"Impossible..."
The solemn monk's troubled face finally changed completely, twisting into a beastlike snarl.
Araya Souren spoke in a mocking voice that sounded like a curse.
"Those who awaken to their Origin will ultimately be bound by it. Roland! Are you saying that those who dream of opposing Alaya ultimately cannot escape Alaya itself?"
"That's how it is for natives. No matter how obsessed you get, you can't change that. That's what they call being a slave to fate."
Facing the despairing Araya Souren, Roland spoke calmly.
"If you want to defy fate, you first need truth and resolve. Isn't it rather arrogant to cast yourself as some sort of savior?"
Type-Moon needed no savior.
That was the answer Roland had given Saber. In Type-Moon, there were simply too many things capable of destroying the world itself. One should do what one's abilities allowed. Taking on needless burdens would only let darkness and heaviness keep eating away at one's heart.
"But even if I say that, you won't give up, will you? This has nothing to do with whether you're a pawn of the Counter Force now."
Roland looked at Araya Souren with undisguised contempt.
The focus had vanished from the other man's eyes entirely. Even so, his muscles still struggled to move, and the hatred and anguish on his face remained unchanged.
An Origin was itself the embodiment of a concept. He had hated humanity's filth for so long that he had long since become part of it himself. The name Araya Souren had already become another designation for an unchanging direction of thought.
"But that suits me perfectly. As a farewell gift to Kirei, be erased completely."
As his words fell, the space around Roland had already begun to distort.
He took a step, and in the next