AN: A lot of people were confused about my views on Noble Phantasm in the last chapter, so let me clarify that first.

I tend to divide Noble Phantasms into two general categories: Active Noble Phantasms and Passive Noble Phantasms.

Active Noble Phantasms: These Noble Phantasms are ones that require both the calling of their name and the usage of mana to use. Examples would be Saber's Excalibur or Rider's Bellerophon.

Passive Noble Phantasms: These Noble Phantasms are always active and can be used without calling out their true name or using mana on it. Examples would be Karna's armour or Caster's Rule-breaker.

Just like Karna lends his Noble Phantasm to his Master in CCC, I consider it possible for Caster to lend her own to another person too. This is simply because, in the VN, I'm pretty sure that Caster doesn't yell "Rule-breaker!" or emanates mana whenever she actually uses it.

"What an idiot," Archer said.

Rin nodded, "We're in the middle of negotiations with an enemy that hates his guts, and what does he do? He falls asleep."

The Master and Servant pair were looking down at the soundly napping blonde who didn't look the least bit like he was in front of a dangerous person who could very well take his head off in an instant.

He was even drooling!

"Wake him up," Caster said from behind them, irritation clear in her voice, "He must know the rules of the contract."

"Oi," Rin gave Naruto a sharp kick in the stomach, "Get up."

"Ow!" Naruto jolted, his eyes snapping open. He glared blearily at Rin, "What the hell was that for?"

Rin responded by throwing a handkerchief at his face, which he easily caught, "Clean yourself up. The contract needs your signature to finally be completed."

Naruto blinked, "Clean myself... up?" He felt around his face with the handkerchief and wiped the drool away before he laughed sheepishly, "Oh, I fell asleep!"

Rin's eye twitched, "Yeah. What a great idea, no?"

Naruto laughed sheepishly again. On the inside though...

'Oi, Kurama! Why didn't you stop me from falling asleep!?'

Kurama snorted, and Naruto noticed that the giant fox too was lying on his haunches and snoring away.

Naruto face-palmed, 'We're both a bunch of dumbasses...'

He turned his focus outside and shook his drowsiness away; he would need his full focus for this.

"So, what did you guys come up with?" He asked Rin.

"Basically, for the Rule Breaker itself, you can do anything you want with it, but it must be returned whole and in working condition in under twenty-five hours. We said twenty-five because we didn't want to risk you being late for even one second and then getting cursed," Rin explained, "Of course, we made sure to add a rule that after twenty-four hours have passed, Caster must wait here until time runs out for you to return the Rule Breaker."

"And what about the attacking stuff?" Naruto asked, "Like, you know, I can't attack her with Rule Breaker, and so on?"

"The rules we've established are thus: once you receive Rule Breaker, neither of you can attack each other, and once twenty-five hours have passed and Rule Breaker has been returned, you both have to restrain yourselves from attacking each other for at least two more hours. You know, just in case," Rin said.

"And you guys checked all the loopholes and stuff, right?" Naruto asked.

Rin nodded, "Yep, I triple-checked everything and I don't think I see any loopholes. Basically, we made it about intent, so even if Caster grabs your arm and has you stab her, if you have no intention of attacking her, then it won't count. Of course, if Caster pisses you off and you swing your blade at her, then it becomes your fault, and you'll be the one breaking the rules. We can't cover for everything, you know?"

Naruto nodded, "Makes sense."

He walked up to Caster and she handed him a... quill?

"Sign with this," she said.

Naruto shrugged inwardly and signed his name with a flourish.

The contract glowed with a purple light before it vanished into thin air.

Caster held out the ultimate crystallization of her legend: Rule Breaker. She offered it callously and brusquely, as if she didn't care whether she was handing over her greatest weapon, but a slight tremble in her hands on it betrayed her overwhelming hesitance.

"The contract... is now in effect."

Naruto slowly reached down at the jagged dagger and grasped it firmly by the handle. The handle felt rough to the touch, but still comfortably accommodated to his hand.

He picked it up and gave it a few test swings. It was light, lighter than even a kunai.

"It looks... blunt," Naruto noticed.

"As I told you the first time I was forced to give you this information," Caster said vexedly, "It's a ceremonial dagger. It isn't made for combat."

"Yet it's one of the most dangerous weapons in this war," Rin pointed out, amused by the contradiction.

Naruto wasn't paying attention anymore. His thoughts were now only on Saber and Sakura.

With this weapon in his hands...

'I finally have a chance!'

"Just leaving the Geis negotiation up to me? Don't you think you're putting too much faith in me?" Rin asked Naruto as they were both walking back home through the deserted streets.

Archer was watching over them from above a building nearby.

"Yeah, I am," Naruto admitted, "Probably way more than I should, but it's not like I have a choice."

Rin bristled a bit at basically being told that Naruto would never have trusted her with this if he had a choice, but didn't show it, "Oh? I thought you would say something stupid and cheesy like 'because you're my friend!',"

There was a conflicted look on Naruto's face, "You are my friend, and that's why I came to you—and I trust you too, but..."

Rin raised an eyebrow, "Oh? You're usually a lot more gullible than this. What happened?"

Naruto stayed silent.

"Is it the magus thing?" Rin asked, "Does it bother you that I won't conform to your ideals?"

Once again, Naruto didn't say anything, but the guilty look on his face told her that she was right.

"How strange is it that we were both raised by Magi, yet we both took such different paths?" Rin asked with a small laugh, "Since you can't even use magic, all conventional logic tells me that you should've just been thrown away. At least, that's what a normal magus would've done."

Naruto curiously listened, but didn't say a word.

"Well, 'conventional doesn't even apply to you, does it? The way you look so at home on the battlefield, the way you pull outrageous plans out of nowhere, the way you try to get your enemies to become your friends... Just as it bothers you that I won't conform to your ideals... it bothers me the same way that you won't conform to my ideals. I think it's just natural to not like it when someone else follows a path you think is 'wrong'."

Rin looked up at the sky now filled with clouds. The moon's light was barely shining through and the stars had been thoroughly covered. She was already stuck in the past now, no longer talking to Naruto.

"I'm a magus... that's a fact. I'm taking the same path my father took before me, even if that means abandoning my morals."

Naruto finally spoke, "Because your father took this path too?"

Rin nodded, "Did you know, my father took part in the Holy Grail war before this one. He... ended up dying. I have to win this war... for my father, and the Tohsaka name." She clenched her fists, "But... my enemy this time is Sakura... how...?"

"Do you know her?"

Rin smiled sardonically, "Yeah. If you want to see the epitome of how the magus ideal works, then look no further than Sakura..." She hesitated for a few seconds, "...She used to be my sister..."

Naruto's eyes slowly widened as he looked at her.

"There can only be a single heir for the family magic crest, and I was chosen as the Tohsaka heir, so Sakura was given away to the Matou family," Rin divulged, "I... I thought she was happy with them... I thought she was content with her new family, but... now I know I was just fooling myself... Zouken made her into the Shadow, he controls her by attaching his main body to her heart... what loving family does that!?"

Rin knew she had blown completely past the current topic but she couldn't find it in herself to stop, "I should have seen this before! Hell, she never even smiled before she met you!"

And then, the strength left her voice,

"I... I should have done something..."

"I think... that the magus mentality is wrong," Naruto confessed, "Maybe I don't have a right to comment on it, but even so, I still want to. I'm not the type of guy who stays quiet in the face of what he thinks is wrong. And honestly, I think you think the same about the magus mentality. If you didn't, then you wouldn't feel so guilty about Sakura. If a normal magus truly thinks and acts how you described, then I doubt you would care about Sakura at all."

This time, Rin stayed silent.

"I'm glad that, despite all that has happened to her, Sakura got a sister as caring as you."

Rin blinked furiously to keep the tears prickling at her eyes from escaping, but she couldn't help her lips from curling into a tiny, barely noticeable smile.

Seeing the smile on Rin's face, Naruto couldn't help but nod to himself in satisfaction. Even if he hadn't truly been raised in this world, even if he had been grown up around a different set of morals and ideals; he still had a right to believe in his own morals and ideals, even in a different world, and he still had a right to try and convince other people to believe in his morals and ideals.

In the end, morals and ideals were ideas, and why would being in a different world deprive him of the right to value and spread certain ideas?

'Thinkin' about something deep?' Kurama asked, bringing Naruto out of his thoughts, 'You have that rare look on your face.'

Naruto materialized in his mindscape, right in front of Kurama. The blonde boy had a teasing grin on his face, "Oho~ look who's awake; the fox who fell asleep right in front of the enemy."

Judging from Kurama's expression, if he could blush then Naruto would have guessed that Kurama's snout would have gone full pink by now,

"Y-You didn't fall asleep too?"

"Nope," Naruto lied.

"I'm the only one who fell asleep at such a critical time!?"

Naruto grinned mischievously and nodded, "Yep."

Kurama dropped his head into his hands, "Oh god, with all the shit I've given you, you're never gonna let me live this down..."

Naruto's mischievous grin widened, "Yep."

He left his mindscape, where he was following Rin on autopilot. It would be a lot more entertaining to let Kurama drown in his dread rather than starting on him now.

He looked at Rin. She had regained her cool demeanor by now, so he felt it okay to talk to her again.

"Rin, I have a request."

Rin blinked and nodded. Naruto wasn't foolish enough to believe that she'd already accepted; the nod was simply a gesture to 'go on'.

"I want you to spend the night at my house."

Rin froze mid-step and mechanically turned to look at him.

"Wh-wha...?"

Oddly enough, her face was turning quite red and she seemed to be on the verge of some sort of meltdown.

Naruto raised an eyebrow, "Is that not okay?"

Rin made wild gestures as she spoke frantically, "N-no! It's alright, b-but- I don't know if I'm ready for—FIRST TELL ME WHY!"

Naruto blinked at her odd behavior. Was she having a stroke or something?

He shrugged inwardly, probably another one of Rin's quirks.

"I need to practice something with Archer, but I figured you would be against separating from him. So I just decided to invite you along."

Rin visibly seemed to deflate,

"Ah." She said in a dull voice, "Sure, we'll come along."

Oi. Why did she sound like she'd been told that she was participating in some sort of grand tournament before being told that she had failed the qualifier round? Was she expecting a party or something?

...And was that a bit of self-loathing he saw on her face?

The rest of the trip was spent in silence, occasionally broken by Rin muttering furiously to herself.

Archer and Naruto were standing alone in the well-polished dojo, surrounded by nothing but silence. Rin had already gone to sleep, claiming that she "didn't have the energy to deal with any more crap today".

Her words.

"What did you want to ask of me?" Archer asked in a bored manner. He'd been told by Rin that Naruto wanted something from him, but he still hadn't been told any specifics. "If you want me to train you to stand up to Saber by tomorrow, then I'm afraid you're barking up the wrong tree. Ask God."

