Fate/Stay Night, Fate EXTRA, Fate Extella, Fate Hollow Ataraxia, Fate Grand Order, Fate Zero, Carnival Phantasm, Fate Kaleid Prisma Illya, Fate Apocrypha, Fate Prototype, Fate: Today's Menu for the Emiya Family, Fate Requiem, Fate Strange/Fake, Fate School Life, Fate Unlimited Codes, Fate Capsule Servant, Fate: Lord El-Melloi II Case Files and Fate Type/Redline are the creations and intellectual properties of Type-Moon and Nasu Kinoko.
And All the Stars Dropped on my Doorstep.
Artoria Pendragon.
It had been two months since Saber left.
The red haired young man in a white wifebeater and blue jeans stood at the doorstep of his old, newly repaired backyard shed, staring at its floor in silence, even as the bright Sunday morning sun entered from behind him, bathing the whole shed in warm, nearly tropical luminosity.
His mind kept on flashing back to that evening, the one when he had first met her.
Emiya Shirou gasped from his awkward prone position on the old shed's floor, staring up at the figure that had just appeared standing over him. It was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen, with a delicate and fair face that was nonetheless cold and devoid of feelings. Her eyes were large, round and light green, and her hair a pale shade of golden blonde, pulled back into a small bun. She wore a long dress of regal blue cloth, along with a metal chestplate and armored gauntlets and boots. In a hand she held the sturdy handle of a sword, apparently unattached to any blade.
"I am Servant Saber," she told him, bathed from behind by the silver moonlight filtered through the large hole in the wall, with a calm and aloof voice. "I ask of you, are you my Master?"
"Geh…!" Shirou stuttered, too shocked to say anything else. "Geh…!"
She nodded. "I'll assume that's a yes, then. Negatives are usually conveyed as 'Gah!'…"
But then, zooming across the air, the maniac in blue tights who had been chasing Shirou around from school broke into the shed, waving that long spear of his, and this 'Saber' immediately spun around, swinging her hilt with both hands, and just as soon, there was a thundering boom and the man was swatted by some invisible force, directly back out of the shed and onto the Emiya house's backyard.
"Shirou," a voice was saying from behind him now. Only that word, and nothing else.
He didn't even need to turn back to know who this was. He still did so, regardless. For, what else could he do?
And so he did, staring widely, in a stunned, complete silence. There she was again, as if she had never left in the first place. The same petite, ever valiant and beautiful majestic presence in blue.
Shirou only could look on in helpless mutism, as he gazed and gazed upon Saber, seemingly more golden than ever under the radiant sun. For some reason, her fabled sword was quite visible in its entirety, sheathed by her right hip, but that was the last thought in his mind at the moment.
So he just ran to her and caught her in a crushing hug, pressing her against himself as if never wanting to let go.
The green eyes widened. "Shirou..."
"Saber..."
After another moment, she smiled and closed her eyes, resting her head against his chest. "It has been such a long time, Shirou. I raced across the streams of time, along the fields of eternity. I became a true Legendary Spirit for your sake, and I was reborn, not once but twice now. I fought along all of mankind's finest, and some of its worst, and I struggled past and back from death, just so I could come back to your side."
He sniffed, caressing her arms, drinking on his scent. "I know, Saber. I always knew you would! That you could. Deep inside, I knew. I'm sorry! I'm... just sorry I couldn't run from my own side, just as much, to reach you..."
"You would have done it eventually, I'm certain of that," she said fondly, finally pulling back and devoting the most beautiful of smiles upon him. "However, there is something you need to know, Shirou."
"What is it, Saber?"
She stepped back from him and graciously gestured behind herself, stepping aside so Shirou could see. "I didn't come alone."
Emiya Shirou only could gasp.
Gilgamesh of Uruk.
"I remember my death, mongrel," the King of Heroes said, sitting on the back porch of Shirou's house, and staring at the nocturnal sky, full of shiny stars.
Shirou could only flinch uneasily, standing shortly behind him, and already regretting having stepped out. Yet then he thought back of the War, out of everything Gilgamesh had done during it, and his blood burned again. "Do you want to fight me again?" he asked, a fist tightening by his side. "Fine with me. But not here!"
The gorgeous blond man in the all golden armor chuckled, closing his red snake eyes. "Fool! Are you so insecure of yourself? Do you need to prove your worth against me once more, to convince yourself your last triumph wasn't a fluke. Then you are even more of a pretender than I thought!"
"Then why are you bringing that back?" Shirou asked bitterly, staring down at him. "You'll never forgive me, and you know I'll never forgive you. All you did to those children, the things you did to Illya, what you would have done to this world! Do you think I'll ever forget that so easily?!"
"I don't expect you ever to," the Golden King said. "I know I wouldn't, were our roles reversed. But fighting you is pointless. Tell me, Emiya Shirou." He pointed at the full silver disc above. "What do you see there?"
Shirou squinted upwards. "The Moon? What about it?"
"You are naught but a child," Gilgamesh said. "I once met a child like you, one equally full of foolish youth and naivete, yet lacking your dreams and goals. This child only struggled to stay alive, to later figure out what to desire from life. I fought by that person's side, and held that person's hand, to guide that person beyond the stars, towards a future we could shape together. Yet that came to an eventual end, too, and my spirit drifted, until I met your beloved, my beloved, again. We have died and been reborn through fire and carnage, yet we keep struggling back up, for that is the only thing we can do. Strike me down again, if you wish so. It won't change anything."
