Furnace Heart
The ride to where Fuyuki is supposedly located was ridiculously long. Lelouch found his time occupied with reading Hamlet.
Kallen and C.C. were there, Saber said little, focusing on keeping the pain from manifesting itself physically.
They disembarked from the train. They found Zero's contact, a lovely woman with purple hair.
"Saber!" she cried out, in a concerned voice.
"Sakura, I wish we could meet under better circumstances, take me to Shirou."
She led them to a car and they began to drive. The outside became extremely foggy and Lelouch couldn't see anything.
They drove for several minutes and suddenly the dense fog cleared up.
Kallen gasped, "I can't believe it, it looks like the war never happened here!"
"It's true, Britannia was never able to conquer this place," Sakura Matou explained.
"But how?" Kallen asked.
"Magic," the young woman replied.
If Lelouch hadn't possessed Geass he would have laughed at this idea.
"Where are we going?"
"To Shirou, he'll be able to help; after all, he does have it with him."
She drove them to a beautiful Japanese mansion. They stopped at the front door.
"Take off your shoes," Sakura instructed.
Lelouch, Kallen, and C.C. did as they were told.
"Saber, you're back!" a handsome man with white hair greeted her. She smiled warmly at him.
"Shirou, I need your help."
"If you want that I can make it right now," Shirou replied, raising a hand.
"Not in front of them, they will wait out here, and we will do this in your room."
The three were stunned, "What do you mean by that?" Zero demanded.
"It's not whatever you're thinking of, now wait out here, she will return shortly.
They walked away and Zero kept trying to figure out what was going on.
Inside his room, Shirou traced Avalon and gave it to her.
"I'm sorry they took you away, I tried to find you, but I couldn't," Shirou apologized, bowing in Japanese fashion.
"It's not your fault, but now I will be healed of my wounds and then I will punish them."
"These Britannians can't stay here, no matter who they are. They are the first non-Japanese people we have let in here, but that was because you called us and told us you were bringing them to us."
Arturia sighed, "I had hoped that you would let us stay for a meal at least, I loved your cooking, Shirou."
"I'm sorry, but there's no time for that, but we'll meet again here soon. I have business in the Tokyo settlement."
"Then we'll meet again, Shirou," Arturia smiled.
"I'm glad you're back, Saber, at long last, you'll fix everything."
"I am not a knight that worked miracles, but I will change this country, even if I have to destroy it."
Saber got up, "Give Rin my regards."
Shirou nodded, smiling.
Arturia Pendragon walked out under her own power much to the surprise of Zero, Kallen, and C.C.
"Well you're awfully quiet," Kallen looked at Sakura.
"I don't like Britannians that much," Sakura glanced at Zero.
"But you know Saber," Kallen protested.
"She's not a Britannian."
She's not? But why would my father want her to become a viceroy or a commander then? Unless his racist speeches are a farce. We do have an Honorary Britannian system but it doesn't really mean a lot in the grand scheme of things, honorary citizens rarely move up in the world.
Just then, Rin Tohsaka walked into the room.
"Saber!" she smiled, pulling her into a hug.
Arturia patted Rin on the back. "It's so good to see you!"
"I wish you could stay, but we're very wary of your friends there," she gestured to them.
"It's all right, there will always be other times," Arturia smiled.
"Take care of yourself, if you call us, we'll come running," Rin smiled at her.
"I will."
Rin glanced at Lelouch, "Zero, I swear to Christ if you make my friend cry, I'll take a soldering iron to your eyes!"
"I'll remember that," Lelouch gulped. He left with the others.
They left Fuyuki as quickly as they came, there were more important things to do.
"You won't be staying with the Black Knights, it'd be too suspicious. You'll be staying with me," Lelouch told her. My name is Lelouch Lamperouge, and you're an old friend of my mother's from overseas, isn't that right Elise Watoson?"
They had arrived back home without drawing any attention to themselves. Lelouch changed out of his Zero costume before they arrived.
"If you insist," Arturia replied.
Lelouch removed his helmet and she saw his face.
