First Shard
Shiro Emiya didn't remember how he got there.
Around him are swords...
In this barren landscape of red ash under clouds of smoke, the swords formed a real sea of metal that shone faintly under the light of the two moons Masser and Secunda.
Swords of all kinds, some rudimentary, others as adorned as coronation's swords, inhabited a kingdom of rubble. You could see them lining up as far as the gaze looked, like gravestones from a cemetery.
There was nothing in this kingdom, nothing but the smell of fire, red ashes kneaded by a dying wind. A kingdom that housed infinity of weapons planted in the ground under a sky of smoke and fiery cinders below a big red moon and a smaller green moon.
Dominating this lifeless landscape, a colossal mountain... a volcano... the Red Mountain...
Shiro remembered seeing this landscape in a dream, except it had never seemed so real. A dream, was it a dream?
He felt called to this desolate place. He felt closeness... an identity... This place was forged from a memory of his second childhood. Talus Sepronius, the officer of the Imperial Legion who had been his father in this world, was then stationed on the volcanic island of Vvardenfell. On a journey he had taken Shiro to the Asheland, the region north of Maar Gan. The child then discovered the ash desert and the immense volcano that dominated the island, a landscape that had profoundly marked it, as if it resonated powerfully with something inside it.
Nevertheless, there was no sword cemetery on Vvardenfell. Shiro was elsewhere...
He tore the closest blade from the ground, recognizing it even as he touched it. The weapon was called Ceymallari, it had belonged to Imrahil, warlock king of Ceyatarn.
The swords that surrounded him... he recognized them all... in this life or the previous, he had seen and understood them all.
Replanting Ceymallari in the ground, Shiro resumed his lead amidst red rock cliffs and ash dunes. He climbed up to the volcano... guided by a call.
A huge mound of red dust stood in front of him. Something was shining with a golden brilliance...
Unconsciously, he started running. It was... it was... Excalibur!
The blade slipped into its beautiful enameled gold sheath rested on an altar covered with a cloth of the same blue as Saber's dress. The legendary sword was watched over by a worn-out alabaster statue weakened by wind erosion...
On a human scale, the sculpture depicted his Fifth Grail War Servant in his armor-dress. Shiro recognized every stroke of the delicate face and every strand of her hair... her little heart shaped mouth, her big eyes, the mat sagively wrapped in the back of her head and held tight by a ribbon, The rebellious ahoge who showed up above the fringe that hid her forehead.
His Servant..
Saber...
The love of his life...
The alabaster statue represented purity, hope, life in a red world that otherwise told only suffering, death, loneliness, malaise and despair.
Like an oasis in the middle of the desert.
Focused on the stone face, Shiro heard a voice carried by the wind:
I'm the bone of...
Steel is my... and... is my blood
Suddenly, an excruciating pain passed through his chest. Shocked, Shiro discovered a blood-soaked blade that was emerging from his chest. At that moment, he screamed with pain as another sword pierced him... then another... in an instant dozens of weapons came out of his shoulders, his back and his thighs... The teenager felt his conscience blur. A last thought stay afloat in the midst of agonizing suffering... his body and soul were in fact a heap of swords... and it's wanted to come out.
The room was bathed in darkness. Daylight filtered slightly between the shutters to illuminate a small alchemy lab and an enchanting pentacle, a glass library, a table with a flower pot and a bed.
At this moment, the form under the sheets arched to wake up from a jump...
In a horrible nightmare, the adolescent with red hair carried his hand to his chest looking for the phantasmatic blades that stabbed him. Gasping, his face covered with sweat, he opened horrified eyes to look around him.
It took him a few seconds to recognize the room... yes; he was in a small house belonging to Brisienna Magnessen, the Emperor's agent in Daggerfall. Forced to flee from assassins, Lady Brisienna had given him the key to this property so that he could live there during his investigation into the death of King Lysandus.
