Author's Notes

I told you this was going to be a little earlier, yes? As usual, if there are any discrepancies lore-wise or characterization-wise, please let me know. I'm writing based off what I know about them, but the image I have of them may not be wholy accurate.

Woggie: I'd say I'm a pessimist with some nihilistic qualities. And after some pondering over the 'impossible ideal is flawed' quote, I've possibly come to a different conclusion, so apologies if this contradicts my past statements.

I say impossibilities are in themselves flaws, but what constitutes impossibility? In the ideals, or in ourselves for failing to reach them? I say both. The unreachable light of ideals can at least guide us like the night stars, but the ugliness and savagery beneath the skin drives us more than the distant light could ever guide.

Everyone thinks we should give up on ideals because they are impossible, I respectfully disagree. I believe we should give up on ourselves and our potential.

Clarent flared up in Mordred's reverse grip, flung like a javelin as windows blew out from the shockwave. Parrying the hurled sword, Clarent's glowing blade erupted in a fireball which nearly consumed Saber, a split-second mana burst fired from Excalibur's edge to redirect the explosion.

Just as Mordred closed in with a hook, Saber's singed face eating steel knuckles even as she rolled with the impact. Excalibur met the retrieved Clarent, Mordred leaning in to shove Saber off-stance as she snarled.

"I must thank you, Arthur. It was obvious you'd spurn our wretched child, and I filled Mordred's mind with such beautiful lies, your silence would only crush her soul! Die knowing you caused our son's fall from grace and Britannia's downfall. You're fighting for a cause you believe less and less in, the only thing keeping you going as a dead man walking.

I'm doing the humane thing by putting you out of your misery."

Treacherous despair drew Saber's eyes towards Shirou, who nearly drowned in his blood as his lungs gave a pathetic wheeze. The soul-crushing sight, instead of breaking Saber, filled Saber's aching muscles with a second wind, freezing over her gaze in defiance of Morgan's torments.

"It's not humane, Morgan. It's what you want. And there's still someone left, even now." Staring through Morgan's widening pupils, Saber imagined her son kicking and screaming inside his own head, resisting Morgan's control.

"Mordred, both as a Knight of the Round Table," Saber paused in mild disbelief at her next words, "and my son." Mordred's scowl was downright ugly as she pulled Clarent's handle like a ripcord, Saber spinning away from a point-blank Clarent Blood Arthur.

Meanwhile, Jeanne spoke into Mordred's trapped mind in a conspiratorial tone, almost afraid to tip Morgan off about their ploy.

'Mordred? Morgan is occupied with fighting Arthur, and we must help.'

Clarent pierced the ground to unleash a crimson wave around her, washing over Saber in a tidal wave as Mordred lunged towards her with armored fists. Mordred's barrage was relentless and aggressive with little heed for defense, her fists demolishing everything in a shower of splinters and shrapnel.

'Imagine a mental hammer and nail, breaking down psyches for information. With your body, Morgan has a mind gun piercing mental defenses like paper. I don't know what'll happen when we turn it on Morgan, but it should give Saber an advantage!'

Empowered swords split the earth with every blow, cracking steel at the edge of hearing. Saber distanced herself, but Mordred collapsed holding her own skull, her expression warped by hatred, agony and disgust.

"ARRGGGHHHH! You wenches… get out of my head!" A confused Saber closed in, Excalibur's pommel crashing against Mordred's temple.

And reeled as memories flooded Saber's mind, a torrent of familiar landscapes seen through an alien perspective. Clutching her own searing skull, Saber clumsily wailed on Mordred, Excalibur cutting through a visage of Saber upon her horse. Gawain and Agravain's specters filled her mind, their young faces untouched by the stress of knighthood.

Were these Mordred's memories?

Mordred yanked Saber's hair and repeatedly pulled her face into a fist, though Saber caught her next blow and threw Mordred to the ground in a hold, the crunch of her dislocated elbow eliciting a pained howl. Scrambling away while calling Excalibur to hand, the Round Table's voices echoed until only their tones distinguished them, their words a deafening drone threatening to split Saber's skull. Mordred seethed as she snapped her arm back into place, slamming her forehead into the concrete.

"GNNNARRGGHHH! Stop it!" Saber threw herself onto the floor as Mordred's hidden Clarent fired another wave of mana, Mordred stumbling over to punt her cracking ribs.

This wasn't a knightly duel anymore. Just like long ago, everything they'd built had crumbled around them. Even though there was nothing left to fight for, their swords were drawn to each other out of mutual disdain, rejection of everything the other stood for, and simply because they had nothing left to lose.

