Disclaimer: I do not own Fate/Stay Night or any of the related series that may be presented within the story.
The results of Sabers failed attempt to destroy the Holy Grail in the fourth war were much more pronounced than anyone could have expected. Now, thanks to influences both magical and mundane, the participants have to look forward to an entirely different war, though one thing remains the same. Only one may lay claim to the Holy Grail!
Welcome to the Holy Grail Tournament!
Chapter One: A Whole New Battle
Shirou had known something was off; he had known it for several days but hadn't been in a position to do anything about it at the time. It wouldn't do to skip school or the responsibilities that he had there after all. Besides, there hadn't seemed to be any serious issues at the time.
Now, as he sat bleeding against a stone wall, he began to wonder if he wouldn't have been better off just skipping off school altogether and simply staying home for the day. Even with the inevitable lecture from Taiga if he did, it would probably have been better than dying alone down here, wherever here was.
But perhaps that was looking too far forward. After all, things had been completely normal just this morning. At least what he considered to be normal.
Breakfast had been an unusually peaceful affair in his home. Taiga had not shown up to steal some of the food that he had carefully prepared, a rare but not unheard of occurrence, but Sakura had shown up to eat with him.
Not that he really minded his guardians company; she just wasn't good at creating a peaceful atmosphere.
Mataou Sakura was a very pretty young woman; even Shirou wasn't so dense that he didn't notice that about her. Purple hair hung down over her shoulders, framing a face that fell somewhere between cute and beautiful as she grew older, especially with her equally striking purple eyes. A uniform for their school covered a fairly pleasant body that a few of his less scrupulous classmates had made comments about in the past, to his quiet disgust. Though they were hardly the only ones that took an interest in the attractive young woman, many would-be suitors had been sent away in disappointment after being gently shot down.
She had shown up to try and cook for him. A habit she had gotten into a while back when he couldn't cook for himself and never really broke. But he made it a point to try and cook as often as possible. It really wasn't fair to expect Sakura, a friend of his, to cook all of his meals for him. She had never once complained about having to do so, but it never made it seem any better to him.
After a pleasant meal, if not a fairly quiet one, the pair started the trek to school. The route was one that they had gone through hundreds of times together. But not too long ago something had changed, though not due to construction or anything similar, and most of the people that passed by were completely unaware of this fact. Shirou, as a magus among other things, was not a normal person by any stretch of the imagination. And so, he was able to feel the subtle changes that had been made to the area no more than a week ago.
It was a…a presence for lack of a better word, a weight that had come to hang around the area like a heavy shirt, though lacking in any significant force as far as he could tell. If nothing else, Shirou had not seen any negative effects from the new presence, either to the people in the area or the property. And with no one at risk, he saw no reason not to wait and see what happened before acting.
Contrary to what some people thought, he didn't always feel the need to rush in without thinking.
Now, feeling he had waited long enough, he planned to try and locate the source of the strange sensation. After all, his stepfather had mention all sorts of dangerous beings that existed when he had still been alive, mostly when he had still been trying to keep his stepson from following in his footsteps.
"Sempai," a voice to his side questioned. Sakura was looking at him with an almost adorable look on her face, an odd mixture of concern and confusion that led her to tilt her head to the side ever so slightly with her eyes widened.
It really was too cute an expression for the already attractive girl.
"It's nothing Sakura," he rushed to assure his companion. "I was just lost in thought."
"I see," fortunately for him, Sakura seemed to accept his words without protest. "Were you thinking about rejoining the archery club? I know that several of the members miss you, and you do spend a fair amount of time working on the equipment already."
Not so fortunately, Sakura seemed to have jumped to completely the wrong conclusion regarding his short bout of inattentiveness during their stroll to school. Suppressing the urge to groan, he continued to listen to Sakura attempt to coax him back into joining the club. Something he would always carefully decline. He also noted the lack of change to the atmosphere he had just finished walking through, but shoved it into the back of his mind as campus started to come into sight.
Really, what was the harm in waiting to get through school before he looked into the matter?
His plans had not gone through nearly as well as he hoped they would. He had convinced Taiga, in the face of a fair amount of whining over her missing both of his meals in one day, when he promised to make her something nice for breakfast tomorrow and make her lunch too. Of course, that had taken a fair amount of time. After that he had to stop and assist the archery club in putting away their equipment. Finally leaving the school grounds, he made his way to the area he had felt the magical pull from.
Unfortunately, actually finding whatever he was feeling was a fair bit harder than he had hoped. The feeling of power that he sensed was spread out over several square blocks, only growing slightly more intense as he wandered further into the area he thought the feeling was coming from.
