Chapter 152
It felt like only an hour, but as he watched the girl swing her sword, the sun had already started to set.
It took him some time after hearing her name before the gears finally started turning in his brain, realizing that his own Servant had in fact the same name as the girl. His denseness was bordering on a level of hopelessness.
After that though, he managed to connect the dots, remembering Caster's words about the bond between Servant and Master, and her offhandedly mentioning the possibility of special dreams that could be experienced by both Master and Servant, if the Servants chose to sleep to conserve energy. He was most likely currently in one such dream, with a younger Saber in front of his eyes as he most likely lived part of her memory in his sleep.
Now that he understood his situation, he couldn't help but see the similarities between the young girl in front of him and Saber. The blonde hair was a dead giveaway of course, but the soft features of her face, the way she looked focused while practicing, the arched eyebrows and lips compressed into a thin line were just like Saber when she fought or practiced with him. In addition, the thin strands of hair stuck together like a monument standing straight up from the center of her head was also there as well, a mystery of trichology. He had no idea how the ahoge even existed, defying gravity and biology the way it did.
With the knowledge that it was a dream, he simply sat down and watched, admiring Saber's single-minded determination in practice as it went on from dawn to dusk. She performed footwork drills, technique training, muscle and cardio exercises, as well as sparring with invisible opponents. Though a normal person her age would have collapsed at any point, along with self-inflicted training injuries, she pressed on instead, her body enduring everything she forced onto it and being no worse for wear.
When the sun finally began to set, Saber stopped swinging her sword after the last drill, leaning the wood shaped into a weapon on the bark of a tree nearby.
Sweat stained her brow, the strands of golden hair sticking to her skin with flushed temples and cheeks. Her clothes showed the stains of labour as well, wet patches visible all across her tunic as her breathing came rough and short. Tired, she leaned over, putting her hands on her knees as she stared at the floor, recovering her energy.
He had never seen Saber actually out of breath, panting and winded like that, so it was something new for him to see. The only time she had really seemed human was when she was wounded in battle, instead of being a spirit that he couldn't even touch no matter how many times he tried during his time sparring with her. And while she was eating. Seeing this younger her struggle with practice was nice too, like how he had under her tutelage, with a strange sense of satisfaction seeing this after he had been beaten black and blue by her merciless strikes.
It didn't take long for her to regain enough strength, and after properly securing the things she had brought along, she jumped into a stream nearby for a quick wash.
Of course, Shirou left her in private and went to watch some leaves shake in the wind. He wasn't a pervert after all, even though this was only a dream, the only person who would know being him.
That is, until he heard a shrill cry from the stream.
Breaking into a run from his waiting spot, he ran over to see what was going on.
Only to see a squat, hairy little man gripping the young Saber's clothes in his hands, swinging them around in the air and laughing, while she yelled at it, an indignant blush in full bloom across her face.
"You damn boggart! Give me back my clothes, or I'll kill you!"
Waving a fist at the magical being, she glared with enough heat to melt steel, the boggart feeling a shiver run down its spine as she slogged through the shallow waters of the stream to reach the boggart.
With one last nervous laugh, it ran off, the clothes still firmly in its grasp.
All the while, Shirou stared at them, open-mouthed. On an unrelated note, his mind unconsciously recorded every last feature of Saber's body, though he was unaware of it.
Thus began a long night in the land of dreams.
With a roar of frustration that was out of place coming from a slender girl like her, she ran off into the dark woods, with her bare feet on the dirt, blonde hair bouncing with every step. The boggart hadn't snatched the wooden sword, so she grabbed that as she ran past it, giving chase to the creature with vengeance burning in her eyes. A snarl graced her face when she ran past where Shirou had been spectating everything, and her pale back quickly vanished into the darkness as she jumped around trees and through bushes to catch the clothes thief.
He regained his senses as she disappeared into the forest, desperately running after her so he didn't lose her in the dimly lit forest, with only the moonlight piercing through the canopy of trees offering any illumination for him. Then a cloud passed over it, and the forest turned pitch dark, like a candle was snuffed out in a room with no windows. Plunged into darkness, Shirou stopped in place, helpless and unsure.
Then in the blink of an eye, he was back by Saber's side, the girl once again panting, but this time from chasing the boggart instead of training. She clearly hadn't caught it yet as she was still unclothed, with Shirou turning away again once he realized her continued state of undress. Her feet were caked with dirt and scratched by the twigs and roots stretching across the ground, the bottom of her feet brown and caked with dirt, a far cry from her fair skin. Her body also sported several bruises and scratches from crashing around with abandon, earning her nicks and knocks against the bushes and tree trunks.
She appeared to be at the end of her tether as she leaned against a tree, the practice sword loosely held in her grasp as it knocked against the tree bark.
For Shirou, he just wanted to comfort the girl, since it looked like she was on the verge of crying from the frustration of losing the boggart, and also being left naked in the night. Though her running heated her up, the sweat and water from bathing earlier quickly stole away her heat, making hypothermia a real danger in the cold night as she started to sneeze, the tips of her extremities turning pink from the temperature drop. If she kept on like this, sickness from exposure was bound to occur to her.
Shirou being the person he was, took off his shirt and tried to drape it on her to cover her body, but it felt like she didn't even exist, passing through her body until it dropped on the ground. When Shirou tried to touch her, his hand went through her and touched the solid bark of the tree. Picking his shirt up from the ground, he found that it was also completely clean, with no dirt, leaves or insects clinging to it.
Unable to do anything at all, he could only sit down and watch as she sniffled against the bark of the tree, wrapping her arms around herself in a desperate attempt to stave off the dropping temperature.
What should I do?
