Chapter Seven

Wilting

That night, Saber actually slept, in a way. Irisviel took rest in the room she'd taken, and Saber fell asleep watching over her, curled up in the nearby window seat. Tired, her eyes fell closed, watching Irisviel resting in her bed. Then she turned her face towards the window as she sank into slumber.

Her thoughts of Guinevere, Lancelot, and Mordred followed her, and visions of them surrounded her. Their shades pressed in upon her, the anguish in their eyes making Saber grab her head in her hands and fall to her knees, begging them to forgive her for not being what they'd needed her to be, promising them that all would well once she had the Grail in her hands.

The only place she could afford to be weak was in dreams like this, and she suffered through them even as they gave her a fitful sleep.

But then everything changed, and Guinevere, Lancelot, and Mordred disappeared, swallowed by flames.

And that was when she saw it.

Burning. Everything was burning.

The palm trees. The thatched roofs of little houses. The people. The people who weren't people anymore, but walking corpses instead, ones that thirsted for blood that would never satisfy.

One of them was a priest, and he lumbered towards the lone, dark-haired, dark-eyed little boy who was still completely human.

"Father…Simon…?" the boy croaked, trembling like a terrified rabbit.

He took one step back, but in his fear, his knees gave, and he fell to the ground. The priest called Father Simon that was now a Dead Apostle lurched closer, reaching out for the boy, and the boy tried to scrabble away, but it was no use. His fear froze him, and all he could do was stare in horror, tears streaming down his face, as he realized that he was about to die, that his small life was about to end before it had really even begun.

He couldn't even scream, his bottom lip quivering as he could only cry for the fate that was before him. His eyes said everything. They said…please, don't let me die this way…please, someone save me….

That was when she burst through the nearby fence. She skidded to a stop on the heels of her leather boots and fired off one shot after another from her arsenal of guns, taking out every Dead Apostle in the vicinity.

The boy stared at her, his tears and fears forgotten in a moment of stupefied wonder, every shot the woman fired reflected in those wide, dark eyes.

Then she finished off Father Simon with a blast to the head before turning her weapon on the boy.

The boy found his fear again, and found his voice enough to yell, if incoherently, trying to shield his face with is hands, thinking this fiercely cold woman might just shoot him too.

But the woman lowered her gun, tilting her head to one said, regarding him, like a machine might, unsympathetic in the face of his trauma.

"Are you coming?" she asked over her shoulder as she made to leave. "You'll die if you stay here."

The boy was staring at her again, and then he stood and followed her to a place separate from the burning village where she could question him. And some quiet, cold anger rose up in his dark eyes as he sat on a rock, staring at the flames below, as he seemed to formulate a plan that Saber could already foresee before he even made a move to do it.

All this destruction was his father's fault. His best friend and the girl he loved in his innocent youth was dead because of it.

So he would kill him.

It had to be done. There was no second-guessing on this. Only resolve.

A glimpse of the man that he would grow into, of the Kiritsugu that Saber knew.

Saber lifted her eyes open with a start.

And she murmured to herself, "Kiritsugu…to think…you were nothing more than a frightened little boy who didn't want to die that day…."

Then her eyes stung, though remained dry, as she buried her face in her gloved hand.

When morning light filled the room, Saber saw that Irisviel was still sleeping. She got up from the window seat and stood over her, watching the gentle rise and fall of the woman's chest, a little perturbed by the slight frown on her face.

Was she having troubled dreams too?

Saber smiled sadly and pulled the covers up a little higher around Irisviel's shoulder, brushing her silver hair out of her pale face. Then she withdrew and left the room, leaving her charge to sleep while she was still able to.

The large castle was still and empty, Saber's steps echoing as she stepped down the main marble staircase. Then she heard the tats of gunfire and followed the sound. What she found was Maya out in the garden, engaged in target practice. On one side of the garden, she had a bunch of sandbags, behind which she'd put together a sniper rifle smaller than that insanely heavy one from the night before (was it really only just last night that all that happened?), so she could position herself on her stomach and peer through the scope as she fired off shot after shot. Her targets, which she'd set up on the other side, was a row of glass soda bottles. Where she got them, Saber couldn't be sure, though she couldn't imagine Maiya sitting around drinking bottle after bottle of soda just to give herself a plentiful supply of practice targets.

