Fate/New Life

The Origin

(First Person View)

The tears weren't stopping after coming up with this realization... The discovery that my Servant Archer is, in fact, none other than Sherou. Even now, I can't believe it. He has changed... so much, it's almost unrecognizable at first glance. But after putting together the hints that I've had been noticing, it explains a lot. 

A flood of questions invades my mind, I don't even know where to begin. How did it happened? Was I there when it happened? How much suffering he went through that changed him to be the person he is now, much less a Heroic Spirit?

"You better explain it to her, Archer. She deserves that much after all she went through", Tohsaka slightly demanded, her saddened eyes were clear evidence that it was not going to be a happy story. 

Archer sighs in response, still avoiding eye contact, his eyes cold as steel, "You might want to sit down, Luvia", he says as he stands up and leans against the wall opposite to the bed. 

I do as he recommended and sat down, the waiting being unbearable to me. I stare at him as he thinks on where to begin. The seconds felt like an eternity as I think of all kind of scenarios about how was his life... and his death.

"What happened to you, Archer?", I asked him, forcing myself to say it despite my instinct telling me not do to so.

"To put it short, I was doing peacekeeping missions on the Middle East as a mercenary, wherever there was conflict, I was there in the middle of it, trying to save lives. A situation happened where a reactor has gone critical and more than a hundred lives were in danger. At the moment, I lacked the power to do anything in that situation, even after years of training myself. I stood there powerless, looking for any way to save everybody, until Alaya, manifested in front of me with a tempting offer. An inmense amount of power, at the cost of my afterlife. With no hesitation, I accepted its offer and averted the crisis.", he explained as if he was resciting it from a book or something, as if those events were from so long ago, it didn't affected him at all.

That means he was hailed as a hero, right? He saved countless lives in that situation, but yet the more he goes in depth, the more it seems otherwise.

"Later on, however, I was framed as the mastermind of the crisis, along with other charges from my time there in the Middle East, I was sentenced and executed by the same people that I have saved. I fought, bled and suffered for them, but they ended up being my demise. And I don't hate them for doing what they did. As long as it made people happy, that was all that mattered at the moment... Or so I thought.", he continued, the more he spoke, the harder it was for me to believe it him.

That's how he died? Executed like some sort of criminal with not even a proper burial back in Japan? What an awful tragedy, yet, it seemed like it wasn't the end of it.

"After my death, I became a Counter Guardian, entities that ensure that mankind doesn't go extinct when necessary. At first, I thought it meant that even in death I would be saving lives and that was more than enough for me. However, fate had a sickening twist for me. When I realized what it truly meant to be a Counter Guardian, it was too late for me. Yes, I would ensure that mankind wouldn't go extinct, but it was at the cost of every living being in the vicinity of such event that would lead to immeasurable destruction. I have lost count of how many men, women and children I have slaughtered in the time I have been in service. And the joke of all this? I wouldn't be summoned in such event until it was almost in the brink of annihilation. Instead of preventing such circumstances, I was only there to clean up the mess humans made, by creating a sea of their blood, blood spilled by these very hands that can't hold anything. And I would do it again... And again... And again, until the end of times, since Counter Guardians are not tied to the constraints of time and space. The past, the present, the future, it didn't mattered. All I knew was death and despair. All I wanted to do was save people and make everyone happy, but in the end, all I could do was kill innumerable amounts of people to save the many, and humankind itself. That's who I am, the Heroic Spirit EMIYA, humanity's personal grim reaper", finished explaining Archer,his frustration and anger was evident as his hands curled into fists.