Hello! Welcome to my little new experiment of a Story. I've been trying to write something like this for eons, and after careful planning, I think I am ready to begin publishing my chapters. I hope it will be to everyone's liking.
As this is a new attempt for me, I feel inexperienced, so I would very much prefer some honest, unfiltered critique about my writing and the story as a whole. If I make painful consistency mistakes etc, please alert me to it, thought I will try my best to be careful in my research for this.
As you have read in the very short summary of the Story, this is my AU Rewrite of the Fate/Apocrypha series, thought it will be my own spin-off on the show. Different servants, different sub-plots and character developments. Just the 3 core characters, Jeanne, Sieg and Amakusa will remain, and while the end will steer roughly towards the same, it will also be marginally different from the original.
All rights go to their respective creators, and even thought some of the new Servants for this story do not exist within the Nasuverse and are my own creative imput, I still reject all rights and grant them to Type-Moon.
When it came to early Mornings, Emiya Shirou had no trouble getting up on time. The sun beaming in his face, its warmth enveloping every inch of skin and hair it could reach until it was impossible to keep his eyes closed. He smiled lightly to himself as he had slept well and felt refreshed when getting up, pushing his blanket aside before he got up from his bed. As he looked out of the Window, he had to let out a small sigh, the sight reminding him of today's task, and that he was not in Fuyuki.
It had been a few years since the 5th Holy Grail War, and ever since he met, fell in love with, and lost Saber, otherwise known as Artoria Pendragon. The memories echoed in his mind every day, guiding him and teaching him on his goal. The experience, once Shirou managed to move on from the initial loss, was insightful. He learned thanks to Archer to never become arrogant and assured in his goal to help others and chose to continue on his path into the future without making a deal with the Counter-Force once he nears death to avoid becoming just like Archer.
However, it did not stop him from going on a path of discovery to further hone his skills and to see the world more, to learn more about what his ambition was, and so he set out on a journey about one year ago, and had not returned to Fuyuki City since. He had been in many places, South America, central Africa, Northern Europe and at the very northern most edges of Sybiria, visiting the world's most difficult places and helping the locale however he could while re-discovering pieces of history to learn about more mythologies and collect knowledge of more Noble Phantasms to project.
As such, he also ended up polishing various languages in order to get around the world, having discovered a previously hidden interest in old dialect and lost languages.
However, his trips were not without their downsides. Namely the Mage's Association.
Ever since he won the Grail War, mages have been hunting him both officially and unofficially, thought the official facings were very well disguised as arbitrary reasons to seek him out and were covered up in various ways. Shirou's personal favorite was that the 'Attempts to discuss having escalated beyond the ability to salvage verbal exchange' excuse.
But things could not continue as they were, so Shirou shifted priorities for his little world tour and made it a combat training experience, daringly going out into the wild to face dangers with as little projected weapons as possible to train himself, and on one such trip, he made an interesting find.
His ability to read hieroglyphs and stone tables was very limited due to them having been written entirely in the ancient languages that to this day haven't been fully deciphered, but it sufficed just enough for him to identify that he had, entirely by accident, re-discovered the Ziggurat of Ur, known as the temple of the Moon Goddess Nanna from ancient sumer mythology, geographically located about 40 kilometers south-east of Basra, Irak.
The memory of his discovery returned to his mind and he recounted the events...
Shirou glanced around the rather narrow pathway that seemingly lead only straight ahead for a couple minutes now, having used his Projection, which he honed to near-perfection, to create a Flashlight, using it as his primary, and only, source of light to orient himself.
Projecting a Flashlight had been his latest achievement, as he had been pretty used to creating weapons thanks to the Grail War, so Shirou dared himself to try create something other than weapons, and through trial by failure, he began to advance his range of creations in many ways, creating bowls. small chairs, chains. At first, Shirou could only create things based entirely off of metals, but with time, he slowly but surely increased the range of utility until he could project Glass, then Plastic. And while he still couldn't project other types of material like wood or wool, what he COULD project was plenty enough.