She was stunned, it was like seeing a ghost, it was as if he'd come back from the dead.
"Aldwin…" Arturia murmured low enough so he couldn't hear her.
Aldwin Vi Britannia, also known as Aldwin X, was someone well known to her, and now his face had returned to haunt her in this era. Arturia gazed at Lelouch.
That man. He was her childhood friend and one of the few people of her time that knew of her true gender. He was cocky, vain, egotistical, and he'd always been interested in her, in the physical sense.
Aldwin X was known for his stunning good looks, his never-ending dalliances with women and his utter incompetence as a strategist on the battlefield. "Britannia's Royal Jackass" is what the Britons called him; she knew this era's history books would not be so unflattering.
Arturia noticed a woman in a maid uniform bow and greet Lelouch.
"I'm sorry My Lord, I've been busy entertaining your sister, I'll get dinner started right away."
"Don't worry about it Sayoko, it's fine, I'm not hungry right now," Lelouch smiled.
He took Nunnally's hand, "This is an acquaintance of mother's, she's visiting from overseas. Her name is Elise Watoson."
"Elise, this is my younger sister, Nunnally," Lelouch introduced her, letting Arturia take her hand.
"It's nice to meet you," Nunnally replied, taking her hand. She gave her a strange smile. "You do have an…interesting name."
"I'm sorry Nunnally, I have to go do homework," Lelouch informed her. "Would you mind keeping her entertained until dinner?"
"I don't mind at all," Arturia gazed at the young teenager. She was a polite, sweet girl and she was very important to Lelouch, she could see that from his interactions with her.
"Shall I tell you a story, Miss Nunnally? There are several classics here, perhaps, King Arthur and his Knights, or something else."
Please say no, I'd rather not read their drivel if I can help it, Arturia sighed.
"I don't like that story very much."
They think alike, by my faith, am I hated everywhere? She looked at the young lady.
Sayoko offered Arturia a cup of tea. She thanked the maid and drank it quietly.
"It's not that I don't like the adventures of the knights, but the king's childhood is so boring, it's not that interesting to me."
"There are….other versions of those stories, you know," the King of Knights suggested gently. She didn't want to look like an "anti-historical dissident" after all.
She touched the girl's hand, "What if I told you that Arthur had an older brother growing up like you do."
"That's not what they teach me in school, but it would be interesting, I won't tell if you won't."
"I won't tell then," Arturia smiled and started from the beginning, telling the truth about her father, Igraine, and Merlin. Nunnally seemed surprised to say the least.
"Milly would love this version of the King Arthur story," Nunnally smiled.
"Why is that?" the young woman asked, curious.
"Because she's a big perv, at least that's what Shirley says," Nunnally answered.
Arturia spat her drink out.
The blind girl laughed.
Arturia continued her story, and for the first time, someone actually seemed interested in her life and it made her feel better.
This is Arturia Pendragon:
Arturia Pendragon is many things, the King of Knights, the Beautiful Flower of the Battlefield, the Bear King, the Red Dragon of Britain.
The story of her life has been told and retold over the centuries, but the Britannians insist their account is historically accurate.
Uther and Igraine were married in Cornwall, and they consulted Merlin asking for his aid in helping them conceive a son.
The son born to them was Arthur, an only child that grew into a handsome man raised in the royal family and given the finest education under the care of Aladwin IX.
The King was able to pull the Sword of Choosing from the stone and became Britannia's greatest king and named Aldwin X, the wisest knight of the Round Table as his successor.
The Arthurian scholars insist that the whispers of incest and other unsavory tales of the King of Knights are propaganda by Britannia's enemies to undermine their greatest king.
Of course, the truth is different, she was not raised in the lap of luxury but as the "son" of a humble knight, Sir Ector, who is conveniently missing from Britannian records.
There are other stories, but they are censored in Britannia, and questioning the historical accuracy of the records is tantamount to questioning the royal family, which is dissension.
Her life was not as grand and glorious as the stories made it out to be, but the blatant lies the Britannians wove into the truth made the tale of King Arthur the perfect propaganda for them to boast of the country's might, to boost both their martial and prestige.
