Prelude
Go to my profile page for musical references and cues to enhance the experience.
Alright, with that having been said, please enjoy the chapter...
Then, are you prepared...?
Is the Musical soundtrack at the ready...?
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Then, without further ado, please enjoy...
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Chapter 15 - "A Discordance of Crying and Painfull Blades (Symphonic Discordance Counterpoint)"
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"ILYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
Archer had heard Berserker's cry, and rushed in before Sakura and Rider had, to observe the fight. Whether Berserker or Assassin could change the impact of the whole rest of the Holy Grail War, so Archer made sure to keep a close eye on the battle and on the outcome, careful to miss a single detail of either combatant.
Berserker rushed in, like a mad dog, deprived of its master, swinging at Assassin wildly, summoning swords from his Reality Marble at random and flailing them around like some wild beast.
For the cold and calculated Assassin, there couldn't possibly be an easier target to take down.
Briefly, Assassin mused that for a mad dog like Berserker, it was shame that couldn't just put a bullet through his brain, like he had seen in a certain famous American movie he once, during his time as a human.
It was just too bad that he didn't have any guns like that put to good use. Maybe he could make eventually make something like that out of of Kanshou and Bakuya, somehow.
For a brief while, they just clashed for a few instances, Assassin never losing the upper hand, going completely unharmed while Berserker continued to accumulate wounds and injuries from Assassins' well-paced thrusts and strikes with his short swords.
Assassin could feel Berserker's physical pain through the feedback between them, but paided it no mind.
At most, the severe physical pain would only cause to instinctively flinch for a few milliseconds.
But...
There where also glimpses of something else as they fought.
A connection, as though the two of them where more similar than any of the other versions of Emiya Shirou in this war.
For a few incredibly short instances, he could see small glimpses into Berserker's path, into Berserker's memories.
And it was only those few instances that were that were intensely painful for Assassin to see, far more painful than anything else Berserker could convey through their connection.
Memories...
Memories from a different path he could've chosen...
Memories of a happier Sakura, memories of a smiling Ilya...
And memories of himself, living with no regrets, despite no longer choosing to live as a hero.
They were memories that shook him to the very core, each one like a sharp sword stabbing into his heart, threatening to break through the walls of even his heart.
...
But once again, Assassin hardened himself, killing his emotions and turned his own heart to steel.
He had already come this far, and there was no turning back for him now.
He had always done and would continue to do what is best for the most number of people, no matter what it would cost to himself.
Assassin readied his Reality Marble, no longer able to bear the weight of seeing Berserker's memories. He had tried to snipe at Berserker first, but Berserker's instincts, at least, if nothing else, had allowed him to block all of Assassin's long-ranged sniping.
His Reality Marble at the ready, Assassin cast the spell from his heart, overlaying atop the World.
"I am the blade (killing edge) of my sword."
Each blade, stained by blood.
"Steel is my body and ice is my blood."
His heart was long dead, and colder than ice.
"I have stained over a thousand blades."
No blades of his had gone unsullied, not even that beautiful blade, once wielded by the regal king of knights.
"Unknown to Sympathy, nor known to Mercy."
No sympathy for sinners, and no mercy for the unjust.
"Have withstood pain, to slaughter with many blades."
He could no longer feel anything.
"Yet these bloody hands, are not worthy to hold anything,"
He could no longer hold anything. There was nothing left him to hold, not even her.
"So as I massacre (without end),"
All he knew now was how to kill. Therefore,
"Unlimited Blade (Murder Weapon) Works."
...
Berserker, by instinct, had also called upon his own Reality Marble, but in vain, as it struggled and then was immediately overpowered and overcome by Assassins' own despair-based Reality Marble.
All around him was a World of Bloody Swords.
Swords made only to kill, all other identity and functionality diluted and robbed of them.
A dystopic mountain of swords (剣の山) made only to kill and torture, truly an image of hell (奈落) itself.
It felt as the blades themselves were crying out in pain and sorrow.
Assassin was the natural enemy of Berserker.
Not because of extremity of his ideals, but because of his resolve to kill even that which was most precious to him, and his resolve to kill off even his own heart.
It was an inner world that fundamentally rejected and denied even the very foundation of Berserker's own world, preventing it from manifesting (killing it before it could bloom) in the presence of Assassin's Unlimited Blade Works' presence.
...
Archer, who was observing from afar and could feel the nature of Assassin's Reality Marble even from afar, was sickened.
Though he couldn't see what was inside the Reality Marble, he could at least still sense its nature even from where he was.
