Disclaimer: I do not own the Fate franchise it belongs to Kinoko Nasu and Type-Moon.

For the Future

Prologue

The Channel Tunnel, also colloquially called 'the Chunnel', is one of the greatest engineering marvels of the modern world. Built between 1988 and 1994, it runs an estimated fifty kilometers under the seafloor of the English Channel, linking Folkestone in Britain and Coquelles in France together. Every year, over ten million people travel in both directions on the trains that run through the tunnel, along with over a million tons of cargo.

Today, on one such train headed for Britain, there is a young woman with a German passport. She was dressed inconspicuously, if appearing to expect bad weather and low temperatures, which, once all is said and done, isn't particularly surprising. Britain did have a reputation for being cold and wet.

If there was anything conspicuous about her, it was her physical features, having the platinum-blonde hair and blood-red irises of an albino. Only…she clearly wasn't an albino, considering she also had well-tanned skin, an impossibility for an albino, who would instead suffer severe burns from extended sunlight unfortunately thanks to their body's inability to produce and use melanin.

That, and she was very beautiful, having sharp and aristocratic features that matched the intelligence behind her eyes. "Attention, all passengers." The conductor spoke through the train-wide intercom. "We are now approaching Folkestone. Please gather your belongings in advance to avoid inconvenience further along…"

Chloe von Einzbern tuned out the rest of the conductor's announcement, and instead pulled out a small notepad along with a pocket pen. She quickly jotted down a series of numbers, one which nearly proved too much for a single page. Tearing off the page, she folded and slipped it into a metal cylinder, almost like a drink tumbler, which carried a pair of glass vials, both frosted from temperature control enchantments. That done, Chloe screwed the lid back on, and taking a quick look around her, firmly gripped the seam.

Blue lines briefly flashed over her hands, as she sealed the cylinder hermetically. A note chimed down the train as it began to slow, Chloe getting to her feet while slipping the cylinder into her coat, before putting a fedora on her head.

Unsurprisingly, disembarking from the train proved a crowded and slightly chaotic affair, although no more so than traveling by air. Nothing and no one accosted Chloe as she made her way off the train onto the terminal, and thence up to the surface. A part of her wondered if she should have just taken a plane, after all, from Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden to Heathrow, but she quickly dismissed it.

No point in crying over spilled milk, as the Americans loved to say.

That, and a train offered more room for error than a plane did.

After passing through immigration and customs, Chloe quickly made a beeline for courier services. There was something of a line, but she didn't have to wait long, just over five minutes in fact.

"Good afternoon," Chloe began to the lady behind the counter and taking off her fedora. "I'd like to avail of your express delivery services."

"Of course, ma'am." The lady said with a nod before passing her a clipboard. "Please fill out the marked details, and I'll need you to provide identification for records and security purposes."

"Ja, ja, I understand." Chloe said, fishing out her passport and handing it to the lady. As the woman began to enter Chloe into the system, Chloe filled out the details on the clipboard, between what she was sending – or a publicly-acceptable version, thereof – as well as where and who she was sending it to. She also identified the package as 'fragile', and needing extra care when handling, even more so as she lacked insurance.

Well…Tohsaka had insurance, or at least she would have had the time and resources to get it, unlike Chloe who was largely running by the seat of her pants in a very un-German way. To that end, Chloe directed any and all insurance claims should anything untoward happened to the package to Tohsaka instead.

"If nothing else," she glumly thought while returning the clipboard while also handing the cylinder over. "The package getting broken, while tragic, would set Ainsworth back even more than they've already been."

After signing off on the orders and paying the fee, Chloe sighed and turned away while putting her fedora back on. "Father would have a fit if he ever found out I'd palmed this problem off to a Tohsaka." She thought while heading for the front doors. "But none of this would have happened if father hadn't decided to just…sleep, after Illyasviel's failure. I've done all I can. It's all on you now, Magus Tohsaka."

Later that evening, newspapers across the British city of Dover included among their stories a police report on the suspicious disappearance of a German geneticist, Dr. Chloe von Einzbern, and asking anyone who might know something to step forward and share their information with the authorities.

