The War.

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Disclaimer: I have no legal claim upon any characters/plot used within.

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Prologue:

The world was crumbling all around him, light coming from the heavens itself and striking the land without qualm or hesitation. Lofty clouds swirled in the night sky as magic hidden for so many years, cascaded down from the heavens to cause suffering. A mockery of divine or even demonic might, it struck the land and the earth trembled underneath his feet as he walked. The magic was not demonic or divine it was mundane, enacted by a ritual made by men.

The sodden man beholding the cataclysm of the world was unable to stop it, and it was quite simple to state and illogical to disprove that it was because of his actions that it was all happening. He was covered in ashes, coat and clothing covered in soot just as his was his sharp face that betrayed a lifelong of severity and his shaggy hair. The only color upon the person that continued to walk amongst the ash and rubble was the streaks of dried blood upon his mouth.

It was a law that he had not expected, a truth that even the simplest mind could comprehend, but he had forgotten as he ordered the destruction of the container. Nothing disappears, but all things simply change form. The Servants of the men he fought were but catalysts, fuel to create the miracle that they had all sought to grant their dearest wish.

The heroes were summoned across the ages, sought the same device for one purpose or another, they were pinnacles of humanity and were each powerful in legend and name enough that when seven were sacrificed any wish could be granted within the bindings of the user's perception. Energy that he did not wish to use as the champion of the war, but rather to erase as it was corrupted by the embodiment of all of man's evils. He sought to champion the six billion others who dwelled the earth and erase it from the world using a magic that his unwilling servant wished to use to destroy it utterly.

But power does not die, and most certainly power of such magnitude that used such spirits as its catalysts. It was created to power wishes of human minds and mentalities, it was created with the purpose to find the center of all creation and knowledge by a man who was more well learned than any man who ever lived. It was a device without feeling, and as such only sought to grant the wishes of the man that was granted its power.

It was never thought that it would be rejected at the height of its power for any reason and that power was simply unleashed in a way that its closest influence would be at the moment. The man who'd designed it simply thought if such a thing would happen, some animal of sorts would receive some food created from nothing out of the sacrifice of the Heroic Spirits and was quite entertained at the thought.

But the closest being to the Grail was not a simple animal, and it was not content in some seeds and nuts at the moment. It wanted every being on the world, to suffer. For every child to roast slowly upon pikes, for every mother to be raped by beasts, for every man to be castrated and fed his own organs as all they fought for burned before their eyes in conflagrations of horror and brutality, for every elder to see their sons and daughters to commit the acts as they were crucified to walls made from the bones of their ancestors. It wanted friends to betray each other, for lovers to tear at each other in frenzy. It wanted murder, rape, pillaging, and destruction only for the sake of murder, rape, pillaging and destruction.

It was called Angrya Manyu, and it was all the evils of the mankind, and it held limited power over the dispersing energies of the most powerful ritual ever concocted by progeny. It sought suffering, endless suffering to all people and it could do no better than what it already knew it could.

And so, the hopes of dreams of mankind fell from the heavens only as suffering because of one man. A man who could see the clouds gather and spew hell upon the world, again and again and again and again and again and again.

The man that walked the rubble was only a machine that sought to find someone that he could save, someone that breathed, someone that survived the terrible atrocities he created without thought. He ignored the heat of metal as it burned his flesh as he pried it off of families, he tried to nurse a boy as the corpse last spasms of life hacked the curse he unleashed onto him, he was alone as he dug and dug and dug through material that he could not discern was dirt, ash, or human remains.

Until he saw a hand reaching for the sky where the malevolent clouds still hung like a terrible curse upon the world, only then did he become a man once more as he grasped the boy's hand and repeated over and over again 'thank you' as the fires conflagrated and shook the ground as it expanded through the entire world without qualm or hesitance.

With the same countenance of the magic destroying the world he pulled from his jacket another magic, the same he summoned his almighty servant with, and pressed it against the boy. It melted into him without pause and as the boy began to heal, and once the poor child closed his eyes in slumber, the man took him into his arms and sought refuge amongst the rubble wrapping the boy safely in his arms as ash continued to fall to choke the ground and scrams tore into air around them more and more and more.

His name was Emiya Kiritsugu and all he wanted was to be a hero.

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