Though Arturia had lived what she thought was a grand and extravagant life, the Britannians considered her to be poor and weak, the splendor of Camelot made them sneer with derision and scorn, though they never said such things in their textbooks.
She had finally grown tired of the arrogant who looked down on her and the ideals she held deep in her heart. Now she would crush them and let them taste the wrath she had restrained her entire life.
People always assumed they knew everything about her when they spoke their self-righteous judgment.
"The unattainable dream she held so dear was certain to explode flare that would burn her to ash. The tears of bitter lamentation she shed, how sweet they'd have tasted as she lay there dying."
Saber clenched her fists, if she had any true regrets regarding the events of the Fifth Holy Grail War, it would be that she had never been able to cut that blonde-haired twat, the Archer to pieces with her sword. Shirou had chosen to fight him in her place instead; she had disappeared after Rin had ordered her to destroy the Holy Grail using her last Command Seal.
"You glorious fool who strives to achieve that which man was not meant to have. In all of heaven and earth, none but I Gilgamesh am the only one who can truly appreciate your destruction. You who shine so brightly yet so briefly, come to my arms, this I have decided!"
That arrogant bastard, he'd met his end well enough. Still, she hated that man immensely. But her thoughts turned to the other man she had hated, the one who had dishonored her chivalry and dared to lecture her as if he knew how best to rule a country! Reeling from the emotional distress of the death of her opponent Diarmuid Ua Duibhne she had balked in shock like a naive princess rather than an indignant king!
"Honor, glory. There's no point in talking to a killer who extols the virtues of such things."
What did Kiritsugu know of war? He was what this era referred to as a hired gun, he did not charge out openly onto the battlefield, he lurked in the shadows, shooting people from a safe distance, he was prone to using explosives and poison, what did he know of honor? He had also committed the gravest betrayal of keeping her from the Grail and forcing her to destroy it!
"Knights call certain methods of fighting good, and others evil, acting as if there were some sacred nobility to the battlefield. Such illusions created by heroes throughout history have led countless men to their bloody deaths, all for the sake of this "glory" and "honor" they all extol."
"They are not illusions! Even the taking of a life in battle, has an act of a human being, must have ideals! Otherwise, every war would bring the very fires of hell to this world!"
"And there you go, you heard her, Iri. Our Heroic Spirit over there considers a battlefield to be better than hell. What a joke. A battlefield is hell itself. There's no hope to be had on one. There is nothing but unspeakable despair. Just a soulless cry we call "Victory". Paid for by the pain of defeated. But humanity has never recognized this truth. And the reason is that in every era, a dazzling hero has blinded people with their legend. And kept them from seeing the evil of bloodshed they bring. True human nature has not advanced a step beyond the Stone Age!"
How she mocked him now, the blood-stained sinner dared to lecture her about morality and war! Did that man have a band of brothers, a family that he had fought and died alongside? Did he have to bear the burden of having to be haunted by the memories of all the people who died, that you couldn't bring home? He knew nothing of such things, and yet he thought himself her better!
For all this pathetic posturing, he was just an ignorant fool, he had never had the heavy weight of a crown, along with having to protect a country that was constantly being invaded by foreigners that envied their prosperity.
He could have chosen to live a good life as a mage, been a true member of the Association and found a way to achieve his goal of saving the world without dishonor and his underhanded schemes as a lowly beast.
Oh, if he could see her now, he'd love her cynicism and pragmatism and praise her attitude to the heights of heaven now! How like him she had become, and yet, his ideas to sacrifice few to save many was not lost on her, she had once sacrificed an entire village to feed her hungry soldiers to keep morale high! As if he could have done better in that situation!
Now Kiritsugu was dead, rescuing Shirou had changed him after she had destroyed the Holy Grail. Still, she had not forgiven him for what he had done to her.
He had wounded her more deeply than any Noble Phantasm.
