Chapter Five

Sins of the Monster

Saber needed a minute to think. She pinched the bridge of her nose, squeezing her eyes shut. Then she opened them and looked up at the sound of shoes whispering over carpet and the clunk of something heavy dropping on the meeting room table.

Maiya had dragged in two large cases, which, admittedly, Saber was surprised she was able to lift, given how petite Maiya was. But then, she was pretty petite herself, and she'd built herself up nearly her entire life. There were even times when, in rare moments confronted with her naked reflection, she'd blush at the manly bulk of her arms and shoulders.

She was about to ask out of courtesy if Maiya wanted a hand, but like with the first case, Maiya managed to hoist up the case in her other hand and set that on the table with a thunk as well. But she caught Saber's eye, and inclined her head slightly in acknowledgement.

"Saber."

"Um."

Saber watched as Maiya snapped open both cases to reveal their contents. Out of curiosity, she drew closer to the table to have a better look, confronted with two different models of modern weaponry, both of them recognizably guns.

Maiya picked up the smaller of the two and started pulling various parts snuggled in around the main frame of the weapon in the case, which she proceeded to snap onto the frame in succession with expert efficiency.

Saber couldn't help admiring the fluidity and assuredness of Maiya's hands as she assembled the pieces that would make the gun complete. She was even able to heft it with one hand, the butt of it cradled perfectly into the perpendicular crook of her elbow, her fingers resting aside of the trigger, while she used her free hand to pluck out a curved magazine from a zippered side-pocket. This she snapped on behind the trigger and then lifted the weapon so she could peer through the scope, aiming as if she was really about to snipe someone with it.

Her scope swept around the room and rested on Saber.

Saber didn't flinch, even with the barrel of the gun staring her down. And with her one peering eye, her other squeezed shut, Maiya was looking back at her. Then she lifted her head and lowered the gun, watching Saber with both eyes, and somehow they were even darker and flatter in their lack of emotion than Kiritsugu's usually seemed to be.

And yet….

"Maiya: may I see that?" Saber asked seriously.

Maiya's eyes flicked from the gun in her hands to Saber. Then, wordlessly, she held it out. Saber reached across the table for it and took hold of it, handling it just like she'd seen Maiya do. Even as it was the first time she'd held a gun, her whole life handling nothing but swords, she took to this as if she'd been trained on guns instead of swords, thanks in no small part to the flood of information about the modern era that had poured into her brain when she'd been summoned by the power of the Grail.

The King of Knights clasped the gun securely to her chest as she examined it. There was a cold and precise beauty to it, she had to admit, even if it had perfected the art of sneak-killing. Just what an apprentice of Kiritsugu Emiya would be trained in, she supposed.

"It's a Steyr AUG assault rifle," Maiya told her without preamble, in a voice that was not entirely toneless—there was something dark underneath it, like deep, cold ocean water. She had another curved magazine in her hand, this one empty. She'd produced a box of bullets and was now feeding them one by one into the clip.

At the sound of Maiya's voice, Saber, as she'd taken a moment to peer through the scope herself, viewing her surroundings briefly through the crosshairs, lowered the weapon and looked at her. She'd sensed the young woman hesitate, and saw her pause in filling the clip in her hand.

And then Maiya said: "Kiritsugu thought it would be best if I were armed with something light and unencumbering." She paused again. "Not that I haven't handled heavier guns before, but I can't say it ever made it easy for me to move very fast. And anyway…he's the better sniper." She sounded almost disappointed by that last observation.

Then Saber noticed the other gun in the other case. It was definitely bigger, and the immense handle of wood suggested it had to weigh considerably more than the Steyr AUG meant for Maiya's use. Was that the gun Kiritsugu had been aiming with at the shipyard to pick off unsuspecting enemies?

"That one didn't come cheap," Maiya informed her, noticing Saber looking, and the corner of her mouth actually twitched—the ghost of a smile that was killed dead long ago. Saber could see that, somehow. It reminded her a little of herself actually.

Perhaps that was why she found herself keen to keep speaking with Maiya, this woman who had been Kiritsugu's partner in killing from the shadows. Irisviel for her part, seemed to think of her with a twinge, as though the idea of her husband and his professional partner working together made her envious.

