Fool's World: The Tower (ch. 20) (Patreon)

The world ran off of irony. It was hardly a secret when you knew what to look for and lived long enough. I wasn't sure if it was the machinations of Alaya or just human nature, but the world was filled to the absolute brim with little ironic twists of fate that unceremoniously fucked over people's hopes and dreams. It could be something simple -- a photo of a group of friends getting smashed celebrating their last hurrah before they all go their separate ways in life, only for that photo to be brought up in an interview for one of their dream jobs.

Or someone who took fanatical care of their health after seeing the unhealthy habits of their parents. But, while their parents smoked a pack a day for their entire lives and were absolutely fine, it was their kid that got terminal lung cancer.

They were everywhere. If you looked closely enough, you could find dozens of them in a human's life over the course of a century. Sometimes the irony was hardly there, going unnoticed. Other times it was a major, life pivoting moment. And sometimes, that twist of fate would lay in wait for decades before revealing itself at an inopportune moment. More often than not, I found that irony hilarious.

Even when it happened to me.

A slow giggle rose up from within my chest before transforming into a chuckle as the irony really sank in. The more it did, the more I appreciated it as the cosmic joke it was. Those chuckles soon turned into a breathless laugh and before I knew it, my shoulders were shaking from the force of my laughter. A rare smile graced my lips as I opened my eyes while pushing myself to my feet, my curses nestling in the gaping hole in my chest to replace my missing heart, and some of my lung.

"You were amusing enough to keep around, Kotomine Kirei," I told the shitty priest as I stood up, rolling my shoulders. The Command Seals on my hand disappeared, while the true nature of humans carved into my flesh rose up to the surface. It was written in Babel, the original language of humans, so they could all look upon my flesh and know the truth. "But, I gotta say, keeping you around has been a huge pain in my ass."

Kirei narrowed his eyes, his hand going to his heart. Or, rather, the curses that I gave him, shaped into the semblance of a heart to keep him alive. He had been too amusing to let die. Especially after Kiritsugu turned into such a let down. "You… you are Angra Mainyu," Kirei breathed, and my favorite psychopath looked shocked at the revelation, while Lancer narrowed his eyes. Curses flowed through my body like blood and I could feel them lingering on his feet.

A sigh escaped me as I pushed back my hair, "That's what they call me," I agreed, tilting my head ever so slightly. "Look, I appreciate you trying to pave the way to my rebirth and all, but I had that handled already. So…" I made an expression of 'What can you do?' and had my curses start rampaging through Kirei's body. He dropped to his knees, vomiting curse-tinged blood, but there was a smile on his face. An honest one.

"What in the fuck is going on here?" Lancer demanded, not looking too broken up about his Master's suffering. He leveled his spear at me, more out of caution than protectiveness for Kirei, but I stepped forward all the same, walking by him. He was prepared to kill me if he had to, but I didn't feel any malicious intent, letting me know he wasn't planning to be the one to make the first move.

"I," I began, coming to a stop in front of the baseball bat that Majima had dropped, "Just had my plans fucked over by my entertainment." A true twist of fate.

Mikoto Majima was pathetic. He really was. However, I would give him this -- he was clever. Not just clever enough to reach me as I loitered on the rim of the Holy Grail, tainting it with my mere presence, but clever enough to screw me over. But we had both known that only one of us would win with the deal that we made.

Mikoto, which was such a lame-sounding name, got to finish his family's magecraft. He got the perfect body. Magecraft became a thing he could learn on the fly, and witnessing it in action to help him steal other families' research. He also got a Servant that didn't exist in this version of reality.

In exchange, I got the wish when he won the Holy Grail.

However, we began to screw each other pretty much immediately. I gave him some unofficial Command Seals, three in total, that made him an unofficial master, much to the Holy Grail's chagrin. Those Command Seals had a hook in them however. Regular Command Seals existed to command the final surviving Servant to kill themselves to complete the Holy Grail ritual. Mine were different. When he used the last of my special Command Seals, I would get a curse bath and… wake up, more or less.

