March Poll Chapter! Reminder to vote in the poll for May!

Beta-ed by Draconic


Kill, kill, kill, kiLl, KilL, KILL!

Kill the stupids! Kill the stupid, stupid, stupids that couldn't accept the world! Their hell!

Why did they talk about 'good deeds' and 'kindness'? There were no such things! There was only blood, and death, and suffering!

And mommy. Yup, blood, death, suffering, and mommy. Just those things. Anything else, anything 'good' was just something people made up to try and hide from the world. And not the good kind like in hide-and-go-seek, the bad kind where people lied. And mommy said lying to them or her was bad.

They'd teach them not to be bad.

They'd swarmed in from every angle and crevice, dashing across the plain of flat dirt created from the knights' clash of Noble Phantasms. They'd sweep over the lot of them, slash the boy and the homunculus' throats, and rip the jewel mage apart with their special trick. Without her Master, the Saber would lose power bit by bit. If they didn't get her with their special trick as well, then the knight would easily tear her apart once she finished with the horsy. The game was theirs to win, lying sword or not!

But something went wrong. Their assault wasn't working. Whenever they got close, a huge burst of wind would be released from the Saber, scattering dozens of them, and leaving those who weren't killed instantly to be picked off by her allies. They just kept falling, one after another. Falling against the lying blade hidden by wind, and the cursed copy Saber wielding it.

No. No, no, nO, no, No, NO!

They would die! They would all die! Even if they had to all gather, even the ones latched onto the other knight, this lying Saber would DIE! They'd kill them!

They'd rip them apart.


FATEFATEFATEFATE

Arturia growled as her sword flashed all around, her Hammer of the Wind King raging in full force to drive back the hordes of wraiths Assassin sent after them. They weren't difficult to kill, they were literally hundredths of fractions of a Servant she was stronger than already, but there were just so many of them. For every one that she, Shirou, or Rin blasted apart, five more would just take their place.

It was infuriating, like facing Gillies' demons all over again except this time there was no spellbook they could strike to wipe them all out. And as several of the phantoms dashed for Rin with knives exuding putrid black shadows, she was growing more and more certain that they needed to finish this quickly.

"This isn't working," Shirou echoed her own thoughts. "Eventually, one of these things is going to slip past us."

"A holy sword should be able to take these things out just like an exorcism. But first we need to cut off this thing's prana supply," Rin said, blasting another wraith to mist. "As long as it's connected to this world, it can always have another more of these sprits stashed away. Hell, it could even be driving the others in this place insane as we speak."

'Cut it off from this world…' Saber wondered. 'Shirou?'

"Yeah, I can do it. But if they're not all here, then it'll all be for nothing."

"wHat aRE yoU ALL taLkInG aBouT?" the chorus of ghastly phantoms screeched, even as Saber's holy sword cleaved another trio in two. "JuST DiE alREAdy! We NeEd tO sHoW yOu to oUr neW mOmmY whEN sHe gEts hERE wiTh thE kItTY! ShE'LL be So HAppy to SEE yoUr cORpSes!"

'Kitty?'

"I think she's talking about Atalanta," Shirou informed her. "She has cat ears. I'm guessing this new mommy she'll be with is… well…"

"Mordred? Really?" Rin squinted.

Arturia's eyes narrowed at the horde of wraiths before her. If they hadn't already sealed their fate with their atrocities, they certainly had now.

"Get ready, Shirou. I have a plan. You'll know when to go when you see the sign.'

"Will do. Good luck, Saber."

"Thank you, Shirou," she smiled like a lion that had spotted her prey. She wouldn't need luck to deal with a monstrous wretch such as this.

"Such confidence, Assassin of Black!" she taunted. "But if you hope to claim the Knight of Rebellion as your slave, then you're as foolish as you are mad."

A round of eerie giggles chortled up from the shadows, a single voice echoing down upon her. "She is already ours. She drowned in our curse."

"Your curse is nothing but another lie, a fallacy you invented to drag all those around you into this illusion," Arturia answered, annihilating another wave with a swing of her sword. "But Mordred has never had the patience for liars or those who resort to manipulation to get their way. She will break your sad excuse for a spell without even trying."

A single wraith leaped out of the shadows and Saber caught its two knives against her sword.

"No! You stupid, stupid liar! She will be ours! She will be our mommy!"

"If anything… she'll be your executioner!" the King of Knights swiped the assailant aside, sending the spirit tumbling backward, "As she already has been," she added as a reminder. "And if your hollow tricks couldn't even entrap her, you stand no chance against us!"

