I can thank a good friend of mine for getting me back into actually doing a Fate fanfic after my falling out earlier this year. There was two separate ideas that I had and after some thinking I decided to merge them both. Without any further ado here is this stories first chapter.
Disclaimer: Don't own Fate or anything connected to it. I am not Nasu.
'Why,' The only thing she could do was to ask yourself that. Why had all of this happened? Everything had gone to hell since this stupid ritualistic conflict had begun. 'Why did it come to this?'
Before her was the reason for everything. The Greater Grail in all its corrupted glory. Once a means to reach the Root, to regain the Third Magic, and to bring salvation to humanity. Now it was just the incubator to a monster. A god that had not truly existed and was now at the cusp of doing so in a way. Its eye stared at her from within the tower that had formed. A disgusting monstrosity that had yet to be born into the world.
Pain pulsed through her being. Even though they had managed to sever the control it had on her there was still the fact that she had within her seven Heroic Spirits. She was a Lesser Grail that was filled to bursting with a ritual that had to be completed. The Greater Grail still called to her even if she was separated from the monster within the Greater Grail.
Tempting though it was to use the energy of the Lesser Grail, the combined might of Seven Spirits tied to the World, she knew she couldn't. Any wish she could try would only lead to the Greater Grail twisting it regardless. Killing herself was the only reason to stop this feeling but that would just lead to a part of the energy returning to this thing allowing it to restart the Grail War all over again.
On the insanely unlikely chance that she could live her life, as hollow as it could be given everything, she knew that this being would just drain the energy it needed from the ley lines. Eventually, it will be born regardless of what happens. It had to be destroyed but the issue was no one existed who could do that right now.
'S-s-s…' Another pulse of pain cut off her attempt at thoughts for a moment. Once again the dark god inside the Greater Grail was calling to her to unleash the power stored within.
Much like her, it knew that she wasn't going to merge with it and complete its birth. Still, it held the advantage in all of this. She could unleash the Lesser Grail's power, or she could die with part of the energy flowing back into it. Either way, the birth would be delayed but in the long term it will win. Only something as powerful as it could stop it now.
A sudden realization came over her. Right now, she was its equal. Despite the titles denoting the idea of a difference in magnitude, she knew that with seven Heroic Spirits, she had the same raw power as the Greater Grail. The nascent dark god's eye grew a bit as if to convey its shock of her walking up to it. As if it couldn't conceive that she would willingly walk to it. To willingly merge into it and enact the end of the world that it so desperately desired. Perhaps, if its mind was more developed it would realize the threat posed to it. Instead, all it could feel was a desire to have the power come to it and to be born.
As she entered into the thing there was a small whiplash as the Lesser Grail connected with the Greater Grail. At that very much everything shifted. Instead of the Greater Grail being the one to take over and absorb the Lesser Grail the opposite was true. If it could, the Greater Grail would scream as its form was condensed down and locked within the shell of the Lesser Grail.
No sooner as both Greater and Lesser become one when the gamble of the latter was made a success, did the two egos clash to see who would come out on top. A broke girl fighting against the wrath of a nascent god. What seemed an impossibility on paper was proven to be quite possible. If the former was a broken and weathered pillar of stone then the latter was a violent storm. One that could have destroyed the pillar under a constant assault but burned itself out just as quickly.
In the end, it was the former who won out. A purely pyrrhic victory as in the end her sense of self was almost gone. Memories floated within her head with no structure and still holding enough power and might to inflict great damage on the world. The power was unstable due to a miscalculation on her, on Sakura's, part when it came to the Grails. The Greater Grail was going to explode taking her with it and unleashing all that stored-up energy. Either into the leylines where it would ravage the city and surrounding lands or it would collapse into a storm that would consume the whole area until the Counter Force stopped it.
"What have we here?" A voice spoke up slowly dragging Sakura back into consciousness.
She tried to open her eyes and as she did the world seemed a blurry mess. Like her sense of sight was failing her. Sakura tried to move her arms and felt some sort of disconnect. Her body was only half there. Something in the very back of her mind told her that was the case. Yet, even with her body half there somehow she still felt whole for lack of a better term.
"You're some sort of spirit that is certain but half of a flesh form?" In the blurry mess, she was greeted by something that resembled a figure. The one thing of note was nine waving things connected to it. "In you is the energy of the world, and yet it is shaped not by the world but by those of it."
From the words spoken memories returned. Some understanding of what they meant. A ritual using the power of the World to create something. Was she the end of that? No, she wasn't it but she had become it. Dissolved it into herself and left her World behind. Names flashed through her mind and a complex web of opinions came with them. An image of a boy with red hair flashed over her mind with some of the strongest feelings.
"_ _ _?" Her mouth moved asking who this was but nothing came out of her mouth.
