Disclaimer:

I don't own the fate series.

(If you didn't already know)

Author's note:

So...this is my first attempt on a fanfiction. I hope that you will keep in mind that im purely writing off my experience from reading. My only request is that you dont flame for no reason. Helpful flames though, I will accept with open arms. Now, lets begin.

Story start

It was hell.

That was the only way to describe what was before me.

Fiery flames that engulfed entire buildings surrounded me. The recent forest fire on the news didn't even seem to hold a candle to the burning inferno that spanned as far as my eye could see.

I could feel the heat seeping into my blistered skin. It was a testament to how searing hot the fire was.

Countless hazards were lurking around me. Falling debris, jagged uneven terrain, not to mention the sooty smoke from the fire that constantly entered my lungs.

My breathing was ragged and irregular. The beginning signs of lung failure.

My clothes were tattered and torn. What was once a white shirt was now stained blood-red from the numerous cuts and gashes on my body.

My mind was in a haze. If I had to describe it, it was like trying to see past thick foliage or a dense fog.

My ears were ringing. I could hear my heart pounding furiously inside my chest.

Yet,

I could still hear the sorrowful wails of those who had their loved ones taken. Loud wails of anguish, sadness, grief and other emotions besieged my ears from all sides.

The strength of the wails however still paled in comparison to the cries, those desperate cries for salvation, cries that held frantic urgency tinged with an emotion I couldn't quite place.

"Help me...I-I don't want to die like this..."

Ah, I remembered.

It was...

Fear

Fear of death, fear of loss, fear of ruin, the very same fear...that was the first to be discarded from me.

Fear rooted me in place like shackles, left me powerless and unable to move. Without sparing a second thought, it was left behind in the flames.

Next was...

Disgust and Pain

Like fear, disgust and pain paralyzed me in place. Disfigured bodies, burning flesh, pools of blood, it all made me want to haul. A scraped knee, a few cuts and wounds were all it took for me to hesitate to take the next step.

I couldn't afford to haul or hesitate. Therefore, disgust and pain were discarded.

Even with fear and disgust gone, my body unable to feel physical injuries with pain gone, having a bleeding heart made it hard to move forward.

Until the turn came for...

Sadness, Pity and Guilt

Sadness was worse than fear, seeing familiar faces dying in front of me didn't just stop me like fear, disgust and pain. It attacked me mentally, leaving a hole in my heart. It made me want to give up all together, to cease my struggles and fall into the waiting hands of the grim reaper, just to be runited with the others in death.

Pity made me stop and help the dying who were suffering, only to realize too late that they were beyond help, sometimes even prolonging their suffering.

Guilt was a combination of both. It made me unable to turn a blind eye to those whose end were inevitable. Made me want to help them, not for them but to quell the guilt akin to sadness, that was clawing endlessly at my heart.

Joy

Anger

Apprehension

Kindness

Remorse

Grief

...were all thrown away without a moment's hesitation.

One by one, all my feelings and emotions were cast away. Precious memories of people and places accumulated throughout the short years of my life were disappearing. Be it good or bad, it didn't matter.

Each step led to me being less and less of a person and more of a hollow human-shaped piece of flesh in the guise of a kid.

It wasn't long before my sense of time left me.

I wasn't sure how much time had passed, before my ability to form coherent thought was also lost to me.

All that was left of me was a broken husk acting on pure instinct, a blank slate desperately holding on to its final shred of emotion which was hope.

And even that hope, was slowly and surely being chipped away with each step.

With one final step, my body gave out. Collapsing backwards, I was slowly falling into the cold embrace of death.

Hope was fading away like the dying embers of a fire.

My eye lids were growing heavier by the second. Even so, I caught a glimpse of a pair of piercing-red eyes directly above me, eyes that held untold power, eyes that held endless contempt and oppresive arrogance, bearing down on me as if gazing upon an insignificant insect, as if I was just a tiny speck in existence.

Hmph,

to be reduced to such a state...

how pitiful.

Be grateful mongrel, for the king has seen your struggle and deem it entertaining enough for you to be granted a swift death.

Like magic, a simmering portal of gold appeared above me. Out of the portal, the blade of a sword extended out, piercing through my heart with inhuman speed, pinning me to the ground.

Even as I was impaled and bleeding heavily, I couldn't help but to admire the sword that ran through me even as I was coughing up blood.

It was a sword with a shiny gold hilt with an equally shiny gold guard that was shaped in an arc. The base of the blade had unreadable inscriptions inscribed onto it.

But what truly caught my eye was the blade itself. The shine of the blade told me that it was nothing short of a masterpiece even with my limited knowledge on the subject.

I could tell that it wasn't a normal sword, it practically radiated majesty, like it was alive with a will, like it was judging me.

Be honoured that the king is willing to grant you this small mercy.

And with those parting words, the sword that was stuck in me vanished, dissipating into golden particles to be scattered by the wind among the embers of the great fire, leaving behind no trace of its owner and anything having occurred whatsoever.

It was unreal and unbelievable. The whole exchange couldn't have lasted more than ten seconds. The only proof that it wasn't a hallucination was the gaping hole in my heart that was bleeding profusely.

With my life along with my suffering nearing its end, I was slipping into blissful unconsciousness.

My final sight was that of a newcomer, I could barely make out a golden object in his hands and that he was saying something to me.

"A fatal wound, and on top of that prana poisoning. This is bad, my only hope to save him would be..."

That was all I heard before all sound left me.

'fatal wound', 'prana poisoning', and 'save',

I didn't know why, but these words strangely struck a chord in me.

Even if I would never wake into the living world again, even if it was all going to be remembered as just a dream as I woke up, as the last of my consciousness left me, I couldn't help but wonder about the brilliant blade that stabbed me and the blinding golden object that radiated a familiar soothing and comforting warmth.

If I had been awake even a second longer, I would have felt that the gaping hole in my heart was miraculously closing and the cries of a man equally broken as me amidst the roaring of the blazing fire wouldn't have fallen upon deaf ears.

In a graveyard of flames, two souls had their self shattered and many more were cast away.

One was broken and became nothing, the other self destructed and was left with nothing. The only solace to be found was in each other.

Within the same ocean of flames, one was reforged from scratch, and the other reworked anew.

In flames, a hero fell and became a man.

With flames, the man was left with nothing.

From nothing, the boy was reforged.

Not as a sword, but something more.