Naruto shook his head, "Nah, I already know that's impossible. But I saw your fighting style back there in the mountain, and I felt that you're probably the best person to request this of.

"And that request is...?"

Naruto grinned, "I want to work on a move in this training session."

Archer blinked, "...Only a single move?"

Naruto nodded and his grin widened as his eyes glinted mischievously, "Yep, just a single move."

In the middle of the night, Rin was slowly pulled back into the land of the waking like the surfacing of an object from underwater. She tossed and turned for a bit, her mind refusing to fall asleep, before she gave it up as a lost cause.

All this staying up late business was messing with her internal clock damnit!

She sighed. Perhaps a glass of warm milk would help?

She trudged through the hallways of the Emiya residence and was making her way to the kitchen when she noticed a few noises coming from the dojo.

WHOOSH! And then, THWACK!

"Faster!" She heard Archer command calmly. "While Saber seems to have gotten slower due to her corruption, she still has the speed of a Servant! If you won't speed up yourself, then there's no way you'll get her!"

She heard Naruto pant out, "I... know!"

Another WHOOSH! And then, THWACK!

"Angle your body a bit more to the left to conceal your weapon!" She heard Archer command this time, "Even if her instincts seem to have dulled, she still won't fall for a bait as obvious as that!"

Rin glanced at a nearby clock.

2:30

She shrugged and continued making her way to the kitchen. She could do no more to help now.

Archer readied his blade, but stopped when he noticed that Naruto was panting quite heavily. The blonde boy's face was flushed and dripping in sweat, and his legs were wobbling in a manner not unlike jelly.

Archer put down his blade and eased his stance, "Let's take a break."

Naruto blinked, "What? Why-" His words were cut off when Archer threw his shinai at him. Naruto attempted to dodge, but his knees buckled and gave out, leading him to collapse on the floor like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

Archer opened his mouth to quip, but Naruto was faster.

"Shut up."

Archer smirked in amusement, "I didn't say a single word."

"You know you were going to. Bastard."

Naruto crawled to a wall and leaned against it, no doubt a huge comfort to his muscles which were probably fiercely aching by now.

With nothing to do, Archer stood in silence and reflected on the state of the war.

At the moment, the Shadow and Saber were their team's largest problems, but that didn't mean the rest had just given up. Rider was still out there somewhere because Rin had refused to kill Rider's Master (even though she had received so many perfect opportunities to do so); Berserker was still probably holed up in the Einzbern hideout, his Master was probably just surveying the war at the moment; Caster was still a problem, even if Archer couldn't attack her at the moment; Lancer was... well, Archer had no clue. The spearman's Master was probably waiting for the war to whittle down to only him and another person before making his move; and Assassin had already been taken out. Considering the fact that Assassin had been under Caster's control, this counted as a blow to the Caster camp.

Reflecting reminded him of something he had wanted to talk to Naruto about for some time since their escape from the Shadow and Saber.

"I finally know why you made that plan of retreat back on Mount Enzou," he said to Naruto.

Naruto raised an eyebrow, "Which plan to retreat? The splitting up one?"

Archer shook his head, "No, the one where you had me engage Saber and waited for the Shadow to arrive before having it follow you."

A mixture of guilt and surprise crossed Naruto's face.

"Come now, don't give me that look," Archer smirked, "With the way you demonstrated how the Shadow was only chasing you, the ideal plan was already obvious. Us splitting then and there would have lead to the Shadow following you, and there would have been minimal risk in me meeting the Shadow. I mean, it was already following you from that far away, so by the time Zouken would have realized he couldn't catch you and told the Shadow to switch its target to me, I would have already stalled Saber enough and escaped. So I wondered to myself, why you were proposing such a risky plan if another, much more ideal plan was so obvious?"

Archer skillfully twirled Kanshou on his hand, "But now I finally know... you wanted to observe whether the... premises for defeating Saber were the same, correct?"

Naruto scratched his cheek sheepishly, "Man, you really are observant. Yeah, you got every single thing correct."

Archer frowned inwardly as his thoughts lingered on Saber and the Shadow.

If Naruto actually managed to defeat and reclaim Saber, then...

"Archer," Naruto said, snapping Archer out of his thoughts, "What'll you wish for if you and Rin manage to win this war?"

"...I notice that you've stopped calling me 'Dragcher'."

Naruto smirked, "Eh, it was getting a little stale. Why, have you grown fond of the name?"

"Yes, the loss of your constant insinuations, in the form of my perverted title, that I dress in drag tears my heart in two," Archer said dryly, "And, to answer your question, what I seek from this war is not the wish that the Holy Grail can provide me, but the results of victory itself."

His gaze was fixed on only one thing now... the-

Naruto narrowed his eyes, "There's... a desperate sort of hunger in your eyes..."

Archer quickly clamped shut every single emotion in his body.

"Oho~ there it goes," Naruto said, piercing eyes hidden under his bored expression, "Back into the vault, eh?"

He glared at Naruto.

'This bastard...'

"You told me that you once had a dream to be an ally of Justice," Naruto recalled, "Then you said that you're actually a Counter Guardian, a being that appears when humanity is on the brink of destruction... Considering that, wouldn't you say that you've already accomplished your dream? You don't really need the Grail, right?"

Something inside Archer snapped and a wave of dangerous anger flooded through his veins at Naruto's words. All those time he had been forced to kill in the name of "saving the world' flashed through his mind and he found words tumbling out of his mouth outside of his volition,

"My dream was to save everyone I could - not kill those who would threaten others," he said, the repressed anger and bitterness clear as day in his tone, "Even if they were the cause of the world's destruction, my dream was still to save everyone, no matter who they were or what they did."

"Everyone? Good people and bad people both?" Naruto raised an eyebrow, a small amused smile on his face, "You sound kinda like Kiritsugu."

Archer did not have time to stop himself from speaking, "That's because it was Kiritsugu himself who cursed me with this ideal!"

Judging from Naruto's blank face, he evidently did not comprehend Archer's statement. A few seconds later, his eyes widened in surprise, "Wh-wha-? You knew Kiritsugu? Were you also in the previous Holy Grail War?"

"Of course not," Archer said as if it were an obvious fact that even idiots would know, "Even if a particular Servant is summoned in two different Holy Grail Wars, they still won't remember their time in this world."

"Eh? But Saber-"

"Saber's a special case. A unique circumstance allows Saber to retain her memories of previous summonings."

"Then... how do you know Kiritsugu?" Naruto asked, confusion splattered all over his face.

Archer held a short internal debate on whether he wanted to reveal anything to the blonde boy or not, but in the end, he ended up shrugging and decided to just tell the boy what he wanted to know. He'd already revealed this much after all, a little more wouldn't impact anything.

"Do you know what parallel dimensions are?" Archer asked, deciding to get the basics out of the way first.

Naruto's head snapped to Archer at the mention of the word "dimensions". However, he shook his head "no" to indicate that he had no knowledge of what Archer was talking about.

Archer sighed tiredly, "To put it in incredibly simple terms, the world has a near-infinite number parallel dimensions that are made unique through the various different conditions or events that occur in each one. These parallel dimensions are all connected by the collective will of mankind, the Alayashiki, and the will of the Earth, Gaia."

Naruto felt a little lost already, but he nodded anyway because he knew that Kurama was paying close attention.

"I'm from one of the parallel worlds where I was the one saved by Kiristugu in the fire ten years ago," Archer continued explaining, "Basically, I'm you, but my name was Emiya Shirou. That's why I know Kiritsugu."

Naruto took a few moments to Archer's sink in before asking his question,

"So... you're not some sort of ancient hero? How are you a Servant then?"

Archer smirked, "The Throne of Heroes is a place where time doesn't exist. That's why a hero from the future like me can also be summoned as a Servant."

"From the future..." Naruto let his mind rove over that statement before shaking his head, "Wait, you said that you're me, but from a different parallel dimension."

"Yes," Archer nodded, "I was confused at first about who you were, but this seems to be the only explanation that makes sense; you are Emiya Shirou, I must have simply remembered my physiology incorrectly

"What, no!" Naruto exclaimed, "That makes no sense at all! I can just as easily be another orphan who took the name of "Emiya" or-"

"No!" Archer hissed with a clenched fist, "You have to be an incarnation of me! Otherwise, there's no point!"

Naruto blinked at Archer's inexplicable insistence. There was a powerful glint of desperation and madness in the Servant's eyes which put Naruto on guard.

"Yeah... you're me..." Archer muttered, "There's no other way..."

Naruto narrowed his eyes, "You're wrong," he said clearly, "I don't know why you want me to be you, but I'm not you."

Archer glared down at him, "It may not seem likely, but it's true. I just look physically different from you due to the usage of my magic and-"

"No, I know I'm not an incarnation of you because I'm not even from this world!" Naruto interrupted, "I'm not from any of these parallel dimensions of yours. Hell, where I'm from, we didn't even have this Gaia thing!"

Archer's eyes widened slightly, "A different world...? A world where even Gaia doesn't exist?"

Naruto had never really seen Archer reveal his emotions all that much, but right now, something in his blank expression made it seem as if all of his hopes had been brutally crushed.

"Why?" Naruto asked, making sure to let Archer know with his tone that he wasn't going to take an excuse for an answer, "Why did you want me to be the past you?"

Archer sat there for a little while, not saying anything. But finally, he opened his mouth and spoke, his voice sounding almost dead,

"I... simply wanted to stop killing. That's all I've done ever since becoming a Counter Guardian, kill, kill, kill... it's worse than hell, and it's something I'll keep doing for all eternity. However... if I can kill the past me before I make the contract with the Alayashiki, then I can create a paradox and free myself from this cycle."

Naruto's widened in horror at Archer's revelation. To kill continuously for all eternity... that was a hell he couldn't even dream of.

He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. What could he say? The horrors Archer had faced and would continue to face was something Naruto had never even dreamt possible.

"I..." A sound finally escaped from his throat, but Archer interrupted with an understandable tightness in his voice,

"I think that's enough training for one night."

With that, Archer instantly dematerialized into thin air.

Naruto sat there for a while, staring at the spot Archer was sitting at, before he trudged to the futon in his unlit room and collapsed on it.

He was out like a light as soon as his body hit the mattress.

"Tch."

The noise was made out of a habit, a newly formed habit that he had developed after having Kotomine Kirei become his new Master. He couldn't help it, just the thought of that repulsive scumbag made annoyance well up inside of him.

Truly, Lancer harbored absolutely no love for his Master.

He shook his head clear of those thoughts and twirled his spear lazily as he wandered the empty streets. His Master had sent him on a vague mission to "search for anything unusual", but so far everything seemed just normal. Maybe a hint or something would have helped, but it seemed that even his own Master was unaware of what he was supposed to search for.

He took another turn down the street, and suddenly, out of nowhere, an overwhelming pressure of despair and fear overwhelmed his senses. It was as if he was standing in front of a foe he knew he couldn't defeat and knew that the foe would be sadistic enough to torture him for eternity.

