Author's intro

The last chapter got quite a bit of feedback! Thank you all for the continued interest in this story and thank you, Kinoko Nasu, for the amazing universe you created for us to enjoy and play with. I don't own it; Nasu and Type-moon do.

Fonts used:

"Speech."

Thoughts.

"Arias and other Mysteries."

"Higher beings speaking, overpowered Mysteries."

Enjoy, full notes at the end of the chapter.

Chapter acknowledgements: while I would like to think that I would have fiddled with the appearance of Shirou's Reality Marble anyway, ThirdFang's awesome spin on it has probably been a factor. If you for some reason haven't tried 'From Fake Dreams' by him, please do.

Her Song

Tohsaka Rin was what anyone would consider a model student and a model Magus. At school, she was at the top of their year, idolized for both her academic prowess and looks. In private, though… suffice it to say that simply not dying under the tutelage of Kotomine Kirei demanded talent, guts, and a certain amount of defiance. The man knew the theory, but he was no Tohsaka and a rudimentary Magus at best. Then there was the lingering suspicion that he simply didn't care much about her surviving the training. The old hypocrite would probably find her death amusing.

When she was nine, the girl made a decent attempt to fight her own tendency toward arrogance. She had felt that being stuck up distanced her from everyone, but it just wasn't in the stars for her to be humble with her superior intellect and looks. In the end, she gave up and crafted a polite, if a little distant, public personality, affording but a peak at her true self to a pair of friends: Ayako Mitsuzuri and Kaede Makidera.

She was good, she knew it, and she would do her absolute best to make sure her family's name would stand proud among the Edelfelts and Einzberns of her world.

Which was why Rin had to wonder how she found herself watching Shirou bustle about the kitchen like a bumble-bee on a sugar-high. Dietrich, Shirou's father, sat across from the female Magus and studied her with a twinkle in his eyes. Gladstone had contacted the girl a few days after her incident with his adopted son and arranged a meeting. Supposedly, it would be easier to hide everything from Kirei at their house. He even threw in an oath that she wouldn't be hurt. A tediously useless bout of homework she had been fighting through at the time must have been why she foolishly agreed. Tohsaka had calmed down shortly after entering the house to find herself in an enclosed space with two Magi she didn't know inside of several Bounded Fields that did Root-knew-what. The experience could have been humbling if it weren't for the danger.

The smell of something delicious interrupted her rapidly darkening thoughts. Shirou floated towards them along with the odor, carrying a large plate with a pile of potatoes and fish on top.

"Salmon?" she asked, not daring to touch the food.

Dietrich laughed at her hesitance and helped himself to about a third of what Shirou had brought. The man's motions were sharp, economical, if a bit erratic. As if he were a poisonous snake on meth.

Their chef started putting food on her plate while she watched him with suspicion.

"Don't be shy, Tohsaka-san. And don't worry, the food is perfectly safe. Shirou would never insult his work that way," Dietrich said.

The elder host honest-to-Root winked at her and punctuated his words by taking another large bite. What the hell was wrong with these people and their absent sense of propriety?

"Dietrich, what are you talking about?"

"Tohsaka-san is afraid of poison, it seems."

Gladstone was on his third or fourth mouthful by that point, and Shirou looked so offended that even Tohsaka had to admit they probably wouldn't poison her. Not like the annoying boy had much of a poker-face. She tried a bite and made an undignified yelp in surprise, which she immediately attempted to cover with a cough. The damnable German Magus was on the verge of laughing at her yet again.

"This, this is good…"

"Isn't it? I'm trying to make pen-bred salmon taste more like wild salmon," Shirou said. "Pen-bred salmon has so much fat in it… So I put it on a grate above the potatoes and as it bakes, it drips fat onto the potatoes and—voila! Then I sprinkle a bit of lemon juice to offset the taste of the remaining fat."

She could only shake her head as the boy lost himself in the intricacies of cooking. Tohsaka lived alone, so she had to master quite a few recipes, mostly Western. She found it more a necessity than pleasure.

Dietrich responded with a deep chuckle.

"That's my Shirou. Give the boy any problem and some tools, and he'll combine them in a way that solves it. So, you wanted to talk about something, Tohsaka-san?"

