So like, last night, I was talking to Velsper about this idea for a crossover. Originally we were going to turn it into a RP, but the idea for a story was tantalizing too. So I wrote a little snippet to start us off, though I'm not sure where Velsper imagined us going with this...
Hopefully someone will come in and tell me what I did wrong, because I'm not all that familiar with either universes...
...Would be nice if I could bring ALFHEIM WANDERER into this...
Matou Shinji, HERO OF THE IMPERIUM
Madness…
…It is deep within us all, buried beneath all the noble ideals and heroic spirits of humanity. I believe it is within us all, when under enough pressure, to crack and succumb to the madness of the Warp.
Have you ever had your mind burned out of you, leaving you with bare traces of even your own character, leaving you an empty shell, with the mere echo of a death cry? To have witnessed the destruction of an entire continent, billions of lives lost, for the sake of a single machine? Have you ever witnessed a psychic storm of such awesome power that you could do nothing but curl up and cry yourself to insanity?
I have.
That was several years ago, on the Planet Fuyuki Tertius, the smallest inhabitable planet of the Fuyuki star system. I can still remember that day clearly. It was the day that I was born anew…
…The first memory I have of my life was on that day, at noon. There was no way you could tell it was noon by then however, with the sounds of a thousand war machines crying out for destruction. Fire was everywhere and even to this day, I have flashbacks to the heated deaths of the millions around me. Charred corpses littered the field, leaving only grotesque, twisted remains. Nothing that day was man-made.
Yet in a roundabout way, as I learned later, everything that day was created by Man. Everything had a consequence; every action, every heroic deed, and every sin ripples across the galaxy. It was that day that I had become broken. But it was also that day that my destiny, my fate, had changed forever…
I could remember everything about that day.
The sky brewed, growling down at me darkly. A storm was brewing, but at the time, I had thought it was just a normal occurrence. Something grabbed my collar, hoisting me up and over someone’s shoulder. It was that moment that I had first met my long time companion: pain.
Every pore of this body, every nerve I could still feel, screamed. Their scream was a dissonance that was oddly in tune with the explosions around me.
The metropolis that I had grown up in was dying. All around me, compounds and beams of steel and cement crumbled and shattered. By means of artillery or by means of psychic heat, everything was melting and exploding. It was a rain of multicolored sparks, all around me… that for a moment in time seemed beautiful in all its horrific details.
A shower of rumble spattered all over my head, shaking me clear. I saw that moment that the man holding me on his shoulder was a weary man adorned in power armor.
He glanced at me, seeing that I had regained my consciousness, and smiled grimly, “Awake, are you? Well, good, we have to—”
The walls around us exploded, as something terrifying rammed its way through. The pressure of its impact was enough to knock us both down, allowing me a clearer view of the man who had saved me. His insignia caught my eye. It was a worn, golden sign of a single letter, “I”, with three lines across it. Somewhere within my mind, I had known this to be important.
But I had no time to study his accessories, the monster was upon us.
Standing several heads above my savior, it was a monster, because it was in no way something harmless. It could not be human… even staring at its twisting armor, I felt something crawl at the back of my mind, squishing liquids and twisting tentacles of an invisible power calling to me.
My eyes bleed… forcing me to look away.
In that instant, my savior had calculated everything. I had learned much later that his psychic powers focused on controlling the very powers of time itself, allowing him the feats that he had performed that day. He had pushed forward, faster than even the monstrosity could react, and brought his leg up. The impact of his knee against the monster was so great that both were forced back.
But it was enough. This space allowed him to kick the monstrosity down and jam the barrel of his bolter down its mouth. Without hesitation and without regret, he pulled the trigger, causing explosive bolts of super heated ammunition to pulverize the monster’s head.
Even as the monster still tried to claw at him, my savior pulled back and smashed his armored foot onto the monstrosity’s head, resulting in an audible splatter of warp liquids. Even though he killed this beast so soundly, I could hear the monster’s laughter ringing in the back of my head as it dissipated into purple smoke and white sparks of… something.
The means of the warp were unknown to me then, and would stay thus for a long time coming.
“Come on, kid, we’re almost to the extraction point,” the man said, grabbing my hand and tugging me out of the rubble. I had been staring at him, both in awestruck fear and in horrific surprise. To kill so easily, would he be a monster too? I was too naïve to understand the true workings of this galaxy, but at the time, I felt both admiration and apprehensiveness for him. That did not stop me from following his footsteps.
“Kiritsugu!” A woman, or perhaps a girl, shouted.
But this time, something was distorting the air around us. Or perhaps it was my own eyes that were failing me, leaving me unable to see more than rifts in space and stars everywhere. I could barely make out the vague shape of a girl with golden locks, and a glowing power sword…
…she was barely a blur, leaving after images everywhere, destroying blood-red daemons that had jumped out of many of these holes in space. These smaller monsters thrashed around with their flaming weapons; their hatred and rage so tangible, my very skin was burning.
“Why, Kiritsugu?! WHY?!” She cried to him. Her voice was filled with betrayal and sadness, even as she put her entire being into protecting him selflessly. The injuries she withstands didn’t hinder her at all. She waded through the thousand blows that rained upon her from all sides, be it lascannon fire, bolter fire, or daemon weapons. “Explain yourself!” She cried, even as she pushed us away from the fray.
