Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The Heroic Spirit opened his eyes in the material world again, and for a long moment could not parse who he was.

Hundreds, thousands, countless images flashed across his eyes, fire and blood and sand and swords -- too much. Too much for his mind, still a fragile human thing when all was said and done, to comprehend. It was like being drowned beneath a tide of fallen books: all the information in the world, but unable to make anything of it. He may as well have been left in a desert.

Who was he? What was his name? The only thing he could recall clearly was… fire. Fire pouring down from a hole in the night. The heat of it. The screams.

Nothing else would stay firm in his mind. He knew what he was, that he was meant to fight in the Holy Grail War, but he could not remember who.

And then he looked upon the face of his Master, and everything snapped into place with dizzying certainty.

His name was Emiya Shirou. When he was seven years old, a fire had consumed his home and his family, and should have killed him, too. He was saved by the man who later adopted him, an independent magus. Ten years later, he had gotten in over his head in a Holy Grail War just like this one. And in time, he made a pact with the world to become a Heroic Spirit himself, and now he had been summoned as an Archer.

And in front of him stood the man who saved him; his adoptive father, Emiya Kiritsugu, with the unmistakable crimson of a Master’s Command Seals on his hand.

As a boy, he remembered his father’s eyes shining with soft affection, even when they were dulled by pain. Now they were hard and sharp, glittering like obsidian.

Archer’s wish was finally within his grasp, and it had nothing to do with achieving the Holy Grail. If Kiritsugu died, here and now, Emiya Shirou would never survive the fire, never grow up into his warped ideal of a hero of justice. He would never sign away his soul and become a Counter-Guardian, a tool for methodical murder for the greater good that made him sick to his very core.

He could cross the cathedral floor in less time than even a trained killer like Kiritsugu could hope to process. He could use Kanshou or Bakuya to cleanly sever his spine at the neck with no more effort than a flick. He could be free.

But all he could see was his old man, unshaven and dressed only in a plain kimono, smiling lazily at him while crickets sang into the night air.

He couldn’t do it.

Beside his father stood a woman with elegant, perfectly-symmetrical features, ruby red eyes and snow-white hair; nearly a mirror image of his little sister. It could be nobody but Irisviel von Einzbern, the lost wife Kiritsugu tried so hard not to speak about to his son.

Her tentative voice sounded like soft bells in the cathedral.

“King Arthur?”

Outside, Kiritsugu played in the snow with Illya. She pranced around and twirled -- perhaps she was singing -- while the old man ambled along behind her with a lazy smile… when he wasn’t carrying her on his shoulders, anyway.

“What are you looking at, Archer?”

On the other side of the room, Irisviel had returned, carrying a tray of tea. A habit she had no doubt picked up from Kiritsugu, rather than the Poland-originating, Germany-based household of homunculi she called home.

She came over to the window where their Servant stood and looked out, and noted the sight with a soft smile.

“Surprised?” she asked.

“No,” Archer said. This was the Kiritsugu that he remembered, not the one who had greeted him in the chapel, made of flint and steel.

“I’m glad,” Irisviel said, herself sounding slightly surprised. “I was afraid that, after the incident with your summoning, you might hold a grudge against him.”

Archer shook his head, though Iri could not see as she poured them tea. “He’s brusque, but I think we understand each other well. Perhaps even better than he thinks.”

“I must say… you do surprise me, for a member of the Round Table,” she said, taking a seat and motioning to welcome him into the one across from her.

Drinking was a useless motion to him, but he saw no reason to deny her hospitality. He brushed his red mantle aside and sat.

“You’ve met many?” he asked wryly.

“You don’t have to laugh at me,” she said, still smiling. “It’s no surprise that fifteenth-century texts failed to capture the nuances of heroes who lived a thousand years before their time.”

“I suppose they do paint a very different image of Sir Tristan,” Archer said.

That was the lie he had quickly provided for Kiritsugu. Despite using the scabbard Avalon itself as a catalyst -- which Archer knew well should normally only summon King Arthur, or perhaps Morgan le Fae in some rare corner case -- their Servant was the wrong class and looked nothing like what they expected; neither the wise, bearded King Arthur of legend, nor the fragile-looking young Artoria that Archer knew to be the real human being. Artoria Pendragon was also a woman in reality, although he was probably the only one in a thousand kilometers who knew that.

