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Fool's World: Judgment (ch. 21)
🕑 Added 2022-04-02 15:11:27 +0000 UTCSaber's eyes widened at my words as I shouldered my bat, not even looking at Caster and Lancer fading into nothing. And they weren't the only Servants that had died. Just before my summoning, the lemon wedge version of myself felt Berserker and Assassin kick the bucket. Meaning that with Lancer and Caster dead, all that was left were Saber, Rider, Archer, and Gilgamesh. Though, I don't think he actually counted as a Servant in the same way as the others, just like neither Nobara nor I counted as Servants.
"Speak plainly," Saber snapped at me, taking my words as a threat. That was a little annoying.
"I already did. S'not my fault if you didn't understand it," I said, pointedly turning my back to her as I made my way to Kirei. Blood dripped down his chin and he managed to push himself up into a sitting position. There was a satisfied look on his face, like a parent feeling pride in their spawn. Pretty weird, but Kirei was a weird guy. Saber didn't respond as I came to a stop in front of what had been one of my favorite people in this world. Kiritsugu, for all his talk about being willing to shoulder all of the evil in the world if it meant a better tomorrow, had fucking died after a few years of getting a small taste of that evil.
Kirei, on the other hand, didn't even have a heart. Kiritsugu blew it out with that fancy gun of his. For the past ten years, Kirei had been kept alive with my curses. My curses themselves were frightful and cruel things. They were every single vile thought and word spoken by humans since humans first learned how to hate each other, which was right at the start. Humans were very fragile creatures that often broke under their own negativity. Kirei, on the other hand, embraced it. He loved it. The thought of other people suffering, or in pain, or just being generally unhappy was a balm to his soul.
That was the reason he was still alive. I don't think he was sane, but Kirei wasn't sane long before I got my hands on him.
"You want to save the world," Kirei remarked as I crouched in front of him. There was a far away look in his eyes. Like he found an answer to a question that he had tried to answer for years. "The Source of All Evil wants to save something."
I gave Kirei an even look before I started tearing off his sleeve, finding his arm to be covered in Command Seals. Saber gasped lightly when she saw them. There were over thirty Command Seals flowing up his arm. All of them were left overs from previous Grail Wars, where the war ended with Command Seals that went unused. Instead of that mana going back to the Grail, it went to the mediator.
"I am evil," Kirei told me, earning a snort of laughter as I took his hand. I was getting prepared to rip it off of him, but he chose to give them up willingly. They flowed over his hand and into me through our skin contact. The truth carved into my flesh shifted so the command seals could be seen plainly as they flowed up to my shoulder. "I have accepted this for a long time… Do you recall what we spoke of?"
I did. "You were right," I told him. "A person's true nature is unchangeable. Experience and growth means that they learn to hide who they really are. People that think they have changed just learned how to believe the lie to the point they saw it as the truth."
That earned a faint smile from Kirei, "Is that so? I had wondered if I might have been wrong. I had wondered what you would be if you had been reborn into this world. Could you have changed? Even if it was just a lie? Could I have changed?" He wondered, and he really was going to risk the entire planet to sate his own curiosity. A grand experiment to see if he would always be a joyless fellow that could only find pleasure in other people's suffering.
"I think you could have lied to yourself a bit better. You tried some things -- like getting married while denying yourself things you knew you would enjoy. But, given your position, you faced constant temptation to revel in the suffering you inflicted," I told him, checking out my Command Seals. They shifted in form, reminding me of the paint that Persian warriors sometimes wore back in the day. Symbols and designs meant to frighten the enemy. "You might have had a chance if you left the church. Maybe check into a mental health facility and start chugging down pills. Maybe get a zap or three to the brain."
I stood up, giving Kirei, my favorite person in this world, one last lingering look. "You were at a crossroads when I got my hands on you. You had been perfectly poised to change and embrace the lie. Once you were bathed in my curses though... you never stood a chance. Any evil deed you've committed is my doing. You were just a tool for me."
