Holy City.
Shiomi and Mordred ascended the steps leading to the palace's main gate. With each step, Shiomi's injuries slowly healed. Though the two events were unrelated, in Mordred's eyes, it looked like he was ascending some divine stairway.
"So, you're saying the Knights of the Round Table under the Lion King—it's just you now?" Shiomi asked.
"That's right." Mordred nodded.
She paused for a moment before deciding to share more. After all, if he hadn't come to help, she probably wouldn't have survived that strike and would've been forced to retreat. Logically and emotionally, Mordred felt the need to repay the favor quickly.
Besides, this guy was already a prisoner of her father and had even lost his Command Spells. There was no harm in revealing what was already fact.
"But to be precise, there was one more. He died in battle while fighting the Crusaders on my father's orders. He couldn't hold out."
Mordred's expression twisted slightly with disdain, though it was hard to say if it was aimed at the fallen comrade.
"Who?"
"Gareth."
Beaumains Gareth—sister to Gawain, Agravain, and Gaheris. Also, according to legend, one of the children of King Lot and the demon queen Morgan.
"What about the rest of the Round Table?" Shiomi asked again. "So many Knights descending at once—it can't be something as simple as a Singularity summoning."
Mordred let out a snort.
"You Magi are always so annoyingly sharp... You're right. We didn't appear here on our own. Father summoned us."
"What?" Shiomi froze.
"I don't know the exact details. That's just what Father told us when we arrived," Mordred said, her voice dropping. "He summoned us to carry out his plans."
To be more accurate, even if they could defeat the enemy, they couldn't perform the Holy Selection. The Lion King needed knights who could serve as her hands and feet.
"So... does that mean all the Knights of the Round Table are here?" Shiomi pressed, sensing there was more to the story.
"No. Two of them didn't respond to Father's call," Mordred said. "Galahad and Bedivere."
She remembered that day clearly. Father didn't seem to care that those two didn't show up.
"Since there are only five Knights of the Round Table in the Holy City, where are the others?" Shiomi asked.
If the ones who remained sided with the Lion King, then the others—those who didn't—must be somewhere else.
That meant he had to find a way to get this intel out.
Just as Shiomi was thinking that, Mordred stopped walking, coming to a halt on the platform between the two long stairways.
"They're dead." She stood where she was, head bowed, coldly spitting out the words.
Shiomi turned sharply. "Were they killed by the Lion King?"
"…No, we did." Mordred kept her head lowered, half her face hidden in the shadow of her hair, making her expression unreadable. "We chose to support Father. The others chose to stop him…"
And so, the Knights of the Round Table, divided into two factions, clashed—and slaughtered the opposition to the last.
"So that's how it was." Shiomi understood and quickly dismissed his earlier assumptions.
Though he didn't know why Galahad and Bedivere hadn't answered the summons, the Knights of the Round Table now standing before Chaldea had all killed their dearest companions and turned into beasts. That was the only way they could fulfill their duty as knights of the Lion King.
He turned away and continued ascending the stairs, saying nothing about it.
That made Mordred lift her head in surprise.
It was true—she had brought it up expecting Shiomi's condemnation, hoping to use that to reaffirm her loyalty to her father. But this man said nothing. Did nothing.
"You bastard! Don't you have anything to say?!"
Unable to take it anymore, Mordred snapped. But Shiomi's silence, rather than judgment, struck the hardest—it made her falter.
"If you chose to stain yourself with the blood of those you love just to follow the Lion King, then you're no child. You should understand the weight of that choice better than I do."
Shiomi stopped walking, not even turning back.
"Right or wrong—that's not something others should teach you. Don't you already have your own answer?"
The clatter of armored boots rang against stone as Mordred stormed forward and grabbed Shiomi by the collar. She wasn't tall, but her presence was overwhelming. Any ordinary person would've gone weak in the knees at just one look.
"Don't think just because you're connected to Mother—or because you're Sakura's father—that you get to act like my dad!"
Her eyes were bloodshot, and her expression was twisted like a wild beast.
"I'm the son of King Arthur!"
"It doesn't matter whose son you are. What matters is who you are," Shiomi replied calmly.
"Huh?" Mordred blinked, thrown off by the answer, her grip loosening.
Shiomi pulled free and continued up the stairs.
He still had questions for the Lion King.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Mordred called after him. "Are you denying that Father is—"
"I already said it. You make your own choices. Right or wrong, you decide. You don't just throw the facts out there, wait for someone to judge, and then reject their judgment."
Shiomi kept walking.
"Whether you choose to bear the sins of your path, or choose your path based on the sins you bear… That's up to you."
That was also the expectation he had for Sakura and Caren.
It was the answer he'd found after struggling to be a father.
"Besides," he added, "the moment the Lion King summoned you to this Singularity, she already gave you the right to choose."
Mordred remained halfway up the long staircase, while Shiomi alone continued the climb, heading back toward the royal palace at Camelot's center.
Just before stepping through the doors of the main hall, he looked back at Mordred from afar, then let out a helpless chuckle.
He had told himself not to act like a father or lecture her—but in the end, it felt like that's exactly what he had done.
...
When he returned to the council hall, the Lion King was no longer seated on the throne. Only the Knights of the Round Table remained, each now standing in a different spot from where they had knelt before.
"Mordred's fine. If any of you suffer the same kind of injury next time, feel free to come to me for treatment," Shiomi said half-jokingly. "After all, I'm the Lion King's Master—well, her prisoner."
No one responded to the comment.
Only Agravain stepped forward and said solemnly, "Enough idle chatter. The King has returned to the inner palace. Go. Don't keep her waiting, Master of Chaldea."