The night was as dark as ink, soaking the forest on the outskirts of Fuyuki City. Kanjuro's figure appeared like a phantom, silently emerging in the dense woods surrounding the Einzbern Castle. Moonlight filtered through the interlaced branches, casting mottled and cold spots of light.
A lithe figure separated from the tree shadows; it was Maiya Hisau. She was still wearing her combat suit for ease of movement, but her usually cold eyes melted into a near-pious heat and longing the moment she saw Kanjuro.
"Master," she called out softly, her voice carrying a hint of imperceptible trembling. Without redundant words, she stepped forward quickly, reached out her arms, and tightly hugged Kanjuro, burying her face in his chest, greedily breathing in the scent that made her feel both safe and mad. "I missed you so much."
Kanjuro looked down at this woman who was absolutely loyal to him, a near-genuine tenderness appearing on his face, starkly different from his usual cruel mockery. He reached out and gently stroked Maiya's short hair.
"I know," his voice was low and magnetic.
His connection with Maiya dated back even further. Back then, Maiya was not Emiya Kiritsugu's tool, but just a young girl struggling in the flames of war, nearly suffering humiliation. In her most desperate moment, it was Kanjuro who descended like a god (or perhaps a demon), turning those abusers into ashes with overwhelming power. He not only gave her a second life but also gave her strength and a reason for being. From that moment on, Kanjuro became the only light in Maiya's world; whether this light was warm or cold, a salvation or a deeper fall, she followed it without hesitation.
Under the moonlight, a hidden clearing deep in the forest became the site of their brief tenderness. There were no excessive words, only hot breaths and intertwined bodies. Maiya offered everything of herself—body, heart, and soul—without reservation to her only master. And Kanjuro, at this moment, also seemed to shed part of his disguise, enjoying this dependence and loyalty under absolute control.
After the passion subsided, Maiya quickly tidied her clothes, returning to her cold and capable appearance, though her gaze toward Kanjuro remained submissive.
"Master, please follow me. Saber's cultivation place is just ahead."
Under Maiya's guidance, Kanjuro passed through layers of barriers and hidden paths, finally arriving at an extremely secret place deep in the forest. It was a cave entrance under a cliff, shrouded in dense magical mist, with faint blue light flickering inside. Ancient runes were carved above the cave, emitting a sense of tranquility and purification.
"This place is called the 'Chamber of Silence' by the Einzbern family," Maiya explained in a low voice. "It is said to maximize communication with the leyliness and suppress all restless magical energy and negative emotions. It's a secret place used by the family for deep meditation or to combat internal erosion. Artoria is inside, using the power of the leyliness to resist the Black Magic on the avalon."
Kanjuro stood at the cave entrance, feeling the aura of Artoria's tenacious will merging with the leylines magic, as well as the process of his own dark power—like a maggot in the bone—being constantly struck and attempted to be stripped away.
The corners of his mouth curled up slightly, his eyes flashing with a light that combined excitement and cruelty.
"Chamber of Silence? Good name," he chuckled. "It's perfect for... watching the king of knights''silent' performance as she struggles in despair."
He did not break in immediately, but stood like a patient audience member behind the curtain of the stage, waiting for the protagonist's most brilliant performance.
Inside the cave, Artoria was engaged in a life-and-death struggle with her inner demons; outside the cave, the culprit who brought the inner demons was joyfully anticipating the climax of this tragedy he had orchestrated.
Kanjuro signaled Maiya to leave first. Like a leopard merging into the shadows, Maiya silently retreated into the forest and disappeared. Kanjuro, alone, stepped into the cave known as the "Chamber of Silence."
The scene inside the cave was completely different from the forest outside. The air was filled with a cold fragrance like orchids in a lonely valley, and beneath his feet was a gurgling clear spring. The sound of water was faint, instead highlighting an almost absolute silence in this place, as if even time had become viscous and slow. The surrounding stone walls were smooth, emitting a faint ghostly blue glow, which was the manifestation of condensed leylines magic, indeed possessing the effect of soothing restlessness and suppressing negative emotions.
In the center of this quiet space, Artoria sat cross-legged with her eyes closed, but her body was trembling slightly, and fine beads of cold sweat broke out on her forehead. She was clearly caught in a very deep state of mental exhaustion.
Kanjuro walked soundlessly to her, like a ghost without a physical form. Immersed in her own nightmare, Artoria was completely unaware of the danger close at hand.
"Why... why did you betray me?" she murmured in pain, her voice carrying a broken tremor. "Was I not good enough to you? Mordred... my... child..."
"And you, Lancelot, my most trusted knight... Was the oath of the Round Table just an illusion after all?"
Her voice grew lower, filled with self-doubt and bone-deep fatigue: "Or was I wrong from the very beginning? If pulling out the sword in the stone was a mistake... if my kings way was destined to bring division and tragedy... then I would rather... rather I had never been King Arthur! I'm just... just an ordinary village girl, Lyne..."