For a moment, Saber watched her from the garden's edge, arms folded, impressed with how Maiya hit her mark every time she fired. But it occurred to her that Maiya really did seem to let the art of war and the life of a soldier consume her. She was even more of a machine than Kiritsugu was, if that were possible. Yet there was something about Maiya that had made Saber more sympathetic to her.

Then again, there was that dream she'd had last night. A dream she only could have had if Kiritsugu had been asleep when she'd been. A part of her even wondered if Kiritsugu then had shared in the dream she'd been having about Guinevere, Lancelot, and Mordred. Would he even react to such a thing? Well, if he did, he certainly wasn't one to let it interfere with his work here.

His sense of focus at least was enviable, she had to give him that. To be honest, she almost wished that she could cut herself off from what she felt in her heart so easily, instead of wearing it on her sleeve. She was proud of how passionate she was about what she personally believed in, and liked to think that she believed in those for herself, not just because that was the kind of world she was raised in. But there were times, in the aftermath of her anger, and her will to fight, when the grief would utterly drain her, that she wished she didn't have to feel anything at all, so she could bear it all without feeling how heavy it was.

Maiya fired another shot and hit the last bottle, and then she pushed herself up onto her hands and knees and picked up the rifle so she could load it with a new clip. She paused and looked over her shoulder, finally acknowledging Saber's presence.

When it seemed like she wasn't going to say anything, and just look at her with those blank yet thoughtful eyes, Saber cleared her throat and spoke instead.

"Impressive," she complimented.

Maiya raised an eyebrow in reply and then went back to reloading her rifle.

Saber watched her for another moment before venturing to ask, "Mind if I give it a try?"

This gave Maiya pause, and she looked round at Saber again, this time actually appearing a little incredulous. "You want to fire off a rifle?"

Saber shrugged. "I must admit, I am curious. And I'm always willing to learn a new skill."

The other woman seemed to consider her for a moment, and then nodded, agreeing.

So Maiya showed Saber how to handle the sniper, load it, and then position herself and fire it off. Naturally Saber was a quick learner, helped by the fact that Maiya was a blunt and concise teacher, and soon enough she'd popped off a few shots, smooth as silk, hitting every single one of the new set of bottles Maiya had set out.

"Equally impressive," Maiya said. "But I suppose being a Heroic Spirit, you can take to these things quickly."

"Oh, I've always managed to grasp new things fast enough," Saber said as she pushed herself up onto her knees, trying very hard not to sound too proud of herself. "How long have you been working with weapons like this?"

Maiya knelt beside her. "Mm, since I was a small child. I guess I couldn't have been more than five or six."

Saber raised her eyebrows. She could tell that this woman was awfully young to already be so adept at what she did, but hadn't imagined that she'd been younger still when she'd started handling things like guns. Then again, she herself had been about that age when she'd first picked up a sword, but that was during a time when children were expected to learn how to fight from that age (only boy children of course, but children nonetheless).

Unless….

"Maiya…" she began carefully, reaching over to pick up the rifle and lay it across her lap so she could eject the empty clip. "Were you trained as a soldier from since you were a child?"

Maiya took the empty clip from Saber without looking at her and started loading it with new bullets. "I was. How did you guess?"

Saber shrugged, trying to be as casual about it as her companion was. "I was about that age when I started to learn how to fight. It was the only thing I could imagine would be the reason why you'd have started learning how to fight at that same age."

Perhaps it was her imagination, but she thought she saw Maiya smile at that, just a little.

But then she simply had to ask then—

"So," she went on, sitting back and clasping her hands around her legs, "how did you come to start working for Kiritsugu like this?"

Maiya looked up at her, maybe a bit taken aback at the blunt directness of Saber's question. Then she went back to loading the clip. "I got separated from the rest of my squad during a battle. I never found out what happened to them, but I can make the safe bet that they were all either killed or captured and sold into slavery. That's usually the only two fates of child soldiers have. But Kiritsugu found me instead of the enemy, and he asked if I wanted to come with him. So I went, because for the first time, I had a third option from the other two. And if I was being honest, I didn't want either of those fates. At least…not then. There's really no doubt in my mind that choosing this path only bought me a few more years."

Saber frowned. "Are you so assured of your own destruction?"

"I would be more surprised if things didn't turn out that way."

"So…you have nothing in particular to fight for…except to do what Kiritsugu needs you to do."

"Yes. Whatever he needs me to do."

"And you've made peace with that."

