A Gilded Fate

Disclaimer- Fate/Stay Night is owned by Type-Moon. No infringement is intended.

Summary- This is a challenge by Reishin Amara. Its premise is simple. In an act of defiance, Gilgamesh denies Angra-Mainyu and does not manifest. He chooses a different option.

Story Start-

He had done it again. He had waited too long savoring the moment of victory. Saber had been helpless before him. The Grail was mere moments from triggering an event large enough to wake the now decadent race of Mankind.

In the massive culling that followed, surely there would be those amongst the remnants worthy of his rule once more….

But it was not to be.

Cursed and full of self-hatred, the broken mercenary Kiritsugu Emiya called out, "Saber destroy the Grail." He called it a second time, each time using a Sorcery too deep and powerful for even the mighty Gilgamesh of Uruk to stop.

He was washed away by the torrent of energy of the destroyed conduit to the Greater Grail. Without that portal Angra-Mainyu was unable to manifest. But for a few brief moments it was able act. And it sought to manipulate how the net contest would run.

It teased Zouken with thoughts of true power and immortality as it rampaged throughout Fuyuki, leaving behind enough elements for a false Grail, changing Sakura Matou's fate ever so slightly. It repaired Kotomine's heart.

And it taunted Gilgamesh with a mortal life, a physical body built out of the Third Magic enlaced mud that rained down on Fuyuki.

He refused.

Not because he had any intention of dying.

He was the King of Heroes! He held all that was of worth as his possession. If he wanted to manifest in this era, he would!

And so with his prana rapidly burning out, Gilgamesh looked upon the mongrels below him as the fire caught and consumed them. Through it all, one grim red haired boy marched on…

-Next scene—

A small boy was wandering through and inferno. Everywhere surrounding him were the sounds of burning people and the cries for help. Slowly those cries began to fade.

The boy watched moments of untold heroism and occasions of horror as the cataclysm hit Fuyuki City.

Everywhere was fire. It was so hot. So very hot. And part of him wanted to lie down and die.

But he didn't.

You are worthy boy. I will take you.

He felt as if he were melting. As if he were fading away, his mind and soul scoured away by the intense heat. And the dark pressure that seemed to fill the flames.

He resisted as hard as he could as two presences fought over him. One sought to refine him in the darkness of the Third Magic into a being in eternal torment. The other merely wanted to absorb him.

He didn't understand. It was simply beyond him. He didn't understand how his life and the lives of all those he knew could be simply burned away.

But they were.

He felt as his memories disappeared. As he disappeared.

A truce formed between the invader and the boy. If they were to have any hope they needed to work together. Both of them had lost so much. Neither was willing to die.

And in that immense, soul-searing heat, they began to melt together.

The boy walked on. Looking for some way out. Looking for some way to survive, even though he knew it didn't exist. That it couldn't exist.

No one could survive this. He could feel echoes of death surrounding him, enfolding every other living thing.

But in the bright dark fire there were tints of gold. Tiny flecks of light that he drank in desperately without knowing, fighting as he could against the darkness.

Until even he had to sit down. As his strength powered by his need to survive. He lay down on a piece of rubble and looked at the sky. And watched as the rain began to fall.

So pretty. So precious. He would miss life. Even if all he could remember was this horrible fire, even if everything he had once been had been scoured away, he would miss it.

"Please, please be alive. Please don't let everyone be dead, please!" Said a tall man in a burnt and dirty suit. He grabbed the boy. And cried.

The boy could only look into the man's eyes with wonder. Had he known this man, back before the world had ended?

He didn't know.

The boy gazed up into the man's eyes looking for recognition, but finding something much more valuable. It didn't even matter at that moment that he himself was being saved. He could no longer comprehend salvation. He knew he was dead, that there was no hope for him. That was long gone.

But in the man's eyes the boy witnessed a different form of salvation. One that reached much deeper than the body. The boy witnessed as the man achieved salvation by saving him.

And it would awaken a hunger in the boy that would never fade. Even after his ideals soured and faded, even as he made concessions to reality that desire never faded.

What came next changed everything. For Kiritsugu removed Avalon from himself and in desperation placed it into the boy in hopes of saving him.

It worked. Not just on the boy, but the invader as well. They were already fused together; Avalon made those desperate changes permanent. That would have repercussions to come.

For the Greater Grail was gathering prana still. The ritual still not fully completed.

And Angra-Mainyu was waiting.