Berserker (Fate/Crossover - Wilhelm Ehrenburg)

**Berserker** (バーサーカー, *Bāsākā*) is the servant of ??? in the ??? Holy Grail War.

*"Listen here you shit! Even if they're stupid or lowly, those who win and then keep on winning are strong! To engulf everything, even if you're full, that's hegemony!"* - Wihelm Ehrenburg

## Profile

### Identity

Berserker's true identity is **Wilhelm Ehrenburg**, also known by his Demon Name Kaziklu Bey (カズィクル・ベイ, Kazikuru Bei), is an antagonist in Dies Irae. A member of the Longinus Dreizehn Orden, he occupies seat IV of the Obsidian Round Table. He was among the very first to be recruited to the Longinus Dreizehn Orden alongside his rival Wolfgang Schreiber.

A serial killer active during the early 20th century, his earlier life is shrouded in mystery. According to the man himself, he was already born to a twisted family—‘my mother was my sister’ would be the first words he would utter if questioned, and he would also confirm that he burned them alive, alongside the family home, not long after becoming a teenager and starting to carve a bloody path through the streets of Berlin.

The reasons for such are unknown, but it seems that he believed himself destined to be the lord of the night, obsessed with becoming ‘a vampire’—a condition of madness apparently derived from his own albinism coupled with a twisted mind. Regardless of the motive, however, most can say that a killer known as ‘Wilhelm Ehrenburg’ certainly existed.

After all, his name figures in the registry of convicted war criminals as a conscript placed in the Schutzstaffel under the direct command of Reinhard Heydrich, bearing the rank of Obersturmführer, involved in the carnage associated with the aftermath of the Warsaw uprising. While modern sources affirm that the acts were perpetrated by a certain brigade, the person himself scoffs and claims he ‘carried out ninety percent of the job with his own hands’. Whether this is true or just tall tales remains unknown.

Regardless, details about his life would fade into obscurity soon after the fact. While a warrant for his arrest for trial and a reward for information on his whereabouts would be issued, the common consensus is that the man died in the war, having failed to turn up in any other situation. Some ponder if half of that man’s life was even real or just some made-up story of the times.

However, there were tales and rumors floating about, of a pale-haired man with corpse-like skin that stalked the battlefields of the most ravaged countries throughout the century until the turn of the millennium, slaying anyone crossing his path without a care. The moniker of ‘Kaziklu Bey’ would live on for a while, though detractors claim that it could be just another popular story, or an intimidation tactic that gained popularity. ‘Interview with Kaziklu Bey’, a work published in the early 2000s by Dinah Malloy and clearly paying homage the classic ‘Interview with the Vampire’ work by Anne Rice, paints the fictitious meeting between the author and a very much alive—and bloodthirsty—Kaziklu Bey, where he regales her with what he refers to as ‘the unedited truth about (his) life’.

His figure has certainly gained enough traction throughout the years to be considered an ‘urban legend’ in his own right, and a particularly famous one at that. However, an urban legend it remains, not truly nestled in mankind’s memory sufficiently to make for ‘a proper Heroic Spirit’.

Therefore, this existence is only recipient of the rank of Phantom—that much can be observed by his ‘Noble Phantasm’, a byproduct of his magecraft rather than the proper crystallized mystery of a Heroic Spirit. Regardless, he affirms that he cares little for his current classification.

Summoned in a War for the Holy Grail, he finds the opportunity enthralling. To begin with, he had already hit the ‘glass ceiling’ while he was alive. Even consuming a large number of mere humans would not be able to procure the amount of power he would need to grow—after all, it is the same principle as leveling up by killing mobs in a videogame. While early on even a level one mob can be considered significant, the analogue follows with Kaziklu Bey being level sixty and still slaughtering them for EXP with regards to killing humans. Simply put, the returns are not worth the time and effort.

However, Heroic Spirits are different.

As those legends enshrined by mankind, even the least of them possesses an ‘unmeiryoku’ orders of magnitude above a common man, it would be the equivalent of dangling the finest cut of meat before a starving wolf. While their souls are indeed the Grail’s—and, while Wilhelm is a natural-born monster, his own makeup would not be stable enough to contain them without losing functionality regardless—that much, he can still plunder. Therefore, making it to the last rounds and winning the War is paramount.

His wish would naturally follow from his own Craving—the Ritual known as ‘Heaven’s Feel’ is but a grand sacrifice at a large scale. There is no shortage of fools in the world that would fall for such things as the idea that it can ‘accomplish a genuine miracle’, but, at its core, it is a sham, its very foundation a deception. As a sacrificial ritual, it can only accomplish a miracle that is equally mundane—thus, the only ‘genuine miracle’ may lie in its scope.

