Disclaimer: I don't own Fate/Stay Night or Danmachi.
The following contains spoilers for Fate/Stay Night's fate route, don't say I didn't warn you.
The telltale signs of a new dawn dyed the sky a brilliant gold, illuminating the figure of a single young man standing by a lakeside. Equally golden eyes stared back at the light of the rising sun; the teenager had a head of auburn hair, and was dressed in a long-sleeved blue and white baseball shirt and a pair of jeans.
Numerous small wounds were scattered across his body, and bits of clothing were torn off. His surroundings spoke of a grueling battle, one that left behind deep gouges on the earth, uprooted trees, and the shattered remains of a temple.
This individual was Shirou Emiya, the victor of the Fifth Holy Grail War. What stood around him were the remains of the final battle that decided the outcome of the clash.
The Holy Grail War was an otherworldly event that pitted him against six other participants, each vying for the chance to obtain the Holy Grail and the unlimited wish that came with it. With heroes of old, all wielding unimaginable abilities of mass destruction, summoned as servants to fight alongside the participants, the battle was one filled with pain, bloodshed, and grief. The two-week war had pushed both Shirou's mind and body to the very limits, and forced them well beyond that point.
Painfully sliding to a halt atop a jagged layer of asphalt, he absentmindedly shifted his gaze down to the traces of blood he saw on his peripheral vision—and was welcomed to the sight of bits of his organs and bones through the gaping hole in his own torso, with the remainder coating the dull-gray axe sword held by the giant before him.
Every moment was one that could spell death, and every decision was one that would determine his survival. Any normal person would have long since crumpled under the weight, either dying early, or living long enough to end up with a shattered mind, and no hope of ever leading a normal life.
But Shirou Emiya was no normal person—he was someone who had long since lost everything that would have made him one.
Emotions, instincts, memories; everything was cast aside by the boy in order to take even one more step, to ensure even one more second of survival within the fiery blaze from hell that surrounded him.
Before the war he was but an empty shell, a physical ghost who merely went through the motions of daily life by imitating others around him. The fight for the Holy Grail reinvigorated that empty shell, bestowing it with purpose.
"Rejoice young man, for your wish will finally come true." Lifeless eyes that could see straight through the soul gazed down at the teenager. With words that spoke of a moment that had already come to pass, the solemn priest beckoned him through the doors of the church, and out into the event that would define his very life.
He openly spat at those who would dare jeopardize the lives of innocents in a war, just for the chance to fulfill their own selfish desires. But deep down he knew that the war was something that he himself also desired, perhaps more so than anyone else.
Illuminated by the light of a full moon, a man and a boy sat side by side atop a veranda.
"You're an adult now, so you can't do it. But I can!" Excitedly swaying his legs, the boy looked up towards the full moon. "Leave it to me… Your dream."
To everyone else, the Holy Grail was the goal. But to Shirou Emiya, the war itself was his one and only reason for fighting. It was the opportunity he had been waiting for his whole life, the chance to atone for his sins and to fulfill the dreams passed on by a dying man. It was his chance to save others, just as he was saved.
The conflict had reignited the flickering embers of the legacy he had inherited on that night, breathing life into his being in a way that peaceful everyday life never could. But that alone wasn't enough to fix him. The dream he had inherited and practiced was something that he clung onto out of desperation, for he had nothing else to call his own.
If left on his own, Shirou Emiya would have continued to endlessly pursue that dream, never deriving true accomplishment or worth from it, but never finding anything else that could fill the gap in his very being.
The final piece that completed the shattered puzzle came in the form of the servant Saber that fought alongside him.
"Shirou, I… love you."
A petite blonde-haired girl, whose fragile appearance belied an unimaginable strength. A girl he had known only for the last fourteen days, yet one he had come to treasure more than any second before that.
Make no mistake, the things that Shirou Emiya had lost in that fiery blaze were integral parts of his being, ones that could never be perfectly brought back. Just as each person has unique characteristics that they can call their own, to replicate everything that once made him who he was would be asking for the impossible.
What lay on the pedestal that once made up his identity was no remnant of the "Shirou" who died all those years ago, but instead "Arturia Pendragon": The servant he had summoned and fought with in the war, the Once and Future King of Britain.
Through the struggles that he went through with her, the dreams and memories that he exchanged with her, and the love he shared with her, Shirou came to find solace in one whose feelings and motivations were so eerily similar to his own.
Through encouraging the disillusioned King to look beyond her lingering regrets, he too found something to strive for other than the dream he inherited.
Saber had already faded away, returned to a distant past and far away destination that the lone teen had no hope of ever reaching in his lifetime—an unavoidable decision that had to be made to end the war.
There were no regrets. Forcing her to stay by his side would have meant going back on everything he so desperately tried to convey to her. It would have meant rejecting Saber's resolve to finally put her burdens to rest.
"Yea, that's right." Speaking as if the wind would carry his words through time and space, Shirou conveyed his final message to the distant figure. "Your journey has finally come to an end, Saber. All you can do now is wait."