Kirei gave me a small smile. The first honest one that he might have given in his entire life, "I see. Angra Mainyu… in that case… I had a great deal of fun being your tool," he said, his vision growing distant as the curses that kept him alive to this point flowed out of his chest and back into me.
Ah… Kirei. You really were a treat. I glanced over my shoulder at Saber, knowing that she was considering running me through with Excalibur and taking the Command Seals. I didn't blame her. Not when I was whispering that temptation in her ear. Her gaze flickered up at me, and I gave her a reassuring smile that made her eyes narrow to slits in response. "Come on, we have one last thing we need to do here."
The basement.
I thought it had been hilarious as Angra Mainyu. It had been the perfect solution really. Kirei needed mana to support Gilgamesh, Kirei needed to be entertained, and the kids that were orphaned by the fire caused by my curses spilling out into the world… well, no one gave a shit about them. Sure, everyone felt bad about an orphans poor dead parents, but if they actually cared then the brats wouldn't be in an orphanage, now would they? They'd have new parents that weren't a couple of corpses.
However, something clenched in my stomach when we descended into the basement and I saw them. Something that was me, the real me, and not Angra Mainyu. The joke of it all was lost on me. And I was glad. I was probably the happiest I had been in thousands of years and I indulged in that feeling of disgust for this sight of hell. Of kids that had been tortured into insanity over the past decade.
"They only lasted ten years," I remarked, as I stepped forward, leaving a horrified Saber behind. "Brats don't have nothing on me. I was tortured way worse, and I didn't go completely insane until my late sixties. Full fifty years. And I kept going into my late nineties. They just don't make kids like they used to." They all had vacant looks in their eyes, retreating so far inside of themselves it was like they were dead already.
I slashed one's throat, making Saber jump. "You-"
"This is a kindness, Saber," I told her, taking the knife that had been used to torture the kids and moving to the next child. "Take it from me. I wish someone had just slit my throat and been done with it. On the bright side, if any of them were destined for hell, they've already gotten a taste of it, so they’ll know what to expect." Saber didn't respond, just watching in silence as I freed the kids from their personal hells and shuffled them off this mortal coil. I had been worshiped as a god, but I wasn’t one. Even still, I had some pull with the afterlife.
The kids were going to their own paradises. Any sin that they committed in life was my doing, thus the responsibility was mine. I gave their souls a get out of jail free card when I freed them from the mortal plane that they could cash in at whatever paradise awaited them. Just to make sure they weren't turned away at those pearly gates for some dumb shit. Saber watched me carefully, her hands clenched into fists. I could feel the anger boiling in her chest. As much as I liked Kirei, my favorite psychopath, I always respected people like Saber.
Her evils were many. Because of her actions, she stood on top of a mountain of corpses. If she really was the King that she wanted to be, then she should have just let Mordred rule or something. A lot less people would have suffered untimely deaths.
But, for all of her mistakes, Saber would have happily changed places with her subjects if she could. She would take all of their sufferings onto herself.
Saber was a martyr more than a king. Personally, I think my job would be a lot less horrible if there were more martyrs than kings in the world.
"What do you intend to do now, Angra Mainyu?" Saber questioned me as I freed the last child from their suffering. If there was any justice in this world, their next life would be less shitty. But then again, I'm pretty sure my continued existence proved that there was no justice in this world. To her question, I shrugged and set the knife aside as she leveled her holy sword at me.
Excalibur. That thing had killed way more impressive things than me. If I got bathed in it's holy light…?
"First? I'm gonna go check on Majima and shove Avalon in him. I like that guy," I said, stepping past Saber with little care. That wasn't entirely true. Angra Mainyu was ambivalent at best, but the real me had cared. That was enough to convince me to take action. Humans were pretty weak, and getting their insides blown out tended to end in a quick death. Meaning that time was short. "Go fetch Shirou and bring him to me," I told her, heading up the stairs.