While not a sound was heard coming from her voice her intentions at least got confided. "Oh, you want to know who I am?" The figure seemed almost insulted by this but whether it was true or not she didn't know. "Can you not see me?"
"_" She couldn't see much of anything.
The figure moved closer to her as her intent was passed on. Staring right into her eyes as if to confirm her words. "You're voice isn't the only thing broken about you it seems," Indeed from the figure's perspective it looked like her form was breaking down. "A shame as you somehow came to me at the time of your death."
Death? Yes, she was dying in this one instance. Her mind fractured while her soul seemed to be disconnected from it. No, she was a projection of her soul screaming with the power it couldn't contain and trying to randomly summon something to help. The only thing remaining was a wish. That was why her body was breaking down.
"_ ," She needed help otherwise whatever she was doing would fail.
The figure before her seemed to think for a moment. True she had attempted a summoning. It seems her desire was for someone to stabilize her. Though the being that had answered the call, more from the act of curiosity was debating if they should or not. Finally, an answer came to them as much as on a whim as it could be said to be planned.
"Very well," With that said she felt something entering her body. Her soul molding itself into accepting the newest intruder that was welcomed.
In that moment her broken self fully subsumed the core of the Greater Grail. Raw energy was contained though a wish still needed to be made to get rid of it. As her mind wasn't all there yet any wish would do it. A faint desire to start over again met with the desire to have everyone she cared for back, and the last one to leave as far away from this world as possible. Each desire fought for a moment before the first and last of the two could be said to work together.
As the wish was made the figure faded away as unconsciousness slowly started to grip her.
It was the break of dawn with most creatures still asleep. A flash of light came over a small clearing just around the moment that the sun's rays reached it. Anyone seeing it would not be at fault for thinking whatever it was had come from the sun itself. When it died down a girl was deposited in the middle of the clearing as a vast amount of mana surged in the area before slowly dispersing from her form.
Gripping her head, Sakura felt her head hurt as her mind tried to piece itself back together. Having your mind shattered by fighting the corruption in the Greater Grail and subsuming the actual soul at the core of it as she destroyed the Greater Grail while keeping herself together. It wasn't helping that another batch of memories played in her mind alongside slight echoes of the now-gone Heroic Spirits lingered for a bit. First, the lingering echoes were tossed away. Second, came the new batch of memories. Most of it was gone the few that remained included scattered bits and pieces of the life of the woman who made up the Greater Grail's core.
The most important thing was knowledge of Magecraft. Something, that even though her memories of her life had not set in, was something she barely had any actual training in. Speaking of her memories as they started to settle together there was something off about them. Her mother in them wasn't who she felt like should be. When she was given up by her family she felt rage directed at her father as the living corpse took her for unspeakable things. Much of her time with the Matou had faded. Perhaps, because of how uneventful it was, or perhaps because the abuse was largely the same day in and day out.
As the sunlight rose she felt the pain subsided as her memories slowly started to settle down. The only issue was her memories of the last few days were gone. Her knowledge of them was there but it was in broad strokes. As she thought on it so was most of her time the Matous but even then what she knew was that it wasn't much of note. Most of her time with them blended together.
Pulling herself up Sakura took notice that she was wearing something. At first, it looked like a traditional miko outfit but there were some changes. First, the sleeves were detached, secondly, the hibakama was shorter, ending halfway up her shins with the sides around her legs having an opening that went up just above her knees. The next thing that she noticed was her hair. Longer than it had been before and the color was new.
Despite her memories, she knew her original hair color was the same as her sister's. After her first exposure to the Matou "training" changed it to purple. 'Pink…'
Her hair was pink, something that brought to mind so many questions and simultaneously seemed completely normal. Maybe it was a side effect of doing what she had done, but there was something that made her hesitant to think it was. Regardless, Sakura didn't need to dwell on it.
No, right now she had other issues to deal with. "Where am I?"
It seemed that she had appeared in a clearing up a small mountain. Wandering around a bit into the woods Sakura came across a small creek that flowed under the shadow of the trees. Out of the corner of her eyes, at the base of one of the trees she saw a body. Bones covered by broken pieces of armor, armor that looked like that of something from Fuyuki's museum about the local history, and a broken wooden pole sticking out of the chest.
'How old was this?' Looking at the metal it was rusty but still useful so this couldn't be no more than a few years at best. The issue was that the method used to kill them and the fact that armor was worn at all was out of place.
A small rustling of the trees caught the attention of her ears as she felt them wiggle a bit on the top of her head. 'Wait,' Placing her hands on her head she noticed the fluffy ears on her head. 'Why did I not…'
Sakura only now noticed another irregularity about her body. A fluffy tail behind her that reminded her of a fox. The only reason she just noticed this was that she now recognized that she shouldn't have either. Sakura tried to figure this out by going over her memories but couldn't find anything that told her that this was unusual. Unsettlingly didn't begin to describe what was running through her mind. She knew that she hadn't had them but that was all that she could get.