But even then, that thing should still be good for something. If he combined the Grail with his own capacity after stealing the unmeiryoku of six other heroes, then perhaps. . .

To show the world the true terror of the night. To find and slay all others who could lay claim to such title and become the sole, superlative predator of this world. That is Wilhelm Ehrenburg's goal.

. . .To become a phoenix, risen from midnight’s ashes.

### Personality

Wilhelm is a violent, cruel and brutal man, extremely sadistic and with intense pleasure in suffering, not only a foreigner, but also his to the point of sexualization, but also of an explosive temper. He quickly turns to violence, without respecting morals or ethics. And his bloodlust is powerful enough to take on physical form.

He loves violence and massacres, and nothing gives him more satisfaction than adrenaline and a life full of excesses.

He is prone to rivalries, first with the Ashen Knight, Einherjar Albedo, after Beatrice (A unilateral rivalry on the side of Wilhelm born from the first meeting between the majority of the members of the future Obsidian Round Table on December 25, 1939) and during the events of Dies Irae he became rival of the Apoptosis of Eternal Moment, Shirou Yusa.

Although, despite his psychopathy, he sees people as having his own opinions and has been rejected by his blood, and sees the relationship between Helga and her Father as degenerate.

He also respects courage, even in those who fight against him.

Despite his narcissism, he has absolute loyalty to the Golden Beast.

He does not actively go against what society calls good or normal, he just acts the way he does because he is who he is, and he really likes the brutality in which he gets involved.

However, deep down, Wilhelm is a man bitter for life, dissatisfied for never getting what he most desires, for the rarity of good fights and marked forever by Cláudia, who made him try to drown the sufferings and evils of life in excess.

## Abilities

He has shown a great degree of strength and martial ability, going beyond that of base humanity, even before he became part of the Longinus Dreizehn Orden. Though his fighting style has no semblance of discipline or intelligence. Simply brutalizing his enemies into mangled heaps of gore, barely reconizable as human.

His bloodlust alone is powerful enough that it takes on physical form, powerful enough to break the floor around him open, and cause walls to become webbed with cracks. This is not an active ability, but he can hold it back to choose when it is released.

### Skills

#### Class Skills

* Madnesss Enhancement (EX Rank): Defies the expectation of a ‘mechanical’ Servant and offers the advantage of an across-the-board rank-up to his Parameters. However, in return, he is unequivocally mad.

It is only natural. After all, he was a demon that was rejected by sunlight from the very start, a bloodthirsty beast that only knows how to gorge and gorge in order to achieve his desire—‘to become a true demon of the night’, as he calls it, a directive veritably burned into his own soul.

Thus, the idea of ‘reaching an understanding with him’ fails before it even begins. Fundamentally speaking, his thought processes cannot be called human.

#### Personal Skills

* Die Ewigkeit (B Rank): Refers to a magical system, with its basis rooted in the inventions of a certain Serpent. Fundamentally, one of the most basic ways to use it is as a relatively simple ritual that allows the wielder to boost their capacity through mass-sacrifice—souls are collected and may be turned into fuel to accomplish feats such as regeneration, enhanced battle prowess or heightened sensory perception at its basest level, a simplistic and barbaric use, though the magus’s talents meant that efficiency was second to none.

However, when wielded in combination with the Relic (Noble Phantasm), higher functions can be achieved. As an aside, the system of ‘Ewigkeit’ treats 'souls' and ‘force of providence’ as analogous.

* Sadistic Disposition (A+ Rank): Augments one’s aggression in battle. Fundamentally very close to Mad Enhancement in the standard scale.

Exhibiting the Skill at its highest rank, he can show the benefits of such even considering how close it is to his already-active Class Skill, not the least of the reasons being the condition of his own Mad Enhancement as Elimination Class. Attacks made as he loses himself to the ‘enthrallment of battle’ are endowed with a plus correction, but in return, his defense sharply drops and finer motor control or strategy slip past him. He focuses wholly on ‘consuming what stands in front of himself’.

A Skill befitting a ‘slaughterer’ rather than a ‘warrior’.

* Instinct (A Rank): A ‘sixth sense’ that may allow one to ‘feel the best path in battle’. Could be construed as an ability close to precognition. Rather than a Skill earned through experience, it is a ‘mindless talent for bloody violence’ that Wilhelm was born with, trained and refined through many life-or-death battles. If technique is something the weak use to overcome the strong, then this is the mark of one such as he, who was a monster that did not need aid from the start.

