The battlefield was quiet now.
Once, it had thundered with screams and steel, with the clash of armies and the hiss of arrows that darkened the sky. Now there was only silence, broken only by the faint crackle of fire consuming corpses.
He stood alone among the dead.
The Counter Guardian. EMIYA. The nameless hound of Alaya. The betrayer and the betrayed.
His body was broken, blood running from wounds too deep to count, yet it was not pain that weighed him down—it was memory.
---
He remembered her smile. The warmth of a family that once had been his, a sister who believed in him, friends who had fought beside him, a woman whose hand he had longed to hold until the end of his days. All of them, gone. Taken from him by ideals that had betrayed him.
Once he had sought to be a hero of justice. To save everyone. To be the sword that shielded the weak.
Instead, he had become a tool.
Bound by a pact made in desperation, enslaved by the Counter Force, he had been thrown from battlefield to battlefield, summoned across countless worlds and ages. He had fought wars not his own, slain foes and allies alike, each death another stone upon the mountain of his regret.
His anger had long since cooled into bitterness, his bitterness into hollow duty. And yet, at the very end, standing amidst the ruin, he felt a flicker of helpless rage again.
"What was it all for? If no one remembers… if every sacrifice fades into dust… what meaning does a guardian have?"
---
The light was dimming. His legs trembled, his grip on his broken blade faltered. He could feel his life running out with each shallow breath.
For one last moment, EMIYA allowed himself to close his eyes.
He saw Shirou, the boy he once was—naïve, stubborn, so certain in ideals that the world had proven false. He saw the comrades who had bled with him, the faces of enemies who had cursed him. He saw flames devouring a city, and the child who had crawled from them, swearing to save everyone.
His lips twisted into something between a smile and a grimace.
"Perhaps… at last… I can rest."
Darkness claimed him.
---
But darkness betrayed him.
He opened his eyes to blinding light. His lungs burned, his chest heaved, and a cry tore from his throat—not the hoarse rasp of a dying man, but the thin, desperate wail of a newborn child.
Confusion struck him like a blade. His limbs were weak, his body small, wrapped in cloth. A woman's voice, soft and trembling, filled the chamber.
"My son… my precious son…"
Through the haze, he saw her. A young lady, her face pale with exhaustion yet radiant with relief, tears streaming down her cheeks as she cradled him. Her arms trembled, but her gaze was warm, protective.
EMIYA's sharpened instincts whispered the truth instantly: This is my mother.
The door opened with a creak.
A tall man entered, broad-shouldered, with black hair touched by frost, a thick beard framing a stern, stoic face. He was a warrior born, every line of him marked by strength. Yet when his eyes fell upon the woman and the child in her arms, his expression softened.
"Gilliane," he said gently, his voice rumbling like distant thunder. "How are you, my love?"
The woman—Gilliane—smiled through her tears. "I am well, husband. Look… your son. Your heir."
She placed the child into his arms.
The man looked down at the infant, and the coldness of a northern lord gave way to warmth. He studied the boy with pride and awe, as though the child were both fragile glass and priceless treasure.
"Theon," he said softly, voice full of resolve. "Theon Stark. His name will be Theon Stark."
---
In that moment, EMIYA—the Counter Guardian, the hollow sword of humanity—died truly.
And Theon Stark, son of Rickon Stark of Winterfell and Gilliane Glover, was born into a world of snow and fire.
Yet behind the innocent gray eyes of the newborn flickered the gaze of a man who had walked through endless battlefields, who had seen the rise and fall of countless heroes.
A soul of ashes reborn into the North.
The Archer had returned.
---