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Puella Magi Schuetze Aurulent

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Biigoh:
Wishes are wonderful things. Wishes make the world go round. After all, are they not made of hopes and dreams? Let us visit a world where wishes are made by various maidens.

*Beware of spoilers for Fate/zero*.

Biigoh:
Some times fate never works the way people expect it to.
 
Some times the dragon does win.
 
But for someone like Akemi Homura, that just meant that she had to try again. That one battlefield lost to her nemesis and worse nightmares just meant that she had a new battlefield. One where she merely had to apply what she had learned to it.
 
Over and over again.
 
She would no longer cry. She would no longer need the help of others.
 
This was a road she would walk. Over and over til she attained what she desired.
 
For her friend. Her only friend. The only one who believed in her. Who had stood by her despite not knowing.
 
Not remembering what they had done together. Never to remember.
 
The laughter they had shared.
 
The friendship that they had formed once, twice, thrice....
 
The freely given kindness from Madoka over and over.
 
The tears they had shed.
 
The agony of being on the edge of descent into witchdom.
 
For Madoka, Akemi Homura would do anything and everything.
 
Would cover her hands with the blood of Incubator, in the blood and shattered soulgems of other magical girls, and in the darkness and grief of slain witches.
 
This she vowed to herself.
 
Repeating it like a mantra. It was all she had left.
 
"She was really amazing... when she transformed." The words spoken by the white cat thing washed over her.
 
"I thought she would become the strongest magical girl, but to defeat the Walpurgis Night in just one hit..." Had Madoka always being that strong or had her wish being somehow sufficient to allow her greater access to what lay within her. Homura remembered fighting Walpurgis Night with Madoka, they had struggled. Paid in blood and tears to bring it down before.
 
"And how will this end? If she's even stronger than you thought." The raven haired magical girl's voice spoke up in response to the Incubator. She knew it wouldn't lie, misdirect yes, but never an actual lie.
 
"Either way, her end will be the same. As the strongest magical girl, she defeated her greatest enemy." Homura could hear the whistling wind as she heard the absolute confidence in the other survivor of Walpurgis Night's rampage and subsequent death. It certainly fit the desolate mood and the grief in her heart.
 
"Now there's nothing left for her but to become the most evil witch ever. As Madoka is now, it will take ten days before she destroys this world." The carefree manner that alien spoke of humanity's extinction and of what Madoka had become certainly fit with the way it didn't seem to care, or feel emotions.
 
If she could, she would end it.
 
But killing it hadn't ended the Incubator. It had returned with time, but then she hadn't found anything like a soul-gem in its body or near it.... Homura didn't quite shake her head, she should have known. With the way it had spoken of bodies of the magical girls being 'mere' hardware.
 
"But well, that's not my problem. I gathered alot more energy than our collection quota," Homura would have thought it would have sounded happier or cheerful at that, but that tone of voice... that same carefree manner that it spoke in... emotions truly were something alien to it.
 
Homura stood up as it spoke. She didn't need to hear more. This was, after all, a lost battlefield. Her goals had been lost when Madoka had been tricked into making a wish.
 
She would walk to the next one. And if it was lost, there would be another one. There would always be... another battlefield.
 
An eternity in the span of a month.
 
"Won't you fight?" No need to waste energy. No need to rage against that puzzled alien. Or the impossible giant witch that had been Madoka.
 
"No, this is not my battlefield." Indeed, it wasn't hers. Not any more.
 
And so she walked off once more, transversing the path forged by her spinning shield and the hourglass that lay at its heart, amidst gears and clockwork mechanisms.
 
Perhaps if she had stayed... she might have seen the departure of QB. And the world attempt to fight back against the encroachment upon its domain.
 
Perhaps, she might have noted the unseen, unknowable figures lost to time and history. Trapped by their choices, by their own bargains.
 
Perhaps, she might have cared to watch the futility as those guardians fought for humanity. With weapons beyond compare, with powers that were conceptual and fueled by the magic of the world.
 
