"I want you to understand, little fox," Avenger's chorus of whispered voices are somehow more off-putting than they were in her giant floating death castle, "How much this moment means to someone like me."

"...Miss Sa--"

But Katherine is cut off when Avenger places the tip of a sword (the soothing wooden one, don't worry" on her lips. The giant woman simply shakes her head and gestures out the window again to the shimmering world at the bottom of the ladder built out of ancient ambitions. What dreams and nightmares and wonders did, or could, each of them lead to? I don't think anybody anywhere could say for sure. 

"The tiny loud girl purchased only a small moment for the pair of us to act. Do not waste it on protests, or on names which will harm our cause. I merely wish for you to understand. I was not summoned to die at the end of the world that gave rise to yours. But I was summoned to the defense of this one. And even with my purpose corrupted, I was fortunate enough to be here at the end of things with a clear enough head to know how to fulfill every one of my promises."

She lifts the massive sword she'd taken from the underground forge and plants it deep into the floor of the space elevator/castle. She lifts the smaller, softer weapon off of Kat's lips and flips it around her wrist with no visible twist of the muscles at all.

"This is a problem that you three caused. And so the only honorable thing is for you to solve it. But I am a Valkyrie, if a fake one, so it falls to me to choose what heroes I can find to face this second Twilight. And what I see is a world below waiting for the blow to fall. If there are worthies down there for me to choose from, they will reveal themselves too late for my judgment. So I am left with a sneak thief..."

"WOW RUDE?!?"

"A manipulative wretch..."

"...," said Actia.

"And you." she finished, pointing the blade at Kat.

"And me?" she squeaked, "Why? What's wrong with me?"

"Nothing at all. Except that you are the only one here that I could or would call a warrior of any stripe. So I am selecting you..."

She flipped the purified blade over with another invisible flick of her wrist to present the hilt to Kat.

"As my champion."

"Oh! Oh yeah, yeah! Obviously it's [i]gotta[/i] be Kat," said Cyanis, whose keenly honed fox-senses could always smell a chance to get out of doing work, "You know, one time she cut down an attack helicopter?"

"I-I didn't mean to! It was an!"

"Nope too late you're a hero now here put your hand on this ok that's that all settled do your thing child-murderer-kun and help her or whatever it is you're doing."

"...Is it always like this with you lot?"

"Um... no," Kat um no'd, "Sometimes when it's nice and sunny we take naps!"

Avenger considered this information. Then she carefully placed the sacred weapon in Kat's palm and closed her little fingers around it. The young foxgirl gasped audibly when she felt the warmth of it flowing through her. She didn't know a ton about swords, even now, but she could tell just by holding it that this was a special thing, and that Avenger could not have just had it hidden on her person somewhere the whole time. It meant, very obviously it meant, it meant that she had traveled the world looking for a thing just like this. And given [i]what[/i] she found it almost certainly meant she had help. And [i]that[/i] meant!

But Avenger shook her head, even before Kat had gotten all the way to opening her mouth to ask.

"No one is coming, little fox. This is, as they say, your story."

"But... well... you'll fight together with me, right? 'Cause I don't really know how to fight a giant space crab. I'm... really scared, Miss Avenger."

"Mm. Fear is a warrior's constant companion, Fluffy...biscuits. It is a necessary component for bravery. But be at ease. I promised you a victory, did I not? And so I have come as I said: as a Valkyrie. And I will bequeath my chosen hero with gifts. You have the first and simplest already. This second blade must be made ready. As must I."

And when she says it, she wrenches the oversized greatsword free. Kat looks at her in horror, but something has stolen her words from her. It's a promise, right? Say what you will about Ivar but she's never broken one of those, even when it meant giving up on everything she wanted and had been working towards. Some part of Kat understood that. Some part of her wanted to believe that it meant something other than a fast goodbye. Or maybe it's more that she's got enough fox sense to know that a wish won't come true if you question it. Either way it comes down to trust, doesn't it?

"Avenger-class Servant: Ivar. I have raged against the planet, and I have stormed in the face of base betrayals and shattered dreams. My howl has been the ruin of armies. Hatred is everything to me. This is my gift. This is my curse. This is the oath that gives birth to a nation within the quivering bosom of a hated foe. This is my..."

She lifts her hexagon-covered sword and turns it on herself. Kat shrieks in spite of everything.

"Noble Phantasm, release. Blood Eagle."

Avenger's armor shatters under the might of her own strike. Her ribs welcome the blade with no resistance, as if there were no bones in her for it to chip against or otherwise stick inside of. And more importantly than anything, she bleeds. Her armor, shrieking and falling to pieces on the ground at her feet, also bleeds. A wound returned for every one that she inflicted. A wound return for every one that she suffered. And Ivar had steeped herself in more violence than any other Servant in this war. 

Everywhere her blood spills, the castle changes. Only subtly. It doesn't lose the beauty Berserker had managed to instill in it, but instead of awe what it inspires most is terror. Because it is home to monsters, brazen creatures of the deep who feast on crabs and think nothing of it. In every corner and every space and above and below and everywhere a fox could look, there are ghosts. The ghosts of Servants who never earned a name, or even a soul. Sabers and Casters and Lancers and Assassins and all the rest of them. Gone as soon as you look at them properly but very much there wherever your back is turned. Blades of every shape and kind all point toward the enemy of oaths and faith.