As Shirou ventured deeper into the Temple, he suddenly was met with a forking of the way, splitting into two directions, one going left and the other right. Shirou tried to light the walls to see if there was any indication to where which way lead, but the walls were blank. So Shirou just took the gample and turned right.
"I hope I am not walking into a Trap." He said to himself. Enemies such as pursueing Magus he could see, he knew and he could deal with. Old traps that are likely even deadlier due to corrosion causing potential malfunctions, enabling immeasurable escalation? That's a death sentence and Shirou knew that, even with all the skill and experience he accumulated over the years, he would unlikely walk out of this temple alive if he ever triggered one and screwed up.
His path suddenly forked again, leading once more towards either his left or right side. Shirou decided to go to the right this time, and within the same minute, his pathway lead him into a large hall that, very clearly, was a throne room from the looks of it. However, as he stepped into it, suddenly the interior began to light itself. Torches on all the walls lighting up one after another by itself. This already alerted Shirou because he knew that whenever this type of thing happened, something was either gonna happen, or worse, something is gonna wake up. He had seen enough movies to know his options.
As Shirou got closer to the center of the Throne Room, he could see an elevated seat of stone after a few small steps leading up to it. 'This must be the Throne' He thought to himself as he walked closer towards it. Shirou couldn't explain it, but he had this sudden urge to sit in it. 'This is definetly a trap... so why?' He thought to himself. He felt possessed almost, and each step closer to the throne worried him more. But he could not stop, so he decided that if there was a trap, he would be ready and his hands were already open to receive any weapon he decides to Trace at the moment.
Shirou turned himself around once he was right in front of it and sat down, leaning back on it and resting his hands on the throne's armrests. His fingers felt unusually comfortable and Shirou felt a sudden surge of security, almost as if he belonged on this throne, and this sudden feeling creeped him out quite a bit. He didn't know where it came from, and with each passing second, he is more paniced inwards despite these rising thoughts in his head.
Suddenly, the throneroom started to tremor and shake violently and Shirou immediately got up again and prepared himself to potentially burst his way out. However, to his surprise, the tremoring subdued after the ground at the center-area of the large hall opened up and something akin to a small podium rose up from it, about 20x20cm wide and roughly 1 meter high.
"Okay... this is not good." He said to himself as he observed. "I have seen enough Indiana Jones to know exactly that this is NOT good... something is going to come, and if I pick it up this whole temple will collapse ontop of me, won't it?" He rhetorically asked to seemingly no one, joking with himself a bit to try and calm his tensions down. A habit he picked up after he tried it once because he remembered Archer's occasional cynical self-dialogueing, a work in progress to get rid of it.
What caught Shirou's interest the most was that there was nothing ontop despite looking like something should be there. He approached it slowly, descending from the steps accompanying the throne and walking up towards it, wary as he could be, and traced the surface of it with his hand.
When his hand hit the horizontal top part, however, a sudden spike shot up and punctured Shirou's hand, causing him to scream in pain and try to pull away by reflex, but that ended up hurting more because the spike only went down after a few seconds, meaning he yanked it against his pierced flesh. When it did go down as fast as it got up, Shirou lifted his hand off of it and held his wrist tightly in pain, looking at his palm to see a small but near-perfectly round hole, big enough to see through it.
The blood that flowed down on the small podium however suddenly went up in a blue flame, trickling down to the ground in a suspiciously systemic shape, spreading out on the ground and forming a large circle around Shirou. He immediately ran out of its range while trying to not think of the pain in his hand, clutching his wrist tighter in the process. It was only then that he noticed his wound hadn't healed yet. "Avalon should have kicked in by now..." He grunted.
His train of thought was broken as the circle of blue fire dissolved and the ground it encircled suddenly rose up, revealing a pathway into it, a circular and very narrow stairway. It was clear that this pathway lead deeper down into the temple, but Shirou was beginning to hesitate to continue exploring, given his injury.
