Disclaimer, I own anything.
Well no much else to say, please enjoy.
Kiritsugu Emiya knew the woman was dead before he even felt for her pulse. No one or at least no one normal could survive with so much of their face burnet away. He checked anyway placing two of his fingers on the side of her neck. There was nothing.
He swore, stood up from the body of the woman and turned around.
Lesser men might have been broken by the sight that he saw.
The city of Fuyuki was burning.
The houses burned, the cries of there occupants all but drowned out by the roar of the flames. The elegant parks which had once played host to children's playgrounds and had been the sight of many a romantic walk burned, their trees and grass adding fuel to the fire. The people burned, whether they had shelter or not it did not mater. The flames hunted them, found them and consumed them.
Kiritsugu Emiya was not a lesser man. He was not broken by the sight's he saw as he made his way through the ravaged remains of Fuyuki city. Every blackened corpse he saw, every collapsed building only served to strengthen his resolve.
"I will save someone" he repeated over and over again.
"save someone, or save yourself?" said a mocking voice behind him.
He spun around and with reflexes honed on a hundred battlefields drew a pistol from its holster with his right hand and aimed it at the speaker.
"YOU!" snarled Kiritsugu.
"yes, me." Said Kirei Kotomine. He was a unnerving sight, not because of the three, three meter long swords that he healed in each hand, there handles held between his fingers.
The thing that made him so unnerving was that here, surrounded by hell on earth he was smiling.
"I asked a question, oh and do put down that gun. You're only making a fool of yourself. We both know who would win in a fight." He said with his smile growing ever wider at the look of hatred on Kiritsugu's face.
"Gun beats sword" replied Kiritsugu and pulled the tiger.
There was a clang of metal meeting metal and then silence.
Kirei had raised his right hand twisting it so that the flat of one of the blades had stood in the path of the oncoming projectile. He inspected the damage to the blade, noticed that there was the slightest of dents in the steel of the blade and sighed.
Kiritsugu felt the slightest amount of fear, the pistol he was using was exquisite, perfectly balanced, lethally accurate and packing a massive punch, its only weakness was that it was a single shot weapon.
His left hand flew toward the pouch he had had sown on the inside of his jacket which contained his ammunition, as his fingers touched the bullets Kirei moved.
One moment he was standing ten meters away the next he was directly in front of Kiritsugu. Swords flashed and Kiritsugu was lying on his back his left leg almost sawn off only attached to his body by a few centimetres of skin and muscle, his right hand the pistol still griped in its fingers was cut cleanly off.
Kirei stood over him, looking down at him with a look of contempt on his face.
Contempt turned to surprise as he noticed a strange bulge under Kiritsugu's jacket. Courteously using the blades of the swords he held he cut open the jacket, when he saw what was there he threw his head back and laughed.
He laughed until he could laugh no more and there were tears in his face.
He dropped the blades in his left hands on the floor and picked up the golden and blue scabbard holding it up in to the sky so that its surface was lit by the light of the fires.
"Beautiful" he said admiring the exquisite workmanship that had gone in to its creation.
The edge of Kiritsugu's vision was starting to dim, a mixture of blood loss pain and fatigue was starting to take its toll. The only thing he could clearly see was the golden and blue colour of Avalon.
Then Avalon was gone replaced with the grinning face of Kirei.
"You were going to use this weren't you?"
Kiritsugu barley had the strength to nod.
"Makes sense I suppose. Avalon has amazing healing abilities all you would need to do is find one person in this place who isn't quiet dead and insert it in to them. The magic of Avalon would heal their wounds."
A thought seemed to strike him and he rushed off returning a few seconds later.
His left hand still held Avalon his right hand however no longer held 3 swords but instead held, mud?
Why would he have mud in his hand thought Kiritsugu. Then the pieces fell in to place and Kiritsugu began to writhe on the ground his good hand desperately scrabbling on the ground for, for what? His pistol or a rock anything he could do to stop him.
Kirei saw that and it made him smile. He poured the mud in his right hand in to Avalon then he knelt down and laid it down on to Kiritsugu's chest. Then he stood up.
"you know what I've done? I've corrupted it, infused it with the essence of the grail, with the essence of evil and suffering. If you put it inside you, it will heal the wounds I have given you and prevent you from dying, but it will also cause unimaginable agony because of the fact that it is corrupted and as soon as it enters your body that corruption will spread."
