Fate/EMIYA: To Be a Hero
After the conclusion of the 5th Grail War, the spirit of the Wrought...
After the conclusion of the 5th Grail War, the spirit of the Wrought...
Fate/EMIYA: To Be a Hero
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Chapter 1
konamikode
Cooking Harder
Fate/EMIYA: To Be a Hero
After the conclusion of the 5th Grail War, the spirit of the Wrought Iron Hero is called for once more only to find himself walking through the familiar, burning city of Fuyuki.
The 4th War has just ended, so why did he continue to persist?
Because the existence known as EMIYA was unable to turn away the pleading, final cry of a woman who wished with the last vestiges of her consciousness to keep her family safe.
She wished not for a Hero of Justice who could save her family...
But for a Hero who would make sure they lived happily.
Chapter 1: His Body Was Made of Swords, But His Heart Was Held By Love
AN: Time to revisit an old idea :3
Fuyuki, Japan
09/21/2015
EMIYA (TRUE)
The sunrise was beautiful.
How long has it been since I was able to rest? To stop and take a long look at the world I'd given my very existence to protect?
…
I'm sure that I've stood here, reminiscing countless times in the past, the present, and in the future, feeling the very same emotions running through my heart.
'But is that so important?' I thought, as my Master huffed and struggled her way up to the cliff I was standing upon.
"Archer!" She called, once.
Twice.
The second coming as she raised herself up, chest still heaving from the exertion of the past several minutes.
A soft, disbelieving tone filled with sorrow and regret.
I could feel the container of my copy fading away into the aether.
It was painful, of course. But I couldn't let her see it. The burdening knowledge that I knew what lied in wait for me after my memories and experiences were recalled into Alaya's cruel grasp.
"It's unfortunate," I started, pausing momentarily as I placed my hand upon a hip. "but that's how it is. Give up on the Grail this time, Rin"
It's how it was always going to end. Even if Rin was to forcibly contract me, it would only be a temporary reprieve, and one that I would never accept.
What kind of Servant would I be to allow my Master to suffer a future where her dreams would be crushed? To provide the necessary prana to keep a Heroic Spirit, a bastardized fake as I was in the living world, would cripple her ability to perform her duties as One Who Walks With Death.
No.
I couldn't do that to her.
Tohsaka.
She gasps, a momentary bout of youthful madness possessing in an effort to say something.
Anything.
But instead, she shrivels upon herself, undoubtedly pained at her realization that no, I wouldn't stay in this world, this time, any longer than necessary.
And why would I need to? 'I' was already here.
A me that had embodied the childish ideals I used to champion, but grown over his experiences in this past week to mutate ever so slightly differently than my own soul.
No. To stay was to bring pain upon the voice, face, and memory of a girl whose name I would not remember soon enough.
I am the very definition of selfishness. But at least in this aspect, I will choose to be selfless.
As I have done before, over and over again, as my copied core begins to merge with the full spirit who lays chained upon the Throne of Heroes, and the full scope of my memories begin to return.
"Heh." I chuckle, both from the sad sense of humor I feel at this recurring event, and from the words that I am about to say that will never change.
I care too much for the existence known as Tohsaka Rin to say anything but what she needs to hear.
Predictably, his Rin responds in her usual fashion. With heated emotion, a small fire that is fed by her tenuously held feelings that is quickly doused with her realization of my decision.
My acceptance.
I can now recall lifetimes where Rin had refused my decision and bound my body to herself anyway. But I can tell, this will not be one of those lifetimes.
And I'm okay with that.
As is the full realization of my 'self' that rests on the Throne after so many years spent with the girl known as Tohsaka Rin.
It's amusing, that despite all the efforts my copies have made throughout the many Roots of the world…
The first time we'd ever had this moment together was enough for the existence known as EMIYA to be, if not content, but accepting of his place as one of Alaya's dogs.
I could never be the hero I wished to be, but that didn't matter.
This reminder of who I am would be enough.
There was, and never would, be a Grail War where I would become something other than myself.
Kneeling and bleeding on a Lonely Hill of Swords, I would ever continue to look upwards.
Not in the vain hope that I would one day be free.
But because in the end…
I had succeeded in becoming a Hero.
Maybe not like how I imagined, but a Hero I was.
I'd always be the firm back on which Tohsaka would wrap her arms around in the search for comfort.
Tears bubbled at the edges of her eyes, her posture becoming something that I would never wish to see.
Defeated, torn, helpless.
Once more amongst a countless repetition of events, she cursed herself for being unable to save me even as a gasp escaped my throat.
It was an exchange of emotions that would never grow old. Never grow tired.
Everytime I stood here, watching this very same sunrise, I couldn't help but turn around to witness the girl who would fall to her weakest moment in life. Such was the despair that carried in her voice, forcing my mind to recall the numberless times I'd heard defeat in such a vibrant soul that should never lose.
But she never fell to her knees.
Not once, not in all the many branches of the Kaleidoscope, did she ever fall to her knees in defeated despair.
I would never allow that to occur, whatever the cause.
"Rin." I began, the words flowing from my mouth as easily as they had the first time.
I'd done it so many times that my response to her words could be all but automatic.
Could be.
"As you know, I'm a bit hopeless. Give me a shoulder to lean on." I said softly, the words I spoke coming freshly from my heart as they have always done.
How could I ever treat any moment spent with my Master as a tired exercise? No, even if I replied to her flagging sense of self the same way each and every time, I always said the words that were burning in the forge that is my heart.
In the end, I am Emiya Shirou.
And a sword could no more lie to their wielder without breaking itself. My voice would always be there for her, truthful and constant.
A sword couldn't lie, couldn't change their nature.
"Archer…" She spoke softly, eyes glistening with an unbefitting moisture that caused my heart to lurch, and bring a familiar, small smile to my lips.
Because I knew she would do her best to save me. A me that would never become the rusted monster that I am today.
And how do I know this?
Because I am the only EMIYA Shirou that sits upon the Throne of Heroes.
My Master had saved each and every instance of that sad, pointless existence through every line of history that had ever existed.
This one too, I knew would be saved.
I only had to wait for her to finish her statement, to memorize once more the proud, shining eyes of the girl I'd long given my heart to an uncountable number of lifetimes ago.
I have my answer, Rin.
"Don't worry, Tohsaka." I replied to her affirmation with a real, heartfelt smile. "I'll try my best from now on too."
And before this container, this copy of my soul, faded away, I would once more see the vision that would always stay my hand from fulfilling the mission my memory deficient copies would champion.
The sound of a girlish sniffle, the sight of tears trailing down the cheeks of eyes I could no longer see.