But then... perhaps, she might observe them fall one by one as the encroachment of Kriemhild Gretchen's barrier grew. Their attacks simply striking harmlessly upon its surface.
 
Their bodies and souls crushed into non-existence as the boundaries expanded past their positions. Their very natures spawned from misfortune and the regrets that lay in their soul anathemic to the paradise that was the promise and gift the witch of salvation.
 
Perhaps, she might have cared to know that the world would attempt to defend itself.
 
But such knowledge would have been useless and pointless to her. For her goal wasn't the defense of the world or such conceits that might come of desiring to be a hero.
 
She was no hero.
 
Just a friend.
 
A friend who would break herself for the sake of one who she valued above all else.
 
***
Puella Magi Schuetze Aurulent
Prologue : A tragic beginning is like fire for boiling tea.
***
 
And then one day, her friend broke the world to save her.
 
Don’t forget.
Always, somewhere,
someone is fighting for you.
As long as you remember her,
you are not alone.

Biigoh:
Once upon a time, Tomoe Mami believed in magic.
 
Well, she still did. But now she KNEW it existed. And knowledge didn't equal belief, at least not truly.
 
Once upon a time, Tomoe Mami had a happy family. She had her father, her mother, her little brat of a younger brother.
 
A fairy tale existence, one where things were if not ideal, at least good.
 
But that was before that day. Where the light of daybreak turned to darkest night as a black sun rose into the heavens, before transforming back into day of a sort by virtue of the light from explosions and fire.
 
The day that started as a vacation as the Tomoe family prepared to visited Mami's grandmother, to reassure her that despite the... odd happenings in the city, that they were doing fine.
 
The scream of jets and explosions in the darkness before dawn had awoken everyone.
 
Which was why they had been driving out of the city when the black sun rose. A circle that radiated not light, nor darkness, but an anti-light that consumed everything in its path as liquid poured from it. Perhaps gushed would have been a better word, gushing as blood congealed to the thickness of black ichor or mud.
 
A wound in the world. A hole in reality. A schism to that which should never be and which lay outside of all that was sane and human conceptualization.
 
It was here that Mami remembered things becoming disjointed.
 
The family car jumping like a cat.
 
The screeching of metal upon metal, as plastic and synthetic materials gave way.
 
A truck framed against the light of the fire that spread from the heart of Fuyuki city.
 
And then there was heat... and a coldness that slowly spread. She didn't feel pain, but then she didn't feel much of anything as she gestured at the light outside, pleading for help.
 
To be saved. To have her existence continued.
 
She tried not to look at where her parents had been, seated at the front of the car. Nor the empty seat beside her where her brother had been.
 
The blonde girl couldn't recall what happened to the lovable brat. She could remember that he had been playing with his lego toys, building some sort of space ship. There had also been hushed voices, filled with fear and concern, from the front as the car headed out of the city and she looked back at the black sun rising.
 
That was when she met it.
 
Kyuubey, the messenger of magic, granter of wishes and the maker of magical girls.
 
Her wish had been simple. She didn't want to die.
 
She refused to die.
 
And so she didn't.
 
Once upon a time, Tomoe Mami believed in magic.
 
Now she was magic, it pervaded her existence. It sustained her, as she wielded it to hunt. To fight. To kill.
 
The world she dwelled in now wasn't one of common sense, or such things as 'logic' that normal humans knew.
 
But then that was fine, she wasn't human. Not anymore. Even the not quite humans with their magic didn't consider her or her kind human... and she had run into a number of those.
 
Daemon girl. Magical girl. Puella Magi. It didn't matter what people called her. What mattered was that she existed.
 
That she lived. Ever unchanging. Ever the same as the world evolved around her.
 
A pitiful existence such as hers was still better than being dead.
 
***
Puella Magi Schuetze Aurulent
Part 1 : Birth by Fire
***
 
The steady sound of metal upon asphalt echoed in the chilly winter night. A relentless staccato that echoed against the road and buildings surrounding the road.
 
One that said I come. I am.
 
