Cut 'em down.

Follow the blood and you'd find God. How many dead already? Thousands just that past hour. Berserker was merciless. Buildings toppled. The earth rose to meet the sky. People burst into pieces, died, still smiling and willing under Caster's control. Berserker cared nothing for it. He had orders for violence and he'd carry them out.

'Kill Caster. Kill everything between you and he. When the real sun comes up or when the fake sun goes down, I want him dead by then.' So said the Lord. Violence was always a solution. Berserker would tear the whole city down in his mad quest to kill his target.

Still, progress was slow. Even while skipping streets all together and tearing holes into buildings to progress through the city, each meter forward was hard fought. Literal thousands of people confronted him at every moment, and their collective blood quickly soaked the ground and became a small, stagnant pool for the flies to feast on. It was only half the city out and about. The rest were still on the ground, engaged in sick worship… Five hundred thousand men and women and children hunting after the Servants… the weight of the bodies was unimaginable. They'd choke on the corpses before getting to Caster. Already from across the country men and women were being drawn to Fuyuki, running without pause, the incoherent burning of their lungs and legs ignored; under thrall they'd run until they forgot how to breath or until their feet were but stubs on their legs. If their tendons tore, they crawled. From across the sea, Koreans tried their chances at swimming to fulfill Caster's order.

The entire country was coming.

Berserker didn't care. He was Nightmare. He was Sin. He was Regret. With his mind set to kill, he would not stop. Every human had Fear. Every human had Shame. Pyramid Head drew from those emotions and grew stronger.

Caster had the entire world as his army. Berserker had hatred as his sword.

Who'd win?

Berserker swung his sword in a horizontal arc, killing thousands at once. The mere wind from his blade sundered the entire bottom floor of a building, sending it to the floor, crushing frenetic worshippers, some fucking and yet others running madly; they all died the same. Their love did not protect them.

'Come world, I'll bury you all.'

Under his helmet there were no eyes, just shrunken black pits that had long since crusted over. Instead of color and light Pyramid Head sensed the world through the emotions of the men and women around him. A sea of pink, not really pink but a color outside of human comprehension, that signified the pure love and lust that the masses held. They wanted so badly to teach him, the brute to be one of them… but his reproach was sharp. Murder met their moaning cries for togetherness and unity.

'Love will kill you all.'

Toward the river, on a high rooftop was a presence, a delectable morsel of shame and regret that Berserker relished just sensing. This was why he had been summoned to the Holy Grail War. He was the punisher and the other Servants, with their regrets and self-loathing, they'd be punished. Sentence was death. Berserker would be victorious. She was dancing, taunting, sword sheathed in mock submission; the image of the damned waiting for Satan to come and deal the sentence…

"SABER!" the titan roared his fury for the world to hear. Berserker was more a creature than he was a man, his words so loud that the entire world seemed to shake. He was hungry for her guilt. The girl, the tragic King of Knights; she was the ultimate prize. So the monster chased, desperate, loping steps taking him closer and closer to his goal. His quarry fled toward the river. The eye of this hurricane of love where the storm would clear and the sky would turn yellow for just one moment long enough for Berserker to end it all.

This place ain't big enough for the two of us.

The first thought was unimaginable. The second, less so. When humans are faced with something impossible, too terrifying to even consider; they push it aside…

Zouken did not understand. He was standing across the courtyard from himself, staring at what he had only seen in mirrors before. A body. His body. His wrinkled face, his cane, his clothes… a replica down to the last hair follicle. It was he, Zouken Matou, facing himself.

His Stand curled protectively around him, fluttering and cooing, dripping pus like acid from its gaping axe wound of a mouth.

Fierce and withering the sun watched on, arbiter over this standoff. The insects were dropping from the skies now, sweat steaming on the sidewalk. It was hot as Hell… soon enough even the Crest Worms would start to die, burst most likely as their blood turned to sick vapor.

"Who are you?" Zouken asked in his old, tired voice. "You have my body, and it seems that you even have my Stand. My magic." The counterpart, the pretender, had around him an identical copy of Golden Eel. Even an accompanying cloud of Crest Worms that hung around, buzzing and ready to respond. "But you cannot be me. I am myself."

The self. The individual could respond to anything but the self. The self was supposed to be a contained entity, hidden in the mind and psyche, locked away in a prison of flesh and bone, a throne room for the conscious. Zouken, both of them, he (they?) could not respond. They could only stand and watch and circle each other, scanning for nonexistent weaknesses. Who could find fault in themselves? Zouken was proud, and no matter how truthfully he may have believed the other to be a false representation of himself, he could not find a single mistake in the pretender. It was as if the copy had surpassed the original.

"Zouken Matou," the second declared. "And you?"

Was it insanity to talk to oneself? Zouken didn't know. Both Zouken Matous did not know. It was impossible to know. In all his centuries of life he hadn't ever had to speak with himself.

"I find myself skeptical. I am Zouken Matou."

"He told me you'd say that."

Who?

"The President," Zouken the Second elaborated, "Valentine warned me of a pretender that was seeking to tarnish my name. To take my place. You're my enemy," he stated, pointing with his cane. "You may look like myself and talk as I do; you may even have the same Stand and Familiars as I do; but you are not me. I am me. I am the Head of the Matou Family."

Zouken had enough.

"Golden Eel!" His Stand jerked from its seeming slumber and opened its mouth, shattering the carapace down the middle and flapping its meaty lips. A stream of acid as thin as a dime shot out, cutting through the air, through stone, and dirt. A hundred meters below the jet of acid slowed to a stop and began to bubble, eating through the bedrock… Zouken the Second was eviscerated, cut in half by the high pressured stream and then eaten away by the acid that pooled to the clean, fluid cut wound in his stomach. He melted, laughing.

"You really are me!" How Zouken could speak with his lungs turned to mush, he would never understand. "Even your Stand has the same powers! Valentine was right! A perfect copy awaited me…"

He knew he would not die from such a wound, nothing short of annihilation on a fundamental, quantum level would ever end his life. If this pretender really was the same as the himself… Zouken did not know if he could defeat himself. Was this what Valentine had meant when he claimed Tokiomi had committed suicide?

