NotSpecialDude: I agree. Rin Tohsaka can occasionally be more merciless than Ishtar herself. Her father raised her to be a 'perfect Magus'... which means raised to be hard, resentful, and insensitive...
Megaboss52: Oh, I agree. The problem is that some readers will never accept the slightest change in Shirou's abilities. Just look at the negative feedback I received because I make Shirou training with Luo Hao.
SentinalSlice: I know how survivor guilt works; my sister's first fiancé was a former soldier who had been peacekeepers in one of these horrible ethnical/ zealot conflicts in the Middle East.
Dimhid: I'm sorry you don't like what I write.
yeah boi: I used Sun Wukong's fear of fire and smoke in my story, but I couldn't use the fact that the Monkeys King couldn't swim.
My opinion on the power difference between the Servants (Fate) and the Heretics Gods (Campione!) is less clear-cut than your own opinion. In both universes, there are great variations in power. Likewise, some Noble Phantasms are more powerful than Divine Authorities, and the reverse is equally true. However, I think the primary benefit of being a Heretic God is not 'power' but their very existence. The presence of a Heretic God changes the flow of natural laws in his favor. Campiones (and Servants having a Divinity Skill or Divine Core of a Goddess Skill) are immune to this effect. Ordinary humans (at random... Shirou) and Servants without Divinity-type Skill would be at disadvantage.
Reaper200851: I have no pretension to write a perfect text. Who could? Even the cartoon adaptations of Type Moon's mangas and games have some mistakes. For example, in El Melloi II case Files, when Gray opened Ad seals to use Rongomynyad, she must get permission from the Knights of the Round. And Bedivere appears with the silver arm Airgetlám... that he canonically CANNOT have in this Time Line. If a whole team working in liaison with Type-Moon and having access to the original documents in Japanese CAN be wrong, it's not extraordinary if I, a private person, alone in front of my computer, and not having access to the original documentation ( I don't speak Japanese), make some mistakes. I'm only human. Despite the time I spend doing research, I sometimes don't understand the power, skill, or function of a Noble Phantasm (like the fact that you can't teleport when chained by Enkidu). Just to be clear, I don't take your answer badly, but you're not the first to point out my mistakes, and not everyone has your tact.
Trueopulence: In fact, even though I don't know much about the LN (never finished the original Campione! series, and never read the sequels), I knew that the Campiones traveled between worlds and gods too and that there were different gods and different Campiones in the other universes. Besides... you will have noted that the Beautiful Queen of the Cavern never appeared in my story... it's not a mistake on my part or an oversight, let's say that she will have a role to play in the second part of the Fanfic.
Author's note: this new chapter is not a normal chapter, but three Omakes. The main reason for this special chapter is... that the next chapter takes time to write because it is the introduction of a new Arc that is of critical importance and requires a lot of work, a lot more than any ordinary chapter. Moreover, I wanted to set up the first two Omakes before starting the next Arc. The third Omake is less humorous. In fact, it is an answer to this recent criticism: "Why Shirou does not fight the Heretics Gods?" We will see what happened if Shirou confronted Sun Wukong...
Mythological indigestion
Asclepius was a calm and methodical god. He only liked routine. A day when nothing happened was a good day according to his dictionary.
There were some good reasons for this. Asclepius had displeased Zeus by bringing the dead back to life... Because, in normal times, knowing to which god the soul of this or that mortal belonged was already a sacred problem that often degenerated into an endless dispute ("No it is my servant!", "No it is mine", "Liar, I had it first!")
The gods fought like children to share the dead mortals who waited quietly their turn in the line leading to the three judges of hell... until the mortals began to disappear one after the other in Hades to reappear in the world of the living. This caused some confusion. And yes, it was a bit of a mess in the accounts of the gods.
Zeus had immediately gone in search of the one responsible for this chaos and discovered Asclepius quietly engaged in resurrecting the dead and bringing them back to their families. These latter weeping with joy, filled with delight and gratitude... which was an additional cause to displease the king of Olympus.
I'll tell you a secret, a secret of the gods... lean over me so I can whisper it in your ear...
Ouch!
I say 'lean towards me' not to give me a whim... Clumsy one!
*Rubs his forehead while grumbling*
Well... what was I just saying? ... Ah yes, I was talking about the secret of the gods.
The gods don't like happy men. They want them miserable, hungry, homeless, hunted down by their enemies, or shipwrecked on a hostile coast.
Because happy men eat, discuss peacefully, live in peace, age, and die in peace surrounded by their grandchildren. In short, happy men have no reason to pray to the gods. On the contrary, when the worst troubles happen to humans, they weep, and turn to the heavens: "O mighty [insert here the name of a Greek god] thy faithful languish in affliction, will you deign to help me?"