It was, in some respects, similar to his own.
But though he himself had also grown cynical and jaded, he had never become like Assassin had.
Archer was an idealist even onto his own death, only breaking after dying and coming to terms with the flawed nature Emiya Kiritsugu's untenable philosophy.
But Assassin was different. He had been broken by the weight Emiya Kiritsugu's ideal in his own lifetime and fully embraced those broken ideals, becoming even more broken of a person than Archer ever could be as a result.
If Berserker was the version Emiya who was willing to reject his own ideals and break himself to the point of shattering for the person he loved, then Assassin was the Emiya Shirou who broke himself to become a Hero of Justice, and reforged himself into a mere tool of murder in order to fulfill his own twisted idea of what it meant to be that "Hero".
Assassin was just like Emiya Kiritsugu, a Second Magus-Killer.
No, he was even worse than that. Even more twisted, even more devoted to those ideals than even Emiya Kiritsugu ever was.
He was a perfect Emiya Kiritsugu, a "Perfect Magus-Killer".
Archer felt nauseated.
...
Even Berserker, in his madness, felt chocked by the oppressive atmosphere of the suffering swords all around him.
And for just one moment, Berserker froze up. And that one moment was all Assassin needed, to skewer Berserker with his multitude of swords, from all possible angles.
Berserker choked and coughed up blood, his last moments a feeble attempt to summon up a sword - the strongest and by far the most beautiful sword he knew. But in the end, even his last attempt shattered and left behind only a few sparse fragments of a broken Holy Sword - the last fragments of a broken and flawed Excalibur.
Assassin shook his head, and in one last act of mercy, out of respect for the other path he could've taken, he summoned his own bloodied version of Caliburn, and cut of Berserker's headed with.
...
Archer had seen all he had needed to see, and felt all he needed to feel.
Berserker had died, and Assassin was the Servant that had ultimately come out victorious.
Satisfied with his scouting, he headed back to Rin to report the change in status quo.
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"Ah..."
As Assassin exited his Reality Marble, Sakura and Rider were just in the distance approaching.
Sakura and Rider were both wide-eyed at, what appeared to them, the sudden appearance of another Servant, seemingly out of nowhere.
"Well, this is a good chance." Assassin commented, "Now, I can catch two birds with one stone."
Sakura looked into Assassin's eyes, and froze, stunned by the coldness in them. But even more deeply beneath, she could see a certain something in him, like a certain familiarity, and for a moment - only for a moment, maybe even longing and regret.
But his eyes quickly turned emotionless and cruel and Assassin turned his eyes away from her, towards Rider.
He approached Rider, slowly, menacingly - though perhaps needlessly so, on his guard against any sort of tricks or runaway tactics that Rider might've had up his sleeve, ignoring Sakura's presence as he approached.
Rider, for his part, didn't know what to do, but quickly placed his arm before Sakura, to shield her.
"Run!" He said, "Quickly, get to Ilya's place!"
"But...!"
"It's okay!" He put on a brave front and reassured her with a grin, despite his lack of internal confidence, "I've got this covered!"
Sakura hesitated, but nodded, and ran off.
Assassin let her pass without trouble, not even turning to meet her eyes as she ran past him.
Inwardly, Rider cursed. 'If only I had my motorcycle and bow and arrows!'
They might not mean much against these other "Servants", but at least it'd be better than nothing!
Slowly, surely, Assassin approached, until he was looming over Rider.
And he struck.
Each blow of his tearing into Rider, too fast for Rider to dodge and too heavy for Rider to block.
Only a few soft blows was all it took for Assassin to knock Rider down, as though Rider had no defense at all.
"Really?" Assassin mocked, "Is that all of you've got?"
In truth, Assassin didn't even need to do this. Rider was extremely weak, almost as weak as an ordinary human would be. And if it weren't for Sakura's massive supply of mana reinforcing his existence, even just one these soft blows would've been enough to kill him.
With just one swing of either of his swords. No, even with just a backhanded blow with one of shortswords, he could easily finish off Rider.
But he was frustrated.
Just looking at Rider made him sick; Rider was a vicious reminder of his own past. Of the other paths he could've gone down.
Sensitive as he was from his battle with Berserker, he could sense in the boy a certain type of deep-rooted idealism in him that nauseated him. He could see it in his eyes even as he stared him down and cornered the boy, even without words, as the boy struggled to get up.
This boy, Senji, who someone became a hero because he genuinely admired the ideal of selflessly saving people and loved the feeling of doing so, an ideal that was intrinsic to the very nature he was born with.
