Xebek’s Blog

We get a confrontation between Shirou, Saber, Lancer, Gilgamesh, and Kotomine, all of the remaining super powers in the war as Saber comes to rescue Shirou.

Summary:

We start off with Saber sitting on the porch. She is reflecting on some things, and how she is feeling something she hasn’t before, and thinks it is love. Rin comes up and asks Saber where Shirou is. She says she doesn’t know and Rin tells Saber some information she found out about Lancer’s Master. She said that the she found the Master who summoned Lancer dead in her hideout. Saber asks if Lancer has disappeared then but she says no, the blood was old and his Master was killed before his first appearance. Although she determines all the Masters are accounted for, Saber says however that someone who was not originally a Master cannot just become one so they guess that someone from a previous war who still had command spells left killed Lancer’s Master, took her command spells and made Lancer his Servant. Saber asks Rin now where Shirou is and she doesn’t know, she guesses maybe he went to see Kotomine. Saber is surprised saying that church didn’t seem holy, so she rushes off there to find him.

Saber arrives at Kotomine’s church and sees Shirou in the distance, on the floor in a pool of blood. She runs up to him but Lancer appears and blocks her path. Saber and Lancer fight for a while until Kotomine appears, dragging Shirou and telling Lancer to stop. Kotomine says if Saber is just here to pick up Shirou its fine, in fact he could give them the Holy Grail now if they wanted. Lancer kind of goes wait a minute, and says that the Holy Grail won’t appear until there is only one Servant left. Kotomine says that’s true, but the thing that is to become the Holy Grail is around from the start, it just gains power enough o become the Holy Grail through the war and the killing of the Servants. He says with only two left, it is basically complete now anyways. He says to the barely conscious Shirou, if he wants the Holy Grail, about his words on what happened ten years ago. He says how after the huge fire he was wandering alone through the wreckage, hearing the screams of dieing people asking for help but ignoring them; just continuing on thinking he wouldn’t make it. Then Kiritsugu found him and raised him. He says how he admired him, who protected and saved someone. He says how his heart wouldn’t allow him to stop striving for things, because it would be letting don the people he didn’t help. Kotomine asks if he wants the Holy Grail, to re do the fire and save everyone. Shirou says, “No. All those years of sadness and hardship, you shouldn’t re do it for it means the suffering people went though and the strength and courage people had to live past it would be meaningless. Living on in the present is the only thing that would allow those things to remain.”

Kotomine gets kind of pissed off and throws Shirou to Saber, who temporarily heals him so he is more conscious and able to stand. Kotomine ask her if she wants the Holy Grail. He says he will give her the Holy Grail if she kills her Master. She says how all along she has wanted the Holy Grail. She wanted the Grail to return things the way they were. She says however that she fulfilled her duty as a King, there are no regrets there. She says if she could be proud of her life, she would not re do anything. There are many things she threw away to try and reach the goal, but one thing she always protected and never threw away. We see an image of Shirou in Saber’s flashbacks and fantasies and she says she at least wants to be able to watch this unfulfilled dream of being with him until the end. She wants the Grail, but will not kill Shirou. She says she wants Shirou more then the Grail and to re do things.

Kotomine gets even more pissed off now and snaps his fingers. Gil comes walking down the steps and Kotomine introduces them, saying that Gil was his Servant from the previous war. He says how he has kept Gil alive with the killings of innocent people. He then says to Saber how things are like how they were ten years ago. He flashes back, saying that Kiritsugu had defeated him. He says how when he was near death, he touched the Holy Grail that appeared and there was the huge explosion of fire. He says how he just wished everyone in the area would disappear, not for them to die. He says the Holy Grail would have done the same thing if he had not wished anything, for it is an evil cursed item. He says it is a vessel that will annihilate everyone except for its bearer. Kotomine leaves and tells Gil and Lancer to kill Shirou and Saber. Gil attacks them, throwing a sword at them but Lancer jumps in the way and hits it off to the side. He says he isn’t siding with Shirou and Saber; he is just siding with his own morals. Gil says how he was going to kill Lancer anyways, because there had to be one Servant left and he considers Saber his possession so he wasn’t going to kill her. Lancer just tells Saber and Shirou to run and they manage to escape, while Lancer gets easily killed by Gil.

