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A Cosmic Disaster
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Grayfia | A Slave

I wanted to run away from this strange place. There was no way I would continue to work here and gain a cultish admiration of him. This place was a mental asylum, and its white walls and technological screens, as well as the clear fountains indoors, all made me sick. The smiles on their faces, with no worries. It was all so ghastly. Then, just when I reconsidered my admiration for him, reality hit me in the face. This was not the place where I'm supposed to be. This is not the place I am going to die.

The nightlife in Singapore was dazzling. I ran towards the clean streets with everybody staring at me, saying I was a foreigner with my looks. Groups of young men laughing at me. I had the mind to freeze them to death. I entered a great market full of street food vendors. It was a high-class area and the best way to hide from supernatural pursuers. Right in the middle of a crowd of people, lowering my magic power to the bare minimum so he couldn't find me. I was in a food courtyard, and I discreetly stole cash from nearby customers. Later I would rent a hotel that prided itself on security and privacy for the moment.

However, before I could route my way out. He walked smack dab in the middle of everyone. His blond hair and exotic appearance should have made a bigger ruckus than my own. But that wasn't the case. Everyone was just pleasantly ignoring him. Though I did not detect any magic that he used or any ambient magic at all.

"It's called Nen. I call one of its techniques Zetsu. It hides my presence with no complicated spells or seals or runes. It operates on a distinct set of rules than magic."

Riser appeared right at my table and sat down in front of me as he spoke. I immediately jumped back among the crowd, frowning at my disturbance. But I did not care. I just escaped. But no matter where, he always found me. It was like I was running from a pursuer in a horror film, and no matter how talented I was at subterfuge, he would discover me and then kill me just like in slasher movies.

I collapsed near an alleyway, simply fantastic, the perfect scene for a crime. And there he comes, the honored CEO of slave town. Wearing his checkered coat like always.

"Your husband bet on your life. From that point forward, I knew he cared more about his sister's marriage. There are never absolutes in this world. When you gamble something, even if you are sure to win, you must prepare to lose that something. So only bet things you expect to lose and be fine afterward. Both humans and devils have the same issue. Maybe even those preaching angels are also just like this."

This young man took on a philosophical approach with his silent voice. Riser took a lot of deliberation, and with a slightly awkward tone, like a rookie teacher trying his best to explain such a simple thing. His detachment and horrible naiveness about things. As well as his macabre sense of morals made me sick. Everything about him, his silence, his ponderation, his insane mindset. Everything made me sick. It was like watching a powerful child taking on an idealized view of things and enforcing it through force.

"What were we supposed to do? What could we do to end the contract then, other than that horrible bet YOU proposed to us?"

"… It was my father and your father-in-law that proposed the engagement. Rias and I are just victims of it."

Riser said so silently, bringing some tea to drink from a nearby vending machine, and he didn't offer me any of it. Instead, he just drank it all. Almost like it was a pain to talk to me.

He sat on the dirty ground of this alley and stared right into my face before closing his eyes.

"Slaves don't get to decide. You're going to work for me until you drop and die."

He said so peacefully, gazing at the horizon. Unfortunately, the nightlife city blocked all the stars above the sky. Riser picked me up in a princess carry. The slave brands on the different parts of my body prohibited any affront to him. Slaves don't attack masters—slaves don't hurt their masters. That was the sort of thinking this man had.

"Slaves don't get to decide…."

This time, Riser said so silently, almost saying the exact phrase, but to himself

I—

I…

I can't find the words.

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A Fated Knight
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Augustus | An Omniscient God

It was when he was just 13 years old. He was walking toward the steps of an ancient temple. This was a temple of a Snake God or something similar.

Oshino had been helping him ever since the incident back then. The incident where he met his future Queen. Now they were on hostile terms with each other. And yet, they still needed each other to survive. So he walked out from the rating games on the weekends to do his business in the real world. And he was using the help of the people he saved and the refugees from past conflicts to build a new life in Singapore and hopefully create a space agency or private enterprise. It was still in its early stages, but hopefully, everything would be alright with that.