She had been specifically warned to not run off before the event, since she needed to be there to greet the guests and do important things with them, but she just didn't want to. Though Sir Ector and Kay both told her that it was necessary for her to learn how to interact with others through the event, especially as a female, she still thought her time would be better spent training her skill in fighting. A king could only lead her kingdom if she was the strongest right? If she couldn't claim victory on the battlefield, then no matter how good she was with people, she still wouldn't be able to free them from the foreign invaders and protect the people from any threats that endangered them.
That said, to have ended up like this was something she hadn't expected at all. Her plan to spend a day honing her strength ended up with her naked and shivering in the night, alone and lost. Some future king she would turn out to be. Was she going to die of the cold here, far away from her family and friends? Bitterly, she wondered what Merlin would say if he saw her in this condition. She hadn't known him for long, but the magus, if he actually was one as he claimed to be, would definitely be laughing and rolling around on the ground if he saw her like this. Her cheeks grew red as she thought of his insufferable visage, that half-smirk that he always wore, along with an air of light arrogance that seemed to tease everyone around him.
Then it hit her. Hadn't Merlin said she could wield magecraft as well? Though he hadn't taught any spells, he had at the very least shown her how to turn on the switch to her energy source for casting magecraft, like learning how to stoke a fire in a forge before being taught how to craft tools. During the time she successfully did so, she had felt incredibly warm, and her body grew hotter and hotter until she was sweating buckets in the cold, sunless morning. Merlin had said it was natural, especially in her case, but she didn't really understand his meaning. Still, if it could keep her warm, she could always give it a try.
Standing up properly from the tree trunk, she did as the Magus of Flowers taught her, feeling the trigger inside of her that needed to be activated.
Shirou blinked as she stopped hugging herself, her face calming down as she closed her eyes, placing a hand on her chest and falling into a state of meditation.
Ordered by King Uther to gift his heir with a special trait in order to raise the hero that would save Britain, Merlin worked his magic, and in the end Artoria was born. Embedded in her body, woven into the fibers of her soul, the strength of a dragon resided in her heart. With a Magic Circuit far beyond even what other mages of the time had, let alone modern mages, she was a monster that rivaled even Morgan le Fay, who had inherited the Mystery that was thought to have disappeared in this transitory age.
Instead of a single Circuit, it was more accurate to say it was a massive Core.
Touching the great furnace burning in her body, she hesitated a moment. She remembered when she had first tried to access this latent power lying within her, when Merlin gave her first few lessons in magecraft and the dormant power she possessed. When she had successfully opened the gates, she felt she was lit on fire, magma pulsing through her veins, her body about to spontaneously combust. It was only with the guidance and direct assistance of her mentor's magecraft that she had managed to get it under control and shut it off, but even now the memory still stayed with her. Her hands trembled a bit as her heart palpitated, her fear of her own power still fresh in her memory. It had felt like she would explode at any moment if she made the slightest mistake, and she might very well have done so without Merlin at her side.
In the short time since then, she had improved though, and if she died to exposure later on, she would surely regret not trying this. She could try to find people or the village, but it was unlikely, with how large the forest was, and the lack of visible landmarks for her to see. In the end, she was more likely to get even more lost, perhaps vanishing into the forest permanently. And there was no telling if there were more malevolent creatures lurking within than the relatively harmless prank that the boggart had pulled, though it was still an extreme inconvenience.
Her resolve solidified, her mental hands reaching out to come into contact with the core. Naturally, for a furnace that large, an ignition spark of equal measure was required. Luckily, she had been well-rested and fed before coming to the forest, and even after a day of hard training, she still had enough energy to kickstart the process. Thrusting the metaphorical key into the ignition, she swung the energy she had like a sword onto the hard shell preventing the furnace from activating, cracking it and breaking the bonds that restrained her Magic Core.
"Gu-GAAHH!"
Her scream echoed as Shirou bolted upright, standing and clenching his fist as he stared at her writhing form on the ground, having collapsed the moment the energy started coursing through her body. Desperately he reached out to her, his fingers stretching towards her as he prayed that he could touch her, but first his fingernails, then his fingers, and finally his whole hand passed through, reinforcing the fact that he was merely an observer.
Bright lights strobed in her eyes, the blood rushing to her brain as she felt somehow light, her mind aware that her body was in pain and burning up, her mouth releasing shrill screams as she rolled and thrashed on the ground, yet it felt distant as the pain became so bad that her brain disconnected from her flesh, easing the sensations overrunning her nerves and the flames burning her from the inside out. A prismatic orb the color of rainbows flashing omnidirectionally, spreading golden light circulated through the every vein and fiber of her body.
"Will you fail just like that?"
A familiar voice whispered in her ear, even though by all rights she should be too incapacitated by the pain to notice anything else. The slight taunting tone, teasing and annoying at the same time, was hard to mistake though. It was definitely him.
"A king faces trials throughout their life, and one must overcome them, as befits a king."
Once more, the voice echoed in her hazy mind, the pain shutting down parts of her body as the void beckoned her mind, the desire to escape the torment egging her on to slip into unconsciousness, to give up the ghost and rest.
For Shirou, he saw her struggling body start to weaken as her limbs moved more sluggishly, her arms no longer flailing like she was drowning. More worryingly though, was the fact that her entire body was glowing, and it was growing more intense with every second. In fact, he could also feel a slight temperature difference, a faint warmth touching his cheeks, unlike the faint coolness from before. Kneeling there, staring at her glowing body, he could only grit his teeth and watch.
Then flickers of orange light caught his attention. In front of his eyes, the leaves and twigs lying near her body burst into flame. The dirt beneath her dried out, cracking and losing it's deep brown color like clay above a fire.
I just...can't hold on.
Her glazed eyes slowly slid shut, the eyelids concealing her green eyes as she glowed brighter and brighter, an illumination that rivaled the moon in the sky as the forest bathed in golden light.