Chapter 35: The Wish Unforgotten
Matou Sakura was no stranger to lies. The starless night sky hung above her and the cool air caresses her lonely cheeks. For her, the sky held no stars, but in front of the people that mattered, she would always lie. The more a person mattered to her, the more she lied to them. She was far from alone in that regard as her own summoned Servant stands in her way.
"You have seen the life I have led, so you must know what we both treasure is the same. You saw how that life ended. I am your ally, that's why I'll protect her, even from you."
There were always things that stood in Sakura's way.
"That's adorable, but I'll be perfectly honest with you Rider. I only kept you around as an alibi in front of Miyu. That's all you're good for, but you couldn't even accomplish that."
Rider does not falter at these words because the lonely woman of the Shapeless Isle was the same. People shouldn't give up on what they want to be, but life is often disappointing. People don't choose to be born, where, when, how or to whom. The path of the living is a painfully narrow one, but that's why the few choices people can make should matter.
Onlookers couldn't help but stare at the beautiful bespectacled foreigner who was standing motionless in the middle of the street. They were naturally drawn to her jewel-like eyes that hid behind protective glass. Sakura was used to being ignored, but Sakura could not tolerate the look of those gems that refused to ignore her as if scolding her.
All magi pursue the truths of this world, but Sakura's family had none to spare for her. Only the eldest of the Tohsaka sisters had that right. Succession, inheritance, legacies and elegance were things Sakura did not understand, but she had to smile in front of her father's passions. That was what her mother had done. That was what her older sister had done. Sakura could not be the odd one out. Even now, she could not understand at all the elegance her father pursued unlike her older sister, but what she and her sister wished for back then was real. The two only wished to make their parents happy like a lot of children did.
Children like that should be rewarded, but love was one of those things that did not follow the law of equivalent exchange.
Sakura's new grandfather was all too eager to teach her cruel truths, cruel squirming truths. Her lying uncle taught her the sin of weakness. Her new father taught her the benefits of apathy. Her new pitiful brother taught her the futility of dreams. Every encounter in her life taught her something. Her summoned Servant was no different. This betrayal was expected.
The world began in darkness and it will end in darkness as all lights eventually fade, but life resists. The blanket of reality snuffs out the dimming glimmer of childhood dreams, but that's why someone had to protect them. Ultimately, what she and Shirou fought for was the same. Miyu could not lose what they both had already lost, but because she was ignorant of what she could lose, that small girl was heading off to her own destruction. Sakura would not stand for such a thing.
The young woman glares at the over familiar outsider. A small crowd naturally formed around them as they faced each other. A crowd of faceless bystanders were quick to pull out their bricks of silicon, plastic and metal. No one else that mattered would show up at this point. Sakura had accepted from the start that no hero would answer her summons. There was no hero to come and grant her wishes. It was too late for her, but the spirit in front of her that answered the call tried to act as one.
That was why she can't be forgiven.
People did not need gods that won't grant their wishes. Sakura did not need a Servant that won't heed her commands. A failed protectress that couldn't protect anything on the Shapeless Isle wasn't worth praying to. She did not need random extras meddling in her world. Salvation isn't something that will ever be granted to her, so she had to take it for herself.
The power in her pocket calls out to her. A hero grasps victory and a monster wallows in defeat. That is the ultimate difference between them.
"Install."
Love, anger and sorrow seep into her heart, running through her veins. The power of a king floods her system and marks her bare skin in red angular pathways. With hands adorned in gold, she sweeps away her pale hair and calls upon the arsenal that didn't belong to here. All the gazes on Rider shift towards the proxy king.
"Are they filming a movie?" a man whispers.
Rider bites her lip as she prepares herself for the inevitable disaster that will unfold.
"Gate of Babylon."
An arsenal that contained all of humanity's power, past and future assembles into small army without soldiers that glittered in the night, but there are powers outside of mankind. Rider splatters her own blood onto the pavement with a patter, casting off her inhibitions and calling upon a power that did not belong to mankind.
From the blood, with the body of a horse, the wings of a bird and the power of a dragon, a phantasmal beast rises once more into a foreign world.
