Chapter 1: Another Fateful Night, Another Sword
In the darkness of an old, musty shed, a young man sat against a column of wood. With a stern face, he rested his hands on his lap, leaving his palms spread open.
"Trace On."
Emiya Shirou opened his hands in quiet concentration. He closed his eyes shut, immersing himself in an ideal that rejected his material reality. He imagined the shape of a weapon he saw countless times in his dreams. He felt his magical energy reserves dip as a new weight fell over his hands.
Where empty air once was, a golden sword came to be in Shirou's hands. The blade emanated a radiant aura that lit up the dark shed. The faint light of the moon outside paled in comparison to the majesty of the sword Shirou carefully held.
He wrapped his fingers around its hilt. Feeling the familiar grip in his palms, he held the blade up with two hands. He scrutinized the elaborate designs on the sword. The words inscribed on the blade were in a language Shirou could not decipher, but even so, he understood them.
"The Golden Sword of Assured Victory – Caliburn," he muttered to himself in the dead of night.
It was the Noble Phantasm that belonged to the Servant Shirou had summoned in the Holy Grail War almost a year ago. At the time, he'd been nothing more than a third-rate magus, caught up in a grand magic ritual lightyears ahead of his league. In all likelihood, Shirou should have died on the first night.
And yet, against all odds, a miracle had occurred. He had won the Holy Grail War. Surviving to the end as the last Master, he'd clinched victory from the jaws of certain death. All because he had the immense fortune to summon her.
"Saber…" he whispered her name like a prayer. The vast pit of emptiness in his heart stirred.
Memories of the King of Knights, Altria Pendragon resurfaced in the haze of Shirou's mind. Her rigid strength. Her confident gait. Her splendid smile. They haunted Shirou's heart as painful reminders of what he'd lost.
Shirou gazed at Caliburn longingly, hoping to catch some phantom of its one true wielder.
But no matter how long he looked, only the cold reflection of his own eyes stared back at him. He couldn't help but smile wryly, realizing how pitiful he must look right now to the outside observer.
A lone young man gazed at a sword that once belonged to his long dead lover. Utterly alone, on a cold wintery night, he held the blade close, relishing in its faint warmth, the product of his own fabrication, a replication of something that had been lost ages ago.
"It's warm…" Shirou noted. He felt the cold of winter be dispelled by the sword's radiance.
He understood it was simply the holy sword converting his magical energy into heat, but still, he felt some semblance of comfort at the idea that the sword was maybe somehow alive, like it was a part of her, like the knight who once wielded the sword were still with him right now, even from the beyond.
"It's been almost a year now," Shirou mused, his eyes never leaving Caliburn. A heavy sigh escaped from his lips, creating a small cloud of warmth in the frigid cold air. "So much has changed, but I don't think I've done much."
Shirou was in his senior year of high school now, his last year at Homurahara Academy. He was at the cusp of graduating and walking out into the wide open world. However, he was still uncertain of the path he ought to take.
"Tohsaka invited me to join her at the Clock Tower, as her assistant of course. She says it could help me expand my horizons in magecraft, but I'm not sure if that's what I really want," Shirou recalled aloud, gazing at Caliburn, as if he were catching up with Saber herself through her sword.
"Illya and Fuji-nee have been staying over quite often these days. I think they're worried I might get lonely around this time of the year. I'm not gonna lie. It's been tough to keep up my spirits up recently," Shirou brought up with a sad chuckle. "Somehow, Tohsaka and Sakura took that as an open invitation to stay over a few times as well.
"As a result, the kitchen's been pretty hectic recently. Though, their combined appetite is still nothing compared to yours, Saber." Shirou smiled lightly.
He continued to speak at great length of recent events. He indulged himself in the foolish fantasy that Saber could really hear him through Caliburn.
No one else was at the shed at present. He had the house to himself tonight, so there was no chance of someone dropping in unexpectedly. So, with no one to criticize his sentimental rambling, Shirou just continued talking, spitting out one mundane story after another.
However, over time, he ran out of things to say and he could no longer bear the silence of solitude.
His spirits lowered just as his magical energy reserves depleted. The warmth Caliburn emitted steadily lost its power source, and so, its light slowly diminished, gradually dimming until inevitably…
The golden sword abruptly crumbled into pieces, dissolving in a flurry of radiant blue dust.
Shirou felt a tiny stab of pain in his heart as he watched the blade break. He was unsurprised, but not unmoved. Even when Saber had been present, he could only maintain Caliburn for a few minutes. He was keenly aware of his own limits. But even still, Shirou's heart ached each time he witnessed the sword disappear into nothing.
It was a cruel reminder of the will of the world, that Caliburn did not belong in the modern age, just as he and Saber did not belong in the same time period. Their meeting had been a miracle that defied common sense.
Shirou's eyes darkened. He frowned at his now empty hands. He clenched his fists bitterly.
"This night's copy of Caliburn was worse than the last," Shirou remarked gloomily.
It was something he couldn't quite put into words. Shirou could just sense that something was amiss, that something was fundamentally wrong about the projection of Caliburn he'd created tonight, at least compared to the previous copies he'd made before.
Tonight's Caliburn disappeared relatively faster than his previous projections of the same sword. This meant there was something internally different about it, that tonight's Caliburn was somehow more flawed than the previous ones.
