Fate: Opression

1

Planet: Earth
Date: Classified
Location: Classified
[WARNING – WARNING – WARNING]
Threat detected – Threat detected – Threat dete-
Error.
[WARNING – WARNING – WARNING]
Error.
Error. Error. Error.
Error. Error. Error. Error. Error. Error.
ERROR.
[WARNING – WARNING – WARNING]
Threat detected – Threat detected – Threat detected – Threat detected.
Analyzing cause… ERROR.
Repeating… ERROR.
Restarting – Restarting – Restar-
COMMAND NOT ACCEPTED.
ERROR.

The woman sneered.
Her eyes stared as the wall of screens flashed in warning before her, a frown on her face and a sneer on her lips. This shouldn't be happening. It was not supposed to happen. It was wrong. Incommensurably, unequivocally wrong. It had to be stopped. It had to be halted at once, before it could be too late.
Question is: how?

[WARNING – WARNING – WARNING]
System shutting down. Program shutting down. Attempting fail-safe-
ERROR.
ERROR. ERROR. ERROR. ERROR. ERROR.
Rebooting…
Rebooting…
Rebooting…
Power level: critical
Shutting down.
SYSTEM SHUT DOWN.
…
…
…
Back up system initiated.
System check… System check… SUCCESSFUL.
Re-routing to back-up logs.
Activate Emergy program?
Calculating… Calculating… Calculating…
Activating [COUNTER FORCE] program…
Attempt failed.
Humanity saturation level: undetectable.
Activating [THRONE OF HEROES] program…
Attempt failed.
ERROR. ERROR. ERROR. ERROR. ERROR.

The woman frowned in barely contained fury. So that's how it is...
Her fingers moved, pressing on the keyboard with affable swiftness while her eyes never left the screens.
This was serious. She couldn't deny it. It was as serious as it could be. Such an anomaly had not been detected in more than ten thousand years. It was unexpected. Unheard of. Unthinkable. There hadn't been a system shut down in five thousand years. Ever since... ever since that man had...
Her eyes widened, her lips parted.
The [COUNTER FORCE] program was not an option anymore. The [THRONE OF HEROES] as well.
At this rate, if the anomaly was left undisturbed, humanity and the entire planet would explode into chaos. They had already exploded into chaos. It had to be stopped. This problem had to be removed from existence.
But without the Heroes of the Throne and the Counter Guardians...
…
There was only one option left now.
Him.

Calculating… Calculating… Calculating…
Searching timelines… Searching backlogs…. Searching candidates…
Success.
Commence backup memory program?
AFFIRMATIVE.
Affirmative. Affirmative. Affirmative.
Start [FIRST HERO] program. Start [FIRST HERO] restoration.
Success. Calculating compatibility.
Searching… Searching… Searching…
Searching… Searching… Searching…
Searching… Searching… Searching…
Success.
Calculating compatibility…
Calculation finished. Compatibility: 100%
Awaiting confirmation.
Waiting…
Waiting…

The woman smirked.
It was time to greet an old friend again.

FATE/Oppression
-Beginning-
Prologue
The Age of Gods has ended.
It has ended since a long, long time ago. More than five millennia ago, to be exact. Yet, for an entity like him, such a time is nothing more than an insignificant detail. Millennia, centuries, decades, years... they are nothing to him. Naught but useless notions. Time blurs past when one is immortal, after all; especially when the Real World and this world are separated by an impregnable chasm called 'logic'.
That's why he couldn't care less for such things.
During the Age of Gods, the world was ruled by those supernatural beings that transcended humanity. No, that's not exact. It would be more accurate to say that it was humanity itself who had so little value compared to those beings. To compare humans to Gods was blasphemy. They were nothing but livestock and pests – bugs, even – compared to the omnipotent and omnipresent Gods. That's why, for thousands of years, the Gods ruled over everything as they wished. And with eternity to spend, they ruled with one, single rule.
"Everything that exists, it exists for our enjoyment. Boredom will not be tolerated."
