Normal POV
Aldebaran wasn't so sure what happened after the Witch had sealed him away. The only thing he was surrounded by now was darkness and eternal solitude.
He despaired for an unknown amount of time.
There was no sensation of falling, direction, nor even the comfort of pain to mark the passage of his existence.
Just an endless black void that swallowed sound, thought, and meaning alike.
Time had no definition here.
Seconds could have been centuries.
Centuries could have been a single, suffocating breath.
At first he screamed.
He called Morgan's name for so many times until his voice had shredded itself completely.
Then he tried to beat against the darkness which did not break, metal gauntlets struck at nothing.
It was truly a meaningless effort.
His anger soon gave away to the all too familiar feeling of hopelessness.
Aldebaran's body went still if this was punishment, then it was a fitting one.
He let his arms fall to his sides, fingers from both hands unclenching at last.
"...Of course," he murmured into the void his voice hoarse and small "this was how it's meant to end. Not even I can go against the inevitable crushing of fate," Aldebaran solemnly said.
Tears grew out from his amber eyes, but they could not be seen from underneath his helmet nor the darkness.
Aldebaran did not bother to wipe them away.
What was the point? There was no one here to see them nor anyone left to disappoint.
"So this is it," he whispered.
Slowly and painfully his thoughts began to drift away to the person he was created from E҉m҉i҉y҉a҉ ҉S҉h҉i҉r҉o҉u҉.
The boy who had chased an impossible dream with a foolish smile. The boy who had sworn to save everyone, even when the World itself eventually demanded a price for his foolishness.
The boy who had walked willingly toward becoming a Counter Guardian in order to continue saving others only to end up being betrayed by his ideal.
Another version of that boy would walk a similar path avoiding the fate of a Guardian and reaching Avalon to spend the rest of his days with Artoria.
The only version of her that had reached her true happy ending.
"Lucky you..." he murmured bitterly though there was no venom in it only exhaustion "you actually made it."
Emiya Shirou.
The boy who had started everything.
Morgan in an effort to prevent and change Artoria's fate had used magecraft and authority to take a look into the possible futures.
She then collected the data from the Counter Guardian EMIYA and of the only Shirou Emiya who had made Artoria give up on the grail to create him.
Once his body, mind, and soul were given form the Witch had gone a step further by implanting him with the Sin Authority of PRIDE.
He was her ultimate masterpiece the one who should have been able to guarantee Artoria's happiness.
Aldebaran's thoughts suddenly shifted to Counter Guardian EMIYA.
That man's empty gray eyes, his quiet resentment, and the way his ideals had slowly twisted into self-loathing. A future that waited for all those who foolishly chased after the idea of a hero of justice.
It had a been awhile since Aldebaran ever let himself go through EMIYA's memories but as he did. He could see the people the man had saved, died for, killed for, and finally anguish over after slaughtering them.
"...In a way I was walking similarly towards you, wasn't I?" Aldebaran whispered.
No, even worse he had already surpassed that fate.
Even EMIYA had eventually given up struggling against the World.
He had accepted his role, his chains, and his endless executions.
Aldebaran hadn't he had fought the World itself.
Hundreds of millions of times.
For one person.
Artoria.
The one proof that his suffering had meaning and when she had died in his arms... something inside him had cracked in a way that no magecraft or magic could fix.
"I wasn't trying to save everyone like they did," he said the thought sinking in with uncomfortable clarity "hell I wasn't even trying to save the world."
His fingers curled faintly at his sides.
"I was only just trying to save her."
Not as a King but as the girl Artoria.
The girl who he had taken care of alongside Sir Ector and Kay, the girl who could scarf down all of the meals he cooked for her before demanding seconds, the girl who had looked up to him as he trained her in the use of the sword, and the girl who had clutched the lion plushie that he crafted and gifted for her birthday.
Suddenly the words that Morgan had uttered came back to him "you will have to be there for her in the future."
It didn't make any sense be there for her in the future? How Artoria was dead.
