The sound of my own heartbeat pounded in my ears.
Through the obsidian mirrors that Tezcatlipoca kept floating around me, I had seen Tristan fall beneath the cursed arm of Cursed Arm, Gawain vanish before the power of the Egyptian sun, the enemy Mordred disintegrate by her own hand, Agravain surrender to the combination of a repentant Lancelot and an enlightened Xuanzang. One by one, the Knights of the Round Table had fallen. But there was no relief in those victories. Not when the world kept tearing itself apart around us.
Camelot was rising. The marble walls that once stood proudly over the desert now floated meters above the ground, breaking apart into blocks that spun slowly like miniature asteroids. The sky was a mosaic of purple and black, an open wound in the fabric of reality. The wind smelled of ozone and something older, something my rational mind refused to name. The Holy Lance, the pillar that the Lion King had driven into the ground to sustain her kingdom, was no longer a simple object. It was an axis of annihilation rising inch by inch, and with every inch it rose, the world of this Singularity faded a little more.
"The lance is at sixty percent of its maximum height," Tezcatlipoca reported in my mind. "When it reaches one hundred percent, the Singularity will collapse completely. The process is irreversible if it isn't stopped before."
"How much time do we have left?"
"Less than ten minutes. Perhaps less."
Ten minutes to save a world. Ten minutes for Bedivere and Artoria Lancer Alter to do what they had come to do. I swallowed hard. In my previous life, when I played Fate/Grand Order on my phone screen, the final battles of the Singularities were challenges of attrition, fights that could last hours. But this wasn't a game. There was no pause. No reset. Only ten minutes.
"Then it's time to stop observing."
I stood up. Around me, the Servants who had already finished their respective battles were regrouping. Ozymandias, pale and exhausted, leaned on his scepter. Nitocris was kneeling, catching her breath. Tamamo no Mae's nine tails drooped, dull, like a fox's after a storm. Mordred and Jeanne Alter came running from the devastated plaza, both covered in dust and blood, but alive. Lancelot and Xuanzang emerged from the meeting hall, the monk's light garments torn in several places, the knight with Arondight sheathed but his face marked by an indecipherable expression. The Hassans, the most wounded, limped over from the cathedral. Serenity had a wound on her side, but her large dark eyes sought me out immediately, and when she found me, a faint smile curved her lips.
"Master... we did it," she whispered.
"You have achieved the impossible," I replied, and my voice sounded firmer than I felt. "But we're not finished yet. The final battle is happening right now." I pointed toward the heights of the city, where a blinding white light indicated the position of the throne room. "Bedivere and Artoria Lancer Alter are facing the Lion King. But they can't do it alone."
"What do you need, Master of Chaldea?" asked Ozymandias, his voice for the first time without its usual pomp. He was tired, but his golden eyes still burned with determination.
"I need you to protect this position. The Lion King still has spectral knights swarming through the city. If any of them reach the throne room and reinforce their goddess, all will be lost." I looked at each of my allies. "I know you're exhausted. I know you've given everything. But I ask you... I beg you... defend this place. Do not let anything climb those stairs."
"Of course, Anchin-sama," said Kiyohime, appearing suddenly. I blinked. She shouldn't be there. She was in Chaldea. Was it an illusion? A product of my exhaustion? I shook my head. No. I would process it later. Not now.
"I will protect Senpai," said Mash, stepping forward with her shield raised. "It's my duty. It's my promise. I won't let anything touch him."
"And we'll make sure nothing gets close to you," added Cursed Arm, his demonic arm still dripping with Tristan's spectral blood.
"Good. Then let's go."
The throne room was a perfect circle of white marble, open to the sky, but not the real sky. Above it, a dome of pure light held the lance Rhongomyniad at its center, like the needle of a cosmic compass. The lance was no small weapon. It was a pillar as thick as an ancient oak, covered in golden spirals and runes that glowed with the radiance of creation itself. Excalibur was a sword forged by fairies to defend the land. Rhongomyniad was a nail that pinned the texture of reality to the ground. A tool of protection, not destruction. But now, raised as a scepter of judgment, it had become the opposite.
