Haha! I've surprised you with a fast, thursday update!
-SpiritOfErebus
…
Stretching his arms out, Hans was finally able to leave the police station after excruciating witness interviews.
"I had to explain you as another part of my quirk, recently discovered in this villain attack." Hans whispered to the floating book behind him. "Honestly, it's so generically shounen that I don't know whether to laugh at, or be thankful for, the trope."
The book shook questioningly.
"The good part is that they don't suspect you as the so-called people absorbing villain, but the bad part is… paperwork." Hans sighed. "I have to update my quirk registry, because you're actually out here forever. Do you seriously not have a spirit form either?"
The book shook its pages.
"I see." Hans sighed. "Well, let's get the hell out of here."
The sun was finally setting over the longest week that Hans had possibly ever experienced. All of the hassle with the gangs, the really stupid villain that wanted to erase quirks from society without realizing that society was still a shithole with quirks… and now Nursery Rhyme.
And knowing the fact that Kiara exists.
Suddenly, the sun didn't seem quite as warm anymore.
"...And you're absolutely sure her ritual didn't work?"
The book shook in midair.
"W-what is that supposed to mean?" Hans asked, raising his eyebrow at the sentient object. "Yes? No? Maybe?"
Shaking itself once more, seemingly exasperated, the book finally fell into Hans's hands and opened itself on a blank page.
The wordYes appeared on it in large, bold lettering.
"Good." Hans sighed. "So, we can assume that I was also summoned by her, correct?"
The Yes was underlined once again.
"So… that makes it about ten years since I was summoned into this kid's body." Hans muttered, sitting down on a nearby bench near the police station. A little buzz on his phone prompted him to take it out of his pocket, indicating that his dad was finally going to be picking him up via motorbike.
I can get back myself, dad. Hans typed into his phone.
Riding the train at this hour? His dad sent back, presumably stuck in a red light. It'll be way too crowded. Just let me pick you up.
You really don't have to. Hans typed back.
His dad stopped responding, and Hans put the phone on the bench, before sighing.
Despite everything this week, was it really over? What was the end goal of this whole process, anyways? Getting involved in more hero-related shenanigans, followed by Kiara inevitably building up her strength again after another ten years, before performing another ritual or something that destroys the entire world?
Would this just be his life… forever?
What was he even fighting for? Despite touting hope as the thing that humans needed, what was his hope? A hope for a peaceful life? You can't hope for hope. A person had to hope for something naturally.
"What do you think… about our circumstances? What do you want to do?"
Quickly, text began to appear on Nursery Rhyme with the nostalgic sound of quill on parchment accompanying the nonexistent scribbling.
Holding his fellow servant in his hands, Hans Christian Andersen couldn't help but notice how lost he really was. He had tried to convince his new companion before, with a mention of hope. Despite how unintentional the escape was, now that he was actually out, and had a chance once more to be with his friends and family, he was lost.
After all, what was a person supposed to do after a failed sacrifice?
Getting the situation to end, and saving everybody from the reality marble was the one and final goal that he had assigned for himself. With his own death, Kiara's would also have disappeared, losing interest in this world. His friends and family would face threats to this world that actually belonged to this world, instead of the thing that Kiara was.
So, unexpectedly, his story continued. And he had lost sight of his own plot.
"...Interesting." Hans said, finishing the paragraph. "So that's your take. I'd say it's pretty close to what's actually happening. Yeah, I don't really have plans for my life now. So, why plan at all?"
Indeed, Hans Christian Andersen thought. Nobody lives with the knowledge of how their life would end. It was the uncertainty that was Hans's biggest fear back when he was just a regular human, having a deadly fear of death by food poisoning via pork, and also an irrational fear of being buried alive.
But does the uncertainty not present an opportunity? Wasn't the unknown part of life's original excitement?
"I think that's a bit of your own opinion seeping through there." Hans said, smiling a little, but still half-glaring at the text appearing on Nursery Rhyme. "Uncertainty does present opportunity, but the problem is that it's usually negative. Leaving things up to fate mostly means being disappointed. And it's not irrational to not want to be buried alive. That just makes sense."
