In Hollow Ataraxia, after a heartwarming exchange with Saber, Shirou attempts to resolve the ongoing Holy Grail War. Saber respects his choice.
"Yes. You and many others will criticize that. But I think it is noble. You will end the Holy Grail War. Whether I stop you or help you, the outcome will surely be the same."
Also, this flashback contains a line that serves as an answer and guidance to the Saber route.
"Don't look so sad. It's okay. Even if there is an end, it won't be goodbye."
"It's not goodbye?"
"Yes, we each return to the future we desire."
Her smile was like the beautiful smile she showed at the end of the Holy Grail War.
I think the combination of Emiya Shirou and Saber is an oasis for the heart, the starting point, and the pinnacle.
I JUST BINGE WATCHED THIS TEN-YEAR-OLD ANIMU SABER IS SUCH AN AWESOME FEMALE CHARACTER AND F*CK THAT ENDING; LOOK UP THE TRUE VN ENDING ON YOUTUBE CAUSE IT’S BEAUTIFUL AND PERFECTION I’M NOT CRYING UR CRYING
I shift Artoria to Shirou. I will ALWAYS shift them!! 😤❤️😤 ((I'm gonna make a fan art about them...from now on! ❤️ )) #fgo #fgoartoriapendragon #shirouxsaber #artoriapendragon #artorialancer #wipart #wip #fategrandorder #fateseries https://www.instagram.com/p/CEDGdssBJXx/?igshid=1frwpyz9ccsxo
Shirou’s body slams into the university door, nearly barreling him over as he goes through the doors easily. He doesn’t think on it. Sweat runs down his brow as he yells her name, worry taking priority over his well being.
“Sakura!” he screams.
When there is no reply, his feet beat upon the stairs, running up the length of the stairwell. His heart races, breathing coming out hard and ragged, sweat running down his brow, that ever oppressive feeling always weighing down on his body and still he pushes on. He has to. If Sakura is in danger he’ll never forgive himself.
As he clears the top of the stairs he nearly steps on the body of a young woman in uniform passed out on the floor.
“What the hell?” he chokes.
Taking a breath, he slows and leans down, touching her pulse. It is faint, her breathing coming out in a ragged gasp. It sounds as if she is having trouble taking in air. Fuck, he thinks, did Shinji really do this? Is he responsible for this horror? He needs to get this woman out before she dies. As he feels that dark presence reach him, he turns, regarding his servant in dark armor.
“Saber, take her outside, away from the field. I still need to look for Sakura.”
“We don’t have time, Shirou,” says Saber, her voice seeming cold and callous.
“What do you mean we don’t have time?!” says Shirou, his hands curling into fist. “If we don’t do anything then she’s going to die!”
“So is Sakura and any other friends you have like that young man you spoke to who goes to the temple.”
Shirou stares wide eyed. Issei, he mouths. Issei is here too and so is... Fujine! How is he going to rescue everyone when the barrier is actively draining them? Even as he says it he feels a great pressure on his own body as if he himself is being drained.
“You have to make a choice, Shirou,” says Saber coldly. “This girl, or Sakura or one of your other friends. I do not believe we will have the opportunity to rescue more than one. Hurry and decide. A servant is near and it seems they’re gathering the energy from these beings. If we do not hurry, they will all die. Your friends included.”
Shirou listens to her, his mouth dry, eyes going wide as his heart seems to stop. He has to choose? Not only can he not save everyone, but he has to choose amongst his friends too? People are going to die and he can’t stop it?! Fighting back tears, he screams at the being before him.
“That’s not fair! How can you ask me to choose one life over another? What kind of monster....”
The crack across his face stuns him. It is light for what Saber can do, but enough to bring Shirou back to his senses.
“Decide, Shirou,” she says. “Now you have a decision to make. To whom will you be a hero and who will you damn? It is unfair, but life is cruel and unkind. As a hero, this is part of the consequences of such acts you must bare. There is no choice in such matters. You can not save everyone. That is reality. Now make your choice before they are all damned. Save one or save none at all.”
