Author's Note: I did say next week, and I pulled it off despite being, well, myself. Hope you enjoy, because against all odds I actually quite enjoyed writing this one. It's been awhile since I really had fun with this story.

(*)

Chapter Thirty-seven: On Silver Wings

(*)

Ilya didn't really think Saber was going to try to kill her. That was called 'naivete,' and despite herself she still had quite a lot of it. Arguably, in fact, she was even worse than she'd used to be, because she was still rather poor at reading people's actions, but she'd lost a lot of her former ruthlessness. Being vicious enough was able to quickly to get you through a lot of situations, she'd discovered, and having a big giant monster with an axe really greased the social wheels.

Luckily, Gilgamesh, despite being technically (very technically) younger than Ilya, wasn't nearly as naïve as her.

Halfway through its swing, Excalibur was intercepted by a brilliant golden arrow, even as two more launched for the back of Saber's head and the small of her back. Despite her bulky armor, she spun with a dancer's grace, her blade whirling brilliantly to slam all three weapons aside in a single stroke, her postured never showing any sign of reacting to the impact despite the fact it would likely have crushed a battle tank. But it did lock her attention on the incoming missiles for a few crucial seconds.

And Gilgamesh used those seconds to smash his shield into her knee, pick Ilya up like a sack of potatoes, and run away.

"What?! What?!" Ilya squeaked, her only human reflexes not reacting to all of this nearly quickly enough to fully comprehend what was happening.

"Why did you think that would work?!" Gilgamesh snarled, running away through a field of fallen trees with a small girl over his shoulder, a situation he had to admit he had never pictured himself in, despite being the smartest person alive.

"I was trying to be heroic! It would have worked if Shirou did it!" she complained.

"No it wouldn't have! When has he ever gotten anything done with charisma?!" Gilgamesh snapped.

"You don't even know him! You've been on this team for ten minutes!"

"I was assuming! I can do that, I'm royalty!" Gilgamesh snarled. "I think you'll find that I'm the only person here who has any idea what's actually going on!"

Something above them exploded, brilliantly white against the starless sky, and briefly showing the silhouette of an amorphous, tentacled thing that was clearly defying all laws of nature and physics to even be able to stay airborne.

"Okay, so I don't fully grasp the entire situation, but…" Gilgamesh began.

"JUMP!" Ilya shrieked.

Gilgamesh wasn't a fan of taking orders, and he would have to sit this child down and explain to her exactly why telling him what to do had damned her to the punishment of the gods, but he also enjoyed surviving. He dug in one heel and leaped straight left out of his sprint, Saber slamming her blade down with rock-crushing force on the spot he had been occupying less than half a second earlier.

Gilgamesh slid to a halt, watching Saber turn to him with a smile that made even his blood run a little bit cold. Streaks of silver in the sky cast bizarre shadows across her features as they appeared and vanished without warning, but never quite enough to disguise the glowing of her golden eyes. "Do you see that, Archer? In the sky? That's what you're defending. The kind of people who make that and call it 'magic.' Can it be any doubt that execution is the right and proper end for such sins?"

He shrugged. "No worse than some gods I've met. Why should we hold mortals to higher standards than our loving creators? You see, that's what Kirei never really understood… or what he won't understand, I suppose. Deep down, he never quite got over the notion of being a monster. He defines himself as 'evil' and wonders why he was 'made that way,' but really, anyone who ever met Ishtar would know the gods don't really put any care or effort into us. You're the same way! Here you are with a second life, maybe even an immortal one if you get lucky, and you're going insane over a few unpleasant decades in a kingdom that didn't even last a single generation? It's not like it was something your god or society forced on you. You made some bad life choices, and now you're obsessing about them."

Saber actually laughed at that. "So your argument in favor of abandoning my plan is that life is utterly meaningless and nothing we do matters, so we may as well fritter away our time doing nothing of value."

He sniffed. "I didn't say it was meaningless. Just that the gods don't define it. I define it. If I don't judge your cause worth pursuing, then it isn't. Simple, no?"

Saber considered this. "I'm going to kill you. Put the girl aside and stand up to face it with some dignity, I'll give you a moment."

"Rude," he murmured, setting Ilya down. "Child. Albino thing."

"My name is Ilyasviel."

"I don't care. Do you really think you can heal this one? Because I'm not at my best, admittedly. I believe I could kill her, but only if I was willing to die in the effort. I'd like to avoid that."

"I… not exactly cure her. But I have an idea. And this dress is tied to the power inside the Grail, which is basically limitless," Ilya said. "She isn't Shirou's Servant anymore, technically, but there's something in her still linked to him. And he's linked to me. I can use that bond, if I can get her to not chop my head of. If you can keep her still, even for a few minutes, I'll do what I can." She paused for a moment, and then added, "And if you could do it without talking, we'd all be happier."

His grin grew wider. "Women are so spirited in this era. It's obnoxious, but at the same time I can't help but laugh."

And then, without the slightest warning or change of expression, he attacked.

The effort was not to kill Saber, which was good, because he suspected the only way to do it would be Ea itself, and the power he'd have needed to drive into the weapon would likely make it the last Noble Phantasm he would ever use. The effort was to immobilize her by any means necessary. Which… he again wasn't sure he could manage.

A dozen blades slammed down with the force of a bombing run, and accomplished absolutely nothing. Saber's sword moved with the same speed and impossible force as ever, sending each and every one of the priceless artifacts scattering like so much garbage. But that was fine; these weren't even weapons known for their power.

Rather, the blades were ones he had chosen for durability. They spiraled off intact from the impact, slamming into the rocky mountainside and burying themselves up to the hilts with the force.

And attached to one of them, a length of heavy chain trailed back to the Gate of Babylon from which it had emerged.

Gilgamesh sprinted for this blade, gripping it and tugging it free of the stone as smoothly as if it had been drawn from its own sheathe. A masterwork indeed, he noted with no small amount of pride, even as he swung the weapon at Saber's thigh, and was repelled with no effort to speak of. She was a master swordswoman, and he merely a gifted amateur, after all. Luckily, he was also a devious son of a bitch.