All this, even though there was absolutely nothing but pavement in front of him.

Lancer broke through the pressure and leaped away as a black tendril struck the very ground he was standing on just a split second ago. Immediately after, a strange object that vaguely looked like jellyfish with no substance and Saber dropped right in front of him.

Only... Saber looked a bit unusual. Her eyes were colored an emotionless sulphur, her armour was black, and her equally black blade was clearly visible to the naked eye.

"I guess you guys are the "something unusual" my Master wanted me to find," Lancer said with a smirk. He didn't quite understand why Saber wasn't with the spunky blonde kid, but he clearly understood that these two were here as enemies.

Tok, tok, tok. The sound of wood hitting pavement rang ominously as a bald old man came into view.

"I'll be taking your mana now," the old man rasped, "Thank you for the generous donation."

Lancer barely had time to raise an eyebrow before Saber shot forwards and aimed a left-to-right downward diagonal slash. Lancer instinctively blocked the attack with the top half of his spear and used the blow as a pushing force to spin the spear in a way so that the bottom half struck painfully against Saber's face.

Saber held her ground though and immediately snapped at his head with her blade. Recognizing the danger, Lancer leaped away before the attack could connect.

"You seem a lot more powerful now, Saber," Lancer commented, his excitement bubbling to the surface, "But I'm a lot stronger than our last encounter too. You see, my Master-"

Saber didn't let him finish. She leaped forward and unleashed a flurry of powerful blows that Lancer skillfully deflected.

"O-oi, at least let me finish!" He complained as he swerved around a slash and tried to land a counterattack of his own.

Saber struck the shaft of the spear with her gauntlet and knocked it away. Deeming the exchange to be a lost cause, Lancer once again leaped away.

"What a ridiculous increase in strength..." He mused, "Looks like a change in Masters is exactly what you needed."

Saber simply readied her blade.

Lancer frowned, "Although... I kinda liked that chatty side of yours..."

He fell into his ultimate stance. His spear flared with power and the air froze.

Saber waited.

A moment of still silence passed before Lancer burst into action. He thrust his spear forward and yelled,

"I'LL HAVE YOUR HEART! GÁE BOLG!"

An unavoidable attack that had already succeeded rushed forward. To compensate for the reversal of cause and effect, the spear's trajectory would bend around any and all dodges or blocks.

But this time, it didn't have to.

Saber simply waited for the spear to strike her and fell to her knees as it did. She didn't even try to avoid it.

Suddenly, the strange jellyfish-like creature hurtled towards him. He tried to raise his spear to defend, but Saber had grabbed hold of it and kept it stuck firmly in her body.

His eyes widened, but he let go of the spear too late. The creature had been right behind Saber, so when it attacked, his single delay in trying to pull out his spear had cost him the ability to escape.

The jellyfish-like creature enveloped him in a flash, and he felt his body being broken down and absorbed into the creature.

"D-damn it... already? I really do... have the worst luck..."

His consciousness faded into black, and the Servant of Lance unceremoniously disappeared from the world; leaving his mana being used by the Shadow as his final legacy to the world.

"Shouldn't you be... I don't know, sleeping right now?" Kurama asked, "Why are you here?"

"I just have a lot of things on my mind," Naruto said as he floated on his back on the flooded floor in front of the fox.

"Is it about that Archer guy? You know you can't do anything right?" Kurama said, "The only solutions are, either you make him like his job or you save him from it. The problem is, he probably knows the rules of this world WAY better than we do, so if he hasn't succeeded in quitting, then we don't stand a chance. And making him like his job is just as impossible. You would need something extreme to convince him, but all you have in this world are words."

"Yeah... I know," Naruto said, his tone subdued, "But that's not the only thing. Remember what he said? There are many different parallel dimensions in this place, and the one who was saved from the fire by Kiritsugu was his past self, Emiya Shirou. We came to this dimension right at the same moment. What if... what if me coming here caused a boy who should have been saved, to die?"

"You couldn't have known," Kurama said firmly.

"That doesn't matter," Naruto said, "I got here because of an accident, but I was still the one who convinced Sasuke to use his rinnegan on me. If I stopped Kiritsugu from finding and saving a boy, it's my fault, no matter how much of an accident it was."

"That doesn't matter," Kurama growled, "That Archer guy said that there are a near-infinite number of parallel dimensions. The chances that this Emiya Shirou even existed in this dimension are just as large as the chances that he didn't. And likewise, the chances that Emiya Shirou would've been saved are just as large as the chances that he wouldn't have. You have no idea what would've happened if you hadn't appeared, so agonizing over this is meaningless."

Yes... it was a very simplistic excuse, but still, Naruto felt the guilt inside him lighten.

A small smile graced his lips, "...Thanks, Kurama."

Kurama grinned, "Anytime brat."

"Hey, Naruto. Did something happen between you and Archer last night?" Rin asked as she and Naruto were eating the breakfast that she had cooked. Naruto had been about to make instant ramen, but there was no way in hell she was going to have that for breakfast.

Naruto raised an eyebrow, "Not really. Why?"

Rin narrowed her eyes suspiciously. She had noticed that ever since he had woken up, Naruto had been avoiding Archer's eyes, and Archer himself had taken a slightly colder attitude towards Naruto. Clearly, something had occurred between them last night—something she, ARCHER'S MASTER HERSELF, was not aware of.

It was quite vexing, but if they didn't wasn't to talk about it then there was nothing she could do at the moment. Obviously, she would find a way to force it out of them if they kept it a secret too long.

"So... we have until night-time, where do you want to go?" Rin asked, changing the subject. It was a nice sunny day, so it would be a waste to spend it lazing around the house.

Naruto blinked, "Until night? Aren't we going right now?"

"Fighting now would attract too much attention," Rin explained, "So I doubt we'll even find Zouken at his house."

Naruto shrugged, "I guess that makes sense."

"So?" Rin asked, "You never answered my question. Where do you want to go?"

Naruto laughed sheepishly, "Sorry, I just have a lot on my mind so I kinda want to be alone for a while. We can go together some other time though!"

Rin's entire body froze.

Had... had she just been rejected? Well, it was true that she had a sort of date in mind, and perhaps Naruto hadn't seen it that way, but he had still declined to go outside and hang out with her. Had she lost her charisma or something? Was she not attractive anymore?

No, no, of course not. Any other guy would've probably agreed to her proposal in a heartbeat. Naruto was just... a special case.

Yes... it was easier to think of it that way.

The sound of Naruto setting his chopsticks down on the table brought her out of her thoughts.

"I gotta say, you're a really good cook!" Naruto complimented.

Rin smirked,

"Obviously."

Naruto, dressed in his usual orange zip-up hoodie, blue jeans, and gray sneakers, sighed as he wandered the crowded and sunlit market streets. The upcoming confrontation with Saber and the Shadow-who could also potentially be Sakura-loomed over his mind like a dark cloud, and Archer's story from last night only further weighed down his troubled mind.

Right now though, it was specifically Archer's story which was haunting his mind. Not just because the idea of being forced to kill for eternity was horrifying, but also because he had seen eyes like Archer's before. Eyes that were filled with despair and desperation.

This world... is hell!

Obito.

There was no mistaking it.

Naruto sighed and collapsed on an empty bench. Naruto pitied Archer and wanted to do something to help, but Kurama had put it best. There were only two ways to help Archer, either he would have to make the Servant like his job, or save him from it. However, both options were impractical. Naruto was a novice in navigating the rules of this world, so the saving option was out, and his words simply held no weight to Archer, so even the convincing option was out.

Even so, there had to be something he could do—

"Oh~ fancy seeing you here onii-chan!" A childish voice greeted, snapping him out of his thoughts.

A familiar white-haired girl garbed in fancy purple clothes was standing in front of him with a matching purple parasol above her head and a cheerful smile on her face.

Ilya... something, something. Whatever, the important thing was that he knew she was Berserker's Master.

"Chibi! Long time no see!" Naruto greeted back, surprised.

Illya let out a childish giggle, "I thought you'd be a little more scared of me, onii-chan. After all, you have no Servant to defend you anymore."

"Yeah well, it's obvious you won't attack me here in front of all these people," Naruto replied confidently, hiding the fact that, if Rin hadn't reminded him this morning that Servants didn't fight in broad daylight, he would've probably tried to attack the chibi the second she had greeted him.

Illya took a seat beside him, "Why aren't you taking refuge in the church, onii-chan? It's safer there, you know?"

"Yeah, well. I'm not going for safe," Naruto replied, "I have a promise to keep."

"Oooh, very admirable," Illya giggled again, "Is it with Saber?"

Naruto nodded, "Yep."

"And? What's the promise?" Illya asked curiously.

Naruto gave her a small grin and flicked her nose, "Sorry, but that's private."

Illya put her hands on her nose and pouted, "How mean!"

Naruto nodded uninterestedly, "Yep, I'm super mean." He got up, "Alright, well, enjoy your shopping trip. See you around."

"Eeeh? You're leaving already?" Illya complained. Then, her reddish-pink eyes started glowing, "Why don't you spend some more time with me?"

Naruto felt an invisible set of hands grab hold of his body and lock it in place. He tried to struggle against his invisible bindings, but found that he couldn't even move a muscle.

'Naruto...'

'Break it.'

Instantly, the invisible bindings disappeared and mobility returned to his body.

He grabbed hold of a shuriken inside his pocket, and glared at Berserker's Master—his own cerulean eyes glinting brightly with anticipation.

"Oi, chibi. Are you sure you want to do this right now?" He asked threateningly.

"Wow, I'm surprised you were able to break out of that, Onii-chan!" Berserker's Master exclaimed as if she all she had done was play a little prank, "But don't worry, I don't want to fight you right now."

Naruto narrowed his eyes, but loosened his hold on his shuriken, "What do you want?"

The chibi twirled on the spot playfully, "Well, I just want someone to play with me! I left Berserker at home and snuck out here to explore the city, but it's kinda lonely with no one to keep me company."

Naruto finally let go of his shuriken entirely and sighed, recognizing that Illya was no threat for now.

"No one? What about your family?"

Illya plopped down beside him, "Nope," she said with a far-off smile, popping the 'p', "My parents died a long time ago. And grandfather doesn't really care enough to play with me—he just wants me to win the Holy Grail War and disappear."

Naruto blinked, taken aback by the lack of hatred or anger in her tone while speaking of this; on the contrary, she still seemed her sprightly self.

"O-oh... what about your friends then?"

Illya shook her head, "Don't have of those either. Unless you count Leyseritt and Sella, I guess. But they're just my maids who were sent with me to watch over me."

Naruto frowned but didn't say anything. He didn't really know the little girl well enough to say anything meaningful to that.

But he definitely understood what it meant to be lonely, and so his conscious would never allow him to leave this girl here and walk away.