This, more than anything, I held tightly to my chest.
To subtly package into the depths of my next instance of the Fake Hero, Counter Guardian EMIYA.
"Ah." I said, looking up into the rusted wheels churning in the darkened sky.
"I'm trying to do the best that I can, Rin." I chuckle softly, closing my eyes and feeling myself being pulled once more.
There would never be a moment of rest for my true self as long as humanity existed.
But this time, as I felt the pull on my soul to a slightly more distant location, I prodded the walls of the encapsulating container to forcibly push in just the tiniest bit of my true will into the core of the shell.
Wherever I was summoned next, I'm sure that this small part of me would do well.
Fuyuki, Japan
09/21/2005
EMIYA (FALSE)
… and so I found myself summoned atop a pile of trash.
The fact that I was summoned atop a pile of broken furniture was familiar, but the feel of said wooden material was not.
In fact, the constitution of said wooden implements were more akin to concrete and rebar than anything truly familiar in my mind.
Summoning wasn't new to me. Jumbled memories weren't new to me.
The familiar heat of a burning city that I could clearly see was the one memory I could never forget.
This event more than anything else was the beginning of my path on the road to becoming the cursed existence that I am today.
I'm not even sure when I found myself standing upon the burning wreckage of Fuyuki's cursed district. Nor am I certain as to why I started walking towards the flames.
"... hello…?"
I only knew that I had to.
Foot after leather and steel clad foot, I walked.
The thick connection of prana that kept my body in the world weakly dragged me towards wherever my Master was.
Past the ruined buildings. Past the lifeless, incinerated skeletons.
I continued to walk in a dazed fugue, unaware of my goal.
At least until I reached the fallen form of my foster father, Emiya Kiritsugu.
From what I could see, his last moments were spent desperately reaching a cursed, mud slicked hand towards a barely breathing, red haired boy.
His golden eyes looked emptily upon the smog covered sky, any shimmer of intelligence that laid within his mind, burned out like a used coal that had been left unattended in a grill.
"...Kiritsugu…"
Emiya Kiritsugu was dead. As of this moment, it was a statistical impossibility that the existence known as Emiya Shirou would follow the hypocritical path of a Hero of Justice.
The catalyst that imprinted upon him, lay dead, his lifeless eyes full of pain and a deep regret that will never be lifted.
All I needed to do was move on and leave the dead and dying bodies. It may not do me any good. The likelihood of a paradox occurring from me slaying this empty cadaver was non-existent, but there was enough in me to believe saving any version of myself to be anathema.
No. I only needed to turn and walk away from it all until the next time I was called-
"...please…" The voice that had been desperately pleading in my ear, whispered with her dying breaths.
Breaths filled with despair that overshadowed the droplets of hope that yet clung to the shadowed darkness.
Breaths that pushed against the shattered, incomplete memories of my mind.
"Oniichan-" Her voice begged.That was not what she said
The voice of a girl whose name and face I could no longer remember. Only that her eyes shined like the eager glisten of honey scented red crayons and hair as colorless as snow.
….
"Please…" A familiar voice I'd never heard in all of my existence, begged the world.
Damn it. It's not fair.
How could I, EMIYA SHIROU, turn away?
And so I knelt down next to the unseeing eyes of a dying boy, his skin charred and blackened from the curse driving fires that were even now weakening amongst the soot and cremated dust ridden shower freshly falling from the heavens.
"What do you expect me to do?" I wondered, half to myself and half towards the insistent pull I'd been feeling since I'd arrived.
No one answered, and the boy whose breaths were slowing on the sizzling ground next to me didn't have the mental faculties left to do so.
I wanted to chuckle. I wanted to laugh.
Staring up at the gathered storm clouds, all I wanted to do was lean back and blank my mind from the yet one more event I had no power to stop.
The child who was not, nor would ever be Emiya Shirou, would die.
Regardless of the intent of the being whose prana filled my being drawing me towards this location, there was precious little I could do.
Among my arsenal, there was but one tool I could possibly use to heal the dying boy. The man who would've been his foster father in another life was already far beyond help, but there was no life to be saved here.
Even if I could Trace a copy of the Holy Sheathe, one that I've long memorized since I'd first witnessed it, it would do little to help the assuredly dead child without the presence of a woman whose face I could scarcely recall.
"Please…" The voice begged once more.
Desperate and fading.
With all her that was left of her, the voice pleaded for the grace of the sword she had called upon.
But there was nothing I could do.
Nothing I could do but try.
"I am the bone of my sword." I whispered, but the beginning line of my personal aria boomed loudly across the world.
I grasped onto it, searching deep within the reaches of myself.
To find that first memory of Kiritsugu placing Avalon within my heart.
The obvious didn't come to me at that moment, far too gone within my own soul. Instead, my hands crackled and my circuits, grew hot.
I'd found it with almost no effort. I knew the path that lead towards Avalon as surely as I knew exactly where upon the Hill of Swords Excalibur rested.
Static filled my eyes and the pounding of my false heart filled my ears.
No matter how much prana I'd been given, regardless of the overflowing sea of power I'd been connected to…
I would never have enough to bring forth a copy of inhuman perfection.
Among many, it was these two paired artifacts that I would never be able to bring forth.
"Please."
But I had to try anyway.
I could no more stop myself from answering the despairing hope of a woman I'd never met, but most assuredly was connected to in life and death, than I could deny the tiny, shameful part of me that still acted as the core of my being.
I wanted to be a Hero.
"Steel is my body, and fire is my-"
"Hold!" Her voice called out, desperately from my side as her gauntleted arms pressed down on my raised and steaming hands.
By my side, Saber shattered the outline of the projection I had only begun to bring forth into reality, and instead, pushed her near translucent and fading arms into the chest of Kiritsugu.
A chest that parted in a gate of warmly glowing gold as my partner pulled out Avalon from the depths of his dead heart.
"I ask of you…" She gasped, holding onto what semblance of existence she had against the depredations of Gaia.
"Will you be my Master?" She begged with a fierce, but simultaneously broken expression marring her beautiful face.
Above the body of my younger self, Artoria Pendragon tried and failed to push Avalon into his body, her own arms passing through Avalon and barely able to keep their shape as the motes of prana making up her body floated away into the cooling air.
My answer came in the form of my own arms grasping hers and pushing down her now fully corporeal limbs against Avalon into the heart of a boy named Shirou.
"Yes." I replied just minutes later as the two of us sat, watching as the sheathe healed the burnt boy of his wounds and steadied his breath into something resembling life.
We remained silent, feeling the hot rain falling upon our armored bodies, never looking away from a pair of golden eyes that had begun to grow warm with life, but remained coldly detached at the dark sky the boy had continued to gaze upon.