"A Pegasus?" one onlooker gawks.
"It's no bull," Sakura muses.
Golden chains and gilded instruments converge on Sakura's command. Rider with her stead takes to the dark heavens above the shadows crawling on the ground, but the shadows were never meant for Rider.
Across the stained concrete, modern treasures of glass and silicon are smashed against ancient ones of gold. The vision and thoughts of ordinary people are swept away by shadow. The master of the shadows was never taught any sophisticated methods when it came to separating the mundane and the mystical. At the very least, she was more merciful than her "grandfather". At the very least, most of her victims got to wake up from the nightmare they'll actively choose to forget.
History has shown that supernatural powers are unnecessary to erase history when fear, force and apathy are good enough.
With golden chains in her hands, Sakura's gaze did not avert from the starless sky for a moment. Only one thing in the sky was shining brightly. Sakura couldn't look away, but Rider did not take advantage of that. To the girl who was belittled her entire life, Rider could only be making fun of her.
"The victors are always righteous and blood is the cost of victory. Bloodshed without victory is just the worthless work of monsters," was Sakura's warning.
As long as Sakura obtained victory by any means, she was no monster. That was truth she held close to her heart. She would only concern herself with the thoughts of the people that mattered. To protect everything that mattered to her, she had to be stronger than anyone else. If the gorgon in the sky refused to think in the same way, then it could only be good fortune. All that mattered was catching up to Miyu in order to protect the young girl from the ugly truths she was seeking. Sakura had to protect those pure eyes from cursed sights including her own truth.
"Vimana," the proxy king calls upon a gilded craft with emerald wings.
Sakura only needed to escape, but as she reached out for her ride, her movements were sealed by chains outside of her command. With monstrous strength, the chains dug into her soft flesh, but such pain wasn't anything new.
"Mongrel," Sakura grumbles.
The chains of steel begin to rust away in Sakura's shadow and chains of gold adorn themselves on Vimana's hull. As Sakura reaches for the golden throne, the heat burns her hand. The mercury fuel had already been boiled away, but Sakura continues to push forward. Nothing will escape the young woman's grasp.
"No matter how fast light is, no matter where it travels, shadows are always there first, waiting."
Emiya Miyu was no stranger to lies. She had lived her entire life in a narrow world. Even if that world expanded across Fuyuki, nothing had really changed for her. Above her were the same moon and the same night sky. When she was smaller, her brother, her father and even Taiga would sometimes tell her stories at bedtime. What they did with their time after she fell asleep was still a mystery to her. Those days had long passed, but she herself continued to read story books. It was necessary for gaining knowledge, but some stories remain completely nonsensical for her.
There were stories of kappa in the Mion River that could be bribed with cucumbers. There were stories of objects gaining sentience after 100 years of existence. Apparently there were people with extendable necks which may or may not be made of rubber, which contradicted her biology textbooks that had a name for every ligament in the spine. There were also stories about ghosts with grudges, hog-fathers, tooth fairies and child-like house spirits that granted good luck. Taiga once mistook her for the last one. Even if these tales remained illogical, every myth had a basis. Every lie has a deliberate reason.
Such was the truth she was forced to confront in the past few days.
King Arthur had hid her gender from her kingdom because in those days, on the isles under siege by Anglo-Saxons, only a man could become king. Only a man could wield royal authority and she could not protect anything as a maiden. The young girl who took up the sword from the stone thought of nothing but what she needed to become even if the foundation was a lie.
Lies aren't inherently malicious, but Miyu always had misgivings about them. She reassures herself of the point of being out at night like her brother used to do. The church on the hill built upon secrets beckons her and Saber follows closely behind step by step.
For the once future king, the small figure in front of her was a painful sight. In a small way, she now understood what her knights must have felt. Something told her that she wasn't someone that belonged on the battlefield, but no one really is. The battlefield was no place for people to live. People were good at deceiving others, but they were best at deceiving themselves.
"Do you resent people from keeping things from you?" the knight asks.
The small girl had already pondered the same question long ago.
