Fool's World: The World (ch. 24) (Fate Jump End)

"I suppose this is goodbye," Majima told me, catching us as we set out to the heart of the Holy Grail. It was early in the morning, just past the crack of dawn. Majima stood alone as he leaned against the gate to Shirou's manor. He gazed at me with a lone eye, pushing himself off of the wall.

"It is," I confirmed. One way or the other, this would be goodbye.

"Are you two going to hug or what?" Nobara interjected, kicking me in the leg lightly while the others moved on to give us some privacy.

Majima tsked as he put his hands in his snakeskin pockets, "Nah, we ain't the type for that," Majima decided. I nodded in agreement -- I'd sooner believe that Majima was attacking me than I would believe that he was hugging me.

Nobara rolled her eyes, but said nothing. Leaving me to speak up, "I'm not Mikoto. I don't just not remember your and his fucked up father son relationship, but I wasn't there for any of it." I wasn't Mikoto that didn't remember that he was Mikoto. I was Angra Mainyu that had forgotten that I was Angra Mainyu. I just happened to look like Mikoto. That was it. "I'll say it again -- any sense of attachment that you feel is out of place."

"Don't feel any sense of attachment," Majima answered. "I ain't an idiot. Yer the devil that my punk ass ward made a deal with and got conned out of his body. Not sure if I should blame ya' for doing it, Mikoto for being that fuckin' stupid, or me fer not rasin' him right." He said, offering a dismissive shrug but I didn't feel any of my influence taking root within him. Goro Majima was a violent man by nature. If my influence wasn't taking root then it meant he was being honest.

A sigh escaped him, "I'm just here to tell ya' that you're Yakuza material. Got the right attitude fer it. Plus, I figure I owe ya'. Yer officially a member of the Majima family now, so don't go calling yerself a nameless sacrifice anymore, got it?" Majima said, his gaze lingering on me for a moment before he began to walk away. There was a moment that words seemed to fail me as I watched him walk away, so many thoughts flooding my mind it was like a trainwreck trying to voice any of them.

Nobara elbowed me after a moment and I still didn't quite know what to say. I adopted the name Majima because it was what everyone else was calling me. It was never really my name. Only now it was. It left me feeling… uncertain. Uncertain, but good.

In place of saying anything, I lowered my head in a respectful bow to Majima's retreating back. The man hadn't been my father, but I respected him all the same and he gave me a name. A real name. The simple action was enough to make it real to me rather than just something I was called like one of the many names I had been known throughout history.

A long moment passed before I raised my head to see that Majima hadn't looked back as he continued on his way. So, neither did I as I turned around, "Come on, Nobara. There's nothing else that needs to be said."

"I swear, the two of you would fit right in with a cheesy Yakuza soap opera," Nobara remarked as we made to rejoin the others. Not everyone was seeing me off, like I expected. Illya couldn't care less about me. Actually, she actively hated me. Which was fair enough, I could admit. I had used her connection to the Holy Grail to torment her more than once with visions of her mother and taunting words.

Sakura stayed behind with her. Rider would have stayed behind as well, but Sakura urged her to come given that I was technically still her Master. Touko and Rin had already gone ahead as far as I knew, leaving Saber, Rider, and Shirou as the ones that walked with me.

Shirou seemed conflicted as we walked, wearing a deep frown and there was tension in his shoulders. However, it was Saber that spoke. "You are certain that this will work?" She asked, and she could mean a lot of things by that. "You claim all of the Servants must be slain for the ritual to be complete."

Ah, that. "I spent nearly a century as a malicious garnish on the Holy Grail. At this point, I know more about it than the families that made the ritual itself." I answered, holding up my sleeve of Command Seals. "These have enough mana to complete the ritual without either of you dying." But, most importantly, there was the Angra Mainyu that remained in the Holy Grail. The one that had twisted the Grail into wanting to grant the wish of Angra Mainyu.

Saber seemed to pick up on that I was leaving something out, but said nothing. I didn't bring it up because I didn't know what would happen or how to offer any conciliation. There was only one of two things that would happen when I entered the Holy Grail.

No matter what, my wish would be granted. It was just a question of what wish would be made manifest.

We traveled in silence for the most part as we headed up to the heart of the Holy Grail. We hopped on a bus to shorten the distance and I took a moment to gaze out the window. I ignored the looks that I got. I never hid the scars that had been engraved in my flesh. Humans needed to know what they were capable of and I would never hide that fact just to spare them some comfort.