Shirou frowned, still staring along him. "What are you trying to tell me? That you finally achieved wisdom through that person? That you finally became a better man? I'm calling you out on your lies, King of Heroes! Were that true, you'd have apologized to Tohsaka. You'd have paid penance to Illya's grave. You'd regret your actions, instead of avoiding ever talking about them!"
He chuckled softly, shaking his head. "Still the same pretender, I see! Your girlfriend doesn't want or need my apologies. Neither do you, and certainly, a grave never will! I have died more than once already, Faker. It really changed nothing, for them or for you. Killing me again will not improve your situation either. Killing you will not improve mine! If this sets your mind in peace, never again will I attempt to eradicate mankind. That was foolish, because that was not me. That was-"
"What, are you going to blame the Grail now?!" Shirou growled at him. "Are you going to take the easy way out, to say your precious, indomitable self was corrupted after all?! That the Gilgamesh who did all of that died, and am I supposed to be content with that?! I'd truly deserve your scorn, if I were stupid enough as to believe any of that!"
"Let me finish, you insolent," the King calmly raised a hand. "You are correct, it was not any external influence forcing my hand. I wouldn't deserve my title, if I were a mere slave to anyone or anything else's whims. Rather, I fell prey to my own flaws. A great man must have great vices of character, and there is no greater man than myself."
Unbelievable. Even when he was admitting faults, he was nothing but a pompous asshole.
"I will tell you this, boy," the King said, his voice slightly distant now, as if dreaming of long dead things, of forgotten realms. "My own pride, my own anger, were my doom, for no man but Gilgamesh could befall Gilgamesh. You merely happened to take advantage of that strength that became my worst weakness. See that you don't follow my example. Think clearly. See that your inner darkness doesn't twist your dreams into your living nightmare."
Shirou had nothing to say to this.
The man of gold kept on looking at the stars.
Tamamo-no-Mae.
"The Master of Chaldea?" the pink haired young lady with fox ears and the long fluffy tail said, blinking from where Shirou had caught on her, flipping through the channels while splayed on his couch. "Did I just hear correctly?"
Shirou nodded. "Yes. I was talking with Gilgamesh last night, and he mentioned something about having a Master somewhere on the Moon, then also working for this Master of yours in Chaldea. I don't know any of you but Sab- but Artoria all that well, so I went to Holmes-sensei since I figured he'd be smart enough as to give me answers on the full picture, but he only told me to come ask you."
The woman laughed, blowing on herself with her small, colorful fan. "Ohh, you never should ask him for straight answers on anything, Shirou-sama! That man's an addict to solving riddles and then keeping the solutions to himself. At best, he'll try you to see if you're worth knowing too! But, he pointed you the right way," she wagged a finger at him and winked. "Out of all us, only Gil-kun, the Whore of Babylon, BB and I got to meet both Goshujin-sama and Ritsuka-sama up close and personal, and you reeeally don't want to ask any of the other three!"
She gave a very wide grin as she invited him to sit before her. "Come on, come on, make it quick before any of the others barges in! What do you want to know?"
Shirou rubbed the back of his neck. "I don't know, I'm not even that sure myself. I'm just... curious, I guess. This Ritsuka was a Master to all of you, right? That's... impressive, I don't know how anyone could ever do that. I barely managed to be a half-decent Master for, ah, Artoria, and frankly, I don't think any of the others could have done it either."
"Oh, so you're worried thinking about how you compare...!" she chuckled cagily, stroking her chin.
"I'm not!" he protested. "It's not that!"
"Well, I don't know you all that well yet, so I can't tell how you stack up," the courtesan said. "But from what Artoria-sama used to tell us, yours is a marked personality, for better or worse. That is why she came to love you, after all. Goshujin-sama and Ritsuka-sama were both... a different kind of people. What was nice about them was how easy it was to get along with them. Have you ever sat by a quiet river under a bright sun? No, of course you haven't, children nowadays can't do that, your rivers are all polluted. Well, picture the most agreeable place you've ever known, and imagine sitting there all day long, just enjoying the experience. That's how it was, to be with them. You felt spoiled and pampered, you could just be yourself without any pressure."
Shirou frowned. "The impression Saber got was... that I was pressuring her?" he asked, concerned.
"Well, she's the type who needs pressure to improve and stay on the right path, so I imagine you were right what she needed," Tamamo allowed. "And there's another big difference between your relationship with her and ours with them. You were a two-person team, a Dynamic Duo! Goshujin-sama handled Nero and me as partners at the same time, that made for a wholly different dynamic. As for Ritsuka-sama... well, Ritsuka-sama was more like a commander, to so many of us at the same time. Obviously, none of us could ever spend as long with Ritsuka-sama as you spent with Artoria-sama. Maybe you should ask Galahad-sama. She was Ritsuka-sama's right hand woman, the closest confidante Ritsuka-sama ever had."
Shirou-sama, I mean Shirou, nodded. "You got to know Hakuno-san much better, then."
"Oh, Holmes gave you the name, didn't he?" Tamamo rubbed her forehead with a hand. "When did he figure that out, I never told him- Never mind, must've gotten it from one of the idiots! Yes, of course I was much closer to Goshujin-sama, that is why I'm his wife and not Ritsuka-sama's."
"That, and you got to meet Hakuno-san first, right?"
Tamamo gave a small frown. "That's... a way to put it, but in truth, if my feelings for Ritsuka-sama had ever surpassed those I had for Goshujin-sama, I'd have become the latter's widow and the former's bride. Artoria-sama's romanticism, her whole running across eternity spiel, that is admirable and all, but it's not healthy. Artoria-sama is the kind of woman who has major problems letting go of the past. And when you look at the past," she mused on with a look in his eyes that reminded Shirou of Gilgamesh stargazing, "you've got to make sure you aren't clutching to the pain along with the joys. Some things, some people, you've got to let go of. Some others must stay with you. It's a difficult balance, and right now, well, we've just lost Ritsuka-sama, so we're all kind of coping with that part of the balance again. On second thought, please don't ask Galahad-sama for anything yet! It'll hurt her more than anyone else!"