He looped the chain around her sword arm, his most precious treasure reacting to his will to snare her like a serpent, and he grinned. Not your favored prey, my friend, but you won't need to hold her for long. She snarled like an angry wolf, trying to rip her arm free, but the chain was tethered on the other end by approximately five tons of solid gold; the vaults had more in them than swords, after all. Even the mundane treasure had its uses, if you were clever about it.

She had no choice; she snapped her sword into her other hand. And for that one, shining nanosecond Excalibur was not in her hands.

Everything he had, every erg of power he had remaining, he drew forth. From all angles, the portals opened; flickering gateways to the golden realm, held open by his will more than his actual power, the unwavering determination of the King calling forth the weapons to righteous purpose. They flew, taking aim at the one, perfect moment that Saber did not have a blade in either hand. She could not have possibly deflected them all with her blade, not in the barest second she had to work with.

And she didn't have to.

Her armor, solid mana, exploded; power roaring off her in a wave that caught the incoming blades and scattered them like leaves in a hurricane. Gilgamesh himself, who was both far closer to her and probably did not weigh much more than those blades did, might as well have been struck full in the face by a truck. He felt bones snap across half his body as he we was slammed back… and did not move.

Through the agony, the King of Heroes smiled, because he had her.

She hadn't even noticed. In that moment of 'vulnerability,' when her blade had switched hands; the chain snaring her arm had slithered free, snapping itself around his own waist to anchor him against the defense he had given her no choice but to enact. And now she was off-balance, and unarmored, and he was right next to her. And in his free hand, he still had one beautiful sword.

With a brilliant grin, blood staining his teeth and the very motion sending such pain through his body he felt his knees go weak, he drove the sword through her throat, the blood-soaked tip of it erupting out the back of her neck as her eyes widened in agony and helpless shock.

The King of Knights and the King of Heroes fell to their knees as one, spent and wounded beyond the ability to strike again. Saber raised a shaky hand, pulling the sword from her in a surge of gore, her eyes wide with fury as the wound began to knit itself together… slowly, but faster than his own wounds would close by far…

And Ilya, a comical figure indeed trying to sprint in that elaborate dress, pressed her hands to either side of the fallen Servant's head.

Gilgamesh was the child of Heaven, born of the sun and shining with the power of the gods given flesh. And so it was, he was genuinely shocked to find the light that erupted from the two women was painful to look at in its absolute brilliance. Not because it was bright; because it was real. This was Truth. Magic, in its purest form.

He stared it down anyway, because the King did not shrink from any challenge. The pain roared through every nerve, and he smiled and accepted it as the natural price of viewing a miracle.

(*)

Kirei Kotomine smiled, as he watched Rin fall. Her choked cry of agony, the shock as her muscles ignored her plea to stay standing, the destruction of her final hope. He knew that made him a bad person, but all sins would be forgiven soon enough. Might as well take this opportunity to enjoy the little things in life.

"The blade," he said mildly, as he walked toward her, "broke your collarbone and severed the muscles connecting to it. It's quite amazing how many muscles are interconnected with the bones of the back and neck. I suspect you won't be able to walk any time soon."

He drove a booted foot into the small of her back, ripped the blade out, and slammed it home again into her right latissimus dorsi, severing that muscle as well. She couldn't even scream; all the sound that emerged was the whimper of a dying animal. His grin widened and twisted into something altogether inhuman, but he couldn't help it. To his ears, the sound of her helpless agony was like the most lovely waltz ever written. Pain was an underappreciated art.

"And now I know you won't," he said. "I would apologize, but I think we're past that stage, don't you? Here, at the end of days, we should all be free to show who we really are. I am my truest self, and you…" he twisted the blade again, and she couldn't even whimper this time; it was only by the tensing of her muscles as the blade twisted, and the helpless collapse as he released it, that he knew what pain she was in. "I have heard it told that in times of deepest adversity, that is where we show who we truly are. So, Rin, who are you?"

"I… hate… you…" she snarled, blood in her mouth making it hard for her to get the words out, but she put in the effort. He appreciated that.

"So you are, in essence, exactly what you appear to be on the surface?" he said cheerfully. "That's a rare thing, Rin, and precious for you in particular. You spent so many years playing student, wearing a mask over who you really are. Now, at the end, you're finally free to show the truth, and you've embraced it. You should be proud of yourself."

He twisted the blade again.

"Though not too proud. It did end with you here, after all."

(*)

Rider wheeled through the sky, dodging a gout of flame so cold and dark that it was more like the night made manifest than anything she'd have called the breath of a dragon. But then, the creature casting it at her was no longer very much like a dragon itself.

Mounted on Pegasus, she was faster and more agile than this thing by far. And her beloved mount's power shrouded it in an aura of protection and power that could match even a dragon, so ancient it was. She had wheeled in again and again, pressing her child into a half-dozen charges that ripped into the creature's hide and tore giant chunks of scaly flesh from it.

And from each of those gaping wounds, a horror had burst.

The creature didn't heal itself; rather, when it was wounded, rampant, mad growth erupted. A twisted, writhing tangle of slick, misty tendrils, snapping mouths, and gleaming red eyes instantly filled the space in any scale that was ripped free of the beast. Within five passes, it was no longer recognizable as a dragon; just a mass of ripping, fanged maws and taloned grasping arms, held aloft by a half-dozen wings that couldn't possibly have lifted that twisting bulk.

This is getting me nowhere, Rider thought, watching as her latest target healed and spawned a new, eyeless, snarling head at the end of a half-formed, mist-spewing tendril that looked far too slender and insubstantial to support its weight. My mount can pierce its mana aura without issue, but wounding it doesn't even slow it down. I need to try and kill it with a single blow… assuming it can be killed.

Well, only one way to find out.