However, as I watched the city go by, the hatred for every human that I saw was dimmed ever so slightly. Hate was my natural state of being, and human suffering had always amused me, especially when it was self inflicted, but when I saw some toddler eat shit when he jumped off the swing at a park at its apex, the amusement was intermingled with concern. Then relief when I saw that the bite-sized human didn't manage to break his neck, much to the relief of his mother.

For the entirety of my existence, I had been a vessel overflowing with hatred. There was just never any room for anything else. Now? Now, this vessel was merely full of hatred with enough room for a few drops of something else. Little progress, but it was more than I had felt in thousands of years.

And for what I felt… the word hope could only be applied.

The hope that it would be enough.

Leaving the bus behind, we made our way into the forests with me leading the way. I was the only one that knew how to get to the Holy Grail itself. The others followed behind me in a sullen silence, some more aware of the dangers ahead than others.

I spotted Touko and Rin loitering around the entrance of the cave, Rin's face was pale as a bedsheet as she noticed us. Touko, however, simply lit the cigarette that dangled from her lips. "If it isn't my favorite student -- we caught a peek at your real body in there. You're a lot less pretty to look at."

"Again, literally the Source of All Evil," I pointed out, striding forward as we reached the end of a forgotten trail. Rin looked to me for a moment, her lips thinning as her gaze drifted over the truth written upon my face. I guess seeing was believing. "I thought you would have left already," I pointed out, entering the cave and the bounded field that was set up centuries ago.

"I was going to," Touko admitted, following along as Rin silently fell in step. "But I decided to see this through. Not to mention, I have to clear out your second workshop." Touko said, but I could hear the falsehood in her words. She was here to make sure the worse case scenario didn't happen. Prudent of her.

"Where are we going, exactly?" Shirou finally spoke up while we made our way to the Holy Grail.

"To meet the real me," I answered. The cave was swimming with mana, which should be expected given that this was the largest layline intersection in Japan and second in the world. All of it was being drawn towards the Holy Grail, given explicit directions to it. As we neared, I felt the taint in the air. The maliciousness that was my curse. It washed over my skin like oil, clogging every pore while each breath seemed to fill my lungs with tar.

The others were struggling more with it. Saber wore a severe expression, Rin looked even paler while Shirou seemed like he was reliving some painful memories. All the same, we pressed forward… until we reached the cavern that housed the holy grail system. It was large, roughly the size of a football stadium, with a narrow walkway that led to the edge of the Holy Grail. A pit cast off an unholy light, illuminating…

Me.

Angra Mainyu.

My flesh was made of malice, my bones were crafted from hate, and curses flowed through my veins like blood. A large twisted and grotesque creature filled the pit, a dozen eyes twisting and narrowing as I took notice of us. It was pretty weird hearing myself think -- I could tell that the Angra Mainyu before us wanted nothing but death and destruction. I wanted nothing more to inflict unspeakable horrors on everyone, the same horrors that I had suffered for so long. I was grown around the heart of the holy grail, enveloping it like a parasite as I had feasted upon the mana it drew for more than a century.

"That's-" Saber started, but cut herself off.

"That's me," I confirmed, coming to a stop before turning around to face the others. Rin had a hard time looking at me, but she managed it. Rider… honestly, she seemed overall indifferent. As far as I could tell, she was here just in case. Nobara seemed like she had prepared herself well enough for this. Given some things she had mentioned, I'm half certain that she had seen worse. Touko had already seen me during her initial investigation.

Leaving Shirou. His head was hung low, a tempest of emotions warring in his chest. There was anger there. And the desire to knock out a few of my teeth. He was faced with the one that had inflicted that hell on him and this time, I was wearing a familiar face. His hands were clenched into fight fists before he took in a sharp breath and let it out as a sigh, only then did he meet my gaze.

"I won't forgive you if you lose, Majima," he spoke, telling me that he had seen through the issue. "Ever. So, don't lose."

Seriously, the guy was crazy. However, Nobara followed it up by giving me a thumbs up, "You got this, Majima."

"What are you, cheerleaders?" I questioned, but Rin continued.

"There's nothing to worry about. Majima is far too thick-headed to be consumed by… whatever that thing is," Rin dismissed the possibility altogether.

