Chapter Text
Etzel’s Court - 1200 AD
A woman stood amidst a pile of corpses, holding a black sword over the neck of her most hated enemy. Twenty years were lost to Hagen. Countless lives both innocent and guilty were lost for the sake of ending Hagen’s life.
With a cold, piercing gaze, the woman would finally deliver justice to her beloved husband, slain by Hagen’s hand. A ghastly grin appeared on the woman’s face as a look of scorn appeared on Hagen’s face.
The hero-murderer then glanced at her sword. The woman’s fingers twitched as she imagined the soft sounds of metal rending flesh as she performed a long awaited execution. But she had some choice words to say first before that.
“You cowardly dog, stabbing Siegfried in the back! What do you have to say for yourself after all this time?!”
Hagen brushed back his long tousled hair back and gazed at the skies longingly. He did not carry the look of a guilty criminal ready to face his sins.
“Who knew that the Princess of Burgundy had such a vengeful spirit? Kriemhild, your husband misread you and he left the mess up for me to handle.”
Kriemhild snarled, raising up her sword. “You have no right to speak of him like that!”
But still, Hagen continued.
“You were one of the fairest in the land, so much so that even Siegfried questioned if he had a chance of getting your hand in marriage. He told me the night we met after years of separation, that ‘I am the luckiest man alive.’ But Siegfried is a selfless type and paid for it.”
“Was his life really worth taking for some treasure? A lifelong companion in exchange for some materialistic gain?”
Hagen closed his eyes. “Hear this, Kriemhild of Burgundy! Your husband arranged his death by my hand. Maybe at the end, you’ll snap out of your madness and accept its contents with my death. You foul creature. Committing arson wasn’t enough for you, but you also committed patricide and massacre… All for the sake of your revenge.”
Tears fell from Hagen’s eyes as he stared into Kriemhild with hatred of his own. As if she was in the wrong. As if she was the murderer who started everything.
“Tragedies beget more tragedies. You are to blame for everything ending in vain, Kriemhild! Why did you chase revenge so vehemently?!”
Kriemhild cleaved the man’s head from his shoulders before he could finish speaking. She had expected blubbering or denial of the greatest caliber. But what Hagen said was far more dreadful than any of that. It wasn’t unheard of, that man turned into looney beasts when faced with the prospect of death. Nevertheless… it was over.
Twenty years of plotting finished. Twenty years of hatred now relinquished, she stood in Attila’s court, which stank of the corpses of a number of soldiers, her brother, King Gunther, and so on.
King Etzel, her current betrothed, stood with his soldiers in silence. All of them watched her like an actor in a play. Kriemhild, lost in her own mind, paid them no mind.
Infecting others with the perverted allure of hatred was easy, for everyone felt a sense of injustice, whether they were prince or peasant. All five hundred or so that attended this gathering were instrumental in cornering Hagen.
So Hagen’s words were nothing but deception, lest the lives that were sacrificed all perished in vain.
Kriemhild basked in the silence as warm rays of sunlight hit her face. Her arms grew tired of holding Balmung. Since Hagen was nearby, his corpse was used to hold the sword upright as she relaxed.
Yet, the sound of blood kept roaring in her ears. Her anger subsided, but no joy nor jubilation came. Instead, her heart wept, as she took in the sight of countless deadpan stares.
She retrieved her sword from Hagen’s corpse and saw parchment stuck on the tip of the blade. As soon as Kriemhild took it, her heart sank. Immediately, she tore the paper and threw them on the ground. Once the shreds scattered across the floor, she kicked the sand, trying to bury the letter, but the handwriting and those accursed words had already reached her sight.
Hagen, my dearest friend. You must kill me.
She screamed, stabbing Hagen’s corpse over and over and over and over—
But nothing assuaged the despair in her heart. Eventually she stopped and walked out from the massacre alone, holding her sword. With each step, Kriemhild felt her limbs grow heavy. But none of that mattered.
After everything, she walked outside with nowhere left to go. She had no one alive left to care about. Kriemhild stopped after that realization and stood outside with any desire to do anything, even move. She simply gazed aimlessly in the distance, planning to do so until her body could no longer support her.
Feelings of futility plagued her mind. No, it couldn’t be. Her husband couldn’t have done something so stupid, leaving her to waste twenty years of her life for revenge. It couldn’t be, yet those words appeared in the back of her mind, slithering like a snake with knowledge of a truth that can never be destroyed.
She dropped her sword and curled up into a ball, putting her face into her hands to distract herself from the overwhelming thoughts that plagued her. But not even the revolting stench of another’s blood could tether her to reality.
After all, Hagen was right. She was a dirty creature. A decrepit demoness that slain countless lives for her husband’s sake.
“So it’s my fault for all this… Is that what you think, dear?”
When her knees buckled, Kriemhild sat down, curling up into a ball. There she remained until a piece of sharp metal poked her. Exhausted, Kriemhild feebly looked up, seeing a knight’s blade at her throat.
As she stared into the knight’s eyes, she saw a mixture of hatred and fear from him. To him, she must have looked like a demon.
“A monster like you can’t be allowed to exist in this world.”
As the knight made his declaration, his resolve grew firm and he raised his sword.
Moment before the blade came down, a thought passed through her mind.
