Part 85: The king's memories

This is one of the battles Saber experienced.
These are the remains of a battleground so familiar to her as she is always victorious.
After this, she will return to her castle, the people will celebrate her victory, and they will prepare for the next battle.

This is her everyday life.
This is but one of the twelve great battles she has gone through.
That is why she does not bear any memories of the victory, but merely accepts it calmly.
I think about such random things.



Music: Ever-present Feeling



No.
It is more correct to say that it ended.
At that instant, the girl with childlike features disappeared and the only existence permitted was that of the king of knights.

She acted as the son of the king.
That is because the one to govern many territories and control the knights had to be male.
The only ones who knew that the king was just a girl were her father and the magus.
She literally covered herself in steel and sealed that truth for all her life.

…Why didn't I realize what that meant?
Someone placed before everyone managed to keep her identity secret.
I don't know what suffering she went through as I'm only watching from a distance.



So that's what it means.
She was only idolized.
Many knights looked down on Arturia who looked like a small kid, and they did not approve of swearing their sword to her.

But because she drew out the sword that they could not, they had to obey her at least in form.
They just accepted the disgrace, believing that it would pass.

Even if she drew the sword, she is just a child.
Even with Merlin's help, she will fail soon enough.
When that happens, they need to only take the holy sword away from her and reselect the king.
That's what most of the knights thought.

But the results were different.
The knight that just entered adulthood was a king without flaw.
She brought peace to the fighting lords and immediately fought off the invading enemies.
Of course, it wasn't because of the power of the holy sword.
The holy sword only protects the king.
It is the king's power that protects the country.

And in that way, she suppressed the knights with results.
The protection of the holy sword works only against enemy swords.
It does not help rule over people's hearts.
She worked hard to be an ideal king.

And so, the knights had to follow their king from their heart.
They suppressed their dissatisfaction with the young king, as they saw he was perfect.
She tried to be an ideal king.
Being an ideal king was the condition of their support.
There was no room for the human, Arturia.

The girl determined to be king.
A great knight who pulled out the holy sword, who did not age from that moment on, and one who won twelve great battles.
The more perfect she was, the more people kept away from her.
The longer she stayed that way, the more isolated she became.
That was her true identity.

But she still did well.
No, she did too well.
She defeated her enemies efficiently and minimized the victims in battle.
No matter what kind of a war it is, a battle will have victims.
So she believed she should make sacrifices before the war to prepare the army and to defeat the enemy efficiently.

She would exhaust one village to prepare the army, defeat the invaders before they could damage the land, and save ten villages.
That was the solution she came up with as the king, and in truth, it was the best policy.

But the knights must have been unhappy.
For them, only the invaders should die. It was only proper to win without allowing any victims.
There is no need to sacrifice one's own territory before a battle.
We will win, so there will not be any victims.
There will not be any victims, so the king's actions are fruitless. That's what they thought.

Of course, that was just a fantasy.
Once the battle began, the knights did not think about the small villages. It was only natural for them to trample over them as the small villages are not what they seek to protect.
The knights say it is only natural to be destroyed by the invaders, but it is a great sin to destroy them with our own hands.

Of course, she knew that.
But a king cannot allow her personal feelings to affect her decisions.
She kills her emotions to make a decision, and the knights suppress their personal feelings to obey.
And after many sacrifices and continuing victories, the country became stable.

The price of that was a revolt against the king.
"King Arthur does not understand human feelings."
One knight said so and left the castle.
…It's a ridiculous story.
Nobody wanted her to be human, but they revolted against her because she didn't have a human's feelings.



The knights, who had been dissatisfied with the king for some time, became more dissatisfied after that one knight left.
They pushed all problems onto her and cornered her.

Ruin was in sight.
Death if she could not solve all the problems.
Even if she did solve them, the result would be the same.