And that kind of prayer was honey for the ears of the gods.
Because a mortal who prays to a god belongs to him and the latter can claim his soul after his death.
This explains the torments imposed on whole peoples (the Trojan War) as well as individual torments (Odyssey of Ulysses).
Seeing Zeus' arrival, furious and wielding lightning, Asclepius had discovered a great universal truth... never to displease the king of heaven!
He had plenty of time to think about it after being turned into a small pile of smoking ash... A pile of ashes didn't have much to do... although in this form it's hard to stay focused and he even has an irritating tendency to scatter and go dance with the wind.
Okay, on that note, Dad (the father of Asclepius is Apollo... I specify this for those who have never opened a book of Greek mythology) had gone to see Zeus to defend his son by whining: "Okay, he has a little bring mortals back to life, but it's not that bad... we can always kill them again later... And then, you know, we all make youth nonsense. Look at your own sons, they did far worse."
That was a compelling argument. Because Zeus' sons... between Heracles who killed his own children in a fit of madness, and especially Tantalus who had offered the gods a banquet of human flesh... they had many horrible crimes to make up for.
That was Olympian's condition, growing up in a toxic family environment. Aphrodite was a nymphomaniac, Ares was a psychopath, Hera spied on everyone because she was insanely jealous and paranoid, Hephaestus had been the victim of child abuse (abandoned because he was not handsome enough, he had thrown from the top of Olympus by Hera, and remained disabled). Dionysus was always drunk. Zeus was no better. He filled the 'famous characters' part of the dictionaries with the list of his bastards - certainly heroic- but still born out of weddings and not always of consenting mothers...
In the end, Zeus decided to forgive his grandson and Asclepius was made the god of medicine (a function previously occupied by Apollo) and he was even transformed into a constellation (Ophiuchus, the snake-bearer, in reference to the snake-entwined staff which is the emblem of Asclepius).
At last, having a real job and even ten stars just to him had certainly pleased Asclepius, but he had above all been happy to recover his humanoid body. One quickly gets tired of being an ash pile, it wasn't as if there were a lot of future prospects in this job ("Ask for the real ash of Asclepius, the best of all fertilizers. Grow your tomatoes with the ash of a god!"). Yeah, 'Reincarnated as a tomato' even the dumbest of Japanese LN authors could not hope for an adaptation in Anime for such a lousy idea...
After vowing Zeus not to repeat his youthful mistakes, Asclepius opened his medical practice and began to receive clients. It was a difficult job at times with many strange clients, but he did not complain.
However, that morning when Athena arrived, Asclepius had a chill of anxiety.
Each meeting with the Queen of the Night had ended in total chaos...
After all, it was Athena who gave him the Medusa blood able to kill the living and bring the dead back to life! Asclepius had only learned much later that Athena and Medusa were one and the same person... The Queen of Night tricked him into using Medusa's blood to wreak havoc in Hades. Even after millennia, the ancient Mother Goddess was still jealous of the gods who had replaced her and continued to conspire against Zeus.
As he looked at Athena with suspicion, the god of medicine realized that her complexion was greenish and that she was holding her belly with a mimic of pain.
Apparently, the Queen of Night had not come to manipulate him or use him in one of his revenge schemes. She needed his medical skills.
"Ah, esteemed Athena. To what do I owe the honor of your visit?"
"I am sick."
"I see that. What happened?"
The goddess looked away, seeming to find much appeal to the contemplation of anatomical charts.
"I ate something that went wrong."
"And you have any idea what makes you sick?"
"Yes. Sun Wukong."
Asclepius blinked, thinking he had misunderstood.
"Sorry?"
The goddess repeated herself.
"I have eaten the God of Steel Sun Wukong."
Okay, Asclepius... breath in... breath out... given your family environment, you should be used to the worst... and it's not the worst you've ever heard (but not far away, though). Focus on the medical aspect.
"Uh... could you be more specific?"
"I swallowed him in one bite."
"Without chewing... him?"
The last word was difficult to pronounce.
"Without chewing."
This probably explains why the goddess has indigestion.
"And that's all you ate that can explain your indisposition, beloved Athena?"
She thinks for some time before taking the floor again
"I ate my mother too."
As Asclepius looked at her with horror, Athena sought to defend herself.
"Wait, Metis started it. She wanted to eat me, I just defended myself! And then she had just devoured Perseus...so I absorbed the power of Metis and Perseus..."