"What makes it so dear in price?" Saber asked.

"It's called a Walther, and there were only one-hundred and seventy-six made in the whole world. Not exactly something that was ever mass-marketed. But the Einzberns saw to it that Kiritsugu got the best equipment possible, money being no object of course."

"Clearly."

The idea was something that Saber carefully considered. That Kiritsugu had persuaded Irisviel's family to obtain such priceless pieces of weaponry…if it wasn't plain before, it was certainly plain now: Kiritsugu Emiya was nothing if not passionately determined. Saber had to admire that. She supposed she had been much the same, in every battle she'd fought, bitterly hell-bent on doing whatever it took short of the sheer impossible and miraculous (and even then, given Merlin's powers) to obtain victory for Briton. In those moments, she had been a ferocious beast worthy of the blood and the namesake of that which was Pendragon—or "chief dragon" as it was when broken down into original Middle Welsh, Pen Draig…

Saber actually felt it rise up now, ferally, lifting up its head and sniffing the air, its serpentine eyes bright red, as she peered again into the scope of the Steyr AUG assault rifle and aimed at the opposite wall. Then the feral feeling expanded painfully in her chest, and she swallowed hard, lowering the gun and setting it carefully down on the table. The moment she withdrew her touch from the weapon, she felt easier. But the beast still stirred, thirsting for blood.

"Saber?" Maiya had tilted her head to one side and was watching Saber the way a cat might, curious without any real interest behind it. Until something flickered there, as though she'd caught a glimpse of the red gleam of the serpentine eyes peering out of Saber's green ones.

Saber folded her arms and addressed Maiya very directly. "Maiya…forgive me if this is forward of me but…you've known Kiritsugu a long time, yes?"

"Since he found me on a battlefield fighting as a child soldier in my old country's army." Maiya reached over and took back the Steyr AUG assault rifle, tucking it under her arm and tucking the extra clip she'd just filled onto her person. She spoke of it as though it were nothing.

The empty, nonchalance of acceptance of something so horrible.

"He rescued you?" Saber wanted to know, something inside of her quickening. Hoping that that were the case, because if it was, then it put Kiritsugu, in Saber's eyes, closer to the man who had laughed while playing in the snow with his little daughter.

"Some might say that he did," said Maiya without inflection, cocking the rifle and peering through the scope again, giving it one last check. No stranger to giving thorough inspections to her equipment, as though she ate and breathed that sort of thing, as though it were the only thing she really knew to do with her downtime.

"What do you say he did?" Saber probed quietly.

Maiya paused again and lifted her head and lowered the gun, fixing her gaze with Saber's, and it was sobering to say the least.

But before she could answer, something shivered inside Saber as she sensed the creeping aura of what could only be the approach of another Servant—and she had a chilling suspicion who. The women's time together was broken by the sounds of footsteps fast approaching the room. Then Irisviel and Kiritsugu appeared, Irisviel carrying a crystal ball with immense care, Kiritsugu toting another heavy case.

"Maiya," he said at once, not even sounding out of breath as he set the third case on the table next to the one with the Walther in it. "Change of plan. We don't have to time to set up the Walther on the battlements." His voice was dented with just the faintest hint of regret: like he'd had that in mind, and now couldn't because something had come up and he'd spent the lull of peace they'd had doing something else and now he wished he'd spent that time setting up the Walther instead.

"An enemy's here?" Maiya hefted the Steyr AUG, pressing it against her chest, completely at attention. Like a soldier.

Kiritsugu snapped open the case he'd brought in, and lifted out another gun, this one bulkier than the Steyr AUG but definitely didn't look anywhere near as weighty as the Walther. Actually, it appeared to be another sidearm, just a bigger one. "Approaching from the forest. Iri sensed it." He glanced over at his wife, who had placed the crystal ball on the table and was now seating herself before it so she could peer inside to get a visual of the intruder.

Saber went over and peered over Iri's shoulder as she waved her hands over the crystal ball, conjuring an image that confirmed her worst suspicions:

Caster moving through the dark Einzbern forest. And it looked as though he had hostages with him, judging by the blank expressions of the children surrounding him, as though he were controlling them like puppets.

