Author's Note:

Hey y'all. It's been a while – sorry about the delays.

To be honest, I've kinda hit a roadblock on future story planning on the original fic. The path that it was supposed to go down felt...off. Like a derailment that wouldn't pay respect to the original VN.

Thus, I've decided to go forwards with this. This is Prismatic Illusion.

Some things will remain the same – some others may be a little different. But in the end, the intent is to keep going. (and to have some fun)

Hope you enjoy! :D

And now, the fic:


Fate/prismatic illusion

Prologue: Equivalency

Fuyuki, 1994

A hell of a million scorching threads of fire and fury – the result of a single man realizing his 'truth' for the lives of hundreds.

Fuyuki was in flames. From the Civic Center and outwards bound, pulsating like the death throes of olden stars, the inferno ate through everything it could touch.

All that stood in the way of the million curses was purged. Technology and construction, built at man's zenith for the time; plants and trees holding ancestral roots for centuries in the city; mankind itself, with both the young and old simply living life-

-all were equal before the throne of fire, as the entire world that surrounded them tumbled down into conflagration.

First it preyed upon the old and infirm – all that which was not truly 'alive', and all that which was barely 'alive', unable to escape the blazing constraints that they were trapped in.

Then it seeked those who could run – those who could escape and try to find refuge from the fire saw their former lives in blazing ashes, and those who could not found an end in incineration, trapped in the labyrinth of despair.

Then it came for those who could not run-

-leaving no one left to speak.


Hot.

A single thought coursed through mind. Nothing else could compare with the pain that ravaged his body.

Forwards.

Barely staggering. It was still hot. Down the lane of rubble, he willed the last fragments of his body forwards.

Forwards-

Stubby legs began to quake. Breathless and without distraction, he wobbled-

-and he fell.

Forwards...

He stared at the canvas of stars and smoke above.

A drop of heaven fell. First on his arms, then his face.

Soon, the faintest hint of a smile began to form.

Rain…?

A second later, he lost his sense of feeling.

A minute later, and he had passed.

The rain gave his body haven for the last moments of his life.

The boy known as Shirou Aoki was dead.


The stars had fallen, yet he still looked for a glimmer of hope.

Kiritsugu Emiya – the Magus Killer – scavenged, clawed, dug through the rubble and dust of the fire.

It all came back to him – the confrontation with the illusion of his dead wife, the choice that he made – everything that he had done, hoped to achieve, and put everything that he held dear on the line-

-all of it dissolved into the wind like ashes.

The lives that it had cost to come here-

-all meaningless.

For everything that he had sacrificed to bring utopia to the world, he had brought upon hell instead.

The hell that stood before him.

He looked and looked, chasing for the opportunity to save a single life in the hell that he had bought with blood and seal, hoping to redeem himself.

And in the end, he was denied.


Just before sunrise, Kiritsugu Emiya collapsed, unconscious.

Not a single soul was saved.