You Speak my Tongue but I Only Hear Sound

Rin doesn't do "mistakes." It's a Tohsaka thing. As the heir of such a prestigious family, it is only natural that failure would be completely unknown to her. At worst she's had slight miscalculations in her plans. That's it. Success follow her every endeavor, and in her opinion, it is well earned.

But. She has to say. That was perhaps not the best start for a Holy Grail War.

"I think we did well." Berserker says, perched on the couch, legs kicking into the air. "Neither of us have died yet!"

The cheerful tone only irritates her more. "We need to do better." She hisses. "We could barely hold our own against Lancer-"

"Oh, I think he only wanted to gauge our strength. If the Hound wanted you dead, we would be." (Hound is not the first comparison that would come to her mind. Panther, maybe. But Berserker is right in that Lancer was definitely a wild beast.)

"Saber is very clearly a powerhouse-"

"She seemed weaker than she should be. I think she was wounded when we met her."

"And we only survived Archer by teaming up with Emiya."

"I honestly did not know that Hercules also qualified as Archer. It's good to know!"

Rin lowers her face in her hands, and allows herself one scream.

"Are you okay, Ishtar?" (They have a weird way of pronouncing Master. Rin figured it's the madness enhancement at work.)

No. "This is going to be. Tricky." Okay. Okay. She can do this. She just needs a plan. And Rin Tohsaka excels at plans. "I'll be playing the offense from now on." Berserker's madness enhancement is rather low, which, nice, lucid conversations! But also she might have landed the weakest servant of the whole war even with magical reinforcements, which, less nice.

Berserker nods. "Sounds good. I wasn't much of a frontal fighter in life either." (Rin files away that tidbit of Berserker's backstory for later, because while Berserker didn't hide their true name from her, the fact is that she has no idea who "Ritsuka Fujimaru" is or why they'd qualify for the throne of hero, so any info helps.) "I'll take the hits for you. I'm really hard to kill."

That's how they'd described their Noble Phantasm to her earlier. I'm really hard to kill. She doesn't quite know what it means, but so far it seems pretty literal. For all their fight against Lancer had been an embarrassment to watch, Berserker had successfully diverted every blow away from their vitals, without so much as a groan at their injuries. As for Saber...

"That reminds me, how did you survive Saber's blow?" The invisible sword had cleaved them in half, from shoulder to hip. Yet when the blade came out- it was like it'd been slashing at air. No cut. No blood. Nothing. "Is that your noble phantasm?"

"Hah! I wish." They chuckle. "No, that's just because Caster doesn't want to hurt me."

"Caster...?" Rin blinks. "You think that was Caster in disguise, and not Saber?" Couldn't they mention it earlier-

But Berserker shakes their head. "No, no. Caster didn't want to hurt me. Artoria very much did. Not a single one of that girl has known restraint a day of her life." They tilt their head to the side. "Except Lily, I think, but I don't believe that was her? Could you describe her to me? I couldn't tell which Artoria that was."

...

"What," Rin starts, articulating very carefully, "are you fucking talking about?"

"Artoria! The girl who tried to run me over with a sword! Did you forget her already?" Berserker's hand flash through the air as they speak. "I'm guessing she's a Saber, since she had Caster with her and all, but I don't know which one she is."

"... So Saber? Is she a Saber or a Caster? You're not making any sense!" Rin pinches the bridge of her nose. Why, oh why did she get saddled with a berserker of all people. "And why Artoria? That's a weird name. Is that british?"

"I call her Artoria because that's what she's called." Berserker answers with a frown. "I am bad with names, for once I can remember one right, I figure I should use it." And-

"... Berserker." Rin asks very, very slowly. "Are you telling me. That you know Saber's true name?"

"Yes?" Berserker raises an eyebrow. "Of course I do. I remember every person I fought alongside. I remember so much it keeps overlapping. Which is why I ask once again- what did Artoria look like?"

Comments

"Ah, this is rather bad, isn't it?"

Rin would disagree. Failing an exam is bad. Losing your wallet is bad. Getting skewered by fifty fucking noble phantasm and having half your limbs torn off as a result isn't bad, it's fucking disastrous.

"In hard times, it's important to focus on the positive." Their voice trembles a bit from the swords lodged through their lungs, but their tone is even. Casual. As if this were normal. Every step leaves a trail of blood behind, their flesh is hanging torn from their body, the smell of viscera is churning Rin's stomach, and they're talking about it like it's the weather.

"What fucking positive??" She barks, readjusting her grip on Berserker's shoulder. With one leg, they can't walk unless she's supporting them. "What is fucking wrong with you?? Why do you always act like everything is fine?? You could have died!! You should have died!! Just... Fuck!"