Naruto looked up at the sky. There was still a lot of time before night fell and their attack would commence...

"Fine, let's play," he sighed, shoving all thoughts of Archer into the back of his mind and looking back at Illya, "What do you want to play?"

"Yay!" Illya cheered with a clap of her hands, "I wanna go to the park!"

Naruto shrugged, "Sure."

The white-haired girl hopped off the bench and danced, bounced, and twirled all the way to the park. Naruto followed behind at a steady pace, making sure to call out to her when she accidentally took a wrong turn.

The park was just a playground for children, and Naruto thought Illya would be interested in all the slides and swings, but contrary to his expectations, she simply followed him onto a bench on the side.

"You know my name right?" Naruto asked her, recalling that he had never actually introduced himself to her.

Illya nodded as she swung her legs like an energetic child, "Yep. Uzumaki Emiya Naruto."

Naruto nodded, "Thought you might. When we first met, you did say, 'I'm glad to see that you've decided to participate in this war.'-" He looked down at Illya, his face curious, "-I have to wonder though, why do you know me?"

Illya tilted her head to the side, her face as curious as his own, "Kiritsugu never told you about the Einzberns?"

Naruto shook his head, "Not really. He didn't talk much about his past."

"Well," Illya began explaining, "In the last war, Kiritsugu was hired as a Master for the Einzberns because he was known as a very powerful killer throughout the magus world. All the Einzberns wanted was for Kiritsugu to win the Holy Grail in the name of the Einzberns and to make a wish from it - the wish didn't really matter as long as the magic of the Holy Grail was performed, and everyone knew that it was performed under the Einzbern name. those were the only two conditions."

"But Kiritsugu lost?"

Illya shook her head slowly, her eyes fixed somewhere far away now, "No, he won. He got to the Holy Grail... but instead of using it, he destroyed it."

Naruto blinked. That couldn't be right, because...

...I wanted to save everyone in the world.

That had been the wish Kirtsugu had confided to Naruto. With the omnipotent wish-granter in his grasp, Kiritsugu would have certainly tried to make his wish come true.

So why would Kiritsugu destroy it?

...but if you stab the main body then the contract between her and the grail's taint will be broken.

The grail's taint. Naruto hadn't asked Caster to elaborate further on what she meant by that than how it concerned Sakura, but according to Caster, the grail's taint was what allowed Sakura to turn into the Shadow, and even without his negative emotion-sensing, Naruto could tell that the Shadow was undoubtedly evil.

If something like that "tainted" the grail, would the grail be able to grant wishes without letting any of that evil affect the wishes?

Had that been what had caused Kiritsugu to reject the grail?

"Are you sure that Kiritsugu had the chance to use the grail but decided to destroy it?" Naruto asked.

Illya cheeks puffed out in indignation, "Of course! I know everything about this!"

'Hm...'

There wasn't any evidence, but Naruto felt that he could trust Illya's words. And if he did trust her words, then one thing was clear:

Kiritsugu had rejected the grail.

Naruto couldn't be sure of the reason why Kiritsugu had done that, but he trusted Kiritsugu. No one who smiled like Kiritsugu did when saving him could be a bad person.

And so, another problem was added onto the pile; Saber, the Shadow, Zouken, Sakura, Archer, and now trying to figure out why Kirtsugu had rejected the Grail...

Naruto sighed as he rubbed his eyes tiredly; the next few days would be filled with work.

"Ah! Onii-chan, you still haven't heard what all this has to do with you!" Illya remembered.

But Naruto felt that he had already figured it out,

"And so the Einzberns want revenge, right? That's why you already knew my name."

Illya nodded cheerfully, "Yep. I have to kill you, because Emiya Kiritsugu is already dead."

Naruto winced; it was honestly kind of disturbing how she could speak of this in such a manner.

"And if I say I don't want to fight you?" Naruto asked.

Illya shook her head, "That won't matter. My purpose is to kill you and win the Holy Grail war. That's it. Nothing you say will make me stop."

Naruto gave a mental shrug. This was nothing new really; many of his friends had been made after they had tried to kill him.

"Is that so? Well bring it on then - I've always solved my problems with my fists."

Illya shook her head, "Sorry, Onii-chan. You won't be able to solve this one then. You see, Berserker can't lose."

Naruto muttered, "Yeah right, we'll see about that."

"Ah!" Illya looked insulted, "Are you doubting Berserker's power!? Even if you had Saber, he would still kick her, and Archer's ass! Together!"

Naruto gave her a quick chop on the head.

"You're too young to say words like "ass"," he scolded.

Illya grimaced and closed her eyes in pain as her eyes became watery.

"I-I'm not a kid!" She yelled in protest.

Thwack!

Another strike landed on her head.

"Respect your elders," Naruto said.

"S-stop! Fine! Fine!" She finally gave in. She looked at Naruto with tearful and accusing eyes, "You're so mean, Onii-chan!"

"It's called being firm but fair," Naruto said, "I learned well from a certain sensei of mine."

Illya opened her mouth to retort, but just then, her stomach grumbled, loudly announcing its hunger.

"Ah..." Illya made an embarrassed noise as her face slowly turned red. In response, Naruto didn't even try to hide his amused laugh.

"O-onii-chan! Stop laughi-!"

Then suddenly, she was interrupted by a matching rumble of hunger from Naruto's stomach.

The two Masters froze for a few seconds...

Then, the both of them began chuckling at the same time. Neither had any idea why this was so funny, but they were both soon overcome with side-splitting, uncontrollable laughter. Their limbs flayed as their loud, joyous voices echoed throughout the empty park.

Finally, as the two calmed down, Naruto asked—his voice still containing the easily noticeable vestiges of laughter,

"So... wanna get something to eat?"

Illya's eyes widened. All traces of amusement on her face was now washed away with complete bewilderment,

"A-are you sure you want that Onii-chan? I have to kill you later, you know?"

Naruto shrugged, "Eh, that's a problem for later. Right now I'm hungry, you're hungry, and you weren't exactly bad company. Those reasons should be good enough to get something to eat together, right?"

"I-I guess?" Illya answered hesitantly.

"Then let's go," he said as he stood up, "I know a ramen restaurant close by that makes some pretty delicious ramen."

He led her through the streets for a few minutes before he urged her into a relatively small store. As they entered the heavenly smell of ramen broth hit their noses and a smile lit up on Naruto's face.

"Oh hey, Naruto!" The old owner greeted happily.

And why wouldn't he be happy? Naruto always ate exorbitant amounts of ramen every time he came, so his appearance was always a cause for celebration.

"Don't forget, discount period already ended this morning, so you're paying full price for each bowl!" The owner reminded.

Naruto grinned, "Yep, not to worry. I brought more than enough cash!"

He took a seat at a table and gestured Illya to do the same across from him.

"Give me the usual, old man!" Naruto gave the order. Then he turned to Illya, "And you?"

Illya picked up the menu on the table and leafed through it with a curious finger on her chin and a troubled expression on her face. It was clear that she had no clue as to what to order.

In fact...

"So, this ramen thing is tasty?"

Naruto blinked.

Then he spoke, his voice a hoarse whisper, "You... don't know what ramen is?"

"N-no?" Illya answered, a little afraid at his change in mood. She subtly prepared to use her command seal - just in case.

Suddenly, Naruto banged his fists on the table and his eyes lit on fire. Her head whipped to the owner who had just poked his head out of the kitchen in surprise.

"Old man! get me a miso ramen here on the double! This chibi doesn't know what ramen is!"

Naruto seemed as if his very soul had been attacked and there was a dangerous gleam in his eyes. Even more worryingly for Illya, the owner had adopted the same look.

"Doesn't know what ramen is...?" He muttered in a dangerous tone, "Well I'll show you... in fact, after today, you'll never be able to forget it!"

The owner pierced Naruto with a sharp look, "Naruto! I'm sorry but you'll have to wait for your order! I'm gonna whip up a masterpiece for the little girl first!"

And for once, Naruto was okay with that.

They were too close.

The basic-looking bowl of miso ramen was on the table in front of her, and the owner and Onii-chan's face were too close to her. They were watching her intensely, to gauge her reaction to her first bite to the food they both revered.

She squirmed a bit uncomfortably in her seat and took a helping of noodles into her mouth.

And...

"It's okay, I guess," she gave her final verdict.

Naruto and the owner both recoiled in shock. Then they keeled over as if Berserker himself had struck them in their guts.

"O-old man, please go and get started on my order," Naruto finally said, strain easily noticeable in his voice, "I'll go ahead and show her the true value of ramen while you work."

The owner gave a determined nod, "Got it. I'm leaving this to you, Naruto."

Naruto gave his own determined nod back as the owner returned to the kitchen.

He then turned to Illya and lectured, "Of course you're rating's just gonna be "okay" of you only try the noodles. You have to try both to get a better sense of this dish."

In a flash, he stole her spoon and fork and scooped up the noodle and broth.

he held out the fork to her, "First put the noodles in your mouth, then the broth."

Illya felt her cheeks flush, "U-um, Onii-chan? Are you going to feed me?"

Naruto nodded with fervour.

"Of course!" he declared passionately, "I have to get you to try all sides of the ramen, or else you'll keep thinking that it's just "okay"!"

"O-okay," Illya accepted timidly.

Naruto gently deposited the noodles, and then the broth in her mouth, and then he waited expectantly for her judgement.

Illya honestly didn't like the taste all that much and found the dish to be too filled with spices to suit her pallet, but her stomach and chest felt warm, and looking at Naruto's excited expression, she found herself saying,

"...It's good."

"YES!" Naruto fist-pumped, "I knew that nobody in the world could dislike ramen!"

Illya's hands nervously fidgeted under the table as she mustered up the courage to make her request,

"Can you... um, continue feeding me? To show me the proper way to eat ramen?"

Naruto blinked then grinned, "Of course! I'll teach you all the best ways to enjoy ramen!"

Illya too felt like fist-pumping at the moment.

The hours passed as Naruto continued jabbering away about his ramen. So enraptured he was in imparting his ramen wisdom that he didn't even notice that night had fallen.

Kurama felt it his duty to rectify that.

'Oi, Naruto,' Kurama called, 'It's time.'

Naruto froze in the middle of waving his arms in some sort of wild gesture, and all the troubles that he had suppressed in the back of his mind came flooding back in like a worrying tidal wave.

He slowly put his arms down and gave Illya a soft smile, "Thank you, chibi. I was able to relax for a few hours because of you."

Illya's first thought was that he should probably thank ramen rather than her for that.

Then her eyes widened when she realized that she had actually been thanked.

That... had never happened before. Illya couldn't remember a single time in her life when she had been thanked.

She had already been trained in proper noble etiquette, so she knew what the proper response to being thanked was. But still, she couldn't help but stammer uncertainly,

"Er-um, y-you're welcome?"