Rin got momentarily distracted by how good the food tasted. She could easily identify that there were no spices apart from salt, lemon juice and thyme. The trick obviously lay in the temperature at which it was cooked and in the time that heat had been applied. This spoke of repeated experiments, which was an attitude she admired, even if the boy was a crappy Magus. Of that she had little doubt: why would they risk such insane treatments otherwise?

Shirou sat near Dietrich, carefully settling his abused body on the cushion, and stared at. His unblinking, ramrod-straight manner was unnervingly different from the way people usually looked at her.

She said, "I read up on grafting Mystic Crests, Gladstone-san."

"And you understood the theory?" Dietrich sounded mildly impressed.

"Please, it's easy. I mean, I can't graft one myself yet, but the concept—piece of cake. A Magic Circuit is basically a chunk of your soul, so you sort of peel it off and transfer it into a seal on your body. This can later be transplanted to a relative. Easy."

"Simple—maybe. Not easy at all. This is manipulating a soul with Mysteries; something bordering on True Magic," the German Magus said.

"But here is something I don't understand. All the books say that even a blood relative can reject the Crest, and the probability of a non-relative surviving the process is dangerously close to zero. There is no way to know in advance, so it's an insane risk. Why do it? And why do you want to hide Shirou from the fake priest?" She waved a hand in the direction of the silent boy. "I mean, I know you've introduced yourself, Gladstone-san, and my teacher, reservations aside, is one of the best healers in the country."

For once, Dietrich's went still, but it was Shirou that answered.

"Tell me, do you trust your teacher, Tohsaka?"

"What, no honorifics, Shirou-kun?"

The boy gave her a deadpan stare.

"You are too direct for honorifics. You can call me Emiya."

"Whatever you say, Shirou-kun."

Oh, how she enjoyed watching him wince.

"I trust my teacher about as far as I can throw him," Tohsaka said.

"Can you throw him?"

"No."

They looked each other for about ten seconds before Dietrich burst out laughing.

"I talked to the guy for half an hour and he really got on my nerves, but alienating his own little pupil? That Kotomine is really something." Having laughed to his heart's content, Dietrich continued. "We don't trust him either, Tohsaka-san. Let's just say that Shirou's father had some history with the man. There is a possibility Kirei would try to interfere with Shirou's education, and him meddling is never good."

She had wondered what the situation with Shirou's family was. The past tense regarding his father told her they were most likely gone. Rin nodded, urging Dietrich to go on.

"As for your first question… There are additional circumstances, so there is little chance of the rejection killing Shirou."

"What, he doesn't have a soul? Because that's the only way I can think of that he can survive."

"What? No, no! Nothing like that. How would that even work? Even Dead Apostles have souls. It will be easier to simply show you. It's a Mystery, nothing that can hurt you."

Tohsaka realized she would be at their mercy if she gave them permission to practice Thaumaturgy in front of her. Wait, she already was at their mercy. Brusquely, Rin gestured for Dietrich to get on with it.

To her surprise, it wasn't the older Mage who moved but Shirou. The boy reached out with his right hand.

"Trace, On."

What sort of Mantra is that? she thought.

Meanwhile, the younger Magus closed his eyes and mumbled something under his breath, before opening them wide. There was a sharp contained explosion of Mana and an object appeared in his hand.

Tohsaka blinked.

"Projection?"

The boy nodded.

"And how does making an empty copy…"

As she eyed the golden-tinged 12-inch dagger that Shirou laid on the table she felt that something was off. Cursing the insanity those strange people were making her dive into, the girl leaned in and poked the blade with a finger.

"That's a Mystic Code."

"Yes."

"You Projected a Mystic Code. And you are still conscious."

For the first time since starting to learn Thaumaturgy, the genius Magus found herself completely lost for words. It took her half a minute to regain her ability to formulate coherent thoughts.

"Still, that doesn't explain…"

"Shirou constantly projects healing Mystic Codes to offset the rejection," said Dietrich. "It's rather brilliant, actually."

