Disclaimer: FSN is not mine, bitches.

(All credit for editing goes to DarckRedd)

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Chapter I: Shadow of the Wraith

It couldn't have happened. It simply couldn't have.

It.

Could.

Not.

Have.

Happened.

But it did.

Saber… Arturia… stared. That was all she did. The horror kept her from doing anything else.

Her mind, however, was in turmoil.

'No… no… please, please let it be another nightmare, please…'

The image of Shirou's body arching back, a bloodied dagger protruding from his chest, was played again and again in her brain.

'It can't be real.'

Shirou dropping Ilya as his body spasmed in shock.

'We've just won… this can't be happening. It's not real. It's not real. It's not real.'

Shirou dragged into the black pool. The vile priest's final act of revenge.

'It's… but… no… it…'

She refused to believe what she saw. But things weren't changing.

She was not waking up.

This wasn't a nightmare.

'No… please… I've lost too much… Shirou… Shirou… SHIROU!'

It was true. Shirou was gone; he was being consumed by the Grail. And she was just staring, watching him die.

No. She couldn't allow that to happen. This was no illusion she could flee from. Shirou, who had done so much for her, was about to die a horrible death.

The lion within her awoke, and with a blood curdling roar Arturia Pendragon lifted Excalibur and charged, jumping into the Grail's essence.

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Darkness.

The voices of a million dead men, ordering her to give in. To come with them and share in their misery.

Hands grasped at her body, wanting nothing more than to take her down to them. The beasts of the Grail were illusions hungry for reality, and here she was, real and existing, ripe for the picking.

She should have fallen. Before the events of the current War, Saber knew she probably would not have been able to resist.

But now, now she was here for a reason.

She needed Shirou.

A lone voice cut through the cacophony generated by the screams of the dead,

"Don't worry old man; I'll fulfill your dream."

"Shirou?"

The arms which had only attempted to lightly grasp at her before went for the kill, lunging at her with the intent of ripping her apart. Excalibur cut them all down, the blade swinging through the air. She had heard Shirou's voice. That meant he was alive. And that, in turn, meant that nothing was going to stop her.

And so she plunged onwards, and her vision changed.

She was trudging through the ashes of a ruined city, her mind and body slowly falling apart. Then her legs gave out from under her and she fell. The last thing she saw was a kindly face staring down at her.

The scene blurred again.

She was walking beside a middle aged man she called her "father", and fireworks were flashing on the night sky. The fire was no longer there. She was safe and had someone to make happy. The world was perfect, until-

"I have a secret I haven't told you- I'm a magician."

She was kneeling beside the same man, tears streaming down her face. He had enough time to grasp her hand one last time before his last breath left his body.

"My diary… in… study… Shirou…"

Her hand hovered over a metal doorknob. Trembling, hesitating. Despite how much she had idolized her… father… she had not been completely blind. She knew that if she opened the door to the study, which she had never before visited, she would find secrets. Secrets she did not want to know.

Her resolve broke and she fled away from the place, tears streaming down her cheeks.

That moment of weakness and her consistent inability to overcome it would haunt her to this day.

And now things moved much faster, life advancing as nothing more than a confusing blur, when…

"You know, for a moment I thought you might actually be the Seventh. It doesn't matter, though; I still have to kill you."

The spear went down, heading straight for her heart, but then there was a flash of blue light and she was staring at a beautiful woman, bathed in moonlight.

"I ask of you – are you my Master?"

She was feeling Rin Tohsaka's lips on her own, feeling her try to make it cold and hard, but failing to hide something that left her weak at the knees.

Her hands clenched around twin black and white swords. She had never used them before, but somehow they felt strangely familiar.

She was charging at the man who killed her father. She wanted Justice, but for the brief second before her blade plunged into the man the desire changed into an unbridled lust for vengeance.

Azoth found its target.

She had won. Turning around to stare at the beautiful woman, all she knew was happiness.

And then there was pain.

And she was falling.

Falling…

Falling…

"SHIROU!"

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There had been pain. Darkness.

Blood flowing from his wound.

A mindless beast, its face vaguely reminiscent of what Kotomine once was, dragging him down to the depths of hell. Consuming him.

And then he'd woken up. Still in pain, still tired, but healed.

Someone had saved him. Someone was fighting the Beast.

'Saber…'

And there she was, sword held high, standing before the monster.

"You cannot win, Arturia," the Beast said, "Give in. That is after all, what Heroic Spirits must do when confronted by the might of the Holy Grail, is it not?"

Saber herself did not respond, but rather charged again, only to get batted aside like an annoying fly.

"Saber!"

Shirou knew it; this was the place he was going to die.

What he had not expected was for Saber to go down with him.

This was it. They were not going to survive. However, the Beast was wrong – just because they were going to die didn't mean they weren't going to win. Just as Saber lifted herself from the floor, preparing to attack again, Shirou, too, made a supreme effort to stand up, ignoring the pain in his body.

"Saber! Don't attack yet!"