Naruto tilted his head to the side curiously at her strange reaction. But as he was running out of time, he decided to let it slide.

"Goodbye, chibi. I'll see you later."

With that, he left the money owed to the owner on the table and rushed out the door. Illya simply watched him leave with a speechless sort of stare, her hands now on her chest.

Her heart felt... warm. And she didn't know why, but her lips were involuntarily stretching from ear to ear.

The walk back in the chilly night had done a good job in wiping away the last vestiges of warm comfort left over from the ramen shop. Now, his mind was only focused on Saber and the Shadow.

Archer's dead eyes flashed in his mind for a split second, but Naruto shoved it back into the dark corners of his mind. he would have to deal with these issues one at a time. Thinking about Archer right now would only be detrimental to the task ahead.

Shaking his head, he opened the door to his house.

"I'm home!" He announced out of habit.

Only silence greeted him.

Hm... looks like Rin had decided to leave the house for the day too.

Naruto, with a lack of things to do, washed his face in the sink and simply wandered the house, letting his feet guide him.

Apparently, those feet were in a reminiscing mood, as when he looked up, he found himself in front of the shed. He slowly entered and ran his hands along the faded magic circle on the ground.

A-a hooker? You-you're wrong, I'm not a hooker! You're Servant: Saber, has come in response to your summons!

R-right. I'm sorry, but please go home now. I seriously did not order a teleporting hooker.

Naruto chuckled as the memory of Saber's summoning echoed in his mind. Admittedly, it wasn't the best first meeting, but hey, the time they had spent together had definitely made up for it.

"Oh, you're here, Naruto," Rin said from behind him, snapping him out of his thoughts.

He turned and greeted her, "Hey, Rin."

Rin nodded in response and entered the shed. She looked around for a bit, "This is where you summoned Saber, right?"

Naruto smiled softly, "Yep. This is where I summoned Saber."

The memory of her uncaring amber eyes appeared unbidden in his mind, and his smile fell a little.

Rin stayed silent for a second before she spoke, "I've been meaning to ask you actually. You said you can't use magic, right?"

Naruto nodded. He had tried to use it for years after all.

"Then how did you summon Saber?" Rin asked, "Summoning a Servant requires magic—even an incomplete summoning such as yours."

Naruto shrugged, "I don't know really. All I remember is, I was ready to fight against Lancer (Rin sarcastically muttered, "Fight. Yeah right."), when suddenly, Saber was just there."

"And then you mistook her for a hooker."

Naruto turned red, "Shut up."

Rin rustled around for a bit, and then stopped when she spotted the old magic circle on the ground. At once, she knelt to take a closer look at it.

Naruto tapped the side of his leg impatiently as Rin softly traced the circle and murmured rapidly to herself. Finally, with a satisfied nod, she stood up again.

"Do you know what this is, Naruto?"

"I-"

Rin shook her head and interrupted, "No, what am I saying? Of course you don't."

Naruto eye twitched.

"Well, what this is isn't really that important actually," Rin continued, "The main thing is, it can be used by a Master to force a haphazard summoning."

"And you're saying I used that?" Naruto guessed.

Rin paused for a second, uncertainty flashing across her features, "Well... I would, if this thing clearly didn't require magic to work."

She peered back at the magic circle and noticed something, "Did you... bleed on this?"

Naruto rubbed his chin as he tried to remember, "I was too busy fighting Lancer to really focus where I was bleeding, but he did injure me when he smacked me in here. So... I guess yeah."

Rin nodded, "That makes sense then. You have magic inside you, but you just can't expel it normally. However, blood is actually a great way to transfer magical energy. Of course, you can't do spells with just that, so drawing a magical circle like this and then powering it with blood is a great alternative."

"That's cool."

"Rin," Archer's voice echoed throughout the room, "It's best if we leave now. The night won't last forever."

"Right, yeah, let's go," Rin said. Then she turned to Naruto, "You ready?"

Naruto grinned and punched the palm of his hand excitedly,

"Of course!"

"...Naruto," Rin said softly, "You're about to face a Servant, you know? Just... be careful."

Naruto's grin morphed into a gentler smile,

"Of course. I don't intend to die here at all."

Rin smiled back, a tinge of worry still present on her face,

"I suppose that's good enough then."

The group of three were walking towards the Matou mansion in complete silence, their respective minds occupied with their own individual thoughts—until Kurama broke it when they were about 10 minutes away from their destination.

'Do you think that wrinkly sack of meat is even going to be there?' Kurama asked Naruto.

Naruto gave him an internal nod, having given this matter quite a bit of thought already,

'Yep. You said you detected sadism from him, right? If he suspects that we're going to confront him directly, he won't resist the opportunity to pit Saber against me. Plus, he can also gain Archer—as a Servant or just as mana—this way too. he knows I'm working with Rin after all.'

'And what makes you think he suspects that we're going to confront him in the first place?'

'He saw us with Caster, right? He probably went there to just take out Caster, but when he saw us there too, I'm pretty sure he guessed that we're still working against him. And he also knows we talked with Caster, which means he knows that we know that it's best to resolve this Shadow issue as soon as possible.'

'That's not a guarantee that he'll be there,' Kurama pointed out.

Naruto gave an internal shrug, 'Yeah, but it's the best chance we have. If we don't find him there, we'll just patrol the streets, looking for the Shadow's presence.'

'I see.'

With the conversation over, the two relapsed into silence.

A few minutes later, the group found themselves in front of the Matou mansion; and any doubts any of them had that the Shadow wasn't there was completely wiped away, courtesy of the all-encompassing and invasive sense of despair that was emanating from inside.

"Guess he's waiting for us," Naruto stated the obvious as they opened the gate and walked in through the entrance.

In the middle of the courtyard stood a rigid Saber, her cold, amber eyes watching them like a hawk, and her face set into an unbendable scowl.

"I'm surprised!" Zouken's voice suddenly echoed all around them, "I had intended to wait here for only a little while, just in case. I hadn't actually expected your motley crew to come at this stage!"

Naruto glared up at the mansion, hoping that Zouken's magic would pick up the boundless fury within him.

"But I suppose I shouldn't be so surprised. After all, I knew that your morals would never allow my Shadow to continue consuming souls for even a single additional day, Emiya brat. Still, I had thought you had at least a little more self-preservation instinct than this!"

"I don't care what you thought, Zouken—this ends tonight!" Naruto declared.

"Oh? And do you really think Archer will be able to defeat Saber?" Zouken asked, dark delight easily discernable from his voice, "I had thought that at least you, the scion of the Tohsaka, would have had more sense than that."

Rin shrugged with a smirk on her face, "What can I say? I'm lacking a bit in sense these days."

"Rin," Naruto said taking a confident step forward, "Go, lock down the Shadow. I'll handle things here."

Rin nodded and materialized Archer. Archer picked Rin up in his arms and tried to enter the mansion proper by completely skirting around Saber.

Saber's eyes snapped towards Archer, and she was about to charge at him, when suddenly, she found herself deflecting two kunai flying at her.

She paused, her eyes flashing towards Naruto for a split-second.

She hadn't paused because he was a threat or anything. It was simply that, even in her strange, corrupted state, she had been caught by surprise that Naruto had directly engaged a Servant by his lonesome.

Still, it wasn't an occurrence worth considering, so she discarded it. Her task was to simply defeat any intruders trying to enter the mansion. Archer was trying to do so, so she would defeat Archer.

Or she would have, of Zouken's voice hadn't interrupted her.

"Stop, Saber."

Saber instantly froze. Archer crashed through a window and disappeared into the mansion.

But Zouken didn't sound worried, "Tell me, boy. Do you really think you can keep Saber distracted long enough for Archer to defeat my Shadow?"

Naruto didn't answer. He simply angled his body to the left and slipped out Rule Breaker behind his leg so that Saber wouldn't spot it.

"Ha ha ha! Very well! Saber, kill your former Master!" Zouken ordered gleefully.

Saber, without emotion, readied her blade.

Archer's body worked mechanically as he descended the cold mansion. he simply couldn't find it in him to care about the situation all that much.

Uzumaki Emiya Naruto was not Emiya Shirou.

This one fact kept repeating itself in his mind, and it forced him to confront all sorts of inconvenient truths.

Of course, he had always known that Uzumaki Emiya Naruto was not Emiya Shirou. His personality was too different, along with his looks. But even so, he had deluded himself into believing otherwise. More importantly, of course he knew that even if the brat had been Emiya Shirou, killing him would have solved nothing.

Archer had simply wanted to take his anger out on his past self for going down this path.

But what was the point of such thoughts when the target in question wasn't even Emiya Shirou?

"So, you're here," a rasping voice greeted.

In the basement, in the middle of a pit, stood Matou Zouken, his lips twisted in a cruel smirk. He was flanked by the near-immaterial, yet no less dangerous, Shadow.

"Of course we are, Makiri," Rin said, "I'll end your disgusting existence right here and right now!"

Zouken cackled in laughter, "You're welcome to try! Unfortunately for you though, you might find it a bit... difficult to achieve that."

Then, as if on cue, Rider burst through the floor above, her purple flair flying behind her and her silver chain and nail glinting even in the dark.

She launched her nail at Archer, but Archer simply deflected it with a hastily formed projection of Byakuya and a tired sigh. He held no more stake in this war—not even a delusional one—and thus had no desire to fight or win.

"Rider!?" Rin exclaimed, still in his arms, "Why is she—!?"

"You breaking your alliance with my grandson granted me another fortuitous piece, child," Zouken explained, glee clearly present in his voice, "I suppose I must thank you for that."

"Shinji! That annoying little...!"

Zouken spread his arms wide, as if welcoming them, "Now, I wonder if you can defeat my Shadow before that Emiya brat falls to Saber."

Of course, that was never the plan. The plan was to keep the Shadow in their stalemated here while Naruto defeated Saber. Then, Naruto would come here and stab the Shadow with the Rule Breaker. However, Archer supposed, Zouken's assumptions made sense when considering their actions from an orthodox perspective.

No human could defeat a Servant after all.

Rider shot around the room and sent a few more jabs at him, but Archer once again deflected them and broke off. He simply couldn't muster up the willpower to put his all in this fight.

Zouken made a small motion with his cane, and Rider came to a stop in front of the Shadow, almost as if she was trying to protect it.

"Come now, do you really think such a poor showing will defeat us in time?" Zouken asked mockingly.

Rin bristled, but she turned to Archer instead of yelling back at Zouken.

"Archer, I don't know what kind of life you've lived, but you're my Servant now! I don't care what you've been through before, but right here and right now, you're simply MY SERVANT! All that matters right now is to win this stupid Holy Grail War! Stop sulking about everything else!"

Rin, breathing heavily after her little tirade, glared up at him with shining aqua eyes.

Archer blinked. There were a lot of incorrect assumptions that Rin had made in her rant. Chief among them that he was sulking about the tragedies he had suffered through or some such.

