Squelch

"SHIROU!"

Archer stared impassively at the face of Emiya Shirou, an expression of pain on the boys face as Archer's Kanshou dug into his heart.

He ignored Saber's horrified cry of shock.

He ignored his own body slowly disappearing due to lack of mana.

He ignored Emiya Shirou's fall, a dead look entering the boys eyes before his projections disappeared and he fell face first on the ground, dead.

And he pointedly ignored the feeling of guilt that seeped within him. Not for killing his past self, but for utterly crushing the last remains of Emiya Kiritsugu's dream.

He released a bitter chuckle at that. The very ideals that he lived and died for, the ideals that had decieved and betrayed him a countless number of times, crushed by his own two hands.

He felt himself disappear, and didn't resist. This was it. He would finally be free from Alaya.

"ARCHER!"

He snapped his head towards the direction of the voice, seeing Saber charge at him with an enraged expression on her face.

She raised her invisible sword, crossing the distance between them in an instant, and swung down on his unprepared head.

However, he didn't resist this either. He let her sword cut him, leaving him with a deep gnash going from his right shoulder to his left hip. Instead, he smiled. It was a genuine smile.

Simply because now, he was free.

Linebreak

Archer opened his eyes and blinked in surprise as bright light filled his eyes.

He opened his eyes?

Slowly, the man stood up, looking around to see he was in a grassy area, in front of him a beautiful hill which was completely enveloped in flowers of all kind.

'This is the afterlife?' Archer wondered.

Curious, he began to walk up the hill. As he got closer to the top, he could hear sounds coming from beyond the hill, getting louder and louder.

As soon as he reached the top, he looked ahead, and froze.

For beyond this hill was a city. A completely broken city with rubble everywhere, half destroyed buildings. If he reinforced his eyes and hears, he could hear sounds of guns and explosions going on everwhere. As for what he could see?

Soldiers. Soldiers everywhere, killing all on sight. Be they other soldiers or innocent people. Some were dressed in one uniform, and others dressed in another.

'No...' He thought in absolute horror, trying to take a step back, and finding himself quote literally unable to do so.

"Emiya..." He heard a voice FAR too familiar to him speak within his mind.

"I'm glad to have you back from the Holy Grail War!" The voice spoke in glee.

"I'm sure you don't mind, but I dropped you off right to work! You know exactly what to do don't you?" It asked sadistically.

Suddenly, Archer's body was no longer his to control.

'NO!' He mentally screamed within the confines of his mind, while on the outside, his face became emotionless, his eyes changing into that of a killer.

Archer traced his black bow in one hand, and a nameless sword in the other, he blasted off the hill, heading towards the city and feeling dread build within his stomach.

Timeskip

"God damn it." A soldier cursed, hiding inside one of the houses in the city. He held his bleeding leg, the place where he got shot in. By an arrow no less!

He was lucky he was even alive right now. If this house hadn't been nearby to takr cover him, then the same bowman who got his leg might have killed him.

Suddenly, a shadow loomed over him.

Spinning, he went to take aim his gun only to freeze when his face was greeted by the barrel of another one.

"Say good night..." The enemy soldied spoke quietly, before slowly pulling on the trigger...

...And suddenly screaming in pain as blood splashed out of his back, and he fell right next to the soldier.

Eyes widened, the soldier stared jack slawed at a man with snow white hair, and eyes that seemed to be made of steel.

The stared stoically at the dead body, his beautiful white sword stained by crimson blood.

"H-Holy shit. You really saved me. Thank-"

Slice

Archer's stoic face turned towards the decapitated head, which hit the floor and bounced across the room a bit.

He stared for awhile, before he turned away, and left.

Timeskip

It was a slaughter...no one within the city had survived, because Archer had killed them all.

No one was spared. No man, woman, child, not even the few babies found with their terrified parents, were spared, nor the ones found in random alleyways abandoned.

Archer stared down at the city from a vantage point atop one of the buildings.

He had killed everyone. Again.

And yet, he could do nothing but watch as a body which he no longer had any control over kill everyone in sight

Archer closed his eyes, and disappeared.

Linebreak

This time, when Archer awoke, he was in a place he knew all to well.

A world of blades.

Swords littering a barren waste land, the skies polluted by some kind of ooze, and giant gears in the sky, far off into the distance.

And he, standing alone atop a hill of blades.

His hair was a mess. It was no longer slicked back like he usually had it. Instead, it was back to the messy hairstyle he had back when he was younger.

His hair shadowed his eyes, an unreadable expression on his face.

"Another job well done!" That sick voice praised within his head, but he did not react to it.

"If they had done as they pleased, those soldiers would have continued their little war would never stop, instead growing as different groups of people chose sides, moving into the other cities, restocking on supplies from many different people, causing the merchants who sell to them to become targets of the opposing side, along with their families or anyone closely related to them. Once again, you have brilliantly protected humanity..." It said mockingly.

"Well then as always, I'll call upon you the next time you're needed." It stated nonchantly.

"Ta ta for now..." Its voiced paused, and Archer thought it had left him alone. However, it hadn't, and the parting words it left behind were ones that had forever haunted him for as long as he existed.

"...'Hero of justice'"

A silence permeated through out the area.

His fists clenched by his sides, and he gritted his teeth in self loathing as tears started streaking down his face.

At that moment, his heart shattered, and he released a scream.

It was a scream of utter despair and hate, hate towards his cruel fate which he was doomed to follow for all of eternity, and despair for the exact same reason.

This was not what he wished for. Not what he wished for at all.

All he wanted was to save people, to make a world where everyone would be happy, where nobody would cry.

Yet he would forever be forced to sacrifice the few to save the many. After continuously fighting in a world where the fighting never stopped, the suffering never stopped, and the tragedies would never stop, he came to realize a simple truth.

The simple truth, that the wish of wanting everyone in the world to be happy, was nothing more then a pipe dream, and trying?

Look where trying got him to.

His eyes of steel, rusted by the tears he could no longer hold back, continued to pour all of the tears that he had held within his heart of glass.

He fell to his knees and sobbed, smashing the ground continuously with his hand, cursing his fate, cursing Alaya, and cursing his shallow ideals which had betrayed him time and time again, and would never stop doing so.

"Thank you! Thank you!"

The memory of Kiritsugu thanking him with tears of joy in his eyes came to the front of his mind.

"I..."

Memories of all the people he had killed flashed in his mind.

"I..." He choked out, and finally, the memory of the night Kiritsugu had died.

"I'll become one for you. Just leave...your dream to me."

"...I see...I'm relieved..."

"I...should have never..."

He thought back to that fire...that fire which over 500 people had died.

Over 500 people he had turned his back on in order to find salvation.

And the start of the list of people he would turn back on and allow to die from then onwards.

All he wished for was a world where no one would cry, where everybody could be happy, and yet even after death he wasn't granted that wish.

A fake like him, a fake who arrogantly ran around thinking he could grant everyone happiness and yet never once wanting any in return, should have never existed in the first place. Hypocrisy like that saved nobody. And it never would.

A bitter sigh escaped his mouth as his tears dried. He stood up, and looked to the sky solemnly.

"I should have never become a hero of justice..."

...Yet now that he had started going down this path, he could not stop.

For his body was made of swords...

...His blood is of iron and his heart of glass.

He had overcome countless battlefields.

Not even once retreating,

Not even once being understood.

He was always alone, intoxicated with victory in a hill of swords.

Thus, his life has no meaning.

His body was certainly made out of swords...