Escaping Fate

[jwang]

^This. This so much. I'm going to shout this recommendation everywhere I can.

[HopelessRomanticist]

Ditto. An absolutely wonderful, original story. I wish I could write with a fraction of this skill, or have ideas this good. If this hasn't been Recommended on TvTropes I'm going to do it right now.

Thank you so very, VERY much for this.
HR

[rajvir]

this is a truely amazing story I loved it once I started reading I could not stop tectencly I skipped lunch to continue reading it is that good.

[Arashi_Leonhart]

You really should, you know, eat. It's not even like a video game where you need your hands or something.

Edit: wtf how did this jump like 2000 views since I last looked? *reads earlier posts on tv tropes* ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.


Edit 2: It's been a bit since I finished this now, so I'll go ahead and put apocryphal notes up in this post.

Yumi
弓美 bow beautiful; homonym for 強 strong, 弱 weak, and 癒海 healing sea
-Yuushi’s latest victim. Bears some similarities to Illya and Saber. Due to the transplant of magical circuits, Yumi is a “composite” (composite bow? haha) of many people magically and her Reality Marble (though never deployed) would be of the sea, the one place she recalls, both harsh in sound but pleasant, composed of a multitude of tiny particles to make up a whole [Endless Addition]. Excels at Alteration magecraft (middle step between Reinforcement and Projection) due to how the magical circuits in her body were forcibly added; her soul has an innate record of how to alter things to give them different properties.
-Prana output would equal something like 30 circuits at an output of 20 units of prana a piece. Upwards 1000 total prana.
-Origin forcibly changed to "Addition."
-Reality Marble "Endless Addition" impossible to deploy due to the lack of ability to self-hypnotize. Basic output of magic is fine as she can keep her attention centered for short Alteration uses, but being able to do an UBW-style chant would be impossible because of the various levels of "awareness" she has within herself. If she had Sion-level partitioning ability, perhaps, though her intellect is nowhere on that level.
-Not meant to be an "Archerko" or anything. Didn't even know what that was until someone on FFN brought it up. Yumi lives her life idealizing Shirou but doesn't mimic him like Shirou does to Kiritsugu. The vague idea is that because she is "many people" and she "worships" him, he might give him a through-line toward Heroic Spirit status without contracting with the world. The last bit with Excalibur is meant to imply that. Also, she finds she isn't that great an archer for the same reason she couldn't deploy a RM. Zen is beyond her.
-Looks something like a white-haired Itsuwa from Raildex...though a more modest figure. Seiyuu would be Kana Hanazawa.

Setsuka Yuushi
切下 cut below 由強 via intense
-Attempting to transfer magical circuits and seeing the resulting effect on the soul. Uses metal-elemental magic and boundary fields capable of physical interaction.
-Origin: Connect
-After self-inflicted soul transfers, prana output something like 40 circuits, 40 units of prana per, upwards 5000 units of prana total.
-Looks kinda like Sebastian from Black Butler. Seiyuu would be Takahiro Sakurai.

Takumi Hoshino
工 artisan 星野 starfield
-Yumi’s senpai and a former kohai of Sakura’s. Nonmagical lineage, but possesses some innate talent (Jougan Pure Eyes?) that allows him to be aware intuitively of Sakura’s painful experiences and Yumi’s “full” soul. He keeps his distance, because he is well aware that Yumi will have to figure things out herself first before she can gain any kind of “help” from it. Captain of the Archery Club.
-Origin: watchful.
-Would look something like a shorter Mori from Ouran. Seiyuu would be Yuuichi Nakamura.


UBW arsenal chants

Didn't use them all...just started writing it all down so I wouldn't have to worry about it later.

