Side Story 3
Ritsuka POV
I didn't sign up for this. Not the fire, not the suffocating silence, not the skeletal monsters clattering toward us in the dark, and definitely not the "shadow servants" Mash had named with that grim, matter‑of‑fact tone. I was supposed to be a backup — the lowest of the low. The one they kicked out of the briefing for dozing off. That had felt like a humiliation at the time. Now? It was the only reason I was alive when the rayshift room went up in a flash of light and heat.
Alive… and stuck here. In this broken fragment of history Romani had called a "singularity" — a point in time twisted away from Proper Human History. His voice had been calm when he explained it, but I could hear the strain underneath. He was one of the few survivors from the explosion, and I could tell he was holding back a lot more than he was saying.
I didn't have time to dwell on it. Caster — Cu Chulainn, the Cu Chulainn — was waving me over, his staff resting casually against his shoulder. "Alright, kid. You're up. We're gonna use that shield of Mash's to call in some backup."
I blinked at him. "The shield?"
He grinned. "Piece of the Round Table. Heroes love that kind of thing. Makes it easier to pull someone worth a damn."
I didn't understand half of what he meant, but I nodded. He rattled off a chant for me to repeat. I took a deep breath and spoke the words… except, somehow, they weren't the words he'd given me. They rolled off my tongue like I'd known them all my life:
Heed my words! My will creates your body, and your sword creates my destiny. If you heed the Grail's call, then follow humanity's path and answer me! Seventh Heaven clad in the great words of stargazers… Come forth, pass on your judgement, and punish my enemies… Guardian of the Scales!
The air split with golden light. I shielded my eyes, hearing Mash gasp and Caster's hand settle on my shoulder. When I dared to look, my breath caught.
Two men stood in the circle. Twins — or near enough. White hair, steel‑grey eyes, red coats over black, armored boots. The only difference was in the cut of their armor and the way they carried themselves. One smiled faintly. The other's mouth tightened in a grimace.
Third‑person POV
Shirou and EMIYA locked eyes. One smirked; the other's brow furrowed. Shirou gestured toward Ritsuka, and EMIYA gave a curt nod. They turned in unison.
"Saber‑class Servant," Shirou said. "Archer‑class Servant," EMIYA added. "I have been summoned and come at your request," they finished together.
The look they exchanged after was sharp enough to cut steel. Caster stepped in before it could escalate. "Alright, enough with the staring contest. We've got bigger problems than your brooding."
EMIYA's lip curled. "That's rich, coming from a dog like you."
Shirou inclined his head slightly. "My apologies. He's right — we have more pressing matters."
Caster blinked at the whiplash of personalities. "I'll ignore the insult. Here's the short version: you've been dropped into a Grail War where Saber won and enslaved the other Servants."
At that, Archer's shoulders tensed. Saber's face went pale. Caster thought he heard him murmur, "Heaven's Feel," before pushing Ritsuka forward.
Ritsuka straightened. "Archer. Saber. Thank you for answering my call."
"Hmph," EMIYA grunted. "You're welcome, Master," Shirou said warmly.
"This is a singularity," Ritsuka continued. "It's a break in history that threatens the future. If you want to back out, do it now. Otherwise, we're in this for the long haul."
Shirou's smile widened. "I'm in." EMIYA gave a single, sharp nod.
The ground shook with a crash and a roar. Berserker was charging, drawn by the surge of mana. Shirou stepped in front of Ritsuka, Kanshou and Bakuya flashing into his hands to catch the massive blade before it could cleave his Master in two.
"Caster, get Master out of here. Archer and I will handle this."
"You sure?" Caster asked, eyes narrowing.
"Yes. Now go."
The fight
"Alright, buddy, let's move," Caster said, tugging Ritsuka's arm. Mash fell in beside them as they retreated.
Shirou shoved Berserker back and leapt clear. EMIYA vaulted high, Caladbolg II forming in his grip. He loosed it in a spiraling blast toward Berserker's face. Shirou had to twist aside to avoid the shockwave, shooting EMIYA a glare before darting in with Triple‑Linked Crane Wings. One life gone.
Not to be outdone, EMIYA projected Caliburn, reinforcing it until it blazed. "Sword of Selection, grant me your power! Cleave the wicked! Caliburn!" The beam tore through Berserker, stripping away two more lives.
Shirou's smirk was pure challenge. He called up Nine Lives Blade Works, his body blurring with godspeed. Six strikes in the space of a heartbeat, and Berserker's last lives were gone. The giant fell, dissolving into motes of light.