She punctuated her final word with a surge of Strike Air, unleashing an enormous typhoon that encircled their group, forcing the fog back and its masters with it.

For a moment, there was calm, the shadows curling back from the soft glow being emitted by her revealed holy blade.

Sieg stared nervously at their surroundings, Rider of Black's sword shaking in his grip. "Is it over?"

"No," Shirou said, pulling the homunculus behind him. "Keep your guard up."

"Saber?" Rin whispered. "Are you sure about this?"

"Don't worry, Rin," Arturia assured her. "Dealing with monsters is the duty of a knight."

Across the grey sky, slinking black shadows raced across the firmament. They smashed down in front of the four companions, unveiling a legion of ghostly children, each and every one of them glaring at the King of Knights. The ones from the alleys joined the ever-growing crowd.

The ragged, pink haired girl came to the front, her face twisted in fury. "Oh, is that so?" she snarled. "Well, if she won't be our mommy…"

The children dissipated back into black mist before coalescing into a single mass of shadow and smog, leering at their enemies.

"THEN HOW ABOUT YOU?!" the wraiths screeched in a thousand tormented voices.

The mass of spirits surged forward, winding across the plain and slamming into Arturia.

The King of Knights merely narrowed her eyes in concentration before vanishing amongst her attackers.


FATEFATEFATEFATE

Chiron had wondered if Saber of Red would calm down once the cluster of black wraiths had fled from her. Such a possibility was promptly dismissed when the knight had roared once more and unleashed a slash of vicious red lightning.

Saber of Red, as her designation implied, was far more suited to close combat than her ally had been. While he was still faster than her, he had no doubt that she surpassed him in terms of brute strength. Her periodic spikes in magical energy and physical ability led him to believe she possessed some sort of Prana Burst Skill, similar to those Siegfried had observed during his duel with Saber of Blue and Lancer of Red. The added boost afforded by her lightning would be especially troublesome if he wasn't careful. Already his shoulder was singed after dodging a heavy downward slash; he'd avoided the blade, but the arcing electricity had lanced out at him. That was the trouble with lightning. It was too unpredictable for him to compensate with his own abilities.

The Sage of Heroes danced back along the roof, careful to keep Archer of Red's prone form behind him. Five seconds in battle with his current foe was enough to let him know that she had a substantial supply of magical energy at her disposal, possibly enough to incinerate him if she released it all at once. By keeping her ally in the line of fire, she was forced to restrain herself, making their duel one of skill, an arena in which Chiron was far more comfortable.

Saber of Red was relentless. As with her battle with the golems in Sighișoara, her wild, powerful slashes seemed more suited to a Berserker than her own knight class. But now that she was against an opponent she couldn't obliterate in an instant like Caster's constructs, he noticed that there was… he couldn't exactly call them tactics, but there was a certain intuitiveness to her fighting style. She had opened with wide, sweeping strikes, hoping to slash him in half with one blow, but as time went on and his agility advantage became clear to her, she'd shifted into quick, sharper moves, hoping to clip him and whittle away at his endurance, all without slowing down at all. Chiron had seen finer bladework and physical abilities, but while his foe was not complex, she was certainly no amateur. If he was going to win this, he wasn't going to do it unscathed.

"Stay still, jackass!" Saber of Red snapped. "Is dodging the only thing you know how to do?!"

Chiron just smirked back, and his opponent snarled, driven to ever increasing frustration. There was his advantage. Saber was a brutal fighter but also an emotional one. She was agitated, and that would in time lead her to overextend herself. And since she was unaware he had any skills beyond archery, that time would come sooner than later.

His opening came with a thrust, aimed to pierce right through his face. The Servant of the Bow spun to the side and stepped forward, clasping his grip around his foe's armored elbow and shoulder. He pushed down on the latter and pulled away with the former, hearing the distinctive pop of the joint dislocating, confirmed by Saber's pained squawk. He proceeded to wrench himself back, throwing her over his shoulder and smashing her into the rooftop, the shingles buckling underneath her and collapsing into the building's interior. She crashed through to the ground floor, and he made to follow only for the roof to start giving way beneath his feet, prompting him to jump a few paces back in order to keep his balance. Saber, on her part, didn't stay down for long, and she shot out of the house, leaping high into the air and coming down in a heavy overhead slash.

The attack was predictable, even without his clairvoyance, and he evaded easily, dodging sideways and taking a more advantageous position atop the adjacent house as Saber of Red's attack made the already damaged building cave in on itself in its entirety. Then she followed him and performed the same attack, destroying another house, and another as he continued avoiding her strikes. Her attacks might have been easy to dodge, but that didn't make them any less deadly. However, her technique was the same each time, and by the fourth house, he found his next opening, sweeping her feet out from under her as she landed.

