History Fanfic / FateBlackReflection

The story begins simply enough: [[MagneticHero Ichigo]] and [[BadassCrew his]] [[TrueCompanions friends]] are called in to investigate a series of deaths and disappearances in a nearby town, which Soul Society believes to be connected to the [[LightNovel/FateZero events that occurred ten years ago]] in the same city.

* AlternateUniverse: The events of the story take place in a timeline where Ichigo managed to defeat Aizen without the use of Saigo no Getsuga Tensho, although how he managed to bring down the megalomaniacal soul reaper is sparsely elaborated on. The story is also an alternate universe for Archer as well. [[spoiler: Ichigo being Rider's Master as well as the existence of the hollows and soul reapers in this universe lead to a much different Holy Grail War than the one he experienced as Shirou Emiya, which irks him to no end]].

* BeyondTheImpossible: By the logic of modern magi, and even heroic spirits, it's impossible for a human to go head-to-head with a Servant. Ichigo and his friends do it anyway.

* BigWhat: Ichigo and his friends (minus Chad) let out a collective one when Rider reveals the name of Saber's noble phantasm.

* BlueAndOrangeMorality: Ichigo's group vs. All the magi who aren't Shirou and all the Heroic Spirits. Soul reapers are trying to maintain the balance of souls between the worlds and keep casualties to a minimum. The other participants in the Holy Grail War, excluding Shirou, are there to get the Holy Grail by whatever means and keep anyone from finding out. Their morals aren't just different, they're completely unrelated.

* DoppelgangerSpin: Discussed when Rider sees Ichigo's memories of his battle with Byakuya where Ichigo did this. Rider says she's probably fast enough to create afterimages too, but she considers the technique a waste of time. If you are fast enough to run circles around an opponent, [[CombatPragmatist you should have already killed them]]. Zangetsu [[JustifiedTrope justifies]] this by explaining that killing Byakuya was never Ichigo's goal; Simply forcing Byakuya to admit defeat was.

** [[VisualNovel/{{Tsukihime}} Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg]] is considered a sort of bogeyman by everyone in Soul Society due to him appearing in the middle of Sereitei without warning to convince the soul reapers not to go to war with the Mage's Association in the past and for being on par with [[PersonOfMassDestruction Yamamoto]]. Ukitake even admits that he isn't sure which of the two ancient beings would win if they ever fought. Thankfully, the two of them have apparently formed some sort of friendship, so it's unlikely that they'd ever have a reason to go at it.

** Caster [[spoiler:fuses one of her Dragon Tooth skeleton familiars with a captured hollow and]] creates a creature that, according to Assassin, is an aberration against nature.
** The hollows are treated as such by Shirou. Everything about them completely terrifies him.

** Sort of. After hollows start showing up in Fuyuki City ''en masse'', the Masters and Servants shift their focus from fighting each other to dealing with the infestation. Gilgamesh is not pleased by this, though it doesn't stop him from killing any hollows that approach the church. However, no alliances are officially made, and several Servants and Masters still find the time to fight each other.
** Illya and Caster agree to a ceasefire until Ichigo and Rider are taken care of.
* EntertaininglyWrong: Illya, Lancer and Gilgamesh come to the conclusion that Ichigo's power is a result of him possessing a lost Noble Phantasm, which is a perfectly logical conclusion from their perspective as no mage could ever hope to come close to matching a Servant without one. Naturally, none of them know that Ichigo isn't a magus, nor do they have any clue what a zanpakutou is.

* EvilIsNotAToy: Assassin certainly believes so. He warns Caster against trying to control the power of hollows after [[spoiler: her artificial hollow mask]] nearly caused him to be overcome by bloodlust during his battle with Saber. Unfortunately for him, Caster dismisses his concerns, believing that she has full control over the spiritual monsters. Assassin doesn't share her confidence regarding the matter.

* {{Foil}}: Saber and Ichigo are polar opposites of one another. Saber is a stoic knight with a golden sword who wears predominantly [[LightIsGood white]] and blue, whereas Ichigo is an emotional samurai with a jet black blade whose bankai outfit incorporates [[DarkIsNotEvil black]] and red. [[spoiler: Saber's Excalibur is a beam of holy light, while Ichigo's Getsuga Tensho is a ray of spiritual darkness]]. Even their motivations are opposite: Saber desperately wants the Holy Grail whereas Ichigo has no interest in it at all.
* GoodVersusGood: Ichigo's group vs. Shirou's group--they're definitely all good guys with noble intentions, but because they're being either overly cautious or reckless, they've so far only succeeded in making enemies of each other.
* HearingVoices: Of the evil variety. Sakura begins to hear [[spoiler: the voices of the hollows that attacked the Matou mansion and were subsequently absorbed by the Shadow while she slept, with the spirits now being a part of her]]. They torment her during the day, insulting her and urging her to kill Rin and Saber so that [[MurderTheHypotenuse she can have Shirou to herself]]. The worst part is that she has no idea what they are or why she's hearing them, and it's clear that it's starting to wear her down.