A notion and conceit worthy of the heroic mount that could only belong to the King of Conquerors. Both horse and rider were larger than life. Beyond mere physical prowess, they bore a majestic presence. A mien not seen in the modern day, one lost over the ages with the lessening of man as cold hard science and logic replaced the fantastical wonder that came of beholding the world as it was.
 
Iskander truly belonged to an era before the world had moved on, as the age of the gods ended.
 
Still, in the monochrome landscape painted white, black and gray by the light of the uncaring moon high above as it shed its light. A brilliant and stark silver luminance that mingled with the washed out light from the blinking lamps poles that lined the streets, side by side.
 
A forest of steel amidst hills of wood and concrete, with globes of light floating beneath branches of steel. With the chilly breeze sharp from the heart of winter that yet still gripped Fuyuki city, it was possible to close one's eyes to imagine that one was across the world. Perhaps campaigning in the hinterlands, of what would become Europe, in Iskander's era.
 
At least, Waver Velvet imagined it so, as he sat before his servant, cross-saddle. A soft part of his mind murmured that this was how maidens in ages past sat upon their mounts. The strong arms of their lords surrounding them, the scent of well-cared leather armor heavy around them while the creaking of the armor with the motion of their wearers filled their ears.
 
Had mankind truly fallen that far in the long ages, as they praised the false gods of science and technology? Where men like him were as soft maidens to the hard masculinity of the heroes of antiquity?
 
Would future generations yet to come become nothing more than soft pale slugs that sat fatly before illuminated screens; laughing, raging, weeping upon command and offering their worship and love to false tawdry imagery that were nothing more than electrical pulses given shape and form?
 
Such idle thoughts were not worthy, and indeed, surrounded by the silent and overflowing presence of his Rider, Waver found himself drinking in the world around him as if he was a man long trapped in a desert who now found himself in an oasis.
 
The divide between life and death, where one's soul is shriven and exposed to the truth of the world with no self-deceptions, embellishments, nor a mind that strove to explain things with labels and conceits of his upbringing.
 
A sense of wonder rose in his heart to blossom in his soul, the world simply was.
 
An eternal moment of white, black, and soft velvety darkness. Shrouded by the world's mysteries and paradoxes, Waver accepted it all and found himself at peace. Perhaps, this was what eastern bodhisattvas meant when they spoke of peace being a singular moment without judgment, without conception or thinking that things could be better or worse or some other way.
 
The noble warhorse with its rider and his passenger moved out of the city, leisurely venturing towards the boundaries set for the Heaven's Feel; a border of darkness that neatly delineate what was Fuyuki city and what wasn't, Miongawa river.
 
The soft lapping of the water on the bank echoed softly in a pale shadow of Oceania that lay within Iskander's heart and simultaneously at the edge of the world.
 
Spanning above the darkness that served as the boundary was the Fuyuki bridge; a construct of steel, painted white by the brilliance of hollow mercury lamps. The light cast were sufficient to drown out the light of the moon and stars above. A modern day bridge that bore an aura of light and which lay over perdition, between life and death.
 
"Rider, that's..." It wasn't necessary for Waver to complete his statement, as Rider responded with a slow nod. He, too, had seen him.
 
Illuminated by the brilliance of the man-made light as if cast in the light of day, the golden armour shone as if a fragment of the glory of the sun had been made manifest and deigned to step upon the filthy world of mud. The lamps' light were mocked and rejected as if the very presence of the armour said that it only bore the light forged of man's artifice because the sun itself had yet to rise to illuminate it as was right and proper.
 
The cruel gaze gracing the noble visage. Remorseless, haughty as only a king could be. The rich ruby hue of the eyes was enough to pressure Waver into stillness, pushing him against Iskander with nothing more than the mere presence of the king of antiquity.
 
Servant Archer, the King of Heroes, Gilgamesh.

Biigoh:
Once there was a king, brave and valiant, firm and unyielding. Said to be a brilliant strategist and a hero beyond compare.

A king of knights, as it were, for that king led loyal and faithful knights into battle at the front of armies.

