A/N: Yeah, we're not doing that again. I was reading my other rewrite of the original story, and the amount of angst... No. What I was thinking when I wrote it, I do not know, but I have officially wasted five days of my life. At any rate...

This is really a rewrite of a rewrite, I suppose. My previous draft was way too close to the original, and was quite possibly more long-winded and rant-like. And it was pretty damn depressing. And boring. So, we're completely creating things from scratch. Of course, I wrote about thirty thousand words in the previous drafts, before scrapping them. So I have to use some material from those drafts. But the rest of the plot? We're redoing it.

I better put the standard disclaimer up.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. I do not own the Nasuverse. I barely understand some concepts in both worlds... I just depressed myself.

WARNING: OOC (some parts), incomplete understanding of lore(feedback appreciated on this topic: I'll check out the wikis or something later.), obviously AU, and probably some emo-ness/angst going on. I am not a professional. Just putting that out there.

Viewer discretion is advised.

Rein Hellfire presents to you...

In accordance with the rules on this lovely website...

Fate/Zero: Hour

Prologue: Point Zero

"Let me get this straight. You want me to participate in a war."

"Yup."

"A war that takes place in a fucking city of all things, filled with many, many civilians."

"Yes."

"A war that has had absolutely no victor for the past few hundred years."

"Uh-huh."

"You want me to participate in the Heaven's Feel."

"Got that right."

The first man gave the second one a dead-pan stare. "Can I ask a question, you old vampire?"

"Ask away, Naruto."

The first man, Naruto, cleared his throat. "Root dammit, why are you trying to get me to fight in a war AGAIN, old man?"

The blond-haired man, Naruto, was tall- about six feet in height, give or take a few inches. His spiky blond hair had two bangs that framed his face, and the back was shoulder length. He was well built, but not overly so, more like a martial artist or runner's build, and he had piercing cerulean blue eyes that danced lively, but had a jaded look in them... As if he had seen far, far too much in his twenty years of existence.

His most noticeable features, though, were three whisker marks adorning both of his tanned cheeks. It could be noted that he was quite handsome, almost edging into the 'pretty boy' category. Compounding this image, he was currently standing, hands in pockets, dressed in a black suit, a completely black suit.

The other man, Zelretch, or more specifically, Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg, was a graying old man, with gray hair, gray beard, etc. He possessed remarkable crimson eyes, and was also dressed in black clothing of a different fashion.

He was a vampire, or more specifically, a dead apostle ancestor, and master of the Second true magic, "Kaleidoscope".

Zelretch winced. "Ah, I forgot about that."

Naruto's eyebrow began twitching in annoyance. "You know damn well that I don't enjoy endangering civilians. This entire idea is a bad one. Fighting in a conflict over something as stupid as the Holy Grail sounds like a very, very bad idea, especially if other magi are involved."

"... But it'll be entertaining."

"You'd kick a puppy if you found it amusing."

Zelretch raised his hands. "Got me there."

"Give me a good reason to fight in the Heaven's feel." Naruto crossed his arms and began tapping a foot against the floor.

"Well..." Zelretch sighed. "The prize for winning is... A wish."

"A wish? Something as stupid as a wish?"

"No, actually a wish. As in, your deepest desires will be granted."

Naruto went silent. "A wish, huh. So, this debacle is over a mythical wish-granting device."

"Yeah."

"And... It can..."

"Yes, it can actualize miracles and accomplish the impossible."

"..."

Zelretch smirked. "So, now you're actually considering it."

"Actually, no." Naruto smiled, a sad smile. "I have no regrets, you know. In the end, I made my world better. I brought about a change, a chance for a better existence."

"After walking a path of blood. But, don't you want to change that? Make it so that all of those losses never happened?"

The younger man shook his head. "If I rewrote the past like that, I would be spitting on the corpses of all of my friends. I mourn and remember them, but I won't regret the decisions that I made, ever. I have already accomplished more than most people could in a lifetime. I don't have a wish that I would like to see made true."