"You're misunderstanding the situation, Zouken." The original tried to reason. "Valentine is playing you, he wishes to destroy me, and he will do the same to you once I am defeated." Zouken's mind fired rapidly, thinking of an explanation for the clone. How could Valentine have created such an accurate copy? The pretender's Stand exchanged volleys of acid with his own Stand, fogging the world with stone vapor. A complete stalemate. They even thought the same things.

"He told me you'd say that as well." By now the second Zouken had healed from his wounds. Ugly, blackened wounds healing, morphing from one form of tissue to the next. He stood tall, no cane to aid him for it had been turned to soup by the acid… "You're Tokiomi's doing. That jealous, petulant, child of a man created you to kill me. I am grateful to Archer for warning me of such a threat. And I will see you and your Master both dead."

"I am no copy. Tohsaka is already dead. If you would just stop to listen—"

"He told me—"

"He probably said that I would say that as well, yes, I understand now." Zouken stepped forward. His counterpart stepped forward. Neither of them were fully cognizant of their actions, it was simply an unconscious movement; the soul responding to some unknown fate. It was the first step of many that would lead to the final doom.

Armed with a watch, her armor heating in the dreadful sun above; Saber ran, the river her destination, the end of it all in sight. Below her the groups of revelers alternated from sex to chasing her down. She had never felt more hunted in her life. The terror of the battlefield did not begin to encompass the primal fear growing, the fear of succumbing to the pressure of the world, the fear of being caught by the masses, torn apart and taken as an unholy sacrifice…

Saber was a virgin. The world would eat her.

"Lead him, Saber. Lure Berserker to Caster and end this day. End this shame. At any and all costs you must fight against the day. This August light here in the autumn… you must end it." So said Assassin.

This was the best way, only way for victory. Rider, eliminated by injury and lack of mana, Assassin, crippled much the same had been charged with protecting Irisviel and while Saber had troubled thoughts about leaving her friend with the untrustworthy Servant, but needs must when the Devil rises…

She was being torn between goodness and duty, she thought to herself. Her duty to protect her charge and the burden of goodness. Spy was correct to say that Caster took priority over everything else. The sheer evil he wielded… co-opting love for his own nefarious purpose— but what could Saber say? She knew nothing of love or sex or of intimacy. Her knights, her closest friends had berated her for being so cold, so distant, so fucking kingly that the kingdom began to fear her, respect her, but always with that cold tinge of fear or reproach when they criticized her in their small evening tavern conversations…

From behind her Berserker roared his fury and Saber felt his looming, dirty presence begin to grow. It was strange to hear the death rattle of dozens ring every second. How many would die on this endless, false day? It was already growing so hot that people fell to the asphalt, their flesh cooking on the blacktop, sizzling like eggs. How many thousands, dozens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of innocents would die because of this War? How many had already died? And could one even measure what sort of tragedy would arise from this loss of innocence? Children too were in the streets… their parents and grandparents and teachers and neighbors and pets all joining in the fun.

Damn that Caster. Saber could only hope that Berserker would kill him. How was it that they were all so helpless? Even with their brief alliance Rider and Saber and Assassin couldn't even approach the man without losing themselves… this was their desperation. End the endless day or die watching the world succumbing to Caster's twisted love.

But the river was far. For the first time since she had been summoned as a Servant, Saber felt fatigue. Her legs grew cramped as she leapt from building to building and her armor grew gradually heavier, burning through her clothes and scalding her shoulders. Too far… would she die here? Berserker was closing in on her, enthusiastic in his violence. It seemed that the beast was immune to the natural pull of Caster's magic, or perhaps they weren't close enough to the source yet. If even Berserker succumbed, it would all be over.

Soon enough, even she would fall to the magic. She would join the masses below and she'd enjoy it, just as the others did, just as the entire world did. Not even a dozen people were exempt from the wave of lust to sweep over the planet. It was a terrible thing to know that she was marching towards a fate worse than death, the death of her innocence and purity; but she was a King, and she did her duty.

'It's not so bad a price. I'll gladly give up my maidenhead to save the world.'

So said she. It was something that her Master, her Summoner would have approved of. Kiritsugu wanted nothing more than to save the world, remove all pain and suffering in a way that wasn't too dissimilar from Caster's utopia… It was what they all wanted. In their each and every different way the Servants all wanted some sort of utopia, a place where they would be happiest.

For Iskander it was a world he could conquer.

For Valentine it was a world with his country at the top.

For Arturia… it was a world where she was gone.

"Little girl, little girl…"

Despite it being the brightest of days, Rin shrieked with fear. There was no darkness here. Even in the shade of the forest she had run off to she felt the sun's murderous anger. The small babbling brook she had played in just days before was no more than a trickle now and behind her was a man, a stranger, looking for her. So many strangers had been after her, naked, groping, moaning men and women, boys and girls, barking dogs and neighing horses… they had been chasing her with some strange purpose on their minds that Rin could not begin to know. Had they caught up with her? She hadn't wanted to hurt them, but it had been necessary, impossible not to. Her ghost had hurt them…

Preparing for the potential threat, Hungry Like the Wolf, solidified next to her, ever angry and snarling face scanning the bushes and shadows for whomever might have been lurking.

"Who's there?" Her voice came out as a soft tremolo filled with worry. The men from before had been scary…

"I knew your father."

Rin perked up. Her father? She hadn't seen him in so long that she couldn't quite remember his face. How was he again? Tall, Rin remembered. Tall and handsome with a scratchy little beard that prickled against her face everytime she reached towards him for a hug… but she couldn't remember what he looked like.

"Where's my dad?" Rin asked. She still hadn't caught sight of the man. Her mother had always warned her against strangers, but the man did claim to have known her father. "Can you take me to him?"

"Perhaps another day," the stranger said.

From behind a tree, Rin finally caught a glint of gold.

"I see you, mister."