"I'm not familiar with that feeling, but I always lived in a narrow world. I can't say I was unhappy and I know now that they were measures in order to protect me," the small girl confesses, "but the people who protected me up until now are not here, so it's my turn to protect them."
The knight knows the sentiment well and accepts that the world hasn't changed. The people under her reign and the people she met in the Holy Grail wars deserved better. The once future king always fell short of the task and the confidence she once possessed in her youth had naturally chipped away. While in pursuit of the Holy Grail, there were times where she wondered if things would have turned out better if she was never born...
"That's why I'm thankful you are here with me, Saber," were Miyu's honest words.
"...I am your sword. That is the oath that was made when I answered your summons, even if summoning me was not your intent."
Nobody in this world is alone. Nobody in this world is unnecessary, but there are no shortages of people who fail to become what they wish to be. There are no shortages of people who fail to become what they need to be. People fall and people rise again. That is what it means to chase the Holy Grail. That is what it means to chase happiness. Utopia is ever distant. Nothing had changed. It was just another night, in a chase without end, but the moon reassures them. Striving endlessly, flesh and blood humans were able to land on the moon. Modern magi choose to believe that the world peaked long ago, but what worth were the opinions of those who shut off themselves from the world in the first place?
The church on the hill overseen by the moon beckons them.
Kotomine Kirei was a simple man who craved spice and despised blandness, which was why he was the worst sort of person to be chosen to oversee the Holy Grail War, let alone be a priest. Encountering him once again and sharing a meal with him from the same table, neither Master nor Servant could think of him as a stranger, but that made him all the more dangerous. In those few hours spent scouring the city for Shirou, was the priest enjoying the evening or was he waiting for them? For this entire night, they were moving as that man had wished and likely still were, but there was no other path in the chase.
"Install: Saber."
The pair clad themselves in Arthurian steel, steeling their hearts as they rush past the unguarded gates. They rush past the unguarded church doors. They rush past the evidence of Caster's assault that had long been destroyed. Only moonlight was guiding them as they reached the chapel. No priest and no worshippers, but that did not mean no one was there. The wind was their ally and the air wasn't exactly still.
It was always faint, breaths too large for mice, breathing of those on death's door.
From makeshift operating tables and bloody battlefields, the sound was something the invading pair was familiar with in one way or the other. Following the ominous sound and an even more ominous smell, Miyu and Saber descend into darkness, down the spiral steps.
The underworld waits.
In a place without moonlight, their eyes adjust with a flare of arcane energy. The gentle shadows around them are banished by the harsh light and all that remained were ugly truths. The small magus reaches her hand out and connects with the walls. Overgrown moss dotted the walls; leaking water fell from the ceiling and the corpses outside their coffins.
"Trace On."
No, if only they were corpses. Living bodies without limbs were arranged in rows just like a plot of farmland. Life converted into pure arcane fuel is channelled into a basin. Miyu wanted to disappear, but she could not avert her senses that bombarded her from all sides. That was the promise she made to herself when her father passed away. Nothing is more terrifying than the feeling of utter helplessness, but that helplessness was something all life contends with. She had already accepted the nature of the Holy Grail War and steeled herself to face horrible truths. Truths her brother had been bearing alone all this time.
The tragedy that defined the starting point of her life wasn't something she could recall very well. Few can say they remember the day they were born and those few that do are probably lying. The past is nothing more than a shared consensus from a network of memories. For those in the field of anthropology, the past is always changing.
The human body is a poorly designed piece of equipment. Vertebrate eyes are wired with cables circling back into the retina, creating a blind spot. By contrast, cephalopods have eyes that are wired correctly. Despite these flaws, the brain is notoriously good at smoothing out noise in an image.
From her biology textbooks, the small girl already knew that senses were nothing more than an illusion the brain creates. An illusion created from data collected by questionably designed measuring instruments as one would learn as cold mapo tofu hits the tongue, registering heat that isn't there. That was the logic Miyu uses to steel her heart, but that was why she already lost.
