Prologue:
Still in a daze, the king looked down at the weak, fragile body of the boy who'd been her Master, curled into a ball and muttering to himself, having exceeded the limit of what the mind could endure. All that remained of her former Master were those words he repeated over again and again and again. The same words she didn't wish to hear any longer. Her golden sword came down, severing his spine and ending his life. A mercy she had no right to carry out. Beside him, the one responsible for everything, sat wounded, clutching the wound that would've ended hers, as well, blood running down. The king raised her golden sword for the second time, but, as much as she wanted to, couldn't, and lowered it back down. She turned away to the large, ominous, and gaping crimson ringed portal in the sky above both their heads—the Holy Grail she so desired.
Nobody could blame her for it.
Only, she saw it for what it truly was now, and her heart was heavy with sorrow, deceived and blinded by her pride.
But, nobody could blame her for it.
There were no words.
—This path… I don't believe it's the wrong one—
Standing on this lonely battlefield, crimson shades pooling at her feet, this was the final outcome of her pride, her wish, and the devastation it wrought as she went from it to the slumbering city around them.
Yes, nobody could blame her for it.
—Oh, my dear little sister, how I await the day you crumble and fall and open those perfect eyes to truth—
Taking up her sword for the third time, the king left to go find a place to sow her sorrows.
Because nobody could blame her for it.
Months later, high up in the mountains of China, two heroes were locked in a struggle of life and death. One, wielded a sword. The other, a bow. They went from range to range, peak to peak, at a speed impossible to follow with the naked eye alone. Thunderous were their clashes, demolishing their chosen battleground, until the mountains were reduced to canyons, and those canyons into chasms very deep, very dark, unable to be seen, even by those with keenest of eyes. At a stalemate, the two heroes stood facing each other and, over the roaring winds, the hero with the bow spoke to her opponent.
"Why are you holding back, Saber? Am I not a worthy enough foe for you to still conceal your blade?" she proclaimed, pointing the tip of her bow toward them. Bright, crimson flames coiling around its strings, kept burning by Archer's anger alone, her eyes fiery and the horns protruding from her forehead giving away her demonic nature, she anxiously waited for her opponent to answer.
Unmoving, Saber answered clearly and calmly. "No, Archer," she said, sheathing her sword in one smooth, crisp motion and shaking her head. "I never wished to engage you in the first place. My goal is to find and eliminate Caster, nothing more and nothing less."
"Are you saying you never took this fight seriously? You were mocking me, Saber?!" Archer snarled, but, Saber was already gone; leaving to continue her pursuit of Caster.
Lowering her eyes to their battlefield, the fire in Archer's eyes smoldered to embers, her horns shrunk back down to stubs. She grit her teeth in humiliation as another insignificant scratch on the latter's blade, gathering what lingered of her pride as she left to reunite with her Master.
Having watched their battle unfold and come together and unfold again to its rather anticlimactic conclusion from a safe distance away, predicting its outcome before either even drew their weapons, Lancer was awoken from her nap by the sound of her Master whining in her ear. He was famished, huddled around her legs. Stretching stiff muscles, she picked something from that same ear, then hopped to her feet and pulled a piece of cooked, salted meat from her cloak. He snatched it, chewing happily, then he sat there, tongue out and tail wagging, satisfied. Patting his head, Lancer wondered if she should catch up to Saber and tell her where Caster had run off to. Her Master barked, and she nodded in agreement. Right. Yes. Of course, what was she thinking... Caster was their hunt, and nobody else's.
And this was where the fun began.
The start of another Holy Grail War.