The Death of a Saint
"Our greatest pretenses are built up not to hide the evil and the ugly in us, but our emptiness.
The hardest thing to hide is something that is not there."
-Eric Hoffer, Social Writer
Summer 2007 ATB
Marseille, French Republic
European Universe
This is the story of a certain man.
A story of a man whose ideals drove him into despair.
A man not wise enough to understand his ideals, but not stupid enough to blindly follow them.
He was born with no physical or mental defects, no mental disorders or birth deformities.
His parents were not abusive or neglectful—born to a moral Christian couple well into middle age, he was treated as a miracle from a kind god.
When his mother passed away, his father took it upon himself to raise him.
His father had high expectations of him, but he always made clear his love for his son.
And the man met those expectations.
A serious, contemplative boy, he excelled in all he applied himself to.
He was not particularly talented, but he put his utmost into everything he did, and by dint of inhuman effort, he surpassed even the prodigies around him.
He had few friends, but the ones he did have were as good as any.
His academics were impeccable, and he was ever a source of pride and joy for his father.
Yet the man could derive no joy from what brought happiness to others.
The man was not psychopathic—having attended every Sunday School and recited half of the bible, he knew that a man should shun evil and take joy in what is good.
He had morals, he had common sense—but he simply could not understand morality
This view was no different from a psychological or neurobiological standpoint—studies have shown that works of altruism activate reward pathways within the brain[1], bringing pleasure.
And yet, the man could feel no joy from helping others. Though his friends and his father showed joy when he did what was right (as he had always been instructed), he himself obtained none of it.
Was it that he lacked patience?
Was it that he lacked humility?
Was it that he was simply broken, a hitch in god's mass production line?
His father, of course, assured him that this was not the case. Every soul was born loved by the Lord, and he had a plan for each of them. Joy would come to he who followed that plan.
And so, trusting in God, the man forsook many roads to promising futures in the hope that the Lord would reward him with happiness. Many mourned the loss of a promising student when he elected to join a seminary as one of the clergy, to his father's delight.
As in everything he had done, he was a perfect clergyman. His piety was like stone, his resolve like brass, and his ironclad faith inspired fear in the enemies of the church and inspired joy in many a convert.
Yet, on the cusp of his induction as a bishop, the man realized he had received none of it. Though he didn't doubt the existence of good and his inherent goodness, he could feel no joy knowing he served him, no fulfillment.
He felt no happiness when he blessed marriages, no grief when he attended funerals.
But the man did not lose faith. Perhaps this was God's way of telling him that this was not his future. That there were other things planned for him.
And so, he abandoned without regret what his superiors told him would have been a straight path towards an archbishopric or even a place on the curia, choosing an obscure wing of the Roman Catholic Church devoted to fighting heresy. From there on he went from branch to branch, occupation to occupation, always looking for the fulfillment that always eluded him.
He purged himself, reforged himself, put himself through endless trials, all simply for the feeling that he had accomplished something.
At the end of the day, he realized that he had received none of the happiness and pain he had brought to many.
His peers admired him.
His father, while a little perplexed, remained ever proud of him.
But none of them understood his emptiness.
Nothing he did, no good he had ever done moved his heart, as it moved the hearts of others.
He was simply different.
Defective from birth.
When the man approached his father about it, his father simply said he was lonely. Without a mother, secluded in the clergy, perhaps he was simply lonely, with only a wizened old father as company.
Perhaps he wanted a family. A woman he could love, a child he could nurture.
And so his father ignited the last spark of hope within him, hope for simple, normal happiness.
With his father's blessing, he resigned himself from the clergy.
He devoted himself to finding a wife and finding joy.
He no longer aspired for anything as great as the divine joy of religion, the peace that passeth understanding promised by God to those who followed his precepts.
He simply wanted normal happiness—the happiness of a father and a husband.
He chose somebody without any hope, without a future.
She was a terminally ill patient at a nearby hospital with only a few years to live.