He stepped forward, gripping her leg to perform the same technique he'd used on Archer of Red. But Saber had a personal skill that Archer hadn't.

Her lightning exploded across her body, forcing Chiron to take a step back. That was all the room Saber needed to spin back onto her feet and deliver a heavy kick to his gut. He rolled with the blow, using the momentum to put some distance between himself and his opponent, coming to rest on one knee with his bow drawn and ready. He already knew his foe's next move thanks to his clairvoyance.

Saber had leapt towards him, her body wreathed in a scarlet tempest, her sword ready to strike. His arrows would be capable of piercing even her heavy armor, but even at such close range, she'd be able to use her blade to deflect any shot he fired at her front. And since she wouldn't sense any buildup of magical energy within him, she wouldn't be expecting an attack from anywhere else.

Unfortunate for her. After all, no matter how much fog covered it, Sagittarius still shined in the night sky.

Chiron removed his fingers from his already drawn bow, his Noble Phantasm's True Name sounding through his mind even if it needn't be spoken aloud.

Antares Snipe.

The Heavenly Scorpion Shot descended like a comet, streaking through Assassin's dreary mist. Saber of Red's eyes widened as she spotted the sudden light shining over them both. She couldn't dodge in midair, but she did manage to twist herself enough that the bolt slammed into her lower abdomen instead of her sternum. The knight was sent sprawling across the rooftop, hacking up blood as she landed.

Chiron was impressed. True, his Noble Phantasm wasn't particularly powerful for an A-Rank Noble Phantasm, but such a direct blow, even off target, would still have put most warriors down for the count. Saber of Red however was already climbing to her feet, once again wreathed in lightning. The girl must have had some sort of Battle Continuation skill, and that only spawned from tremendous tenacity in life. She was a hero through and through.

Still, her frantic rise was made sloppy by her wounds, and had given him an easy window for a kill shot. He didn't waste time, drawing his bow and notching the arrow that would finish her.

Then his clairvoyance showed him a glimpse of an arrow through his chest and he knew he'd underestimated his foes. He whirled around and loosed his arrow, cleaving through the one headed for his back.

Archer of Red deflected the incoming arrow with the shaft of her bow, kneeling on one leg while her broken limb laid limply to the side. Despite her attack's failure, a victorious smirk blossomed across her face.

Chiron knew why, and even as turned as fast as he could, he could already feel the scorching electric heat on his back. He notched an arrow for a counterattack just as Saber of Red thrust her blade through his chest.

Most people would be infuriated at being slain due to being double teamed, enraged at the unfairness of it all. But Chiron understood battle. Though there were some lines that should not be crossed, most matters that were considered dishonorable were still valid tactics in the chaos of war.

Still, he couldn't say he wasn't disappointed. Fiore had been everything he could have hoped for in a Master, an able mind and a determined student. He was almost as saddened that he would be unable to help her walk on her own two feet as he was that he would be unable to reclaim the one gift his parents ever gave him. Moreover, he'd hoped to face Achilles properly in battle, to see how'd he'd grown on his own journey to the Throne, though perhaps this was for the best. The gods knew his old student had great difficulty battling those he once held a bond of friendship with.

In the end, though his second life was not long, he could safely say he was glad he'd lived it.

Also, if he was being honest with himself, this death was better than his first time experiencing it; friendly fire and hydra venom was a painful and humiliating way to expire. Really, he thought he'd taught Heracles to be a better shot than that.


FATEFATEFATEFATE

Mordred panted heavily as she made to remove Clarent from Archer of Black's body, only to see him raise a hand.

"Ugh! What is it now?" she spat. "You play silent this whole time and now you've got a sword in your gut you wanna chat? Get real."

"Archer of…Red…" he forced out. "If I might…have a word with her—khh!"

He choked as Mordred twisted her sword.

"Are you freaking kidding me?! After all the trouble you've put me through, the last thing I'm going to give you is a—"

"Let him speak, Saber," the Archer in question interrupted. She scooted her way across the rooftop until she sat atop the raised stone border. "He may yet prove useful."

Saber ground her teeth but nodded, one fist clenched at her side.

"Thank you…Archer of Red. I only ask…that you deliver a message for me. Your Rider is Achilles… tell him that…his teacher apologizes…for being unable to meet him in battle."

Archer of Red seemed to consider this for a moment before giving him a slow nod.