"Thank you, Hero. I owe you a great debt." Saber muttered softly, bringing an armored gauntlet to place it upon the now healed hand of the boy whose own digits wrapped around hers.
"Mm." I grunted, knowing better than to answer her in my usual sarcastic method.
Saber was my Servant. There would be time later to close myself, to needle her as I had wished I could in my youthful memories.
But for the time being…
I had to trample once more upon my ideals and throw them away. There was no room left for those foolish ideals in the type of Hero that I was so desperately called upon to be.
"Who are you, Hero?" Saber asked.
"I am Ruler. And the Fourth Holy Grail War is now over" I replied.
"Please." The voice said once more before fading against the pitter patter of rain.
I would fulfill the dying wish of the woman who had called me here. To save what I could of her family.
How could I not?
After the conclusion of the 5th Grail War, the spirit of the Wrought Iron Hero is called for once more only to find himself walking through the familiar, burning city of Fuyuki.
The 4th War has just ended, so why did he continue to persist?
Because the existence known as EMIYA was unable to turn away the pleading, final cry of a woman who wished with the last vestiges of her consciousness to keep her family safe.
She wished not for a Hero of Justice who could save her family...
But for a Hero who would make sure they lived happily.
Chapter 1: His Body Was Made of Swords, But His Heart Was Held By Love
AN: Time to revisit an old idea :3
Fuyuki, Japan
09/21/2015
EMIYA (TRUE)
The sunrise was beautiful.
How long has it been since I was able to rest? To stop and take a long look at the world I'd given my very existence to protect?
…
I'm sure that I've stood here, reminiscing countless times in the past, the present, and in the future, feeling the very same emotions running through my heart.
'But is that so important?' I thought, as my Master huffed and struggled her way up to the cliff I was standing upon.
"Archer!" She called, once.
Twice.
The second coming as she raised herself up, chest still heaving from the exertion of the past several minutes.
A soft, disbelieving tone filled with sorrow and regret.
I could feel the container of my copy fading away into the aether.
It was painful, of course. But I couldn't let her see it. The burdening knowledge that I knew what lied in wait for me after my memories and experiences were recalled into Alaya's cruel grasp.
"It's unfortunate," I started, pausing momentarily as I placed my hand upon a hip. "but that's how it is. Give up on the Grail this time, Rin"
It's how it was always going to end. Even if Rin was to forcibly contract me, it would only be a temporary reprieve, and one that I would never accept.
What kind of Servant would I be to allow my Master to suffer a future where her dreams would be crushed? To provide the necessary prana to keep a Heroic Spirit, a bastardized fake as I was in the living world, would cripple her ability to perform her duties as One Who Walks With Death.
No.
I couldn't do that to her.
Tohsaka.
She gasps, a momentary bout of youthful madness possessing in an effort to say something.
Anything.
But instead, she shrivels upon herself, undoubtedly pained at her realization that no, I wouldn't stay in this world, this time, any longer than necessary.
And why would I need to? 'I' was already here.
A me that had embodied the childish ideals I used to champion, but grown over his experiences in this past week to mutate ever so slightly differently than my own soul.
No. To stay was to bring pain upon the voice, face, and memory of a girl whose name I would not remember soon enough.
I am the very definition of selfishness. But at least in this aspect, I will choose to be selfless.
As I have done before, over and over again, as my copied core begins to merge with the full spirit who lays chained upon the Throne of Heroes, and the full scope of my memories begin to return.
"Heh." I chuckle, both from the sad sense of humor I feel at this recurring event, and from the words that I am about to say that will never change.
I care too much for the existence known as Tohsaka Rin to say anything but what she needs to hear.
Predictably, his Rin responds in her usual fashion. With heated emotion, a small fire that is fed by her tenuously held feelings that is quickly doused with her realization of my decision.
My acceptance.
I can now recall lifetimes where Rin had refused my decision and bound my body to herself anyway. But I can tell, this will not be one of those lifetimes.
And I'm okay with that.
As is the full realization of my 'self' that rests on the Throne after so many years spent with the girl known as Tohsaka Rin.
It's amusing, that despite all the efforts my copies have made throughout the many Roots of the world…
The first time we'd ever had this moment together was enough for the existence known as EMIYA to be, if not content, but accepting of his place as one of Alaya's dogs.
I could never be the hero I wished to be, but that didn't matter.
This reminder of who I am would be enough.
There was, and never would, be a Grail War where I would become something other than myself.
Kneeling and bleeding on a Lonely Hill of Swords, I would ever continue to look upwards.
Not in the vain hope that I would one day be free.
But because in the end…
I had succeeded in becoming a Hero.
Maybe not like how I imagined, but a Hero I was.
I'd always be the firm back on which Tohsaka would wrap her arms around in the search for comfort.
Tears bubbled at the edges of her eyes, her posture becoming something that I would never wish to see.
Defeated, torn, helpless.
Once more amongst a countless repetition of events, she cursed herself for being unable to save me even as a gasp escaped my throat.
It was an exchange of emotions that would never grow old. Never grow tired.
Everytime I stood here, watching this very same sunrise, I couldn't help but turn around to witness the girl who would fall to her weakest moment in life. Such was the despair that carried in her voice, forcing my mind to recall the numberless times I'd heard defeat in such a vibrant soul that should never lose.
But she never fell to her knees.
Not once, not in all the many branches of the Kaleidoscope, did she ever fall to her knees in defeated despair.
I would never allow that to occur, whatever the cause.
"Rin." I began, the words flowing from my mouth as easily as they had the first time.
I'd done it so many times that my response to her words could be all but automatic.
Could be.
"As you know, I'm a bit hopeless. Give me a shoulder to lean on." I said softly, the words I spoke coming freshly from my heart as they have always done.
How could I ever treat any moment spent with my Master as a tired exercise? No, even if I replied to her flagging sense of self the same way each and every time, I always said the words that were burning in the forge that is my heart.
In the end, I am Emiya Shirou.
And a sword could no more lie to their wielder without breaking itself. My voice would always be there for her, truthful and constant.
A sword couldn't lie, couldn't change their nature.
"Archer…" She spoke softly, eyes glistening with an unbefitting moisture that caused my heart to lurch, and bring a familiar, small smile to my lips.
Because I knew she would do her best to save me. A me that would never become the rusted monster that I am today.
And how do I know this?
Because I am the only EMIYA Shirou that sits upon the Throne of Heroes.
My Master had saved each and every instance of that sad, pointless existence through every line of history that had ever existed.
This one too, I knew would be saved.