Mikoto also made plans. Nobara was a Servant that was my natural enemy. Her day job was to exorcise curses. Thankfully, Mikoto was a horny idiot and skipped over other more problematic choices on account of Nobara's massive tits. I had undercut that advantage of his by making an adjustment to the body -- the transformation would begin when it encountered its first stressor. Which had been the punch in the face at that club.

By linking Nobara and my body, thus giving Nobara a flesh and blood body, when the transformation began, my memories were wiped. Nobara got a lesser experience as a result -- instead of a full mind wipe, she would just lose most of her memories. That way, she wouldn't be able to use the Cursed Techniques that could pose a real danger to me, but she would remember enough to pose a danger to others.

All that was my plan. It was also a huge misdirect for Mikoto because he never got to experience the body that I handcrafted. It was a simple thing, really. He was so busy trying to out-think me, he missed the simplest solution. Instead of putting his soul in my body, I put my soul in his instead. At least, so I thought.

He hadn't been able to stop me, but he had been able to punish me by setting the Yakuza after me. Mikoto already had the Yakuza poised to collapse in an act of spite. He just added a few extra geas' to make sure that those that survived the collapse would know that it had been him, thus sending them after as punishment for body-jackin’ him.

"I was close," I muttered, picking up the baseball bat and giving it a few swings. "So damn close to escaping this curse of mine."

"...Oh?" Lancer said, settling in a stance. I could feel his desire to fight. How he was straining against the Command Seal to hunt down and slaughter the Yakuza that had been here.

"Do you have any idea how much it fuckin' sucks being all the evil in the world?" I questioned, pointing the business end of the baseball bat at him. Angra Mainyu was not my name. It was a title. It was something I became when this curse was pushed into me. When I was chosen to be the Source of All Evil and tortured for my entire life to absolve my village of their sins.

I was a scapegoat. A convenient lie to make my village feel better about themselves. When they raped, murdered, stole, or lied -- it wasn't their fault. It was mine. So when they tortured me by flaying me alive or filling my guts with bullet ants, they were atoning for their sins. They were in the clear. Downright paragons of virtue. Jesus of Nazareth had nothing on them. All because of me, a nameless sacrifice, so they could sleep soundly at night and lie to themselves.

I was all of the evil in the world and I was a sacrifice to that same evil. I was the perpetrator and the victim of every evil act.

"I'm guessing a lot," Lancer remarked, shuffling to the side ever so slightly. "So, is this the real you? Who was that idiot that was willing to fight me in a bare-knuckle brawl?"

My grip tightened on my bat, "That was me. Is me. It's who I am without being all the world's evil," I answered. Kirei did have a point -- that was me in my purest form. It was who I was without this… hell twisting who I was. I didn't remember my old life, way back when I was human. I remember what was done to me, but not who I was. I got tortured into insanity pretty early on. I couldn't remember my name, if I had a family, my hopes and dreams… I never got the chance to be anything other than a sacrifice.

I wiped my own memories after I stole this body from Mikoto. I wiped away all memory of what I endured and what I perpetrated. All in the hopes that I could build a new foundation for my sense of self. All I had been for thousands of years was evil. That's all I could be. I had no frame of reference beyond being a vile piece of shit or a tormented victim.

This was meant to be my chance to find something else. To be someone other than Angra Mainyu. To be Mikoto Majima. To make friends, make enemies, to have fun, and make enough memories that when the curtain had to fall, Mikoto Majima would endure. Those memories would serve as a foundation and maybe, maybe, I could escape the title of Angra Mainyu because I was no longer a nameless sacrifice.

"So, as I see it, I still owe you an ass-kicking," I told him, earning a hungry smirk from Lancer. In the end I didn't make enough memories. The foundation of Mikoto Majima wasn't strong enough. It cracked under the weight of my curse. However, it didn't crumble. There were pieces still there. The foundation I hoped to make wasn't so far gone that I needed to start from scratch. "Plus, I need to clear my head a bit. Hope you don't mind?"