He got up to look at himself in the mirror above the wash basin. His face was pale. However, he sighed when he saw that no sword pierced him. He sprinkled himself with cold water, still trembling from the horrible nightmare.
No, it was more than that...
I'm the bone of...
Steel is my... and... is my blood
Shiro still heard the voice... no... his voice... this incantation. I'm the bone of... He frowned. What I am? He remembered what Rin Tohsaka had told him, literally in another life, his origin as his element was sword, which made him an Incarnation. Also his Magecraft was so oriented towards the Tracing of swords that he could hardly use any form of magic. Emperor Uriel had sent magi from the academy to train him. Nevertheless, despite all his efforts, they could never teach him any elementary spell. The fire, the lightning, the ice completely eluded him. He could invoke weapons from Oblivion's plans... but it had only served him to add them to his collection. They also tried to teach him about invocation of creature. After a thousand difficulties, Shiro had hardly succeeded in summoning a scamp... the weakest daedra. According to his teacher... he had to use nearly eight times the magic energy normally required for such a simple invocation!
He was only really made to draw swords.
Swords... of course!
Shiro shook his head and came out of the bedroom to stand in the middle of the living room. There he stretched his hand over a circular carpet near the dining table:
- I'm the bone of my sword !
Shiro felt a weak current of energy crossing his Magic Circuits. Almost by reflex, he invoked Ceymallari. The ayleid sword materialized immediately... faster than it had ever made a blade appear.
Shiro tried to remember the lessons of Kiritsugu and Rin in Magecraft. In thaumaturgy, the incantation only serves to self-hypnotize. He hesitated... aware that he was about to make a crucial discovery, but also uncomfortable... The vision of this desert of red sand had made him understand how much pain and grief he carried in him. This inner world reflected the sense of injustice he had felt since the day of the fire that devastated Fuyuki at the end of the Fourth Grail War. He had survived and he had since been carrying a deep anguish... Why him? Why only he, Shiro, receive the right to live?
The smile and tears of Kiritsugu when he had plucked him from the burning ashes of the ruins seemed to him the most beautiful thing. The joy of helping another became his only joy... until he met Saber.
In his heart, Shiro knew that his former Servant was in this world with him. But the years went by without finding the one he loved. The emptiness and anguish that this solitude left him were filled only by a graveyard of swords and red ashes... swords that grew in his soul, invaded his dreams, seeking to come out.
He felt that the more space he gave his blades to grow in him... the less space he would have left to be a man, to be the man who loved Artoria.
- I am a man...
I'm the bone of my sword
Steel is my... and... is my blood
- I am a man; I am not a sword...
But his inner voice didn't care for his laughable efforts.
I'm the bone of my sword
Steel is my body and... is my blood
- I am a man, I am a man, I am a man!
I'm the bone of my sword
Steel is my body and fire is my blood
The Incarnation nature of Shiro Emiya slowly continued to erode his humanity. Nevertheless, standing on an altar in front of the statue of Artoria Pendragon, Excalibur continued to shine with golden light and to call. Normally, Shiro's power shouldn't have allowed him to copy a Last Phantasm. He could not even copy weapons with a divine attribute like Vajra, or Ea -which he had seen used by Gilgamesh. But the amber-eyed blacksmith had a particular connection to this legendary weapon.
-Shiro, I am your sword and you are my sheath, murmured a clear soprano, a high voice, burning with an interior fire.
Amidst the eternal ashes of this graveyard of swords, an indestructible bond resisted erosion.
A little recovered from the morning emotions, Shirou was investigating... clumsily. In fact, he was turning around in the city, carrying the bundles of elderly women, helping out the forge, giving alms to the needy that were holding out their wallets in front of the temples of Mara and Auriel, going to get ingredients for the Magi of the Guild, or hunted monsters in the campaign for the Warrior Guild.
Six days after his arrival, the teenager was already known. His figure wearing black leather armor adorned with the imperial dragon, under a red top and a hood of the same color appeared wherever anyone needed help.