"You know you've already been chosen, right?"

Naruto rolled up a sleeve and exposed a glowing, stylized sword-like mark on his left hand. "I am aware. This thing appeared about a week ago."

"The grail wouldn't choose you, unless there was something that you wanted, some inner desire."

Naruto cast weary blue eyes onto his teacher. "I am aware... We both know, that I have had three desires. I wanted to bring about a gentler existence to my world. I have done this. I wanted to give my friends and precious people, my comrades in arms happiness. I have done this, and still am doing this, every day that I live."

"And you want to see her again, don't you."

"It would be nice. Yes." Naruto smiled, rather weakly. "But I won't because I will not disturb the sleep of those who have passed. She is the one regret that I have. She should not have died."

"You do know, the grail is capable of bringing back the dead, don't you?"

Naruto raised a hand. "Zelretch, don't tempt me. Please, I beg you."

The old magician complied. "Can I not convince you then?"

Long minutes of silence, in which both men regarded each other silently, one with piercing cerulean eyes, the other with crimson.

Eventually, the younger blond spoke.

"We both know that I have already decided what my course of action is to be…" He sighed. "You old man… manipulating my feelings like that…"

"In that case..." Zelretch pulled out a bag. "A catalyst. Take it."

"Thank you." And with a flash of golden light, Naruto vanished.

Zelretch sighed. "You damn brat. You always had an obsession with protecting people, especially when it involved Akane." He made to leave. "Best of luck to you, then. I can only hope that you'll find that piece of your heart that is missing."

A ray of moonlight passed over the old man's form. When it had passed, he was gone.

The blond-haired man hummed quietly to himself as he continued laying out the summoning circle in the middle of his modest apartment. It had been a while since he had lived for strictly for himself. It seemed as if his relatively normal (For him) lifestyle was about to change, radically at that.

Although, he mused, I cannot be classified as strictly human now... Can't I? Because I'm not of this world... Strictly speaking, of course. And then, there's... That little factor.

Naruto Uzumaki admitted that he was a flawed existence. He had his best friend kill him in order to bring about peace to the world. He lost all capacity to care for other beings after his friend died. No, his lover, friend... wife...

And the person known as Naruto Uzumaki, after realizing that he was a competitor in the fourth Fuyuki Grail War, laughed at the very concept. A war that would grant the winner one wish. One single wish. What a selfish idea.

He was already dead the minute Hinata died. A dead man had no business living when others suffered. And dead men had no right in wishing for things, not when there were other people out there. And yet, he found himself a master in this war for a selfish desire. However…

Naruto shook his head clear of the depressing thoughts. He cleared his throat and stood up.

"It's almost time then. At midnight- that's when my powers will be at their peak."

He was currently standing in the middle of a spacious room in a penthouse apartment suite, which had a circle drawn of blood imprinted on the middle of the floor. He was wearing a black suit, completely black, and was currently rummaging in a bag for something. He found the object and pulled it out.

It was a sheath, a sheath for a sword. More specifically, a European Broadsword. Even more specifically, the holy sword given to King Arthur by the Lady in the Lake. And what a sheath it was. It was a luxurious piece of equipment made of gold and decorated with blue enamel that seemed more like a treasure to show dignity and nobility, like a crown or staff, than a weapon. It was inscribed with Fairy Letters on its center to signify that it was not, in fact, a work of mankind, but something... More. This was the conceptual weapon, Avalon. The ever-distant Utopia.

It was, he mused, one of the most beautiful things that he had seen. Quite fitting of something that embodied one of his more inner desires.

Naruto placed the sheath onto a makeshift alter. "That is a beautiful sheath... Old man Zelretch really must have done some digging around for it..."

Zelretch had filched Avalon from the Einzberns as a matter of fact, after they had excavated it from Cornwall. The reason he gave it to Naruto as a catalyst for the ritual? He thought it would be... Entertaining, to say the least. Even if it was a pain in the ass to actually steal the sheath.

