Shirou was reading the profiles of the past Servants and Masters of the last four Grail Wars.
Amusingly enough, some of them also included the 'wish' of the Servants themselves.
Right now he was reading King "Arthur", who was really named Arturia. Finding out that the famous King of Knights was really a girl hiding as a boy wasn't surprising. Women were looked down upon in the Middle Ages, and few would take a female warrior seriously. Never mind the fact they would take offense to a woman being the "king".
However it was when he got to the wish that he almost stopped stirring the stew he was making while reading the profiles Waver-sensei gave him.
Shirou frowned and reread it, thinking that he had read the English wrong. Waver might speak Japanese, but he couldn't write in it. Hence why everything he sent was in English.
So when he finished the stew and left it to simmer for a thirty minutes to thicken up, he went and got his dictionary.
No, apparently he had read that right.
"King Arthur's wish was to change the selection of the king? How selfish and stupid is that?"
Changing the selection would mean that she wanted to dishonor all the men that died for her legend to be remembered forever, not to mention all the hard work and sacrifices she had to make in order to get that far.
In retrospect, Shirou could respect the previous War's Rider Servant more than he could Saber. Iskander had a simple, but rather easy to understand wish. He just wanted to be reborn and conquer everyone again. Even Archer had a wish he could somewhat respect.
Gilgamesh didn't care for the Grail, but if he had a wish it was probably to be reunited with his only friend. To him, the Grail was just another possession.
Shirou finished up the rice, which would off-set the stew.
One of the things Waver had been nice enough to give Shirou to study was cookbooks. Specifically ones from different countries like England, Germany, China, Korea, America and Greece.
Why he had that many books from that many countries, Shirou had no idea. Taiga, however, officially loved Waver for it. Because it encouraged Shirou to experiment with his cooking. Even if it meant his spice cabinet was stocked with well over a hundred different spices...all in alphabetical order. They had to be, if he wanted to find anything in time.
Shirou shook his head. He would reserve judgment on King Arthur for now. He had to finish supper first.
Shirou finished his cooking and waited for the insatiable Taiga to make her appearance.
And right on queue, Hurricane Taiga arrived with a loud roar demanding food.
'Thank the Root she likes you more than me. I don't think she could handle my cooking,' said Säbel.
When Shirou was fifteen, he and Säbel worked together to make a bracelet which contained all the different varieties of jewels left by their parents before the fire. Shirou made the bracelet which had the rune sequence they found in the journals, while Säbel made sure the jewels went into the correct fittings in the right sequence.
So now Säbel could use the jewels without having to worry about dropping them.
However as a consequence of working so closely together, Shirou and Säbel could now 'hear' the other side. While they couldn't use the other's magecraft, it was something of an improvement considering they were 'separate' before.
Taiga once considered sending Shirou to a therapist, considering he had a split personality disorder, but the sad fact was that it would have been far more disturbing for Shirou not to have some weird mental quirk after walking through that fire and surviving.
Having a second voice in his head was practically tame compared to what he could have developed, even if Säbel was an ass.
"So have you finished your homework Shirou?"
"All that's left is chemistry, and you know Säbel is the only one who can understand half of that gibberish."
It was funny really. Shirou was an excellent cook, but couldn't understand a word in five of his chemistry or biology books. Whereas Säbel was a natural chemist, but couldn't boil water to save his life, never mind cook. One would think the two would go hand in hand, but for some reason there was a communication issue between the two distinct personalities.
Which was why the only time Säbel ever attended class was during chemistry, biology or any other science and math class, and Shirou kept control during the daily routine.
And where Shirou spoke fluent Japanese and passable English, Säbel spoke Japanese and English with a distinct German accent. That was usually how Taiga was able to tell the two apart.
"So long as you get it done. You're the only fourteen-year-old I know that actually takes advanced chemistry classes before they even get into high school," said Taiga cheerfully.
In fact Säbel had to attend the classes with high school students, because the chemistry department in the secondary school was lacking the materials for the advanced classes he attended. It was a good thing the schools were so close together.
As they finished dinner...and Säbel finished the last of the homework, they settled into the dojo.
Taiga was rather insistent that Shirou spar with her, since he was quite likely the ONLY person who wasn't outright terrified of the tiger image she let loose when she was having a bit too much fun.
Once she left for the night, Shirou made sure the doors were locked before heading to the shed out back. Unknown to Taiga or Waver-sensei, Shirou and Säbel had managed to work out a secondary Workshop under the shed...right beneath the 'makeshift' one Shirou used to throw off the scent.
The shed was more of a place where Shirou could mess around with his magecraft, since rune work and projection didn't require much of a workshop.
Underneath the shed was another story. There was a ladder that was hidden under the staircase and what appeared to be a collection of junk. It was actually a board that had been masterfully painted to look like odds and ends under the stairs, on the two visible areas. To add to the security, Shirou had added a series of wards that made people automatically dismiss the junk under the stairs and focus more on the workshop above.
Though considering how much time Shirou spent inside that shed, he had added an extra futon in the second floor of the shop, as well as some decent lighting.
A dark and mysterious interior was a good backdrop for magic studies, but was highly impractical. And even Säbel was willing to agree that having the room lit by bright lighting made it easier to see what you were doing...especially since Shirou installed a 'dimming' switch so they could adjust the level of light in the underground room.
Once inside the shed, Shirou let Säbel out for the night. They almost had a good grasp of how to perform the jewel 'summoning' spell that created a construct of pure prana packed in one of the gems on their bracelet.
As soon as they figured that part out, they would adjust all the gems so that they could use it any time they needed to.
According to the old research journals, the original jewel summoners used gloves. And from what little he had gleaned, most of the constructs were like psuedo Servants...just highly unstable.
