"NGH—GAHA!"
Off in the distance, Matou Kariya spewed even more blood as he slunk back against the centre veranda's railings. Having sequestered his way to safety, out of the Magus Killer's way at that, he was allowed a view of the moonlit sky in his final hour.
Too bad, he couldn't enjoy it much in his state. Especially when he was also losing vision in his only working eye.
"Sorry… Berserker… …" he muttered to only himself. "But… it seems… this is the end… for me… NGH!"
Pain seared through him as the last of his magical energy was drained in the Knight of the Lake's last attempt to break through his foe. But even as Kariya couldn't see the knight, he felt it all.
The man's frustrations, his despair. His love and guilt. His dashed hopes and his earnest desire. All of it was conveyed through their mental link as the madman tried his best to fulfil his last wishes.
That of saving the girl who couldn't save herself and owing up to the mistakes he should've been punished for.
It was a beautiful dream. A chivalrous knightly fancy spoke of in fables. One that Kariya wished he could've lent a hand to had he not been in such dire straits himself. It was funny how he'd come to admire such bravado from a knight in fairy tales at his age, but it was only due to having been saved by said fairytale knight that he could think such things as acting chivalrous himself.
Or, at least, that was what he'd hoped to accomplish, coming here as weak as he was…
Now that everything was falling to pieces, even himself both literally and figuratively, the only thing he could do was offer the mad Servant a pat on the back. Though it's probably not what the man would've wanted from him after all the shit he put Lancelot through due to Zouken.
"It's fine… Master…"
"Eh?" Kariya flinched in his silence as he heard the words. It was from a voice he'd not heard before, but a quick glance at the back of his hand, on where the former Command Seals were etched, he understood. "Ah… Have you… finally done… what did you want?"
"Yes…" A simple, honest answer. One that came from a tired man rather than a mad dog. "I thank you… for the opportunity, you have given me…"
"Is that really… what do you think?" Kariya doubted it.
He'd failed on all accounts to grant Berserker his wish. Selfishly taking his own victory, he pretty much wasted himself away before Berserker had his own chance at retribution. Still, he smiled wryly at his own incompetence, subconsciously knowing the knight would likely do the same if he could.
"Is this really… the outcome that you wanted?"
The answer was automatic. Ironic to think that the only thing he and his Servant shared was a tragic end filled with many regrets. Regardless, Matou Kariya accepted his Servant's answer with a sigh.
The answer was quiet and regretful… but it was also one Kariya hoped he could believe was honest to the very end.
***
"… Yes…" Lancelot muttered into her ear with a dry smile. His body weighed heavily against her shoulder. "This… is how things should be…"
Two knights stood against one another. One had dropped his sword to the floor with a loud clang. Arondight faded into the knight as if sinking into the pool of water beneath, reclaimed by the Lady of the Lake who watched as her blessed child fell to his knees.
Similarly falling to her own knees, the second knight remained stoically still. Excalibur's light shone brightly, as if burning through the second hole it perforated through the black knight's armour. Stained red, it evaporated the blood as its light was reflected off of its owner's jaded eyes.
Saber remained quiet. She didn't flinch. She didn't shout. She didn't scream.
But her tears, masquerading as one of the many droplets sprayed by Lancelot's torrential attacks, was clear for the world to see. That included the friend who slipped off of her shoulder to fall limply to the floor.
"Ah…" A calm voice exhaled as he breathed his last. "I've failed you… once more… my liege…"
"Sir… Lancelot—?" she couldn't help but mutter as her gaze drifted over his still form. The still visage of her composure was cracking at the seams despite all attempts to restrain her emotions from consuming her.
"I… failed… as a knight…" he continued. A nostalgic smile plastered his face as his gaze aimlessly wandered to the wet floor. "Though… I continued to admire you… continued to be loyal… I failed… to protect you… from yourself…"
"What… are you saying?" her voice whispered.
"Britain… needed a King… Many of us… thought this true… And the one we received… couldn't have ever… ever been… more perfect…" The pride in his wandering gaze, a spark breaking through the jaded rage of madness, pierced her heart. "But… what we didn't see… was how much… you'd given yourself… to the curse… of the crown…"
'Curse? What is he saying?' Saber wanted to decry it. To denounce that she'd fallen for such. That he was just speaking madness due to the curse of insanity that befell his summoning.
But he persisted, words grating against her stone-clad heart.
"Fools… were we… To ignore the pain… and burden… you'd taken up… for our sakes… Fools were we… to not see… the weight… on your small… small shoulders… To lie… and feign ignorance… to your own personal… wants… all for our sake… Always… fighting… Always… composed… for us and Britain… but not… yourself…"
"What are you saying?!" she finally demanded, voice cracking. "Do you mean to state that Britain's prosperity was not my own wish?! Do you mean… to deny it?! That what I did for my people… was not my deepest desire?!"
"My fool… of a King…" the man chuckled to himself wryly, painfully, as he sighed his last. "If your wish for the Grail… for… your people… was born from thine heart… why don't thy smile… not shine… as brightly… as it… used… to…?"
His words rang her hollow. His smile at death's door, incomprehensible.
She didn't understand why he'd smile so. She couldn't.
Not even when she saw her face's reflection on the puddle of water.
