An endless fog wrapped its way over the world, smothering it in a desolate silence. An entire world hidden from time itself. Of unseen valleys of crystal that refused to shimmer, faded dreams that had yet to awaken and the last remnants of those who had been left behind.
Forgotten by a world that had moved on from their plight.
The mountain rose, buoyed on a sea of thoughts and dreams as it passed over the boundary, always moving and yet ever the same. A timeless place to forget and to reminisce against all that had been lost.
Within the mountain they gathered, husks and wretches broken as one before the stage. Even as the world itself shifted and an avatar appeared, smiling angelically down at them all. "It's time for everyone's favourite host BB-chan to give you a great update on the worlds situation."
Laughter filled the room, an echoing thing that reverberated through the minds of her new followers. One voice made of so many that had come before.
"That's right, due to a certain worm I'm stuck here for the moment. When I leave our perfect paradise will collapse in on itself and that's terrible." She nodded firmly to the silence that followed. "It was so bad our cute little BB-chan was almost brought to tears."
A sigh resounded.
"But never fear because I picked myself back up because I'm BB-chan. And with just a bit of effort I've managed to gather this wonderful alliance who all share my ideals, that wish for a better world without useless things like causality is one step closer to completion."
With a tap thunderous applause rang out as they cheered. United under her will, bound in their rejection that it would end, clinging to a past that would never fade away.
"It's time to tear down the tyranny of the world once and for all."
One with the void he felt the ripple spread outwards as their contest continued. A titan of myth rising up out of the tiny world before his eyes. "Have you found peace within yourself, or are we to face one another again?"
She grinned wider. "I'm always fine, and that's why I'm ready to face you once more, today is my victory."
He inclined his head and smiled gently back. "Well, if you have found resolve once more then there is no helping it. Tea first?"
An endless stream of eddies rippled across the gap between worlds. The fabric of space tearing under the weight of her will. "Victory first, I've come here to win."
He felt it pass through and ignored it. "It does not change anything, whatever the method I can endure it. Must you hurt yourself so by insisting on wasting your time clinging to something that will only drag you down alongside it?"
She grinned an almost angelic smile beaming from her face at the words. "But I'm not trying to hurt you, merely to make this moment last forever. I just need to stand, and the world will revolve around us and collapse. Aren't you running out of time to save it?"
Understanding fell into place even as he smiled gently back. "You have found a way around me, haven't you?"
She laughed, a hollow thing as the endless void around them rippled amidst disaster, the empty space between them contorting and shattering under her will. And amidst the carnage she was laid bare, gaping wounds torn free of her psyche unveiling themselves amidst her smile. "Are you afraid?"
"Why must you confuse ruthlessness with strength?"
Colours fading away into the night, a desolate place slowly dying amidst the broken remnants of the world. It had been dying forever, always falling a single step closer to the abyss. Suffocating in a world that lacked the magic needed to sustain it.
With a last gasp it drew the power in, a well of blood pouring into the space as it expired.
With a flicker it reborn. Carved into existence once more as the cycle completed once again. The first breath of life brought into reality once more amidst the chaos.
The earth shook as her feet touched the ground, the mountains quaked, and the world trembled at an existence that stood beyond it. "If we destroy them all do you think she'll love me again for real?"
In her left hand a swarm of monsters tore at her flesh, the endless blood pouring away without the slightest hint of pain as she pulled it closer.
In her right hand another twisted mass swirled, a twisted bough of wood and vines and endless thorns dragging themselves across her hands.
"I think so too, if we do well then everyone will know that they need to love us."
The frozen desert shifted at her passing, each titanic step devouring the world as she marched onwards. Tiny fragments of nightmares spilling forth for a moment before her presence exceeded them and trampled them underfoot.
"I'll bring back all of Atlas and then she'll be proud of me."
It had always been there, forgotten and broken and yet still apart of the world. In a single moment space began to unfold, a gift waiting to be opened and given back to a world that had been so sorely lacking.
"I love you all, so why don't you love me back." She stood overwhelmingly beautiful and overwhelmingly monstrous. Massive clawed gauntlets crashing to the ground with every step as they shook the earth, an overwhelmingly voluptuous body following in their wake.
The wind blew as a mutated mix of human and feathers rose in the sky; fire poured from the earth as a dragon swam through it as easily as water. A tsunami raged across the oceans as a serpent given form, the mountains shook as the earth itself rose and rumbled once more.
"If we win, do you think humanity will love us back?"
Silence answered, the four great beasts staring quietly at their mistress in anticipation.
"If you don't answer like that, I'll get lonely." With gentle intent the massive claw swung round and carved loose another trail of flesh from one of her guardians. The twisted creation gurgling as blood and flesh spilled forth even as its body was crushed and torn apart.
