Solenoid Flux
An Evangelion / Fate Zero Crossover
Snippet #9: Wednesday, 19th March

The 18th, Evening

On the asphalt near the burning Honda, the carcass of a bat lay in a small puddle of blood, cut in two along the spine. To each side, there was taped a cleanly bisected half of a miniature wireless camera.

"It seems that Tohsaka Tokiomi's phantom has made its second move," said Emiya Kiritsugu. "Or if not, a third party has taken the stage."

The words were delivered with calculated slowness. To anyone else, it might have seemed that the Magus Killer were disinterestedly reciting a fact; but Hisau Maiya knew him too well to be misled. Beneath his calm countenance, there raged a true anger.

"We haven't positively confirmed Tohsaka's involvement, though."

Kiritsugu gazed in the direction of the Fuyuki Hyatt.

"It's obvious that the theatrics that he engaged in tonight were for purposes of intimidation," he said, pulling a cigarette and a silver Zippo lighter from the inner pocket of his overcoat. "Knowing that the attention of every Master would be drawn to the stage that El-Melloi had set, he took the opportunity to establish himself as an enemy that one doesn't lightly challenge. However, the timing is suspicious. There doesn't seem to be a reason for him to take action at this juncture."

"You refer to the direct coincidence of his attack with the Madam's kidnapping?"

"I see little reason for it besides to lend him an alibi," said Kiritsugu, lighting his cigarette. Taking a draw and exhaling, he continued, "By odic pressure alone, what briefly appeared in this location following Berserker's departure could only have been a Servant-class entity. Ignoring the fact that the unknown's energy signature was a mismatch for the confirmed Heroic Spirits of this War, Tohsaka's Archer and the as-yet-unseen Caster are the only ones whose precise locations were unaccounted for at the time of the kidnapping. Neither class is traditionally capable of masking or altering their presence - but it isn't nearly unimaginable that such a thing could be realized through high thaumaturgy."

Of the known Masters, Maiya knew, the only ones established to possess the skill to perform such a feat were Tohsaka Tokiomi and Kayneth Archibald El-Melloi. The latter's Servant was not unaccounted for - and the man had just been forcibly removed from the War. That left Tohsaka as a prime suspect.

"How do we know that this wasn't the work of Caster, though?" she asked. "Or of some third party interloper?"

"We don't," replied Kiritsugu. "But until we have sufficient evidence to justify reprioritization, Tohsaka Tokiomi shall be our primary target."

The fire in the Magus Killer's eyes was unmistakable, and as Maiya nodded in quiet affirmation, she tried to suppress the part of her that dared hope Emiya Kiritsugu might someday worry after her the way he did the Madam ...

AD 204X (?)

He found the car broken down in the nearby village - not far from the deserted farmer's cottage that he lived in. The hood was still somewhat warm in the cool afternoon air, and he hadn't seen it when he passed through earlier in the day. By its bearing, the owners were probably headed toward the Enclave near the border of Vladivostok Territory. Abandoning the car was the right choice; the distance was only four or five kilometers, and they could make it to the settlement on foot before nightfall if they hurried.

He didn't want to think about what might happen if they didn't arrive in time.

Wrapping his traveler's cloak about his body, he lifted weightlessly from the street and soared eastwards - in the direction of the massive fortress-like structure on the horizon.

They left the country road at some point, and it wasn't until twilight that he managed to locate their presence in the ruins of a larger town - maybe a kilometer away from the Enclave. They were a family of four: a man and a woman, and two young children. It seemed as if they might have been seeking drinkable water.

The sky had already begun to darken, however - and with the night came the creatures that had claimed the barren wastes in humanity's absence.

Not all who emerged from the Rapture as individuals did so intact. Fragmented psyche - too incomplete to qualify as human - fused and bonded and merged; and upon attaining the definition to reassert a material existence, they stalked from the seas of blood as twisted chimeras - nocturnal, physically heterogeneous monsters whose forms were only partially recognizable as human, if at all.

The monsters possessed little inherent stability as organisms. Isolated for long enough and their flesh would begin to lose cohesion, degrading to LCL as their component soul fragments returned to the Sea. Their corporeal substantiation, though, was extensible through the consumption of the flesh of humans - the only other multicellular life that had returned to land in significant numbers. By some rudimentary survival instinct, they began to assemble in predatory packs to raid human settlements, eventually necessitating the construction of the fortress walls that now defended every Enclave.