Riser sighed silently as he walked the many steps as things started getting cold. Oshino had said that he would meet Gaen Izuko here at this shrine, but there were so many steps. Still, his feet walked up, one by one, as the sounds of fall were gathering in his ears. Riser felt the strange flux of energy in this place, and when he arrived, a destroyed temple and an ancient shrine gate, its redness was full of mud, and the site had a lot of grime patches because it rained so soon.

"Welcome… Riser-chan." Izuko was there at the shrine with her hip-hop getup. A trendy woman in her thirties. She had brown, wavy hair and golden eyes.

"You always make me work. Why are you so intent on using us?"

"Well, well, you still do the work I ask for, right? So there's no need to grumble, and I send you money and lovely presents as rewards always, don't I, Riser-chan."

She arrived near him and pressed her body on him. It implied he attracted her with his looks, which was weird since he was still underage. She was one of those women who preyed on young boys—it appeared. Riser sighed and pushed her away.

"What's the job, human?"

Riser appealed to his authority as a devil. However, Gaen Izuko just laughed at his grandstanding.

"It's a place called Fuyuki City, and there is an event happening there that I disagree with. You will go there and slaughter everyone involved."

Gaen faced him with darkened eyes below her trendy cap.

"You already know who I am. So why are you ordering me to kill people?"

"I summoned a devil to do my bidding, didn't I? Don't devils in myths do as they are told and take the souls of their enemies?"

"Stop. This is no myth, I don't take souls, and I am not a hitman."

Riser was just a young teen, but he was already assertive and had many fights in the rating games.

"No matter how cold the phoenix is, the little thing is still afraid to take lives. Even though you already have taken so many."

"… I live a life of fighting, and I realize reality is cold enough that not all my enemies made it out alive. But I never attacked someone with the intentions to kill them."

Riser was concrete about his moral compass. However, he must have had an enemy in the past he really wanted to kill, so he must have been lying. Is what a normal person might think. Gaen knew, however, that with all his rage and fury, he never did attack someone expecting or aiming to kill them—to take their life. The fact some have died by his hands meant this existence was an uncertain one. In reality, if you hit someone hard on the head, there's a chance you might kill them, while others might survive that same attack. His situation was the same on a superhuman scale. This supernatural life had uncertainty all throughout, more so in warring places, where life is as fickle as a grain of sand in the wind.

"A benevolent devil in a world of cruelty. You are more of a saint than actual saints of the catholic church."

"Never compare me with that organization."

Riser was also particular about this. He never liked his encounters with the inquisition squads or those exorcists. Then again, Riser specifically sought places where there was more conflict than most. Riser got himself involved in situations that were too sad or too macabre for anyone's liking. Meeting the worst of the worst scum the earth offered—was common in his life.

"You should rest sometime, go on vacation or something." Gaen insulted him.

"I would do that if you stopped sending me on these missions."

"You're so cute when you're angry. Did anyone ever tell you that?"

"I hate you so much, Gaen."

"And I love you so much, and I could just gobble you up, Riser-chan."

After their banter, with Gaen testing and insulting him, Riser makes silent remarks and insults back. Gaen finally explained the situation.

The specialists were a very new and powerful group that was now dominating Japan with their expertise in the supernatural. But, since the group of specialists was recent, a few events and rituals and mystical creatures and humanoids needed to be dealt with.

And one of these events was happening in Fuyuki City.

"It seems there were three families of magi, way back when, they started a ritual to search for the truth. And now there is a free-for-all happening every 60 years in Fuyuki City. We can't have their little tournament spilling and making trouble for normal people, right?"

"… Right…" Riser did not know what she was talking about. In fact, he did not know where Fuyuki City even was. By the name it was here in Japan—troublesome. There were so many conflicts all over the place he had no stakes in.

"So then I thought, why not call the tiny phoenix, champion of the innocent, savior of those who can't save themselves? He'd do the work for me, right?" Gaen said this with the most sarcasm possible to him.

