Path of the King by Neoalfa (Fate/Stay)

Latest Update:March 10, 2023

Summary: "With swords that aren't yours, with skills that aren't yours, for dreams that aren't yours. Your entire existence is a lie!" - "Then I'll show you that even fake dreams can become reality." A different choice, a different path, a different FATE. Shirou/Multi

Link: https://m.fanfiction.net/s/7657235/1/Path-of-the-King

Word Count:446k

Chapters:58

Prologue - Made out of Blades

Trace On.

Two words. A meaningless waste of breath for anybody but the red haired boy.

Two words, that encompassed all of his existence. A trigger for his resolve. A fancy Abracadabra. Nothing more than a self imposed delusion.

Ironically, he was all about delusions. He deluded himself that he could be an Hero. He deluded himself that he could save everyone. Reality, however, wasn't such a wishful thing. Reality trumped over dreams and heroes every minute of every day. He knew it very well. He knew it and he didn't give a damn.

He pushed his bleeding body and stood straight once more. His muscles ached form the strain they had been put through. His wounds bled with renewed vigor. Avalon worked fast, but even Excalibur's Scabbard couldn't keep up with the onslaught caused by countless Noble Phantasms.

'Trace On.'

Two words.

The greatest delusion.

An unrealizable dream.

An everdistant utopia.

A smile crept on his face despite the pain.

The Sword and the Scabbard couldn't be too different after all, could they? No, in fact they had to mirror each other perfectly in order to fit. Different tools with different purposes yet so very much alike. Was it irony or was it fate that they had met? Never mind. It didn't matter. Regardless of the circumstances there was but one path ahead for him.

He didn't need anything else but those two words to keep on moving. All he ever needed to challenge his true opponent. The only one he couldn't hope to defeat, and the same time, the only one he wasn't allowed to lose against.

Not the blond haired King of Heroes in front of him.

Not the immortal demigod that fought for the snow haired girl.

Not the priest that had orchestrated this sick scenario.

Not the worm filled Head of an ancient family of Magi.

Not the many phenomenon that had been evoked for that pointless war.

No one else but himself.

An eternal struggle which ultimate result could only be defeat. Fortunately, someone as distorted as him wouldn't want anything else but an hopeless battle.

It wasn't a war against reality. It was a fight against himself. Against the temptation to give up, to cast away his dreams, to live contenting himself with what little he could manage to save without truly sacrificing anything.

Never. Not even for a single moment he would have acknowledged such a thing.

That single minded conviction, that naïve stubbornness, that resolve was the fulcrum of his flawed existence.

He gritted his teeth, his muscles tightened and his Od flowed through his circuits. The pain had been cast away, the fear crushed, the doubts destroyed. As a human he couldn't hope to win. No human could truly fight against a Servant. But he wasn't just a man anymore.

'I am the bone of my sword…'

The Noble Phantasms within the Gate of Babylon shoot toward him as fast as bullets. With the sound of clashing steel their assault was stopped in midair by an equal amounts of identical blades coming from the boy's direction.

'Iron is my blood and Glass is my Heart…'

Another salve of weapons went flying in his direction like oversized arrows. Gilgamesh arrogance was his ultimate weakness. Victory was to be achieved on his terms or not at all. He didn't even consider of using Ea, the Sword of Rupture, to deal with the boy. In response Rho Aias sprung into existence, pulled from the Hill of Swords by a nudge of the boy's mind, hopelessly crushing the thrown blades.

'I have withstood untold pains to create countless weapons…'

Reality around him began to crack as the boy kept chanting, pushing his own Origin against the World. The King didn't even bother noticing, as it was beneath him to acknowledge someone so low as that Faker as an actual threat.

'I have walked many battlefields undefeated….'

As usual the change began from inside him. Wounds closed almost instantly with a metallic noise. If anybody bothered to check it would have been obvious that he hadn't actually healed ,rather he had knitted himself close through minuscule overlapping blades.

'Not once I have retreated. Nor once I have strayed…'

His circuits were alight with power. Mana flowed in his body through his contracts. His body was a vessel for power, albeit not in the Servant's league. Not that it mattered. Thaumaturgy was about Will rather than raw strength and he had that in spades.

'I have no regrets. This is the only path…'

The world shaped on the boy's beliefs and convictions. Magecraft that bordered Sorcery. The closest thing to a miracle, that he could hope to accomplish with his own limited skills. The reason for his weaknesses and the source of his strength.

'Certainly this body… is made out of blades…'

'My whole life is…. Unlimited Blade Works!'

Flames enveloped them, drawing the boundaries of his Reality Marble, cutting away the world that didn't accept his beliefs.

Flames. Like those that killed him so many years before.

Flames. Like those he had been rescued from.

Flames that shaped him like the Blade he had chosen to be.

The Hill of Swords opened up before him. In his hands Kanshou and Byakuya, the Blades that were the receptacle of his accumulated experience, glimmered in the light of the sunset, carving for the incoming confrontation between fighters.

"Here I come, King of Heroes. Do you have enough weapons at your disposal?"

He charged forward, ignoring the insults of the Archer Class Servant. Their blades met with a thundering clash of steel and in that single moment of blinding sparks his mind reeled back to the moment when he had begun to walk down this path.

Link: https://m.fanfiction.net/s/7657235/1/Path-of-the-King