Fate/Revenant Sword
By: James D. Fawkes
Chapter II: The Victorious
— o.0.O.O.0.o —
"This is bad," Rin hissed at him. "That thing's way out of our league!"
"Nice to meet you, Rin," Illya curtsied. "My name is Illya, Illyasviel von Einzbern. You know who I am, right?"
Rin, who was standing behind Shirou, gave a little gasp, and he imagined her jerking as though she had been slapped.
"Von Einzbern?" she murmured. Shirou didn't know what the name meant to Rin, because he didn't remember Rin ever explaining why she should have recognized it. It probably had something to do with all of those "famous Magus families," like the Tousaka and the big wigs at the Mage's Association.
"There's no point in introducing everybody, so don't bother," Illya said with a smile. "In just a few minutes, you'll all be dead!" She raised a single slim finger to point at Shirou and the two girls next to him. "Okay, hope you're ready to die! Go get 'em, Berserker!"
The monstrous creature behind her leapt into the air and came screaming towards them with a furious battle cry. He landed with a thunderous boom that sent the concrete beneath Shirou's feet quaking.
"Shirou, stay back!" Saber said. She leapt forward without waiting for his command and made to intercept Berserker. Shirou, who knew her best, could just barely detect the faint note of worry in her otherwise calm and confident voice.
"Saber, wait!" he called after her. He needed a plan. She couldn't just rush in and expect to defeat the strongest of the Servants like it was nothing. He needed to find a way for her to win, or at least force a retreat.
Last time, he'd thrown himself in front of an attack that would have killed Saber, and something had happened while he was unconscious and bleeding out that had convinced Illya to retreat.
Saber blocked Berserker's first blow and deflected it to the side with a grunt, then jumped over the second swing and began a sort of dance. She parried, deflected, or sidestepped every blow that came her way, and ducked under the ones that would have taken her head. It was like watching some sick parody of a ballet, where the slightest mistake, just one toe out of line, meant death.
"His sword is gigantic," Rin said quietly. "Yet, he's swinging it like a toy!"
"That's it! Get her, get her!" Illya cheered in the background.
Saber leapt upwards and pushed sideways off a telephone pole, then settled herself on the wire and ran along it the same as if it were solid ground. Berserker chased after her and cut the line, but she simply leapt over to another one, then another, and flung herself to the ground — right in front of Illya.
Shirou would have said something, would have reminded her about the rule he'd made and the promise he'd extracted from her to follow it, but he didn't have the chance. Berserker's gigantic sword swung around and crashed against Invisible Air with enough force to send Saber careening backwards and into a telephone pole. Illya looked a little shaken, but unharmed.
Saber was losing. Just barely, but she was losing. Shirou knew her well enough by now to see it.
"C'mon," he said to himself. "Think. Think! How do I go about beating an unbeatable enemy?"
"That's good, Berserker!" Illya called cheerfully. "Finish her off!"
"If you face an opponent you cannot defeat, then visualize something that will allow you to defeat him."
Archer's words came back to him, right then. If you weren't strong enough to beat your foe, then come up with something that would make you strong enough. He'd used that twice, first against Berserker, then again against Gilgamesh.
Rin started chanting. Her eyes were closed and her arm was thrust forward in front of her. Then her hand formed a gun-shape and balls of black energy leapt from her fingertip like bullets to crash against Berserker — the Curse of the Gandr. She'd used it against Shirou and in front of him enough times that he recognized it by sight.
Against Berserker, it was useless. The curse splashed against his skin and broke like water. Berserker shrugged it off like it was nothing and lifted his sword again. Saber jumped away, but she'd moved too soon. Berserker corrected his swing and caught her in the side. Red blood splattered against the pavement and Saber tumbled across the ground like a ragdoll.
An agonizing pain clenched at Shirou's heart like a vice. "Saber!"
She pressed her invisible sword to the ground and used it as a crutch to lift herself up. Her middle was splattered with blood and it ran like rivulets down the length of Invisible Air. There was a horrendous gash in her side, between the cuirass that protected her chest and the tassets that protected her outer legs (or perhaps they were cuisses, he didn't know for sure), and any normal human would have already been dead.
He needed something to win, right then and there. He recalled Archer's advice again. Both times, it had been enough to either win outright or force a retreat.
But what could he use…?
"This is Caliburn, the Sword in the Stone that Chooses Kings," came the memory of Saber's voice.
"You're not going to win this," Illya declared brightly. "Berserker isn't your average Servant. He's the strongest Greek hero in all of history!"
