My Snow Angel
Saber x Illya
Prologue: A promise made long ago
Berserker's massive axe-sword fell upon the city street with the force of a meteor, rending the earth itself asunder and launching dirt and debris into the cold night sky. Such a titanic blow was meant to end the life of the servant known in this life time as Saber, but her life would not end this night, as she deftly rolled to the side, barely avoiding the brunt of the gray giant's enormous weapon. Though she had survived the assult, Saber's body was bruised and beaten, her glorious armor bent and disfigured as if it was made from base tin. Her combat with the strongest of servants was taking its toll on her tiny frame.
"Saberrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!" Her master Shirou called to his bruised and battered servant. Though Saber may have been the pinnacle of knighthood and unquestioned ruler of all Britain, her master saw her first and foremost as a woman. And, by his strict moral code handed to him by his father and tempered years of wanting to be a "defender of justice", a woman simply shouldn't put herself in such dangerous situations. He knew it was his duty to protect Saber and would go about it even if it meant risking his own precious life in the process. Without a second thought he dashed across the abandon Fuyuki street and towards the blade of the man mountain that was Berserker with reckless abandon. He would save this girl, even if it killed him. His sprint ended with a slight leap, one that took him directly in the path of the massive axe's wide swing. "This is how a hero should act..." He reassured himself as Berserker's attacked found home squarely in his back, breaking bones and rupturing organs in the process.
Saber could only watch as her master attempted such a foolish act, but her eyes were not fixed upon Shirou's shattered body, but rather on the small girl that stood behind the giant of a servant that was her foe this night. Her long, flowing, white hair and piercing red eyes lay upon her mind, a vague reminder of someone she had met long ago. "Irisviel..." Saber murmured, coughing up blood along with her words. The small girl stood before Saber as a grim reminder of her past failures and of the saintly woman who had died because of a single misjudgment. Even now, a decade removed from the incident in question, Irisviel's death still lay heavy on the King of Knights. She regretted more then a bit in her short life, but the death of that snowy-haired woman was among the things that would haunt her till the day she finally slid off the mortal coil and resigned herself to whatever fate the will of the world itself deemed fit for her. "Is that you...?" Her words floundered against the massive weight of Berserker's soul-shaking battle cry. That simply couldn't be but... Saber would have gasped if her body would have allowed it. Irisviel had a single child, she recalled silently. The girl before her, the master of servant Berserker, had to be that same child. The small girl she had promised to her mother she would protect with her very life. To see her as a rival master was troubling, to say the least.
Pushing such thoughts to the dark recesses of her mind, Saber attempted to stand. Working her will to stand once more against her body's desire to stay firmly bound to the earth below, Saber dug the blade of her sword into the ground, propping herself up just high enough to see the devastation wrought by the battle in which she had just taken part. The street around her lay in ruin, a broken landscape like those she had witnessed in her youth. Her master lay not far from her and in just as bad as condition as she herself was. Covered in blood, she would have thought Shirou dead had he not moved ever so slightly every few second. The battle had become a lost cause, they both now lie at the whim of a small girl and her enormous guardian.
And so the girl surveyed the destruction her servant had wrought, carefully taking in every blood detail of the blasted landscape that lay all around her. And then her gaze lingered, firmly affixed on the bloody body of servant Saber. A sense of nostalgia dance upon the surface of her mind, like faeries upon the head of a flower. She had seen this girl somewhere before, she just knew it! It was along time ago, and the memory was hazy, but she truly knew this valiant warrior from a time long past. She could order her servant to kill her and the stupid boy now, but doing so would quash any chance she may answer the many questions swirling in her head. "Berserker," she called with a raised hand. "We're leaving." The pair left, a massive man slowly plodding behind the tiny pixie of a girl he called master.
Shirou and Saber both breathed a collective sigh of relief, they would not die this day. So many questions remained for all involved, but, for now, being able to breath freely without the stench of death pervading their every breath was enough.