She rounds the corner and leans against the wall. They don't have much time- the blood might as well be a giant neon sign spelling we are here, come kill us!!- but she figures they might have a few minutes. "Okay. Okay. We need a plan. If you got anything, I'm all ears."

"Do you think Solomon was right about the baby?"

"Huh?" She turns to Berserker. They're staring at her like her response is the most important thing in the world. "What does this have to do with anything?"

"Solomon. He's a great guy, you know? But one time, two mothers fought over who should get a baby, and he suggested cutting it in half. Do you think he was right?"

"Are you shitting me? We have other priorities at the moment!" Rin grits her teeth. Right. Right. Madness enhancement. Madness enhancement. Getting angry, she has learned the hard way, will not do jack shit to ground Berserker any more in reality. "People die when they are cut in half. That was no solution at all. It would just hurt the baby and both mothers."

Berserker looks down for a moment. "... Yes, I suppose only having a half would hurt." They wiggle a bit. At that cue, Rin sits Berserker downs. They still don't look at her. "But I can't do both, so this will have to do. It probably wouldn't be good for you anyways. Flesh isn't that solid of a vessel."

"Yeah, that's why we stick to gemstones." She kneels next to Berserker. She opens her mouth to speak some more, but they bring a hand to her cheek, staining it red.

"Don't blame yourself too much about it, alright? I was going to end this way. I died long ago. You could have never saved me."

"... Don't say that." Something swells in her throat. "We'll make it out somehow, okay? We'll survive this, and get the grail, and I'll figure out a way for us to have a conversation that makes some fucking sense, and it'll be great. I'm not leaving you."

Berserker smiles. It's softer than their usual one. Less joyful. More nostalgic.

"No. I suppose you're not."

Servants are faster than humans. This fact apparently still applies to those who are half-dead already. Rin does not see them move. She feels pain blossoming in her stomach, dimly registers that the hand has left her cheek, and thinks: oh.

"Goodbye, girl who is not Ishtar." It hurts, hey lean forwards to kiss her forehead, it hurts, it hurts, "I wish I could have learned your name."

They look up to the sky. "Guardian of the scales, heed my call-" And everything past this turns into white noise, drowned by a torrent of pain.

It hurts. It hurts. It hurts it hurtsithurtsithurts it's in her guts it's in her bones it's in her teeth a burst of wind a twirling gust a hurricane she can't hold it in it's too much it'll kill her it'll kill her it'll kill her.

There's a horrible, sickening sound, a drawn-out howl like an animal being dragged to slaughter. It take her a moment to realize it's a voice. It takes even longer for her to recognize it as her own.

She collapses on the ground. There's something inside of her. There's something inside of her something under her skin something inside her head it's not her it's foreign it's bad wrong dangerous she wants it out she wants it out she wants it out. Her nails claw at her own throat. She has to draw the blood she has to drag it out she has to reject this thing if it fucking kills her.

She hears another voice. Its sound alone feels her with disgust and rage. She latches onto it like an anchor, trying to drag herself out of this agony. She blinks rapidly, recognizing first gold, then black, then a person.

"What a shame. You mongrels can't even entertain me right. I suppose putting you out of your misery would be a mercy."

Gilgamesh.

Fury fills her every pores, more than she ever thought she could feel, more than a human heart could ever possibly produce. It's a hatred bigger than her body, the kind that make the blood boil and the teeth grow. The stars reside in her ribcage (not, that's not true,) Venus echoes her voice (not her voice, not her feelings, not her body, not her, not her, not her-) and every inch of her (her) want him dead.

He leans in. Raises a dismissive hand. the Gates of Babylon open.

"An Gal Ta Ki Gal Šè!"

Fired at point-blank range, Maana obliterates Rin's hand, the nearby building, and Gilgamesh.

Comments

Sleeping as a servant is… strange.

Specifically, the act of falling asleep when she doesn’t have the physical necessity for it  is… eerie, to say the least. There is no precursor drowsiness, no Morpheus insistently pulling on her eyelids. No; she simply lays down, closes her eyes, and at her will her entire body shuts down. Wide awake one minute, out of commission the next. It’s rather efficient.

“Artoria? Are you awake?”

Getting out of sleep mode is just as efficient.

At the sudden voice, Artoria jolts awake, summons her sword, and blindly stabs in its general directly. She sees its owner jumping backward, landing on all four, and only then does she recognize them.

“Berserker.” She hisses. Their masters may be allied now, but it doesn’t change the fact that they were enemies just yesterday. Shirou may trust them, but she does not.

Berserker straightens their back and dusts their clothes. “Yeah, I suppose I deserved that. Sorry for waking you up, Artoria.”

