A one-shot; Kotomine Kirei is eating at Ahnenerbe, when he is asked to share a table with a girl who immediately collapses. More importantly, there's a mysterious white creature on top of her head called Kyubey...
Whenever Kirei "talks – like this", replace the – with munching sounds and deep gasps :3
Warning: PMMM and Fate/Zero spoilers?
Short Skit!:In this world, there is a place where everything is connected by the boundary lines between them, yet at the same time inaccessible by any one person on choice.
Of Evil and Entropy
However, when a certain character desires a conversation with someone else whose fate is cut off from theirs, a chance to find out what their eventual fate could have been, or perhaps simply a place to hang out and eat without any real purpose, the entrance to this mystical place shall subtly reveal itself and bring forth an event that would otherwise be impossible in any other circumstance. It is a separate dimension that connects cities, worlds, different times, different universes, and very rarely, even different continuities. It transcends obligations, manipulates reality, defies logic in all forms, embodies the Second Magic in a way Zelretch himself would find it difficult to match, and acts as the door to the Great Cat’s Village.
It is called Ahnenerbe.
And apparently, it is a coffee shop.
“Excuse me, um.”
The waitress looked nervous, as even as she called out, the man in question didn’t stop eating. She couldn’t help but be very wary about him.
He just walked in, ordered multiple servings of the spiciest mapo tofu this café had to offer, and from then on, hadn’t stopped eating. She accidentally put in more spice than should be the maximum amount allowed – her boss might even fire her if he ever found out – and so she had been very much concerned for his well-being. She had even been prepared to take the blame and cook something less spicy. But here he was, taking large spoonfuls out of a dangerously hot plate, putting food into his mouth like no tomorrow. In all honesty, she wouldn’t have been surprised if he dropped dead on the spot.
Then, looking at the cross on his chest, a thought suddenly occurred to her; was he perhaps trying to repent for his sins by subjecting himself to such torture?!
“What – is it?” Turning to her, he asked this in between harsh breaths as he continued to munch down on something that was indistinguishable from lava. Two plates were already empty.
His face was sweating heavily, his mouth burnt and panting, but there was something in his oppressive eyes that she couldn’t mistake for anything else. He wasn’t doing this to torture himself, no. Somehow, he took sadistic pleasure in destroying his own tongue with its taste. A silence passed between the customer and the waitress, until the silence was finally broken.
“Do you want some?”
“E- e- e- eh—” NO!
He’d completely misunderstood.
“D- do you mind sharing your table with another c- c- customer, sir?!” The waitress asked, although it sounded more like a yell.
Although it wasn’t her place to judge customers, she couldn’t help but pity he girl who had to share a table with this man.
After gulping down a massive amount of mapo tofu, he replied with, “Not at all.”
Then again, the girl was also quite strange.
Judging by her stature, she must’ve been a middle-school student. Since she was wearing some kind of warrior dress from an anime, did that mean she was a cosplayer? If she was, then she must be really dedicated, since the metal blade in her hands was oddly realistic. It must’ve been real steel that the weapon was made of, and if she looked closely, the girl had even gone to the efforts of dirtying it to make it appear as if it’d seen actual combat.
Her head was also hanging low, and she hadn’t said a single word since she entered.
Although the waitress tried to rationalize these things to herself, she had a feeling that there was a terrible world out there. That this was the border between the normal and the magical, and she could either wait here, or she could run away and return to her normal life.
Not wanting to play any further part in this, she quickly retreated into the back of the restaurant with total disregard as to what the student might want to order.
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Upon sitting down, Sayaka Miki’s face collapsed onto the table, her clothes being replaced with a casual school uniform. Exhausted after defeating that latest familiar, she had come here to rest. Her Soul Gem’s sapphire color had been almost completely overtaken by darkness, so it wouldn’t be long now until her inevitable transformation.
If he had to estimate, it would only be a matter of hours at this point in time, and neither Akemi Homura nor Sakura Kyoko would be able to discover her here. Jumping up onto the blunette’s head, he shook his ears as he—
“…”
The human male sitting at the other side of the table was staring forward, while eating irregular human food with unusual levels of capsaicin at a fast pace. He must be curious about why the girl collapsed. However, he was not staring at her, but instead, something above her. How peculiar. In logical curiosity, the Incubator returned his gaze with ruby eyes. Was this human capable of seeing him, by any chance?
Once he was done with the third plate, the man’s expression changed into a frown. They continued to eye each other.
“Can you see me?” Kyubey asked at last, breaking the silence – or, at least to the designated target, as he spoke telepathically.
