Miscellaneous Anime/Manga One-Shots!

all the world's a stage (Fate/Zero)

Irisviel Irisviel von Einzbern is like snow, Saber thinks- pure and silver one moment, tainted and murky another.

She drives mercilessly, slamming her gloved hands against the wheel and foot jabbing against the accelerator, muttering quiet obscenities under her wintry breath as she swerves wildly to the left. Avoiding the careening bus, a glossy sheen coats her forehead, teeth gritted as she exhales shakily.

A tear trails down her cheek, but she only presses the accelerator down with more vigor.

Saber tentatively lifts her gloved hand to the woman's face, brushing the tear off with a single finger.

They coast past a snow-covered jungle gym. Iri turns her head ever-so-slightly, her gaze flickering to the Servant besides her for a moment. "I've got it, Saber."

She comes tottering into the living room, sleeves of her white dress slipping down to reveal her creamy, angular shoulders. Her lips are painted with a faint smile as she takes a seat besides her, a dust-coated, leather-bound book in hand. "I have something to show you." Her heel taps the carpeted ground in obvious excitement.

"What's this?"

Her eyes, like perfect, crimson diamonds, soften. She opens the book. On the first page, there's a picture of a white-haired girl in a purple parka grinning impishly at the camera, a smiley teddy bear wrapped in her arms. Words accompanied by a messy smiley face are scrawled on the bottom of the ink-stained page: "My Illya."

"She looks exactly like you," Saber blurts out, before she can stop the foolish words from leaving her mouth.

"Well, that's not a surprise." Irisviel cradles it lovingly in her arms. "I wouldn't mind if she looked like Kiritsugu, though- he's quite handsome, if I say so myself."

"Handsome, yes, but...kind-hearted, no." The Servant hesitates, before asking solemnly, "What do you see in him, Irisviel?"

She smiles forlornly. "A patient, loving man who has trouble expressing himself. He may seem cold, distant even, but...you'll understand soon enough, Saber- he's been through much more than you can imagine. He's healing, and it's our job to see him through. You'll help me, won't you, Saber? Help Kiritsugu?"

Saber doesn't see how she'll ever understand- he fights without honor, turns his back on his humanity. They'll never see eye to eye, she knows- perhaps they see the same future, but their paths are far too different to ever cross each other.

But, if it's for Iri, maybe she'll be able to work something out.

She spins around in a dress of gossamer fabric, giggling as she hikes up the lacy skirt and curtsies jokingly to her. Her eyelids are painted with a thin coat of shimmery gold, hair done in an elaborate labyrinth of braids curled up at the nape of her neck.

Irisviel curties towards her, a pale hand pressed flat against her stomach. "How do I look?"

"Beautiful. You're beautiful." Saber can only gape.

"And you're my knight!" She winks playfully at her, extending her gloved arm towards her. "Protect me, will you? I'm nothing but a weak damsel in distress."

The Servant takes her hand, but the woman only tugs her closer, pressing her face into Saber's shirt. She places her palms against her chest, trailing hot breath down her collarbone as their bodies cocoons into each other's.

She smells of honeysuckle and fresh blood.

"It's just something you'll have to get used to, hm?"

Always, always, always.

She twirls a silk ribbon into the air; it twists into a snake, a phoenix, rippling, rippling, rippling. Her forehead creases in concentration, fingers flexing slightly as it spins faster and faster and faster. A few more seconds of this, and the ribbon seizes in mid-air and drifts gracefully to the forest floor, disappearing in a firework of golden sparks.

"I'm sorry, Saber. I'm sorry," she stutters.

Iri staggers away, glancing back at her; gaze broken, broken, broken.

"There's nothing you can do to save me now."

She is fragile, yet so impossibly strong Saber has no idea what to make of it.

Her slender fingers grip Saber's waist, tangles of silver licking her shoulders like delicate flames as they wordlessly cruise through the city on her motorcycle. Worries are casually brushed aside- right now, it is just stretches of concrete melting away beneath the wheels and the milky clouds drifting hazily across the starry sky and the acrid smell of fuel filling the clear night air.

The skyline twinkles at them as they pass by the moonlight-stilled river, waves lapping gently at the shore. A young girl jogging besides a wildly-barking puppy smiles at them, and Iri waves in return, resting her tapered chin against Saber's arched back, pressing her cheek to the satiny fabric. Muscle, bone, heartbeat.

They stay like this for a moment, the wind ghosting through their hair and whistling bittersweet hymns as the chug-chug of the vehicle has them passing by bony forests, grimy snow blanketing the cold landscape.

Lifting her head, Iri presses her lips softly to her neck- lips like ivory and rose petals, breath sun-kissed and voice somber and distant yet lilting and whimsical. "It's just like flying, isn't it?"

A chaotic mess of black and white, a blurry gray streak of innocence and purity...it's a wonder how something so beautiful can exist in this cruel, cruel world. It's no longer an abstract thought, a desperate yearning- it is tangible, it is utterly real, nestled against her and whispering hushed nothings.

Arturia Pendragon once gave her soul to a crumbling nation, to bloodshed and the glint of silver swords against the half-twilight, to tears of anguish and betrayal and the merciless wrath of war.

And now, she'd give it away once more for this beautifully misassembled enigma of a girl.