His body is shaking, trembling with rage, sadness and ... helplessness. As he stares at that girl on the ground, her hair spread around her head, a sheen of sweat on her brow as her chest struggles to rise and fall, he thinks back to the fire where others were trying to help everyone around him and he was too weak to do anything. So he saved himself, vowing to help others when he could. And now... the same situation is placed before him, where people he knew and people he does not, will die because of his lack! It’s not fair! And yet, as he looks at that stone figure before him, he thinks, she is correct. He has to make a choice if he wants to save anyone.
He gives one last glance towards the woman splayed out on the floor, fighting back his tears and turns his back on her, running down the hall.
“I’m sorry,” he mouths. “I’m sorry!”
**********
Saber stares at her master’s receding form and looks down at the girl struggling to live. She frowns. Though she understands her the boy’s decision, it does not make the choice any easier. All lives are precious and yet, much as with Camlann... no, much as her entire rule, lives must be prioritized over others. That is the law of survival and nothing can usurp it.
She withdraws her blade, lifting it over the woman’s heart. She can not save her, she can only ease the her suffering. A bitter tear runs down her cheek.
“Go in peace, child,” she whispers.
The blade comes down, crunching in bone. The woman’s eyes snap open, her mouth opening wide as she glances towards Saber, a tear forming in her eye as she lifts a trembling hand towards her before that hand falls back, the girl’s head turning to the side, the being now broken.
Saber withdraws her blade, the shunkt of flesh being torn bringing her no joy. She shudders, hating herself, her body trembling in rage and sadness. How she’d wish to shove this blade through her own body, but she steels herself. She needs the grail...
Once that is achieved this misstep can be erased and these lives can be saved. Then...
“My. My,” says a voice filled with mirth before her. “How very cruel of you, Saber. Killing a helpless innocent right before you.”
She raises her head, looking towards the shrouded figure of a woman before her. Dressed in a fine cloak and dress, Saber can only see the woman’s twisted smile. She recognizes such looks, remembers it too well from a woman she once knew. Morgan La Faye. This being has the same aura as she which can mean only one thing.
“Caster!” she hisses. “This is your doing, isn’t it?!”
The woman shakes her head, still grinning.
“No, but I will take advantage of this situation and divert a certain amount of the energy towards myself. And in the meantime...”
The woman glides towards her, hand caressing her cheek.
“I’ll watch how you perform, my dear dark knight.”
Saber thrust her sword instinctively forward, the feel of the woman’s fingers sickening to her.
“Rot in hell, bitch,” she snarls.
The woman simply chuckles, raising her head in laughter, even as her body disappears in ash.
“My, what a cruel, cruel woman you are. It will be.. Enjoyable to watch you struggle... Saber.”
Even as the figure disappears, figures rise from the floor before her. Twisted beings of bone and sinew, with no face but made of claws and teeth to rend and rip flesh.
Saber grips her blade tightly, steeling herself. This is what she is made to do, why she was born, to engage in battle. To purge the earth of the darkness that consumes it. This is her truth. Her pride as a knight. And now duty calls upon her once more, so she answers that call with a scream of righteous fury, rushing towards her slobbering enemy as she does so. It is why she is here.
*******
Shirou runs, blocking the tears that begin to run down his eyes. He doesn’t want to hear it anymore. Saber’s voice, that girl’s gasp, or anything... Damn this stupid war and everything involved with it! Why is this all happening again when he can’t do anything about it? Why, after all these years, is he still no better than the boy of ten walking through a field of corpses? It’s just... not fair!
