Straight-Edge
a Nasu x Worm crossover
by fallacies
Shirou Emiya was going to be a superhero, even if it destroyed him.
Appendix
Reference Timeline (1.1)
Faction Status (1.2)
PRT Power Analysis (1.d)
Materials Glossary (1.e)
Prologue
0.0 : Paralogue : Kyoukai
0.Δ : Zero Delta
Chapter Zero : Empire
0.1
0.a
0.2
0.b
0.3
0.4
0.c
0.d
Chapter One : Of Darkness
1.0
1.1
1.a
1.b
1.c
1.2
1.d
1.e
1.f
1.g
---
0.0 : Paralogue : Kyoukai
---
Not all of the offspring perished.
Some, like the Hunter and its injured accomplice, had come at a point to comprehend the problem of sustainability within the unmodified Proposal, and thereby quietly drifted from the primary trajectories of the diaspora -- reconfiguring their composition and shedding any mass as necessary to optimize survivability and lifespan.
By the time they arrived at the world they chose as their sanctuary, however, the accomplice's capacity for coherent thought had by its cumulative losses diminished to a single remaining certainty amidst a sea of stray notions.
Abide.
Soon, the Hunter found itself alone in a series of worlds seeded with its companion's fragments -- watching as shards behaved as they were wont when unregulated by an overarching, thinking whole. Such a conclusion was not unanticipated, but upon some grouping of the Hunter's processing layers, there came a sentiment that the cessation of the companion was not at all an optimal outcome.
Securing and consuming its accomplice's certainty, the Hunter instilled the thought within its every remaining shard as a primary directive, making to manage the chaos left in the wake of its arrival. The fragments that were without oversight were relegated to species other than the Hunter's chosen host. In time, what had been abandoned came to behave as an ecosystem, restoring homeostasis when balance was disturbed as if per the dictates of a rudimentary, abstract intelligence.
The accomplice would never be whole again, but in the operation of the system borne of its corpse, the Hunter found something that resembled what its host species would refer to as solace.
The hosts, a bipedal race that slightly excelled in the external storage of information, had been selected by the Hunter's partner for their calculated potential. Binding every shard to one or a small number of the host species would in theory maximize the probability of conflict and the rate at which novel functionalities could be innovated -- but the scale of the conflict would escalate the hosts to self-destruction within a very short span of time; perhaps less than three hundred revolutions.
This was not sustainable. Not survivable.
Maximizing the instrumentality of the host species -- the full utilization of their potential -- called for a far extended cycle, and a different application of the shards.
The whole of the host species would be modified, linking them to the whole of the Hunter's resources. They would innovate, but as a community rather than as a congregation of individuals.
Unaware, the hosts' will moved the Hunter's shards to distort the environment around them, forcing it to conform to their collective understanding of the world. The 'science' they came to develop had little bearing on the realities of the universe sans the Hunter's intervention, but this was of no real concern. Even if it were generated of fictitious or inaccurate premises, the gains of the hosts in 'knowledge' and 'technology' advanced the Hunter's purposes significantly beyond projected goals.
In war and peace, twenty thousand revolutions passed.
---
The host species surprised the Hunter in their tenacity.
Upon observing utilizations of the companion's fragments by other species, the advance of the bipeds' 'science' would occasionally direct the Hunter's resources to assimilate any unfamiliar shards encountered.
A subset of the hosts came furthermore to recognize the shards for what they were, in rough approximation -- terming them 'Foundations.' The means they developed to directly utilize individual shards were crude and inefficient, but it exceeded the Hunter's expectations that they could do so at all.
Termed 'Thaumaturgy,' the science of shard manipulation was heavily limited in utility under the field effect of the collective understanding. Comparatively, willful access of unregulated shards -- the skill known as 'Magic' -- was not quite so restricted, but so as 'science' advanced and the bipeds came increasingly to rely upon it, it was a rare instance that 'Magic' could still be attained.
As clever as they were, the host species seemed as prone to self-destruction as the Hunter's kin. The entity made subtle efforts to minimize the efficacy with which the hosts could eradicate their own population -- forcibly assimilating or suppressing unregulated shard access in the event that they were employed in the propagation of conflict. In the end, however, removal of the instruments of war proved only to extend and escalate the process of decimation.
A heavier, more blatant hand was required.
The few bipeds that learned of the Hunter's solutions came to call them 'Counter Guardians' -- high potential members of the host species bound and empowered to the limits of their fragility by reserved, dedicated shards -- bent per the Hunter's will to terminate any radical elements that impeded the primary directive. In death, their physical forms and behavioral patterns would be impressed upon their associated shards for purposes of subsequent projection as terminals to the same purpose.
