Chapter 1: and then he woke up..(Edited)

Step...

Step...

Step...

Step...

a long hallway, that's all the boy saw. The walls held paintings of blonde and silver/red-haired men wielding bows, and dual blades. Some raising greatswords that looked like sharpened stone slabs one-handed or firing off thousands of identical weapons against hordes of undead. Paintings of other boys around his age gritting their teeth in determination as they held up glowing shields, blocking what seemed to be devastating beams of colored light and more.

"This dream again.." He hummed, marching through the area fearlessly. As he walked, he heard gunfire, the clashing of metals, and chants from people whose vocal cords sounded like they were made out of STEEL. He didn't know why he kept moving forward; when each step he took, the sound became louder. Maybe he thought, 'If I get farther down, the sound will reach a limit and stop.' Yes, Perhaps even the paintings would stop staring at him.

'Wait, what?'

The boy stopped moving and looked at one of the paintings. It stared back. Bright blood-red eyes stared dangerously deep into his soul. Those eyes seemed to look down on him, daring him to say something, challenging him to meet his gaze. As the boy mustered the [Courage] to glance back he could have sworn he could hear somebody else whispering into his ears,

Prove... Your.. Worth..

The moment their eyes locked onto each other, the surroundings disappeared. The sounds of combat stopped, and all he could hear was the faint grinding of a metal heartbeat. The air was thick. Covered in a blanket of fog so dense he might as well have worn a blindfold and there would be no difference.

"This is new..."

He took a few steps around the area, turning around occasionally, and checking his surroundings, before stumbling across

"A Chair?" He questioned, "Why is there a chair here?"

The boy moved closer to the object. "In the middle of all of this fog?" It made no sense to him. "But what the hell was I expecting, This is a dream after all..."

As he moved, the fog revealed more of the object's features before revealing its true nature.

"This isn't a chair.. This is a throne..." His eyes widened in disbelief. As he moved closer the gray mist in the air circled him, moving forward revealing the path ahead.

And then he touched it. Several thousand objects materialized nearby, rumbling into reality, manifesting out of thin air covering every other floor tile stretching out into infinity. Swords, spears, shields, chairs, goblets, crowns, and various currencies, each slightly different in color and design, and other treasures in every shape and size. Despite the gray steam making his ability to see no better than a blind man, he could see each one far more clearly than he could see his own two hands. He took a step, stubbing his toe on the corner of the throne beside him.

PAIN

The boy stumbled back, overwhelmed by the surreality of it all.

"W-what is this?! I thought this was a dream!" he yelled into the seemingly ever-expanding space. He got no actual reply, simply a burst of sensations flowing through his body.

TURN LEFT.

He did.

The teen turned to the left and saw the only area without a spec of gold or silver. A wide circle of empty space with a ginormous statue of several people, completely unrecognizable from his location. He moved through the fog mindlessly, knowing nothing about the force driving him towards the statues.

CLOSER.

He couldn't even feel whatever was guiding him, pushing him to keep moving forward. He just knew whatever he was here for was over there.

As he inched forward, the statue's design became clearer. He could see four men nearly identical in appearance. He could only tell they differed by how tan their 'skin' (Paint) was and the amount of white/silver in their hair and eyes. On the right of the statue, he saw a blonde man holding a sword, green flames with strange symbols of the same color swirling around it. His ears spiked like that of a fantasy elf, his costume everchanging. On the left was another blonde man, his armor made out of pure gold, and red-lined tattoos glowing all over his upper body. He recognized this person in the paintings earlier. They all surrounded a generic mannequin doll that held an orb over a fire cauldron.

TOUCH IT.

He steps closer.

TOUCH IT.

He reached his hand out.

TOUCH... IT...

He touched it.

GOOD.

Nothing happened at first. He sat there for a minute, turning around sheepishly, grateful that nobody was around him.

"thank god-"

Hot?

'What?' He thought.

