Warning: Some scenes in this chapter may come across as too sensual for some readers. Personally, I think it's fine though.

Chapter 33: Grief, Relief & Disbelief

A cluster of clouds huddled over the moon like a herd of slowly passing gray sheep. What scant few rays of light from the moon were obscured and the world below was plunged into inconsolable darkness.

Saber gritted her teeth furiously. The salty taste of blood lingered scornfully on her tongue. Her blonde head bent down, she glowered at the jagged cracks left on the cobblestone floor. The small puddles of blood around the scarred floor slowly dissolved into ash. The last remaining proof of Lancer's existence dwindled by the second.

"What the hell was that?" she spat out viciously, her shoulders trembling. She gathered up her festering anger and managed to lift her gaze above the ground. She glared threateningly at her Master's icy face of indifference.

"I'm asking you, bastard, what the hell was that?" she repeated scathingly at the top of her breath.

A rush of fiery emotions raged through Saber's heart in waves. Her breath felt short and her heart weighed heavy. She waited expectantly for her Master's explanation.

However, only silence answered Saber's cry. Her Master merely looked down on her impassively. His cold dispassionate gaze was unreadable, with only faint shades of impatience and ridicule creeping at the side.

Saber seethed. Hot fire escaped her tongue. "Kiritsugu! You lowly–"

"Saber, enter the forest from the north side. Most likely, there are enemies in that area," Kiritsugu interrupted. His stoic voice pierced through Saber's irate slur.

Saber held her tongue. She glared confoundedly at the man who was unfortunately her Master. "What are you saying all of a sudden?"

She wasn't in the least convinced by Kiritsugu's rationale. To her, it just seemed like her Master was skirting responsibility by sending her away on some random task.

"Iri and Maiya haven't sent a status update. Most likely, they're engaged in combat," Kiritsugu explained impatiently with a snort.

Saber knitted her brows. She didn't trust her Master, not after what he pulled here tonight. But if his words were true, then it meant Irisviel and Maiya's lives hung in the balance.

She would love nothing more than to throttle her own Master right now. But she couldn't with good conscience ignore his orders for the sake of her grievances, however justified they may be.

"This isn't over, Kiritsugu," Saber promised fiercely. "Mark my words, when I return, you will answer to me."

By this point, with Lancer's curse now lifted, Saber's body rapidly healed itself. Kiritsugu also rushed a stable supply of magical energy on his end of their contract. So, Saber's body had repaired itself to the point she was now at least capable of facing opponents on her own.

Kiritsugu merely sighed impatiently at his Servant's petty grievance. "Hurry up," he sent her off with a dismissive glance.

Saber clenched her sword and sped away. Her mind still reeled with doubts about her Master and Lancer's scathing last words. She felt like the villain of this story and she hated it.

"Woman, let me ask you one question," Kirei said as he tightened his hold on the Einzbern woman's neck. "The two of you attacked me to protect Emiya Kiritsugu. Under whose orders did you act?"

The woman squirmed in Kirei's hands. He felt her throat wriggle defiantly against his fingers. She clawed at his arm trying to break free like a trapped animal.

"Without command seals, you cannot be the Einzbern Master," Kirei continued, keeping up his iron tight grip. "Most likely, you are just a homunculus charged with protecting the vessel for the Lesser Grail. That man wouldn't be foolish enough to send the likes of you out into the battlefield," he determined with confidence.

Kirei narrowed his eyes in suspicion. He squeezed the woman's neck harder. "I'll ask you one last time, woman. Under whose orders did you act?"

The Einzbern homunculus writhed in Kirei's grip, but she refused to say a word. Even as the skin on her face grew paler and paler, she just stubbornly glared at him with her furious red eyes.

No, you do love me.

Kirei's eyes widened a fraction. A pale woman's determined face briefly flashed in his mind. The face belonged to a woman he hadn't thought of since she'd passed away three years ago, the face of a Saint he could not bring himself to love.

"Grh..!"

Kirei looked down. He was shaken out of his thoughts by the sensation of his right leg being gripped by the woman in black.