The Pegasus whirled through a half-dozen streams of burning mana, as graceful and flawless in its agility as the beast hunting it was disgusting, climbing to the edges of the clouds in seconds, the sound barrier shattering with its passage in a thunderclap that shook the skies. "I'm sorry, my pet," she murmured, knowing full well she'd never be heard, and cast her will into the reigns and bridle. The aura of mana intensified around the majestic beast intensified a thousand-fold as her Noble Phantasm reached into it, pulling out the true depths of its power. The Pegasus screamed, rage flooding through its serene mind and turning it into a living weapon little better than the monster that followed it.

It hurt her child, doing this to it. There had been a time when she would never have even considered such a thing, but her heart had blackened and gone numb to it many, many centuries ago.

She smiled, without any humor behind the expression, as her Pegasus reached the height of its ascent and began to spin into a dive. You see, monster? You spend all this time trying to kill me, when we have so very much in common. Certainly you're more like me than my own sisters ever were.

But then, I suppose that similarity the reason I'm going to enjoy killing you, too.

The mana surge reached a brilliant peak, surrounding the Pegasus in so much light it illuminated the sky like a second moon, and Rider snapped the reins to drive its dive into a killing charge.

"Bellerophon!"she cried out, calling the final activation of the Noble Phantasm, her words vanishing into the storm as the Pegasus tore through the sky with the force of a comet.

(*)

Pain. There was nothing but pain, so much that even the trained mind of a magus was at risk of breaking under it. And all signs indicated that more was on the way.

Kirei did not want to kill her; he could have done it any given moment. He wanted to hurt her. He couldn't get to Ilya at this point, and he clearly had every confidence that Sakura would be killing Emiya in short order and coming up to clear a path on her own sooner or later, so he seemed content to have a little fun in the meantime. And since she currently had three swords embedded in nerve clusters across her back, stealing the strength from her body more than any pain could have, she was in position to tell him off.

"Go… to… Hell…" she murmured, because Rin had never let herself be bothered by what position she was in when it was time to tell someone off. She fought once again to move, and managed only to shift one arm a scant few millimeters before the pain forced her to stop.

"Ah, Rin. I confess, I will miss you," Kirei said. "I truly did consider you something like family, by the end. I never had any real affection for my own family, but you always amused me. Maybe because I have defined your life since you were a child, and I got to observe the results up close without you ever realizing what had truly happened. Your entire life was a lie, and you never even realized it. Your father was a monster who hurled your sister into Hell without concern, and your guardian had taken the rest of your family from you. And there you were, ignorant of it all. Torturing yourself every day to improve yourself, totally unaware that everything you knew and believed was based on the lies I had told you… and let us be honest, the lies you told yourself, so you could sleep at night. I know how many of those there were."

She did not grin, because she couldn't, but it was under the pain in her tone. "So… you think that… that's news to me? I know. I… I failed. I didn't… know anything. Maybe… maybe I could have… stopped all of this. If I had let myself…"

"You have grown, then. Most people go their entire lives not truly recognizing their mistakes. I envy you, really. I was twice your age when I truly understood who I was, and only developed a purpose greater than myself that truly called to me within the last few days," Kirei said. "Had you a few more years to live, you might have had the opportunity to overcome those mistakes. Take some heart at the knowledge you were on the road to becoming something close to enlightened. I would tell you that I'm proud of you, but I think you wouldn't believe me."

"You're… insane enough… you might mean it…" Rin snarled, tensing her muscles once again, desperately trying to move.

He sighed. "You know, every single muscle in your back and neck is effectively paralyzed. You cannot stand. Trying is only making the pain worse."

"Don't… don't need you… to tell me that…" Rin whispered, waves of agony rolling over her and trying to drag her into the blissful blackness of coma. "But I'm… never… going… to… stop."

He smiled, and wished briefly that he had more swords. He settled for reaching out to one of the ones already piercing her back, and prepared to twist it deeper into her nervous system. "I'd expect nothing less."

(*)

The shrieking, writing mass of darkness cast its gaze upon death approaching, and showed no fear; it lashed out madly, waves of black mana and searing poison flame roaring out against the incoming light.

The Pegasus struck the wave of darkness, and the light of the phantom beast ripped it apart without dimming in the slightest. Three heads, a dozen mouths between them, snapped out in a last-ditch effort to intercept the beast and were torn apart like cobwebs, black mist spewing out from the severed stump and scattering before the charge.

And the charge of Bellerophon struck home, directly into the core of the nightmare creature.

If the sonic boom of the climb and dive had been thunder, this impact was a nuclear warhead. The semisolid, mist-flesh that now made up the vast majority of the dragon's mass did not burst or scatter at the impact of Pegasus, it detonated, silvery flames roaring over the darkness as they erupted from the point of impact in a geyser of black and white mana that seared the very air, leaving a sickly grey void against the night sky. The Pegasus burst out the other side of the black mass, trailing a second geyser of reality-scorching flame, and the shifting mass of pitch black flesh split in half, cracks spreading across its surface. The dragon screamed from a hundred mouths, and Rider pulled hard on the reins to come about for another pass, to atomize it if she had to…

And found that she was no longer alone on her mount. A wave of black mist, clinging to the neck of her mount like a parasitic vine from its charge through the dragon's core, shifted, solidified…

And a decaying, gore-coated skull grinned at her from within it. "Thank you," it hissed, its voice echoing against nothing, impossibly audible even over the beating of the Pegasus's wings. A second piece of it came into sharp detail from the mass of blackness, a gaping hole in its chest, now filled with something red and writhing…

Without hesitation she lunged, her arm leading the way held straight like a spear to attempt to rip its head from its half-formed shoulders before it could do whatever it was planning. The arm that slashed out to meet her was a far more literal spear; Assassin's twisted, deformed arm, no longer ending in a hand of any kind. The limb had melted into a lump of flesh, from which emerged the undead Servant's sword, the weapon fused into his dripping, semisolid flesh. With horrible precision and the grace of a striking scorpion, it slashed in at Rider's arm below her wrist brace; only her own inhuman reflexes kept her from losing the hand. She leaped back to balance on both feet in the saddle of her mount, and called her weapon to her hands... when from behind them, a wave of poisonous black fire rolled over them, engulfing mount and rider alike in a brutal direct hit.