The amber-eyed young man was tireless in assisting anyone who asked him to. Without neglecting his mission, for he asked everyone questions about King Lysandus.
Lady Brisienna Magnassen had not been able to help him much. Despite years on the scene and all the agents of the Blades who had investigated before him, she had learned virtually nothing.
The Illac's Bay saw three major powers in opposition. First, two Bretons nations: the Kingdom of Daenia to the west, the Kingdom of Menevia to the east. To the south was the Redguards' Kingdom of Hammerfell.
Until the year 402 of the Third Era - fifteen years earlier - the island of Bretonniy, south of Daenia had been independent, although economically linked to Hammerfell. Nevertheless, seeking a protection for his little kingdom, the lord of the island ends up swearing allegiance to king Lysandus of Daenia.
The island of Bretonny immediately became a bone of contention between King Lysandus and King Camaron of Hammerfell.
Despite Lysandus' willingness to seek a peaceful solution to the conflict, war broke out. After several triumphs of the Bretons, King Camaron landed in High-Rock. This led to the Battle of the Field of Cryngaine.
The two kings, Lysandus and Camaron, died during the clash which ended however on a decisive victory of Daenia. Gothryd, the son of Lysandus, was crowned at Daggerfall and increased his kingdom from the island of Betonny.
However, the spirit of King Lysandus appeared every night in his former capital at the head of an army of ghosts. It became impossible to go out, and all life stopped as soon as the sun fell. Any attempt to exorcise the deceased monarch failed. Incapable of any coherent speech, the ghost wandered the streets screaming incomprehensible things where only one word was recognized: "Revenge".
Why did this king who fell in a victorious battle want revenge? Had not King Camaron of Hammerfell perished at the hand of his son, Gothryd, actual King of Daenia?
Lady Brisienna Magnassen had added only two pieces of information to the official relationship of facts. The first was that the king's tomb at the foot of the monument celebrating the victory of the Cryngaine Field was empty. There was no body in the tomb. The Blade Agent had no idea where the sovereign had really been buried. Second, a year after the death of Lysandus, one of the first investigators sent by the emperor Uriel had arrived seriously wounded at the home of Lady Brisienna. Before he breathed his last breath, he muttered that the king had been murdered.
Shiro scratched his scalp when he heard this explanation... which didn't explain anything. How could King Lysandus have found an honorable death at the Battle of the Cryngaine Field... and been murdered? Why the sovereign wasn't buried in the tomb that was meant for him?
Lady Brisienna had sighed before adding: "This is what we have been trying to understand for fifteen years and you are here to find the answer".
Unfortunately, Shiro was a young man with a heart of gold, too kind for his own good. An archer, a Magus and a swordsman capable of killing almost anything but (might be) dragons and giants but... how can I put it? He wasn't Rin Tohsaka.
He didn't understand any of these tangled court intrigues. The poor man was lost in the meanderings of centuries-old vendettas that did not only pit kingdoms against kingdoms, but also coteries in each kingdom for a little influence, for money, or for revenge for wrongs that go back generations.
Conflicts of influences, scandals more or less manufactured, old jealous husbands and young flying wives, knights in search of glory mingled in the banquets of the King of Daenia, his hunting games with brilliant crew, and its tournaments where we paraded in beautiful armor.
Here, under the gold and the silks, poisons were poured into the glasses of the guests; plotters organized "hunting accidents" or cut the saddle straps during the jousts.
Making swords appear was useless in a conflict of this kind and the poor Japanese reincarnated was spinning in circles.
Lady Brisienna had explained to Shiro that the assassin of king Lysandus could come from any great kingdoms of the Illiac's Bay: Daenia (in the case of a plot specific to the royal court), Menevia and Hammerfell (in the case of a murderer outside Daenia) or even a cabal uniting several factions.
However... another suspect had appeared the orcs!