As he runs, he has to slide to a stop, nearly toppling over as he almost passes the class he knows Sakura attends. He looks inside the classroom, his face paling at the sight. Bodies lie strewn over the floor or toppled over in their seats or over desk as if some contagion had hit. It makes his heart race, his fist shaking as he searches the bodies for one in particular. After a small moment of searching he finds her. Prone on the floor, splayed like the girl out front, having fallen from her seat when whatever happened... happened. But not just her. Other students he knows are also fallen over, seeming to struggle to move, including a certain figure at the back, still seated, his neck arched back as he breathes raggedly, glasses askew on his face.
“Issei...” Shirou whispers, blinking out the tears from his eyes. He clenches his fist, gritting his teeth, the tears flooding his eyes. He wants to do something for him as well, but Saber says he only has time to try and chance one rescue. Not several.
Damn it, damn it all! Does he really have to choose between his friends like this? There has to be some other way to do this! Some way to save everyone! Isn’t there....?
But even as he is thinking this, he is leaning down, placing fingers against Sakura’s neck to find her pulse. Wether he can do anything at this point for everyone or not, he must get Sakura away from this place, if nothing else.
She gasp slowly. Her breathing is hard and ragged, her heart rate slow, but steady. She’s still alive, like the others, but just barely. Damn it!
He takes her arm, swinging it over his shoulder, putting her weight atop his body. It is surprisingly heavy and he groans with the strain.
“Geez, Sakura,” he whispers. “You need to lose some weight.”
“Sen..pai...” she whispers, before the moans become pained things once more. He grits his teeth, placing his hands against her thighs to lift her up properly, arms placed over his neck, she instinctively grabbing him more tightly.
“That’s good, Sakura,” he whispers slowly. “Just.. . hold on tight. I’m getting you out of here. You’re going to be safe!”
He feels something wet against the back of his neck as Sakura moves her face and he hopes it’s just tears and not something worse. At this point, he can’t check. Saber is right, he needs to get her out of here before her condition worsens.
He gives one last glance to the back of the classroom, towards Issei, who mumbles incoherently. He grits his teeth, eyes squeezing shut to block away tears and turns away sharply, exiting the classroom.
“Alright, Saber,” he says. “I’ve got Sakura! Let’s...”
His eyes widen as a creature rises from the floor, skeletal in nature, the thing seeming to grow right before him, mouth gaping wide as fangs drool with saliva, leaning towards him, its shadow looming over him. Shirou begins to shake, still holding Sakura as he stares at the ever growing creature, his heart racing through his chest.
“Wh-what the hell is this thing?!”
The creature lets out a loud bellow, the sound echoing through the floor as windows shatter. Shirou stares, frozen in place as the thing leans back, its maw splitting open to engulf him whole and he can only wait, wait for the inevitable as the creature lunges towards him. Sakura, he thinks, I’m sorry!
As teeth are about to sink into his flesh, bone suddenly shatters as a dark blade flashes before him, its eerie red glow drawing his eyes. He looks towards his servant, that dark woman whose blade cuts down the massive beast in a single strike, slowly straightening her body as she glances towards him and Shirou feels his heart skip a beat. Never has he been so glad to see her.
“We have to go,” she says.
“Right,” he says, when both she and he turn, their attention drawn by a loud scream from the room at the end of the hall as a figure falls, stumbling in fear from the door way, kicking wildly as he looks towards the both of them with wide terrified eyes.
Shirou’s hands tighten around Sakura’s legs, his eyes narrowing as he glares at the sloppy mess of his former friend. The being responsible for this atrocity who has put all their lives on the line.
“Shinji, you bastard! Get out here now!”
Shirou stares, hearing as his servant readies her blade.
“Your orders, master?” she says.
“Just wait,” he says, quietly. “If we can’t reason with him, then...”
Thoughts of the young man with his smug grin and how he’d chat with Shirou, always being there by school to strike conversation run through his head. But then so do thoughts of Issei, who lies barely breathing in the classroom behind him, and Sakura, whose shallow breathing reveals Shinji’s malcontent to Shirou. How their very lives are at risk even as he speaks, potentially snuffed by the cowering individual at the end of the hall. His choice made, Shirou speaks his mind.
