Epilogue / Farewell Morning Star, the Herald of Dawn

My eyes slowly open up as I find myself in an unknown bedroom. My head felt like it was constantly spinning and no matter how much I wanted to move, I could only do so with limitations. Everything was so sluggish in my body that I had to wonder what the hell happened. I could sense that I was partially wrapped in bandages, but nothing in the close vicinity was able to answer my questions.

What happened to me? Why was I here?

Without an answer to immediately subdue them, they were left to wander my mind, loitering without a cause. It didn't make for a tantalizing experience, as if there was something beyond my grasp that I couldn't reach. Memories that were faded, blurred and obscured to me, but I needed a moment to think properly. I needed to take my steps slowly.

What was the last thing I could remember?

It was that night where… I think Riku and Eriko went off to the Mihoji Forest. They declared that they were heading over, so that Eriko can go experience those children folktales of the mysterious manor for herself, so I bid them good luck, a bit sarcastically. However, Riku forgot his wallet and when I tried to contact him, there was no response. I then decided to contact Eriko, who sent me a mischievous message and spurred me to come to the forest myself.

And then when I was trying to get through it, there was… a mysterious light.

Everything else was a blur. When my head tried to think about it, I would be struck with a migraine as if something was preventing me from remembering it whole. However, I could still glimpse bits and pieces of the fragmented memories, but no matter how much I tried, none of it could be recalled.

No, it wasn't as if I couldn't remember.

It was more like… I didn't want to remember.

As if I could still feel the transparent strings on my body, I tried moving my arms around slowly, but a sharp sting jabbed me in response. It wasn't time to move like that. I suppose those bandages weren't for show, but it didn't feel like there was any major physical wound remaining on me. Not that I wanted to push myself to see if anything would open up, but there was a sense of lacking energy to do that in the first place.

As if it was my soul that had been the one that was injured.

A part that was taken away from it, a hole that was left remaining in its core, leaving nothing except a half-empty corpse to wander. A bitterness consumed my tongue as my hands clenched themselves close to my chest. That feeling that bothered me so much couldn't be determined, being overwhelmed by my emotions of sudden grief.

Why was I feeling like this? What was this pain striking down on me?

… I already knew why. Denial was a strong defensive mechanism, after all.

I glanced out the nearby window to see that it was night time. The clouds that covered the skies were up, leaving the beautiful sight of stars within the blanket of darkness. They twirled and twisted, softly and peacefully, contrasting the turmoil I was going through right now. If only I'd known the secrets of those stars, I could try to calm myself down in the same manner.

As I leaned back into the bed, I stayed silent for a few minutes before a door opened up. A familiar face popped in, looking over to me, but to say I was happy to see her, it wasn't exactly the truth. After all, those memories of the fight and more importantly, what happened afterwards to stop it, remained in my mind as flashes and blurs. It didn't take a genius to recognize something was going on, further than beneath the surface.

"Hey, Kuro? Are you awake?"

"... Yeah, I suppose so."

"Oh, thank goodness." At least Eriko's sigh of relief felt genuine. It was almost as if she could collapse from her legs giving out, simply from the weight being lifted from her shoulder. "I was really scared that you weren't going to wake up soon…"

"Now that would be bothersome, wouldn't it?"

"... You're mad, aren't you?"

"Considering how I'm still trying to piece together what happened throughout the week, I think I'll reserve my anger for when I'm properly caught up to everything. Seriously," I groaned, "what the hell of a sideshow are you running here…?"

"I'll get you caught up to speed soon, but I'll leave for a bit to get everything else sorted since you're awake now. Do you need anything? I'll bring it to you when I return."

"A sense of myself would be nice."

"How the hell do you think I should respond to that?" Eriko grumbled.

Making her feel more guilty than before isn't going to do much for either of us. She was already feeling as bad as she could, just judging from the fact that she was fidgeting more than usual and her shoulders were slumped as far as they could go.

"... I'm feeling hungry. Any food would be nice."

"That, I can do. Hold on for a moment."

Before Eriko could close the door, I instinctively called out.

"Wait."

"Did you need something else?"

"What about…?"

Without a second thought, my hand caught the words coming out of my mouth. For some reason, I wasn't thinking that I was mentally prepared to have that question answered for myself. Considering the conditions of the Holy Grail War, it was normal for a Master to wonder about their Servant, but I wasn't a normal participant, being that of a normal teenager.

"... my sister?" I continued, shifting my focus. "What happened to Shiro?"