Outside of the church, Saber heals Shirou completely. Saber explains to Shirou how Excalibur’s scabbard is inside him, which is where his regenerative capabilities come from. She explains how Kiritsugu used it to summon her and that it basically grants the bearer super regenerative capabilities. Kiritsugu kept it for most of the war and it is why he was not killed by the giant fire, but afterwards he found the dying Shirou. He placed the scabbard in him to save his life. She says how Kiritsugu must have realized that she didn’t need the Grail, which is why he had her destroy it. They talk some more and Saber says how she has realized that the Holy Grail is not something she needs. That re doing things won’t fix anything. Shirou says to her that they should go destroy the Holy Grail and she agrees.

Impressions:

Ok, I’m really even more confused about what is going to happen to Saber. I am no longer as certain that she will return to her own time, and I was surprised at the speeches they gave about redoing something. Shirou said something really interesting that I think summed up his argument for Saber staying and this time I think it really impacted her. He said, “All those years of sadness and hardship, you shouldn’t re do it for it means the suffering people went though and the strength and courage people had to live past it would be meaningless. Living on in the present is the only thing that would allow those things to remain.” He said it in regards to him using the holy grail to re do the fire that killed people, how he doesn’t want the holy grail for something like that because it would mean those peoples deaths would be meaningless and all the training and suffering he went though would also. It applies just as equally well to Saber’s situation; even if she was a crappy king re doing it would mean the suffering people went though was for nothing.

I think one of the hugest things in this episode was learning about the Holy Grail not really being what Saber thought it was. The Holy Grail is a cursed evil item and Kiritsugu had a good reason for destroying it, as they figured out at the end when they made their revelation that they need to destroy it as well. Although, this leads me to wonder what the hell will happen to Saber if they do that. I mean, if the Holy Grail is destroyed then I think she will return to her own time but not re do the selection of kings like she had thought she wanted. So destroying the Holy Grail still means Saber will not be with Shirou in the end, so there is still that factor that I’m pretty sure is going to go through.

So to sum it up a bit it seems as if Saber has decided that Shirou was right, that re doing the selection of the king is wrong. So she now no longer wants to use the Holy Grail to fulfill a wish, instead she wishes to destroy it, but I hated that she said that herself and the Grail were things that cannot really be. So that makes me think that they will destroy the Grail, Saber will disappear to her own time where she will live out her life instead of what she had previously wanted which was to die and have someone else be king. Although in the beginning of the episode she kind of realized that she loved Shirou, so I don’t know maybe there is still a little bit of hope for them to be together at the end but I still doubt it. She did mention before she said how she wouldn’t kill Shirou for the Grail that there was something she would never thrown away for her goal, that she wishes to continue to watch this unfulfilled dream until the end which was being with Shirou.

I feel sorry for Lancer. I mean, he wasn’t really a bad guy and they said before that an evil person will summon an evil Servant but Lancer’s identity was a good guy and Kotomine wasn’t the one who summoned him so he wasn’t really evil at all, he just sided with him because he had to so he himself wouldn’t have died. Although as Gil said he would have killed Lancer eventually anyways, at least this way Lancer himself decided to go out in a blaze of glory by protecting Saber and Shirou and standing up for his beliefs instead of going along with things and being stabbed in the back.

Shirou – Saber – King Arthur

Rin – Archer – Emiya Shirou

Ilya – Berserker – Hercules

Shinji – Rider – Medusa

Unknown – Caster – Medea

Caster – Assassin – Sasaki Kojirou

Kotomine – Lancer – Cuchulain

Kotomine – 2^nd Archer - Gilgamesh