A/N

Personally, I feel that Berserker is the least developed character in the whole cast due to his madness, thus I decided to write this story to shed some more light on him as a person.

Italics indicate flashback

Chapter 1 – Sentinel

Einzbern Manor (1.48 PM)

The sky was moonless.

Darkness and silence seized control of the land below. They reigned unchallenged, extending oppressive grasp over a castle that protruded over the sea of trees with stony spires.

In defiance to the surrounding bleakness, the castle provided a sanctuary to its few inhabitants. The first sign of life was revealed through the faint breathing of a girl and the crackling splinters of a died-out fireplace.

A frail scene of tranquility, but this sanctuary was not without its protector.

Her voice stirred the giant out of the camouflaging darkness. With his stillness and silence, he appeared to be an out-of-place statue in this well-furnished room, but he was hardly just there for decoration. The giant was unceasingly vigilant. His senses were honed ready to detect the slightest harm that would befall his Master.

Except for one.

There was one enemy that Berserker couldn't quite protect his Master from. Throughout his life, he had fought and prevailed over legions of men and beasts, but he had no skill to subdue an enemy that existed only in her mind.

The girl's peaceful breathing became muted as a nightmare set in.

A child's sobbing broke the dead silence within a modest bedroom. A huge figure bumbled in, wading through the darkness. The sound of his daughter's led him to her bedside. With great care not to wake her, he gently lowered his hand upon the crown of her head. His caress, filled with fatherly affection, soon repelled the terror of her nightmare.

"Sleep well, my daughter."

A thin smile spread on his face as he whispered. His hand gently lulled the little girl into a peaceful sleep.

Attempting to sooth her fear, Berserker hesitantly extended his hand. Black leathery skin, dyed steel gray after the completion of the Twelve Labor, contrasted with the girl's angelic white complexion, but his hand's descend was slow, excruciatingly so.

Within this nostalgic setting, the same pitiless guilt haunted him, returning like a specter from the dark. It pierced him for every inch that he overcame until the final jolt prevailed, forcing his hand to an abrupt stop.

The sob continued. The girl longed for a comfort that she'd never experienced, a comfort that he could provide but didn't have the courage to offer.

His hand remained hanging in an awkward position right above her, dangling like a puppet without the strength or the will of its own.

He blacked out. For how long he had no idea.

He woke up finding his right hand was completely drenched.

Was it raining or perhaps his young daughter had inappropriately relieved herself?

Neither seemed to be the answer, but it only took him only a moment longer to reach the conclusion. He could not have mistaken such a familiar steely odor.

This warm adhering liquid was blood

The simple realization forced an agonizing roar that shook the entire house with its sheer force. He scooped her broken body as if to wake the remains of his most precious from her eternal slumber. The sensation of her body against his was sickening, like a boneless jellyfish.

She was dead. That much was apparent, but it didn't stop him from calling out to every god that he knew, praying and pleading for her return.

The sound of footsteps broke his desperate prayer. He snapped his neck to its source, only to find his wife and boys trembling in the middle of the doorway. The faint glow of the lamp that she carried revealed their face, contorted by pure terror. Still, that wasn't what managed to seize his attention away from the broken body in his arms.

It was their eyes!

THEIR EYES!

Their eyes that contained a storm of emotions: rejection, disgust, and most of all fear.

Their eyes that directed all of them at him like a hail of arrows.

Unable to withstand the intensity of their accusation, a menacing field of red spilled over and dyed his vision. MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP! STOP! STOP! STOP! PLEASE STOP! STOP! NO! STOP! STOP! MAKE IT STOP!STOP! STOP! STOP! STOP!

He let out another roar, no longer of anguish but rage.

STOP! STOP! STOP! STOP! STOP! STOP! STOP! S-TOP! S-T-OP! ST-OP! S-TO-P! STOP- LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT.

He approached them, all bloodied. He answered their words with incoherent groans and roars.

None had fled, not because they had placed their trust in the beast that took form of their most beloved, but simply because their limbs were seized by raw fear.

The night ended with their terrified screams.

Berserker sighed deeply and retracted his hand. This one feat was impossible for him to accomplish. The fragile creature would break if he'd apply the slightest of his strength. He couldn't lay his hand upon her body without being stricken by the terror that it will come up smeared with her blood.

Berserker didn't fail to see irony. He was tasked with protecting a girl while the bloodstain of his own daughter had yet to be washed away. He suspected that there was some greater force at work that never seemed to tire in weaving the web of torment to ensnare him.

The girl's very existence was a living reminder of sin. The guilt that she roused from the depths of his soul made staying near her hard enough without having to watch for the threat from other Servants. How he wished that the Holy Grail would've just completely robbed his mind and let him revel in the guilt-free bliss of insanity.

He would give anything to receive such a blessing.