He stared blankly at the woman. He was certain he'd inflicted wounds that would've left her incapable of moving even an inch. And yet, she still somehow managed to grit her teeth and bear the pain, stubbornly crawling towards him like a worm. He realized to the realization then.

This woman in black as well. She shared the same look in her eyes as the Einzbern woman did.

"Master," Assassin's voice cut in from inside Kirei's head. "Lancer and his Master have been killed. Saber is on her way here as we speak. She is injured but the curse afflicting her has been lifted. My Master, you are in danger."

Kirei considered his options. Even against a damaged Saber, he didn't think his Assassin could win. He also found it unlikely he could meet Emiya Kiritsugu in a satisfying, uninterrupted match.

He could only cut his losses. The information Assassin had gathered tonight would have to be enough. However, that still left the matter of these two women.

Kirei shook his right leg free and stomped on the woman in black's back, eliciting a groan of agony out of her lips. He then released his grip around the Einzbern woman's neck and used his now free hand to clamp her mouth shut.

He proceeded to push the full length of three Black Keys through her abdomen. Her innards churned and she screamed in vain through the fingers locking her mouth. Blood climbed up her throat and spilled out from the thin gaps between Kirei's fingers.

His priestly vestments now stained, Kirei remarked impassively, "I see. Your blood is a proper red color."

He'd never seen a homunculus bleed before, so he appreciated the novelty of killing one. He dropped the creature's body onto the ground, leaving it next to the collapsed woman in black.

Kirei could feel Assassin silently urging him to leave in the background. He must've been running out of time. Saber was only a moment away.

With a heavy heart of regret, he turned his back and walked away. As he returned to the darkness of the forest, he absentmindedly looked back to the bodies of the two women.

Could it be these two women really attacked me under no one's orders?

He dismissed his Black Keys and stowed them away back into his sleeves.

No. That's impossible.

Kirei began to run through the forest. His thoughts in disarray as his eyes sunk back into the shadows.

Emiya Kiritsugu should be just like me. Someone who will never be understood, who will never be acknowledged by anyone. We are hollow men.

But even as his thoughts denied any possibility of the contrary, he remembered the face of that foolish woman from three years ago. Her stupidly stubborn face as she closed her eyes for the last time surfaced in his mind.

See? You're crying…

Kotomine Kirei ran forward through the darkness. His heart was in chaos. As his body sped through the forest, his breath was even, but his heart was in turmoil.

But even if that's true, that woman is now dead. We should be the same. The two of us are the same. We have to be.

He regretted leaving the woman in black alive, but at least the Einzbern woman was dead. The priest took comfort in that fact as he fled the forest.

Irisviel felt cold. She no longer had any energy left to see for herself, but she could feel the gaping wounds left on her chest. Three large holes went straight through her lower abdomen. She felt the warmth steadily leave her body, being quickly replaced with the frigid cold of death. Quite evidently, she was bleeding out.

As her mind slowly sunk into the abyss, her thoughts were filled with her husband and child. The concept of death did indeed scare her, but just the idea she'd be leaving behind Kiritsugu and Illya, such a thought terrified her. In the short span of her time on this Earth, she'd never felt such profound hopelessness.

Her senses began to fail. Already, her vision blurred, fading into a vague obscurity. Numbness spread across her body. It became a struggle to even breathe. Her bloodied mouth open wide, Irisviel felt herself slowly be suffocated in sweet sticky despair.

But just as Irisviel was about to give up the ghost, she heard the subtle sound of something approaching. She honed her ears and made out the sound of hurried footsteps fast approaching.

Her first instinct was of worry. She worried that man had returned to finish the job, that he would press on and attack Kiritsugu while he was still in the middle of fighting Kayneth.

Suddenly, a new burst of strength surged through Irisviel. The fear of Kiritsugu's worst nightmare coming to fruition was enough for her to scrape together the last bits of energy she had left.

Irisviel opened her eyes slowly, prepared for the worst. She expected to see the sinister face of a stoic priest looking down on her. But instead, she was met with the disheveled face of Saber worriedly staring down at her.

"Irisviel!" Saber called out her name with a sense of urgency. "Hang on! Irisviel!"