Her Pegasus's aura of mana protected it from the worst of the blast, but Rider was only partially protected; the blast sent waves of agony across every nerve ending, and far more worrisomely, tore her from the saddle. She fell, her gaze taking in the dragon, its two halves connected once again by a series of tendrils as thick as trees, lined with lamprey-like jaws still dripping black fire. More pleasant, she thankfully also saw her beloved child shaking off the strike to come about, trying to save her. It dove for her, its top speed reaching her almost instantly, far faster than gravity could reach her…

And the twisted, black figure, still clinging to it, pushed off to use the momentum of its dive to reach her just that crucial second faster.

Blade first.

(*)

Shirou knew that Sakura was toying with him. She wasn't even pretending to do otherwise anymore. She could have struck out with her Shadow, turned the floor into a poisonous mire sucking at his legs, and yet she was content to spawn giant after giant, let him burn them down one by one… and with each Broken Phantasm, the static behind his eyes grew more intense.

He had the power. He could feel it rushing through his magic circuits, empowering each blade he forged. He could have made a thousand, thousand…

I have forged o- a thous- bl-

… swords without running low on power, but that wasn't what mattered. Each one he made, also made the fire in his blood burn hotter. Ilya's mana numbed the pain, let him keep the forges hot, but he could feel something behind it, breaking him down from within. His vision was so coated in static he could barely see to aim, only knowing what to target because his enemies were so huge. And that was good, because his limbs felt so heavy he wasn't even sure he could run, much less fight anyone in a melee. He was rotting from within, his muscles breaking down and his brain shutting itself off one cell at a time.

And another five of the giants were already pulling themselves out of the ground.

"This is how a hero dies, Shirou. Alone, against impossible odds. I know it isn't much comfort, but there is no greater end one like you could ask for. Your dreams have all come true," Sakura said. His ears could no longer even pick up the blast of his own Broken Phantasms, but he could hear her without issue. She really was something more than human...

"The hero," he said, his words slow and slurred, but he had to say them, "saves the people they care about, Sakura. I'm not going to fall. I'm going to save you. You can say whatever you want to try and stop me. That isn't going to change."

"You're a good man, Shirou. If there were a billion more like you, maybe what I'm trying to do wouldn't be necessary," Sakura said, the pure sadness in her tone almost breaking his heart. "But this isn't that world. All I can do is let you leave this world in the way you deserve, and hope that you find some small measure of peace in the one to come, as part of God. Sleep well."

The shadows spread, and a dozen more arms began to pull themselves from the ground.

He closed his eyes, feeling where they were, and tried to let the fire flow through him again….

Y- th- hands will n- hold –

The half-formed stanzas burned across his mind like flame, and the shadows did not vanish before their light.

Through the static behind his eyes, he could almost see Archer smirking at him, and the flame of his anger at the notion outmatched the flame within briefly. New blades were forged, each one carved from his mind in perfect glory before they shattered within.

Archer, he had been able to master this power. Shirou had everything he had, didn't he? The power, the will to use it, and even the skills drawn from the Servant himself. But it wasn't working. Something was wrong, he could feel it, but…

The blast of the Broken Phantasms cleared, and from the smoke, a dozen new giants were already pulling themselves into the world.

"Be strong, hero. It will all be over soon," Sakura said, her tone gentle and soothing.

She had trapped him. If he turned to face her directly, the giants would kill him with a single blow. If he continued to face them down, she would slowly but surely wear him away until nothing but an empty shell remained, dying alone in a field of swords...

The darkness, the will of the Black God, only deepened...

(*)

… And without the light blinding you, you could see things you might never have expected.

The forces of Armageddon were rallied and stronger than they had ever been; the enemy was not merely at the gates, it had already battered them down and surged within. The shadow was growing, and within the day it would swallow them all whole.

If you just looked at the surface, if you saw what was arrayed against them at the moment, you'd have to call the battle hopeless. The darkness was everywhere, no matter where you looked, a choking, stifling, miasma of despair sapped the strength from their forces and lent strength to the enemy. It was as if the world was telling them: Lie down. Close your eyes. There is nothing worth fighting for.

Just let it end.

That seemed silly, Ilya thought, but then she had only just recently started living. Someone more tired of it might have given in, but the world was fresh and new to her, and she didn't want it to go. For a human, that was as good a reason as any to fight on to the bitter end. Now, the question was if she could pass a little of that can-do spirit around.

She didn't know at all what she was doing, but she followed her instincts because they rarely led her wrong. She followed the road of mana in her mind's (soul's?) eye, a shining silver path of magic, stretched from Ilya to Shirou, and from Shirou to Saber. He was magnificent, all fire and steel, even if it was flickering worrisomely on the edges… but his warmth only set the end of her path in sharp relief. Saber was cold, and vicious, an aching darkness so filled with pain and sorrow and unreasoning hate that Ilya felt her heart break a little just to perceive it.

"You're not alone," she whispered. "And it isn't your fault."

I was a child, and they told me to carry the world on my shoulders. I gave my life for a nation I loved, and they used me, and despised me, and left me to die alone among the shattered bodies of my comrades. And then I was reborn to die, and die, and die again, all in service of a lie. Nothing is behind me but pain and betrayal, and nothing awaits me but war and death. Who are you to say you understand anything about me?

"There's nothing behind me but pain, and abandonment, and loneliness, and lies," Ilya whispered gently. "There's nothing ahead of me but a few short years. I know you better than either of us would like."

You are a construct, created in a lab to be used up and thrown aside. You have no idea, none, what it means to be born to a great destiny and fail! To carry a nation and falter beneath the burden! To sell your soul to the world for a chance to undo it all, and find the bargain was a lie!