I felt Saber's frustration and her pain. I think she had cared more about me than I expected, but the anger she felt for me felt like grief. At least she understood. The pieces of me that she saw were vastly overshadowed by my curse. I wish it wasn't the case, but it was.
Heading outside, I grabbed my jacket and shirt and took out my phone. Looking up where the nearest hospital was, I set out. Saber didn't leave the church for a long time as far as I could tell, using that time to process what had transpired. I could say the same for myself as I made my way back into the city.
My head felt like a mess. The world was a lot bigger in the modern age. Way back in my day, there was less than half a billion people on the face of the planet. A century ago, when I had been summoned as Avenger, there had been a couple billion. Now, less than a century later, and the human population had found a way to double. It was honestly pretty sickening.
I made my way through the streets, looking through new eyes at just how much the world had changed in such a short amount of time. The air smelled cleaner, the roads were no longer made of dirt, there seemed to be a car for every person in the city… more than that, people were suddenly caring about issues that humanity as a whole hadn't given a shit about before. Everything was about rights and personal autonomy. All because a couple of big bombs had been dropped and as horrible as the world was, it was far more peaceful than the previous eras I had lived in.
The hospital was easy to make out because of the veritable wall of Yakuza that guarded the entrance. They were angry. They wanted to hurt someone to vent their frustrations. It was pretty pathetic, but that was just human nature. My approach was anything but unnoticed, the Yakuza gaping at me as I approached. I didn't break stride as the distance closed between us, a lazy smile on my face while I idly bounced Majima's bat on my shoulder.
The Yakuza stepped out of my way. They sensed the truth as I passed by them. As much as I whispered in their ears to attack me to vent their frustrations, they knew I would kill them. The only thing more powerful than a human's need for senseless violence was their instinct of self-preservation. Most of the time, at least. So, they stepped out of the way, letting me walk to the hospital entrance, where doctors and patients alike gaped at the Yakuza inside and outside the hospital.
The doors slid open for me, and I approached the help desk. A mortified-looking nurse eyed me, at the truth written on my flesh, and my disarming smile didn't seem to help much. "I'm looking for a Goro Majima. He should have come in a few minutes ago with a bad stomach wound. Could ya' tell me if he's dead or not?" I asked her, and in response, the woman just gaped at me. I waited for a few seconds, her mouth opening and closing like a fish desperate for air… "Right. Very helpful. I'll just find him myself, I guess." With that, I walked past the help desk and into the hospital itself.
It smelled like chemicals and dead people. Not a particularly fragrant mix. The halls were mostly empty except for the Yakuza that let me on my way. I closed my eyes and listened closely to the vile evil desires within the hospital.
With so many humans on the planet, it was hard to hear myself think. Some eight billion humans and every single one of them was either thinking an evil thought or doing an evil deed. But, if I focused, I could hear the whispers I uttered in people's ears in my immediate surroundings instead of a concert of noise. I searched for Majima, looking for the greatest amount of resentment from those that would have been allowed to wait outside his operating room while the surgeons tried to put his insides back inside.
I found those whispers easily enough. It was on the ground floor, the emergency surgery suite. Heading to it, I saw a number of somewhat familiar faces. They seemed shocked to see me as I took a seat, the red light hovering above the door marking that the surgery was in progress. They said nothing to me, so I paid them the same courtesy.
It was a unique experience, I thought, waiting for Saber to retrieve Avalon. To be worried about the existence of someone else. It was something distinctly not Angra Mainyu. Something that was purely me. If I was capable of it, I think I might have cried at feeling something other than hate for the first time in more than a millennia.
"Majima?!" I heard someone shout, making me look over to see that it was Nobara. She was breathing harshly, looking at me with wide eyes. Rin was following up behind her, having slowed down the moment that she saw me. I felt something stir in my chest, but it was pushed down too quickly for me to determine what. Then I was distracted by Shirou pulling up the rear, his face bloodless when he saw me.
Avalon was in his hands, so I stood up. Rin took a step forward, "Majima, Archer said that you died, and…" she trailed off, watching me walk by her to take Avalon from Shirou.