This was the decree of the Gods. As such, their entertainment subject turned towards humanity. Mankind was such a fragile and unstable existance, and because of this they toyed and played with their lives, to produce the greatest dramas and climaxes for their own enjoyment. They used the life of humans, bended them to their liking and will, and then created unfortunate incidents in order to control all the human race. They killed families, friends, lovers, and pitted one against the other for countless years. The acts of cruelty, conspiracy and oppression that humanity endured during the Age of Gods were incalculable. Too many to be remembered.
So, as you can imagine, it was a chaotic time.
Then, more than five millennia ago, someone had enough.
It was then that he was born. The God-Slayer. The most powerful human being that has ever existed in the history of all humanity. The one whose history, whose legendary tale is still barely remembered even today, in the modern era of the Age of Man. The man remembered as an incomparable, unreachable, and unstoppable being, even more powerful than the Gods themselves.
The God of War: Tyr.
Born from an unexpected relationship between a human and a Goddess, Tyr was half-human, half-god. The first Demi-God in history. Thanks to that, since he was little, his body possessed qualities and powers far beyond the capabilities of mere human beings. However, having been born from a relationship that was considered improper and scandalous at the time, the Gods rejected him, refusing to recognize him as one of their own. For this reason, Tyr was raised and cared by humans, and he grew up considering himself one of their own. He even rejected his original name, Tyr, taking one chosen by his adoptive mother instead.
But history, whether he liked it or not, will forever remember him as Tyr.
He chuckled mirthlessly at the reminder.
Tyr, fed up with the Gods' treatment, rebelled against humanity's masters and vanquished them with his own powers and weapons. Due to his Divine nature, he forged and created countless weapons over the years. Divine, Demonic, and Bestial weapons; creating a literal army of weapons with unstoppable power and destructive capacity even beyond the God's expectations. Then, as he grew older and his anger increased, he took advantage of the Gods' arrogance to declare war on them. He decided to put an end to humanity's suffering, and to free mankind from their clutches.
It worked.
Tyr struck the moment the people's faith in the Gods weakened, momentarily stopping their flow of power, and bathed his body with Divine blood. For years he fought and clashed against the Gods, slaughtering and exterminating them. Hundreds – nay – thousands of Gods died because of him and his thirst for vengeance. Until, after countless decades of fighting and death, as God after God fell against him, the remaining Deities couldn't escape reality anymore. They had to admit the truth.
Tyr was stronger than them.
And so, he banished them away from humanity, forcing them to hide in the darkest and most hostile realm on Earth. The one and only realm of the world where they could never reach or mess with humanity again: the 'Reverse Side of the World'. And from that day on, the Gods had the power to act directly in the life of human beings no longer.
The God of War, a mere Demi-God rejected by his own kind, after a millennial history of suffering and slavery, had successfully managed to dismantle the system and free humanity from the Gods' clutches.
And with the complete dismantling of the system, the Age of Man arrived.
He sighed at that memory.
With the Age of Man, things started to change drastically. With the destruction of the pantheons of Gods and Goddesses, in fact, all aspects and records of the previous religious sacraments began to disappear and malfunction. The old faith, the faith in the Gods, was replaced by newer ones, and steadily, the 'Old World' was eroded away. The residents of said world became alienated and labeled as 'fantasy', creating a separation between the real world, now occupied solely by humans, and them.
Faries, elves, dwarves, ogres, vampires, dragons, goblins and countless other creatures that previously roamed free in the world started to notice the phenomena happening. Thus, they banded together to separate themselves from the encroaching humans. They used the humans' perception of 'logic' as if it was a form of 'faith', as a fuel to create a separate dimension where they all could live in peace, for eternity, away from the ever-growing threat of Tyr and his quest for human domination. A place where they could exist without having their powers siphoned off and live in peace. Thus, the 'Other Side of the World' was born.
Therefore, to this day, because of Tyr, the world remains divided into three realms:
The Reverse Side, where the Gods live.
The Other Side, where all mythological and fantastic creatures live.
And the Real Side, where humanity reigns supreme.
And when the separation happened, not even the mighty Tyr was able to leave unscathed.
