Fate Of A Gamer

"Hey, that's hell you're walking into."

He turns around to face the man. His steel eyes bores into his, still and unchanging despite the hell they stand in. "What?" He asks, surprised to see another individual suddenly appear in this forsaken hellscape.

"There are still people waiting for you. You remain redeemable." The man speaks. "Cast away your dream before it's too late."

Before he could ask, the man suddenly crosses the gap between them, and he feels the cold touch of tempered steel pressed against his neck.

"Lest tragedy strike again."

~~~

Kiritsugu wakes. It isn't a loud affair, a trait he'd learned to have after the countless nightmares that plagued his dreams, but the quaking fear he remembered from that hell he saw is still fresh on his mind, and it takes him a moment to finally calm himself.

"Kiritsugu?"

'Iri?'

Slowly, he rises from the bed before being crushed by a hug from his wife. His mind short-circuits for a moment, wondering what happened to cause Iri such distress, and then he remembers.

He remembers that searing pain, that slow decay he felt on his body as he struggled through the sleepless nights. He remembers that last moment of consciousness, when he felt his ċhėst constrict and his lungs burn, as if a rod of hot iron had been inserted into it. He remembered hearing their cries of worry before he fell asleep and woke to that burning city.

"…How long?" He manages to ask, doing his best to quickly rebuild his usual stoic mask.

"It's been two days." Maiya says for the crying woman, her monotone slightly broken by the smile of relief she has. By her side, a boy with auburn hair stands, staring at him with the same relief as-

"Who are you?"

The boy freezes up, clearly shocked that he'd be put under such attention so quickly after Kiritsugu's recovery. He then coughs, and wth a slightly grimace, he begins, "I'm-"

But the door suddenly opens, and in comes another unfamiliar individual. This time, it's a girl, he hair a light brown and her eyes green. She looks completely normal, but her presence was far from that. It reminds him of the powerful magi in the Clocktower, those that could flatten most with just their presence alone.

An individual that commanded power.

"Ack, sorry for taking so long…" She says as she combs her hair with a brush she brought out from…somewhere. "The shower froze halfway so I needed to do some…extreme measures."

"It's fine." The boy says with a wry smile, before he turns back to Kiritsugu, now looking at him with that same odd expression as before. The girl quickly finishes her combing and walks towards him, before stopping next to the boy. "You're probably confused on what's happening, but I'll do my best to explain."

"Right, okay. My name's Tsunaka Hanami, though you can just call me Hanami. He," She gives a playful poke at the boy, smiling as she does. "Is Emiya Shirou, my partner."

"And I know you have questions, but save all your questions for later." Kiritsugu opens his mouth in protest, before he feels Iri place a comforting hand on his shoulder. He soon relents, leaning back into the bed and nodding. "Good! Alright, I'll start simple." .

"Simply put, you dropped into your coma because of the grail-, well, what's inside the grail to be exact." Immediately, questions begin to spring up in his mind, but Hanami then continues. "Angra Mainyu, the Persian God of Darkness, also known as the Avenger of the third Holy Grail War, is currently living inside the grail and is using its wish-granting mechanism to try and destroy the world."

"Seeing you as a potential threat, it infected you with its taint. When and how that happened, I don't know, but it's probably when you first summoned Saber over there and the effects began to grow when you entered Fuyuki. Though that's just speculation, so don't quote me on that."

"And to that…I guess I'll have to apologize." She suddenly says as she bows. It shocks him somewhat, to see such a powerful figure bow her head so easily. In fact, everyone else looked surprise, even her partner, but he soon follows her and bows as well.

"The reason why Angra Mainyu's so aggressive is because of our failure from the future."

"The future?" He accidentally asks, and Hanami smiles. "Yep. I guess it's about time we introduce ourselves."

"We're the only survivors of the Fifth Holy Grail War, the war that will happen ten years from now, after this war ended in a catastrophe that burnt down the entirety of Fuyuki City."

Kiritsugu remembers his dream, that burning and smoldering city, where the skies are covered by thick smoke and a hole is torn open in the sky, with blackened mud pouring down. Realization kicks in, and he makes sense of what that place had been.

'Hey, that's hell you're walking into.'

"We were on the verge of destroying the grail, but…" She quickly glances to the boy by her side, and Shirou quickly continues. "I noticed the grail breaking down, but I guess even that wasn't enough to kill Angra Mainyu. Somehow, it managed to activate the grail and send itself back to the fourth war, though it brought us as well."

Hanami nods before turning to him, "Alright then, any questions?"

"Many." He says dryly, though mostly because he's still taking everything in.

"Don't worry, we have all day." She says as she drinks some tea from the bottle she has in her hands (where does she keep getting those things?). Kiritsugu takes a moment, sighs, and turns to the boy. "Why are you an Emiya?"

"You adopted me after the fire. I was dying back then, but you saved me by placing Avalon into me." He answers, though the reply brings up more questions.

"I had Avalon back then?"

"That's…where things get weird." Hanami frowns slightly as she speaks, "Back then, you had Avalon inside you because you were fighting against Kirei Kotomine, a powerful executor of the church and the master of Assassin, but…from what I've seen, the person known as Kirei was never born. Not only that, but the master of Berserker, Kariya Matou, died several years back." She scratches the back of her head as she frowns. "It seems that when we were sent back, things became…different."

"…I see." That was…a lot to take in. It could all be fabrications, but the expressions they held were far to genuine for the tale to have been made up. "How did you heal me?"

"Ah, well, the process is a bit long, but it's basically me purifying the taint inside you and Shirou using Avalon's ability to heal you as I do my work." She swiftly takes another sip from her bottle. "Any other questions?"

"…Is the Grail a lie?"

Hanami stares at him, pondering over the question, before shrugging. "Well, yes, but not quite. Technically, Angra's currently hijacking the grail, but if we do manage to kill him and purify the grail, it should work like normal."

"So, anything else you wanna ask?"

Kiritsugu takes a deep breath, "…I still have many, but…I'll save it for later." His head is still swarming with all the bombs the girl had just dropped on him.

The grail being corrupted by a god of darkness? Two survivors from the fifth grail war being sent to the past? The fourth grail war ending in the destruction of Fuyuki, and him adopting a child he'd implanted Avalon into? It all sounds like some sort of a child's make-do fantasy, but the visions he saw in his dreams matched their descriptions too perfectly to be disregarded.

"Alright, good." She looks away for a moment. "It's, uh, two past noon right now, but you might as well have some lunch, since, you know, you haven't eaten for two days and stuff. You don't mind cooking right, Shirou?"

"Huh?" Shirou blinks, stunned. "Ah, yeah, sure."

"Good! I'll be off for now then! See ya later!" And with her piece said, the air around Hanami seems to bend, and she suddenly disappears, leaving behind a very confused crowd. Shirou can only sigh before leaving the room, heading towards the kitchen to cook up some hamburger steaks for Kiritsugu to eat.