"I thought you'd never ask," Lancer replied as I Reinforced my body and my baseball bat. I needed to clear my head. I needed to focus. I needed to be Mikoto Majima as much as I could.

Lancer was a powerful Servant and despite being a minor god, I was still human. There would be a day when I could fight Lancer as a peer, but that day was not today.

His red spear flashed out, moving in a blur towards my chest. I batted the spear away with my bat, sending a shower of sparks throught he air as the two weapons clashed. Lancer smirked as he pulled the spear back, and like the tongue of a snake, it flickered out at me. I stood my ground, knocking the weapon away as I slowly increased the Reinforcement channeled to both my body and my weapon.

Each time his weapon flickered forward and was knocked away with a shower of sparks, Lancer's speed increased. He was prodding, testing me, seeing how fast I could react. His spear flickered down at my legs, up to my neck, at my chest and guts, all at rapid speeds. Each and every single one of them were just barely blocked as I steadily strengthened my body, having learned from my mistakes against Kuzuki.

My bat moved in a blur, matching him blow for blow, the surface of the bat quickly becoming covered in scratches and deep grooves -- it was no match for a Noble Phantasm. Still, it held up well enough that I could feel out my limits as Lancer let me test myself. But, enhanced body or not, I wouldn't have been able to keep up with him if it wasn't for the fact I could feel the malicious intent coming from him.

I was the source of All Evil in the World. To wish to harm someone was an act of evil. It was a faint whisper in my ear, but I knew exactly where each blow would land, giving me enough warning that I could block it.

Lancer's smile grew as sparks danced between us, the church courtyard filled with the sounds of clashing metal. I could sense his impatience for the battle to ramp up, and even before it happened, I knew the next thrust at my heart would be one that I couldn't block.

My magic circuits flared. I hadn't been able to use this body as well as I could have since my memories had been wiped, but I had crafted this body in accordance to Mikoto's desires. I knew of his family. Human experimentation was an act of evil. I had been there with them every step of the way, so I knew his family's desires. To be living gods on Earth, true magic available at their fingertips, and unchallenged by all of the other Magus families.

In response to my circuits, as I thrust my aluminum bat forward, a projection formed in my other hand. Lancer's eyes widened a fraction when a ghostly specter of a baseball bat formed in my other hand -- it was faintly translucent and had a shimmering aura of white around it like a ghost. I had missed some steps when I saw Archer use his magecraft, so my projections weren't the same quality.

Still, it was enough to force Lancer to abandon the attack when I took a swing at his head with my off-hand bat. He diverted the blow, making the ethereally pale bat shatter like glass and fade into nothing, with the shaft of his spear, letting me take a step forward to swing the bat down on one of his kneecaps, only for Lancer to take a half step back. His spear spun in his hand before he went to slam the butt of his spear into my temple. I brought my bat up, moving to block the blow.

I realized my mistake when I felt the shaft of my bat slam into the side of my head, sending me flying a good dozen feet back. I twisted to leach off some of the momentum, letting me land on my feet as curses trickled down the side of my head. My 'blood' was black with a faint reddish hue to it. At the same moment, I projected more bats since it was the only thing I could manage, these reinforced like my body before I shot them like missiles at Lancer.

He smashed through them, a crazed grin on his face as he darted forward in a blur that I couldn't even hope to follow. A-rank Agility was no joke. However, I knew that the blow would land at my neck, determined to behead me, so I threw myself forward and fired off more bats to try to force him into a certain direction, only for them to veer off track. Did flying bats count as arrows?

"You," Lancer started, spinning his spear and slamming the butt of it into my bat as I blocked the thrust, sending me skidding back a good dozen feet. "Aren't as strong as I thought you'd be. I mean, I get that you're human right now, but with a moniker like All The World's Evil…"

"I spent the entirety of my life suffering every cruelty humans can inflict on one another. I didn't exactly do a lot of fighting. Honestly, it's a bad joke that I can be considered a hero. When I got summoned as Avenger in the Third Grail War, I was only good for killing humans," I pointed out. I wasn't a fighter, so I didn't have any combat skills or blessings. Zoroastrianism had fallen off as a major religion, so I was largely unknown by the larger world. Maybe if I was a proper Servant, maybe the Caster Class, I might have something to work with. Right now, I was just a human with the potential to be strong.