Aldebaran spent an unknown amount of time merely reflecting and thinking about a great number of things.
Until he suddenly heard the sounds of a baby crying out to him "what the hell is that a baby?" Al suddenly said with surprise.
"Oh honey he looks just like you," the voice of an unknown woman said.
"Yes but he's got your eyes dear, tell me what should we name him?" came the response of an unknown male voice.
"Hmm well I was thinking if it was a girl then Spica but since it's a boy then how about Rigel," the woman replied.
"Hahaha Rigel it is then!" came the boisterous laugh of the man.
"Sigh....looks like I must have finally lost my sanity if I am hearing voices," Al muttered to himself.
He ignored the voices for a long time or rather he tried to because several moments later the crying returned again... and again... and again.
Then Al began to notice something unsettling the cries began to soften over time. The voices of all three were starting to slowly change.
He heard many conversations, crying, laughter, footsteps, thoughts that were never his own, and slowly came to an unsettling realization.
"Don't tell me when she said the future... that meant reincarnating? Or something close to it since I clearly have no control or influence over this Rigel kid."
The truth settled in with all too much clarity.
Morgan must have messed up and now he was stuck as a backseat passenger.
"Right, I guess there's nothing I can do about it," Aldebaran whispered with resignation "at least I won't be bored anymore."
With nothing else to do the knight spent the next amount of unknown years listening in on Rigel's life. Until the fateful day when he opened the box containing Al's former authority.
It happened all at once the darkness around Al broke apart revealing an all too familiar battleground. Before he can even question it though another existence began to merge together with both him and the now dying Rigel. Who was not at all compatible with the authority of Pride.
A whole other lifetime of memories flew through his mind.
James Parker was a man from the year 2025 who lived an incredibly pitiful and depressing life yet that was not what Al focused on but rather on a certain of memories.
The man was only 19 years old when he first watched the anime Fate/Stay Night and some of it's many spin off series.
Going through these memories Aldebaran soon came to a stop at specific set where he was watching the Case Files of Lord El-Melloi.
Episodes blurred together as Aldebaran tore through them with inhuman speed case after case. He barely spared Waver Velvet more than a passing acknowledgment.
What mattered was the girl.
Gray.
At first, Aldebaran regarded her with only mild curiosity. A shy apprentice who seemed awkward and polite but then he saw both her face and weapon being used.
Her face was an exact replica of Artoria while in her grasp was the now sealed spear Rhongimynaid.
"No..." the word escaped him as a breathless whisper.
Gray's face overlaid itself with another.
Green eyes.
Golden hair.
The more Aldebaran watched the faster he was able to learn of the girl's past.
"So that's what Morgan meant... a vessel meant to bring Artoria back" Aldebaran murmured horror creeping into his voice "but to sacrifice another's life for this is something I know Artie would never want," his hands clenched together.
He was beginning to grow sick of this.
Of all the scheming, planning, and doing things without even thinking twice.
Even without the other two aspects of herself as Morgana and Vivian.
Morgan herself was still a Witch, the Witch of Greed at that to.
When she decided on what was best or right, she would do whatever she wanted without a second thought.
"Even after everything... you didn't learn anything," Aldebaran whispered bitterness seeping into every syllable "you treated people like pieces on your board to use right till the very end."
The merging continued.
Rigel's consciousness was fading fast, the incompatible authority of Pride devouring him from the inside out.
Aldebaran felt the teen's fear, confusion, and the pain of his soul being crushed under a weight never meant for it.
'I'm sorry' Aldebaran thought not knowing if Rigel could hear him 'you never should have been dragged into this.'
Finally, the last dregs of Rigel's form merged with James. Leaving Aldebaran stuck in this accursed hill that represented his mental landscape now.
At least he wasn't floating in the dark anymore was the humorless thought that passed through his head.
-end of chapter seventeen-
It's been awhile since I've had to update this fic but it's one I want to primarily focus on before moving on to any other.
just three more chapters till we get to twenty.
Anyways though this chapter was kind of forced out so it's not exactly my best compared to other chapters.