* HumiliationConga: Saber has a rough time during the Holy Grail War. She's summoned by a master who can't supply her with mana, which hinders her abilities. Lancer manages to wound her with his Noble Phantasm and escapes before she can chase after him. Berserker absolutely manhandles her and she only survives after Illya decides to leave when Shirou takes a grievous hit trying to defend her. Assassin not only repels her from Ryudou Temple, but also kicks her ass [[spoiler: with the help of a pseudo-visored mask supplied to him by Caster]]. And just when things start to look up and it seems like she's about to defeat Rider, [[spoiler: Ichigo appears and temporarily matches her Excalibur with his Getsuga Tensho, saving Rider. She uses up all her mana trying to overcome him and finds herself at his and Rider's mercy, requiring Archer to rescue her. Having lost for the fourth time despite having unleashed her Noble Phantasm ends up being the last straw for Saber and she begins discussing possible ways of restoring her mana with Rin]].

* NextTierPowerUp: Ichigo has many. His most basic is Shikai, he's capable of fighting evenly with servants like Lancer in this state. His next tier is Bankai, which is strong enough to match Excalibur in a beam war. He also has his Hollow Mask, given he's already even with a Servant like Saber pulling this out would likely result in a CurbStompBattle against any of the Fate characters.

** Shirou and Bazett have this reaction when they feel a Menos Grande appear in the middle of Fuyuki. While Shirou and Bazett are still getting used to the sensation of sensing spiritual energy, the sheer ''wrongness'' and power that the Gillian exudes horrifies them both. While Saber and Archer take it's appearance much more calmly, internally they're just as disturbed upon sensing it as everyone else.

** The hollows are also this to the magi and Servants. Magi normally can't even see hollows on account of lacking the spiritual energy needed to see them and hollows typically ignore Magi for that same reason. The Servants also had no idea about the existence of hollows as most of them dealt with either human or magical threats during their lives and never had to deal with matters related to the afterlife. In fact, the hollows are such an OutsideContextProblem, that the Grail didn't include knowledge of them when it materialised the Servants in the first place, since hollows would be typically unrelated to anything concerning the war.

** As Chapter 22 shows, the Fuyuki group are worse at it; though they've no reason to trust the ominous people, their first response appears to be "attack first, ask questions later." ''Especially'' Archer, who, being entirely unfamiliar with the wars they fight, feels that the Karakura gang is either lying or exaggerating their exploits.
** However, as of chapter 23, it seems Shirou is beginning to regret this, after a massive confrontation with [[spoiler: Chad, Uryu, Rukia, Renji, Rider and Hanataro all at once.]]

* SpiderSense: During the war with Aizen Ichigo developed combat instincts that somehow warn him of sudden sneak attacks.
* SuperpoweredEvilSide: Thanks to Caster's experiments on the hollows, [[spoiler: she gives Assassin a hollow mask much like the vizards wear. It helps him overpower Saber completely and upgrades his signature move Tsubame Gaeshi by throwing the same strikes in either reverse or another angle. The mask also puts a great toll on Assassin, something he is wary of... and something that Caster is too excited to care about.]]
* TheForceIsStrongWithThisOne: Played with. Ichigo and his friends are adept at sensing spiritual energy and magi like Shirou and Rin are capable of sensing mana and prana. The problem is that neither group has any experience at sensing the power used by the other. Due to reiatsu and mana working differently on a fundamental level, the Karakura gang find themselves unable to track down the other masters and Servants, nor can the other masters readily find them. [[spoiler: Renji]] explains that this is why soul reapers and magi rarely interact, as a reaper and a magus could be standing only a few feet from each other and never sense the other.
* ThinkingUpPortals: Kakolethros displays the ability to seemingly teleport using shadows. It explains to Caster that it's actually using a power similar to the Descorrer used by the hollows and arrancar to quickly [[ExtraDimensionalShortcut open a door to the Dangai and then exit out another]].

** Ichigo earns this from Rider, much like her devotion to Sakura in ''Fate/stay night''. She becomes extremely devoted to him to the point that she makes it clear in her internal monologues that she will do ''anything'' to keep him safe because she thinks that his HonorBeforeReason tendencies will get him killed, to the point that she will sometimes slip into being a PsychoSupporter--best shown when she almost kills [[spoiler:Renji and Hanataro]] because she misheard a joke.
** Kakolethros is fanatically devoted to Caster. This is most likely due to [[spoiler: having been created from one of her dragon tooth familiars and a hollow.]]
* UnskilledButStrong: A majority of Soul Reapers tend to fight using the power of their zanpakutos and their kido spells over their actual weapon technique. Ichigo notices this compared to Lancer, a Servant of the spear, who is both strong AND skilled, with unmatched speed and accuracy with the weapon. [[BloodKnight Not that he's complaining.]]