"You suck." Riser said so seriously, and she laughed again.

Magi, huh? Are they from the Hero faction or those from the Clock Tower?

Riser wasn't liking this one bit. He had zero knowledge about the Clock Tower and only a scant about the Hero Faction.

"Go to Fuyuki City and stop their little tournament. I don't care if you kill them all to accomplish this. Victims already appeared. They were attacking normal people, working day-to-day people, kids, and families. All these mages and their summons are killing them. All those innocent deaths are because of the supernatural."

Then Gaen smirked at the fall sun behind her body.

"You don't like that, do you? After all, I know everything. About you and your past life."

"…"

And this made even Riser feel intimidated. He pulled a strand of his light blonde hair to calm down.

Gaen couldn't understand why these mages were searching for the truth of all things when she knew everything there was to know. She knew everything in this world and all worlds. So searching for the root was a foiled effort by these mages. And she knew what would happen if someone spilled that chalice many would die. So she sent a devil to make things right.

Ironic, right?

Riser walked through the cold streets of Fuyuki, near a port full of containers. He sensed that something was going on here. Then, from out of nowhere, he was stabbed by a spear from behind and a sword from the front.

"What is happening here?" With his trembling body, Riser felt his body weaken because of the sword coated in invisible air. He used both hands and grabbed both assailants from their necks.

The shimmer dropped, revealed a small woman and an extremely handsome man as the attackers. He threw them away, and they landed gracefully, grabbing their necks as they felt red spots because of Riser's finger almost choking them. Riser grabbed his stomach. The wound wasn't healing, and the other wound was melting with golden dust, the sign of a holy weapon, and the other a cursed wound. Riser looked down, unconcerned, and from his nostrils, like a dragon, flames developed his body, and the wounds disappeared like they were never there. Like a dragon, Riser had spewed flames of life, and the heat was searing the attackers nearby, so they jumped even further back and watched as the ground melted from the fire.

The spearman seemed surprised to see the cursed wound disappear.

"Impossible, my cursed spear!"

The handsome man said as he revealed an even larger red spear, along with the small golden one. However, Riser's focus was not on the attractive man with a spot under his eyes behind him but on the blonde girl knight in front of him.

That should be… That blade is… Excalibur, how? They broke the sword into pieces long ago.

Riser knew that a mighty holy sword made the wound he healed. And the feel of it was definitely one of the Excalibur, though the injury felt like a hundred times worse than an Excalibur fragment. Riser was in-between two mighty warriors, and he faced a white-haired lady behind the small knight girl. The knight girl protected that woman. That woman seemed to be some artificial human. A homunculus, and there was something very evil deep within her.

Gaen Izuko, you bastard, you always send me on these missions with no explanation. You like when I remain ignorant and I get caught in these sorts of situations, don't you?

Augustus, be damned, I hate you so very much.

Riser faced the two servants in this desolate port. And the small knight girl in front of him, she would become one of the most influential people in his life, his little knight.

But he did not know yet. The tragedy of Fuyuki City was beginning.

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Review Corner
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Arpe
Not adding too many universes. There's only 5 spots in the Peerage, Kiss-shot, Jibril, Saber, Shiraori, and Maki.

Soyboi Nathan
I know this is mostly experimental with displacing the arcs, and the short length of each chapter. However, all my fics are very grimdark or edgy.

Anti bashing
Is he a good guy or a bad guy? I never cared when writing my main characters. It's for the readers to decide in all honesty.

0, Dasgun, Uday Sra, Mistroz, Wreck Hell
Thanks for reading.

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Author's notes
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Finally, the Fate crossover makes sense. Phew, I was getting worried. So yes, Riser will be thrust into Fate/Zero with little to no knowledge. It will be a massive arc and as dark as the original Fate/Zero, so be warned.

If you feel strongly about me or my work and want to support me, search for patron and Soluxy together on Google. Or go on Pa/re on and put a /Soluxy after the com. You can view my work early and make valuable suggestions and comments right on my docs.

I would be forever grateful if you become a patron!