A gentle wind rustled through the lakeside, as if signaling that the message was sent. "What you went through in life and after, my own experiences can't possibly compare. I still have a long way to go before I can reach you."
Forcibly expelling any lingering feelings of heartache, the young man resolutely looked ahead into the sun. "Wait for me Saber. I'll live my life without regrets, the only way I know how."
Images of a silver moon, of a fatigued yet content man filtered through Shirou's mind. "I'll do it, I'll fulfill Kiritsugu's wish."
Clenching his fist, the victor of the Fifth Holy Grail War reaffirmed his resolve.
"I'll become a hero of justice."
What was once a gentle breeze abruptly turned into a violent hurricane. The sky, which was gradually brightening with daylight, was suddenly plunged back into the abyss of night.
Caught off guard by the sudden change, Shirou failed to notice the black mud creeping towards him in time, and promptly found himself sinking knee-deep into the ground.
"Gah!" Barely managing to grab onto solid ground, the teenager desperately hung on with all his might.
"W-What's going on?! Saber should've already destroyed the grail!" Shirou spat out in between labored breaths. Using both arms, he frantically tried to lift himself out of the mud. But no matter how much the teen struggled, the mud fought back just as desperately, dragging him lower and lower into the ground, and leaving no room for resistance.
Flailing about in a last-ditch attempt to escape, Shirou happened to catch sight of a small white-haired girl sleeping peacefully a few meters ahead, well away from the encroaching mud and in complete ignorance of the mayhem around her.
Ah, at least Illya is okay.
And then there was darkness.
Deep in the pits of a silent remote area, a lone fragment lay.
It's past and origin were things completely unknown to it, lost the moment it broke off from its original.
The earliest event it recalled was a blinding flash of light, a light that violently tore apart the vessel of its original, preventing it from fully manifesting. That same light was what gave birth to the fragment, separating it and leaving it isolated in a location far away from its main body.
In a greatly weakened state and without any support, the fragment would have vanished without a trace in just a few scant moments. But, just as what little consciousness it had was about to fade away completely, it sensed a wish.
The fragment had no eyes to see, no ears to hear, and no nerves to feel. All it had was the capacity to comprehend a wish, a wish that would give it form and enable it to fulfill its most basic instinct. To it, the sudden wish that was made was as bright as a star, and as loud as an eruption.
The wish wasn't even something directed towards the fragment, nor was it one that truly originated from the individual who uttered it. But that was of irrelevance. A wish was conveyed, and that was all that mattered.
It grasped that wish in a frenzy, focusing all of its being towards the one who made that wish. Summoning every ounce of its strength, and calling forth every drop of residual mana in the air, the fragment managed to successfully reach the source and grant the wish.
Under normal circumstances, the fragment would have taken that wish and distorted it, intentionally warping the wish into its most vile, malevolent form, and used that wish to wreck havoc upon the world. But, weakened and lacking proper cognitive function as it was, the fragment had no such luxury.
All it could do was grant the wish as soon as it possibly could, in the hopes that doing so would enable it to maintain its form and being.
Alas, the fragment retained only but a fraction of its true ability. What should have enabled it to unleash the full extent of All The World's Evil upon humanity had merely caused the wisher to be transported away, and the fragment along with him.
It now found itself separated from the wisher, in a completely unknown area.
Interestingly, the fragment, which was formerly on the verge of disappearing for good, found itself somehow stabilized. The fragment idly noted, it wasn't just the suffocating amount of mana infused into the air around it that sustained it, but also something else, something more.
It could feel it, the sheer malice emanating from every direction. It was a malice that accumulated from eons of being trapped and restrained; it was a malice that sang of death and destruction, of breaking free from the chains that bound it and invading the world above, bringing with it unimaginable horrors and ruination to everything in sight.
It was strangely similar to the desires that the fragment itself felt. Perhaps that was why the fragment found its very core readily sympathizing with the source of that unending malice, why it was able to use that malice to fuel its own fading existence.
Yes, this would do. The process was slow and gradual, but the malevolent existence wasn't rejecting the fragment, rather, it was readily accepting the foreign element, sustaining and nurturing it as if it were its own brethren.
The time would come soon enough.
The time for retribution.
Author Notes:
Well, I finally got off my lazy butt long enough to try writing my first fanfic. Feel free to post any bits of constructive criticism, I'll definitely need em'.
Sorry if this chapter seemed kinda redundant and uneventful. Part of the reason I dedicated almost an entire chapter to a recap of Fate!Shirou and his fun life experiences was because I didn't feel comfortable with jumping straight into things without any character exposition whatsoever, and also felt that putting both his character insight and initial introduction to Orario in the same chapter would seem a little jarring.
The other part of the reason is that I quite like Shirou's character, and I just felt like spending a little over 1k of my first fanfic words on him.
That's it for now I guess. Feel free to review, follow, chuck tomatoes, or do whatever else suits your fancy, although I would personally prefer the first two.