"MORGAN!"

"ARTHUR!"

Every clash of their swords brought about another flash of Mordred's life, Saber gazing upon the carnage of Camlann through Mordred's eyes. Her gloved hand weakly reached for a back, Saber recognizing it as her own.

"Father…" With another parry, memories of the modern age flooded Saber's confused mind, countless conversations slipped through the cracks of Saber's mind to paint a wretched war of legends.

A Greater Grail War.

A thuggish voice, imparting wisdom.

"There are things one must not forget"

Mordred, sounding shockingly mature.

"Father didn't wish for gems that shined like the stars"

"He became king for the sake of those stones in the roadside"

Saber hacked away with Excalibur, all while the Greater Grail spoke in her mind.

KILL ARTORIA PENDRAGON, AND CALIBURN SHALL SPAWN WHERE HE FELL

It painted the picture of a wish gone wrong, Saber crumpling from the sensory overload as Mordred's experiences weighed on her mind. Mentally reliving four Grail Wars and the fall of Britannia twice eroded Saber's psyche, dropping her assault to let Mordred give her a parting swing, both knights catching their breath.

A heaving Mordred propped herself up with Clarent, firing up a weakened Noble Phantasm.

"Let's finish this, sister." And though Saber raised Excalibur, the impossible wish of erasing her own reign gave way to a more practical wish. Morgan and the Greater Grail, ghosts of Mordred's past, would never release its deathgrip on her soul, and would never stop until Saber was dead.

So perhaps that was what Saber must do.

The last sacrifice, for Britannia's last surviving citizen.

As they charged each other, Excalibur dematerialized as Saber embraced Mordred, seething from Clarent lodging itself in her gut. Its blade burned with a paternal hatred which eroded at Mordred's identity to become her raison d'etre, fulfilling a warped purpose which robbed the sword of its true potential.

How very… Mordred.

It was only by the Greater Grail's grace were they brought together, a fluke of a timeline that should never have been. With her death, Saber hoped to exorcise Morgan from Mordred's mind, similarly freeing her from the Greater Grail's accursed machinations. To free Mordred of the last link to her past, giving her a new lease on life. Morgan's twisted glee was replaced by Mordred's devastation as Saber hit the ground. Her extremities went numb as Mordred scrambled to her side, concern furrowing her son's expression.

"Father, we can… we can…" Saber feebly reached for Mordred, her own vitals dropping with a finality which put Saber at ease.

"No, I want this…" Saber prefered this to the glimmer of hope in survival, straining her neck to glance over at Shirou. His wounds had closed, Saber's eyes widening as a brightness flowed from within his wounds. It awakened a dormant memory of utopia, an unreachable moon so beautiful in its resplendence, Saber created Britannia as its imperfect reflection in a lake.

"Avalon…"

Mordred was visibly at the end of her rope, and though her eyes lit up at Avalon's glow, it was extinguished by Saber's dissipating armor as proof she had only seconds, at best. A thousand regrets, questions, and sentiments clouded Mordred's expression, her breath quivering as she clasped Saber's limp hand.

"I'm so sorry, Father… for everything."

"I… know…"

Father, what do I do? What can I do?" After all Mordred had been through, all the wars, loss, battles and encounters which shaped Mordred into someone beyond the spurned son in her legend, Saber felt a bit more reassured in leaving it all to Mordred.

"Lift Excalibur… and live. It's all I have left… to give…" and faded away.

Mordred blinked, grasping the dissipating golden dust in a near-delusional hope Father simply turned invisible. With every empty grasp, Mordred's lungs struggled to draw breath, her fists curling from the myriad of feelings overwhelming her.

Regret. Anger. Self-loathing. Despair. Fear.

But what hurt most was the emptiness in Mordred's heart as she howled at the heavens, at the forces that be which destroyed the flimsiest of reconciliations between them. At Morgan, who played her like a fiddle to be Britannia's destroyer, smearing her relationship with Father even from her grave.

But mostly at herself, who, despite all her strength and growth, couldn't defy them. Like a kid, she needed Father to sort her mess, and she bought Mordred's ticket to freedom with blood.

Punching the rubble with raw knuckles, Mordred pounded her chest in impotent rage as her hoarse voice went silent, weakly blinking away the tears watering her vision. Swallowing the lump in her throat, Mordred gaze fell upon Excalibur, a makeshift tombstone marking where Saber fell as the Greater Grail boomed in Mordred's mind.

MISSION COMPLETE.

Suddenly, she never hated the damn sword so much in her life.