"Trace on," Shirou murmured. He held his hands out as though grasping a sword. Judge the concept of creation. Visualize the basic structure.
Caliburn's image appeared clearly in his head.
"Greek hero?" Rin echoed. "Wait a minute. Your Servant is a Greek hero? Then that means…!"
In Shirou's hands, the phantom of a sword appeared.
Duplicate component materials. Match the original craftsmanship.
"Yup," Illya said with a smile. "My Berserker is none other than the famous Heracles!"
Sympathize with the experience of its growth.
"No way," Rin whispered.
Reproduce the accumulated age.
"That's right," Illya's voice had gone from cheerful and bright to cold and malicious. "My Servant is the strongest hero in all of history. He's way better than any stupid Servant you could summon. Finish her off, Berserker! Chop off her head and put her out of her misery!"
Excel every manufacturing process.
Berserker's sword came up. Shirou leapt into action and pushed Saber back behind him — "Shirou!" she cried — then lifted his projected Caliburn and reinforced his muscles as quickly as he could. Berserker's gigantic sword swung down, and it took every ounce of strength in Shirou's reinforced body to first block it, then deflect it to the side and into the ground. The muscles in his arms and legs burned from the effort.
"Emiya, what…?" Rin's voice asked.
"That's my…" Saber whispered. In the shocked silence, she might as well have shouted.
Caliburn was lifted over his head.
"Illya," Shirou warned, "you don't want to be in the way when this comes down."
Berserker jerked his sword free and lifted it again. Shirou flipped open every single one of his magic circuits and flooded Caliburn with Prana. The blade burst into light and glowed with every color of the rainbow, then settled to a pure, searing white that blazed like a newly-born star.
"Onii-chan, what are you doing?" Illya screamed fearfully.
"CALI —" Shirou swung down, "—BURN!"
From the blade of his sword erupted a burst of intense light that lanced Berserker along the path of the blade and rushed out in a wave that consumed the entirety of Shirou's vision. The tip of the sword crashed into something hard and solid at the end of the swing — he heard Illya gasp, the concrete crack and crumble, and the surprised exclamations of Saber and Rin, but for a moment, all he could see was the blaze of white that flooded his sight and nearly left him blind.
When it was over, Berserker knelt on the ground as steam rose off his body with a furious hiss. In front, around, and behind him, a gash had been torn into the pavement like some sort of mad god had reached down and gouged it away. Everyone seemed speechless, as though they couldn't believe what they had just seen.
"Three of them," Illya said at last. Her voice was filled with quiet awe and not a small amount of fear. "In one attack, Onii-chan took three of Berserker's lives!"
"Emiya, you…"
"Shirou," Saber's voice whispered.
Shirou fell to one knee and pressed Caliburn to the ground as support. Every breath left and came in a pant and seared his lungs with agony. His entire body felt like it was on fire and sweat oozed from every pore. He felt empty, like a glass that had just been drained of its last drop of water.
Illya seemed to regain herself and huffed.
"This is boring!" she declared. "Let's go, Berserker!"
Berserker growled low, but faded and vanished back into spirit form, just as Archer had a scant few hours ago. Illya turned to leave, paused, then looked back over her shoulder.
"Rin," she said coolly, "just so we're clear, next time we meet, you're dead."
Then she turned back around and disappeared into the mist.
Whatever strength remained in Shirou's limbs left him. The adrenaline that had kept him awake long enough to watch Illya leave vanished like so much dust in the wind. He fell face forward into the concrete. Caliburn landed beside him with a clatter. Strange that it was still there, he could not help thinking. Last time, it'd vanished just a few seconds after it struck.
"A Noble Phantasm," Rin's voice was saying. She sounded shaky and uncertain, like her whole understanding of the world had just been uprooted. "Emiya has a thrice-damned Noble Phantasm!"
"Shirou!" Saber was at his side. He could vaguely make out the silvery form of her sabatons and the blue, white, and gold of her dress. "Shirou, are you all right?"
The entire world was going dark. His body ached desperately for sleep and he couldn't fight it. He needed rest. He needed time to regain his energy.
"Saber," he answered her. He tried to tell her that he was fine, just a little tired, but his throat refused to cooperate with him. His eyelids felt too heavy to keep open and he lost feeling in his limbs as every thought slowed to a halt.
He knew no more.
— o.0.O.O.0.o —
"Stop…please…"
Her knees fell weakly to the ground. The black-armored knight heeded it not; he came upon her again, and his black sword was raised to cleave her head from her shoulders.
Arondight. Dragonslayer. The Unfading Light of the Lake.