But still, he got what she wanted to say. And, despite his heavily withered memories, he couldn't help but fondly recall Rin's tenacious and obstinate energy.

Somehow, and for some reason, he felt his blood pumping in his veins again. Obviously, he still had a lot to think about, but right here and right now, he could grant her a victory.

"...Rin, you know what to do, right?" He asked.

Rin nodded determinedly.

"Good. Then go."

With that, he threw her to the floor above with unerring accuracy.

"GODDAMNIT!" She yelled as she flew away.

Now, it was only him against Zouken, Rider, and the Shadow.

His lips twisted into a wry smirk as he projected Kanshou into his now free hand.

'I hope you don't expect me to just sit here and wait for your boyfriend, Rin. I'll end this before he even gets here.'

One move.

The entire battle with Saber would depend on a single move. It was the move that Naruto had bet on after all.

if he succeeded, Saber would be free from the Shadow's control, and if he failed, he would die. Simple as that.

But still, he didn't want to fight her this way. Not when she was... like this!

So he asked,

"Are you sure you want to do this, Saber?"

It was a useless question, filled with unrealistic longing. But he still had to ask, because Naruto wasn't one to shy away from trying.

"it does not matter what I want," Saber responded, "This is simply the task my master has ordered me to do."

"You had a contract with me before Zouken became your Master," Naruto pointed out.

"...Naruto. If you call back Archer and try to escape, you may perhaps be able to do so."

Naruto blinked, "...I—"

"But that is a meaningless suggestion," Saber interrupted, "I have seen many young knights with the same resolve as yours. They too were not ones to retreat in the face of the impossible. In the end, such a foolish resolve is what lead a countless number of them to their deaths."

Her words were cold and filled with neither sympathy nor compassion. It was as if she were simply remembering a distasteful memory.

But Naruto had had enough. The Saber he knew would never have talked like that. The Saber he knew would never have been so cold.

"Don't make me laugh, Saber. Yeah, it's probably true that challenging the impossible can lead to a lot of deaths. But for all the countless deaths you know, there are also a countless number of people who have succeeded in overcoming the impossible! if no one continues challenging the impossible, then how can we know whether it's truly impossible or not?"

"Foolish ramblings from a foolish person. This will end like it has ended a thousand times before."

Saber took a step forward, and Naruto tightened his grip on Rule-breaker.

His eyes narrowed and his heart hammered in his chest. the crucial moment was approaching.

Saber raised her blade and used her step to propel herself forward, and Naruto knew what was going to happen before it even happened.

He ducked the instant he saw Saber charge, his body feeling like it was moving through water, compared to Saber, who looked like her body had suddenly been granted the speed of lightning itself.

Even so. Naruto had ducked before Saber had even telegraphed her movements, allowing even his cumbersome, lumbering body to dodge Saber's left to right downward diagonal slash by a hair's breadth (though some hair may have in fact been chopped off).

Now!

Rule-breaker glinted murderously as he slashed it upwards at her chest.

But even if he was right under her—even if she was still in the middle of her now path-less swing, Saber was still the King of Knights. Before Naruto even realized it, the Once and Future King leapt back, her sword still swinging downwards.

But, unfortunately for Saber, Naruto was not a normal human either. He too had been in his fair share of legendary battles, and his mind adapted to the new situation in an instant. He flicked his wrist and Rule Breaker—a ceremonial dagger with no aptitude for aerodynamics—flew through the air. Saber, still in mid-air, made to kick the blade away with her armoured foot, but here was where she had miscalculated.

Rather than simply bouncing off her armoured foot, Rule-breaker sank into it and struck victoriously against her flesh.

Rule-breaker was a Noble Phantasm that returned all magic to its original state after all, and Saber's armour was also made up of magic, thereby rendering it ineffective against Rule-breaker.

Saber landed and instantly pulled out Rule-breaker, throwing it to the side.

But the damage was done. The contract between the Shadow and the Servant of the Sword was broken.

Saber, even in her corrupted state looked slightly surprised. her lips were parted and her eyes were slightly wider than normal.

"...How?"

Naruto collapsed on the ground in relief and felt his heart rate return to normal. he took a few minutes to simply breathe a bit before he answered,

"Five times. You've begun battle in front of me five times—whether in training or against Servants—and each time, your opening move has been a left to right downward diagonal slash. This was the sixth time."

"A habit..."

Naruto nodded, "Yep. I bet everything on a single move. Not mine, but yours. Admittedly, I was a bit worried that your opening move wouldn't be the same when I heard that you had been corrupted, so when we were escaping from Mount Enzou, I made the plan for Archer to stall while Rin and I waited nearby. Since I already knew that the Shadow was following me, a better plan would have been to just split off and try to escape while Archer stalled you, but that way, I wouldn't be able to see you make an opening move. So, we waited nearby for the Shadow as you fought Archer, and thankfully, I noticed that your opening was still the same."

Saber glanced at Rule-breaker, "And thus you used that knowledge to strike me with Caster's weapon."

Naruto nodded, "Yep. I thought I could get you with the first swing, but you even managed to dodge that. Thankfully, your armour is useless against Rule-breaker, and I was right in front of you, so even a ceremonial dagger like Rule-breaker could be thrown."

Saber considered that for a second before she readied her weapon, "Do you think you have already won?"

Naruto raised an eyebrow.

Once she had climbed a few more floors, Rin closed her eyes and tried to concentrate as the sounds of battle echoed from the levels beneath her.

Before Archer had THROWN HER, he had asked whether she knew what needed to be done. And indeed, she did.

Rider was here because of Shinji, which meant that if she found Shinji, she could force him to put a stop to Rider. Not to mention that even if Rider was defeated here, if Shinji and Rider escaped, they could prove to be quite troublesome later on.

Thus, what she had to do was find Shinji, force him to stop Rider, and then keep him controlled under her watchful eye.

Now, if only the Servants below her were to stop throwing around their frankly ridiculous amounts of mana around, maybe she would be able to sense Shinji's presence better.

Or, at least, that would have been the case if Shinji had even the slightest ability to be a mage. But he didn't, and so trying to sense his magic was a fruitless endeavor.

That still begged the question then: how on earth had he become a Master without magic?

"Tohsaka."

Speak of the devil.

Rin turned and spotted Shinji exiting a cleverly concealed doorway in the wall. He looked strange. His skin was paler than usual, his hair was thinner than usual, and his wide eyes sparkled with a mad light.

"Shinji," Rin greeted back, her voice cold and devoid of emotion.

She raised her arm and aimed a Gandr shot at him.

Shinji simply laughed. it was the laugh of a man stuck at the edge of desperation.

"You can't win Tohsaka! It's impossible! Saber will easily kill Emiya, and my grandfather will take your Archer!"

Rin narrowed her eyes, "Shinji—"

"Join me, Tohsaka!" Shinji interrupted, "We're mages, so we should stick together!"

"Shinji," Rin said, a little more firmly this time, "You're not a—"

Once again, she was interrupted.

"If you agree to join me, I can decide to spare your Archer!"

It was clear to Rin that Shinji's mind was rapidly devolving into madness. His features were twisted in an ugly manner and his voice growing more and more desperate.

"No," Rin said calmly, shaking her head, "Shinji, if you—"

"But, Toh—"

"Enough!" Rin yelled, silencing the purple-haired Master, "Shinji, if you give up now, we can end this without you getting hurt. But if you won't..."

She let the threat hang in the air. She knew that there was absolutely no way for Shinji to beat her, and any doubts of him being some sort of secret mage were erased when she noticed the magic book in his hands.

The book was a fake command spell, which meant that Shinji had never summoned Rider. He had simply borrowed Rider from someone else. Now, who was that someone else?

Was it Zouken, or—

"I see..." Shinji growled, his figure trembling with rage, "So you won't join me."

"Good, you finally get it, you fake magus."

Shinji gnashed his teeth, and—before Rin could even realize what was going to happen—yelled,

"Rider, defeat Tohsaka!"

Rin's eyes widened as her brain comprehended his words in an instant, and leapt to the side in case Rider came bursting in from downstairs.

...

Strangely, only the sound of combating Servants from downstairs greeted Shinji. Rider did not appear as expected, and neither could Rin sense her coming.

Rin let out the nervous breath she had been holding in. That move had been unexpected (even though, now that she thought about it, it shouldn't have been).

Shinji looked both horrified and terrified.

"R-Rider! What the hell are you doing, you stupid bitch!?" He stammered, "Come here and defeat Tohsaka!"

Rin, unwilling to risk the order working this time, leapt at Shinji and pinned him to the ground under her. Unfortunately, she failed to cover his mouth quick enough.

"R-Rider, by the power of my command seal, I order you to come here—mph!"

Shinji's book flashed red and was consumed in flames. Then, suddenly, Rider was in front of them in a flash of red light.

Only... she was on the ground, a deep red gash on her chest, and she was writhing unnaturally, trying to fulfill the order of the command seal with the power that she simply did not have.

Rin swiftly knocked Shinji out with one of the many spells in her repertoire, and felt her respect for Archer rise a few notches.

Even if Rider had not been able to perform at her full strength due to the insufficient amount of mana that Shinji had provided her, defeating her while fighting both her and the Shadow was pretty impressive.

Rin got up from the unconscious Shinji and took in the sight of his and his Servant's defeated figures.

'I'm done on my end,' She thought to herself with a grin, 'It's up to you now, Naruto, Archer.'

Zouken scowled as he watched the Tohsaka brat's Servant leap away from Sakura to dodge her shadowy tendrils. Rider, Shinji's useless Servant, was lying on the side of the basement, her body stained with a large red gash on her chest (a gift from Archer).

This... endeavor was not going at all as expected, and he didn't understand why.

By all common threads of logic, the advantage afforded to him was overwhelming. Saber, Sakura, Rider... there was simply no way for Archer and those two brats to defeat all these pieces.

And yet, here he was, worrying that he would have to wait for the next Holy Grail war again before attempting to reach for immortality.

Somehow, Saber had still not managed to kill the Emiya brat; somehow, Archer knew how Sakura's tendrils moved slower the farther they extended from her body; and somehow, Archer was skilled enough to defeat Rider in close range combat.

Zouken had wanted to preserve Sakura's mana, so he had left Rider in Shinji's hands. but if he had known that these events would occur, he would have granted some of Sakura's mana to Rider.

So deeply entrenched in his thoughts he was, that he barely noticed when Rider's body suddenly vanished in a flash of red light—most likely summoned by his foolish descendant.

Zouken almost growled. Even though the opportunity had been perfect this time, would he have to postpone his dream again?

Archer, in a blur of red, leaped back and dodged another attack from Sakura. The sight reminded him that Archer seemed to have no method of actually defeating Sakura. If Saber could simply kill her former Master now, then she and Sakura could easily subdue Archer. All he had to do was wait—

"I hope you don't mind," Archer's dry voice rang out, snapping Zouken out of his thoughts, "But I'll be putting a stop to her now."