HOT

His body slowly heated up and the boy felt increasingly uncomfortable. Panting, he nearly fell to the ground, only stabilizing himself by placing his other hand on top of the orb.

He regretted doing so immediately as his body, specifically his arms began to smoke. The skin on them tanned as he screamed. His eyes were bloodshot. He let out nervous laughter as he tugged at his limbs, feeling as if fires raged on beneath his skin, licking through the flesh of his hands and arms.

"AAHHAHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-" He screeched, attempting to pull his hand off the orb, stuttering outcries of agony as he struggled. He never managed to separate his hands from it. It was stuck like it was fused to his palm.

"Wha- wuh- why! Why can't I..." He scrambled out before choking on his words, his nerves sending him insufferably sharp cries of pain.

"Huahaaaa..." The boy's mind went blank, incapable of processing what was happening to him. It was as if his nerves were slowly being tied to barbed wires and broken glass by beings recently freed from the core of the sun...

The sensations crawled up his arms, dancing over his entire body before consuming him completely. Through the hell, he could see the mannequin changing shape, growing hair, eyes, and ears. it was the last thing he saw before everything became white and his body took on the same consistency as the statues in front of him before he blacked out....

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Darkness once again. It felt like a few hours had gone by, Probably... he couldn't tell.

『Loading...』

Now the only source of light was the slightly transparent glowing screen in front of him. He didn't know what time it was, it wouldn't tell him. He didn't know where he was, it never responded to him. He only knew that his body, no, his entire soul might as well have been placed through a grinder. Even after the surroundings had gone away and his hands were freed, he felt like his entire body was submerged in boiling waters. He felt the worst in his arms and torso as if somebody hellspawn injected molten steel directly into his veins for fun. He was only sane because of the waves of cool "Water" that flowed across his body at random. The foreign substance seemed to originate from his arms and the center of his chest moving out to the rest of his body. Having nothing to do, the boy closed his eyes and tried to find out what was happening with his body since he couldn't see anything wrong externally.

Immediately, he could feel a mass at the center of his chest alongside several weaker signals stretching along his forearms. Despite having zero experience in what he was trying to do, it didn't take long for his mind to begin picturing what it was. The boy began Visualizing several circuit-like lines in his chest stretching out towards a sphere surrounding his heart, beating in sync with it. Every beat sends a pulse of energy through the circuits, flooding his body with the same cool substance. Opening his eyes he noticed the area around him carrying far more brightness than before. Glancing down, he saw circuit patterns shining brightly on his forearms and a slight humming glow on his chest, cooling his body down and erasing his stress. Ever so slowly his body regained the strength it once had...

『System loaded.』

"Is it over?" he strained out

『Processing commands.』

"God damn it" He sat there in nothingness for what felt like years before hearing static,

He's ri-ght. Eve...Eve ...Even..... get tir..... 

'What?' He wondered, 'who is this?'

of th..at every night.

"Hello? Who said that?"

He could hear the humming buzz of static and unintelligible whispers. 

"Is anybody there? Can you hear me?!"

Nothing.

"Please Say something!" He cried out

It was deadly silent.

He was once again alone in his thoughts.

"At least I still have this screen."

『Connection secured.』

and now it was dark.

"Oh come on! That's not fair!"

『Preforming repairs...』

The status screen returned in a bright flash of green light.

(Well, anyone adapted to pure darkness would consider the weakest lights blinding)

"Ah... F- My eyes! I wasn't asking for a flashbang you nonsentient prick!"

"How did it take him so long to notice we were watching?" one questioned. "Calling that poor...display... awareness is quite insulting to everyone with the slightest bit of it."

As he rubbed his eyes He heard another person sigh, "Just wait, He doesn't seem like a bad guy. Why don't you give him a break? He had nothing to do with our situation anyway."

"Who the hell?" he repeated

"Look here Hero, Faker, That Boy walked that hallway every time he fell asleep. For TWO years he walked down an endless hallway with no purpose."