He clapped his hands together like a child receiving a Christmas present.
"And that is not the best part oh no, the best part is that Avalon will destroy the corruption in your body whilst at the same time giving off corruption which will then be destroyed by Avalon again. An unending circle of suffering that will never end."
"or you could just not do anything and let yourself die. In which case I feel sorry for whoever is still alive in this hell, alone with no one try and save them" he smiled at the thought. Then he was gone.
Lying on the floor Kiritsugu lifted his good hand placed it on the surface of Avalon and pressed it down, in to his body. He screamed.
Pain, for ten whole minutes that was all Kiritsugu felt. At first he just screamed but after the second minute he had no more air in his lungs so he just lay there, his muscles spasming.
After ten minutes however something changed, slowly his vision started to clear, and there was feeling in his right hand, the hand which had been cut off. slowly with great effort he managed to get the spasming under control. He raised his right arm in to the sky and there was his hand.
He pulled himself up in to a sitting position and saw that his left leg was now as good as new.
Taking a deep breath he stood up, or at least tried to. It took two attempts.
The first time his legs buckled as soon as he put any weight on to them, causing him to fall flat on his face. In the background almost drowned out by the roar of the fire he thought he heard the sound of laughter.
"Kirei" muttered Kiritsugu to himself.
The thought of that, that bastard getting pleasure out of his failings caused a new determination to flood threw his veins.
On his second attempt taking it more slowly than before he managed to rise to his feet, cautiously he took a step forward, then another and another.
Each step caused agony but he was moving again that was what mattered, pausing only to pry the pistol form the cold fingers of his severed right hand Kiritsugu set of again heading deeper in to the fire.
Kirei Kotomine from his vantage point on top of one of the few buildings that hadn't yet been consumed by the fire had seen Kiritsugu first attempt to stand up and had found it incredibly amusing, so amusing in fact that he had been laughing for almost five minutes.
He would have probably continued laughing longer if he hadn't felt the prick of a blade against the back of his neck.
"Now really, is that necessary?" He chastised taking great care to not move his neck at all.
"Necessary!" snarled a voice form behind him. "Was it Necessary for you to let that scoundrel live? Not only that but you have the audacity to command me to leave him alone!"
"if you would take the blade form my neck your highness then I might explain my actions."
The blade was withdrawn but Kirei knew the man behind him well enough to know that he wasn't safe yet. Slowly he turned around and beheld the admittedly impressive figure standing behind him.
Gilgamesh King of heroes was certainly an impressive sight. Even if he hadn't been wearing his elaborate golden plate armorer with its spiralling black lines etched on to the surface and blood red cape, he would have still been an impressive sight. Six feet tall with eyes the same colour as his cape and hair the same as his armorer his looks were definitely enough to have him mistaken for a movie star or a model.
He was also extremely angry, no doubt affronted about a commoner like Kirei giving him order, maybe it was time for some tact.
Kirei bowed low.
"You see you wanted to kill him, quick and clean…" he began but was cut off by Gilgamesh.
"Of course I wanted to kill him, he caused the Holey grail to be destroyed!" roared Gilgamesh his right hand balling in to a fist so tightly that the handle of the sword he had been holding which had so recently been held to Kirei's neck shattered.
"And for such a crime he deserves punishment I agree with you" said Kirei without missing a beat.
"However you may find that my method causes him more suffering than merely killing him might cause" he said.
This caught Gilgamesh attention if there was one thing that that lowborn scum Kiritsugu Emiya deserved it was to suffer, if it hadn't been for him then he would even now possess two great treasures. The holy grail and her, his dear sweet Saber.
"Do tell" said Gilgamesh.
"Well" began Kirei still bowing, "as you may have overheard thanks to my corruption of Avalon his life with be one of constant agony even better he was planning on using Avalon to try and save someone form the fire. That is now impossible so the odds of him saving someone is very slim."
"Couldn't he just remove Avalon and give it to whoever he wanted to save," asked Gilgamesh genuinely interested.
"Yes but that would pass on the corruption of the grail on to someone else, Kiritsugu is no fool. He knows what will happen if a normal person is exposed to the essence of the grail. At best the person would be driven insane at worst killed ought right."