She couldn't move; she had reached her limit. There was no way for her to defend against the next attack.
Perhaps this was the only salvation.
It was her fault that he was as he was, so filled with hatred — there was no other method of recompense but to use her body to receive the tainted black sword in his hands.
At the exact moment that Saber had decided to completely abandon resistance, suddenly, Berserker stopped moving. In the silence, through the armor and cloth that protected him, her hand could clearly feel his gradually fading heartbeat.
She gripped her beloved sword tightly and thrust the ever-sharp blade through his black armor. In a fleeting instant, victory had been decided, but the barely-there greed festering in the back of her mind made her ashamed of herself, and she could not help the tears that rolled down her cheeks.
"Even thus, I still want the Grail."
Her tears fell down onto her trembling gauntlets and mingled with Berserker's blood, which had slid down the blade.
"If I do not do this, my friend," she said. "If I do not do this, then I will be unable to give you any sort of recompense at all."
"Saddening indeed," Lancelot's voice rasped. "Things have come to this, and you still make excuses to fight?"
She looked up at Lancelot, and he down at her. All the traces of the madness that had so made him Berserker were gone, and he eyes were once again as calm as the lake itself.
"Lancelot…"
"Yes…Thank you. Perhaps this is the only way I can convey my longing."
A breath. A sigh.
"At that time, I had actually hoped that you would personally punish me, my King," he told her. "At that time, I really wished that you would denounce me out of your own anger. If I could have been punished by you…If you had demanded recompense from me, then I definitely would have believed in redemption. I would definitely have believed that I could one day find a way to forgive myself. The Queen is probably the same."
Lancelot let loose a deep sigh and relaxed into Saber's embrace. His body, which was slowly vanishing, was very light. He felt almost weightless.
"To die in the King's arms, before the King's eyes," Lancelot chuckled sardonically. "Like this, it is really…as if I am a loyal knight…"
Abruptly, Shirou awoke and lurched up and found himself sitting on his futon. His breath came in pants and his brow was soaked with sweat.
A dream.
Most assuredly, what he had just seen was a dream, and yet also a memory. It wasn't one of his own. No, it belonged to Saber, but he had never seen it before, and he had witnessed through those dreams all that was worth seeing of King Arthur and Camelot. It was not a dream of her natural life, of her life as King Arthur, so it could only be...
It was a dream about the Fourth Grail War.
Before, he hadn't really understood the dreams. He understood what they were about and he understood what he'd been seeing, but he hadn't really understood what they were. Besides, they let him see Saber and understand her better. No matter what other misgivings he may have had about them, he cherished the untainted view they gave him of his Servant.
But this one...it was too personal.
The tragic reunion of a king and the knight who had betrayed her...it wasn't something he should've seen. It wasn't something he had any right to witness.
And yet, he had.
King Arthur, Sir Lancelot...One blaiming herself for the other's betrayal, one unable to believe in redemption, driven mad by his guilt.
Their tragic reunion, the outpouring of regretful feelings as they faced one another on the battlefield...Shirou had no right to witness something like that.
But he had anyway.
He threw off his covers fitfully, stood with a frown, and checked himself for injuries. He found none. His body was as fit as ever, perfectly healthy.
Avalon.
He went about his morning routine tinged with frustration — shower, dress, brush his teeth. With all of that taken care of, he left the bathroom, traveled down the hall, and slid open the door to what amounted to both the living room and the dining room, then stopped a moment.
"Morning, Tousaka," he said automatically, then he turned and started towards the kitchen.
He froze, then spun around and gaped at her.
"Tousaka!" he said, as though he had just realized she was sitting there. "You're…!"
'Alive' was the first thing that came to mind, because last he had seen her, she'd just healed a grievous wound inflicted by Kotomine Kirei, a wound that he had been sure would kill her. There had been so much blood splattered across the wall and she'd sounded so weak and fragile that only her reassurances and the need to deal with the fake priest himself had convinced him to leave her be.
Then his brain kickstarted and brought him back up to speed and he remembered that he had gone back in time and that last night had been the first confrontation with Berserker and Illya.
"Good morning," Rin said pleasantly. The way she sat there so calmly made it seem as though she were the host and he was the guest. "I hope you're not upset, but I decided to let myself in."
The next thing that came to mind burst out of his mouth a second later.
"What are you doing here?" he asked.
She gestured for him to sit, and again he felt as though he were being treated like a guest in his own home. When he sat down across from her, she took a slow sip from her cup and set it down, then grimaced.
"Do you realize that you don't have any decent tea in this entire house?" she asked rhetorically. "If you're going to use tea bags, at least buy the triangular ones."