If she was a dirty, evil demon, then why wouldn’t she just hate and hate and hate?
As the blade came down, her own ghastly wail filled her ears. Everything went dark after that.
———
Traum - xx17 AD, Part I
The princess awoke in a sea of darkness. Her form had been eradicated, or rather, long since perished. Floating in a dimension that lied beyond time and space, she tried moving her limbs, but there was nothing to move.
Silent words spoke to her, rousing her from the disorienting space around her.
“You, Kriemhild, have been immortalized in legend. A revenge story, beautiful in its utter wretched nature. The annals of time have distorted the context of your tale, as there still lies an unfulfilled wish within your bosom.”
Kriemhild thought about it, then replied, “Yes… Of course I do! Hate begets hate. And now after everything has ended, there’s no one that I hate more than my beloved husband! He will not go unpunished. More importantly, I will not stop my hatred!”
After a moment’s silence, a response followed.
“Thus, Kriemhild of Burgundy cannot rest while her husband is stuck in his selfless ways?”
“I can meet Siegfried?”
“Yes, if you join the Throne of Heroes.”
“Then of course!”
Following that, Kriemhild awoke within a black, gothic castle. The stained windows were filled with red light. She found herself in a throne room with aesthetics that appealed to her sense of style.
With the natural grace of a princess, she strode towards the throne and sat down. Vast amounts of information flooded her brain— enough so that it would drive a normal person mad.
Heroic spirits, singularities, lostbelts, the Holy Grail, magecraft, and Masters— it took only a moment until she pieced together the information into a cohesive understanding.
Essentially, she was now a Heroic Spirit, a record of her human self during life, summoned to this realm to fulfill her dying wish.
Chaldea, the faceless organization to her, stood as her enemy, as she represented the betrayal of a human order in this singularity. They, on the other hand, represented the restoration and defense for humanity, aside from the Counter Force.
Having something to hate was her specialty after all.
Traum, located in North America, had been splintered into three realms: the Righteous Realm, the Reinstatement Realm, and the Revenge Realm, the latter being where Kriemhild had come into.
This world was irreparably distorted with an influx of Heroic Spirits. From the names alone, her role was clear. She smiled devilishly as she rested on her throne, hearing footsteps approach.
An old man from the Orient approached with a green haired dancer veiled in red clothes.
They were Zhang Jue, the military leader of the Yellow Turbans and Salome, one of the contemporaries of the Messiah. They stopped before Kriemhild and bowed to show reverence.
“Welcome to the Revenge Realm. It seems like we have been summoned to rebel against Proper Human History and destroy humanity.”
Zhang Jue stood upright, raising his hands to the sky. A hundred or so soldiers dressed in the uniforms of the Yellow Turbans materialized, all with faces belonging to wooden puppets.
“Should my soldiers be sent off to conduct surveillance?”
Kriemhild nodded, and the soldiers marched out of the throne room. As they doors leading out to the throne room, two groups of warriors stood silently as the yellow turban puppet soldiers left.
Following the departure of the puppet soldiers, the two groups of warriors marched in. Kriemhild’s eyes widened seeing the thousands of warriors kneeling down to her.
“They are yours to command, Kriemhild,” Zhang Jue spoke. “Countless heroes summoned in any of the seven Servant classes all came in the name of rebelling against human history.”
Not one dared to lift their head as they remained kneeling, which made Kriemhild smirk. That quickly faded as she spoke.
“Go then, and fulfill what you came to do! Destroy everything and everyone. Failure will not be tolerated.”
The group of summoned heroes left, leaving Kriemhild alone with Zhang Jue and Salome once more.
Salome looked at the exchange disinterestedly, having said nothing during the last few minutes. “That Master of Chaldea, Ritsuka… Fujimaru. We should capture him.”
The excited twinkle within the Servant’s eyes did not escape Kriemhild, but Salome’s intentions did not matter to her. They bent to her whim because they recognized the power she exuded. But having heard the word ‘Chaldea’—
“Has Chaldea entered the singularity?”
Kriemhild hid the hopefulness in her voice. When learning about Chaldea, one crucial piece of information excited her.
The Master of Chaldea had encountered her beloved husband, so if she was to encounter him once more, it would be if Siegfried accompanied the Master, then her wish could finally come true.
Something about that made her heart flutter.
“They’ve entered one of the other realms or so. Now I’ll be leaving now, okay?”
“Is Siegfried the Dragonslayer amongst their number?”
Zhang Jue spoke up.
“No, he did not accompany them.”
A quiet sigh escaped Kriemhild’s lips. Of course this would happen. It was too greedy of her to expect her wish to come true just like that.
She stared at the two Servants coldly and said, “Leave me for a moment. I wish to have some time alone.”
With that order, the two Servants left, leaving Kriemhild to pout on her throne. The greatest hero she knew would not be coming to stop a world-ending event? Laughable. Almost more laughable that she was classified as a heroic spirit.
The longing in her heart to see her husband once more dissipated, replaced by the smoldering feeling of betrayal in her heart. If that bastard would not bother to show up, destroying all of humanity would be a consolation prize. After all, the Dragonslayer would only have himself to blame for not doing anything.
And unlike Siegfried, Kriemhild had no intention of deceiving her former lover. No, all of her enmity was his to take. If not him, then the civilization itself will.