Following her words, Rin heard a sigh; tired and just a bit sad.

"Very well then." The man stepped forward from his place behind the tree trunk; a foreigner with a river of blond hair and deep blue eyes. His face was strangely memorable, as if Rin had seen it somewhere… "My name is Funny Valentine. A friend of your father's. I heard that you have something of mine."

Confusion colored Rin's face. What could she possibly have that the man might want?

"Um… excuse me? I've never even met you Mr. Valentine."

"Does that make a difference?" The president asked. He hated to deal with children, he truly did. They were just so… curious. It was one of the reasons that he and Scarlet never had children. Valentine entered the small forest clearing that Rin stood in, briefly surprised at the frothing pink and gold wolfman standing next to the girl. So the Corpse had given her a Stand… "Tell me Rin, do you feel strange? Have you been seeing strange things recently?"

The girl nodded her small head tentatively. "Not the first part, but…" she hesitated to continue. Should she tell the man about her imaginary friend? The ghost that had been haunting her? "Weird stuff has been happening recently."

"You're right." Valentine nodded sagely. He could feel the Arm, the Right Arm of the Corpse that was stuck inside Rin's body. All that was left to do was to take it. "But stranger things have happened." Valentine summoned his Stand. The girl, young and new to this business as she was, likely had no idea of what a Stand was, or the limits of her own. She was no threat. "You can see him, can't you? My Dirty Deeds."

And now for the first time, Rin smiled, gawked wide mouthed and starstruck. "Oh gosh! You have one too! Can you see mine? Isn't he pretty?" Rin giggled. Strangely enough Mr. Valentine felt trustworthy. There was a certain camaraderie she felt for him, another person who could see the same ghosts as she could.

"It is called a Stand. It's a manifestation of your inner spirit, your immortal soul."

"A Stand? That's cool I guess… does everyone's look different?" Rin ran forward, closer than she should have perhaps, to inspect Valentine's Stand. It looked funny with its tall rabbit ears and pink accents. "What can they do? All I know is that mine can punch stuff. Wait," Rin had a sudden realization. "Are you a Mage too? My daddy's a mage."

"The word is Magus, I believe, and no, I'm not a Magus. Certainly I am a bit magical." He stepped towards Rin's right, using the girl's fawning over D4C to go unnoticed. Quickly, Valentine reached out and grabbed the girl by the wrist of her right arm, seizing his opportunity. "Each Stand is unique, just as every human being is unique. Now be still."

Rin tried to pull back, but the President's grip was tight. "Let go of me!"

"You have something of mine, little girl. Once I have it I will tell you where your father is… so calm down. Just be calm." Almost now, Valentine could feel it. The Corpse called for the Corpse, pulling it from immaterium and non existence, bringing forth the shard of divinity that dwelled in this little girl's unworthy body. He wrenched Rin's arm at an unpleasant angle, causing her to cry out, and just like that it was over. The seventh Part of the Corpse. The Saint was almost whole. The Right Arm was in his hand and quickly blending with his flesh, choosing him as its new owner. "There. We're done."

The little girl wouldn't stop her crying. Her garish Stand faded away, its user too distracted and inexperienced to use it through pain. "That hurt! My arm… you broke it!" She wiped her face against her shirt. Staining it with tear. She turned to run away but only let out a small choking noise as her shirt's collar tugged back against her throat.

"Don't run, little girl. I have questions for you, just as you have questions for me."

"Where's my dad?" Rin cried. The man had grabbed her by her shirt just as she had turned to run and had thrown her to the forest floor. "I wanna see my dad!"

"Your father's dead." If the girl hadn't been so important to Kariya, Valentine would have killed her. Children… always so tearful and quick to scream. There was no reason to lie to her. "You're wrist is only sprained. I didn't mean to do so, but you moved too much. You see," Valentine brought the Right Arm into his hand, and held it in front of the girl's face. "This Arm belongs to me. It has belonged to me for the last two hundred years, now where did you find it?"

She looked to her feet, sobbing, hiccuping. "Where's my daddy?" Even through her grief Rin felt herself grow warmer. Not in the way of actual temperature, she was already sweaty and nasty from the sun, but her blood seemed to be bubbling in the most pleasant of ways. Unnatural considering she was inconsolate. All she wanted was to be held now…

"The man known as Tokiomi Tohsaka is dead. He killed himself." Valentine stood high and cold, lording above Rin with a dead, dispassionate expression on his face. The girl was hugging, clutching at his pant leg and he realized that Caster's magic would soon take hold of the girl…

But his purpose was fulfilled. All that was left to do was to bring the girl to Kariya and reunite her with her sister. Hopefully their mother would survive the endless night. "I was an associate of your father's. I will reunite you with your sister if everything works out and we will never see each other again. Do you understand?"

"But my daddy? He can't be dead! He was the best! He was magic!"

"The world is a cruel place, Rin. I too lost my father around your age." An old wound that had long since scarred over. It was a formative experience, Valentine knew, one that had taught him of virtue and patriotism that he followed for the rest of his life.

"Did daddy tell you to come save me?"

"Your father has been dead for over a week now."

The girl was blubbering now, and Valentine had to physically drag her along the forest floor. "But mama… she said that I'd get to see him again!"

And she would. Some day she would, but not tonight. Valentine sighed and picked the girl up, awkwardly shifting as she latched onto his shoulders, rubbing the scars on his shoulders. He could feel her thin, young ribs brush against his broad chest as she heaved from sorrow.

"You will. I promise that you will."

She was in a kitchen. A Keurig on the countertop had just poured a cup of steaming coffee and something on the stove was simmering. But she was not at home. This place was far too modern, and from what Irisviel could see, the sole exit of the kitchen showed only a boring, drab, grey corridor. The Einzbern Castle had been beautiful, but cold. Here it was warm, but not uncomfortably so.

"Saber?" She called. "Kiri? Are you there?" But the world was just so quiet. There wasn't any response that she could hear other than a thump and drag in the hallway. What had happened earlier? A slight throb in her head and she couldn't remember. They had been somewhere bright and hot. Saber and herself and two men she couldn't quite place.