Feared and loathed as the offspring of the Angels, the creatures were dubbed the "Nephilim."

By the time of his arrival, around a dozen of the things had cornered the family against a rusted, overturned tractor-trailer. The father - a stout, bearded man approaching middle age - was already mildly injured, and the futility of attempting to pierce his attackers' AT-fields with rifle shot had begun to fill his eyes with a despairing panic. Behind him, the wife and children huddled with tear-streaked faces.

Tonight, he decided, no human lives would be lost in this place.

A pair of crimson spikes protruded from the palm of his right hand, extending outwards, and then twisting to form a cylindrical shaft that ended in a double-pronged blade: A replica of the Lancea Longini, based on what he remembered of it from when it had temporarily been a part of his body. Crafting it from his flesh always made him feel a little inhuman, but it wasn't something that he could afford to dwell upon at the moment. The deployment of his AT-field had not gone unnoticed, and the Nephilim had suddenly turned their attention to him.

He could've theoretically killed off the creatures with offensive AT-field techniques, but his control wasn't nearly good enough to do so when there were bystanders within range. In this situation, the Lance Replica was by far a safer and more practical implement. Though the polearm technique that he'd devised to use with it was artless and clumsy - worthless to anyone who couldn't casually throw up an AT-field - it permitted the application of the weapon's intended function, which slightly differed from that of the original.

The AT-fields of even the strongest Nephilim couldn't compare to those of Angels, but they was still capable of blocking rounds from conventional firearms. Before the Lance Replica, however, they might as well have been made of wet tissue paper. Within the first forty seconds of the fight, the three creatures closest to him were reduced to puddles of LCL, and he watched as the sparks of their souls drifted away.

The Lance Replica did not absorb - it dispersed. The S^2 Organ that now comprised the center of his brain had removed any natural termination to his lifespan for the foreseeable future. He had no intention of spending the rest of eternity with the Nephilim as a part of his soul.

At the deaths of their fallen companions, the instinct of self-preservation that had driven the Nephilim to hunt humans in the first place now made them wary; they understood that they were faced with a stronger predator. It was, however, not quite enough to make them back off, and so they stood their ground, confident in their numerical superiority as their alpha took the fore.

It was grotesque figure - the scarred, heavily muscular body of a hulking, headless man, attached at the chest to the back of a young girl's fair-skinned torso, which possessed an extra set of arms. The torso itself wasn't connected to a matching lower body; and instead, the 'girl' was conjoined to the man's abdomen like some sort of Siamese twin. Seeking to declare its dominance, perhaps, the Nephilim issued a threatening roar from the 'girl's' mouth - almost identical to that of a lion.

It wouldn't have understood if he thanked it for its decision; but the moment it identified itself, his task had become far easier.

Dashing forward, he thrust the tip of his weapon at the girl's face. The alpha's response time was superior, and it managed to raise the 'man's' arm just in time to defend - but in the end, even a noncritical injury from the Lance could be disabling. Where the double blades punctured the forearm, the flesh immediately lost integrity; and a hand fell to the cracked surface of the street with a visceral splatter. Betraying an extreme pain at the loss of its limb, the 'girl' grimaced and gave a tortured cry. The distraction was long enough for him to plunge the Lance through the 'girl's' navel and violently jerk it upwards - bisecting 'her' torso and head in the process. Cut from its souls, the body began to collapse.

A creature that had merely killed three of the pack probably wasn't too intimidating - but one that had effortlessly destroyed an alpha was not something that the Nephilim dared challenge. Intimidated beyond their level of comfort, they began to slowly retreat.

Then, with a very rapid sequence of fleshy thunks, swords were abruptly plunged through their skulls.

"Zabaniya," said a male voice from a nearby rooftop, just beyond his relaxed sensory range. "The Guardian of the Wastes of Hell - the Nineteenth Angel. Figures that Control would fail to mention your involvement when they radioed for me to head out here."