“Stop calling me that.” Still, she sheathes the sword away. Not like it could do much good against them anyways. Whatever Berserker’s noble phantasm is, the only way she found to get past it was by punching them straight in the face. (Not that they even flinched when the gauntlet broke their nose.)

Berserker blinks. “But its your name.” They tilt sit down, crossing their legs. “Do you not like it?”

“That is not the issue.” (Which is true; she couldn’t care less about her name. Artoria, Arthur, the important part is that she is King.) “This is a Holy Grail War. We are to kill each other. Stop advertising to everyone my true name and subsequent weaknesses.” At least people might take a moment to kink that name to that of the King of Knights. Thanks history for its gendered name, she guesses.

“Ah.” Berserker pauses, then nods. “I will… try. Sorry.”

Saber takes a deep breath. Berserker keeps throwing her off, but they do not seem hostile so far. She spent ten years without letting her emotions get the better of her, she can have a conversation with that servant. “How do you even know that name?” Briefly, she wonders if they might be an enemy strategist, but- Artoria. Not Arthur, Artoria. She can count on one hand the amount of people who called her that, and Berserker looks like neither of them.

“We’ve met. You tried to kill me a few times. I killed you back, so don’t worry, we’re even.” Their gaze is unfocused. They’re looking at her face, but their eyes keep darting back and forth, as if they weren’t quite sure where her eyes are. “Well, it wasn’t you. You never became them. But they used to be you at some point. You know?”

“I really don’t.” She replies honestly. She initially thought they might have met in a holy grail war she has yet to experience, but the way they’re talking about it…

“Mh, okay, let me try again.” Berserker interrupts her train of thoughts. “You know black holes, right?”

She first thinks of a hole in the ground, so deep that one cannot see the bottom. Then the grail unhelpfully provides her with knowledge on actual black holes, and the idea that up there the corpses of stars become swirling all-devouring voids renders her speechless.

“Right. 5^th century knight. I’ll get it right eventually. Do you like poetry, Dragon? What about plays?”

“You’re getting off-topic.” Saber says dumbly.

“Get used to it. I can speak in no other way.” It’s a simple sentence, but it occurs to Saber that it is literal. During the last war, Lancelot- it’s easy to forget, because they make full sentences, because they speak and walk and act like a human- but that’s a berserker. They can speak in no other way. This is the only way they have to communicate. “There are ancient roman poems that have completely disappeared. We have no record of them whatsoever. But we still know they existed, because they are referenced in other texts. We can never read them fully, but thanks from the extracts others have quoted, thanks to what others have said about them, we can guess what they were about.”

They point a finger towards her.

“You are the poem. I have never met you. But I have read the extracts. I have met king Arthurs who used to be you, or who could have become you. Does that make sense?”

“… Kind of.” Sometimes, when Saber sleeps of her servant sleep, she feels like she’s seeing a long dream. Sometimes she crawls all the way from Camlann to Camelot’s armory. Sometimes she’s fighting on the behalf of another master. Sometimes there is a girl begging her not to take up the sword. Maybe Berserker has seen people from these dreams, too.

Berserker nods, seemingly pleased with themselves. “But yeah, that’s why I came to see you tonight. I have met so many of you, and seen so many of your knights, and you wield Caster- I wanted to know a little more about you!”

Her heart jumps at the mention of her knights- she doesn’t know what happened to them after… everything. Did any of them survive? Did any of them get to live? Gawain, Bedivere, Lancelot- there’s only a handful whose fate she’s not sure of, whom she dares hope managed to be happy after all this. But their next sentence puzzles her. “Caster?”

They smile. It’s soft and melancholic. “She was… someone dear to me.” They say this sentence with an affection Saber does not know how to describe. Maybe there exist no words at all for this emotion. “You know, the other day, there was no way you could have killed me. I don’t die that easily. But it still means a lot to me that she refused to cut me at all.”

The puzzle pieces fall. The dots connect. Saber understands.

“This…” Slowly, she takes out her invisible sword. “This is Caster?” And then, slower: “This used to be a person?”

“She is a person.” Berserker nods. “She still has thoughts and feelings and opinions. She’s made of thoughts and feelings and opinions. She just also happens to be dead. Like you and me.”

There is a brief pause. And then: “Well, maybe not you. I don’t know if you’re dead yet. Bedivere showed me that I shouldn’t assume. Besides, it’s rude to.”

Saber sets down Excalibur- sets down Caster, on her laps. The blade is cold. Did that metal use to be flesh? Did the gold use to be skin? Who does that- who would be cruel enough to ask a girl to become a sword? Who would be selfless enough to accept it? “Berserker. Will you tell me more about Caster? And Bedivere, and my knights? I… would like to hear your stories.”