Despite all his powers and his evident loyalty to mankind, humanity began to see him as a threat, as a danger. They started to point their hatred, their anger, at him. They feared his power and his cunning, and because of this... they began to hate and fear him. They labeled him as ruthless beast; a powerful monster that thirsted only for power, and blood, and rage. A machine of war – he was a God of War, after all – unable to do anything but kill and destroy. And consequentially, the very same kind that had loved and cared for him before… started to give him hatred and resentment in response to the freedom he had offered them.
His lips parted in humorless laughter at that thought. After fighting and killing countless lives for them, humanity thanked him by offering him hatred and terror. Not that he could blame them, though. Tyr had always known it, and had always accepted it. It was in the nature of men – and, for extension, in his own nature – to fear what was beyond their comprehension and reach. Therefore, even in the face of the world's hatred, he decided to sacrifice himself for them with a smile on his face.
He killed himself. He released his powers, his weapons and his aspirations to the world, offering them to humanity so that it could grow, fight and evolve even without him... and then he killed himself with the strongest weapon he had ever created. That's how the story goes. That's what his legend says.
But even to this day, very few learn to discern truth from legend.
Despite what history declared, Tyr didn't die. He didn't die at all. Because of his great powers and his double nature as a man and a God, he was able to survive even after he was considered dead. Then, like all the other immortal beings before him, he went to the Other Side of the World, away from the Gods, away from his own people, and away from his own home; choosing to live in solitude and silence for eternity. Alone.
However, when his story on the Real Side of the World ended, things did not exactly become quiet.
Even if separated, the three different Sides of the world continued to somehow be connected to each other. They still are, even to this day.
Why, would you ask? It's simple. Because using the 'faith' called 'logic' in itself to divide the three Realms was a flawed idea. No matter how hard a human being tried to suppress and eradicate those 'fantasies' during history, it was simply impossible to erase their 'memory' from the world. A human mind cannot fully contain the 'wish' that was the backbone of those fantasies. In essence, through their dreams and desires, there still existed the 'memory' of those fantasies which overrode the laws of 'logic'.
Therefore, there still exists some pathways that connect these three Sides of the world. Pathways that only supernatural beings, and not humans, can cross; given that humanity is the weakeast among the races. That's why, even if the Age of Gods ended long ago, some Gods still managed to 'play' and 'mess' with humanity during the course of history.
The first example of this was Gilgamesh, the King of Heroes.
The Gods, confined to the Reverse Side of the World, used these silent paths to bring Gilgamesh into the Real Side when he was but an infant. Another Demi-God – the first of a long series – who could join humanity and give the Gods a second chance. Gilgamesh was born, designed, as king to connect the rising humans and the fading Gods. He was sent to ensure the humans and bind the Earth slowly leaving the Age of Gods. He was a being embodying the two life-sets of life forms: with the blood of those who had ruled and the blood of those who would rule from there on. He was to be the ultimate neutral party able to discern their respective failings, adjudicating from their respective positions.
He was supposed to be their new hope. A new bridge, which could connect the now powerless Gods to humanity to ensure their return a second time. But, as history has shown us, things did not go as the Gods had hoped. Gilgamesh rejected his ties to the Gods after his best friend's death and despised them even more than Tyr, definitively putting an end to their power and their chance to return to reign over mankind ever again.
But despite this, the Gods still tried, throughout history, to connect with humanity and created other Demi-Gods for this very same purpose (Heracles, Achilles, Karna and many others are just some examples of that), but it was all in vain.
Their reign was over, and the Age of Man continued to advance, and evolve, and prosper without them.
And most of all, despite all their desperate attempts, the Gods never managed to recreate a Demi-God as powerful as Tyr. They never succeeded in generating a being as strong, feared and powerful as the first, true Demi-God. After all, even though Gilgamesh was considered the King of Heroes and was respected as such... Tyr was different. Tyr was older. Tyr was stronger. He was the one who created all the weapons that killed and exterminated the Gods before him.
Because if Gilgamesh was the King of Heroes, Tyr was the First of the Heroes.
