Typemoon: My IQ is Over 9000 Chapter 123 123: Dusk of the Knight King (Part 2)

The crisp clink of porcelain striking porcelain was like a massive stone flung into the surface of a still lake, shattering the heavy silence that hung over the Emiya residence in an instant.

Artoria's body beca entirely rigid. Her usually calm, erald-like eyes now flew wide in utter astonishnt. All color drained from her face, leaving nothing but the pale, almost porcelain shade of her skin behind.

Steve, seeing her as if her very soul had been wrenched out, refrained from asking any questions. Instead, he reached out silently and topped up her empty teacup with more tea.

The steam that rose brought a scant trace of warmth to the cold air.

He continued, his voice gentle and composed.

"Calm yourself, Artoria," he said, "I know this news may be even harder for you to believe than your defeat at the Battle of Camlann."

His voice was steady, carrying a mysterious power to soothe the mind.

Artoria, hearing his words, found her breathing quicken. She pressed her lips together tightly, as if trying to restrain a surging tide of emotion from bursting out.

Even if—no, especially if—what she was hearing seed utterly impossible.

Steve pressed on, clear and logical, leaving no room for argunt.

"But we've both seen living examples of the impossible — haven't we?"

rlin was, after all, a half-incubus, half-human. Half of his existence belonged to the Inner World, aning he wasn't bound by the flow of ti in the Outer World.

"He witnessed your coronation directly, and then — a thousand years later — could observe humanity landing on the moon through the internet."

"If he could do that, then why can't your own sister, Morgan le Fay, do the sa?"

The na "Morgan" stabbed into Artoria's heart with the cold force of a sharpened thorn. rely hearing that na set her body to trembling.

For her, it was far more than a na. It embodied the most tangled blend of love and hate, of the deepest betrayal, but also… the distant, almost-forgotten warmth of their sisterhood she'd long buried deep in her mory.

"Your sister's existence is even more unique than rlin's."

Steve ignored the pain flickering across her face and continued with a surgeon's cold precision, staring straight into the truth.

"As an aspect of the Lady of the Lake, Vivian, she's sothing like an extension of the will of the planet itself—a being close in essence to a fairy bound to Gaia."

"For her, a re fifteen hundred years might have passed like a particularly long nap."

This explanation cracked, if only slightly, Artoria's ironclad worldview.

That's right… rlin's very existence upended all sense of normalcy.

If rlin managed it, then her own sister—who was at one ti even more gifted in magecraft than rlin—might not find it impossible after all...

As a flicker of hesitation flashed in Artoria's eyes, Steve knew it was ti to drop the next, most explosive truth.

"And Artoria — I assure you, your sister is not simply alive."

"For these past fifteen centuries since Camlann, she's harbored exceedingly complex emotions toward you, full of guilt and sothing more."

"...Guilt?"

The word ca from Artoria's throat, barely a rasp; it sounded as though it had been dragged over sandpaper.

This, to her, was even more absurd than the claim that Morgan was still alive.

Would the witch who orchestrated the Round Table's collapse, stole her sheath, and indirectly caused Artoria's fall — truly feel guilt?

Such a notion… was pure fantasy!

"Yes, she has felt guilt."

Steve answered firmly. "There's an old cetery in Glastonbury called Blackmore, believed to be your final resting place, right?"

"In reality, it's been a monuntal beacon your sister spent millennia establishing for you."

"She left behind an unbelievable magical command, compelling generations of a family to guard that place, all in wait for the one opportunity to revive King Arthur."

With that, Steve's gaze sharpened, a trace of pity mixing in.

"Artoria, just think—could a grand, thousand-year spell, fueled by obsessive purpose, whose ultimate end is to revive you… really be sothing you'd expect of soone who just hates you?"

His words struck her like thunder, exploding in the core of her heart.

Now, she rembered the look in Morgan's eyes, full of pain and resolve, the day she stole the holy sword's sheath, before Camlann.

She rembered her elder sister at the court of Calot—how, despite their endless conflicts, at crucial monts Morgan would warn her or intervene in her own awkward way.

She rembered tis even further back, before she beca queen, when her sister, just a girl herself, would take her hand and play with her in the forest—her only relative.

Love and hatred; betrayal and sheltering; ruination and redemption…

A rush of such conflicting emotions surged forth, smashing down, in a single instant, the dam of peace she had built in her heart over a decade.

She could no longer keep up her kingly composure.

Suddenly, she stood, hastening out to the veranda in the courtyard, turning her back to Steve.

Her shoulders shook uncontrollably as she struggled to suppress the violent flux of feelings.

She stared out across the neatly kept lawn, bathed in warm sunlight; everything seed so calm, so beautiful, and yet—utterly unreal.

She didn't want Steve to see her face at that mont.

It was the kind of expression—a weakness so profound—that even she herself found unbearable.

Much later, with a trembling voice barely holding together, she asked the question she most dreaded, and also needed, to know:

"...Where is she now...?"

Just asking spoke to the choice she had already made.

Steve watched her trembling back, a knowing, aningful smile forming on his lips.

He knew: The knot in the stubborn King of Knights' heart that had refused to co undone for fifteen centuries was finally beginning to loosen.

"You've already made your decision."

He spoke gently, in reassuring tones. "Then, why not take this chance to et her face to face?"

"Let us seek out the truth behind those histories buried by ti."

"Perhaps… this is the only key that can unlock all your lingering regret and all your mysteries."

….