Berserker’s eyebrows shoot up to their hairline. “You would listen to me, Dragon? You know how I speak.”

“I would.” Berserker is hard to understand. Their speech is roundabound and their self-awareness nonexistence.

But they have not called her Artoria once since she asked them not to.

“I will listen.” She tells this Berserker who is trying so hard to be understandable. “Please. Tell me of my knights. Tell me of your friend.”

Comments

Horrors beyond human comprehension are, frankly, overrated.

Obviously, this statement comes with the disclaimer that this is merely your personal opinion, and you’re aware that you have some… problems, but you still think that opinion is fairly grounded. Certainly, being faced with something your brain scrambles to make sense out is disorienting, but that’s not dangerous in itself. If you can’t comprehend the horrors, the horrors cannot comprehend you back. There’s nothing scary in that. It’s just sad and awfully lonely.

No; horrors well-within human comprehension are the worst.

There is a woman standing in front of you. There is a woman standing in front of you, just a foot away, and you cannot see her because there is a storm of familiar faces whirling right where she should be.

“Hello?” She says, and you can’t help a flinch. A dozen voices echo with hers, Kama-Kazuradrop-BB-Parvati and it’s so deafeningly loud. “Is 先輩 home?”

You nod, quickly bringing a smile back to your face. It’s rude to stare, regardless of circumstances. “Yes, he’s in the kitchen.” No idea what she called him, but you think you can safely assume the two of them know each other.

Ah, this is annoying. You have no way to know what face she’s making. Even reading the tone of her voice is difficult like this. “I’m 間桐 桜. Who might you be?”

You give her your best grin. “They call be Berserker. Nice you meet you!”

You extend a hand to shake. On the first try, you aim for Passionlip’s hand, and close your fingers on air. On the second try you aim for Meltryllis’s; this time you manage to grab something, but you quickly realize it to be an arm. From there though you manage to slide down and shake her hand.

"Sorry. I don’t see all that well,” you say, because it’s true" Everything you say is true, and none of it matter because it is incomprehensible anyways. You like to think that Oberon would find that hilarious. Your thoughts tend to scatter all over the place. You could never lie convincingly in this state, so you don’t bother.

The woman pauses for a second, then walks past you. You do not follow. You do not move at all. You are focused on your breathing. In. Out. In. Out. Stay normal. Stay calm. Don’t let anything show.

“Berserker?”

You blink, and- ah, Ereshkigal is here. You hadn’t noticed her. It’s still odd to see Ishtar walking rather than floating. “Do you need anything?”

“You’ve… been standing there for a while.”She says with a frown. “Are you okay?” Time is not linear. You are a ghost standing in a world where you have not died yet. You have never left the walls of Chaldea. This is your first time in Fuyuki. You have seen this exact scene a dozen times already. Huh, really? Usually, the space between seconds and the space between lines is rather close. Have you blanked so hard you’ve forgotten to fill the narration?

You glance at the end of the wall. Kingprotea-Violet-Angra is gone. You can hear their voices from afar, though. “You have to help that woman.”

“Wh-”

It’s like a dam breaks within you. You latch yourself on her arm, holding as tight as you can. Her face contorts in pain, but you can’t find it in yourself to care. She needs to understand. You need to make her understand.

“This girl. The one who came in. There’s something wrong with her. There is something profoundly wrong with her. She’s in so much pain. She needs help. You get it, right? She needs help.” Someone has to help her, and it cannot be you. You can’t even see her. What kind of person can possibly exist at the crossroad of Kama and Passionlips? What kind of person could possibly remind you of eight different shades of suffering? You can only see this girl through skewed reflections, and the image it paints is deeply concerning.

Ishtar hisses as she tries to yank her arm away. “Berserker!” Ereshkigal pleads, “You’re hurting me!” and-

She’s crying.

At the sight, you immediately let her go. She stumbles backward from the effort, cradling her arm close to her chest. The imprint of your palm is clearly visible.

… Right. Of course.

This girl… is not Ishtar.

She has Inanna’s pride, and Irkalla’s sense of duty, and a thousand other similarities with these goddesses- but they’re just that. Similarities. She’s not a god. She’s not even- how old is she? Fifteen? Sixteen? She’s a human. She’s just a human.

You, of all people, know what this sort of duty does to a human.

“… Apologies.” You lower your hands, and smile again. “Forget about this. This has nothing to do with you.”