“I’ll explain myself when I see you again,” My savior, Kiritsugu, muttered some incomprehensible name, something I could not remember, before dragging me away.
My memories were not perfect, and from then on, it was a blur. The fight for survival, to reach the extraction point, was nothing but a feast of carnage.
As soon as we were out of range of the blond girl, another monster appeared, like the previous one that we had encountered. I had later learned what they were called, and rightfully feared them thus: Chaos Marines.
This monster was spewing drool left and right, spinning his daemon-possessed chainsaw-swords, one in each hand. it charged at Kiritsugu, who pushed me away instantly, gritting his teeth as he rolled away too.
The monster did not stop, only stomping in between us. It laughed at Kiritsugu for some reason. At first, it was just a rumble, but soon, its laughter echoed through my mind, scratching at my brain. It must have been leering at my savior, because it turned its smirking face towards me—
—I couldn’t take it anymore; I turned away fearfully and unable to look up at the beast. It pulled me up by the collar with its melee weapon, the teeth of its sword digging into my back. The black blood of its weapon dripping against me as it leered down at me, before turning back to Kiritsugu tauntingly.
“You’ve gone soft, Inquisitor Lord,” it rasped out. Even its voice was terrible, like something that had been purposely rendered to cause terror in humanity. Perhaps it was.
Kiritsugu did not respond, only bolters and other arcane weapons falling to his hand. He did not move and he did not twitch. He merely watched impassively as the monster spun me around on its chainsaw sword, taunting.
Seeing no reaction, the beast growled impatiently and threw me away, causing me to crash against the rumble of destroyed concrete and ruined steel. I cried out then, having never cried out again after, as my body was nearly crushed by the impact. I felt something in my torso snap, like a twig.
I felt my vision grow red. Something warm rolled down my forehead. I reached up to brush it away as it flowed down my eyebrows. I saw that it was my blood. But I was so numb with shock that I did not react at all.
The two combatants had already blurred into action when I finally could see clearly again, I turned around just to see Kiritsugu duck under a swipe of the beast’s blade, and shoot the other blade twice: just enough to cause it to be knocked back. He pulled a small plasma pistol out, and shot as quickly as possible…
…He did not shoot at the beast’s face, but rather at its gauntleted hands, causing it to roar in rage and pain.
But Kiritsugu was not done, as his pistol began to smoke with heat, he tossed it up and kicked it into the beast’s face, before shooting it with his bolter. The unstable plasma of the pistol exploded on the beast’s head, melting it until even bones were mere slag.
With another kick, Kiritsugu pushed the beast’s body away from him.
Only then did I notice that Kiritsugu was injured. He was fatally injured. Most of his innards were destroyed and hung from open wounds of his body, torn apart by the sawing action of the beast’s weapons. He motioned towards me, holding an arm against his stomach, forcing whatever is left back in. “Come on, the extraction point it just up ahead,” he forced a tired smile on his face before pushing me ahead of him.
I nodded, almost too afraid to look back.
We walked through the ruins. Molten stones and shattered metals greeting us from all sides as impossible purple and pink flames roared back to life as we approached. There was a small transport up ahead, waiting for us. I felt my knees grow weak at the sight. I was almost ready to collapse then.
But somehow, I found the strength within me to walk onboard.
As I turned around, I saw the Inquisitor Lord Kiritsugu collapse on the steps of the transport, just enough for the doors to shut us in and close.
“Ah… ah… ah…” I gaped at him. My eyes were wide. He saved me. He saved me. But why? I am worth nothing compared to him, right? His prowess, his value… For what reason would he…?
I approached him, my hands shaking violently as I reached out to him. I wanted to apologize. I wanted to ask why. But no words would come out of my mouth.
“I-It’s good that y-you’re safe,” he sighed. Blood leaked out of his dried and cracked lips. He shifted his hands, looking down at his wounds before looking up at the ceiling, “At least I can return home now, right? Iri…”
“…Wuh… why?” My tears of blood mixed with everything else. I couldn’t see clearly, I couldn’t even remember my own name, “Why did you save me?!”
“Hey, hey,” Kiritsugu patted my blood-matted hair. His power-armor-clad hand was incredibly heavy. “Be thankful you’re alive; why should I have s-saved you?” He coughed lightly. A bubble of blood leaked out again. His eyes were becoming blank now.
I wanted to give my life for him then. But I couldn’t. At the same time, I asked myself, what did I have to live for?
“I… I have nothing,” I began, trying to ask him the same question again. “I don’t even remember my name! All…”
But he interjected, “You can have my ideals then. And you can have my name. You are Emiya…”
You are Emiya were the last words he spoke before he joined the Emperor. Inquisitor Lord Emiya Kiritsugu was a greater man than I could ever dream to be. So now I carry on his ideals as my own and I wear his name as my own.
Even as I repeat his name now, I don’t feel empty anymore. But I don’t feel whole either.
-Emiya Shirou, Attendant to Commissar Matou Shinji, Hero of the Imperium
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Originally Posted by YamiheKazeto