A hundred corpses for every fallen brother or sister. A hundred tears for every one that stained her face. A hundred times the suffering endured, now inflicted. That is the power of Avenger's Blood Eagle. It's unpleasant to think about, even when it's being used on your side. She wrenches the sword free from her body and immediately stumbles. She drops to her knees, gagging, and when that is not enough she braces herself with a long arm, too. 

The sword seems smaller now, though not much. And very much not lesser. Where once it had been only a thing of ruthless machining and efficiency, now it is a thing of malice and the color red. Not because it's covered in blood, because it isn't. If anything it's more like the whole of it has become a ruby. It's not what we would refer to as a demon blade. That's the product of a very particular type of depravity and they each wield unique and specific powers that will turn a body that uses them against their old path and toward one that suits whatever demon that used to use it, if they're not prepared. This is more pure than that, though: for all that she called herself a monster and artificial and this and that, Ivar's anger was a deeply human anger. And it is humanity's wrath that she's poured into this sword in its new shape. If ever something was fit to roar and rage against a space monster that had so completely rejected the beauty of that anger in the name of so-called perfection, it would be this one. 

"By my final Command Seal. I... order... myself. Pass on all that... you are. To... your chosen... hero. And be... who you must. Who you... wished... to be."

Ruined and wheezing, but with a sharp toothed smile on her face. Piercing blue eyes like chips of ice, and long intricately braided hair the color of spun straw. This weakened form belongs to the Saber class Servant Ivar. All there was of Avenger is now in that hot and terrible sword. 

"Little fox." she rasps.

"A-are you... ok?"

"Katherine," she corrects, "I greeted you once today as a Valkyrie. It was necessary, to be able to make you a hero."

"I, um. Please can I just do something about that? You already said all this, and that looks so bad! Oh gosh, what did you go and do all that for?! I didn't ask you to!"

"It was necessary. I could not move except as Avenger. I could not arm you except as Avenger. And I could not survive the trigger condition for my true Noble Phantasm without that spirit core wrapped around this one."

"You... what?"

"I greet you now, Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits, as a King. And as I have bathed this place in myself I claim it as my Kingdom. And you, little hero, are my subject. This is your promised victory. This is the true power of Ivar the Boneless. [i]RIGH LOCHLANN![/i]"

There is a burst of light beyond description. Anyone who happens to be down on Earth looking up at the big monster crab will wonder what sort of fireworks could have been set off to mark the occasion. What occasion? Doomsday? And then they'll think and they'll talk and some of 'em will decide that it was a weapon, instead. Some super Princess technique, or maybe something floating all up yonder didn't like a giant crab getting too close to it and now at least [i]somethin'[/i] up there's exploding real good. The government will continue apace, of course. People will keep on to shelters and to quiet places and even to work. Just, with a little more sense of hope, y'know?

But it wasn't a weapon at all. It wasn't even an attack. Saber's noble phantasm, like all of them I suppose, is the crystallization of her legend. And what she is the most famous for is actually dying. Did you know? When she lay ruined after a battle (a sneak attack, some say, but who knows?), she told her people to bury her on a hilltop looking over her city. As long as they defended her grave, she promised, the city would be unassailable. And it was! Ships sank, swords rusted, armies broke and fled rather than face the wrath of a dead shark woman. It was only when she was dug up and burned that her city finally fell, and even then its people went on to build more, fight more, and live on in a land that they had decided they would never retreat from.

That is the power now flowing through Kat, who finds she can lift and hold and even swing that giant ruby sword as easily as she can the kindly wooden one. With one hand, even! As absurd as it is, she can easily dual wield. She even knows what that is. Sword forms, combat techniques, strength and courage, speed, and skin as tough as any armor. It's stronger even than it should be. Because the power of this Noble Phantasm is, like the Blood Eagle, a reflection of the pain Ivar has endured. Multiplied a hundredfold as it has been, and with only one body to put it in, Kat could accomplish almost anything.

Saber's been planning this for a day or two, let me tell you. But I guess she was right, because it seems to have worked.

"Are you... ok?" Kat asks, her voice still full of concern and not focused at all on the wonder of everything she's feeling right now. Which is a lot, for the record. Her body is literally sparking, like she grabbed a jar of lightning and now it's in her tummy only it feels as wonderful as a perfect cup of tea. She knows power the way only a scant dozen or so people who have ever walked across our planet could ever claim.

"I remain." is all that Saber says, lying now on her back with her unwieldy arms folded over her stomach. All [i]her[/i] power is gone. She can't even lift her fingers anymore. Her last job in this war is to watch what happens. To see if all of her tricks, cunning, pride, and might were the match against the greediest and most powerful scions of a world that had come long, long after hers had faded. 

I wonder, was that before or after her supposed Ragnarok? Or is that what [i]this[/i] is, actually? Maybe she was the only real Valkyrie there ever was. It works out ok. Kat's the only one here who has any practice at being an army all by herself.

"I remain, my beloved subject. So turn your eyes to the enemy. And defend what you love. So long as I am here, you cannot know defeat."