He had a daughter. In actuality, many daughters.

Each and every one of them from different women that he had bedded. Some of them were camp followers who trailed behind his armies. Others, serving women in his forts and castles, and still there were others who were the wives of other men. Uther Pendragon cared not, and claimed them all in the name of his kingship.

She was the eldest. And... she would never claim the throne. Her father had made that clear, that he would never have one of his daughters on the throne after him.

Which was why she was seated before the hearth yet again, gazing into the fire as she murmured an aria to focus her mind.

Merlin had once said that her ability to foretell the future was a useful one, but that it wasn't a True Magic as such were known. That what she saw were shadowy echoes from the Kaleidoscope, a well of worlds that were so close that perhaps, only one or two minor details were off.

She had seen, would see the birth of Her. The one that Uther would declare king despite what he had said of never allowing a girl to sit upon his throne.

Seen as the little girl was perversely raised as a boy. Observed as Merlin created a situation... watched as the little slip of a chit pulled the sword out of the stone, and be chosen as king of Albion because of a sword and a deception.

Unforgivable.

Had she not cared for Father's wishes? Studying magics beneath many a magus to better aid her future brother, the son of Uther Pendragon. He who would be the next king of Britain.

As she raged at the unfairness of it all, at the hypocrisy, she could feel the creamy white wool shawl that she held in her hands get twisted by her far too pale hands.

That was when a voice spoke up behind her. A voice far too cheerful and happy to be permitted to exist. A youthful voice much like that of a friendly boy.

"Hello, you seemed troubled."

It was also a voice she didn't recognize. That it had come from behind her, deep within the safety of Tintagel...

As these observations sped in her mind, Morganna stayed visibly still even as her hand ever so slowly moved towards where her dagger hung from her belt.

"Tis only natural for me to be troubled. The winter seems overtly long this year," The dark haired royal daughter of Uther spoke coyly, even as her heart pounded before she stood up with a swirl of her dress, dagger in hand to face the intruder.

Which... was a small, white cat thing. Crimson eyes brilliant as rubies, white fur the hue of immaculately pure snow, and a most fluffy tail that flicked behind it. And there were those extra pair of ears from its ears with floating gold rings. Extra ears that shifted to pink down their length, and possessed a trio of blood red gems on its pink tips of its secondary ears. Upon its back a ring of crimson.

A fairy.

One that was seated upon the window, as it looked upon her kindly with a smile.

"Would you like a wish to make it end? Or perhaps for some thing else?" It 'spoke' once more without opening its mouth.

"What? What do you mean a wish?"

Here, she was surprised. This was something she hadn't expected.

No mere fairy would just offer a wish.

Not like this.

"Indeed, that is exactly what I mean, Morganna Pendragon. I want you to make a contract with me and become a Puella Magi. In return, I shall make anything you wish come true."

The cheerful manner that it spoke of wishes being granted brought a pause to the daughter of Uther Pendragon.

"My wish?"

"It can be anything," It nodded at her question, ears twitching happily. "I can make any miracle you desire come true. And in return, you shall become a Puella Magi, a being of hope."

In the light of the setting sun, with a crackling fire behind her, Morganna dared to hope. "But... what is a Puella Magi?"

At her question, the cat-like fairy positively beamed with joy and leaped into the room from where he had sat; upon the ledge of the window with the light of the descending sun framing him.

***
Puella Magi Schuetze Aurulent
Part 2 : Anger is like fire, it keeps one warm.
***

She, naturally, did not make a wish. How could she?

To be a being of hope was certainly all nice and fine.

But to no longer be human.

To be beholden to slay such thing as Witches?

Such a thing was detestable. She was no hero.

No valiant warrior out to save Albion and all the known world from the destructive evils of mankind and the world.

It was true that she was angry.

But she was not foolish enough to trade everything all away for a momentary chance at revenge against her father and that thieving slattern.

No. She would find another path. Another way.

And yet... in another world, another time, things would happen differently.

