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[ Looking around when she first enters it may or may not be clear that she's checking out the battlefield, were it to become one. She looks for the exits, pushes her foot on the floor to check how slippery it is. She on edge, seeing Sakura like this away from everyone else, even if they are in a public place.

When she approaches she nods her head to Sakura, before waiting to see her sit before she does. Chivalry and all that. ]

Good afternoon, Sakura.

[She sits down once Saber approaches, but here it is, awkward tension once again... She's really not sure if she should just jump straight into the topic, so she starts off with the more polite:]

So, how are you doing?

[ It's hard not to be tense around her! There's so much she wishes she could ask, but she had promised not to. Though if Sakura were to talk about if first, surely she wouldn't be breaking her word. It's not a particularly honorable way to go about it, but some things must be done. ]

I am well. What did you ask me here for?

That's good. [Ah, well, there it is... Here's hoping Saber stays well throughout this. Sakura takes a deep breath.]

I know that Senpai made you promise not to talk about the War and things like that with me... But that was stupid. He shouldn't have made a promise about me when I had no say in it. More than that, it wasn't fair to you. [Really, she can only imagine how many questions Saber must have, and she wasn't allowed to ask them before she even thought of them.] So if you have anything you wanted to ask me, please, feel free to. I'll do my best to answer them.

[Her "best" because depending on what it is, she might not be willing to give a full answer. No one needs to hear about the Shadow, okay!!]

[ Though she may be slightly breaking her promise to Shirou by speaking about the war now, she would have a very difficult time fighting Sakura herself, or even letting her get hurt. The only one she would not hesitate to fight would be Rider...who she is constantly on the look out for even now. ]

While I am unhappy with Shirou's decision, it is not one I wish to go against lightly. [ She states that just so Sakura knows just how important she still views Shirou, that it's nearly killing her to do this, but she couldn't function without knowing. ]

I wish to know what the circumstances were that led to my own defeat in the War, as you saw it.

[Come on Saber, we all know that you just want some answers!! But yeah, of course it would start with that, wouldn't it... She honestly has no idea how to even begin explaining that, but she has to start somewhere.]

... I never saw it happen in person. [But while she didn't see it, she could certainly feel it. Looking back, it was easy to understand why she felt sick the day after, and of course there was how Saber didn't respond when she tried to summon her back to her side to defeat Rin.] From what I understand, you were ambushed on the eighth day of the war at Ryudou Temple. You were defeated there, and things should have ended for you then.

[ She does want answers, and she will calm herself of any dangerous thoughts, breathing in deep. She does not wish to fight those she does not have to, but it is a difficult thing to remove from her, her need to fight.

She listens intently though, but has to interject with questions. ]

Ambushed by who? Did I not return to the throne?

You were ambushed by my grandfather. [She hates to even think of him as her grandfather still, but it's the easiest way to explain it.] By Zouken Matou and his Servant.

Your grandfather? [ Saber is more than a little surprised. She had never once heard that name, whoever he was had no hand in the War, as far as she had known. But it makes her angry to think she could have been defeated in an ambush, in dishonorable combat. ]

Who was his servant? How did they catch me unaware? Was I able to protect Shirou?

Senpai was safe. [Because she sent Rider for him immediately after Saber died... But she won't say that. Saber kept Shirou safe for all those days before, and she's grateful for that.] His Servant was Assassin. But for how they caught you unaware...

[She trails off, because this is where it gets harder to explain. It's not like she knew exactly what happened, but there was only one way her grandfather and a Servant like Assassin could've defeated Saber, the strongest Servant there is. There's only one explanation.]

He probably used the Shadow. It was this... thing that excelled at absorbing Servants. I think that was how my grandfather defeated you.

[ There's at least the tiniest bit of her that can be happy that Shirou was not unharmed, even if she had to fall. But there's the issue of Shirou having to kill her that is still to come. ]

Assassin? He was a formidable opponent, but his Master was Caster, she had summoned him to protect the Temple. It should have been impossible for a Servant to summon her own Servant, but she had still managed it.

