Archer and Emiya Conflict

"Yes. It is when the heroic spirit has a catalyst connected to the summoner."
"――――――――!"

The jewel is the only one of its kind.
My life was saved, but I did not know who saved me. So I held on to the pendant which I thought belonged to my savior.
...That's the answer.
If he has Tohsaka's pendant, then there is only one person who he can be.

――――Heroic spirit Emiya.
The future me.
The heroic spirit before me is Emiya Shirou, who perfected his skills and made his ideal come true.

The knight in red―――Archer looks down at me from the top of the stairs.
There's no one around him.
He is standing alone in this vast hall.


Saber says "...Yes. But please answer me before that. Why are you trying to kill Shirou?"

Archer responds "―――There's nothing to explain. Just as he cannot approve of me, I too cannot approve of him."

Saber, "That cannot be true...! You are Shirou. You are the ideal of Emiya Shirou, the one who became a hero. S-So why are you trying to kill yourself...!?"

"Why do you think? The hero called Emiya and the inexperienced Emiya Shirou are two separate beings. We cannot exist at the same time unless that is the case."

"That is because you became a Servant. I heard that guardians can be summoned into the age in which they lived, since they are not bound to the time axis...!
You are Shirou. You should be the personification of his ideal, the person he became after much hard work. So why――――"
She finishes in a broken voice,
"Why are you so different?"

"...Why, Archer? I do not understand. I heard that guardians are ones who become heroic spirits after their deaths in order to protect people. So why are you trying to kill yourself?"

"―――――Guardian?"
Maybe something she said got through to him.
He stops and looks down at Saber without emotion.

"You're wrong, Saber. Guardians are not ones that protect the people. They are only cleaners. They are definitely not the heroes I once wished to become."
His voice sounds different.
Hatred and scorn fill it now.

"Archer...?"
"I did become a hero. I became a superhero, just as Emiya Shirou had wanted."

――――A superhero.
Someone who will not harm anyone.
Someone who will not retreat no matter what disaster he may face, someone who can save everyone, someone Emiya Shirou wanted to become.
And...
That man became such a person?

"Ar... cher...?"
"Yes, I certainly did save some people.
I have made many ideals come true, and I have saved the world from danger several times.
―――A hero... I did reach the place I had dreamed of for so long."

"You became a hero―――then Shirou was rewarded, right...?
At the very least, you made Emiya Shirou's ideal come true.
Then you should not have any regrets. Shirou was able to make his wish come true."

There's no conviction in her voice.
...She already knows.
She knows that she is only voicing her own wish.

"'Make his wish come true', huh? I certainly did become a superhero, just like in my ideal.
But all I obtained in the end were regrets. All that was left was death."

"I killed and killed and killed.
I killed many people to act on my ideal.
I killed so many that I stopped caring about innocent people, and I saved a thousand times as many as I killed."

"――――――――"
Saber stares at Archer, speechless.
She looks like someone who saw her own mirror image.

"―――Yes, I don't know how many times I've repeated the cycle.
I fought as often as requested, and I fought with my life in danger whenever I knew there was a conflict. I fought many times. So many times that I can't even remember now."

"It can't be helped, right?
No matter who I save, there are always people who will perish. No matter how many conflicts I resolve, new conflicts are always created.
A superhero has to keep existing as long as conflict exists."

Who did he direct that to?
The knight slowly descends the stairs and recounts his past.

"That's why I killed.
I trampled on dozens of wishes to save one person. I ignored even more people to save those I trampled over.
I killed scores of people, rescued only those in front of me, and destroyed many more wishes.
I kept being stubborn, saying that it will end this time, that everyone would become happy."

"―――But it never ended.
Conflicts come into my view as long as I'm alive.
It was endless. I didn't dream of a world without conflicts.
I just wanted people in my view not to cry."

Emiya shirou thinks, ―――That is...
...Definitely my own wish.

"My vision expands after I save one.
Ten after one. A hundred after ten. How many was it after a hundred? At that time, I finally realized that Emiya Shirou's ideal was just a convenient fantasy."
"...Why is that?"

"Don't ask for the obvious, Saber. You should have experienced the same thing many times already. You cannot save everyone.
I assume it was a daily routine for you to sacrifice a few people to save the country."

"......"
The quiet voice is rendered powerless to object.
The words of the red knight are Saber's darkness as well.

"Yes, the seats are limited. There are always fewer seats called happiness than there are people to fill them.
Since you cannot save everyone, someone will have to be sacrificed.
―――And...
I quickly killed the ones that would eventually fall out to minimize the damage.
This is what it means to be that boy's vision of the ideal superhero."

The wish for nobody to become sad.
The desire to save as many people as possible.
When the two coexist and contradict each other, there is only one solution.

The only people a superhero can save are the people he sides with.

If one is to lose everything by trying to save everything...

It is correct to sacrifice one to save more.