"I have." Maiya snapped the clip back into the rifle and positioned it again for firing.

Saber stood to go set up another row of bottles. "That is unfortunate to hear."

"It's as I told Kiritsugu, that I needed a purpose in my life, and the only thing I knew about were guns and death. That was the only place where I felt sure of myself. Kiritsugu understood me completely." Then Maiya looked up at her. "He did try to talk me out of it at first. Following him as his assistant. He talked about finding me a family. I told him that if he didn't take me with him, then he might as well kill me. That was enough for him to accept what I wanted. The only thing I wanted."

Saber stared at her. Moreover, she was a little taken aback to hear that Kiritsugu had tried to dissuade her from becoming his assistant. Yet he had given in to her wishes. That, and there was a curious softness surrounding Maiya's otherwise cold words, which gave Saber the impression that for all of her stand-offishness, she had to harbor a soft spot for Kiritsugu.

After all, she was still a human being.

At the same time though, Saber wasn't surprised to hear that Kiritsugu had both tried to dissuade her and grant her her wish, as she thought back again to the dream she'd glimpsed the night before, of the woman who had found young Kiritsugu crying on a burning island full of Dead Apostles.

Maiya had gotten the call just as Saber had finished sweeping up the glass and replacing the bottles with new ones for target practice. Then she flipped her phone shut and told Saber that Kiritsugu had already had an alternative safe house prepped for their arrival. Now that there were more than enough enemies who knew where to find Einzbern Castle, it was best they departed for their new base of operations as soon as possible.

While Maiya immediately started packing up the equipment, Saber set about taking care of everything else, starting with seeing if Irisviel was awake.

As it turned out, Irisviel was just stepping out of her bedroom when Saber went to knock on her door.

"Oh, Irisviel, I was just about to wake you," Saber told her. "Did you get enough sleep?" she added, thinking her charge looked a bit peaky.

But Irisviel gave her one of her very bright smiles. "More than enough. So, has Kiritsugu been in touch?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact. He just called Maiya to tell her we should depart from here as quickly as possible and get settled in the new base of operations he has arranged for us."

"Excellent. Oh, I can't wait to see it for myself. Kiritsugu did say it would be something of a surprise."

Saber chuckled at the way Irisviel's scarlet eyes sparkled, and then she noticed that a couple of the buttons on Irisviel's blouse were crooked. When she pointed it out, Irisviel looked down and saw it for herself. Then she laughed like it was nothing and insisted she could live with a few crooked buttons.

But Saber wouldn't hear of it, and since Irisviel wasn't going to do it, she reached over and fixed the buttons herself. It was only after she redid them that she became acutely aware of how close she and Irisviel were, how much she smelled so sweetly of irises, and when she looked up, their eyes met.

And it occurred to her at last how even someone as cold as Kiritsugu could melt at under the influence of such a woman. And something about that made Saber feel tender in her own heart.

"Irisviel…is everything all right?"

"Yes, Saber. Everything's fine."

Saber had her doubts though as Irisviel pulled away and pushed past her, but decided not to press the issue as she watched Irisviel's retreating back a moment before taking it upon herself to help the Einzbern maids pack up their lady's things.

To Saber's further surprise, Irisviel asked Saber if she would like to take a turn driving the Mercedes instead. She was so invested in the idea that Saber went along with it, and so Irisviel sat in the front passenger's seat while Saber took the wheel.

And, like with Maiya's guns, Saber took to the act of driving fluidly, as if she'd been doing it her whole life. But instead of attributing it to her being sharp with instructions, Saber knew this had to do with the Grail's having implanted such knowledge directly into her upon pulling her through to this time period. Because in this case, she didn't need anyone instructing her, though Irisviel did offer. (If Saber were being honest, she'd have been hesitant regardless, given Irisviel's erratic sense of abandon when it came to driving.) No, instead, the moment she touched the steering wheel, everything just came to her, and she drove stick like she'd been doing it for years.

Irisviel had no hesitation in expressing how impressed she was with Saber's capability.

But Saber couldn't help making the comment that she was a bit confused as to why Irisviel had been so keen on her driving instead, since she, for all of her recklessness, seemed to quite like to drive cars.

Like with the buttons on her blouse though, Irisviel casually waved this away too, saying she was happy to give Saber the chance to try out driving for herself. Saber began to wonder though if there was something possibly upsetting that Irisviel wasn't telling her, and she beetled her brow as she focused on Maiya driving in front of them, leading them to their new base of operations.