The girl turned her head around, hope showing on her face as she saw him finally stand up.

"Shirou!"

"Saber… we won't survive this… but that doesn't mean we can't defeat the Grail! If we..."

"NO!"

The Beast roared and charged at them, a swipe of his claws throwing Saber aside, away from Shirou.

It was now or never.

Gathering his courage, Shirou lifted his left hand and pointed it at Saber, revealing his last command seal.

"Servant Saber, by the power conferred to me by this Contract, I order you to destroy the Holy Grail, no matter what you have to do!

"NO, NO, DAMN YOU-"

Shirou's last command spell flew from his hand, slamming into Saber. For one moment her face took on an emotionless, mechanical look.

"Yes, Master!"

Then she was back to herself, staring at Shirou with surprise written on her face, but the rest of her body was now acting of its own accord, energy spilling into her sword.

The Beast changed course from attacking Shirou to running at Saber, claws held high. But it was too late. Excalibur flared up with light, and an unearthly wind began to blow, knocking the Beast back.

Saber looked at Shirou one last time. They would never see each other again.

"Shirou… I love you…"

Shirou had no time to respond as the command spell took over again and Saber raised her blade high.

"EX-"

The Beast gave one final roar

"-CALIBUR!"

Golden energy flew from the sword, consuming the Beast, and then crashing against the walls of the mindscape, cracking them. Black fluid poured from the cracks. The energy, however, seemed to fight against it, causing the ooze to explode whenever it came into contact with it.

It was enough. The Grail would be destroyed from the inside.

But there would be a price to pay.

The walls of the mindscape shattered completely, darkness raining upon Shirou and Saber. Excalibur's golden energy spread out to destroy it, but it was too late – the ooze simply jumped over a surprised Saber, bathing her in defiled essence, and soon Shirou was struggling against it too. The last thing he saw before the bile consumed him was a magnificent auric blast; the last thing he heard were Saber's agonized screams.

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"Cold."

Amber eyes opened, their gaze unfocused.

"Where am I?"

A tired hand fumbled around, grasping nothing but dirt until finally coming into contact with soft white blonde hair.

"Warm… feels good…"

The eyes finally settled on the source of the warmth. A small, pale girl, sleeping peacefully inside a bundle of blankets.

"Ilya!?"

Shirou's mind snapped back into reality. He was at the temple grounds of Ryuudoji, apparently unharmed. The Grail was nowhere to be seen.

"I'm… alive?" Shirou marveled.

He didn't have time to dwell on it; there were other problems at hand.

If he was safe, and Ilya was safe, then that must mean…

"Saber!"

He scanned the room.

And then he saw her, and the cold that had taken over him moments before returned, numbing his body. Still, Shirou shook it off and crawled to Saber, kneeling beside her. If he had needed any more proof that there was something terribly wrong, seeing her up close was it.

Saber was there, but she didn't look like herself. And there was something about her…

Her skin was deathly pale. Her hair, too, had changed color, becoming barely a shade darker than Ilya's. Full black armor covered her body, and beside her, cleaved into the ground, was a black version of Excalibur, covered in glowing red runes.

But even this was not what set Shirou on edge – tattooed on Saber's delicate lower jaw, trailing along her neck were black markings drawn in intricate patterns, and it was from these markings that Shirou could somehow, someway, feel the wrongness… the corruption… emanating.

"Saber…"

At the mere mention of her name Saber's eyes snapped open, staring intently into Shirou's own. Here, too, the transformation had taken effect – the irises were no longer green, but gold.

Before Shirou could say anything the girl shook as if in pain, falling back into unconsciousness with only a single muttered word.

"Fight… ing…"

"Saber!?"

Shirou was at a loss. Saber was plainly, but what was the cause?

"Fighting… against what?" he wondered.

'The same thing that happened to you, only, let's say, a tad more… lethal.'

Shirou started, surprised by the sudden response. That voice sounded exactly like him, but darker, more arrogant.

"Where did you… Tell me what's happening to Saber!"

The voice chuckled.

'You want to know what happened? Why Shirou, you only need to look down at your hands!'

"My… hands…"

Shirou held up his right hand, staring at it closely. The skin was much paler, and the palm and back were decorated with complicated black tattoos. Fear started creeping up his body from the pit of his stomach. This…

He looked at his left hand. It was covered with the same marks as the right, down to the very last stroke. Desperate, he pulled back the ripped sleeves of his shirt, horrified at seeing his arms just as pale as his hands, the black markings continuing up his skin, losing their involved patterns as they went along until they looked more and more like an eerie infection.

"What's going on? Who are you!?"

An icy laugh echoed through Shirou's mind.

'Think of me as… your better half.'

TBC…

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A/N: Anyone who's played the games will notice the blatant addition of elements from the Prince of Persia games, right down to the prologue's ending line. What can I say? I wanted to write an FSN story where Shirou's dark half shone through, and the Prince of Persia series, both the old and the new, (though The Two Thrones gets an honorary mention because that's where a large share of the ideas came from) provided excellent inspiration.