Oh yes, there had been an orgy. None of their group had participated of course, but the rest of the world had been so enthusiastic in their love, enough to give Irisviel a blush just thinking about it. Strange… why had that happened?

"Ah, you're up already. I took the liberty of preparing some food for you." A man was standing in the doorway, favoring one leg. His face was covered in a mask and it seemed a scene out of some movie she had watched long ago… Assassin! That was the man.

"Yes, though I don't remember too clearly. What are you making?"

"Just a can of soup I found lying around. I doubt anyone will mind. It's no Soupe à L'oignon, but I thought you might be hungry." Assassin set a plastic bag on the counter as he made his way to the stove. "I also found flour and milk and eggs. I could make crepes if you'd like."

Irisviel nodded. Food was always good, but there was something else on her mind. "Where's everyone else?"

Assassin's shoulders seemed to droop slightly. He let out a sigh while pouring the soup into two small ceramic bowls found on the shelves.

"And where are we? I remember being outside, with Saber… we were running from something, all of us together I mean. Where'd she go?"

The man limped over, placing bowl of soup and spoon in front of Irisviel.

"I'll tell you while you eat. You must have hit your head pretty hard."

The food was good. A warm tomato bisque and a plate of crepes on the way.

"We were after Caster, remember? You, Saber, Rider, and I all together."

"And the people outside, they were having sex. Why?" Irisviel asked while blowing to cool the hot soup.

"Something Caster did, no doubt. That's why we allied with one another. That's why I haven't killed you yet. Saber is off to kill the man. Since my injury prevents me from doing much," he said pointing to his damaged leg, "I elected to stay behind. I'm not healing anytime soon without my Master."

"That's not a very good explanation…" Irisviel devoted several minutes to finishing the soup and stood at Assassin's shoulder by the stove, marveling at the fluffy, airy pancake that was cooking on the pan. "Where's my husband?"

His glare was reproach and apology all at once. "Somewhere outside. He was unable to resist Caster's spell."

It was a terrible thing to hear.

"You mean he's out there? With another woman?" She felt the hotness of jealousy spin the room about. Of course it wasn't Kiritsugu's fault, but… didn't it reflect badly on herself that she couldn't protect the man she loved?

"Not necessarily," Assassin seemed deeply unhappy to speak on this issue, hiding his discomfort by concentrating on the crepes. "He might be with another man, or with a child, or—" The slap didn't hurt, but it did knock the crepes to the floor, ruining them.

"Don't talk about him like that. He's my husband."

And just like that Irisviel thudded against the wall, Assassin dangerously close with his knife in hand, flashing in the dead light of the kitchen, a bothered expression playing on his face, the lines and contours of the lips. "Don't hit me. I'm not your wallflower little girlfriend. You're only alive because of an agreement between Saber and myself and I hope you die before the night is up. Your husband is gone. Do you understand?"

The knife sank into the drywall easy as anything. "If you don't, you should at least try. This isn't about you. This isn't about your husband. This is about the War and innocence and what's good and what's bad. You are a victim." Spy seemed to consider this and eased his tone for just a moment, folding and dropping the balisong back into his pocket. "You are a victim, but you are not helpless. You have magic. You have a Servant. You are not under Caster's thrall… and for the moment, you have me. What will you do?"

"You mean you want me to choose? You want me to do something?" Irisviel asked, confused, scared; never before had she been given the responsibility to choose. Her whole life she had listened and obeyed, heeded the words of her husband and those wiser than her. It was that inescapable nature of her being. As a homunculus she had no free will, no emotions; but as a woman she had no say, no right to an opinion— she hadn't ever wanted one, had never known that it was an option.

"That's your decision, Irisviel. You will choose and you will bear the consequence. That's what being a human is all about, isn't it? Free will. Choice. We have a choices to make and that's infinitely more than what the people out there have." It was the reason he hated Caster in the first place. Not only was he corrupting children with his perversity, but the Servant had also rid the people of choice. "If you can't choose, you aren't truly alive. All people should be able to make a choice." He seemed deeply sad at that, looking at the ruined crepe that lie cooling on the ground with a mournful expression. "You have to choose."

But she hadn't done this before, not like this. The small things, what to eat, where to go… never things like how to save the world or how to kill a man; she had always left that to her husband. But now he was out somewhere having the time of his life in the most depraved way possible, unwittingly, reluctantly driving fire through Iri's heart— what could she do? She was just one woman with one ally.

"We can't do anything, Assassin. If we go out the people will start chasing us again and with you injured and low on mana, we won't be able to get far. We should stay put. We can't do anything."

"You can always do something." But Spy left it at that. He felt quite a bit disappointed that the girl hadn't chosen to go out, but he would stay with her. He had promised Saber, after all.

How long did they sit in silence? All Spy did was smoke and watch Irisviel fidget out the corner of his eye until finally, breakingly the homunculus spoke. "I thought of something."

"Yes?"

But she didn't know if it was alright to say. Kiritsugu and Saber both had said to keep Avalon as secret as possible… but there was no other option, was there? Not while those poor men and women, children and animals continued to be happy against their wills…

"My husband entrusted me with an artifact, the catalyst for Saber's summoning. I trust you know who she is?"

"Saber is the legendary King Arthur."

Irisviel nodded and continued. "Anyway, we used Avalon, the blessed scabbard that Arturia was gifted during her lifetime, to summon her. Once the ritual was done, Kiritsugu gave it to me for safekeeping." She turned to face Assassin, looking him directly in the eye. "It's why I survived you shooting me in the chest."

"And so?"

This would mean choice, such a terrible burden it was to have to choose to walk to her doom… No one was going to push her. She would have to step and step towards death.

"It's why I'm here talking to you. It's the reason I'm not down there with the rest of the people. Avalon, the Ever Distant Utopia. It's the embodiment of Arturia's dream of a perfect world, you know. And it's sitting here in my chest."