"I suppose there's no harm in it. I'll do that for you. Now, if that's everything—"

"Not quite…" said Archer of Black. "This may be…a lot to ask…especially of an enemy Servant…but I'd ask a favor of you. My Master—I assume…that you must have seen…the girl in the wheelchair at some point—was everything I hoped…she would be, and I know that she may yet become more than that. However, she…is not as strong as she believes herself to be. Whether she continues…fighting or not, she will remain…with the Black Faction. If…you ever see her in…danger, I would be most appreciative if you would take…action to keep her out…of harm's way."

At that, Archer of Red scoffed.

"And why should I do that? Why would a Servant aid an enemy Master, even one who no longer has a Servant of their own?"

"Because… regardless of…her status as a Master…she is still merely a child. And I know…you of all people…would never let harm come…to a…soul…innocent as hers."

This seemed to strike a chord with his counterpart. Mordred didn't quite understand it, but maybe it had something to do with her change in attitude with that waitress at the cafe this morning?

"How did you know who I am?"

"An educated guess. The lion ears… your skill… Hercules spoke well of you. Though I wasn't sure until your reaction just now."

The cat-eared woman clenched and unclenched her fists, gnashed her teeth, trembled, as though momentarily at war with herself, then…

"To think that the Sage of Heroes would be so conniving and manipulative," she growled. "Fine. You'll get your wish. I'll look out for your Master in your stead—if it doesn't conflict with my orders, or hinder the Red Faction. I will not betray the rest of my faction for a reason as absurd as because my enemy asked it of me."

There was no response. Archer of Black had breathed his last, and he'd died with a smile on his face.

"'May yet prove useful,' huh?" Mordred leered at her partner, doing a shallow imitation of her voice. "Yeah, I can see how you getting leveraged into taking an oath could be useful to us. Not!" Then she wrenched her sword out of the other Servant's body in such a way that it cleaved his head in two. Maybe it was petty, but after everything the bastard had put her through, she'd needed to work a bit of stress out, even as his corpse faded into motes of blue light. With a dislocated shoulder and a freaking hole below her stomach, he'd certainly put up way more of a fight than a pansy-ass Archer should have. If it hadn't been for her Battle Continuation…

Whatever. It didn't matter. The important thing was that she'd had it. And she'd won! Three Black Servants down, and all at her hand! She and Master were right to go solo. They were literally carrying the Red Faction!

And now, all that was left was father.

"Saber? Are you alright?"

Oh, right.

"Of course I'm alright!" she boasted, flashing Archer of Red a cocky grin. "That bastard was finished the moment I joined the battle!"

The lion eared bowman cocked an eyebrow. "I see. In any case, thank you for the assistance. It is irritating to say, but the Sage of Heroes was not a foe I was prepared to face alone, certainly not in this place."

"The Sage of Heroes? Sorry, name please."

"Chiron," Archer rolled her eyes.

"Wait, if that was Chiron, wasn't he supposed to be a horse?"

"Centaur. And no doubt he took a reduction to his parameters to alter his form. There are only two heroes of his race within the Throne after all, if he maintained his original state one could practically identify him on sight."

"Reduction to parameters—wait, you got your ass handed to you by a guy who wasn't even at full strength?" Mordred laughed. "Wow, I wasn't expecting much from you but man, that is just pathetic."

"And you would be dead if not for your Mana Burst and Battle Continuation skills. Not a slight against your abilities as a swordsman. Just look at it from the proper perspective: Archer of Black was an opponent strong enough to overpower either of us while fighting with a handicap."

"Okay, when you put it like that…"

"Well color me surprised. It seems you can learn after all." Her ears twitched. "Wait…"

She looked around, careful not to move her injured leg, her ears continuing to subtly move about.

"What is it?" Mordred whispered. Archer just held a hand up, and closed her eyes, focusing on her other senses.

"Hmm… that's odd."

"For god's sake, tell me what's going on!"

Her partner rolled her eyes, but answered her.

"We seem to be strangely lacking in spectral observers. Something must have drawn Assassin of Black's full attention."

"Father," Mordred growled, clenching her fists. "Those pathetic ghosts would need everything they had just to last a second against him."

"Possibly. Curses are much easier to resist when you know they're coming," Archer noted. "But your father? Is that why you were asking about the other Servants?"

Mordred scowled. That was a dumb slip-up. There weren't that many father-son pairs in the Throne of Heroes. She'd just narrowed down her identity to a handful for Archer, and if she learned either of their True Names, she'd instantly know the other one. Dammit! How could she allow herself to be so careless?!