Asclepius facepalmed. Finally, Athena was at least right on one point... She wasn't the one who started it. Metis had previously been devoured by Zeus... while the goddess of intelligence and ruse was pregnant with Athena. This later forced Hephaestus to crack the head of the king of the gods with a hammer to free the goddess. Before that, Zeus would have ended up in the belly of his father, the titan Cronos, if his mother did not save him by replacing the divine baby with a stone that Cronos had devoured without blinking. Poseidon and Hades had not had this chance. They remained in their father's womb until Zeus delivered them. Devouring the members of their family was a bit of a custom among the Olympians... an opportunity to remember this saying that one chooses his friends but rarely his family.
"Nothing else?"
"Well, I also ate a dragon shortly before!"
Asclepius repeated "A dragon?" incredulously.
"It was a tiny little dragon and it was so appetizing!"
The god of medicine closed his eyes and sighed while shaking his head overwhelmingly.
"Athena!"
The goddess jumped, blushed, and answered with a sheepish tone.
"Yes?"
"We really need to talk about your eating habits; it's not right, really not right at all! A balanced diet is necessary to be a healthy young goddess."
Sainte Jeanne d'Arc pray for us
After the clash in the Mojave Desert, the Servants who were the generals of Altera's army fled Nevada. Their current location was unknown to the various magical societies on the planet, despite all their efforts to find the fugitives.
In fact, the Servants had taken refuge in Buenos Aires (the capital of Argentina). To be more precise, they rented several free apartments in a high-rise building in the working-class district of Núñez. The crowd of ordinary people was the best hiding place. As the Servants hardly ever went out, food and whatever was needed was delivered to their homes, nobody had noticed that their new neighbors were not really mister Everyman or miss Everywoman.
Even dressed in ordinary clothes, Jeanne d'Arc hardly went unnoticed. At first... she was very beautiful., a 17-year-old girl who attracted the admiration of all men... and the jealousy of their wives. But even more, the French heroine was blonde with pure amethyst-colored eyes... Since the Bonaerenses (the inhabitants of Buenos Aires) were of Spanish or Italian lineage, Jeanne could hardly pass unnoticed.
The Maiden of Orleans left her apartment, closed the door behind her, and quickly climbed up the stairs. Fortunately, few people used the stairs, and most of the tower's inhabitants used the elevator. She met no one. Knocking at a door, she waited a few moments and smiled when Iskandar came to open it.
The red-haired colossus had his chest covered with bandages that concealed burns.
Jeanne saluted politely.
"How are you, Iskandar?"
He laughs loudly before bellowing as if to dominate the clamors of a battle:
"Obviously, I'm fine! How could the King of the Conquerors be..."
But Jeanne interrupted him while putting a finger on her lips.
"Shh, our presence is supposed to be secret, don't shout your name down the stairs."
Several people were already opening their doors to protest against the noise. Jeanne smiled awkwardly.
"Maybe we should go indoors. We got less attention inside... and please talk normally, don't shout."
Iskandar vigorously scratched his scalp, visibly embarrassed.
"Yes... yes... you're right."
Following her host, Jeanne entered the almost empty apartment. But in the main room, there was a video game console and piles of CD-ROMs. The ground was littered with empty junk food packages and wine bottles...
Jeanne turned to Iskandar, smiling, but her eyebrow trembled, reflecting the anger of the French saint.
"Iskandar?"
"Uh... Yeah?"
"What did I say about your habit of spending the whole night playing video games?"
"Uh... that I should sleep and rest?"
"Exactly. So, Your Majesty, could you explain to me why you're not taking care of yourself?"
"Uh..." Iskandar realized that 'Uh' was not the most imaginative answer he had and that he had just used it three times in a row. He coughed in his fist and offered a full-toothed smile to the Hundred Years' War heroine." The new Age of Glory came out yesterday. I thought I was going to play for an hour or two and then... uh... before I realized the day was rising."
Jeanne sighed before rubbing her temples, suddenly having a headache.
"Iskandar... that's not an excuse! (1) Be a responsible adult!"
After having changed Iskandar's bandages, Jeanne d'Arc left the apartment after a few last recommendations (do not stays more than two hours in front of a screen, eat healthier...).
She went down two floors and knocked on another door.
This time it was Guinevere who came to open.
The Witch-Queen of Brittany had red eyes for crying too much.
Letting Jeanne in, Guinevere dropped into the couch, buried her face in a pillow wet with tears, and began to cry again.
