Hi everyone, raziel365 here, it has been a long time since I wrote... yeah, an awful long time, anyway, while I'm revising my old stories, I'm writing this fic as a way to get back in shape, I hope you enjoy and/or review; criticism is also welcome, so long its constructive; on with the show.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything nor anyone, all characters are owned by Type-Moon.
Chapter 1: The call of the Ruler
A cathedral, ancient, gothic by its looks, was the place where two men were, by the lighting it was around noon, filling the interior with light through its windows, allowing the ones inside of it to have a good look of each other, taking away any form of deceit in ther stance.
One shared by them: a killing stance, not broken by any of the lesser movements of either, keeping their attention on each other.
One of the man was clothed in red, his clothes denouting his status as a high-standing person, in one of his hands were two red marks, each part of the same pattern; his other hand was holding a scepter, slender, black in color save for the ruby at the top end of it, which, if someone looked carefully, would see a light akin to a flame inside the gem.
If one could see beneath his suit, one would notice the glowing marks on his left arm.
His blue eyes were similar to his counterpart, denoting the same calculative gaze, the equal coldness, efficiency, and most often, ruthlessness of each.
The other man wore a dark suit, austere, practical; on his right hand he had two red marks, similar to his opposite, yet what each hand holded was something that to many of the people that belong to the secret society that were the magi would find below them, if not heretical.
Guns, both abnormal, a Calico submachine gun in his left and a Thompson Contender in his right, however, the Contender was modified to fire the most powerful shot the assassin had, a secret to which some users of magic had fallen to when facing him.
As such was the situation between the masters of the sword and the bow.
Kiritsugu Emiya and Tokiomi Tohsaka, the Magus Killer and the head of the Tohsaka family; if one would look simply they would see two similar persons, to those who knew them, thier goals were diametrically opposite.
They were not alone however.
A woman stood in the middle of the altar, bathed in light that entered inside the holy recint, wearing armor and clothes that were meant for war with grace and serenity, and with those two, she walked between the two masters.
"You summoned us" said the black magus in a emotionless tone, not betraying his hidden thoughts or readiness to act should any of the two made a move; Tokiomi only watched the woman carefully, his crest still latent.
"That is correct" replied the calm woman "Time however is short so this meeting must be done with haste".
"Who are you?"
"I am the conciousness that protects the Grail from being tempered with, the guardian that defends it from external corruption" she answered not losing her grace "Servant Ruler".
"How, and why you called us here?" the question was spoken this by Tokiomi.
The now identified Servant only spared a short glance to the red magus before answering.
"By use of the command spells, you are tied, in a minor way, to the power of the Grail, using that connection I'm able to manifest in the subconciousness of you both" her face hardened for the first time since they saw her.
"The Grail awakened me due to the existence of a Servant that would have endangered the ritual itself"
"Caster" Kiritsugu was not that surprised for such a reason, the Servant himself, who was identified as Gilles de Rais, was a murderous psychopath who took pleasure in his sick and twisted experiments on other people.
His master had been a person just as twisted and repulsive, encouraging and participating in the murders and tortures his Servant did.
Kiritsugu took a guess at the expression of the young woman and, after assessing his surroundings and through his knowledge of the world, he deducted her identity.
"Joan de Arc, maid of Orleans" it would explain the pain in her expression, she herself had known the man and died before he became a monster, the fact that she was a Servant was lest surprising if one knew of her legend.
That however was not the only reason of her serious expression, for the next words she spoke bore a weight none of the two imagined.
"The reason for my call...is the corruption of the system that is the Grail". The last words were spoken with graveness and, if one listened well, anger and grief.
At those last words, the two man lost their composture, how could they not? The implications of her words resonated inside the minds of the magi. If the grail was corrupted, then so it was its wish granting mystery, the goal of the war, and the reason for the death of so many.
In theory, the wish granting mystery would be able to grant any wish to the one it deemed worthy, for magi in general, this meant a way to achieve the Third Magic and reach Akasha, but if the grail was corrupted...
"This cannot be... THIS CANNOT BE!" Kiritsugu raged, his mind refusing to believe the words of Ruler; why had he killed so many people for? For what reason had he done so many sacrifices? He didn't give a damn for Akasha, he only wished for a world where he didn't have to kill the less to save the many, to eliminate the conflict that always compained humanity, to be able to save everyone, but he needed a miracle to reach his wish.
"That's impossible! you yourself said it, you protect the grail from external corruption, the system can't be corrupted!" the Magus Killer said with impassiveness in his words, surprising Tokiomi by his emotion.