They came to a large Japanese style house on the edge of a section of Fuyuki called Miyama Town. Maiya bid them farewell at the gate, stepping out of her car just so she could hand over the keys (which Irisviel asked Saber to take for her).

Saber momentarily forgot her concerns for Irisviel when she noticed that all but one of the keys looked shiny and new and modern. This last key was definitely aged in the metal, and was more like an old-fashioned skeleton key.

"Maiya," she asked, "what does this key open? Do you know?"

"That key opens the storehouse," Maiya informed her, and in fact, she grinned a little, as though she were actually amused by Saber's innocent curiosity. She even chuckled, but it was so low that anyone not listening carefully would have missed it. "It's nothing special, really."

After Saber and Irisviel watched her get back into her car and drive off back down the road, presumably to reconnoiter with Kiritsugu, Irisviel turned to the front gate, and bounced on the balls of her feet like a child.

"Come on, Saber," she gushed. "Let's go explore our new home!"

Saber smiled to see her so excited, and sifted through one key after the other until she found the one that opened the front gates.

Irisviel pranced inside, her face lighting up with enchantment. She even flung her arms out and spun around, taking it all in. Saber didn't see anything too remarkable about it herself. It was an eastern style compound of a Japanese house, certainly nothing like the western castles she'd grown up around, but she supposed it had known splendor at one point. It was big enough. But the grasses were overgrown and weedy, and there were little bits of the house here and there that were clearly in disrepair, like a missing shingle or two from the roof, and the paper in the sliding doors was fading, even cracking. There were splinter in the walls here and there too.

Even so, Irisviel was delighted, reminding Saber very much of her and Kiritsugu's daughter.

"I told him once, you know," Irisviel said, when she paused in her spinning to clasp her hands behind her back and look at Saber over her shoulder. "I told him I'd wanted to see a Japanese mansion. Maybe he remembered I said that when he decided to purchase this place for us."

Saber blinked. "You mean, Kiritsugu?"

But Irisviel didn't appear to hear her, as she became quite distracted by the entrance to the house. She skipped over to it and gingerly pulled it aside, giggling at the way the door slid to her left to open, instead of swinging open like doors in all western architecture did. "Come on, Saber!" she called after her escort. "I want to see inside!"

Saber followed indulgently, keeping a few steps behind and letting Irisviel lead the way, while Irisviel slid open every door she could find, relishing in stepping on the tatami mats in all the rooms, and then shuffling in her boots over the wood floor in the corridors, and then poking about in the empty little kitchen.

Adjacent to this was the largest room, and Irisviel did another spin, flinging her arms out again and breathing in the musty, ancient-feeling air with a satisfied sigh. She had her eyes closed, and Saber paused, watching her.

"This is where they'd have the little table where everyone would talk and have tea together," Irisviel said, as though she were putting on a production. Then she opened her eyes. "And in the winter they'd have that blanket thing wrapped around it to keep them warm. Oh, I forget what it's called." She let her arms drop to her side when she noticed the large sliding doors that led outside to a porch overlooking the inner courtyard.

Irisviel inspected this door, and then, thinking aloud, remarked, "I'll bet that if they wanted this ready for winter, they'd install glass doors here to keep the cold out. But no one's lived here, so…either they're gone, or they were never in here to begin with because the building of this house predates glass. Though I can't see how it could be that old. Feels like it could be though." Then she stepped out onto the porch, hands clasped behind her back again.

Saber inspected the door too, and then looked up and saw the way Irisviel was looking out at the courtyard, noting that it was equally full of unkempt grass and wild weeds.

Then Irisviel looked at the sun-filled sky, and though Saber couldn't see her face, she heard something in her voice that sounded like melancholy.

"I'll bet the moon…it would be really beautiful to see it from here."

The wind lifted, and Irisviel took another deep breath and let it out.

Then she added, "I feel something…here. I can't say for certain what it is…but I feel like…if you made a real home here…you'd be safe here. I feel like this is a place that will wrap you up in its arms…and let you feel everything you don't want the rest of the world to see you feel. You can fill it with all of your happiness…and your sorrow. And those feelings will stay safe here. Safe…and special."

She sighed again, and then she turned to Saber, who just barely caught an odd, telltale glister in her lady's red eyes. But she was beaming, just the same.