I didn't even have a Noble Phantasm.

"Ehh, guess that's fair," Lancer said, sounding disappointed, and that kinda pissed me off. No, actually, it really pissed me off. I wanted to beat his head in but that seemed… disproportionate for the level of irritation I felt. "Guess I'll just lower my expectations. Here I come!" Lancer announced, darting forward in a blur. The remark set something off inside of me. Something distinctly Mikoto Majima and not Angra Mainyu.

I took in a deep breath and gripped my bat with white knuckles. Reading his evil desires to do harm and Reinforcement were letting me keep up, but it wasn't enough. What I had… was a healing factor that I could abuse.

Reinforcement was a dangerous thing, I had learned. If you weren't careful with it, then you ended up with glass bones unable to keep up with your own strength. If the human body was an engine, then the pinnacle of Reinforcement was to make that engine perform as perfectly as it could. Anything past that would overclock the engine, damaging it until it eventually broke down.

But that's what a healing factor was for.

"Don't," I started, flooding my body with mana as every single one of my magic circuits flared to life. The steady ramp-up I had used before vanished as I went full throttle. The first thing I felt was an incredible heat across my body, a warning that I was doing something stupid, but I pressed my circuits even harder. The sheer amount of mana that coursed through me, now that I knew better, was unworldly. "Look!" I snapped, swinging my arms back, my eyes feeling like they were going to pop as I was suddenly able to see Lancer.

I swung my bat with all of my strength, my veins bulging in my arms while my magic circuits glowed an intense blue under my skin. The moment that my bat struck his spear with thunderous force, my magic circuits erupted, leaks springing in them as the demand proved to be too much. Bright blue fire erupted from my skin where the leaks formed, flickering in the air, but lingered when I poured more mana into my body. "Down on me! Asshole!" I finished, sending Lancer flying through the air.

"That's what I'm talking about!" Lancer shouted as I shot forward, my legs fracturing under the explosive force, but my healing factor kept me whole as I darted to where Lancer would land, sending a half dozen ethereal bats at him, but he knocked them away. He landed lightly with a smile on his face, clashing against me in a flurry of blows. It was clear how much he had been holding back prior to now. With each traded blow, the ground seemed to shake, the air quivering from the intensity while sparks danced in the air with each attack.

It was the first time I had wielded a baseball bat, but my fight with the older Majima carried me through. I saw how he treated it as an extension of himself, wielding his bat with the same amount of grace as a legendary swordsman worthy of the Throne of Heroes.

"You really are the same guy!" Lancer cheered, excitement clear on his face as we fought, our battle continuing, taking us towards the Church courtyard once again.

I wasn't. Before, I had just been myself. I wasn't Mikoto Majima. I was whoever I had been before I became Angra Mainyu. But, I was different. I could feel it. There was enough of me that hadn't been completely swallowed up by the title of Angra Mainyu.

Lancer smiled a wolfish smile, his spear darting out in a flurry of motion, the true skill he possessed on full display for the first time. Only that wasn't the complete truth. His stats had been hit by the bounded field, nerfing them significantly. Even still, it was taking everything I had to keep up with him. My body felt like it was being cooked from the inside out from the heat radiating out from my magic circuits, and with each second, I felt another magic circuit rupture to spew out mana like an oil rig on fire. My body was trying its best to keep up with the demand, but I kept asking more of it.

I smashed my bat into the shaft of his spear, throwing my head back and slamming my forehead against his. Lancer met the headbutt, returning it with one of his own. At the same moment, I summoned two baseball bats and sent them at him from behind. I thought I had him until I felt my legs swept from underneath me when he dodged them, but I caught myself with my free hand, then used the position to kick out at him. The back of my heel nearly slammed into his temple, only to be blocked by the shaft of his spear.

