Ashes

The Incoming Hell

Chapter 6

The Incoming Hell

If a man cuts an intangible thing, a concept with no form, what makes this man? A monster? A god?

If a man cuts destiny, an intangible thing does that makes him the devil?

If a man fights for what he protects rather than what he sees before him, is he not heroic?

The world runs on a balance and it does not run on morality.

It runs on the most primal instinct... Survival.

Catastrophes that threatened to end humanity were taken care of by Alaya... And catastrophes that threatened to end the planet were taken care of by Gaia...

Yet, in recent times these two primordial concepts clashed as humanity paved the way to the destruction of the planet. Magic, magecraft, science, and WMDs all of which were created or utilized by humanity.

And their greatest sin? The sin that made all of these transgressions against the planet merely a slight?

The summoning of Ichigo Kurosaki as Berserker in the Fifth Holy Grail War.

A being whose existence should not have existed, whose very presence paves the way for the utter destruction of both humanity and the planet. For when destiny and fate are severed, the path becomes obscured to the governing concepts.

When a concept such as Alaya, who embodies the will of humanity's survival, sees the path where it does not know... Its response will always be human: fear and yet, curiosity.

Then when a concept such as Gaia, who embodies the will of the planet, sees an abomination against the nature of a foreign yet familiar planet... Its response is animalistic: Territorial.

Berserker should have died to Lancer's spear... His fight with Sakura Matou weakening her so much that when she feasted on Gilgamesh, it hardly filled her.

This rampant unfulfilled hunger would eventually lead her to die at the hands of Shirou Emiya... Or to be saved by him... Or saved by her sister... Or by Rider... Or by-

Yet, Berserker cut this fate and the eyes of the worldly concepts.

For Zangetsu is the blade that had cut down the worldly concepts men called fate, the expansion time, isolation of dimensions, the recipe of creation, the mapping soul, and causality.

How can they not be afraid?

-

"The holy grail war is certainly a marvel, is it not? Even the Moon Cell has taken interest in the concept in almost all of the realities," an elderly man asked to seemingly no one as he sat on a leather chair, comfortably sitting by a fire. "So many possibilities, so many outcomes from just a mere action of summoning."

"Yet, this reality is unique, is it not?" the elderly man's voice echoed in the man's head. His mind seemingly conversing with himself. "For it is the only one where Ichigo Kurosaki fully demonstrated why he is the shatterer of fate... And the Devil who defied God."

"Indeed... The incoming events will be a truly beautiful sight to behold."

-

Berserker was pouting, that what Illyasviel ascertain from observing the behaviors of her servant.

It can be found in its change of behaviors, from random flexing of its power to more minuscule oddities such as a tiny bit more intense stare.