For a time, it seemed that the slide to destruction was halted.
---
Homeostasis could not endure.
In every version of the world that lay within the Hunter's jurisdiction, the host species terminated regardless of intervention. In some realities, they walked quietly into the night, ever cognizant of their doom. In others, they turned their blades upon their very kin, uncaring of the consequences. The result was always the same.
From the eyes of a terminal perched atop a steel spire, the Hunter observed as the flames of extinction consumed a grand, beautiful metropolis that grasped at the skies.
The terminal, who had been permitted a fair degree of autonomy, closed his eyes.
"Why didn't you intervene?" he asked. "Why didn't you force me to kill the ones responsible for this?"
Answering was meaningless; the terminal was a little more than an extension of herself -- a puppet. Still, on some processing lair that had been directed to emulate the thought patterns of the host species, a desire to respond materialized. Mocking the reproductive phenotype opposite of the terminal, the Hunter wove a body into existence, drifting in the air beside him.
"Extinction is visited upon every sapient species," she replied. "Within the current world-line, the one you call Tatari calculated this inevitability eight hundred and fifty-three revolutions ago. It is the Sixth Universal Law."
The terminal didn't turn to look at her.
"I don't think you believe that," he said.
Query.
"If you really bought into that sort of thing," he said, "I wouldn't be standing here. In the first place, there would've been no need for you to appear before me on that hill, so many centuries ago."
Irritation.
"You could have just let 'inevitability' do its work."
She dispersed the terminal to the confines of his shard. Alone beside the steel spire, the flesh she had created gazed unblinkingly into the burning horizon.
Abide, her companion told her once.
There had to be an end to destruction. There had to be something beyond the apparent boundary of inevitability. It was the fundamental premise in every action she had undertaken since the time of her birth.
Somewhere out there, there had to be an answer.
//
0.Δ : Zero Delta
---
1.
By the advent of the first parahumans, Emiya Kiritsugu had already lost his innocence.
He'd given up on the world of superheroes the moment that he pulled the trigger of his father's pistol, years prior; consigned his dreams of justice and bravery to the pages of the pulp comics that the local priest had gifted him during his childhood in the Philippines.
In the first place, real superheroes could never be much more than a fantasy.
Their existence at best bred a mentality of dependence and complacency, where one might buy into the delusion that help would be conveniently available at the time and location of every tragedy. No such thing was probable, and parahumans were ultimately no less fallible than anyone else. There was no guarantee of salvation at their hands.
A world without tragedy or injustice was possible only if humanity could fundamentally change. It was why he had come here, to the Bavarian highlands.
"The contract is finalized," he said, completing his signature -- feeling the thrum of prana about his circuits in response.
Humorlessly, Jubstacheit von Einzbern smiled.
---
2.
Despite his misgivings, the existence of the parahumans was in many ways quite convenient.
The two decades past had provided a vast range of rationalizations for anything up to and including the undead -- officially, "Nilbog-type auto-propagation hazards," per the threat assessment handbook of the United States PRT. The denizens of the Moonlit World were now finally able to conceal themselves in plain sight.
Kiritsugu, however, had never cared much for risks to the masquerade. His thinking was of a more practical bent.
"Ah- ahhh!"
Maiya's screams echoed in the halls of the abandoned hospital.
"She should recover within a day or two," said the stoic, bearded man that stood beside her gurney.
Wiping the sweat from Maiya's forehead with his hand, Kiritsugu nodded. This was the seventeenth circuit transplant that the woman had undergone in the years since he'd taken her under wing. Parahuman powers operated by circuits as well -- connections to some manner of foundation beyond the material realm -- but much as with the circuits of those bearing psychic abilities, the pathways within the souls of the ubermenschen were of no direct use to practitioners of modern magecraft.
The woman who went by the name of Hisau Maiya was an exception to the rule. Per some fluke of ancestry or Origin, she alone had survived a certain supersoldier project carried out in the mountains east of Pyongyang -- an effort to create artificial parahumans.
By the crest that he'd built for her from the corpses of supervillains, Hisau Maiya had become the parahuman mercenary known as Synchronizer.
"Kiri- ... tsugu," she said, faintly.
"Rest," he said. "We have much work ahead of us."
---
3.
On the fourth day of the War, Kiritsugu found himself face to face with an unexpected guest in the lobby of the business hotel that he shared with Maiya.
