"Shirou!" The fearsome tiger roared for me from living room. All I could really do was mentally sigh at her antics, while I finished putting away the materials I was using to clean my dojo. Truly only she could barge into someone else's home and start demanding for food. Though it's a first for her to come in a grand total of thirty minutes before I normally even start preparing anything to eat.

"Taiga, you know it's too early for me to be cooking for dinner." I call back to her as I walk over my the dojo to the living room. Which is where I found her lounging around looking helplessly bored. The twenty-one year old girl was wearing her casual yellow striped shirt and blue pants that made it a little past her knees. When Taiga noticed me walking towards her, she started to glare and pout all at the same time. Once again I find myself signing at her antics, knowing that I would end up giving in long before she would.

"Fine, fine. I'll go get dinner started." I say with a huff. Her expression almost instantaneously changed to a bright smile and a happy hum for her latest victory. Turning my back to her to march into the kitchen to start preparing the meal.

"I'm thinking that we should go on a trip this summer." Taiga called out to me as I put on my apron. I turn back to see that she ended up following me into the kitchen with her hands behind here head. Curious should would only mention this on such short notice as the break itself started. Though despite this I decide to humor her.

"Is that so? Where would you plan for us to go. School starts back up in a few weeks, so we can't do anything to extravagant." I asked, turning back around to get back to cooking.

"Well, you see I really wanted to go exploring Ireland." Taiga explained. I stopped cooking and turned to her as if she grew an extra head. England, she wanted to travel to England with no real reason. No, this can't just be a spontaneous decision this time. It's way to out there, even for her. But, I knew with her it wouldn't matter if I tried to integrate her. She would just rub it off with any and every excuse she knew, yet if I play my cards right I might be able to get out of it so I can have more time to prepare for school.

"I see, and why would you want to go there." I asked playing it slow to get a feel of what she want to use it against her to get out of the trip.

"Come on Shirou, it's Ireland. One of the most popular places to visit in Europe. They're plenty of things to do there. Also it gives me a chance to practice my english before the school term started up again." Taiga rambled off. Strange though considering when she normally does something like this she would say 'damn the reasons, I want to go' swinging that cursed Tora-Shinai around daring any that stood in her way.

"Alright that's a nice reason to convince your family. Now what's the real reason you want to go so bad." I call back, trying not to burn any of the food

"What do you mean? That is the real reason!" She whined knowing that I've caught her.

"I don't believe you for a moment" I continue to pressure into telling the truth.

"Why do you have to be so mean Shirou? I offer this amazing trip to a amazing place and all I get for thanks to an interrogation of something as unimportant as reasons!" as Taiga has changed tactics from reasoning to deflection.

"Amazing for you maybe, but last I checked I can't speak english, so I wouldn't be able to do anything besides sight-see, and even then I would be limited to what I could see, as I wouldn't be able to read or listen to anything that would explain what I'm seeing." I finally make my assault.

"Don't be like that Shirou, you won't need to speak english to be able to have fun." She whines, not even trying to add new reasons.

"I already bought the tickets and everything so it would be just a waste if you didn't go." She adds. For the third sign in the past twenty minutes, now it's starting to make sense. She never intended for me to have a choice. But instead of just telling me to go, she is guilt tripping me, paying for my ticket.

"Fine", I merely reply seeing no reason to argue a lost battle. She already payed for my ticket and I would feel horrible if i made her waste it. I should have told her no, should have made her suffer the consequences of not asking first but no, I couldn't. I'd never be such a harsh person.

"Wonderful! We leave tomorrow morning!" She exclaimed, hugging me from behind. When she let go, she march back to the living room to await her feast. All I could really do in this situation is, once again, sigh. Wow four sighs in thirty minutes, truly a new record for her.

After all that's said and done we ended up having a moderately boring dinner in which she started explaining how long we would be staying and what we would be doing. Which would be two weeks, and exploring the landmark and large tourist attractions. As soon as we finished dinner, taiga march me to my room and started to pack me a suitcase full of stuff I would need.

Soon the day was over and Taiga's family drove us to an airport to take us to our destination. It was a boring experience, the fourteen hour flight with nothing to do. Taiga ended up sleeping most of the flight off, where I couldn't even manage to sleep an hour. Upon landing in Dublin, Ireland, we went to the the hotel that the Taiga's father managed to rent out to us for the duration of our stay. Unloading and unpacking our belongings into the rooms that we were staying at.

During our stay we visited and explored many locations, such as the ruins and the cities. Most of it was fairly boring to me as i thought it would be, it wasn't that it was horrible, it's just that doing this wasn't calling out to me. Just stuff that Taiga dragged me out to do.