"She's sleeping in my room right now since it's nighttime already. You've been asleep for the better part of a day, so we had Shiro stay over. She's been safe this entire time, oblivious to what's been going on, even despite what happened. We simply had to do a few things with her memories, so that she didn't remember all the juicy parts…"

"Memories…?"

"Again, I'll explain later."

"Sure, whatever." There wasn't any rush for me to know immediately, especially with how my mind was still feeling a little sluggish. "Anyways, I've been down for a day? My parents must be—"

"Don't worry about that."

Eriko waved her hand to dismiss the worrying thought immediately.

"I've already contacted your parents and said you two were staying over for a day or two in order to help out with some business my dad needed help on. Not that it was entirely a lie, but your parents were more than willing to pass you along to us. Since you guys went directly from shopping to my place, I went ahead and picked up some casual clothes from your parents, so that it would be less suspicious."

I glanced down to my body, seeing that it was a different set of clothes than what I had before entering the forest. A narrowing of eyes followed, locked onto Eriko.

"... You changed me out of my clothes?"

"N-No! My dad did! Who do you think I am!? I'm currently in a relationship with Ri-Ri, after all!" She held her arms, as if trying to protect herself. "I can't be sullying myself with something like that! Even if it is his best—no, especially because it is his best friend!" Her face brightened up, flushed with red either from embarrassment or agitation, but it caused me to laugh a bit.

Even with everything that happened, a small overreaction like that made me feel right at home, back to the times before I needed to be dealing with this Holy Grail War nonsense. If only for a moment, I could ignore everything that had to relate to that, I could let out a smile.

It made Eriko's expressions loosen up a bit, causing her to chuckle a bit too. Perhaps her initial reaction was more akin to a purposeful overreaction to help lighten the mood.

"At least you're fine enough to be making jabs like that and enjoying them."

"Well, I really wish that was the case…" My laughter trailed off.

I turned my hand around upon my lap to see that the Command Seals were still there. There was a difference however. Previously, it consisted of three parts, but now, there was one section that had faded away. There hadn't been any guesses from myself as to why that would be the case, but this still meant that I was still an active participant in the Holy Grail War. Something about that gave me a sour taste, not something I really wanted before food was about to be brought to me.

"Okay, look. Just don't move around too much. Your body is probably still exhausted after all that happened, but once you get your energy back, we'll talk about everything that happened."

"I don't think I have another option here."

She closed the door with a clicking noise behind her as I slinked myself back underneath the bed sheet. Effectively, I was a hospital patient to her, waiting for the results to come back to be laid into my ears whether I was going to make it or not.

Since I sometimes worked in a kitchen, I knew that meals typically took some time to get finished up, but every second felt like it kept dragging on and on, further and further along. It would help to not think about the growling in my stomach, taking my thoughts elsewhere, but that feeling of emptiness couldn't be escaped from. Something told me that a simple meal wasn't going to be enough to return me back to functioning normally.

When I closed my eyes to try to forget about that nagging feeling, her image flickered before me. However, there hadn't been any memories that I was familiar with of this world, but it was more like it was back when she was still alive. The sight of her, standing off within a boat of heroes; the sight of her, aiming against a rampaging boar; the sight of her, accepting a rewarding pelt into her hands.

They were far more faded than anything else I could grasp, but it was there. It was all still there. Trails and remnants of memories I've never seen before, but perhaps it was proof that none of this wasn't entirely done yet. Before I realized, my hand had been instinctively choking out my wrist, quivering as I lost myself deeper into thought. The pain started to settle in, causing me to release my grip, but it didn't wipe off the grimace on my face.

I wonder why things had to happen to me in such a manner.

Kurogane Yoshida was simply a normal guy, making his way through his normal school years to try and make a future for himself. Nowhere did it say, even in the fine print, that he would be dragged into an underground war like this. If it did, I'd probably want a refund from whoever gave me this deal, but something tells me that it probably won't be so easy.

A few minutes passed and Eriko came in with a tray, bringing it over to the bed. She placed it over my lap, opening up the stands, so that I had a solid table to eat. She brought me some soup and bread. Not exactly the meal I was thinking about when I consider how much time it should have taken to even get these things out, but I wasn't in the mood to complain about the smaller details. There were far more issues I should reserve my mental energy for.

However, that question was soon answered once two more people came into the room.

The man in the black suit, alongside the swordsman, but the hostility in the air was nowhere to be seen. Even though the man walked up next to me, across from where Eriko had been sitting, he gazed at me as if he was more worried than anything else. Meanwhile, Saber merely stood by the side next to the window, almost like a security guard. They certainly weren't looking to stir up a bigger mess than before.