Shirou blinked. "I... I'm sorry I ever asked you, then. I should have thought-"
"It's fine," Tamamo-no-Mae sighed with airs of great, wise dignity. "Out of all of us, Artoria-sama is probably the happiest now, since she's back with her true love, so you should feel happy for her. Well, she and Columbus, that bastard's never loved anyone."
"Uhh..."
Tamamo smiled and gave him a small pat on the arm. "You're a good man, Shirou-sama. I can tell that much now. Enjoy your happiness while you can, that's my advice. Life doesn't give second chances to most of us."
He wanted to object then, on the grounds of what Gilgamesh had said on the Servants' circles of death and rebirth. Surely they got second chances all the time? Second chances to experience new avenues of suffering, but also-
And then, he understood. Servants were not most people.
Medea of Colchis.
He saw her leaving very early the next morning, passing by his bedroom's window and racing across the grass of the front yard, under the dim dawning light. They were all still getting used to having to operate with physical bodies all the time again, after so long of being Heroic Spirits, and so, it was natural for them to be careless with such things.
Shirou sighed, got up from bed, and quickly pulled a sweater and jacket on. By the time he had sneaked out of the house, there was no trace of the woman in purple, but that was okay. He knew her exact destination perfectly well, and so he made his way up the mountains, through the woods, until he reached the ruins of the temple and saw her kneeling on the dirt, turning her back on him.
Loss of Servant status or not, her senses seemed just as keen as before.
"You shouldn't have followed me," she told him, without looking back.
"I haven't ever been known for my good decisions," he admitted, his hands in his pockets. "All the same, I wouldn't want you to hurt yourself or anything."
She chuckled bitterly, sinking her hands in the dirt. "Damn this world! The pain had been dulled back, you know? Nobody respected me back there, and your Servant still hated me, but at the very least, I had stopped missing him so much. I know I shouldn't have, and it always felt like a betrayal, but even so, being there gave other things to think about. It kept me busy, and sane, for the first time in so long! Now that damned Alien God threw me back, in a final cruel jest, and I have to see Souchirou-sama's face again, in my dreams!" she screamed, slamming her fists on the mud.
He said nothing, and only lowered his head further.
"Do you think this is the world of any fair gods?!" she demanded. "To be granted release, the eternal sleep of Hades, is one thing! For the single person who ever loved me to fade back, while I cannot, to know I will never see him again, that is another! This life, too, will eventually end, and I will return to the Throne, and he will never be there, to take my hand through the never ending road! A road I will always have to take alone!"
"I'm sorry," he said, for that was the only thing he could do.
She sobbed, taking her hands to her face. "I'd have been much happier without that brief respite of happiness! Knowing true love just once and then losing it forever, that's far worse than never truly loving at all!"
"And when you look at the past," the other Caster had said, "you've got to make sure you aren't clutching to the pain along with the joys. Some things, some people, you've got to let go of. Some others must stay with you."
But, how do you tell that to someone who has had a single thing to ever clutch onto?
Shirou crouched behind her. "Someday, you'll know someone who can take that road with you. A never ending road is, after all, a road of infinite possibilities. It will come to pass."
She sniffled, her face still hidden in the shadows of the purple cloak. "Why can't it be him? His only sin was never becoming notable. Despite that, he was a good man, much better than many who achieved the immortality of ideas and concepts. He deserved better! If only I could, if only I had ever, if only I- I-"
She took a trembling hand to her face and wept on it, shaking. "I miss him so much...!"
Quietly, he placed a hand on her shoulder and prepared for death.
Nothing happened, but the soft sounds of her weeping.
Finally, she glanced back at him. The hood had slipped down enough to allow a view of the delicate face soaked in tears, and she said, "Enjoy your time with Saber to its fullest, Emiya Shirou. So she has more to cling onto than what I will take back to the never ending odyssey."
He nodded in silence, and helped her back up.
They made the way back home without saying anything.
Heracles.
It wasn't like he could walk around the streets freely, without calling attention upon himself, unlike most of the others. So it genuinely surprised Shirou when, on his way back home from school that late afternoon, he heard some rough whispers being sent his way from above, and then he looked up to see the Prince of Power crouched on a house's rooftop.
Shirou began choking in his saliva, looking around wildly. "What! What?! Are you crazy?! If someone sees you...!"
"I'm not crazy anymore. That's why I'm doing this," the giant said, leaping down to land before him on the sidewalk, causing a small tremor along the lonely street. "Calm down. I know what I'm doing. Follow me."
There was no point whatsoever on objecting, so Shirou followed him, and soon enough they had taken enough turns through secondary streets and alleys that they had made it out of the city borders without being seen by anyone but several stray cats, somehow. This, frankly, impressed Shirou more than anything else he'd ever seen Heracles doing before. He was about to point it out, too, when the mountain of a man spoke, guiding him up another hill, the opposite way Medea had taken that morning.
"I still remember how to move around without being seen. It's more difficult, now. But not impossible yet."
His voice remained just as deep and fearsome, but now he wasn't roaring and bellowing, it was nowhere are terrifying, just unsettling and intimidating. It was, more than anything else, surreal to hear him talking like a normal person- of sorts- but now Shirou could at least start realizing why people would think of him as a hero rather than a monster. It'd been a long while since the last time he had thought of Hercules that way.