“If he won’t drop the barrier,” says Shirou, “then do what you have to so we can end this.”
chapter 12 of alter and shirou’s continuing origin. now we begin to see where shirou’s feelings for kiritsugu begin to change.
Their blades crash against each other, blurs sparking, burning at his eyes as they hit. Archer stares at his opponent from between the whirl of swords, glaring at him as there is one final crash that comes down upon his blade, the metal cracking. Shit, he thinks, gritting his teeth as he pushes the samurai away. My blade isn’t going to hold for much longer.
He holds the weapon before him, his eyes narrowing as he glares at the imperfections in this sword. He still needs to practice projecting it, but there is no time, he thinks, taking that stance that woman had taught him so long ago, hands gripping the hilt white knuckled. The samurai glares back, blade turned towards him, staring back as he tenses.
“So many of you interfering with my battles. You have no shame or honor,” says the samurai. “So now that we’re on a level playing field, consider it a final gift from me that I will slay you with this technique.”
Archer’s eyes widen for a moment, his heart speeding up momentarily before he forces it to slow down. It does not matter if that being’s aura grows more tense, or the weight of it becomes more foreboding. All that matters is what is before him. The sword she gave him and the promise he made. Nothing may break that.
“I am the bone of your sword,” he whispers, shutting his eyes as he feels more energy flowing through the blade, reinforcing the metal frame that has begun to crack. “Steel is my body and fire is my blood. These hands, which nothing will hold, unknown to life and known too well to death and failure call upon thee, Excalibur Morgan! Heed my call and be one with me!”
“Blade that cuts swallow in flight,” the samurai yells, but even as the samurai calls out, just barely tensing as he leaps forward, Archer has lept as well, sword at his side, moving in an arc towards the samurai even as that blade cuts flesh and bone, piercing his side and stripping skin away. It is for naught. Too late. Too slow.
He feels flesh resist excalibur then slowly and suddenly, give way. In that moment where time slows, flesh and bone is ripped asunder by the twisted blade. The samurai stumbles forward, grunting, blood spilling on the hard earth.
“Well played...” he says. “I’d treated you as a nuisance, but you were a viper in the wing, weren’t you?”
“I am more than you thought,” says Archer, letting the sword he holds fall away. “And less. I am only the shadow of my king, Altria Pendragon.”
“A mere shadow...” says the samurai, his image already fading as his soul gives out, releasing the energy back towards the grail. “How self deprecating....”
“Perhaps,” says the Archer, holding his side, the blood flowing over his fingers. “But it is what I am.”
He grimaces, watching the final traces of that energy fade and shakes his head. While he needs to return to Rin... and soon, if he wishes to stop that calamity, there is one more thing he need do before his return. He walks slowly, blood pooling from each wound, cursing his weakness. If he were more than a shadow, he would be able to do this quickly and be at Rin’s side before an hour. But in his condition, he wonders if that is at all possible. Such weakness galls at him more than he’d admit. Such is the condition of a mere shadow.
************
Though the youth weighs far more than her sword, she feels not his weight as she rushes toward the Emiya residence and lays him on a cot. His body is heating up against her skin, his breathing growing more ragged, and though she tries to make him comfortable, Shirou groans in his sleep, eyes twisting and brow furrowing as he groans, his voice murmuring with pain and anguish.
“No...” he whispers. “No... please... stop.... don’t!”
His body is heavy with sweat, giving him a glistening sheen and Saber can do not but watch over him, laying a wet rag on his brow to cool him a little as she sits next to him, waiting for him to break from the nightmare he has fallen into. A nightmare of her doing. She knows of the bonds that master and servant share with one another and her memories and experiences have become so twisted that Shirou has been drawn into them as well. Into her hell that experienced during those ten years.