And then it was all so clear what they had to do. They had been sitting there, wasting time, prolonging the false paradise sparkling outside. Each word they exchanged was another man stricken by heat exhaustion or dead of sensory overload, another child fallen prey to pleasures they shouldn't have known about for another decade.

'What if it was Illya out there?' She didn't know that Caster's spell spanned the globe.

"So what will you do?"

She'd do what her husband had always spoken of. She'd save the world, she'd save the world even if it would mean losing everything for it, even if the world hadn't given her anything, she'd do the right thing for the sake of doing the right thing.

"I'm going to give Avalon to my husband. It'll be up to him then to stop Caster."

He had known that it would come and couldn't help but smile once it did. The lengths that people would go to save the world… He reloaded his gun, spinning the six chambers with glorious mechanical precision. In his pocket was the Dead Ringer, his right wrist strangely bare, his Enforcer gleaming and freshly fed, ready to kill.

"Then let's go."

An unearthly scream, two men in utter agony, both erasing themselves from the face of the earth. Kariya heard this and flinched. What was going on out there? The screams had sounded strangely old and hoarse, but why two? Why had two people screamed at once? He couldn't begin to puzzle it out. One may have been Zouken, but Valentine didn't sound at all like the voice that had been screaming.

He brushed it from his mind and set to the basement, traversing the barely remembered convolutions of the Matou estate. Kariya hadn't lived there in years, and his most recent venture there to summon Berserker had been as brief as possible. Everything so fine and richly decorated, all in line with Zouken's taste in aesthetics; it hid something worse than even the sickness running through the minds of the men and women outside. But Sakura knew it, had known it for weeks now.

What pains had that little girl gone through?

Now Kariya neared the basement. Already he could hear light moans, the worms squirming wetly in the green darkness below, Sakura… He ran down skipping two stairs at a time, nearly kill himself when he tripped over his own feet the last several steps, falling, tumbling onto the mucus slicken floor. Worms hissed and popped under his feet, all of them snapping weakly as they died.

He called out weakly. The girl was invisible in this knee deep sea of worms. They weren't biting just yet; in fact, they seemed subdued, quiet and murmuring like a man self-satisfied after a meal. What had happened here?

"Sakura?"

A gurgle from the far side of the room. Kariya waded through the worms, killing hundreds as he slogged through the slimy mess. There was a musty, mushroom cellar smell hanging oppressively in the air. It smelled like a million years of corruption. Finally Kariya's foot bumped against something solid, warmer than the squirming worms around him. Grimacing he cleared the area with his bare hands until a welcome sight arose from the ocean. Sakura's face. Such a pretty face. She looked just like Aoi…

"Don't worry now. It'll be over soon. You'll see your mother, your sister…" her father was dead, but that was for the best. He had damned her to this hell in the first place. Sakura didn't even blink. Had her mind broken under Zouken's torture? "Sakura? Can you hear me?"

"Ugh…" the little girl's moan, cute and throaty, was heavy in the stagnant air. A state worse than death.

What exactly had Zouken done? Kariya couldn't imagine… but he didn't need to. Pulling Sakura out of the pile of worms, he saw that she was completely nude, only a thick membrane of slime covering her, her pubis inflamed and raw, stomach bulging slightly, gurgling. Blood was running down the soft inside of her thigh, dark and evil against her fair, child's skin. God… why was the world so cruel?

No matter how he looked at it, it couldn't have been anything besides fate. Outside the world had gone to shit and in here, in the deepest parts of the Matou Estate, evil had happened. Sakura, raped by worms. She would have been raped by men and women and horses and dogs had she been elsewhere. Kariya cried for her, rushing back through the worms with Sakura held bridal in his arms, safe and secure, his jacket wrapped around her to protect whatever modesty she had left—

"You can take her. She'll be back." From somewhere in the shadow came Zouken's bone chilling voice. "I'll consider it a vacation of sorts. She could use a break. One last taste at happiness until I break her completely." The old man was still alive? What had Valentine been doing?

"You're sick. You're so fucking sick. Do you know that? I can't believe I'm your son."

But Zouken laughed his rattling laugh and Kariya caught the glint of his eyes even though his body was invisible in the darkness where he hid.

"What matters is results. Sakura will be my heir. She must grow into the role."

"You've nearly killed her! Look at her!" Her face, eyes still open, grey as stone and cold enough to match. "Would you have done the same to me? This sort of shit is why I can't call you my father."

"The worms feed off pain in men. In women they feed off sexual pleasure. This is their biology. This is how they are. What can I do?"

"Leave Sakura alone. I'm going to make sure you never see her again."

"You can't do anything, Kariya. I could kill you right now as easily as swatting a fly. Don't forget that my Worms still live in your body, boy. You don't even have a week left in you."

"I'll have a Command Spell by the end of this day. I'll order Berserker to kill you."

But they both knew that would never happen. For all his strength, Berserker would never be able to kill Zouken. The man had gone through too many rituals and surgeries to transform his body and soul into something over human. He'd never die.

"If Valentine couldn't kill me, nothing in this world can. Watch out for that one, son. He'll do what it takes to survive." Zouken cackled over giving out advice as a normal father would. "He truly is a terrifying Servant. I doubt anyone in this War could match him…" The power of Valentine's Stand… Zouken only understood it superficially and it still terrified him. What sort of power was it to summon an exact replica of the enemy? And not only that, Zouken had burst into strange, multi celled cubes when he and his clone had touched. Anyone else would have died… every molecule of his previous body had been destroyed, just by a simple touch.

But in the end, Zouken had survived, reformed from nothingness as if he hadn't even been damaged. Of course the experience had been painful, but pain mattered not because he was immortal, or as close to immortal as physically possible. The wonders of grounding the soul to the material plane…

"What are you waiting for? You can go. She'll find her way back home." Zouken smiled and waved his son and the catatonic girl away. "She'll be back."