The First Hero of humanity. The first man who dared to defy the Divine Will and challenge the Gods. The first man who chose the path to freedom. The one who decided to put an end to the Age of Gods, and free humanity from their reign. The most powerful human being that ever lived in the world.
And even if the world itself decided to remember him as a threat and a ruthless being thirsty only for power and blood, even if history doomed him to be remembered as a monster capable of bringing nothing but destruction and death; this one, simple fact will never change no matter what:
There is not, and there will never be, another Hero stronger than him.
And because of this, even after all this time, even to this day, the God of War cannot find the peace and quiet he so fervently desires. He knows that somehow, someday; someone will inevitably choose to approach him, fight him, use him. It was inevitable. It had happened before, and it will happen in the future again. Tyr knew that. He expected it. He even knew who were the two 'entities' who would most likely decide to use him for their own benefit.
But he didn't expect that the fated day would be today, of all days.
"Still as busy as ever, I see."
He smiled a little, slicing through a log of wood with a small axe. The log split into two identical parts with almost millimeter accuracy. He didn't even need to turn around to recognize the voice that had spoken behind him. He had sensed her presence since a couple of minutes ago, after all.
And there was no race among all the inhabitants of the Other Side of the World that did not know who the woman who held the will of the Earth on her shoulders was.
"Gaia," he sighed, moving to grab another log from the pile without deigning to turn to the woman behind him. "What an unexpectedsurprise," he joked, shaking his head.
Gaia smiled covertly, studying him from head to toe as he continued to work without bothering to pay attention to her. "You seem fine."
"And busy," he promptly added, pointing to the big pile of wood stacked to his right, a couple of feet away from his humble home: a rustic wooden house of fourteen square meters at least. "Winter is coming, and I need to prepare. So, I suggest you leave now. Or be short and concise if you have something to say."
She giggled, casting him an amused look. "Straight to the point as always. That's why I like you so much... Tyr."
His reaction was immediate, as well as predictable. Gaia openly widened her smile when she saw him round on her in an instant, his pile of wood and his axe completely forgotten. His expression was cold and his golden-brown eyes narrowed dangerously as he glared at her face. Despite the worrying matters at hand, she couldn't hold back the perverse thrill of pleasure that ran down her spine when she felt that cold look gaze upon her body and his deep, menacing voice reach her ears.
"...don't call me that," he hissed in cold fury, glaring at her. "Don't you ever call me that again. That's not my name."
Gaia nodded, swallowing her excitement with a knowing smirk. "As you wish... Shirou."
The God of War nodded, before returning to focus his attention on the wood he had to finish cutting and stacking.
Gaia watched him with a veiled smile, studying him from head to toe. Tyr – or rather, Shirou Emiya, as he preferred to be called ever since he was a mere child in the care of a small human tribe – was a captivating sight to behold for anywoman. Short, messy hair of crimson red, eyes of a golden color similar to that of metal reflecting in the light of the sunset, and a well-built, toned body that could be envied by anyone. Right now, he was only wearing a pair of dark trousers with metallic sandals on his feet and a red shroud with marking on his right arm, while he remained with his bust uncovered (a little detail that, if she had to be honest, made him even more attractive in her opinion). But it wasn't really his look what made him attractive. After all, physically speaking, he was pretty average for a warrior or even a God, except for the muscles on his chest, abs and arms.
No… what made him really, truly irresistible was his charm. His serious and determined attitude. And especially, his aura. That presence, that divine aura that enveloped him and made him a very pleasant sight to the eyes. After all, it was inevitable. He was a God. And not a simple God like many others. A God of War. An embodied force of nature. A fire of passion and powermade human. And even beside that, he was the First Hero of humanity. The strongest, most famous, and most feared warrior among the legends of the world. He was the one from whom all the other Heroes of the world descended. His name and legend alone were enough to make him intriguing to everyone's eyes.
And Gaia, the very same personification of Earth itself, was no exception. Given his status and legend, she too was attracted by him (although her sister Alaya was the one most attracted to him, given that his legend lived on the memories of humanity, and she was the personification of the collective unconsciousness of mankind.)