But then, there was this feeling again. This attraction that overcame reason and emotion combined. This urge, this near-obsessive desire to continue on. By now, Shirou was certain that this was a curse of sorts, some form of mental manipulation, probably one of said traps the ziggurat was equipped with, forcing those who venture uninvited to continue on until they meet their demise. That was his guess.
But if this was a curse, it was uniquely cruel as it made it seem like the victim is actively choosing this fate and suffering the denial in hindsight.
Shirou took a step forward, and then another, and then another, and began descending down the stairs leading further down into the Ziggurat, unknowing on what he will reach...
knock knock
Shirou was shaken out of his trip down memory lane by suddenly hearing knocks on the door. As he was residing in a small hotel in Basra after finding the city, he didn't expect any visitors at all. It actually put him on alert and he projected Kanshou and Bakugou ontop of his bed as a result while standing right in front of it.
"You can come in" Shirou spoke in arabian, loud enough to be sure the person on the other side heard it. Sure enough, the door opened and a figure that Shirou recognized out of his memories appeared.
Long black hair, a black suit with a red coat over it and a golden scarf on him that slipped down as 2 parts along his shoulders and hips, down to his knees, and a cigar on his hand so he could speak. "You are a very difficult person to find when you want to be..." Ell-Melloi II, otherwise known as Waver Velvet, spoke.
Shirou was at east now because even thought Waver was a magus, the type of people he detested by default unless proven otherwise, Waver was one such person who proved otherwise, and while Shirou didn't completely trust him, he knew that Waver wasn't the typical sleezebag who would try underhanded tactics against non-enemies.
"How did you even find me?" Shirou asked while leading the way to a small table within the hotel room that had up to 4 seats, offering one to Waver while he went to the small, open kitchen to prepare some tea to drink.
"I didn't at first, no one did. We lost your trail after Wladiwostok. However..." Waver began, putting his cigar back into his mouth to take a smoke before he continued. "I don't know what you did, kid, but ever since a few days ago the entire Mage's Association is on red alert and everyone keeps practically screaming your name. Some have said they can sense your Mana at all times and it puts them seriously on edge, others claim to have felt something akin to a shockwave wash them, but everyone recognized the mana traces to be yours. It was, for lack of better words, like a paranoia-creating GPS, and I made use of it. Most people want your head, but the Association's top executives think otherwise. I am here on their behalf to investigate this matter and, if possible, ask for your help on a separate matter."
Shirou did not like the tone of this. He had a good idea what Waver was talking about. Scrap that, he knew exactly what Waver was talking about. Shirou was in the mids of recounting the event before he got interrupted, but since Waver was here on official business, he couldn't just give out details to this. The one thing Shirou grew out of is being trusting to people who were nice once, so he had to keep Waver at distance. "The first matter doesn't seem so important to me... the Mage's Association has a community-meltdown about once a week, practically everything they don't control somehow threatens them on an existential level." He spoke, firing his shot without any sign of a filter.
Waver only scoffed lightly before he took another inhale from his cigar.
"What would you need MY help with? One would think bringing in a former Master was taboo for anything." Shirou continued, the venom for the Mage's Association not lowering.
"I fully understand that you have a distaste for my employers and fellow associates. You've only met a single mage before that didn't try to fully exploit your past as a Master, and specially as of late, you've been a target of attempted assassinations, to which I have to say, thank you for not killing a single one of them despite being perfectly capable to." Waver responded, taking a third smoke from his current cigar before he put it aside on a small Ashtray on the table that every hotelroom came with. "The reason we need your help now is PRECISELY because you were a Master in the previous Grail War."
Waver reached into his coat for a moment and took out a case file, laying it on the table and pushing it forward for Shirou to take it, who just now got to the table with two cups of tea, offering one to his guest. After that, he sat down and opened the file to begin reading.