Because, occasionally, wishes can influence other wishes that never were uttered, that were yet to be uttered.

And that ever distant utopia, that dream most unreachable, could end up in one's hands.

If one had the desire and will to pay the price for attaining it.

Biigoh:
The knight clad in blue and white stumbled into the Municipal Hall. Her armor, once immaculate, was shattered here and there. Soot and blood, or a fair approximation there of from herself and her opponents, covered her face and hands.

Still, her nobility shone despite the dirt that covered her mortal form. Her far too pale and far too mortal form.

Shone as brilliant as the sword that she held in one hand loosely. A singular sword that spoke of who and what she was; the bearer of the crystallized prayers of humanity, the sword of promised victory.

She didn't stride into the building as a conquering knight would.

But as a wounded warrior would, cautious and prepared. Pain wracking her body. Consciousness was a state that was likely to be lost. Soon. But still...

She had been brought here by the smoke signal. Ambushed by the one thing she could not, would not have expected.

Ahh... the Knight of the Lake.

His death. That resolution.

Upon his death, she had vowed once more to make her recompense.

To win that victory for her homeland. Albion of old, as the men of today called it.

To her, it was always home.

And for them, she would win. She would obtain the grail and with it...

Ah... Saber sighed as she stepped forwards. Ever forwards into building. Walked into the flames that burned away at her form, pain her constant companion now.

Still, she walked on further into the hell that the Municipal Hall had become.

An eternity later, Saber stood at the entrance to the empty music hall. The doors had been pushed open inwards, in the distance could be heard the single echoing shot of Kiritsugu's weapon.

The golden chalice hung in midair, encircled by flames. A golden radiance shone around it, granting the gold vessel an aura of holiness that caught one's eyes.

This. For this she had struggled.

For this, Irisviel had died, with Saber unable to protect her despite her vows.

Witness her friend, fallen into madness for the love that he had shared with her queen. The torment she could not end, could not resolve.

As had her realm fallen. Failure upon failure.

If as a king, she could not connect with her closest of friends and companions, how could she understand the condition of those she ruled?

Cruel. Heartless. They had labeled Saber such in her existence.

A distance that she couldn't bridge. For she had to be the perfect king for her people, thus she had to rise above them all. Her home country. Nothing else would suffice for that which she had loved with all her heart.

That which she had sacrificed everything for; the life of one of Uther's daughters.

The life of an ordinary human.

The existence where she could connect with another person, truly.

To be a king was to suffer. To have an existence filled with nothing but regrets. No matter what the Golden King who had played at Archer, or Iskander the King of Conquerors had said.

An existence of regret.

But one that could be... would be corrected soon.

And so, she would fulfill that oath laid upon her by Irisviel as they exchanged vows beneath the falling snow as immaculate whiteness shrouded the city around them.

"Saber, you must get the Grail. For you, and your Master"

That promise. That was all that kept Saber moving.

To gain the grail.

For Kiritsugu.

For herself.

For her beloved homeland long lost to time, concealed by the mists of yesteryear and buried within history books.

For those who dwelt in it.

For those who suffered from her rule.

For her friends.

For Lancelot.

For Guinevere.

For those two who upheld the same ideals as she had, but fallen and yet forgiven.

Yes, for them.

And so, she stepped forward. Step by step. Pain filling her body, slowing her down. But never dulling that purpose within her frame.

And the world revolved around that single reason.

The grail was descending before her, and as it did, she could see its aura flaring brighter as yet more servants fell in the distance.

Of the three kings who drank together that night, there stood but one now.

The one filled with regrets.

The one filled with arrogance and the notion of discarding her crown and mantle heavy upon her head and shoulders.

The one who desired.

The one who burned with the hope of a better yesterday.

The one whose pain served to narrow her world down to herself, the golden and most holy chalice that she stepped towards.

Kiritsugu's presence wasn't acknowledged beyond a look of relief when she saw him walking next to her.

Their respective injuries had slowed Saber down to something that a mortal could match.

Especially a human who happened to know magecraft.

"Kiritsugu. So... you made it too."