Shirou forged each copy of Caliburn from the details and specs embedded in his memory. So, if any new flaws were to appear in Shirou's projections, then the fault would most likely lie with his memory.
"Damn it…" Shirou cursed under his breath. He gritted his teeth.
A horrible chill ran spread through Shirou's body as he understood the reason his projections of Caliburn disappeared more quickly.
It was a completely simple, human reason.
He was forgetting.
In the passage of time, Shirou was slowly but surely forgetting details of Caliburn. Each time he projected the sword, he incorporated some unseen flaw into the projection. These were most likely only tiny discrepancies. But over time, with the addition of every flaw, the sword became more imperfect, making it more vulnerable to being rejected by the will of the world.
Shirou's projections were fundamentally in opposition to the concept of reality. Where nothing was, something came to be, at the expense of his magical energy. Any projection Shirou created would inevitably be rejected and destroyed by the will of the world. This was an iron clad rule of his magecraft.
"Someday..." Shirou collapsed into a heap on the floor of the shed. His eyes lost in the darkness of a room without Caliburn's light. "Will there come a day where I can't even project your sword, Saber?"
The thought sent shivers down Shirou's spine. His stomach turned in dread. If his failing memory would eventually render him ultimately unable to project a copy of Caliburn, then would there also come a day where he would be unable to even remember Saber's face?
Shirou clenched his teeth, sickened at the mere thought.
He wanted to project another copy of Caliburn just to ease his doubts, to prove to himself he would never forget Saber or her sword, but he was already out of magical energy. He could only wait for his magic circuits to replenish naturally.
Powerless, Shirou looked up, staring at the full moon in full view through the window in the shed. He whispered wistfully, "I want to see you again, Saber."
The moon wordlessly shone down at him in silence.
Nothing happened. Of course. It was only Shirou's wishful thinking. It would take nothing short of a miracle for Shirou to ever see Saber's face again in his lifetime.
"I should probably go back now…" Shirou sighed wearily.
His back had begun to feel uncomfortable on the cold shed floor. He figured he had wallowed enough for one night and began to pick himself up towards the door. He still had to wake up early tomorrow for his morning routine.
But just as Shirou took a step forward, he felt a stinging pain at the back of his left hand.
He froze in place, bewildered by the random sensation. His expression stiffened. He heard a low buzzing sound off in the distance. He strained his ears to pinpoint where the sound came from. He looked up through the window and saw a shooting star.
Shirou's eyes widened. He saw a small speck of light splinter off from the shooting star. The small speck grew into a bright blue orb of light. The strange light hurdled towards Shirou's position at full speed.
"What the f–" Shirou began but stopped when he heard a familiar voice that made his heart stop.
He heard a young girl screaming at the top of her lungs. Her voice was muffled by the noise of turbulent air, but Shirou could recognize that voice in a heartbeat.
"No way–"
Before Shirou could even blink, the blue light crashed through the shed window. The entire room was enveloped in a blinding blue light and Shirou was knocked back by the shock of something crashing into the floor.
"Ugh…!"
Shirou landed on his ass. His left arm planted against the floor, propping up the upper half of his body. He coughed violently as thick clouds of dust filled the air. He tried to gather his bearings, but he couldn't a see a thing.
Eventually, the dust cleared and Shirou could see again. His eyes were immediately drawn towards the center of the room.
Shirou's eyes widened in disbelief. He almost forgot to breathe. He felt his world turn upside down at the sight of a nostalgic face, one he thought he'd never see again.
"Saber…?"
Shirou couldn't believe what he was seeing.
Standing there under the pale blue light of the moon was the unmistakable figure of Saber in a blue tracksuit, shorts, and a blue baseball cap. Her brilliant green eyes shone with a faint blue luster. The blue muffler around her neck billowed in the wind like a king's cape. The gold trimmings on her clothes gave a regal bearing to her otherwise very casual attire.
Shirou locked eyes with the girl, but instead of familiarity or affection, he only felt a wave of cold alienation. He realized he was mistaken. This wasn't Saber, at least, not his Saber.
But as if in defiance of Shirou's conclusion, the girl produced a golden sword out of thin air. It was different from Shirou's projection of Caliburn but shone just as bright as a symbol of Saber's power. The Sword of Promised Victory – Excalibur.
The girl raised Excalibur, pointing the tip of its blade directly towards Shirou's face. Her lips twisted into a dangerous frown as she barked out vigilantly.
"Saber!? Where?"
Author's Note:
This story was first conceptualized at the onset of 2021. And now after around a year has passed, the story was finally released into the wild.
This is a What If scenario that follows the Fate Route of Fate/Stay Night. Shirou only knows how to project Caliburn and Avalon. A year has passed since the events of the visual novel. As Shirou is contemplating a future where he forgets even Saber's face, an unexpected visitor from across the stars arrives to remind him.
This is my first attempt at writing romance. I don't expect it to be so fluffy. Not just because of my inexperience in writing romance, but also because the rough draft of the plot foretells this story taking a dark turn eventually. Hopefully we'll reach that point.
If you're feeling generous and can afford the trouble, would you buy me a cup of coffee please? (ko-fi dot com slash dhaturas).
Thank you for reading.