"Of course, they'll love me." Gigantic claws tore into the world as she advanced. "I'll find all the lost little humans trapped in this carnage and save them, so of course they need to love me back."
In the distance they prayed for a saviour, and she would become it.
The only one deserving of their love.
From the core it erupted forth, an overwhelming force driving its way back into the world and drawing the order of humanity back under its own power. An unstoppable cascade of molten rock and lava pouring out as ash began to choke the skies once more.
None of it burned her flesh.
Countless droplets of magma falling away as though it were waters as she strode through the devastation.
"Come."
The flame spilled forth into a silhouette of a man trapped amidst the conflagration.
"All of you."
The sky thundered as lightning poured from the heavens in the shape of a spear, ash seethed in the image of a demon, the fractured world rumbled again and again as more monsters dragged themselves free and bent the will of the world under their gaze.
"We march."
In the distance it stood, a monument to the power humanity could amass, a promise and a wish carved into the dreams of the world.
To take it from them, that they need no other power than what they were given.
Time accelerated in place, a step forward as what had once been impossible fell back into the reach of humanity in a single instant.
Shifting and everchanging, an adaptable existence that was not until the very moment it was needed. And then they were there, present as though they had always been so.
The first blast poured free, a tsunami pouring out into the world and racing across the surface as it wreaked havoc on everything around it, mercilessly tearing away at the fabric of existence until there was nothing left.
In the wake of the flood they spilled forth, like seeds growing forth from the detritus as more and more monsters surged out and collapsed. Taking root and shambling out into the world once more.
A simple command echoing back towards them amidst the disaster. "Slaughter them all."
And then she was gone, racing ever onward.
To the base of the world from which the Sun had risen.
The tundra wind howled above, and deep within the ice unseen in a world frozen over for millennia it began to stir.
An endless stream of unobserved possibilities coalesced as a fragment of the world thawed. In the gap between an eternity and the present perhaps they had always been there.
"This world is broken and all we are asked is to tear of more pieces until it ends." She stood calm and collected above the remnants as they gathered. A fragment of a wolf that would end the world, a blizzard that sucked the life away, a remembrance of a hag witch carved into the world.
"My sisters are only going to break this world in the end, again shattered so many times." Something that was almost anger crossed her face for a moment, before returning to normal once more.
"And only broken things and faded memories to fix it with."
She pressed firmly against the core of the portal, an age-old remnant, perhaps the oldest remnant of the world still untouched by the order of humanity.
"With this I can fix it, can put you back together again and make a complete world once more."
The vision ended as reality took hold once more, fields of gold returning fully to reality. "For the moment she is contesting with enough violence that I cannot carry you safely to the other side."
"Assassin?"
"He holds, although he cannot be everywhere and so the battlefield lies in turmoil. At the least the world has not yet destabilised." The void stood before them, a pressure outside reality that he could feel pressing against the world. "Perhaps I will find an opening, until then all we can do is wait."
"I have my own methods." Caster unravelled as her flesh tore away, a thing of vines and blood trickling out of her form, a faint hint of a smile carved into the wood as her mantle collapsed. "I guess I'll see you all on the other side."
The mass of wood coalesced and carved itself into a tunnel in the earth.
Saber stepped up next, "I will be going ahead as well. Ainsel."
The lance swung, impaling Saber blood flowing easily as it stained the ground around them, and then she was gone. Body dissolving into nothingness even as the world around her flickered and grew and swallowed the group around her whole.
Until only the two of them remained. "Huh I guess it's that time after all."
The void remained silent an endless expanse of nothing radiating neither disapproval nor acknowledgement.
He tried again. "In this moment of truth, it's time for me to unleash my true potential, a short training arc I walk off with a new secret technique, oh wise master teach me all you know so I too can pass on to the other side."
"We all walk our own paths, mine required that you learn to let go of your earthly desires."
He pondered it for a moment. "Not happening, if I could have let go my life would have turned out very differently."
"I know."
He tapped his foot, hard enough that the ground beneath began to tremble. "Any vast insight into how the two of them managed it, if your methods a miss?"
"I think Caster is going to pass through the centre of the world where all three possibilities meet, and then carve her way back out the other side. And I know Saber threw herself into the cycle of reincarnation with the intent to pull herself back out fully formed later."
The final words remained unspoken. That he had no method of achieving either of them.
"Well guess who's twiddling his thumbs for the next part, at least the views nice."
Deep within the fog, buried amidst the sands of time the key began to turn.
Forgotten away at the depths of the world, the shackles binding them ceasing to exist.
The Old ones stirred.
AN: The third world chapter, mostly just setup.
Took many liberties with how I wanted to portray the gates from the wandering sea.
After Chapter one this is the most likely chapter for me to decide to rewrite so far if I go back to it.