A faint smile formed on Irisviel's bloody lips. She felt a new wellspring of strength fill her bones as she looked at Saber. The warmth she had lost steadily began to return with Saber now at her side.

"S-saber…" Irisviel softly whispered her name. She reached her hand out weakly to caress the dried blood on Saber's once handsome cheek. "Y-you're hurt…" she noted lightly.

"I'm fine," Saber insisted. "But your wounds, Irisviel…" she trailed off, unsure of how to help.

Her vitals had been spared. But her wounds were severe and the blood she'd lost was critical. She was very obviously not going to survive the night.

But Irisviel just shook her head with a carefree smile. A deep look of relief washed over her face. "I'm fine, Saber. Please, tend to Maiya. She needs more attention…"

She gestured towards Maiya who was lying face down on the ground nearby. Only the soft raspy noise every now and then indicated she was still breathing, if barely.

Saber got up, but she was hesitant to leave Irisviel's side. From her assessment, Maiya, while also hurt, would survive her injuries. It was Irisviel who was on the brink of death.

"What? Your wounds," Saber blurted out all of a sudden.

The King of Knights watched dumbfoundedly as Irisviel's wounds began to heal on their own. The once gaping holes over her chest had sealed back up. Only her torn blouse and the blood covering her torso proved the wounds had ever existed at all.

Irisviel coughed loudly. She sat up with some difficulty but she held onto Saber's hand for stability. She sent a reassuring smile to her husband's Servant. "See? I'm fine, Saber. Please, tend to Maiya," she urged again.

Saber knitted her brows in confusion, but ultimately accepted the strange oddity as a magus' spell. She focused her attention on Maiya and helped the other woman back up. She very quickly noticed the woman's broken ribs and severed leg tendons.

Irisviel looked on with eyes of gratitude and relief at Saber. The Servant's very presence here was proof in her mind that things had worked out over on the other side. Kiritsugu had most likely fended off Kayneth and Lancer somehow if Saber was free to check up on her.

This meant they had all survived tonight. Their second night fighting in the Holy Grail War had ended with none of them suffering any fatalities.

Kiritsugu… Illya…

Best of all, Irisviel wouldn't have to be leaving her family so soon, at least not yet. She comforted herself with such thoughts as she returned to the castle with Saber carrying Maiya.

Inside an old abandoned commercial building on the outskirts of Miyama Town, a heart-wrenching shriek pierced the dark heavens above.

Sola-Ui smashed a bottle of wine against the wall. The sound of glass shattering against concrete reverberated across the dimly lit room. Her face twisted into a look of anguish and she let loose a shrill animalistic scream.

What followed after was a manic episode of chaos and destruction. Sola-Ui went on a rampage, destroying anything and everything she could in the building. She threw furniture across the room, tore old loose papers to shreds, and smashed every window in sight with reckless abandon.

She had no fear of any passersby hearing her. Kayneth had diligently remembered to set up a Bounded Field around their makeshift base. Also, right before he left, he had stocked the place up with the bare essentials, enough for them to at least stay a few nights. As a direct consequence of this, Sola-Ui had ample fodder to destroy.

She didn't care about anything. She was only concerned on making the world feel even a fraction of the despair she was drowning in. She cast away all the masks of decency and civility she was raised to wear. For perhaps the first time in her life, Sola-Ui gave voice to the emotions she had routinely suppressed.

Sola-Ui just watched the love of her life die, and she also saw Kayneth die.

"How dare they? How dare they treat you like that? Lancer!" Sola-Ui screamed out the name of her beloved.

Without an audience to judge her, Sola-Ui shed any pretexts of being a loyal fiancé. She admitted the truth in her heart. She loved Lancer.

It didn't matter if it started off as a consequence of the cursed beauty mark on Lancer's face. Sola-Ui loved Diarmuid with a passion that burned brighter than any ember of feigned interest her arranged marriage with Kayneth had ever produced.