That last original name, which she had almost forgotten, escaped from her lips with endless bitterness and regret.
Kanjuro listened quietly, his eyes flashing with a light of inquiry and playfulness. He slowly reached out his hand, his slender fingers lightly pressing against Artoria's smooth forehead. His fingertips were slightly cool, and a trace of an imperceptible authority that transcended current space-time dimensions—Time-Space Authority—was quietly activated.
He did not forcibly read her thoughts, but like a bystander, he followed the ripples of pain in her mental world and peered into the long-buried memory fragments belonging to "Artoria" rather than "King Arthur."
Just as Kanjuro's fingertips touched Artoria's forehead and the Time-Space Authority quietly flowed, a dark red figure condensed as if from nothingness, silently appearing by his side. Jeanne d'Arc had arrived. Her icy blue eyes first swept over Artoria, who was trapped in a painful nightmare, and then fell on Kanjuro's side profile, which carried a strange focus.
Kanjuro didn't look back, as if he had already known she was coming. He maintained his probing posture, but the corners of his mouth hooked into an arc, and he whispered to Jeanne d'Arc, his voice particularly clear in the silent cave:
"Do you want to see?"
Without waiting for Jeanne d'Arc's answer, he waved his other hand lightly, and an invisible wave of magic power spread out. Suddenly, in the void before them, ripples appeared like a stone thrown into water, and blurred images carrying a heavy historical aura began to emerge—these were the core fragments he had captured from the depths of Artoria's memory.
At the same time, his low voice sounded like a narration, revealing the story behind the images to Jeanne d'Arc:
"Look, Jeanne d'Arc. This noble king of knights, before becoming king... her original dream was neither to hold power nor to conquer territory."
In the images, a young girl appeared whose temperament was vastly different from her current self. She had a face similar to Artoria's, but with more of the simplicity and innocence of the countryside. She wore coarse cloth clothes, ran through the fields, helped the villagers with their work, and her eyes were clear, filled with contentment for an ordinary life. She was Lyne, a girl with royal blood but raised in an ordinary village, dreaming of living out her days in peace.
"She was once just a village girl with a special bloodline who dreamed of peace. Until that Magician—Merlin—arrived, took her away from the fields, told her of the fate she carried, and pushed her onto that thorny road of kingship."
The scene changed. Under the influence of magic, the girl's appearance and temperament gradually changed. She was forced to hide her gender, learn the etiquette and swordsmanship of a king, and her eyes gradually lost the brilliance belonging to "Lyne," replaced by the responsibility and weight of "Artoria."
"The moment she pulled out the Sword of Selection, she died. What survived was only the symbol named 'King Arthur,' a tool that existed for the sake of saving Britain."
In the void, the famous scene appeared: a battlefield filled with gunpowder smoke, the Sword of Selection stuck in a giant rock was gripped by a firm yet slightly trembling hand, slowly pulled out, radiating ten thousand beams of light, but also symbolizing a final farewell to everything in the past.
Kanjuro withdrew his hand from Artoria's forehead, allowing those memory images to slowly dissipate in the air. He looked at Jeanne d'Arc beside him, his gaze deep, as if looking at an interesting comparison through her.
"What a similar script, isn't it? Jeanne d'Arc." His voice carried a soul-bewitching tone. "A village girl chosen by God (or fate), carrying the heavy responsibility of saving her country, only to be betrayed and abandoned by everything she protected in the end... You were slandered as a Witch and sent to the stake; she, though enjoying the title of king, was deserted by everyone, her kingdom fell apart, and she died in despair."
"You were both held high and then shattered. The difference is that you chose to return in the form of an 'Avenger,' pouring your wrath upon the world. While she..." Kanjuro's gaze fell back on Artoria, who was curled up in even more pain as her memories were touched, "still stubbornly clings to that already shattered ideal of the kings way, trying to use the Holy Grail to negate her entire life."
"Tell me, Jeanne d'Arc," Kanjuro's voice sounded like a demon's whisper in Jeanne d'Arc's ear, "looking at this 'Holy Maiden' whose fate is so similar to yours, do you feel that your fire of revenge burns even more rightfully? Or... will you feel a trace of ridiculous pity for her as a fellow'sacrifice'?"
Inside the cave, the ghostly light of the leyliness was still peaceful, but it could not dispel the heavy and complex aura of destiny permeating between the three "non-human" beings. Artoria struggled with her past in a nightmare, Jeanne d'Arc gazed into this "mirror," and Kanjuro joyfully appreciated the vortex of humanity he had personally stirred.
Jeanne d'Arc's cold words echoed in the silent cave, carrying a clarity and sharpness born of having been burned. She looked at the girl in the images who eventually pulled out the sword in the stone, whose eyes lost their light from then on, and then looked at the king of knights in reality, curled up in pain due to her inner demons. There was no pity in her icy blue eyes, only a near-cruel sobriety.