~~~

Uah~, that went better than I thought! I mean, Kiritsugu basically glaring at me during the entire explanation was really tense, and I really thought that he was going to continue grilling me with his questions. But he didn't! Heck, he even followed what I said and left the questions after the explanation!

Though he probably didn't ask more because he was tired. He did seem like he was holding back a migraine or something.

Anyways! I'm currently inside an [Empty ID] to test out my new [Morningstar]. I actually wanted to do it earlier, but I felt Kiritsugu beginning to wake up, so I just quickly took a shower to make myself presentable and went off to Kiritsugu. Now though, that's done, and it's time for experimentation!

First! After waking up from that knowledge-induced knockout, I sifted through all the information that was just crammed into my head. And, as expected, it gave me a whole bunch of knowledge of the universe, both how it works physically and the mystical symbols and powers the star holds. It didn't tell me how the universe started though, which makes sense, since I'll literally die at that point.

I mean, learning about molecular bonds and quantum mechanics is killing me enough.

That aside, I've got a whole bunch of ideas I want to test out with my new gravity powers, all of which are extremely volatile and might cause harm, both to me and anything in my vicinity, which is why I'm here!

Now, let's begin slow…

"W-Woah…" Gently, the effects of earth's gravity vanish, and I begin to float up into the air. Gah, my stomach feels really weird, but aside from that nothing new here. Moving on!

With some of the experience gained from using my prana propulsions, I begin to move, flying at moderate speeds while twisting and making sharp turns. Once again, nothing much is new here, except the discomfort in my stomach and the slight decrease in MP usage.