"Forget it," she snapped. "Assassin of Black will be gone soon enough. Once it is and this hellhole vanishes, I'm gonna need you to track down my Master and make sure he's safe. The Black Faction's Masters are probably still around, as well as the Periwinkle Faction."

"That name is simply ridiculous," Archer sighed. "Honestly, who in their right mind picked that color?"

"Don't you dare insult father's admittedly stupid faction name!" Mordred sputtered. When all she received was an exhausted and unamused look in return, she growled, looking off to the side. "Look, Master nearly got himself really messed up in a fight with that Emiya guy. And since I saved your ass, you owe me one."

Archer's brow furrowed thoughtfully. "Emiya? The one the priest warned us about. Alright, I'll do it, but why will you not be going to your Master's side? It is your duty as his Servant to defend him, is it not?"

Mordred whirled around and glared into the fog, knowing the person she wanted to see most of all was hidden within it somewhere. "I have matters of my own to settle."

"No. Saber, don't," Archer protested. "I can understand better than most the grudge one can bear against a cruel father, but this is not the time."

"Father's not cruel! He is glorious and magnificent and perfect!" Mordred roared back, unwilling to allow such slander against the King of Knights. "And there is no time better than now!"

"I have a broken leg and you have a hole in your stomach."

"Irrelevant!"

"Battle hungry morons," Archer hissed under her breath. "Fine. If your own safety won't convince you, how about this? If you admire your father so—"

"I do not admire him!"

"Whatever! I just ask this: Would it do to insult him by facing him at anything less than your best?" the bowman finished. "Would you stain his apparent perfection by presenting him with an unworthy foe?"

Mordred clenched her fist, recalling the final battle at Camlann. The mountains of corpses, bodies that had once been knights she'd called her comrades. The King of Knights' emotionless stare as she ranted about what he owed her. The disregard so thick she'd actually caught him off guard and knocked his holy sword from his grip. The utter casualness with which she was pierced with Rhongonmyiad, along with the final admonishment of her unworthiness.

"To him, I stain him by merely existing."

Archer's face softened, looking down at her hands, but obviously gazing back into her own past. "I know the feeling. My own father abandoned me as an infant just because—"

"Seriously?! That's what you meant when you said you know what it feels like to hold a grudge against a parent?!" Mordred interrupted, face twisted with fury. "So you didn't even know him! I spent half my life at his side, completely devoted to him, and got nothing but contempt for it! Your issues and mine couldn't be more different if we were members of different species! Now stop trying to bond with me, Archer. I don't need your pity."

The bowman's face closed off again. She bowed her head. "As you wish. Still, if you truly believe your father is—wait. Your father is Saber of Periwinkle, correct?"

"Yeah."

Archer cocked an eyebrow. "Lancer reported that Saber of Periwinkle was a woman."

"Do not profane father by associating him with such weakness. He has long ascended past such a feeble existence, as have I."

"But still, wouldn't she be your mother?"

Clarent instantly reappeared in Mordred's grip, her prana rising for Red Thunder again. "Don't you dare compare father with that conniving—"

Her warning was cut off when the mist that had been pervading suddenly evaporated. Just as suddenly as they'd been transported to Assassin's hellscape when it manifested around them, now they found themselves back in Bucharest, gazing over the sprawling city from another rooftop.

Archer forced herself back to her feet. "Thank the gods. That place was getting truly exhausting."

"Master?" Mordred called out, both aloud and through their mental link. "Can you hear me?"

"Saber? Thank goodness. You alright?"

"Fine, master," Mordred replied, sighing in relief. "I'm with Archer. I killed both Saber and Archer of Black."

"Really? Great job! That's two of the enemy's Knight Classes down in one night."

Mordred preened. Her Master really was far better than a mage had any right to be. Most of them were either insufferable creeps like Merlin or deceitful bitches like Morgana. But Shishigou put his faith in her and rightly praised her when she, naturally, proved worthy of it. Also, he bought her food. If it weren't for his insistence on sleeping in filthy graveyards, he would have been the perfect Master.

"I'm gonna send Archer your way in case Emiya or someone else tries to do something stupid and make a pass at you," she grinned. "In the meantime, I going to… to…uhh…"

"Saber? Everything okay?"

"Dammit!" she yelled. "No! Don't you dare hide from me!"

Archer raised an eyebrow at her. "What is it?"

"Father," Mordred hissed. "Assassin's world is gone. But I still can't sense father."


FATEFATEFATEFATE

Oh.

Of all the places she'd expected Assassin's curse to take her, the decaying, corpse-filled London sewers, a battlefield littered with the bloody and broken remains of once valiant warriors, actual hell, whatever that looked like, she couldn't say the place before her was one of them.