"The Yggdmillennia family, a family that was ostracized by the Association for their leader's Impure Blood, has recently resurfaced with claims that they are in possession to what we call the Greater Grail" He began, causing Shirou's eyes to narrow slightly as he saw the data within the file. It was pretty stereotypically organized, first the file title with all the objective information, then the latest possible visuals on the Grail, being a sketch that was ancient from the looks of it, and then additional data such as the Yggdmillennia members based on the newest data aquired. "The Grail you fought over in Fuyuki was what we refer to as the Lesser Grail. This one is much more potent, and ontop of that, stationed on a country which's leylines are more powerful than those in Fuyuki. As such, a 6th Grail War is about to erupt, and we have confirmed that this one will have twice the number of Servants and Masters. We need an expert on Grail Wars to help us with dealing with the Yggdmillennia Family, as we have every reason to believe that their intent is inherently malicious. The Family Head, Darnic Prestone Yggdmillennia, is out for revenge, and this would not only threaten the Mage's Association, but possibly the world as we know it."
Waver made extensive research on Shirou, so he knew that if he prioritized the points about the casualities of this Greater Grail War, he could convince Shirou to assist on the matter.
And his intel on Shirou was correct. The Redhead sighed very loudly before he closed the file and nodded his head. "If they cannot keep innocents out of the way, and if they are intent on using the Grail maliciously, then I will stop them."
Waver nodded his head, but he could sense that dreaded word...
"But..."
"There it is..." Waver thought with morbid annoyance.
"... I am not doing this for the Association. I am doing this to help the innocent and those in need. Nothing more. Once this is done with, we part ways. And this time, hopefully the association will stay away for good."
Waver had to let out another sigh. Shirou's distain for Magus was understood, but the range with which he went out of his way to express it was almost worrysome. It bordered hatred. He had to make sure to note this and make preparations accordingly to keep Shirou from making any impulsive decisions. "Alright, I can accept those terms, and the Association will, too."
"Good." Shirou spoke before nodding his head and sipping some from the tea he made. After a few gulps, he set the cup down. "Now, what do I need to know?"
Waver leaned back into his seat and took the possibly biggest inhale from the cigar ever, the glowing red from the burning tabak visibly reaching further back along the length at least a whole centimeter, if not two. "There will be two factions operating, each made out of 7 Masters. The Black Faction, being the Yggdmillennia family, and the Red Faction, being carefully selected delegates from both the Association and the Church. You are the last Master we are recruiting for the Red Faction, and all others already have their servants summoned, too. Yours is the only one that remains within the Red Faction. We have no intel about the Black Faction's summoning progress, but we have to assume that they already have all 7 servants, in which case you are the only thing everyone is waiting on."
Shirou understood and took this information in before he asked the next and more important question. "Where do I have to go?"
"We have already made preparations for transport, and we have prepared a Catalyst for the servant you will be summoning. I will personally escort you until we arrive." Waver began before taking the file back, which Shirou had finished reading, and put it back into his jacket. "Our Destiny is Sighisoara, Romania. Pack your things, we are leaving at the earliest convenience."
With those words spoken, Waver got up, emptied the tea in one sip as if it was an alcoholic beverage, then walked towards the exit of the hotel room. "I will await you in the lobby." He commented before leaving the room, giving Shirou the ability to pack his belongings.
The Redhead sighed out loudly before he looked at the palm of his left hand. "What did I sign myself up for...?"
It took a total of 3 days to arrive at the destination.
They had to first drive to the nearest large Airport, being in Baghdad. From there, they needed to take a flight to Ankara, Turkey, from where they managed to book a flight towards Bucharest, Romania. From there, they went towards Sighisoara by car.
There, Waver drove Shirou towards the local church, dropping him off before he left, as he had to return to London and resume his activities with the Mage's Association ontop of giving them a report that Emiya Shirou has been successfully recruited for the case.
Shirou, before walking in, looked at the object he held in his hand, which Waver handed to him before driving away. He was told that this was a Shard from the Round Table of Camelot, and would for sure summon one of the knights, but they didn't know which one. It made Shirou a bit anxious. "What if I can summon her again... see her one more time?" He clutched his fist at the thought, paying attention not to accidentally cut himself with the shard and walked in, opening the twin gates to the Church.