The not quite nod and silence suited the assassin who was her master, who was Irisviel's husband.

Together, they walked towards the remains of the homunculus whose organs had unfolded and transformed back into the golden material of the Holy Grail, into which were poured the prana of the Fallen Servants, the defeated Heroic Spirits.

Kings, far too brilliant for the world they had been summoned into.

Knights and warriors, most valiant.

Magus and assassins, most insane and loyal.

Standing before the grail and supported by her master, Saber dared to hope.

Allowed herself the slender sliver of a possibility that there would be a happily ever after for her.

But for such a thing to occur.

The grail... could only grant a single wish.

Even as Kiritsugu lifted his right hand to gaze at his command seals, or perhaps to show their presence before using them, Arthuria had already discarded the last of her honor, the remnants of her pride as a knight.

A spin and a loose swing with Excalibur, the sword of promised victory. A splatter of blood and viscera as her armored skirt flared outwards with her movement.

A tactic that she had been renown for in the wars she fought; for the greater good, she would sacrifice.

One village for the sake of ten villages.

A hundred men for the sake of ten thousand men.

The reputation of the heartless king, unknown to time. Nor known to humanity. That was what King Arthuria had been called by those of her era.

"I... I'm sorry Kiritsugu. But Avalon will keep you alive... and heal you in time," she smiled sadly down at her master, his body evenly bisected. Crimson blood splattered from the empty hollow where his guts and lungs had spilled out from.

Without air, one couldn't speak.

Without words, one couldn't command.

And without commands, a master's command seals were useless.

A single enough equation.

Once more, Saber looked at the descending chalice. The embodiment of an unspeakable magecraft given physical form.

"I am sorry, Irisviel.
This is the only way.
The only path.
For even a wretch such as I to make restitution to my people.
To my kingdom.
I would trample upon my pride for this."

Tears filled her eyes as she apologized to the golden vessel that had once being a woman she had grown close to. Had been friends with, for far too brief a period.

Swallowing once more, Saber donned the mantle of rulership in her mind and heart before speaking to the Holy Grail. For this was no longer her friend, this was a mystic engine fueled by prana to grant wishes.

"Now, Mighty Grail, you have supped deeply upon the hopes, dreams, ambitions and wishes of man and heroic spirits alike.
And drunk even deeper upon the despair and curses of those fallen on the path that led to you.
Thus, I call upon you. Tis time for you to pay for your fine meal."

She paused and swallowed, closing her eyes, as she verbalized the conceptualization of her wish. The one true desire that she had been drawn to this time for. The one thing she had contracted with the world for.

A chance to make amends.

And now, that chance was hers. The moment lay in her hands.

"Great and Holy Grail, hear my wish!
I am not a worthy king fit for my kingdom.
I wish that there had been another.
A better ruler than I to guard and guide my kingdom.
Thus do I wish.
Thus do I command."

With that, Saber who once was known as King Arthur Pendragon, and before that, simply Arthuria grasped the holy chalice and let the prana within the vessel absorb her words and her body.

The pain vanished as her body burned away, becoming nothing more than motes of light that drifted upwards, and her existence becoming naught more than a dream.

"I... I am sorry, Irisviel... Illyasviel. Kiritsugu.
But this is the only way.
I have no more regrets."

In the winter pre-dawn of Fuyuki city, a black sun arose from the Municipal Hall.

***
Puella Magi Schuetze Aurulent
Part 3 : Like books and paper, history burns easily in fire...
***

"I wish to possess the power to be a queen.
I, Morganna Pendragon, desire to become a great queen.
To possess the power and ability to become the greatest witch-queen known to man.
This is my desire. My hope.
Now, make my wish manifest, oh lord of the fairy, Kyuubey!"

Wishes are, in the end, nothing more than words.
Words shaped by hope.
Desires.
Dreams.
Needs.
Despair.
But, some times, wishes can come true.
Even if their results are unforeseen.

All hail Morganna Pendragon, Eternal Witch-Queen of Britannia.

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