Fate/Reverb

"Nooooooooo!" A young-looking girl was chasing down a man with a ponytail, arms stretched out. This young girl was dressed in a black robe and a pink skirt, chasing down a blue jump-suited thief! The man had her book and she wanted it back. "Give it back, give it back!" She cries out to him, begging for his mercy. "Chuuuuu, give it!"

"Come and get it!" Their feet clattered down the gold-gilded halls of Akasha, decorated with beautiful pillars and paintings of the heroes that lived there. The floors were made of beautiful marble. Most importantly, each room in the hall was guarded by an immovable door, only opening for those authorized to do so. "ARTURIAAAAAAAA! CHU STOLE MY BOOK AGAIN!" In the blink of an eye, the King of Knights appeared in front of the two of them. The young girl tripped on herself and fell flat on her face while trying to stop in her tracks. She bumped into Arturia's metal boot, while the man was punched in the face and fell on his ass.

"Hello, there, LANCER." Her steely green eyes shot through the man's hart like Gae Bolg, and he immediately stood back up from his stupor and stammered, looking for an excuse.

Chu, as the young girl called him, immediately blanched. "I'm sorry, Olive! Have your book back!" He dropped the heavy tome to her feet, and apologized to Arturia many times, backing up and running away. "DON'T KILL MEEEEEEEEEE!" Arturia reached down to Olivi, picking her up and dusting her off.

"Don't worry about him, Olivi... He's just jealous that someone as cute as you could exist." Oddly enough, Arturia was shorter than Olivi, as she reached to pinch her cheeks. Arturia looked noble and strong, unlike the girl standing in front of her, flushing red. She thought of the long-haired blonde as a little sister, almost. After all, she was getting bullied by all the other heroic spirits and had to save her sorry ass every time, but she loved doing it as much as everyone else loved picking on her. The other casters were the only ones to really help her out as well, while...

"ISKANDER, YOU GET BACK HERE." A chariot-riding buffoon rode and swiped the book away, causing Olivi to start tearing up again.

"I was just kidding..." He threw the book back, Arturia caught the book midair, and handed the book back to the shy little girl. Suddenly, a light enveloped Olivi. The King of Knights gasped, this wasn't supposed to EVER happen again. It was, though, and she didn't want to tell Olivi and worry her.

"Arturia... what's happening?" Olivi was terrified, what if she was being eaten? OR even worse, teleported somewhere without food?

"I don't know, Olivi..." A blatant lie escaped her mouth. She knew EXACTLY what was happening, and hugged her. "Don't worry, everything's gonna be fine..." She grabbed a quill from her armor's chestplate and pulled Olivi into her room, dipping it into some ink. Quickly, she laid down the book and opened it, writing three words down, and handed it to her. By now, Olivi was shining, almost as if she was about to disappear. "Don't worry, sweetie, everything's gonna be alright..."

"Tell everyone I lo-"

Just like that, she was gone.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Grail looked at its accomplice. SE.RA.PH whirred evilly, creating rooms for everyone about to be involved in the last war of its kind, at least, hopefully. One wish is all it will take. One wish.

SE.RA.PH had other ideas, however. Manipulating data was all it knew how to do, and it wasn't going to stop now! Each person entering this space was going to have some reason to make a wish, and it wasn't what the Grail wanted at all. SE.RA.PH made sure of it. A creepy robotic voice emitted from SE.RA.PH, saying only one thing over and over again.

"SIXTH HEAVEN'S FEEL... COMMENCE."

Sehiro calmly approached the last man standing amongst the inert bodies of his fellows. The mobster was trembling, sweat pouring from his skin, as he held his face in his hands, body rocking to-and-fro in a panicked state of denial.

Turning his panicked eyes toward Sehiro’s approaching figure, he began mumbling in an unstable undertone, attempting to address the man who had singlehandedly wiped out his street gang.

“Hey… hey c’mon man. We didn’t do shit to you! I mean, sure we ain’t saints, but that don’t give ya the right to beat the shit outta us! I mean, who the fuck d’ya think you are? Fucking batman? And what's up with that kooky mask, man? Ya think you're some short of bigshot vigilante, beatin' up the bad guys?"