A thick, white rope of semen landed on her face and she nearly gagged. Nearly. She didn't have time for such luxuries, Berserker was right behind her and just a mile off now was the river and the bare patch of river bed that Caster was holding his unholy mass on. Just a few hundred meters now and it'd be over. Saber would stop and Berserker would rampage and Caster would die. Her sweat, dripping in long, slow rivulets from her forehead blurred and smeared the semen down her eyebrows, eyelashes, flowing uncomfortably down the side of her nose and sending a heady, lewd smell to her brain. It was Hell. Around her was Hell, full of sinners and in the center Satan himself holding court over his crazed followers. Saber had her duty and no matter the obstacle she would persevere—

But the man who had been abusing himself, who had timed himself just so that he'd catch Saber in the fact with his seed: she killed him. A flash of her sword and he died, falling on his back onto a squirming couple who embraced the added dead weight.

'I'm acting like Assassin,' she thought grimly. It was a terrible thing to be in this world. So many times she had wanted to stop and put these people out of their unnatural existences, all of them tangled and sweating together to the point of dehydration, depravity and the final death. There weren't any skyscrapers anymore, no more roofs for her to run atop, just a bare stretch of land, park land, filled with the sounds and smells of orgy. Happiness. Love. Loving. Children being conceived.

She tripped and fell when she caught sight of Lancer. He and his Master, the attractive redhead who's name Arturia could not recall, they were on the floor together, panting and the latter crying out in ecstasy every time Lancer pulled on her hair and thrusted his hips to meet hers— they looked so happy that for a insane moment Saber thought about letting the night run its course. How?

Behind her more people died, were crushed, cut, ripped in half and Berserker trudged onwards in horrid, slow efficacy. That one would never stop.

"Lancer!" Arturia leapt over a dog being mounted by a young boy, wiping her mind of the disgusting scene and made her way to the enthralled Servant, clapping her hands and snapping her fingers to try and get his attention. "Lancer! I need your help!" A shine of recognition was extinguished before it ever really came to fruition. "Lancer!"

Damn. The dark Irishman seemed confused for a moment and his thrusting abated. Maybe? Perhaps? No. With a grunt, Lancer turned his attention back onto the sex and his Master who was mewling like a cat, begging for more cock, more attention, more love. And Lancer too looked so hungry, so love stuck— Diarmuid of the Love Spot defeated by love, a once fine knight delegated now to gigolo; it was a shame, a damn shame. Lancer had been the only worthy opponent in all the Holy Grail War and now he was reduced to this?

A million puns involving Lancer and spears ran through her head. Thrusting. Penetrating. Piercing to the core. God, how terrible.

Saber seethed. And tearing her head away from the crowds, away from the noise and wetness; she ran through, pushing every and all obstacles out the way. Here the people were more thickly strewn on the ground. Here no one but Berserker was chasing, and even he was now far back, distracted with one thing or the other. Everyone besides Saber was so, so in love with one another, with the world, with the universe; they were at peace. They were wholly content with what they were doing and whom they were doing and how they would die screwing each other in ways that can't ever be written down. It was harder to get through them, each person grabbing at her ankles, even caught in orgasm they grabbed at Saber's ankles and spray their spittle, their semen, their squirt all over her armor, begging her please.

"You're so pretty."

"Your hair, it's so fine… come with me."

"Don't you want to be loved?"

It was tempting. But Saber marched on. In the distance Saber could make out the silhouette of a man standing with his arms thrown to the side, utterly alone in this sea of sex. The person nearest to the figure was a hundred feet away, kissing the ground as the man behind him penetrated him deeply.

"Caster!" Saber kicked out, dislodging a little girl's hand that had been at the hem of her battle dress. "I've come to kill you!" She shouted but did not know if he could hear. Her voice, she was so weak. The journey had taken much from her and she was so, so tired. All she wanted was to lie down and to be held… "Come forth!" But her throat felt as if it were breaking along with her will to fight. Every step was a step towards… she did not know.

"Caster!"

"Caster!" The atmosphere shifted as the world repeated her cry.

Saber looked around and her fear, hidden under hundreds of layers of courage and willpower, came to surface. The whole crowd had turned their heads towards her, staring blankly with expressions of the highest joy, even as they moved in organic precision. Each and every eye in the world was focused on her, staring, waiting; even those a hundred miles away were staring in her direction. People on the other side of the world were craning their necks downwards as if they could stare through the earth itself. She had their attention.

"Caster!" They parroted again and like a maestro directing a symphony, the man in the distance, the one who had been standing alone for so many endless hours, bent at the waist in a long, drawn out bow. "Saber! We love you!" The world shouted, loud and clear and echoing through every valley and corner of existence. "Love us back! Love us! Please just love us!"

Arturia drew her sword, but her arm was trembling, quivering like a leaf. There was a chill now running through her blood, icy even in the sweltering sun that seemed ready to consume the world with its fire. Caster came closer, walking slowly, laughing at her weakness.

"Is this the same girl who seemed so ready for cruelty? You wanted to kill me, didn't you? You wanted to kill me since the day we first met. You wanted to kill me in the forest where we fought, but you couldn't. You couldn't. You can't. You. You. You. You're a failure. No true king. Just a girl. Just a girl. Just a girl." Caster spoke with the voice of god, somehow speaking in a muted, quiet tone that carried over the din of the crowds and drowned out all noise, even as the congregation of orgy goers continued to fuck and whisper to each other. "I can teach you to be a woman, Saber."

Caster, hateful Caster, drew close, too close, close enough to lick her face. But close as he was, Saber could not move. Her arms, legs, too heavy for her body. The electric cold was replaced by the sweetest warmth, her cheek felt as if it were on fire, wet fire where Caster's rough tongue brushed saliva all over her face.

"I can smell that you've never loved." And he could. Now that he was God, Grenouille could smell everything. The past, present, and future all lived in the air. "How does it feel to have never loved? To have never been loved? I ask because I know how terrible it is."

She had to talk. There was no other option. God was asking and Arturia had to speak.

"I know what it's like to love. I know what it's like to be loved. I had a wife—"

He let out a low, tinkling laugh that was echoed by the people all around, all of them still staring even as they continued their depravity.