A strange jagged dagger appeared out of thin air in Archer's hand, which he then, after easily dodging through her defensive tendrils, swiftly buried it into Sakura's main body.

The magical, shadowy substance around Sakura thrashed and floundered for a few seconds before it faded away, leaving behind only a purple-haired mage in its wake. Sakura fell instantly, but was gently caught in Archer's arms.

Rage, like never before, exploded with the force of a thousand suns in Zouken's body. So great was his fury, that he didn't even notice when Archer muttered a tender,

"Sakura..."

"NO!" Zouken screamed, "DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'VE DONE, YOU FOOL!? YOU—!"

He was unfortunately cut short when Archer materialized a white Chinese blade out of thin air and threw it at him. Zouken, not possessing the physical abilities of a Servant—or even his old self—was instantly pierced in the face and silenced.

His body dissolved in a mess of worms, and his metaphorical heart weighed heavy with the loss of his greatest piece.

But he would not give up now. He would wait, and then he would try again in the next war.

He could wait.

'After all,' he darkly thought to himself, 'I've already waited for an eternity.'

"You still want to fight?" Naruto asked.

Saber maintained her combat stance.

"My Master has ordered me to kill you," she said, as if that explained everything.

"He's not your Master anymore though."

Saber shook her head, "Even if our contract is severed, I am not a traitor."

She spat out the last word with more disdain in her voice than Naruto had ever heard in her.

"You made a pact with me before you were Zouken's Servant though," Naruto pointed out.

Saber scowled deepened at that, "That... does not matter anymore. I am currently corrupted, and therefore, Sakura's Servant."

Naruto clenched his fists as his heart dropped into his stomach, Saber herself had confirmed that the Shadow was Sakura.

'Focus,' Kurama growled.

He gave the fox an internal nod and forced his mind back on track.

"And what if I can... uncorrupt you?"

'That's not a word.'

'Shut up. Who's the one not focusing now?'

"A foolish suggestion," Saber said, emotionless as always, "Perhaps Rin might be able to accomplish such a feat, but not you."

"Have some faith in your friend, Saber," Naruto said raising his fist for a fist bump, "You saved me last time. This time, I'll save you."

Saber's amber eyes followed his fist, but she remained silent.

Her eyes flicked to Naruto's and stayed there for a few seconds before they flicked back to his outstretched fist. Her combat-ready stance betrayed nothing of her thoughts and evaluation, and her blade still glowed with the ominous desire to kill.

And yet, Naruto couldn't help but remember the first time they had declared their friendship in front of the church.

Even if she was corrupted, even if her emotions had been twisted...

Naruto could tell that part of this Saber was the same one that he knew.

And that's why he knew that, without the Shadow forcing her, Saber wouldn't reject him.

"Very well."

Rin blinked.

The invasive feeling of despair which had permeated this entire manor was gone. Or at least, most of it was gone (the rest, she could tell, was just the Makiri ambient magic).

Had Naruto succeeded in defeating the Shadow already? That was quick. How had he managed to get through Saber so fast—

"Rin," Archer greeted, Sakura's body held in his arms in a princess-carry.

Oh.

"You were the one who took down the Shadow?" Rin asked, incredulity clear in her voice as Archer put down Sakura on the ground in front of her.

Archer gave her a look.

Rin ignored it.

"How!?"

"Please, Rin. I know you think me useless, but I'm still a Heroic Spirit. I have several tools at my disposal to accomplish the tasks I want."

"Does that mean your memories are back?" Rin asked hopefully.

"Not fully. But they are returning little by little."

Rin deflated, "Oh."

"Now, the question is, what to do about your blonde friend?" Archer said, looking down at the courtyard from through a window.

"Naruto? What about him?"

"Well, even though he isn't even worth considering as a mage, he's still a dangerous Master," Archer explained, "While he's occupied with Saber, we could easily take him down."

Rin frowned, not liking this line of thought at all, "And what about Saber?"

Archer waved his hand dismissively, "She seems to be occupied in some sort of... ritual with the Uzumaki kid. If we strike now, we can kill them both."

Rin's frown deepened, "And how will we take out Berserker without Saber?"

Archer looked back at Rider, who was still squirming slightly on the ground, "If you hadn't secured that piece, I wouldn't have suggested this. But now that we have Rider, I believe that I can defeat Berserker with her help."

Rin looked doubtful, "You think you can defeat the Greek legend Herakles with just Rider's help?"

Archer nodded without doubt,

"Yes."

Rin looked away, a troubled look on her face, "I... I don't..."

"Rin," Archer said firmly, "if you want to win this war, you'll have to take down Uzumaki right here—when he's at his most vulnerable. If you let this chance go, you'll have to face him at his best later."

Rin's fists clenched tightly, "I-I know that! But..."

"You know who Saber is, right?"

Rin felt her frown deepen even more. Of course she knew who Saber was. Even corrupted, the blade in Saber's hands was unmistakable.

Excalibur—The Sword of Promised Victory.

Which meant that Saber was King Arthur, one of the most famous heroes in the world.

Damn it.

"The Uzumaki kid's battle instincts are more than just sharp, Rin," Archer said, "The only thing holding him back is the weakness of his own body. Other than that, he's far above you in terms of combat."

Rin bristled, but Archer raised a hand to stop her before she could speak.

"You must remember, Rin. You are a magus—essentially a researcher. You are not a combat mage. Besides, even if you were a combat mage, your battle instincts wouldn't stand a chance against his."

"And why's that?" Rin asked, simply curious now.

"Because his battle instincts are on the level of a Heroic Spirit's," Archer said, "It's as if he's also a hero who's been through legendary battles of his own."

Rin tried to find it in herself to laugh at that claim and dismiss it completely, but...

She couldn't.

She had already known this after all. She had known all along.

Ever since she had seen Naruto face Berserker with an ease that simply shouldn't belong to someone as bright as him, she had known deep down that there was something fundamental that separated Naruto and humans. His presence screamed of comfort in battle, and his mind was clearly adapted to combat. Ever since that night she had known that Naruto was more akin to a Heroic Spirit than a magus.

It was this very presence that had stopped Rin from halting Naruto's plan to face Saber. If any other magus had suggested this idea, she would shut them down flat. But Naruto... it seemed only natural to Rin that Naruto face Servants for some reason.

Therefore, she understood Archer's point well. She knew that if she let Naruto go now, he would end up becoming her greatest obstacle to victory.

"Archer... I... I order you to..."

And yet, she couldn't give the order.

"...stand down. I order you to stand down."

Archer didn't look surprised. In fact, he looked like he had expected that.

"Are you sure, Rin?"

"Of course not. But I don't want to defeat him like this. I want to end this properly."

Archer raised an eyebrow, "Do you intend to surrender?"

Rin stamped her foot, "Of course not! When the time comes, we'll face him head-on!"

Archer gave her a wry smile, "You intend for me to take on the King of Knights in a duel?"

Rin smirked, "Of course not—you're an Archer. We'll come up with a strategy to defeat him when we have to. For now, just remember this: you're a Servant summoned by me, meaning that you can't possibly be anything but the best Servant!"

Archer gave a sarcastic tip of his head, "Your humbleness amazes even me, Master."

Rin shrugged, "Why should I have to be humble? I know I'm one of the best, after all."

Archer chuckled,

"Well said, Master. Well said."

"Nothing is happening, Naruto."

Naruto could hear the accusation in Saber's voice. They were standing across from each other, their fist gently touching the others', but nothing had happened yet.

"That's because you aren't entering your consciousness into mine," Naruto said.

"Naruto, that isn't an explanation."

Naruto resisted the urge to wince at that. All this would have been so much easier if this stupid world wasn't keeping his chakra suppressed to inside his body. He had opened up the mental connection from inside him, but he needed Saber to actually initiate the connection.

"Uh... ok, you remember when you saw my past in your dreams?" Naruto asked.

Saber nodded.

"Well, try to kinda... recreate that feeling. Only, like, multiply that feeling by a hundred."

'...What?' Kurama asked, thoroughly confused.

'Shut up! I'm working with what I've got!' Naruto snapped back, also having trouble deciphering what he had said.

Saber nodded, "I see. The connection between us is what allowed me to witness your past, and you want to recreate a similar connection through this physical contact, and then you want me to use that connection to enter your consciousness rather than letting your memories passively flow into me."

"Uh... yes."

'...What?'

'I don't know! how the hell am I supposed to understand that!?'

'Then why'd you say "yes", dumbass?'

'Cause whatever she said sounded right!'

There was no burst of prana, nor any other magical sign that Saber was making an attempt at connecting her consciousness to his. She simply closed her eyes, and Naruto felt her consciousness reach out to his.

'Holy shit!' Naruto exclaimed to a bewildered-looking Kurama, 'Whatever she said was was actually right!'

Naruto let her consciousness slowly connect to hers. Then, Saber's eyes flew open, and her consciousness started pulling away.

Naruto looked her firmly in the eyes,

"Trust me."

They were only two words, but they were enough for Saber to stop pulling back. A few more seconds, and they were connected.

"Now enter my consciousness," Naruto instructed, "Don't worry, if you ever want to leave, you can leave right away."

Saber didn't nod, but he still felt the acknowledgment. Little by little, her consciousness and energy entered his. Bee had only taken an instant, but Bee had been a pro at this, so Naruto felt that the time taken by Saber was understandable.

Once Naruto was sure that Saber had entered the most of her consciousness inside his that she could manage, he closed his eyes and entered his mindscape.

Saber opened her eyes, and now, instead of the Matou courtyard, she was in a sewer. The sewer was decidedly not normal because, not only did it not smell like a sewer at all, there was also an impenetrable darkness that cloaked the hallways on both sides.

She looked around, but spotted nothing but but pipes on walls. Without a course of action directed to her, she began walking towards the colossal energy signature that she could feel washing over the entire sewer.

As she walked, she realized that she had been wrong. It had not been a single colossal energy signature, it had been two. One had a pleasant feeling to it, and was spread out throughout the entire sewer evenly, while the second was far darker in nature, and was clustered mostly in a single spot.

Both energy signatures felt like they were constantly thrashing against invisible confines—like a wild horse twisting and writhing against its restraints.

She took a turn and entered a doorway that opened up into a large chamber shrouded in darkness. This was where the dark energy signature was emanating from. This was where she would find something.

And then, a large, glowing, ruby eye opened in the darkness.

Saber jumped in fright as the eye's gaze focused on her, and even though she was the proud King of Knights, Saber couldn't help but admit to more than just a little bit of fear right now.

Another ruby orb joined the one in the darkness, and the pair languidly moved closer. The closer they got, the more features of the creature were revealed in the light around her. A massive orange snout, ears larger than entire buildings, claws that could rip cities to shreds, and a gargantuan body that extended into the darkness behind it.