Saber offered a curt nod, silently voicing her support while Rider offered a much more subtle one. Rider became my Servant because of convenience, but it seemed she did hold some respect for me. Touko simply watched on, a twinkle of amusement in her eyes as Shirou took it from the top and voiced more encouragement.

I turned around, hiding my face as I scratched the back of my head, not sure how to handle the three cheering me on mostly out of spite and to embarrass me. I'd much rather deal with myself so I began to stride forward, "Yeah, yeah -- I hear you. I guess it's time for some self reflection," I muttered to myself while I began to funnel mana to the catalysts within myself -- both of them were from Sakura and Illya, who were then healed with Avalon.

The Angra Mainyu before me looked down, and I felt myself become weightless…

Then I stood before a shack. I recognized it instantly, even if I spent most of my life inside of it, chained to a wall in a pit. The shack itself was located at the edge of a village that numbered about thirty strong. The buildings were primitive, made of sticks and mud, with a communal fire pit at the heart of the village. There was the distant sounds of the ocean lapping at a white sandy beach that I vaguely remembered, the scent of salt in the air mingling with the smells of the forest that the village was on the edge of.

It was dusk, the sun making its final descent for the day and offering its last rays of light. It was then that the villagers all gathered up for an announcement by the shaman -- the villagers themselves looked haggard and hungry. Their ribs were visible, many spotted injuries from clashes with neighboring tribes. They all look haunted as they gathered in the center of the village.

"A curse has been cast upon our village!" The shaman screeched, his voice rough, punctuating the words with a wet cough. "Our woes are punishment for a vile deed that has yet to be committed, yet was done long ago at the birth of man! For our village houses a dark god! Angra Mainyu!" The shaman continued and I watched on with some amusement.

I knew exactly how this would end, but I had to give it to the old guy -- he knew how to play a crowd. The villagers were stirring from their haggard stupor and they were calling out. 'How do we atone?' 'What can we do?' 'Who or what is Angra Mainyu?'

The short answer was nothing. There was absolutely nothing that they could do.

"I have spoken to the gods," the shaman continued. "I have heard the whispers of the spirits…! I know who Angra Mainyu is!" He continued, his gaze sweeping over the villagers, all of whom flinched at his beady-eyed stare. "It is he, who we must punish. It is he that we must make suffer to absolve ourselves of the sins that our village shall inflict upon the world! It… is… you!" The shaman decided, pointing at… me.

Being different was always a good way to make yourself the scapegoat whenever one was needed. I looked at the young boy, around the age of five or six, who looked at the villagers that retreated from him with fear in their eyes. His eyes were gold. A mutation in an otherwise ordinary village. If they all had been a little bit more worldly, they might have learned that even a unique eye color was pretty mundane.

"I'm… Angra Mainyu?" The kid said, his voice small and fearful. There was a quiver in his voice. He looked at the villagers, and I saw that there was doubt in many of their eyes and faces. They didn't fully believe it. I'm not sure if I noticed that the first go around.

"You are! You are the Source of All Evil! You are the God of Darkness, the King of Daemons and Curses! It is your fault that we suffer so!" The shaman continued, his voice hysterical. I watched on with a dull feeling, watching as those on the fence were being swayed. Not because of logic, or even if they really believed the shit coming out of the shaman's mouth, but because I was an outlet for rage against forces of nature they couldn't do anything about. "We must make you suffer! Then… then, with your death, our village will be absolved! Our village will know peace-"

"Okay," the brat said, interjecting in a voice just barely above a whisper. "If… it means that everyone won't… if no one has to suffer… then I'll be Angra Mainyu."

"Fucking idiot," I sighed, as the village rejoiced. I had just been a kid. One that had been surrounded by death and hardship. I didn't understand a word I just spoke, even if I didn't remember speaking it. I had just heard that it was a way to make the people I cared about not go hungry, or not fall prey to disease, or not due during a battle against another impoverished village.

It didn't sink in until the nameless child that would become Angra Mainyu was led into that shack. The shaman closed the door behind him, leaving me standing on the other side of it.

Then the child began to scream.

"They tortured me for a lie," I heard, the me in the Grail materializing in the shadows. He looked like me. Just darker.

"Yup," I agreed, the child continuing to scream as he got his first taste of hell. "None of this did a damn thing. Didn't absolve them of anything. Didn't make things better. All it did was give them an outlet to unleash their frustrations on and feel good about themselves afterward." That was just human nature.