For two years, he tried to love her, and she tried to love him.
She did truly love him.
In those two years, they settled together, had a child—and she was truly happy. To her, he was her hope, a last joy given to a woman who had conceded the end.
She understood his pain, his struggle. She knew his anger, his despair. She did all she could to end it.
But it was not enough.
The harder she tried, the more fulfilled he felt when she failed.
Even this woman, a Saint who truly and faithfully loved him over her own life, could not find the cure.
And, gradually, horrifically, he realized that he was, in fact feeling happiness.
Not the happiness in the joys and fortunes of this woman and their child, but the happiness at their tribulations, at their suffering, the pain that tested the brave, peaceful smiles on their faces.
It was then that he decided that no human could ever understand him, the pain of a man who knew he was broken and fervently wished he was not. Not the psychopaths who happily accepted their lack of morals, nor the ordinary man or woman with their simple desires and loves.
He was an aberration, a mistake.
He was hurting the woman who loved him.
It was better that he disappeared.
"I could not love you," he said simply to that woman on that rainy night.
She was bedridden, in her final weeks of life.
He knew that those words would hurt her.
But he had a duty to say those words.
And yet she smiled.
"No. But I love you."
And there, in front of him, she killed herself.
She did not have much longer to live at any rate.
There was no meaning in stopping her, no reason. Both of them knew that.
And, even in those last moments, covered in her own blood, she smiled at her husband.
"See? You're crying."
To prove his worth, the woman was willing to take her own life, to prove that he could love, had loved.
Those tears, to her, was a validation of his love.
She died with a smile on her face.
The tears that man shed, to her, was his salvation.
The man wished he had shed them. He truly wished he had.
Yet, of course, he hadn't shed anything.
He felt sad.
He grieved.
But it was not because she died.
At that time, that voice he had always tried to suppress spoke clearer than any other. "What a pity. If she were to die, then I would rather have killed her myself."
Even with the death of that saint, he could only wish to have perpetrated her misfortune.
And it pained him. Perhaps it was the grief of a missed opportunity—or perhaps it was the last struggles of a common sense that told him he was a demon for holding that desire.
The woman's death was not meaningless.
She had proven to him that he was broken, that there was no answer.
There could be no salvation.
If he felt joy from the pain of others, it was better he never feel joy at all.
He left his daughter to be raised at an abbey and rejoined the clergy.
He had never once looked back.
It had been a year since then.
Was it the right decision? Kirei Kotomine asked himself as he watched countless sails flutter in the Bay of Marseilles.
A voice behind him spoke. "Enjoying the view?"
Notre-Dame de la Garde. Built on an old fort, the basilica is one of the greatest landmarks of the city of Marseille, overlooking much of this ancient city.
"Yes," Kirei lied. It didn't feel much different than any other city.
Tohsaka Tokiomi smiled indulgently. "You don't get such sights back in Japan. We really ought to thank your father for this view."
"Nonsense. Travel expenses are travel expenses," an old, wrinkled man in a cassock responded. Nobody in the church doubted Risei Kotomine's integrity and faith, but the man enjoyed life.
Though Kirei knew his father was on good terms with the caretaker of the Fuyuki spiritual ground, he had never met the man.
Though he dressed like a banker, Tohsaka Tokiomi carried all the suave grace and handsomeness of a Britannian Aristocrat. His beard would have looked stupid on a less striking man. Though his appearance was predominately oriental, there was a clear Caucasian influence in his facial structure as well.
It wasn't often you'd see a magus and a man of the church together.
Since the institution of Christianity as the state religion by Emperor Constantine and Emperor Theodosius in the early 300's, the Magi and the Church have been in a state of prolonged hostility, the magus slowly driven into hiding via a hundred wars, from the Crusades to the Inquisition to the Protestant Reformation. Though the two bodies had not been officially at war since Italy had made peace with the Papal States[2], the secretive Magus Association and the Billion-strong Holy Church were in a state of cold war. If a magus and a man of the church were found in meeting, there were likely to be repercussions, particularly to the skulls of each of the offending parties.