Not that she or her sister would ever admit that, of course.
"Why are you here?"
Tyr's deep, strong voice – she needed to adress him as Shirou, she mentally corrected – roused her from her thoughts, forcing her to stop staring at his body. Gaia crossed her arms, her face once more a mask of neutrality and seriousness while she observed the ancient hero as he started to chop another wooden log without a care in the world.
"I need your help."
He openly laughed at her answer. He was already expecting this.
"Surely you jest. The great, mighty Gaia needs my help? Stop joking around. If you're here to pass the time then I sugge-"
"I'm serious," she argued, deadly serious.
"So am I."
Shirou cut another log of wood, stacking the pieces towards a pile near the entrance to his house. He threw his axe on the bark of a tree on the right, and then turned to look into her eyes with a cold, narrowed gaze full of distrust and irritation.
"I don't have time for your games, Gaia. Last time you and your sister came here I had to deal with a horde of dragons threatening to reach the Real Side of the World because of some elves' stupid mistake. You and Alaya forced me to act, threatening to destroy my house and my peaceful life if I ever chose to ignore your whims. Remember that? I'm not going to be used to clean your mess again. And I won't join your useless, deprived Counter Force either. I'm not a dog. So, I'll ask you again, Gaia…" he leaned towards her, his gaze piercing and cold like ice and metal as he towered over the woman. "What do you want?"
She held her head high. "Humanity's in danger. I need your help."
Shirou scoffed. "Humanity has been in danger ever since the beginning of time. They managed to survive after I left the Real Side of the World, they will manage once again," he dismissed her with a wave of his hand. "I have no reason to intervene and interfere on your and your sister's behalf again. Why don't you rely on that loathsome Counter Force for once? Keeping mankind safe is your job now, not mine. I don't-"
"This time is different," she interrupted him, her voice more firm than ever and her gaze fixed on his eyes with unnerving seriousness. "Listen... I can't rely on the Counter Force. Not anymore. I tried, but…"
He paused at that. His eyebrows rose. "What do you mean?" he asked, suddenly more cautious. She felt her throat dry as soon as his eyes narrowed dangerously while they studied her face. The sheer silence that followed that question became tense and full of agitation.
"Gaia... where is your sister?"
She swallowed.
"...she's gone, Shirou."
He paled, shutting his mouth soon after that statement with a dumbfounded expression. His strange reaction did nothing to calm her growing nerves.
"W-What?" he breathed.
"Alaya is gone, Shirou. Gone. I cannot sense her, I cannot feel her, and I have no way to contact her either. I don't know what happened to her. One moment everything is quiet and calm as ever, and then she's gone, out of the blue, without a trace and notice. The whole Counter Force too. It just… disappeared, like it never existed. Along… Along with the Throne of Heroes." She swallowed again, trying to remain calm under his expression that was growing more and more shocked as she spoke. "It's just me now, Shirou. Me, and no one else."
He remained silent for a while. Then, he ran a hand through his red hair and pushed her into his home without a word. Gaia complied, but remained silent. She sat down on a chair in front of a small wooden table, watching with a serious and lifeless gaze as Shirou shot a few curses in a low voice before sitting down right in front of her. Three minutes of tense and absolute silence passed before the ancient God of War decided to ask his question.
"How did it happen?"
She shook her head. "I don't know."
"Really? You don't know? You're the planet's intrinsic wish to survive and prosper given human form, and you don't fucking know?" he stressed, glaring at her with a snarl.
She glared back. "It was sudden. Too sudden to be noticed. The Counter Force is always active, constantly steering mankind and the planet away from potential danger. Usually, me and my sister act indirectly and, more importantly, in our own separate ways. When I felt her disappearance, I... I just knew that something had happened to her. I just don't know what, nor why."
"When did she disappear?" he demanded, running a hand over his temples.
"One hour, nine minutes and forty-seven seconds ago," she replied, both her voice and face a mask of cold decision despite the tense situation she was facing.
"So you came to me right away," he sighed.
Gaia nodded. "You're the only one left. The only one I can seek help from. Please."