"You know where we're going, right?"
"Of course," Shirou nodded. "You... You want to pay tribute?"
"I don't want to. I need it."
"But... you haven't actually lost Illya-chan. You retrieved her. You've got Sitonai-chan, and there's also, well, Illya-chan, and-"
"If you think they are the same as her," the giant questioned, not glancing back, "why have you kept your distance from them?"
Shirou looked down. "Good point," he allowed.
"I saw you leaving after Medea this morning. I have to sleep in the garden, remember?"
Yes, of course he did. He had to, since no room in the house was big enough for him. Bunyan-chan could at least shrink down to a manageable size. "You and Medea are friends, aren't you?"
"We were, once."
"I think she could use a few friends right now. Maybe now that you're, well, thinking clearly, you could tell Atalanta-san, and-"
"She's not the same woman we once knew."
"Well, maybe you could make friends with that woman all over again, then!" Shirou insisted.
Now Heracles did look back at him, as the ruins of the Einzbern Castle were visible up in the woods.
Shirou frowned. "What?"
For the first time, Shirou saw the wide shadow of a grim smile curve itself up that craggy brutish face. "Nothing. Now I understand, I suppose."
"Now you suppose... what?!" Shirou said, rushing after him as the demigod easily made the rest of the way with long, elastic steps. Soon enough, they were walking through half-destroyed walls and into the wide ballroom where he and Illya had once died. The giant put his huge weapon down and fell to a knee, head low, facing the spot of her death.
Shirou realized then that, unlike Medea, he wasn't spilling any tears. Of course, the easy answer would be that he was a big, manly man and Medea was just a lady, and that, while Issei had cried plenty over Kuzuki-sensei's demise, Issei was a sensitive man. But all of that, Shirou was realizing now, was probably just what he would like to think, to stop chastising himself over the fact he wasn't crying either.
"I'm the worst," Shirou decided, letting go of his schoolbag on the floor.
"Why do you say that?"
"I couldn't save her. You tried, you overcame impossible odds. It wasn't your fault it happened anyway, but, I, I... I didn't even really try, I was too stupid to be there in the right moment! If Saber and I had helped you...!"
"Do you want to kill Gilgamesh, now?"
"Eh?"
He flexed a massive fist, in and out. "I know I want to. You must want it, too. So why don't we do it?"
"Is... Is that an offer? Seriously?"
"Between your Reality Marble and my skills, we could do it, easily," Heracles said, a low, guttural grumble erupting from him. "Few would hold it against us. Several would even help us. Most would stand aside. Only Enkidu would aid him, and we can beat him, too."
Shirou paused, unsure of what to say. "Is... Is that justice?" he finally asked.
"You tell me. Hera, the mother goddess, caused me more pain than any other person ever did, even moreso than him. Yet when the moment came, I forgave her for all the lives she destroyed just to fulfill her grudge against me. All just so I could stand along the gods! Did I do wrong? You tell me, boy. Should I have challenged the Heavens, warred against my father? Should I have brought a new war between Man and God? I ask you sincerely, boy. Even now, I don't have an answer. Even now, I doubt!"
"What price must be paid for justice?" Shirou mused, looking at the spot with pain in his heart.
"Indeed."
Shirou then showed him the way to the small grave Rin and him had dug.
Neither could cry there, either.
"I wish I could..." was all he said, reaching a hand for it, never quite touching it, and Shirou couldn't figure out exactly what he meant with that. The most obvious answer would be 'I wish I could bring her back', or perhaps 'I wish I could have saved her'. Yet there was also the 'I wish I could avenge her' option- except because they could do that, couldn't they? Most chilling of all, the answer might be 'I wish that could change anything'.
Or maybe he, too, just wished he could cry.
Shirou and the son of Zeus then began their slow way down the mountain.
Illyasviel von Einzbern.
"We're going to need an alias for you," Tohsaka Rin decided, looking at her from the other end of the table. "A new identity, the whole nine yards. Otherwise, Clock Tower's going to be all over us in no time!"
"We're Japanese, we don't use that system of measuring!" the staff fluttering around the surprised Illya said. "You're going to have to speak more clearly!"
"Shut up, that's a figure of speech that anyone can follow!" Rin said, taking both hands to her head. "I've just returned from Clock Tower with my head barely on my shoulders, if they learn I've got a whole bunch of Heroic Spirits living in my jurisdiction they'll throw the hammer down and not even Master Zelretch will be able to save my ass this time!" she lamented. "They'll even erase the Tohsaka name from every record, I'm sure, and Luvia will be laughing every step of the way...!"
"L-L-Luvia-san wouldn't do that, I'm sure she'd stop laughing as soon as she realizes she won't have anyone to fight anymore! Well, the Luvia-san we know would, at least!" Illya gasped, waving her small white hands before herself, as if that solved anything. "Besides, that's fine because we aren't Heroic Spirits anymore! Right, Kuro-chan?!"
"Guess so," her dark skinned, pink haired counterpart shrugged from where she sat before the TV, barefoot and watching the soap opera.
Rin facepalmed. "Look, kid. If you're seen around, word will eventually get to the Einzberns. They will notice an anomaly with the records, since you were supposed to have died during the War, and Clock Tower will notice too! Then they'll send a commission to look into this, and they'll find everyone else, and then they'll fry my butt, and no doubt Emiya-kun's too!"
"No way!" Illya snapped. "I won't let them!"
"Like hell they're hurting Oniichan!" Chloe nodded, growling while biting the Pocky stick in her mouth by half.
"Well, he's not the same Oniichan you had way back at home," Prisma Ruby reminded them. "Maybe it's not worth going to war for him?"