Lancer was the sole splash of color in her otherwise bleak life of disappointments. He gave her life true meaning. No longer was she the spare second child of the Sophia-Ri Family or the bargaining chip offered to the Archibald Family. Sola-Ui's feelings for Lancer, artificial in their origin though they may be, made her feel like she was her own person.

And then to have those feelings ripped away from her, in the worst possible way, Sola-Ui rightfully lost all her reason.

"And you! Kayneth, you lousy bastard! What were you doing? Falling for that rogue's dirty tricks? I thought you were supposed to be the pride of the Archibald Family. Wasn't that why I agreed to marry you? Useless!" Sola-Ui berated her deceased fiancé.

She held no love for the man. Even with all the years they'd spent together, to Sola-Ui, Kayneth was just the crystallization of her dull life. He was just the man she was sold off to, the political connection the Sophia-Ri Family had wanted.

And now, with Kayneth's death, what meaning was left to her life? She was no longer the fiancé of Lord El-Melloi. If she were lucky, maybe she would be promised to another reputable magus family. If she were unlucky, she would be promised off to any bastard with enough worth in the eyes of the Sophia-Ri Family.

A cold sarcastic laugh escaped from Sola-Ui's lips. She fell to the floor, messily rolling around the rubbish and dust, her body enraptured in cathartic despair.

"Unforgivable! Absolutely unforgivable!" Sola-Ui shouted at the top of her lungs. Tears ran down her cheeks as she smiled defiantly. "I'll make them pay! Every last one of them! Saber! Einzbern! Every single one of them who treated you that way, Lancer!"

Her heart pounding against her chest, Sola-Ui swore vengeance against Lancer's enemies. She sank into the depths of her madness. So lost was she in her fervor, she failed to notice the fiery red symbols blazing to life on the back of her right hand, the very same symbols Kayneth had lost.

On the other side of the Mion River, a young office lady was walking through the streets of Shinto. She'd been the reluctant participant of an after-office drinking party. She was normally the type averse to drinking out late into the night. But in the face of her supervisor's pressing invitations, she could only swallow her grievances and accept.

The result was clear to all parties involved. She was coerced to drink well beyond her limit. Her bosses forced her to guzzle down at least a dozen glasses of beer. By her last drink, she was plastered.

Barely coherent, she left the party a tipsy mess. A couple of male coworkers offered to accompany her home. But even in her drunken haze, she felt uncomfortable under their amorous gazes. She refused at least half a dozen times before they finally relented and took the hint.

It was going to be a challenge to get home on her own. But luckily she lived in an apartment complex just a few streets down. If she rode on a taxi, she'd get there in literally no time.

But she was resistant against that idea.

In the young woman's mind, as her home was so close by, she felt it'd be a waste of money to ride a taxi. She was still a struggling fresh graduate, only recently hired with her first job. She was living on her own for the first time and was saving every yen she could to get by.

So, in her stubborn penny-pinching ways, she opted to walk home. It was only a fifteen minute walk anyway. Surely, she was sober enough to at least make the short journey, or so she assured herself as she meandered through dark streets.

As her feet shakily carried her, the young woman's mind wandered. The alcohol in her system sent her thoughts off into a maze of different tangents.

She was luckier than most to land a job straight out of college. Unfortunately, however, she was still at the bottom rung of the company hierarchy. Her gender also didn't do her any favors. Her pretty face earned her a lot of attention, but little respect in the workplace.

If she were born to more well-off family, like those big business types that owned skyscrapers, how much easier would her life be?

She'd never have to work a day in her life. She could simply lay in bed every day and live off the dividends sent to her bank account every year. She might have to marry a husband she didn't love to placate her family's wishes of building ties. But she could live with that. At least she wouldn't have to put up with drinking with a bunch of men hoping to get into her pants.

"Ow!"

She was forced out of her scattered thoughts by a fierce pinch to the back of her neck. In her fevered state, she scratched her skin in a furious panic.

She must've looked like a fool to the passing observer. She kept on scratching her neck, trying to squash the source of her pain. But much to her irritation, she couldn't find the little bastard in the tangle of her long black hair.

"Shit! Shit! Shit!" she cursed under her breath.