Archer understood why it had happened -- because to save him from the fire at the end of this war, Kiritsugu had implanted that very scabbard into his body, and over time it had become so deep a part of him that it had changed his magecraft, his very origin, and even now, long after he had given it up in life, he could recreate it at his fingertips with a thought.

Not, unfortunately, that his Avalon Image would be any use. Without mana from its proper owner, its healing properties were greatly reduced, even dangerous for him.

Luckily, it was easier to convince them that artistic liberties had been taken with the story of Sir Tristan. He’d told them he had saracen heritage, as a notable number of the Round Table had, to explain his complexion, and then Kiritsugu’s only questions had revolved around his ability to adapt to the Magus Killer’s tactics.

“As the stories say, you’re a deeply romantic and honorable man,” Irisviel said, stirring milk into the tea.

Archer gave a scoff which was quite genuine, for he was neither.

“I can see where things were skewed, I think,” she told him. “You may not be the courtly presence they say, but there’s a strong conviction in your demeanor, much like Kiritsugu, and you do seem handsome. I can’t quite picture you singing, though. I hope that doesn’t offend you!” she exclaimed, suddenly recollecting she was talking to -- she thought, anyway -- the bard of Camelot.

“I haven’t seen much reason to sing in a long time,” Archer said; the truth, although he had never been much of a singer in the first place. He hoped she didn’t ask him to play the harp.

“Of course,” she said. Then she looked at the window. “… May I ask you something?”

“Go ahead.”

“Do you miss her even now? Isolde?”

Archer looked at her critically, and a moment later was thankful his genuine reaction matched the one he should have had as Tristan. He didn’t know Isolde, of course, but he suddenly knew why she was asking, eyes taking in the gentle snow outside the window, where Kiritsugu and Illya still played.

Irisviel did not live through this war, and she knew that well ahead of time. After all, she was the vessel for the Holy Grail. It was the entire reason she had been created. The fact that Illya, the next vessel, had lived in the war from Archer’s life was a fluke, dependent on the fact that he and his Servant had stopped the Grail ritual.

Archer thought about the pain in Kiritsugu’s eyes when he was a child. He had been crippled by curses spilled out from the corrupt Grail, yes, but that did not bother him. He missed Irisviel and Illyasviel, having sacrificed his wife for nothing and been banished from seeing his daughter for his failure.

“I don’t miss her,” Archer said. “That doesn’t do it justice. In her absence, a part of me is also simply gone.”

Iri gave him a sad look. “I’m sorry, Archer. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“Don’t be. There’s nothing I can do about it. But it helps to know that I can serve a righteous Master.”

Iri gave a small laugh. “It’s so strange to hear someone, especially a knight, call him righteous. You have keen eyes, indeed, Archer.”

“...And that I can also protect his lady from harm, as any knight should,” Archer added.

Iri searched his eyes for a moment. “I would not ask you to make that vow, Archer. I am not utterly naive. In the Holy Grail War, that may be impossible. And Kiritsugu’s wish is more important than my life.”

“It may be impossible,” Archer conceded. “But you’re wrong about what is important to him.”

Iri held his eyes for only a moment longer as hers started to glisten with emotion, and she took another brisk drink of her tea, hiding her face with a smile. “Drink,” she invited. “I promise I’ve grown a little talent for brewing tea.”

Archer did as she commanded, and thought. There was a way. He could not bring himself to kill Kiritsugu, the quickest route to his wish, but who ever preferred such simple methods, anyway? And he could not deny that, on the eve of the Fourth Holy Grail War, the same deep instinct that had drawn him into the Fifth was nibbling at his heart: if he participated in the war, rather than avoid it, how many deaths might he be able to prevent? If he abandoned it now, those deaths would be his choice.

There was another way. Emiya Shirou was born in fire. If Archer could prevent the Grail ritual at the climax of the war the same way he had in his own war, he could find a new solution: there would be no fire, Emiya Shirou would never be saved nor would he need it, and Kiritsugu, Irisviel, and Illya could have the life together that they deserved.

Archer sipped the tea thoughtfully. He had been summoned across time and space, and seen many realities, though they slipped from his mind like grains of sand through his fingers. He knew that many of the outcomes were similar, in broad strokes, but there was a chance. He could still fight fate. And he thought, sitting across from the mother he had never had the chance to know, that it was worth it.