I summoned up another bat as I flipped up to my feet, forming an X with them that caught a thrust from Lancer, and I pushed the deadly edge of his weapon away from me. I threw a knee at his stomach, landing my first solid blow on him, but his abs were so hard it felt like kicking a brick wall. The blow didn't even wind him, even if it did knock him back a half step. He spun his spear sharply, disentangling it from my bats, before nearly taking my head off. I just barely dodged out of the way, feeling the razor-sharp spear carve off one of my ears as I leaned out of the way, thrusting up with one of my bats and landing an unclean blow against his chin.

His head snapped up, the smile never leaving his face as we both recovered our footing, trading another dozen blows in a short second before Lancer backed off. I grit my teeth, pressing forward as I furthered the reinforcement on my body. My ear was gone, and it wasn't regrowing yet. My body was too busy undoing the damage of being cooked from the inside out to deal with superficial damage like that. I was pushing my healing factor to its absolute limit, and I was starting to feel like I had pushed it over it.

The burst of power I had wasn't going to last forever. I had an absurd amount of mana, but that didn't mean infinite.

"Lancer -- let's end this!" I growled at him, darting forward, knowing time was working against me. Lancer had to know as much as well. Still, his smile grew until it consumed his face.

"A dramatic finish!" he decided, his spear clashing against my bat, letting me knock him into the air and a dozen feet back. There, he settled into a stance. "Gae…!" Lancer started, intense red mana gathering around the tip of his spear, waving like fire as it twisted and swelled as more mana was pumped to it. His Noble Phantasm.

I read his intentions.

"Bolg!" Lancer shouted, moving in a burst of speed that I couldn't even hope to follow, regardless of my current power. All I saw was a red streak of light from his spear a split second before it punched through my chest. Directly where my heart used to be. It wasn't a matter of dodging or avoiding because his Noble Phantasm overwrote causality. As soon as Lancer invoked his Noble Phantasm, his spear would find his opponents heart. It didn't matter if you dodged or blocked his thrust. As far as the world was concerned, a heart was pierced, thus Lancer's spear must have found its mark. Only I didn't need my heart.

And Lancer knew that.

I used his momentum against him, thrusting forward with my baseball bat at the same time. I didn't know where I would get him, or even if I would succeed in striking him at all because he moved so fast, and it was nothing but dumb luck and irony that my baseball bat punched through Lancer's chest and into his heart. As the torrent of mana passed through my chest, for a moment, both of us were still, looking into the other's eyes. "You're a real asshole, you know that?"

Lancer chuckled, making blood erupt from his mouth. "Winning never mattered to me. I just wanted to have fun," Lancer said, pulling his spear out of my chest while I did the same with my bat. Blood gushed down his chest as he fell to his knees, much like I did. "Summon me again when you don't totally suck. You can get a rematch then," Lancer continued, falling back.

I wasn't fighting him at his best. So he let me win.

I could feel it. Like a war being waged inside of me. Angra Mainyu was satisfied with this, but the part of me that had been me was infuriated. The victory tasted like ash in my mouth and I wanted to heal Lancer just so I could kick his ass for letting me kill him.

I tsked to myself, running a hand through my hair. The Reinforcement of my body ended, and I felt my ear start to regrow as I was no longer being cooked alive. My ruptured magic circuits capped off, and I idly noted that they could produce more now. Each one produced a total of a hundred and twenty-five units of mana. I nearly doubled my already absurd mana capacity.

"You won this one, Lancer," I told him unhappily. I would get my rematch and I would win it. The right way. But, with him dead, other business became more pressing. Kirei was still alive. The man had lived off of my curses for a decade at this point. The reason why I had liked him so much was how easily he accepted the insanity from my curses. However, more pressingly… "Caster," I spoke, looking to the woman that had watched the battle. "I need to use your Noble Phantasm real quick."