“Shirou...” she says, trying to shake him awake, “wake up! It’s just a dream! Shirou!”
But despite her insistence, pushing at his body, the young man remains asleep. Moaning and crying, begging for mercy. Something more has him drawn in, holding him in place so he can not wake as like a fever. She bites her knuckles. What can she do? She is a warrior, not a healer. This is beyond her skills.
She’d like to call his guardian or that meek purple haired woman. Either might have more idea of what to do with an ailed one than she. Has this happened to him before? If she had knowledge... she laughs bitterly. The only thing that would happen with the duo is more pointless worrying where none have the answers. No doubt what happens with Shirou is not of natural afflictions, so what can she do that another can not?
“Shirou...” she whispers, voice quivering. “What can I do?”
She hears the door slide open with a bang, feeling the presence of another servant drawing near. She draws forth excalibur morgan, taking hold of it as she stands to place herself between whatever assailant comes and Shirou. She wonders if perhaps it is her master’s weakness that has drawn one here, but then, why does the energy feel so... weak? As she hears the drip of blood on the floor, she glances towards the figure that approaches and lowers her sword, recognizing him.
She sighs, her eyes narrowing. “Shirou... why are you here?”
The red archer narrows his eyes and grimaces.
“You should know why,” he says. “To wake him from the nightmare that consumes him.”
She looks towards Shirou’s aged self, considering her options, but seeing her options limited as they are, she nods. If there is something he can do that she can not then he is more than free to try. If it’ll wake him from the horrors he is experiencing, then she’ll accept whatever aide is given.
“Do it.”
“By your leave, my king,” he says as he passes her. She stares wide eyed at the man as he kneels next to the youth and wonders, exactly what transpired to cause such a change in him? What made him this being before her? Or is it what transpires right before her?
She clenches her fist, looking away from the pair towards the outside world, the darkened skies above, thinking on that chalice which spilled malevolent contents that enveloped her, consumed her entire being and yet, she thinks, she needs to attain that horrid device. For only through it can she avoid not only her wretched fate which cursed her people, but Shirou’s as well. Her hands clench into fist, shaking with anger at her bitter weakness. She must attain the grail and undo all this madness. For everyone’s sake.
*********
He steps forward in a dark auditorium, the building lit only by the golden man with portals for his blades facing a woman in blue armor who Shirou recognizes, but looks so different from what she does now.
“Saber?” he whispers in confusion. Why does she look so different? What is this place? It doesn’t look like it’s from the past.
“Saber,” a hard voice calls from the catwalk above and Shirou looks towards it, his eyes widening as he sees the shadow of the man he’s always revered walking along that metal bridge, raising his fist in the air.
“By my final command, I command you to destroy the grail!”
“Master?!” he hears Saber’s voice sound, broken and betrayed, screaming as she’s forced to turn towards the center of the stage where on a raised dais is a cup that glows most splendidly. With how brilliant it is, Shirou is surprised he missed it. That is the grail that Saber wishes to attain, he thinks? The device which will let her have her wish? But then... why is his father... making her destroy it?
He sees Saber’s sword swing down with the full force of the brilliant sword in her grasp, the cup split in half, splashing on Saber’s face, seeming to burn as she screams horribly. But as he watches, as he hears her scream, his vision distorts and it is he who is screaming, he who is feeling the liquid of the grail wash over him, covering his skin in its filth, burning... always burning, like it’s on fire. Even as he struggles, he is watching his father... his father with an impassive face gaze down at him, before simply turning away and walking off... in burning flames? But... this place... it wasn’t burning before then....
Shirou raises his hand, trembling, trying to cry out for this man he’s known for so long even as more of that liquid filth begins to pour into his mouth. More of it begins to push down his throat, scalding and hot, choking him. The pain he feels is unimaginable. He is screaming even though no sound will come out, trying to pull away even though his arms are bound by fingers that melt his flesh. And through it all, he watches as the stadium lights aflame, debris falling upon his being, burying him under its weight. If only... if only it would kill him and stop this horrid pain he feels. He can’t... why can’t... why can’t he breathe? Why?...
