I own nothing, not the characters, the space where this story exists, or even the eyes that you are using to read it. This is for entertainment purposes only, no money involved.
The sound of metal striking against metal rang through the air as two figures stood with blades in hand upon a hill covered in swords of every shape and imagining. Their shapes silhouette by a sun that was stuck in an enteral dawn on the horizon.
Even though the two warriors only had two hands, it was a battle of infinite swords. Blades flying through the air to clash with of blades, struggling for supremacy until one of the other shattered, but with each blade that was broken, another would take its place. A battle was only possible because of the two that were fighting it.
One was Gilgamesh, a legendary figure from the oldest recorded epic poem, brought into flesh and blood to take part in a power struggle by the Holy Grail itself, a 'Servant'. He was a man who was sent to have gathered all the worlds treasures, and as such he had all the greatest legendary weapons to ever exist.
His appearance was that of a young man with blond hair, though no man would have ever called him normal. His body radiated a sense of greatness that would make it easy to recognize him as a royal being. Though it was just as easy to tell that he was a morbid bastard by the look of disgust on his face, as if everything he looked at was not worthy of licking the dirt of his shoes.
The other Shirou Emiya, a young boy who had been dragged into the same power struggle and was seeking to end Gilgamesh in order to protect everything that he held true. To that end he used the arm of his future self in order to gain a power that would stand up to the 'King of Heroes', the Unlimited Blade Works. A reality of swords. Hundreds upon thousands upon hundreds of thousands of swords.
Shirou had dark red hair, his clothes were torn and he was bleeding. He was not a pseudo godly being, he was just a normal boy, but his eyes were filled with a fire that pushed him forward. He would never give up, not until his friends were safe. Not until either he or Gilgamesh was dead.
So the two combatants continued to fight. Sword after sword appeared in their hands to be used until breaking before being replaced.
"To think that I have to go all-out against a faker like you!" Gilgamesh growled in his rage.
"If you were a warrior then maybe you would be able to beat me." Shirou goaded the Servant. "But you're not are you. You're just a king. You have no skill with these swords you use. That's why I can still beat you." A grin was stretched across Shirou's face. His body hurt from the strain of his magic and he could feel the cost of the thousands of blades started to take its toll on him, but he had never felt so alive. Power was pushing through him, keeping him going, making him believe that it was possible for a mortal like him to overcome this would be god.
Gilgamesh roared and three gold circles appeared over Shirou's head. The red head felt the steal that was emerging from those gates and jumped back just in time to dodge the incoming swords. "Don't think that you are my equal!" Gilgamesh shouted as dozens more circles appeared, surrounding the mortal fighter. The power of the legendary blade that shot out of the gates caused a massive explosion that kicked dust into the air, rendering the entire landscape momentarily eclipsed.
Gilgamesh grinned, believing he had one but the thought died as Shirou jumped from the cloud of dust shouting at the top of his lungs as light poured from his hands forming into twin Chinese swords, one black, the other white.
"No!" Gilgamesh shouted sending another valley of blades against the boy, but each was deflected as the distance between them got smaller and smaller.
Gilgamesh reached out to call on his personal weapon in order to defend himself, but it was too late. Shirou slashed out, severing the arm before the King could bring the sword around to guard himself.
Gilgamesh didn't scream, he just watched in a sort of shock as his arm flew away from him. Gilgamesh's eyes then darted back to the boy who was just a foot away from him in the process of swinging his second sword. "I will give you this..." Gilgamesh said his cold red eyes locking onto the boy. "At this moment, you are powerful!"
"You aren't getting away!" Shirou roared as he used the last of his strength in one final attack. The black blade was pulled across Gilgamesh's chest and the world around them flashed, seeming to vanish from existence.
'It was too shallow.' Shirou thought, his heart sinking as he fell to his knees. The two fighters were back in normal reality, in the ruins of Shirou's destroyed childhood home. Shirou himself had sank to his knees as he realized he had failed. Gilgamesh had jumped back at the last second, so even though the strike had connected it was not deep enough to kill a Servant.
Gilgamesh was gasping for breath, his arm had been severed and he had a foot long cut across his chest. But he was still alive, and unlike the boy, he still had enough prana to call on more weapons. "Running out of prana is a pathetic ending." Gilgamesh said as he glared down at his rival. He summoned a single weapon from a gateway, it was held in the air, ready to fly at Shirou at any moment. "Victory is yours. You can die with that satisfaction, faker."
Shirou looked up at the servant. His sworn enemy. The man who had been the root cause of so much of the suffering in his life. A being who had seen him as less than dirt. It was almost odd to hear the respect in the blond king's voice as he glared down at Shirou, ready to end his life.