A boy who just naturally had the heart of a hero, even without any external forces that influenced him to go in that directions, and even if he was powerless to ever back it up.
In contrast to himself, who only ever merely used that as an excuse, to cover up his selfish obsession and compulsive need to help people, in order to relieve his own sense of guilt. And that had only lead Assassin to more death, more sin, more guilt, and more blood on his hands than he could ever bear to look at...
Assassin felt nothing but resentment towards this weak, and pathetic, and idealistic boy, - this powerless version of himself who was optimistic without even having seen the mountains of dead bodies that he had seen, without having to dirty his hands with innocent blood to save more innocent blood.
What would an idealist like this ever know about truly being a hero?!
No.
Perhaps, comparing their mindset, Senji was actually much closer to the image of a real hero than Assassin ever was, even if he much weaker in body and magecraft. Maybe Senji was even the most ideal form of the EMIYA Shirou who could've been, if he had never been saddled with guilt or by the inheritance of Kiritsugu's ideals.
No, perhaps Senji was even the true form of who Emiya Shirou really was and even who Assassin still was, deep in his heart of hearts.
But paying no heed to that, and wanting to deny that possibility with all his being, Assassin brought his blade down.
Only to be stopped by arms from behind, reaching around him.
"Please, stop!"
"?!"
Sakura had hugged him from behind, stopping him right as he was about to kill Rider.
"...Senpai?"
She had thought as much, but he had changed so much that she wasn't sure if it was really him.
"!"
But, once she felt him freeze, she knew it for certain. That was her senpai. Ever if his eyes and his heart had frozen over.
Assassin shook her off, and turned around to face her.
"No! No, I'm...!"
But he couldn't look her in the eyes. He no longer had that right.
"No." She said, her voice surprisingly confident and resolute, "Now I'm sure of of it."
"Senpai, please, look at me..."
"..."
"Senpai..."
"Enough." He declared, steeling his voice. "As the Master of Rider, you need to die, too."
He had already killed her once before, this time would be no different.
He turned his body and his blades towards her.
But as he pressed one of them against her chest, he found this hand wouldn't move - even though it would be so simple. Even though it should be so simple...
Even though he had already done it once before...
But she pushed away his sword with no resistance.
He felt her hands, tilting his head down to face her, her eyes staring directly into his.
And he couldn't bring himself to break out of her hold.
She could feel a deep pain in him through his eyes, as though he couldn't forgive himself.
He tried to avert his eyes.
"Stop..." His voice shook, "Don't look at me with those eyes...I'm already..."
His face and his eyes scrunched up, as Assassin struggled to keep his emotions in check.
"Senpai, no matter what kind of person you've become, No matter what you've done..."
She could tell he was hurting, deep inside. Like he, too, wanted to be forgiven for his sins and his stained soul.
And if that was the case, then. Then she would be the one to forgive him.
Assassin shook his head, "No...I...!"
"I know you aren't an evil person, senpai."
And Sakura embraced him.
"And no matter what..." Sakura was crying now, too, "I'll always love you, Senpai."
"I...forgive you...Senpai..."
"...And...no matter what..."
"...I'll always...love you..."
It was the same. The same as what his own Sakura had said to him, right before he had killed her in cold blood. And here here she was, showing him again the same love that he could never show her.
And she said that with all the sincerity of her heart.
Before he knew it, tears were running down his face as Sakura was looking at him, her own face wet with tears as well.
In that moment, Assassin broke.
And for once, he was no longer a "Hero", and he had returned back to being being Emiya Shirou.
He had so many things he wanted to say, so many things he wanted to apologize for.
But in this moment, it felt like none of that even matter, like only he and Sakura existed in this moment of warmth.
Like the first, the only, and the one true ray of light he had seen ever since he had started walking down his dark path.
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And then, a black arm came bursting out of his chest.
Sakura was pushed back by the force of it.
"Sen...sen...pai?!"
Sakura burst out screaming as a black figure emerged out of his chest, rattling all the while.
True Assassin had burst out from within him.
'Zou...ken...!" Assassin managed to spit out, coughing out enormous amounts of blood, "You bastard!"
He mentally cursed the old worm as he faded away, his last glance, a wistful, longing look towards his lost love.
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"Ha," Zouken half-scoffed and half-laughed from a distance, "What a half-baked Assassin you were, that you couldn't even betray me properly."
The black-hearted True Assassin first approached Rider.
