A World After the Holy Grail Warnote
I am a Reaper...my job is to kill Servants.
A long time ago, there was a large war. The war led to the rising of sea levels, changing the shape of the world drastically. However, those born after the war and those who survived it are now blessed by having a "Holy Grail" inside them, allowing them to surpass natural causes of death and summon a Servant tied to their fate, as they live their lives being blessed by the Grail.
Within the coastal city of Akihabara, Utsumi Erice is the only person not blessed by the Grail, and instead was born with a collection of evil spirits inside of her. With the evil spirits, she acts as a "Grim Reaper" who kills Servants who break the rules established by the Holy Grail. After one mission, she meets and bonds with a mysterious boy who turns out to be the last Servant summoned into this world. What will her fate be?
Fate/Requiem is a light novel series within the Fate Series, written by Meteo Hoshizora and illustrated by NOCO, which began publication in 2018.
Tropes associated with Fate/Requiem are:
- 20 Minutes into the Future: Based on Fujimura mentioning that it's been 56 years since Armstrong landed on the Moon, Fate/Requiem takes place in 2025 in a world greatly shaped by a previous Holy Grail War, though the overall setting is still recognizable to the modern times.
- Action Prologue: The first volume begins with Erice being chased by beasts while trying to escort a Master and their Servant out of the City.
- A Boy and His X: The series is predicated on Erice and her Servant, a complete and total anomaly in the system of Requiem.
- Affectionate Nickname: In Circe's cameo, she calls everybody, "My little piglets."
- After the End: Most of the world is dead and sea levels have risen to the point that Akihabara is a beachfront resort town. The Holy Grail War that took place 14 years ago was on an international scale, with countless dead and no country coming out unscathed.
- Alternate Timeline: To other Fate stories by implication. The series seems to be set in 2025 (See 20 Minutes into the Future above) and the world-destroying Grail War, and subsequent Broken Masquerade, occurred 14 years before the story, thus placing those events in 2011.
- Batman Cold Open: The story begins with Erice trying to escort Ahauserus and the Flying Dutchman to safety while fending off an incredibly angry Kundry, showcasing Erice's work and abilities as the Grim Reaper.
- Book Ends: Volume 1's story proper starts and ends with Voyager trying to make a contract with Erice.
- Broken Masquerade: As of the last Holy Grail War, Magecraft and Servants are all public knowledge.
- The Cameo: Many Servants are mentioned or have only minor roles, both from previous Fate entries and original ones for Requiem.
- City of Adventure: The Mosaic City,note which sprang up in the aftermath of the distribution of the Servant system to everyone. The city providing such an adventurous life mainly applies to Erice as her duties require her to traverse, investigate, and fight renegade Servants. She actually ignores most of the exotic attractions like the colosseum and Servant-run businesses unless she's obliged to do it for work or her friends. While there are mysterious goings-on, like a serial killer after Command Spells, and the various Servants causing trouble that Erice has to clean up, the general populace isn't too affected until Nzambi's attacks start.
- Cliffhanger: The first volume ends with Erice being told to go to Fuyuki.
- Drama-Preserving Handicap: While everyone has a Servant, the average citizen is not a trained Magus and thus provides their Servants with minimal mana. Because of this, most Servants have to conserve their energy and minimize the usage of their Noble Phantasms.
- Everyone Is a Super: At the very least, almost every person in the world was either born with a Holy Grail inside them, or received it later, and are able to summon and maintain a Servant. They have also removed aging, poor genetics, disease, viruses, cancer and other biological illnesses, and can control their physical age with Command Seals. They have, in short, attained eternal youth and life.
- Great Offscreen War: The setting of the work and the reason why everyone can summon a Servant is due to a worldwide Holy Grail War that happened a long time ago. It is the reason why so much of the planet has been flooded, turning Akihabara into a seaside resort town.