"Brilliant? Brilliant?!" It was an impressive feat, to make the model student Tohsaka Rin so red in the face, it matched the scarlet in her clothes. "Are you kidding me? How does he even get the effects to be constant? How does he get the Codes to work all the time?!"

"Well, I sort of Project them inside myself. Between organs."

Improvisation clearly wasn't one of Shirou's strengths. Tohsaka stared at them both. Hard.

"Stop lying or I will go to Kirei."

Clearly, the experience of being one-upped by a pre-teen girl wasn't a pleasant one for Dietrich if his disgruntled expression was anything to judge this by.

"Shirou, what did I tell you about thinking things through?" he asked. "How would you Project something inside yourself? Where would the tissue that was there even go?" Dietrich sighed. "Tohsaka-san, it's kind of a secret so can you promise not to tell anyone?"

"I'm sure we can come to an arrangement."

"Well, that was worth trying… Shirou has a powerful healing artefact implanted that provides constant regeneration. It is slow enough to be useless under most circumstances but it can actually heal the damage rejection does. With periodically using external healing, it is barely enough to make grafting safe."

Rin couldn't believe what she was hearing. Where were the days when charging a gem with magical energy counted as something novel and amazing?

"So, let me get this right. You are saying that he is constantly experiencing grafting rejection." She jabbed a finger at Shirou. "But he has something jammed INSIDE HIS BODY THAT KEEPS HIM ALIVE AND IN CONSTANT AGONY?!"

She did try to hold her voice in and that was what was important, she thought.

"Please, stop screaming, Tohsaka," said Shirou. "Yes, pretty much. Though it's not on the level where I would go into shock from pain so it's okay."

"OKAY?! HOW IS THAT OKAY?! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!"

"I think Tohsaka-san needs some time to herself, Shirou. Let's leave her with tea and go have that lesson we have scheduled."

As Shirou left the room to go deeper into the room, he turned.

"I hope the salmon was to your liking."

"It was very good, thank you." Her response was reflexive and delivered in a perfectly level tone.

Shirou shook his head and left.

And then she was alone, staring at her half-full plate, stupefied by the tale she had been told. Either Shirou was a much better liar than she gave him credit for, or both him and Dietrich were certifiably insane. Shrugging, Rin ate the food before it got cold.

After finishing, she waited five minutes for somebody to return and escort her out before remembering that Shirou and Dietrich went Root-knew-where to have a 'lesson'. She could simply leave; the more sensible part of her was practically screaming to do just that, but it was silenced by the bane of all humans, be they Magi or not. Curiosity. Aside from being insane, the elder Magus and his pupil were a puzzle. Dietrich himself was something of a legend: he was rumored to be the best when it came to Mystic Codes. Rin held no illusions. Mystery-wise, Fuyuki city might as well have been some backwater village in the middle of frozen Siberia. The Matou and Tohsaka families had lost a lot of their influence and there were no other notable presences around. That is, until Dietrich Gladstone decided to make the city a place of permanent residence.

Shirou was even more intriguing. Tohsaka didn't have much experience in interacting closely with other Magi, except for the fake priest, whose status as a Magus was debatable. She wasn't sure what a 'normal' practitioner was supposed to be like, but she was confident Shirou wasn't it. He got good marks at school, practiced a normally useless branch of Magecraft with impossible results, and treated crippling pain as if it mattered only if it sent him into medical shock. Tohsaka couldn't really justify snooping around somebody else's house, which was why she told herself she had to find the masters of the compound to say goodbye. Conscience sufficiently appeased, she set out on her investigation.

It didn't take long to realize that Dietrich's annoying sense of humor wasn't his only defining trait—the man was paranoid. Half the doors and walls deeper in the building were covered with layered Bounded Fields that she guessed didn't promise intruders a show of sparkling rainbows and cute ponies.

Eventually she came upon a door with a large plaque saying 'Shirou's room. No entrance with water!' Strangely enough, there were no mystical protections of any kind on or near it. She really had no excuse to enter, but the temptation to see the weirdo's living space was far too great. Tohsaka pushed the Japanese-style door aside.

Rin didn't think she had ever been so disappointed in her life. The room in front of her was almost completely empty. The furniture consisted of a built-in closet, a cushion on the floor and a table. The latter had a laptop on it (what kind of Magus used electronics?), a photograph, and some sort of Thaumaturgy project, which involved a lot of wood and a bit of Mana.