Caliburn – Her will sought eternity and found hope/her fate was promised to victory/imitation sword of the ruler Caliburn

Excalibur – Fate had finally found me/your voice was enough to assure victory/imitation light of the world Excalibur

Thuan Thien – The celestial court sends this mandate of rule/imitation broken sword Thuan Thien

Moralltach – Air spit into the deadly foe/imitation great blade Moralltach

Gae Bolg – Pierce my glass heart with prejudice/imitation barbed death Gae Bolg

Shamshir-e Zomorrodnegar – The horned demon’s fang cries out in agony/imitation encrusted sword Shamshir-e

Kusanagi – The fourth tail is my domain/take the fire of my light into battle with beasts/imitation sword of the beast Kusanagi

Arondight – The blood of a knight will be spilled/the light of the lake will yet fade/imitation dark blade Arondight

Curtana – Admit to the world all of your unholy sins/imitation confessor Curtana

Durandal – Endure through the pains of the world/imitation sword of peerless knights Durandal

Zulfiqar – I can cut all things in two/imitation cutter Zulfiqar


UBW chant

Aloud:
I am the bone of my sword.
Steel is my body and fire is my blood.
I have created over a thousand blades.
Unaware of loss,
Nor aware of gain.
Withstood pain to create many weapons.
For those I couldn't save, and those I will,
I have no regrets, this is the only path.
My whole life has been "Unlimited Blade Works."

Internal:
His body is made of swords.
His blood is of iron and his heart is of glass.
He survived countless battles.
Not even once retreating,
Not even once victorious.
The bearer lies here alone.
He was saved by others buried in a hill of swords.
Thus, his life needs no meaning.
His body, truly, was made of infinite swords.


New NPs

Thuan Thien - The sword of Le Loi, a kind of Vietnamese sword-in-the-stone kingmaker. When the blade of the sword was caught in the net of a fisherman, he tossed it away, but the blade returned to him twice more the same way.

Shamshir-e - The sword of Amir Arsalan. A great demon was immune to all damage except by way of this sword. Anti-demonic.

Kusanagi - The sword the god Susanoo found in the fourth tail of the orochi, a sort of Japanese hydra. Could command the wind.

Curtana - A sword possessed by various people in different myths and legends, though referenced here to being Ogier the Dane's weapon. Was supposedly shaved down to fit Ogier's stature.

Zulfiqar - The sword of the knight Ali, a soldier in Mohammad's army. He took the sword and faced the greatest of their enemies with it, sundering the enemy's shield, armor, and body completely in half with one blow.

Everlake - The shield of Galahad, made by King Everlake, supposedly with a red cross painted by the blood of Joseph of Arimathea. A shield with properties meant specifically to protect against phantasmal beings such as demons and wraiths.


Avalon notes
-Shirou uses Avalon in a not-seen sequence after the end of the prologue in an attempt to heal Yumi. It doesn't actually heal her so much as give her the state of mind to continue to resist until healing can come. This is where she gets the initial "feeling" of what Shirou is and why she feels the absence in him when he's doing everyday things, since he's no longer carrying the physical Avalon with him anymore (had she met him prior to FSN, she'd feel it all the time).
-Shirou uses Avalon again, the second time, to try and save her from the possession. Note that it does not heal her, it separates her from the influence of the possession.
-Shirou's use of Avalon to try and save Rin is not meant to actually save her--she doesn't gain any healing from it. This is supposed to represent his default reliance upon the image of Saber as a figure to aspire toward. It is the step he needs to deploy UBW though. Rin is less damaged from the transmuted area due to Reinforcement and her Crest doing everything it can to save her.
-Whether Traced Avalon actually calls to Saber as a gateway to the realm of the faeries, whether Shirou still "carries" Saber with him in a more literal sense, whether the "multiple" prayers in Yumi calls down Heroic Spirit Arturia, or any other issue about Saber's appearance is left up to the reader.


Timeline

February 2005 - Events of FSN (yes, non-canonical, whatever).
July 2006 - Shirou, Rin, and Sakura rescue Yumi from Yuushi.
February 2007 - Yumi gets first glance of Shirou practicing with swords. Taiga returns from sabbatical.
April 1st 2007 - Yumi starts school, and the same week starts trying to practice magic.
April 7th - Dead Apostle fight.
Golden Week (April 29-May 5) - Yumi shows Shirou her magical abilities. Dead Apostle attacks.
June 29 - Yumi has a fight with kids at school.
July 4 - Demon possession.
July 5 - Fight with demon in graveyard. Yuushi attacks the Emiya house.
July 6 - Regrouping at the orphanage.
July 7 - Fight at the orphanage.