[ She really hates Caster! But she's not willing to go into that at the moment. ]

Shadow? What sort of magecraft was it?

Caster summoned him?

[She seems confused. There was only one Assassin as far as she knew, and Caster had been defeated before he made his presence known. Although when she thinks about it, there were extraneous souls compared to what was supposed to be the standard seven Servants. Maybe this other Assassin was one of those extra.]

I'm not sure if that's how it was back home for me, but at the very least, I don't think this was the same Assassin as you faced. [How to differentiate...] His true identity was Hassan-i-Sabah.

It wasn't magecraft exactly... The Shadow was the contents of the Grail leaking out. [a beat] Saber, do you know what the Grail was really like?

...Caster was able to hold multiple Servants. She had broken my contract with Shirou, and instead took me as her own Servant.

[ She is REALLY angry about that, as it shows clearly on Saber's face. She is usually so much calmer, but thinking about Caster makes her upset. ]

That is wrong...Assassin was Sasaki Kojiro. I defeated him on the steps of the Temple myself.

[ Then she pauses, and decides to be honest with Sakura. ] Shinji had become the vessel for the Grail. It had become corrupted by some force. I had to destroy it.

[WHOA that's some intense anger Saber!! She feels bad that she's evidently making the Servant recall something she doesn't want to, but she never even saw Caster herself. It's difficult to comprehend.]

I had no idea Caster had that kind of power. But Sasaki Kojiro... I don't know a Servant like that. [Perhaps he'd been defeated before she had the chance to run into him. It's the only thing that makes sense. Regardless, there's at least one thing clear about this.] My grandfather must have decided not to participate in your version of the war.

[She listens closely, but she noticeably tenses up when Shinji is mentioned. How could he even be made into the vessel for the Grail? She doesn't know, but... There's a sick kind of irony to it. Shinji, who so desperately wanted to be the true Matou heir, finally got his wish then. He was made into a vessel for it like her, thus making him like the heir.

She wonders how much he suffered for it.

Which is a horrible thing to think, she knows, and she hates herself for just thinking about it. But the fact remains that he caused so much of her suffering, and she killed him for it. She shouldn't have killed him. She knows that she shouldn't have, and she agrees that she shouldn't have. But at the same time, she didn't regret it either.]

... I see. [It's all she says about it, in a tone so devoid of feeling that Saber probably wouldn't recognize it. It's a familiar one to her though, one she hasn't used in a while. Old habits really do die hard.] You're right though. The Grail has been corrupted for a long, long time. The Shadow was partly a result of that.

This was not the first War I had been summoned in. New timelines must have been created, seeing the differences in what we all experienced.

[ She does not say that happily, far from it. She does not like that there exists a time and a place where she failed, and more important, failed Shirou, letting him become broken. She swore to him that she would be his sword and his shield.

And there's Sakura's strange reaction. She's never once see her like this, and it makes her uneasy. Her eyes dart to the sides, wondering if she might see Rider. She's on her toes, because this is a side she does not know about Sakura. She's got high rank intuition, and it immediately goes of. Still, Saber does not move from her seat, assuming the feeling will pass. ]

...There is still more to your story. I would hear it. What had happened to Shirou, and why we fought.

[ Then she stares hard at Sakura. ] And what role you have in this.

If I had to guess, I would think it's the Second Magic. Just because we experienced the war one way doesn't mean it was the only way it happened. [But that's something Nee-san would know more about.]

Yes, you're right. [She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, a little more emotion returning to her voice. It's easy to see that she's making Saber even more uncomfortable already by speaking like that.] Which would you like to hear about first then? There's a lot to say for all those things you mentioned, and I don't know where to start.