"My king doesn't want me... * sob* ... he doesn't want me to find him... *sob*... Poor Guinevere devoted her life to the search for King Arthur... but the King of the End doesn't want Guinevere to find him... *sob*... Guinevere has always been an embarrassment to her king... * sob*... Guinevere's life has no meaning... "
Jeanne sat next to the queen of the Divine Ancestors and drew the little girl against her. Guinevere did not resist. She let herself go against her friend's chest and began to cry again.
At first, the patron saint of France had tried to comfort Guinevere but nothing she could say had any effect.
Goddess Gwenhwyfar sacrificed herself to create the Sangreal, a chalice filled with power destined for the King Who Manifest at the World's End. Reincarnated as Divine Ancestor, Guinevere had died twice to protect the Grail and had been resurrected twice by the Chalice, losing most of her memory and personality over time. Everything she had suffered, her many sacrifices, had only one goal, find King Arthur and offer him the Holy Grail.
Learning that her king did not want her and that the quest for Guinevere had been nothing but a hindrance for Arthur had been a sad revelation. Her whole existence had been centered on King Arthur... Except her 'ideal' king didn't care about her.
Guinevere felt completely adrift, aimless, in a meaningless life...
At the end of an hour, the Queen of Brittany was too exhausted to continue to cry and remained looking into the void, completely depressed.
Jeanne got up and went to the bathroom. The bathtub was filled with water that shone slightly in the darkness.
The saint touched the liquid surface.
"Sir Lancelot?"
The water quivers and becomes brighter. The next moment, Jeanne was at the edge of a lake with pure waters. Around her was a misty forest. But all the colors were dull and faded... the place seemed out of a dream... giving off a stifling impression of unreality.
In front of Jeanne, a knight in steel plate armor advanced, walking on the surface of the water without creating a single wrinkle on the surface of the lake.
Lancelot du Lac was wearing the same suit of armor as at their previous meeting... with two differences. This time, it was obvious that the armor was worn by a woman and the helmet adorned with swan wings had no visor, allowing see the beautiful face of the queen of the Amazons.
"Ah... Damsel Jeanne, welcome to my humble home," she said in perfect French.
The saint bowed.
"It's an honor for me, sir knight. I came to see if you needed anything."
"No, this Knight thanks you for your thoughtfulness. I hope I can find a way to thank you when I'm back in the mortal world."
The Maiden of Orleans jolted.
"Sorry? What do you mean?"
"Just that it's time for this knight to step out of her legend and travel the mortal world again. Sir Shirou defeated me in a duel, a feat that has not been matched in centuries. I must say that this mortal did impress me a lot. My blood boils in my arteries remembering our fight. And..." The Amazon queen had a hungry smile. "This knight is eager to be reunited again with her winner to... let's say... get to know each other a little better."
"Uh... you mean to challenge him to a duel again?"
"Sure... that too... But I was thinking more about finding a bed for both of us."
Jeanne's cheeks became red as she understood that Lancelot's true intentions were incompatible with wearing armor... But given the Amazon's predator smile, there was not much difference in her mind between love and war. Did she even know the difference between a duel in armor... and a night in the same bed as a man?
Jeanne sighed, unconscious of rubbing her temples, because her migraine getting worse.
Jesus, when she died, she was only 17! Why did Jeanne feel like the only adult among some problem children?
Altera... Gilgamesh... comes back quickly!
Author's note: Unlike the first two omakes, which are simple texts without any particular intention (besides enjoyment) the third omake aims to make you understand the limitations of Shirou. These are several variations of the same text (a was if?)
Shirou VS Sun Wukong
(What readers THINK would have happened.)
Huge, the Monkey God was moving by shaking the ground. Its mass was fantastic and the hills looked like anthills.
Shirou shuddered. He was a strange man... he did not know fear. He had an implacable will in him. Whether it was to save Sakura or to save perfect strangers, Shirou Emiya always found in him a strength that allowed him to overcome the terror caused by the monsters he faced.
He closed his eyes briefly, breathing in and out in a rapid rhyme. Then he began to recite his aria.
"I am the bone of my sword
Steel is my body and fire is my blood
I have created over a thousand blades
Unknown to Death,
Nor known to Life."
Around Shirou, the ground broke into a spider's web, of which it was the center. A white light filtered in the cracks.
"Have withstood pain to create many weapons
Yet, those hands will never hold anything
So as I pray, Unlimited Blade Works."
When Shirou pronounced the name of his Noble Phantasm, white light seemed to swallow the world and even Sun Wukong was blinded.
When the God of Steel regained his sight, he looked around with visible stupefaction. He was in a sand desert with no trace of life, around the god, to the horizon... swords of every style, of every age, from every continent.