For most of her life, Arturia had thought of her heart as a candle. Candles provide light in the darkness and are often used to light churches and homes, the light of the candle had been snuffed out by Kiritsugu Emiya, but now the candle had been crushed by the Lion of Britannia, and in its place she had a furnace for a heart, and the flames that ignited what was left her heart and it would flare out and reduce the lion of Britannia to little more than ashes and dust.
The kindling that fueled the fire of her furnace heart was grief that had transmuted into hatred. It grieved her deeply that the country she loved had never truly returned from the ashes of what she had left behind.
Arturia tasted the bitterness of her failure. She had failed to lead her country, and her country did not protect her king. How she longed for the days when her greatest failure had been rescuing the Duchess of Brittany from a giant! At least she knew that it was not because of anything she had done; only this time her failure as king left behind emotional scars that refused to heal.
From the conversations she had heard, Britain was now a republic. The land had no need for a king. A king is nothing without his people, her country had left her, save for the mages in the Association.
The most unforgivable thing that had occurred was the realization of the Britannians and what they had done to her legacy. They were Anglo-Saxons and as Anglo-Saxons, they were her enemies.
Arturia was looking at the book "The History of the Emperors of Britannia" and began to read a passage about the King of Knights' early childhood.
"After King Uther was poisoned by assassins, Merlin took the boy and placed him under the care of….Aldwin IX the man Uther appointed to watch over the Kingdom while the King grew up…."
She began to quickly read more pages, not one mention of her boisterous brother Kay, not one mention of the only man she'd ever called Father, the good Sir Ector. What she read was utter nonsense and made up drivel.
She was frantic now, what else had they changed?
She'd taken to searching through Lelouch's history books, the Britannians claimed that Ambrosius and Uther were the descendants of Aldwin I, in truth, they were not, she knew this for she knew her own history.
What sickened her the most was a particular passage that stated that the King refused to accept the service of any knight who was not a "true Britannian".
Arturia laughed, what about Sir Lancelot? He was French! They seemed to ignore that aspect because it was convenient.
They had turned her into a racist monster, praising "him" for embracing the ideals of "Saint Darwin" thousands of years before his time.
Sir Morien was a black-skinned man from a far-off country and she had welcomed him to her court where he served as one of her knights for a time.
Her body shook with such a fury that anyone who saw her might think she was sick or weakened by some disease.
"Those Anglo-Saxon bastards! Aldwin has stolen everything from me, my honor, my noble deeds, my accomplishments, even my name!"
Britannian bastard, indeed, well, she'd make them pay for their many sins soon enough, now that Avalon had healed her wounds.
Arturia sighed; to ally herself with Zero would mean she would be forced to endure another man who had no qualms about using despicable tactics to obtain victory. She was as unlucky as ever in the partners' fate brought to her.
She could see from his Zero personality what kind of strategist he was, and she didn't like him in that regard one bit.
Still, she laughed, since when did Britannians ever follow the path of chivalry, for all the tenants they cited by rote, they certainly ignored them when it was convenient for them to do so.
What a farce it was, she'd be amused if it weren't so pathetic. They loved to sing the praises of their stolen righteousness. It would be a truly great pleasure to crush them under her heel.
Arturia felt a hand on her shoulder, she felt the gloved hand, and at his touch, her furnace heart unclenched.
"Zero, is there something you need?"
"How did you know it was me?" Zero asked, curious.
"I can recognize you by touch."
"I see."
Lelouch looked at her, "Saber, will you join me?"
"I have not decided, why should I follow a man with Aldwin X's face?"
Lelouch was stunned; he hadn't expected her to mention his distant ancestor.
"I'm not him, why you ever thought of him, I have no idea. Give it some thought; the Black Knights could use someone like you."
He walked away.
"Use, you're just like him, just another royal jackass!" Arturia clenched her fist.
Arturia wanted to believe that, but seeing Lelouch and Nunnally together was a stark reminder, Lelouch was not Aldwin, but she wasn't willing to pledge her sword to a man who treated her like she did not exist.
She sighed; at least she was physically healed now. The only thing left was to decide whether to throw in with the "Black Knights" or not.