Beyond the Kingdom of Heaven
is a Fate/Grand Order fanfic written on Space Battles by Trainman.
Before the Lion King decided to land in the Sixth Singularity, said land was the battleground for the Crusades. Obviously, when some pagan parasite from another timeline entirely starts making a mess of the place, people who used to play a major role in these wars for faith are going to answer.
Saladin is fed up with Richard Lionheart's fanboyism over false idols, and Richard is miffed over Saladin's harshness in war. But they nonetheless have faith, and they will have words with this Goddess Rhongomyniad.
Contains the following tropes
- All Muslims Are Arab: In the eyes of Richard, every Arab has to be a Saracen. Saladin isn't offended, since any Western man is a Frank to him.
- Berserk Button:
- Downplayed with the very concept of a Holy Grail war for Saladin. As a devout Muslim, he thinks distasteful that somebody would assume salvation is something as simple as drinking from a prophet's blood.
- Mordred very much explodes in a towering fury when she first clashes with Saladin and Richard as they call her a witch, reminding her of Morgan. And she's not very happy about Richard wielding a rip-off of Excalibur, either.
- When they learn the Lion King is laying claim to godhood, both Saladin and Richard immediately conclude she deserves to die for yesterday. After all, the Abrahamic faiths are quite insistent on not worshipping anyone else than God.
- Big Brother Instinct: That's when Proto Arthur learns the Lion King slaughtered their foster brother Kay for refusing to bow to her godhood that he stops trying to shame Gawain into a Heel–Face Turn and goes for the duel to death.
- Break the Haughty: Arthur's duel with Gawain has the King soundly lambasting the Knight for his blind loyalty, reminding him of the incident with the Green Knight in which Gawain's chivalry failed to live up to the hype. It manages to shame Gawain into Redemption Equals Death.
- Composite Character: This iteration of Charlemagne is a mix of his Charlie incarnation — for the strength — and his Karl embodiment — for the beliefs.
- Culture Clash: Well, on one side you have Muslim Servants, and Christian Servants on the other, and all of them are extremely devout to their interpretation of God. Obviously it's going to cause tensions.
- Defector from Decadence: Rashid ad-Din Sinan firmly believes he's one, having left the Hassan-i-Sabbah's zealotry behind and encouraging the ones he meets to reclaim their former identities. Of course, he's still a cult leader so it's rather an iffy question.
- The Good King: Discussed in depths, courtesy of Richard and Saladin having extremely different opinions on the question.
- Heart Is an Awesome Power: Saladin's Reality Marble forcefully undoes the brainwashing laid upon Mordred, merely by gifting her a vision of Jerusalem as the Kurd monarch pictures it — the Holy City of mercy.
- Hero-Worshipper:
- Richard fanboys so much over Arthur and Camelot that Saladin bluntly accuses him of indulging in idolatry. However, he does have his limits — when the English monarch hears of the Lion God claiming to be a god, he's blatantly disgusted and resolves to slay her. And he's nothing short of overjoyed to meet Charlemagne, who's his ancestor and the Holy Roman Emperor.
- Saladin so deeply reveres Solomon that he flat-out rejects the possibility of the King of Magecraft turning against mankind, insisting it has to be one of the many demons sworn to serve the Jewish monarch behind the timeline's incineration. As anyone who played the game's first part to completion would know, he's very much vindicated in his trust.
- If Only You Knew: Saladin argues it's impossible for the truly righteous Solomon to have caused mankind's incineration and would rather believe one of the demons he tamed has slipped its leash. Unbeknownst to him, he actually guessed the truth behind the Singularities.
- Noodle Incident: We still have no idea about what happened on Saladin and Richard's first team-up to go and hunt a Dead Apostle.
- Other Me Annoys Me: Proto Arthur isn't impressed at all by the Lion King's behaviour and joins the other Kings' team to fight her.
- Original Character: Saladin, Harun al-Rashid, Rashid ad-Din Sinan, Baldwin IV of Jerusalem.
- Redemption Equals Death: Following his duel with Proto Arthur, a shamed and remorseful Gawain denounces the Lion King as a false goddess who only manages to slaughter good people, and covers the refugees' fleeing to safety by facing her with a mundane blade. Even as he falls, his sacrifice is nonetheless acknowledged by David and Bedivere.
- Religious Bruiser: Faith is an extremely important part of Saladin and Richard's beliefs and still influences their current behaviour. They are rightfully aghast to learn the Lion King has destroyed Jerusalem and hearing she's claiming godhood for herself only manages to infuriate them further.
- Uncle Pennybags: Harun al-Rashid just loves to distribute wealthy gifts to anyone on his path.
- Shout-Out: Many references are made to Kingdom of Heaven, with the title being only the first.
- Sibling Team: The Fujimaru twins for Chaldea.
- Straight Man and Wise Guy: Stern and composed Saladin is quite exasperated by Richard's flights of fancy and daydreams about chivalry and spends a lot of time lambasting his fellow monarch and urge him to be more reasonable.
- This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: After pegging the Sixth Singularity in the Holy Land, somewhere around the Ninth Crusade, Da Vinci and Dr Roman invite Baldwin IV to the briefing since he's from this time period.
- Undying Loyalty: Harshly deconstructed through Gawain, who keeps serving the Lion King in spite of her slaughtering half the Round Table for rejecting her and donning the trappings of a pagan goddess. A disgusted Proto Arthur has to duel him in order to pointedly remind the guy that being a knight is more than following a king's orders.