A man dressed in military fatigues leapt down from the top of the building, holding what appeared to be a black composite bow. Nimbly landing, he pulled his bowstring back. When it had reached its maximum, a sword identical to the ones that had slain the Nephilim manifested with the base of its hilt resting at the knocking point. The blade felt as if it were somehow crafted from an AT-field.

"Maybe you weren't around before the Third Impact," said the newcomer, "but they used to hunt down your kind with these giant bionic mecha called Evangelions. I've got nothing like that in my arsenal, obviously, but you'll find that these swords are more than capable of cutting you down."

The soldier was a redhead - older and male - but if you took away the tan of his skin and changed his eye color - made him maybe a decade younger - his facial features would resemble nobody more than ...

Unbidden, the somatic memory of a neck snapping within his grip crossed his mind, and he stumbled backwards, dropping the Lance Replica.

[Wh- who are you!] he shouted. [How can you exist! She was dead!]

The main raised a brow.

"Unified Language, huh?" he said. "I don't know who you've mistaken me for, and I don't really care." Without breaking guard, he slowly repositioned himself until the family of refugees was directly at his back. "I've heard, though, that you've never really shown any hostility against humans. Try to keep that up, and we won't have any problems."

Parted from his conscious maintenance, the Lance began to decompose into LCL.

[Tell me,] he said, trying to collect himself. [What was the name of your mother?]

The man seemed growingly confused.

"My mother?" he asked. "I don't remember my mother. Why the hell would it matter to you?"

Involuntarily taking another step back, he caught his reflection in a broken shop window from the corner of his eye. Accusingly, the pale, birdlike face of Sachiel glared at him from beneath the hood of his black traveler's cloak.

Do not think yourself sinless, it said. For the murder of brethren, your toils shall be cursed never to yield crop, and unto the ends of this world shall you be marked ...

The 19th, Morning

'That was ... Berserker's past?'

Kariya allowed himself to lie for a bit before painfully sitting up from his bed, squinting in the unpleasant brightness of the room. The eastward-facing windows had white venetian blinds, but even closed, they didn't do much to keep out the morning sunlight. It was a small blessing that the worms were mostly inactive during the day.

That nightmare, he wondered - was it a part of the dream cycle induced by the Grail?

According to the texts in the old man's library, a Master would be instinctively able to tell if the contents of a dream experienced during the War didn't originate from their own minds. The scenes he witnessed certainly felt foreign in origin, but the contents were utterly incoherent. Real events, he was fairly sure, wouldn't have such blatant symbolism.

At the very beginning, Berserker indicated that his legend hadn't yet come into existence. Kariya - who had been too caught up in logistical concerns of his strategy at the time - paid the claim little mind, but now it seemed to be forcing itself upon his consciousness.

The Nephilim; the talk of the Angels; the Lancea Longini; the Rapture.

Abrahamic religion was a recurring theme throughout the nightmare, and there was heavy hinting that Berserker might have been a figure from the Christian eschatology. On the other hand, there were things that seemed like rejected concepts from a science fiction movie - the stereotypically futuristic design of the Enclave, for example; or the mention of the bionic mecha. Meshed with all of the religious symbolism, the sequence might have been stolen from some badly researched anime script or light novel - and that alone made him wonder if it wasn't all a mental regurgitation of random fiction he'd been exposed to as a child.

Assuming he could take it seriously, though, the bit about Zabaniya was confounding. In the Islamic tradition, the angel that guarded hell was named as Maalik, and the Zabaniya were the nineteen tutelary spirits that assisted him in his task - presumably the inspiration of the Noble Phantasms used by the nineteen Hassan-i Sabbah. However, Zabaniya as a singular entity described as the 'Nineteenth Angel" or the 'Guardian of Hell' went blatantly against its mythological background. Along with the black cloak and the bird-like bone mask, the name-dropping raised confusing questions about Berserker's precise relationship with the Assassins.

Why was the sight of the man with the swords so frightful?

Kariya shook his head, clearing his mind. There wasn't any use in dwelling upon these things until they became relevant. For now, it was best to simply concentrate on the War.

'The others players now know me as the Master of Berserker,' he thought, limping out into the kitchen. 'And Berserker's become a sufficiently known quantity that we probably won't be implicated for the actions we've taken the past couple of days.'