"I'm carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders right now," Ilya whispered, her tone soft and cool against the pain and rage that roared off every one of Saber's thoughts, like a half-frozen stream in midwinter flowing alongside a pool of magma. "If I falter, we're both going to die, and the world with us. The beast inside you will keep killing, and killing, until there's nothing left of you but pain and the need to inflict it. You'll consume the world as surely as any demon god."

There… there already is nothing else left of me, Ilyasviel. My life was a lie. My death was worthless. My rebirth has been nothing but failure and misery. I just… I just want to leave it all behind. To sever the past, to finally, finally be free…

"Then do it. Freedom is your own choice. Not the curses seeping into your soul, you," Ilya said, firmly. "What you're doing, it's the deepest and most awful parts of you brought to the surface. But that isn't all there is. Is it really freedom if the only part of you that's free is the part you hate the most, all alone forever?"

I… and if that's the only part left? I've come too far and seen too much to ever be that girl who pulled the sword from the stone. Saber is all that's left. The Servant of the Sword, born for war. Maybe that darkness can't be breached. Maybe some shadows can't be erased.

And that, Ilya felt almost immediately, was the problem. That right there. Saber's truth, deep down. She felt she was beyond redemption, and so she was not even trying to seek it. Just giving up, and letting the darkness within guide her, because she didn't feel it could ever be erased.

But the thing was, that was true for everyone. Because, if you had any understanding of humanity at all, you knew the truth: The darkness is always there.

That was the truth of Angra Mainyu, the thing that nobody who saw it truly wanted to admit, because you couldn't do it and remain even slightly able to feel hope for the future. The beast within the Dark Grail wasn't some horror from beyond the stars, it wasn't a cosmic beast descended on us to end the world. It was humanity. The worst parts of mankind, given form and turned against us. All our sins come back to haunt us.

But once you knew that, Ilya had come to realize, you learned something about both Saber and Sakura. They weren't insane monsters, they were just far, far too human. The humanity that Angra Mainyu represented, the parts of ourselves we hated and suppressed almost without exception as a species, given free reign to do whatever it wished with two broken, traumatized girls as its avatars. As a broken, traumatized girl herself, Ilya had come to decide that was probably a good thing. Because there was a huge difference in her mind between someone who did terrible things because they wanted to, and someone who did them because they were just so angry and hateful at the world hurting them again and again for no reason they could understand.

The Dark Grail represented a part of humanity that unquestionably existed. The absolute worst part. But not the only part. And Saber, in her right mind, would never have let that part guide her, no matter how much pain she might have been in. You couldn't remove her pain, you couldn't remove her hate, because they were a part of what made her who she was. But they weren't all there was.

Ilya smiled, and extended her hand, and gave Arturia her answer. "Then I would say that you're just like everyone else, you big dummy."

… What?

"You're not some freakish monster, you idiot. You talk about the evil within, the darkness, like you're the only one who has it. We've all got terrible parts to us. We've all got regrets. We've all got pieces of our soul we wish we could cut out. But what makes us human is that we don't have to let those pieces decide our fate. We can choose to be a doll, or we can choose to be a person. We can choose give in, or we can choose to fight no matter what. And the people who choose to fight, who choose to live, they picked the harder path. But it's the one that you don't have to walk alone."

I… Ilyasviel, I don't know…

"You said you want to live? So choose it, and walk with me. Because you can, but being all alone forever? Wallowing in the worst parts of yourself because you think it's too hard to fight them? I wouldn't call that living, really. Living is looking at the evil within, staring into the heart of darkness, accepting that it's a part of you… and telling it 'no,' as often and loudly as you can," She grinned a little bit. "Besides, here I am, a silly little doll girl, and I haven't given up yet. You should try to be at least as brave as me, right?"

… … … … You are incorrigible.

Ilya's grin widened. "It's okay, you can just call me a brat."

From the darkness, a girl stepped forth; just a little older than Ilya, but taller and dressed in the garb of a peasant from some bygone era. She was coated in filth, stains of black and crimson that looked like they would never really wash out. But even that couldn't disguise the simple, honest beauty that shone off her like the moon on a cloudy night, gleaming against the darkness.

Saber grinned back at her, an expression more open than Ilya had ever seen on her in reality, as something began to shimmer and spread beneath the darkness surrounding her soul, like cracks across the top of a frozen pond just before the ice shattered. "You are such a brat. But I'm fond of you anyway."

The darkness of Angra Mainyu is the darkness within humanity. It can swallow even the best of us, if we let it.

But conversely, in even the worst of us, it isn't all there is. And sometimes, all it takes is someone to remind us of that, and show us the way out.

(*)

Kirei watched with continuing glee as Rin tried to move.

He didn't even have to torture her, really. She was more than happy to do it to herself, trying in vain to stand when it was simply a structural impossibility. Her magic crest kept her alive no matter how much blood she lost, and her sheer inhuman stubbornness kept her conscious even when she should have blacked out long ago. And so she kept fighting, even when the only 'fight' she could manage was inflicting horrible torment on herself to move her body a millimeter at a time, before falling flat again. Alas, though, this last one seemed to have slipped, trapping one of her arms beneath her body, so she probably couldn't manage even that much anymore.

Still, it had been a lot of fun. Had he realized she would be such a fascinating study in anguish, he would have forgotten about the subtle, lingering irony of maintaining his guardianship over her, and just tortured her to death years ago.

But then, without connection to the Tohsakas, he might never have been appointed Overseer of the Holy Grail War, and might never have come to see the Second Genesis. Truly, the Lord worked in mysterious ways. Rather, She would, soon enough.

"I want you to know," he said, with a gentle, fatherly smile, "that I am enjoying this without reservation. I normally would feel guilty about that. I would know it as deviant, and regret that I was the sort of monster who would draw entertainment from your pain. But I am free, now. And you know, the irony of it all? You are free too. In this moment, you no longer have any hard choices to make, any act to maintain in order to disguise yourself from insipid teenagers. There is nothing you can do to alter the coming events in any way. You can just… lie there, letting your responsibilities and doubts can all fade away, and in a few short hours you will be one with the Divine. So in a sense, I've done you a significant favor. Magnanimous of me, I know."