Seated on the throne, the lance pulsing behind her like a mechanical heart, the Lion King waited.
She was identical to the Artoria Pendragon I knew, and yet completely different. Her armor was not of steel, but of solidified light. Her blonde hair did not wave in the wind; it floated as if submerged in water. And her eyes... her eyes were not green. They were gold, like an eagle's, like those of a god who has stopped blinking because blinking is human. Seeing her there, sitting with her leg crossed and her cheek resting on a fist, was like beholding a statue come to life. Perfect. Relentless. Empty.
Bedivere took the first step. His silver armor, that of a knight who had wandered for fifteen hundred years, glowed faintly under the lance's light. His right arm, Airgetlam, the "silver arm" that had replaced the one he lost in battle, shone with an intensity I hadn't seen before. And beside him, Artoria Lancer Alter wielded her own Rhongomyniad, the dark version, the storm that opposed divine calm.
"Bedivere," said the Lion King. Her voice was not human. It was a chorus of echoes, as if a thousand bells were ringing in unison. "You have returned."
"I have returned, my king," Bedivere replied. His voice, in contrast, was brittle. Human. Full of pain and hope. "I have come to finish what I started fifteen hundred years ago."
"You started nothing. You fled." The goddess stood, and the marble beneath her feet cracked. "You fled with Excalibur. You disobeyed my final order. And because of your weakness... I became this."
"I know." Bedivere raised his silver arm. "And that is why I am here. Not to fight you, my king. But to return to you what belongs to you."
The Lion King tilted her head, like a predator assessing its prey. "Return to me? You think accepting the sword now will give me back my humanity? I am no longer human, Bedivere. The lance has purged me of all imperfection. I no longer feel. I no longer doubt. I no longer love. I am perfect."
"That is not perfection," Artoria Lancer Alter interjected, raising her dark lance. "That is emptiness. An armor without a body. A crown without a head. A throne without a king. You are not Arturia Pendragon. You are a shell that divinity has filled with its indifference."
"And you are a dark echo," the Lion King retorted, turning her golden eyes toward Lancer Alter. "A version of me who embraced tyranny to avoid embracing oblivion. Do you think you are better than I? At least I save the pure. You... you only destroy."
"I destroy what must be destroyed. You destroy what you should protect."
The air grew tense. The two lances, the divine and the dark, gleamed with the anticipation of battle.
And then, Bedivere charged.
It was not a coordinated attack. There was no strategy. It was an impulse, a need to do what was right after centuries of doing what was wrong. Bedivere ran toward the Lion King with his Airgetlam raised, and the goddess responded with a flick of her wrist that would have been careless if it weren't lethal. Rhongomyniad fired a beam of pure light that cut through marble as if it were butter. Bedivere rolled to one side, the heat of the ray scorching his cape.
"Bedivere, watch out!" cried Artoria Lancer Alter, and her own lance rose to block a second shot. The clash of energies was deafening. Light against darkness. The throne room lit up like the interior of a star.
From my position, through Tezcatlipoca's mirror, I watched every detail. Bedivere moved with a grace that belied his weary body. Every step, every dodge, every attempt to approach the Lion King was a work of martial art. But it was not enough. The goddess was too fast, too powerful. Her lance not only fired beams; it was also a melee weapon she wielded with the ease of one who has held the lance for eons.
"Artoria Lancer Alter is holding back her ranged attacks," Tezcatlipoca reported. "But she can't keep it up forever. The Lion King is using only a fraction of her power. If she unleashes the lance completely..."
"She already did once," I murmured. "In the mountains. And we needed two Command Seals to counter it."
"Exactly. This time we don't have that resource."
I clenched my fists. I had to do something. I couldn't just stand by with my arms crossed while they fought.
"Tezcatlipoca. Can you cast buffs through the mirrors?"
"Yes. But distance reduces effectiveness. And your mana is at its limit."
"I don't care." I stretched my hand toward the mirror showing Bedivere. "Matarukaja. Masukukaja."