As he walked in, he saw a few individuals seated inside the Church. What surprised him the most was that, amongst the faces, some were clearly servants, and one of them he recognized from Memory, and it both worried him and joyed him a bit.
Berserker of Red, otherwise known as Heracles in the previous War.
Heracles seemed to notice Shirou as well and let out a loud grunt before approaching him, his footsteps heavy and powerful as always. Nothing less was to be expected from THE greek Legend.
"I am surprised that you were summoned again, Heracles." Shirou spoke, earning a nod and another grunt from Heracles, much to the surprise of everyone else, particularily a green-haired warrior, who from the getup also appeared to be Greek. The surprise didn't stop there, as Heracles and Shirou shook hands in mutual respect for one another, both smirking proudly, thought Heracles' expression looked pretty sinister due to his glowing, red-ish eyes.
"Well well. It appears that our Berserker already knows you. You must be the last Master, the one said to have won the 5th Grail War in Fuyuki City." A deep, authoritarian voice spoke, belonging to a female knight in boastful, blue and silver Armor, her shoulderpads shaped like the heads of Lions and her chestplate had the wings of an Eagle that cross each others over it, shaped into the metal to not look like just a painting. She also had a one-sided cape hanging over her shoulder, covering her left arm's upper half. The Logo drawn on it was a clear Coat of Arms, split in the middle, the left half displaying the twin-headed eagle, the international sign of an Empire, and the right half displayed 6 Fleur-de-lys, positioned Symmetrically across the left half in a 1-2-2-1 formation, looking from the upper side downwards. It was one of History's many interpretations of the Coat of Arms associated with the Paladins of Charlemagne.
Shirou however was paying a bit more attention to the facial expression of this figure. Pride and Joy seemed to be written all over her face, one side covered by a few rogue strings of blonde hair that was otherwise waving down the sides and back of her head like waves on a shore. This Knight was visibly both important and beautiful, and Shirou softened his gaze before looking more seriously to indicate he was listening.
"I am Saber of Red. As we are amongst Comrades, I do not fear revealing my True Name to you, Lord Shirou. I am Roland of Charlemagne." She introduced herself before she took a proud pose of a knight, drawing her sword Durendal and placing the tip against the ground, hands resting on its hilt. "We have been awaiting your arrival."
Shirou felt a bit nervous now, being so pompously welcomed by Saber of Red that it made him feel a little nervous. He scratched the back of his head and made a nervous laugh before he responded. "Thank you for welcoming me. I am Emiya Shirou, as you already know." His expression then shifted back to seriosity before he glanced around the present figures. He counted 7 other individuals, 6 servants and one Master so far. "Where are the other masters?"
The one Master in the room, a white-haired priest from the look of his clothes, got up from his seat and fully turned towards Shirou, walking up towards him. "They are currently out on their own individual Errands. Buying food, scouting the city's structure or just going out for a Drink. We are very confident that Yggdmillennia doesn't know any of our Master's Identities so we have wiggleroom in our day-to-day behaviour." He explained with an almost monotone voice, which sounded joyous, but that it was so carefully linear in its sound seemed... off.
Shirou nodded his head in response, shaking off his thoughts before he reached his hand out to shake it. "Understood. And you would be?"
Shirou's Adversary smiled a bit and reached his hand out to shake it. "Shirou Kotomine. Seems like we are both named Shirou."
Emiya suddenly got alert as he heard his last name. "Kotomine?" "You wouldn't happen to know a Kirei Kotomine?"
Kotomine just nodded his head again, his smile turning more sly. "That's what one would call a Distant Relative."
Emiya Shirou nodded back before he glanced around a bit more. "I suppose I should get to summoning my Servant."
"Of course" The Priest responded and stepped aside, waving with his hand towards one side of the large church hall. "Go to the stairs to your right, you will reach the basement area. A Summoning Circle has already been established."