I only had to wait for her to finish her statement, to memorize once more the proud, shining eyes of the girl I'd long given my heart to an uncountable number of lifetimes ago.
I have my answer, Rin.
"Don't worry, Tohsaka." I replied to her affirmation with a real, heartfelt smile. "I'll try my best from now on too."
And before this container, this copy of my soul, faded away, I would once more see the vision that would always stay my hand from fulfilling the mission my memory deficient copies would champion.
The sound of a girlish sniffle, the sight of tears trailing down the cheeks of eyes I could no longer see.
This, more than anything, I held tightly to my chest.
To subtly package into the depths of my next instance of the Fake Hero, Counter Guardian EMIYA.
"Ah." I said, looking up into the rusted wheels churning in the darkened sky.
"I'm trying to do the best that I can, Rin." I chuckle softly, closing my eyes and feeling myself being pulled once more.
There would never be a moment of rest for my true self as long as humanity existed.
But this time, as I felt the pull on my soul to a slightly more distant location, I prodded the walls of the encapsulating container to forcibly push in just the tiniest bit of my true will into the core of the shell.
Wherever I was summoned next, I'm sure that this small part of me would do well.
Fuyuki, Japan
09/21/2005
EMIYA (FALSE)
… and so I found myself summoned atop a pile of trash.
The fact that I was summoned atop a pile of broken furniture was familiar, but the feel of said wooden material was not.
In fact, the constitution of said wooden implements were more akin to concrete and rebar than anything truly familiar in my mind.
Summoning wasn't new to me. Jumbled memories weren't new to me.
The familiar heat of a burning city that I could clearly see was the one memory I could never forget.
This event more than anything else was the beginning of my path on the road to becoming the cursed existence that I am today.
I'm not even sure when I found myself standing upon the burning wreckage of Fuyuki's cursed district. Nor am I certain as to why I started walking towards the flames.
"... hello…?"
I only knew that I had to.
Foot after leather and steel clad foot, I walked.
The thick connection of prana that kept my body in the world weakly dragged me towards wherever my Master was.
Past the ruined buildings. Past the lifeless, incinerated skeletons.
I continued to walk in a dazed fugue, unaware of my goal.
At least until I reached the fallen form of my foster father, Emiya Kiritsugu.
From what I could see, his last moments were spent desperately reaching a cursed, mud slicked hand towards a barely breathing, red haired boy.
His golden eyes looked emptily upon the smog covered sky, any shimmer of intelligence that laid within his mind, burned out like a used coal that had been left unattended in a grill.
"...Kiritsugu…"
Emiya Kiritsugu was dead. As of this moment, it was a statistical impossibility that the existence known as Emiya Shirou would follow the hypocritical path of a Hero of Justice.
The catalyst that imprinted upon him, lay dead, his lifeless eyes full of pain and a deep regret that will never be lifted.
All I needed to do was move on and leave the dead and dying bodies. It may not do me any good. The likelihood of a paradox occurring from me slaying this empty cadaver was non-existent, but there was enough in me to believe saving any version of myself to be anathema.
No. I only needed to turn and walk away from it all until the next time I was called-
"...please…" The voice that had been desperately pleading in my ear, whispered with her dying breaths.
Breaths filled with despair that overshadowed the droplets of hope that yet clung to the shadowed darkness.
Breaths that pushed against the shattered, incomplete memories of my mind.
"Oniichan-" Her voice begged.
The voice of a girl whose name and face I could no longer remember. Only that her eyes shined like the eager glisten of honey scented red crayons and hair as colorless as snow.
….
"Please…" A familiar voice I'd never heard in all of my existence, begged the world.
Damn it. It's not fair.
How could I, EMIYA SHIROU, turn away?
And so I knelt down next to the unseeing eyes of a dying boy, his skin charred and blackened from the curse driving fires that were even now weakening amongst the soot and cremated dust ridden shower freshly falling from the heavens.
"What do you expect me to do?" I wondered, half to myself and half towards the insistent pull I'd been feeling since I'd arrived.
No one answered, and the boy whose breaths were slowing on the sizzling ground next to me didn't have the mental faculties left to do so.
I wanted to chuckle. I wanted to laugh.
Staring up at the gathered storm clouds, all I wanted to do was lean back and blank my mind from the yet one more event I had no power to stop.
The child who was not, nor would ever be Emiya Shirou, would die.
Regardless of the intent of the being whose prana filled my being drawing me towards this location, there was precious little I could do.
Among my arsenal, there was but one tool I could possibly use to heal the dying boy. The man who would've been his foster father in another life was already far beyond help, but there was no life to be saved here.
Even if I could Trace a copy of the Holy Sheathe, one that I've long memorized since I'd first witnessed it, it would do little to help the assuredly dead child without the presence of a woman whose face I could scarcely recall.
"Please…" The voice begged once more.
Desperate and fading.
With all her that was left of her, the voice pleaded for the grace of the sword she had called upon.
But there was nothing I could do.
Nothing I could do but try.
"I am the bone of my sword." I whispered, but the beginning line of my personal aria boomed loudly across the world.
I grasped onto it, searching deep within the reaches of myself.
To find that first memory of Kiritsugu placing Avalon within my heart.
The obvious didn't come to me at that moment, far too gone within my own soul. Instead, my hands crackled and my circuits, grew hot.
I'd found it with almost no effort. I knew the path that lead towards Avalon as surely as I knew exactly where upon the Hill of Swords Excalibur rested.
Static filled my eyes and the pounding of my false heart filled my ears.
No matter how much prana I'd been given, regardless of the overflowing sea of power I'd been connected to…
I would never have enough to bring forth a copy of inhuman perfection.
Among many, it was these two paired artifacts that I would never be able to bring forth.
"Please."
But I had to try anyway.
I could no more stop myself from answering the despairing hope of a woman I'd never met, but most assuredly was connected to in life and death, than I could deny the tiny, shameful part of me that still acted as the core of my being.
I wanted to be a Hero.
"Steel is my body, and fire is my-"
"Hold!" Her voice called out, desperately from my side as her gauntleted arms pressed down on my raised and steaming hands.
By my side, Saber shattered the outline of the projection I had only begun to bring forth into reality, and instead, pushed her near translucent and fading arms into the chest of Kiritsugu.
A chest that parted in a gate of warmly glowing gold as my partner pulled out Avalon from the depths of his dead heart.
"I ask of you…" She gasped, holding onto what semblance of existence she had against the depredations of Gaia.
"Will you be my Master?" She begged with a fierce, but simultaneously broken expression marring her beautiful face.
Above the body of my younger self, Artoria Pendragon tried and failed to push Avalon into his body, her own arms passing through Avalon and barely able to keep their shape as the motes of prana making up her body floated away into the cooling air.