"Uh…sure," Shirou said slowly. He hadn't really been able to figure out the relevance of tea bags last time, either. "Tousaka…what exactly are you doing here?"
He hadn't been injured, this time, right? He'd faced Berserker without getting his stomach blown out. That meant that she had no reason at all to follow him home — oh, right. He'd passed out after using Caliburn on Berserker, so she'd still had to carry him back to his house. Of course. He should have realized that earlier.
Rin held up a hand.
"Wait a moment," she said. "First, I want a thank you for carrying you back here last night, and then I want both an apology and an explanation for what you did."
"Apology?" Shirou asked. She hadn't asked for that before, when he'd actually done something really stupid. "Why should I apologize for saving Saber's life? Especially since no one got hurt!"
"Masters don't put their necks on the line to save their Servants, because it doesn't make sense. Think about it, Emiya! If you die, then Saber disappears anyway! That's why it was stupid of you to try and save her and risk your own life in the process!" Rin countered. Yes, but Shirou was already well aware of that. "But that's not it! I want to know — why didn't you tell me you had something like a Noble Phantasm up your sleeve?"
That brought him up short. Where did she get the idea that he had a Noble Phantasm?
"I don't," Shirou said honestly. All of the swords he could project may have their abilities as Noble Phantasms, but they didn't last long, as he already knew.
"Don't you lie to me!" Rin screamed back at him. Shirou jerked backwards as though he'd been slapped. "You pulled out a Noble Phantasm against Berserker last night! Where the hell did you even get it?"
"It was just a Projection," Shirou explained. "I've — I've been seeing that sword in my dreams the last couple of nights, so I Projected it to use against Berserker."
He didn't add the last part: because it worked against him the last time.
"Bullshit!" Rin yelled back. Her face was contorted into one of her rare furies. "Ordinary Projection magic can't faithfully recreate a Noble Phantasm, and even if it could, a Projection shouldn't last more than a minute or two! A Projected Noble Phantasm — even if it were possible — should disappear within seconds! Emiya!" She pointed over to the corner of the room. "That is not a Projection!"
There, sitting innocently in the corner of the room, was Caliburn in all its pristine and noble glory. It looked just as it did in all of his dreams and all of the times he had projected it, but it seemed, in some way, more real than it ever had before.
"It's still here?" Shirou asked numbly. He stood and walked over to it, then grasped it by the hilt and lifted it from the floor. Something inside of him thrummed triumphantly. But still…"It should have disappeared hours ago."
If it had been a normal item, then it could have lasted hours or even days, but weapons of such quality were too noticeable to remain for very long. Caliburn, even though the sword he Projected wasn't a Noble Phantasm, was an item that history said had been broken and lost. Because of that, the World automatically rejected the existence of a Projected copy because it was, in the end, an object that should not exist.
Shirou wasn't an expert Magus, nor a genius like Rin, but even he understood that the World corrected irregularities like his Projections.
So then...why did the sword in his hand feel as real and as permanent as any spatula or ladle he had ever touched?
Why hadn't it disappeared?
"A gift for our King," Shirou thought he heard a voice whisper, but a glance around revealed that he was alone with Rin, who hadn't said anything.
It was probably just his imagination, he decided, or else it might just have been a remnant of memory carried by the sword from its time in Saber's hands.
"You mean that you really didn't know?" Rin asked. She sighed and Shirou turned around to see her head hung resignedly. "You're really hopeless, Emiya. Only you could accidentally earn the allegiance of a Noble Phantasm."
"I think I'm supposed to be insulted," Shirou mused as he sat back down. He figured that he would have been surprised, but so many strange things had happened the first time around that nothing as tame and nonlethal as owning a Noble Phantasm could really faze him. As Rin had so often told him, he was the impossible Master. Things that shouldn't be possible happened around and to him routinely.
Besides, it wasn't actually a Noble Phantasm. Noble Phantasms were recreations of legendary weapons. They were crystallizations of legends and heroes. The sword in his hand was the original, so it was nothing more than a very powerful Mystic Code.
He placed Caliburn beside him and looked back at Rin. She gave him a coy little smile.
"I'm afraid I have no idea what you're talking about," she declared airily. She took another sip from her tea, then set the cup back down. "So, Emiya, what's your plan of attack?"
"You mean in the Grail War," Shirou clarified. He frowned. "I don't really have one," he admitted reluctantly. "The only thing I want to do in this war is prevent the kind of tragedy that occurred ten years ago. Other than that, I haven't really come up with anything yet. I couldn't really care about the Holy Grail one way or the other."