Saber cursed under her breath. "I'll have to do what I can to save them," she muttered, her mind working.

And then, somehow, Caster looked straight at them, as though the remote viewing crystal ball were nothing more than a camera hooked up to one of the trees.

"He knows we're watching him!" Irisviel gasped.

Caster grinned, the expression unsettling, made all the more so when he reached over and grabbed one of the children by his head—

"No don't!" Saber cried, as if he could hear them too—

But Caster crushed the child's skull with one squeeze, blood and brain spattering. He tossed the body of the first child aside as the other kids, jerked out of their trance, scattered away scared as they cried out at the horror of what had just happened right in front of them.

"Now then, my dear Jeanne," he beckoned in a sing-song voice, "if you wish to save the rest of these innocents, why don't you show yourself and join us out here in the moonlight?"

Saber balled her hands into fists, her blood rising to a boil, and yet she could do nothing until she was ordered to, to act as she saw fit.

Irisviel gave her husband a pleading look, and Saber couldn't blame her. She'd moaned as though it'd physically hurt to see that first child get murdered so vilely, no doubt thinking of her own daughter.

As for Kiritsugu, he was predictably difficult to read, though that didn't make Saber any less frustrated with him, some of her vexation from earlier fueling the rage crying out in the form of the same draconian beast inside her that bayed for blood. Yet the man seemed to avert his gaze, and the best Saber could guess at was that despite his clear resolve not to act to save the lives of the children, he too might be thinking of his and Irisviel's daughter.

Irisviel on the other hand must've read something else, because she turned fiercely to Saber then and commanded, "Saber! Go to the forest and defeat Caster now!"

Saber didn't need telling twice, and she'd be damned if she was going to wait for Kiritsugu to argue the point. "Right!"

Even so, at the door, she did pause just for a moment to see Kiritsugu's reaction, but he was back to loading his gun with mechanical speed.

Still, she chose to believe that he must have been thinking of that sweet little girl. However Maiya might see it, to Saber, what Kiritsugu had done for her had been a rescue, even if she did still fight for a living. It was the only thing that could connect the kind of life Kiritsugu led with the man who had laughed while playing with his child in the winter woods.

Out in the dark forest, a thick mist had seeped in, obscuring Saber's ability to discern shapes in the distance. But she could follow where she felt Caster's presence, and as she dashed through the trees, she donned her armor on the fly.

She followed her senses deep into the heart of the forest, darting towards it and hefting Excalibur, ready to strike—only to stop dead.

Caster stood alone, surrounded by the bodies of every child he'd been holding hostage, save one, which he held by the head in his large clawed hand, primed to crush his skull in like he'd done with the first child.

Saber's mouth went dry. She'd been too late. He'd slaughtered them all.

Her stomach twisted at the sight. Even after all the death and blood she had seen in her life, when it came to dead children, it reached something maternal inside her…and she thought guiltily of Mordred again, which only intensified the twisting in her stomach.

She ground her teeth as Caster smiled as pleasantly as if he were inviting her to tea, the beast of rage rearing its savage head and tearing at her heart.

"Welcome, fair Jeanne! How do you like this horrible sight? Does it not pain you?" The fiend was petting the head of the one child, a boy, still left alive with his claw-like hand. "Do you despise me Jeanne?" he asked, sounding almost as if he were really sorry for it. Then he sighed and went on: "Yes I'm sure you must. I'm certain you'll never forgive me for turning from God's love."

There he was again, mistaking her for Jeanne d'Arc. Lunatic.

Saber lifted her sword and growled, "Unhand the child…monster!"

"Jeanne, if you dearly wish to save the boy…." Caster relinquished his hold on the child, turning giddy. "My dear child, you should rejoice! God's devout messenger says that she will save you from the fate of your departed friends!"

The boy gave a hysterical cry and broke into a sprint towards Saber, clinging to her armor as if she were his mother as he sobbed.

Saber thought of Mordred again, but instead of regret, something soft and maternally protective settled inside of her, and she stroked back the child's hair as a means to comfort him as she spoke to him in a gentle, reassuring voice.

