VS

"....Tell me why, Archer. I can't understand. I have heard that Guardians are those beings that, after death, become Heroic Spirits and protect humanity. What would make one think of trying to kill himself?"

".........Guardians?"
With some particular emotion with the tone of that word,
He halted and looked down without expression at Saber.

"That's not true, Saber. Guardians don't protect people. Those monsters are just the clean-up crew. They are absolutely not the heroes that I had envisioned."

The sound in his voice changed from the one before.
There was hate and contempt lurking in his straightforward tone..

"Archer....?"
"Yes, I did become a hero. I became a defender of justice, just as Emiya Shirou desired."

-----Defender of justice.
Someone who doesn't hurt even one person.
The someone Emiya Shirou wished for, one who can save all people equally, not running away no matter what disaster may occur.

He became that?

"Ar.......cher?"
"Yeah, I did save many people.
I fulfilled many ideals to the extent that I could and there had even been a time when I saved the world in one of those so-called times of crisis.
-----And there was a time that I finally reached the point of being a hero. Reached the position that I looked up to, a long time ago.

"You became a hero........then, was Shirou rewarded in the end?
You, at least, fulfilled Emiya Shirou's ideals hadn't you?
You shouldn't have any regrets. You, Shirou, accomplished your ideals."

There wasn't any power in her pleading
.....She already knew.
That what she was saying was no more than a fanciful hope.

"Fulfilled my ideals, huh. Yes, I became the idealistic defender of justice.
But, the only thing I got out of it in the end were regrets. The only thing left was death."

"Oh, I killed, killed, and killed.
To accomplish my own goals, I killed many, I killed so much that to the point of not caring about the lives of innocents, and saved several thousands the amount of people I killed."

"...."
Stunned speechless, Saber continues to look at Archer.
That had also been a face of looking at your own mirror image.

"....Yes, I don't know how many times I ended up repeating that, Saber.
I fought so many times whenever I was needed, and when I heard there was conflict, I joined, betting death. Again and again, again and again to the point of not even remembering."

"I mean, it couldn't be helped.
No matter what I save, there's going to be those that can't be saved. No matter how many battles are ended, another one is going to emerge.
As long as that's still going around, I could only keep on being a defender of justice."

Who was that directed at?
Passing his eyes slowly down the ears, the knight revealed what he had been.

"That's why I killed. To save one person, I stepped on the wishes of tens of people. To save the people I stepped on, I trampled on even more people.
I killed the possibility to save tens of people, saving only the things that were before me, killing even more desires.

And each time, I thought that things would end this time. And each time, I kept stupidly and stubbornly believing that this time, nobody would grieve.

"But there was no end.
As long as I was still living, I kept finding wars.
There wasn't an end. It wasn't as if I dreamed of a world without conflict.
All I ever wanted was for nobody to cry, at least in the world that I could see."

...That,
Without a doubt, that was the shape of Emiya Shirou's wish.

"If I save one, my field of vision expands from there.
After one comes ten. After ten comes 100. After 100 comes, well just how many? And I finally realized. What Emiya Shirou was embracing had been an fanciful utopia."
"....Why"

"You should know yourself Saber. You already had gone through this many times. You can't save everybody.
Saving the country by abandoning just some people; that's nothing out of the ordinary for you.

"....."
The ability to object was stolen from her.
What the knight was saying had also been a darkness that Saber herself had.

"Yes, there's only a set number of seats. Seats with the label of happiness are always going to be less than the total number of chairs.
Not everybody there can be saved. Somebody has to become a sacrifice.
-To do that
To limit casualities to a minimum, I immediately, as soon as possible, severed with my own hands those that would eventually fall.
That's the course of action that a hero and a defender of justice that man believes to be idealistic, should take."

The wish for no one to be sad.
The ideal to save as many people as possible.
Once those two factors are held up against each other and conflict with each other, there's only one road to follow.

The ones that a defender of justice can save are only the ones on his side.
If saving everything will mean losing everything, then at least.
The correct choice is to sacrifice one to save the whole.

"Saving many people. That's the way of justice right?
So I killed. While still wishing to not let anyone die, I had one die for the sake of the many.
Saying that I didn't want anyone to be sad, in truth, I caused caused many to despair.

"I got used to that eventually. To protect those ideals, I kept working against those ideals.
Only saving the people I tried to save, I slaughtered all those against me. By accepting the sacrificial "someone", I protected my old ideals".

"That's who I am. That's the true nature of the hero, EMIYA.
-How's that.
Don't you think it would be for the sake of the world if this guy died while we have the chance?"

Yeah.
The only ones that a defender of justice can save are the ones on his side.

...But.
Who was it that rejected those words?

"....That's a lie. Even if that was the result, didn't you pursue those dreams, putting that "someone" as yourself?"

"......"
The knight stopped descending.
He, just for a moment
Furrowed his brows, just once, painfully.

"You did not become the antithesis of your ideals. Hadn't you only lost sight of your path after being betrayed by the ideals that you were supposed to protect?
If that was not the case, I cannot believe that you would try to atone for your sins by killing yourself."

"......."
His smile, distorted in irony, faded.
The knight, after looking straight at Saber,

"........Ha, hahahahahahaha!!"
Laughed out of his mind, as if there was something fundamentally wrong.