Zelretch is quite possibly the biggest troll in the nasuverse though.

"Might as well get the ritual started."

It was 11:59 pm. One month before the Fourth Fuyuki Grail War. An apartment in Tokyo, Japan. The residence of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed magus in training, apprentice to Wizard Marshal Kishua Zelretch Schweinorg. The hollow man.

He shook his head of these distracting thoughts when he noticed the clock tick over to twelve. The blond-haired Magus began the incantation. The circle, that circle drawn of blood began glowing. Theatrics were not needed in a summoning. The only things required was an artifact, to better the chances of choosing a select servant, and a circle with a Magus. The grail did the actual summoning.

"Silver and iron to the origin. Gem and the archduke of contracts to the cornerstone. The ancestor is my great master Schweinorg."

The glowing increased, and the blonde magus could feel the prana surging through his circuits like blood through veins.

"The alighted wind becomes a wall. The gates in the four directions close, coming from the crown, the three-forked road that leads to the kingdom circulate."

More prana flowing, a buzz of power emerged, grating upon sensitive ears. Avalon began glowing, as if it could sense the return of-

"Shut (fill). Shut (fill). Shut (fill). Shut (fill). Shut (fill)."

Was it worth it? Was it worth conducting this ritual and beginning another conflict?

"Repeat every five times."

"Simply, shatter once filled."

It probably wasn't. Naruto himself had no clue why he would even want a wish. He had already lived one life, and he never regretted the painful path he took.

Or he did have regrets. He had two regrets: that he had to spill all of that blood in order to bring about a change, and that… a person died who shouldn't have.

"――――I announce.

Your self is under me, my fate(doom) is in your sword.

In accordance with the resort of the Holy Grail, if you abide by this feeling, this reason, then answer."

So, if the blond had one wish that could be spoken in coherent words...

"Here is my oath. I am the one who becomes all the good of the world of the dead, I am the one who lays out all the evil of the world of the dead."

Naruto was tired of war, oh so tired. He'd participate in this one last conflict, if only to protect those innocent lives that were endangered by this conflict. Whoever devised this entire system should be kicked in the balls for making it take place in a populated city.

One Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg sneezed and shivered, along with another, Matou Zouken.

The other reason? Some deeper, darker, desire that conflicted with every single one of his ideals.

What is my heart's true desire then? What is my desire?

You, seven heavens clad in three words of power, arrive from the ring of deterrence, O keeper of the balance ―――"

And with a bright light, a blinding light-

The world disappeared in a flash of white, a burst of energy.

And when all had settled-!

Smoke billowed from the summoning circle, and the silhouette of a slim figure was discernible. Then that figure spoke.

"I am servant Saber. I ask of you. Are you my Master?"

Three weeks before the start of the fourth heaven's feel. On what could be called a night of fate. All stories begin at a single point, at a beginning. And so, the story begins, a tale of masters, of knights and heroes. A grand tale, a sad tale, one that would have ended in tragedy, but instead will take a different path.

Whether for better or worse is to be determined.

A/N: And that's the revised version. I'm going to skip directly to the start of the war next chapter, because I really hate writing filler now. Thirty thousand words of filler. (Shudders). Already, we see differences from the previous story.

So. Read. Review. Hit that button on the bottom of the screen. Constructive criticism is appreciated, ideas for the story, anything. Flames will be read but ignored.

Rein Hellfire, signing out.

Update #1: Well, frack me sideways. Revised description of Zelretch. I completely messed THAT up. Thank The Another One for his review, otherwise I probably would have completely missed that little tidbit.

Update #2: Well... Something happened. I was going to upload chapter one, but... screwed up on me. Meaning that I have to reformat everything... Shit. Sorry about the false alarm. Working on it!

Update #3: Edited some things in the story line to make this story flow better.