Tears… and the anguish of a woman who was on the verge of breaking down. Quickly, she'd restored the façade, but Lancelot, despite his vision blearing, saw it all too clearly. His words had marred her, causing her to waver as she listened. They didn't fully dissuade her, but he'd affected her so…
More than swinging his sword, reminding her of the cheerful past they shared brought more pain than the shallow wounds he'd dealt.
"King… Arthur," the man whispered as his body started to slowly fade from existence. "No matter… what anyone says… No matter… what you… say… Then… and forevermore… thou who selflessly took… upon the mantle of King… Thou, who took upon… a role… grander than any…"
"Don't…" she mumbled back in protest.
"Thou," he continued as his torso faded into ash and light. "Who swore… an oath… to uphold all… that is just… and righteous… The one… who went so far… as to pardon… myself… he who committed the sin… of forbidden love…"
"Please… don't—!"
"Thou… who continues… to take the sins… of Camlann… on her small… small shoulders…" He smiled as he vanished from the world. "You… were the greatest… among all kings… All who served you… truly believed that…"
The pool of water beneath him rippled. It was as though tears of the Lady of the Lake herself disturbed the still water's surface. But that was wrong.
SPLASH
What caused the ripple instead was the King of Knights who'd fallen to her knees. Tears streamed down, unable to hold it back. For to hear his words, his honest praise, was but a nail into her guilty heart.
"That's wrong!" she screamed out to no one. "It's… all wrong! You should've hated me! You should've reviled me… for my failure!"
She was tired. The exhaustion and stress had begun to pile up. Having lost a friend due to her own incompetence. Then to have to kill one from her past, one who'd likely fallen to madness due to his blind faith in her failure as a ruler.
'Why would you praise me, old friend?' she contemplated it but couldn't think straight with the emotional turmoil she was feeling. 'What would make you say such… when it was my… mishandling of it all… that you'd all… paid the price for…?!'
She was hurt. She was distressed. She was confused. She was all of that and more.
But did it mean she would stop now? No. Of course not.
She'd donned the mask of a perfect king once more. Always composed, always just. Pushing back all that she'd mulled over, she decided on a single thought alone.
'This… is the best example of how I failed…' She denied Lancelot's claims. 'This… is but one of the many knights I failed.'
Sir Lancelot was wrong. No one saw her as the perfect king. Her nation fell because of her. There was no getting around that.
'What right do I have to continue calling myself King?' None, she believed. Not when her friends and subjects suffered because of her mistakes.
She lied to her nation, to her friends about her identity. All for the sake of appearances, she was truly a perfect King. But it was all a lie. An act. And at the destruction of her stage, the inevitable fall of Britain soon followed. Her reluctance to address her relationship with Mordred beget weakness. That weakness to address Lancelot and Guinevere's relationship properly brought with it Mordred's and half the Round's betrayal. That betrayal tore Britain in two and culminated with Camlann where no true victory was beheld.
'What victory was there… in spilling the blood of my countryman?' The King asked the girl within. The girl had no answer except for one. 'There was no victory… for there was no rightful King.'
Such was her belief in her rule. Or lack thereof.
'I'm sorry I disappointed you again, old friend. Curse me in hell… but I can't stop now.'
The King lived and ruled for the sake of her people and her people alone. Even if it led to her demise by their hand, nothing could mean more to kingship than laying down one's life for the sake of her loved ones. There was no other way around it. Iskandar, Gilgamesh, and Avenger were tyrants who couldn't understand her for they selfishly ruled and reigned overall.
Not one of them understood her views in life. Not one of them knew that the Heroic Spirit called King Arthur could never accept being called a hero… Not when all she had to her name was the failure to save anyone.
'I will accomplish my wish!' To that end, she got up and walked towards the exit. All the while, her thoughts flitted to her final foe. The one stole away Irisviel for the sake of playing games with her Master.
Lelouch Lamperouge. Her heir apparent to the throne of Britain as well as her distant progeny. During the banquet, the boy once said he could see where Arturia was coming from. Of why she would desire such a wish. But he disagreed with her. Arturia Pendragon didn't understand him. Like her own apparent progeny, she never tried to properly do so after realizing he could become a potentially dangerous foe to her.
It was like Mordred all over again.
However, the King was resolved to not stop. If Excalibur's blade was to be stained by yet another of her bloodline, so be it. Mordred or Lelouch, she didn't care. The King lived only for the sake of her people. No one else can stand in the way of that.
As she left through the emergency staircase, she passed by a catwalk that had one person sitting by its railings, staring into the moonlit night sky.
No. It would be more apt to say he'd died staring at the moon up above in the night sky.
Saber spared a gaze for the deceased Matou Kariya, a man who was supposed to be her enemy yet actually had no stakes facing off against her. The one who'd proclaimed he'd already lost the need to seek the Grail yet allowed his Servant to face her… at the cost of his life.
Why he'd done so, she couldn't piece together fully. Even if he was bound by contract to Lancelot, he could've so easily commanded Berserker away, to stop and nullify their contract so that he wouldn't be drained away by the knight's last stand.
And yet, here he was. Dead and gone, yet smiling and satisfied at his own passing. Just like Lancelot, so was Matou Kariya. Content with their end… as though continuing to live their lives as hell in and of itself.
Saber didn't understand, but she respected their resilience to face death. That was the only thing her façade as the perfect king would allow her foes as she trudged on to face the last enemy in this war.