Combining a highly-ranked magus, a representative of the Church and a Church Executor, these three men were probably some of the most secretive men in Marseille.
With dressed in two cassocks and an impeccable red suit, these three men were also probably the sweatiest. The summer breeze did little to alleviate the blazing sun, and Kirei was acutely aware of the sweat dripping off each strand of his hair.
If Tokiomi was bothered by the heat, he gave no sign.
Instead, he delicately removed the white glove that covered his right hand, the kind of gloves that aren't thin enough to be disposable nor thick enough to be good for anything other than decoration.
Underneath were three darkened circular marks, almost bruises.
The same type of marks Kirei now bore on his own palm.
"The command seals—a sigil representing the Grail's decision to choose you as a master for the Fourth Heaven's Feel," Tokiomi said patiently.
When his father had discovered the mark on his hand a few days ago, he had rushed over from Japan to Kirei's home and Italy and then taken him to Marseilles under the protection of the Church, explaining the rules on the way.
Heaven's Feel. The war for the 726th artifact known as the Holy Grail.
A grail that could fulfill any wish.
A barbaric ritual in which seven masters would summon humanity's greatest heroes and engage in a wholesale slaughter in the sleepy Japanese town of Fuyuki.
And Kirei had just been chosen to take part in three years.
"It seems you don't understand the great honor given you," Tokiomi remarked pleasantly.
"Is the grail selective? Does it target certain candidates?"
Tokiomi nodded. "Without a doubt. The Grail prioritizes its makes, a member of each of the three founding houses—a candidate for the Von Einzburn, a candidate for the Makiri, now the Matou, and a candidate for the Tohsaka. The other masters are chosen from qualified magus. That a nonmagus without any experience with magecraft such as yourself has been selected is a great and unusual honor."
"I will, of course, participate as the representative of the Tohsaka."
Kirei, though, was confused. Why would his father bring him to meet one of the men he would have to fight?
"About the Heroic Spirits…"
"The servants," Tokiomi corrected.
"The servants…wouldn't a battle in a densely populated area cause huge casualties and bring trouble to the association?"
From what Kirei knew, it took multiple exorcists to subdue a rampaging full-fledged middle-class demon. Saints, like that former Knight or that Kanzaki woman[3], could be equated to cruise missiles in raw combat ability. A heroic spirit, one who has surpassed what is impossible, is only one step beneath an angel. Having seven of them fighting each other could well be tantamount to a carpet bombing campaign.
"I will not say it hasn't happened," Tokiomi responded simply. "The founders had chosen Fuyuki as the spiritual ground over other powerful grounds, such as Jerusalem and Ireland, because it would arouse much notice. But Japan was modernizing by the time of the last war. Today, Fuyuki is a densely populated urban area with a large civilian population."
"And that's where the Church comes in," Risei concluded. "It is in the mutual interest of the association and the church that magecraft remains secret. As such, I was dispatched in the last war in the capacity of a supervisor, in order to coordinate cleanups and moderate the war. But that's not it."
Kirei nodded. It made sense for now. Within the political labyrinth of the Magus Association, there could be no reliably neutral body except the Holy Church, which hated all members of the association in equal measure.
"The truth is that we in the Church know that this Holy Grail, like the others, is not the cup that held the blood of christ." Risei and Kirei were both members of the Assembly of the 8th Sacrament, a portion of the church devoted to the recovery and categorization of sacred artifacts. Most of what they recovered were far from what they were purported to be, and given the sheer amount of "holy grails", Kirei was not surprised.
"Nevertheless," Tokiomi remarked, "the grail is incredibly powerful. The power to summon not one, not two, but seven Heroic spirits is only a portion of the might of the grail. In the wrong hands, it could cause the deaths of thousands."
"Then why not end the ceremony?"
Risei smiled. "Those who fight the Holy Grail War are prepared for death. To try to dismantle it as a heresy would be…difficult. War could well result."