Among the living corpses, there was one with familiar shade of hair. Among the living corpses, there was a vaguely familiar face. Among the living corpses, there was one free of rot though emancipated like the rest with no muscle tone to speak of. Among the living corpses the small girl's eyes were drawn to eyes that were very much like hers, except they were lifeless amber.
"O-onii-chan?"
It does not respond to her voice. She puts her hand upon its shoulder to confirm its substance, but stops herself from shaking it. Nothing was reflected in those hollow eyes. She had taught herself how to fix a broken body, but what was in front of her wasn't broken. The thing in front of her still breathed at steady pace.
It was simply a living corpse designed to continue living.
The small girl does not know how to process the scene before her. In a sense, she had returned to the way she was in her childhood. Before she drifts away, Saber's stern grip latches onto her and as if commanding her bluntly states,
"It isn't him."
There are many times a king cannot afford to be gentle. Knowing the difference is what separates tyrants from kings. What she knew intuitively was the unfortunate soul in front of them could not be Emiya Shirou.
"No, she should be the best judge of that my dear wife to be."
Twirling in the darkness, a piece of cloth takes the shape of a fetching hat as it is adorned on a head of golden locks. Blue light cascades down on a handsomely smug face. The presence of a demi-god is difficult to conceal without a powerful artefact, but when it came to those, the ruler of Uruk was in no short supply.
"Arch...Gilgamesh," was Saber's frustration as she readies here blade. He wasn't anything like the other Archer.
"So you've finally uncovered my name silly woman. It's not much of a reception, but you wouldn't mind if we held our wedding here would you, Saber?" were the tyrant's words far removed from the reality that permeated the catacombs.
Gilgamesh wasn't alone. Waiting in the darkness was the very person who led them down this path.
"In the name of our loving god, father, son and the Holy Spirit, set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it," was the voice of the smiling priest.
Kotomine Kirei was no stranger to lies. For most of his early life, he had lived one. He tried to live as a beautiful soul, but alas nothing in this world was more painfully ugly than the truth. As hard as he tried, he could not change who he was at his core. The path of the living is a painfully narrow one and after a life of endless battle, after relishing in an unquenchable fire, he finally chose to accept who he was, but that did not mean he was at peace. At the very least, he could proudly say, he was someone who loved humanity.
"Enough of your games," Saber shouts, but that angelic voice was nothing more than music to him and the ancient king.
"That's what this Holy Grail War has always been, Saber," was the king's decree.
Saber had her blade drawn, but she already knew the outcome. Nothing has changed in 10 years. The King of Heroes was not an enemy she could defeat head on, yet her current Master wasn't even looking at the enemy. The child's eyes were still affixed to the empty husk.
"It still seems you are too preoccupied with babysitting that little princess. Would you like me to relieve you both of your burdens?" was the proposal of the Babylonian King.
The knight pays no mind to the one making advances. Her senses were squarely focused on the priest who remained in the back.
"So, you were the final Master 10 years ago. I take it, Lancer is your Servant too," the knight cuts to the chase.
"Knowing all that and you still decided to rummage through the House of God. Were you able to find the Holy Grail, Once and Future King?"
"Your reputation certainly precedes you. No, the truth is far worse," the knight speaks of the nightmare around them.
Gilgamesh couldn't contain his irritation.
"Such a worthless thing, but that's something the little princess knows better than anyone," were the words Gilgamesh spits out in Miyu's direction.
The small girl who pushed herself to come here had overestimated her reach. She had told herself that she was prepared for anything when it came to the people that mattered. No matter what skills she honed or special abilities she possessed from birth, she was still a sheltered child. The longer the truths were withheld from her, greater the fall her heart takes.
She was supposed to be the thing that snuffed out the unquenchable flames 10 years ago. Kirei takes the small girl into view. It was disappointing how quickly she broke after a 10 year wait, but the lips still quivered as she continued to stare at the living doll that wasn't her brother. There was still some fun to be had.
"It was odd. In that hospital 10 years ago, there was a boy who shared his face, his hair and his blood, but your brother ignored him completely. To be fair, that thing is nothing more than a doll. It has never spoken up or reacted to anything, though I hoped you weren't the type of child to cry so easily. Maybe you truly are Emiya's daughter," the priest recounts.