You can’t ask that of her. You can’t ask that of anyone else. Then you’ll just have to do it yourself. You are very unqualified to save anyone as of right now. But then again, this has never stopped you from trying. If there is someone that can be helped, you have to help them. If there is something that can be saved, you have to save it. You have to do it even if it kills you. And it will. It will. It has. Comments

Berserker is laser-focused as they set the building blocks on top of another. The tower is nothing fancy- batches of three blocks set on top of one another- but the result is getting rather tall. It reaches Rin’s hip now, and Berserker shows no sign of stopping.

Which begs the question: “What are you doing.”

Berserker barely spares her a glance. “It’s Jenga! I found it in your basement.”

“Jenga?” The word sounds foreign on her tongue.

“It’s a game.” They explain. “You build a tower, then everyone takes a block out, one by one. The one who makes the tower collapse loses.”

Ah, this does ring a bell, yes. Fuzzy memories of playing as a child float in Rin’s head. She stopped being a child a long time ago, though. “Aren’t you a bit old for such games?”

“There’s no age to play around and have fun!” Berserker nods to themselves. “You can’t be serious all the time. Even if everything is on fire and the world is crumbling away, you need to be a little silly at times. There’s no way you’ll be able to stay sane otherwise.”

“I am not taking advice on sanity from you.” She states plainly. “And it’s still embarrassing to see a grown adult-” She pauses. “… wait, how old are you again?” The scars make them look ancient, but their body itself doesn’t seem much older than her.

“I am older than nineteen.”

She narrows her eyes. “That’s a weird way to say it.”

“I don’t have any answer more specific than that.”

Oooh boy. It’s a Berserker Moment™. Rin hates when that happens. Why must they always make the simplest things needlessly complicated? “What year were you born in?”

“1999.”

“And what year did you die in?”

“2026.”

“So you’re twenty-seven.” A decade older than her, then. That’s plenty old-

“Not really. There were a lot of years between 1999 and 2026.”

… “Yes. Twenty-seven of them. That’s how time works.” Do they… not… know? How to do math? They’re a modern-day servant, they shouldn’t have any problem doing basic additions.

They snort. “Maybe for you. Time is a river you’re floating in. Meanwhile I left on the shore and I got completely lost.”

Wow. The metaphor was so clear it looped right back to being confusing. “This is stupid and makes no sense.” She says plainly.

Berserker hums, then turns back to their work. “This tower. It’s linear, isn’t it? It goes in only one direction, from bottom to top.”

The subject change is so sudden Rin doesn’t know how to react. “…Yes?”

“This piece,” they point at a darker block towards the top “is after this one down there. This is an immutable fact of this tower. So long as you perceive the tower like a tower, this block will come after this one.”

“Are you actually going somewhere with this, or?”

Berserker sideeyes her. “You’re terrible at listening, aren’t you? I know you’re prideful in your way of life, but if you try to force that worldview on everyone else, you will only alienate yourself from others.”

“I’m sorry?” What the fuck. That came out of nowhere?! “Need I remind you who you Master is? You can’t just- ”

 “Time is like Jenga.” They continue, blatantly ignoring her. “To you, it’s a tower. It’s linear. It’s coherent. There are twenty-seven years between 1999 and 2026. My death happened after I was born. Nothing can exist prior to being created.”

Their tone is even and casual. Their shoulders are relaxed. Their behavior is calm and collected. Nothing about them indicates violence.

She doesn’t even see them swipe. One moment, the tower is there, and the next the building blocks are flying across the room.

“But,” they continue, standing among the scattered remains of time, “this is what time is to me.”

Berserker leans against the wall, visibility straining their ear. After a few seconds, they sigh in relief. “I think we lost him.”

Rin does not reply. She’s transfixed by the sight of her servant. She watches their chest rise, fall, rise, watch the tension slowly leave their shoulders, watch them calm down as blood continues to spread over their clothes.

“He stabbed you.” She says dumbly. “I- his lance- it went right through your heart. I saw it.”

“Hm?” Berserker looks down, as if they were just now noticing the massive fucking hole in their body. “Oh, yeah. That’s the hound’s noble phantasm. We got lucky. He only aimed for me.”

In what fucking world is that lucky?! They don’t even seem in pain. They’re bleeding all over the pavement, Rin has a front view of their insides, and that’s lucky. “How has he not destroyed your spirit core?! I thought- he destroyed your heart. How?!”

Berserker makes a dismissive gesture of the hand. “It’s fine, it’s fine, don’t worry about me! I don’t have one.” They smile at her, gently. “You should slow your breathing down. You’re going to pass out if you keep that going.”

Rin is damn well justified in hyperventilating at the moment thank you very much.

(Dimly, it occurs to her that she might be on the verge of a panic attack. She quickly dismisses the thought though, because Tohsakas aren’t so weak to keel over at the mere sight of some flesh, and because she has much more important things to think about right now.)