The news of the invasion of Menevia and the siege of Wayrest had surprised everyone. No one had thought that anyone could federate the sixty orc tribes of the Wrothgar Mountains... not counting the goblins and the Reachmen!
It was not an exaggeration to say that this attack threatened High-Rock as a whole... Unfortunately, many lords seemed unable to overcome their personal quarrels, leaving kingdoms divided and unprepared to war.
Daggerfall was the oldest and mighty city in High-Rock. It held the first place by virtue of its seniority, power and prosperity.
It was the capital of the kingdom of Daenia, but above all it was the largest trading port in the Illac's Bay. Its plump ships had the monopoly of transport on the commercial route from Mascomian between Wayrest and Sentinel.
The city followed a square plan and was entirely surrounded by tall, dark-grey stone ramparts, dotted with round towers with pepper roofs. At each pointed spire beat the banner of Daenia, a red dragon on a green field, or that of Daggerfall, a red dragon on an orange field.
The high places of the Dragon City were its market, its temple of Kynareth, and the two chapters of the Dragon Knights that housed the members of this order.
The castle of the King of Daenia was to the east of the city, at the north end of a long avenue bordered by the mansions of all the noble houses of Daggerfall. As all ancient building, the royal castle as square plan, isolated behind high walls flared by towers and preceded by moats that a drawbridge crossed. Leaning against the northern wall, the royal palace was a splendid building flanked by two fortified towers.
Between the houses of stone and wood, a majority of Bretons crossed alongside members of other human ethnic groups: Imperial, Nords, Redguards as well as some non-human like Khajiits similar to standing lions, reptilian Argonians and especially elves: Aldmer (Upper Elves), Bosmer( Wood Elves) and Dunmer (Dark Elves).
There was a lot of talk in many languages, children running around in the streets, well-dressed bourgeois, peasants in cotte (1) coming to sell their products at the market, tall knights caracoling on their mounds. Carriages carrying noble lords and beautiful ladies were rolling in the paved streets.
The city was very much like what Shiro saw in Saber's memories during the Grail War. Except that no city in King Arthur's time had sewers. In fact, in many ways, the Tamriel Empire enjoyed a standard of living that was unparalleled with the medieval earthly era. The majority of the population could read and write, probably because books were relatively cheap... thanks to the knowledge of paper and printing. The presence of alchemists in each city made it possible to provide artificial dyes, medicines, fertilizers, and even beauty products.
Seeing this well-fed population, these healthy children, and these people mingling in the shops, it became easy to forget that the present peace had been forged by the force of arms... and that some dreamed of breaking it.
There were shouts, and then a driver got excited causing panic...
A blue fire passed through the crowd. In an instant, dozens of members of this peaceful crowd fell to the ground, blackened and cowered under the infernal heat.
Shiro Emiya looked at the panic scene around him. Remembering another fire... another city...
In spite of the shock of the panic, he remained motionless only for a moment seizing a little girl who cried and called her mother he tore her from the crowd who would trample her in the terror that had seized the populace.
Hearing horses hitting the pavement, he turned around to see a dozen knights who had arrived. The noble young men wore splendid armor of plates covered with coats of arms. Their helmets bore splendid figures: pegs, heads of swan, lion or eagle. Each held a spear. Even their mounts were covered with silk dress in the colors of their coats of arms and steel headpieces.
Their charge seemed irresistible. Nothing could resist so many martial splendors...
The blue fire enveloped them. Horses and knights collapsed and blackened as their clothes burned.
In the street, apart from the overturned driver, the charred corpses remained only abandoned objects and... Shiro. The teenager summoned Kanshou and Bakuya before facing the silhouette that advanced amidst the flames.
A man... a humanoid anyway... wrapped in a long black dress his hands were wrapped in his long sleeves and his face was invisible in the shadow of his hood. He moved calmly leaning on a large wooden stick with a steel head.
By reflex, more than by reflection, Shiro used his ability of Structural Analysis on the mage stick of the creature and...