Two waves of energy flowed from my body through the bond, crossing the distance like lightning. In the mirror, I saw Bedivere's aura intensify. His movements became faster, more precise. He managed to dodge a beam by inches and answered with a slash of his Airgetlam that forced the Lion King to retreat.
"What...?" murmured the goddess, surprised.
"I am not alone, my king," said Bedivere, with a tired smile. "The Master of Chaldea is with me. He has always been with me."
"An insignificant Master. A human. What can a human do against a god?"
"Remind her what it means to be human."
And then, it happened.
Romani Archaman's voice rang through my communicator, cutting through the noise of battle like a knife.
"Leonel! Leonel, respond! We have an emergency in the readings!"
"I'm a little busy, Roman," I replied, without taking my eyes off the mirror.
"This is important! It's about Bedivere!"
That made me blink. "What about Bedivere?"
"He's not a Servant!"
The silence that followed those words was deafening. Even the roar of the battle in the mirror seemed to fade.
"What do you mean he's not a Servant?" I asked, my voice strained.
"Exactly what I said!" Roman answered, hysterical. "Chaldea's systems classified him as a Servant from the first moment because his spiritual signature is practically identical to that of a Heroic Spirit. But when analyzing his readings during the battle... he's not a Servant! He's a human! A living human!"
"That's impossible," said Da Vinci, joining the conversation. Her voice was calm, but there was a tremor in it. "A human can't live fifteen hundred years. Can't have a silver arm that works like a Noble Phantasm. Can't..."
"Unless he has Excalibur."
The voice of Olga Marie Animusphere, the director of Chaldea, cut through the discussion like a sword. "Excalibur is an EX-class Noble Phantasm. Its sheath, Avalon, grants immortality to whoever possesses it. But the sword itself... the sword also has preservation properties. If someone has carried it for centuries, it could have slowed their aging to a halt. It could have turned an ordinary human into something... more."
I looked at the mirror. I saw Bedivere, his silver arm shining. And suddenly, everything clicked. His guilt. His determination. His refusal to give up. It wasn't the pride of a Hero. It was the desperation of a man.
"Bedivere..." I whispered.
In the throne room, the Lion King froze. Her golden eyes, for the first time, showed something that wasn't divinity. It was confusion.
"Your arm..." she said, pointing at Airgetlam. "That light... I know it."
Bedivere lowered his gaze to his silver arm. "You have always known, my king. This arm... is not a Noble Phantasm. It is a seal. A container." He raised the limb, and the silver began to crack like an eggshell. From within, a golden light burst forth, so intense it blinded me even through the mirror. "Inside this arm, I have carried Excalibur for fifteen hundred years. The sword I did not return. The sword that has kept me alive. The sword that condemned you."
Airgetlam disintegrated. And in its place, shining with the light of a thousand dawns, was the true Excalibur. The Sword of Promised Victory. The most legendary weapon in human history.
The Lion King took a step back. For the first time, her expression was not one of divine superiority, but of human shock. "Excalibur... my sword..."
"Yes," said Bedivere, gripping the sword with both hands. His left arm, the one that was not silver, trembled under the weight. "It is the sword you gave me. The sword I was supposed to return to the lake. The sword I... could not let go."
"Why?" asked the Lion King, and her voice ceased to be a chorus and became a single one. A broken voice. Human. "Why didn't you return it?"
"Because I didn't want you to die."
Bedivere's words resonated through the hall like a bell. Artoria Lancer Alter lowered her lance, watching the scene with her golden eyes full of an indecipherable emotion.
"The first time I went to the lake," Bedivere continued, "I couldn't do it. I looked at the sword, looked at the water, and remembered you agonizing on the battlefield. If I returned the sword, I accepted your death. And I couldn't. So I lied. I told you I had thrown it into the water, and you... trusted me."
"The second time," said the Lion King, her voice now a whisper, "you also lied."
"Yes. You said it was a lie, and I denied it. And you believed me again. Because you were my king, and you trusted me." Tears began to roll down Bedivere's cheeks. "The third time, when I could no longer lie, I ran to the lake ready to do it. But when I arrived... it was already too late. The lance Rhongomyniad had claimed you. Your humanity had faded. And I... I kept the sword, became a man who could not die, wandering for centuries, searching for a way to mend my error."
