Chapter One

A/N: So I got this idea from a now-dead forums thread I cannot remember from. Hopefully, I can find it and give the original source of this idea the credit it deserves for such a fantastic idea. Again, I say that this idea is not mine, I have simply expanded upon it from the copy of the story stored in my computer, so a lot of these words are not mine. The next chapter, however, will.

Disclaimer: I do not own F/SN, wish I did, though.

Edit: I have placed line breaks to make shifting of POV easier.

Giant metal cogs kilometers in radius hung in the perpetually twilight rusted sky, blades of all shapes and purpose thrust straight into the blood-soaked deserts. It was here a tall man dressed in red awaits his next task, listlessly defending himself from his own failure.

Memories unbidden from countless millennia of experience began to flood in despite his best efforts. To once again become a simple tool powered by the manifestation of the human will to purge any and all threats to humanity.

He knocked his arrow to his bow, drawing back even as his target came into view. A normal situation would have prevented such an archaic weapon from even nicking the bullet-proof armor this man wore. However, these were from a future that no longer existed. The arrow didn't even recognize the barrier it was up against and passed through it completely.

To helplessly slaughter everyone, even the innocent, to save the greater whole.

A sweet little girl looked up at him in utter confusion and horror, her entire family having fallen to protect her from the lone swordsman now standing in front of her. She could not move, so confused as to why the kind older brother figure she had spent the last week admiring and crushing from a short distance was now soaked in the blood of her family. Tears streaked down her face as the man impassively sent her head flying with an effortless stroke.

Alone on his hill of swords, the tragic hero stands unyieldingly. There was nothing to be done here except to carry on with the tasks given to him by Alaya-

A twitch in the fabric of reality, it pulled on his essence like a child asking for a treat with empty promises of completed chores in the future.

"..." He had no words as he realized what the familiar sensation was.

Hmm? A summons?

"…" It tugged on him, adding more promises and mellowed words, along with a beautiful cup.

Ah. Another Grail War.

He mentally sighed, thinking about that particular aspect of his life. A bitter pill to swallow.

I've fulfilled my dream in life, I have no need for the Holy Grail.

All I want to do is end my existence.

That cursed relic cannot grant my wish.

So why do you call me still?

I must have been summoned countless times through countless wars. Surely I must have succeeded somewhere?

So why would I even bother answering once more-

"Please…"

…

Damn it.

Countless eons could have passed during his timeless existence in the Throne of Heroes, but that voice…

Even if he had been thrown into the depths of hell for an eternity of torment, he would never forget that distinctive pitch.

Nor would he be able to ignore that plea for aid, not when he finally had a choice to give meaning to this broken existence.

He was Counter Guardian EMIYA… but at the core?

He was still the boy who dreamed to become a Hero of Justice.

There was no way he would be able to refuse something that nuzzled what remained of his rusted and broken core.

"... Heh." With a shimmer, he complied and his soul was willingly sent hurtling through the fabric of his resting place and into the fires of the Holy Grail War once more.

He wondered…

What would happen this time?

As he was hurtled through various Parallel worlds and insane dimensions, he felt himself being split, a familiar feeling of his soul being copied and poured into a Class, while the original was sent back. He had a keepsake he kept during life, the urge burned strong for him not to forget this, like his only light in a hellhole where that light was all but a delusion.

What was it? What calls out to him wasn't a normal catalyst. It was far more pure, like cold spring waters from a planet of nothing but frozen waters. It resonated with him to a frightening degree.

It was him. His Soul… was this his chance?

To end it all?

… How can one save themselves from the vagaries of Fate?

… Should one even attempt to do so?

He could never forget this moment of his life, for all around him, Fuyuki burned. It's inhabitants chased down and burned by cursed flames that sought only death to all humanity.

The day Shirou was born.

But… why was he here? By now the Grail should have already been in unrecoverable pieces, how was he even existing without a substantial source of Prana?

It was then he heard the hard labor for a small breath in the distance…

He rushed forward towards the noise, not even caring of the way he broke his aloof personality at that moment, the cold shell that protected his heart. If he could save even one person from this nightmare here, then everything… everything would have been worth-

...No…

Damn it why!?

He fell to his knees and loomed despairingly over… himself. The fire leaving a scorched but quickly cooling area around the boy as if he was lower than dirt and not worth burning.

Wait… where… where was Kiritsugu? Where was his father, had he not saved him yet?

No, that didn't matter, he could end this now! Just a single sweep with a simple blade, he could end all of this-

"...D...ad?" His younger self suddenly wheezes through seared airways. Eyes empty of anything but that spark of reflexive inquisition. His tracing came to an abrupt halt and a tsunami of memories and emotions jammed his usually cold logic.

You…

…Damn it.

She gasped and coughed into the burning furnace air of the hellish night.

Her wish was right before her. Her only unfulfilled desire left in life glowing beautifully before her, ready to save her people from the fate she was cursed to lead them too…

All she had to do was grasp it with her own two hands and make the wish.

And then that man… ordered her to destroy the Grail.

...

With a final, agonizing cry of shattered hopes and dreams, Excalibur screamed from her hands in a wave of purifying light and smashed her final hope into unrecoverable fragments.

The scream of utter anguish and hopelessness she let out as she was forced to destroy her own salvation could never do justice the true extent of her feelings at that moment.

So insensate with grief was she that she never saw the blackened mud spill forth from the golden chalice she once called a friend and converge upon her in a wave of corruption.

When she was finally able to claw her way out of the foul liquid, she was forever changed.

She felt…stained… yet at the same time, refreshed.

