(Heartfelt thanks to 'Dust of the Other Shore,' 'Pokémon,' 'Ling Luochuan,' and 'Clear Sky tp' for their rewards!)
Shirking responsibility.
Those four short words perfectly summed up Noah's first impression of Saber's remarks.
Yet those four brief words, that short statement, struck directly at the heart of the issue. Saber's heart trembled violently, and she instinctively spoke up in rebuttal.
"No, I was only..."
"You only felt that you truly weren't a qualified king, that you shouldn't have become Britannia's king, right?" Before Saber could finish, Noah exposed her thoughts and mercilessly drove the point home. "But like I said earlier, no nation can endure forever. Even if you hadn't become king and someone else had taken that position, Britannia would still have been destroyed in the end. When that happened, people would have known that it wasn't the Knight King who destroyed Britannia, but another king. Isn't that just you shoving your own sins entirely onto another innocent person?"
"No... that's not..." Saber's voice no longer held its usual dignified majesty. It had become lost and helpless.
"I only wanted... I only wanted..."
Seeing Saber's reaction, Noah felt that his understanding of Artoria, the famed Knight King, had been completely overturned.
Before this, Noah had thought Saber was an exceptionally noble knight, an upright person. She had pride and conviction alike. Like Erza, she inspired people to rely on her and trust her.
But Saber's current behavior made Noah feel that he needed to get to know this girl all over again.
That was right.
A girl.
Even with glory and renown that made the entire world tremble, the Knight King named Artoria was, inside, still an innocent young girl.
The knight hailed by the world as a king, in the end, had her weak side too.
Of course,