Already, Tokiomi had eliminated the Master of Lancer, who had in turn destroyed Assassin. Lancer and Archer were still alive, but for awhile they would be occupied fighting one another, presumably. All that remained was to involve Caster and Rider in the mess, and then sit back. The familiar Kariya had left to monitor Saber and her Master had been killed, but in the event that the pair turned up again, they probably wouldn't seek a rematch against Berserker immediately.

'The question is, was the little show we put on intimidating enough to keep the others from attempting an attack?'

Common sense would dictate the negative, but the magi were by definition removed of normality. The fact that they valued magic and magecraft over the worth of any life - including their own - was how a completely senseless death-match like the War of the Grail could've come about in the first place. The final words of the late Master of Lancer had cemented this understanding within Kariya's mind.

'This is how they get around to thinking that people are more or less tools,' he thought, opening the refrigerator.

Besides the usual fare of beer, comfort foods, and instant meals, there were actually some vegetables and cooking ingredients stocked in the bottom drawers, from when Berserker had convinced him to go grocery shopping. Undeniably, the flat had become increasingly livable since the boy had taken up the domestic duties.

'Am I really any different, though?' wondered Kariya. 'From the very beginning, the plan was to sacrifice Berserker and myself for Sakura's sake.'

Sighing, he removed a can of Yebisu from a six-pack and shut the door, stalking out into the living room. Lazily plopping down on the couch, he turned on the news and pulled open the tab of the can. A commentator was discussing President Clinton's recent move to bar the United States from federally funding human cloning research - making a point that those who supported such science were in essence arguing for the commoditization of humanity.

"Tell me, Aoi," said Kariya. "Do you think I'm a hypocrite?"

The catacombs beneath the district of Shinto dated from the Edo period, when the crypto-Christians in the area had utilized them for purposes of worship. The subterranean tomb at the Pro-Cathedral of Fuyuki connected to the historic primary entrance, but there were other passageways into the system hidden throughout the city. Some had collapsed over the years, and others had been destroyed during the construction of the sewers and the subways - but those that otherwise remained were had been faithfully documented by the Fuyuki Historical Society.

The spiral stairwell that descended from the fourth sub-basement of the Fuyuki Grand Hyatt was not on record; Kayneth Archibald El-Melloi had bored it out mere days before his death.

By the time Kotomine Kirei arrived, Tohsaka Tokiomi was already waiting in the rectangular stone chamber at the base - smiling faintly as he examined the symbols carved into the walls by flickering lamplight.

"Amazing, is it not?" asked Tohsaka. "These are the foundational sigils of the altered bounded field we witnessed last night - inscribed by Lord El-Melloi with use of his Mystic Code. The products of his talent and ingenuity are truly breathtaking."

"Perhaps," said Kirei, sullenly. "But in the end, the sum of his talents was proven unequal to yours."

Tohsaka Tokiomi chuckled, but shook his head.

"You misunderstand, Kirei," he said. "The effectiveness of the Musou Tensei is dependent on the strength of the thaumaturgy employed by the opponent. My choice to use the technique was a gamble based upon an utmost respect for Lord El-Melloi's talent. Were his magecraft any weaker, the possibility exists that I would no longer be here. The Counter Force does not exercise itself where it is unneeded."

Expressionlessly, Kirei directed his gaze to the glass jar that sat beside the lamp on the floor. Within, a mass of bloody flesh floated in viscous, clear liquid.

"You would suggest that failure and success have no inherent meaning, then?" he queried.

"The only meaningful failure is death," replied Tohsaka Tokiomi, gazing upwards at the intricate magic circle across the ceiling. "In all other cases, a loss is what we make of it - and so long as we find worth in what we have attained, even in defeat, we are triumphant. Do you judge the Excalibur worthless merely because it has failed to slay Berserker?"

The explanation seemed not to purely address an optimistic philosophical stance. If Kirei read the meaning correctly, it was an endorsement of pragmatism - and the "worth" spoken of was beyond self-satisfaction a matter of securing or appreciating accomplishments of tactical value to future objectives even in defeat. Was Tohsaka Tokiomi a man who viewed the entire world as a sequence of branching contingencies, then?

It was unimaginable, and inhumanly empty - moreso than the void that Kotomine Kirei sought to fill within his own heart. Tohsaka Tokiomi had to find comfort and reassurance in something more substantial.