"Why don't we find that storehouse Maiya mentioned? This place is nice and big and all, but the lack of anything solid like stone in its walls really doesn't make it an ideal place for the kind of magic I need to perform."

"I see," said Saber. She held up the keys by the old, odd-one-out. "Well, let's take a look then, shall we?"

They found the storehouse out back, and the second Irisviel pulled the wooden sliding door aside and stepped in, she proclaimed that it was perfect for what she wanted to do. Then she asked Saber if she'd be so kind as to retrieve all the items from the car that she'd need to draw a magic circle, indicating that she'd need her help to draw it as well.

It was at this point that Saber knew she could no longer ignore the more pressing issue.

"Irisviel, can I…ask you something?"

"Eh?"

"Well, it's just that…driving the car…and taking the keys for you…even getting your blouse buttons jumbled…I can understand, we were up rather late last night…but now you're telling me…you can't perform your magic without…help…?" Saber looked up at Irisviel seriously. "Is there something you're not telling me about?"

Irisviel dropped the cheerful act, and though her smile remained, now she was meek and apologetic. She averted her eyes. "I suppose…there really isn't any point in keeping this from you. Not any longer, anyway." She took a deep breath and then let it out before she looked at Saber again. "Okay. Saber, I'm going to grab your hand, and I'm going to squeeze it as hard as I can, understand?"

"O…kay." Saber uncertainly tugged off one black glove and extended her hand for Irisviel to take.

Yet when Irisviel took it, and started to squeeze, Saber was taken aback at how little pressure she actually felt against her fingers. She waited another moment, waited for that pressure to increase, but…nothing.

Irisviel's touch was as delicate as an orchid's.

"Iris…viel…."

"I promise, I'm not toying around with you."

And hearing the palpable strain in Irisviel's voice then, Saber had to believe her, had to believe that this small, barely-felt press of fingers was all her lady could muster as far as squeezing her hand went. She even started to break out into a sweat.

"Irisviel." Saber tugged her fingers out of Irisviel's weak grip and clasped her hand in both of hers. "Please. Stop. It's okay. I understand now. But…." She felt the frown line in her brow deepen. "If you're this unwell…then shouldn't we…?"

Irisviel shook her head, and tried to tug back her hand. However, even just having it held the way Saber was doing now, she didn't have the strength to pull away. Saber had to release her herself, and as she did, she was overcome with a sudden melancholy.

"Irisviel, please…if you're unwell, you really shouldn't…" she doggedly protested.

"It would be pointless," Irisviel told her, massaging her thumb over the fingers she'd used to squeeze Saber's hand. "You see…I'm what they call a homunculus, a puppet designed for the purpose of fighting in the Holy Grail War. Specifically…I am…linked to it. Or the Servants, anyway. As in, with one Servant dead, the effects of my breakdown have now begun. I've lost the feeling in my hands, to the point that I really can't grip onto anything. Dressing this morning was so difficult…." She tried to laugh, like before, but it came out breathless, almost despairing.

It also explained why she'd appeared to have had trouble buttoning up her blouse.

Saber tried to say something, but all that came out of her throat was a soundless moan, a scrape against her throat.

"Anyway, because I'm not human, things like human medicine have no effect on me. If we were back at Einzbern Castle, normally Grandfather Acht would've done his alchemical adjustments on me to fix me, but even that's pointless now…because the process I'm undergoing can't be undone…." Irisviel's voice cracked on the last word, and she turned away, as if trying to hide the strength that was being peeled back to expose her true vulnerability. "Please don't worry about it though. I need you to be at your strongest, now more than ever. Can you do that for me…Saber?"

Saber was sadly reminded of Guinevere again, of how Lancelot's absence from Camelot drained the life and color out of her. She had seemed nothing more than a pale ghost when Saber had come to bid her that last farewell, before marching off to battle to meet Mordred, the child that was hers and not hers and not unlike Irisviel in construct…the battle that would claim her life. She still wondered if Guinevere didn't succumb to death herself when she'd learned of how Arturia, King of Briton, had fallen. Perhaps she had already died before that news had even reached her.

She was beginning to see more of Rider's point about the way her self-sacrificing nature and way of handling things had been misguided as far as being a leader was concerned, because indeed…looking at it that way, she really had left Briton with nothing. Of course it was inevitably swallowed up by its enemies…Norsemen and French alike.