And then Rin did the one thing that could have made him pause, even for an instant.

She smiled. "Do… do you…" Rin whispered, stopping to briefly to shudder with a spike of pain, before finishing, "Do you know… why you're… you're going to lose?"

And the world shifted, just that tiny bit. But maybe it was enough.

(*)

Rider landed. Hard.

She considered, with a bit of self-loathing, that it was fairly appropriate. In her first battle of the Holy Grail war, she had been nearly cut in half by Berserker. And now, in what was increasingly certain to be her last battle, she had met roughly the same fate as Assassin had lunged past and through her in mid air, his blade taking her through the midsection as easily as her own hand had ripped into his heart. Or, well, she thought it had been him…

The creature that stood up from its own impact crater, not twenty meters away from her, did not look much like the Assassin she had faced beneath the mountain. Far from the skeletally thin and desert-dry corpse it had faced, this thing was a taller, heavily built… though that may have been deceptive, given how insubstantial most of its body appeared, like it was made of crude oil held somehow into the vague shape of a humanoid body. The only parts of it she could call 'solid' were the blade growing from the deformed lump of flesh on its right arm, and the gore-coated skull that grinned at her. No longer a mask, just a bare, skinless black skull, empty eyes locked on her and something slick and viscous dripping from it.

And then, once again, something blood-red slithered within a fist-sized hole in its chest, and she had her confirmation. "Didn't I kill you?"

Behind him, the dragon… or rather, the twisting mass of flesh and fangs that had once been a dragon, set down on a thousand limbs, beating wings made of a million intertwined tentacles, fanged mouths and eyes opening and vanishing at random across its entire body. It was just chaos at this point, madly shifting flesh that smelled heavily of fire and rotting meat, even at this distance; the one spot that never changed was a single fleck of white at the very center of the shifting mass, Caster's face, barely visible within the chaotic maelstrom.

Assassin grinned, barely visible against the blackness of the dragon, and teeth too sharp to be human dripped with something black and sickly. "I was dead to begin with. This beast and I are alike in that, nothing but extensions of the Mother Goddess. We have no life to lose for her, because we are nothing but instruments of her will. Dead flesh that can be shaped and sculpted to her whims, and as long as she demands it we will rise, and rise, and rise again. We cannot be stopped. And you… you…" he stopped for barely a second, shaking his head as if confused.

The dragon snapped at her with a thousand mouths, but it did not charge despite having nothing in its heart but rage and pain. Assassin, more intelligent but just as willing to kill, took a step back despite the fact Rider couldn't even stand to fight him. "What did you do…?" he hissed, softly.

The darkness wavered, something within it drawing back on feral instinct.

(*)

"By all means, share. You haven't been contributing much to this discussion, honestly. I don't hold it against you, but it's been a bit disappointing," he said, gesturing for her to proceed. She couldn't see it, but habits were hard to break.

"B-because..." she snarled, tilting her head to look over her shoulder at him, despite the pain this must have caused her, and he saw nothing in her eyes but rage and determination. "Because… all you're doing… is giving up. You call it… making a new world? You're just… a couple broken maniacs… resetting the world because… because…" she stopped, her eyes involuntarily closing as her vision swam, but when they opened again her anger had not abated. "Because… it hurts too much… to live in it. Yeah. The world… is a cold… awful place. Sakura… has every right… to hate it. But her plan won't make… anything better. It's just… just her using all that power… to feed the world to a monster instead… instead of trying to fix it."

"A childish viewpoint, don't you think? Ignoring the fact I obviously believe that the end result will not be an apocalypse but a rebirth, the obvious counterpoint would be that the world as it is cannot be fixed. As a doctor, I can tell you without a hint of sadism: on occasion, amputation is the only choice. When the rot runs so deep that the only way to save the body is to cut it out, you do so and accept it as the proper path. Well, humanity as it currently is? They are nothing so much as gangrene on the body of reality. For every person you would call 'decent' there are a dozen amoral monsters motivated only by their basest self-interests, and a thousand who content to sit back and be led by them like sheep. Corruption, greed, cruelty, mindless hate. They are not a rarity, my child, they are the default. Therefore, the ideal way to, as you say, 'make the world better'… would it not indeed be to end the current iteration and rebuild from the ground up? We could hardly make it worse."

"Heh… heh…" Rin chuckled despite herself. "I… never thought I would see the day. Rin Tohsaka… o-optimist. Arguing… that there's still some hope… for this mudball. That as long as… even one person… is still willing to stand up… and try to make the world better… it's too early to give up on it." She sighed. "A-absurd… isn't it? B-but… there's those sweet girls at school that always want to… share their lunches with me. And a silly jerk of a council president… who I can't help but enjoy teasing… and an even sillier teacher who… doesn't know how to do her job. And a horrible little German brat that… got on my good side in the end. And a big doofus who just wants to be a hero, even though… he doesn't know what that means. And most of all. A scared little girl… lashing out at the world because it broke her. And she could still become… something so wonderful… if she just stopped, and thought… and chose it. I can't… I can't give up… on them. I won't."

"Selfish," Kirei said with a shrug. "For the sake of a dozen personal acquaintances, you extend war, famine, and plague for millions. We can save everything, all at once. That should clearly be the better choice." He chuckled. "Honestly, Rin. We are going to be defeated because of some sentimentality and what you perceive as moral failings? I thought you were supposed to be a genius."

"W-well… there's one other reason," she said, her tone taking on a layer of iron beneath the pain, "You… took a little too much time… enjoying your work."

And then her hand, which she had spent the last ten excruciating minutes moving under her body one millimeter at a time, tensing her muscles against unspeakable agony each time, twitched open.