A familiar golden field, shining like a star in the afternoon sun, the only disturbance on the flat plain a sizable chiseled stone, with a brilliant sword sticking out of its top.

Arturia could no more forget this place than she could her own name. The place where she'd drawn the Sword of Selection. Where she'd set her destiny in stone.

Indeed, she was only there a moment before a young blond-haired girl approached Caliburn's pedestal, a familiar, white cloaked man standing an unusually respectable distance off.

"Take care," Merlin advised. "The moment you take hold of that sword, you will no longer be human."

The girl didn't pause as she gripped the sword's hilt. "I know. I have known since I learned of my destiny. A king cannot be human. But in the vision you showed me, people were smiling. And if they were smiling, then this path cannot be a mistake."

The girl drew the sword from the rock and all of a sudden Arturia was there in her place, Caliburn clenched in her grip just as it had been so long ago.

"Smiling…" a ghostly voice whispered in her ear. "A world where everyone smiles. No such thing. Never how it ends."

The field disappeared. In its place was only a mountain of corpses, armored men piled up so high they seemed to scrape the sky. And just as she had in life, she stood atop the carnage at Camlann.

"Only death in the end. Death, and suffering and—"

"Is this all?" Arturia inquired sharply, seeing no one but knowing that she would be heard nonetheless. "Is this all you can muster, Assassin? My own memories? My own choices and ideals? I hadn't expected anything complex from the mind of a child but this is… lacking. This is a painful scene, yes, but I've had time to come to grips with the consequences of my own actions."

Dozens of corpses were shifted, bloodied and mangled children crawling out of the carnage. They all stared up at the King of Knights, desperation and longing in their eyes. Despite her knowledge that it was only an illusion and the phantoms behind the image were mere murderers, she couldn't help the swell of compassion that rose from within her.

"Please!" a boy missing an eye and missing four fingers pleaded. "Please help us!"

"Please take us to world where we can always smile!" shouted another.

"Won't you please be our mommy?!" they all chorused at once.

Arturia could only sigh. She'd expected her Magic Resistance and her foreknowledge of the curse to protect her from any ill effects, but this was simply sad. If she'd been in the state she'd been in during her previous two Grail Wars, the sight before her might have caused her to waver, but as she was now, she'd made peace with the path she'd walked, whatever her mistakes, and wherever they had led.

"Why?" she asked stoically, forcing herself to remain impassive from above, the king beholding the tragic carnage wrought in her name. "You keep rambling on about a mother, but you already have a Master."

"Mommy feeds us, gives us magical energy." The pink haired girl they'd often seen explained. "We need a mommy to protect us. That's what mommies do. They don't throw you away."

Ah. So that was what it was. Understandable. Even absorbed and amalgamated by the wraith, the spirits of the children were still children. They wanted the parents they'd never met to make the world right. Despite the love she'd known with Sir Ector and Kay, she could remember a few sleepless nights when she'd wondered if Uther would not have so readily handed her over to Merlin had she been born a boy. Parents were supposed to protect their child, to love them, and most importantly teach them of the world and what it meant to be an upright part of it. The field of corpses around them served as an abject warning of the failures in such a duty.

But as poorly as she'd handled Mordred, Assassin had had nothing. No one to guide them but the malevolent instincts of a spirit that probably hadn't even understood it was absorbing them until they all became one single entity. And Jack the Ripper had found nothing in London that could refute their own assertions until despair became fact and fact became gleeful madness. Just as she had taken it as natural course that she would become king, so was it to Jack that the world was hell. They were trapped in sin just as she had been bound to virtue.

"I pity you," she proclaimed. "You who never had the chance to see the world beyond its darkness before you could understand and enjoy anything else. To be trapped in such a fate, I imagine that would truly be hell."

"Stop talking! Stop lying!" the spirits all screeched together. "Please be our mommy!"

Arturia shook her head. Shirou should have had enough time by now. It was time to end this.

"There is nothing I can do for you now," she sadly noted, both her hands clasping her sword tight. "All I can do is lay you to rest."

"LIAR!" The wraiths all leap upward as one, their apparent injuries now irrelevant. "Be our mommy! Stay with us in our world, OUR HELL!"

Arturia raised her holy sword to the sky, bastions of power surging through her. Mystical wind swirled all around until a veritable typhoon raged around her body carried the vicious spirits away and into the sky, expunged from the king's mind.

"But Assassin, do you not understand? We are no longer in your world."