"I know I hadn't introduced him to you before, despite complaining about him on several occasions, but…" Eriko raised her hand to the black-suited man. "This man is my father."

I've met Eriko's mother a few times already, but never her father. She said he was always too busy to meet us that even Riku, her boyfriend, had only met him enough times to count on a single hand, despite coming back to her house more than ten times than that. Not sure what I should think that our first meeting was a fight, but I can't really say much about it now, can I?

"Greetings. You are Kurogane Yoshida, correct?" he asked, probably rhetorically should I add. "My daughter has mentioned you on a few occasions. It's a bit unfortunate that we didn't exactly have the best of first impressions, but I suppose I will permit these incidents to slide—"

"Dad."

A mere deadpan seeping from Eriko was enough to throw him off his game.

"W-What I meant to say was that I wanted to apologize for what happened." To shake himself back to a professional standard, he bowed, mostly to hide his unguarded expressions long enough to recover. "It wasn't in the original plans to have things end up like this, but I suppose you deserve to know everything that's been going on. At least, concerning the events between my daughter and I."

"That would be nice to hear. I guess I'll save my questions for after the lecture."

They started off about a week before I was dragged into the mess.

Turns out that while I assumed that Eriko's father hadn't been involved with the disappearances in the way that I thought he had been. His presence in that alleyway suggested to me that he was the culprit, but it was the opposite; he was one of the detectives on the case for the disappearances. His department, as said on the new reports, had been constantly hitting dead ends again and again without getting closer to the truth, but that was when her father started to get some ideas.

He believed that this might have been the work of magecraft and as someone who had a certain background in it before leaving it in order to sustain a life for his wife and child, he knew it had to be the case. However, it wasn't as if he could casually tell the department about it, so he decided to take it upon himself to make his investigations into the possibility. Magecraft research was still a pastime hobby of his, so it didn't take long for him to brush up the forgotten knowledge and pull in old connections to discover that a Servant had been summoned into the city.

It would have been impossible for him to continue safely into the endeavors, knowing that a Servant could indeed be behind the serial disappearances, so in order to protect himself, he decided to cash in a favor someone back in London owed him by sending him a powerful catalyst to summon a Servant of his own.

However, Eriko… wasn't too content, seeing this from the outside.

"You see, my father would sometimes prioritize his magecraft hobby over the family and it certainly caused a small rift between him and my mother. It started to annoy me too and communication wasn't his strongest suit, so when I noticed that he was starting to return back to his magecraft things, I wanted to stop him as much as possible," Eriko grimaced.

She held up her own hand, showing that she herself had Command Seals, just like me. I widened my eyes when I finally noticed. When I was talking to her before coming back into the Mihoji forest, she had been wearing a glove on that hand. Had it been to hide her identity as a Master of the Holy Grail War? Wait, but how did that happen?

"While he was preparing the catalyst and went off to make sure everything else was okay, I snuck in to mess up whatever experiment I thought he was making. He managed to notice me, but in the disruption and argument we were having, I hastily went up to grab the catalyst and somehow ended up triggering the summoning ritual. It ended with me summoning Saber as his Master."

"Do you know how much you scared me there?" her father groaned as Eriko merely tried to laugh it off. "Being a Master in a Holy Grail War is extremely dangerous, especially for someone that isn't a mage! You might have been gifted with a high mana capacity, but that's another matter altogether!"

"Okay, but if it was that dangerous, then why didn't you simply tell me afterwards!?" Eriko snapped back. "But no, you had to fail at communication class and make plans to try again for another Servant the very next day! I thought you were supposed to be a sensible adult, I would assume so if you managed to get a high position in that detective agency of yours!"

"N-Now, now, heed my words here, Eriko," her father conceded, almost immediately. "Sometimes, your father can have things slip his mind. It's human nature; nobody is perfect."

"Yeah, but you only went about explaining things to me after I dragged Kuro into this mess."

"Quick question to interject here," I said, raising my hand as I bit on some bread.

"Hmm? Yeah, go ahead."

"Why did you drag me, in particular, into this mess?"

"I'm guessing you still don't remember much of when you first came into my dad's house, but I suppose that was because my father messed with your memories a bit…"

"W-What…?"

"A long time ago, there was a stray child that managed to stumble his way into my home," her father said. "This was while I was still in the midst of doing my research, looking to see if I could summon a Servant without the presence of a Holy Grail War. Of course, this was something on the side and I was merely experimenting in order to have someone protect my family if there was any need for it, but I could never have imagined things to end up the way that they did."

