Disclaimer: Fate and its derivatives do not belong to me, all its story and characters belong to Type-Moon, and Honaki Impact belongs to Hoyoverse.
Chapter 1, Reawakening…
I saw the barren and dry land, completely eroded, I saw the craters that were everywhere, I saw the earth and the sky painted red, both bathed in blood, different blood from different creatures.
I was in a daze, everything was blurry, but I could hear explosions, and I could see them, in the distance...
I stood up and stared dazedly at the ruins of my old home, a city reduced to almost nothing. I could not see anyone alive, but even so, I made a vain attempt to explore the place in the hope of saving someone.
Nothing, no one, just corpses, many corpses…
One war after another, first between us, then between us and them. We were foolish and naive, but above all, we were arrogant.
In the distance, I could see how the war continued: The gigantic cross decimated everything in its path, like a divine decree of extermination falling on the old and new humanity, in fact, maybe it was.
We were the bad guys, our species was, I wasn't going to tell myself otherwise, I didn't want that hypocrisy.
I staggered, with almost no strength left, and walked as far away from the battlefield as possible, however, in the end, my body betrayed me.
I ended up falling, but using the little strength I still possessed I crawled towards a wall, raised my eyes, and...
"Damn, how can something so horrible be so beautiful?"
Once that reddish sky had been a beautiful blue color, or at least, that was what I told myself, because, to be honest, I no longer remembered it.
How did it all turn this way? How did we get to this? I wanted to put my emotions into words, but every time I spoke, the taste of blood flooded my throat, and in the end, I could only put them into thoughts.
Little by little, as my strength faded, the world was losing its color, and for a moment, I just wanted it all to end, I had done well, right?
I enlisted, even though I knew the fate that awaited me, and I fought as hard as I could to save as many people as possible, despite being a human of the old humanity, to whom both the new humanity and the planet abhorred.
But before everything went dark, I heard a voice…
"Anyone? Is there anyone still alive!?"
I bit my tongue, trying to wake myself up, and with what little strength I still had, I reached for my gun in the holster on my right leg, and though I was in pain, I raised my arm and fired into the air.
"What the hell!?"
After a few seconds, I heard footsteps, and then, seeing who he was, I couldn't help but smile cynically, "You look very bad, Godo."
He was a man with tan skin, gray eyes, and long hair tied in a ponytail, his beard was unshaven, and he held a cigarette in his mouth. He was wearing a black jacket, shirt, and pants, and in his hands, he carried a sniper rifle.
At my words, he let out a dry laugh, "Look who's talking, Emiya, what the hell happened to you? Did one of that thing's beams hit you?"
"Close, very close… airplane AIs hate me…"
"Well, there are already two of us..."
The man came over and put one of my arms around his shoulders and made an effort to help me, "Come on, our species is already endangered enough to lose one more member."
"We did it?" I asked almost desperately, "were we able to throw it off course?"
Godo nodded, "We made it, although we almost died trying."
I frowned, "How the hell did we get to this? The war was supposed to be almost won."
As we both moved through the ruins of the city, he nodded, "It was supposed to be like this, but then those things came along, and two unexpected Aristoteles also joined the war, and now the tables are turned against us."
"What do we do? Get a vehicle and report in?"
Godo frowned, "Don't be ridiculous. I don't have that hero complex of yours, I only fight for revenge and because I don't want to die yet."
We got a car, Godo was in charge of opening it and sabotaging it to start it, then he sat in the driver's seat and left me in the passenger seat. And, once turned on, we started up once more…
"For now, let's stay away from the battlefield. If we report to headquarters immediately, we'll be sent to the forefront once again, after all, we're pretty much the only two original humans to have survived multiple clashes against the various Aristoteles."
I didn't like his idea, but I nodded, knowing we weren't in a position to face those creatures again, and returning to the battlefield would only bring us untimely death.
"Tell me, does the Barrel Replica work well?"
Faced with his question, I turned my gaze towards my weapon, a CZ 75 pistol to which I was still holding on tightly, "Yeah, and thanks to this one, I have avoided death several times."
This weapon was not mine, Godo had found it a few years ago along with his rifle, and seeing someone as idiotic as me enlisting to fight the Aristoteles without any kind of weapon, he took pity on me and offered it to me. It was from there that our friendship began, as the only humans in this torn world lacking enough common sense to decide to fight the Aristoteles.
And, although at first, our relationship was cold, at least on his part, after so many times in and out of this hell that was the war against these aliens, we ended up watching each other's backs and becoming close.
"Still, I don't know if the Barrel Replica or your Black Barrel will be effective against those other things. Hasn't headquarters found out anything about them?" I asked like a blind man looking for some light at the end of a tunnel.
"Very little," he answered, "I entered the battlefield after they appeared, so I was not informed of the capabilities of our new enemy; however, what we have learned during the war are not encouraging discoveries."
In the distance, I could see the Ether Liners knights facing the Aristoteles called Saturn Type, and next to them I also saw several species of A-Rays fighting at their side.
Unfortunately, the Aristoteles was not alone either, at its side, monstrous creatures surrounded it and defended and attacked both the ether liner knights and the rest of the A-Rays.
"What was discovered about them?"
Godo took out a cigarette and lit it, as if smoking was a method to reassure himself, "They are creatures that only seek destruction, and like the Aristoteles, they appeared out of nowhere; however, there is something that has been seen every time they appear, a constant."
"What? Anything that can help us deal with them?"
My partner shook his head, "No. What was discovered is that they manifest together with a large amount of a type of energy that we have never seen before."
"An energy never seen before? Like the Grain in its beginnings?"
Godo nodded, "And it expands at a more terrifying rate than the Grain did in its early days, also, since we don't know much about it, was given the provisional name class H energy."