"A woman. You married a woman whom you cared nothing for. You did it for your country. All those dreams of love and companionship that all little girls have— they all died young, didn't they? You never even got a taste of it. All you got was an unwilling, unfaithful, sullen trophy…"

"I grew to love her. Eventually. It was real, we never…" Saber blushed, "we never consummated, not really, but we loved each other…"

"She loved another man."

And so she did. Guinevere and Lancelot. Saber's wife and her most loyal knight… caught in flagrante delicto and condemned. Their only crime had been to love each other…

"I don't want to hear this." The fire in her stomach, burning a sweet pain through her whole body, Saber couldn't take the pleasure anymore, her knees grew weak and she collapsed to the floor, quivering and moaning. "You've won, Caster. End it now. Give me this courtesy at least." God, how terrible it was to love oneself. Even worse was that even the emotion of outrage was restricted from her. She could not feel anger, or hate, or bitterness. All that was left was the audacity to love and be loved by the entire world. "Please." She struggled to keep her hands from her clothes, she wanted nothing more than to rip them off and let the men have their way with her, but she couldn't. She still had her dignity, her honor, but it was all fading so quickly… She spoke as slowly as possible, realizing that she had either overestimated herself or underestimated Caster's magical ability. It was getting extremely difficult to resist the compulsion now and all Arturia could do was hope that Berserker would arrive soon.

"You don't get to bargain with God, Arturia. Love is an act of becoming. It is not a state of being. Humans do not fall in love," he spoke as if he was no longer human, referring to the species as a collective. "It is not some sort of strange grace or intelligence that falls upon the mind. Love is modified by the will, moment by moment, day by day, the soul shapes it. The mind becomes it. Love is everything…"

"Damn you." She whispered. It was unnerving how alone she felt, how small and weak she felt even as the entire world stared at her, waiting on every word, every breath of the conversation between Caster and herself. "You're insane, Caster. Worse yet you're insane and you have a twisted, perverse mind. If you have any sort of human decency you'd stop, you'd stop this, you'd stop this." She spoke as slowly and as eloquently as possible, trying to buy time for Berserker to catch up with her. Where was he? Pyramid Head hadn't been very far behind her, and without any apprehension about killing or any regard for self-preservation, Berserker should have been here by now… was there some other reason, a variable she hadn't accounted for that was holding the madman at bay?

Somehow sensing her confusion (smelling it?), Caster answered her unspoken question. "You're waiting for Berserker aren't you? He'll be here soon enough. He's busy doing… things."

Arturia said nothing, simply opting to hang her head in defeat.

"People will never stop being in love, Arturia. That's all this is. I've touched their souls. I've broken through the castle walls that each and every person puts up to protect themselves of hate and harm. I couldn't stop this if I wanted to. All these people are in love. Truly they are in love. I would hate to break apart such a bond."

"This isn't love! How can you call this love, Caster? This is perversion! Nothing else! The people in the streets… they don't know each other, they don't know anything but the world you've built for them! They're your slaves! What you call love can't be anything other than thralldom!"

"You don't know anything of love."

"She doesn't."

"Doesn't know anything."

"Nothing, she knows nothing."

The audience began to whisper to themselves, to each other, each of them confirming the suspicions of the other.

"Who's she to say that this isn't love?"

The world gradually came to a consensus that Saber was wrong. That she had no place to judge them. A person without love could never know what love was… God was the only one who could do that. He who needed no love, who wanted no love, who was love and hate and everything in between all at once without contradiction; only God could judge.

She was… she was a woman, a girl really. That was her place. That was her role, her number and lot assigned in life that, try as she might, stood more base and fundamental than anything she might have aspired for. Before Arturia was a knight or king; she was a girl. She couldn't find the words to defend herself from the harsh whispers and gossip of the world. She was shaking, trembling in front of this man, this God in front of her who smelled like all the heavens she had ever dreamt of and a million, uncountable million more. Her mind built a thousand endless paradises, each one greener and more splendid than the last— it was like having Avalon again, that famed blessing from the land of the fairies… but something about these fantasies made is so clear, so assured that once she gave in, she'd be happy forever. This was something she would never, ever lose, happiness that she would never forget or misplace. It would never be taken from her so long as she complied with Caster's wishes. It couldn't be ruined. It was unbreakable.

"Come, Arturia. Come and rest against my shoulder. Soon this day will die. Don't you hear the winter wind crying? Being alone is a darkness that comes without a warning… But I'll sing you lullabies and wake you in the morning. You'll be happy. You'll be loved. You will love. Take my hand. Don't you see? Hurry, dear, another day is dying."

The night, the cruel, bright night grew ever colder, even as the sun beat down on Arturia's sweat strewn brow. She couldn't breath. Her lungs hitched and shrank, devoid of air. It was cold, scalding cold, hot, so hot that the very molecules of her being seemed to vibrate so violently that they froze in place, exhausted. Caster smiled and something broke inside of her. The integral organ that had facilitated her resistance, whatever moral or ideal that had kept her strong against the pernicious force of Caster's spell, it disappeared with a single flash of Caster's too small, plaque covered teeth, each of them crowding in his unwashed mouth like huge, crooked tombstones..

"I can't. I can't do it, Caster."

"You can, Arturia. Remember that the highest happiness we can hope for is the conviction that we are loved." He was standing there, smiling, with his hand outstretched, love in his eyes and in his words, so ugly yet so attractive at the same time. Sincere. More sincere and truthful that anything Arturia had ever seen or heard. He was so kind, so true… just as a God should be. Mercy. Love. Goodness. How could she have been so blind? Caster was the Way, the Truth, and the Life…and she was not worthy.