Lich, Undead... great magic power... weapon: "Baton of Blue Fire", can only be wounded by mithril weapons or higher. The monster is vulnerable to magic but to immunity to cold... but fire inflicts double damage...
Shiro threw Kanshou and Bakuya to the enemy. His favorite swords were made of steel but they could distract the undead.
While the lich raised a shield of energy in front of its hand to repel the swirling blades, Shirou proclaimed the first verse of the incantation he had learned the same morning:
- I'm the bone of my sword.
Blue lightnings formed around the reincarnated Japanese. This attracted the attention of the monster that lowered its hood, revealing a horrible visage with mummified features where burned glowing eyes. In his hand... no, the broken and bony claw that served as its hand, the lich brandished the Baton of Blue Fire. There was a lightning bolt formed by flames... but they broke against a sudden obstacle appeared before the amber-eyed teenager: a shield invested with an enchantment of protection against fire.
- Steel is my body and fire is my blood
In the second verse, the electric crackles multiplied to the right and left of Shiro. As his hair bristled and the smell of ozone filled the ravaged street, more than a dozen swords appeared, suspended in the air... mithril and adamantite blades, glass and ebonite, daedric weapons... They rushed forward, stripping the air before sinking violently into the decomposed body of the powerful undead mage.
Shiro smiled. His pale imitation of Gate of Babylon was worth the months of effort to master it.
The monster could no longer feel the pain, he could no longer perish because of the bleeding, and even the magic weapons could no longer inflict enough damage to destroy him at once. Nevertheless, the attack wounded him. As the lich tried to get back on its feet, Shiro ran to it:
- Trace On!
The weapon that materialized in his hand was a daedric dai-katana, a long slightly curved saber, forged in Oblivion's plans by mixing molten ebonite with the blood of a mighty daedra sacrificed for the occasion.
Guided by the thirst for violence that filled the cursed blade and the demonic magic that ignited his blade, Shiro struck with redoubled blows. The undead wavered, raising its hands in defensive spells that barely slowed down the rain of attacks that fell on it in great arcs of fire.
The lich turned its eyes to Shiro and attacked mentally.
Acute pain hammered his temples, weighing on his brain... In fact, the undead was sending its magical energy to paralyze him by attacking his pain centers. Except the monster never faced a Magus from Earth. Shiro's Magic Circuits lit up to release a flood of prana that washed his body and mind, repelling this parasitic influence.
Shiro's brief slowdown in his attacks had however allowed the monster to react, its left hand rose to throw a bolt of lightning. Struck in the chest, the amber-eyed blacksmith rolled on the ground for nearly three meters.
However, the teenager immediately got up again, gasping, carrying a hand to his side marked with a smoking burn. His armor must have been magical because it's dissipated much of the attack.
The two opponents faced each other and Shiro grimaced... unknown energy healed the enemy's wounds. He could see them closing without leaving a trace.
It dissipated the daedric dai-katana. The weapon could not be used to destroy such an opponent. Something much more powerful was needed. This time, the blue prana particles formed a dagger with a strange form. This thin blade of fragile appearance looked like a lightning stroke. Shiro had only briefly seen it in Caster's hands as she tried to stab Saber to break the contract that bound her to him.
The young Magus jumped forward once more, then dodging a fire ball and a cone of ice that its enemy had intended for him. He practically appeared to materialize before the lich and forcing the dagger into its chest with all his strength:
- Rule Breaker!
The dagger of Medea could be considered the ultimate anti-magic weapon, capable of dissipating and destroying any form of thaumaturgy. The pierced lich screamed from a supernatural pain while all its defenses, contracts and pacts with supernatural entities were literally torn to pieces, annihilated... No, it would be more accurate to say that Rule Breaker had "rewind time" and brought the lich back to the state that preceded the time the pact had passed.
