Chapter 23: Conflict

Chapter 23: Conflict

The next morning, Lolita was busy preparing breakfast with Emiya Shirou, while Saber kept a close eye on her from the side.

After breakfast, in the backyard of the Emiya residence.

"Is there something you need, Saber?" Lolita asked, her back turned to a corner.

"Where are you going?" Saber asked.

"Just going to the roof to sunbathe." This was one of Lolita's habits; the morning sunlight felt wonderful, so she liked it very much.

"Then, can you explain the murderous intent you directed at Shirou earlier?" Saber stepped forward, magic energy surging around her. Once again clad in her shining silver armor, she held her hands in a vague grip, directly adopting a combat stance.

"?" Lolita was initially baffled, but she soon realized that Saber was referring to the incident back at the Ryudo Temple.

"..." What was Lolita supposed to say? It wasn't even her doing; it was merely the lingering memories of Archer acting up.

"Saber, we are allies, and my Master specifically instructed me not to harm Shirou. Besides, aren't you sticking close to Rin? I wouldn't joke around with my Master's life." Lolita didn't feel particularly bothered by this. As a knight, Saber would never strike first unless one side violated the alliance; that was the way of chivalry.

"Your murderous intent was not fake. How do you expect me to trust you, Archer?" Saber's words, however, were quite unexpected.

"..." Archer said with a dark expression, "Oh, is that so, Saber? Do you truly understand the situation? Do you understand me?"

"What do you mean?" Saber didn't quite understand that remark.

"Saber, you are no match for me. Killing you would be effortless for me, and I don't want you causing me trouble. If I wanted to kill Emiya Shirou, it would also be effortless. Why bother coming to question me? Aren't these things crystal clear to you?" Lolita said, her back turned as she glanced sideways, her eyes turning blood-red. Because her recent memories and the remaining fragments of the Red Archer's personality—amounting to less than one-thousandth—had not fully fused, she found it difficult to control her emotions and easily became warlike.

"..." Of this, Saber was more acutely aware than anyone else. Even Tohsaka Rin did not understand Lolita's strength as well as Saber did—it was a power that surpassed all Heroic Spirits, comparable to the realm of the gods.

"Then, let's have a fight. Drink this. It seems you are still quite stubborn, Arthur! Your ideal is impossible to fulfill! Not even the Holy Grail can change history." Lolita tossed over a vial of full-recovery potion, then materialized Thunder and the Crimson Dancing Crescent Moon, and said,

"Arthur? ... Who... who on earth are you?"

The opponent actually knew her real name! Saber was certain she had never met this person before in her life.

"Want to know? Drink it, and fight me, and I'll tell you." Lolita said, staring at Saber with crimson eyes.

Feeling the surging magic energy contained within the potion in her hand, Saber was astonished by the concentration of magic and vitality within it. She uncorked the vial and drank it down in a single gulp...

"This is... the realm of the laws!" At her absolute peak—the current Saber was at her complete and utter prime. If the previous Saber's strength was a mere stream, she was now an absolute ocean.

"Let's fight, Artoria! Once it's over, you'll understand your problem." Lolita swung her swords in a brilliant and fluid display of sword patterns, brimming with fighting spirit, and said,

"As you wish!" Having reached her peak condition, Artoria would never refuse an opponent's challenge. Filled with matching battle intent, she responded to Lolita. The two of them were no longer fighting over the previous incident at the Ryudo Temple, but engaging in a duel between knights. Furthermore, Artoria was fighting to discover the answer she so desperately desired.

...

"Ha!" Artoria swung her invisible sword with all her might, the blade repeatedly clashing against the swords held by Lolita, who stood completely rooted to the spot without moving an inch.

The more they fought, the more shocked Artoria became. Logically speaking, a Servant of the Archer class should not possess such formidable close-combat capabilities. True to their class designation, Saber's trump card was bound to be the sword, while an Archer's specialty was the bow. Yet now, an Archer was actually engaging her in a blade-to-blade melee—and doing so against a weapon whose shape was completely invisible to the eye, which was an utterly miraculous feat.

Although Archer had primarily used swords in their previous battle, Artoria had simply assumed at the time that Lolita was overwhelming Berserker through sheer overwhelming stats rather than genuine swordsmanship.

With her left hand, Lolita parried a horizontal slash coming from the left using the blue lightning-infused blade, while the crimson blood-dancing blade in her right hand aimed straight for Artoria's head.

Artoria tilted her head to dodge the strike, the blood-red blade of the sword brushing past her neck so closely that the icy chill of the edge instantly raised goosebumps on her fair skin.

Artoria launched another attack, but no matter how she pressed the assault, the silver-haired girl before her refused to yield even a single step. Meanwhile, Artoria herself was repeatedly forced out of striking range by her opponent's continuous counter-attacks.

Lolita was employing a dual-sword style. Niten Ichi-ryu was a discipline meant for masters; historically, Japan's most renowned swordsmen—such as the sword saint Miyamoto Musashi and Yagyu Jubei—practiced the dual-sword style. Because fighting with two single-handed blades meant one hand was inevitably the practitioner's weaker side, the physical strength behind the blows was naturally not as great as gripping a sword with both hands. Of course, this excluded those rare individuals who were equally adept with both hands—let me quietly feel a little proud of myself here for a moment.