"Hahaha, hahahahahaha! Oh, what a masterpiece.
I, atone for my sins? Don't be stupid, Saber.
I have no sins to atone for and I don't remember ever forcing something so irresponsible on someone else."

The knight lost control of himself, while still being calm.
His voice was silent,
Only muffled laughter echoed in the hallway.

"Ah, that's right, Saber. Yes, I had been betrayed and fooled many times. I'd once been framed by the man I saved. After I tried to end a conflict as if I put in as much effort as if I was going to die, I was declared the one who started the war, and ended up on the gallows.
How's that? If I had any sins, they should have been atoned for on that spot.

"Wha-......that can't be, Archer. In the end, you-"

"...Yeah, that's it.
But, I didn't give a damn. I never expected to be thanked. I didn't want to be paraded as a hero. All I wanted was the result of everybody being happy.
-But that wasn't to happen.
Not in life. And not in death.

The muffled laughter was gone.
The words pouring from his mouth now, only had in them hatred.

"Guardians are chromatic, colorless power that prioritize only "primate continuation".
The power lies in the higher realms and descends when the possibility of extinction of the world of man is born.
.....I had known.
That after death, one who entrusts their existence as a Guardian is removed from transmigration and agrees to become "nothing".

"Even so, if I could save someone, I didn't care.
The old Emiya Shirou couldn't protect that vow.
If I could partially halt the "extinction of mankind" by become a Guardian, I felt that becoming one was ok."

"...But the truth was different. Guardians don't save people.
What Guardians do is only clean out. Entities that use their power to render an incident that had already occurred, to turns the deeds of the people who started it, into nothing.

"They don't save people. They, without discrimination of good and evil, only wipe out those that threaten the world.
They don't save those people lamenting in despair. No, they eliminate the despairing, to save those completely unrelated outsiders, those people content in enjoying the fruits of living.
.....What stupidity. How was that any different from what I had been?"

-Nothing changed.
On the contrary, the despairing had only increased.
If that hadn't been enough under his own power, he offered himself to even greater power.

But, what came next was still the same ultimately.
Even though he thought it could be fulfilled with that power, then, if that power turned out to only be something that magnified what he had done.

"....Archer, for all this time you"
"I got used to that though. The history of humanity repeats. No matter what era, the strong feed on the weak. And, from that, I learned that this was the most efficient form of prosperity."

"....Yes, I've seen it again and again.
Pointless massacres, pointless equality, pointless fortune, all of it!
I was forced to see what I myself rejected. Once I became a Guardian, I lost my own will. After all, I'm only called by the will of mankind and then sent to clean up the sins that humanity had created."

That was, the end point he had reached.
An existence, only for the erasing of the greed of people.
A Guardian that doesn't save, but only erases the existence of the people not saved.
Again and again.
Seeing the actions of humans with his own eyes, he burned them as if they were trash.

Saving even just one more person.

The man that became a hero with that desire, would not even once see that wish granted.

"...Yes. That's wrong. What I wanted wasn't that.
I didn't become a Guardian for THAT!!!!"

The surging anger in his voice was probably directed at only himself.
What was over there was a worn-out corpse.
The hero EMIYA would have to continue seeing the ugliness of the people he should have wanted to save.

He hated what lay at the end.
The humans who repeated the game of stealing and him himself, who had seen them to be precious.

"I'm tired of having to take care of humanity's mess. But once I'm a Guardian, I don't have the means of escaping from the cycle.
.....But with one exception."

The unshaking urge to kill lit in his cold eyes.
He wasn't looking at Saber.
His target was just one thing. The erasing of himself.
But even if he died here, the main EMIYA existing in the "Throne" outside of the cycle won't disappear.
Those that become Guardians can't be destroyed.

They "don't exist", and killing something that doesn't exist in the cycle of this world has no meaning.
...However.
There is one way for him to disappear.
If a person that should have become a hero is killed before he becomes a hero, that hero won't be born.

Therefore....

"You are saying you are going to kill Shirou? By your own hands?"

"Yeah. I've been waiting only for this chance. A chance that is no less close than zero.
But I put my money on that. If I didn't have that to believe in, I couldn't tolerate myself. I was able to continue being a Guardian, hoping just for this one moment."

Which is why....

"Are you saying that you will kill Shirou? With your very own hands?"

"That's right. I've been waiting just for this chance. A chance that's almost zero. But I gambled on that. If I hadn't thought of that, I wouldn't have been able to tolerate myself. Putting my hopes on just that moment. I was able to continue being a Guardian."

"....That won't work, Archer. You already exist as a Guardian. It's already too late. At this point, killing an Emiya Shirou before he becomes a hero won't mean you'll disappear."

"Perhaps. But it's still possible. Revision of the past probably won't be enough, but if I killed him with my own hands, the paradoxes will become larger. Should the distortion be big enough, it just might be possible for the the hero called EMIYA to be annihilated."

"And one more thing, Saber. I put up with being a Guardian just for this one moment. I'm not looking for results, not anymore. This is my way of throwing all of my misery at the stupidity of a punk named Emiya Shirou, who ended up a clown at the end of his idiotic utopia."