"Sorry about faking you out with the whole brothers thing," I told him, making his expression wilt. "Mikoto Majima did exist, but you were honestly better off not knowing him. Thanks for Avalon," I said, taking it from him before heading back to the surgery room. All three of them were in a stunned silence, right up until I kicked open the doors.
I saw Majima laying on the table, a half dozen people around him, with cameras from a dozen angles showing the damage done to his insides. They were doing their best, I saw as they all were so focused on saving his life that they didn't do much as flinch at my entrance. But, given how much death I had wrought on humanity, it was blatantly clear to me that Majima was a dead man.
"Excuse me, pardon me," I said, grabbing a doctor and yanking him away. He fell on his ass, and that made the others realize that I was here.
"You-" they started, only to be cut off in awe as I shove Avalon into Majima. It dissipated into golden light, and almost instantly, his heart monitor and vitals became stronger. I checked them for a moment before nodding to myself, satisfied with this outcome, and started to march back out of the surgery room.
The others were gathered outside, getting weird looks from the Yakuza. But, when I stepped across the threshold, they all looked at me. "Now we can talk. How about we head home, yeah?"
I didn't give them a choice because I was already walking.
…
"You're Angra Mainyu," Rin stated, eyeing me like a coiled snake. We sat around Shirou's dinner table -- me, Rin, Nobara, Shirou, and Illiya. The three remaining Servants were standing around, Saber, Rider, and Archer. All three of them were planning to kill the other two. It was natural -- the alliance had reached the point that it was no longer needed.
I nodded, "Yes, I said as much." I gave them a rundown, but most of it was self-evident -- the deal Mikoto Majima made with me, how I screwed him out of the body I had given him, and the cold hard truth. "Plan A didn't work out. Plan B is pretty simple -- if there are no people for me to influence to be evil, then there will be no evil. Thus, I will be free."
"Your plan is monstrous," Rin pointed out, slamming a hand on the table for dramatic effort. She was glaring harshly at me. I had seen that gaze before, countless times. Grief and anger. Rin really was way too good a person to be a magus. All it took was a day for me to work myself into one of her soft spots, and now… she wanted me to be the same man that had done so effortlessly.
"Literally the Source of All Evil," I reminded, making a face. "The only person that can make a wish is me -- I've polluted the Grail too much for it to be repaired. The only way that it doesn't cause massive damage when the wish is made is if I'm the one behind the steering wheel, so to speak." I continued, laying down the cold hard truth. Like it or not, all the cards were in my grubby little hands.
Shirou looked at me. There was anger there, my influence, but it didn't take root. "You caused the fire ten years ago."
I nodded, "I did." The rest of the room shifted at the admission, but not Shirou.
"Why?" He asked me, his tone… earnest. It wasn't a demand, it was an honest question. Though, I suspected that his full reaction would be decided by my answer.
"Kirei wanted to be left alone, so I killed everyone in a hundred-yard radius," I answered bluntly, not shying away from the truth. Rin scowled at that while Nobara seemed let down. I don't know what either of them were expecting.
"Why?" Shirou pressed, and I guess I misunderstood his question. There was an intensity in his eyes that scared the hell out of me. Honestly, Shirou scared the hell out of me. The guy was downright freaky. It was all because Angra Mainyu couldn't understand Shirou. There was pain at what had been lost, but no rage or hate. In Angra Mainyu's eyes, Shirou was a damn near blank rather than an actual person.
"Because I hate humans," I answered without shame.
"Because of what they did to you?" Shirou pressed, looking for a satisfying answer. Another annoying habit of humanity. Sometimes they looked for answers that weren't there while ignoring the truth -- the reason why terrible things happened in their lives was that humans were terrible. Maybe not all of them, and whether they deserved it or not was a non-issue -- the reason bad things happened was that humans made bad things happen.
And the reason they made bad things happen was that they were practically helpless against my influence.