"Uh, interesting. This plan may have some merit to it, you may rise." Said Gilgamesh walking past Keiri to stand on the edge of the building's roof.
Keiri rose gratefully his back had been staring to hurt. "As I was saying there is little chance of him saving someone form this, when he fails to save anyone he will no doubt be driven insane. The rest of his life will be spent in a insane asylum where the corruption in his body will insure he is constantly in agony."
"What happens if by some miracle he finds someone who he can save even without Avalon?" asked Gilgamesh.
Keiri smiled "we kill the person right in front of him."
Gilgamesh smiled.
For 30 minutes Kiritsugu searched, for 30 minutes he had managed to ignore the pain and the little voice that was growing in volume in his own head that repeatedly said the same sentence over and over again.
"You have failed."
For 30 minutes he had managed to convince himself that there had to be someone he could help, anyone. Then he had come to the swimming pool.
It made sense of course that people would try and put water between them and the heat of the flames, and the pool was the largest body of water for at least two kilometres. When the fire had started people had flocked here desperate for some safety, it hadn't worked.
As the flames had advanced and more and more people had arrived at the pool, people had started to panic, crushed together with nowhere to go that panic and turned to violence as terrified people fought for space in the pool, by the time that eh fire actually reached them at least a hundred people had been killed and many more forced out of the water to be consumed by the fire.
Those in the pool fared little better, at first they must have felt safe, all they had to do was stay in the water. Then the water had started to boil. Some had stayed in the water trying to ignore the ever increasing temperature of the water; they died cooked like lobsters in a restraint.
Others had decided to try and escape by rushing out of the pool hoping that there water soaked clothes might give them some protection, they hadn't.
Then after 20 minutes the fire surrounding the pool had died out, and Kiritsugu had arrived.
He stood there now looking down in to the pool with its boiled occupants and knew he had failed.
Slowly with great care he pulled out a single bullet and slotted it in to the chamber of his pistol. He placed the muzzle on his temple.
His finger was just tightening on the trigger when he heard something, it sounded like, splashing?
He studied the surface of the water carefully, it was chocked with corpses so many that there was almost no water on display, one of the corpses was moving. Before his astonished eyes a young boy with red hair was forcing his way through the corpse moving toward the stares that led in to the pool.
At first he thought the person couldn't be real and had to be a illusion conjured up by his mind.
Absolute proffer that this wasn't a elision came when the boy saw him standing at the edge of the pool and threw a fist full of water at him. The warm water splashing on his face was all the proof he needed.
"HELP ME!" Cried the boy who was having trouble reaching the steps, the heat of the fire had caused some of the water to evaporate lowering the water level and the steps did not reach to the bottom of the pool. They stopped just high enough so that the boy couldn't reach them.
Kiritsugu walked to the edge of the pool reached down grabbed the boys hands pulling him up..
As his fingers had touched the boys skin he had been shocked to realise that it was icy cold. The shock almost caused him to drop the boy back in to the water, as it was he relaxed his grip from around the boys hands causing the boys eyes to widen in fear.
"Easy there I'm not gona drop you," said Kiritsugu, giving a week smile.
He laid the boy out on the charred ceramic tiles by the side of the pool. For a few seconds he just looked down at him unable to believe his eyes , apart from a few bruises the boy seemed completely unharmed. The boy was evidently uncomfortable with his gaze and started to try and stand up.
"Don't" he commanded placing a hand on his chest.
"B-but we need to go before the fire comes back," said the boy looking up at him with desperation evident in his eyes.
Kiritsugu glanced around; the fire in this part of the city seemed to be dying down. It would probably be safer if they just stayed here and waited for rescue teams.
He shook his head, "no it's safer to stay here, and even if the fire comes back we can just go back in to the pool." Instantly he regretted those words.
The boy curled up in to a ball shuddering and sobbing. "P-please not the pool, not again please."
shook only real experience with children had been with his daughter and she was not what you would call a normal person. He did the best he could, gently patting the boy on the back and telling the boy it would be alright.
After five minutes the boy stopped sobbing, after a another two minutes he uncurled.
Kiritsugu looked down at his hand which he had been patting the boy with, it would be a exaggeration to say that it was frozen but it was definitely cool. His brow furrowed a unusual expression of emotion for a man like him.
Somehow the boy was managing to cool down his body, it explained how he had survived being killed in the pool but how was he doing it? Suddenly a thought struck him and a few seconds after that the palm of Kiritsugu's left hand collided with his forehead.