By the fourth day in we ended up visiting a museum owned by the church that was showing off some of its artifacts. Though I had to admit, some of the swords that were on display got my attention, I don't know why but I liked looking at them, as if they were calling to me. I was tempted to structurally grasp the swords if it wasn't for the time it took me to perform the spell and the amount of people that were around. So I ended up tearing my attention from the swords to move one. As I continued, I started to smell something odd. It smelt of something akin to eggs, or raw fish. It was something that my mind was telling me to stay away from but that only adding onto my confusion. I looked around the room to see if anyone else could smell it, but judging from how no one else was looking around for the source, or covering their noses i could only assume it was just me that could smell it.

I broke away from Taiga as she entered a new area of the museum so that I could find out what was causing that smell and see if I could get rid of it. While sniffing around, I noticed that it was coming from the second floor, a place that I was pretty sure that I was not supposed to go up to. I stopped for a moment to consider if I should break the rules and continue looking for the smell. On one hand, the second floor is blocked off for a reason and they should know that something is going on up there. On the other though, I seemed to be the only person that could smell it and that it could potentially be something dangerous that could hurt someone. After thinking about it for that moment, I quietly went up the stairs when no one was looking. If there was any chance that someone could get hurt, I was going to try to help them.

After getting to the top of the stairs, the smell became so much stronger that it is making me nauseous and practically screaming at me to stay away. Yet I persisted, getting closer and closer to the source of the smell. I continued along I finally found the source of the smell. It was a door, or more accurately it was the bottom of the doorway where I could slightly make out a line of something that I couldn't think of. Slowly I considered the idea that this is made to keep people from the door itself and by extension whatever else was inside. So very slowly, I started to open the door.

Peeking in, I couldn't see anyone. Lights were off and from the first glance, it seems to be another exhibit. I opened the door fully and went inside shutting the door behind me. Once the door was closed, turned on the lights to fully inspect what was inside. What I found was, as I thought, more items belonging to the museum. Anything ranging from a brilliant red cloth to gold and silver jewelry. Looking around I wondered why this room has that weird smell blocking the door from others.

Then I nearly fell straight onto the floor when I saw the shattered remains of a sword. Normally that wouldn't cause such a reaction from me, but this sword for some reason caught my attention. I could feel, even from these pathetic remains, an unbelievable power residing within the sword. I started to go up to the case that was holding the sword within. The sword was placed on top of a red pillow that was surrounded by a golden rope. The sword itself was meanly a dark gray nearing black with a carving on the blade and hilt, currently it was split into two pieces. The first piece was the hilt with about a third of the blade, and the rest of the blade being the second piece.

I quickly start looking around the room to make sure no one has entered. Then I got closer to the blade and put my hand on it. Slowly I felt my eyes shutting as I mentally chanted 'trace on' to start creating a new magic circuit. After the burning sensation of the newly formed circuit started to fade a bit, I cast my structural grasp onto the sword. I jumped back almost as soon as I started, and in that moment I finally understood why that smell was there. This sword alone was enough incentive to keep people away.

"Unbelievable! Hrunting, hound of the red plains." I couldn't help but mutter out. For such a sword to be here is unheard of. How did they even find this, even in the school of Japan we had to read the story of Beowulf, and all his accomplishments. These were assumed merely legends not fact, yet here is a sword that was Hrunting. I slowly walked back up to the blade to inspect it again.

"Now, how in the world did you find what out." A young voice spoke out in a foreign language. Startled I jumped away from the blade again and looked over to where I heard the voice. There stood a boy no older than fifteen with his arms crossed in front of the open door. He has straight black hair coming down to his shoulders and was wearing a white long sleeve shirt with a golden stripe going vertically down the middle of the shirt, with just black pants. What was wierd was that he has a strange tattoo on one of the hands that I could see. 'How did I not notice the door opening?' I questioned myself to only steal another glance at the sword. 'Oh yeah.'

"I believe I asked you a question magus." The boy, now speaking in fluent japanese, continued to press and started to walk towards me. The second he stepped forward I could smell it. The death surrounding him. It was also weird, as he has five unique scents to him that all screamed that I was about to die a horrible death. One of the scents was of ozone and fresh air, another one was of steel and plastic, the next smelled like a rat, the fourth one smelled like soil, and the last scent was one of a corpse. I started to back away from him in panic.

"I don't know what you mean!" I nearly squealed out in panic. He stopped and looked at me for a moment.

"How did you find out that Hrunting was here." He reiterated so that I could understand.

"I didn't" I was panicking, whatever this was it could kill me in a thought and I had nowhere to go to escape. My only option was to answer its questions and hope it let me leave alive.

"Then how did you know this sword is Hrunting?" He now a smug grin like he caught me in some sort of trap.

"I just structurally grasped the sword and found its name" I spoke up, still trying to back away from it, only to back into the case that held the red cloth that I saw earlier.

"Impossible, you could grasp the materials maybe, but not the name of the sword itself." He was frowning now, clearly not liking the answer that I gave him.

"I'm telling you that how I got the swords name" I pleaded, hoping against all odd he would believe me. He stopped coming closer just in front of Hrunting's case, looking at me as if contemplating something. Slowly he pulled out a small sword from the inside of his sleeve and tossed it right in front of me.