A flash of light lit up the night sky, and it came from the monstrous cross which had almost taken my life hours ago. I couldn't help but shudder at the memory of my near demise, and Godo hit the accelerator harder in an attempt to get us away from the battlefield faster.
"A-Anything else?" I asked in a vain attempt to steady myself.
"It seems to be worse than the Grain in many ways…"
"Worse than that thing?" I asked surprised.
"This energy doesn't just kill, but it seems that it can turn all kinds of beings into beings without consciousness, sense, or reason."
The zombies I saw back then...
I bit my lips, wasn't it enough that we had to face a type of toxin with the ability to end our lives? Godo, I and the rest of the few pure humans who still inhabited this dead planet were not resistant to the Grain, as the Liners and A-Rays were, and the simple fact of having the Grain against us was already more than enough.
"And the knights, or the A-Rays? Can they resist it?"
He shook his head, "They're more resilient than us, that's almost certain, though it's not something that's been proven yet, or worth proving, however, several of the lower-ranked knights were turned in those creatures during the first outbreak, and I... I really don't need to describe them to you, do I? Although you were mostly unconscious during the whole mess, you did see some of them, didn't you?"
I nodded as I watched as those beings who were superior to us, and I'm not just talking about the Liners, but also those who saw us as inferior to them, our other creations, the A-Rays, succumbed to the explosion of that unknown energy.
"If what little we know about H-energy is correct, then you should have died. In fact, if it wasn't for me getting you out of there before the knights restricted the area, you'd already be in some lab as a research subject."
The atmosphere became even tenser than it already was, I lowered my gaze as if I wanted to check that my body was still there, I wanted to check that it still belonged to me, and, for the first time, I was glad to feel sore, it was proof that I was still alive.
I forced a smile, "M-Maybe…maybe I'm lucky?"
And, for the first time in a long time, I saw Godo smile, and not the typically forced smile he always did, a real smile. We'd both worked together long enough for him to know that if there was one thing I lacked, it was luck.
"Only if you consider that continuing to live in this world is considered lucky," my partner replied.
I nodded again. Could continuing to live in this world be considered a fortune? When we had everything against us? No, this wasn't life, we weren't living, we were just surviving however we could.
"Do you think our weapons will work against them?"
Godo grimaced, "Honestly, I have no idea. They are completely new beings and possess a type of energy that we have never seen before. They could work, but the odds are not in our favor."
"Has anything been discovered about them? About their nature or way of acting?"
"They are very similar to the Aristoteles: they only know destruction and death, and they have no other conscience than their will to destroy humanity."
"Do they feel pain, fear of death?"
Godo shook his head, "We have no idea, but just like the Aristoteles, they don't seem to have such concepts."
Suddenly, another ray of light illuminated the heavens, and the ground trembled greatly. From one moment to another, everything had been turned upside down. The vehicle we were in flipped over and spun several times before coming to a stop.
I saw the world in reverse, everything was upside down, "Godo, are you okay!?"
"Yes, more or less…"
Godo kicked the vehicle door several times until it finally gave way and opened, I tried to do the same, but my injuries made any movement real torture. In the end, I was able to get out with Godo's help and we both watched from afar as the battle unfolded.
"It didn't even hit us, we were just tangentially pink from the pressure generated by the attack, and yet it almost wiped us off the map." I clenched my fists in frustration.
Godo turned to the car, "It's not going to start again, the fact that we would have gotten this far in the state it was in is already a lot," then he turned to me, "come on, we can't stay here if we want to survive, and there is still a long way to go to the next habitable settlement."
I nodded, neither of us knew if we would survive until we reached the next settlement, but even so, we walked, walked, and kept walking, we always kept guard, because we didn't know when those creatures would appear to attack us.
"You know, having that angel-class A-Ray right now by our side would have been really helpful…"
Godo forced a smile at my words and replied, "Our relationship wouldn't have worked out."
I smiled cynically, "You say that, but you just wanted to look cool when you both said goodbye…"
"Maybe a little…"
Thus, two of the few and only pure humans on the face of the Earth, continued on their way to somewhere habitable, in a dead and war-torn world, with abominable monsters in every corner, and with almost zero chances of survival.
"Rou? Shi..? Shirou!?"
"What!?" I opened my eyes, and the first thing I saw was my old friend's heterochromatic eyes, too close to keep me calm, "T-Tachie!? W-What are you doing here!?"
Tachie frowned as she walked away and offered me her hand to help me up, "Idiot, it's already morning, and this is our last day before we have to go back to class, did you stay up late training again?"
I looked down embarrassed, we were in my home dojo, "Maybe a little…"
She smiled resignedly, "Come on, shower and get dressed, we have to enjoy our last day of freedom."
"Fine, just give me a moment and I'll make breakfast for both of us."
"Nope, I'll take care of it, this is your punishment for not taking care of yourself."
"B-But!"
"No objections, and by the way, where are your parents? I came to say hello, but the house is empty."
"They went on a trip…"
This seemed to annoy the girl, "I know we're already fifteen, and in a few months, we'll be sixteen, but isn't it very irresponsible of them to leave you alone...? Well, anyway, hurry up, we have to seize the day," she said with a smile and left the dojo.
I smiled awkwardly, Tachie didn't consider Grandpa Raiga's visits to count as leaving someone in charge of me. So after I got up, I followed her while I asked myself: what the hell was that? I had never had such a vivid dream, and an uneasiness settled in my chest, in the world of magecraft, this was not a good sign. Still, I carried those concerns and followed Tachie... maybe it was just a simple nightmare...
Author Notes:
New fic! or translation in this case. As with my other fic, this is a translation of my fic in Spanish and I apologize in advance for any mistakes I may have made.
And I really don't have much more to say, so I appreciate your comments and I hope you enjoyed the chapter, see you in the next one.