The boy looked at him with fear in his eyes, afraid that this man was going insane.
Kiritsugu on the other hand was afraid that he was just becoming stupid, the answer was obvious. Magic.
It wasn't so hard to believe, after all Kiritsugu was a magic user and he had met hundreds of people who could use magic in his lifetime, why shouldn't this boy be able to use magic? Still there was only one way to be sure.
He reached out again and made contact with the boys skin, as soon as he felt the boys flesh he performed a very simple spell. It was called structural analysis and it simple allowed you to analyse the object you were touching. Skilled users could identify the individual age of cells in the human body
He was not a skilled user but he didn't have to be, there on either side of the boys spine were 50 pairs of magical circuits. Kiritsugu was impressed most magical users were lucky if they had 24 magical circuits this boy really was something else, or at least he would be if he was taught how to control his power.
"What's your name kid?" He asked.
"Shirou, i-um I don't remember my last name" said the boy looking nervous, "um could you let go of me please."
Kiritsugu withdrew his hand. He was happy, despite all the pain that he was feeling, despite the horror he had seen and despite the recent loss of his wife, he was happy.
Gilgamesh king of heroes observed the scene by the pool, he was still standing on the same roof top he had been earlier so even with his enhanced vision it was slightly difficult form him to make out exactly what was happening by the pool but he could see two people moving.
He could of course have crossed the 3 kilometres to the pool in maybe 10 seconds if he exerted himself but he had deemed such a waste of energy pointless.
He turned to Keiri who was using a pair of binoculars which he had obtained from somewhere to study Kiritsugu, he took some satisfaction in seeing the irritation on Keiri's face.
"Dam him," muttered Keiri.
"What's the problem? Just kill the boy," said Gilgamesh.
"Perhaps you would like to do it yourself my king?"
Here history reached a cross roads, if Gilgamesh had opted to conduct the attack himself then Shirou would have been killed instantly and Kiritsugu's sanity would have been irreparably damaged.
"Do it yourself Priest, such a menial task is not befitting of a king, I shall retire to the crypt beneath your church." With that he leapt from the top of the building, landed on the ground two stories below without so much as a grunt and walked away in the direction of the church.
So history takes a different path.
Keiri smiled, it was better this way, much more deserving that he be the one to strike the final blow against Kiritsugu. He straightened out his left arm, raised it so it was pointing directly toward the pool and began to chant.
As he chanted he felt the magic circuits in his body start to heat up as energy flowed threw them. For 3 minutes he chanted until the heat form his circuits was so hot it was almost like he had minutes radiators inside his body. Then he finished the spell.
One moment Kiritsugu Emiya had been sitting by the edge of the pool trying to find out more about the boy, the next moment he was picked up and thrown in to the pool by some invisible force.
He hit the water and immediately started to sink, his clothes had become waterlogged and were dragging him down, he kicked of his shoes, threw of his leather jacket and started to desperately kick toward the surface, there were bodies blocking his way. He grabbed the legs of one and dragged it down then swam in to the gap it had left.
As soon as his head broke the surface he heard the scream. He also saw the brilliant blue flames which had formed a ring around the boy. For a few second he just stood there looking at it, his mind refusing to comprehend what he saw, then he screamed himself.
In the ring of fire Shirou should have burned. His skin should have been roasted by the heat, his bones should have melted and his eye ball should have popped as the heat caused the liquid inside to expand.
They didn't, This was because just like in the pool Shirou's subconscious was trying to keep his body cool using magic.
For 30 seconds Shirou's magical circuits strained with the effort of keeping his body's temperature low but it was a losing battle, magic circuits are just like electrical circuits in the sense that when a current, electricity in the latter or magic in the former is passing threw them they get hot.
So the more Shirou's circuits cooled the rest of his body the hotter they became, if Shirou had been a normal magical user his magical circuits would have merely ceased functioning, the cooling effect of his magic would have stopped and he would have died as the flames consumed him.
Shirou was not normal, thought just how abnormal he was would remain unknown for almost a decade. His circuits did not shut down, they shattered. He screamed as billions of fragments form his circuits tore through his body imbedding themselves in his remaining cells.
Then Shirou's world went black.
Well that's that then, please tell me what you thought