"It's dangerous here. If you run and follow this path, you'll find a castle—"

Without warning a horrid, tentacled…thing burst from the boy's back, casting off its guise of a child as though it were merely casting off a shirt. In her moment of shock, the creature wrapped its tentacles around her and bound her tightly within them, squeezing as if to crush the life out of her, while all around the bodies of the other children burst into clones of the same creature.

For a lesser person, the spectacle would've driven them insane. For Saber, once the initial shock had worn off, she felt nothing but pure rage for the monster grinning at her as she struggled.

"Do you not remember what I told you?" Caster crowed delightedly. "I told you that the next time we would meet, I would be prepared for you…."

Saber felt one of the tentacles reach over and touch her cheek, leaving the warm, wet sensation of blood behind.

She didn't really care.

"Very well. Then my fight with you…is no longer over the Grail!"

Unleashing a radiant burst of magic, she broke free of the tentacles that bound her, blowing them to bloody, gory chunks. Then she raised her sword, eager to cut the rest of these foul things to ribbons.

"Caster! I raise my sword solely to defeat you!"

With abandon she leapt into the tangle of tentacles vying to grasp her, slashing at them left and right with her blade, slicing them into explosions of blood. But more and more of them just kept coming, as if Caster were calling upon a legion of them.

If only I could use my left hand.

She felt again that gnarled little beast inside her again, one that she had begun to sense within her since she'd first stepped onto a battlefield and saw real war. That moment, she had responded to her rise in adrenaline at first with trepidation, and then something had transformed that into bloodlust when she'd made her first kill. She had to put on a brave face for her troops, but that had proved to be hardly a challenge once she'd tasted blood.

The savagery coming back to her echoed what she'd begun to feel as she'd held that gun of Maiya's, and she lifted her blade at a slant, giving Caster the kind of grin that she felt only a lioness about to pounce could give.

Caster gave a wild shriek and summoned more of his echinoderm monstrosities, all of them popping up from the corpses of those Saber had slain.

And they came at her again, only to burs apart in rays of golden light.

Another Servant had swept in like an untameable wind, slicing through the oncoming horde. Saber hesitated, staring at none other than Lancer as he stood in front of her, facing off against Caster, pointing his lances at him.

"Now hear this, Caster: it will be my lance, and my lance alone that will defeat Saber!" he declared.

Caster's giddiness turned sour at Lancer's intrusion. And he gave another wild yell and tore and clawed at his hair. "You! Who are you?! And who gave you leave to intrude upon our private affair?!"

Lancer chuckled. "Listen, Caster, I am not going to comment on your bizarre notion of romance. But I made a vow, upon my honor, that I would be the one to take Saber's life!"

Saber peered at him from behind, a bit awestruck. "You…came…to help…?"

Lancer threw a grin over his shoulder at her. "Don't misunderstand: I'm here on orders from my Master to find and defeat Caster. But I'm more than happy to get you out of a tight spot while I'm at it."

"Ha!" Saber tossed back her head and held her sword back up at the ready. "Just so we're clear, Lancer: right now, I could take on a hundred of these things."

"Oh I don't doubt that," said Lancer sincerely.

Saber could've sworn he was teasing her. Even so, she had to admit that she relished the sense of camaraderie between them as the two of them plunged into the violent frenzy of echinoderms, Caster madly screaming that Lancer was a savage.

It became very clear however that it was meaningless trying to cut these creatures down when more kept popping up. No less, Lancer observed that there was no honor in it, to which Saber wholly agreed.

"That grimoire." Saber pointed out the book Caster had cradled in his arms, giving off a strong aura of ill-intent. "I believe that is the source of his mana."

"If only we could get to it." Lancer stroked his chin, his golden eyes turning almost feral in their thoughtfulness. Then he said, "I think I can strike it, if I can get in close enough."

"Not while these beasts are in the way." Saber hefted her sword and gave Lancer a confident smirk. Maybe even a flirtatious one, just because. Even if it was just a side-effect of the cursed beauty mark on his cheek. "Allow me to clear a path for you."

Lancer glanced over at her and smiled, perhaps just a little bit as in awe as he had been when he'd figured out her identity. "Very well. They're all yours."