"Humanity hasn't changed. They can't. They produce enough food to feed the world, yet many still starve. They create arbitrary borders to give reason to hate and kill one another. Life-saving medicine comes at a cost, and they are so obsessed with vanity that hair loss prevention gets more funding than combating deadly diseases like cancer. They kill the earth for short-term economic gains, damning their future children with little thought," Angra Mainyu continued, leaning against the shack as we were tortured for the first time. I seriously had a set of lungs back in the day.

"Not going to get any argument from me there," I voiced my agreement. Humanity was a vain, stupid, self-destructive species that had no redeeming qualities at all. The few that it could have were vastly overshadowed by counterexamples of the exact opposite.

"Then why," Angra Mainyu spoke, pinning me with a hard stare, "is there a divide between us?"

This wasn't going how I thought it would. I thought it would be instant -- we would just merge and one of us would end up behind the driver's wheel. I didn't think there would be dialogue.

"Because even knowing all of that… there are humans that deserve better than what they get," I answered. "Sakura could resist us. Shirou too, but I'm not sure he actually counts since he’s fucking nuts. Saber desires to be king, not out of ambition, but purely to better the lives of other people. Nobara and Rin… they put their faith in me. It's a dumb bet, I'll be the first to admit to that, but they did it anyway."

"That doesn't redeem humanity," Angra Mainyu pointed out. "So long as they exist, they will fall prey to my influence. Our curse will remain."

I nodded, "Probably. Humanity is never going to get its shit together. Scum will always rise to the top. But humanity does not need to be redeemed. There are just humans that make the burden worthwhile." I thought of that downright cringy scene of the other rooting for me against all logic and, honestly, morals. Cheering like well wishes could actually do anything.

They wanted me to win. To not be absorbed. And I found that I didn’t want them to be wrong to cheer me on.

"That's your answer? To suffer this endlessly? To be the perpetrator and victim behind every act of violence? Every vile thought and deed?"

I scoffed, "No. I'm slipping this curse the first chance I get. I've just decided that I don't hate the curse enough to wipe out all humanity as plan A." It had been enough, my time in the world. My personality had fractured under the weight of my curse, but I wasn't as broken as I thought I might be. There was enough of Majima left to decide that humanity and all those people didn't deserve to die just so I could be free.

Angra Mainyu's gaze was heavy on me, a long silence stretching between us that was only punctuated with our screams. There was a gap between us. We had so much in common, but that one belief was enough to separate us. He couldn't see it. I couldn't blame him. For thousands of years, all we knew was the very worst examples of humanity and tempting even the good examples into falling.

"Then what is the plan?" Angra Mainyu questioned, his curiosity getting the better of him.

"I have two, really," I answered, giving a cocky smirk. "First one is this -- we keep going with this idea to build up my personality until I can no longer be considered Angra Mainyu." Gilgamesh proved the method was possible. To be so himself that all the evil in the world would not change him. "Secondly, I'm going to leave this world."

That caught his attention. "This world? You really think that it would be that easy?" He asked, quickly picking up on the logic.

My curse was to be the source of All the World's Evils. Keyword there being was 'the world's'. This one. Meaning that I could slip free of my leash if I get out of the house, so to speak.

The Second Magic was the Kaleidoscope, allowing for the viewing and interaction with other worlds and timelines. I had gotten a glimpse at them during my time as a garnish -- there was the main branch of this world, but the further you went, the wilder and more different the worlds became until they had nothing in common. Going to one of those worlds might be enough distance that my curse would become null and void.

"Maybe not," I admitted, knowing the best-case scenario probably wouldn't happen. "But it's a start. Depending on where I go, I could wind up with more options."

"It's a stupid plan," Angra Mainyu voiced as he rose to his feet.

"Absolutely. But it's my bad plan. After all, once you're consumed… it'll just be me," I pointed out as he strode forward, coming to a stop directly in front of me. He searched my gaze for a minute before he slowly offered a hand.

"Good luck," he told me, knowing that the moment we shook hands the current version of himself would cease to exist. And, in a way, that was reason enough to accept the deal.

"Goodbye," I responded, taking Angra Mainyu's hand and I felt him flow into me as I was saddled with the full weight of humanity's evil. The sensations that had been filled were back in full force -- all across the world, I keenly felt my influence. I was the murderer and the murdered. I was the abuser and the victim. For billions and billions of people.

I felt every vile act.

I took in a deep breath… then I made my wish.