She went absolutely livid at the thought of a shitty little insect had crawled its way into her clothes. Her skin itched like hell and she wanted to make the little shit pay. She screamed hysterically and scurried off into a dark alley. She wanted the privacy to fully go crazy, free of judgement.

Once the young woman was safely in the dark, she properly went berserk. She tore off her trench coat in a frenzy, ripping the buttons right off. She proceeded to slam the piece of clothing onto the floor and stomped on it furiously. She figured she'd feel a rush of catharsis at the act, but she only felt her anger spike from the pain of her foot slamming against the pavement. Said anger prompted her to repeat the action again and again, in an insane attempt to get back at her stupid foot for hurting her.

"Agh!" she screamed incoherently. She tore away at her blouse, feeling the frigid night air brush against her bare sweltering skin. "What the fuck is this?" she questioned in a high-pitch screech.

Even after all the crazy shenanigans she pulled, her damn neck still itched like hell. Her body still felt suffocating. Even with the insane removal of her clothes, she still felt stupidly uncomfortable.

Suddenly, the woman's eyes widened.

She felt her heart skip a beat. An intense heat pulsated from her lower abdomen. She went weak in the knees and suddenly, she was on the floor, unable to stand. A tingling sensation crawled up her spine and culminated into the familiar prickling sensation at the back of her neck.

Her entire body convulsed uncontrollably. Her breathing turned ragged. She gritted her teeth as her eyes rolled back in ecstatic pleasure.

"W-what is– thissss?" her words slurred as a steamy hot gasp escaped her lips.

She felt her mind be assaulted with endless waves of rolling pleasure. Sweat ran down the side of her face as her body temperature soared, climbing higher and higher, refusing to peak.

In the midst of her feverish delirium, she felt something shift inside her underwear. Her already drenched panties were soaked even further as she felt something slimy crawl inside her privates, releasing a disturbing slew of squelching noises as it forcibly pushed inside her.

"N-NO! S-TOOPPP...!" she cried out in one last squeal of futile resistance.

What followed was an onslaught of pain that drowned out whatever pleasure she'd previously been feeling. Her stomach churned audibly as her insides were forcibly crushed from within. She heard the grotesque noise of her own organs being eaten alive.

She screamed her voice hoarse. She writhed in agony on the grimy alley floor. Her eyes rolled back, fixed towards the dark murky sky above, the last sight she saw as her mind succumbed to the suffocating pain of pleasure.

In her final moments before death, she thought of how unfairly her life would end. She had struggled countless days and nights to reach where she had and this was her reward? This was how she was going to go out? In some nameless alley? At the hands of some sick invisible bug?

It's too cruel… Why me? Of all people, why me? What did I do wrong? I did everything right. I did my best. I worked hard. I never gave up… even though I wanted to so many times... Why?

Was she simply born unlucky? If she'd been born to a better family, a better social class, would she never have been in a position to die like this?

As bitter injustice assailed her heart, the woman's entire life flashed before her eyes. Prominent and uneventful scenes from her twenty-two years of life sped through her mind. The earliest birthday she could remember. The first present her parents had ever rewarded her for a job well done in school. The joy of graduating and landing her first job.

But even in the speedy stream of memories, strangely enough, one particular person's face came to mind. It wasn't a close loved one or anything. In fact, the face belonged to a person she'd only seen in passing as she had left the bar earlier tonight.

It was the face of a male foreigner with blond hair. His piercing red eyes had glanced at her for only a moment, but something in his bored, unmoved expression had caught her eye. It was a gaze akin to pity but closer to indifference. It was the same kind of look one might give to a passing ant, passive and utterly bereft of interest.

It was strange. As the young woman's mind faded, she wondered, of all people, why did she think of that stranger's face?

The office lady's body stopped moving. She lied perfectly still on the floor. Her face, once twisted in a look of unimaginable pain, was now completely drained of any life. Her hollowed out eyes stared up vacantly into the sky, before blinking once, then twice, and then thrice.

She got up slowly. Her body shook a bit as it stood, as if though it were empty and weightless on the inside. The woman looked down, assessing her slovenly appearance. Her torn clothes barely covered an inch of her skin which still glistened with a sheen of sweat and other ambiguous bodily fluids.