Illya seethed and began strangling the staff. "You stay out of this unless you're asked otherwiseeeee!"
Ruby began flapping around wildly. "Rin-sama, save meeeeeeee!"
Rin sighed. "It's a lost cause anyway! These hotheads, and we have too many of them here, won't stay idle for long! As soon as they stop mourning this Ritsuka guy, they'll take their separate ways and cause so much chaos the Association will track them all the way to our door! We're as good as dead!"
Chloe, or Kuro as she'd rather be called, pouted. "Hey, don't call him 'that guy'! He was our Master too, you know!"
Artoria, on her way back from the kitchen with a small pile of sandwiches on a plate, tried to calm Rin down while sitting down next to Kuro. "Medusa and I aren't going anywhere, Rin, and I'm sure neither will Heracles. My Knights will always come to my aid whenever I call for them, as well. Between us, Sitonai and Miyu, we will protect you against anything the Associations could throw your way."
Rin blinked. "Uh, that... That's actually very nice from you, Sab- Artoria, but still-"
"Madam Blavatsky will probably help us too if only because it means going up against Clock Tower," the blonde said, taking a first big bite, "and that means Edison and Tesla will be on our side as well. There's nothing to be afraid of, really."
"Actually, the more of them you mention, the scarier it all sounds," Illya said.
"Oh my, just look at this," Ruby said. "The segment titled after you is almost over and you didn't have that much protagonism! Isn't that sad, Illya-chan?"
Rin squinted at her. "What the hell are you talking about now?"
Medusa.
After dinner, Rin and Shirou stood right outside the house discussing these very issues when Medusa walked out to address them, as quietly as ever.
"My apologies for interrupting, Shirou-san, Rin-san," the cold, tall, blindfolded beauty said, mildly surprising both. "But this isn't a matter that can be delayed any longer. Since our arrival, I have been assembling a... small team of sorts to tackle a subject I couldn't deal with for the duration of the War."
Shirou blinked. "What do you mean, Rider?"
Medusa gestured into the house, and out stepped a silently grim Amakusa, Martha, and even Jeanne D'Arc, the White Maiden of Orleans. "Please follow us," Medusa asked a confused Shirou and a suddenly apprehensive Rin. "Everything will be clear upon destination."
So they followed the four legends out, into the night, managing to make a clear path away from most eyes but those of the occasional bum too drunk to care or remember later. All the way Shirou was intrigued, and Rin seemed slightly pale, as if somehow intuitive of their objective and all the more troubled by it.
Sure enough, they soon had reached a large, old manor a few streets away. "Sakura's house?" Shirou said. "Of course you'd want to see her again, Rid- Medusa-san, but right now probably isn't the best-"
Medusa said nothing and just kicked the front gates, sending them flying against the house. "RIDER!" Shirou gasped, all correction momentarily forgotten as the four larger than life figures stomped their way in, three of them following the Gorgon's lead. "Are you crazy?! What's the meaning of-!"
Rin bit on her lower lip and grabbed him by a wrist, pulling him along. "Don't ask, Emiya-kun. Just follow," she said, and they did, even as Medusa, with the Monstrous Strength she had long before ascending to the Throne, took hold of the house's front door and ripped it off its hinges.
"SAKURA!" she howled, loud enough to make Heracles proud, and all around the house, every large old tree began buzzing alive with the startled motion of so many insects, hundreds of them flying out of the foliage and zooming down, even as Rin forcefully tugged Shirou in, after the storming heroes of yore. "Sakura, I'm here!"
Down in the basement, something squirmed, then rose from the darkness, scowling viciously.
Up in the attic, while applying a wet rag on the forehead of a traumatized, twitching young man, a shapely girl with purple hair and eyes tensed up.
Shirou was waving his arms and Projecting Archer's blades to keep the swarms away, swatting in every direction but those of his comrades leading the way. Rin, with a driven frown etched onto her face, burned more of the twisted creatures, abnormally hunchbacked and multi-legged, as they approached them, and every slam of Martha's staff on the floor just made those flying towards them drop dead by the handful, Jeanne praying under her breath along her longtime enemy.
In the basement, worms and vermins slithered from every corner and fissure on the floor, converging towards the pit from where he was rising, summoning a wooden staff to his hand with nothing but a twist of his wrist.
Shirou squinted through the desperate swarms biting and stinging at them, seeing Rider lead the way directly towards a small wooden trapdoor, and then smashing it down with a kick. He could hear Sakura's voice, as she made her way down the stairs towards them, and he wondered what was going on, even though, deep in his heart, he knew. Nowhere as much as Rin, but in truth, it all was coming together in his mind. He just hadn't realized it yet.
The three saints raised their voices together, in righteously furious Latin, while the Pagan monster overtook them, storming her way down narrow stairs. "Matou Zouken!" she shouted, swinging her chain and hooks. "Come, and face death like a man!"
The small, withered thing in the pit cried, words too horrible, too obscene, summoning his creatures all around himself and projecting them upwards, protecting his vile home. From above, Rin paled hideously, and Shirou stared on with widely round golden eyes, Medusa dashing down to slash and snarl over the litany of the Saints' ever constant prayers.
The evil below kept on shouting, threatening, cursing and insulting, a relentless storm even as the Gorgon moved her arm in a swift, decisive final stroke, and sliced his neck off, black blood squirming in every way.
Shirou didn't even feel Sakura coming to a halt right behind him as he saw the head of the affable grandfather he'd met years ago roll across the floor littered on worms. The head's pale lips kept on moving, forming despicable words to go with its fate filled stare, before a grunting Medusa swung a leg ahead and crushed the skull into pieces with her heel.