The closer Sehiro got, the louder the gangster talked, fear oozing in his voice, poorly masked with fake bravery. Eventually, he was yelling in a hoarse, desperate tonality, foolishly hoping that Sehiro would spare him the fate of his friends. He slowly stopped rocking and stared straight into Sehiro’s iron mask, blnd defiance replacing fear for nothing more than a split second.

“Batman? Well, to be honest… I’m nothing more… than an ordinary college student... with a particular wish.... that you couldn't grant” Sehiro said, his voice muffled behind his mask, the epitome of fear.

And with that, he placed his hand around the gangster’s neck, and deftly broke it with one swift movement, breaking the quiet night with a sickening crunch. Before the lifeless body even hit the ground, Sehiro was nowhere to be seen. Nothing remained in his wake, except seven limp corpses, and a pool of blood.

A certain distance away, he slumped to the ground, exhausted and pale. With trembling hands, he awkwardly removed his mask, allowing his face to cool off in the cold midnight air. Dropping it to the ground with a large ‘thunk’, he began to laugh mirthlessly, until he ran out of breath and started to cry, his face in his hands.
After a short while, he finally calmed down. Looking desperately towards the pure, white moon, he calmly pondered about what had transpired.

“They couldn’t fulfill my wish. They couldn’t. The beast arose once more, my insanity gave in, and the corrupted soul blessed me with its touch.”

“When…. When will it finally end? When will I be free? When will this mask forsake me forever?”

As Sehiro quietly talked to himself, he slowly began to feel more and more tired, almost as is if he was falling asleep. Grunting away the fatigue, he tried getting up, but he found that his limbs no longer responded to hi call. His body felt heavy, as if his blood had turned into lead. His thoughts became more and more fuzzy. He attempted once more to pull himself up, but he only succeeded in falling over.

As the seconds ticked away, Sehiro’s calm was slowly turning into panic. His brain felt muddled, absent and a great pressure could be felt on every square inch of his being. His vision was slowly fading to white; his consciousness was leaving. His body felt like it was rising, disappearing, being crushed.

“Am…..I……dying? What……for..? Was…..I…poisoned?” Was the last thought Sehiro could think before his mind shut down.

His final act in this world was to instinctively grasp his mask with all the strength he could muster, despite his mind telling him to abandon it.

But somehow, he knew that he would need it.

Caster landed on a soft bed, though it still hurt, how fast she was hurtled and such into her new environment. The book fell at an alarmingly fast rate, bumping her on the head. "Owch..." She was sore all over, with little bumps and bruises everywhere from the impact with the bed. Odd, the other spirits had a far better tolerance for damage, even other casters could come out of that fall unscathed.

Getting up, she tried to lift the bed... to no avail. Her small size made it impossible to do so, not to mention that somehow, her strength had been diminished to that of a regular man's. The book was a task to lift, though she managed it with relative ease. "Huh...?" She balled her hand up into a fist, and tried to punch the wall with all her might to no avail. Caster sucked on her knuckles, before noticing another body in here.

Instinctively, she ran to the body and struggled lifting him to the bed. A quick strength charm fixed that problem right up, though, and soon, he was sleeping like a baby on the bed she had crashed into the room on. By some divine power, she felt compelled to call him... Master. That really had a nice ring to it. Master. The man had a creepy mask in his hand, which she presumed went on his face. Doing so, she stood back to admire her handiwork. With a raise of her tiny hand, she began to create a workspace for herself to resume her alchemy work.

The room originally consisted of a boring steel floor, with the same boring steel furniture around. The desk was cold, the lamp didn't really feel inviting, and she sure didn't want to put any clothes in that drab closet. Caster brought it upon herself to make this room a lot more beautiful. The floor morphed itself into a warm cherry-wood board flooring, perfect for what she wanted. Tubes of glass began to whirl around, forming a very complex, yet familiar network of chemicals and magic substances that she would use for magic, and even a few she hadn't used yet. In place of the desk was a grand oak workdesk, with flasks and research papers strewn throughout the space of the desk, and the rest of her workshop took shape in the form of an alchemist's delight. Bookshelves as far as the eye could see lined the expansive walls of the formerly cramped bedroom. Torches burned brightly, providing ample illumination. Pillars rose from the floor, creating an inviting second floor where she would live.