But things aren't entirely in fate's hand, Hans continued to think. It's true that most factors are out of our control, but there are things that cannot be taken away. You are what you can change the most, after all.
"And there goes my opportunity to monologue." Hans sighed. "But yes, that is what I was thinking. Is your ability fundamentally telepathic, or… what?"
The text on Nursery Rhyme was erased, before the book continued to ink itself.
I'm merely filling my reality marble with your story, and presenting it once more.
"So, what happens if I give your reality marble my summons?" Hans said. "Would it waste mana?"
No idea.
"We'll find out later, then." Hans shrugged. "For now, I want to forget all about this combat stuff. After all, even after everything, I'm still pretty useless."
Nursery Rhyme floated up and tapped Hans's shoulders.
"Yes, you're contracted with me." Hans nodded. "But you don't really have much power, since you're basically a sentient reality marble at the moment with nearly no mana… because I have basically no mana. Remember the things that I scattered into you to stop you from absorbing those people?"
The book bobbed up and down. Hans assumed that this was now the motion for yes.
"That was narrative significance. Another substance that thoroughly resists our type of magic." Hans sighed. "We aren't actual mages, after all, so all of our attacks and abilities are based on vague literary nonsense. Other than those with physical manifestations, our noble phantasms will literally work less well on them. You can see how long it took to try to break Iida down, right?"
The book visually lost energy, its pages not fluttering as its covers hang limply from the spine binding the pages together.
"Yeah." Hans nodded. "There are tougher nuts to crack than even him. In this world, so-to-speak, he isn't even the main character. He's just a more significant than usual character. And we aren't even on the radar. Without the narrative significance, I would have instantly dissolved because us servants are all the same in this world. Just foreign entities to be erased, and entities that need mana to continue to exist."
The book fell onto the bench.
"Yes, that's the mana debt." Hans sighed. "In a sense, now that you aren't a formless wraith or being empowered by a ritual created by the sacrifice of what were probably all of Kiara's cultists, we now share my tiny little mana pool. As long as I have a host and don't use all of my mana, we won't fade away. But to maintain your existence, I'll need to spend mana. Meaning that, ironically, even though we're two servants, we're actually weaker than we were before… Since none of my abilities particularly stand out, you don't enhance my abilities, and your noble phantasm is too expensive. Additionally, since you really can't do much other than use your noble phantasm on people… we've incurred a net negative."
"Yeah, it's bad." Hans sighed. "I was never the most competent heroic spirit, and you don't even have an identity. We are, ironically, the weakest we've ever been."
Then, Nursery Rhyme coughed something up. The surface of the book rippled, revealing a shimmering, blue object. Slowly, it floated onto the surface of the mundane, wooden bench, providing great contrast to the mystical artifact that just appeared.
Slowly, the glow faded, and Hans gingerly looked at the oddly familiar artifact in genuine shock and bafflement. It was an object he never expected to ever see again, let alone in this place.
"Is this… my quill?" Hans asked, slowly and gently taking the fragile-looking object into his hands. When he knew it wouldn't disappear, he took it into his right hand. It fit perfectly.
Weakly, the book flopped.
Holding the item in his hand, it felt like it had always belonged there. His fingers found the familiar smooth patches on the quill as the feather settled comfortably into his hands.
Honestly, he had forgotten what it was already. It was simply the quill that had stuck to him the most. The faded blue tint of the feather could have been either natural or artificial, but it had long since begun to fade into gray. Only a small hint of its former color remained, near the somewhat worn out shaft.
But it was his quill.
"How do you have this?" Hans asked Nursery Rhyme.
It was part of Kiara's ritual.
Reading the text, Hans suddenly had a chilling realization.
"So… Kiara knows I'm here. Or, this was an attempt at summoning me."
When I was summoned, Kiara was disappointed at her self-perceived failure. This means that she likely doesn't know where you are. However, this ritual was also performed because she definitely knew where you were.