"It was one of the reasons why you started putting away the research."

"So this place is…?"

My eyes lurked around the room, as if looking for confirmation elsewhere.

"Yes, indeed," Eriko's father nodded. "When you were younger, you did find your way into my manor under the guise of those rumors concerning my estate. I typically prefer to use magecraft exclusively to keep folks away from this building, but there was another visitor that day that I had planned for, so I provided her with a certain bracelet to go in between the barriers."

When I tried to remember those images that were flickering before me, some things were starting to be clearer, especially when I looked down to the bracelet that Eriko handed to me beforehand. With a wayward expression, I turned to her. She was wryly laughing, almost embarrassed by what I had just remembered from my childhood. Without saying a single word yet, the surprise might have been written all over my face.

"We've… met before you transferred into middle school."

"Y-Yeah. I guess you can also say we're childhood friends, but obviously not as much as you and Ri-Ri were. It was more like a trial-run if anything…"

Considering that it happened a long time ago, all I could pick up were bits and pieces. Whatever memory shenanigan they did to Shiro to make her forget about this incident, they probably did the same thing to me when I was a kid, but if I merely stumbled upon the house, that shouldn't have been enough to warrant that level of memory erasure—no, it was more like memory blocking.

"I put up with my dad when my mother was busy that day, I think. Either way, we met during one of your expeditions into the Mihoji Forest and we decided to play since my father was performing the off-hands kind of parenting. I gave you that bracelet before, so that you could actually come into the house and play more, though I didn't understand the details behind it as a kid."

"However, while I was indifferent to the whole situation for a bit, you two decided to come into one of the research rooms in the basement without my supervision and it caused a huge ruckus. That was concerning the research of summoning a Servant outside of a Holy Grail War."

"A bright, glowing light…" I muttered.

That was right. When I came into that particular room, I thought I had been going through a sense of deja vu, but it wasn't my imagination. That was the room where I got caught up in one of the experiments haphazardly and after that, I could only assume I got knocked out.

"It was certainly unexpected, especially when the result of it was that you became a catalyst for a certain Servant. However, your body could not take the stress, so I had to take appropriate actions. It had cost quite the sum of materials and magecraft, but even then, I was only able to suppress the Servant deep within your soul. There hadn't been any further harm to your body if things were to play out as normal, so all I needed to do was block your memories of everything relating to this incident, and you could return back to your normal life."

"So for that entire time…" My hand raised up to my chest, gripping it tightly, but my question still wasn't answered. I glanced back at Eriko. "Okay, but does that… have to do anything with the reason why I was basically tricked into becoming a Master?"

"It's because… well, I thought you could handle it because of what happened. I was actually considering another method to stop my father from doing his magecraft shenanigans, but when you mentioned that you saw the interior of the manor, it clicked for me." Eriko scratched the side of her head. "Since we only met during those few days, I actually forgot what you looked like. Whoops."

I naturally narrowed my eyes, just as anyone would after coming to the same realization. "So I'm in this position because of your family's shitty communication and misunderstanding skills?"

"H-Hey, don't pull me into this…! I'm not as bad at communication as my old man!"

"And yet, you keep assuming things that you don't understand! And I pay the price!"

"I-I thought you said you were going to reserve your anger for when you're all caught up!"

"An early loan of emotions right now!"

Agitated, I grabbed the last piece of bread and bit down on it a bit aggressively.

"Look, I really do feel bad about what happened. If only I had the foresight to try and figure out what my father was doing beforehand, this probably wouldn't have happened. When he told me what his objective was after the second time I interrupted the summoning ritual, I felt just as guilty that I loaned him Saber in order to help him out on his investigations."

"It might have been in my best interest in order to take her position as Master, but as it stands, she inherited a large mana capacity in her body that is capable of fueling Saber quite naturally, even if she is no part of the magecraft world. She still has that blood unfortunately running in her. In a certain way, that was the case for you as well, although the mana hadn't been directly coming from you."

It was a good idea to try and finish my soup before their exposition stopped. I was really starting to get a bitter taste from everything they say, that it simply looped back around to a suspension of disbelief. "So when I saw you downtown early that day…?" I asked Eriko.

"Ah, you saw me there? Yeah, I was trying to help out my dad with the investigation. Apparently, there is a pattern between the disappearances. They were all people with high sources of mana, so once my dad told me about that, I volunteered to be bait, much to my father's refusal. In any case, I got chased down in order to lure them over to Saber, so that my dad could see what was up with the acts."

