Latest Update:July 6, 2023
Summary: An unlikely Master summons a Servant beyond the present world's understanding, starting a series of events that would become the basis of a legend. (-A reimagining of the original Birth of a Legend)
Link: https://m.fanfiction.net/s/13767800/1/Birth-of-a-Legend-V2
Word Count:112k
Chapters:26
Chapter 1: Prologue
[No matter how long it takes, surely in the end, the divide between you and I will close.]
The years that have gone by are nothing more than distant memories born from a necessity found in the selfish wishes of stubborn and idealistic individuals.
[I have no regrets.]
The times we've spent together; the times we shared in each other's company; even our moment of parting, is remembered vividly here at the end.
[How many years has it been?]
An impossible dream had long since reached the end of its conclusion and became immortalized as Legend: A Hero of the modern era had ascended to a realm where most considered impossible in a world where a Hero was no longer defined by their skill in combat. In this era of information, miraculous feats and even miracles are quickly criticized as a hoax.
Unlike the old glories, no one in the present era truly believes in the wonders and mysteries of myth anymore.
The man who'd stopped a civil war; the man who'd trekked through a dessert to provide aid for the needy; the man who'd saved the lives of hundreds wherever he went; this idealist of a man was never so much as remembered enough to have a name as he wandered across the globe.
A Nameless Hero.
[Fame? Recognition? It was never about that.]
There was only one truth known to a scant few belying the true motivations and goals of the Nameless Hero: A promise to fulfill even after he had grown exhausted in the pursuit of his dream.
He who searches tirelessly, and she who waits beyond even the confines of time…
[Where was the promised miracle?]
As one life passes in one world, the possibilities begin in another, changing the lives and fates of all.
-O prophesized King of the End, you are not the Strongest Steel.
For any normal person, an ordinary life is often taken for granted; however, for a select few, it's a privilege.
An unordinary girl in her senior year of High School sighed wistfully while running down a narrow street near the Fuyuki area of Japan to avoid an onset of rain. It was late in the afternoon, the skies already darkening.
The girl wore a blue sailor-top school uniform secured with a red ribbon and a matching skirt that reached to her midthighs. Her eyes were of a deep teal while the contours of her face were framed by wheat-coloured bangs and a stubborn ahoge that dangled over her forehead.
At present, the twinkle in her eyes was rather subdued as she ran into a gang of a dozen delinquents loitering in the area near her home.
Okay, okay. Play it cool, she inwardly reminded herself. This was different from before. She was trying to change. She stepped forward. "Hey-"
"I-It's the Lion of Fuyuki!"
The group of truant students all noticed her at the same time and immediately froze in place at the sight of her. One had even tripped over herself and scrambled to get back onto her feet with the assistance of her friends who already looked moments away from bolting.
Her expression stiffened, a hand going dangerously close to the handle of the wrapped Katana she was carrying against her shoulder. She was part of the kendo club at Homurahara and she took her sword everywhere out of a force of habit.
"Oi," her tone sounded frigid as her annoyance momentarily got the better of her. "I think we're having a misunderstanding. What Lion of Fuyuki? Aren't I just an ordinary girl?" She sounded almost hopeful by the end, the palms of her hand growing clammy from nervousness.
Silence was her only answer before a trembling finger was pointed at her by a boy that she distinctly remembered had once tried to pick a fight with her. Unfortunately, she took it as a challenge rather than the threat it was and proceeded to systematically annihilate him as her competitive spirit got the best of her. She never saw him again ever since until now.
"Run! She's playing mind games!"
The entire crowd shoved against each other to flee from her at that instant, the reputation she'd built up once again rearing its ugly head.
"No wait! Whhhyy!" She called out desperately.
Naturally, no one listened to her.
"How manly," a few passing school girls were staring at her with stars in their eyes. To them, it was just another scene of the famed Lion of Fuyuki exerting her charisma against wayward opponents.
Manly? No-No not again! The girl carrying a Katana in broad daylight wilted at the words directed at her, her lips pursing and brow crinkling. She felt like sulking alone in a corner again.
Her name was Arturia Pendragon, daughter of Gawain and sister to Lancelot, Kay, and her younger brother Bedivere. (Search: 'Master Arturia' for details.)
She was a serious person, and tackled all challenges as if facing a sworn enemy. This was why she often clashed with Kay as she could never get used to her older brother's antics. More importantly, she'd come to understand that she was viewed as more of a man than a girl after a moment of reflection about her current life. It didn't help that she'd adopted the male-speech patterns of her family.
It came to the point that she'd become increasingly self-conscious of her image when the ever-sensible Lancelot pointed out that she'd scare away any future husband with her current track record.
She was the Lion of Fuyuki. A 'manly man' who would never back down from a challenge and whose soft and admittedly beautiful demeanor instantly changes the moment she wields her sword.
Covering her face with her hands, she slumped her shoulders. "Lets just go home," she mumbled weakly. Was it too much to strive for some semblance of an ordinary life? She still had plenty of assignments to do for school, but a freak accident had caused Homurahara to close for the year meaning classes were temporarily suspended.
As it was, she'd been arranged to study her last year of high school in a school known as Jounan Academy. It was some sort of prestigious school near Fuyuki in the city over that would have to serve as a substitute to Homurahara.
Arturia still couldn't wrap her mind around how a freak lightning storm had caused extensive damage to Homurahara in a single day while all the other buildings nearby were relatively fine.
Honestly, some things about the world she lived in were just strange. Mysterious happenings were all conveniently explained away by a 'reasonable' explanation just like the incident at Homurahara. It was almost like some big cover up that no one was supposed to know.
In any case, it wasn't like she was going to share her thoughts on a potential conspiracy theory. What mattered now was getting home.