Kirei nodded, slowly. He was starting to understand why he was here.
"And so…"
"As clergymen, it is our duty to mitigate the casualties by ensuring that the Holy Grail finds a proper master."
"The Matou magus line is drying up, unfit for the holy grail," Tohsaka said mournfully, "and the Von Einzburn have let personal desires obscure the original intent of the founders, the search for the Origin."
The ultimate the ideological and philosophical goal that all magus ultimately aspire to: the uncovering of the Akasha, the root.
The inscribed record of all that has and will happen in the world. The building block of every science, magic, religion, and philosophy. The answer to every question. The source code of the word, if you would. One who has seen the akashic record has the knowledge of god.
"The discovery of Akasha does not affect the doctrines of the church, nor does it pose a danger to humanity," Risei said simply. "Moreover, the Tohsaka have held onto their faith in spite of years of tribulation—they are friends to the church."
At the end of the 16th century AD, Japan boasted the largest Christian population in all of Asia, boasting 130,000 converts. However, the fear that Christians were dominated by the Spanish and Portugese and the belligerence of many Christian Daimyos led first Totoyomi Hideyoshi and later Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu to suppress Christianity. The remaining Christians were driven into hiding, persecuted and hunted. Tohsaka Nagato, the founder of the Tohsaka Clan, had been a Hidden Christian. Even as he joined the Magus Association, he kept his faith and his ties with the Church. Fuyuki, as a result, held a rather large Christian population. When Lord Perry's black ships sailed into Yokohama bay and ushered the end to national isolation, Fuyuki's population happily helped in the erection of the Kotomine Church. The Tohsaka was one of the few magus houses that the Church saw in a positive light.
"The Grail…can do that?"
"…that has always been what it was meant to do," Tokiomi replied confidently, "and that is what we, the Tohsaka, have always wished for. Where the Matou and Von Einzburn have erred and where other masters have come to fulfill their own lust for power, the Tohsaka seek only the root. We are the only ones who deserve this grail."
There was no arrogance or puffed up pride—Tokiomi's sincerity was clear. To this prideful man, the fact that the grail belonged to him was not something to boast about, nothing to crow about. It was simple fact.
"And…I am to help you?" Kirei said slowly.
Risei nodded. "Bluntly, yes." There was no pretense of neutrality in his father's eyes. Risei—and the church—wasn't playing fair.
"Will you do it?" Tokiomi smiled pleasantly, but there was perhaps a hint of a threat.
Kirei would, naturally. This was not about what was right or wrong. He was an Executor of the Church, one of the many organs of the body of Christ. In god's name he had killed demons, but men as well, magus and heretics. He had a duty to his church and to his god.
Tokiomi, possibly reading the expression on Kirei's face, smiled. "Then you will be transferred to the magus association as my apprentice, effective immediately."
"Immediately?" Kirei blinked disbelievingly. The Church was known for its bureaucracy, and he surmised the political magus association had similar problems.
And yet, looking at the document Risei produced, two Archbishops and an association representative had signed the document yesterday.
"You will learn some basic magecraft and skills required for the war in the next three years," Tokiomi continued without pause.
"But won't my status as your apprentice betray our alliance?"
Tokiomi smiled, not the indulgent smile he had held previously, but a cold, merciless smile. "Ahhh…you from the church would not understand the politics and machinations of the Magus Association. It is not unusual, in the association, for a master and a former apprentice to fight to the death."
Like the Church's many denominations, the Magus Association was a web of complex political rivalries and alliances. Clock Tower in Boston, Atlas in Egypt, the Prague Association in Czechoslovakia, each of these groups frequently fought each other when they were not at war with the church. Rivalries could get quite vicious.
Kirei nodded slowly.
Tokiomi looked across the walls, at the streets of Marseille. "Do you have any last questions?"
"Only one. What is the criteria for the selection of masters?"