Tokiomi however had a numbling guess as to what had happened to the grail: in his research and preparations he had read the documents and chronicles regarding the previous grail wars, most of them were nil save for the ones regarding the Third, which were incomplete; in that War, his family had defeated the Edelfeth, whose use of their dual crest enabled a pair of sisters to fight with two aspects of the same servant.
And, outside the knowledge of many, one of the Edelfeth sisters married the Tohsaka family, thus giving them inheritance to their power regarding gem magic and the Gandr curse.
Through that shared knowledge, he stumbled across some obscure notes inside of his library and remembered something he read amongst the notes he found.
"...the Third War however had no Berserker, instead, the Einzbern, pushed the system beyond its original parameters and summoned a servant which they hoped would gain them victory... the servant's name eludes my knowledge, however, I learned of his class before his early death, it was..."
"Avenger" Yes, that was the name he read and remembered, however that alone didn't explained everything, an anomaly as such could be created if the one who did the summoning knew how to alter the ritual to their favor, a knowledge that the Einzbern, creators of the Heaven's Feel system, undoubtly had.
"What altered the system so much?"
"Angra Mainyu" Asnwered the maiden, this time, gaining the full attention of the two "He is the reason of the corruption".
"...The god of all the evils in the world..." finished Kiritsugu, this time his shock was more notorious; he himself had read the archives of the Einzbern regarding the previous wars and found that name, hidden as a foot note in comparison to anything else he had read; he investigated and learned for that reason of the Zoroastrian identity that made that religion being considered as being duotheist to an extent.
That, and at some point, one of the persons he killed had called him so before his death, the irony was not lost to him.
"...he was summoned before... in the Third War" Tokiomi understood with clarity now what had happened, if such creature had been summoned, it would return to the grail as it required the death of the seven servants to complete itself, if that entity entered the Grail...
"The Grail was corrupted by within after his death" The Servant continued.
None of the two knew what to do now, the shock of such information had unsettled them deeply. What to do? If the information that Ruler was giving was correct, then the Grail had to be destroyed, yet that meant destroying the leylines that provided the prana for the ritual in order to ensure that it wouldn't be able to be perfomed again. That itself meant bombing various places in the city which, if done wrong, would cut the life that was provided to Fuyuki, killing the city.
Otherwise, they would have to, somehow, reach the leylines themselves to be able to temper with the Greater Grial and dismantle it, something none of the two could do since they lacked the knowledge to manipulate the leylines, let alone dismantle the Greater Grial during the war.
However, one of the two managed to regain his stand, his eyes still with the determination that had driven him before, he knew where he could find the information to do something.
The system, in response to the anomaly that was the presence of Angra Mainyu, had become a monkey paw to respond to the evil it had inside, something that couldn't be cleansed by normal means, let alone be released to the world.
Unless...
"What more do you need to tell us?" The magus killer asked the servant to prepare himself to what was to come, giving a look to Tokiomi; he needed him in this, as he was the only magus he could count in.
The man in red spared a look to his counterpart before nodding in agreement.
The servant looked them before she spoke.
"..."
Kiristugu opened his eyes inside of the hotel he was staying in, there was no light inside the room yet.
As he looked at the sky he noticed that it was probably was around 4 or 5 in the morning, he turned to his right to see his partner and assistant, Maiya, still asleep.
He stood up from his bed and prepared himself, if the plan he had come up with could be done, there was a chance that the Grail could be tempered with.
That was all he needed to act.
"Kirei... are you loyal to me?"
The priest was caught out of guard by the question of his mentor, who was drinking his cup of tea.
"Of course, my mentor."
Tokiomi only looked at him for a moment with a neutral expression, before he smiled, his confidence in him shining again.
"Then, can I entrust you with a mission?"
Kirei Kotomine was surprised by the behaviour of his teacher, never had he seen him act like this, yet, he needed to still have his trust, and that meant pushing his questions aside until he was in a safe position.
"But of course, my teacher"
Tokiomi then placed his cup in its plate and stood up from his chair, facing his student with a serene expression.
"I need you to go to the Matou mansion"
There goes the first chapter; its the first time I write something that's not Evangelion, so I hope I have not go OOC with any of them.
I admit that I was inspired to write a Fate story after reading "From Fake Dreams", which I recommend you to read, however, I haven't had the chance to read Fate/Apocrypha, so I don't know if Joan was in-character or not.
As always, reviews are welcome and see you soon.