Deprived of much of its magical faculties, the undead wanted to flee. But Shiro followed it with his gaze and materialized a bow similar to that of Archer in one hand and several hideous barbed arrows, in the other. He drew them in such a rapid succession that an ordinary human would have found it difficult to follow his actions.
Each projectile carried a rune of fire... and the lich ignited like an old piece of dry tinder. The monster collapsed, and soon there remained of it only a heap of glowing ashes.
The confrontation ended, Shiro felt a sensation of weariness and frustration. So many people had died... His dream of being a Hero of Justice seemed more childish than ever. He remembered a conversation with Kiritsugu. No one can save everyone. Even in the best case, to save the innocent, the Hero is forced to kill the bad guy.
Cries brought him back to the present. Shocks of weapons, calls... spectral howls... the picture was clear. The lich was not the only undead who entered the city. He turned quickly, this came from the west gate, the main gate connected to the Camlorn Road.
Centuries later, the inhabitants of Daggerfall still recounted this sudden attack. Ten lichs had raised an army of skeletons and zombies torn from the graves and battlefields of the region, binding ghosts and specters that haunted the nearby ruins before attacking the capital of the kingdom.
They clashed with the crossbowmen carrying the red and orange tabard of the city militia, with the lancers raised among the inhabitants, with the warriors and magi of the adventurers' guilds, as well as with the Breton Knights.
But above all, on that day, three heroes revealed themselves:
A young magus which, throwing the gandr's black lightning, decimated legions of skeletons.
A teenager girl in a broken coat of mail, an intrepid and charismatic knight whose exploits ignited the defenders.
An archer who summoning arrows with destructive powers and sowed devastation among the undead.
It was a heroic victory, the beginning of a legend.
Shiro jostled some militiamen carrying their comrades and stopped for a few moments to apologize. The staircase leading to the rampart was narrow. At any time, he would have been the first to offer his help but not today.
He hurried, running almost towards the doors.
Could it really be that the magus that used Gandr was Rin?
And this knight woman whom the guards had told him about... a little blonde with green eyes... he did not dare to think that she could really be the one he was thinking of.
Nervous, he approached the gates. The doors lay on the ground, broken by the lichs' spells and the curses of the necromancers. Priests from Mara and Arkay treated the wounded and the dead. Everywhere, in the midst of the bodies wearing the tabards of the kingdom of Daenia, we saw broken bones and the remains of zombies cut into pieces.
Shiro looked at one knight after another, looking for...
His sight blurred, he forgot to breathe.
Near the door, she was leaning on a silver spear inlaid with runes. He coat of mail looked like a ruin... the stitches were broken and her tabard was so dirty that the colors of the kingdom of Menevia could hardly be recognized.
But, this face... the skin so white and her hair as if sprinkled with gold... she was of such beauty that she plunged him into an admiring amazement. With her eyelids closed, she seemed to meditate. Without really controlling his legs, Shiro threw himself forward and managed to catch his feet in something before spreading himself at the knight's feet.
Artoria opened her beautiful emerald eyes invaded with surprise and lowered them to see amber eyes that returned her an equal amazement and a joy without mixture:
- Saber! It's you Saber!
It happened a few seconds before the stunned voice of his former Servant answered him:
- Shiro?
King Arthur's proud soprano was unrecognizable, almost strangling herself on that simple name. Still at his knees, her past Master breathed on a precipitous rhythm, his eyes wide open, literally drinking the beautiful face above him.
- Is it really you, Saber?
More able to dominate her emotions, Artoria Pendragon regained her composure and had a sweet smile that few had ever seen. It's illuminated her beautiful face in an incredible way. Suddenly, she seemed a completely different person:
- Naturally, it's me, Saber. And you are Shiro, always like yourself. At last, I found you!
- It's... oh... it's... I... Saber, Saber, Saber.
Shiro seemed about to cry and laugh at the same time, unable to decide. Artoria continued to smile. With a light finger, she walked through the features of the man she loved. She too found it hard to believe that he was standing in front of her... at last at her knees. The young woman suddenly rose and took an embarrassed look around her.