He made it a point not to think of how silly he must have looked wondering around in circles like this. Fortunately the sun had already begun to set and there weren't many people hanging out in a quiet neighborhood like this.
The building that he finally stopped in front of was a reasonably small two story home, good for a small family. And apart from the fact that no one seemed to live there, looked pretty much the same as every other house on the block. But the presence he felt, which had grown from a slight weight to something he could almost feel, like a gust of wind just lightly blowing him, led him to believe that he was in the right place.
Checking behind him and trying not to think about just how guilty he must have looked, Shirou made his way to the back of the house. That way, he could look around and perhaps even try to get into the house without anyone on the street watching him and wondering what he was up too.
Or calling the police, which would have been bad for him too.
Only the fact that whatever made this aura could have been dangerous to the people in the area if he left it alone for too long led him to actually trying to get into the house.
Surprisingly his first attempt to get into the house, which involved trying to open the back door, got him inside. Even if magic wasn't involved, most people locked their homes when they left, even if there was nothing to take it would at least keep squatters and other people from coming in unannounced. True, that also described him at the moment. But that was beside the point!
The first floor had nothing of note inside of it, ignoring the fine sheet of dust that seemed to have developed over everything from a lack of housekeeping. Apart from a stove and fridge that did not seem to have any sort of power, there was no real furniture and nothing in the cabinets or closet that he could find but more dust. Not seeing anything that seemed to lead to some sort of basement, not that he really expected to find one, Shirou cautiously made his way up the stairs. Gripping the rail with an unnecessary amount of strength most would have called excessive.
The reason for the firm grip was the presence, which had become that much more pronounced after he had entered the home, now seemed to blow against him softly and actually blow through his ears. Knowing that he was getting closer to whatever was creating this feeling was both exciting and terrifying at the same time.
The upper story, only slightly less dusty than the first, reinforced his earlier belief that a small family must have lived here at some point. A bathroom and two decent sized bedrooms led credit to his theory, though most of the items were gone from any of the rooms. But it was in the last room that he finally found what he was looking for.
The room was small, with an almost cramped feel to it. It looked like it could have been a small office or maybe a storage room at some point, though there nothing to give away what its previous purpose had been.
Instead, he found a small hand mirror inside. It was a simply thing made of wood and glass. No gold or runes or anything to hint that the item he was looking at was in any way magical, which might have been the point. It even gave a reflection of him, though it was a bit unclear underneath the grime that had begun to form on the surface. With a reasonable amount of trepidation, he made his way over to the mirror, a journey that took all of three steps, and reached out for the mirror.
He didn't touch it of course, even a magus as untrained as him knew better than to simply reach out and touch an item that you could actually feel the magic coming off of. He quickly decided to use Structural Analysis, one of his most frequently used spells, to try and understand exactly what he was looking at.
The results he got were…strange. It was just wood and glass as far as he could tell. Though the materials themselves were too perfect to be natural, ordinarily he would have found dozens of minor issues within the wood and glass, invisible to the naked eye. But there was none of that here, and even though he could feel the magic coming off the mirror he couldn't tell what the real source was.
His next move was one that most magi would label as idiotic, and even he would question the wisdom behind it in the days to come.
He reached out and laid his hand on the dirty glass of the mirror, trying to brush away some of the dirt, when he felt his world explode in pain. It was a short thing, but in that moment he felt each of his circuits cry out as they were forcibly drained of prana. The mirror seemed to glow for a moment, though he couldn't be certain as his eyes began to water. He could feel the disorienting sensation of being forcefully thrown around before the room disappeared around him.
His senses came back to him fairly quickly, a gift from so many years of being an early riser. Rolling quickly to his feet he tried to figure out what had happened, had he triggered a Bounded Field, forced teleportation, or had the mirror simply placed him under some kind of illusion. Whatever it was it didn't lead to any positive conclusions about his current situation.
Not seeing any immediate danger, Shirou took a moment to take in his surroundings. He was in a large room, no windows, though there were two doors at either end of the room. The doors and floor both seemed to be made of the same kind of wood while the walls seemed to be made from stone, though it was unnaturally smooth stone. Light came from a series of small orbs arranged at the top of the room. The light was enough to illuminate the entire room, and only the lack of windows and the grey walls kept the room from having an almost at home feel.
These thoughts passed through Shirou's mind in about three seconds before he got to his feet and headed for the closest door. For the second time in less than an hour, he found himself surprised at the lack of barrier to his entry. On the other side he found a hallway designed much the room he was in now, stretching off into the distance. Not seeing the point in remaining where he was, Shirou began a cautious trek down the hallway. Oddly enough, he could feel a breeze despite the lack of circulation that the hallway seemed to have, but he didn't see the point in questioning it at the moment.
