Kuja von Einzbern

by Quatermass

(Based on Gabriel Herrol's "Everything for My Family" challenge) He nearly died, but a certain meddling vampire extended his life, and left him with the von Einzberns on another world. Now, Kuja, alongside his wife Irisviel, and his Servant Arturia, intend to fight in the Fourth Holy Grail War. But the path to redemption is a long and bloody one, and the enemy won't make it easy...

1. Foreword

FOREWORD

I generally don't do challenges, and yet, here I am, doing one. Well, not exactly. I'm more inspired by one than actually following one.

An author on this website that I am in correspondence with is Gabriel Herrol, whose works betray a number of intriguing ideas. One of their challenges (Everything for My Family) was to have Harry Potter as the husband of Irisviel von Einzbern from Fate/Zero, and thus the father of Illya. I considered doing a different type of Harry Potter crossover that took a few elements from that challenge (albeit with Harry, instead of being Illya's father and Irisviel's husband, becoming a big brother or uncle figure to Illya), and while that is still on the cards (as a middle of the road crossover to my other Harry Potter/Nasuverse stories, Ex Umbra in Solem and Perils of Magical Investigative Journalism), I actually wanted to do the challenge…but instead of Harry Potter, I wanted to use another character from another franchise. After long consideration, I chose Kuja, the villain of Final Fantasy IX.

There's a few reasons for that. Firstly, there appears to be no marked crossovers between Fate/Stay Night and Final Fantasy IX on this website, despite most other games in the series crossing over, and I like to break new ground. Secondly, Kuja is one of the more complex villains in the Final Fantasy games. I feel that, with the right push, he could become a better person, or at least a heroic figure by Nasuverse standards, which is filled with anti-heroes with strong moral ambiguity. This may seem insane, but hey, I never said I was sane.

Anyway, time for the usual disclaimers. Firstly, there will be spoilers for both Fate/Zero, and Final Fantasy IX, especially the latter.

Secondly, there will be annotations, heavy annotations, and bellyachers will be treated with all due contempt.

Thirdly, for language, violence, dark concepts and sexual references, this is an M-rated work.

Finally, the following is a fan-written work. Final Fantasy IX and Fate/Zero are the properties of their respective owners. Please support the official release. Otherwise, Kirei Kotomine may just turn you into a Black Key shish-kebab…