My answer came in the form of my own arms grasping hers and pushing down her now fully corporeal limbs against Avalon into the heart of a boy named Shirou.
"Yes." I replied just minutes later as the two of us sat, watching as the sheathe healed the burnt boy of his wounds and steadied his breath into something resembling life.
We remained silent, feeling the hot rain falling upon our armored bodies, never looking away from a pair of golden eyes that had begun to grow warm with life, but remained coldly detached at the dark sky the boy had continued to gaze upon.
"Thank you, Hero. I owe you a great debt." Saber muttered softly, bringing an armored gauntlet to place it upon the now healed hand of the boy whose own digits wrapped around hers.
"Mm." I grunted, knowing better than to answer her in my usual sarcastic method.
Saber was my Servant. There would be time later to close myself, to needle her as I had wished I could in my youthful memories.
But for the time being…
I had to trample once more upon my ideals and throw them away. There was no room left for those foolish ideals in the type of Hero that I was so desperately called upon to be.
"Who are you, Hero?" Saber asked.
"I am Ruler. And the Fourth Holy Grail War is now over" I replied.
"Please." The voice said once more before fading against the pitter patter of rain.
I would fulfill the dying wish of the woman who had called me here. To save what I could of her family.
How could I not?
Last edited:
- Location
- Sydney,Australia
Holy fuck what i don't even more please is my first thought but god how much chaos is this going to cause?
- Location
- Southern California
Huh........so let me see if I understand this correctly:
- Archer was summoned at the end of the 4th grail war
- Supposedly by Iri
- To save her family
- He finds a dead Kiritsugu and a dying Shirou
- He tries to save Shirou by using Avalon but can't
- Instead Saber shows up
- Emiya signs a contract with her and they save the young Shirou
konamikode
Cooking Harder
That mostly sums it up, yeah.
all fictions
I hate you! (it's not against the rules!)
- Location
- Mons Regius
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Why is it now 2015-2005 and not 2004-1994?
ZFighter18
I'm not a god. I AM WHAT A GOD PRAYS TO.
- Location
- Maryland
Holy fuck, yes.
I am ready for this.
Archer raising the thing he hates the most in the world; himself.
You've heard of fathers not loving their sons...
I am ready for this.
Archer raising the thing he hates the most in the world; himself.
You've heard of fathers not loving their sons...
ecs05norway
Zenryoku Zenkai!
A fascinating start. Watched.
konamikode
Cooking Harder
Part of it is a nod towards the 2014-2015 release of UBW while the other is so there are times I can use more recent technology in the story.
Like Air Fryers. Those've been in retail circulation since around 2007 I believe? Emiya's probably had some experience with them since he probably died somewhere in the late 2010's- 2020's, but probably never had a chance to really stay in the kitchen with more modern appliances as he became Kiritsugu 2.0
"M-Master! The taste, the texture of this fried poultry... how can it be so different!? To think there'd be such a wondrous way to fry chicken with just a touch of oil..."
It signifies that this isn't the 'complete' edition of CG EMIYA, just a good portion of him stuffed in a Servant's body as would be normal.
It's why you get different 'types' of the same character from different time periods or alternate realities like Proto Cu Chulainn and Lancer Artoria
ConfusedCanuck
Where did it all go wrong?
- Location
- Neverland
I want more just by reading the first chapter it has drawn me in and captured my imagination please @konamikode please update soon!!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Ah. This is good.
Most definitely good.
Most definitely good.
Interlude 1: Artoria
konamikode
Cooking Harder
Interlude 1: A Knight and Her Master
"Master? Could you… tell me more about her? Your… mother I mean."
"Her face is the first living thing I remember seeing, Saber. Her eyes were so empty, so despondent. It was like she was only moving because something was forcing her to live."
"Master?"
"I remember feeling pity. I wanted to… help her. Do something for her."
"I wanted her to live, Saber. Not just exist, but for those dead of eyes hers to brighten like I know they should've."
"Something told me to take her hand in mine that day, and for the first of many times… I saw it, Saber."
"A bright, emerald forest filled with life… and I knew."
"That I had to become a Hero. Like him. The second set of eyes I remember seeing."
-Emiya Shirou, 2015
----
Artoria
I had fallen to my knees in despair, looking upon the disintegrated pedestal upon which the grail had sat, cursing Kiritsugu with all my being that he had forced me to destroy the one thing I had desired most.
But perhaps… this was the price of my dishonor. To come so close, but to lose all that I had fought for at the end.
I had fought on despite knowing what had become of Lady Irisviel.
The one person who I'd come to call friend during my time in a future I was never supposed to be a part of.
I had acted to fill her desecrated corpse with the spirits of dead heroes. All for my selfish desire to change a single, catastrophic event in history that had seen my kingdom come to ruin.
All because I became King of Britain. All because I pulled Caliburn free of its holy mooring.
I believed, as my body began to fade away, that this was my penance for the tarnishing of my knightly oaths.
And then I looked up into the sky and saw what lay underneath the destroyed remains of the Holy Grail.
A crimson tear in the fabric of the world, full of pain, hatred, and a longing for the suffering of humanity.
The thickly spewing curse of all the collective sins of mankind.
What have I done?
What have I been so desperately fighting for?
How many lies have I told myself in my justifications that my path was a righteous one?
What evil had I been about to unleash had Kiritsugu not stopped me from claiming the grail?
And so I stood, holding tightly to my slowly vanishing body and walked.
I could not fade away now. Not yet. Not when there was still the possibility someone, anyone had survived the firestorm of death.
How could I allow myself to return to that timeless place where I lay dying when I had caused so much evil to manifest from my own selfish desire?
I could not. Before I was a king, and before I was a person…
I am a Knight.
I had promised to protect Irisviel, sworn upon my blade and honor, and yet my very actions had caused her demise.
I could not live with that, the tatters of my honor were forever forfeit.
I was close, oh so close to plunging my own blade into my heart in despair but for the tiny trickle of familiar prana that allowed for my unnatural existence.
"Saber…" I heard her voice calling me, pleading.
There was none of the expected condemnation, the accusations of my failure. Only the desperate emotion of a woman who hadn't yet lost hope for the one being that kept her in a state of cruel life beyond death.
Illyasviel.
The image of an innocent girl who had waved goodbye in the cold reaches of northern Europa filled my mind.
They were not my memories, but of Irisviel's last, final, memory of the daughter she would never see, never hold ever again.
I didn't need to be a sage to understand, not a knight, or even a King.
I only had to be that young, boyish peasant squire full of childish dreams to understand what my task was.