Gone were her ideals of wishing to protect her weak kingdom and its peoples.

Gone was her desire to have never had pulled the sword from the stone.

Gone were her wishes of a woman who should have died centuries ago.

All that was left in her place was a changed woman in a tainted shell.

…

No, she wasn't so different now.

She had just realized what futility it was to have strived so meaninglessly for an ultimately worthless goal. She had been freed.

She clenched her hand in rage at the pointlessness of it all. She could actually feel her heart beating with anger, the pulse pounding in her veins, the unbearable heat-

What had happened? Why was everything on fire?

She took a momentary sweep of the area.

Meaningless.

She took a deep breath, her first real breath of air since her foolish own daughter had stolen her last one. It was nice, as foul as it currently was since she made her pact with the world.

She would no longer wait in that blood field for the next call. She was alive right now, in this time and place. She was no longer Arthur Pendragon, the king who fell with her country and was at the mercy of the world.

She was also naked.

It was… acceptable.

She noticed movement close by from the corner of her eyes. With the curiosity of a bored lion, she slowly pulled herself from the rest of the mud clinging to her hands and lower limbs with deep sucking noises. She didn't hold back her snort of contempt when she saw the body of her former master trying to crawl towards another figure in the distance with what was left of his incinerated legs and charred, remaining arm.

"Save… one… please… I have to… just one…" She smiled sinisterly before crouching in front of him and gaze deep into his nearly unseeing eyes, clearly his ideals driving forward despite his bleeding out state.

"Saber…?" He continues to try and struggle past her impromptu blockade with his pathetic attempts at imitating the far faster garden snail insulting the creature.

"You have something of mine, Master. I want it back" She said in acidic amusement, she reached out to rip away Avalon from Kiritsugu with a cruel smirk-

Avalon refuses to materialize for her.

What? Why!?

"No… n-not… not yet!" He whispers as if recognizing the dashing act of hope it was even in such a deranged state. .

She continued to kneel there, shocked.

Kiritsugu continues his single-minded struggle. The assassin leaving a trail blood, entrails, and corrupted flesh towards the figure in the far distance. But she paid little heed.

… Why wouldn't Avalon answer her call?

Unbothered by the flames, her nude form stayed staring still, the trail of blood Kiritsugu left behind for an untold amount of time.

A flash of gold in the Magus Killer's general direction struck her from her reverie.

Avalon?

She stood, and walked, following the trail of drying fluid and towards the holy spark of power a mere minute away.

A burning sensation engraved itself in her palm.

Damn it all!

He couldn't let him die. Not when he could finally save someone!

But how could he save him? There was nothing in his vast arsenal of killer weapons meant to save, at least not on the verge of death state he was in. Ironic, he mused sardonically.

It had been literal ages since he had needed to trace Avalon. Even if he could, the scabbard was just a gaudy bauble without the wielder.

The best he could do was pray that he could get him to a hospital before his alternate self could expire, and even then, that was a hopeless endeavor.

Why he was even brought here, to be taunted by Alaya? He was well aware of her disposition to use him a source of amusement, something he knew the other Counter Guardians was grateful to not have the honor of receiving.

Why to be summoned here if the war was already over and there was nothing that could be done-

The desperate dragging noise behind him captures his attention, he turns.

"Just… one…" The voice was raspy, but the pitch was unmistakable.

Father? Hell, it's about time-

He stood there uncomprehending, simply gazing dumbly at his father's half mutilated and burned body. He looked so weak, scared and vulnerable.

How was he still alive?

He seems to completely ignore the Counter Guardian's presence, dragging himself towards the younger insensate child.

"T-thank God… y-you're alive!" With a final, desperate strength, he pulls Avalon out from himself and pushes it forward, the tip barely able to reach boy's chest from where he laid side by side next to him.

"N-no… please!" His father's weakened hand falls-

And he was there to grasp it.

The curse that burned in his palm and throughout his body has no effect on a… fake hero such as himself. He wouldn't be surprised if the mud took a liking to him for all the sins he had committed in his existence.

"Who… no… save, must save…!" The fake Hero guided the single limbed half-torso above the child's chest and let him push Avalon in. The man calmed down once he realized their intentions aligned.

"Live... you must live-" Emiya Kiritsugu dies in peace, his single remaining arm goes limp in the fake's hands with a satisfied smile on his face.

Why were his eyes burning?

He knelt there, holding the corpse of his adoptive father, and listening to the slowly steadying breathing of his younger self as the cooling rains began to fall.

He remembered this.

This was the moment that everything changed.

This was when he had wished to smile like-

"Who are you, Servant?" That voice … Saber?

Shocked, he glanced to the source, the forever unmarred beauty of his former Servant in a long forgotten past kneeling on the other side of his younger body with a curious tilt of her head betraying the emotions hidden in her apathetic, yellow eyes.

… Arturia?

What?

What happened to you?

"Who are you Servant? Why are you here?" The NOT Arturia keeps her head tilted to the side as she says this, somehow managing to make the dead serious demand, quite adorable.

She seemed unconcerned if her current state of dress indicated anything. Just... curious?

He chuckled bitterly. What was the harm? He'd be gone in a day at most anyway without a source of Prana.

"... I'm him." He pointed at the child lying in the rain. Arturia Alter blinks.

"Oh? My, that is interesting. It looks like I'll be keeping you around after all… Servant."

Saber flashes a slender hand with crimson tattoos at you. A coy smile spreading her delicate lips.

Command seals.

... Well, that's just-

The boy coughs, turning both their attentions on him.

The nameless boy washed clean of his previous existence, opened his eyes and saw something that would forge who he was from then on.