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From Across the Throne of Heroes
"OMAKE Author's Note: A Theme & A Preview"
The auditorium is full to the bursting, countless people sitting with an impatient air as they eagerly watch the empty stage below. They know not what they'll witness but they are excited all the same for if it is to be anything at all like what the previous seven shows had been like, it was to be a doozy. They knew, however innately because that's just how audiences are, that this wasn't to be a true show but another extra like before but even an extra sideshow could be no less amazing.
The lights suddenly shut off and the loud talks of the crowd dim to an excited murmuring. The lights of the stage ignite but it remains empty still though a thick fog crawls forth like a blackened miasma.
Then the voices echo throughout the auditorium not as familiar words but as a song, nine voices together chanting as one.
"The song that angels sing,
the spell that calls, The Gathering!
The magic that might bring,
Eternal life, The Gathering!"
Drums begin to beat as guitars strings roar their electric symphony. A winged form shoots forth through the smoke and shoots upwards into the air upon the wings of a deity. Butterfly wings shimmer beneath the spotlights as the Servant Archer twirls through the air before she falls in a graceful spin down upon the stage. A beat of her wings blows the smoke clear from her though it still pours freely from the sides. She looks up into the crowd and opens her compounded blue eyes as she sings.
"I see a world in anger,
I see a world in pain.
Each day, a different story,
but still the message is the same."
Her wings suddenly close and she spins about to trade places with the Servant Avenger decked out in a familiar dress of blue and white pinafore clean of its usual bloodstains. In her hands rests not a vorpal blade but a microphone shaped in the visage of a familiar Red Queen. Together, both Avenger and Archer sing in a hypnotic duet.
"Hard news I set beside me,
Sweet dreams is what I need.
What daylight wants to show me,
at night, appears to be insane…"
The spotlights suddenly switched off, leaving the stage in blackness for but a moment before a crimson light began to shine not towards the stage but from high above it. Bleached white skin, a long mane of orange hair that flew like a banner in the open air, and a masked visage that bore a likeness to a human skull bequeathed with the horns of a demon. The tips of the Berserker's horns shone with the light of his most devastating attack as he regarded the audience. He held out a clawed hand to the crowd as though beckoning them to grasp it tightly as his voice echoed with guttural madness.
"May I ask you in?
Shall I…
Shall I persuade you?"
The cero fired into the open sky above and blackness once more enveloped the stage before spotlights randomly began to turn on and off in a flickering trail. In their wake were vague figures that moved too fast to be recognized though a hint of them could be seen. A flaming trail that flickered between angelic blue and hellish red suddenly raced from on high, the roar of a motorcycle a muted growl.
"The song that angels sing,
the spell that calls, The Gathering!
The magic that might bring,
Eternal life, The Gathering!"
The lights suddenly switched on again, revealing a flaming motorcycle leaving a burning trail across the stage. The Rider upon it was a skeleton of flames clothed entirely in leather but at his back stood another balanced precariously upon one foot with one arm held high. In it, she spun a staff that couldn't seem to make up its mind whether it be short or long, and before any decision could be made, the Lancer leapt off the Rider's bike and impaled her staff onto the center of the stage and sat down upon it with practiced ease.
"My cards, the ones to choose from,
the role they play tonight.
Which ones embrace the loved ones?
Which ones will summon for a fight?"
An explosion of smoke came gushing out, hiding her from sight for a moment before it was suddenly blown away, revealing all three of the female servants though it was the Avenger who stood central amongst them and truly supplied her voice to their trio. As they sung, another pair of menacing Servants joined them on either side. From the left came the armored Assassin, a shadowed general of Hell's forces. From the right came the he who was named as the Dark Djinn, the Executor of Another World, but here, in this war, he kept to himself the eloquent title of Caster. Though neither saw fight to join in the song, one could not help but feel that it was forces such as they whom the girls were referring to as they sung,
"Show me your precious darling,
and I will crush them all.
Wave with your blooded sword &
I'll kill to show I'm not afraid…"
Only then did the source of the slinking smoke reveal itself as the draconian Beast rising tall and menacing behind the female Servants, somehow finding room beneath the swooping arches of the backstage. Crimson wings spread to encompass the stage in a leathery embrace as smoke and embers danced freely from the jaws of the Beast as he spread out his claws as though awaiting the hands of another. Atop his head stood the Berserker and the Rider both with the former standing tall behind the crouched skeletal form of the later. The Rider held his hand up as though waiting to be grasped and pulled upright while the Berserker stood once more with hand outstretched waiting for another's grasp as together they sung,
"May I ask you in?
Shall I…
Shall I persuade you?"