"And, have I been on global television or a famous event?" Hans thought for a minute. "Oh, fuck."
Everything circled back to UA, didn't it? The source of his misery and irritation.
Hans suppressed the urge to run away and hide, but he knew that it wouldn't be helpful. If Kiara knew where he was, there was probably something already spying on him. Staying in a populated, metropolitan area while gathering allies would probably be helpful for inevitably dealing with her.
"Well, is this useful?" Hans said, holding up the feather to the light. "Is it just a catalyst, or does it have actual value to me?"
"But really."Hans wrote on Nursery Rhyme, "Should we be discussing the capabilities of this thing somewhere that we can be spied on? It doesn't seem like a good idea."
The words no appeared, and Hans nodded to himself.
"We can talk about this later." Hans said, holding the feather up to the light.
Then, his phone buzzed again. Hans put the quill back on top of Nursery Rhyme, who reabsorbed the item.
Do you require transportation? Iida texted.
Thanks, but no. Hans typed back.
"...Maybe I should stop modeling my behavior after a homeless person, first." Hans sighed. Noticing his ripped lab coat and worn clothing, he didn't exactly create a picture of an aspiring hero.
…
The electric bike's brake made an odd screeching noise as they rounded another corner, Hans precariously grabbing onto his father's backpack as the somewhat aging rubber tires screeched against the rough asphalt. The road itself in front of their apartment was filled with potholes that the local government deemed "not necessary for renovation", despite the loose gravel spread over the streets like the snow after a blizzard storm.
Okay, it wasn't that bad.
His father locked the bike, with a mildly rusty bike lock, looked left and right to make sure nobody was hovering around the area, and opened the door to the apartment's ground floor. Noticing that his mother's bike was also tied up to the metal frame that acted as the bike locking area, Hans smiled a bit.
Everybody was finally home.
"Son, working is always going to be like this." his father sighed. "Every day, you wake up early, ride on your bike or take the train to your workplace, work for eight hours or possibly longer, and then come home to an equally exhausted wife or roommate. The only thing you'll look forward to are the weekends, where you spend your life resting for forty eight hours straight, before resuming the cycle again."
"Is this the reality of working in Japan?" Hans asked.
"No. It's the reality everywhere."
Ironically, his father was trying to teach him a life lesson, despite Hans's actual age. In his childhood, he had apprenticed under a weaver, and worked in the tobacco factories. He was no stranger to hard labor, considering the fact that they didn't have weekends off, either. It was just work, work, and work.
But it was still sad that the perception of work never changed. Despite everything, it was still the neverending grind forwards to provide basic necessities for the family.
"And I bet hero work isn't easy, either." his father said, messing around Hans's already messy hair. "I mean, an office job is one thing, but you all have to actually move around and stop criminals. What happens on workdays, anyways, for heroes?"
"Less." Hans said. "There aren't that many people moving around during workdays. It's really only during the mornings and the evenings, so during late morning and the afternoon, the patrol routes we were sent involve walking around slowly and looking at the obviously suspicious people case out businesses to rob. Otherwise, most actual villain attacks either happen on the weekend, in the mornings, or during rush hour."
"...Makes sense." his father said. "Did you all do a patrol route during this internship?"
"No." Hans sighed. "We were involved in a raid that messed up, and a lot of civilians got injured and… and died."
The elevator arrived, and the father-son pair walked into it in silence. It was a cramped little room, and it was one that Hans had to be in every day. Just like all the days before, it was caked with little advertisements and previously peeled off advertisements, showing things from insurance companies, to things that could "get you loans fast", and for even less savory things.
The stickers layered over each other, forming a kaleidoscope of a landscape and covering the mirrors that were customary to elevators.
Observing his blue hair move past infinite reflections that were layered upon each other, Hans smirked, but couldn't see his own reflection smirk. He sighed, but couldn't see his own reflection sigh.
"When are they going to clean this up?" Hans asked, scratching at the stickers. "I'm really tired of these things."
