Do you mean I will be able to see the same dream if I close my eyes again?"
Bedivere's expression changed to a surprised one. Words raced through his mind; he knew what he would say would be a lie, but he continued, stuttering all the way. "Yes. If you so strongly desire, you can continue seeing the same dream. I have had that experience before as well." It was impossible. Dreams only occurred once. Deep in his heart, he apologized to the king; this would be the first and last dishonesty he would ever perform.
Yet, "I see. You are knowledgeable, Bedivere," she murmured. There was not enough strength within her to look up into the eyes of her last knights. Her time was running out. In a voice quieter, softer than she ever spoke before, she said, "Bedivere, take my sword. Pass through this forest…go over the blood-stained hill. A deep lake lies beyond it. Throw my sword into the lake."
He gasped. "Your highness, that means…!" To let go of the sword of the king would mean the end of the king, he thought.
"Go," she breathed. "Once you have accomplished my order, return here and tell me what you saw."
There was no room for argument. His lips trembled. His eyes twinkled, but no tears fell. He could not cry, not when the king did not. He took the sword.
Two times, he stopped at the lake. Two times, he could not let go of the sword that symbolized the king. Two times, he could not bear to part with the one he served. Two times, he returned and lied that he had thrown it away. Two times, the king ordered him to follow her command. Two times, he committed one of the gravest sins of a knight: he disobeyed a direct order.
Finally, on the third journey, he knew he could lie no longer. He knew the king would not change her mind. So he threw the sword into the lake. A white hand appeared from the water and held it; after circling the sky three times, it returned into the water, and the holy sword vanished from the world.
A single tear escaped from his eyes. He could no longer deny the king's end.
It had taken him much time to cross the hill three times. The battlefield was far, far away. The forest was now covered in a brilliant, golden sunlight, and in that light, before the king, he kneeled. "I have thrown the sword into the lake. The sword has returned to the Lady of the Lake."
The king opened her eyes. Her voice had grown even quieter; he had to strain to hear the words. "I see. Then…you shall be proud. You have obeyed your king's command.
He nodded. Everything had ended. Everything that his king had built up, from the country to the people to the loyal knights that served her; everything would end, except for the chaos. The battle would continue, and he would watch the ruin of his king's beloved land.
But her battle was over. She had fulfilled her duty until the very last moment. The light disappeared. "I am sorry, Bedivere. This sleep will be…a…long-" As if she had drifted off to sleep, her words faded away. Her eyes gradually closed.
The light returned. The wind was silent; the forest was silent; the knight was silent as he watched his king enter the long sleep. He watched over her figure. The king that he wished for, a lonely king seen off by a single knight. An end unfitting for a king, but an end that he had wished for. Her face, as she entered her sleep, was one at peace. In her final moments, the king had obtained the piece that she had never been able to obtain. The knight stood, satisfied.
The heavens were far, and the clearing sky was blue. The battle had truly ended. "Are you seeing it, King Arthur?" He murmured into the wind. "The continuation of the dream?"
And as her mind faded away, she saw it: a distant, distant dream.
There was a faint rumbling close by, very close by. Saber turned in her sleep, and her eyes fluttered for a moment. Her breathing was shallow, and her face was quite pale. Her lips moved, but no sound came of them. Avalon…
"Oh, perhaps she isn't. And I couldn't bear to wake up someone with a sleeping face as adorable as that, but we're getting close, aren't we?" A girly, breathy voice that seemed to echo repeatedly in her ears, that seemed to get closer one second and farther the next. "What a dilemma we have here."
The faint rumbling…. A vehicle? There was a dull throb in her head, and her eyelids were leaden, but she forced herself to open them. She blinked. A passenger car, with four black, leather seats; a young woman or a teenaged girl sitting with her in the backseat and, looking at the mirror, an old man with whitened hair driving the car. Outside was a night sky dotted with itty bitty shining stars, cherry blossoms in beautiful bloom and a desolate, yet serene sidewalk.
Saber's mouth hung open and her eyes opened wide. Her gaze turned wildly from the girl to the old man. "…What?" she muttered.
"Oh, perfect! You're finally awake, Arthur- er, I mean, Arturia. Let's see," the girl clapped, pushing up her left sleeve. There was some sort of band underneath, but Saber was unable to make out what it was; there was something wrong, so she couldn't focus her vision no matter how much she blinked or how hard she squinted. "Wow, you've been asleep for almost sixty-two hours. Well, I guess that goes to show you that time flies by when you're with a friend."