"Human beings have sought eternal life unending since time immemorial. It is a quest that goes back to the dawn of history, as shown in the Epic of Gilgamesh. The form of immortality itself varies from one quest to another, with the archetype of the heroic god-king, Gilgamesh of Uruk, pursuing physical immortality. Physical immortality was also the form pursued by alchemists around the world through the ages, from the alchemists of Qin Shi Huang in Ancient China, to those of medieval Europe. The explorers of the Age of Discovery joined this quest as well, with Ponce de Leon in particular seeking out the fabled Fountain of Youth in the New World."

Sakura 'Murderer Blue' Tohsaka stood in a laboratory at the Clock Tower's Department of Spiritual Invocation. She addressed dozens of magi, ranging from apprentices to lords, all seated in the amphitheater-like viewing room that surrounded the laboratory from above in a near-perfect circle. Aside from her, there was her familiar, Little Rin, the wraith of her elder sister napping on a small bed along with her own familiar, a black cat named Mikasa, on top of a floating disc gently humming along one wall. There was also Thomas Stark, an American magus who had built and maintained the spiritron laser for today's experiment.

"Humans have also pursued spiritual immortality, a form of immortality that has inexplicably become tied with religion." Sakura continued her speech. "This goes back to the days of Ancient Egypt, the people of which spent their whole lives preparing for their deaths. They believed that after they died, their souls would be judged by their gods, and should they be worthy, would spend eternity in bliss. A belief that would later be shared with the Semitic peoples of neighboring Palestine, and would be passed down the ages to modern times through the Jewish, Islamic, and Christian faiths. This contrasts with other faiths around the world, such as Hinduism and Buddhism, both of which teach that souls are fundamentally immortal, and that they simply change the form they wear in life as they cycle through an endless series of reincarnations throughout time immemorial."

Sakura paused, theatrically turning to meet the eyes of everyone in the audience. "However," she continued. "We as magi stand at the forefront of the pursuit of immortality. In fact, we alone in the whole world know that both physical and spiritual immortality is more than just possibility, but reality. A reality that is very difficult to achieve, but reality all the same. The phantasmal species, the True Ancestors, even various spirits of sufficient conceptual weight…and most infamously of all, the Dead Apostles, they all prove the reality of eternal life unending."

Sakura paused again, this time to step towards the center of the laboratory. She gestured, allowing a cage of Imaginary Numbers to materialize above a truncated pyramid of polished quartz, strips of silver running down the middle of each face, engraved with Chinese characters. "Engage containment protocols." Sakura said, the characters glowing and then igniting with corposant. More corposant burned in a circle around the pyramid, lines of witchfire forming an abstract geometric pattern between the circle and the pyramid.

In the viewing room, paper rustled as pens quickly scratched out notes, with even Lord Reines El-Melloi Archisorte hurriedly breaking out pen and paper to take notes on Murderer Blue's novel containment scheme. More notes were jotted down as Murderer Blue erected additional cages made from Imaginary Numbers, armillary spheres of immaterial matter slowly rotating around the innermost cage holding within it a single inhuman soul.

"Among immortals," Sakura finally resumed speaking, "It is the Dead Apostles that are the easiest for magi to join the ranks of, though it is a path filled with peril. Becoming a Dead Apostle requires one to embody a mystery or a concept in its entirety, in so doing ceasing to be mortal and Human both…or to alter the metaphysical state of the soul such that it can remain within the World even past the death of the physical body, although in both cases, a physical body is still required to 'anchor' the soul to the world. Simply put, to become a Dead Apostle is to bastardize the miracle of Heaven's Feel, for where Heaven's Feel literally transcends a soul beyond the limits of the World, to become a Dead Apostle is to become a parasite. Without their bodies they cannot remain within the World, but the World itself recognizes their unnatural nature, forcing Dead Apostles to constantly expend energy against the World's pressure to correct their presence. Typically, they become bloodsuckers, feeding on the blood of Human beings to gain the energy they need to maintain their bodies, but the World's pressure increases the longer they exist, resulting in a vicious cycle as the Dead Apostle consumes increasingly larger amounts of blood to preserve their misbegotten lives."

Sakura paused, and smiled. "That," she said. "And they constantly live in fear, of our heroes in the College of Law, who hold the responsibility of either killing or collaring such abominable existences."

