Prologue: Compilation
Sliding down the smoldering wreckage of crippled apartment, an amorphous blob of the being known as "Angra Mainyu" rages. Even now, as the edges of its form boil and hiss—
angerdespairhatesorrowconfusionannoyancepain
—it cannot help but wonder as to what has happened. It is a sentient existence, yes— but not always a sensory one.
Alone and without form, it had sat within the Holy Grail as each wavering soul was added to the Grail's gathered strength.
It had waited, blind, deaf, dull to all exterior happenings, for its reintroduction unto the world, fueled by the power of the heroic spirits—and for a moment, it had been rewarded. Halfway reborn, in the form of a gargantuan mass of sludge, containing nearly infinite amounts of prana and all the world's sin, Angra Mainyu had felt, once again—
—reveling in the feeling of a blistering wind—
—spreading its perception across the surroundings—
—suddenly blindsided by a roaring surge of light, blown into withering scraps of negative emotion—
—and now it is here, and there, and in a few other places, too, in an assortment of slowly dissolving lumps. It is, effectively, in pieces. It focuses its sentience and takes stock of the situation.
— — — — — When I came to, I was in a burning field.
I guess there had been a big fire.
The familiar town had turned to ashes and it looked like the remains of a battlefield from a movie.
Ashes swirl into the dry, smoky air. The screams of the dying are nearly lost amidst the blaring of alarms and the crackling of flame. Angra Mainyu knows it has lost, here, and can only wait for the next Heaven's Feel, the ritual-war that had once brought it into existence as a contender and would return it once more as a god. It heaves a mental sigh, committing itself to another period of hazy formlessness in the void of the Greater Grail.
The fire had died down by the time the sun rose. The tall wall of flame had shortened, and most of the buildings had fallen.
...It felt strange, being the only thing in that place that still had its original form.
I was the only one still alive around here.
I must have been really lucky, or my house had been built in a very lucky spot. I don't know which it was, but the point is, I was the only one left alive.
Truly, Angra Mainyu mourns the situation. There is plenty of pain, plenty of suffering—but there is no one upon whom it can impart its sins. Perhaps if it could imbue even a single man with a carefully-chosen set of the world's evils it could rest easy, knowing that he would go on to sow discord and misery in the lives of all who he met. But the old lie dying and the young lie dead, and no one will carry on its bitter legacy.
Or will they…?
Striking upon a plan, Angra Mainyu begins to slowly ooze the concept of "restlessness" into its surroundings. Time is short, and this calculated action only makes it disappear faster.
I felt that since I survived, I should live on.
I started walking aimlessly, because I thought it would be dangerous just to stay there.
I wasn't really concerned about getting burned up like the people lying around me.
...Probably because, over and above not wanting to be like them, I had a stronger feeling in my mind.
But still, I had no hope.
It was already a wonder I was still alive, so I couldn't expect to be saved.
I won't survive.
Whatever happens, I won't be able to escape from this red world.
It was such an absolute hell that even a small child could understand it.
An empty child wanders through ruined Fuyuki, having discarded every aspect of himself in order to continue onwards. It can be said that he has become a blank tablet, ready to accept the "words" of whatever should happen next, and record them onto his being forever. An empty process, ready to execute whatever formula it is given.
Elsewhere, a man named Kiritsugu Emiya stands. He has failed his task, has given up all that he loved in pursuit of an unattainable dream. He wants nothing more than to stay where he is, slumped, and give in to the weight of his emotions for what seems to be the first, and would surely be the last time.
Yes, such a prospect does not seem unattractive at the present time—
—but there is work to be done. People to be saved.
Indeed, if he were to be without such a strong conviction, it could be said that he would never have become the man now known as "Kiritsugu Emiya."
And so he stands, and stumbles into the dying flames. His strides grow more confident, his brow slowly eases. There is little hope, if any at all. He knows this.
—and yet, something drives him to continue onwards.
The collective remainder of Angra Mainyu burbles. The situation has changed, drastically for the better.
Into the realm of its influence and perception has wandered a young boy. Auburn of hair, pale of skin, and, most importantly—
—blank of mind. Completely blank. He is at once more, and less than human.
Angra Mainyu knows it cannot ruin the life of this boy.
There are none this boy can remember caring for, and therefore none whose lives it can ruin.
Not even the boy's own life can be spoilt, because without a set of values there is nothing that will perturb an absent happiness.
But similarly, there is nothing to resist whatever it would push onto the boy. Angra Mainyu waits for the child to draw near a particularly collection of its essence, and pushes into his mind the "sin" of Pandora: an ill-fated curiosity.