“…”
“Yes,” the man replied. “I assume that you must be a familiar, and since the earlier waitress did not see you, there must be some sort of cloaking mechanism that masks your presence. Perhaps the girl besides you is a magus, although she doesn’t appear to be very talented if at all.”
By the way he answered, this was most certainly no mere human. Kyubey chose to observe him closer. From the dark cassock with a golden cross around his neck, he must have been a priest of some sort. But he couldn’t be a proper priest, as that seemed far too unlikely.
“While I do indeed act as her companion, it would be more accurate to say that she is my familiar.”
“I see. You must have taken a human template and modified it into your own creation. Somewhat like a homunculus, only maintaining the most vital functions of a human being.”
“That would be…” He guessed it on the spot. If he was capable of emotions, he wouldn’t doubt that he would be in awe of this human. “Precisely correct.”
With a nod, the fake priest then moved on to take a fourth plate of mapo tofu from the side and place it in front of him, before taking several large spoonfuls out of the incoherent dish.
“Why is your body not reacting to it?”
“Hm – ?”
“Chili peppers, upon entering the stomach, activates the sympathetic nervous system to expend more energy, so the body is then forced to expend more energy and thus burn more calories than would be necessary, coupled with an increase in metabolic rates and thermogenesis, as well as tissue inflammation, damaging the mucosa of the stomach and intestines. I wouldn’t be surprised if you suffered heartburn right here and now.”
“Then you – have answered – your own – question.”
Kyubey tilted his head. Upon even deeper inspection, utilizing his powers to analyze the man, he realized that there were various anomalies in his body. Not only were there circuits of magical potential running through it, there was also something else. His heart did not beat, no, his entire body wasn’t functioning, almost like a corpse. It wasn’t functioning, yet it was capable of performing every human activity. Even the food he was eating was being properly digested.
He tried to find the source of this anomaly, but try as he might, he could find nothing.
“What would your name happen to be?” Kyubey asked, hoping to gain some insight.
“Kotomine – Kirei.”
Not a name he could recognize. While he had ready access to a complete database of the world’s human population, he couldn’t be bothered to check it out just yet.
“And – what – would yours be?” Kirei asked back in an intrigued voice, continuing to chew on such irregular food.
“Kyubey.”
Still failing to comprehend how the priest’s physical structure was even possible with or without magic, Kyubey felt that it was correct to press onward and find an answer to this mystery.
“Why doesn’t your heart beat?”
Finishing the fourth serving, there appeared to be only one left. Kirei noted this as he turned to face the small white creature again.
“That would be a rather difficult question to answer. Would you happen to know of an event called the Holy Grail War? More specifically, I’m referring to the one of Fuyuki.”
“No.” Kyubey shook his head; a human gesture for denial. “I have never heard of this ‘Holy Grail War’.”
“Hm. That makes it hard for me to explain.” Kirei took the fifth and final plate of mapo tofu and placed it in front of him, but he didn’t eat straightaway. “In short, it is a battle royale between magi. Seven are able to participate, and each of them must summon a Heroic Spirit from the ages, corresponding to each of the seven classes – Saber, Lancer, Archer, Rider, Berserker, Caster, and Assassin, which will then become their Servant. They are to provide prana to maintain their Servant’s existence and work together with them. Then they must fight all of their opponents, and once all six Servants have been taken down, it is said that an object capable of granting any wish called the Holy Grail shall reveal itself.”
“Is such a complex structure honesty that necessary? And if there truly was a Holy Grail, why not have the magi work together in tandem instead of opposing each other?”
“There are reasons for both. The three families behind its creation had ulterior motives, and it was never a war in the first place, but a ritual to achieve Akasha.”
“No matter. So how does this correlate to your lack to a heart?”
“I was a participant in the Fourth Holy Grail War several years ago. Not willingly, as I didn’t have a wish of my own at first. Rather, you could say I was dragged into it by my father and my former master, both of which died shortly before the climax. Once most of the Masters had been defeated, my hated nemesis Emiya Kiritsugu shot a bullet through my heart and killed me. However, as my body was against the dark fluids of the Holy Grail, a strange essence flowed through me and healed the wound in my body, reviving me at the same time. When I came to, my subconscious wish had been granted and half of Fuyuki had gone up in flames.”
“That does not make any sense.”
“I suspect Gilgamesh had something to do with it. In any case, the Holy Grail did grant my wish in the end.”
“Your wish was destruction?”