I believe that could be the truth of the matter. [ She has seen actual magic in person, she was with Merlin after all. But she isn't certain that even he could have had the power to create multiple versions of the same event like this. But she won't speak of such things to Sakura. She doesn't even know if Sakura knows her identity.

Her answer is swift. ] Why Shirou and I fought.

[YEAH OF COURSE IT'S THAT HUH... This has the potential to go really badly depending on how Saber takes it, but she tries to be optimistic. If anything, what she worries most about is how this information will affect Saber's current relationship with Shirou. It's hard seeing him so depressed about her, but that might be an inevitability depending on what happens.]

My grandfather revived you. I don't know how, but he used the Grail to bring you back. When you came back though... You were different. It's like you were dragged through the corruption of the Grail itself, and it changed you. [It hurts to even think these next words, but they're the truth. She can't run away from them, or from her responsibility in this.] You were evil.

[ Of course it is! It's kinda a pretty big deal, knowing how you die! Especially for someone like Saber who has to worry that her fight against Shirou may or may not have been honorable. ]

That should be impossible. Resummoning a Servant in the Grail War should not be possible. [ Saber looks mad, but not at Sakura, at her grandfather. Some time apart from her own problems has started to ease her into the idea that just because two people are family it does not mean they are the same. ]

You do not lie? I had been tainted?

[Too bad Sakura's also partly responsible for Saber's misfortune back home... She has no intention of hiding it, but it just hasn't come up yet. She's sure it will soon enough though.]

I'm really not sure how he did it. It probably had to do with the Shadow. [Even though the Shadow was connected to her, her grandfather resummoned all the Servants he wanted without her knowledge. How he did it really is a mystery to her.

But all Sakura can do in response to those questions is nod. It was the truth. The black Saber who appeared before her, who followed both her and her grandfather's orders without question no matter how despicable, was not the Saber who she met in the Emiya household.]

[ Saber needs a moment to think. Alone would have been preferable, but there is more to hear, she is certain of that. And she will hear it. ]

And so to protect you...Shirou and I fought. [ She nods slowly, repeating the story as she can guess it, from what she heard from Shirou before. ]

Essentially, yes.

[It's far more complicated than that of course. Zouken might've been the one to resummon Saber, but Sakura still used her for her own purposes too. If anything, the two of them fought because Shirou was trying to protect her from herself. She waits though, letting Saber take the information in.]

[ As much as sometimes Saber would wish Shirou would fight for her, she understands that her job is as a Servant, and it's only natural Shirou would choose Taiga, or Rin or Sakura over her... ]

How would he have been able to defeat me? His projection skill is weaker than I have ever seen it.

Rider helped him. [That's not nearly enough to beat SUPER-POWERED EVIL Saber though, so she explains further:] At one point during the war, Senpai lost his left arm. Archer was dying then as well, so he gave Shirou his left arm and saved him. Kirei Kotomine was able to attach Archer's arm to Senpai, and that gave him access to very high level projections. But...

It destroyed him. The more he used Archer's arm, the more it destroyed him. The amount of information that flooded him, the fact that a mere human was projecting things on the level of a Heroic Spirit... And the fact that Senpai, who gave up his ideals, was borrowing power from Archer, who didn't give up those ideals—it completely destroyed him. [Not even "was destroying" or "in the process of destroying". She remembers all too clearly what Shirou looked like in the cavern at the end of the war. If not for Illya's miracle, that would've been the end.] It's why Senpai doesn't remember a lot of what happened during the war. His mind couldn't handle the strain of it. When he used that arm, he lost parts of himself.

Kirei.. [ The name makes her mad, really mad, like she spits out his name in disgust.

But it hurts to hear that about Shirou. And it gives her questions to ask Archer, about his arm, about whether he remembers such a thing. ]

Despite the arm being his own, it destroyed him. [ She repeats what she has learned, thinking more on it. ] Shirou lost his memories, forcing himself to fight against me?

Were you in danger? Did you grandfather turn on you as well?

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