It could have been worse, she supposed. Not less boring, but definitely worse.

Tohsaka walked up to the table. The photo was of an older scruffy looking middle-aged man and Shirou. The man, who must have been Shirou's dead father, looked happy and his son was his usual quiet self. There was a certain twinkle in his eyes she hadn't seen before, though. Absent-mindedly, she ran a hand over the wooden parts strewn all over the table. Their aura them tingled her fingers, and the papers to the left hinted it was supposed to be some sort of a Mana dampener. A case to conceal a Mystic Code from detection, maybe. Tohsaka decided it was time to call it quits, set her mind on really finding Dietrich, turned around. And froze.

When she walked in she didn't look back and so didn't see the wall that ended up behind her. Which was covered in blades.

Knives, swords, spearheads, and unidentifiable metal objects with sharp edges hung on supports, occupying every inch. Straight, curved, light, heavy… More than one hundred square feet of gleaming metal death. Just opposite the table two katanas in lacquered sheaths stood out, but the rest of the wall just blended together into a sea of murder. Then she noticed the post-it notes. They were bright-pink and yellow and had things written on them in methodical handwriting like 'great for crushing bone', 'excellent for throat-slicing', 'good composition, poor balance', 'oil and clean on Friday' and, on a large cleaver-like blade with a small chip on the edge, 'you should see the other guy'. On the floor under the exhibit an anatomical atlas lay, open on the page describing the human vascular system complete with notes on how to make a man bleed out with as few wounds as possible.

At this point all curiosity was forgotten, and belated survival instinct kicked in. Tohsaka didn't even remember how she came to be in front of her manor, panting heavily and trying not to think of what she got herself into. Or what she might have avoided.

###

Shirou thought he heard the sound of somebody running by the room they used for classes but made no comment. This lesson was especially important as the material they were using came from his father.

While Kirtsugu had originally wanted nothing more than to keep his adopted son as far from his past as possible, he eventually recognized that Shirou would need every edge available to him if he were to survive the Holy Grail War. He could only ask Dietrich to make sure the boy didn't choose assassination for justice as a profession and hope for the best.

So now they were going over the basics of surprise attacks and using collateral damage to gain an upper hand. This was fairly new ground for his teacher as well. With how important what they were doing was, Shirou found it deeply unnerving that his thoughts tended to stray to the arrogant, bossy, and quite annoying side of Tohsaka Rin he had come to know today. He wondered whether most Magi were that self-absorbed.

###

To Sakura, school was just another set of rules to play by, another role she had to fulfill or risk making Zouken upset. Her brother might have been the more openly violent and unstable one in the family, but it was the grandfather who was worthy of every drop of fear the girl could still muster. Luckily for her, whatever Zouken's plans were, they didn't include Sakura being an honor roll student, which mostly left her to her own devices. Before meeting Shirou this meant going through each of the days on autopilot before returning home, to the place she outwardly didn't care for and hated deep inside. Now that the younger Emiya and Taiga-onee-san had wormed their way into her life, things changed. She was warmer to other pupils, especially those at the archer's club. This drove Shinji nuts, but it wasn't like he could do anything to her that would hurt her heart. Her brother was far too impulsive and stupid to think beyond screaming and violence.

And so her days passed: smiling at Shirou in the halls, quietly going through the lessons, enjoying archery, studying just enough, and spending as much time as possible at the Emiya household.

If there was one person who she didn't know how to feel about at school, it was her former sister, Rin Tohsaka. By silent agreement, they met only when they couldn't avoid each other. Their shared past was something neither would mention, and their present lives couldn't be further apart. That was why Sakura was stupefied when Tohsaka approached her between classes and asked, no, demanded to immediately talk to her on the roof. Rin appeared her normal composed self at first glance, but circles under her eyes and a loose right ribbon betrayed her. Something was wrong.

They stood still on the roof for about a minute with Rin rolling on the balls of her feet while the younger girl waited quietly. Eventually Tohsaka inhaled deeply and exploded in a blast of speech.

