21 Chapter 20 - Berserker

Where... Am I?

The world was empty. All that could be seen was where I first found the SAO memories, my memory landscape.

'What's this bubble?'

I saw a scene of a guy with ginger hair fighting a blonde dude, summoning swords. It felt really badass, something I might have never replicated in SAO.

'The holy grail? Magic circuits? Counter Guardian? What is this?'

I put arm through the bubble, feeling something on the other side. Not knowing what to do next, I wait until I hear a voice calling out.

"... If you heed the grail's call and obey my will and reason, then answer me. I hereby swear... that I will get revenge for my sake... that I will win the war. The infinite universe, filled with immeasurable powers, come forth from the cycle of binding... Great hero from the forsaken past!"

Seeing this little girl in white hair, I hear her asking for help.

'Vengeance, huh... haven't heard that in years... I hope this entertains me.'

I enter the portal, and my surroundings shake.

"Great hero Heracles!~ Wait... where is he?" (???)

I see her red eyes trying to look for me. Seeing this, I look at my body twitching, as if I weren't part of this world.

[System has rebooted and has been transplanted into your head]

'Geez, thanks Kayaba.' (Zhong Yuan)

"Who is the master who called me?" (Zhong Yuan)

"Where are you servant!" (???)

"I'm here and not here at the same time. I am a construct not part of this time." (Zhong Yuan)

She just looks at me back.

"Umm, aren't you supposed to be the great Greek Hero Heracles? You know, the one with big muscles and incredible strength." (???)

"Nope, I'm just a lonely traveler." (Zhong Yuan)

"NOOOO! I didn't want this random servant! I wanted the strongest of them all!" (???)

"... Don't I qualify then?" (Zhong Yuan)

She stares at me back.

"If you aren't a berserker, who are you?" (???)

"Umm... That's a hard question to answer... How about you introduce yourself first?" (Zhong Yuan)

"... I'm Illyasviel Von Einzbern, a mage from the three prestigious mage families."

"Well hello! Now that I think of it... I might be a berserker."

"HOW! You don't even seem to be angry at all!"

'System, help me out!'

[Host is currently Illyasviel's sevant as a berserker. The reason why you don't show any madness enhancements is because your magic is controlling it]

'Sweet. What's my status then?'

[Self Afflict - 68% (Rage and Bloodlust Emotions)]

"Illya, the reason why I don't show anger is because of this rare skill." (Zhong Yuan)

"What is it?" (Illya)

"I can control myself really well," I said while giving thumbs up.

"So does everyone! But you're berserker, someone with a dark past that seeks to destroy everything!" (Illya)

"Like an Avenger?" (Zhong Yuan)

"...wait, if that's the case... wait a moment..." (Illya)

And Illya left to the mansion's library.

*****

"I might have been very lucky. You see, Avengers are a pretty rare servants that can be summoned. It only happens on big scale Holy Grail Wars, but you might be an exception... where do you come from." (Illya)

'Crap.' (Zhong Yuan)

"I'm not too sure either. All I remember was fighting in the tallest tree ever." (Zhong Yuan)

"Trees...Yggdrasil so Norse mythology? That's pretty lucky I guess. All those guys are battle maniacs and are one of the top servants of all time. What's your weapon?" (Illya)

"A katana and some thowing weapons." (Zhong Yuan)

"...Did the Scandinavians ever meet the Japanese at a certain point in history?" (Illya)

"I don't think so..." (Zhong Yuan)

"You're lying! You're 100% lying! I hate you!" (Illya)

Angry at this fact, she stormed off the mansion, into the cold wilderness out of the mansion. Looking at her, I stare in silence until one of the maid come in.

"The trial has started. Please go to our master and protect her." (Homunculi)

"What?"

Her face devoid of any emotion just turned back and left. Feeling something was wrong, I went out to see where she was. I ran for a while in the snowing forest and saw her in the middle of a pack of wolves. Worried, I immediately sheathed my katana.

"Unyou: Speed of light!"

Some wolves were immediately decapitated while the rest back away. They growled in anger, but started getting scared once I released blood-lust.

"Go away, now." I looked menacingly.

The wolf pack ran away and I looked back at Illya's torn body. There were scratch marks everywhere and she seemed to be tearing up.

"It hurts..." (Illya)

"...Why?" (Zhong Yuan)

"...Can't you see this? These wounds hurt!" (Illya)

"...Oh. Yeah, I guess you're right." (Zhong Yuan)

"*sighs* why is my servant such an airhead." (Illya)

I looked at her, tilted my head, and gave her a weird look.

"Never mind. By the way, there's two months left until the Holy Grail War starts so we have train by fighting here. I kind of expected my mana to be drained really badly but it's not. Do you have Independent Control skill?"

"Yeah." (Zhong Yuan)

"..." (Illya

"Ok, let's go back home!"