Saber could sense no hostility or malice from the girl's tone, nor was her posture any threatening; she was sitting, slouched, barely a foot away, and, having rolled her sleeve back down, she had taken a glowing, rectangular object out of her bag and began to tap at it. Still, there was an intense discomfort from waking up in an unfamiliar place, surrounded by unfamiliar people, so she instinctively willed for her sword.
Which refused to appear. Her gaze turned with horror towards her hand, and she finally noticed that she barely had the strength to even move it.
"Now, now, no panic attacks, Arturia. We mean you no harm. In fact, we wish you just the opposite."
"Who- how do you know my name?" she gasped. Her head appeared to be the only part of her that obeyed; the rest of her body felt numb and detached.
"I already answered your first question: I'm a friend. And what kind of friend doesn't know their own friends' names?" The girl turned to her, grinning. The glow from the object helped illuminate her face, and Saber could see that she was probably a teenager, no older than her age when she pulled Caliburn from the stone. She had long white hair that reached the seat and big black eyes. "Well, at least you remember who you are. Do you remember what you did before you woke up?"
"I- I…" The Fifth Holy Grail War. The corruption, the black mud. A sword of gold, slashing through the cup of cold. A heartfelt goodbye. "The Grail." She closed her eyes tight as the memories rushed back into her. The Battle of Camlann. The duel with Mordred. Bedivere. The Lady of the Lake. A dream? Her eyes opened again. "I died," she breathed hesitatingly. "I died of my wounds."
"Haha, well, obviously you're not dead now, Arturia. Wow, aren't we simply amazing. We managed to summon you in the split-second between the beginning of your sleep and the end of your life. That, now that was hard. Even with the Grail's help, it took up almost all of our prana." She laughed.
"But- how- why? What do you- why did," Saber stammered.
"No, no, no, no, no," the girl said, shaking her head. She covered Saber's mouth with her left hand. "Don't ask twenty questions at once. One at a time, after I ask my question. Now," she paused, her smiling growing wider and wider until the corners of her lips poked at her ears. "How would you like to take part in a true Holy Grail War?"
And Saber's eyes widened past human imagination. She began to speak even before the hand was removed from her mouth. "-troyed the Holy Grail! I destroyed it with my own hands! I- I- I destroyed it with Shirou!"
"Ah, that you did. You destroyed the terrible, corrupt, Fuyuki Holy Grail, and I highly doubt that the Einzbern, Matou and Tohsaka families will be ever be able to rebuild it. But you should know as well as anyone else that the Fuyuki Holy Grail was never the one and only Holy Grail."
"But-"
The girl cleared her throat. "The Fuyuki Holy Grail War was simply the first, organized system in which Masters would battle with Servants, and through the battles, summon the Holy Grail. Unfortunately, the first three Holy Grails failed to achieve a true victor, and it was during the Third Holy Grail War that a, let's say, anti-heroic spirit was summoned quite accidentally. Said anti-heroic spirit's death tainted the Holy Grail, and turned it into a manifestation of the all of the world's evils. That was in the 1930s, at the eve of the Second World War. Um, are you following what I'm saying?"
Saber blinked. "Then, do you mean, the First and Second Holy Grail could grant wishes?"
"Yes! Though, to be clear, they should have been able to grant wishes, but since there wasn't a winner in either, who knows?" she giggled. "So in other words, the Holy Grail War in Fuyuki was already doomed to failure eighty years ago. But the three families in Fuyuki weren't the only ones who wanted a Holy Grail, and those people had five wars and two hundred years to learn a thing or two about holding Holy Grail Wars." She winked at Saber. "So how does it sound? Two time winner of the Fuyuki Holy Grail, King of Knights, Arturia Pendragon, how would you like to participate in the first Keizoku Holy Grail War?"
There was something about the way the girl spoke that told Saber that she would not be able to say no. She looked down for a moment, and said in a small whisper, "What if I refused?"
The girl scratched her head and looked thoughtfully towards the rear window. "Then the summoning contract would cease to be effective, and your, um, soul, would be pulled back to your own time where you would promptly die. And probably go to Avalon for the rest of eternity." She shrugged.
"Cease to be effective?"
She started to scratch the edge of her brow. "The ritual to summon you isn't a binding one. We can't keep you here against your will, so if you really wanted to leave, then you could just by willing it. But I think there isn't a single reason for you to not stay."
"What- what do you mean by that?"
The girl smiled again. "Don't you want to see Shirou?"
"I-"
"Think of this as your second chance to life. A normal life, Arturia, or a relatively normal life. Life is never really normal when you're overflowing with awesome." She giggled. "But that's just the first reason, and I can see you're already teetering over the edge."