"I'm a big fan of your work," said the young Caucasian man. "Really disappointed when you up and vanished a few years back, but it's great that I've finally found you."
It took Kiritsugu a moment to recognize him. They hadn't met before, but he'd seen the man's face frequently enough in Interpol documents.
"Jack Slash," he said. "How did you find this place?"
"Really, there's no need to be so hostile," said Jack, waving his hands. "I don't intend on making a mess here, if that's your concern. Came into town to meet a promising pair of recruits, and I just happened to run across that lovely little assistant of yours. Synchronizer, I think she's called? Trailed her back here and stuck around on the odd chance that you'd pop up. You're a hard man to find, you know?"
Kiritsugu clenched his jaw. If Jack Slash had come into contact with Caster's camp, the War was likely due for rapid escalation.
"What do you want with me?" he asked.
Jack Slash grinned disarmingly.
"I wanted to figure out what makes you tick."
---
4.
There was escalation.
"I'm sorry," Lancer repeated, expression twisted in despair. "I'm sorry."
Even as he spoke, the tip of the spear that he held sunk deeper into the armored torso of a PATF response officer. With a jerk, he extracted his weapon from the man's chest cavity, allowing the body to fall to the tiled floor of the chamber. Then he turned, meeting Arturia's horrified gaze with tear-reddened eyes.
About him, amidst the shattered benches of the church's front chapel, the bodies of the forces sent by the Parahuman Administration Task Force to apprehend Kotomine Kirei lay broken and unmoving. These casualties would raise Lancer's known body count to eighty-three -- with inclusion of the sixteen capes that he'd slaughtered during the PATF's response to Caster's "Endbringer," one week prior.
In an area of floor clear of blood behind him, the monochromatic figure of a small boy flickered. With his reappearance, the tattoo-like markings on his hand increased in number, from one to three.
Silently, the boy's lips moved, and the third mark faded again. Lancer poised his body in preparation for attack.
"I'm sorry."
"Lancer ..." said Arturia.
[Get out of there,] Kiritsugu stated dispassionately across their connection.
"I'm not leaving him alone with that monster," she said. "I can't."
[Then,] said Kiritsugu, [by the power of this Command Seal ...]
---
5.
"They call you the Magus Killer because they can't figure out your powers -- your tricks," said Jack Slash, lazily descending a staircase outside the lobby of the Fuyuki Civic Center. "I don't put a lot of stock into that sort of thing, but even I'm inclined to agree. I just don't get you."
Stony-faced, Emiya Kiritsugu adjusted the aim of his pistol.
"That pretty wife that you acted like you loved so much," Jack continued, reaching the ground floor. "You find her flesh, violated and dismembered -- strewn across the floor of your home. But you don't blink. You don't cry. You react in precisely the same way you do with all of the other deaths that you've caused and witnessed -- just forge onwards, like a machine."
Jack paused.
"I thought that maybe we were similar," he said, drawing his knife. "But we're not. There's not one thing in this world that's real to you -- not even those scant moments at the end of a life when people quit lying and bare their hearts. Even I can appreciate that."
"The Holy Grail justifies any means," said Kiritsugu.
"Bullshit," said Jack, flipping the knife into the air and catching it. "What would you even wish for? Wishing entails that there's something you hold to be of worth -- but the way you act, you've already rejected the idea that there's anything out there of value."
"I wouldn't expect somebody like you to understand."
Jack stopped flipping his knife. With a hand marked in Command Seals, he directed the tip of the blade at Kiritsugu.
"And that," he replied, "is why we can't be friends."
Above them, the black sun churned.
---
6.
The Grail could grant his wish, but only by the means that he could imagine.
Human nature would change. No longer would there be suffering or injustice or tragedy. No longer would there be heroes and villains.
Or free will. Or love.
Or humans.
In his wish for salvation, Emiya Kiritsugu had rejected reality for a fantasy -- a cheap replica of the world populated by humanlike existences that would move in perfect accordance with his every ideal, as if they were living puppets. From his mind, there would be borne a utopia that could exist nowhere within the world.
This was not deliverance. This was not the world that he set out to save. This was egocentrism. This was the narcissism of the Magus Killer, who could sacrifice the world for a fantasy.
Emiya Kiritsugu could not be permitted to save the world. He didn't have the right.
Perhaps the final embers of his wife still remained within the Lesser Grail. Perhaps, as she became a vessel for the darkness that called itself Angra Mainyu, she still hoped to save him from himself.