Shirou was sure the Matou house was still burning while he was sitting back in his living room, silently holding an eerily quiet Sakura against him. Rin sat and wept at a corner, while Shinji drooled on the sofa, eyes nailed nowhere, hands clawing at a cushion.
Some things had not changed. Sister Caren would be calling it the first 'gas leak' since her arrival, and nobody would miss the last head of a dying clan. Not even Clock Tower.
The Heroes had all retreated, leaving room for them, Lu Bu sitting on Mephistopheles somewhere, to keep him from squirming around to spy on them. Only Medusa remained, at Sakura's own petition, standing aside awkwardly.
"Thank you," the girl finally said.
"Did... Did he know?" Shirou asked quietly, glancing at Shinji.
Sakura took a moment to give a whispered answer. "Yes."
"Sonuva...!" Rin cursed bitterly, shaking a fist. "I should've...!"
"It's enough for a night," Shirou said blandly, holding Sakura against himself in a warm embrace. Slowly, he felt himself tearing up, and for a moment that almost made him somewhat happy. He was human after all, and Kirei had been wrong. He wasn't just the priest's mirror opposite, the same but different. He wasn't just a machine of urges to save and protect. He loved Sakura...
Then he realized, from his heart, that his tears were tears of anger rather than pain, and his soul sank again.
"I'm sorry," he told her, and held her even tighter.
"Thank you for everything," Medusa told him when the two of them were alone, and Rin took Sakura to her own guest room. Well, Shinji still spasmed in the sofa, but he was all but a vegetable now.
"I didn't do anything," Shirou said.
"Thank you anyway," she said. "I'm sorry. I should have been a stronger Servant for Sakura. If I'd resisted Shinji's orders, like Saber would have done, I'd have saved her at least two more months of this. At the very least, I could've contacted you instead of fighting you."
Shirou shrugged. "You did what you could, and that's what counts."
She looked at him through the special glasses she was wearing now. "Then, what can I do for you now, Shirou?"
"Nothing." He shook his head.
"If you think I shouldn't be hard on myself," she told him. "The same applies to you, even moreso. You are just a man. You-"
"No, I'm not a man, the false priest was right," he brooded, bringing his hands together on his face. "I'm as disgusting as him. All that moves me is to save others for the sake of saving, but..."
He was unable to finish the idea, instead making an anguished sound.
Medusa paused for a moment before putting a hand on his shoulder. "Shirou. I'm an Anti-Hero. I couldn't tell you what true heroism feels like. For all it might mean, you do sound and seem like a true hero to me, and I have fought against and along them for years now. If anyone ever told you otherwise, remember two things. One, that being called a monster was what turned me into a monster, not my nature by birth, and the same might apply to you. It might not. But secondly, and the most important, tonight you saved nobody. Like you said, it was the four of us who did it. But you did something more important. You held an already saved girl and comforted her, because that was the correct thing to do. And because you love her."
He looked up at her, surprised. "Rid-"
"Medusa," she corrected him, putting a finger on his lips. "Once again, I don't know much about heroes. But I know a bit more about good people. Perhaps you are no hero, although I can't see why you wouldn't be. But I am fully sure, with every fiber of my being, that you are a good man."
He smiled at her, and she smiled back.
Then Nightingale stormed in and began pulling him aside. "I need to treat all those insect stings right now..."
Astolfo of Mercia.
"Boo. Boo!" the little, slim, pink haired man blew into Leonidas' ear as soon as he'd fallen asleep.
"GAAHHH!" the muscular, hairy chested Gerard Butler lookalike sprang up on his futon, startled. "A ghost?!"
Cu Chulainn groaned, covering his own head with his pillow. "Damn it, kid!" he growled. "Cut it out already, will you?! Fuck it, I wish I could just go astral and fuck off somewhere, like in the old times...!"
A overcrowded Emiya House, large as it was, was an inevitability with so many former Heroic Spirits dropping from an apparently obliterated timeline after saving the rest of realities. So it had come to be that Shirou had been forced to room with Astolfo, Chevalier D'Eon, Cu Chulainn, Leonidas and Amakusa. The fact Shirou was forcing a room with the man who had once killed him bothered him slightly, if he had to be perfectly honest, but at least he didn't have to do it with Rin's Archer. Still, the pink haired effeminate youngster was proving to be somewhat testing on the host's nerves, especially when compared with the even more androgynous but much better behaved D'Eon.
"Ah ha ha ha, sorry, sorry!" Astolfo laughed, slapping himself on a knee. "It's just, whew, this never gets old!"
"Oh, yes! Yes, it does!" Leonidas growled, head veins popping as he gestured as if to strangle the Paladin.
"Astolfo," D'Eon groaned, "the Master's still warm in his figurative grave, remember? This isn't a time to be partying and pranking yet...!"
Astolfo puffed his cheeks up. "Tch! I insist, since we saw no body, Master can't possibly be dead! Master was a man among men, after all! He must be somewhere out there, swooning everyone off their feet, and sooner or later, our paths will cross again! I mean, I never thought I'd meet Sieg again, except because, yeah, I totally thought so, and guess what-"
"We know, we were there with you in that singularity, remember!" Cu shouted, tossing a pillow on his face. "Fine, when Master randomly shows alive and well, then you start being an asshole for no reason again! In the meanwhile, let me sleep, little girl!"
Astolfo pouted a few times, rubbing himself on the face. "Geez, what a grouch, I was just trying to cheer you up! Everyone's been so moody of late, even though we've just saved the world and are now on vacation! If we really need something to do, we might just go looking for the Mas-" He looked at the calendar on the wall. "Hey, on the subject of reconnecting with lost Masters, Miss Celenike should be still alive in this timeline, right?"