The small girl does not respond just like the doll in front of her, but Saber does.
"You certainly have too much time on your hands, preparing a fake of all things."
Gilgamesh raises a brow at the word.
"He speaks the truth Saber. As much of an eyesore that thing is, it's no fake. From this world's perspective, it's more real than the faker you know."
Kirei's smile only widens trying hard not to laugh.
"You two came here seeking the truths that boy had been keeping to himself and yet you shy away from it when it's revealed?"
Saber does not avert her gaze at the pair making light of them.
"The Magus Killer tried adopting both boys, but the boy you know vehemently denied it. They even had the same fingerprints, so they weren't mere twins. Certainly the Magus Killer ran into issues during adoption, but I smoothed out everything for them in the end. A magus adopting one too many usually draws too much unwanted attention. I never got his thanks."
Water continued to leak, but not all of it came from the ceiling above. The tears of a small girl could not be stopped nor could Kirei's laughter.
"You should be overjoyed Master of Saber. Many here in this room would not be alive thanks to you."
Even if her heart was breaking, her mind continued racing.
"Thanks to me?"
"The fire that poured out of that broken cup raged across the land with no signs of stopping, but they did stop, rather abruptly when Emiya Kiritsugu took you into his arms as if responding to a wish. That face he made, do you remember it, little Spenta Mainyu?"
According to Zoroastrian belief, Spenta Mainyu is the protector and sustainer of many realms; of creatures in the sky, water, earth, plants, and children yet to be born. The counter to which slept within the womb of the Greater Grail. Gilgamesh laughs at the notion.
"Divine blood may flow through her veins, but she is nothing so grand, but neither was that so called Angra Mainyu. You shouldn't put such big dreams into her head, though I can see her growing up into quite the beauty."
*clang*
The knight's blade does not reach the Babylonian king's throat. Without lifting a finger, the weight of humanity protects him in a wall of steel. The wall of steel was all too willing to draw the knight's blood, but the king dismisses them, his face flush with amusement.
"If you were to be my wife, there would be no one in the world you would need to envy."
The Arthurian king was always disgusted by the Babylonian one, but such disgust only made her more desirable in his eyes. A charm all humans had the capacity to possess.
"I can't comprehend your tastes," the knight confesses.
"Then time must have stopped before you could properly grow. The princess you protect is much the same. She rewound her time, so she wouldn't have to grow up."
Kirei still remembers the boring answer the small Emiya had given during her first visit to the church.
"If I have a wish, then it has already been granted in this life of mine."
Thinking back on it now, it wasn't so boring after all.
"Rewound?" was the word Saber picks up and the tyrant wastes no time to pick at it.
"It was not her wish, but that faker has already thrown the world away once. He wished the princess to be happy. He wished to find a world where she could be happy and usurped his native counterpart. This world is the second chance he wished for upon the Holy Grail. That's why you should give up on such a worthless thing, Saber."
Saber's eyes turn to her Master who was whispering something under her breath. There are plenty of worthless things in this world, but there were no meaningless things.
"...I wish upon the Holy Grail; I pray you find a world where you won't have to suffer any longer. I pray that you meet kind people. I pray that you find friends you can...a small share of..."
'It cannot even grant itself happiness!" the tyrant king laughs.
Laughter resounds in the church catacombs. Laughter resonates in the church catacombs. Emiya Miyu had already known the truth once she laid eyes on the boy who wasn't her brother. No, she had known the truth even earlier. That may have been the only reason why she sought to negotiate with Kiritsugu's other daughter who desperately aimed for her life. Miyu did not belong in this world. Even though she would pass for a local of Fuyuki, Illyasviel had a better claim. She was nothing more than an outsider, a cuckoo chick intruding on another's nest leaving broken eggs in her wake. A world was thrown away to rot and others of this world were buried. The unfortunate doll who wasn't her brother in front of her was simply someone that managed to avoid being buried.
The wish that was once her hope had become her despair.