A Different Fate - [Rewrite]

Chapter 3:Inside the Grail

…

...

Arturia screamed.

She hated herself for allowing the memory of the pain make her cry out like that, but she couldn't help it.

Because the last thing she could remember was something – or someone – holding her around her waist, and then a wet, sticky darkness surrounding her and making her feel like she was drowning. And after that…

…

The most painful memories of her life invaded her mind, with pure darkness and despair being the centre of them all.

Arturia remembered… she had to re-live all the years of her kingship in a fast-forward, watching her kingdom slowly fall apart in spite of all her efforts… and her people and her knights and everything she had given herself up for… she remembered having to watch them crumble and die away.

At that point, her heart was aching so much she thought it was about to rip her chest apart and kill her in the process. And, at that point, she truly would have welcomed death.

But she saw what happened next…

The battle of Camlann.

All the corpses surrounding her, and she, the one lone survivor of the battle on top of the hill.

And the contract she had made with the world to become a Heroic Spirit… she was one of the very few Heroic Spirits who had never died. And that was all for her kingdom… to change its destiny and give it another chance to prosper.

But, even if the flash-forward of her past was finished, the black entity who had showed it to her didn't disappear. It remained with her on the hill of her last battle, and insisted on showing her every single corpse, indulging on the ones of her knights, her loyal knights, almost with pleasure, and forced her to keep her eyes open to watch.

Arturia felt her chest hurting again, but she was powerless.

She also understood the message that the black identity was trying to convey – her kingdom was doomed, and it had been her doing.

Her doing.

Her doing.

It was her fault.

All. Her. Fault.

She was the one who had brought Britain to its demise. She had done everything wrong.

She had tried to be a good ruler by staying detached and becoming almost a deity for her subjects – but she had never understood them that way.

Believing that a true king should be alone and carry all the burdens on his own, she had kept her distance, thinking she was doing well… without knowing what everyone else thought about it.

She had truly done everything wrong.

She had thought that by giving up her own personal wishes, she could be a worthy ruler. But perhaps Rider had been right after all… she was nothing but a little girl. Even her most trusted and loyal knight, Lancelot, had ended up hating her…

She had failed her country. She had failed her knights and her people.

She had failed everyone and everything.

Understanding that made Arturia almost go mad with self-deprecation.

Frantic, her mind refused to give in to darkness… at least, not immediately.

What if Britain's fate had already been sealed, and not a consequence of her rule?

That thought lifted the cloud of darkness from her mind… –