"Hey! Is someone there?" a voice called out from the main street. A policeman out on patrol shone a flashlight in her direction. "I heard reports of a disturbance here…" his words came to a slow halt when he noticed her appearance.

A tight frown formed on the policeman's face as he rushed forward to her. "Are you okay, ma'am? Were you attacked? Who did this to you?" he asked a slew of questions in concern.

But the woman just stared ahead blankly. Her murky eyes lost in a trance. Her silence seemingly spoke of some sort of trauma.

The policeman took off his coat and placed it around her. "Are you okay, ma'am? Is there anything I can do for you? Anything at all?" he tried asking again, seeing the dazed look on her face.

The woman paused for a few seconds before a broad smile spread across her lips. An ominous light shone in her hollow eyes.

"Would you be willing to spend the night with me, officer?" she asked sensually, licking her lips.

The police officer gulped, blushing. The woman's sultry look along with her disheveled appearance stirred within him a primal urge he could not suppress. Suddenly, his pants felt tight, his blood rushed to his head, and his nostrils flared eagerly.

Seeing his reaction, the woman smirked proudly. A sinful smile graced her lovely face. An enchanting laugh escaped her pretty lips.

The young office lady was gone now. In her place, the ego of a five-hundred-year-old monster now occupied her corpse. And the newly reborn creature was starving.

More. Matou Zouken demands more.

The young woman wore a voracious smile. The police officer was in for the night of his life, the very last one he would ever have.

Author's Note:

If any of you still remember from the end of Chapter 30, Gilgamesh passed by a woman on the street. His omniscient eyes foresaw that she would not survive the night. This was that same woman.

Sad, isn't it? He could've saved her, but then, following that logic, he would have to save every single person he'd come across. And that's impossible, not for the King of Heroes. That's not his path of kingship. He understands death is just another part of life.

Did I have too much fun writing the last part? Yeah. I don't think it's that good though. I held back too much on the obscene and dirty talk. As a result, it came across a little too rushed? If I went into too much detail, then that scene would've become erotica, right? I didn't want some prude reminding me this story is Rated T.

Also, I'm not a smut writer so please forgive the quality. Still, I got a kick out of writing it. I decided against giving the woman a name. Much better to let her live and die in anonymity, I think?

That police officer is about to have the best and last night of his life. At least he'll go down getting laid, right? That's a better ending than most people get. It's just gross when you think it's with Zouken using a pretty young woman's body.

Also, in response to some of the reviews to the previous chapter, there were some people who argued for a cleaner death for Kayneth and a more peaceful death for Lancer. But honestly, those were never on the table for me. I came into this story with the express intent of making Kayneth and Lancer suffer. I literally made a list of all the Fate/Zero characters in the past and picked and chose which would have bad endings and happy endings. Sadly, those two just didn't make the cut.

That list was made many years ago though and it was never definite. I'm still debating about Kariya. He could go either way, though I'm more slanted towards a bad ending. What do you think? I'll put up an opinion poll for that, maybe.

I decided to table Saber and Kiritsugu's argument about their ideals and methods for a later chapter. I don't know, I just don't want to do it now. Let them settle it in the morning. Also, Saber doesn't bring the subject up after seeing the severe condition Iri and Maiya are in. She's considerate that way.

This chapter marks the end of the Saber vs Lancer Arc. In the next chapter, we'll finally return to the main protagonists of the story. Caster and Shirou!

Lastly, I would just like to thank all of you left a review last chapter! It's great to know this story still has some readers who enjoy it. I'm especially glad that there are still new readers coming into this story. It's been out for several years now, so I'm just amazed it can still attract new readers!

As always, if you're feeling generous and can afford the trouble, would you buy me a cup of coffee please? (ko-fi dot com slash dhaturas).

Thank you for reading!

November 15, 2024

Is anyone still reading this story? If so, would you deign to write a review? This is probably me just begging for some base validation. But it might be enough to get me off my ass and write something again for this story... However unlikely that possibility may be...

Thanks!