The confrontation
Shirou turned to follow Ritsuka — and felt a hand clamp onto his shoulder. EMIYA's eyes bored into his.
"So. Saber‑class, huh? How?"
Shirou met his gaze evenly. "Don't worry. I didn't make any deals with extra‑dimensional entities to get here."
"I find that hard to believe. White hair. Steel eyes."
"The look was a disguise. Kept my loved ones safe while I worked. More than I can say for you."
EMIYA's jaw tightened. "Careful."
But Shirou didn't stop. "Unlike you, I wasn't broken by the fire. I didn't cling to someone else's dream because I couldn't find my own. I didn't push everyone away to save strangers while ignoring the people who mattered. I didn't make a stupid deal with a cosmic jailer for borrowed power."
He stepped closer, voice dropping to a whisper only EMIYA could hear. "And I didn't run from my duty. I didn't try to kill myself to escape the truth. The dream wasn't a mistake."
The words hit like hammer blows. EMIYA's breath hissed between his teeth, self‑loathing and anger boiling together. Kanshou and Bakuya flared into his hands as he lunged, reinforcement flooding his limbs.
Shirou's own blades met them with a ringing clash, his strength more than a match. Sparks flew, the air between them charged with more than just mana. It was the weight of two lives, two choices, colliding head‑on — and neither willing to give an inch.
The first clash was like a thunderclap. Steel rang against steel, the shockwave rippling outward in a visible distortion of air. The ground beneath them fractured, spiderweb cracks racing out from their feet as chunks of stone and dirt broke away. Dust swirled around them, caught in the violent wind of their movements. Every impact was a hammer blow to the world itself.
Shirou's raw strength was greater, his reinforced muscles driving each strike with crushing force — but EMIYA's eyes, honed by centuries of battle as a Counter Guardian, read him like an open book. Every feint, every shift in stance, every tightening of grip was anticipated and countered. It was like fighting a mirror that had already lived your life a thousand times and learned every mistake you'd ever make.
From afar, Ritsuka felt the drain on his prana like a vice tightening around his chest. "Stop! Both of you, stop!" he shouted into the mental link, desperation edging his voice. When they ignored him, he burned a Command Seal. The order slammed into their minds like a spike.
Shirou and EMIYA froze for a fraction of a second — then, without a word, both projected Rule Breaker. Twin flashes of cursed steel severed their contracts in unison. The link to their Master snapped like a cut wire. Ritsuka's voice vanished from their heads.
And then they moved again.
What followed was less a fight and more a deadly ballet. Their footwork was flawless, their blades a blur. A thrust was met with a perfect parry; a slash was caught on crossed steel. Sparks burst in showers with every clash, the air ringing with the music of their duel. Their hair, usually spiked and defiant, was plastered to their foreheads with sweat. Thin lines of blood marked where each had scored shallow cuts, but neither could land a decisive blow.
Shirou's mind raced. I'm not breaking through. He's matching me step for step. He shifted tactics, Kanshou and Bakuya dissolving into motes of light as Sasaki Kojirō's blade formed in his hands. He moved into the stance for Tsubame Gaeshi — incomplete, by design. He didn't want to kill EMIYA. Just break his guard.
It was a mistake. EMIYA's Mind's Eye (True) read the attack before it began. He slipped aside, the triple strike cutting only air, and in the same motion drew and loosed Caladbolg II. The spiraling arrow screamed toward Shirou's head. He ducked, but the blast caught him in the back, the shockwave tearing at his footing.
EMIYA saw the opening. Durandal bloomed into existence in his hands, lengthened into a spear. He lunged — and a rain of arrows slammed down between them, forcing him to leap back.
Both turned upward. A figure dropped from the sky, landing in a crouch that cracked the ground. White hair, steel eyes, but his skin was marred with black mud and glowing red lines. His smile was feral.
"Saw the fight," Blackened said, voice roughened by corruption. "Thought, hell, if anyone's gonna fight me… it'll be me."
Shirou grinned back. "Fine by me." He charged.
EMIYA's response was to project Hrunting and fire it at Shirou's flank — but Blackened's degraded Kanshou and Bakuya intercepted it mid‑flight, shattering the cursed arrow. He was on Shirou in the next heartbeat, blades flashing. Shirou's instincts kicked in, and his hands moved to the weapon he trusted most from his own path: a heavily modified S&W 500, chambered for .577 Tyrannosaur hollow points. The gun roared, the recoil a familiar jolt up his arm.