** Due to [[spoiler: having been created from a single hollow]], Kakolethros lacks the raw spiritual power of even a low-class Gillian. He makes up for this lack of power by being a [[InstantExpert very quick learner]] in combat.

* WillfullyWeak: During his rematch with Lancer, Ichigo withholds using his bankai on the grounds that the sudden and explosive increase in power would [[HonorBeforeReason give him an unfair advantage]]. At the same time, Lancer holds back a good deal of his speed because he knows Ichigo is also holding back.

* YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm: Shirou and [[spoiler: Archer]] can understand the concept and history of a weapon simply by looking at it. This doesn't extend to zanpakutou though. Since zanpakutou are a part of the soul of its user, Shirou and [[spoiler: Archer]] can't comprehend them the way they can with other weapons and consequently [[spoiler: cannot trace them]]. Shirou likens it to a computer trying to process a file and getting an error message every time he remembers [[spoiler: Tensa Zangetsu. They can discern the general nature of the spiritual weapons at the very least, as Archer is able to figure out that Rukia's [[AnIcePerson Sode no Shirayuki is ice based]] before she even releases her shikai]].

The story has not been updated since 2013, so it may be a DeadFic.

* YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm: Shirou and [[spoiler: Archer]] can understand the concept and history of a weapon simply by looking at it. This doesn't extend to zanpakutou though. Since zanpakutou are a part of the soul of its user, Shirou and [[spoiler: Archer]] can't comprehend them the way they can with other weapons and consequently [[spoiler: cannot trace them]]. Shirou likens it to a computer trying to process a file and getting an error message every time he remembers [[spoiler: Tensa Zangetsu. They can discern the general nature of the spiritual weapons at the very least, as Archer is able to figure out that Rukia's [[AnIcePerson Sode no Shirayuki is ice based]] before she even releases her shikai]].

* PopCulturalOsmosisFailure: When Rider trusts Ichigo enough to tell him her real name, [[spoiler:Medusa]], she's surprised when he doesn't react, because he knows nothing about Greek Mythology.

* PlayingWithSyringes: Caster captures a Hollow, and is interested in their potential, though she realizes they're fairly useless as weapons in their feral state. So she basically tears it and the human soul to shreds and reweaves it around one of her Dragon Tooth Familiars, creating a fanatically loyal knight that gives itself the name Kakolethros.

* WhiteAndWhiteMorality: Ichigo's group vs. Shirou's group--they're definitely all good guys with noble intentions, but because they're being either overly cautious or reckless, they've so far only succeeded in making enemies of each other.

* CounterpartComparison: In-universe example. Shirou's group note the similarities between Ichigo's group and the Servant classes. Rin and Archer outright refer to them as "fake servants": Ichigo is a fake Saber, Uryu is a fake Archer, Rukia is a fake Caster, and Chad is a fake Berserker.

* GeniusBonus: Kakolethros, or rather, Kakolethrós, translates to "very destructive". His "skotopylae" technique translates to "darkness entrance".

** As Chapter 22 shows, the Fuyuki group are worse at it; though they've no reason to trust the ominous people, their first response appears to be "attack first, ask questions later." ''Especially'' Archer.

* DiscardAndDraw: Due to being summoned by Ichigo instead of Sakura, Rider's Monstrous Strength skill has been replaced by Instinct, which she mentions is at a high level. She also lacks one of her normal Noble Phantasms, Blood Fort Andromeda, and possesses a different unrevealed NP instead.

* YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm: Shirou and [[spoiler: Archer]] can understand the concept and history of a weapon simply by looking at it. This doesn't extend to zanpakutou though. Since zanpakutou are a part of the soul of its user, Shirou and [[spoiler: Archer]] can't comprehend them the way can other weapons and consequently [[spoiler: cannot trace them]]. Shirou likens it to a computer trying to process a file and getting an error message every time he remembers [[spoiler: Tensa Zangetsu. They can discern the general nature of the spiritual weapons at the very least, as Archer is able to figure out that Rukia's [[AnIcePerson Sode no Shirayuki is ice based]] before she even releases her shikai]].

* YouAreACreditToYourRace: Kakolethros considers humans and Servants alike as inferiors and nothing but prey, but sees Caster as above that because of her wisdom.

* {{Foil}}: Saber and Ichigo are polar opposites of one another. Saber is a stoic knight with a golden sword who wears predominantly [[LightIsGood white]] and blue, whereas Ichigo is an emotional samurai with a jet black blade whose bankai outfit incorporates [[DarkIsNotEvil black]] and red. [[spoiler: Saber's Excalibur is a beam of holy light, while Ichigo's Getsuga Tensho is a ray of spiritual darkness]]. Even their motivations are opposite: Saber desperately wants the Holy Grail whereas Ichigo has no interest in it at all. In fact, Ichigo is such an uncanny foil to Saber that Shirou's group think it's entirely purposeful and begin to view him as an EvilCounterpart to her.