"I knew you'd say that," Rin sighed. "Listen up, Emiya. If Saber hears that, she'll kill you."
Shirou almost laughed — almost. The idea of Saber killing him just because he had no interest in the Grail was ridiculous. She was too much of a knight to do that sort of thing, and he knew her too well to actually believe Rin this time. Last time, he hadn't been so sure.
"Did you really think Servants did this without any ulterior motives?" Rin demanded sharply. "It isn't just the Masters who get their wish granted by the Grail. The Servants do, too, remember? It's the only reason many of them actually become Servants. Why else would they actually answer the Masters' summons? They each have something they want very dearly for the Grail to fulfill."
She pointed a finger at him, and he was sure that if the table hadn't been in the way, she would be jabbing him in the chest with that finger.
"For that wish, the Servants will do nearly anything, even your Saber and my Archer!" she declared vehemently. "If you let them all run around unchecked, then many innocent people are going to die!"
She huffed and leaned back into her seat, then looked away at some distant thing only she could see.
"Servants use Mana as fuel. The more Mana they have, the closer they are to being as strong as they were when they were alive," she explained. Shirou didn't dare interrupt her, even though he already knew all of this, including what she would say next. "Servants are spiritual entities, remember? Eating another person's soul can be a form of sustenance for them. What I'm trying to tell you is that some Masters will force their Servants to eat innocent people's souls just to increase their magical power!"
Shirou grimaced, but latched onto one word in particular.
"You said that some Masters will force their Servants to eat human souls," Shirou began. "Doesn't that kind of imply that Servants wouldn't do it of their own free will? I mean, I get that some less scrupulous Servants would do it anyway, but I don't think someone like Saber would ever do it without being forced with a Command Seal."
Rin frowned.
"I guess so," she conceded. "But what makes you so sure that Saber wouldn't feed on human souls unless commanded? Even knights like her can be swayed by the prospect of something as powerful as the Grail."
Shirou glanced nervously in the direction of the dojo. If he remembered correctly, then that's where Saber would be at this time.
"I think," he started slowly, "that I've figured out Saber's real name. She's —"
"King Arthur, right?" Rin interjected lazily. Shirou's mouth flapped open, but nothing came out. Rin rolled her eyes. "Oh, don't be so surprised. The way she reacted to that sword you summoned was very telling. Caliburn was the Sword in the Stone that chose the rightful King of Britain, so it was pretty easy to guess when she called it hers last night."
Shirou's mouth snapped closed with an audible click. "You weren't planning on telling me, were you?" he accused.
"Nope," she admitted shamelessly. "You can't keep a secret to save your life, Emiya. It was better that you didn't know, so that you couldn't accidentally tell the other Masters. Still, I guess it doesn't matter, anyway. King Arthur never really had any weaknesses. The only reason he — or she, I suppose — died was because of Lancelot and Mordred's betrayal. There is no specific Noble Phantasm or special tactic that can defeat Saber, not by capitalizing on some weakness she had in her legend, at least."
That actually made sense, Shirou thought.
"Yeah," he mused. "I guess it's the same as with Berserker, isn't it? It doesn't matter that we know he's Heracles. There isn't any real weakness he had in his legend that we can exploit to beat him."
Rin hummed an agreement.
"Still," she said, "you shouldn't go about advertising who Saber is, either. She might not have any weakness to exploit, but anyone who knows her identity can plan for her strengths so that it wouldn't make a difference."
She frowned at him.
"You still haven't answered my question," she pointed out. "What makes you think that Saber, King Arthur, wouldn't eat the souls of innocent people in exchange for a boost in power?"
It was a ridiculous suggestion, that Saber would eat an innocent person's soul, and Shirou, who knew that best of all, who knew Saber best of all, was rightly and properly offended on her behalf.
"Of course I didn't answer it, because it was a stupid question anyway!" Shirou said hotly. "Saber's just not that kind of person, alright? Besides, good kings are supposed to sacrifice of themselves for the sake of the nation, right? If you can't call King Arthur a good king, then who can you?"
Rin gave a little roll of her eyes, like he was being naïve and stupid, but didn't argue back.
"Fine, fine, you win," she said lightly. "But you should probably talk to her about it anyway, just to make sure."
She lifted the teapot to pour more tea, but it was empty, so she stood and went to the kitchen to refill it.
"So, what are you going to do, then, Emiya?" she called over her shoulder. He heard the hiss of steam as she filled the pot with more hot water. "Are you just going to sit back and watch, no matter how vile the other Masters get?"