"I suppose," Amakusa sighed. "What of it?"
"I kinda miss her, it's been a while," Astolfo decided, suckling on his pointer finger and sitting on his futon, creamy legs in short shorts crossed. "I'd like to pay her a visit, see if she's doing fine."
"Why would you want to check on a woman who tied you up to torture racks and lashed you while in her underwear?" Amakusa asked him.
"I think you've just answered your own question, haven't you?" Cu asked him in turn.
"Don't play the puritan, priest, I bet you and Semiramis engage into far worse every night," the King of Sparta scolded him.
"We do not!" Amakusa protested.
"They surely are just itching to leave this house so they can start doing it like rabbits again," the Irish Heracles chuckled, and he and Leonidas shared a fist bump.
"Now, now, there's nothing bad with doing Madame Semiramis, guys!" Astolfo tried to defend the honor of Amakusa's lady in his own way. "I mean, I would totally do her if only she didn't hate me so m-!"
Amakusa's fist collided against his face. "Don't even think about it!"
D'Eon sighed delicately. "If we really do ever find Master Ritsuka, he's going to be so upset at you gentlemen. Sorry about all of this, Monsieur Shirou... Eh? Monsieur Shirou?! Where did he go?!"
Heracles sweatdropped as he rested on his back on the yard, Shirou having set his futon on his chest and now sleeping soundly on it.
"..." the hulking demigod said.
Galahad of Corbenic.
"Do you think Mister Astolfo might be right?" the petite, dark skinned Hassan of Serenity, dressed in the black weeds of a widow, complete with a thick veil to best conceal her poison, asked the towering, busty Minamoto no Raikou, also fully clad in solid black. "That he might be still alive, somewhere? I want to believe, but..."
"So do I," the taller woman said, as the seven of them advanced through the graveyard, "but all the same, this is something that needs to be done. We need to pay our respects either way. This is a moral obligation," she lectured with the utmost severity.
In truth, it felt good to be free from the Mad Enhancement of a Berserker. For the longest time she had not been in her right mind while interacting with one of the most important people in her life, and now that she could properly talk with him, he was gone, probably forever. Ah well. At the very least she still had her other precious child, and she also was better off than Kiyohime in matters concerning sanity or lack thereof.
The aquamarine haired Japanese young woman wept on loudly, wringing and shredding yet another black handkerchief in her hands, and staggering her way while Leonardo da Vinci, the Renaissance genius reincarnated in the form of his immortal Mona Lisa, gently guided her along. Kiyohime was in even more severe weeds than Serenity's, a wide brimmed hat hiding her horns, and other than the fact she hadn't lashed out and started attacking everyone yet, her behavior hadn't improved particularly through the last few days. At the very absolute least, now she could be taken out of the house without having her collapse on herself after a few steps.
"Anchin-sama, Anchin-sama, Anchin-sama...!" she was repeating to herself.
"Here," Sherlock Holmes said, stopping before the small set of family graves. Two bigger ones and a diminutive one between them. The black haired detective took a short breath and looked back at the rest of the small delegation following him. "James, if you would please."
"Very well," the silver haired older gentleman said, swallowing his pride over being commanded by him, and kneeling by the smallest headstone, to gently set a bouquet of red roses on the grave. "Sweet dreams, dear child."
The buxom young woman in black with short pinkish hair sniffled, wiping a tear out a corner of her eye. "Oh... Okay, what should we do now? One of us should have a few words, or something like that, I assume Mister Holmes has prepared-"
"Far from it, there's no point in doing so for an occasion like this," the super sleuth said, waving a hand gloved in white.
"What... Seriously, Holmes?!" his archenemy gasped. "How could you! Surely Shakespeare and Lady Murasaki prepared something for the occasion! They would have to!"
The younger man denied with his head, pulling a cigarette out and lighting it up. "For once, this isn't an occasion for previously arranged plans, but for words and feelings coming directly out of... the heart in the heat of the moment. I'm sure you agree, or else you would have prepared a speech of your own."
James Moriarty scoffed, offended once again by his rival's temerity. "I'm a teacher of Mathematics, not Language!"
"I thought your genius encompassed all subjects?" Holmes allowed himself a wry smile.
"Don't you dare smile on the grave of my protege's counterpart, you-!" Moriarty wagged a finger emphatically at him.
"Holmes, please," Da Vinci sighed.
Kiyohime threw herself on the gravestone, hugging it. "ANCHIN-SAMA, ANCHIN-SAMA, ANCHIN-SAMA...!"
"See?" Holmes said dryly, in the middle of vigorous cigarette puffings. "That is the intention. Something that speaks directly from our souls, without thinking of it in advance. A token of sincere love or, in my case, respect for the young chap who saved reality at the sacrifice of everything."
"So these were their names," Raikou mused, reading from the larger gravestones. "I wonder why he'd never talk about them..."
"He mentioned them all the time, you were too focused on being 'his mother' to accept it," Da Vinci said.
"I'll greatly miss your touch, Master," Serenity said with sad fondness. "The warmth of your hand on my cheek. Thank you for all those little moments."
"My poor beloved son," Raikou lowered her gaze. "I regret I couldn't be more helpful to you."
"Master," the first summon of Chaldea stepped ahead, while Leonardo and Raikou helped Kiyohime back, the other woman shaking hysterically. The short haired young woman fell to a knee and smiled down. "Thanks for everything, for every step of the way. You took my hand, and I took yours. You took all of our hands, actually, and we are all much richer, and more human, because of it."