"OH!" Just in case, she made an exact replica of the old room and had a door connect it to the workshop, in case the other guy was going to wake up. If not, he'd make a nice cadaver for experiments!

This floor was... well, girly. The walls were painted a pale pink, with a large bed in the corner of the room, pointing towards another wall. The boring closet turned into a beautiful armoire, great for her clothes now... she would have to make clothes to put into it, now that she thought about it. Stuffed toys were strewn across the room, including a couple of characters she felt like she should know, something that SE.RA.PH made sure was there. For now, the amnesia blocked her memory like a dam, and she really couldn't remember much of her regular life. A smaller vanity desk appeared right beside that, and there, she could really see herself...

Large green eyes met for the very first time, and Caster was ecstatic at this. Water was just so unreliable as a mirror and she looked very... blue when she looked into it. Her black robe was just how she imagined it, a little too big on her, but still very form-fitting. Caster blushed at her very petite build, did she really look like this? She felt a little... slutty.

The oddest thing was, she didn't feel a thing. Even erecting a workshop normally took quite a bit of prana out of her system, but she felt like she BARELY used anything to make this!

Returning to the workshop, she began to perform an experiment on how delicious alchemized food would taste...

A myriad of colors and forlorn phantasmagorias flew through Sehiro’s mind. Experiences past, present and future were thrust upon him, before fading into nothingness. Images of his father, his mother, his dead sister, the many people he had killed, they all stared at him, provoking him, taunting him, cursing him. And throughout this mental cacophony, a sole sound reverberated in his psyche.

“Master.”

As the calling grew stronger, Sehiro memories slowly began to vanish. His thoughts, ambitions, desires, memoirs… all were replaced by the ever-present intonation that was “Master.” And as the word grew stronger, so did he. His body felt reinvigorated; his mind empowered.

However, at the 7th echo of the mysterious word, he lost everything. He was nothing; no life, no death, no persona, merely an empty shell of power, named Sehiro Natseni. And rather than wake up from his accursed slumber, he fell deeper and deeper into the threshold of abandon. He forsook his choice, his humanity disowned him, and death would have caressed his soul, if not for the intervention of an elusive third party.

A great and magnanimous presence was suddenly felt, dispelling all of Sehiro’s fears and questions. The great presence imbued itself into Sehiro’s soul, and for a split-second, he could feel an untold number of forbidden emotions emanating from the strange spirit.

Power, wild and uncontrollable, yet beautiful and terrible at the same time.

Hatred, an all-consuming oblivion sheltered at the depths of this soul.

Bravery, the absolute will to stand up against the very gods.

The spirit, now part of Sehiro’s mental and physical fiber, addressed him through magical means unknown to man.

“It is time... time to accomplish my wish, young one.”

And with that, Sehiro awoke.

-------

Getting up with a jerky start, Sehiro was on his legs in seconds, gasping, coughing and holding his head in pain, desperately trying to understand the situation. On his face, the cast-iron mask had been placed, a cruel testimony, that he could not escape his fate.

(Where am I? Who am I? What… happened?)

As the hellish migraine within his head subsided, he tried walking two steps forward, but his body, weakened from the mystical onslaught moments before, wouldn’t respond, and he fell, face forward towards the ground, the iron mask protecting his face from danger.

As his vision flashed from the fall, and his migraine slowly returned, he sluggishly noticed a large shuffle of blond hair bouncing about. He raised a trembling hand towards
her, just barely noticing the strange red tattoo-like mark on the back of his hand.

“Oi… you. Give…. me… a hand, would you…?”

Caster let out a loud "MEEP!" at the voice of the man in the room she had created for him. What should she do, what should she do? She expected him to be a cadaver, not to actually be alive, and now she had to actually deal with someone. "Um... uh..." Caster looked around, side to side, even up, before deciding to walk gingerly towards him. On her way, however, she hesitates and for a step, she loses her footing on the floor, able to rebound. The girl struggles to help him back up, getting him to sit on the bed.