“You don’t have what. A heart??” Right. Right. She needs to focus. Her servant is hard to kill- their words, not hers. They didn’t elaborate. She needs to know exactly what it entails. For strategies. And all. She needs to focus. Focus. Focus.

Berserker nods. “Yeah. I gave my heart away to so many people. So many dear, wonderful people…” For a second, it looks like they’re staring somewhere far, far away, somewhere Rin could never hope to reach. Another second, and they’re looking at her again. “Metaphorically. Obviously. But you know how servants are. The line between symbolic and literal is as thin as the curtains of the stage. So my heart will forever stay in safe hands, and my chest is now empty.”

That makes sense. That should make sense. This is the most coherent Berserker has ever been. Rin’s head feels filled with cotton. If she could remember what she knows of servants, she’s sure she could draw the connections easily. If only she could fucking think. “I- what?”

She feels strong fingers wrap around her wrist. “Here, I’ll show you.” Berserker says, grinning wide, and-

they’re a servant. A familiar. A ghost. They’re not human. They’re arguably not even real. That’s why servants need masters in the first place, because they’re not real and the world is trying to correct their existence out of this plane. They’re not real, and none of it matter because Berserker brings her hand inside the hole in their chest and they feel warm hot wet sticky they feel disgustingly soft and pliant like a piece of steak like roadkill like a living being like a human being-

“See? No heart! I told you!”

Rin yanks her arm away. Her fingers are red. Her hand is red. Her arm is dyed in blood up to the elbow, sticking to her skin sticking to her soul and the smell the smell the smell-

Rin hiccups, and throws up all over her shoes.

Comments

The wind prowls around her, an hungry beast on the lookout for the slightest hint of a weakness. Outside the cave, all she can see is a sea of white, snow, snow, and even more snow panning as far as the eye can see.

Still, despite the harsh winter, Rin finds that she is not cold, and that is what makes her realize that she is dreaming.

She looks around her. There are a few people in the cave with her. A girl with a shield. A man with a golden mask. A dog in human clothes. They’re all sleeping right now, huddled together for warmth.

A single person stand watch near the fire, their back turned to her.

Rin has a theory as to why this dream is so weirdly lucid. And that theory is very simple to verify.

She gets up and walks up to the watch. This is a dream; she’s a projection inside a lived past. She has no fear of being seen-

The watch startles when she steps near the fire. “Ishtar?!”

Rin startles as well. She did not expect that. Berserker- for that is Berserker, if younger and less fucked up- is staring straight at her, eye wide. “Ah- yes?”

Immediately, their face fall. She doesn’t remember if she has ever seen them looking so crestfallen. It is deeply uncanny. “Ah… I’m sorry. You look like good friends of mine. I thought… I miss them a lot, is all.”

Gears turn in her head. There is a lot of information in that single sentence.

“By all means, sit down with me.” Berserker (for lack of a better name, though she believes they are human right now) “I didn’t expect to see any other human in this Lostbelt. How did you get here?”

Rin sits down. “Rosutu Beruto?” She likes to think herself well-educated on all matters of magic, but this one rings hollow to her. If she rakes her brain, she vaguely remembers something from the research on second magic- but she doubts there was more than passing mention of these.

Berserker frowns. They look at her up, then down, then up again. Then their face- lightens? Softens? Neither of these seem right. Their face relaxes, but it doesn’t seem happy. They just look very, very tired.

“I got it. You are dreaming.” They look down at their own hands, flexing their fingers. “And I’m dozing off. So much for taking the first watch.”

So it is a memory she’s seeing- a dream and a memory at once. Time is not a linear thing, you understand.

“I need to wake up.” They get up on their feet. Their movements are oddly slow. They’re hurt, she realizes. “Sorry for dragging you into my dreams. I’m more used to being the one dragged in other’s dreams, frankly.”

“Hey, wait!” She reaches up to grab their pants legs. This is the most sense she has ever heard Berserker making. This is her one shot at getting actual information. “I need to talk to you!”

They look down at her. They give her a smile, but it doesn’t reach their eyes. They look like they have not slept in years. If all their dreams are this vivid, then it might be true. “Sorry. I need to wake up. We need to move, and figure out what’s going on, and save humanity, and not die, and find a way home.”

They pause. They don’t look like a legendary hero. They don’t look like a warrior at all. Here, right now, under the flickering light of the campfire- they look like a human. An ordinary, everyday human.

“I just want to go home.” They say, with a small, pathetic voice. “For the love of God, please let me go home.”

They step in the campfire, and-

Rin wakes up in her bed, staring at the ceiling.

She stays like this for what seems to be an eternity. Eventually though, her thoughts are broken by shuffling, then footsteps.