The dual-sword style had three crucial keys. First was swordsmanship: you slash at me, I parry with one blade while the other counter-attacks. A single-bladed fighter was usually too busy defending to mount an effective counter.

Second was distraction: distraction was the absolute taboo in dual-sword combat, yet distraction was also the most vital element of the style. If one could not multitask completely, the swordsmanship of the dual-sword style was nothing more than a joke.

Third was focus: because it required splitting one's attention, any lapse in concentration at a critical moment would render a dual-sword style devoid of both strength and technique, leaving the practitioner with only a dead end. The dual-sword style was a technique for geniuses; unless one was truly gifted by the heavens, it could not be mastered.

However, drawing upon Archer's memories of battling Artoria, Lolita could be said to completely outmatch her.

'Next is... an upward slash.'

The swords in both hands crossed abruptly, catching the exact vulnerable point of the invisible blade, and then her left foot shot out with a fierce kick...

Relying on the strength of her two-handed grip, Artoria managed to wrench her sword free, dodged Lolita's attack, and swung her weapon once more...

'This time, it's a thrust...'

The crimson blade in Lolita's right hand darted forward, accurately tapping the tip of Artoria's sword. To Artoria's astonishment, Lolita's left hand thrust directly toward her chest.

Artoria canted her blade to the side and dropped into a crouch, blocking Lolita's thrust before launching a counter-attack...

'And then, a horizontal slash...'

The successive setbacks made Artoria's heart tighten involuntarily, especially given the fighting style that seemed to intimately know the exact shape of her blade and the intricacies of her swordsmanship...

"Who on earth are you?! There is no memory of ever fighting you in my past. But why do you seem so intimately familiar with my sword techniques?" Blocking the simultaneous assault of the red and blue swords with a sweep of her own, Artoria demanded sharply.

"My~ who knows?" This young lady couldn't possibly tell her, *I am Emiya Shirou*, could she? Who would believe that? Even she herself wouldn't believe it.

"You..." Artoria choked on her words for a moment, and then a sudden surge of murderous intent targeted her forehead.

"If you assume that because both my swords are parried, I have no way to attack, you are gravely mistaken, Arthur."

A noble phantasm materialized and projected behind Lolita, shooting directly toward Artoria's glabella...

...

"Clang."

"Don't you find it strange, Arthur? We've been fighting for so long, yet no one has come over?" Lolita said, locking her blades against Artoria's single sword.

"Who knows? All I know is that what I need to do right now is get the answer I'm looking for. Moreover, I am certain I never witnessed this style of combat during my lifetime. Just who are you?" Artoria's body was covered in wounds, though most of them had faded into invisible traces and were slowly healing.

Lolita finally took a step forward from her spot, yet she remained entirely uninjured.

"Alright, Saber, we can stop fighting. You've pretty much exhausted the magic energy I gave you anyway." Lolita's eyes shifted back to blue as she withdrew her weapons and spoke.

"?" Artoria was utterly bewildered by Lolita's behavior.

However, true to her knightly creed, she would not strike an enemy who had lowered their weapon, so Artoria did not press the attack further.

"I merely caught a glimpse of you from afar as a knight back in my lifetime. I was just a nobody, so please don't mind it." Lolita began to spout nonsense.

"Don't talk nonsense! Could a woman become a knight in that era?" Artoria shouted, pointing her sword at her.

"Then can a woman become a king, King Arthur?" Lolita inherited the Red Archer's talent for deadpan sarcasm.

"You..." Artoria was left completely speechless. She herself had hidden her female identity to become the King of Britain, so it wasn't strictly impossible for someone else to have a similar experience. But for someone to know her true given name was "Artoria" rather than "Artorius," and to be so thoroughly familiar with her sword techniques—to claim they had no prior connection was that even possible? Artorius was the historical Romanized name for King Arthur. Therefore, she must have met this woman before, and they must have been intimately familiar—so familiar that they had exchanged sword techniques together—yet she had no memories of her whatsoever. Could she have hidden her identity? But those swords... recalling Lolita's two daggers, how could weapons like that possibly exist in ancient Europe!

"It's useless. You and I have no connection," Lolita shook her head and said.

"How can that be?"

"By the way, Arthur, don't you know Illya?" Lolita asked, abruptly bypassing the previous topic.

"Illya? I certainly don't know her." Artoria thought for a moment and replied.

"..., Illya is the daughter of Irisviel von Einzbern and Emiya Kiritsugu!" Lolita dropped a bombshell that left Artoria dumbfounded.

"How... how is that possible... Even though she looks exactly the same, how many years have passed? Why is she still so small?" This revelation left Artoria utterly shocked.

"Time will tell you everything. Let's go back. I've already had our decoys leave, and now is the right time to return." By the time Artoria regained her senses, Lolita had already walked up to the front gates of the Emiya residence.

She raised her head to look up at the sun; it was already... noon.

PS: Emiya Shirou: Saber, dinner is ready!