"I didn't get any worthy information out of it though and even with that," her father sighed, "you had to notice and stumble upon us as we were taking care of the situation…"

"So then if none of that was on purpose, why did you kidnap my little sister?"

"That hadn't been the plan, apparently…" Saber said, speaking up for once. "There was a bit of a miscommunication on our end as well.

"OF COURSE THERE WAS."

The defeated groaning couldn't stop from me, issuing some stares of pity from the people who caused it. These people actually needed to take a class on this bullshit. It was not that difficult to speak clearly on what was happening and it's not as if they couldn't do it; they were telling me these things almost perfectly, granted it was all in retrospect, but still!

"As Sir had been referring to you as a child the entire time, he figured that when he said to take the child with us, he was implying that I should take you along in order to further continue the conversation. However, I misunderstood him when taking into account the actual child that stumbled upon the area, showing connections with the opponents we had been facing. I made the mistake of assuming that tactic of taking a hostage, not the actual person in question."

"And then my dad tried to rectify it by having me hand you the bracelet, so that you could head into the forest in order for further negotiations to take place. I was fine with that," Eriko shrugged before glaring at her father, "but I didn't expect him to try and fight you! If I didn't notice the loud noises coming from the forest, I wouldn't have caught on!"

"My… curiosity got the… better of me…"

"You think!?"

As they were arguing (read as Eriko berating her father while he took every hit without retaliation), it might have looked like they were quite the dysfunctional family, but it might have been because they were so close that they were able to argue like that. Although Eriko's anger had been obvious, it didn't appear to be anything that could stay as a lost-lasting grudge.

At the very least, the man in the black-suit, one that I thought I should be fearing during the fight, was now cowering before his seventeen year old daughter. It was quite the contrasting image he was portraying, that was for certain. Either that, so he has a soft spot for his family.

"If you're both done…"

As I watched them, all I could really think about was my own family. My mother, my father, and Shiro; how they could be affected by my participation in the Holy Grail War. If Eriko's father and his antics caused her to be pulled into this, I wasn't sure if the same might happen with my family. This was certainly something that I wanted to keep out of their lives as much as possible.

"... I've got one more question. Is there any way for me to leave the Holy Grail War?"

Eriko's father flinched before sighing.

"There… had been one originally, but—"

The door opened once again, but this time, it was a face I wasn't looking forward to seeing. My face instinctively looked down on the empty bowl of soup, not even trying to glance upwards, almost as if it were out of shame. That probably wasn't the furthest reasoning there was to that.

"... Archer."

She must have been listening from the outside.

From her shoulder, Kuko had been hanging off there. It was a slightly unusual sight, but if Eriko and her father were busy, while Shiro was asleep, Archer would probably be the one to try and look after the cat. However, for someone who didn't spend much time with her, he was looking as if he made his home right there.

"... Master," she responded. "I see that you wish to leave the Holy Grail War."

"I'm… sorry. It's as it was said before. I'm just a normal person. I'm even sure what possessed me in order to come close to thinking that any of this was a good idea. You're better off finding a Master that won't be dragging you down, Archer."

"And then your feelings for me, what of them?"

"..."

I couldn't answer that so immediately. Not even if she gave me a month or two would I be able to come close to a proper response. The words refused to come to me and every time I tried, I would be overwhelmed by the feeling of bitterness and discomfort. Having your first love end up being the cause of someone manipulating your soul…

… No one could shake that off well.

"I see," Archer sighed, as if my silence was a response of itself. "At least that's confirmation that you are your own person again. I always thought it was odd how you acted around me, having sudden courage for a civilian against an unknown force such as magecraft and Servants. To that, I cannot hold any grudges towards you, as you were a victim in all of this."

"Sorry that I—"

"You don't need to be sorry. However, that does not change the situation."

"The situation…?"

Eriko's father cleared his throat to regain attention. "You see, if you had taken my offer before coming to this manor, you would have been able to meet a priest, a close friend of mine. He would be the overseer of the Holy Grail War and his job is to ensure that innocent civilians are unharmed during the fight. However, even he is unsure how to deal with the disappearances if one participant were to go rogue, so that's why I allied myself with him to take care of that problem."

"Then why can't we go see him? If his job is to protect innocent civilians, then shouldn't he be able to extract me from the war and allow me to return back to my normal life?"

"It's… not that simple anymore, considering what happened during the fight with Saber."

Saber nodded. "During your fight with me, it would appear that the Servant sleeping dormant within you finally woke up to its absolute fullest. Using you as a vessel, the Servant came into the world and continued your fight with me. However, that did come with a cost, considering how much power was being released spontaneously."