"Fifteen hundred years..." murmured the Lion King.
"Fifteen hundred years," Bedivere confirmed. "Every day, every hour, every minute. I have roamed the world looking for a way to find you. And now that I have you before me..." He knelt, holding Excalibur on his open palms, like a subject offering tribute to his queen. "I have come to return your sword to you, Arturia. Not to fight you. But so that you may become yourself again."
The Lion King fell silent. The lance Rhongomyniad, which until that moment had been steadily rising, stopped. The pillar of light ceased to grow. The world held its breath.
And then, the goddess let out a cry.
It wasn't a cry of fury. It was a cry of pain. Of memory. Of humanity returning by force to a vessel no longer prepared to contain it. The Lion King brought her hands to her head, and her crown of light cracked. Her divine armor began to disintegrate into fragments of light that floated like petals from a withered flower.
"Arturia!" Bedivere shouted, getting to his feet.
"Don't come closer!" roared the Lion King, her voice a chaos of overlapping echoes. "Don't... don't come closer!"
But Bedivere did not stop. He walked toward her, holding Excalibur, ignoring the hurricane wind the goddess generated with her agony.
"Stop!" the Lion King ordered, and her lance fired a beam.
The beam struck the ground inches from Bedivere, but he did not flinch. He kept walking.
Another beam. This one grazed his shoulder, scorching his skin. He kept walking.
A third beam. This one pierced his thigh, bringing him to his knees. But he did not stop.
"Bedivere!" I shouted from my position, clenching my fists. "Tezcatlipoca, give him another buff!"
"You can't!" my Persona responded. "Your mana is at its limit! If you force it, you might burn your Circuits!"
"Then let them burn!"
"Leonel!"
But before I could do anything, Bedivere got up on his own. His body was wounded, his blood stained the white marble, but his eyes remained fixed on those of his king.
"Arturia..." he said, panting. "I know you're there. I know you can hear me. You are not a goddess. You are a woman. A woman who loved her people. A woman who sacrificed everything for her knights. A woman who... who was my best friend."
The Lion King trembled. Her hands stopped gripping her head and fell to her sides. Her golden eyes met Bedivere's.
"Bedivere..." she whispered.
"I'm here, my king. I have returned. After all this time... I have returned." Bedivere raised Excalibur toward her, offering it. "Please. Be yourself again. Be the Arturia I knew. The one who taught me what it meant to be a knight. The one who gave me a reason to live."
The Lion King stretched her hand toward the sword. Her long, pale fingers brushed the hilt. And in that instant, everything changed.
The light of the lance Rhongomyniad ceased to be white and turned gold. The pillar rising toward the sky stopped completely, and slowly, very slowly, began to descend. The dome surrounding the throne room dissolved, revealing the real sky, a blue sky dotted with white clouds. The wind ceased. The trembling of the ground stopped.
The Singularity stabilized.
But the battle was not over.
The Lion King—no, Arturia—took the sword. She held it in her hands, contemplating it as if seeing it for the first time. Her eyes, which had been gold, were now green. Green like those of the Artoria I knew. Green like those of a human.
"Excalibur..." she murmured. "How long it has been..."
"Too long," said Bedivere, smiling weakly. "But it doesn't matter anymore. You are here. You are back."
Arturia looked up at him. "Bedivere. My faithful knight. My friend. You have suffered so much... because of me."
"It was not your fault. It was mine. I failed you."
"No. You did not fail me." Arturia took a step toward him. "You loved me. And love, sometimes, makes us make mistakes. But it also redeems us."
And then, Arturia Pendragon, the Lion King, the goddess of the Holy Lance, returned the sword to Bedivere. Not as an order, but as a gesture of peace.
"Take it. It's yours."
"But..."
"I no longer need it." Arturia smiled, a sad but real smile. "I have lived too long clinging to divinity. It is time for me to rest."
Bedivere took the sword with trembling hands. "Arturia..."