"I thought you two had absolute power over anything," he countered, gritting his teeth in frustration. "How in the name of Uranus did something like this happen without you noticing?"
"I... I don't know either. The only thing I suspect is that someone is manipulating the will of mankind."
Shirou lifted his head from his hand, looking at her carefully. "What did you just say?"
Gaia clenched her fists. "Someone more powerful than me, more powerful than the planet itself, is binding humanity's future in some twisted way. Even if I don't know how it happened, I can still detect the danger." Her eyes were literal steel when she met his gaze with her frown. "Shirou... this is the work of a being as strong as a God. There's no mistake about this."
He cursed inside his head. Then, he nodded with a weary sigh. "I thought so," he agreed, furiously running a hand through his red hair. "Only a God could posses the power and will to mess with the Counter Force and the Will of the planet itself. But how? I thought their power was long gone by now."
"I was hoping I could count on you to find out the truth about that," she replied, looking at his face with obvious shame, but also with a tiny bit of hope.
Shirou sighed again, rubbing his brows with two fingers in a gesture that was both irritated and exasperated. He was silent for a long, long time while he pondered his options. Damn, he really hated being forced to do this kind of things. He just wanted his peace and quiet, and to live his eternity of solitude in silence and without worries. Why could he never stay away from troubles, even after all this time?
However, if he had to be honest, the situation was worrying. A threat like this one was unprecedented in the enterity of human history. A mysterious enemy, capable of dissolving the Counter Force and the will of mankind so suddenly and precisely? And a God, moreover? It was unheard of. And definitely dangerous. It was very, very worrying, even from his point of view. He was a retired God, but even he had some priorities in life. He couldn't let humanity be doomed simply because he disliked being used by Gaia and Alaya. He wasn't that egoistical.
He had no other choice.
"What do you need me to do?" he asked in the end with another sigh. A long, tired sigh.
Gaia smiled at his face with a beaming expression. "I knew I could count on you."
"I can't exactly refuse a job if the planet itselfcomes to my house, desperately seeking for help," he retorted dryly, barely smiling as he saw her face relax slightly.
She nodded with a sigh of relief. "Then there's no time to waste. I will send you to the Real Side of The World. From what I know, something's happening there, but without Alaya and the Counter Force to monitor the situation, I cannot detect the exact location of the anomaly. You'll have to find the source of the problem yourself," she explained to him, returning serious at once.
Shirou suppressed a growl. "My first visit to my former world and it's because the Earth is in danger. That's just great," he muttered in exasperation, shaking his head with closed eyes.
Gaia ignored his complaints. "I will also provide you with all the necessary knowledge about the Throne of Heroes and the modern age. They will be useful to you once you get to the world of men."
"Wait, what?" he interrupted her, confused. "Why? I thought you said the Throne is gone. Why would I need to know about the Heroes and the... the…"
He didn't finish his sentence, feeling a terrible premonition start to blossom inside his mind.
No way… it was impossible…
She nodded, as if she had been reading his mind. "The Throne is gone. But the Heroes and the Guardians are not."
Shirou widened his eyes, feeling his mind fill with panic and horror at the same time. He was starting to see something. Something he didn't like.
A terrible realization began to make its way through his thoughts. He wasn't an Heroic Spirit like the proper Heroes of humanity that came after him – he wasn't dead yet, after all, and because of this he could never be summoned as a Servant – but even he knew the gravity of the situation now that the Throne was gone.
With both Alaya and the Counter Force gone (the collective unconsciousness of mankind and the drive for its survival as a whole), then the Throne was left without control. And being the Throne a place existing outside of both the World and the time axis... with the Will of the World no longer here to control it and keep it away from the reality of the existential plane, then...
And consequently the Heroes... the Heroes...
Nope. He didn't like this. He didn't like this at all.
Shirou swallowed, his expression as cold and serious as it had never been for over four thousand years.
"Gaia... surely you don't mean...?"
The very personification of Earth nodded at his serious expression, her face a mask of steel that was as cold and merciless as death itself.
"Yes, Shirou. All the Heroes and Guardians are being released on Earth."