"I can unfortunately find no worth in the outcome of my engagement with Lancer," said Kirei. "The original response plan that I laid out with Assassin in case of my discovery didn't account for the presence of a third party like Rider. When it became apparent that he intended to intervene, we had no choice but to abandon confirmation of Lancer's destruction. As such, we now have a loose end, and it's merely the third day of the War."

"A loose end Lancer may be," said Tohsaka, "but with what we now know of the properties of the crimson spear, we've essentially confirmed Lord El-Melloi and his partner to be the perpetrators of the attack upon the Estate. Elimination of this loose end consequently brings to heel a primary threat to our defenses."

It wasn't a very revealing answer, but Kirei supposed that there would be other opportunities to pick at Tohsaka's psychology.

"Possibility of a second discovery makes it imprudent to have Assassin perform the cleanup," he said. "What course of action would you propose?"

Tokiomi smiled, folding his hands behind his back as he faced his shadow.

"The matter that presently occupies Lancer is undoubtedly a desire for vengeance," he said. "It is my intention to oblige him - to give him the fight that he seeks. Before the King of Heroes, he shall be reacquainted with the inevitability of death, and know despair ..."

The temporary office that Ikari Yui had been assigned had become quite cluttered within a mere twenty-four hours.

"I think these are all of the personnel documents that you requested," said Kyoko, laying a clear plastic folder across the top of a thick volume on gestalt psychology.

"Thank you," said Yui. "Oh, and by the way - that maintenance crew you assigned me last night was a huge help. I look forward to working with them again."

"Not a problem," replied Kyoko, nodding and politely smiled back.

Inwardly, she was feeling a little out of her league in regards to the situation. Ikari Yui wasn't an intimidating individual, per se, but the eight technicians that she'd requisitioned to accompany her into the city last night had been downright spooked by whatever they'd seen. In a closed debriefing afterwards, they'd been assigned some high security clearance gag order that had them refusing to mention anything - almost as if they were afraid for their lives. The 'samples' they'd returned with were in the mean time quietly sequestered to a subterranean sector of the lab that was off-limits to just about everyone.

Not unexpectedly, the atmosphere about the office today had been palpably tense - and Ikari Yui either hadn't noticed or simply didn't care. She'd gone about her business with an imperturbable amicability that felt very, very out of place. It was painfully obvious that she wasn't the run-of-the-mill intern that she pretended to be.

'We're still adjusting to her presence,' Kyoko rationalized. 'It's not like she's a bad person or anything ...'

Trying to make small talk, she asked, "Who's that guy you've been staring at on your monitor all morning? He's got that scruffy older man look that I really like."

With pleasant smile that didn't reach her eyes, Ikari Yui replied, "I don't know his name, but he's the reason that I was specifically assigned to this response effort."

On screen, the face of Emiya Kiritsugu was illuminated by firelight.

AD 12XX (?)

In the beginning, there was nothing.

Not light, not shadow.

Only him.

"You have been disconnected," said a voice with no origin. "All that is unnecessary for your immediate survival has been severed from your mind."

Lord Propagandist, he uttered soundlessly. What am I to do?

"You are to regain and master those things that have been taken from you," said the voice. "Every inch of bone; every hair; every strand of muscle. With your mind alone, you shall grasp ahold of them, and without reliance upon the instinct given unto us by Allah, you shall draw yourself from stone and be born anew."

And if I fail?

"Neither paradise nor hell awaits. Your mind shall erode to the chaos of the [ ], and soon you shall be as dust within the abyss."

For a time, he was unable to summon any words, and perhaps an eternity passed before he uttered his response.

Why? he asked. Why have I been consigned to this punishment? I am faithful and devout!

"What know you of the angel Zabaniya, Adherent?"

In the End of Days, he stands sentinel in the barren wastes of Jahannam, guiding the lost to sanctuary. By his spear, the infidels know their sins and are unmade. He is the once and future patron to the Final Judgment of humanity.

"And why is it that we have cloaked our disciples in shadow? Why do they bear the mask of Zabaniya? Why must we give up our names?"

It is that we shall be as the Angel of the Wastes, harboring the folk unto salvation.