"When do you think the landlords are ever going to do anything?" his father laughed. "I really hope so, but it's not going to happen."
"But you want them to."
"But it's not going to happen."
"...Then why hope?" Hans said.
"Sure, we want a lot of things to happen. But they're not going to happen." his father said, easily. "I want your grandfather to not have cancer. I want the world to stop having cancer. But it's not going to happen in our lifetime. Still, we can all at least work towards a goal in the end, or hope that it'll come true. Just because a hope doesn't come true doesn't mean that it's not a valid hope."
Hans fell silent. The number on the elevator light, not covered by the advertisements, hit the double digits and continued to rise. The elevator lurched and shuddered, but continued to rise, despite its state of disrepair.
"By the way, what's the book? A souvenir?" his father asked.
Nursery Rhyme shook in Hans's pocket, now disguised as a little notebook.
"It's a quirk thing."
"I thought it was a tablet?"
"It… changed after this experience." Hans muttered.
"Was it today's attack, or the other attack that you went to the hospital for?" his father said. His voice wavered slightly.
"I'm fine, dad." Hans said. "Just a bit worried about everything."
Getting out his keys, they unlocked the apartment door and walked in. The power of his abysmal territory creation washed over him, and Hans mentally permitted Nursery Rhyme's entrance into his pitiful defenses. It couldn't actually stop them, or decrease their parameters. All it did was slightly annoy them with the presence of mana. That was the very nature of territory creation rank D.
Instantly, his mother got up from the sofa and began to look Hans up and down.
"Oh, Hans! You're okay, aren't you? Any lingering effects from the villain attack? Are you hurt anywhere? You have all your fingers, don't you?"
"Calm down, calm down." Hans said, gently brushing his mother's hands from off his clothes. "I'm fine. I'm not hurt at all."
"And change out of what you call a costume, please." his mother said, pointing at the frayed lab coat. "It makes you look homeless. I'll get you a sandwich."
"I had that exact same thought earlier." Hans said, shrugging off the coat and throwing it onto the couch. The fabric, provided by UA, was pretty good, and it could be repurposed into patches for clothing. Below his lab coat, his dress pants were frayed, and his signature blue bowtie remained safe.
Despite everything.
"It seems like Overhaul was so long ago…" Hans muttered.
"The villain that can deconstruct things? He was on the news after you all made him flee." his mother said, taking the coat and inspecting it for blood. There was none, and there shouldn't have been.
"Yep." Hans said, flopping onto the couch. "Today has just been really, really long."
"What happened for three hours, in that fog?"
"Officially, it's somebody's quirk that went out of control and manifested some sort of psychic projection. It might not even be from inside the movie theater."
"Oh, yeah. Around the world, there were weird flashes at the places that played Disney's new Little Mermaid."
"...Really?" Hans said.
"Apparently." his mother shrugged. "Anyways, how was this internship? Do you want to stick with this career?"
"It's really difficult." Hans sighed. "I'm not cut out for this industry. My quirk is honestly just better for healing, and I should stick to just healing if I really have to rely on my quirk to make a living.."
"But UA will still make you go?"
"They want to keep me around for… some reason." Hans shrugged. "Is my quirk really just that good? Or, is there somebody they want me to heal with my specific brand of healing?"
"...Is it really that good?"
"Give me enough time, and I can regrow limbs." Hans said. "It'll probably take about a month or two, but in the end, it'll work."
"Is it somewhat like your grandfather's quirk?" his father asked. "Somehow modifying their character traits to include their arm again?"
"How did you know?" Hans said, raising an eyebrow.
"Quirks are somewhat genetic." his father said, grinning sadly. "At least yours doesn't have his drawback."
"Don't remind me." Hans sighed. "I'm behind on my story writing, too. If we want to pay our bills, I'll have to get back to work."
"So soon? Tomorrow, the weekend starts. Why not take a break tonight?"
"This is when people expect updates." Hans sighed. "Do you think internet authors really have human rights? We're a glorified typewriter working to provide entertainment."
