Fate Of A Gamer

Shirou isn't quite sure how he ended up in this position.

Before him stood two individuals, one clearly a servant wielding a shield taller than even he, and the other a girl wearing a strange mystic code, and with auburn hair and orange eyes, much like his own.

"Um…" With a somewhat embarrassed smile, he faces them, doing his best to ignore Merlin's annoying yappings from inside his head. "My name's Shirou. What's your name?"

~~~

"Why so high up…?" Shirou asked with a soft sigh, watching idly as he continued his descent down onto the earth.

"I wanted to see how skydiving would feel." He heard Merlin giggle. "It's quite refreshing!"

Shirou sighed again. The magus clearly had some other reason for dropping them kilometers above the ground, but he'd rather focus on landing correctly than figuring out what goes on through Merlin's head. It'd most likely take a couple minutes before he reached the ground, faster if he broke past terminal velocity.

But he didn't do that. Besides, the feeling of the air washing past him was quite refreshing as well.

"See, you're enjoying it."

"I've been influenced." Shirou replied dryly, gaining another amused giggle from the woman.

In truth, he didn't really mind. As much as he liked spending his time getting Saber reacquainted with England, he was, to put it kindly, bored. He wasn't sure if that was a genuine feeling or the collective emotion from all the spirits living in his soulscape, but the effect was the same.

So Merlin suggested something to him. She told him that she'd been, somehow, communicating with another version of herself, and had heard of a singularity formed in the ancient times of Babylonia.

It was the perfect chance.

Shirou had been reluctant at first, wary that he'd find no way to return back to the home he'd made, but he was gently reminded that he had both Merlin and Hanami, one a master magus with a massive breadth of knowledge, and the other a growing magician, one who's began to learn to control the second magic, [Kaleidoscope], somehow.

He's still unsure on how the hell she even managed to do that.

Still, his partner had the tendency to break past normal conventions, so he supposed he shouldn't even be surprised.

Then, suddenly, he began to hear the distant sound of clashing metal, sounding somewhat like a sharp object grating against a dull one. "There's our que." Merlin said. Wisps of bright purple flowers begin to surround him, forming a translucent magical barrier, ready to soften his crash. Nodding, Shirou turns to face the sky, and rearing his arm back, he punches forward, sending a blast of wind up and blasting him down.

As he continued to near, the clashes grew louder, and he began to pick up someone shouting in worry. Narrowing his eyes, he punched again, doubling his speed, and with only a hundred meters between him and the earth, he brought forward [Uriel].

Reinforcing his eyes, he sees the tail of bright green hair, and he raises his arms.

And like a comet, he crashed against the earth with enough force to catapult tons of earthly materials into the air. Dirt and stone flew into the air, chunks of wood were flung as the trees were torn from their grounds, and a thick burst of dust shrouded the air. The ground turned hot and red, some even melting from the power of his downward strike.

With his reinforced eyes, he spots a pair of girls, each clearly an outsider to this ancient time, and quickly went to them, deflecting away the incoming rain of swords and spears from the enemy. Slowly, the dust settled, and there standing before him was who looked to be a female, clothed only in a long white cloak. .

He would've been beautiful, if not for the scowl that marred his face.

"You…!" He growled, furious but clearly wary of this new foe. Shirou stared back, switching Yorrmir's blade for the Kojiki Kiyomitsu. He needed the speed, for even though his downward plummet far exceeded the speed of sound, he still managed to dodge, turning part of his left hand into a chain and pulling himself away.

But that short clash was enough to glean his identity.

Enkidu, the chain of heavens.

Truthfully, he wasn't expecting such a thorough finding from just a single glance, a clear sign of what his training and Merlin's help had done to his [Structural Analysis]. Despite that, he knew something wasn't right.

Something about him didn't feel right, almost like a jigsaw puzzle with a piece of it misplaced. Merlin shared his thoughts, but remained quiet to let him focus on the task at hand.

"Alright, let's take him down, Shirou!"

Smiling, he brandished his blade, feeling the familiar feeling of his soul merging with another.

"[Full Embodiment]." He called out, and ribbons of light wrapped around him in a cocoon, changing him. Then, the shell cracked, and Shirou came out changed. Now, he was clothed in a white and black hakama, his hair a pinkish white and his eyes a pale gold. He heard a shocked gasp coming from behind him, but he cared not.

An enemy stood before him, and the one he needed to protect was behind him. Nothing else mattered.

Immediately, the dirt under Enkidu molded into blades, and they fired off at speeds to rival Gilgamesh's [Gate of Babylon].

But he was faster.

He thrust his sword forward, and Enkidu bȧrėly managed to morph his other hand into a chain and wrap it around his sword, stopping the blade just inches from his neck. Smiling, he pulled back, pulling his katana from his grasp, but Shirou only took a step back, reared his arm back, and with a reinforced fist he struck at his stomach.

A pained gasp left his mouth as he was thrown back, turning his hand into a claw to skid himself to a stop. But the short moment allowed Shirou to close the gap, his pale gold eyes shining as he reared his sword back.

"[Mumyou-"

Enkidu's eyes shot open, surprised by the sudden influx of prana.

"-Sandan-Zuki]!"

At a singular moment, three thrusts were launched, bypassing the laws of space and time. A giant sharp wave of wind shot out from his Noble Phantasm, uprooting trees and tearing them away.

However, Enkidu was nowhere in sight, gone, with only a small sliver of green hair left behind.

Did he-

"Teleport? Perhaps, but I didn't sense any sort of magical pulse from him." Merlin completed, sounding just as confused. "Nevertheless, keep that strand of hair with you. It'll help to track him down."

Letting a breath free, he and Okita unmerged, and he bent down to pick up the leftover strand of hair. Tucking it in his pocket, he steeled himself and turned to the two girls he'd protected, smiling wryly as he saw the stars shining in the girls' eyes.

"Um...My name's Shirou. What's your name?"