There was a good deal of – ironic – laughter at this, considering many if not most magi in the Department of Spiritual Invocation held the figurative or literal leashes of existences similar to Dead Apostles. Murderer Blue's own familiar was one such existence, after all, the soul of a child instinctively bound through the passively-ritualistic act of murder, and altered over the years by constant exposure to the properties of Imaginary Numbers.

"But that is the result of a success, when a magus discards their Humanity to become a monster." Sakura continued. "What of the failures, when a magus attempts to become an undying parasite, only to mutilate their very being instead? In most cases, death is the result…but not always. And today, we have an excellent opportunity, to examine in-depth the results of one such failure."

Sakura gestures, bringing up holographic screens, which displayed the dossier of one Makiri Zolgen, or as he had since become known, Zouken Matou. Whispering broke out in the audience, many of them disbelieving that the stern but otherwise handsome Makiri Zolgen could be the same being as the twisted and black-eyed vampire that was Zouken Matou.

Well, would-be vampire, apparently.

"Makiri Zolgen was a magus that hailed from 16th Century Russia, or rather, the Kiev region of the Ukraine." Sakura continued. "It remains unclear when he finally discarded his Humanity, as there exist various ways to extend one's life for magi such as ourselves. Investigation is ongoing, but at the latest, it took place at some point in the 19th Century. Makiri Zolgen died…and rose anew from the dead as Zouken Matou. It did so by transferring its essence into a swarm of blood worms…"

Disbelieving and disgusted muttering went up among the audience, with those magi born of ancient lineages looking especially disgusted at the notion. If you were going to abandon Humanity by transferring or fusing your soul to a phantasmal monster or beast, then you might as well pick one with some dignity. A dragon, perhaps? A griffin…? Even a hydra or a chimera would do…but worms? The lowest of the low, which crawled through the dirt and fed on carrion?

Makiri Zolgen had already fallen low in their eyes for deciding to turn himself into a Dead Apostle…but to choose blood worms as its vampiric form?

It was…inconceivable.

"…increasingly larger amount of Human flesh and blood," Sakura continued. "Zouken's essence, while able to remain within the world, steadily lost its higher functions. Memories, rationality, even emotions, with base instinct increasingly influencing its actions. To summarize, it succeeded in gaining physical immortality, but failed to achieve spiritual immortality. Its essence remained in the World, but steadily lost its complexities, worn away by the World's pressure."

Sakura gestured again, wiping the screens and bringing up new ones showing gauges, graphs, and various readouts. Instruments whirred to life around the laboratory, dishes and phased arrays tuning in on the caged essence of Zouken Matou.

"Today," Sakura began. "We shall be using a spiritron laser to dissect Zouken Matou's essence into particle-thin slides. Each slide will be subjected to a barrage of examinations, from passive scans to active interference by a variety of modifiers, with which we shall examine in-depth the effects of both a failed vampirization process, and the World's metaphysical pressure to erase such an existence. Given the delicate nature of today's procedures, I would ask everyone present to hold off on their questions until the designated Q&A periods. Without further ado, let us begin. Mister Stark!"

Sakura paused, putting on a pair of protective visors with theatrical deliberateness. "Commence primary ignition." She said.

"Yes, Miss Tohsaka." Thomas Stark said, before turning to press the MASTER ARM switch, and then throwing the safety lever. He turned various dials to fine-tune the power flow from the prana generators to the spiritron condensers, and then nodded at Sakura. Sakura nodded back, and delicately tapped the firing controls. Air displaced in a series of staccato cracks as spiritron lasers fired in sequence, slicing into the cage of Imaginary Numbers, before a bubble of folded space peeled away a section of Zouken Matou's essence.

No one could hear it scream and beg.

A/N

What can I say, Chloe grew up. She eventually had to…or, considering these are Einzbern homunculi we're talking about, she was grown/coined (that's what the homunculus production process is called, apparently) as an adult this time around. So, much like Irisviel, despite looking like/being an adult in every physical way, she may actually only be a few or so years old (pretty sure this arguably makes Kiri a pedophile).

Meanwhile, Sakura is having fun, getting to play with a spiritron laser and using it to slice up Zouken's already-mutilated soul/essence before running all sorts of experiments. For science!