"Those scars…" he trailed off, and… that was part of the reason why Angra Mainyu was afraid of Shirou. The guy was pitying me. It was like he wasn't human. I might hate humans, but at the very least I understood them.
"Meh," I dismissed his concern with a sense of unease. "I hate humans, but there's nothing personal about it. Because of my curse, at the end of the day, everything you see written was self-inflicted. I'm the one that tempted my village's hands -- it's a retrograde curse. I'm the origin of all Evil, therefore, I existed before I was born. Me becoming Angra Mainyu was a mere formality." And that sure was a kick in the dick.
Archer looked like he couldn't have cared less if he tried. Saber and Rider, however, had some mixed reactions. Saber frowned deeply, but I think Rider emphasized. She shouldn't. In the end, I was the one that made her a monster. Rin was fuming mad, but there wasn't an outlet for it and her anger was directionless. Nobara gave me an even look, seeming to just… accept what was going on. Shirou, on the other hand, simply nodded.
"Okay. Do you know how to break your curse? Can we help?" He questioned and… yeah, the guy was terrifying. Seriously, what was wrong with him? How utterly fucked in the head do you have to be to want to help the guy that murdered your family on a whim and sentenced him to walk in that hell? Rin and Nobara seemed a bit surprised, but Saber wore an odd, slight smile. As if she were proud of Shirou in her own way. Did Sakura have competition? That wouldn't do at all.
I scratched my cheek, not looking the crazy guy in the eyes. "I have a couple of ideas?" I muttered, not expecting this. I was prepared for holy swords being swung in my direction. Instead, I was being offered help with little preamble. "They involve the Holy Grail, though."
"So you say," Archer spoke up, his tone unyielding as he regarded me coldly. Him, I could look in the eyes. Archer was a far saner version of Shirou, a fact that I picked up on because of how badly Archer wanted to kill the friendly lunatic. "But we have nothing to go on but your word. What's to say that you won't use the wish to complete what you started ten years ago? Are you really asking us to trust your intentions, Source of All Evil?"
Rin gave him a sharp look, "Archer-"
"No. I have tolerated your whims so far, but not with this. I will not allow you to risk the planet and all of humanity because you're thinking with your vagina," Archer interjected, and he was going to make quick work of me. A nice and clean beheading. Rin sputtered while I threw up my hands in a gesture of mocking surrender.
"I win no matter what," I told him, my tone blunt. "I'm just a sample cup for what's swimming in the Holy Grail. You kill me, and nothing changes. There's still going to be a me clinging to the Holy Grail. So, do what you want." I said, giving him an easy smile that was all teeth.
Archer narrowed his eyes, but it was Nobara that spoke up. "Majima," she said, catching my attention, "You're hiding something. What is it?"
I was. There could only be one Angra Mainyu. Meaning that when the Holy Grail was summoned, and it was time to make a wish, one of two things would happen -- either the Angra Mainyu in the Holy Grail would become me… or I would become the Angra Mainyu in the Holy Grail. Majima, the crumbling foundation that he was, could be absorbed and reduced to nothing. Leaving me only Angra Mainyu and the embodiment of the void.
Right now, I had absolutely no clue what would happen.
"Plan C," I told her, and Nobara searched my eyes for a long minute. She reached a conclusion. Whatever it was, it didn't involve murdering me. Which was something of a surprise. Simply put, killing me was the best option, though it wouldn’t impact me much either. It would just mean that I would rejoin the lemon wedge version of myself, and either way, I would have my wish. Just with or without a body.
Nobara nodded, "Okay. You look like Majima when he had his mind set on something. That's good enough for me."
"Not enough for me-" Archer began, only for Rin to hold up a hand.
"You're forbidden from killing Majima," Rin said, her Command Seals flashing before one faded, leaving her with two. Archer looked absolutely livid for a moment, openly glaring at Rin, who glared right back. Saber and Rider stood off to the side, both seemingly uncertain on which side to pick.
I tilted my head, "I didn't think I earned that much trust from you," I remarked.