And her final gem, a burning ruby hidden up the sleeve of that arm, discharged. A slender, focused line line of white hot flame tore out, taking the only path it could through the only angle Rin had known Kirei couldn't possibly see coming: through her. Her hand, trapped beneath her, directed the spell through her own body, burning a hole completely through her without slowing or dissipating in the slightest. It might very well have cost her a kidney, in the long run.

But her gaze over her shoulder, just before it finally, finally went dark, got to see the very pleasing sight of the laserlike bolt of flame striking Kirei full-on in the chest, and costing him whatever black, withered thing passed for his heart.

Slowly, deliberately, like the first rumbles before an avalanche.

(*)

Shirou Emiya fell to his knees, the remains of shattered swords and thick pools of black ichor surrounding him.

Seven hundred and forty-two. He remembered each sword perfectly, as if he was holding it in his hands that very moment. It was the only thing he could remember, his mind and soul on the verge of vanishing entirely. Seven hundred and forty-two blades, to kill seven hundred and forty-two beasts of shadow.

And another dozen pulled themselves from the ground, as if nothing had happened.

The truth had become painfully clear. The battle had become a contest of stamina, and in such an arena he was no match for Sakura. It was over. Shirou Emiya, hero of justice, had faced the evil he had spent his whole life seeking. And he had been defeated.

He couldn't let that be the truth, he knew. And yet, he didn't see any way to change it…

You weren't paying attention. You never do, he thought. Or it sounded like his thoughts, but the words didn't match. It was like someone else's mind, exactly like his own, was thinking for him now that his own mind couldn't manage to string together a coherent sense anymore. Tohsaka would laugh at him for that one, he knew. He wasn't sure why he was thinking of Rin at a time like this, though...

If your enemy is something you can't defeat, you have to visualize a way. And if there is no way… you have to visualize a world where that way exists. Your world. Nobody else's. Stop trying to be someone you aren't, and remember who Shirou Emiya is.

Start from the beginning. Not who you think you should be, and not who the world tries to make you. Be who life has forged you into, and from that base, make the world be what you need.

I am the bone of my sword.

Steel is my body, and fire is my blood.

I have created over a thousand blades.

Blind to the future.

Fleeing the past.

A dozen new swords, forged to perfection, appeared in the air around him. And somehow, the fire within did not feel as heavy and painful as it should have from such an exertion. He could feel the soothing snowfall of Ilya's power redouble, seeking to cool and comfort, but behind that was something different, and yet equally familiar. Not merely soothing but healing…

He smiled, and stood again. The haze of static behind his eyes vanished, and yet what he saw was not what the cave could have been. The world became simpler, more basic; what existed was himself, his blades, and Sakura. Nothing else was perceived, because nothing else mattered at this moment.

She blinked in confusion, and expression that would have been adorable any other day. "Oh. I thought you were finally done, but you seem to have caught a second wind. I… no. Wait," she tilted her head to one side, the mild bafflement becoming something deeper, thoughtful… and maybe just a little bit changed. "Something has changed. You're… it's not just stamina coming back, you're different inside. The scent of your mana has shifted. How…"

"Sakura… he said, very softly. "I couldn't be the man you needed me to be. I couldn't protect you. And I'll regret that for the rest of my life. But right here, and right now, I'll be the hero you need. I swear on my life, everything I am, that I'm going to save you."

Withstood pain to create many weapons, each one a guiding light.

The paths are infinite, but I can only walk the one I've chosen.

The road ascending, carved by Unlimited Blade Works.

A line of flame, brilliantly blue and colder than the heart of a glacier, tore through the cave, encircling them. It burst up, too bright to look upon, and Sakura cried out as she covered her eyes in reflex…

To open them a few seconds later, in another world.

She stood up to her ankles in snow, and the roof of the cave was replaced by a star-scape that looked like it stretched to the end of the world; millions upon millions of glittering points stretching out in an endless spiraling pattern as far as the eye could see and beyond.

And it seemed that for each one, a perfectly crafted blade was embedded in the ground. Endless, stretching into infinity, glimmering beneath the field of silvery lights and coated in a layer of frost that did nothing to disguise their magnificence. A projection that Shirou could never have managed on his own, thousands, millions of astonishing forgeries, indistinguishable from the real thing…

"A Reality Marble? You think you can beat me just by drawing me into your world, Shirou…?" Sakura murmured, the snow beneath her melting into the pool of shadow at her feet. The dark souls of the Grail, hearing her call even here, began to claw their way to life…

And died before ever reaching the surface, as a hundred blades rose from the ground and fired themselves like bullets at the spreading pool of darkness, tearing it to shreds.

"No. Not my world," Shirou said, standing among the blades, outwardly relaxed, but through his torn shirt she could see muscles coiled and ready to spring. The swords embedded in the ground around him seemed to shimmer with an inner life, ready and able to leap to his command with a thought.

Sakura smiled, and the expression was bitter, as she heard a girlish giggle on the wind, and felt the mocking red-eyed gaze upon her. "Ah. Of course. Your world… and her world. I was wrong all this time, then. You're little at this point but an avatar of the White Grail." Her eyes widened, and something dark ignited behind them, as the shadows around her began to snap like snakes. "'Hero.' You're a hero of nothing of but corruption and pain, seeking to preserve the status quo and perpetuate a corrupt, broken system. You're nothing but that brat's puppet as she works to undo everything we should be uniting to achieve!"

Shirou sighed. "No. You think it's me and Ilya, but it's more than that. Look deeper."

Just for a moment, Sakura thought she smelled fire on the wind, beneath the sharp smell of frost. Her vision flickered, and for just a moment where Shirou stood she saw a blade of surpassing beauty even among the infinite masterworks of the Reality Marble, clad in a scabbard that was more work of art than weapon. "What… what are you…?"