"Of course not," Shirou said. "If they do something horrible, I'll stop them. But right now, I can't go out looking for them or anything like that, not with the condition Saber's in. Even when she gets better, I'm still not really sure exactly how to handle this whole thing. For now, I guess I'll just go about my normal, everyday life."
More than simply following the path of the timeline, the fact of the matter was that he hadn't had enough time to sit down and make a plan to deal with everything. He'd need to figure out what he was going to do about the things he knew before he tried to tackle the War itself.
"You can't be serious," Rin told him as she sat back down. She poured another cup of tea. "You intend to walk around and go to school without Saber, like you're not a Master or anything? Emiya, that's like painting a giant target on your back!"
"Well, it's not like I'd be defenseless!" Shirou shot back. "I mean, you'll still be around and Archer will be there, too. Besides, won't most Masters think twice if they see another Master strolling around without his Servant? They'll think it's either a trap, or that I'm so confident in my own abilities that I'm not worried about having to confront a Servant alone."
"That's…actually pretty well thought out," Rin admitted grudgingly. "But it's still stupid. Any Master worth their salt knows that a normal human being doesn't stand a chance against a Servant."
"Then what about Caliburn?" Shirou asked pointedly. He gestured to the sword lying beside him. "If I carried this around, then even if I am attacked, a single blow from Caliburn would either beat the Servant outright, or make them reconsider attacking me."
"That idea actually has some merit. You'd have some trouble lugging it around with you everywhere, but I'll see if I can't cook something up," Rin said thoughtfully. "But still! You used Caliburn once last night, and you passed out less than a minute afterwards! Even the stupidest of Masters wouldn't pass up killing you while you were unconscious!"
"Well, that's what you're there for, isn't it?" Shirou asked. "I mean, with the two of us working together, wouldn't it be kind of stupid for them to attack us? The only one we'd really have to worry about is Illya and Berserker."
She gave a disappointed shake of her head.
"You just don't get it," Rin lamented with a sigh. "Emiya, we're enemies. We're both Masters. I'm only here because you saved my life last night, and I'd be bogged down with guilt if I just let you go on oblivious to what you've gotten yourself into. Even then, I never once forgot that you and I are pitted against each other. One way or another, we're on opposite sides here, Emiya. We're enemies."
Shirou's gut wrenched. He hadn't thought about it, because he'd been used to being on the same side as Rin and having her as an ally. He was so used to having Rin bunking in the house and being there for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It was hard to imagine her as an enemy again, but now that he actually had to think about it, he remembered that they hadn't been actual allies until they'd been forced to confront Shinji and Rider's Blood Fort.
"I see," he said numbly. "Then I guess…even if I asked you to team up with me, at least until we've beaten Berserker…you'd say no, wouldn't you?"
Rin looked at him and blinked, then let out another sigh. "Geez," she said theatrically, "you're really hopeless, aren't you? All right, Emiya, if you're that worried about everything, then I suppose you and I could form an alliance of sorts for the time being. Let me go get the necessities, then I'll be back to pick out a room, all right? See you in a few hours."
Then she stood and left. Shirou felt railroaded. He blinked owlishly after her and realized belatedly that manipulating him into asking her for an alliance had been Rin's plan the entire time. He didn't understand why she couldn't have asked. He didn't understand why it'd been so important to her for him to be the one to suggest a partnership.
All he understood was that he'd just been played. Like a fiddle.
— o.0.O.O.0.o —
Shirou found Saber exactly where he remembered she'd be: in the dojo. He stepped in through the door, opened his mouth to greet her, and was struck silent again. He was being reminded, again and again, it seemed, just how beautiful she was. It was easy not to notice in the heat of battle when he was standing beside her, or when he'd just spent the entire day with her.
But in the quiet of the dojo, with the morning sunlight illuminating her features just so, she was breathtaking. It was also heartbreaking. It was in moments such as these when he was also made keenly aware of the fact that Saber did not belong in his time, in this place with him. No matter what he said or did, no matter how deeply in love they fell, it was inevitable that she would return home and leave him to live his life without her.
"Good morning, Shirou," she said suddenly, and her quiet voice snapped him from his trance as her verdant green eyes opened slowly to meet his. "I see that you are up and around."
"Good morning, Saber," he replied in kind.
"It seems you've recovered your energy," she continued in the same tone. "That is good. There is much that we must speak of this morning, and it would not do for you to fall asleep in the middle of our discussion. Specifically, I would like to talk to you about what you did last night."
"Sure," Shirou said easily. "What's on your mind?"
