The café door swung shut behind Souta with a sharp jingle of bells that sounded far too cheerful for how violently his heart was pounding. He didn't stop to catch his breath, didn't dare glance back through the window to see if Saber was already rising from her seat. His shoes slapped against wet pavement as he turned down the first alleyway, then the second, weaving through Fuyuki's backstreets with no particular destination in mind beyond away.
It wasn't until he'd crossed the river into the industrial district that his Servant materialized beside him, their form coalescing from shimmering blue particles into solidity.
"That was..." Souta gasped between breaths, pressing a hand against the stitch in his side, "...really bad."
His Servant arched an eyebrow. "Understatement of the century."
The early evening air carried the scent of machine oil and damp concrete as they walked between abandoned warehouses. Souta flexed his left hand unconsciously, the three crimson Command Seals standing out starkly against his pale skin.
"She saw them," he muttered. "How could I be so stupid? I should have worn gloves, or—"
"Stop." His Servant held up a hand. "Self-flagellation wastes time we don't have. What's done is done."
Souta opened his mouth to argue when his Servant suddenly stiffened, head tilting as if listening to something distant.
"...She recognized me."
The quiet admission hung between them. Souta's breath caught.
"Saber?"
A slow nod. "Not just your Command Seals. Me."
That shouldn't have been possible. The Throne of Heroes existed outside time—Servants summoned to different Grail Wars weren't supposed to retain memories between summonings. But then, his Servant had never fit neatly into any of the established rules.
"How?"
His Servant's mouth twisted into something that wasn't quite a smile. "Avalon."
The name sent a jolt through Souta. The Ever-Distant Utopia. The sheath of Excalibur that Kiritsugu Emiya had implanted in Shirou Emiya's body after the Fuyuki fire. The same artifact that had created an unnatural bond between Saber and Shirou in another timeline.(Caster is not archer emiya from fate/stay night)
"You mean..."
"Fragments. Impressions. Like remembering a dream after waking." His Servant's eyes grew distant. "She wouldn't know why, but she felt it—that connection."
Souta exhaled sharply through his nose. This complicated things exponentially. If Saber reported this to Irisviel, if Kiritsugu learned there was a Master whose Servant shared some inexplicable bond with his trump card...
His Servant seemed to follow his train of thought. "We have maybe six hours before the Magus Killer starts hunting in earnest."
The sun dipped lower behind the factories, casting long shadows across cracked asphalt. Souta's mind raced through options, each more desperate than the last.
His Servant broke the silence first. "She hasn't changed."
Souta glanced up.
"Saber," they clarified. "Still carrying that impossible dream of hers."
There was something in their voice—not quite nostalgia, not quite bitterness. Something more complicated.
"You knew her," Souta realized. "Not just as another Servant. From when she was alive."
A pause. Then, quietly: "I served at Camelot."
The admission hung in the air between them, heavy with unspoken history. Souta knew better than to press—some wounds never fully healed, even for Heroic Spirits.
His Servant continued, voice distant. "She was... different then. Not just a king, but the living embodiment of Britain itself. You couldn't stand in her presence without feeling it—that weight, that absolute certainty." A humorless chuckle. "Drove some of the other knights mad, that perfection."
Souta thought of the café, of how Saber's emerald eyes had locked onto his Command Seals with terrifying precision. "She seemed human enough to me."
"Because she is now. Back then?" His Servant shook their head. "The Lion King didn't hesitate. Didn't doubt. Didn't regret. Not when the Saxons came. Not when Lancelot fell. Not even at Camlann, when Mordred's sword found her heart."
The wind picked up, carrying the distant sound of train whistles.
"And yet she wants to undo it all," Souta murmured.
His Servant's expression darkened. "That's the cruel joke of the Grail. Kings aren't allowed regrets—but Artoria? She's spent fifteen hundred years drowning in them."
They fell into step together, moving toward their makeshift hideout in an abandoned textile factory. The conversation turned to darker topics—the Divine Realm of the Round Table singularity, where the Knights had been reborn as fanatical spirits under a goddess-king who judged entire populations worthy or unworthy of salvation.
"That wasn't our king," his Servant said sharply. "That was a distortion. A being who'd abandoned humanity entirely to become something... else."
Souta frowned. "And the Saber we saw today?"
"Still clinging to her ideals. Still believing she can fix what broke." A bitter smile. "That's always been her greatest strength. And her fatal flaw."
By the time they reached the factory, the last sliver of sun had vanished below the horizon. Souta lit a single lantern, its flickering light casting monstrous shadows across the cavernous space.
"We need to move faster," he said, unrolling a map of Fuyuki across a makeshift table. "If Kiritsugu's hunting us, we need allies."
His Servant studied the map. "Rider."
Souta nodded. "If anyone can counter Saber, it's him."
"And if we can't find Waver in time?"
Souta's fingers brushed the scars on his neck—three thin lines that still burned sometimes, reminders of his first bloody lesson in this war.
"Then we fight."
Somewhere in Fuyuki, a king prepared for battle.
And this time, Souta wouldn't be caught unprepared.