What my oath to Irisviel required of me.
Go to her.
I had to go to Illyasviel.
Thus, I stood on transparent legs I held together by sheer force of will, and walked.
I don't know how long I walked through the burning city which had so astounded me when I first laid eyes upon what humanity was capable of given time.
Anything could be destroyed all the same by the evils brought forth by men. And each step furthered the growing burden of my disgusted sense of shame.
Where was the honor in this?
Where was the honor of battle against the true heroes of history I was promised?
All I tasted were ashes of broken dreams and the familiar lies of existence.
I, who in my hubris had thought to be the very embodiment of chivalry, had once more forgotten that human nature was a sickly curse that brought low any who attempted to hold themselves to a childish, foolish, standard.
When Caliburn had shattered in my hands, I thought myself learned and wisened of my hubris. That my learned wisdom had destroyed all pretense of unsightly pride.
How foolish I am to have thought I was any better than the common man.
Is this hellish rebuke not the result of mine own hubris? To have believed this war would be a chivalrous battle between the heroes of all time.
I should have known better.
War makes savages of us all.
Or at least…
At least those were the thoughts the cursed weight of the burning, hateful mud, had piled atop my shoulders.
Thoughts that flaked away as did the thick, cloying mud atop my pauldrons once I saw and stepped towards the unknown Heroic Spirit who was doing his utmost to save the life of a burnt, dying half corpse of a child.
My steps were uncertain at first, my eyes watching with disbelief as the familiar shape of my sheathe began to materialize from the outstretched hands of the Hero who had thrown away all sense of propriety to kneel in the dirt.
The dirt which seemed fit to seat a True King. Such was the presence I felt, the sheer unyielding grit I felt wafting off the broad shoulders of a True Hero who cared not for his station atop the commons.
No.
The red and black clad Hero gave no pause towards the thought of the cloying ashes of the immolated dead that were pressing through the fabric covering his knees. Had not a care of how the still steaming curse of the Holy Grail's very mud he had sunk himself into in order to save the boy at his side.
The same mud that was beginning to powerlessly flake off of my shoulders had never once marred the Hero who was doing his best to act as a True Legend forever shrined upon the Throne of Heroes, should.
How despicable.
How truly despicable of you, Artoria.
That this Hero, this King, had never given a thought for the shackles of propriety while you yourself was weighed down by the cursed mud flowing from the dead corpse of one who you'd vowed to protect.
I could see it in his expression, the only drive he had was to save the innocent boy who had been caught in the result of my failure.
His eyes, nose, and ears bled. Whatever magick he was employing, it would surely cost him the life he had been given. Bringing the falseReal copy of Avalon forth would surely kill him were he to fully manifest it.
But the Hero cared not.
His was a fresh, newly gifted existence in a world where heroes shouldn't exist.
I knew in my heart of hearts that he was freshly summoned for a purpose I didn't know.
But whatever purpose he was tasked with, he had thrown it away in a heartbeat to save the life of a child he neither knew nor had reason to save beyond the fact that the boy…
Wished to be saved.
'What am I doing?' I thought, the last, cloying grasp of the cursed mud flowing off of my form as I sped forward, intent on saving this True Hero with all that I had.
Damn my kingship.
Damn my pride.
And damn my selfish desires.
As of this moment, I was nothing but a squire who had discovered a Master whom I would wholly give my life and soul to follow.
And so I asked as I dared to push aside the Hero's inevitable death with my small, blood soaked hands.
"I ask of you, will you be my Master?"
He needn't have replied for me in my infantile understanding of the code of heroism to realize his answer.
His reply to my question was the gentle wrapping of his large, bronzed hands atop my own to push Avalon into the heart of a dying, pleading boy with hair the color of fire and eyes cast from molten gold.
With the contract made, I pushed all the prana I had to spare, and more, to fuel the forge that lay behind the eyes of the dying boy whose eyes locked with my own.
I'd scarce felt such joy, such purity of being when his small hand grasped the bloodied, armored gauntlets of my unworthy fingers.
"Who are you, Hero?" I'd asked, strength filling my heart and wonder filling my voice.
To serve such a Master, I knew.
I knew that everything would be all right.
That was the presence I felt under the proud, fractured blade known as the Wrought Iron Hero.
"I am Ruler. And the Fourth Holy Grail War is now over." He replied.
A true King indeed. I had no words to speak, even if I could have uttered them in that timeless moment as the soothing rain fell and washed the last of the Grail's stains away from my form.
And then I stood silently, rising alongside my Master with the boy I… he had saved, carried gently against the slightness of my bosom.
My armor was not required. I doubted I had the right to wear it at this moment.
In his presence, I was that very same girl I had been before I'd pulled the Sword from the Stone.
'I could be nothing else.' I'd thought without the shadow of my shameful hubris.
And so I followed the tall Hero, saying nothing as he found and placed a sliver of golden metal into his chest.
A piece of the grail, I'd felt along with the actualization of the Hero who called himself Ruler.
"There's someone that I have to save." He'd said.
And I followed.
I followed him all the way to Germania with a red haired boy's hand held firmly in my unarmored hand and watched as he laid waste to the meager defenses of the land where I'd first been summoned.
I watched without emotion as he returned with four children. Two teenage homunculi that were newly born at best, and a small, familiar form of a girl whose pale hand who gripped tightly against the red cloth of the Hero's coat.
The fourth child whose eyes seemingly wailed within the crimson eyes of her prison, flecked gold momentarily as snowy hair turned a soft shade of pink for but a moment.
The boy, Shirou whose hand still gripped mine own, followed along behind me as we treaded through the snow behind the path Ruler had dug past with his own, larger strides.
And so Illyasviel was saved, not by my hand, but by the white and black blades of the red clad hero who was not yet finished.
From the embedded pieces of a newly growing grail that laid dormant, but aware within Illyasviel, another was born under the ministrations of a magus whom Ruler contacted and cornered not long after.
I felt the piece of Irisviel planted within Ruler's heart hum in contentment as I watched a girl with skin as bronzed as Ruler play with two other children.
The stoic boy who did his best to corral his elder, more boisterous sisters.
And a girl with hair and skin as pale as snow as the three innocently ran along the grounds of my former Master's home.
A former Master who shared the family name of the Hero whom I'd pledged my sword to until the day I was no longer needed.
"Saber?" He asked, undoubtedly wondering about the small smile that made itself visible along the corners of my lips.
"It's nothing Ruler, just enjoying the pleasant peacefulness of the day." I said, kneeling with a warm cup of tea in my hands as I gifted my Master, Emiya, with a small smile.
