MaLBA Chairman Bunny McFluff told me to work on something that wasn't Evangelion-related, which means it has to be Fate/Stay Night-related or Bleach-related. I'm not kidding, those are the only things I write for so far, and at a point they will all be related. The weird kind of related, like Shinji and Rei shipping fics that acknowledge she's his mother.

So I was talking with a friend about how the Root held together various worlds, and from there it went from standard parallel world talk to the example that 'In some world, Shirou is killed by Lancer before he summons Saber in a very humiliating fashion, such as being stabbed naked in the bath. It must then follow that he becomes a sort of legend, adding to that of EMIYA-Archer's legend. Therefore, in at least one universe connected to the Root, Rin Tohsaka summons an Archer that wears nothing but a bath towel over his balls.'

I got this idea thanks to that. I consider this pure crackfic, but a rare kind: a Crackfic that derives its humour from canon and follows canon. Except for the ending, couldn't think of a good ending, but the Gay Bulge joke was planned to make appearance elsewhere.

Fate

Naked Bath Shirou

Somewhere within the Root, there was a spasm.

It was not a large spasm, as wrinkles in the fabric binding realities goes; but because it was an upheaval in the one thing reality actually couldn't do without, it was sort of important. A change shuddered through the varied and infinite realities it touched, resonating with two particular realities, altering their probabilities, bringing them closer together on the plane of void that bound them. For the inhabitants in those two realities - well, those incapable of transportation to a reality less utterly screwed - this did not bode well.

Elsewhere in Creation, perpendicular to the AB-plane of Mars orbiting the 11th-dimensional sun of Krypton, a man was walking down the street. He was far and away from the impending dimensional calamity, but he was really only a small exertion of will rending the fabric of everything from watching the calamity unfold directly. This man is Kishua Zelretch Schweinorg, known by many other names but known best for his creation of the Second Magic: Kaleidescope. Through use of this Magic he is granted operation of any number of parallel worlds, which he mostly seems to use to move inhabitants from one reality to another and watch what happens. Overall, he seems a bit of a dick about the whole thing.

It is thus with all realities: the most common invocation of Zelretch's name is not 'Kishua Zelretch Schweinorg, Dead Apostle Ancestor' or 'Zelretch, creator of the Kaleidescope' but 'I blame Zelretch'.

And so it was that while Zelretch was walking peacefully along the side of a burning lake fueled with souls(and methane) he stopped walking, and listened. Listened to the sound that was not a sound; a tell-tale sign that somewhere, somewhen and some[word not found to define this], reality was changed. With a resolution that interfering in matters of the Root was bad and he really shouldn't do it, Zelretch left the reality of Soulfire Lake to 'observe' the proceedings in the newly-altered reality.

...

After a thoroughly surreal evening, Emiya Shirou returned home sometime after midnight to find an empty house. It wasn't really that shocking since he lived alone, but he had sort of been expecting a man in blue tights with a red spear to be waiting for him. Realising that it was impossible for a magus like his father to be that powerful and conniving, Shirou consigned the experience to the realm of 'No drugs before bedtime' and ran a bath. As the tub filled, Shirou mused on the origin of words.

A bath cannot really be 'ran' in the past tense, only 'filled', likewise 'run' and 'fill' were not interchangeable verbs. It was not as though he could run a bath in the same way he would a marathon, even though there was a town in Britain called Bath and an area in Greece(to his knowledge) called Marathon, Bath was named due to its influence from the Roman Empire, not the ancient Greeks; so the confusing phrase could not have originated in either area. Realising that this kind of thinking was just silly, Shirou stopped trying to think and started getting ready for his bath.

Stripping naked, Shirou stepped into the bath and relaxed the phantom soreness in his legs and lungs. He felt the area above his heart in memory, pondering the actions of the strange men fighting at the school. Since the wounds the blue man had inflicted on him were gone, Shirou decided that the whole thing had been some imagination of his, leading to the conclusion that he was clearly insane, so he could do whatever he wanted.

...

Shirou was relaxing in the most insane fashion possible when the front door shattered off its hinges. He shot up immediately, bathwater sloshing over. Stepping out onto the mat, Shirou forewent drying off before the confrontation. Any foe faced with a tall, naked and slippery man charging wildly would be momentarily stunned by the sheer absurdity of it all.