Caster hovered above the gate around the Church, ready to flee at a moment's notice. She frowned at me for a moment. "How is it you know of my Noble Phantasm?"

Because I had spent the better part of a century on the Holy Grail as a glorified lemon wedge. "Let me try that again -- Caster, give me Rule Breaker, or I'm going to beat Kuzuki to death." I threatened, holding my hand out expectantly. I couldn't see her face, but I could feel her murderous intent. "Kirei is mine. I'm the reason he's alive. He has your blood. Now, you could try to take it from him, but I'm guessing you aren't as tough as Lancer, even with his nerfed stats. So, gimmie."

Nothing created hate quite like love. Up until I made that threat, Caster had been pretty indifferent to me. Now, I had threatened someone she loved. I was making her feel trapped. She utterly loathed me with a few sentences. That, in turn, made her intention as clear as day to me. I could feel her plans to murder me as she approached, lowering herself to the ground and striding forward. It was too easy. Because, in the end, I was those dark thoughts that prompted her to want to murder me.

Rule Breaker was a unique Noble Phantasm. A dagger designed to nullify magical contracts. It took the form of a jagged blade with a jeweled handle. Caster held it out to me, passing it into my waiting hand. With little hesitation, I spun the dagger in my palm and plunged it into my chest.

The geas that I had put on this body vanished, one that existed to misdirect Mikoto. As did countless others that Mikoto had put on countless people over his life. I would give him this -- he was rather proficient with mind control. However, the contract that I wanted to be nullified was still in place -- the curse that marked me as Angra Mainyu.

"Hm," I hummed. Caster opened her mouth to say something, something cruel based on her intentions, but she never got to finish the sentence because I slammed my bat into the side of her head with little warning. Caster went down, falling to her hands and knees, and I hit her again in the back of the head. "I did tell you, Caster," I said, beating her head in with little care, her body twitching as her cloak quickly soaked through with blood. "An alliance was off the table."

With a final hit, I took out Rule Breaker from my chest before tossing it into Caster's rapidly dematerializing corpse. Lancer was vanishing too. The Grail War was in full swing, and I had just killed two Servants. Go me.

Shouldering my bat, I let out a deep sigh, moving to turn my attention to Kirei, who knelt at the doorway to the church. He wore a smile, looking upon me downright lovingly. It was pretty creepy, to be honest. But my attention was quickly stolen when I heard the fluttering of fabric, and someone landed lightly behind me. Looking over my shoulder, I saw that it was Saber.

She looked like she had just been in a fight -- her royal blue dress was stained with blood and dust, her armor had a few scuffs on it. Most glaring of all was the expression of shock as she looked at me. I imagine I must be quite a sight to her given the circumstances. So, I smiled a friendly smile to put her at ease

"You aren't Majima," Saber accused, leveling her invisible sword at me. I guess the smile wasn't as friendly as I had intended.

She was right, there. I wasn't Majima. If I said that I was… it would be a lie.

"No. I'm not," I admitted, "But I know who you are. I suppose introductions are in order." I offered a polite bow, "My original name is lost to time, but you can call me Angra Mainyu -- God of Darkness, King of Daemons and Curses, and Source of All Evil." I introduced myself with what I hoped was a friendly air. Based on how she tensed, I think I missed the mark.

Saber and her holy sword Excalibur were a real danger to me. For obvious reasons. Swords like hers were made to kill things like me. "And I…" I continued, straightening out, "Could use your help."

Saber frowned, "And what could you use my aid with, Angra Mainyu?" she questioned, spitting my name out like a curse. Fitting.

I was Angra Mainyu. All the Evil in the World. The current me amounted to a reincarnation into this world. But this wasn't all of me. I was just a small piece of a much larger whole that was currently polluting the Holy Grail like an evil garnish. Because of that, I knew exactly what the rest of me was thinking.

If I couldn't stop being Angra Mainyu, the Source of All Evil in the World by being someone else… then there was only one natural alternative.

"Wanna help me save the world?"