"Hungry are you?" He asked, implying that he had indeed noticed my eyes glancing towards the kitchen where he was preparing our midday meal.
"...indeed." I replied, banishing the soft flush that had overtaken my cheeks at being discovered.
But I firmed myself.
I would soon face yet another obstacle that would require all of my skill and attention in the battle to come.
Like young Illyasviel and Chloe, I had yet to master the eastern art of utilizing the dining implements my Master calls, 'chopsticks.'
It was good that young Shirou was more concerned with passing his skills to his elder sisters.
I am sure that Ruler would be more than happy to instruct me in the ways of his people, sardonically put upon expression and all.
"Oi! Lunch!" He calls out, pushing a small stool with his leg so that the children could step up towards the counter and carefully reach the steaming dishes he had skillfully prepared one after another.
I of course, sat at my place at the low table, carefully watching as three children and their elder neighbor named Taiga eagerly ran back into the house and began setting the table as had become habit in the last month of our stay within the Emiya household.
Lunch was as hearty and fulfilling as it had been everyday I'd spent alongside my Master.
"Master? Could you… tell me more about her? Your… mother I mean."
"Her face is the first living thing I remember seeing, Saber. Her eyes were so empty, so despondent. It was like she was only moving because something was forcing her to live."
"Master?"
"I remember feeling pity. I wanted to… help her. Do something for her."
"I wanted her to live, Saber. Not just exist, but for those dead of eyes hers to brighten like I know they should've."
"Something told me to take her hand in mine that day, and for the first of many times… I saw it, Saber."
"A bright, emerald forest filled with life… and I knew."
"That I had to become a Hero. Like him. The second set of eyes I remember seeing."
-Emiya Shirou, 2015
----
Artoria
I had fallen to my knees in despair, looking upon the disintegrated pedestal upon which the grail had sat, cursing Kiritsugu with all my being that he had forced me to destroy the one thing I had desired most.
But perhaps… this was the price of my dishonor. To come so close, but to lose all that I had fought for at the end.
I had fought on despite knowing what had become of Lady Irisviel.
The one person who I'd come to call friend during my time in a future I was never supposed to be a part of.
I had acted to fill her desecrated corpse with the spirits of dead heroes. All for my selfish desire to change a single, catastrophic event in history that had seen my kingdom come to ruin.
All because I became King of Britain. All because I pulled Caliburn free of its holy mooring.
I believed, as my body began to fade away, that this was my penance for the tarnishing of my knightly oaths.
And then I looked up into the sky and saw what lay underneath the destroyed remains of the Holy Grail.
A crimson tear in the fabric of the world, full of pain, hatred, and a longing for the suffering of humanity.
The thickly spewing curse of all the collective sins of mankind.
What have I done?
What have I been so desperately fighting for?
How many lies have I told myself in my justifications that my path was a righteous one?
What evil had I been about to unleash had Kiritsugu not stopped me from claiming the grail?
And so I stood, holding tightly to my slowly vanishing body and walked.
I could not fade away now. Not yet. Not when there was still the possibility someone, anyone had survived the firestorm of death.
How could I allow myself to return to that timeless place where I lay dying when I had caused so much evil to manifest from my own selfish desire?
I could not. Before I was a king, and before I was a person…
I am a Knight.
I had promised to protect Irisviel, sworn upon my blade and honor, and yet my very actions had caused her demise.
I could not live with that, the tatters of my honor were forever forfeit.
I was close, oh so close to plunging my own blade into my heart in despair but for the tiny trickle of familiar prana that allowed for my unnatural existence.
"Saber…" I heard her voice calling me, pleading.
There was none of the expected condemnation, the accusations of my failure. Only the desperate emotion of a woman who hadn't yet lost hope for the one being that kept her in a state of cruel life beyond death.
Illyasviel.
The image of an innocent girl who had waved goodbye in the cold reaches of northern Europa filled my mind.
They were not my memories, but of Irisviel's last, final, memory of the daughter she would never see, never hold ever again.
I didn't need to be a sage to understand, not a knight, or even a King.
I only had to be that young, boyish peasant squire full of childish dreams to understand what my task was.
What my oath to Irisviel required of me.
Go to her.
I had to go to Illyasviel.
Thus, I stood on transparent legs I held together by sheer force of will, and walked.
I don't know how long I walked through the burning city which had so astounded me when I first laid eyes upon what humanity was capable of given time.
Anything could be destroyed all the same by the evils brought forth by men. And each step furthered the growing burden of my disgusted sense of shame.
Where was the honor in this?
Where was the honor of battle against the true heroes of history I was promised?
All I tasted were ashes of broken dreams and the familiar lies of existence.
I, who in my hubris had thought to be the very embodiment of chivalry, had once more forgotten that human nature was a sickly curse that brought low any who attempted to hold themselves to a childish, foolish, standard.
When Caliburn had shattered in my hands, I thought myself learned and wisened of my hubris. That my learned wisdom had destroyed all pretense of unsightly pride.
How foolish I am to have thought I was any better than the common man.
Is this hellish rebuke not the result of mine own hubris? To have believed this war would be a chivalrous battle between the heroes of all time.
I should have known better.
War makes savages of us all.
Or at least…
At least those were the thoughts the cursed weight of the burning, hateful mud, had piled atop my shoulders.
Thoughts that flaked away as did the thick, cloying mud atop my pauldrons once I saw and stepped towards the unknown Heroic Spirit who was doing his utmost to save the life of a burnt, dying half corpse of a child.
My steps were uncertain at first, my eyes watching with disbelief as the familiar shape of my sheathe began to materialize from the outstretched hands of the Hero who had thrown away all sense of propriety to kneel in the dirt.
The dirt which seemed fit to seat a True King. Such was the presence I felt, the sheer unyielding grit I felt wafting off the broad shoulders of a True Hero who cared not for his station atop the commons.
No.
The red and black clad Hero gave no pause towards the thought of the cloying ashes of the immolated dead that were pressing through the fabric covering his knees. Had not a care of how the still steaming curse of the Holy Grail's very mud he had sunk himself into in order to save the boy at his side.
The same mud that was beginning to powerlessly flake off of my shoulders had never once marred the Hero who was doing his best to act as a True Legend forever shrined upon the Throne of Heroes, should.
How despicable.
How truly despicable of you, Artoria.
That this Hero, this King, had never given a thought for the shackles of propriety while you yourself was weighed down by the cursed mud flowing from the dead corpse of one who you'd vowed to protect.
I could see it in his expression, the only drive he had was to save the innocent boy who had been caught in the result of my failure.
His eyes, nose, and ears bled. Whatever magick he was employing, it would surely cost him the life he had been given. Bringing the false
But the Hero cared not.
