Without Guinevere, what would have become of Tristan?
He would have had his beloved stolen from him and died by poison in battle.
Upon leaving the Round Table, he would have blurted out, "The King of Knights does not understand the human heart."
But this time, he had been summoned by the King of Knights who should have died, and he had resolved to serve the Round Table faithfully to the very end, no matter what.
So...
"You are not my King," Tristan declared, "and Bedivere's respect for you is not the reverence one shows to a sovereign."
After blinding himself, Tristan could no longer see any light, but his senses had sharpened, making him far more sensitive to things unseen by the eye.
"You say you wish to correct the mistakes of your other self. How, I wonder, do you intend to do that?"
"By granting her a long-overdue rest, of course."
"Hah... How truly tragic," Tristan lamented. "Must I not only witness a civil war among my comrades but also a conflict between two Kings?"
Tristan pressed a hand to his forehead, his expression sorrowful.
Then, he performed a knight's salute—one reserved for a different king—to declare his stance. After retreating several steps, he assumed a defensive posture, waiting for an attack.
"Sir Tristan, you are no match for me, and I have no desire to fight you."
The failure was expected. After a brief moment of disappointment, Guinevere's smile returned.
She was absolutely confident she could defeat any of the Round Table Knights, even with their strange blessings that made them slightly stronger than she remembered.
Yet, despite Guinevere's words, Tristan shook his head and maintained his ready stance.
"Your Grace," he said, "you claim to be a King from another possibility. Then prove it with your actions. Among knights, the clash of swords speaks truer than any words."
A flicker of memory crossed Guinevere's mind. It felt as if she—or perhaps Lia—had said something similar shortly after they first met.
After the fleeting moment of nostalgia, Guinevere drew her sword.
A Replica Holy Sword, or perhaps the Noble Phantasm, the Sword of Destined Judgment. From its aura alone, there was no doubt—it was Excalibur itself.
Admittedly, if Tristan still had his sight, he would have noticed the sword lacked its Faerie script.
But... he had destroyed his own eyes.
"Miss Ruler, this..."
Without sight, Tristan believed Guinevere's claim because of the sword's aura. With sight, Bedivere began to doubt the very woman he had just started to trust.
Tristan immediately sensed Bedivere's suspicion.
Without hesitation, he drew his bow across the strings, transforming the music into invisible blades that surged toward Guinevere.
"I told you," Guinevere said calmly, "you are no match for me."
In her previous life, after marrying Lia, Guinevere had spent half of every day in the training grounds unless urgent matters arose. She had fought every Round Table Knight more than once.
And she was intimately familiar with the music of Sir Tristan, who had served her from the very beginning and belonged to her alone.
Closing her eyes, she swung her sword with effortless grace, shattering the invisible Sound Blades. As Tristan's music grew more frantic, she advanced with the steady, cat-like poise of a predator, closing the distance until she stood just three steps away.
Then, she rested the tip of the Replica Holy Sword on his shoulder.
"I know every possible variation of your harp's melody by heart."
This was no empty boast, as Guinevere's recent combat performance had just proven.
For some reason, the thought that this King had actually memorized his entire repertoire moved Tristan to the point of tears.
"How tragic... that the me of another possibility could have had a Liege Lord like you."
Tristan lowered his bow, awaiting Guinevere's final blow. He called her "Liege Lord," not "King," clearly believing his own King of Knights would never possess such insight.
"I am curious about the story of that other possibility, but..."
"If you're curious, then just ask me directly."
Guinevere could have struck him down, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. Nor was there any need to act now.
Sheathing her sword, she shot a glare at the Enforcement Knights who had started to move toward Tristan, forcing them back. Then, Guinevere walked straight to Tristan's horse.
She stroked its neck, patted its face, and after the horse snorted, she swung herself onto its back.
Soon after, Tristan mounted one of the Enforcement Knights' horses, and Bedivere was also offered a ride. The two knights who had lost their mounts shared with their comrades.
"Your Grace, I still have a mission..."
"You are my prisoners now. Go ahead, ask what you want. After you're done, I have some questions for you as well."
Their mission had been to annihilate a village of the Mountain People. But since she had declared them prisoners, Tristan had no choice but to comply. He decided to ask the questions burning in his mind first.
"Then, Your Grace, you said you are from another possibility. Where did this other possibility begin?"
As the horses' hooves clopped rhythmically, Guinevere began her story, starting from the moment the King of Knights proposed to her.
"What if I told you there's a possibility where Guinevere was an exceptionally good woman?"
"Hmm... the odds of that must be less than one in ten thousand, right?"
"Heh, then just assume I hit that one-in-ten-thousand chance!"
Having just finished the Fourth Holy Grail War and organized her own story through painting, Guinevere's words flowed effortlessly, without a hint of writer's block. The only embellishment was a slight, perhaps excessive, polishing of her own role in the tale.
"Are you saying that the me of another possibility was recruited by Guinevere early on? That I was even part of her... dowry when she married the King of Knights?"
"If you dislike that term, you can call it 'Guardian Knight.' I just mistook you for him earlier. Don't worry too much about the wording."
"No, I don't dislike it at all... if that Guinevere truly allowed me and Iseult to marry peacefully."
It was Tristan's story, but not this Tristan's story. Still, that didn't stop him from imagining himself in that role, indulging in the thought: 'I could have had that fate, too.'
As they spoke and traveled, more and more eyes in this desolate land watched them, catching snippets of Guinevere's naturally loud voice.
Several hours later, as they drew close to the outskirts of Jerusalem, the group encountered an old man begging for alms.
Guinevere remembered his gaze—it was so sharp that she couldn't help but glare back instinctively.
"Ruler, Your Grace, should we kill him?"
"You know," Guinevere retorted, "that mere 'Inversion' Blessing has really made you bloodthirsty, hasn't it?"
"Your Grace, it is a fact, and one that saddens me. Speaking of which, that old man..."
"He was someone who could make my skin crawl and provoke me into glaring back. Do you really think you could handle him?"
Most of the Round Table Knights in this Singularity were still unaware of 'King' Hassan's existence. They were simply following the orders of this Singularity's King of Knights—the Lion King.
After Guinevere's words, Tristan—who had already guessed her true name—abandoned the pursuit. He also raised his guard against the Mountain People by several levels.
Previously, he had merely thought the Mountain People were exceptionally brave. The Hassans, knowing full well that confronting the Round Table Knights meant certain death, still unhesitatingly stood before them to protect their people.
"Ruler, Your Grace, we're approaching Camelot City. There..."
Tristan fell silent. The atmosphere among the Enforcement Knights behind them grew heavy.
They knew all too well what had happened at Camelot City—an act that utterly disregarded the Knight's Code.
"Sir Tristan, you and the others should return ahead," Guinevere commanded. "Go and loudly proclaim my arrival to the other knights and to the other me. Tell the Lion King that Bedivere and I have come to liberate her."