~~~

Ritsuka Fujimaru, last master of an organization called Chaldeas. Currently travelling to save humanity from certain extinction. Cheerful but determined, both jaded from experience but brimming with naive hope.

Mash Kyrielight, demi-servant Shielder. Fights along and under Ritsuka's commands. Demure and bashful like a flower, but with a fire of determination burning behind her eyes.

He'd introduced himself as a demi servant, much like Mash, summoned under the class of Saber and holding within him the spirit of Okita Souji. Brought into the ancient time of Mesopotamia by the wizard Merlin to help combat the encroaching phantasmal beasts.

Having heard their introductions, he gives his own, and the two stares at him with unconcealed wonder. He can't quite help but smile shyly, considering that the picture of himself he'd given isn't close in any manner to what he can truly do.

But he can't just give out all his cards immediately, right?

Both Hanami and Merlin lectured him heavily on that matter.

Now, they're on their way towards Uruk, intent on meeting both the ruling king and Merlin's male counterpart. On the way, they'd battle against the roaming phantasmal beasts, with Shirou occasionally giving the Shielder some advice on how to move her body to maximize the damage she could do with her shield.

Shirou asked, and the response to that was just another jovial laugh.

That aside, to keep up his appearance as a summoned demi-servant, he'd gone and bound himself to Ritsuka. Similar to creating a Master-Servant bond, but slightly altered, both to fit Ritsuka's rather strange set of command seals and his own strange existence as a faux demi-servant.

It's...odd, really. He knows how it feels to have someone else be under his command, to have a grasp over someone else, but being the one under the command seal is a new feeling. Not a bad one, just strange. Although, the bond between him and Ritsuka feels weaker than he'd expect from a Master-Servant bond, but the cause is uncertain.

Still, being able to power up just by working with Ritsuka's demands is quite an exhilarating feeling.

"Hey, Shirou." He stops, turning to look at Ritsuka.

"Yes?"

"Are you a magus?"

Shirou blinks, surprised to hear that. "Why do you say that?" After all, he hasn't done any major magecraft, has he?

"Well, you use Reinforcement and Structural Analysis a lot, and there's that cool shredder thing you like to do." She says, and Shirou can't quite help but smile a little. Observant girl. He thinks, and nods in reply.

"Yes, not a great one though. The best I can do is using [Structural Analysis], [Reinforcement], and [Gehen]." He explains, though still withholding the rest of his other capabilities.

"[Gehen]?" She asks again, and Mash turns to them, clearly interested in the new magecraft they'd never heard before. Which makes sense really, since it doesn't seem to be a common spell considering not even his dad knew about it.