"Are you talking about me?" He was ignored

"Hey, maybe he likes walking???"

"That is no excuse for stupidity. Stop defending his actions, mongrel."

"Can you even hear me?" he questioned. "Hellooo~~"

"Oh? He speaks?"

"Finally, a response."

"Tch... We hear you, kid. Stay put and shut your eyes." He felt a light headache as the sound of tearing somehow reverberated in the empty space, "lest you experience a pain far worse than awakening that core and circuits of yours."

The boy listened locking his eyes shut and resolved to stay as still as possible in the nothingness.

"Your eyes... open them... you're here now."

A man dressed in armor pants made of gold, red markings across his torso, and upper left arm sat in front of him on a throne. 2

"Guh- Gilgamesh?!" he shouted, stumbling backward into another person.

He didn't know what to believe, he wished everything in front of him was fake, but everything he felt contradicted that.

"Hmm, I guess he knows you..." he looked up at the person he hit and nearly fainted.

"Faker..." Gil frowned, "Three chances, that's all I'm giving the boy.."

The boy was far beyond worried. His heartbeat spiked to levels he never imagined possible, "Hey... Is he supposed to be spiking like that?"

"No, but I think we're scaring him..."

"Really now? Here I was under the impression the boy was shaking from excitement." The white-haired man mocked

He turned to the left, the voices of people people he considered to be fiction happily chatting right beside him.

"Multiple S-Shirou's? What is th-"

"Stay silent, boy," Gilgamesh grunted out. "Calm yourself. Only then will I allow you to speak."

On instinct, his body followed the golden man's order. His heart rate lowered to normal levels, and he stopped trembling.

'A+ Charisma really is something, this might as well be a suggestion or lesser mind control skill.' he thought to himself, astonished at how compelled he was to follow Gil's words.

'Is every king like this?'

Heeding Gilgamesh's words he swallowed his fear and began to speak, "W-what the hell is going on here?"

One EMIYA smirked, "Oh? The brat isn't as weak as I thought..."

"Be kinder./He knows nothing/Of course, he's weak right now./Strength takes time..." the man on the right spoke. His voice seemed to change alongside his body and outfit every few seconds. His personality shifting alongside the swap of clothing.

It reminded the boy of the avatar.

The tallest man on the left made his presence known. "Be kinder? This fool walked that god-forsaken endless hallway for two years before he finally stared at one of the paintings."

"A-Are you serious? You know the state of his spirit and you expected him to be all there?" another voice rang out.

"Mmm... I guess you're right. He should be less functional than those vegetables1."

'These...These guys, why are they like this?'

"Seventeen years in such a state is worthy of some respect I suppose."

'H-how long have they been here?!' While our protagonist blanked out, trying to figure out where he'd seen these individuals before, The men argued over how they should treat him for failing to release their presence sooner. It looked like a group of siblings arguing over who would get the last slice of pizza.

"O-oh... Did he faint?"

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Meanwhile, several spirits of different origins watched the boys bicker from an unknown location. "I knew merging these spirits was a bad idea." a group thought in unison, watching them argue in disappointment over such a simple thing. "arguing when you could be helping the boy understand his situation, damn it, It's almost morning!" Two female voices yelled from afar.

"Calm down, girls. Even if they don't explain much, he still hasn't realized he has a system." another lady spoke up in amusement. " I'd be able to speak to our dear hero directly as his assistant!"

The smugness in her tone was suffocating the rest of them. "Oh look, they stopped arguing with each other."