"W-What does that mean?"

"It means that," Eriko's father continued, "the Servant is no longer sleeping within your soul. That Servant is currently fused together with your soul, but the sheer pressure that puts on you should have caused your body to break down under a small time frame, which is why I had to do something about it. That is to say, I needed to separate the souls to keep that from happening."

"... The more you talk about magecraft, the more you lose me."

"Don't worry," Eriko deadpanned, "I barely understand it as it is…"

"Okay, but if it's separated, what's the problem?"

"The problem is that we're still linked with each other."

Another voice emerged from the group, but it hadn't been one that I recognized. I looked around, trying to see who had said that, but my questions were startled even more when Kuko jumped off Archer's shoulder and landed on the bed. Being on auto-pilot mode, I thought Kuko was coming to relax against me, but when I saw him sitting there, haphazardly while staring onwards, I sensed something was different about him. Something wrong was happening with Kuko.

"The old man decided to use your cat to separate my power and my consciousness from each other, to prevent your body from destroying itself, inside out. However, since we entered that contract after we fused together, he couldn't exactly reverse the process."

Kuko… had been talking.

It took me a good few minutes to register what I was seeing.

"... Kuko?"

"Wrong," Kuko (?) immediately responded. "You should already know who I am."

A sense of disgruntled agitation immediately rushed over me with the realization.

"Oh. You're still around, Meleager."

"Hey, I saved your ass back there. You could have died if I didn't intervene."

"I wouldn't have been in that situation in the first place, hadn't it been for you fucking around with my emotions!" I spat. Leaning forward, I didn't hesitate to grab Meleager by Kuko's collar, dragging him over to me. Needless to say, he wasn't anticipating such a weakness, trying to scratch my fingers to get me to release him. "Give me back my normal life back, you damn cat!"

"I'm not a cat! I'm a hero, damn it!"

"Yes, if anything," Archer sighed, "Meleager should be the one making the apologies here. I should have known he had some influence on the situation, but it was such a far-off theory, I never seriously considered it."

"But it was all for—!"

"Apologize."

Meleager stopped fighting back and timidly bowed his head.

"I'm sorry, kid."

"Can you give me back my normal life with that apology?"

"..."

"Then it's as good as nothing!"

"Ah, c'mon, kid! Stop shaking me around! I'm about to hurl out a hairball! GRAH!"

"Anyways, what does any of this have to do with the fact that I want to leave the Holy Grail War?" I said, ignoring what my arms had been doign to torture Meleager's currently small body. However, it was Meleager who was trying to respond, so when I heard the struggle, I released my grip and allowed him to flail onto the bed to recover.

"It's primarily because I saved your life. As the old man said," Meleager gasped, catching his breath, "he split up my consciousness and my power between your body and your cat's body respectively. You're only alive because of my power, but if you were to go to the priest in order to quit the Holy Grail War, it would be fine for Archer whose contract will end with you, allowing her to find someone else. Not so easy for me, since both my consciousness and my power will return to the Throne of Heroes as someone not a part of the Holy Grail War."

As Meleager went on, I slowly started coming to the realization of what he was implying.

"If I leave, you won't have the power that's keeping you alive since you should, by all means, be dead right now. So you're going to continue to die, right on the spot, once the Command Seals are stripped from you and I'm removed from this world."

"S-Seriously…?" My hands started shivering, knowing that my actual life had been on the brink of death as we spoke. "You've got to be kidding me…"

"I can't even go too far from you, or else my consciousness is going to snap right back and end up fused together again. And your body won't be liking that."

"In other words," Archer said, "I'm afraid that if you wish to continue living, you'll be forced to participate in the Holy Grail War in order to achieve that wish. It's the only thing that will permit you to continue living your normal life, if you make the appropriate wish."

"That's one way to give me a wish for an all-encompassing reward, I guess," I grunted. "I only wished that the odds were less higher than that."

At this point, so much has been thrown on my plate that I'm all out of reactions. The only thing I was feeling was my own sense of tiredness, but at least it explained why I felt like there was an empty hole within my soul. That was the place where Meleager should have been, if he were to continue resting inside of me like before.

"Allow me to make a deal once more," Eriko's father said. "Now that I've properly explained myself and our circumstances, I'd like to ask for your cooperation. As I said before, I'm not interested in the wish of the Holy Grail, but Saber is more than capable of being a powerful ally in order to achieve that objective. I'd like to form an alliance in that case."

"An alliance?"