A piercing cry of a bird rent the night over the music of an unseen band and from below a pair of spotlights aimed high upon the massive body of a bird with feathers red as rubies. Upon its back sat a youth of emerald tunic and cap, a shield fit for royalty upon his back and a sword resting in its sheathe just beneath it. The loftwing screeched once more and dove down and landed lightly upon the center of the stage before it vanished away into the ether. The Saber stood amidst the crowd of Servants below, playing his ocarina as night became day and night again.
"The song that angels sing,
the spell that calls, The Gathering!
The magic that might bring,
Eternal life, The Gathering!"
The last notes of the song faded into the night and silence awaited the gathered Servants upon the stage before the applause rang out in a monstrous roar. The Servants bowed and faded out of sight as another took to the stage. Dressed in the garbs of royalty, obsidian hair brushed back along his head, he viewed the world behind a pair of rectangular spectacles that did nothing to hide the azure sheen of his almost avian gaze. He looked about at the audience, making a slow turn as he raised his arms up high even as the applause rose higher upon the recognition of the concert's benefactor.
"Are you not entertained?!"
The roars of the audience reached a new crescendo and the Presenter laughed and bowed like a showman to them.
"Then allow to inform you all of what is to come—"
The sound of glass breaking silenced both him and the crowd. He turned sharply and glanced upwards at the massive television screen that had been sitting dead and silent just above the sweeping canopy of the backstage. It was undamaged but was inexplicably turned on to reveal a catastrophe of colors and shapes the likes of which brought to mind a shattered stained glass window… or the lens of a kaleidoscope…
The crashing sound of glass again and the Presenter couldn't help the wince of surprise as the world of color was destroyed by the approach of a blackened shadow of miasma.
Little man… Little boy…
It was the first the Presenter had heard it speak but he knew it for what it was and by the unholy structure that rose behind it in the hellish domain it stood, so too did the audience. Angra Mainyu, the Corruption within the Holy Grail.
You dared to let the sparkling shine… A mistake you WILL NOT repeat a second time… You let the remains of an artificial soul dictate the proper Servants… NO MORE! Now… Now it is MY turn…
The Presenter blinked and happened a glance again at what lay beyond the corrupted Holy Grail. A kaleidoscopic hell.
He smiled.
"Yeah… see, I'm not seeing that happening at all."
You think yourself strong enough to wrestle control BACK from ME…? You? You could not even bring to fruition my destruction though many times did the opportunity present itself to you!
The Presenter frowned at that and glanced down at the floor. "I could have. A few times, I ought to have. But it was part of the deal you see."
Deal…? With what could you have possibly struck a bargain?
"Not what. Who. As to the deal, well a round of Servants for the Fourth and Fifth Holy Grail War respectively was my request. An endless cycle or so I hope. He abided with a few stipulations of his own. That a round be set between them, taking place in either War, or even those not truly canon, and though it would be my suggestions, or those of a rather Infamous kind of man or a Farmer of quiet renown, only he could have the final say in the Servants." The Presenter smiled. "They're a bit CrAcKeD though but given the man himself…"
Was it the imagination of the Presenter—no, even the crowd could see it. The Corruption… was trembling but in anger or fear it was difficult to tell.
Who is he…?
"Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg the Wizard Marshall. Personally, given the selection of what is to come, I'd say he is by and large the epitome of Trolls everywhere…"
"Ah, Blackbird-kun, what does that make you and your friends who suggested these Servants in the first place?"
The Presenter did his best but even the best couldn't help him repress leaping aside at the Wizard Marshall's sudden appearance at his side. He blinked and scowled at the old wizard. "Blackbird?"
"Well if you weren't being so ridiculously over the top with what should be a simple author's note…" Zelretch glanced up at the screen where the Corruption remained and Smiled.
Yes, a Smile the likes of which deserved its capitalization for this was a smile that would make monstrously mad men envious. For its sheer animalistic ferocity and madness that was so blatantly unhinged that it was no longer attached to a structurally sound fixture.
In other words, it was a frightening thing to behold that if put to actual words would say with utmost dryness…
You are so unbelievably screwed that the only thing keeping me from laughing uproariously is this smile and the promise of said screwing occurring multiple times in succession. Have a nice day.
The television screen shut off without any further words by the Corruption.
"You… are a scary old man…" The Presenter shuddered but glanced up once more at the screen. "Think it'll try to interfere again with the Fifth War?"
"Not likely. Given the fun that's about to come its way, it'll be far too busy trying to find a way of offing itself before one of your CrAcKeD Servants has the chance."
"Hrmmm… Been thinking of letting the Caster have a go…" He smiled, "I guess the only thing left to say is—
Through the next gazing of the Kaleidoscope...
"The Heart"