"I don't know why you two made such a big deal out of this. It's obvious if you put together that many souls with that many differences, they'd disagree with each other at first." Her grin threatened to split her face as she spoke, "It's rare that they even become one being that easily unless it is somebody like me assisting in their merge." The other two recoiled further back."Don't tell me you just let them shove them all into one body without any warning." Their silence told her everything she needed to know. "By the root..." she gasped. "You two are lucky, dears Soul accepted the others exceptionally quickly. I've never seen adaptability on that level before, as expected dear never fails to keep on surprising me." Suddenly, her nose sharpened, and she placed one arm over her chest, the other to her side slightly raised. It was a stance similar to a certain fake priest, "Sigh... I guess that means I'll have to be more active with him! I'll be sure to take good care of him for you!" The response was different from what she expected.

Back with the boys, they had reached an agreement.

"He better not be like those dense anime protagonists from that anime thing. If he fails to see the affection of those around him I'll do my best to damage everything in your mindscape. Mongrel, Do you Understand?" The teen had never been so confused in his life, the man standing in front of him was [King Of Heroes] Gilgamesh. The elf, no the Hylian on his right, was [Hero of Hyrule] Link, and the group on his left were several versions of the same man Shirou Emiya, the [Wrought-Iron Magus].

he had come to some realization and waited for the words to leave his mouth. "This... This isn't just a dream. It's too real to be just a dream. How are you here?"

"Time's almost up, but yes this is very real. Don't know how this is happening though, a bunch of us just lost contact with Alaya..." EMIYA said frowning. "Nothing we can do about it so you're stuck with us."

Placing a hand on the boy's shoulder EMIYA's face took on a more serious expression, "You'll soon realize some differences in the world around you, the grace period is over."

'Grace period?'

A man with a buzzcut rose from the ground sensing the boy's confusion and tapped the top of his head with the flat end of his... Gun..blades? Gun daggers? "We can't say much, Hell we don't actually know that much." he sighed, "Last thing we heard before we woke up in here was some weird stuff about a system. Everyone caught different bits of whatever conversation was going on, nobody could share the information to put the pieces together and believe me when we say we tried everything...

"I see you reacting to these words, makes sense since everything seems to be meant to help you out. I'll tell you everything I know so-"

A blade struck the ground in front of the short-haired EMIYA. "Nuhh- Nope." Gil smiled arrogantly. "He'll figure the rest of that out when he wakes up. I need my entertainment, it's no fun if he knows everything."

Clapping his hands together, he continued, "So, Pay attention to your surroundings. They'll be different since you acknowledged your situation. Once you're up be sure to keep things entertaining, I'd hate for somebody baring my abilities to be boring."

Gilgamesh let out a laugh before snapping his fingers, ripples of golden light distorting the space beside him. "Be grateful, Mongrel... No.. I suppose I can't call you that anymore, that'd be insulting myself. How annoying." Huffing slightly, Gilgamesh stretched his hands through the rippling space. "For the first time in true human history, The impossible has become possible." He pulled out a strange-looking key and separated a portion of it. "This is all I'll allow you to use for now, If you wish for me to acknowledge your existence and grant you the rest, you must earn it."

EMIYA and Shirou nodded at each other before dashing forward and shoving several strange marble-looking spheres into my chest. "You have a strange potential. Only after Struggling will you gain the strength to crush the opposition." a more aggressive Shirou shouted before adding something to the growing pile of strange objects shoved into his body.

He looked over to link. The Hero of Hyrule Shook his head before saying, "I can't give you much, you'd probably break down." The elf-like man placed a hand to his chin thinking to himself... "But... This much should be enough for now," he said before firing a small green flame onto my hands. "Come back when you are stronger... Maybe I'll teach you a thing or two."

My body hit the ground

..

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.

.

.

 and then I woke up.

-x-x-x-x-x-

Hey there. I've decided to rewrite the fanfic so it flows better into the next chapter. I Got told some chapters go by a bit too fast so I'll be trying to keep the pacing consistent. I can't sleep or eat right now I got my wisdom teeth removed and filling for the tooth that got badly damaged because of the wisdom teeth coming in the wrong way. A slightly take on the same story that hopefully is easier on the eyes. I refuse to drop this fic I'll just improve it over time.