** There are few things that irritate Archer more than what he perceives as misplaced heroism. As such, Ichigo and his friends really get under his skin.

%%* ConflictBall: Somewhat; see below.

* EvilCounterpart: While "evil" is as far from [[TheHero Ichigo]] as can be, both Saber and Shirou come to view Ichigo as this to Saber. Saber is a stoic knight with a golden sword who wears predominantly [[LightIsGood white]] and blue, whereas Ichigo is an emotional samurai with a jet black blade whose bankai outfit incorporates [[DarkIsNotEvil black]] and red. [[spoiler: Even their signature attacks are opposites of one another. Saber's Excalibur is a beam of holy light, while Ichigo's Getsuga Tensho is a ray of spiritual darkness]].

** Ichigo unknowingly manages to push one of Gilgamesh's by daring to fight [[spoiler: and match Saber's Excalibur. Gil sees this as a mongrel rebelling against a king.]]

* EveryoneHasStandards: Even Soul Society is put off by the amoral behavior that's so common among magi.

* EvilIsNotAToy: Assassin certainly thinks so. He warns Caster against trying to control the power of hollows after [[spoiler: her artificial hollow mask]] nearly caused him to be overcome by bloodlust during his battle with Saber. Unfortunately for him, Caster dismisses his concerns, believing that she has full control over the spiritual monsters.
* ExplainingYourPowersToTheEnemy: In true Bleach fashion, Ichigo and his friends get in on this from time to time. Rider does not approve of this habit, since keeping one's abilities a mystery is a staple of how a Holy Grail War is typically fought.

** Ichigo earns this from Rider, much like her devotion to Sakura in ''Fate/stay night''. She becomes extremely devoted to him to the point that she makes it clear in her internal monologues that she will do ''anything'' to keep him safe because she thinks that his Honor Before Reason tendencies will get him killed, to the point that she will sometimes slip into being a Psycho Supporter--best shown when she almost kills [[spoiler:Renji and Hanataro]] because she misheard a joke.

* DoppelgangerSpin: Discussed when Rider sees Ichigo's memories of his battle with Byakuya where Ichigo did this. Rider says she's probably fast enough to create afterimages too, but she considers the technique a waste of time. If you are fast enough to run circles around an opponent, [[CombatPragmatist you should have already killed them]].

* InLoveWithYourCarnage: Lancer hollers in excitement when Ichigo manages to [[spoiler: match Saber's Excalibur]].

** Soul Society is still pretty sore about [[VisualNovel/{{Tsukihime}} Roa]] escaping the natural cycle of life and death.

* InLoveWithYourCarnage: Lancer almost ''drools'' when Ichigo manages to [[spoiler: match Saber's Excalibur]].

** Shirou's group and Bazett have this reaction when they feel a Menos Grande appear in the middle of Fuyuki.
** Rin nearly has a heart attack when Archer tells her that Ichigo and Rider have more than one ally capable of fighting Servants.

* TheCameo: [[VisualNovel/{{Tsukihime}} Ciel]] appears very briefly in one chapter after [[spoiler: the clash between Ichigo and Saber]] nearly reveals the existence of magic to the world. Ukitake also mentions Arcueid and Roa in passing.

* ClingyJealousGirl: Illya finds herself annoyed with how close Ichigo seems to be with Orihime and Tatsuki when she spies on them as they walk around Fuyuki, but because she hasn't realized that she's developed a [[VillainousCrush crush]] on Ichigo, she can't put her finger on why it irritates her.

* EntertaininglyWrong: Both Lancer and Gilgamesh come to the conclusion that Ichigo's power is a result of him possessing a lost Noble Phantasm, which is a perfectly logical conclusion from their perspective as no mage could ever hope to come close to matching a Servant without one. Naturally, neither of them have any clue what a zanpakutou is.

* OutsideContextProblem: Ichigo and his friends are this to everyone else in the Grail War. They're capable of matching Servants in combat, their skills are bizarre by magus standards, and their morality doesn't even line up with most magi. Add it all together, and you have a group that is frighteningly incomprehensible to the ''Fate/stay night'' cast. On the other side of the coin, the magi and Heroic Spirits are this to Ichigo's crew, being unlike anything they've fought before. Though, they do have Rider to explain the basics behind their new enemies, so they end up adapting far quicker than everyone else.

** In terms of power, Archer isn't any stronger than Uryu, Rukia, or Chad, but he's able to successfully fend off all three of them through a combination of skill and [[CombatPragmatist tactically taking advantage of their lack of teamwork]].