A strange smile crept up onto the priest’s face as this was pointed out, one that made Kyubey feel as though he should retreat. Normally, emotions didn’t affect him, but there was something about this that was a perversion of what he was used to. There were certainly many things similar to it, such as the smile of an insane dictator or sadistic killer, but in his twelve thousand years on Earth, he had never seen anything quite like it—
Actually, that would be a lie. It would be correct to state that he had never seen anything like it on a human, but he had certainly seen it before. An innumerable amount of times, in fact.
It was the kind of smile a witch would wear.
“Yes. I wished for an end to humanity,” concluded Kirei, not bothering to wipe the wide grin off his face. “Does this disturb you, Kyubey?”
“Not at all.” There was hesitation in his tone. “I am incapable of emotions, so I am in no position to judge a human such as yourself.”
Kirei raised his eyebrow at this. “Incapable of emotions, you say? Intriguing. But if that were true, why do you need this girl?”
At first, the Incubator didn’t answer. But since Kirei had been so willing to share information about his past, and he didn’t seem to be too concerned in interfering with the Incubation Project, it was safe to reveal his own intentions. He may yield even more information by sharing, after all, and this human wasn’t ceasing to be of interest anytime soon.
“Do you know what the ‘heat death of the universe’ is?”
“Somewhat. It’s a proposed end by scientists to the end of the universe, alongside other theories such as the Big Crunch,” the priest said. “It’s when the universe reaches a maximum state of entropy.”
“That is correct. It’s when all existing energy has spread out to colder sources to the very point that heat ceases to flow. Hence, no more work can be acquired from any form of energy; heat, electrical, mechanical…that is, except one.”
Jumping down from Sayaka’s head, Kyubey landed on the table and motioned towards the unconscious teenage girl.
“We Incubators have deemed this ‘negentropic energy’,” he began. “It acts in reverse to normal thermodynamics, and is used by the human brain to generate emotions. ‘Emotions’ is not something I can easily understand, and most alien species are unfamiliar with the concept. It drives humans to perform illogical acts that go against their own survival, forcing them to commit suicide or take the lives of others without purpose when they get intense enough. For us, there is a one-in-a-million chance for it to surface, and it is normally deemed as a mental illness. Ironically, upon further study, it turned out that emotions were the key to staving off entropy. But even when it did manifest among us, it was extremely weak. It was through scouring the universe that we finally came across you humans, who ALL possess an entire spectrum of emotions. In fact, during our first experiments on humanity, they were proven to be able to generate entire landscapes when converted into a transitional energy form between emotional and negentropic.”
“By landscape, are you referring to a Reality Marble?” Kirei asked, interrupting his explanation.
He didn’t seem to question that Kyubey’s existence as an alien nor the usage of emotions as energy. Truly, a man like this must’ve been one in ten billion. The odds of meeting him like this were astronomical. But instead of wondering about the chances, he focused on the question he had been asked.
“A Reality Marble? What would that be?”
“Among magi, it is an innate power that can be used, materializing as an internal landscape with their own patterns and rules defining the practitioner, projected outwards onto their surroundings but cut off from normal reality, existing within its own contained space. In other words, it’s like replacing the ‘World’ with the ‘Self’ for a little while. It costs a great deal of prana to construct and maintain one. Right now, that is all I understand about it.”
“Interesting. It appears that – while nonspecific – you’ve answered one question we’ve had about witch barriers for quite some time now.”
Gesturing for Kyubey to continue, Kirei gripped the spoon in his hand tightly and went on to eat his final plate, putting abnormal levels of capsaicin-filled organics into his mouth without consequence.
“Even though you humans are insane from our point of view, we follow a philosophy of utilitarianism and choose to treat them as intelligent beings instead of mere walking batteries. Twelve thousand years ago, we came up with a plan to harvest these emotions, and this plan eventually developed into a self-sufficient system we call the ‘Incubation Project’. As emotions are most powerful in prepubescent girls, we offer them one wish and a chance to become a magical girl, informing them that they must battle evil witches. By giving them a choice, according to our own rules, what happens to them from then on is fair as they fully accepted knowing that they would be in danger.”
The priest rose a hand politely, wanting to say something, and swallowed yet another huge chunk before he spoke.
“But you would be taking advantage of their goodwill. Young girls have an overly optimistic view of magical girls, so… Ah. I see.” Upon realizing that this was the point, Kirei’s wide grin became uncontrollable. There was no way for him to hide it.
The fact that he was smiling at the project’s explanation when a normal human would be horrified only made the Incubator even more cautious.