"Excellent." Saber set her teeth, and Lancer stepped back as she gathered up the mana Kiritsugu supplied her with, concentrating all into her blade, which she maintained in invisibility with the invisible air. If she had the use of her left hand, she'd be able to unleash the full power of Excalibur. On the other hand, for something on this small a scale, she didn't need to. She just needed enough to cut away a large chunk of the creatures' numbers.

She leveled the tip of the blade horizontally, aiming straight at the ranting and raving Caster, and then, releasing her mana, cried out, "Strike…air!"

She released a burst of silver, which blasted through the ranks of the skulking tentacle nightmares and created a large enough gap, many of them exploding all at once in bursts of blood.

Caster could only gape as Lancer seized his chance and leapt, shouting, "Gáe…Dearg!"

The tip of the red spear struck the grimoire, and then the moment held its breath before the rest of Caster's creatures burst into showers of blood like the ones Saber had just slain. She stood within that thick shower, and lifted her green eyes to her true enemy in this fight, daring the madman with her piercing glare to come at her again.

Wailing, Caster swore vengeance, and before Saber or Lancer could get to him, he fled, disappearing as if into thin air.

Saber regarded the place where he'd disappeared from with disdain. "Disgusting," she muttered, the air heavy with a red mist of blood. Then she noticed Lancer had gone solemnly quiet. "Lancer?"

Lancer looked up at her, his brow furrowed in anxiety. "It's my Master. He is in danger. It seems he decided to break into the castle, and engage your Master on his own terms while you and I were fighting."

Saber frowned, her ire from earlier kicked up again at the dishonorability that both their Masters appeared to share. Perhaps as an act of defiance, or at least the only kind of defiance she could live with putting up in her own way, she said, "Go to him, Lancer. It would not do if you and I were not able to finish our duel from earlier in a chivalric manner."

Lancer was stunned into gratitude. "Are you certain? You would allow me so close to your Master when you are so far away?"

"Heh." Saber's laugh was bitter and mirthless. "He doesn't need me."

"Doesn't…need you…?"

"Never mind, it doesn't matter. Anyway, I know you would not use this opportunity to cheat against me. You have more than demonstrated your sense of honor. You have shown your quality, sir: the very highest."

Lancer turned almost sheepish. Maybe even more than that. Maybe guilty. "Thank you. I'm glad you at least think so." Then he smiled graciously. "King of Knights, you are truly worthy of your name. I will not forget this."

And then, with a shimmer of mana, he was gone.

Alone again, Saber clenched her hands into fists. "So…this was your plan all along, was it, Kiritsugu?" she muttered.

She intended to confront her Master on her own terms, and turned to go back to the castle on foot. But then something compelled her to go in the opposite direction, and not one to doubt her instincts, she changed course and followed where she felt herself drawn.

It wasn't long until she came to a clearing where she made out two bodies laid out on the grass. One of them was Maiya, face-down and unconscious. Saber knelt beside her and checked her, finding the pulse, but also finding broken ribs and a few other combat injuries.

"Oh Maiya…."

But then she caught sight of the other prone person's silver hair.

"Irisviel!"

Saber leapt up and dashed over, weaker in the knees at the sight of her lady charge looking as though she had been skewered through. Already so much blood was pooling around her, and it showed no sign of stopping.

She felt herself split again, as she fell to her knees beside Irisviel—one half determined in taking steps to save her, the other already given up to the despair that she was going to watch this sweet young woman die, and she powerless to stop it.

"Irisviel," she called, desperate.

Irisviel's eyes fluttered open, blood trickling out of the corner of her mouth. Even so, she actually smiled. "Sa…ber…."

Saber touched the side of Irisviel's face. "Hang on…I'm going to call Kiritsugu…."

The despairing half of Saber was already starting to spiral out of control. Whatever anger she harbored towards her Master's actions, however much she disagreed with him, she would not wish upon him the news she would have to bring him now. And if Irisviel's words and her inferences based on her small observations were to be believed, he would be sorely grieved to learn of what had happened to his wife…the thought that she would be bringing him only to give them both the chance to say goodbye…she could hardly bear it….

