The Queen of Shadows

Chapter 14: I Must Be Dreaming...

The masters and servants retired to the stay-rooms Scathach had provided for them. Within each of the rooms of stone were a table, a bed of reed and wool, and not much else aside from a bare opening in the wall to let light in during the day. The rooms, reminiscent of a more primitive time, were a far cry of the commodities and creature-comforts of Chaldea. Most of the guests of Castle Dunscaith however, were no strangers to having less-than-ideal accommodations. As some servants fell asleep already, two stayed up a little while longer.

Jeanne d'Arc, having dressed in her nightgown and said her prayers, situated herself upon the makeshift mattress. She lied there gazing up at the ceiling, unable to shake the feeling of some unknown power simmering from the walls and floors of this fortress, and thinking about the events that lead them all here; a desperate and last-ditch effort to gain a power over Solomon, who's assaults against Chaldea pushed them further to the brink with each singularity.

Jeanne felt it was her duty as the sole Ruler servant to be the unshakeable pillar that kept her team fighting strong and steadfast against adversity. She thought about the many servants still in Chaldea's infirmary after America, and despite following her masters' orders, her inability to give support forced her to make sacrifices that resulted in the predicament they were all in now.

The Maiden of Orleans failed to keep everyone safe... It was because of her that the masters took a chance in seeking Scathach: The Shadow.

First Gilles, my Alter, and now most of Chaldea, she thought with a heavy heart. It seems that no matter how much good I do, something terrible comes out of it...

Jeanne rolled to her side, starring at the window port where moonlight was creeping in. She whispered one last, brief prayer before closing her eyes, hoping some good will come out of the tribulating days ahead.

Lord give me strength...

In the room beside her, Emiya sat shirtless on his bed, practicing his projection magic as circuits pulsed through his burn-marked body. He began tracing plain swords and daggers like his younger self used to do in his Grail War.

It ingrained him with a sense of nostalgia; hanging in his bedroom with little to no understanding of magecraft, and Rin Tohsaka (begrudgingly...) helping him hone it. The times in-between, teaching Sakura Matou to cook, bonding with his sister Illya after defeating Berserker Heracles, and showing the letters his father, Kiritsugu, tried sending to her in Germany.

Emiya remembered the trickery of Caster Medea, the deceit of Zouken Matou, and the deranged madness of Dark Sakura as she tried turning Saber against him. Emiya internally shivered at the memory of the Altered Saber; how she had been twisted into a cold, detached, ruthless version of herself, empowered by Sakura's forced connection to the Grail. He didn't like thinking how bad things would have gotten if it weren't for Rin, Illya, and Rider Medusa helping him get them both back.

Worse yet was of Kirei Kotomine and the frightening might of Gilgamesh. They were hellbent on seizing the corrupted Grail, and spreading its darkness across the world, rendering it and mankind asunder. The Holy Grail war had been a living hell for the then 17-year-old Shirou Emiya.

But through it all, the one thing that kept him together, collected, and gave him the strength to push on was Saber herself: Arturia Pendragon. She had opened his heart in way he never thought possible at the time; encouraging him to be better than he was, instead of being the self-sacrificing, doing-everything-for-everybody idealist who saw no value in himself as a person with wants and desires.

A selfishly selfless person... a hollow shell of a boy who lost everything in a fire, and raised by broken man who wanted to end suffering for everyone. Shirou was a burdened child who felt the only way to repay his late-surrogate father was to follow his ideals to be a Hero of Justice.