"Then I really am sorry," Shirou shrugged his shoulders.
The two of them were indeed sitting close, and with this movement Mordred could clearly feel his armor being touched from time to time.
Leaving aside the facts, this guy was without a doubt the first person willing to come close to her.
Although you couldn't generalize the meaning, but… sure enough, he was an infuriating bastard.
Just as she was thinking this.
Shirou's rather indifferent voice came.
[A/N: Shirou himself thinks he's very gentle, but in reality he's extremely cold. This is also why, when switching to the system, no one finds it strange in the slightest.]
"Masters summon Servants to kill each other, reenacting battles that only existed in mythological times… I've experienced this once before. The Servant I summoned was Saber, none other than the King of Knights known throughout the world, Arthur Pendragon."
"What did you say?"
Mordred's wandering gaze instantly focused entirely on Shirou.
"You're not joking, are you? That Father actually…"
"There's not much point in joking about something like this. More importantly, don't you want to know her wish?"
"Father's… wish!"
Her heartbeat suddenly sped up, Mordred feeling the chance to draw closer to her Father.
Suppressing the rapid pounding of her heart, like a child hooked by a story eager to know the continuation, she asked in an urgent tone, "What is it?"
"Before I answer, there's a question I want to ask you."
Shirou's golden-brown eyes stared straight at Mordred, "Do you think the current Lion King is King Arthur?"
Mordred was silent for a while before speaking, "Whether it's the Lion King or King Arthur, to me both are Father. To them I will give my loyalty, my life, and my will to fight."
"Is that so."
Shirou withdrew his gaze, and said in words extremely indifferent and cold, "Then let me tell you, the truth that is unbearably cruel for you, and even for the Knights of the Round Table, King Arthur, she denied everything."
"That's right! Her wish was to return to before the choosing of the king, to the moment when the sword in the stone had not yet been drawn. She believed that becoming king was a mistaken choice. So… she gave up being king."
BOOM!
The ground split apart in all directions with immense force.
The helmet hiding her shame sprang open at this moment, and Mordred looked at Shirou with eyes filled with shock and utter disbelief.
"What kind of joke is this, are you spouting nonsense again?"
"It doesn't matter if you don't believe it."
The boy said with an uncaring tone, "Anyway, for you all, it's the same whoever you serve, isn't it?"
"What did you say?"
Mordred's eyes widened, anger surging.
Before she made a move, Shirou asked, "Isn't that so? For you who now serve the Lion King, do you think she is King Arthur? Or rather, do you still think she is the King Arthur you knew?"
BOOM!
Like being struck by five bolts of lightning, Mordred's rage suddenly had nowhere to vent.
It jammed in her chest, and in the end she had no choice but to hold it back.
Finally, she hugged her knees, buried her head, and muttered in a low voice, "At this point, what's the meaning in dwelling on such things… besides, I'm not going to believe the nonsense you spout."
"Anyway, what reason would King Arthur have to think becoming king was a wrong choice?"
"Under her rule, Camelot prospered. The name of the Knights of the Round Table spread across the land… In the mouths of bards, she was the flawless holy king. Why then would she regret it?"
"In your eyes too, do you see her like that?"
That one sentence made Mordred, who had nearly convinced herself, fall into silence again.
Annoyed, she said, "Then you tell me why Father didn't want to be king?"
"The fall of Britain was a predetermined ending. Before drawing the sword of selection, she already saw her fate."
Shirou gazed at his palm.
He had once firmly held that girl's hand.
"Even knowing she would head toward the most tragic of ends, hated and betrayed by everyone, dying alone, she still resolutely became king."
"Do you know why?"
Without waiting for Mordred to ask, he went on speaking to himself, "As long as everyone is smiling, then everything is fine. Even if hell appeared before her eyes, the girl never hesitated for a moment as she drew the sword destined to lead her to ruin."
"But the ending betrayed her, reality betrayed her. Even the knights she trusted most deeply began to kill each other, leaving her one after another."
"On that blood-soaked hill, the king bore no hatred toward anyone… the only one she hated was herself! Hating the powerless self who could do nothing before Britain's end; hating the self who didn't understand people's hearts, who couldn't make everyone smile."
"She simply believed that it was her own incompetence that led everything onto this inevitable path."
"So… if she could give up the throne, perhaps Britain could have gone more peacefully, or perhaps gained a different ending…"
"In her final moments, the girl's wish was heard by the Counter Force… and that moment, the time-space she existed in was forever frozen at the instant she killed you."
"After that, what awaited her was endless, unending solitude. Unrecognized by anyone, unacknowledged by history, even she herself felt her desperate wish had no hope of being realized."
"Even so, she longed for a miracle… just once would be enough. Even if she fell into hell, as long as that miracle could come true, she would feel no regret for her choice…"
"Well?"
After finishing, Shirou chuckled lightly, "Doesn't she sound like a little girl who refuses to accept reality, stubbornly deceiving herself?"
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