After less than a minute of walking he found himself at a crossroad, this one stretching out in front of him and to either side. But for the first time since he had entered this bizarre place he found that he wasn't alone. From the hallway in front of him a new figure seemed to draw itself from around another corner.
It wasn't human, whatever it was. It was mainly wood and resembled some kind of human size doll. It stood just a bit shorter than he did. Its arms, legs, torso and head were made of some kind of light brown wood while its joints seemed to be made from a dark metal; its head was in the shape of a human but without real eyes, ears, nose, or a mouth. In spite of its lack of eyes, the creature seemed to stare directly at him, moving forward despite lacking any obvious means of energy or self-propulsion.
Calmly walking forward, the creature casually raised its right arm. With the better angle, Shirou could see that there was a small hole embedded in the end of the wrist, exposed when the automaton raised its arm. Shirou could make out a glint of metal as the head of an arrow; the same dark color as the rest of the metal it was made of, emerged from the hole and launched at him.
It was mostly reflex that saved him at that point than any conscious action on his part. Ducking his head in much the same way a child in gym would, the small arrow flew past him and impacted along the along the wall further down the hallway he had just come from. The sound of metal hitting stone was enough to get him up and send him running, even as fled to the right he could have sworn that he could hear a click as the creature ahead of him reloaded for another shot.
The next several minutes seemed to go by in a blur. Shirou would rush down a series of identical looking hallways, constantly looking over his shoulder for his attempted murderer. Unfortunately, there seemed to be far more than one of the golems patrolling the maze he had found himself in. Fortunately, they seemed to be incapable of moving at anything other than a quick stride and required a moment to target him. This allowed him to keep half a step ahead of them by ducking around corners whenever he sighted one. Unfortunately, this kept him running through what seemed like an endless series of hallways with no way of fighting back.
It finally occurred to him that he should have brought some sort of weapon with him before he started this investigation. Maybe one of the few weapons his father had left him from his days as a bounty hunter, or even a bow and arrow from the equipment he had been working on earlier that day would have been better than coming in unarmed.
Oh well, hindsight and all that.
It was with those thoughts in mind that his luck, such as it was, finally decided to abandon him entirely. Pursued from behind, Shirou dashed for the fork in the road in front of him. But in what was either a basic attempt at strategy by boxing him in, or just a display of chance, the right road was cut off by another of the golems that had been plaguing him. Dashing left, Shirou was almost relieved to see a door at the end of the hallway even though he had no idea where it would lead him.
Unfortunately, the run left him completely exposed and the hallways were too narrow to try and throw off his pursuers aim by dodging to either side without hitting the wall. He was hit before he made it more than two thirds of the way to his new destination.
The pain was intense, even with all of the adrenaline pumping through his system. The arrow sank into his right arm, just below the shoulder, easily piercing flesh and sinking in several inches. The only positive thing about the situation was that the arrow wasn't barbed, though he didn't think of that at the time.
Doing his best to ignore the injury that was sending waves of pain through his body with every step, Shirou bolted inside of the room, which also had an unlocked door that he promptly slammed behind himself. He couldn't hold back a flinch as he heart metal sink into the wood behind him, and from the sounds of it this bolt had been aimed somewhere closer to his spine.
Wondering a few steps to the right, Shirou let himself fall to his knees, filling his lungs with precious oxygen hadn't realized he had been missing. Letting himself stay on the hard floor, Shirou dared to look at his right arm, and almost immediately wished he hadn't.
The injury itself looked bad enough, but he had apparently lost enough blood to stain most of his right sleeve and part of his jeans an easily identifiable red color. Sighing, he reached with his other hand and grasped the arrow, flinching as the contact alone served to aggravate the injury. Steeling himself, he couldn't contain the scream as he ripped the arrow out, allowing a fresh wave of blood to continue staining what was most likely a lost set of clothes. Letting the bloody arrow fall to the ground with a clatter, he covered the injury with his hand in an attempt to stem the bleeding while his back hit the stone wall. This was not how he had pictured this going at all.
Deciding that the amount of blood he had lost was not enough to threaten his life, or if it was there wasn't a whole lot that he could do about it without real medical supplies, Shirou let himself examine his new settings. He was in a small circular room composed entirely of smooth stone, the only entrance that he could see sitting behind him, the center of the room raised itself and held a small stone pedestal covered in symbols that he couldn't even begin to identify. On top of that pedestal sat what looked like a small, round, white stone, free from any sort of crack or disfigurement that he could see from a distance.
Though if it weren't for the fact that the item practically hummed with magic, he wouldn't have cared about it very much after the time he'd already had in this place.