Saber trembled. She had seen many a creature before, but none had instilled such an overwhelming fear in her being. She had even already seen this very creature in her dreams, but a dream had not prepared her to meet the real thing.

Perhaps it was the immeasurable amount of power that she could sense from him which scared her, or perhaps it was the darkness within that very power which scared her.

Saber suspected it was both.

The creature smirked, and Saber felt her pride flare. She readied her trembling blade and lowered her centre of gravity. She would not run from such a blatant challenge, even from a being of such power as this one.

"Come, beast!"

Contrary to her expectations, the creature merely let loose an earth-shaking chuckle,

"You're a brave one... I'll give you that."

"Alright, calm down, Kurama. That's enough," Naruto's voice came from behind her. As if his voice was a cue, the light around her expanded and brought visibility to the whole room.

The creature retreated to the wall and relaxed on his haunches, while Naruto walked up to her.

"Yeah, spoil my fun, why don't you, Naruto?" Kurama said, "For the first time in ten years, we completely overpower our opponent, and you decide to just fix them and send them away."

"She can just leave, you know?"

"But she won't. She's too prideful to run away," Kurama said. Then he sighed, which shook the entire chamber, "It's just so annoying to be weak, you know? I'm tired of all these tricks and plans and shit. I just want a good old fashioned clash of power."

"We always used tricks and plans and stuff though," Naruto pointed out, "Even against Sasuke and Kaguya we used plans and tricks."

"Yeah, but we were still throwing our power at our enemies! Tricks and shit without power is just lame!"

Naruto shrugged, looking like he actually agreed with the fox, but was helpless to change the situation.

"Naruto, focus." Saber broke in with a scowl.

Naruto looked sheepish, "Ah, right! Let's get started!"

Then, with a proud grin, a column of pure golden power exploded from Naruto. The explosion of power lifted Saber off her feet and sent her sailing a ways back. Saber instantly regained her footing and brought her arm up to cover her face from the wind that Naruto's release of power was generating.

Naruto looked far different from normal now. The whisker marks on his face were thick black bars, his orange zip-up hoodie and hair were wreathed in golden power, his black t-shirt underneath and blue jeans were pitch black, and his eyes were orange with a black vertical slit and horizontal bar crossed in between.

His power was overwhelming, and Saber, even in her corrupted state, felt her lips part in surprise.

"Naruto... what are you?" She barely managed to breathe out.

Naruto walked up to her, and his grin widened at her question,

"Your friend."

He put a hand on her, and instantly, she could feel the taint of the Shadow strip away from her like a million leeches being pulled away from her skin and extracted from inside her body. The sudden separation from Sakura's power left her body extraordinarily weak and faint, and she collapsed into a kneel.

Her breaths came in gasps, but she felt far greater than she did a few days ago. Her body felt lighter, and her mind was clearer. It was as if she had been extracted from a lake polluted with all the evils in the world.

But she also felt a little lightheaded and tremendously weaker.

Naruto, the golden energy cloaked around him dissipating into the air, crouched beside her with a worried smile on his face,

"You okay?"

Saber tried to muster up the energy to stand, but failed spectacularly. Naruto, noticing this, gently eased her from her kneel and seated her on top of the water that served as his consciousness' ground.

Finally given a chance to relax, Saber could now focus on Naruto's question through her faint and light-headed mind,

"N-Naruto?" Naruto nodded to reassure her. "How... long do we have in here?"

Naruto smiled, "Time moves a lot slower here, so take all the time you need."

Saber relaxed a bit more at that. Then, she rubbed her head with a groan,

"I... I am sorry. I am still trying to come to terms with the actions that I have taken in the past few days and the realizations I had come to."

"Realizations?"

"I shall talk about them later, when I have had the time to reflect, Naruto," Saber said with another groan, "For now, my memories and... beliefs are still hazy and confused. It is a strange experience to come to certain conclusions as a darker version of yourself, and then to turn back into the person you were once before."

Naruto frowned, "Sorry, Saber, but things aren't as over as you make it seem."

Saber waited for his explanation.

"You see," Naruto said, "Your consciousness entered mine, which is why I was able to use my power on you. However, my chakra can't exit my body because of this world, which means that your body is still corrupted. Only most of your consciousness is free of its influence. This means that once you go outside, the Shadow's power will easily corrupt your consciousness again."

"You can't feel the corruption on your own body, princess?" The nine-tailed fox asked almost uncaringly, his voice causing Saber to twitch and almost instinctively stand on guard, "Even if you're in this brat's mindscape, you should still be able to feel your own body."

"N-no," Saber answered, looking steadfastly at Naruto, "I can only vaguely feel my body in the corner of my mind. And even that I only feel when I focus."

Naruto's frown deepened, "That's... not normal. The Shadow's power left over in your body might be trying to cut off your consciousness because it recognizes your consciousness as a foreign element..."

"Which means that, even if time moves slower here, we cannot dally," Saber said.

Naruto nodded.

"And?" Saber asked, "What is the next step of your plan?"

Naruto looked away sheepishly, "Uh... the next step was to basically ask you what to do. I've got no clue on how we should proceed."

Saber gave him an incredulous look. She opened her mouth to admonish him, but decided that now wasn't the time. They had to use all the resources that they had to come up with a solution right now.

Saber closed her eyes and let her mind race. The connection between her and the Shadow was cut, which meant that they only had to figure out how to eliminate the remaining power that the Shadow had left behind in her.

But how would they—?

Then, a possible solution dimly made itself known to her brain.

"My magic core..." she murmured.

"You got something?" Naruto asked.

"My magic core," Saber said, louder this time, "If I can receive some magical energy, I can use it to produce my own magical energy by restarting my magic core. And with that, I can overpower the Shadow's corruption."

Naruto nodded, "Just fight back against evil energy with your own energy, eh? I guess that makes sense."

"Yes, however, you do not have the ability to provide me with magical energy, Naruto. Once we leave this mental landscape, you must quickly go find Rin." Saber shook her head, "I do not think that Rin will reach me on time, but this is the best possible solution that we have."

"How much magical energy do you need?" Naruto asked.

"Even just a slight amount will do."

"Then I'll handle it," Naruto said, confidently pointing at himself with his thumb.

Saber blinked, but seeing as how he didn't seem to have a single trace of doubt, she didn't protest.

"Very well," Saber smiled, "I have faith in you, Naruto."

Naruto grinned back as she faded away, her consciousness returning to her own body. Now, it was only Naruto and Kurama in the mindscape again.

It was quiet for a few seconds. Then Kurama spoke up,

"...Showoff."

"Hm?"

"You are such a showoff," Kurama clarified his accusation.

Naruto turned to Kurama and gave him an indignant look,

"What?"

"Don't play dumb. We both know that your Six Paths Sage mode only manifests as that weird cross in your eyes. The glowy stuff was my power."

Naruto turned red, "T-that was because I wanted to be sure that nothing went wrong."

"And how would my power help with that?" Kurama asked knowingly.

"I-it would have burned away the Shadow's corruption... or something!" Naruto hastily protested, "I just threw your power on in case, not because I wanted to show off!"

Kurama gave him a dry look,

"Sure."

"A-anyway, that sheathe," Naruto said, hastily changing the subject, "Is it working again?"

"Yeah, it is. It's far weaker than before, but it's kinda working again."

"Think it'll be able to heal a damaged blood vein?" Naruto asked.

"Yeah, I think it has enough power for that. Why?"

Naruto grinned, "You'll find out in a sec."

Naruto exited his mindscape and spotted Saber fall to her knees in front of him. A loud noise of exertion left her lips as she trembled on the ground. No doubt, she was trying to fight off the Shadow's corruption with the fraction of her consciousness that had been freed from it.

Had this been any other person, Naruto would have thought this impossible. Saber was fighting against a highly-corrupting influence with only the power of part of her mind after all. But this was Saber, and somehow, he knew that she would have been able to manage this.

"Saber!" Naruto yelled as he took out a kunai.

Saber's head whipped towards him, her eyes hazy and unfocused.

In that small moment, Naruto slit one of his wrists in one swift movement and forced the bleeding section into her mouth.

"Mph—!?" Saber made a small sound of confusion and surprise.

"Drink it!"

Saber looked extremely reluctant, but she still obeyed.

Kurama made a face of confusion, 'What the hell are you...?'

'Remember what Rin said?' Naruto asked with a grimace of pain, 'Even if someone can't use magic, mana can still be transferred by blood to power spells and stuff. I'm just giving Saber my mana this way.'

And indeed, Naruto could see it take effect already. One of Saber's eyes was flashing erratically from green to amber, and the black on her blade, which she was using to prop herself up, was being pushed away like ink by an injection of golden colour from the middle. Her mana swirled around her as she grit her teeth and battled the corruption on her body.

It was clear that the amount of mana that Naruto had provided her had not been this much. This power that Saber was exerting was being produced from her magic core. Naruto's mana had simply kickstarted the process.

Little by little, the black on Saber's armour and clothes were bleeding away, being replaced by her old blue and silver colour scheme.

"ARGH!" She made one last yell of exertion, and finally, the last of the corruption disappeared.

Then, her eyes fell shut from exhaustion and she unceremoniously tumbled forward with a sigh of relief. Naruto, his wrist already healed by now, caught her and gently lowered her body onto the ground, and her head onto his lap.

"Welcome back, Saber," Naruto said with a grin.

Saber cracked open a single eye and gave him a weak yet content smile,

"It's good to be back."

She closed her eyes again.

She knew that there was still a score of things to worry about, but right now, in this tranquil night, she just wanted to rest in this spot. The rest, they could deal with later.

Her peace was ruined when she heard a small sniffle.

Her eyes shot open, and above her, she spotted Naruto looking away.

"Naruto... are you... crying?" She asked softly.

"No! Of course not!"

But his voice had wavered.

"Naru-"

"I'm sorry."

Saber fell silent at that.

"I'm sorry for not being strong enough and forcing you to go through that. I'm sorry that you had to sacrifice yourself for me."

Saber reached up and caressed Naruto's cheek,

"You needn't be sorry, Naruto. You are my Master, and my friend. If put in the same situation, I would gladly sacrifice myself again. We are both heroes, so I'm sure that you can understand my feelings. Just as you would go to any lengths for the things you care about, I would do the same."

"Yeah," his voice cracked a little, "You're right."

Saber respectfully closed her eyes, knowing that Naruto's pride would be hurt if she watched him cry.

One last sniffle, and the night descended into silence once more. For now, Saber would have it no other way.

AN: I'm… just gonna stop making promises. I tried my best to get this out as fast as I could, and I still took a year. I hope you all can forgive my erratic schedule.

P.S. My first time uploading from LibreOffice! I checked multiple times to see if it formatted weirdly or something, but I think I fixed most of the issues!