Chapter 65: The Fulfilled Wish
"Language is light. The Word is light. Therefore, O Light, O Word, become my sword, my blade!"
As the final incantation was spoken, thousands upon thousands of golden swords transformed into a net across the heavens, shooting straight toward the youth in the illusion who had taken Shirou's form!
The rain of golden swords thoroughly purified the "All the World's Evils," forcing it to return to the Throne of Heroes.
Simultaneously, the black mud that had been churning and surging gradually receded and vanished at that very moment.
"It is done... the true Greater Grail..."
Shirou looked toward Saber. Seeing that she still held a dazed expression, he reached out and took her hand.
Suddenly having her hand held, Saber snapped out of her state and looked at Shirou.
"My wish... can it be fulfilled now...?"
"Yes, that's right." Shirou nodded, smiling as he spoke to the young girl. "Come, make your wish, Saber."
Saber's hand, which held the sword, trembled at this moment; her eyes darted back and forth between Shirou and the Holy Grail.
Shirou could clearly feel that beyond excitement, there was also a hint of reluctance in the girl's eyes.
Between ten years ago and ten years later, for both Shirou and Saber, not much time had actually passed.
Shirou had stayed in the world of Campione! for several months, while Saber had been summoned again not long after returning to the Hill of Camlann; after all, the time that had passed now appeared to be frozen.
So, from their initial meeting to their mutual understanding, they had experienced less than a month together.
But during this time, they had experienced things far more grand and colorful than anyone else.
Naturally, their feelings had developed all the more rapidly.
However, even with this reluctance, Saber, as a King, could not simply leave Britain to its fate.
"Thank you, Shirou." The girl offered a smile to Shirou—it was, without a doubt, the warmest and most healing smile Shirou had ever seen.
Just seeing this smile made Shirou feel that everything he had done until now was worth it.
He finally understood why so many knights had "pledged their loyalty" to their King upon seeing her.
Because Saber, with her pure heart, was simply too endearing.
Then, Saber, filled with trepidation, walked before the Holy Grail.
The ever-resilient Saber's voice became tremulous, her eyes even turned slightly red, almost as if she were about to cry.
What she had sought for so long was right before her eyes. Although she had once known despair, now there was no doubt: everything she had experienced before was worth it.
"Go ahead, make your wish."
Following Shirou's words, Saber suddenly gathered her courage.
"O Holy Grail, fulfill... fulfill my... my wish..."
The moment the girl spoke her wish, the golden Holy Grail erupted with a blinding light. That radiance pierced through the clouds, shooting straight into the firmament. Far above the distant vault of heaven, winds and clouds shifted; the sun and the moon cycled continuously, and the concept of time vanished at this moment.
The Grail's original luster turned incomparably dim, and the magical energy within it drained away at a terrifying speed.
Finally, that strange spectacle settled into calm as the magical energy stored in the Grail was completely exhausted.
Although nothing seemed to have changed in the surroundings, it was clear that the entire world had indeed undergone a transformation under the sheer magnitude of the Grail's immense magical energy.
That vast amount of energy, which was enough to allow one to reach the Root, had perhaps truly fulfilled Saber's wish to change history.
After returning home, Shirou immediately began to look up historical data, and Sakura even went to the library to borrow a copy of The History of the Kings of Britain.
"It really has changed..." Saber flipped through the not-so-heavy book with a look of astonishment.
The main milestones in the legend of King Arthur remained as they were: the raid on the execution site, Queen Guinevere, Morgan casting aside the scabbard... until the point of the
"Battle of Camlann," the most tragic node in the Arthurian legend, where everything began to change.
In this battle, King Arthur's side won the final victory. Afterward, Britain became even more prosperous under Arthur's governance, until the subsequent monarchs took over one after another, only then gradually declining in the torrent of the times.
"Changed..." Shirou frowned as he looked at the text in the book.
Between the lines, it felt inexplicably strange.
At this moment, Saber spoke with some confusion.
"If Britain has already escaped its original destruction... then why am I still here...?"
For an instant, Saber's expression became bewildered.
"If the legendary King Arthur spent a hundred years governing Britain, then... who am I?"
Originally, Artoria Pendragon, who had participated in the Holy Grail War as the Saber class, did so because of the Battle of the Hill of Camlann that had led Britain to its ruin.
At that time, Artoria, falling upon the Hill of Camlann, had been heartbroken watching the kingdom about to perish.
Before inheriting the throne, she had known the fate of Britain. She had given up being a woman to become a male King, had frozen her heart, lost her human emotions, and accumulated countless souls beneath her sword for the sake of the kingdom's survival. All of this was so that her kingdom could continue as long as possible; even if the kingdom were destroyed, the people of Britain would be able to be incorporated into other countries or ethnic groups and continue to exist.
However, when all her efforts and sacrifices came to naught, and the reality of Britain's brutal destruction in civil war and the death of its people was laid before her, she simply could not accept such an ending.
Subsequently, at the moment of her death, she made a contract with "the World," Alaya. Even at the cost of being eternally fallen into reincarnation, she wished to obtain the Holy Grail to make her wish.
And now, as Saber made her wish to the purified Holy Grail, the past she had yearned for—the past she wanted to change even at the cost of sacrificing everything—had actually been altered in such a miraculous form.
The resulting information showed that the Battle of Camlann in history had completely vanished, as if it had never existed at all.
"Is this the power of the Holy Grail..."
Saber sat dazed on the sofa, whispering softly.
Finally, the girl quietly watched the copy of The History of the Kings of Britain held in her hands, reading it page by page. Time flowed slowly, and after finishing the final page, she finally closed the book.
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Under the sunset.
The boundless ears of rice swayed, like a dazzling shawl for this land.
The mountain breeze was light, like waves rippling under the moonlight, gentle and soft.
Cooking smoke stained the evening glow red, and the sunlight was sliced to pieces by willow branches.
The evening wind brushed across the wheat waves, and the distant mountain peak covered the setting sun.
The ears of rice held up the sunset, the evening wind rolled up strings of fragmented light, and leaves turned one by one, flipping over the twilight.
Shirou and Saber stood on the mountaintop, gazing out at the sea and the sky.
The sparkling surface of the sea overlapped with the occasionally surging waves.
"Shirou... what should I do now..."
Saber looked at that sea, which was not peaceful; her lapis lazuli eyes appeared somewhat dazed.
Her thoughts were like ripples, slowly spreading, eventually vanishing, leaving behind thoughts as flat as plain white paper.
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