“Berserker?”

The footsteps stop.

“Sorry, did I wake you? I’m not sleepy anymore. I’m gonna lounge downstairs.”

“Berserker,” Rin sits up on her elbows. In the dark, she can’t see their face well. She could bet they’re smiling, though. They’re always smiling. “Where is your home?”

Berserker tilts their head to the side. “Home is where the heart is. Is it not how the saying goes?”

Her gaze falls onto their chest. The memory of their bare viscera against her fingers is still vivid.

I just want to go home. That plea had been so genuine, so desperate. For the love of God, please let me go home.

She had never asked, and therefore Berserker had never answered. But Rin knows now. She knows Berserker's wish for the Holy Grail.

No one speaks as the light subsides, stunned into silence by the figure stepping out of it. Shirou stays silent, Rin stays silent, Archer stays silent- even Illya, shielded by Hercules’s strong bow, does not speak.

“I have come in response to your summon.” The servant walks forth, completely ignoring Saber staring at her empty hands where Excalibur used to be. “Ritsuka. You really need not to wait for things to get this bad.”

Berserker smiles up at her. Their lip is split, and their jaw has been knocked slightly out of its natural axis. “I had full faith that you would come to pick up your unruly pet.”

The new servant’s eyes widen. “Really, Ritsuka? At a time like this?”

Berserker laughs. Or tries to, at least. It comes out a little choked however, by virtue of being literally bisected. Being down to only one lung will do that to a man. Saber knows from experience. “What’s the point of living if you can’t joke around during the hard times?”

The new servant crouches down, reaching out to cup Berserker’s face with a tenderness usually aimed at small animals. Their blood stain her palm. She either doesn’t notice, or doesn’t care.

Oh.

This is love, Saber realizes.

“I am here now.” The servant, Excalibur, Caster, Berserker’s dearest friend, leans down to press her forehead against theirs. “I will be with you until the end.”

The first thing Rin checks upon summoning her servant are their stats. Strength, luck, endurance, that sort of things. She focuses on the important stuff, wanting a grasp of her servant’s capabilities as fast as possible for the upcoming grail war.

So. She could be forgiven for skipping over some stuff. “Your alignment is… Neutral Evil?”

Berserker doesn’t even turn to look at her, stirring the onions in the pan. “Yeah, that checks out.”

It very much does not. The servant is literally cooking for her as they speak, wanting to show off “this one curry recipe I was taught once.” They’re a bit hard to talk to, but she’s seen them chat up children and store clerks alike with no trouble. That’s hardly the picture of evil. Granted, she doesn’t think Berserker is a paragon of virtue either, but so far the strongest impression she’s got about them is that they are… terribly ordinary. In another life, they could have been friends, perhaps.

“You don’t seem like the type.” She’d imagined antiheroes to be more… cartoonish, she guesses. Proudly announcing that they’d be taking this and that as they fancy. Not just… chilling in her living room.

Berserker shrugs. “What I seem like doesn’t matter. It’s an issue of personal belief.” They raise the spatula as they speak. “Good and evil are all a matter of perspective. A lot of people would agree that I am good. But I don’t. I see myself as evil, and that is what is reflected on my stats. Don’t think too hard about it. It doesn’t really mean much in the end.”

That is a… fair point. Rin has no idea how the whole alignment thing is determined to begin with. It being based on personal or public perception would make sense. There is an odd information in that sentence, though. “Why would you see yourself as evil? Are you the type to beat yourself up over stealing candy as a kid?”

She expects a laugh, some banter, perhaps. But Berserker is silent. Somehow, it’s more unsettling than their usual disjointed explanations. They stir the onions some more, still turned away from her. She half believes they haven’t heard her at all- but eventually, they turn to her.

Servants are summoned at their peaks. That is a fact. But that fact raises a simple, but very important question: why does Berserker look so tired?

“… I just can’t think of the murder of eight billion people seven times over as something just, is all.”  

For what feels like an eternity, all Rin can do is stare at the blood dripping down the sacrifical dagger. She should feel something, she thinks. She just struck down the man who killed her father. The man who raised her. She murdered an actual, real human being.

She feels nothing.

It's over. This joke of a war is over. It's... it's done. Her duties have been carried over.

Distantly, she feels a hand land on her shoulder. Saber's. The only servant who survived this war. Berserker fell prey to that mud before they could... Saber's the last one. Saber's the one with the rights to the holy grail.

Her grip on her sword tightens. "Let's do this, Rin."

Behind her, Shirou nods. "Let's destroy the grail."