"How can you accept me? I've fought you time and again. I tried to kill you. I've said so many terrible things to and about you. It was blasphemy, I understand now; but that doesn't excuse my sin. I deserve Hell." She was broken now, even with her vaunted magical resistance she could not resist forever. Caster's spell was one of the soul. The eternities that he promised were so vivid and divine and subconscious that none could resist the grand delusions painted by the wonderful smell lifted from all those dead, murdered girls. Saber saw herself as king once more. This time her subjects loved her for her kindness. This time her wife, Guinevere, stood by her side, smiling, and the girl-king loved, truly loved her wife, and was loved back. Her knights stood near, all of them brave and ready to mete out justice to wrongdoers, to fight back the foreign hordes— it was beautiful.

"How can you accept me, Caster?" Arturia bit her tongue. "Grenouille, how? How can you forgive me? I've done so much wrong… I don't deserve your forgiveness."

"It's God's duty to forgive those who love him. Arturia, my sweet, sweet girl… all you have to do is love. That's the answer to all your pain, all your regret." Grenouille swept his arm across the horizon, pointing towards the orgy, somehow making it seem the most noble thing Saber had ever born witness to. "Join them in love. That's all I ask. You'll be forgiven. You'll be accepted. You'll be happy. To love another person is to see the face of God, and I'm right here for you."

Tears leaked from Saber's eyes and boiled away as they hit the hot dirt ground. She was so glad… Her sword clattered to the ground and her voice gave way to sobs, loud and heaving. She hadn't cried in so long…

"I've… I regret so much, Caster. I screwed up my life. I drove my kingdom to the ground, I drove away my closest friends, and so much war. I started and ended so many wars… I don't deserve mercy."

Kneeling down to her level, Grenouille patted her on the head, ruffling her shimmering hair. "You're just like me, Arturia. I never knew love either. All my life I was alone, my first action in life, the first cries I gave as a child led to my mother's execution… I took the beatings. I survived disease and starvation just as you survived battle and war— and just as you grew into your role as king, I too became a ruler. You had a kingdom of men and women, I had one of scent and memory."

"I was naive back then. Too hasty in rejecting my right as God on earth, but I rejected it all the same. Back then I just wanted to be loved. Now that I've been summoned here," Grenouille's eyes had misted over with tears while he reminisced about his past life, a story that none had ever heard before, one that none would ever hear because they were all too damned busy— "I know what's important now. I'm not loved so I must love. This is what it means to be God. I've learned. And so will you. You'll learn until you can't possibly learn anymore."

Saber wasn't listening. Already she had surrendered herself to the ocean of men who had been awaiting her. Their greedy hands searching for bare skin, ripping her clothes and armor off her body with fervent precision. Oh God they had been waiting so long, the nude, dirty old men with their cocks half erect and swinging between their legs with the black, hairy roots exposed and stinking the air… dripping foul precum and stroking themselves hard in anticipation. Men of all sizes, ranging from no larger than a finger to having the girth of a soda can and the length of a ruler. Some were rail thin, others fat with hairy bellies and hair tinged grey as if to mark them as special. Saber shivered with anticipation. She'd become a woman, a real woman that night. No amount of magic keeping her from aging would change that.

'Those are going to be inside of me…'

Nervous and growing damp between the legs, not with sweat but with nectar, Saber knelt and licked her lips, reaching out for the closest organs throbbing shades of red and purple and brown love…

AN:

Parts of Caster's words are taken from Stoner by John Williams and Les Miserables by Victor Hugo.

Poor Arturia! In the end she couldn't hold off after all. I'm predicting that I get a lot of flak for this chapter since Saber is fucked, literally fucked. Frankly speaking, I have a love-hate thing for Saber. I think her character design is really pretty, but at the same time she's a childish, selfish, flawed person who refuses to admit it. She hides behind her skill and legacy as King Arthur to mask all her insecurities and fears and social ineptitude (read: autism). She's a great character but she's a weak as a human being.

I agree with reviewers that Caster's powers are ridiculously overpowered, but it makes sense for his character. Something I really hated about the Fate series is that I never had a sense that the heroes would lose. Especially looking at the original Caster in Fate/Zero, he's an ugly and inhuman and even his abilities reflect that. He's so obviously supposed to lose that it's apparent the first time you see him. I wanted to make Grenouille extremely threatening, a truly world ending terror that not many people would be familiar with. He's a normal guy, maybe a bit ugly, but other than that he looks completely normal, nothing that would tell you he's a monster besides the fact that he smells like absolutely nothing.

Compare the monster that Gilles de Rais summoned and the perfume that Grenouille made. Which is scarier? A monster is something that you can at least point a gun or sword at, Grenouille's perfume turns the whole world on its head, taking advantage of the most basic human instinct (to be loved and accepted) and perverting it to the extreme.

About the Zouken fight. I got too lazy to write it out, but it was supposed to be assumed that Zouken and his clone touched each other at some point and killed each other. Zouken survived having his body annihilated because magic and quickly reformed to meet with Kariya. There will be reason for why Kariya was allowed to leave with Sakura in later chapters, likely explained after the Caster arc.

Speaking of the Caster arc, here is a list of what's happened to all the characters so far. It's hard to keep track when there's so many.

Lancer and Sola-ui— they're under Caster's spell and are fucking each other's brains out.

Kirei Kotomine, Risei Kotomine, Waver Velvet— these guys are somewhere in the orgy, doing some strange stuff.

Rider— no longer able to materialize to the physical plane. He's lost too much mana using his Noble Phantasm and healing up his injuries. He needs to get to Waver and get some mana so that he can fight again.

Assassin— injured but not out of the game just yet. He won't heal until he meets up Kiritsugu. Currently assisting Irisviel as best as he can. (He really hates Caster since the spell effectively takes away people's free will. It should be obvious why he hates it so much.)

Valentine and Rin Tohsaka— Valentine has found Rin and has taken the Corpse Arm from her. Obviously Rin is going to fall victim to Caster's spell now…

Kariya Matou and Sakura Matou— Leaving the Matou estate with Zouken's blessing.

Saber— she fucked lol.

Berserker— followed Saber for a while before getting distracted for a unknown reason. More on this later.

Caster— God moding and winning the War.

Corpse Parts Tracker:

Spine: with Caster

Head: unknown

Everything else: with Valentine