Saber's eyes stung, but she kept firm, snapping her heels together and lifting her chin, her hands balled into fists at her side. "Of course, Irisviel. I'll be as strong for you as you need me to be."

It was at those words that Irisviel found it in herself to turn around again, and give Saber that smile of hers again, that same smile she'd given her on the night the two of them had walked together on the moonlit beach.

As the sun was setting into a brilliant blend of tangerine and white, Saber stood outside of the shed while Irisviel was inside of it, using the magic circle Saber had helped her draw. Apparently it was supposed to help her regain lost strength and energy, but given what Irisviel had just told her, it was nothing more than a crutch to help keep her going as the War carried on.

Now Saber was thinking of Kiritsugu again, and wondering if he knew anything about this. If he didn't, somehow Saber felt it would be unkind, cruel even, to tell him about it. It was like when she'd found Irisviel hurt in the woods, seemingly on the brink of death, and she'd dreaded calling Kiritsugu for what she'd known in her heart at the time would be nothing more than a goodbye.

On the other hand, if he did know about it (which was more likely, he was after all, her husband), she had to wonder at how a man like him internalized such a thing. She was already in no doubt that Kiritsugu loved his wife, whatever else he might be. But was it possible that he had known about this from the very beginning? How sad that would be, to fall in love with someone already knowing that one day, they would endure something like this, and there was nothing anyone could do about it? It was like falling in love with someone with a deadly, incurable disease. Someone who was so precious to you, already slipping away, so quickly you could feel it, feel them dying every time you kissed them.

It was too sad to bear thinking about.

Against her will, Saber felt herself on the verge of tears again. She fought them back, mercilessly, hardening her heart as best as she could. She had done it before, damn it. Why couldn't she do it now? She might not be able to make herself not feel at all, but she had at least built herself up more sternly and stoutly than this.

She took several deep breaths, pursing her lips, grinding her teeth, until she'd shoved everything down, as far as she could, down into the deep depths of herself when she kept hidden all the dark things inside of her. She ironed her forehead with the heel of her hand, and gradually the shaking stop and that sense of her heart breaking evaporated. Her mind found Kiritsugu again, and somehow that made it easier, seeing how coldly he carried himself. Though she imagined, given what she had seen of his childhood in that dream, that he too had born a struggle like this, alone, on more than one occasion.

Of course, he was a man, and such things, like hiding and holding back tears, were expected of him, she supposed. Some things never changed, even from the time when she'd been alive so long ago. Indeed, the one time she had seen a man cry, it had been Sir Ector, and he thought he'd been alone, and she'd never told him that she'd seen him. It had actually shaken her to see him that way.

That was why she'd made her own vows to never cry too.

And it was true.

Not since she'd been very small, had she ever come so close to crying like she was now. Nor was she about to break that pattern. Not now, when the last thing Irisviel needed was for her to shed tears for her. Yet something about Irisviel…made tears such a threat to her all of sudden, like they hadn't in such a long time.

Then she felt it.

A ripple of mana, like an echo from far away.

Her head snapped up, her sorrow for Irisviel forgotten completely as she began to sense in her very veins that some distance away, a large amount of magical activity was gathering.

That was when Maiya appeared, having driven back to the house here, and Saber was more than sure that she was here to tell them about something bad that had just happened, or was going to happen.

Saber stepped forward to meet her as she approached the shed.

"What's happened?" she asked.

Maiya stopped, maybe even a little surprised that Saber was already aware there was a situation. "There's something going on at the Mion River," she reported, once she seemingly came back to her senses. "More than likely, it's Caster."

"Caster…." Just saying that name left a bad taste in Saber's mouth. More than that, it woke up the angry part of her that was always raring for a fight, that part that always kept her going even in the depths of her exhaustion and despair.

"Then the time to strike him down is now," she said. "If he's planning something big, I don't think it's anything at all good."

The door to the shed slid open behind her, and Irisivel appeared, still looking peaky but at least not breaking out in a sweat like earlier. And in her red eyes there was a fire that had as yet not gone out.

"We'd better meet him then, hadn't we, Saber?" she said, and gave that smile that was so mischievous it bordered on being something just a shade darker, even for someone as pure as her.

But it lit a fire in Saber too, and she returned Irisviel's smile with one of her own, the kind a mongoose might grin before taking on a cobra.

She held out a hand to Irisviel. "What do you say then? Let's give him hell."