“The girl you see now, Sayaka Miki, is currently nearing the third phase of Incubation.” Glancing at the girl, Kyubey’s ruby eyes glowed as he telekinetically picked the girl’s head up and laid it against the chair behind her. “She is a good example of how a magical girl should be. Her crush was a young violinist whose hand got damaged in a horrible accident and ended up depressed since he could no longer play his violin. In order to help him, she used up her wish to heal his hand. But instead of returning her love, the boy went for her best friend instead. Thus, she has rejected all of her friends, even running away from home. She has dedicating herself to the sole ideal of being a ‘hero of justice’ and is trying her best to uphold that. This, along with the fact that her power isn’t sufficient enough to take out all the witches and familiars, is driving her to the extreme point.”
Kirei’s smile only grew. Looking down at the girl, it was like he was feeling some sort of personal satisfaction.
“In other words, a failure of an Emiya Kiritsugu.”
Kyubey expressed confusion at his words, but chose not to question them. From what he understood and by the way that name was spat out, Kiritsugu was this man’s ‘hated nemesis’. Trying to make sense of it in a way he could understand, the alien ended up equating it to entropy; Emiya Kiritsugu is to Kotomine Kirei what entropy is to Kyubey.
It wasn’t really that surprising. As it was in Kirei’s nature to be a villain, it was only natural for him to be opposed by a hero of justice. Not only that, but for a man who struggled to obtain goodness, it would only be natural for him to despise anyone who willingly threw it away.
“Before I continue,” Kyubey began. “What is it that you aim for?”
“Well, since you were so nice as to share your grand plot with me, it’s only fair that that I respond,” Kirei said in a sarcastic tone, waving his spoon about like he was beginning to get intoxicated on spice.
“My birth was undoubtedly a mistake. No matter how hard I tried to be good, even after being raised by a priest father and dedicating myself to the Lord and to goodness, my true nature is and always will be evil. If that’s difficult to understand for a being like you, then here’s another way of putting it; just like that girl over there,”
He pointed the spoon to the blue-haired girl,
“takes pleasure in people’s happiness, I take pleasure in their misery and despair.”
Taking several more quick spoonfuls of the mapo tofu, he quickly gulped it all down before continuing with a sweaty face.
“My goal is for Angra Mainyu, the corrupted embodiment of ‘All the Evils of the World’ that rests within the Holy Grail, to be birthed into the wake of the Fifth Holy Grail War. I’m sure this being is an entity like myself, and when it is born, all of humanity shall perish in its wake.”
Even though he didn’t possess the biological function, Kyubey tensed up at this statement.
“However, will it lament all of the destruction it caused? Or will it laugh in glee? I want to know if it’s wrong to follow your true nature.”
“That’s…”
“Oh, my apologizes,” the fake priest continued, also sarcastically. “You don’t seem to take too well to my intentions, do you?”
“I am incapable of emotions,” the feline creature affirmed. “However, your plan and my plan certainly do collide.”
“Then how about you finish explaining yours, and we’ll see if a solution to this paradox can be worked out? You said this magical girl is the nearing the third phase of Incubation, correct? What would that mean? And what is a ‘witch’?”
The Incubation Project.
While it was necessary for the survival of the universe at large, the Incubators were well aware of the psychological problems it caused for humanity. Even if it accelerated their evolution and intelligence, they were only tipping the scale of despair lower.
Yet here was a man who didn’t disagree with it and would normally be on their side. However, this was not actually because he agreed with their ideals, but because he took joy in hearing about their sufferings.
For this reason, Kyubey had no doubt that he would break into laughter.
“When a magical girl makes a contract with me, I extract their soul and turn it into a Soul Gem, granting them their magical powers. In a sense, they are like liches that way,” Kyubey began.
“Then their original bodies are – as you correctly guessed earlier – reconstructed into something far more suitable and adapted to battling witches, able to dull pain and withstand what would otherwise be crippling injuries, as well as perform superhuman feats. However, the more they use their powers, the more they allow their Soul Gem to get corrupted. They can stave off the corruption by shoving their despair into the Grief Seed that a witch drops, but each Grief Seed has its limits. When a Grief Seed is full, I take it and fully convert it into negentropic energy.”
In order to present an example of a Soul Gem, he took out Sayaka’s Soul Gem and placed it onto the table in front of the mapo tofu plate. It looked like a sapphire egg, only with most of its bluish color tainted by darkness.
Kirei picked it up with interest, not-so-oddly pleased with the fact that he was holding the lifeline of this girl before him in his very hands.
“And I repeat my question from earlier; what is a ‘witch’?”
“If magical girls are born from wishes, then witches are born from curses.”