Daring to look at the still closed door, this showed no signs of opening or any sounds to indicate movement on the other side, much to his relief. He cautiously got to his feet and took a few steps closer to the item that the room seemed designed to simply draw attention too. While he drew close enough to feel the pleasant warmth that seemed to come off the stone he made no move to grab or touch it.
After all, the mirror had been pretty benign looking before it had done whatever it was that it did.
Pacing around for a few more minutes, Shirou considered his options. He could walk out of the room, and get away from whatever this thing was, but have to face the creatures that had tried to kill him. Or he could touch the small, white stone that may only try and kill him.
Wasn't it nice to have options?
Half expecting it to blow up in his face with the day he was having, Shirou was pleasantly surprised when all that happened at his touch was a minor drain on his reserves, and a much more relaxed one compared to what had happened earlier. He quickly tried to let go of the stone, but the rock seemed unwilling to release itself to his mild panic. The drain continued for several more seconds until the stone simply turned to dust in his grasp, falling harmlessly through his fingers. He didn't even notice as runes appeared on the ground around him, energy came alive in front of him as a figure formed in front of him.
The woman who appeared in front of him almost took his breath away. Blonde hair that almost seemed to have been spun from gold framed a pair of stunning emerald green eyes. Most of her body was covered by some kind of silver armor, which spread from her neck down to some kind of metallic skirt that covered her legs. Her entire figure was alight in a way that gave her an almost ethereal appearance.
Then the glow faded, but the aura of power and authority he felt from the woman in front of him didn't diminish in the slightest. Her eyes seemed to search him for something as she gazed at him and he wondered what a sight he must have looked in his dirty bloodstained clothes.
"I ask of you. Are you my Master?"
Swallowing his tongue, Shirou tried to think of an appropriate response to what seemed to be a completely random question. The girl aside from him didn't let her expression shift in the slightest, gazing straight into his eyes as she began to speak again after several moments of silence.
"I am the Servant Saber, in response to your summoning I have come. I ask again, are you my Master?"
Before he could think of anything to say, pain exploded in his left hand. If possible, the pain here was even more intense then when he'd been shot with the arrow. Like hot knives were being driven into his hand and he vaguely realized he had cried out in pain. But as quickly as it came, the sensation passed, leaving only a dull ache.
Three sword shaped marks appeared on the back of his left hand, each one pure white and stuck out clearly against his tanned skin. That seemed to be enough for Saber as she nodded to herself.
"From this time forth my blade shall be in your hands, and your fate shall rest in mine. Our contract is complete."
And really, what was he supposed to say to that?
And there is the first chapter of my latest story. It has been months since my last update, mostly due to college, but I decided that it is finally time to get back in the writing game! So please, leave a review and tell me what you think so far.
And just to be clear, I'll explain a few things here. Just in case anyone takes the time to read the authors note. Not too likely, but it seems worth a shot.
First of all, this will not be a knock off of Fate/Extra or any other videogame, though I will be using certain video game elements and elements from other series from other Type Moon series for the story. Some of which will be seen in the next chapter, others will be introduced later. I'm not about to give everything away all at once.
Second, yes this will be a harem story. Though I will try to add an appropriate level of buildup to the relationships, and I will not be revealing who the members will be just yet.
Third, the Shirou in my story knows very few spells, but he does actually use the Magic Circuits inside of his body instead of creating his own. So while he isn't a genius, he has access to a decent amount of magic. I can see the need to do this in Fate/Stay Night to keep from overpowering Saber, but I always hated that they essentially crippled Shirou in order to make it happen. You'll see how I balance out her strength and the other Servants in the next few chapters.
Fourth, many servants will be shown here, some of which are better known than others. That said, I am not looking for any OCs at this time. You are welcome to send in a layout for a servant or other character, preferably well thought out ones. But I make no promises to use them at this time. The same can be said for dungeons, monsters, or locations for the future. Your welcome to comment, but I take the story where I fell it should go.
Fifth, I cannot say when I will be able to update. I have college, elderly relatives, work, and generally life to deal with, so I cannot promise to update every other week or something. Updates may come every few days, weeks, even months, I cannot say right now.
Sixth, future chapters will have more dialogue than this I promise you. While I do try and describe some things without words, I will try to have a decent amount of dialogue; there were just no conversations worth having this chapter.
Seventh, I try to keep the magic here reasonably close to how they present it in canon in some areas. But if it seems that I made some big error, let me know and I'll double check it. I don't pretend to have a complete memorization of the magic in this series.
Finally, please review! It's what gives me the motivation to make quality chapters and update that much faster. To any other authors out there, I think you know what I'm talking about.