Rin scowled at me, "You haven't. Unlike my Servant, I understand that you're in a win-win scenario, no matter what we do. The only way we could win is to let the ritual fail, and that would only stop you another ten years, if not more, and then you can try again. There's no guarantee that we can dismantle the Holy Grail system within that time or if we would be allowed to by the Mage Association. However, if you are being honest, then helping you is the best chance of getting the desired result -- a clean Holy Grail."
Lies. Rin wrapped it up rather nicely, and there was a kernel of truth there, but her words were lies. Simply put, she was risking the world on the off chance that I was being genuine.
She really was a terrible magus.
"If you say so," I agreed, surprised that my head would be remaining on my shoulders. "In that case, I'm going to need a couple of things. Where's Sakura and Illyasviel?" I asked, standing up. I already knew, but they didn't know that I knew.
Shirou narrowed his eyes ever so slightly, so he was at least suspicious of me. "They're down the hall in one of the guest rooms," he started, "Why do you need them?"
"They have a catalyst needed to summon the Holy Grail," I answered. There was one in Illyasviel and in Sakura, the latter of which had been tainted by me. "I also need one other thing," I said, stopping to glance over my shoulder. "The Holy Grail only becomes visible when there are two Servants left. I need one of you three to die. I'll leave it up to you to decide which one of you goes."
Leaving a wake of silence behind me, I made my way down the hall where I felt two people that I was whispering dark thoughts to. Opening the door, I saw it was Sakura, who sat beside a rather fucked up looking Shinji -- muttering to himself in his sleep as he twitched, haunted by nightmares. Shinji was a pretty generic piece of shit. I couldn’t remember guiding him even if I tried, but I remembered Zouken. That guy was a real piece of work.
Something that had amused me once. It didn’t any longer.
I closed the door behind me, meeting Sakura’s surprised gaze. I cast a look at Shinji, his eyes sunken into his sweaty skin, his alabaster white hair clinging to his forehead. Coming to a stop at the foot of his bed, I tilted my head. “No one would blame you, you know,” I told her, uttering the same words that were tempting her into action. An action that she suppressed. “Shinji deserves it. Suffering doesn’t rectify evil done onto others.”
Justice was a laughable lie. Making them ‘repent’ for evil deeds was just passive-aggressive vengeance. Good and evil weren’t a set of scales where you could rack up enough good deeds to balance out an evil committed. That evil would always be there, it’s damage done everlasting. How much that person suffered for committing that evil didn’t magically undo that evil.
“That doesn’t make it okay,” Sakura told me, her hands no longer working to peel the apple that she was preparing for Shinji. A knife that she was battling the temptation to drag across his throat for countless rapes. For years of abuse. Things that… were my fault, in the end. There were countless victims across the world because of my influence. Most of them didn’t bother me. Not really. It was the same lack of care that people gave for the poor brats that worked in a building with a net around the roof to keep them from escaping having to build another phone or make more brand name clothing.
However, it was a lot harder to ignore when I had one of my greatest victims sitting before me.
“Who cares about right and wrong? I think it would make you feel better,” I told her in all honesty. In response to that, Sakura gave me a small smile. As if she were thanking me for the concern.
“I want to be the person that Senpai sees me as,” Sakura gave me her answer, solidifying her resolve, and at that moment, I knew that I could never corrupt her. She wouldn’t ever be influenced by my taint. Not without bathing her in my curses and driving her insane. Maybe not even then. Angra Mainyu coiled like a viper in my chest, rejecting the notion outright.
Yet, Majima found comfort in that fact.
“Huh… That guy has no clue that you’re way out of his league,” I decided, letting out a sigh of defeat. A defeat that felt so much like a victory, no matter how small.
That feeling quickly vanished when the alarm rang, alerting me to someone entering the bounded field. I closed my eyes, and this time when I sighed, it didn’t feel anywhere near as joyous. After all, it looked like the decision wouldn’t be up to any of the Servants.
Not when Gilgamesh was here.