"Don't cry, my knight. You have fulfilled your mission. You have saved me." Arturia turned toward Artoria Lancer Alter, who watched the scene in silence. "And you... thank you. For reminding me what it was to be human."
Artoria Lancer Alter nodded, saying nothing. But in her golden eyes, there was something I hadn't seen before. Respect, perhaps. Or understanding. Or both.
"The Singularity is repairing itself," Roman reported on my communicator, his voice full of relief. "The lance has stopped rising. Reality is stabilizing. They've done it!"
"It wasn't us," I replied, looking at the mirror. "It was Bedivere."
But then, I saw something that froze my blood. Bedivere staggered. His body, which had endured fifteen hundred years, began to crack like an ancient statue.
"Bedivere?" Arturia asked, her voice full of alarm.
"Do not worry, my king," said Bedivere, falling to his knees. His voice was calm. Serene. "I have lived too long. I have carried Excalibur for centuries. My body... can take no more."
"No!" I shouted, extending my hand toward the mirror. "Tezcatlipoca! Heal him! Use the Grail! Whatever it takes!"
"I cannot, Master," Tezcatlipoca responded, and his voice was strangely soft. "The magic of Excalibur kept him alive, but now that the sword has returned to its owner... his time has run out. There is nothing we can do."
"There has to be something!"
"There is not."
I looked at the mirror. I saw Bedivere, kneeling before Arturia, his body slowly disintegrating into particles of golden light. I saw Arturia, holding his hand, tears streaming down her cheeks. I saw Artoria Lancer Alter, bowing her head in a gesture of silent respect.
And then, I remembered my last Command Seal.
I raised my right hand. The crimson seal on my backhand glowed with a desperate light.
"By the power of my last Command Seal!" I shouted with all my might. "Ensure Bedivere's victory!"
The seal burned away in a scarlet flare. The magic flowed through the bond, crossing the distance, and enveloped Bedivere in a crimson aura. It couldn't heal him. It couldn't give him back his lost time. But it could give him the strength to finish what he had started.
In the mirror, I saw Bedivere raise his head. His eyes met... not with me, but with the sky, as if he knew I was there.
"Thank you, Master of Chaldea," he said, and his voice resonated in my mind through the bond. "Thank you for believing in me. Thank you for giving me this chance. Thank you for... everything."
And then, with Excalibur in his hands, he stood. His body was still disintegrating, but his eyes burned with the determination of a knight who has reached the end of his journey.
"Arturia," he said, turning to the Lion King. "There is something I must do."
"Bedivere..."
"Please. Let me do it."
Arturia nodded, tears in her eyes. Bedivere walked toward the lance Rhongomyniad, the pillar of light still rising at the center of the hall. Excalibur shone in his hands.
"I have carried this sword for fifteen hundred years," he said. "I have borne it across deserts, oceans, and mountains. I have hidden it from those who wished to use it for evil. I have protected it with my life." He raised the sword toward the lance. "And now... I will use it for what it was forged. To protect the land. To save humanity. To redeem myself."
And with a final shout of effort, Bedivere drove Excalibur into the base of the lance.
The explosion of light was blinding. I had to look away from the mirror, shielding my eyes with my arm. The entire world seemed to shake. The sound of the lance breaking was like a thousand shattering crystals. And when the light dissipated, the lance Rhongomyniad no longer rose toward the sky. It had split in two, and its fragments floated in the air like shooting stars, slowly fading.
Bedivere was on the ground, on his knees. His body was no longer disintegrating. It simply... was vanishing. His particles of light mingled with those of the lance, as if the universe was reclaiming what belonged to it.
"Bedivere..." Arturia whispered, approaching him.
"Don't cry, my king," said Bedivere, with a tired smile. "I have lived a long life. Too long. But it was worth it. Because in the end... I got to see you once more. I got to return to you what was yours. I got to... redeem myself."
"You had nothing to redeem," said Arturia, kneeling beside him. "You were always the most loyal of my knights. You were always my friend."