"Everyone's fate is different," she spoke flatly, as if stating a truth unrelated to herself. "Her end was being betrayed by the knight she trusted most and her own blood-related offspring, being misunderstood and questioned by her country and her people.. 0 At least... they never slandered her as a Witch, never stripped her of her status and glory as a king—at least in the eyes of the world, she is still that legendary King Arthur. Her merits and faults are for later generations to judge, but the name of 'King' was never truly defiled."
The corners of her mouth pulled into a self-mocking and cold arc, the deepest irony of her own fate: "And me? From a devout village girl, I was placed on the pedestal of 'Holy Maiden,' leading armies to victory, only to be abandoned by the king I swore loyalty to, judged by the church I saved, and cheered on by the people I protected as I was sent to the stake... What they burned was not the Holy Maiden Jeanne d'Arc, but the 'Witch' they personally defined."
Her gaze turned sharply to Kanjuro, with an unmistakable decisiveness: "So, do not compare me to her. We may both be pawns manipulated by fate, but the way we were abandoned is completely different."
However, her tone shifted slightly, and when her gaze fell back on Artoria, her voice carried a rare, extremely complex, almost sigh-like quality: "But... I do admire her. Admire her... stupidity, or rather, her purity."
"Clearly she did nothing wrong. She simply fulfilled her responsibilities as a 'king' too perfectly, forgetting the private feelings of a 'human,' which ultimately led to the scattering of people's hearts. Yet in the end, she does not hate the betrayers, does not question the unfairness of fate, but blames all the faults on herself, believing she is 'unworthy of being king'." Jeanne d'Arc shook her head, as if looking at a precious piece of art with a fatal flaw. "This almost self-torturing persistence, this light that refuses to give up even in despair... it is truly ridiculous, tragic, and... moving."
Listening to Jeanne d'Arc's analysis, the playful smile on Kanjuro's face gradually faded, replaced by a deep expression as if touching some hidden area of his heart. He sighed softly, and this sigh was rarely free of banter and malice, instead carrying a trace of genuine, complex emotion.
"That's why," he said in a low voice, his gaze fixed on Artoria as if admiring a peerless masterpiece, "someone like her is actually the type I admire most, and also want to... destroy most."
"A person who always sticks to the light in their heart, no matter how much betrayal or despair they experience, tries to take the responsibility upon themselves and refuses to let the holiness in their heart be stained." His voice carried a strange mixture, both pure admiration and a strong desire to defile it. "This quality, in a world full of filth and betrayal, is as dazzling as the bright moon in the dark night, so much so... that one can't help but want to reach out and see if they can pull it into the mire, to let it be stained with the same color as us."
He reached out his hand, his fingertips almost touching Artoria's furrowed brow, yet stopped just a hair's breadth away, as if afraid of disturbing this brilliant internal drama.
Hearing this, a smile of understanding and cruel interest appeared on Jeanne d'Arc's face. She knew Kanjuro too well; this extreme "goodness" and "persistence" was, for him, the ultimate temptation and challenge.
"Then," Jeanne d'Arc asked with interest, the dark red karmic fire faintly dancing in her eyes, 0.5 "how do you plan to make this bright moon... fall? Will you use the crudest force to twist her will, or use a more ingenious trap to let her choose to embrace the darkness herself?"
Kanjuro withdrew his hand, his mouth once again curling into that malicious and charming arc of total control.
"Crude twisting only yields a soulless puppet, devoid of beauty," he said softly, his gaze like a precise scalpel, dissecting the most fragile part of Artoria's heart. "For a proud and resilient soul like hers, the best way to destroy her is not to apply pressure from the outside, but... to let the beliefs she holds without doubt begin to collapse from within."
"I want her to see with her own eyes how illusory the 'kings way' she sticks to is, and how ridiculous the'salvation' she trusts is. I want to make her personally cause deeper destruction when she most desires to save something. I want to use bloody reality to tell her again and again—your persistence is the root of all tragedies."
Excitement flickered in his eyes, as if he could already see that wonderful scene.
"When she completely breaks down in endless guilt and self-denial, when that shining heart of hers is filled with the sludge of despair... at that point, I won't even need to lift a finger. She will either choose to end her own life, or..." Kanjuro's smile became deep and dark, "she will take the initiative to grab the black straw I offer her, the one named 'power' or 'salvation,' and willingly... fall into the abyss with me."
"That is the ultimate fall, and the most perfect... work of art."
Inside the Silent Chamber, the ghostly light of the Leylines continued to flow quietly, reflecting three figures: one trapped in the past within a nightmare, one watching coldly with a complex trace of shared suffering, and the last, like the most patient artist, had already begun to sketch the cruel and beautiful painting in his heart titled 'The Fall of the king of knights.'
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