His was a fresh, newly gifted existence in a world where heroes shouldn't exist.
I knew in my heart of hearts that he was freshly summoned for a purpose I didn't know.
But whatever purpose he was tasked with, he had thrown it away in a heartbeat to save the life of a child he neither knew nor had reason to save beyond the fact that the boy…
Wished to be saved.
'What am I doing?' I thought, the last, cloying grasp of the cursed mud flowing off of my form as I sped forward, intent on saving this True Hero with all that I had.
Damn my kingship.
Damn my pride.
And damn my selfish desires.
As of this moment, I was nothing but a squire who had discovered a Master whom I would wholly give my life and soul to follow.
And so I asked as I dared to push aside the Hero's inevitable death with my small, blood soaked hands.
"I ask of you, will you be my Master?"
He needn't have replied for me in my infantile understanding of the code of heroism to realize his answer.
His reply to my question was the gentle wrapping of his large, bronzed hands atop my own to push Avalon into the heart of a dying, pleading boy with hair the color of fire and eyes cast from molten gold.
With the contract made, I pushed all the prana I had to spare, and more, to fuel the forge that lay behind the eyes of the dying boy whose eyes locked with my own.
I'd scarce felt such joy, such purity of being when his small hand grasped the bloodied, armored gauntlets of my unworthy fingers.
"Who are you, Hero?" I'd asked, strength filling my heart and wonder filling my voice.
To serve such a Master, I knew.
I knew that everything would be all right.
That was the presence I felt under the proud, fractured blade known as the Wrought Iron Hero.
"I am Ruler. And the Fourth Holy Grail War is now over." He replied.
A true King indeed. I had no words to speak, even if I could have uttered them in that timeless moment as the soothing rain fell and washed the last of the Grail's stains away from my form.
And then I stood silently, rising alongside my Master with the boy I… he had saved, carried gently against the slightness of my bosom.
My armor was not required. I doubted I had the right to wear it at this moment.
In his presence, I was that very same girl I had been before I'd pulled the Sword from the Stone.
'I could be nothing else.' I'd thought without the shadow of my shameful hubris.
And so I followed the tall Hero, saying nothing as he found and placed a sliver of golden metal into his chest.
A piece of the grail, I'd felt along with the actualization of the Hero who called himself Ruler.
"There's someone that I have to save." He'd said.
And I followed.
I followed him all the way to Germania with a red haired boy's hand held firmly in my unarmored hand and watched as he laid waste to the meager defenses of the land where I'd first been summoned.
I watched without emotion as he returned with four children. Two teenage homunculi that were newly born at best, and a small, familiar form of a girl whose pale hand who gripped tightly against the red cloth of the Hero's coat.
The fourth child whose eyes seemingly wailed within the crimson eyes of her prison, flecked gold momentarily as snowy hair turned a soft shade of pink for but a moment.
The boy, Shirou whose hand still gripped mine own, followed along behind me as we treaded through the snow behind the path Ruler had dug past with his own, larger strides.
And so Illyasviel was saved, not by my hand, but by the white and black blades of the red clad hero who was not yet finished.
From the embedded pieces of a newly growing grail that laid dormant, but aware within Illyasviel, another was born under the ministrations of a magus whom Ruler contacted and cornered not long after.
I felt the piece of Irisviel planted within Ruler's heart hum in contentment as I watched a girl with skin as bronzed as Ruler play with two other children.
The stoic boy who did his best to corral his elder, more boisterous sisters.
And a girl with hair and skin as pale as snow as the three innocently ran along the grounds of my former Master's home.
A former Master who shared the family name of the Hero whom I'd pledged my sword to until the day I was no longer needed.
"Saber?" He asked, undoubtedly wondering about the small smile that made itself visible along the corners of my lips.
"It's nothing Ruler, just enjoying the pleasant peacefulness of the day." I said, kneeling with a warm cup of tea in my hands as I gifted my Master, Emiya, with a small smile.
"Hungry are you?" He asked, implying that he had indeed noticed my eyes glancing towards the kitchen where he was preparing our midday meal.
"...indeed." I replied, banishing the soft flush that had overtaken my cheeks at being discovered.
But I firmed myself.
I would soon face yet another obstacle that would require all of my skill and attention in the battle to come.
Like young Illyasviel and Chloe, I had yet to master the eastern art of utilizing the dining implements my Master calls, 'chopsticks.'
It was good that young Shirou was more concerned with passing his skills to his elder sisters.
I am sure that Ruler would be more than happy to instruct me in the ways of his people, sardonically put upon expression and all.
"Oi! Lunch!" He calls out, pushing a small stool with his leg so that the children could step up towards the counter and carefully reach the steaming dishes he had skillfully prepared one after another.
I of course, sat at my place at the low table, carefully watching as three children and their elder neighbor named Taiga eagerly ran back into the house and began setting the table as had become habit in the last month of our stay within the Emiya household.
Lunch was as hearty and fulfilling as it had been everyday I'd spent alongside my Master.
Lufio
The Masked Lurker
- Location
- Cyberspace
konamikode
Cooking Harder
Soonish :3
- Pronouns
- He/Him
A little bit quick, and skipping a lot when much WAFF and heartwarming fluff and heroic actions may have been witnessed, but sweet.
konamikode
Cooking Harder
We'll be going back to Emiya's POV for the next couple chapters and revisit the glossed over stuff, Artoria's bit is just to highlight what's going to happen between now and her next POV.
ConfusedCanuck
Where did it all go wrong?
- Location
- Neverland
Wonderful chapter @konamikode cant wait to see what comes next, also enjoyed this interlude it gave an interesting incite to sabers current mindset.
- Location
- West Michigan
Why doesn't EMIYA save Sakur- oh, duh, he never learned about her issues in either his original timeline or UBW.
How far afield do you plan to go with characters? FSN + HA + Zero + LEMII + other main timeline stuff only (plus Chloe)? Other Camelot Servants? The original Morgan is still doing her thing in Avalon and might want to give her sister a wedding gift and a new mini-moe Mo-san. Nothing could go wrong.
konamikode
Cooking Harder
Probably a little after the 5th War.
- Location
- West Michigan
Not what I meant. You already had Aoko make a main-timeline version of Chloe, even though she wasn't invented (Doylist) until Prillya, and EMIYA is claiming the Ruler class. What about other content and characters from Prillya and Apocrypha? Prototype? Moon Cell originals? Grand Order?
That's why I gave Morgan and Mordred as examples.
konamikode
Cooking Harder
Can't really answer most of that, though I did post a relevant picture on Shirou's quote in the beginning of the second chapter.