But such trivial things are of no concern to a king.
Her mind will not change even if she is abandoned, feared, or betrayed.
…Probably because she had her mind made up long before.
She abandoned her emotions from the moment she decided to pull out the sword.

A scene from a few years before.
Knights from all over the country gathered to try to pull out the sword in the stone.
But nobody could pull it out, and the knights were desperate to choose the most superior king by competing jousting skills.
The knights went to the arena and forgot about the sword.




"You should think this through before you grab that."

He says he is not trying to frighten her, but that she should stop.

"You will not be human once you take hold of the sword."

He also said that she would be resented by all humanity and die a miserable death.

She could not have been without fear.
Because the magus showed her.
The end she would face if she took the sword.

"No."

But that just made the girl more determined.
She nodded firmly, even when she was shown her future.
The magus asks her if she is really fine with that.

"Many people were smiling.
I do not believe it will be a mistake."



That's right.
The girl only wanted to protect everyone.
But to do so, she had to throw away the emotion of 'wanting to protect people'.
…Because one cannot protect a country as king if one has human emotions.

She accepted it and pulled out the sword.
She accepted it and swore to live as the king.
So her heart would not change even if she was abandoned, feared, or betrayed.
She threw away her heart.
The young girl decided to protect in exchange for it.

Who would ever know of such a sublime oath?
She chose to fight.
No matter what.
She still chose to fight.
Even if there was inevitable solitary ruin waiting at the end.



The battle of Camlann.
One knight usurped the throne while King Arthur was on a campaign, her country split into two, and a war began.
In the legend, it is said that knights and chivalry were utterly destroyed.

She slashed away the knights that once followed her and attacked the lands she once protected.
The knights who sided with her died and her body was crippled.

There was nobody around her.
That's normal. Nothing has changed.
The only thing in her heart is her pride as the king.
She knew of this end.
But she still ran through her life because she believed something came of it.

That's why she has no regrets.
If there is one regret, it is that the country is in ruin.



Yes.
The hill she ran through is now a wall she cannot climb over.

Strength escapes her shoulders.
And for the first time, the girl lets go of the holy sword by her own will.





She worked so hard, she was resented, and she was betrayed.
No one ever realized that she loved the people more than the country, and she was always the merciless king.



She was never rewarded or understood.
On the red hill of swords, the solitary girl who was always betrayed, is about to face death

Music: Stop



"…It's morning."
I hold my shaking head and get my body up.
It's not six yet.
The sound of rain from outside isn't that loud.
It's not a shower or a drizzle, but just normal rain.





"…That dream"
No, I don't even need to confirm it.
That was Saber's past.
It was the end of her life that happened a long time ago that cannot be changed.

""
Before I realize it, I'm gritting my teeth.
It's making a sound.
Somehow, I'm really angry.
I grit my teeth loudly and suppress the urge to have a fit.

"Dammit! What was that?"
Just remembering it makes me mad.
Her past, her thinking nothing of it, and me thinking the dream was nothing.

"…!"
I don't like it.
I don't know what I don't like about it, but I just don't.





I don't want that.
That life was unfair, no matter how you look at it.
Such a life is wrong.
She only wished for others. She did not wish anything for herself in return.
She worked so hard, but nobody knew about it. That pisses me off.
That's just too unfair to her

""
…That's right.
If she worked harder than anybody else, she should be rewarded the most.
She has to be rewarded for all the things she's done.

""
…But…
What can be done now?
Can I just tell her that she did a good job?
Praise her that she was great?
Of course not.
Such easy words won't fix anything.

"…I know. There's only one answer."
…That's right.
If she is to be rewarded, her life must be repaid.
The girl called Arturia has to become happy in proportion to how much she has fought.

"But, what can I do?"
My train of thought stops there.
I don't know how to make people happy.

…That makes me realize my own distortions.
I've been living trying to be a superhero, but all I've been doing is lending people a hand.
I believed everybody around me would be happy if I helped others like that.
No.



I couldn't move forward with pride unless I believed that.