"It selects one of each of the founding houses, and then prioritizes magus who truly need the grail's miracle. If it cannot obtain the sufficient number, it will recruit from those who aren't quite qualified…"
"Then could it choose randomly?"
Tokiomi blinked. It seemed he wasn't expecting the question. It took him a moment or two to return to his graceful smile.
"No. I don't think so. The grail does not make random choices…aaah." Realization dawned onto Tohsaka's face, and he smiled kindly. "you are wondering why you were chosen."
Kirei nodded. Why had the grail chosen he, the one who had no wishes?
"Well…it is a little strange. I suppose the link between you and the war is your father, who is the supervisor…? Or, rather, I suppose it's BECAUSE your father is the supervisor."
Kirei hid his confusion as Tohsaka narrowed his eyes.
"Perhaps the Grail chose you because he knew the Church would support the Tohsaka house. Yes, that must be it. The Grail has given the Tohsakas two servants to secure the grail. It is a sure sign of our victory, is it not?"
Any other man who said this would have been judged as an egomaniac. Yet, the ridiculous but unassuming arrogant dignity with which Tohsaka Tokiomi carried himself somehow managed to make even his ridiculous pronunciation sincere and dignified.
For this was Tohsaka Tokiomi.
Not like the new "aristocrats" of Britannia, flush with money plundered from poorer populations, nor the frumpy old order of carelessly rich, but the pride of a man who knew he was different and accepted it as fact. A true aristocrat.
Yet Kirei could not help but feel despair. That pronunciation could satisfy nobody save for an aristocrat such as Tohsaka Tokiomi.
Silently, Kirei excused himself as Tohsaka finished giving his orders.
Why had the grail chosen such an unbecoming master? Someone who neither had a desire to be used in the grail nor a desire for the grail?
"He's a good son," Tokiomi said to Risei as Kirei departed.
"He's more than a good son…he is everything that I could ever ask for," Risei said proudly. The old priest's love for his son was clear.
"I'm sure he'll serve us well."
Risei nodded. "He's an executor of the church. He would walk through the fires of hell if it was for the church."
Tokiomi frowned. To him, Risei was a grandfather figure, somebody he truly respected from the bottom of his heart. But what he saw in Kirei was not a burning, passionate faith, but the apathetic mindset of a man with no hope.
"Is he prepared for this war?"
Risei frowned. "Physically, he is in the best of shape. Mentally, though…"
Tokiomi glanced at Risei. "something the matter?"
"This might be a chance for him to get away from Europe." There was a faraway look in the old man's eyes. "It was this time, a year ago…"
"that?"
"His wife died. They loved each other very much," Risei said at length.
For once, Tohsaka's dignity failed him, leaving him lost for words.
"Perhaps going back to his homeland will give him a chance to recover," Risei said finally.
Tohsaka smiled genially. "Don't worry. I'll treat him as you treated me—as my own son."
Risei returned the smile. "I'm sure, this time around, with Kirei, you can succeed where your grandfather failed."
"Of course."
Afterword: I apologize in advance, as this is largely nearly identical to the actual Prologue to fate/zero. The obvious reason, is, of course, that unlike in Fate/Nightmare Apatheia, the Code Geass universe has yet to really collide with the Nasuverse. I will do my best to try to add new content from now on, but this scene was definitely needed for anyone who didn't watch fate/zero or read the novels.
Footnotes and References
[1] h ttp : / www. washingtonpost. Com / wp-dyn / content / article / 2007 / 05 / 27 / AR2007052701056 . ht ml
[2] The papal states were one of many states in what is modern Italy, the papal states being located in central Italy and containing Rome. In our history, the Italian national movement led to the unison of many of the Italian states. The Papal States was eventually reduced to the area around Rome, and in September 1870, Italy officially annexed the Papal States and captured Rome. Pope Pius IX, who rejected this decision and had ordered the city's guards to mount a defense, shut himself in the Vatican. The church never gave up its claims on Rome until 1929.
[3] A reference to a certain magical anime.