"Yes. I will provide, though I should say Eriko will probably provide, to you Saber's services whenever required and I think she is more than willing to allow you to have your wish if that means you retain your own life."

"Well, duh!" Eriko crossed her arms. "Kuro is a close friend of mine! I don't want him dying because circumstances were out of his control!"

"You forgot to mention the part where those circumstances were caused by a certain heroic spirit and your family."

"Y-You didn't need to point that out again!" Eriko waved her hand out dismissively, but that wasn't to say that she didn't get hit by the side-hitting reminder. If anything, it looked as if she was about to cry from the guilt welling up. I shouldn't let my anger push her any further than that, or Riku might feel a disturbance in the air. "Anyways, I was already letting my father borrow Saber for his investigations, so if you need Saber for any sort of protection, he's all yours."

"The alliance will continue to the end of the Holy Grail War, where you two will be the remaining participants. In the process, however, I want to have your help on solving the disappearances in the Tokuwa District. Having Archer and a few more capable hands might be what I need."

"Dad? Aren't you embarrassed about asking students to help you out?"

"If it means that I get closer to resolving this case, I'll even ask a toddler."

"Don't. That's creepy."

"S-Sorry, dear."

"If that's what you want…" I said, "then I'll help out. I originally wanted to see the case be resolved in the first place after hearing about it so much on the news, so if I could help out in the issue, then it's fine by me."

"Good to hear." Eriko's father started to leave the room with Saber while pushing up his glasses. "We'll talk about more details later on, but for now, I think you need to get your rest."

Eriko picked up the tray from the bed and carried it off with her.

"Get well soon."

"... I'll try."

Once they left the room, it was only me, Archer… and I guess Meleager remaining.

There were certainly many things I wanted to say, but in the midst of my fatigue, I think it was better if I focused on sleeping. It's not as if there was going to be my last chance to do so, so with a heavy sigh, I pulled up the blanket and turned away from them.

"You heard them. I need some sleep."

"Of course," Archer nodded. "Besides, I have a few words I've been needing to speak with Meleager here privately."

"Oh? Is this the confession of love I've been waiting for—UWA!?"

Archer, using the previous action as reference, emotionlessly grabbed Meleager by the collar and carried him out from the room. The noises of a strangled cat had been filling my ears before the door closed on them. It might have been music to my ears to hear Meleager suffering a bit, but as I closed my eyes and drifted back to sleep, all I wished was that this was all some bad dream.

Reality, however, can often be disappointing.

My days were going to be changed by that one fateful encounter.

"Oh, come on! I can walk by myself! Just because I'm a cat now, it doesn't mean I'm incapable!"

"Quiet. Now that I have confirmation, I need to talk with you."

Atalanta took Meleager out to one of the nearby balconies, tossing him onto the railing. If Meleager hadn't the cat-like dexterity to stop himself from sliding, he might have been falling off without a spare notion of help. He managed to dig his claws into the wood, almost hissing at the act, but he knew he couldn't muster up a full hiss at the person he loved. All that remained was a quiet one, dying as quickly as it started.

"Well, I'm not running away as I am right now."

"It was an active choice to manipulate my Master, wasn't it? Things were worded to sound as if it was a side-effect of the summoning. It was likely your influence that acted as the catalyst to bring me here into this Holy Grail War in the first place."

"To say that it was the intention is wrong, but to say that I did what I could to stop my influence on him… that is also wrong. I mean, yeah, I could have done something about it to make it so that my emotions wouldn't leak out as much as it did, using the kid as a proxy, but…"

"You chose not to."

"... The kid would have had feelings for you anyways. Probably wouldn't have confessed the minute you showed up, but that was the catalyst that allowed me to amplify his actions. After all, I can't suddenly make him like you, being somewhat dormant and all."

"And now, you ruined his affection."

"So what? I thought you hated guys, more so the ones who looked at you superficially."

"That is not an excuse to ruin someone's emotions. When I asked him about his feelings for me, he had quite the bitterness drawn on his face."

"Hmmph. Well, what am I supposed to do? If things were left by themselves, the kid would have wimped out of the Holy Grail War, leaving you behind to meddle with some other person. All my influence did was give him that extra push he needed."

"Better than further dragging someone into this mess. While I cannot approve of what Master's friend has done, it's not as if you're off the hook, so to speak. What you've done is despicable, Meleager."

Meleager's cat ears dripped down a bit.

"I'll apologize to the kid, but I won't do the same to you. You should understand more than anyone the lengths I'll go in order to give you even the slightest advantage and if that was achieved, then I have nothing I should regret."