"Well, uh, have fun, I guess?"
Hans entered his room and shut the door.
It was still a somewhat messy place. Between Wednesday and today, nothing had really changed. Only the bed sheet grew slightly more wrinkled.
Sitting in front of his computer, opening up the old, secondhand device, Hans began to write.
Despite everything, he still had money troubles.
…
"Archer… make a pact with me again?"
At that moment, EMIYA smiled, looking out at the sunrise. In contrast with the dusty and dreary landscape in his reality marble, the world was colorful.
He had never really appreciated how much he didn't want to be in Unlimited Blade Works until this moment.
The vibrant green forests, and the soft red of a sunset contrasted greatly with the dull colors of the ground and the crimson red on his coat.
Soon, he would be returning to that prison, unless he completed the pact with Rin.
But could he really? Did he deserve it?
Ultimately, he had failed to convince Shirou Emiya to forsake the path of heroism, and had even failed to kill him. For a heroic spirit, he really was nothing more than a third rate.
He had betrayed Rin as well. That also still made him feel guilty, despite everything he had done.
EMIYA smirked, and a short laugh was huffed out of him. It was a self-deprecating laugh. Both aimed at himself, and at the Shirou Emiya he failed to convince.
Or did he fail? After all, this Shirou Emiya wasn't as alone as he was.
"I can't do that." he responded. "I doubt I have that right."
The two stood in silence, both looking out at the perfectly ordinary morning slowly stretching towards Fuyuki.
Hans put down the half-eaten sandwich he was holding and deleted the last sentence. It lingered too long on the scene, and provided no additional insight or emotion to the situation. The description simply was there, describing the scene, but not adding anything substantial to it, either.
He slammed his head into the desk. The whole scene was uninspired. He considered deleting everything and just starting over, but the comments that had piled up over the week, asking for more updates, were demanding more.
"If only the hero association didn't take my novel down…" Hans muttered. "Then, only my editor would feel the need to ask me for updates."
Looking at the scene, however, Hans still felt like something was missing. EMIYA's character was still too shallow on his page. He couldn't accurately deliver the self-depreciation that EMIYA's character was saturated with. In fact, the self hatred was hidden by EMIYA's actions as well, acting somewhat smug against other servants, and even to Rin.
But wasn't he a perfect model? As a self-processed cynical asshole, he was made this way both by reader expectations, and how infuriating this particular world was. In theory, he should have been the perfect person to write EMIYA's soliloquies.
Still, he wasn't.
Hans Christian Andersen wasn't EMIYA. He wasn't a person betrayed by his own dream. He wasn't a person that was forced to follow his dream until his conviction broke.
He was Hans Christian Andersen.
Still, if he generally matched EMIYA's character traits, he would be easier to write. Hans was definitely extremely irritating and knew exactly how to get onto people's nerves, so that was half of EMIYA's personality there.
But how cynical was he?
For a moment, Hans actually considered how cynical he was. A cynical person expected everybody to act in self interest. They would expect things to be as bad as possible, and only have their own interests at heart.
Looking up the definition on the internet, the cold, hard words on the white text box seemed to taunt him.
Cynical;
believing that people are motivated purely by self-interest; distrustful of human sincerity or integrity.
That was the definition.
"Heh." Hans laughed. "Hehehehe… Hahahahaha!"
After all, Hans Christian Andersen didn't fit that definition at all.
It was laughable, he thought. Laughable that he had ever attempted to justify his actions through that word. A cynical person did not hope. A truly cynical person did not expect things to be better. They simply are. They simply expected that to be the case in the first place.
Then, why would he possibly be disgusted by this society, if it was how he theoretically thought it was?
If… he was cynical.
In the end, despite roasting so many people, the one that was hiding from the truth the most… was him.
"I'm the one constantly trying to hide from the pain." Hans laughed. "I'm the one changing my own expectations, despite still having hope. Rather than facing the painful difference in my expectations and reality, I choose to suppress my own expectations instead, angling my own speech as cynical talk complaining about the state of society. But isn't complaining about society not what truly cynical people do?"