The three of them turn around. The grail towers over the city, a solid mass of malice melting its corrupted wax all over the place. To destroy it is all they have left to do. Shirou just needs to give Saber the order, and-

"... Is it me, or is the grail... a lot smaller?"

Rin blinks. That... is true. It has shrunk ever since she started fighting Kotomine. In fact, it's visibly melting right now, slowly losing inch over inch.

"There are footprints over there." Saber is the one to point them out. And indeed; small puddles of mud lead out of that lake of sin, as if someone had walked of it straight into the woods.

( I'm very hard to kill. )

Could it be-

That's stupid. That's hopeless. The grail is a thing that eats servants by nature. There's no way they could have survived. There's no way-

(But what if, what if- )

She's exhausted, and yet, Rin find it in herself to sprint.

Please be alive. Please be alive. Please be alive. Please, please, please-

And there, like an impossible dream: a lone figure, leaning against a tree. Her heart jumps in her throat. "Berserker-!"

And then they turn towards her, and she stops dead in her tracks.

"FUCK OFF!" Berserker barks at her, teeth bared. Black are spreading over their cheek, pulsing like a disease. "Don't get any closer, I'll-"

Their sentence is stopped by a violent cough. They slam both hands against their mouth, hunching over, and then they- swallow. "Fuck. Stay in there. I can't protect you outside of my body."

It clicks the moment Saber and Shirou catch up with her. "You... you swallowed the grail."

"Of course I did. What was I supposed to do? Leave him alone?" They cough again. Something dark and thick, like oil, dribbles off their lips. "He was there for me. Back then- when everything was ending- he was there for me. I can't abandon someone who once stood by my side, you understand? I can't."

"You're insane. These curses are going to kill you."

"I am dead. You think I care?" They wipe their chin. A stain remains on their skin. "Every second I can keep him alive is a victory. Every breath we take. Every step. We're both doomed, but I intend to fight for that life until there's no other choice left."

Okay. Okay okay okay. Rin understands... she thinks. She has an inkling as to what is going on, at least. "Berserker. I don't know who- what you saw in that mud. But that's not a human. It's nothing but a mass of curse with no will of its own. Let go of it."

"And who are you, to decide what makes a human?" They growl, like an animal, like a beast, and that growl rises and rises and rises until they're screaming, a rage the likes of which Rin has never witnessed in them before. "It's always the same shit it's always the same shit. You take some random guy who never asked for anything, and you put the weight of the world on their shoulders. Call them a child of prophecy, call them all the world's evil. Use their blood to water your crops, and then go thank you for your services, sorry for the suffering, have a great death! Haven't you asked enough of him? I've dreamed his life. I've had my skin peeled off, my toes cut off. Haven't you asked enough of him? Doesn't he deserve someone by his deathbed too? If you want him back, you'll have to go through-"

Suddenly, Berserker snaps their head towards Saber. No. Rin knows exactly what they're staring at. Suddenly, Berserker snaps their head towards Excalibur.

Whatever they hear, it displeases them. Their face twists in anger into something deeply frightening. "You'll stop me, Caster?"

Saber adjusts her grip on her blade, and Berserker-

laughs. A manic, deranged sound, that comes not from the lungs, but from the ribcage, from the marrow. "Of course. It's always been like this with the three of us, hasn't it? You, Oberon and me. We can only coexist in a dream. Only one of us can live at any given time- killed by our hand or dead for our sake. Of course we would have to kill each other too."

They turn then, back to Rin. "What of you all?"

"The grail has to be destroyed." Replies Shirou.

Rin should say something similar. Some heroic line or another, about ideals and dreams and what would be the right thing to do. And yet; the first thing that comes out of her mouth is the most honest thing she has ever said in years: "I don't want to fight you, Berserker."

Their face... almost softens. There's an odd expression she cannot read. They lean against the tree and straightens their back.

"I'll tell you a secret, girl who is not Ereshkigal. I know how the story ends. It always goes like this: I meet people. I get to know them. I get to love them. And then we turn onto one another. It always goes like this. I was a creature of myth long before I died. The exact events change, the setting, the characters- but there are cornerstones to that story you just can't cut away in a retelling. It was never going to end any other way."

They part from the tree, then take a shaky step forward. they're trembling all over, like boiling water, like an egg about to hatch. They're a single, sickly human- but they stand tall regardless.

"Fine. This will be my last dance. Let's make it a memorable one." They join their hands together, then crack their knuckles. The remaining command spell on their hand shines through muddy veins. "My name is Ritsuka Fujimaru. I am Chaldea's last Master. I am Humanity's Greatest Murderer. I am a perfectly ordinary guy who was in the wrong place at the wrong time." They spit a mouthful of ink to the side, then turn back to the three of them. "Now, heroes, come forth and strike me down."