*****

Soon, the Holy Grail war started. Illya told me about her story that she is the daughter of Kiritsugu Emiya and that in this war, she wanted to meet her adopted brother Shirou Emiya. I was carrying Illya on my back until I finally found her targets.

"Well, well, well. It's nice to meet you Onii-chan and Tohsaka mage!~" (Illya)

"Shirou, we better run. That's the mage from the Einzbern family." (Tohsaka)

"It's 2 vs 1, we might have a chance to defeat them though?" (Shirou)

"...That's a good point. Archer! Please snipe from far! Shirou! Make saber fight against the servant." (Tohsaka)

"I got it!" (Shirou)

"Nice to meet you. I'm Illya's servant berserker and it's a pleasure to see you guys first hand." (Zhong Yuan)

"Berserker? I didn't know berserker servants weren't angry nor gentlemanly." (Tohsaka)

"Oh, don't worry. I'm quite strong you know?" (Zhong Yuan)

"Watch out Shirou and Saber. I can tell he is pretty strong." (Tohsaka)

They were wary of me. After all, who expects to see a man in a gray coat with a bunch of tools holstered on my body?

"12 Shot!"

I immediately threw a dozen needles to Tohsaka and Shirou, but Saber deflected them all.

"You're a pretty strong servant. Your sword I'm guessing is around 90 centimeters and 12 centimeters in width. You are also using wind to surround your noble phantasm, am I right?" (Zhong Yuan)

"You disclosed this much with that? Which servant are you?" (Tohsaka)

"Sadly, you'll never discover me in the annals of history." (Zhong Yuan)

In a drawing motion, I activated Zekku (Absolute Void). Saber deflected it with her own skills and I started another discussion.

"Have you ever heard of Aincrad?" (Zhong Yuan)

"Aincrad? Is that a place?" (Saber)

"Guess you never heard of it..." (Zhong Yuan)

Disappointed, I activated Ukifune (Floating Boat) and tossed Saber into the air. Saber, knocked, was surprised with this scenario and used her Invisible Air Sword to launch herself away.

"What was that? That doesn't resemble any sword techniques I know." (Saber)

"I know right? It's from a place where swords meant everything so every technique was discovered, especially like yours."

I then launched to her and activated a Sonic Blade, following up with an Iai. Saber was weak against these moves she never experienced, however, with her myriad amount of battle experience, she could barely survive. I then slashed, expecting Saber to defend, which she did. So I followed up with Suigetsu (Water Moon - A roundhouse kick). Saber tried cutting my leg off, but it just made sound of metal hitting something hard.

"...What was that?" (Tohsaka)

"Training the body to overcome it's limit for survival. It's also known as shaping your body to reach further heights, something almost nobody reached." (Zhong Yuan)

"Archer! Shoot him down!" (Tohsaka)

'Oh crap!'

I then immediately ran to Illya to defend her against Caladbolg II. I covered her body and the arrow arrived, piercing my skin and exploding.

"Are they dead?" (Shirou)

Seeing through the dust, they saw my body into a million parts around Illya's body, covered with my blood. Archer came back to his master with his dual pair swords on his hands.

"Archer! Isn't this too far!"

"Wait a second brat. Something is coming."

What I did was simply. Since I'm just a virtual hero, I got all my access to the game back, meaning I could revive. In front of Shirou, Tohsaka, and the servants, they saw a horrific scene of my body reconstructing itself (Think of like in Gintama, where Utsuro was regenerating). All the people near, immediately got she shivers.

"Man, I hate going through this you know? It costs quite a lot of mana to come back and I need to take potions to recover. Well, this time I'll put in more effort. Emotion loss and Emotion enhance activate." (Zhong Yuan)

My eyes then changed to a dead look, as if I were blind and my sword glowed red. However, unlike before, I just used my hand.

"Senda (Flash Blow)."

My hand thrusted through Shirou's chest and everyone noticed a step too late. Archer grabbed Tohsaka and jumped back while Saber pulled Shirou out of the situation.

"He's to fast!" (Tohsaka)

"Is the brat fine?" (Archer)

"Can Shirou recover from this?" (Saber)

"Of course he can, he has Avalon fused to him." (Zhong Yuan)

"Avalon?" (Tohsaka)

"You know, her sheath. The reason why we came here was to get back Avalon back from Kiritsugu's adopted child. And Avalon will save him pretty quick." (Zhong Yuan)

"You monster!" (Tohsaka)

"Rin, stay back." (Archer)

"We can't beat them, he is too strong." (Saber)

"We can't beat him, but we can get the girl. She has no chance against servants." (Archer)

"...Illya, do you want to retreat or no?"(Zhong Yuan)

"Actually, I had quite a lot of fun Berserker. Let's go back home.~" (Illya)

"Sure. See you guys later!" (Zhong Yuan)

Grabbing Illya and piggybacking her, I waved goodbyes at their little alliance.

'Now, let's get Zouken.'

I licked my lips.