FATEFATEFATEFATE

Shirou watched impassively as the dark miasma rushed out of Saber's glowing form, smashing into the brown dirt and breaking apart into the scores of individual children once more. Rin stood by his side, an unnecessary gandr aimed at their foes while Sieg gulped, Rider of Black's sword shaking in his grip.

"You alright?" he inquired to Saber, who at last opened her eyes. "What did you see?"

"Nothing I haven't dealt with before," she assured him. She stared forward at their enemy, the venom disappeared from her glare, leaving only a sullen resignation. "It is time we finished this."

The spirits rived and growled to their feet, the lead ones drawing knives laced with darkness. "We'll kill you! We'll rip, rip, rip, RIP—eep!"

A volley of swords streaking through their forms cut them off. They reformed an instant later, but the maddened fury had been wiped from their faces, replaced by an almost childish bewilderment. They all glanced about their soot-covered surroundings. "What? Why didn't we know… why didn't we see that… we know everything in our world?"

"Because we're not in your world anymore," Shirou proclaimed. "Welcome to mine."

The wraiths' eyes widened, the surrounding soot billowing away enough to reveal the legions of swords buried in the ground, legend radiating off them in waves. Saber's distraction had provided him with more than enough time to chant his aria, and having been separated from their illusion, Assassin's defenses were nonexistent.

The girl at the head of the pack bared her teeth, snarling as she raised her knife, cloaked in shadow.

"Don't bother," Shirou advised them. His Structural Analysis had already informed him of Maria the Ripper's activation conditions. "Your Noble Phantasm is useless here."

"We still see mist."

That prompted an ironic smirk to spring to Shirou's face. "That's true. But however much fog there may be…"

A greatsword of myth spawned above his head and blasted into the sky, slicing through the ocean of smoke above like the parted Red Sea of old. And through the new gaping maw, sunlight poured down upon the field of steel, the blades sparkling like diamonds under the amber sky.

"…it's always dawn in Unlimited Blade Works."

"Wha… What is this?" The spirits' jaws quivered, their eyes wet as they went from blade to blade. "This is…"

"Your world was hell, drowning in suffering," Shirou noted. "I got a bit luckier. I was given a dream, a focus for my pain. And through it I forged this place, a world that makes infinite swords, each existing to save everyone it can."

"Everyone you can…" the children muttered, "Can you save us?"

"Please save us."

"Please give us salvation."

"Please help poor Jack."

Shirou turned to Rin, "Is there a way?"

She shook her head. "If they were merely a normal wraith, perhaps. But they're Jack the Ripper. Their legend is recorded in the Throne and these children's souls are part of it. Erasing something from there… I can't imagine what it would take."

"So… there's nothing we can do?" Sieg whimpered, gazing down to the dirt. "This is just… the way of the world?"

"It's how it's always been," a child muttered downtrodden.

"Nothing to be done," another agreed.

"Nothing that can be done," the pink-haired girl finished in a whisper. "Anything else would be a lie."

The spirits all came together once more, but instead of forming another nebulous cloud of darkness, all that remained was a slightly older version of the pink-haired girl.

"We're ready," Jack whispered, their resigned gaze glued to the ground. "Just do it."

Saber raised her sword, power rising to her blade. "Assassin, monstrous as you are, you are still a heroic spirit. You're going to want to look up."

"You're wrong. We aren't a heroic spirit at all."

Saber hesitated.

"How do you mean?"

"We aren't even Jack the Ripper. Why do you want us to watch while you kill us? Do you want us to suffer more? For us to pay for the crimes we didn't commit?"

"You've committed plenty of crimes since you were summoned, Assassin," Saber answered. "However that is not why you need to see this. It is merely about seeing the truth for the first time."

"Whatever you show us will be meaningless. We are Jack the Ripper."

"All the more reason for this to be the last thing you see."

Perhaps out of curiosity, perhaps out of hopelessness, Assassin of Black finally looked up. Saber released her power.

A towering pillar of golden light erupted from the greatest of holy swords and reached into the sky of Unlimited Blade Works, the smoke of the forges utterly banished by the mere presence of such glory. It wasn't until that moment that Shirou realized that he'd never actually seen Saber's Noble Phantasm at full power. Given who she was and all he knew of her sword, he had no doubt it'd be magnificent. But witnessing it firsthand, he wondered how he'd allowed himself to miss it.