"S-s-s-so... you're al-l-l-live." Caster tried to make some conversation, but this was not the way to do it. "To be fair, I mistook you for a cadaver." IDIOT!, she thought to herself, mentally smacking herself in the head No one tells their conversation partner that you thought they were fuckin' DEAD! Come ON! Caster's cheeks flushed red, and she immediately felt very awkward around him. He had a very... dominant feel about him. More a dangerous feel about him, actually. She gulped, sitting on a steel chair and leaning on a strip of wall beside the bed.

One last question formed in her head. "Um... A-a-a-are you my m-m-m-master?"

Sehiro just stared in utter quiet exasperation and boredom as the young blonde girl fussed about, gingerly treating him like some sort of important person. All throughout their strange exchange, she had acted flustered, and eventually, she uttered that word.

Master.

At that moment, the strange mark on Sehiro’s hand burned a bright, crimson red, and exuded an intense agony that made him double over in pain, clutching his hand. Mere moments later, his mark turned a sickly blue, and he heard a strange, mechanical voice within his head say:

“Error. There can only be one servant per master. Due to unforeseen circumstances, servant number 0087b will remain self-contained. There is no more to say on this matter; Caster-type will be the primary retainer. This is an anomalous glitch; please pay no heed to it.”

And with that, the pain was gone. His migraine, his bodily aches, even the burning sensation on his hand. Everything had simply ceased. And with that, Sehiro felt a great weight lift of his mind, and he almost lulled himself into a false sense of security. Looking around at his strange surroundings, he immediately deduced that he had been drugged and kidnapped.

Turning towards the young blond girl beside him, who was curiously staring with quiet admiration, he mentally steeled himself and entered predator mode, instincts fully in control. With his mask still on his face, he sized up the situation.

He was in danger. He did not know where he was.

The drugs that had been used had most likely affected his mental thought process, because he was unable to remember anything. Nothing. All that remained was his name, and a great feeling of superiority; of power. Rather than let fear choke his remaining senses, he directly maintained control of his emotions, allowing only one to master him: anger.

This girl most likely knew something. And, unfortunately for her, she was going to be on the receiving end of his wrath.

In one swift movement, Sehiro got off of the bed and closed both of his hands around the blonde girl’s throat, using the momentum to raise her above the ground. Even if even alarm in his mind warned him to avoid harming her, he passively ignored them, allowing himself absolute control of the situation.

Staring straight into her eyes, voice muffled behind his mask, he addressed the surprised girl whose feet were no longer touching the ground.

“WHERE… AM… I?” He hissed, even as his hand’s insignia began to burn, a sign of warning.

He loosened his hands around her neck, keeping her suspended, but able to breath and speak freely.

Caster continued to look at him oddly, shocked by how little he spoke. Maybe he was one of those... what were they called? Mutes. Something happened and Caster flinched, book at the ready. Whatever had happened, she was now on high alert... Nothing could prepare her for what happened next. "IYAAAAAAAAH!" Caster was lifted quickly and swiftly, she did not know what in God's name was going on. She could feel her neck being squeezed like an orange. Her lungs were being deprived of sweet air and prana. For someone so... normal, he sure was strong, and Caster knew that she was incredibly weak for a Heroic Spirit.

She looked down at her charms... nothing of usability was there. She only had boosting charms, and those were all for luck or agility. Somehow, she could feel herself getting a little more powerful, as if something were telling her "Get a GRIP!", and she used a free arm, glowing with a pink aura. This aura flowed into the expansive workshop beside them and sniffed the stone... Titanium and Silicon. Excellent. With one touch, this aura enveloped those materials, turning into a mini-sized golem. It stomped into the room, being about the size of a human, and used one of its titanium arms to try to snatch me away, gently yet forcefully, like a wine bottle opener, and place me on its shoulder. It failed, though the man mercifully allowed her room to breathe and such.

How strong was he?!?, Caster thought, to be able to hold onto me against a golem? It was smaller, so that might have impacted the size, but it certainly wasn't a weak golem! "Um, um... Don't kill me, I'll tell you whatever you want, just let me go!" She was feeling a conflict of interests. On one hand, she wanted to prove that she was a strong enough heroic spirit to get out of jams on her own. On the other, she'd very much like to live. Her feet wriggled in the air, proof that she really would like to be put back down, and her feeble attempts at breaking herself free added to that feeling.