A/N: So, this is actually something I wrote about a year ago for my university's writing club competition. The theme was to write a short writing piece based on any type of fiction we liked in less than 1000 words. I didn't win, obviously, but I figure that I might as well just post it here.
Enjoy!
"That's hell you're walking into."
The boy paused, his steps coming to a slow halt.
Slowly, ever so slowly, he raised his head towards the speaker.
Gray eyes stared back, belying poorly concealed contempt. His crimson red coat billowed ceaselessly in the wind, yet he stood tall like an imposing bastion.
His last hurdle, yet also the greatest one.
"I know." the boy replied.
The man's face twisted into a sneer. "Do you? Do you really understand this path?" He swung his arm forcefully, gesturing to the landscape before them.
"Your efforts will amount to nothing! All that awaits you, all that awaited me, was the harsh truth!"
An endless wasteland that stretched on towards the horizon, acrid and desolate. Swords covered every inch of the land, buried blade-first into the ground like grave markers. They came in all forms, from katana to scimitars to dao and zweihanders, to daggers and khopesh and so much more. Decayed and rusted, they remained anchored to the earth without rhyme or reason.
Epitaphs for the nameless dead.
"You can never save everyone."
The boy scowled, reaching for a nearby xiphos. Yet before he could grasp its handle, the shrill ring of steel cried out, and he wrenched his hand away just in time to avoid being stabbed by a pearlescent white dao.
Upon the lonely hill, the man scoffed.
"Obstinate fool. Even when you see what awaits you, you still cling to that worthless ideal?"
"It's not worthle-"
"Of course it is!" The man raised his right arm, pointing his other dao, this one jet black, at the boy for emphasis.
"Your dream is nothing but a borrowed falsity! A useless thought you conjured up to appease your father as he passed on!"
The boy flinched.
"And yet," the man seethed, "you treat it as gospel! Even dear old father couldn't save everyone; he was called the 'Magus Killer'!
The man pointed skywards, and the boy followed with his gaze.
Monolithic gears hung silently in the sky, dusty bronze monuments that seemed as though they had weathered the marches of time.
"For all that I tried, even I could never escape this fact. It is nothing but an endless cycle, where we kill the few to save the many, then again, then again, then again."
His glare buried into the boy's soul, raw and willful.
"Heed this warning, and abandon your path, Emiya Shirou."
Silence echoed as the seconds ticked by, and the man waited.
"No."
"Why you-"
"You're not wrong, you know."
The man paused.
"You can never save everyone, I know that."
They locked eyes, frigid steel against molten gold.
"But even so, that doesn't mean it's not worth fighting for. Kiritsugu believed in it, and so do I."
The boy broke the stalemate first, glancing down at his hands.
Rough, callused, and covered in grime.
"You've forgotten it, haven't you? The real reason you started fighting."
Blue motes of light sprang from them, weaving into each other like coiling fibres.
"It was never about the efficiency, or the statistics."
He pictured it within his mind's eye, directing the glowing blue strands to take the shapes he desired.
The man clicked his tongue, splaying his hand outwards. Two massive claymores materialised before him, crackling with unbridled power as they shot forth like homing missiles.
"And though this ideal may be borrowed..."
The claymores struck with explosive force, kicking up dust and smoke that obscured the man's view.
"Though this goal may never be reached..."
The first thing he saw were his claymores, dropping to the ground in segmented pieces.
"That doesn't make it wrong to strive for."
The cover of dust parted like clouds after a storm, revealing the boy to be unscathed.
And in both hands, the exact same blades he always used.
One black, one white.
"Because it's never wrong to save someone."
The man flicked his left hand open, and a new white dao appeared.
"You will drown under the weight of its expectation."
The boy's eyes narrowed.
"We'll see about that...Emiya Shirou."
His future self laughed without an ounce of warmth.
"Then let your ideals drag you to your death!"