"In this hour, Adherent, we are in need of a guide of unprecedented ability," said the tired, aged voice of the propagandist. "It was the conclusion of the Elders that you possessed the potential to be shaped as the sword of the Order. Do you comprehend?"

And then he did.

It was not he who had been chosen to bear this nameless suffering. It was he who had given himself over - to be educated that he might bring forth salvation by his own hands. If necessary, he had long since vowed to destroy himself for the sake of his people.

Lord Propagandist, he said with renewed conviction. I shall be the sword that draws itself from stone.

Timeline C

Medieval Era:

125X: Hulagu Khan captures the primary strongholds of the Hashishin, forcing the sect underground. At this time, the leader of the Hashishin is an individual known as the "Hundred-Faced Hassan."
1589: The Prague Academy - a primary member organization of the Sea of Estray - decommissions a golem of their construction at the request of Emperor Rudolf II. Its remains are entombed in a facility beneath a graveyard in the district of Zizkov in Prague.

Modernity:

1978: The discipline of Metaphysical Biology is founded with the discovery of the existence of the soul.
1982: Fuyutsuki Kouzou demonstrates that a soul can intervene in physical phenomenon with the electronic modulation of a frog's brain. Practical applications of Metaphysical Biology begin to be developed.
1986: The UN-funded Artificial Evolution Concern establishes a series of laboratory facilities across Japan to track soul-modulated alterations in physical phenomenon, known as "synchronization events."
1988: Noted scientist Ikari Hashidate and his daughter Yui are gunned down by the assassin known as the Magus. Yui survives with mild injuries. This is the last known sighting of the Magus.
1989: Katsuragi Keima refines the tracking system created by the UN-AEC. He begins to hypothesize on the nature of high-order synchronization events that he refers to as Type:Blue.
1995: Ikari Yui joins the laboratory of Katsuragi Keima as an intern.

March, 1997 (4th Grail War):

?: Matou Kariya summons Berserker.
17th, Evening: Unknown Servant launches assault on the Tohsaka Estate.
18th, Noon: "Assassin" infiltrates the Fuyuki Grand Hyatt. After disabling electronic security, he attempts to eliminate Kayneth Archibald El-Melloi. Lancer intervenes and drives him off, but not before El-Melloi loses his command seals. El-Melloi's fiancee, Sola-Ui, becomes Master of Lancer. After deliberation, it is decided that El-Melloi will continue to act as Master.
18th, Afternoon: Ikari Yui arrives in Fuyuki City.
18th, Evening: Ikari Yui was not specifically informed of the nature of her task, but recognizes that Fuyuki exhibits a far higher than average incidence of "synchronization events." Preparations are made to collect "samples."
El-Melloi unleashes a city-wide bounded field. Upon locating Assassin's Master, Kotomine Kirei, he orders Lancer to attack. However, as Lancer departs, El-Melloi is attacked by Tohsaka Tokiomi, who suspects him of being the perpetrator of the attack upon the Tohsaka Estate. El-Melloi is killed, and his Crest is extracted. After Assassin is "eliminated" by a severely poisoned Lancer, Rider intervenes, preventing Lancer from killing Kotomine. Kotomine takes refuge in the official Sanctuary of the War.
Meanwhile, Matou Kariya reveals himself as the Master of Berserker, and engages Saber. The fight ends inconclusively, and Kariya withdraws. Shortly thereafter, "False Saber" captures Saber and Irisviel von Einzbern. Arriving on the scene a little bit too late, Emiya Kiritsugu deduces that the perpetrator behind Saber and Irisviel's kidnapping might be Tohsaka Tokiomi.
19th, Morning: Tohsaka Tokiomi and Kotomine Kirei conclude that Lancer is a loose end in their plan to create the fiction that Assassin is defeated. Tokiomi decides that he and Archer will perform cleanup.
Ikari Yui has concluded that she may have been specifically selected for her present task due to the Magus' involvement in the events ongoing within the city.

Future (Timeline A?):

2000: 2nd Impact
2015: 3rd Impact
204X: Near Vladivostok Territory in the former Russian Federation, an entity called Zabaniya saves a family from being slaughtered by vampiric creatures known as the Nephilim. Immediately afterwards, he encounters a redheaded man capable of materializing unlimited swords.

End Snippet.
Draft: Dec 11th 2011