"Do you know what that blade is?" He asked me with a glare.

"No" I knew that if I didn't tell the truth it could be the death of me.

"Than grasp it like you did with Hrunting, and prove that you did not come here look for the sword." As soon as he told me what to do, I quickly grab the sword and held it up to me. Luckily I still had the circuit I used to grasp Hrunting so I didn't have to waste time doing that. When I grasped at this sword it didn't make me want to jump away. It was still different from a normal sword but it didn't even compare the the remains of the red plain.

"This sword is a black key, used by the church as a charm against demons and vampires. This one in particular has killed over seventeen vampires after its creation." I announced with resolve, hoping it would be enough to convince the creature of my abilities, and that I didn't come specifically for Hrunting.

"Interesting, very interesting." I nearly forgot he was here while looking at the blade in my hand. He held his hand out gesturing for me to return the blade to him. For a moment I considered trying to stab him with it, but easily decided against it. This thing, whatever he was could kill me before I pulled to blade back to strike. So I merely handed the blade back to him hilt first. "Now open the case behind you and grasp the red cloth inside."

Seeing no way out of this I removed the glass covering the cloth. Upon grasping it I noticed that it was harder than the swords. Not impossible but learning its name and what it did didn't just pop up like with the others. Slowly but surely, I found the name of the cloth, the 'Shroud of Magdalene' but that's the best I could do. "All I could get was its name, the Shroud of Magdalene"

"Now tell me how did you learn to grasp like that." He questioned, looking at the returned blade like it would share all its secrets.

"My father explained what it was, through trial and error I got to where I am now." I explained, as my father didn't really teach me anything, only explain the bare minimum.

"And who is your father" He casually asked still staring at the blade.

"Kiritsugu Emiya" He snapped his head up to meet my eyes.

"He lives?" His frown returning with a vengeance.

"No my father has been dead for several years now" I say correcting him.

"Then you bare the Emiya crest?" his expression returning to a neutral state, if not a little curious.

"No, I'm adopted and wouldn't be able to inherit it anyway."

"Interesting, very interesting. So your father is dead, you bare no crest, but yet you have very advance if not completely unique form of grasping." He say summing up the observations of the situation that I am presenting to him. "Now do you know who I am, or better yet what I am?" He finishes.

"I do not know who you are, all I know is that you are not human and you have five unique scents to you." I told him, starting to clutch the shroud, previously forgotten in my hand, hoping that it could somehow help me.

"Tell me does the term dead apostle mean anything to you?" My face paling at his question was all the answer that he needed to move one. "Then do you know what the twenty-seven apostle ancestors are?" I am confident that I was about to pass out, if what he is implying is true than I had no chance of escape was ever possible from when he even noticed my existence. The twenty-seven ancestors were the strongest of the apostles, beings that could each destroy the world if left alone.

"Good, good. Then you understand the situation that you have gotten yourself into. Now what to do with the young magus who has wandered into one my personal collection.?" Said in a voice that already knew exactly what he was going to do but merely stating it as if it was a formality.

"I'm going to let you go." He announced happily, clapping his hands together. I could only look at him dumbstruck. I truly thought he would kill me.

"I would normally kill you for what you have done" Well nice to know I called that much. "But in light of your very unique and more importantly useful grasping you can use. I have decided to keep you alive." Wonderful, it's nice to know that the only magecraft I'm even remotely good at is the one that kept one of the most dangerous beings alive from killing me.

"Now what's going to happen is that you're going to leave here, and you can go wherever you want. But every now and then I'm going to show up with some items. When I do you will grasp these items till I am satisfied." All I could do was nod dumbly as any other course of action was sure to get me killed.

"Good, good. Now then I'll show you out now." He turned his body and held out his arm gesturing to the door. Numbly I started to the as I pasted him he called out. "I never got your name." I turned around trying my best to show my most polite bow.

"Shirou Emiya"

"Hmm. Pleasure to meet you mister Emiya. My name is Merem Solomon. I look forward to doing business with you." While his voice was polite and almost sincere, his face sported a smirk that showed how damned I was right now. I simply turned around and walk out and straight to Taiga.

When I found her she was panicking from how long I was missing. When she found me she immediately took us back to the hotel crying about how horrible she felt for losing me, and that they would go back to Japan now. Still terrified by the encounter I could only nod and do as she said. It wasn't until we were in the plane going back to Japan did I notice that I was still was holding onto the shroud like as if it were a floatie in the sea of chaos that is now my life.

Author's notes:

Well that's the first chapter of my first story. I've had this idea for a while where Shirou meets Merem and his collection of items. With Merem taking interest in Shirou's ability to look into an item and tell him more about than what he could do normally. While at the same time it introduces Shirou to the moonlight world in a deeper sense than his father did, as well as adding to his reality marble without the need to meet servants. Throughout this story it will delve into other parts of the nasuverse in hopefully ways that make sense. How, I don't fully know yet, have to wait to find out.