Wait, never mind, it was probably the blue-haired guy with the demon spear that he kept imagining come to finish him off. Which meant that he wasn't insane, and he was about to face his death pantsless.

"Well don't that just beat off!" Shirou called out, well aware of the incorrectness of the statement.

"So you're an unkillable idiot then." The blue-haired man yelled through the house. He had better hearing than a bat would have given him credit for, but it was his proximity to the bathroom door that gave him the advantage. Shirou knew how silently the man could move, and how swiftly too, but he had at least a few seconds before the red spear was rammed down his throat. Ina moment of naked lucidity, Shirou grabbed a washcloth and held it over his crotch, reinforcing it for extra protection. Just as the wet toweling was brought to its natural limits the bathroom door was kicked down.

"HEEEEERE'S CUCU!" the man screamed, maniacal grin covering most of his face.

"Ah Christ!" Shirou cried, echoing through the newly-ventilated bathroom. "It's a sliding door you prick! Do you not know how that works or something?"

"We only had hinged doors back in my day, and you shouldn't care because I'm about to kill you!" The blue man gestured with his free hand for a moment, trying to explain the limits of his legend as succinctly as possible. He abandoned all semblance of courtesy when he remembered why he was in a naked man's house.

"Do I, by any chance, get a last request?" Shirou queried, stalling for time.

"I suppose, as long as it's not ridiculous." The man said, regaining that previous semblance of courtesy.

"Pants." Shirou ventured.

"That'd take too long."

"A sandwich?"

"Too long."

"Gilbert and Sullivan duet in full drag?"

"No time for the dress but I can do the song."

"Wait, you know Gilbert and Sullivan?"

"I was given knowledge of your modern world when I was brought into this time period."

"And you didn't know how a sliding door worked? YOU DICK!" Shirou threw the cloth at the blue-haired man's face and charged. Unluckily for him, the man in blue wasn't entirely human, and thus wasn't bound by a pitifully human reaction speed. Just as the hardened washcloth hit him in the face, the man thrust upward with his spear and pierced Shirou through the heart.

"Che, I didn't even need my Gae Bolg for that."

BAD END

After watching Lancer pass overhead, Rin Tohsaka rushed into Shirou's wide-plan house through the broken front door, following the path of moderate destruction to the bathroom she found the dead and naked Emiya Shirou. Fading into existence beside her was her Servant Archer holding his sides for a great laugh.

"This is perfect, I didn't even need to kill him myself!"

"What?"

"He's me! I'm him! Its hilarious, right? I thought it was a perfect chance to prevent the contract with Gaia, but now I don't even have to try!"

"What are you talking about Archer? I demand answers!"

"Well, if you must know Master," Archer began, wiping a tear from the corner of his eyes, "I'm from this world's future, or there abouts. I made a contract with Gaia for reasons I will not go into, and regret it immensely. You with me so far?"

"I, I suppose I am. I assume you want to prevent your contract with Gaia then?" Rin postured; she wasn't the top student in her year for no particular reason.

"Essentially, though it's more creating a world or time-line in which the destruction I bring about as a result of the contract never happened." Archer elaborated.

"Why haven't you thusly changed this one? The 'past you' is dead and cannot then make the contract, so the 'destroying you' doesn't happen. Correct, no?" Rin surmised. She was quickly catching on to the intricacies of fucking with time.

"But I'm still here, talking to you right?"

"I-but-yo-"

"Don't think about it Master, paradoxes are generally something you shouldn't be messing with." Archer concluded, but he turned his attention elsewhere, specifically the left hand of his past form in this world.

"Master, would you happen to want to witness the strongest Servant this war has to offer?" He offered one hand to his Master as a gentlemanly gesture, even as the other began to burn with the marks signifying a Master in the war. With a grand flourish, the dead body lying on the tiled floor began to glow with a golden light, a golden light that coalesced into Archer's free hand as a large golden triangle, chased with blue down the sides with fey lettering in the centre.

"This, Master, is Avalon, and if you follow me out back I'll show you my very first atelier.

...

"Hey, Tohsaka, is it true you were in the Grail War a few years back?" one of Rin's new classmates eagerly asked. Rin replied with a haughty smile on her face, as was the norm for a prestigious student of the Clocktower.

