All three Command Seals had been used, and she'd already burned through the mana spent firing her Noble Phantasm on top of that. Forget swinging a sword at a saint—she didn't even have the strength left to spar with Lancer.
The crux of it: Kiritsugu, her Master, had given up.
It seemed the situation itself had defaulted to ending the Holy Grail War—or perhaps the Greater Grail itself had been damaged in the chaos of the brawl, because the remaining Servants were being sent back as well.
A little galling, really. She had pinned every hope on that elusive cup.
"A dream, and not a particularly long one."
But in the end, even if the Holy Grail had been uncorrupted, could it really have granted her wish to change everything?
"A dream?" The one who answered was Bedivere, among the very first to take a seat at the Round Table.
"It seems I saw Sir Lancelot. A man who really does cause one no end of trouble."
"Lancelot... I'm sure his thoughts, too, came to rest with you, my King. We went through so much, but in the end we were all Knights of the Round Table, gathered around our King—were we not?"
Bedivere offered his pained consolation.
"Is that so..."
Artoria closed her eyes. She seemed to return to the day she had drawn that sword—and to Merlin, that heartless man... Even then, she had already known the ending.
Perhaps she was not suited to be King. Perhaps someone else would have done better. "Return to the day the King was chosen"—that, in truth, was her real wish.
"If I gave you all another chance—would you still choose to follow me?" She did not speak the words aloud.
Had King Arthur's life been a brilliant one?
Had her decision regarding Sir Lancelot been too cruel...
"Bedivere—take my sword. Pass through this forest, cross the blood-stained hill, and on the far side of that hill, cast my sword into the deep lake."
"..."
"Go, Bedivere. Quickly."
————————
The little kitten looked down at her own small paws.
She'd still never been formally taught magecraft of any kind—otherwise she could have settled the matter of All the World's Evils on her own, using only the Third Magic.
"How boring. If I'd known it would end this quickly, I'd have given Kirei some proper guidance—taught him to do something interesting." Gilgamesh laughed coldly, glancing down at the spirit particles dissolving from his body.
Tokiomi watched him go, faintly disdainful of the remark.
After spending this long with him, how could he not know what kind of person his own student was? Just as Father Risei had said—Kirei was a saint, a man without worldly desire. Tokiomi was perfectly satisfied with that.
Watching Gilgamesh finally vanish, Tokiomi let out an internal sigh of relief. He'd been starting to feel that if this went on, his Servant might kill him before the Grail was even won. Killing one's Master and switching to another before disappearing was entirely feasible.
"My King... how could a sinner such as I ever earn your forgiveness?"
The only Servants still present were Yimi and the Lancelot she'd contracted—and even at the end, he had not received the judgment he longed for.
Ritsuka patted his shoulder in comfort.
"Good evening, esteemed lady mage." Tokiomi addressed Ritsuka the moment she arrived, his eyes fixed on the small Grail in her hands, mana practically spilling out of it.
The man seemed to be operating under some kind of misunderstanding, but Ritsuka saw no need to correct him.
If anything, she edged the Grail a little further behind her back, to prevent him from getting any ideas he shouldn't be having.
"Archer's Master—you must be Tohsaka Tokiomi?" It was Lancelot who recovered first and answered him.
He remembered, of course. Back when he was still serving Kariya, the man had once gone to the toilet, found no paper, and still managed to claim that Tohsaka Tokiomi had stolen it.
"Kariya's Servant?" Tokiomi knew of him as well. In fact, were it not for the abrupt change of Master, he had been planning to go and settle things with Kariya.
He had never been fond of the man. A scion of one of the Three Founding Families who had voluntarily severed his ties to magecraft—and worse, though Kariya had already taken himself out of the war, he was technically a romantic rival.
Tokiomi composed himself into his usual elegant posture. "If your Master has been transferred, that means Kariya is most likely dead. Aoi and Rin will be very upset to hear it."
"And if I told you he was alive and well? Would that hit you hard?" Lancelot looked him up and down, faintly disappointed. "So this is what a modern magus looks like. No wonder Matou Kariya hates you so much. Perhaps it really would be better for Sakura to be raised by him."
There was no normal human warmth in the man. The names he'd just listed—Aoi and Rin—hadn't even included Sakura.
In truth, men like Tokiomi were what counted as normal magi. Whether that was its own kind of tragedy, who could say.
"What do you mean? Why Kariya?" Tokiomi frowned.
He had sent Sakura to the Matou family precisely so as not to waste her magecraft potential. How could she possibly be raised by an ordinary man like Kariya? That was certainly not what the Matou patriarch had told him at the time.
Lancelot had no intention of replying. He turned to Ritsuka. "The Holy Grail War is over, Master of my Master. Should I be on my way as well?"
"Yimi—you coming back to Chaldea with us?" Ritsuka looked down at the little cat.
Yimi was the card Ritsuka most wanted to pull right now.
The kitten shook her head. "I'm going home."
This world had no quest and the cup was useless.
"Home?" Ritsuka and the others misunderstood completely.
The job was done—of course she was returning to the divine realm.
"At least wait until I've made contact with Chaldea before you go... Speaking of which, I haven't properly explained Chaldea's nature to Sir Lancelot yet. It's abrupt to put it this way, but—saving the Human Order is going to need your help."
Right now Lancelot's contract was anchored to Yimi, sustained entirely by her bottomless mana. It could be transferred to Ritsuka, but Ritsuka's own mana wasn't enough to maintain a Servant of his caliber without Chaldea's backing.
"Human Order? What exactly is...? Though the Grail War has ended, leaving a lady alone in the wilderness goes against the knight's code." He meant Irisviel.
"She has a husband watching her—don't go meddling..."
Ritsuka scooped Yimi up by the rear, took the Grail in her mouth, and walked off just like that.
There were horses available, but the motorcycle Lancelot had ridden in on had been demolished by his own hands.
"Sir Lancelot, there's another motorcycle over here—hurry, steal it!"
"That one belongs to my King... A knight cannot simply steal..."
"It's over, isn't it? Judging by the way Saber looked when she left—I think she made peace with it." Irisviel watched the place where Artoria had vanished, then drew out her phone to call Kiritsugu and let him know she was safe.
She had never imagined that she, too, would have the right to live on as a wife.
But Kiritsugu's wish—and Illya's situation—
"Iri, let's live well from here on." Kiritsugu's first words were just that. "Tomorrow, let's go get Illya back."
"...Yes."