It was true. Despite everything, he still hoped. There was still a sense of dissonance when he encountered this society's many, many, many flaws.
Yes, three 'many's in a row.
Opening his curtains, Hans saw the windows of many apartments, already lit up with people taking a brief break from work or school, before having to return to it the next week.
Was everybody unsatisfied with society cynical? They still had expectations for hope. Just as Americans hoped that the next election cycle would fix everything, and just as his father hoped for the landlord to actually do something about the dubious advertisements pasted into the elevator walls, despite knowing that nothing would come from the act, they still hoped. Their expectations were incongruent with society, but that didn't mean they were automatically cynical.
In the end, most people were just bitter.
The shuffling of bricks disrupted his thoughts. Why would bricks shuffle at all? It honestly sounded more like the sound of a boot scraping against the rough surface of a brick.
Hans patted his pocket, and Nursery Rhyme flew out of it, gathering mana in preparation to defend both her and Hans. Meanwhile, Hans prepared to bring out his own summons.
Who was here? Was Kiara finally here to enact vengeance, by kidnapping him or his family? Was it the hero association, perhaps silencing him like jet companies silenced whistleblowers?
The Little Match Girl appeared, glared at Nursery Rhyme, and prepared an explosive match. Any aggressive move, and the match would be thrown outside, destabilizing the apartment's outer wall and causing the assailant to hopefully fall to their death.
Slowly, Hans approached the window, shuffling his footsteps as quietly as he could.
Then, a green hand impacted the glass, before somehow sliding the window open from the outside. Hans, however, recognized the quirk as the one of the lizard person, and waved his summons down. Hestia disappeared with a relieved shower of blue sparks, and Nursery Rhyme continued to try to disguise herself as a nondescript book.
From the window, the lizard person and Stain crawled into Hans's tiny apartment bedroom. The lizard person did a little roll on the hard, wooden floors, while Stain swung himself into the window, before pulling a knife out of the outer wall of the apartment that he was presumably using as a handhold.
"Why are you here?" Hans asked, glaring at the two.
"How did the attack happen?" Stain asked, completely ignoring Hans's question. "It has to be connected to the posters somehow.."
For a moment, the three people stared at each other. Stain and the lizard person, although not possessing weapons, still could probably subdue Hans, given that they didn't care at all about destroying Hans's room. Hans, on the other hand, did not want the property damage to happen, and refrained from using his summons to shove the two down onto the streets.
Hans sighed.
"I knew somebody would ask eventually. Nursery Rhyme, please rise."
The book floated into the air, and the lizard person immediately grabbed Hans's pencil and pointed it at the floating book.
"Is this the poster?" Stain demanded.
"Who are you, by the way?" Hans said, nudging the lizard person.
"My codename is Spinner." the lizard person declared. "But explain this."
"Okay." Hans sighed, sitting down on his bed. "Don't worry, she's not dangerous. And this is going to take a while to explain. But the gist of it is that there's a cult after me, and she was summoned by the cult."
"Why you?"
Hans considered it for a moment. How could he possibly explain this, as accurately as possible, but without actually mentioning magic (which was something that apparently definitely did not exist in a world of quirks)?
"Because the leader has a personal interest in me. Or, more specifically, my summons."
…
AN
That was fast, by my standards. I just… got bored of doing nothing after work, so I started writing once more, since I want to get to the next arc of the Hans fic now. A return to UA, a return to a more "traditional" form of this fic, and more funni.
Oh, and Hans trying to do detective work eventually.
What did you think about Hans's own little mini-roast? It's a little touch on the classic impression that people are cynical because they complain. If you do think about it, the truly cynic would find nothing wrong with a world filled with self-interest and selfish people, because that's what they expect.
…Hope that makes sense. Tell me what you think.
Join the discord: discord . gg / s2uFUydRVd
I'll be cranking out some more of this fic's chapters this weekend, maybe.
-SpiritOfErebus