EMIYA's frustration mounted. He shifted Kanshou and Bakuya into Overedge form and dove back into the melee. Now it was a three‑way storm of steel and lead. Shirou parried EMIYA's thrust, EMIYA twisted away from Blackened's gunshot, Blackened caught Shirou's slash on crossed blades. The ground around them was a ruin, gouged and cratered by their combined power.
Shirou and EMIYA's movements were sharp, efficient — the product of discipline and mastery. Blackened's were sloppier, the Grail mud having eroded his technique. But with every exchange, he adapted, mimicking their footwork, their angles, their timing. His swordsmanship sharpened before their eyes.
Blackened began using his bow more, loosing arrows at reckless range, sometimes firing swords as projectiles without even altering them. He took shallow cuts without flinching if it meant getting a point‑blank shot. Shirou countered with precise gunfire, each shot a kill if it landed. EMIYA filled the air with projected blades, forcing constant movement.
One of Shirou's rounds obliterated a section of ground where EMIYA had been standing a moment before. Blackened tried to return fire, but Shirou's familiarity with firearms let him block and snap‑shoot in the same motion, forcing Blackened into wild evasions. EMIYA seized the moment, dropping from above to drive two stabs into Blackened's back. Blackened snarled and answered with five bullets into EMIYA's torso.
Shirou staggered as three arrows — ones EMIYA had loosed earlier, forgotten in the chaos — fell from the sky and punched into his torso, leg, and arm. The rest thudded into the ground around him, a grim halo.
They were all bleeding now. All breathing hard. And all three knew the stalemate couldn't last.
The air grew heavy, the ground trembling as they came to the same decision.
Shirou's voice was steady, even through the pain. "I am the bone of my sword…"
EMIYA's joined his, deeper, colder. "I am the bone of my sword…"
Blackened's was broken, corrupted, words lost in static and sludge. "I am the bone of my sword…"
The world shifted. Three Reality Marbles forced themselves into existence at once, colliding, overlapping, tearing at each other. Rusted sand and grinding gears. Clean grass and polished steel under a blue sky. Blackened wasteland, tar‑slick and cracked with red light. The boundaries between them were jagged, unstable.
Shirou broke the silence. "We're all running low. I don't know about mud‑me over there, but I'd rather end this in one blow."
EMIYA's eyes narrowed. "Agreed. Let's see whose ideals hold."
Blackened's grin was sharp. "If this is my end, let it be glorious."
They raised their hands. Circuits flared, cores shuddered. Gold light coalesced in Shirou's and EMIYA's grip; black and crimson in Blackened's. The projections took shape slowly, agonizingly — Excalibur in two hands, Excalibur Morgan in the third. The weight of them was immense, the connection to Artoria thrumming in their bones.
They set their stances, feet planted, blades angled forward. The memory of a king's poise guided their movements.
Shirou and EMIYA's voices rang out together: "This light is the sword of the king who can never be reached. Excalibur Image!"
Blackened's was a growl: "Vortigern, Hammer of the Vile King… Excalibur Morgan!"
The beams met at the center of the fractured world. The impact was cataclysmic, tearing at the seams of their overlapping domains. The singularity itself began to unravel.
Blackened was the first to fade, his form dissolving into motes as the correction took him. Shirou and EMIYA held their ground, neither willing to yield. But EMIYA had nothing left to give. Shirou's final Mana Burst — a single, perfect second — tipped the balance. EMIYA's beam faltered, and the light consumed him. He died with a faint smile.
Shirou let the blade fall. His knees buckled. The world around him was collapsing, time knitting itself back together. He crawled to an altar where Avalon rested, leaning against it as his Reality Marble dissolved. His vision dimmed.
When he opened his eyes again, it was to meet the steady, regal gaze of the Lion King.
Side Story 4
It had been months since my summoning to the Sixth Singularity, and only a few weeks since Gareth's death. The memory was still sharp — the clash with Richard, the unnatural strength he'd drawn from this land, and the moment I'd made the choice. My blade through her heart, quick and clean, before Gawain could be forced to do it, before Lancelot could be made to relive that nightmare. I didn't regret it. But regret and guilt are different things. And guilt… guilt had been my shadow ever since.
Gawain and Lancelot had kept their distance. Not with open hostility, but with a quiet, deliberate absence. No shared meals. No idle talk. Just the bare minimum of coordination in battle. I understood. I didn't blame them. But the silence was a weight I carried every day.
And now, apparently, the Lion King had noticed.