"Where's Kirei…?" Irisviel muttered. "The person who was just here a minute ago…?"

"He's long gone, as far as I can tell…."

"And what about…Maiya…?"

"She's badly injured, but her wounds are not critical. I'm more worried about you. You've lost so much blood…." Against her will, Saber's voice shook. "If only I'd been here a second faster…."

But Irisviel reached up and laid her hand over the one Saber had laid against her cheek. "No, no. It's okay…." And then her color suddenly seemed more robust than it did a moment beforehand, and her breathing was now no longer weak.

Confused, Saber looked down and saw to her astonishment that the wounds Irisviel had suffered had closed, leaving only the torn fabric of her blouse. There wasn't even the merest trace of a laceration, not even a scar.

Saber sat back, amazed, as Irisviel sat up and wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand.

"Irisviel…how did you…?"

But Irisviel merely grinned, very much the cheerful young woman Saber had first met. "You see? I told you it was okay." Then she looked past Saber to where Maiya lay and turned serious. "I'd better see what I can do for Maiya though before we get her back to the castle."

Still a little dazed from the sheer miracle of healing magic she had just witnessed, Saber stood and watched in amazement as Irisviel carefully turned Maiya over (she murmured an apology when Maiya gave a grunt of pain) and proceeded to work healing magic of her own on Kiritsugu's assistant.

When she had recovered a little from her shock, Saber watched Irisviel work her magic now with a little admiration, and then looked at Maiya's face as it was still pinched in pain, and recalled what the two of them had been talking about earlier. There could be no doubt in her mind that whatever Maiya thought of what Kiritsugu had done for her, he was, for better or for worse, probably her sole reason for continuing to function as a human being, the only one in the world who gave her purpose. It wasn't any kind of fanatical devotion, just the feeble thread of the only thing she'd been able to hold onto when she'd been plucked from whatever horror that battlefield he'd found her on had been.

Which meant she could no doubt be counted upon to die for Kiritsugu's sake should it be necessary. And if Irisviel's miraculously healed wounds were any indication, her love ran so deep such that she too would do the same, if for different reasons. In fact, Irisviel seemed to regard Maiya with more sympathy now, and not just because she was badly hurt. Their mutual desire to help Kiritsugu in his fight no doubt had formed a small bond between them, in some small way.

Then Saber sensed the approach of another person, but relaxed when she saw it was only Kiritsugu. Their eyes met for a moment, and Kiritsugu's were as sharp as ice, dark as blackest night. Then he came and knelt beside Irisviel and Maiya, speaking to his wife in a low voice, going back to completely ignoring the presence of his Servant.

But Saber became too preoccupied with the ire she felt rising up within her again at the cutting glare Kiritsugu had given her, and repaid him in kind. On their way back to the castle, Kiritsugu carrying Maiya in his arms and Irisviel walking beside him, Saber glared daggers of her own at her Master's back, driving their points in between his shoulder blades. Only once did his eyes seem to drift over his shoulder in her direction, but it was enough to convince Saber that he knew she was giving him a look too livid for words.

Were it not for whatever strange healing powers Irisviel possessed, of all the terrible things that could've happened, his wife probably would've met her end this night most assuredly.

And it would've been, in no small part, Kiritsugu's fault.

Not long after Maiya was tended to, bandaged and confined to bed in one of the other many bedrooms in the castle, Kiritsugu took off, unconcerned with his working alone. Saber had implored Irisviel on her way out to see Kiritsugu before he left that she convince him of the desperate need to eliminate Caster as quickly as possible, for the sake of all of the innocent children who were being sacrificed to his and his own Master's altar of insanity.

But when Irisviel appeared where Saber was waiting for her on the castle battlements, she looked troubled and disappointed.

"He didn't listen to you," Saber guessed.

Irisviel leaned back against the castle wall with her hands folded under her breasts. Her blouse she had repaired to the best of her ability with a sewing kit she'd uncovered in the castle's kitchen. "No, he did. He always listens. Remember what I said about how people who don't listen make me feel?"

"But you were unsuccessful in convincing him of my side of things."