She stood suddenly and walked towards him until he could have reached out and hugged her, and she stared up into his eyes seriously. It was difficult to tell what the expression on her face meant with the first glance, but it was more along the lines of her quiet anger and frustration than the intense battle calm that marked her face during combat.
He was about to be scolded.
"The first matter I would like to address is your foolish decision to stand in front of the blow meant for me," she said. "Combat is my area of expertise, and so I would prefer it if you would focus on the areas in which you excel. As my Master, there was no need for you to try to protect me. There is nothing to be gained from it."
Shirou felt indignation rise in his belly, not at her, but at the fact that she placed so little value on herself.
"Wait," he said. "You're telling me that I actually need a reason to help someone? That I should need a reason to save someone's life? Well, I don't! I'm gonna save you if I damn well want to, even if you don't want me to!"
He abruptly turned away from the look of confused surprise that dawned on her face, because it reminded him of that moment when she'd lied in the middle of the street, broken and defeated, during their first fight with Gilgamesh.
"You're not going to convince me that your life isn't worth anything, let alone that I shouldn't save you when you need help," he told her obstinately. "So, let's just move on, okay?"
There was a moment of silence.
"Yes, I see," she replied slowly. "I suppose that there is no point in trying to sway you with words, not if you are as stubborn as I have come to believe. Rather, perhaps you might change your mind later on, after you've suffered an injury for your foolishness."
Shirou didn't think that was particularly likely.
"So," he began, "I guess I should just keep calling you Saber, then?"
It was a horrible attempt at changing the subject, but Saber didn't seem to mind.
"Yes, that would be best," she said. "However, I believe that you should know my true identity, so that you may best make use of my skills in the coming conflicts. I am —"
"King Arthur, right?" Shirou interjected calmly. Surprise flickered across her face again.
"Yes, although I was going to say 'Arturia Pendragon," she answered. She frowned. "I suppose that Rin was the one who told you? I'm surprised. I would have thought that she would prefer to keep such an advantage to herself."
"Something like that," Shirou said. "She and I were having a conversation earlier, and — wait, you already knew that Rin knew?"
A flash of guilt crossed Saber's face.
"Yes, because I am the one who told her," she admitted. "I'm sorry," she added quickly, "but Rin managed to trick me into revealing my identity to her. I thought it best that I inform you as well, so that Rin could not make use of it as an advantage against us. Otherwise, I would have preferred to keep my identity a secret."
Shirou let a resigned sigh hiss passed his lips.
"I guess she managed to get both of us," he lamented. It wasn't too surprising. Rin was a wily girl, and not the least bit concerned about manipulating people when it really suited her needs. Even when they'd become close and actually had something that could be called friendship, she'd still manipulated him. The only difference had been that she explained why.
At Saber's curious look, he told her that, "She tricked me into asking her for an alliance so that she wouldn't have to. I guess she wanted to have some sort superiority by making it seem like I was the one who needed her as an ally — or something like that."
Saber nodded and let out a hum of agreement.
"I see," she said. "Yes, she is quite the frightening girl. I suppose it is for the better that she is on our side, for the moment."
"Yeah," Shirou agreed. "So, is there anything else?"
"Yes, there is." Saber looked at him seriously. "Shirou, I must ask how it is you summoned my sword to your side last night. Caliburn is the Sword in the Stone the Chooses Kings, the sword that I pulled from the stone many years ago, and which was lost and destroyed during my reign. I must ask you, Shirou, how it was it appeared to you."
Shirou decided to give her the answer closest to honesty as he could.
"I've been seeing it in my dreams for a few days, now," he told her. "I needed something to fight Berserker last night, and the only thing I could think of was that sword, Caliburn, so I Projected it and used it like you would."
Saber's brow furrowed.
"But Projection magic is creating a phantasmal object with Prana," she protested. "You formed a real Caliburn, an imitation that somehow became real. That is not Projection magic."
Which was a fair point, Shirou supposed. The problem was, he knew little to nothing about magic beyond Reinforcement and some basic Alteration. Most of his Projection magic had been self-taught after Kiritsugu had passed away.
"Well, my dad never really taught me much magic," Shirou admitted. "We never really covered Projection, so most of what I know about using it is stuff I taught myself. If I'm doing something different or wrong, or if I'm doing something else entirely, like Alchemy or something, I really couldn't say for sure."
He paused and took a breath.
"All I know," he continued, "is that I Projected Caliburn the way I know how, and it should have disappeared shortly after I struck Berserker with it. The fact that it didn't means that it probably is the real Caliburn, but how that happened, I couldn't actually tell you."