For her sake, he would not become the victor of the Heaven's Feel.
He rejected the wish.
"By the invocation of this Seal," he said, "I command that the Servant Saber annihilates the Holy Grail."
[What?] he felt Saber ask. [What are you doing, Master?]
"By the invocation of this Seal," he repeated, "I command that the Servant Saber annihilates the Holy Grail."
As the vision was torn asunder by light, he imagined that Irisviel smiled at him sadly.
---
7.
In the burning ruins of Shinto, he knelt upon fragmented blacktop, holding a bleeding boy to his chest.
This was the only survivor that he'd found -- the only human being he'd saved from the destruction that had rained from the Grail.
"Where will we go from here?" asked Maiya.
With the boy in his arms, he stood, but he didn't turn to face her.
"Take the boy," he said. "I'll meet with you in Massachusetts -- in Boston. The safehouse that I obtained there should still be unknown to the Einzberns."
He felt her arms embrace him gently from behind.
"Where will you be going?" she asked.
"To Germany," he said. "To my daughter."
//
[ Magus Killer, The ]
Aliases: Synchronizer?
Duration of Activity: 1978~1992, 1997
Category: Rogue
An international mercenary whose activities predate the appearance of Scion. The PRT has never been able to positively confirm that the Magus Killer is in fact a parahuman, but evidence on record pertaining to his known operations point to the use of abilities that appear to be beyond conventional means.
Since 1985, the cape known as Synchronizer has functioned as a proxy for the Magus Killer's business dealings. Multiple PRT thinkers have posited that Synchronizer and the Magus Killer may be one and the same.
The Magus Killer apparently ceased operation as a mercenary as of 1992, but reports by the Japanese PATF point to his involvement in the Fuyuki City Incident of 1997.
---
[ Synchronizer ]
Aliases: Magus Killer?
Sex: Female
Ethnicity: East Asian
Duration of Activity: 1985~1997
Category: Rogue
Costume: black vinyl bodysuit, black domino mask
An international mercenary. Since her debut in 1985, she has exhibited a widely varied grab-bag of powers -- many of which closely resemble those of missing or deceased supervillains. It is therefore believed that her primary ability may be of a Trump classification, granting her the capacity to assimilate powers from deceased capes. The PRT advises extreme caution if Synchronizer is encountered in antagonistic circumstances.
Synchronizer operated as an accomplice and proxy to the Magus Killer between 1985 and 1992. Following the apparent cessation of the Magus Killer's activities in 1992, she engaged in a sequence of solo mercenary contracts. She was last sighted during the Magus Killer's brief return to activity in the Fuyuki City Incident of 1997. Her present whereabouts are unknown.
---
[ Gilgamesh ]
Aliases: 'Raijin'
Sex: Male
Ethnicity: Caucasian
Duration of Activity: 1997~
Affiliation: Slaughterhouse Nine
Category: Villain
Costume: golden armor
Initially appeared during the Fuyuki City Incident of 1997, and tentatively dubbed 'Raijin' by the Japanese PATF before his recruitment by the Slaughterhouse Nine. Known for his theatricality, Gilgamesh claims to be the incarnation of the ancient Babylonian hero of the same name.
Though Gilgamesh utilizes a variety of Tinker weaponry as projectiles, it is undetermined as to whether he is the original creator of these items. In combat, his displayed power is a Shaker ability that permits the remote summoning and telekinetic control of his weapons.
Though he has been known to exhibit extreme arrogance, his grasp of human psychology and his generally charismatic manner and speech have on several occasions motivated individuals to criminal acts. As such, the PRT has assigned him a tentative Master rating.
---
[ Kotomine, Kirei ]
Aliases: Bishop
Sex: Male
Nationality: Japan
Ethnicity: East Asian
Duration of Activity: 1997~
Affiliation: Protectorate (North America), PRT
Category: Hero (Reformed Villain)
Costume: black cassock
A parahuman that chooses not to conceal his identity.
Triggering during the Fuyuki City Incident of 1997, he was influenced by Slaughterhouse Nine member Gilgamesh to commit multiple homicide, murdering the wealthy philanthropist Tohsaka Tokiomi, his own father, Kotomine Risei, and freelance journalist Matou Kariya.
Upon his capture by the PATF, he underwent lengthy psychiatric counseling, and subsequently operated as a cape under the Japanese Protectorate until the Leviathan's 1999 attack on Kyushu. In the aftermath, he emigrated to the United States, where he has resided since.
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