Sunlight hit her face, warm and golden, prying her from the abyss of unconsciousness. Shirō's eyelids fluttered open, her body aching, her mind still sluggish.
Where am I?
The world stretched out before her in rolling green, vast and endless. Hills rose and fell like waves frozen mid-motion, blanketed in emerald grass that swayed with the whispering wind. The sky above was an unbroken blue, soft clouds drifting lazily across it.
She was alone.
No ruins, no temple walls, no bloodstained battlefield.
She shifted, wincing. Her body still bore the weight of her wounds, though the pain was dull, distant. She glanced down—
The damn wedding dress was still on her. Torn, smeared with dried blood, the once-pristine white now sullied by battle. She scoffed. Great. Just great.
At least her wound was closing.
Her hands instinctively pressed over her abdomen, where the sharp, searing agony of Excalibur's self-inflicted strike had been. The gash had nearly sealed itself, though the soreness lingered.
Good. She had no intention of dying.
She exhaled, steadying herself—
Then froze.
Because there, in the distance—
A lone figure.
A girl.
Slender, small, her steps hesitant yet purposeful. She moved toward something—
A stone.
A stone with a sword embedded in it.
Shirō's breath caught.
No way.
That sword—its shape, its presence—
It was Excalibur.
Her feet moved before her mind caught up, carrying her forward, the grass cool beneath her bare soles. But before she could get closer, the girl turned—
And Shirō stopped dead in her tracks.
The girl's face.
It was her.
But not her.
Not Shirō Emiya.
Not the war-torn warrior who had fought and bled and endured.
No, this girl—
This was the other her.
The one that had emerged when everything changed. The one she saw reflected in mirrors but never truly recognized.
The King of Knights.
Shirō swallowed hard, something raw twisting inside her. Is this a dream?
The girl—no, Saber—turned back toward the sword.
She hesitated, hovering before it, her small hands trembling just above the hilt.
"Should I pick it up?"
The voice did not come from her lips, but Shirō felt it. A whisper threading through her bones, as if echoing from the depths of time itself.
"If I don't… the people will need a king."
Her fingers ghosted over the hilt, reverent, uncertain.
The weight of expectation loomed over her, heavy, suffocating.
Shirō could feel it. The burden. The silent plea of a kingdom desperate for salvation. The chains of duty tightening around a child who had never been given the chance to be anything else.
She wanted to speak.
To reach out.
To stop this.
But she couldn't.
She could only watch.
The girl took a breath.
"I'll put myself after the kingdom."
With that—
Her hands clamped around the hilt.
The world shuddered.
A pulse, deep and resonant, rolled across the land, like the very earth recognized what was about to happen.
And then—
She pulled.
The sword did not resist.
There was no struggle.
No moment of doubt.
Excalibur slid free like it had always belonged in her grasp, like it had simply been waiting for her return.
Golden light erupted from the blade.
A brilliance that swallowed the sky, the land, everything. It surged outward, a wave of pure radiance so bright it burned—
Shirō's heart pounded. She could do nothing but stare, awed, overwhelmed.
In that instant—
The girl was no longer just a girl.
She was something more.
A legend. A myth. A symbol.
"For the people..."
The light shifted, curling around her form, reshaping her.
"I'll shut down my true self—"
The warmth in her gaze vanished, her expression turning to something colder, harsher.
"And emerge as their King!"
The glow intensified, engulfing everything.
Blinding.
Consuming.
And then—
Nothing.