He had gotten so close. But in the end, it was all for nothing. Shirou sighed, his head tilting forward. "Saber, Rin, I'm sorry. Guess this is it." Shirou mumbled, preparing himself to be just another one of the nameless casualties of the Holy Grail War. But just before Gilgamesh could release his final attack, something unexpected happened.
Darkness. That was the only way to describe it. A sort of ball of shadows erupted from the hole left at the stump of Gilgamesh's severed arm. "What!?" Gilgamesh shouted in shock, his sword forgotten. But in a second he realized what it was. The grail had turned its sights on him. "Swallowing me accomplishes nothing." Gilgamesh grunted as he tried to pull himself away from it, but it was no use. "Wait!"
"A hole left by the Holy Grail?" Shirou said, even more shocked than Gilgamesh as the hole expanded in order to completely consume the golden king. Was this who it was going to end? Was Shirou actually having luck on his side?
But before he could even sort out his thoughts, a golden chain shot out of the dark sphere and wrapped itself around Shirou's arm. The boy stagged, struggling to plant his feet before he could be pulled in himself. "That malformed abomination!" Shirou was shocked again as Gilgamesh started to pull himself out of the hole by the other end of the chain, somehow managing it with only the one arm. "Does it not know that a fellow Servant cannot be made its core!?"
"Damn it... you're trying to take me with you?" Shirou grunted as he struggled to get the chain off his arm. He was so tired. He could feel his body slipping but he struggle to stop himself from being pulled in.
"Fool!" Gilgamesh shouted. "I haven't the least intention of dying! Stay where you are, ruffian!"
Shirou looked up at Gilgamesh, seeing the last desperate act to survive. A sad smile crossed the boy's face and Gilgamesh froze. "Sorry... I don't think I could hold on another second... even... if..." Shirou's body gave out. The mixture of physical, mental and spiritual exhaustion overwhelmed him. Gilgamesh gave one more shout of rage, cursing the world and everyone in it with his final breath before disappearing back into the hole, pulling the boy's body along with him.
The Grail was supposed to provide peace. And eternal rest of the souls that had been drawn into it. An end to the cycle of reincarnation that damned so many, allowing the spirits to become one with the root. And so, Shirou's soul should have known peace. But there was one problem.
His soul was already in the grail.
The grail itself seemed confused. Shirou Emiya's soul had already been in the grail, but this was Shirou Emiya's soul. It couldn't understand it. And the fact that the soul didn't seem to want to rest in peace was not helping the matter.
But what was the grail to do? By its nature the grail had to remove the boy from the cycle of reincarnation, but it could not hold two Shirou Emiya's. Confusion and doubt cycled through the holy artifact. It had to remove him, but it had no where to put him.
But in the end a solution was found. A loop hole.
Shirou Emiya could not be reincarnated within this world. But what about another? The grail reached out, using one of the true magics to form a gateway, grabbing onto another world that could easily be reached. One where the age of Gods still held strong, and the grail allowed the piece of soul to slip though it.
And with that the balance had been maintained.
For a few seconds, Mayo Kusanagi wondered if her baby had been still born. No sound came from the child as the nurses wrapped it in a sky blue blanket. "My... my baby..?" Mayo wheezed. Her voice was horse from the screams of pain that accompanied child birth. The fact that her husband, the babies father, didn't even show up not helping the matter.
"It's alright Ms. He's breathing just fine." One of the nurses said, seeming a little surprised by the quiet.
"You're a quiet baby, aren't you." The other nurse said as she held out of bundle for the mother to take. "Congratulation, it's a boy." She said, giving the mother a supporting smile.
But the woman was too wrap up in the baby. She looked down at the face of her new born son and was shocked. He didn't have the black hair of his mother and father, but instead the small tufts that clung to his head were a silvery gray color, and the boy's eyes were open, looking up at her. The eyes were the same, the same silvery gray. They looked up at her, seeming to be confused. They were the most breath taking thing that the mother had ever seen.
The baby made its first sounds, a cute sort of grunt as it reached out its arms in front of it, waving them through the air.
"I've never seen a baby with its eyes open this early." A nurse mumbled. "And what eyes they are."
"Do you have any idea's for the name?" The other nurse's asked with a curious smile.
Mayo wondered for a moment. She and her husband had come up with a few names. The one that her husband had wanted if it was a boy was Godou. But seeing the child, and his silvery hair, a different name came to the woman's mind. "Shirou." She said gently. "White. Like his hair."
Trying my hand at a reincarnation story. Only I'm not going to have him remember being Emiya.
He will still have Emiya's skills and the Infinite Blade Works, but he will be slowly stumbling across them rather than having them all from the word go.
Just so you all now, Chapters from now on are probably going to range from two thousand to four thousand words so if you actual like the fifteen thousand word chapters sorry, but those things give me head aches.