At this point, she could never have had imagined that the small delay she had on her way home would shape the very nature of her future and set her on a path of discovery.
"I'm home," she called out after pushing open the front door of her house.
No one greeted her as she soon found the house to be empty. Her father was out at work and the shoes of her brothers were still missing meaning that they were likely still outside somewhere.
It was rather odd though. There should have been at least one person home today.
Merlin, a dear family friend and rather eccentric writer of 'Magi Mari,' should have been around. Was he still in the shed?
The last she could recall of Merlin, the man had been going off on a tangent about a new work of literature heed dubbed "Fate/Stay Night," before he'd commandeered the shed.
Merlin had made it explicitly clear for no one to bother him in that flippant manner the skirt chaser often used when wooing women, and for once, Arturia felt indebted to the man. Of course, this had everything to do with the implication that Merlin was treating her as a woman and not as a man like everyone else.
She'd been increasingly sensitive to this issue as of late, but moving on.
The shed door was wide open, and not closed meaning that it was likely okay to use the shed again, but this posed the question of where Merlin was?
The man was an eccentric, but she was more than willing to bet about just why the man had up and left.
On her way to the shed, Arturia eyed a small note on a side table in Merlin's unique penmanship.
'The Foreigner I had a one-night stand with knows I was here. She's teamed up with Alaya and Gaia and they're out for blood. Pray for me~…I'm gonna die, aren't I?'
Arturia grunted and crumpled the note before tossing it into a garbage bin. "Typical Merlin," she shook her head ruefully. "Always running away from a woman he's scorned." One day it's going to end up getting him trapped in an ivory tower of his own making as nowhere else in the world would be safe.
Looking around at the half-finished meal on the dining room, it would seem that Merlin had just left recently to avoid a homicide.
With the issue solved, Arturia hung her school bag on a coat rack and made her way to the shed. She'd left her polishing equipment down there and her katana was in need of some maintenance after a recent scuffle.
Walking passed the sliding doors leading to the shed, she hummed after noticing the odd magic circles and archaic patterns Merlin had drawn on paper and left scattered in the shed. It likely had something to do with the inspiration he had about how the magic system would work in his new novel. For inspiration, Merlin had drawn everything out according to his own creativity.
For all of Merlin's skirt chasing, in some ways, one can't deny his proficiency when he actually worked hard on something.
Still, magic is make-believe, a concept readily accepted by modern society. Magic wouldn't be helping her get out of a fight, now would it?
Without another care, Arturia entered the shed and ignored the vast majority of magic circles and patterns Merlin had drawn. Subsequently, she failed to notice the large magic circle drawn in chalk hiding beneath numerous papers over the floor.
Instead, as she rummaged through a storage crate for her sword polish, she furrowed her brows in consternation when she saw a piece of paper Merlin had written in bold. He hardly ever writes in bold, and she had to admit that although 'Magi Mari' had never been endearing to her, Merlin was a good writer.
Curious, she picked up the paper to peruse through it, marking the beginning of everything.
"Let silver and steel be the essence. Let stone and the archduke of contracts be the foundation?"
Wind began to blow from outside, drawing in dark clouds that roiled with tendrils of lightning. It was unnatural, something beyond ordinary, and it immediately garnered the attention of the supernatural community of Japan.
Odd coincidences and parallels lined up all at once; the 'story' Merlin had thought up of in his genius, perfectly mirroring the actual laws and workings of another world. So long as the base foundations were properly set, even a normal human can actualize, not magic, but magecraft.
"Let grey be the color I pay tribute to. Let rise a wall against the wind that shall fall. Let the four cardinal gates close."
The hidden magic circle written on the floor began to shine, its sigils beginning to thrum.
In this world, magic was born from borrowing the Authority derived from legends, but in this instance, a magic from another world was being invoked. In turn, rather than clash against each other, the laws were melding to suit the current world's standards as a basis.
Heroic Spirits of myth and legend didn't exist, but their closest equivalent in this world did.
"Let the three-forked road form the crown reaching unto the Kingdom."
From the distant Throne of Heroes, he who sought for a miracle in endless search heard the call.
"I shall attain all virtues of all Heaven and have dominion over all evils of all Hell?" Arturia continued to read aloud.
Thunder roared, the clouds above swirling around a central point of budding golden light unseen to ordinary people due to the frantic efforts of the History Compilation Committee of Japan, a Magic Association.
…And the skies break asunder.
An unseen magical explosion rocketed across the horizon of Japan felt throughout the globe. Seven heads looked up to the heavens; several Mage Associations prepared for the worst.
A Heretic God different from any other would descend in what would be documented as the single most violent magical surge to mark the arrival of a figure of legend.
"From the Seventh Heaven, attended to by three great words of power, come forth from the ring of restraint, protector of the holy balance-"
BANG!
Arturia was knocked off her feet, tendrils of magical light originating from the magic circle on the ground singing the entirety of the shed's interior. At the same time, the anomaly above Japan felt throughout the world vanished as if it were never there.
Groaning, Arturia blearily realized that she was no longer alone in the shed. Across from her stood a tall red-haired man wearing a mantle of red, black body armour, and matching combat trousers. Pushing away several burnt pieces of paper over her head, she stared face to face with deep bronze-coloured eyes that captivated her into stillness; an indescribable wave of emotion flickering across the man's features the moment that their gazes met.
The man's mouth opened then closed, before he shook his head and decided on a more important question in a sudden reversal of roles.
"I ask of you, are you my Master?"
Let the legend of a Nameless Hero in another world begin.
-An utterly clueless Arturia stammering for a response was a first for everything.
Link: https://m.fanfiction.net/s/13767800/1/Birth-of-a-Legend-V2