"And you will always be my king." Bedivere raised a hand, brushing Arturia's cheek. "Rest, Arturia. You have suffered enough. It is time for you to find peace."
"You too, Bedivere. You too."
And then, Bedivere vanished. His last ashes floated on the wind, carrying with them fifteen hundred years of pain, of guilt, of hope. Carrying with them a man who had been human, who had been a knight, who had been a friend. Carrying with them Bedivere, the bearer of Excalibur.
Arturia remained there, kneeling on the ground, staring at the place where Bedivere had been. Her shoulders trembled. Her hands were pressed against her chest. And for the first time in centuries, the Lion King wept.
I don't know how much time passed. Perhaps minutes. Perhaps hours. In a collapsing Singularity, time is a malleable concept. But when Arturia finally stood, her eyes were no longer gold. They were green. Human. Sad, but alive.
"The lance has been destroyed," she said, her voice hoarse from weeping. "The Singularity will repair itself. The world will return to what it was. Camelot will disappear, and with it, all of us."
"That means..." began Artoria Lancer Alter.
"Yes. My time here is over." Arturia turned toward us—not toward Artoria, but toward the sky, as if she knew I was watching. "Master of Chaldea. Leonel Herrera."
I swallowed. "Yes?"
"Thank you. For everything. For taking care of Bedivere. For giving him the chance to redeem himself. For... for bringing me back."
"I didn't do anything," I replied. "It was all him."
"That's not true. You gave him strength when he needed it most. You believed in him when no one else did. You..." She paused. "You are a Master worthy of that title."
I didn't know what to answer. Fortunately, I didn't have to.
"The Singularity is about to collapse," Roman announced on my communicator. "We have to initiate the Rayshift back. Otherwise, you'll be trapped."
"Understood." I turned toward my allies. Ozymandias, Nitocris, the Hassans, Lancelot, Xuanzang... they all looked at us with expressions of farewell. "Thank you all. Without you, we wouldn't have made it."
"You're welcome, Master of Chaldea," said Ozymandias, with a nod. "It has been an honor to fight by your side. If you ever need the Divine Pharaoh, do not hesitate to summon me."
"And me," added Nitocris, with a shy smile. "Though I don't know if I would be of much help..."
"Of course you would," I answered.
"And us," said Cursed Arm, his skull mask gleaming. "The Hassans will forever be in your debt, Master."
"There's no debt. Only friendship."
Serenity stepped forward. Her large dark eyes looked at me with a mixture of sadness and hope. "Master... will I see you again?"
"Of course," I said. "If I summon you in Chaldea, you'll have a room waiting. And a spot on the schedule."
Serenity smiled, and for a moment, her expression was so pure it hurt to look at. "Then... see you soon."
"See you soon."
The Rayshift lights began to envelop us. Small orbs of blue light floating around us, preparing us for the jump back to Chaldea. I felt reality slowly fading, the Camelot Singularity becoming a memory.
But before I left, I heard one last voice.
"Leonel."
It was Arturia. The Lion King. The goddess who had become human again. She looked at me from the center of the throne room, Excalibur in hand—the sword Bedivere had returned to her, the sword that now rested in its sheath, complete.
"If you ever summon me in Chaldea..." she said, and her voice cracked. "...I promise this time I won't be a goddess. I will be a Servant. A friend. An ally. Whatever you need."
"That's more than I could ask for," I replied.
Arturia smiled. And then, everything turned white.
The Rayshift is a strange sensation. It's like falling upward, or floating downward. Time stretches and contracts at the same time. Space bends at impossible angles. And in the midst of that chaos, there is only silence. A deep, absolute silence, like that of the bottom of the ocean.
When I opened my eyes, I was in the Rayshift room in Chaldea. Around me, my Servants were materializing, their spiritual forms condensing into solid bodies. Mash, beside me, was breathing heavily, but smiling. Tamamo stretched, her tails returning to their normal volume. Jeanne Alter snorted, trying to hide her relief. Mordred let herself fall to the floor, completely exhausted. Artoria Lancer Alter remained standing, leaning on her lance, her eyes fixed on some distant point.