“I see. So the darkness in this Soul Gem must be the ‘curse’…”
Kirei hadn’t fallen for it, instead coming to the successful conclusion. He was far more intelligent than the average girl, and from that alone, had come dangerously close to the actual conclusion. Hiding behind white statements seemed to be futile.
“When the curse finally consumes the radiant light of the soul, what happens exactly?”
There was no avoiding it.
“Since this country calls women who are still growing up ‘girls’ (少女 shoujo), then for girls who on the way of becoming ‘witches’ (魔女 majo), it's only logical to call them magical girls (魔法少女 mahou shoujo).”
At Kyubey’s answer, a silence passed between them.
Then the one event he’d been attempting to avoid with this man ultimately came into reality.
“Ahaha….AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA!!!!!!”
Kotomine Kirei let out an uncontrollable fit of laughter, his deep voice mixed in with mockery, amusement, sadism, and sharp amounts of malice. It wasn’t something that could be accurately described in words.
Dropping the spoon and the gem (Kyubey caught the gem in time), he had to slam his hands onto the side of the table to control himself as he continued to laugh in a way that was undoubtedly like that of a witch, and even though it was rather sturdy wood, the table was cracking at his strength.
He looked into Kyubey’s ruby eyes with his own that only a demon could possibly possess and, gazing at him with a delighted look he hadn’t used before, allowed his mad laughter to subside.
Although it should’ve been a warning sign for anyone else in the café, nobody came. It was possible that they were simply too afraid to come out after hearing the man talk on and on to himself about his evil nature, how he intends to end the world, and so on like a lunatic.
They might even be calling the police. As for the other customers, there were none.
For the priest, these circumstances must have been quite the convenience.
Still, Kyubey was no longer interested in this unnatural human being. Now, he only considered him a threat.
“That is what it means to be a magical girl?” Kirei asked with an even wider grin, quickening his voice.
“You promise them such happy things, but the truth is that you’re just incubating them – preparing them like eggs to hatch into monster-like witches, only to be slaughtered by their own kind! And this is a process that has been going on for twelve thousand years? You surprise me, Incubator. Are you sure you don’t feel any satisfaction from their suffering?”
“The witches serve as negentropic energy,” Kyubey defended himself with a monotone. Once again, we Incubators do not have any emotions, and it is necessary for the survival of the universe. This is simply a process that fully utilizes that while maximizing humanity’s own satisfaction.”
“I never did explicitly tell you that you’re wrong.”
After pointing this out, even though the Incubator’s expression didn’t change, there was a slight hint of something that may or may not have been intolerance.
“K- Kyubey…” Sayaka stirred. Opening her eyes weakly, she tried to get up. “Where are we?”
“You were tired, so I directed you into this restaurant to rest.” Kyubey replied in a cute voice, jumping back to life and using an optimistic tone.
Seeing his manipulation at work here, Kirei couldn’t help but be even more amused as he resumed eating his mapo tofu.
“Come on, Sayaka, we have to go. If you don’t find another Grief Seed soon, you’ll run out of energy.”
“…Alright,” she agreed.
Standing up, her clothes were enveloped in a light as she took the dark gem back from the table, and she was in full Puella Magi regalia once more, a tarnished sword materializing into her right hand.
Carrying it weakly, its point screeched against the floor as she made her way back to the door.
“Be – careful,” Kirei warned her in between gulps, with an unmistakenable smile on his face. “It’s dangerous – out – there.”
Sayaka glanced behind her shoulder to look at him, but as much as his presence and attitude made her uncomfortable, she was too tired to question it.
Throwing the door open, she walked out, followed by Kyubey.
He suddenly paused, as if he was about to turn around and look at the madman one last time to scorn him or something, but then decided against it and let the door shut itself behind him.
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Without a doubt, he was convinced that he had managed to unsettle the emotionless alien, which provided a satisfaction in and of itself.
“What an – interesting – conversation,” Kirei remarked to himself, panting as he finished the last few portions of this delicious mapo tofu. It wasn’t quite at the same level as Koushuuensaikan Taizan, but it was certainly close.
Although he would normally order more, today he felt like he had a lot to think about, and wanted to return back to the Fuyuki Church as soon as possible.
Possibilities raced across his mind. Could he perhaps have Tohsaka Rin make a contract with Kyubey, for example? If he wasn’t mistaken, she was around fourteen or fifteen years old, so she should be legible.
There might also be other options, such as some of the female orphans, or that girl Caren.
This entire ‘contract’ and ‘magical girl’ deal was starting to become very appealing to him.
When he recounted the tale to Gilgamesh, the golden king simply laughed, convinced that Kirei had just hallucinated from an overdose of spices.
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Originally Posted by shiningphoenix