When the Monkey King looked up, he realized he was no longer on Earth. The sky was orange lit by fire, and obscured by clouds of black smoke. No sun, no moon, and no stars... only giant rusty cogs.
"Welcome to my inner universe."
Sun Wukong turned his head to look at the tiny human looking at him without showing fear.
"Your inner universe, brat?"
"This is the universe existing in my soul, a Reality Marble, which I have temporarily projected outside of myself and of which you are the prisoner."
Shirou raised his hand and a rumor sounded. Behind him appeared a cloud that grew and cast a shadow on the ground. A cloud of... swords... millions of swords.
"A universe formed by the swords I can Trace... and if one sword can't kill a god, then I'll use them all!"
And the cloud of swords smashed the ground, like a gigantic sledgehammer, a steel harrow made of millions of swords that struck the Heretic God who howled in anger before collapsing to one knee. The wounded god sought to rise while the swords continued to strike him tirelessly... but the blood flowed from thousands of wounds, on his back, his chest, and his face. And the swords continued to fall mercilessly.
The giant collapsed!
Shirou was victorious.
(What had really happened.)
(...)
When Shirou pronounced the name of his Noble Phantasm, white light seemed to swallow the world and even Sun Wukong was blinded.
When the God of Steel regained his sight, he looked around with visible stupefaction. He was in a sand desert with no trace of life, around the god, to the horizon... swords of every style, of every age, from every continent.
When the Monkey King looked up, he realized he was no longer on Earth. The sky was orange lit by fire, and obscured by clouds of black smoke. Not the sun, not the moon, not the stars... but giant rusty cogs.
"Welcome to my inner universe."
Recovered from his surprise, Sun Wukong burst out laughing.
"Funny Brat! Do you know what a Heretic God is? It is a god who has extracted himself from his legend to return to the universe of mortals... in other words, a god who has extracted himself from a pocket universe in the Netherworld that was created by the collective will of ALL humanity past and present."
The monkey god stretched out his arms and luminous trigrams of I-Ching appeared, floating in mid-air.
Immediately the ground began to tremble as reddish tears appeared in the ground and sky... as Shirou's Reality Marble collapsed, Sun Wukong's laughter rang out.
"You really believed that the will of ONE MAN could trap a god?"
(Suppose for a moment that Shirou could trap Sun Wukong in UBW )
(...)
"This is the universe existing in my soul, a Reality Marble, which I have temporarily projected outside of myself and of which you are the prisoner."
Shirou raised his hand and a rumor sounded. Behind him appeared a cloud that grew and cast a shadow on the ground. A cloud of... swords... millions of swords.
"A universe formed by the swords I can Trace... and if one sword can't kill a god, then I'll use them all!"
The clash between the god and the sword cloud was of unspeakable violence... but the god remained standing, the swords bouncing off his skin or breaking into a thousand pieces!
Author note: Shirou's will is of course much less strong than the will of all past and present humanity. Using the terminology of Fate, one can compare the 'legend' of Sun Wukong to a Marble Phantasm generated by Alaya... and UBW is only a Reality Marble created by one Magus.
According to legend, Sun Wukong has resisted multiple capital punishments. He is also able to shapeshift into 72 forms... Those who know a little about Chinese esotericism know that numbers always have a hidden meaning in this kind of text. In fact, 72 corresponds to the sum of all trigrams and all hexagrams of the I-Ching... I.e. all forms between Heaven and Earth. In addition, he survived for 49 days in the Oven of the 8 Trigrams... an Oven that is like the inverted mirror of the I-Ching. If the I-Ching can create everything that exists between Heaven and Earth, the Furnace can destroy everything. But 49 days + 8 trigrams = 57... This is less than 72. The text must be understood so Sun Wukong, which has the totality of the forms of the I-Ching, cannot be destroyed by an imperfect form. An Imperfect form? That's a good definition of a Traced sword. The Projections created by Shirou are degraded forms of the Noble Phantasms used by the heroes (so Artoria's Excalibur is A++ Rank while the Excalibur in UBW is B++ rank).
Using the terminology of Fate again, Sun Wukong's Body of Steel Divine Authority is the equivalent of an Ex-Rank defensive Noble Phantasm.
In Fate/ Kaleid Liner Prisma Illya, Shirou fights against Angelica Ainsworth and traps her in Unlimited Bladework, launching his entire arsenal against his enemy. The result? Angelica uses Ea and wins the confrontation.
A single Ex-Rank's Noble Phantasm is more powerful than all of Shirou's swords. It's canonic.
(1) ...Uh... but Jeanne... It IS a perfectly valid excuse... besides, it has happened to me two or three times... * whistling while looking at the ceiling*.