Saber would have blushed, but she was too bewildered to do so. The thought of seeing Shirou even one more time…
"Second, if you do indeed join, there will be fourteen Masters participating in this Holy Grail War. Fourteen vastly different people from all over the world who all have a chance to have their deepest and greatest wish granted. You were a participant in the Fourth Fuyuki Holy Grail War; you should be able to see the problem in that. That's thirteen people who could be Kirei Kotomine."
A great chill ran down Saber's spine at the mention of the greatest obstacle in both of the Grail Wars that she participated in. But he died. "Shirou killed him."
"Oh, woops, sorry. I meant, 'thirteen people who could be another Kirei Kotomine,' who could have their crazy and wicked dreams come to fruition. Would you allow that, as a king of knights?"
And from that one sentence, she knew that she would have to join. She would have to raise her sword once more. Will I ever be able to rest? And the answer was clear; the answer was clear from the moment she pulled the sword out of the stone. Even in my final moments, I am to fight and kill? She gritted her teeth. "I would not."
The smile returned to the girl's face. It seemed that everything Saber said caused her to smile. "I knew you would say that."
"Amber, we've arrived," said the old man, who had joined her in the smile. The car stopped.
"Well then, it's time for you to take action on those words. Come, come! Come see your new home for the duration of the Holy Grail War." She opened the door of the car, and a slight breeze rushed in. "What are you waiting for? People are usually thrilled to see a new- oh, silly me, how could I forget something like this?" She placed a hand on Saber's forehead; it was warm, very warm, and the heat began to flow down into Saber's body. It was soothing, so soothing, and it reminded her of Shirou.
"Okay, you should be able to move now! Boy, even with all the prana overflowing out of the Grail and my own, you're still much weaker than you should be. I guess that's what happens when you illegally summon a Servant to do a Master's job, haha!" 'Amber' grinned as she stepped out of the car. Her head disappeared above the top for a short moment. "Right, how impolite of me. I haven't even introduced myself yet." She poked her head back down. "People call me Ambrosia Waki, Amber for short." Another smile.
Saber flexed her fingers. A little slow. She frowned, and that was when she noticed the clothes that she was wearing, now that her vision had straightened. What is this?! She rushed out the car and turned to face Amber, though the sudden change from inside to the outdoors in her weakened condition gave her a slight headache. Nevertheless, she pointed to her clothes and exclaimed, "What am I wearing?!"
Amber raised an eyebrow, and glanced over to the old man, who chuckled in response. She was wearing the same uniform. She scratched her head. "A uniform? A beautiful, blue, high school uniform?" And she cocked her head in confusion.
The cool air brushed past Saber's bare legs, sending a shiver up her spine. She looked down. The skirt was short, shorter than any skirt she had ever worn (not that she had worn many). "But why?"
Amber put a finger to her lips and snapped her head left and right. Leaning closer in, and in a very soft whisper, she said, "Because we're going to high school, dear Arturia! We can't have you running around in full battle armor and exposing the most secretive Holy Grail War ever!" She shrugged. "Now, we shall quietly enter our new dormitory. It's 2 AM, you know."
Dormitory? She turned. There it was: a building five stories high with full, tinted glass windows that slid open into spacious balconies, turning into a U-shape and surrounding a brilliant, foaming fountain in the very middle. The car was parked in the marked parking spaces surrounding the fountain, and encircling the parking lot was a vast garden of red and yellow and white and green flowers, illuminated by dim, overhanging lights. Impressive, she murmured under her breath. Though, this does not compare to the extravagance of the Einzbern Castle, or the homeliness of Shirou's home. And the thought of Shirou brought her out of her observations, and she noticed Amber and the old man had already walked halfway to the entrance without her.
"This is more like an apartment than a dorm, though," Amber said as Saber caught up. Her eyes seemed to twinkle in the light. "There's a fitness room, a game room, a big lounge…" Her smile had widened further. "…and a pool along with a bunch of Jacuzzis!"
There was something familiar, something childish in Ambrosia, which Saber had to smile to, just slightly. She seemed like a person to trust. So Saber extended a hand.
"Hm?" Amber's smile disappeared when she saw the hand.
"I take it you are to be my Master for the Holy Grail War. I would have to complete the con-"
Amber giggled and shook her head as they reached the front door. "No, no, Arturia. I'm not your Master."
"What do you mean?" Saber's brow furrowed.
"Simple. How can I be a Master of a Master?" She chortled.
A Master of a- wait! "You did not summon me as a Servant?"
Amber waved a hand as she quietly opened the front door. "No! I summoned you as a Master of the Holy Grail War!"
[1.2: Continuation of the Dream, End]
Author's Note
Slight revisions to the chapter, particularly sectioning in an attempt to mimic the chapters of the visual novel (hurrah, visual novel).