All activity had suddenly stopped among the guards and knights who attended the scene, softened and amused. Suddenly, a little woman slipped between the big men who prevented her from seeing what was happening:
- Well, you were in Daggerfall, Shiro. Do you have any idea how much time I spent looking for you?!
Brutally torn from the contemplation of his beloved, the archer-mage turned to the little devil, dressed in red and accommodating twintail hairstyle, which looked at them with a bored grim:
- Ah... Tohsaka...
For a little, smoke would have come out through Rin Tohsaka's ears:
- So, Saber has the right to the declarations of a love-dead toad in front of the whole city! And I? "Ah... Tohsaka". I really wonder why I've been so much worried about you and why I've been looking all over for you!
Suddenly realizing what she had just said, Rin became redder than the reddest of all tomatoes and turned aside by crossing her arms with an air that was meant to be disdainful:
- And... and don't think I've been particularly looking for you or you're important to me! This has nothing to do with my personal feelings! It's just that we're allies and that... well... it's okay to worry about yours allies.
Hearing a sweet laugh, Shiro looked up at Saber. She was the one laughing:
- I am so happy to have found you both!
That night, they stayed talking for hours, each telling parts of his story. This life... the previous... they spoke... spoke. Shiro explained that he was looking for a lost letter from Emperor Uriel Septim VIII and especially to allow King Lysandus to find rest.
As for Rin and Artoria, they expressed their goal: to find three pieces of crystal that served as a key to the Outer Kingdom where Corvus Direnni would be buried with Excalibur.
Shiro Emiya looked at them strangely and opened the bag on his belt, pulling out an elongated object the size of his hand, wrapped in a handkerchief. He then released from the fabric a fragment of blue-green crystal. At first glance, we could see that he had been part of a larger crystalline rock.
Rin retained a stifled exclamation before tearing it from her friend and examining it from all angles:
- It is indeed a fragment of a Great Velkyn Crystal. There can't be ten like that in all of Tamriel. Shiro, where did you get it?
The redhead scratched his cheek:
- This is the strangest part. A man called...ah... Lailoken... a magus... maybe even a Servant, gave it to me saying a mutual friend needed it.
He then looked surprised at Artoria. At the mention of the name "Lailoken" she had hiccups:
- A man with white hair with rainbow reflections?
- Do you know him?
- Yes... it is given many names: Lailoken; Dinas Emrys; Mirddyn dan Morwin... Merlin!
Rin and Shiro got up at the same time:
- Merlin? ! The Flower Wizard?
The redhead Magus stopped for a moment:
- Now that I think about it, flowers appeared where he was standing.
- So it is Merlin.
Rin remained practical.
- Okay, we have the first piece of the Corvus Crystal, but we have to find the other two.
They chatted for a while and then separated. That night, one of the three rooms of the house was not used. In another, a young girl with black hair - amused and annoyed- plugged her ears so as not to listen to the lovers' couple which filled years of separation.
In the immense desert of red ash nothing had changed. Moons and burning clouds continued to pass over a graveyard of swords. Nothing had changed... except that at the foot of the statue of Artoria and around the altar of Excalibur spring grass had appeared, sown with modest wildflowers.
(1) Sort of medieval shirt, mainly used by poor labor workers and peasants.
Author note: This passage is actually the one I wanted to write since the beginning of this Fanfic. I hope you liked it. Bringing together Saber and Shiro made me really happy... aren't they cute?
For the attentive who note the errors of the author... yes, I completely forgot in the previous chapter that lichs were only vulnerable to mithril weapons (or superior). Artoria's runic spear is no more than silver... So, let's say that its anti-undead enchantment allows it to still be effective; (but yes, I admit it, I made a mistake, it's my entire fault).
And for those who think Shiro is stronger than Rin and Artoria combined... well, no, that's not true. It's just that Rule Breaker is cheating.