The boy halts. He turns, slowly, to face the roiling murk that he has been careful to avoid until now. An organic, fleshy mass the size of a horse palpates at the base of an isolated wall.
A strange need-to-know overcomes him as he draws closer.
A small hand, trembling as if in protest, reaches out to a small fraction of a primal god.
Contact.
Just beneath the surface of the blob, something boils and surges where hand meets sin. And suddenly—
I collapsed.
Was it because there was no air? Was it because there was no function left in my body?
Anyway, I collapsed and stared up at the clouded sky.
Everything around me was burned up and I could see many shriveled people.
The dark clouds loomed overhead, telling me it would rain soon.
…
Beneath the child, Angra Mainyu churns with cruel satisfaction. As the child had keeled over, folding backwards as all his strength was drained, the shapeless blob had slid beneath him, catching him on a bed of crawling, flowing darkness.
It calls up all the prana it can muster, draining it from other pieces and leaching it from the air, and dozens of tumors turn to black ash, which blow away with the arid wind.
It needs all the magic it can get for what is to come.
Yes.
Before, it had been breathing small concepts into the air, slipping them like poisons into the "mind" of each survivor who was touched.
Now, it seeks to weave them into the very "soul" of a single being.
This time, it does not seek to harm.
It does not seek to help, either.
Or at least, those are not the immediate things it seeks, consequent though they may be.
Unsure of how much time remains or how much prana is needed, it pulls upon all the wrongdoings the world has ever seen, imbuing the "existence" of the child with only the most useful and relevant of traits.
Some are straightforward concepts, designed to aid the boy in all that he does.
Manipulation, to ensure the path of least resistance.
Calculation, of the amoral variant. It would not do to have an inefficient avatar, after all.
Obsession, strong enough to sway decision and weak enough to lay dormant for extended duration.
Some are hazier ideas, resistant to summation by a single word. These will shape the course of his desire, and his responses to the world.
Agnosia to certain pleasures. The boy will never feel joy in selflessness, or for bettering humanity.
Zealous devotion. Obsession alone is binding, but obsession unbreaking is infinitely more so.
Detached betrayal. There is no time for hesitance, no use for guilt.
Some are even seemingly harmless. Yet these qualities, too, have facilitated sin, and so become tainted themselves. A rather stretched interpretation, yes, but Angra Mainyu was never particularly scrupulous anyways.
Forbearance, to see all plans to fruition.
Cunning, to allow the formation of said plans.
Sadism, while not inherently harmful, will certainly ease evil's execution.
Already the boy's origin was in the process of changing, made pure by the loss of his identity and smelted in the fires that still burn against the sky. But as deceit, and guile, and a thousand other afflictions are quietly folded into his being, molten steel twists and warps to accommodate the new material.
A boy, auburn of hair and pale of skin lies halfway enveloped by a roiling mass, staring at the sky with dull eyes as it invades his being and violates his soul in the most intimate of ways.
Running out the energy to sustain itself, the last blob of Angra Mainyu begins to fade at the edges. This is fine. It's programming is complete, and there is only a single, key wish left to imbue within the boy.
The remnants of the current incarnation of "All the World's Evils" turn to ash and float away on heat rising from the scorched terrain, all magic completely spent.
The rhythmic footsteps of Emiya Kiritsugu slow to a halt as he gazes almost uncomprehendingly at a lump in the distance.
A boy lies on cracked earth, the ragged rise and fall of his chest revealing that he clings on to life.
Drawing closer, Kiritsugu begins a near-automatic diagnosis.
The boy is dehydrated, his body burnt.
His lips are cracked and bleeding, his flesh red and raw where it has been touched by grasping flame.
He will live, physically unblemished. His body is in the best condition it could possibly be.
But what is concerning are his eyes.
Two amber mirrors gaze out at a shattered world and an even more shattered man, reflective and unresponsive.
A golden-blue sheath is pressed against a slackened head, and holy magic streams into the wind.
An origin takes form, cooling steel turning to edged blade due to this new presence.
A man slumps, as Avalon refuses to dissolve. It is unwilling to merge with a soul enshrouded in darkness.
Kiritsugu's breath hitches, and he screams and begs the boy to wake, tears streaming anew down trails not yet dry from earlier sorrows. As he clasps an expressionless head between two calloused hands, there is a flinch of motion.
Eyes of liquid gold flash and focus as the boy gives a slow blink.
Even as the child regains awareness and sees the black-haired man beaming down at him, a fervent, not-yet thought churns in his subconscious.
I wish to see the entire world enshrouded in darkness.