He cursed his own body, though it embodied the perfect form of man. He cursed his strength, though it was a prize sought for by most. He cursed the gods for they were the perpetrator of his sorrow through senseless lust and jealousy, but most of all he cursed himself for being powerless to stop the tragedy.

Guilt stalked him like wild beast, allowing him neither rest nor escape. All attempts to run were futile. It would find him, no matter where he hid, dripping accusation into his ears like droplets of venom.

He was desperate for forgiveness. As such, he clung onto the first opportunity that presented itself. He did wonder how the decrepit oracle knew exactly the tasks he would need for his atonement, but the allure of redemption was far too great to let the opportunity pass by.

With a heavy but hopeful heart, he set out for first of his Twelve Labors.

Why, he wondered, did he continue to struggle? Why couldn't he just give up and let the gods decide the judgment befitting of his crime? Why did he reach for the grail in the last moment to continue this hollowed existence?

Perhaps he simply feared the horror that Hades had prepared for a grave sinner like him upon in entry into the afterlife. Then again, there was barely any reason for him to fear the underworld after he had marched in and returned to the surface with the three headed guard dog slung across his shoulder.

Berserker's lips crooked into a pitying smile. The real answer was much simpler. More than the sword and arrows of any foes, more than any infernal punishments that were laying in wait, Berserker's deepest fear was to be reunited with his family.

Like a child hiding a wet mattress from his parent, Berserker, too, feared his own wrongdoing, so much so that he had snapped their frail white necks before they could utter a word of rebuke. Ultimately, it was his own action that proved louder than their words.

Heracles was no more than a mere beast.

They called him a hero. They called him a god. They called him with a myriad of exalting names. All men strived to bask in the same glory. All women swooned with his presence. He was their god

A god in human form.

But it was merely an illusion. What the crowd saw before their groveling self was neither a god nor a man. He was merely a soulless shell, destined to suffer until his last breath.

His labors were for naught. The sins that clung on to his hands was not washed away. He still saw the stain when he bathed, still smell the steel as he turned to bed, and tasted raw flesh as he ate.

The oracle had lied. Even after traveling this distance, the glitter of redemption was still too far to be grasped. Not knowing what else he could do, the mighty Heracles first came to taste the bitterness of despair.

Just as he was sinking into the lowest depths of self-disgust, a soft sensation enveloped his finger. The girl's blind hand had found its whereabouts while he was lost in his reverie. Berserker froze and attempted in vain to extract his finger, but she didn't make it easy for him.

The girl desperately clung on, her knuckles turning white and her veins appearing underneath the skin.

While it was simple for Berserker to pry his finger from her grasp, he couldn't bring himself to do so. For him, only a fine line existed between removing her hand and snapping her wrist outright. Without any other options, he conceded and sat down at the edge of her bed, deeming it easier to endure this guilt through the remaining night than facing the fear of unknowingly breaking her wrist.

Guilt burned him like a flame.

A flame that could never be put out.

The funeral pyre roared.

He could still hear the chorus of dirges and the chant of orisons, but, beyond the fiery wall, they were no more than an obscured drone to his ears. While the love and adoration did temporarily tingle his sense of fulfillment, its effect was short to last, soon to be submerged in the pitch black sea of guilt.

It took sometime before he could hear the crack and sizzle of his skin as the flame gradually coiled around his body. Painful as it was, he joyfully welcomed every sensations.

His life would be the last payment to compensate for the atrocity he had committed. He lamented the fact that he had no more to give for it was absurd to consider that this sinful soul was of equal value to the four that he'd taken, but it was all that he could offer.

Savoring the freedom that he hadn't tasted for years, Heracles reclined his whole body into the inferno and closed his eyes.

But, alongside guilt, her touch did give rise to another emotion, one that was nearly forgotten through years of pain and strife.

Fatherly affection.

Perhaps, there was a reason why he was chosen to be the girl's protector when there were hundreds of others that could have been given the chance.

The realization gradually mellowed into his conscience. It was lurking there all along. He simply chose to turn a blind eye to it in fear that this glitter of hope too will turn out to be false.

He couldn't fool himself forever.

The girl was his thirteenth labor, the last and the most difficult to accomplish, but Berserker was determined to see it through. Not simply because she was a path to his redemption, but also to protect her in the stead of the one that he had failed to as a father.

The girl snuggled against the warmth of his hand as a daughter would, indulging in the comfort and safety that he offered. Overcame by his emotions, Berserker bent down and planted a fatherly kiss on her forehead. His lips uttered the phrase that had been forsaken for so long.

With the blissfulness of hope tingling inside, Berserker cradled Ilya in his arms, rocking her to a peaceful slumber.

"Sleep well, my daughter."

How was it? Good? Bad? I appreciate any comments, opinions, or reviews so please leave some behind. I'll be using them to improve the story even more in the future. Thanks!