"The fact that I knew that is very telling." Archer sighed. "You should be more wary of your actions."

"Don't need to. If it's for you, I don't think for a second. I just do it."

"And that's how you got yourself killed."

"I still didn't regret it. If my uncle was kept alive after making plans to strip you from the boar pelt and violate your chastity, I wouldn't be able to live with myself knowing I was letting that slide, even if he doesn't act on his words. I wasn't letting anyone talk down on you like that."

"... I suppose it would be out of your character to expect anything else." Atlanta smiled softly, relapsing in the memories of old. It lightened Meleager's mood, seeing the beautiful expression, but she quickly shook it off to be more serious. "However, if you're going to stay alongside us, I expect that you won't be doing things that will cause things to evolve out of our hands."

"I'm a cat. There's not much I can do anymore except cheer on from the side."

Meleager glanced over to the night skies, prompting Atalanta to do the same. The stars were still twirling up in the air, as the two tails swayed back and forth in the midst of the light breeze.

"But you know, being a cat isn't too bad."

"Meleager, please don't talk about anything relating to that…"

"R-Right, I almost… forgot about what happened to you…"

"I'd rather not remember how that ended for me…"

"T-Then what about—"

"Just be quiet."

"Y-Yes, Dearest Atalanta…"

Meleager sighed. With this new challenge of his, he might as well get used to his new body as soon as possible, but if that meant he could spend more time with the woman he loved, he didn't care what he would have to do. This was already heavenly to him, but if Atalanta could be happier, that was what Meleager wanted to achieve. That was his own wish in pursuit of getting the Holy Grail for her.

This wasn't a story about their past, nor is it one of the tragedies that led them to this moment. It wasn't a story of their downfall, but someone who would rise up to their place, despite the difficulties that were ahead of them. When love is the thing that both pushes people forwards and holds people back, it may be one of the most dangerous emotions in the world.

And yet, it is still wonderful.

An emotion can give birth to a great tale.

A tale where the spirits would sing their songs.

A tale where bards would spread their tales.

And so, the whims of fate would continue onwards.

ACT I :
"Farewell Morning Star, the Herald of Dawn
and quickly comes as the Evening Star
bringing in secret her who you take away."
- Meleager, Skopas

END

[Author's Note]

In the time it took for me to work on this epilogue, I admittedly forgot some of the details as to why I did a few things the way that I did, so I had to scramble together my notes as few and far between as they were and figure out what I was trying to make here. The main issue is that I'm not exactly proficient in what is possible and what is impossible under the rules of magecraft, so a few things might not entirely make sense when considering the whole canon of things, but I suppose that's why my past self wanted to make an alternate Holy Grail War, so that these details can be swept under the rug in order to focus more on the characters and their interaction. That being said, I don't think I was able to recount much of what I was planning nor could I account for all the explanations immediately.

There was already a lot of exposition in this epilogue…

If there was a hole I accidentally left, please feel free to point it out. At this point, I can't even be damned to figure out everything that the past me was trying to set up here, but hopefully I was able to cover most of the concerning parts. I might be able to rectify any errors or loose threads in a future update, if I so happen to get around to it…

As much as I hold Atalanta in a part of my heart, I always wanted to see how she would interact with Meleager because Nasuverse is acting as if he wasn't a major character in her narrative. In my time playing Fate Grand/Order, I haven't seen a single mention of Meleager come from Atalanta before. Which is disappointing to me, because I really want to see his inclusion somewhere, even if briefly mentioned.

That was also one of the reasons why I started this fic, with the intention of developing Meleager for myself to cope. I think it's unfair to have Atalanta and not mention Meleager in the slightest and while this will still be a story concerning Kurogane and Atalanta, Meleager makes for a good narrative structure to write with. I'm not planning a reverse harem of any kind; Atalanta, at least in her Archer Form, should already be wary of relationships in the first place, considering what she's been through. I'm of the belief that Atalanta shouldn't fall in love too easily because of that, so this may be a slow process.

In any case, Meleager's role is still an important set piece, so perhaps whenever I return to this fic, you'll be able to see how I explore with him to progress the story. This might be an epilogue, but it's only the epilogue of "Act 1", so it's opening the gate for the rest of the story to come along.

I have one extra thing, that isn't really a chapter, but it'll make sense when I release it.

Thanks for reading this story so far. It's always a risk to be reading fics that have their own Holy Grail War concept outside of Apoc, Stay/Night, and the like, so I really do appreciate the time. I hope I'll be able to come back to this fic whenever I get the chance from the main fic I'm currently working on, but for now, thanks again.