Its glow, its ethereal, majestic glow was overpowering, blinding even, but he found he could not look away. To call the weapon beautiful, radiant and unrestrained as it was now, seemed almost an insult, a gross understatement of the crystallized miracle before him. His mind flickered to his past, to simpler times, living with Rin in their flat, hanging out with Issei and even Shinji at school, cooking with Sakura and eating with Fuji-nee. Learning magecraft with Kiritsugu…

No. Whatever he had to figure out about his father and the things he'd learned from Shishigou, those times back home, when the two of them were a family, a real family, those were still some of the happiest memories of his life. Whatever they may have led him to, or wherever they would lead him in the future, he would always treasure them.

"Shirou," Rin whispered softly, an arm already pulling back Sieg, whose eyes shone like sparkling rubies as he beheld the golden glow. "I know it's… well, what it is, but it's still an Anti-Fortress Noble Phantasm. We should get back."

"Right," Shirou agreed, gathering his senses. The effort felt like letting go of a magnet if his hand was made of metal. "How'd you look away? Does it not affect you—"

"Of course it affects me, you dummy," she chastised. "It's so… warm. Like old times with my dad and my mom and… someone else. But as amazing as it is, I also saw what it did to the corrupted grail. We don't want to be this close."

True. The blast wouldn't recognize friend or foe once it was unleashed, and with the power it was putting out, even the blowback could be lethal for anyone who wasn't a Servant. The three of them retreated several yards behind Saber, Shirou throwing up Rho Aias just in case.

Meanwhile, Jack was dumbstruck just as they had been, her face twitching between utter terror and worshipful rapture. "So pretty… but… it's a lie… can't be true… but so pretty…"

"It is hope, Assassin," Saber comforted. "Even on the blackest, bloodiest battlefield, there is hope. The wish of every man, woman, and child to be exalted, to matter, that their suffering might carry meaning. The meaning we must give it. Else there are only our failures and our sins, as you were left with."

"We… we never knew… it's so warm… like before." Assassin muttered, a tear streaming down their cheek. "Before we were Jack."

"I'm sorry," Saber told them. "But this is all I can do."

"We know." Assassin somehow wrenched her gaze from the light and looked at Shirou. "Is this how you turned the fire into this world? Is this how you grew up?

Shirou frowned, his mind racing with uncertainty. "Something like that. Still working out a few details."

"You haven't finished?"

A sardonic chuckle escaped his lips. "I don't think I'll ever be finished. That's just how it is."

Surprisingly, Assassin flashed him a sympathetic smile. "You poor thing."

Shirou wasn't sure how he was supposed to feel about getting pity from a psychotic, phantom serial killer who'd tried to have him run over by a horse and buggy.

Assassin turned back to Saber. "Hey, please don't hurt mommy? She never wanted to be a part of all this in the first place. She's not even a mage. She won't cause trouble for you, we promise."

Rin cocked a skeptical eyebrow. "She let you loose on a civilian population."

"It was the only way to feed us," Assassin tried to explain. "And it was only bad people… and whoever was around when we wanted a snack…"

"Ugh," Rin groaned. "Fine. Not like we have any leads to find her with or could turn her into the police if we did."

"Hehheh…" Assassin giggled sheepishly, much more like the child they appeared to be than the killing machine they were. "Guess so. Plus, you're going to have to deal with both those Red Servants when you get out of here. Sorry."

"Don't be," Saber replied, her face once more a stony mask. "It is better this way. There is a matter among them that I must settle myself."

Assassin cracked a weary smile. "Guess you have another game to play. Too bad, we lose here."

"Indeed. Goodbye, Assassin. May you find some peace, somehow."

"Peace… that sounds nice. But it isn't for us. Ashes, ashes, we all fall down."

Saber brought down her sword and the pillar of gold followed.

"Excalibur!"

The shining tower descended and blazed across the land, Jack the Ripper swallowed by its brilliance.

When it was finally over, and the light had dimmed enough for Shirou to look back, the ground of his Reality Marble had been turned to glass where the Noble Phantasm had come into contact with it, likely the only mile in the entirety of Unlimited Blade Works without any swords.

It was ironic, in a way. Though the patch would soon be filled again once he saw a few new blades, to have any significant space in his inner world, the inner world of a sword, was not a thing that could be conceived. Especially caused by a force that gave him the same feeling as the moment that had sealed his fate.

A flash of a smiling face, so desperate, so happy to have found someone, to have saved someone. For, in turn, he himself had been saved.

Shirou had known there was true darkness and evil in the world since the fire. Assassin's world had only reinforced it. But he'd never bothered to wonder why his father had needed saving on that fateful day. Nor exactly how the ideals he'd so wholeheartedly embraced had first been born.


And so concludes the Jack Arc. Good times.

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Go Forth and Conquer!