Finally, when I've gathered enough confidence, I burst forward at high speeds, blitzing through the entirety of Fuyuki in a mere minute. Then, I turn, and cross the city again, this time flying just above the city to give myself a bit more of a challenge. Thankfully, I succeeded on not crashing into anything on both.

Now, for the fun part!

With flying out of the way, it's time to test out some of my new gravity-related ideas, and trust me, I have a lot. I start out simple enough, with me dragging and pushing rocks around, making them fly through the air and do all sorts of complicated aerial maneuvers.

That was easy enough, so I begin to increase the size of the item. I begin pulling trees up, then the dirt beneath it. After that I begin lifting some of the empty buildings, starting from simple houses to large office buildings. Sadly, lifting something the size of a skyscraper seems to be my current limit, though even then my control over it is sloppy.

After that, I begin going the opposite, controlling smaller and smaller objects. Rounds of dust and microorganisms are easy enough, but something my head began to split when I tried moving a virus, so I stopped immediately.

In conclusion, my gravity can move things as small as a bacteria and stuff as large as buildings. Overall, not bad!

But this does mean that most of my more outlandish ideas are currently out of the picture. If I can't willingly move something the size of a virus with my gravity, then doing something like severing atomic bonds will probably kill me.

Then again, my skill's only Level 1, so who knows how far I can go.

Anyways, now that I've made myself familiar with my new powers, it's time to return to [Yuriele].

Link, start!

~~~

[Transport confirmed]

[Activating warp drive]

[Initiating…]

~~~

After the shards of light fade from my view, I see myself standing in the center of [Dun Stadia], right in front of the [Obelisk].

Except, some things are…different.

The dirt paths that once twisted around the village are now made of clean polished stone. The houses are bigger and cleaner. The functional buildings are kitted out with more advanced tools. The haphazardly made farms from yesterday are now made into grids, with each grid growing different crops. The same goes with the apples trees, with most now planted in a nearby tree orchard.

Overall, it's just cleaner.

Also, the town's kinda empty, though that's mostly because everyone's having lunch in the new tavern at the east side of the town.

That's not a bad thing though, since I'm not planning on staying here the entire time. Today, I want to find more settlements, especially the larger ones that had developed into large citadels. Not because I want anything special mind you, but just because I want to find them and see what they have in store.

Which sounds easy enough, but the closest settlement to [Dun Stadia] is about 50000 kilometers away. As it sounds, 50000 kilometers is pretty damn far, but now I have [Morningstar], and combined with my prana propulsions, 50000 kilometers is nothing!

If nothing wrong happens at least.

Anyways, negating the gravity on me, I soar to the skies and towards this other settlement, speeding up more and more. The sound barrier is broken near instantly, and everything around me begins to warp.

The combined forces of my prana propulsions and [Morningstar] sure is terrifying, especially because I can see the shockwaves being sent out behind me as I fly forward, and the chunks of islands being torn apart as I fly by. I wonder if this is what Superman feels like when he flies around the metropolis?

Sure is trippy though. Feels like I'm going to activate warp drive or something.

With the combined speed of the two skills, the 50000 kilometers is quickly crossed, and I quickly slow myself down as I approach.

And lord oh mighty does this new place look cool!

It's basically a large modern city built atop a large floating island, but most of the buildings are black, with glowing purple neon lights built along the walls, giving the entire place a cool, cyberpunk-like aesthetic. Not only that, but some of the inhabitants there also have robotic limbs and replacements, making the entire place even cooler.

But just like any cyberpunk setting, there are several areas filled with people of the more…outlandish side. Drug trades, red light districts, underground auctions, and other stuff like that. I'm not…opposed to it, per se, I do understand the comforts those kinds of things can bring, but they're not something I'm comfortable with.

With the exposition finished, I land myself on the edge of the island as discreetly as I can and make my way into the city.

[You have entered [Vanta Borea]]

Once I slip into the main street, that message appears, and along with it, the sky above me darkens, turning the sky into a perpetual starry night sky. It's obviously not real, only being a cosmetic placed on top of the barrier surrounding the island, but it does make the city feel more atmospheric, so props to the creator of this place!

Now, let's explore!