Before he could even react, quickly gouged out and squashed his heart. And then, as Sakura lie trembling there in shock, barely able to process what had just happened, Assassin gouged out her heart, too.
"F...F...or...you...Ma...st...er."
Taking it, he gave it to Zouken.
Now, Zouken had it back, his own personal back-up own grail as well, in case the Einzbern homunculus's heart proved to be too troublesome or too rebellious to use.
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Elsewhere, a lightly tanned teenage-looking boy with pale-orange hair stepped out from his miniature Reality Marble, where he had been watching the whole conflict unfold.
Walking up to the scene of the battle, he approached the still lingering fragments of the broken Excalibur, the last remains of Berserker's will.
Picking up the handle of the fragmented Excalibur, he poured his prana into it, and golden thread-like strings shot out of it, stitching together the broken pieces of the sword, reforming the broken phantasm, the Broken Exaclibur.
"Did you know I was here, Berserker?" Caster asked, to no one in particular, more to himself than anything.
But, it was almost as if he could hear Berserker's will from the broken sword...
'Please, protect Ilya, protect Sakura...'
Caster nodded his head.
"Don't worry, Berserker. I'll keep them safe."
There was a long silence that followed, but Caster was sure he could feel the last of Berserker's sentiment fading away, at peace.
'...Thank you...'
Caster nodded again, in acknowledgement.
He dematerialized the broken sword and stored it away in his Reality Marble.
And, in the same way he entered, Caster left like a shadow, fading away into the woods.
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Chapter 15 - "A Discordance of Crying and Painfilled Blades (Symphonic Discordance Counterpoint)"
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Author's Notes:
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Caster's interesting profile next, and then Chapter 15.5, The Ominous Climatic Crescendo.
Chapter 15.5, the final crescendo, will be the last transitional build-up chapter before the climax of Chapter 16.
I actually didn't originally want to write a 15.5 chapter, but if I didn't, then a lot would be lost in the the gap between chapter 15 and 16.
It also serves a purpose in setting up for a bonus chapter after the epilogues, so it'll serve a good purpose there as well.
Lancer gets killed off-screen, by the way. Because he's Lancer lmao.
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For this version of Emiya Shirou, Caster.
Most people tend to think of Emiya Shirou as a Caster as someone who can "create swords".
But that's not quite right.
He's not someone who creates swords, but someone who creates (and manipulates) "a world of swords", so my interpretation of Emiya Shirou as a Caster will be be based off of that, instead.
As for what that entails, and as for what that means he can do...
Well, I'll leave that for later in the story lol.
I can say this much, though:
Tohsaka taught Caster (Emiya Shirou - Unlimited Blade Works TRUE END) how to properly set up and establish a territory and how to better and more efficiently use his reality marble.
And this capacity of territory creation, alteration, and maintenance is reinforced even further as a Caster-class Servant.
In other words, this is a subvariant of UBW True END Shirou, not an EMIYA-type, but very much so a magecraft-focused Subvariant, based on his own Reality Marble specialty, trained and sharpened as a sword by the whetstone known as Tohsaka Rin.
More on that and other interesting details on Caster's Servant Profile, coming soon.
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And I'll just leave it at that, for now.
I think I might post a new version of "The Holy Shirou War" after it's finished, by the way.
Rewriting all the chapters, especially the first few chapters, to be much smoother and without author's notes, for an over all much smoother kind of reading experience. Maybe post all the author's notes at the end, or something. Just a heads up.
I'll probably put up a different subtitle for that one than the one I'm planning for this one to have, but it'll be good!
I think.
So I might save the bonus chapter as the last extra bonus for that rewrite instead.
I don't know, we'll see.
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Chapter 16 will be the climax!
Emiya Shirou uses up his command spells,
Saber VS The New Kotomine Kirei (The ? ? ?).
Caster and Archer and Berserker all assist in their own different and unique ways, too.
Artoria finally makes a (very short) appearance, too!
Caster's and Saber's TRUE capacities and powers finally reveal themselves, and the true nature of Saber's Noble Phantasm finally gets revealed!
(EDIT: Actually, it's a really super long chapter, like around 9000 words or so, as the finished product, so I decided to break it up into 3 segments, for an easier reading Experience, and so that each segment can be more fully appreciated for it's cool individual moments in each segment.
I'll also post an extra notes sections and the full original version of it afterwards, for those who want to read in one whole chapter.
The original version is a little bit different than its's divided parts, and you'll see why after reading through all 3 parts individually, and then reading the whole version.)
So look forward to it!