"Of course it is, you don't get to be in the top classes here just on connections alone, you have to do something amazing."

"So what did you do?" The crowd asked, growing slowly as she spoke.

"Well, it turns out my Servant was a Hero from the future, and he was someone who'd already been in the Grail War. So he got me the catalyst used to summon his previous Servant, his past self died, and then we ended up destroying the Grail because it got corrupted."

"How did your Servant survive the Grail War if he was dead? I'm pretty sure he'd have to fade away if that were the case." One particularly astute student pointed out.

"There was something about parallel worlds and stuff in Archer's explanation, but it basically meant that though their futures were very similar, he didn't need to live to survive. The version in this time was an idiot too; he hadn't even summoned his Servant and tried to fight Lancer. He ended up being stabbed through the heart while he was taking a bath."

Rin wasn't sure what ramifications her statement could have, but Zelretch, who was watching from a high balcony, already knew.

...

Hello Tohsaka.

Look at your Shirou, now back to me,

Now back to your Shirou, now back to me.

Sadly, he isn't me.

But if he stopped being a hero and started dying when he's killed, he could seem like he's me.

Look down, back up; where are you?

You're in the Clocktower with the Shirou your Shirou could be like.

What's on you hand?

Back at me, I have it. It's three Command Spells to that thing you love.

Look again, the Command Spells are now Azoth!

Anything is possible when you die when you're killed and not like a hero.

I'm in a Reality Marble

Do do doodoo do do doo Blade Works

...

Would you like to hear the advice?

[ ] Yes.

[ ] No.

[ ] Maybe.

[ ] I don't know, can you repeat the question?

For some reason, the afterlife of Shirou Emiya wasn't a set of pearly gates or even some sort of conventional purgatory. Judging by the similarity of his surroundings to that of the dojo appended to his house, Shirou assumed that he was now a restless spirit bound to his house as a result of dying naked in the bath.

"You're not the boss of me now!" A very familiar voice cried, causing Shirou to jump and look at his surroundings, realising that he was still naked. "And you're not so big!" Fujimura cried, using the hilt of her shinai as an impromptu microphone.

"F-fujimura?"

"Wattup my Shirou? Welcome to the Taiga Dojo: Dispensing mediocre advice since Bad End in 1995!" Fujimura threw up several gang signs, even managing to use both hands though she was holding Torishinai.

Shirou raised his hand to ask his question, not removing the other from his crotch. "Am I dead?"

"Yes!"

"And you're giving me advice on how to not die?"

"Yes, should you choose to reload your save, you can learn from your mistakes."

"Ok, I'm going to go do something ghosty, you know, over here."

...

The inscribed circle began to glow with great power, seeming to duplicate itself in mid-air. Holding her last gem tightly in the palm of her hand, Rin Tohsaka intoned the final line of the incantation.

"You, seven heavens clad in three words of power, arrive from the ring of deterrence, O keeper of the balance." With her words, Rin opened a passage to the Throne of Heroes. A passage through which would flow the Hero most appropriate for her and the catalyst she had used: the jeweled pendant that would save Shirou Emiya's life.

With a flash, the entire basement area of the Tohsaka manor was overcome by an explosion of dust and light. When the clouds of dust eventually settled, Rin beheld her servant. Standing taller than her, he was well-toned, his body on full display apart from the bath towel covering his crotch.

"Emiya? How are you my Servant?"

The naked Shirou in front of her sighed. "Parallel worlds and such, I died, got famous for dying, and that makes me a Hero somehow. Can we win this war so that I can wish for pants?"

...

"Mongrel, you seek to battle me? Is your idiocy legendary?"

"No, but my nudity is my one true joy in this mad war. I battle alongside my master for the one wish that I want fulfilled. The best pair of pants ever!"

Archer began to peel away the towel covering his crotch, nearly outshining the golden glow of Gilgamesh's armour.

"Gay Bulge!" He cried, his entire body thrusting forward as though it was merely an appendage attached to his hips. Within moments, even faster than the other Archer could comprehend, Shirou Emiya had stabbed Gilgamesh through the heart with a miniature replica of Lancer's weapon, the Gae Bolg.