"Yes, in a manner of speaking. But you must understand, it's not something you can simply convince him of. He's already well aware that it's cruel, what's happening to these children. He's a father after all. It's just that if he has any hope of returning to his daughter, he can't let himself think like a father. Or a husband even. I've never been entirely easy with that side of him, but I've come to understand—at least in part—what drives him to be that way. And it's for things like that that made me fall in love with him."

"I see." Saber turned away, staring out over the battlements and into the silvery-blue night, out the glittering lights of the city of Fuyuki spread at the feet of the mountain, nestled against the coastline.

"Incidentally," Irisviel went on, "he made a very good argument as to why he's actually quite, well, pissed off, actually."

"Oh?" The idea intrigued Saber more than anything else. She ran her hands over the stone of the battlements. "And what would that be?"

"The fact that you allowed Lancer to go and fetch his Master," said Irisviel. "Obviously, Lancer kept whatever promise he probably made to you—or held to whatever promise was implied—and didn't use that opportunity to run Kiritsugu through with his lance, nevertheless…Kiritsugu only thinks in terms of risk. And minimizing that risk. And what you did, to him, was very risky, especially from a cynical perspective. Not an act of betrayal, knowing how you see things. No, instead he considers it at best a poor decision of nobility at its most idiotic, and a worst an act of defiance. Which is saying something since he's a bit of a rogue in the mage world. They don't call him the Mage Killer for nothing, after all."

"Irisviel…."

"The way he sees it…letting something like this Caster business hamper any kind of more effective strategy of reaching the Grail is nothing short of losing sight of that very same goal, one he's poured his heart and soul into for nearly a decade, as a means to achieve a dream he's worked toward practically his entirely life. He's dedicated to it with every fiber of his being. To him…a handful of children he could save is nothing compared to the population of the entire planet. That is why…as I said before…he can't afford to think like a husband and father in this game. He can't afford to even think as a human. But for all of that, he's fighting for a world where people like him don't exist.

"And if I'm being perfectly honest, Saber, if he had been killed tonight, I can't even begin to describe how much it would break me, I only know that my grief would know no boundary, and spill out onto the world from my heart, tears flowing without end. I love that man that much. More than that, but it's no small thing to say that for our daughter to learn of her father dying would leave her beyond inconsolable. In that way, his ruthless determination does have some origin in his love for her. She's…his last hope for a future beyond the flames of this war, beyond achieving that which has consumed his very life, body and soul."

Though Irisviel's voice didn't crack or break, there was something sober and heavy to it, and Saber knew without needing any kind of proof that the pain of losing of Kiritsugu would be, to Irisviel, grievous in the extreme. Saber, for her part, felt a lump in her throat at this, and for this she softened.

Though it did feel strange to her that Irisviel didn't count herself as another reason for her husband to go on living when all of this was over, but she didn't dwell on it, thinking that Irisivel had left that to implication.

Still, she was compelled to at least impart what wisdom of experience she could, even if it had to be through the proxy of Kiritsugu's wife, rather than to Kiritsugu himself.

"I understand…what you're saying, Irisviel. And I respect it. But you must also understand too…that when I was younger…and green in the time of my rule…I would throw myself into many battles, thinking only of victory for the sake of my people, tearing through the lives of so many of whatever army we were fighting, that I felt my humanity nearly ripped away by the tide of conflict. I almost lost myself completely, fighting in the many wars that I did to protect my country. It would seem that Kiritsugu throws himself into his own battles with the same uncompromising focus. Yet he sees everything that could go wrong on a technical level, without seeing the consequences that really matter…as I should've done.

"I only wish that he could see that he cannot hope to defeat the evil he seeks to defeat, until he finds a way to defeat it within himself…before it's too late. Otherwise…the world he seeks to save cannot truly be saved…and my answering his summons in this fight was pointless…."

There was the scrape of heels on stone as Irisviel stepped from the wall. Then Saber felt her draw beside her at the battlements and looked at her, watched her with a renewed sense of her awe of her when she saw the way she smiled at the bright moon on the sea in the distance. And despite everything, she did take some comfort in what Irisviel told her next.

"Please believe me when I tell you this Saber: you…are absolutely essential…to the world Kiritsugu and I hope and pray for."