"A superhero should save many people, right? That's why I killed. I prayed for no one to die, but I killed one to save many.
I said I would not have anyone sad, but I brought despair to a few in the dark."

"And in time, I got used to it. To protect my ideal, I kept going against it.
I only saved the people I tried to save and quickly killed the people who opposed me. I allowed 'someone' to be sacrificed to keep protecting my ideal."

"That is the true identity of the hero Emiya.
―――See.
Don't you think such a guy should die?"

That's right.
The only ones a superhero can save are people he sides with.
...But.
Who was it that defied those words?

"...That is a lie. Even if that happened, you would have protected your ideal by choosing yourself to be that 'someone'."
"――――――"
The knight stops for a second.
A frown crosses his face.

"You did not go against your ideal. You only lost your path because you were betrayed by the ideal you protected.
You would not think of killing yourself to atone for the sins unless that were the case."

"――――――"
His ironic smile disappears.
After coldly staring at Saber...
"――――Ha. Haha, hahahahaha!!"
...He starts laughing like a madman.
...As if it's the funniest thing he's heard.

"Kuku, hahahahahahaha! Wow, that is great.
Atone for my sins? Don't be stupid, Saber.
I have no sins to atone for, nor have I forced such a meaningless concept on anyone."
The knight calmly goes mad.
He spoke in a small voice, but his laughter echoes through the hall.

"Yeah, you're right, Saber. I was certainly betrayed and deceived many times. I have been accused by the exact person I saved. After giving my all to stop a conflict, I was accused of being its cause, and was executed in the end.
See? If I had any sins to atone for, I have already done so, right?"

"What――――impossible, Archer. You cannot mean your end is..."

"...Heh. So that was it.
But I didn't care about that. From the start, I didn't do these things to be appreciated. I had no intention of being praised as a hero. I just wanted a result where everybody would be happy.
―――But such a wish never came true.
Not within my lifetime, nor after my death."

He has stopped laughing.
There's only hatred in his voice now.

"Guardians are a colorless force that places humanity's survival before anything.
The powers are in the heavens, and the guardians appear in this world only when there's a chance of human extinction.
...I knew they were just slaves.
I knew that people who become guardians are removed from the circle of reincarnation and become like nothingness."

"But I did not care, so long as I could save people.
Emiya Shirou could not fulfill his oath.
So――――I thought it would be fine if I could become a guardian to take part in stopping humanity's destruction."

"――――But it's actually different. Guardians do not save people.
All they do is clean up after humans. They take what has been done and nullify it with their powers."

"They do not save people. All they do is eliminate harmful people, without distinction of good or evil.
They do not save people in despair. Instead, they eliminate people in despair in order to save others who are enjoying life.
―――It's so ridiculous. How am I different from before?"

―――There's no difference.
There was just more despair.
He relied on a greater power since his powers alone were not enough.
But it ended up being the same.
He thought the power would make his wish come true, but it only made him do the same things on a greater scale.

"...Archer. You have repeated such a thing forever...?"
"I got used to it. Humans repeat things. The strong feed on the weak, regardless of what age we're talking about. And I came to realize that it is the most efficient way to prosper."

"―――Yes, I watched it over and over.
Meaningless massacres, meaningless equality, meaningless happiness...!
I was forced to look at them even when I refused to. As a guardian, I have no free will. I am called by the people only to take care of the crime people have created."

That is where he ended up.
A being that repairs the damage caused by human desire.
Guardians do not save people. Rather, they eliminate those who cannot be saved as if they never existed.

Over and over.
For many times, he saw people nearly destroy themselves through their own actions, and he burned them down like trash each time.
"Save as many people as possible".
The man became a hero with that one wish―――but in the end, he could not make it come true even once.

"―――That's right. This is wrong.
This is not what I wished for.
I did not become a guardian for this...!!!!"

His anger is probably directed at himself.
What is standing there is a worn-out corpse.
The hero Emiya is doomed to always see the ugliness of those he wanted to save.

He grew to hate them in the end.
He grew to hate humans for repeating conflicts. He grew to hate himself for thinking that humans are sacred.

"I don't want to clean up after people. But as long as I'm a guardian, there's no way for me to escape this cycle.

In hearing all of this, Emiya Shirou Responds to archer.

"―――I see. Then we are two different people."
Archer, "What?"
"I will never regret my path. I won't regret it, no matter what may happen.
So―――I will never approve of you.
If you say you're my ideal, I'll destroy such an incorrect ideal with my own hands."

That's how I've been living up to now.
I've always believed that I am right.
As he says, I'm sure it's full of false courage and distortion.
I've lost more than I've gained.
But that's all the more reason why.
I cannot withdraw for the sake of the things I've lost.

I walk forward.
My circuit has already started sketching the blueprint in my mind.

"...That way of thinking is the cause of all this. There will come a time when you will reach me."
"There won't be such a time. It will never come."