Säbel and Shirou thought the glove route was highly impractical. For one thing, the rune sequence alone could tell anyone that knew runes (like the Fraga clan) what the glove did, and thus give them a reason to take the hand off. For another, the constructs were simply too unstable for their taste. While the summoning aspect was good, the constructs still needed work.
If Säbel or Shirou were going to survive the Grail Wars, then they would need something with a bit more kick than the original constructs. And the idea of just leaving the fighting to the constructs like everyone else in the Harvenheit clan left a bad taste in Shirou's mouth.
Which was what Säbel was working on now.
Reconstructing the 'weapons' of the summons on a smaller scale that Shirou could use with the smaller bracelet, since he was right handed. If Säbel could make the weapons, then as the sword fighter of the two, Shirou could do some major damage.
Even if it meant having the two personalities work together for an unspecified amount of time, they didn't mind. After all, if they had to resort to a "Jewel Sword", then the only thing that either side would be focusing on was survival of themselves and any potential allies.
And depending on what they were dealing with, either side could take control.
The fact that the Tohsaka clan wasn't the only one to receive a basic description of the infamous 2nd Magician's Jewel Sword didn't help either. Säbel was determined to recreate it, if only to annoy the people in Clock Tower because he refused to join their association.
He wasn't an idiot. If he joined the Magus Association he might as well write his own death sentence. With Shirou possessing an honest-to-Root Reality Marble in his soul, there was no way in hell they could join and hope to hide that fact.
Though it might limit them in terms of research, they still had a teacher who was part of the Association, and by the time they finished that, most of the things they would need would be part of some other family's research anyway.
Like Shirou's studies on Runes. He had mastered the basics, but any extensive work on them would require someone to give him part of their family research, which wasn't likely to happen any time soon.
Which was why they hoped to get either a Caster or a Servant that knew a lot about magecraft. They really didn't want Saber or Assassin, as it was unlikely they would be very useful. And power didn't concern them as much as knowledge.
Okay, let's go back and examine how this week turned weird.
First they came across a freshman who needed help, and ended up in the archery club to shut up Taiga. That was fairly easy to handle.
Then, and this was what threw Shirou for a loop, the freshman Sakura seemed to have attached herself to him and insisted on helping him cook to feed Taiga.
This was where Shirou was having trouble.
As Säbel, he knew the Makiri had renamed their family as "Matou" in order to escape the pure embarrassment of having the only living relative capable of bearing children turn out to have not even a single respectable circuit in his body. It had been so bad that they had to barter with the Tohsaka clan for one of their daughters just to salvage what little respect that could be had of their magecraft.
As Shirou, he could tell there was something very wrong in the Matou home, but was unable to do anything about it personally. Mostly because in order to help Sakura, he would have to claim a superior bloodline first. The Emiya clan was out...it was a small clan of only two people, one of which was Shirou himself.
Which meant if he wanted to save Sakura, and start his path of becoming a Hero that didn't sacrifice the few to save the many, he would have to claim the title as Heir of the Harvenheit clan.
Säbel could care less about saving people. He was a Magus through and through. However Sakura had a personality he could appreciate, and there was something to be said about having a connection with the family that came up with the idea for Command Seals in the first place.
As loathsome as working with the girl's "Grandfather" was, not to mention that idiot Shinji, as allies go he could do slightly worse.
Not much worse, but worse. Like Kiritsugu's enemies or people he had pissed off worse.
However, Sakura was originally a Tohsaka. That meant she had some idea of Jewelcraft, and a possible in with the family that abandoned her. Especially since from what he understood, the sisters had been close before the exchange.
Which meant Rin might want her sister back. Enough so that she would help Säbel with his work in stabilizing the constructs...preferably without her finding out about the contract in the process.
When Sakura first saw what was obviously Shirou's workshop, Magus etiquette (and an uncertainty on whether Shirou knew that it was considered beyond rude to enter another's workshop without permission) kept her from doing more than a cursory scan, completely bypassing the area under the stairs after noting the obvious junk piled underneath.
So imagine her surprise when one night during a "tutoring" session (which had been Shirou's idea upon recognizing that something was obviously very wrong with her home) he brought up what were clearly some of his magecraft notes. Which were written in a mixture of Japanese and what appeared to be German. Fortunately he had a few dictionaries handy. Actually, he had close to ten, all of them in different languages to cross check one or more of the others.
Which was slightly odd until Shirou explained why. Apparently he had a few books in different languages, mainly cook books, and in order to make sure he had the translation right he cross checked it with a similar dictionary that had a different language.
It was time consuming, but it worked better than one would think to insure the translation was correct...or as close as one could get.
Coincidentally language was one of Shirou's best subjects, as he was fluent in three and hoping to get a fourth soon.
But then Shirou dropped the bombshell that almost had her panicking.
He knew. He recognized her family name the moment she was introduced, but didn't hold her to the reputation it had in the Magus circles. Mostly because he was also very aware her birth name wasn't Makiri, but Tohsaka.
The only weird thing was that his accent kept shifting from Japanese to what almost sounded like High German.
But what struck Sakura the most was the fact that Shirou had hopes she could help him with something involving what was clearly jewelcraft...something her birth family was well known for. Or at least in the top three.
And when Shirou (with a distinct German accent now) said something about proving to the family that they handed over the wrong daughter, well, the vindictive side of the abused child that had suffered unspeakable horrors rose up. She usually called her "Dark Sakura".
Dark Sakura liked the idea of proving that Rin was the lesser magus, even if she would never have condemned her sister to the horrors she had been forced to live through at the tender age of five.
With a slightly smug grin and a happy song in her heart, Sakura agreed to help Shirou with his work on the makeshift Jewel Sword.
It would serve her father right for saying Rin was the superior heir.