The redhead immediately followed along the path described by the Priest, walking down the stairs and towards the room with the Summoning Circle. He glanced around to see that the Room was, from the looks of it, a Wine cellar before it was remodeled to serve as their summoning booth. He placed the Shard of the Round Table in the middle of the Circle and took off the bandages on his right hand, the one that was still recovering from the Injury he suffered at the Ziggurat, which was almost 2 weeks ago by now. As he dropped the Bandaid, his hand was revealed to be partially healed, but still in the process. The Hole in it was shut, but the palm-side still had the crust on it, which immediately drew drops of blood as Shirou scratched it off.
With his palm now bleeding, he balled his fist and stretched it out before he began to chant the summoning Incantation, which he was taught by Waver on the way here, remembering each word and speaking it out loud accordingly.
"Let Silver and Steel be the Essence. Let Stone and the Archduke of contracts be the Foundation. Let red be the color I pay tribute to. Let rise a wall against the wind that shall fall. Let the four cardinal gates close. Let the three-forked road from the crown reaching unto the kingdom rotate. Let it be declared now; your flesh shall serve under me, and my fate shall be with your sword."
As Shirou was continuing the Incantations, the three Command Seals appeared on the back of his right hand, glowing in a light red. With this, he knew that his incantation was working and he continued.
"Submit to the beckoning of the Holy Grail. Answer, if you would submit to this will and this truth. An Oath shall be sworn here. I shall attain all virtues of all of Heaven; I shall have dominion over all evils of all in Hell. From the Seventh Heaven, attended to by three great words of power, come forth from the ring of restraint, protector of the holy balance!"
The Room was then ingulfed in a bright light of red and white, blinding Shirou for a moment. Shirou used his left hand to cover his eyes until the Light began to subdue itself. When it did, Shirou could see that someone stood in the center of the Ring. However, the clearer he looked, the more he was dumbstruck.
The individual before him was none other than Arturia Pendragon, Knight of Camelot and King of all Knights. But... she was different. her Hair was grown a bit longer, the two strands that went down the sides of her face were thicker and longer, reaching past her chest-area. The hair above her forehead was also slightly longer, the center-strands reaching past her nose almost. The backside of her Hair was not tied in a neat bun, but into braids which were then bound together in a larger bun lining up with the shape of her head.
Her Armor was also slightly different. Instead of the usual simple plating, this one was thicker, and the chest-area had a valley-like spike stand out, growing upwards to her chin, forming a cover-plating. Her Legguards and armguards were also clearly thicker and more armored and the skirt on her lower half was open, revealing her legs. Her Shoulderpads were covered by a white cape with fur on it's top side that circled around her shoulders and the nape of her neck, attached to her shoulderguards.
But what struck Shirou by the most surprise was that she seemed... older. More Matured. She was taller, her face was a bit more defined and he was decently sure that her changed chestplate was to accomadate another type of growth she went through.
This was Artoria Pendragon, but it wasn't the one he summoned in Fuyuki.
"Ar...toria?" He stuttered out, nervous and unsure.
Artoria's expression quickly grew to slight surprise as she saw Shirou, then she smiled rather brightly. "Shirou... You summoned me again..." She said before she stepped forward, reaching her hands out to embrace her former Master and the man she had fallen in love with during the Fuyuki Grail War.
"Artoria..." Shirou said again, slowly embracing her as well to return the gesture, sighing out in relief and joy. "It really is you..." He continued, keeping the embrace up for a moment before he pulled away. "You look different. You are taller."
Artoria's expression went to surprise again when she looked at Shirou's face, one hand moving to his cheek to stroke it gently before she responded. "I am not the only one who underwent some changes, it seems."
Shirou was a bit confused by what she meant, visible by his eyebrow being raised.
"Shirou..." Artoria continued. "I don't recall you ever having red eyes."
This would be it for the Pilot Chapter. I hope that this read was enjoyable. Please leave an R&R if you either love or hate it and let me know why.