And in front of us, Chaldea's staff greeted us with applause. Roman was crying. Da Vinci smiled with damp eyes. Olga Marie tried to maintain her composure, but even she seemed moved. The Servants who had stayed behind—Nero, Drake, Kiyohime, Scáthach—ran toward us, their faces full of joy and relief.
"Anchin-sama!" Kiyohime shouted, throwing herself at me. "You're alive! You're alive!"
"Of course I'm alive," I replied, awkwardly. "I wasn't going to die that easily."
"You came very close," said Scáthach, appearing beside me with her usual predatory smile. "I watched the battle through the monitors. You used too much mana. Your Circuits are at their limit. Tonight, I will examine you personally."
"That sounds more like a threat than a medical exam."
"It is."
But even Scáthach seemed relieved. Her hand rested on my shoulder a second longer than necessary, and I felt the warmth of her skin through the glove.
Nero, for her part, pushed through the crowd with her usual theatricality. "My Caesar of the heart! You have conquered Camelot! You have defeated a god! You are the greatest of Masters!"
"I didn't defeat a god," I replied. "Bedivere defeated her."
An uncomfortable silence settled over the room. Everyone remembered the final scene. Bedivere's sacrifice. His farewell. His vanishing.
"Bedivere was a hero," Mash said, quietly. "A true hero."
"He was," I nodded. "And we will never forget him."
That night, after medical exams confirmed I was miraculously alive—my Magic Circuits ached as if they'd been sandpapered from the inside, but at least they hadn't burned out—I gathered with my Servants in Chaldea's common room. The atmosphere was strange. There was joy for the victory, but also sadness for the losses. We had won, yes. But we had lost a friend.
"It was his decision," said Artoria Lancer Alter, breaking the silence. She sat in an armchair, her lance leaning against the armrest. "Bedivere chose his fate. He chose to redeem himself. We shouldn't weep for him. We should honor him."
"That doesn't make it any less sad," Mordred replied, arms crossed. "He was a good guy. A bit heavy with the chivalry stuff, but a good guy."
"He was the best of us," said Lancelot, who had joined us after the Rayshift. His presence was uncomfortable for some, but no one had rejected him. After all, he had fought alongside us. "The purest. The most loyal. The one who should never have suffered so much."
"Suffering does not define him," Xuanzang interjected, with her usual wisdom. "His redemption defines him. In the end, Bedivere found what he was looking for. He found peace. And that is what matters."
I nodded. "She's right. Bedivere is at peace now. And we... we have to move forward."
"Because the final battle still remains," said Da Vinci, entering the room. She carried a tablet in her hands and a serious expression on her face. "The Seventh Singularity. Babylonia. And after that... the Temple of Time. Goetia."
The name fell like a bomb. Everyone remembered London. Everyone remembered the crushing defeat. Everyone remembered what it meant to face Goetia.
"But that will be tomorrow," I said, rising from my armchair. "Tonight... tonight is for rest. For honoring the fallen. For celebrating the victory. Tomorrow, we start preparing for what's to come."
"And what about me?" asked a voice.
We all turned. In the doorway, slowly materializing like a ghost taking form, stood Arturia Pendragon. Not the Lion King. Not the goddess. But Arturia. The Lancer. The one who had promised to return.
"You said you would summon me," she said, with a shy smile. "Well, here I am."
I blinked. "But... I didn't summon you. The summoning system hasn't activated. I didn't use the Grail or..."
"You didn't need to." Arturia stepped forward. "I promised I would return. And a king's—a queen's—promises must be kept. So here I am. Not as the Lion King. Not as a goddess. But as Arturia Pendragon. Lancer. At your service."
I was speechless. Beside me, Tamamo snorted. "Another one..."
"So it seems," Jeanne Alter murmured.
"The harem grows," Mordred commented, with a crooked grin.
"I'm not part of the harem," Arturia said, blushing slightly. "I'm just a Servant. An ally. A friend."
"That's what we all said," Artoria Lancer Alter replied, with a half-smile.
And for the first time in a long while, Chaldea's common room filled with laughter.