"My vision, and Ilya's power, yes," Shirou said gently. "And Archer's knowledge and cunning. Saber's calm dedication and guidance. The power and wisdom they passed on to me. But more than that… Rin's willpower and passion. Rider's warm heart, hidden beneath her pain. Fuji-nee's simple kindness, Ayako's love for life, Issei's quiet concern. And you; your gentleness, your compassion, your need to help however you can. All the best parts of you that you shared with me for those years," he smiled at her with simple, guileless affection, and the expression ignited some combination of sorrow and blinding fury that she could never have imagined herself feeling. A reminder of everything she had once wanted more than anything, driven right into her heart. "It's a part of me, now. All of you are part of me, not because I stole what you were, but because you gave freely and shaped me into who I've become. This might be 'my world,' but the shape of it was determined by everyone who has ever made me grow."

"I should have killed you the day we met," Sakura hissed, wondering even as she said it why it was all she could think to say. Control didn't feel so easy now, the gentle whispers of Angra Mainyu in the back of her mind had become a keening chorus calling for blood, now, before everything was ruined…

She did something. The White Grail, more sister to me than my own flesh and blood, and yet she's struck a blow against me, I can feel it. I will tear her limb from limb for this treachery. And him, he has the temerity to drag us out of our world, to threaten you even though you've done all of this out of love for his ungrateful soul, even though all you wanted was to save him…

Shirou shrugged. "I said it before. I'll say it again. No matter what you do to me, no matter how you hate me, I'm going to save you. This will hurt a little bit, Sakura, but I'm going to put you to sleep. You'll dream of somewhere warm and gentle, and when you wake up, you'll be there."

She screamed, rage and bitterness bubbling up against her will like poison from a wound, so intense it made the world feel like a dream in comparison. She did not lash out, her pain did it for her without any conscious effort, a thousand spears of night erupting from her shadow in a storm of death.

Each one was met and matched by a silvery blade, gleaming under the starlight.

And with that final push, the avalanche…

(*)

… Fell.

It was like a comet had fallen from the sky, landing between Rider and Assassin with a flare of brilliant white mana and the force of a bomb detonating, yet Rider felt no pain, no pressure from the blast. The dragon's thousand mouths screamed, and a pair of maws that could have swallowed a man whole lashed out…

One was caught in a gauntleted hand, and despite its size and the fact it seemed to only half exist as solid matter, it was held fast. The second was met by the hilt of a sword, and it too was stopped as if it had struck a wall. With a single, sharp motion, the figure slammed both of them into the stone beneath her, and the shadowy flesh did not burst but shattered as a burst of mana roared off her and tore them both to bloody, mist-spewing shreds. The sword, a magnificent silvery blade trailing an aura of gold, slashed up and from it erupted a wall of wind and power that slammed Assassin back before he even had the chance to react, sending the creature skidding across the shattered stone of the mountainside.

She stood, flicking darkness off her blade, and the magnificent blade gleamed in the night. Silver along its length, gleaming with gold, and at its hilt an inlay of brilliant ruby where once sky-blue had been carved; the mark, Rider supposed, of a darkness that would never quite fade. Nor was it the only one; the highlights on her skirt and armor, the ribbon in her hair, they were all a deep black that looked very nearly the same unreal shade as the beast attacking her. But these touches of darkness made the light stand out all the more; where before it had been silver the magnificent armor itself was now pure, almost blinding white, like it had been forged from new-fallen snow rather than metal.

"S… Saber?" Rider murmured, uncertain if she could believe the evidence of her eyes, yet seeing no alternative. "What…"

Saber looked back at her, with a smile wider and warmer than anything Rider had ever seen on her face. "Rider. Thank you for looking after the children while I was gone. I know you're not exactly a friend, but… I owe you for this. I fear I've been lost, for a time. And, well, you're not doing the best job of it, right now, but I'm sure you did everything you could to keep them all safe while I was gone," she said, giggling lightly.

Giggling. Rider hadn't thought she could be more confused by anything than Saber's appearance, but the sound of the Servant of the Sword giggling like a schoolgirl left her more dumbfounded by far. "Are… are you…" she looked the woman up and down, gleaming like a star fallen from the sky, the tinges of black and red still clinging to her but far, far from the twisted corruption that had covered her at her arrival, and finished (a bit lamely, she could admit) "… all right?"

Saber's smile was brilliant, an infectious grin of pure joy that left Rider, frankly, slightly more uncomfortable. "I assume so. I don't feel like myself at all, but maybe that's for the best. I have to admit, I wasn't the happiest person. And I've still got some issues to work out, I'm sure, but for now, well… I think we have more important things to deal with." She turned to the gathering darkness, the writhing beast and the deformed warrior, their twisted forms and auras of malice so similar they may as well have been two halves of the same whole… and yet despite the deep, burning hatred rolling off them, they had not approached her. Saber's grin became something wolfish, and a flicker of gold ignited behind her green eyes. "Oh, and by the way, you won."

"… Eh?"

"You won. You killed them both. 'Servant Assassin' and the 'Dragon of the Golden Fleece.' You destroyed them both. What stands before us now is a roiling mass of hatred and bloodlust crafted in their images, nothing more or less than avatars of Angra Mainyu. A sign of what awaits us all if it is truly born into our world, I should say. What do you think I should do about them, Master?"

I shouldn't have to say it aloud, because I think you already know, Ilya's voice said, projecting itself from the night with a childish giggle. But just for old time's sake, I may as well. Obliterate them, Saber.

"You heard the girl," Saber said, shifting her stance to prepare her charge. "I must confess, I'm looking forward to this a bit. You might only have fragments of their flesh within you, but there's enough of Caster and Assassin in those vile bodies that I can derive a little enjoyment from wiping it out.

Her eyes narrowed, and the grin on her face melted without warning into a mask of cold rage. "It's time to deal with unfinished business. Come at me, together or one at a time. Either way, for what you've done and what you still seek to do… I'll destroy you both right here."

To cast aside the darkness.

To bring the long nightmare to an end.

The King of Knights, chosen by the fairies, lifts high the sword of promised victory to bring a final end to this Holy Grail War.

Now, let us swing down the blade of fate one last time.