I saw Agravain striding toward me across the courtyard, his expression carved from stone, only the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth betraying the sneer he was holding back. His voice was clipped, formal, and cold.
"Sir Crimson. The Lion King demands your presence in the throne room in five minutes. Be there… or face the consequences."
His cape snapped behind him as he turned on his heel, no doubt to deliver the same summons to Gawain and Lancelot. Dutiful knights that they were, they'd arrive promptly. I had no intention of letting them get there before me.
It took me barely a minute to reach the great doors. I paused, drawing a slow breath, forcing my heartbeat to steady. When the Lion King's voice called my name from within, I stepped forward.
The throne room was vast and cold, the air heavy with the scent of incense and the faint metallic tang of polished steel. My eyes swept the space — no Gawain, no Lancelot yet. Good. I advanced to the foot of the dais and knelt, head bowed.
Her gaze was like a blade on my skin, weighing, measuring. Then she called for the others. They entered with the same measured grace, kneeling to either side of me. The silence stretched, five long minutes of stillness broken only by the faint rustle of her cloak as she shifted.
"It has come to my attention," she said at last, her voice carrying effortlessly through the hall, "that there has been infighting between three of my most powerful knights. Such discord has diminished the efficiency of the Holy Selection. I find myself… questioning your allegiance to the cause."
The words were ice in my veins. I could feel Gawain tense beside me, Lancelot's posture tightening. We waited, braced for the next blow.
"I am dissatisfied," she continued, "and I wonder if it would be better to kill you all and summon anew. Tell me — what do you have to say for yourselves?"
I didn't hesitate. "I apologize for your dissatisfaction, my King. I had not realized our actions had caused you such ache. I seek to remedy it, and offer myself to whatever punishment you deem fitting."
Lancelot and Gawain echoed similar sentiments, their voices steady but taut. We remained kneeling as she considered us, the silence stretching again.
Finally, she spoke. "I am… pleased with your attitudes. You will have one chance to resolve your differences. You have until tomorrow morning. Fail, and you will be executed for treason, your bodies displayed as an example. Understood?"
"Yes, my King!" we answered in unison.
"Then you are dismissed."
We rose, bowed, and left the hall. The moment the doors closed behind us, the tension bled out of our shoulders. I let out a short, incredulous laugh. Lancelot and Gawain joined me, the sound half‑relief, half‑disbelief.
When it faded, I turned to them. "Lancelot. Gawain." They looked at me, wary but listening. "I want to apologize. For killing Gareth while she held Richard. I know your histories. I wanted to spare you both the pain of having her death on your hands. I don't regret the act — it ended the fight and spared you that burden. But I do regret making you watch it happen again, and robbing you of the choice."
They stared at me, shock flickering across their faces. Lancelot's expression shifted to something heavier — remorse, maybe — while Gawain's softened into something almost… grateful.
Gawain spoke first. "I owe you an apology, Shirou. I didn't know the weight you carried. The truth is… I was avoiding you because I wanted to thank you. I know myself. In that moment, I would have killed her to complete the mission. It would have made me a perfect knight… and a terrible brother. You took that choice from me. You let her die with dignity. Thank you."
His voice cracked. I projected a handkerchief into my hand and passed it to him, then traced a wall to shield him from prying eyes. He nodded in thanks, shoulders shaking as he let the tears come.
I turned to Lancelot. He looked like he wanted to speak, his hand half‑lifting toward my shoulder before he stopped himself. "Lancelot," I said quietly. He met my eyes. "It's okay. You don't have to say anything. I forgive you."
Something eased in his face, the tightness in his jaw loosening. He patted my shoulder once, firmly, and gave a small nod.
We stood there for a moment, the three of us in a fragile, newfound understanding. Then Gawain cleared his throat. I dismissed the wall, took back the handkerchief, and clapped him on the shoulder. He managed a small smile.
"Come," he said. "Let's share stories. It's been too long since we've spoken as comrades."
We followed him to his quarters, where the hours slipped away in laughter and quiet reminiscence. Tales of battles fought, of moments of absurdity in the midst of war, of the strange twists of fate that had brought us here. The weight between us lightened with each story.
When dawn's light began to creep through the shutters, we remembered the Lion King's ultimatum. We hurried to the throne room, arriving together. She looked at us, her gaze lingering for a heartbeat longer than usual, and — just barely — smiled.
"You are dismissed," she said simply.
We left the hall with quiet chuckles, parting ways to our duties. The air between us was different now — lighter, warmer. We were no longer just knights bound by the same cause. We were, at last, friends.