"I see," she said quietly. Her brow furrowed and she looked to be thinking about something very intensely. She said nothing else.
"I could give it back to you," Shirou offered. "I mean, that gives you an advantage, doesn't it? To have another powerful Noble Phantasm in your arsenal?"
"No," Saber declared immediately. "Caliburn is the Sword that Chooses, and it appears to me that it has chosen you, Shirou. If you can find a means of carrying it with you, then it would serve you well, as it served me."
"If you're sure," Shirou hedged.
"I am," she told him. "As you just admitted, you know little magic, and so it would be best that you have every advantage we can possibly give you. That Caliburn has chosen you as its new wielder means only that you have one more weapon you can use."
She looked to the side sadly, and to herself, she added, "and perhaps that I am no longer worthy of wielding it."
Shirou knew that he was not meant to hear the last part, and so didn't comment on it.
"All right, then," Shirou said. "Since we've gotten all that out of the way, I think I should say what I didn't really have the chance to last night. If you want the Grail, I'll help you get it. If you have a wish, I understand, and I won't ask what it is, no matter how much I want to. From here on out, we're partners — even if I'm the Master and you're the Servant, I'm not going to treat you like you're someone I can just order around however I want, and I'm not going to ask you to throw your life away for my sake, no matter what you or anyone else says."
He held out his hand. "From here on out, Arturia," he said; he made a point of using her real name, as he never had before, "our destinies are intertwined. Whatever fate awaits you awaits me. My sword will be at your side from here on forward. With this, the accord between us is struck."
She spent a long moment just staring at him and his outstretched hand, and then she smiled her simple little smile and took it.
"Very well, then, Shirou," she said. "If this is your desire, then this shall be our contract."
And then, at that exact moment, Shirou's stomach let out a sudden loud, ravenous growl. Shirou felt his face flush and reached up with his now-free hand to scratch sheepishly at the back of his head.
"I see," Saber smiled. "So then, may I assume that you have yet to eat breakfast?"
"Ahaha, yeah," Shirou admitted. "Between talking with you and the conversation with Tousaka, I completely forgot about making breakfast."
"Ah," Saber nodded sagely. "Then it would be best to seek sustenance. Hunger is the enemy."
And then, just as she finished speaking, another growl rumbled into the air…from her stomach.
"I guess you'd like something too, then?" Shirou asked. She nodded, and it was obvious that she was trying to retain her composure and dignity. It was ruined by the blush that had arisen in her cheeks. He tried not to laugh. "Do you mind Japanese food, then, or do you want something Western?"
"It does not matter," Saber insisted. "Food is food, and it is a necessity. Though I would prefer to eat something that tastes good, extravagance is the enemy."
"I see," Shirou said. There was a long moment of silence, and he tried to resist the urge, but Shirou found that he couldn't stop himself. It slipped out, almost of its own accord.
"We sure have a lot of enemies, don't we?"
"Yes, it seems so."
— o.0.O.O.0.o —
To be continued
Disclaimer: I don't own Fate/Stay Night.
Edit 12/30/12: A lot of things have changed about the direction of this story, so the reason behind Caliburn should be cleared up by the end of chapter 10, at the latest.
EDIT: So, apparently, Saber's actual name is "Altria Pendragon" — who would've thought, right? Except I went and researched it, and The Wiki Was Wrong (can we make that a TV Tropes page?). "Arturia" is a mistranslation of the name written on her Fate/Complete Material data sheet, which means that everyone currently using "Arturia" as Saber's real name is wrong. Of course, to me, Arturia makes more sense, so I'll stick with that for the purposes of this story. Still, this isn't that big of a surprise, right? The only way that any mistranslation of this sort is ever properly corrected is if it's "officially" dubbed into English, except the closest they ever came to uttering Saber's real name during the anime was to call her "King Arthur." Good job, folks. Thanks for screwing it up for the rest of us.
In true FSN fashion, I've actually planned out two endings and three epilogues to this fic, all of which will be posted (we'll call this story the "King's Sword" route, I think; if you've got a better name for it, feel free to say so). There'll be a Good end and a Normal end, and then three epilogues: Good, True, and Normal. The Good and True epilogues will come from the Good end and will be very similar because they're different offshoots of the same ending. The Normal epilogue will follow the Normal end, and it'll be open enough that you could technically create a crossover sequel akin to "Hill of Swords" or "In Flight."
Steel is my body and fire is my blood.
James Daniel Godric Alan Fawkes
James Daniel Godric Alan Fawkes(Signature best viewed in Wendy Medium font style)