"It's a spell derived from [Reinforcement]." He begins, picking up a stray rock and applying Reinforcement onto it. "When you reinforce something, you fill the gaps, the imperfections in the object with prana and strengthen it, but if you apply too much-"

He overflows the rock with prana, and the thing explodes into dust and shards.

"-and it explodes. [Gehen] works the same way, filling the gaps inside an object with prana, but then expanding rapidly to destroy its inner structure instead of reinforcing it, causing it to crumble from the inside." He finishes, silently patting his back in relief for managing to remember the entire explanation Hanami had given him about the spell.

"...would I be able to do that too…?" He hears her whisper.

"It'd be hard, but you should." He says, and she blinks at him, surprised he'd heard her. "I'm a third rate at best, but I managed it. You have more magic circuits than I do, and none of them are atrophied either."

"Atrophied?"

"Ah." He shouldn't have mentioned that. "It's nothing."

"Ooh, you can't do that! Now I'm even more curious!" She says, smiling in excitement. He smiles back, but makes no further comment, unwilling to share the idiocies of his past training before Hanami came into the picture. He really should've been dead after cannibalizing his nerves, and it's only because of Avalon that he still lives.

"Don't be like that, senpai." Mash gently says, giggling as Ritsuka pouts at her, clearly unamused.

Shirou watches it all with a small smile.

~~~

"Hmm? Is there something on my face, Shirou-kun?" Merlin, a male Merlin, asks him, tilting his head curiously at him. Shirou blinks, somewhat surprised by the sudden call, but he quickly recovers and looks away.

"...It's nothing, don't worry." He says, sighing internally as he hears his Merlin, or as Merl as she's currently calling herself, giggle. I'm just not used to it. He tries to reason, but his words fall on deaf ears, and Shirou can only sigh.

"Hmm…" Merlin hums, leaning in far too close for comfort. "Worried about meeting the king perhaps?"

"Not really." He says casually, and Ritsuka stops eating from her bowl and looks up to him in slight surprise. Mash blinks and looks to him as well, and even Merlin looks rather surprised at his casual admittance. After all, they are about to meet Gilgamesh, the very first hero of the Throne, and perhaps one of the strongest servants ever recorded.

"My, confident are you?"

"It's Gilgamesh, right?" A male version of him at least. He adds silently. "A king who ruled over Uruk, one who faced against the heavens and went down into the underworld, and one who emerged to understand and rule over mankind."

He remembers the confidence of Gilgamesh, of her smile as she spoke with Hanami, and he can't help but smile as well. "He'll understand."

"You sound as if you're familiar with him." Merlin says, clearly intrigued.

He shrugs. "Somewhat."

"Hmm…" Merlin stares at him for several more seconds, deep in thought, before he smiles and shrugs. "Well, time can be the judge of that." He says before turning to Ritsuka. "So, have you finished your dinner, master of Chaldea?"

"Mm. I have." He says as she places down her empty bowl, her eyes set in determination. The expression she has is...oddly similar to his.

He wonders why that is.

"Well, then let's go." Merlin says and stands, taking his staff in hand and walking out the small cottage they'd been staying in. Ritsuka and Mash follow in his path, leaving him the only one left in the small household.

Shirou closes his eyes.

"So, what have you found, Merlin?"

"Remember, call me Merl, Shirou." She gently reminds him. "That aside, it seems our journey this time will pose a much tougher enemy to defeat."

"You mean Enkidu?"

"Not quite." She says. "While the chain of heavens will be a great threat himself, it is the one who revived him that is truly insidious."

Revived?

"Indeed. The one who brought him back is Tiamat, the dragon god of the seas, one of the primal gods of mesopotamian legends, and one of the great seven beasts of humanity." Merl explains grimly, and Shirou shivers at hearing the name, flashes of an otherworldly enemy appearing in the front of his mind.

...Can we beat her? He asks, already knowing the answer.

"Not currently, and not alone." She says. "Unlike Erebus, I fear bringing her to Avalon won't be enough. Erebus was immortal because of its ties to the collective unconsciousness of humanity, but Tiamat is different."

Why am I even here if we can't take her down?

"Are you really asking that?" She asks dryly. "Is it not a hero's task to overcome a seemingly impossible obstacle?"

He doesn't respond to that.

But, well, he can't quite back away now that he's heard of Ritsuka's convictions now, can he? So, with a small smile, he exits the cottage, leaving the thing truly empty.