He shuts his eyes, the tears scalding at his eyes, feeling thick with blood. His father... his father caused all of this. Why?
*********
Archer looks down at his own prone body from so many years prior, the sweat beading down the young man’s forehead and covering his body, the body he once had back when he had hope and belief, back before all of that was crushed at this very moment. He sighs in resignation. What is done can not be undone, but what may be can yet be changed or.. So he hopes.
He glances once towards Saber, her dark form tensed, fingers curled and clenched tightly into fist. He wonders, does she still long for the grail? That abomination that hurt her so and twisted fate as such?
“Shirou...” he says, leaning forward. “You must save her. If no one else, you must save Saber. Now... wake up!”
He presses his hands on Shirou’s shoulder, looking into the body where circuits that have been unused and misfire lie dormant or sparking eradically, causing Shirou’s condition, a condition that may only be undone by properly opening those circuits. He digs his fingers on Shirou’s shoulder, focusing on those circuits, directing the flow of mana so they may properly open. A fire that rushes from his finger tips into the younger man’s shoulder and throughout his frame, running through flesh quickly quickly in a sudden wash as the dams open and that energy floods the young man’s body.
“Shirou...,” he repeats, “wake up!”
**********
“Father!” he screams through a tear strained voice, his voice feeling hoarse and strained after all the screaming and crying he has done and yet, it is all he can do in this horror, call out to the one being he knows who should be trying to help him. His adoptive father, Kiritsugu Emiya. “Stop! Stooop this, Father! Father, save me!”
His father stands silently behind the masses, glaring at him with a cold eye as several people look towards him, all of them yelling, fist pounding into the sky, calling for his blood. They hold him tied to a post, bound and stripped of all his garments as dried brush and wood is laid around him and the flames of their torches are set upon it, lighting the fires that will consume his flesh alive. Faces he can not recognize, but yet, he does. A tall knight of a feminine look in white armor screaming at him about betrayals. Another with hair as pitch at black in armor that pulses with steam and even a woman of fairest beauty, her features twisted so she looks like a monstrous hag. All these people, beings he does not know, surround him, calling for his blood. These are people he does not know... but she does. Saber does. Or did.
As the flames lick at his legs and arms, whipping at his hips, he cries out his father’s name, searching for his face among all the twisted grins and snarls that surround him and yet, his father’s countenance is the worst of all. A smiling drooling thing, dripping blood and flame even as those same flames consume Shirou’s body. He struggles, pulling at the bonds, wondering if this is how Saber died initially, or was it the headman’s axe that came down on him, or was it when he was tied down and gutted as a fish? Already, he’s experienced so many horrors and he can’t distinguish one from the other. They all come one after another, blurring together into a mass of pain and darkness, twisting at his mind and tearing at his being. Always, people from Saber’s life are hurting him and always, there in the background is his father, looking on, smiling malevolently. Even as the fires tear at his flesh, his father looks on, grinning and laughing. Even as those fires eat at Shirou’s insides and tear him apart, Kiritsugu simply looks on with glee. He’s simply watching. Watching... and the smile of that man that he once looked upon with hope and love becomes a thing that terrifies him even as he calls out that man’s name for salvation. Even as his body burns...
Shirou wakens suddenly with a jerk, pulling away from the hands that were touching him, a cry ripping away from his lips. It won’t stop. He can’t stop screaming. All he can recall is the pain, the burning and tearing of his flesh and his father... looking on, with not a care in the world. As if Shirou’s torture amused him. Not until Shirou feels hands at his shoulders, shaking him and he can look on that face, that pale skin and those amber eyes that stare at him with worry does he lean forward, wrapping his arms around that being and begins to sob. Never. He never wants to see that man’s face again. Ever.