- Griping About Gremlins: The novel starts with a Batman Cold Open fight between Erice and the Stray Servant Kundry with some gremlins she summoned.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: Erice and Karin have been best friends since they were children.Erice: I was me. And Karin was Karin. Even without the next generation of humanity, or the Holy Grail, or any of that, we understood that deep down we were different people. It was inevitable that our different viewpoints would come into conflict. But we were irreplaceable to each other. If one of us ever lost the other, that would be the end.
- Historical Gender Flip: Erice ponders on the series' tendency to have men in history and myth actually be women, using Francis Drake as an example, as all of her contemporaries remember her as either male or female. Erice concludes that Drake's actual gender doesn't really matter, compared to the great feats achieved.
- Internal Homage: The ever-present "Are you my Master" scene returns here, this time with an adorable variant: Voyager asks the question in English, and modifies it to "Are you my friend".
- Information Broker: Cesare and Lucretia Borgia have taken over a hotel under the pretense of being their Master's Servants to help with concierge activities to manage their information network in the Mosaic City.
- Late-Arrival Spoiler: Erice's connection to Izanami was revealed in Fate/Grand Order before it was actually revealed in this series due to Requiem suffering from
Schedule Slip. The GO/Requiem crossover event was supposed to come out after volume 2 was released, but volume 2 got delayed by several months. As a result, the twist of is one of the main things known by people who've never read the books. - Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Erice and Karin's debate on the Holy Grail Tournament, with the former loathing how humanity's heroic icons are basically used for cheap entertainment and the latter enjoying such activities, is an observation on the increasingly prominent focus on Servants in Fate works of the 2010s and beyond.
- Mythology Gag:
- Foreigner Euclid's design resembles the Foreigner class card in GO.
- Yukika's Servant is implied to be Sasaki Kojiro. In Fate/hollow ataraxia and other stay night spinoffs, Yukika generally tends to have scenes where she befriends Kojiro. Even better, that part of Ataraxia was written by Meteo himself.
- Production Foreshadowing: Jacques de Molay made his first appearance here as just one of many namedropped Servants, before showing up in Fate/Grand Order later.
- Sentient Cosmic Force: Erice refers to the Holy Grail itself as if it's sentient and watching them like Big Brother. Whether this is true or not hasn't been shown, but it's stated in Fate/Grand Order that Voyager made some kind of deal with it.
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Spiritual Successor: The setting and main character have a lot in common with Girls' Work, a Type-Moon anime written by Meteo that's been in Development Hell for over a decade. - There Are No Therapists: Erice actually had to attend group therapy when she was around 9 to help with the problems she was already having. Unfortunately this is how she met up with the Louis XVII's Master, meaning that in the long run the therapy made things worse for her.
- There Is Only One Bed: Erice lives in a single bedroom apartment. She has a fold-out bed for guests, but it is dusty, so she and Voyager share her bed. It is king-sized and they are children, so there is no funny business.
- The Singularity: Erice's narration says that the end of the previous Holy Grail War gave humanity eternal youth and health as well as the ability to summon Servants, transforming the world into what it is today.Erice: The Grail had brought immortality to the masses. The principal causes of death in the old world – biological factors such as aging, genetic degradation, infectious diseases, viruses and malignant cancers – had all been conquered. By expending Command Seals, one could even manipulate their biological age. In this city, one of humanity’s oldest, dearest wishes – eternal youth – had been realised.
- Translator Microbes: Erice has a Mystic Code app to help analyze the body language of Berserkers and other irrational Servants to discern their intent. Servants themselves are supposed to be summoned with the ability to read, write, and speak any language native to the area they are summoned in through the Holy Grail.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: Hannibal is introduced as part of Koharu's entourage in one chapter and is immediately revealed to be zombified by Nzambi in the next chapter, transforming into one of her mindless minions.
- What Are Records?: It is implied that most of the current generation has forgotten past technology. Kuchime is honestly surprised that Karin can recognize his CD.
- What the Hell Are You?: Nzambi asks this to Erice when she first meets her. Erice does not answer her.
- Zombie Apocalypse: The first antagonist, Nzambi, tries to trigger one by continually killing and raising people as zombies.