However, due to his own inclinations, he often ignores any warnings concerning his personal safety. In that regard, he could be called either peerlessly brave or stupidly suicidal.

### Noble Phantasm

#### **Der Rosenkavalier Schwartzwald; "Rose-Bearer in the Forest of Death"**

His drive to be ‘a demon of the night, a vampire’, crystallized into his greatest armament as a Servant. The physical basis is found within his bloodstream—the crystallized blood of ‘Vlad the Impaler’ that Wilhelm consumed as ‘the most fitting catalyst for his transformation’. Though that is not a Noble Phantasm by itself, it bears the name ‘Qlipoth Bacikal’.

In its inactive state, it allows Wilhelm to form stakes of ‘congealed blood’ from his own supply, as per the use of the Ewigkeit system applying the relic as a basis. The stakes themselves can be formed from any place in Wilhelm’s body from head to toes, and he can fire them at speeds far exceeding even machine guns. Due to the nature of the Noble Phantasm, the stakes carry the simple property of ‘plundering’, not too dissimilar to the ability of the heiress of a certain clan. Bodies that enter in contact with them will find themselves plundered of anything that could be loosely construed as ‘fuel’—even car fuel, for example, is not exempt, and even the ground slowly turns to dust—and it goes without saying that magical energy and even the ‘unmeiryoku’ of the slain also fall within this category, to be added to Wilhelm’s own reservoir. It could be called a ridiculous extreme of skils such as Galvanism in that regard.

Fully activated, it gives rise to the ‘third degree’ of Ewigkeit—‘Beri’ah’, or ‘Creation Figment’. It could be said that the true purpose of the system is to fast-track the realization of such thaumaturgy.

Through use of the world egg theory, it gives rise to a high class Bounded Field inherent to Wilhelm Ehrenburg. A place where his craving, the desire of ‘being the greatest demon of the night’ is, without fail, actualized. In short, it is akin to a Reality Marble with regards to the means through which the effect is actualized, but the principle behind the Bounded Field places a much stronger emphasis on the caster's 'desired ideal' rather than the 'inner self', though they are close enough to be treated as analogous.

The twisting of natural law means that the ‘plundering’ ability of the stakes is turned into something inherent to the dark world the subjects find themselves in—the strength ebbs away and leaves the enemy troops, used only to further bolster Wilhelm himself as he becomes the most superlative of predators. He can materialize stakes from even thin air, and even a single drop of blood will surely find its way to him, the victim’s force of providence drained in a manner analogous to that of an Underworld’s. Additionally, he will also exhibit a capacity to perform spatial transference within the domain and control the shadows within.

The area itself could be said to be Wilhelm proper, with the body being merely a convenient nucleus, a lynchpin. In other words, ‘the beast’s belly’ in the most literal of senses.

The only ways to exit are to break through the false blood moon hanging in the sky or to kill Wilhelm himself. However, this task is made easier because, due to his urge, he also gains the negatives associated with being ‘a vampire’, such as weakness to sunlight and the sacraments of the church, in a similar fashion to the drawbacks induced by the Noble Phantasm ‘Succession of Blood’.

## Trivia

* His Holy Relic is named after the Romanian king Vlad III Dracul. Who ruled from 1456 to 1462. Who had many Saxons; men, women, and children; impaled. Largely for purposes of intimidation, in order to protect Wallachia. Dracul was the main inspiration behind Bram Stroker's Dracula. With Vlad often being correlated with culety due to his actions. Despite the fact that he was trying to protect his people by filling the enemies hearts with fear. But his depravity nonetheless was great.

* Kaziklu Bey is a corruption Turkish nickname for Vlad, that being Kazıklı Voyvoda, which translates to "Impaling Lord" or "Impaling Prince". As he was a Slavic Leader the Ottomans give him the Slavic Title Voyvoda. Meaning "Warlord" or possibly "Prince". But was given a Turkish descriptor of Kazıklı meaning "Impaling". Bey is the Turkish word for "Lord. Thus Kazıklı Bey is a purely Turkish form of the moniker.

## References

https://shinzabansho.fandom.com/wiki/Wilhelm\_Ehrenburg

https://shinza-bansho.fandom.com/wiki/Wilhelm\_Ehrenburg

https://omniversal-battlefield.fandom.com/wiki/Wilhelm\_Ehrenburg

https://all-fiction-battles.fandom.com/wiki/Wilhelm\_Ehrenburg