"I mean," she added after a tearful pause, "this isn't really fair. We are being unjust to you, the one resting here. Thanks for accepting the words we have for our Master, and we are sorry you never grew up to be the man he was. I am sure you would have been every bit the outstanding person he was. Rest in peace, Fujimaru Ritsuka-kun. May you sleep with white winged angels."
"ANCHIN-SAAAAAMMMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" Kiyohime bawled.
Slowly, they turned back and pulled her away from those ten year old places of rest.
Emiya Kiritsugu.
"Who are you, by the way?" Shirou frowned and squinted at the deeply tanned man with unruly white hair. "You remind me of someone, but..."
There was no good reason to hide that information from him, in the assassin's opinion, so he shared it with the boy.
"A shock?!" a disbelieving Nightingale asked, taking the young man's pulse. "After everything you have allegedly gone through, what kind of shock could possibly rattle you this much?!"
"Ahhhh...!" a shaking Shirou said, struggling so his eyes wouldn't go completely blank yet.
Artoria kept a hand on his scalp. "Well," she told the busty nurse, "it is a complicated story of sorts."
Alexander III of Macedon.
"Sir?" Gray asked softly, peeking into his office like a pale, ethereal wind nymph. "You've got a long distance call coming through the main phone."
The long haired man frowned irritably, looking up from his paperwork. "What? From where?"
"Japan, the caller says," she said. "You'd better come quickly, Caules has taken it, but we don't know how long he can keep Flat from simply snatching the phone from him."
"Oh, very well...!"
"Uuuuu," Fran pointedly said while the tanned red haired giant laughed thunderously at the shocked voice coming from the other end of the line.
"Be patient, you'll get your turn after the King is done with my brother," Sima Yi said to the short haired redhead before turning her head back. "Gray, are you sure you wouldn't like to have a conversation with your counterpart? I look forward to doing so with mine."
Gray shuddered slightly and made a point of keeping looking the opposite way. "Never the selves shall meet," she said, visibly disturbed.
Zhuge Liang frowned from where he sat at a corner. "Oh, so now he is your brother, isn't he...?"
Finis.
Notes:
Generally speaking, this fanfic follows the Fragments of Chaldea route in that there's a single version of every (former) Servant unless they happen to be especifically created in-story as either outright copies of a previously existing characters or alternate timeline counterparts, but not merely younger versions from the same timeline or 'Saint Graph alterations' making a new character out of something trivial like putting on a swimsuit.
That is, Jeanne, Jeanne Alter and Santa Jeanne Alter Lily all coexist because the latter two are Gilles-made copies of the former. Similarly, Artoria coexists with Lancer Artoria and Caster Artoria, who come from altogether different universes, but not with Artoria Lily or Artoria Alter, who happen to be the same 'main' Artoria but from when she was young and after she was corrupted by a Grail respectively.
Galahad in this story is Chaldea's first summon (yes, even before Da Vinci) and not a male Servant, nor is there a 'Mash Kyrielight' as such, although I'd have liked writing that as an alias for her. This is both an allusion to the preliminary plans for Fate Stay Night that would have had a female Galahad Shielder and to Fate: Harem Antics by Kamenhero25.
Besides, in Unequally Rational Emotional I had written a female Galahad based on the Eiyuu Senki version long before Grand Order debuted.
In the event the story didn't make it clear enough, the Chaldea Servants come from the aftermath of a final battle with the Alien God/Beast VII that destroyed the Grand Order main universe and shot them to the Stay Night universe Artoria originally hailed from. Turning them into full flesh and wood (or metal, in cases like Mecha-Liz... you get the idea, right?) in the process for some reason. If I ever get to write a followup I'd kinda like to touch on the possible reasons behind that.
Of course, with the way my luck usually goes Grand Order will most likely reveal the True Final Boss is not Beast VII but someone else. PLOT TWEEEEEST! Then again at the speed GO is going it'll take them years to get there.
Then again, what could I use for a sequel? Whom could they fight that could provide a believable challenge? Each other? I don't feel like having them massacre each other after all they have gone through.
Also, ideally I'd like to see more GO Servants added to the gacha before writing anything else for this story, but that sure takes a long while, especially of late, and the coronavirus crisis has only worsened it.
I want to see the Strange/Fake Servants (mostly Dumas and my beloved Zealot) already, damnit! Move your ass, Narita!
I also want Samson (the Biblical character, not the French executioner, that's Sanson), and Nzambi, El Cid, Hannibal and Louis XVII from Requiem. And EXTRA's Buddha! And Arcueid! Archimedes and Karl (I'd rather have him than Charlie)! Riyo's FBI and Bunny Ears! Perseus from Prototype! Gengis Khan!
I toyed with the idea of having a few of those in this story and just assume they'd eventually show up in GO before the endgame, but I got no ideas on how to put them in yet anyway.
Assume any character that appears from now on in GO has been there though this whole chapter and just never got to say anything, much like many of those who have debuted but I couldn't write scenarios for. I really wanted to use BB, Consort Yu, Mordred and Best Girl Osakabehime in this chapter but I didn't get any solid ideas for them.
I imagine that, should I ever continue, I should address Ishtar, Ereshkigal, the Sakurafaces, Jaguar Warrior, and (assuming they ever are playable) Muramasa and Rasputin, though. Ditto for Nameless, although I'm not sure what would I do with him from this point on.
Da Vinci is an adult because that form is too hot to waste and this is my story, dammit. Let's just say she got better from having a hole blown through her chest by Kotomine, or something like that.
The Stay Night characters are, for the most part, following a variation on the Unequally Blade Works 'Normal' Ending.
Thanks for reading.