'I'm not going to get an answer on my own,' Pushing away this for now Sakura looked down the creek. On the other side, the forest seemed a bit too thick to walk through while the trail downstream was passable. 'I should focus on finding out where I am first.'
With one more look at the body, Sakura walked down the creek as if it was the only logical way to find anyone. That brought up another issue of dealing with other people. Namely her current appearance which would raise eyebrows and could get her into trouble. She could use a hat to hide the ears but the tail was a completely different matter. Sakura was suddenly grateful for having Magecraft knowledge even if it wasn't her own in that regard.
Only issue was to try to translate it but maybe she could put a type of glamour that the Einzberns could use to appear without their albinism. 'At least there is one issue solved.'
As the creek started to widen a bit the pathway down started to be less and less overgrown. The pathway even showed some signs of being worn from repeated use. Signs that there was somewhere nearby where people lived. As the forest gave way the sounds of the water flowing down hit her ears. A small ledge revealed itself showing the creek now emptying itself over it and down into the side of a river down below it. It wasn't the only sight that there was for Sakura to catch.
Over the ledge was a village. One that showed no signs of any interaction with the modern world and was almost a snapshot of a time long in Japan's past. Rice fields next to a river with people going about their typical lives. Looking at the village and thinking back up the river Sakura could come to one conclusion.
"I've gone back in time…"
One would compare the Worlds to a forest of trees, the branches to timelines reaching out from various trunks. All overlapped before him in the image of a kaleidoscope. Zelretch spent a lot of time moving between each world when needed, taking pains to not interact enough to allow them to grow when needed. Overall, most Worlds could be said to move about in various groupings where events more or less happened the same. Deviations existed as they always did but that was expected.
"Another Grail War deviation," Normally these don't concern him as much. Even if the Servants and Masters change, the outcome usually stays the same.
These deviations had ceased being important to note long ago with only the most extreme being worthy of his reaction. Something that didn't go unnoticed by the only other thing in the Observation Room. "Great, did this one collapse into a Beast of Humanity's maturation like the last one to catch your attention?"
Zelretch turned his attention to the old-timey phone sitting on the desk to his side. The Dead Apostle Ancestor Caubac Alcatraz on the other side of the line. "Fortunately no, in this instance, the Fuyuki Grail as a whole is just gone."
"You know where it ended up?"
"No," While he could if he desired to look up what had happened instead of the broad generalization he was given, that didn't mean he could accurately track it down. Jumping across Worlds made it nigh impossible to truly track things down even for him. "Besides, it's unlikely that the Grail is still operational."
The most likely reason for its disappearance was a wish made on the Fuyuki Grail. Seeing how the city was still standing whatever had happened must have done so in a way that likely dismantled it. At this point, the only issue was whoever found the remains of the Fuyuki Grail in whatever World it ended up in. Zelretch had seen what could happen with only a fragment of it being used could accomplish, or what could be possible with incomplete knowledge of the Grail's inner workings. In any event, it wasn't his problem.
Sakura stood outside as the quiet of night washed over the village. With a glamor over her, it had seemed to the villagers that a wandering miko had come across them. From there Sakura was able to get some help on where she was using a hastily made-up excuse about being lost for a few days in the wilds. Because of this, she found she was a little limited in asking where and when she was.
The "where" was easily answered as she wasn't in Fuyuki or rather the area that would become Fuyuki. They had said that it was somewhere in the west of the island of Akitsushima. As for the "when", besides it being in the past, what Sakura got was that it was late spring. Current events were something the village wasn't completely up to date with due to relative willing isolation. All they knew was that the Shugo came by for taxes and that they were concerned about youkai in the mountains.
A timeframe of when this could put her was to her knowledge somewhere just after the Age of Gods had finally ended in Japan. Japanese transition into the Age of Man was poorly understood and amongst Western Mages was rarely something that they barely cared enough about to bother to learn when. Unfortunately, this included Justeaze so Sakura had no idea how to properly assert when she was with certainty.
Reaching to her head she undid the ribbon that was still in her hair. A slight breeze blew by as she gripped it before looking up into the sky. "There has to be some way back home right?"
Wishful thinking it may be but Sakura did know that it wasn't impossible. After all, she had been dragged back in time herself because of the Fuyuki Grail. If not she was going to have to think about what to do for the long haul.
Alright, so I know its a bit early and likely wouldn't be touched on but I could either go on and start with the Grail War content or we could start with a few chapters of Sakura's life. Even if the former is chosen I will still talks about it as to give context on her. Yes, I wanted to do a story where Sakura got to be the MC.Let me know you're thoughts for this. I'll cya all next time.