"You need to stop going to Emiya's house! Those people are crazy, it isn't safe!"

Sakura was silent for a while, but when she finally looked up, her gaze was arctic cold.

"I don't see how where I go is any business of yours, Tohsaka-senpai."

"But, but I can't let you—"

"As I said, Tohsaka-senpai, it's none of your business. My family is okay with me being friends with Emiya-kun, I am okay with being friends with him, and that's already more than you need to know."

Even as she cut Rin off, Sakura wondered why exactly Zouken didn't have anything against her spending time with Shirou. The old man normally did everything to make her life miserable, and she didn't believe even for a moment the tales of needing to continue the family legacy. That man cared only about himself and his worms, and both of those were the same thing.

"But Shirou is an enemy Magus! They will steal your secrets! They can hurt you!"

Again Sakura went quiet, but when she spoke this time, her tone was thick and sugary, like tar pretending to be honey.

"Tohsaka-senpai, what do you know about my family's Mysteries?"

"Not much… I know you use insects…"

"We are also hosts to some creatures we use. Do you know what it's like to become one without being a true Makiri at the age I did?"

Tohsaka went pale and stepped back in reflex.

"Of course you don't, Tohsaka-senpai. But I see that you can imagine. Emiya-kun, Kiritsugu-san, Gladstone-san—they've never hurt me. They've never asked anything about Matou Mysteries and never mentioned Mysteries at all."

So quietly that Tohsaka might not have heard it, she added, "And this is why I would tell them everything if they asked."

"You know Kiritsugu is dead, right?"

Sakura said, "He was a kind man. Wise. A little scary."

Tohsaka slumped with a sight for a moment before perking up.

"Shirou's room is full of knives, blades! Axes, spears… Why are you laughing?! This isn't funny!"

Sakura could no longer contain herself. She bent half-over, her laughter brought her to tears. This episode of slight hysteria lasted nearly a minute before the girl straightened up, jutted out her jaw stubbornly and spoke.

"I. Don't. Care. Not everyone has pretty jewels as the basis for their Mysteries, Tohsaka-senpai."

The bell rang.

"The recess is over, and we have lessons. If you will excuse me."

After Sakura slammed the door to the roof, she started shaking. Years of not talking to each other, and now she and Rin had had a row and, shockingly, she was the one to antagonize her sister. The world had gone crazy.

Later that day she was forced to reconsider. It was not the world that was insane, it was her. That was the only explanation why Sakura thought she could see Tohsaka fifteen as she walked toward the Emiya household like she did nearly every day.

To test the complexity of the hallucination, she stopped. Not-Rin stopped too. She started walking, and her silent shadow started walking too. Tentative, Sakura reached inside herself, tugging at a few Circuits and agitating the crest worms a little. A cursory probe revealed that the being behind her was either the real Rin Tohsaka or somebody very good at masquerading as her. She calmly noted to herself that if the second option had been true, she would probably be dead right now.

"This is ridiculous. Tohsaka-senpai! Would you like walk together?"

After hesitating for a moment Rin caught up with a couple dozen fast steps.

"I thought your house was in a different direction, Tohsaka-senpsai."

Sakura remembered her former home's location perfectly, but the temptation to jab at her former sister after the annoyance Tohsaka had caused during school was too much. Rin flinched, sighed and looked away.

"Yes. I just remembered I need to talk to Emiya about something."

Sakura looked at the other girl from the corner of her eye.

"And you aren't going with me to make sure Emiya-senpai doesn't eat me or cut me with those knives you saw in his room?"

"Of course not," said Tohsaka. "I just have some more questions for him and Dietrich. I mean, I can't rely on the fake priest all the time… He isn't even a real practitioner."

Sakura actually giggled at that before catching herself.

"Do you know that Taiga-senpai will be there?"

"Who?"

This will be fun, Sakura thought. It was moments like these that made her feel like a real person, not like a doll simply existing through unimaginable humiliation, abuse and torture in order to fulfill some yet unknown ambition of an egotistical ancient Magus.

She was almost grateful to Tohsaka for her meddling.

###

Shirou found that something was different about that particular morning. Something in the air, perhaps? He didn't think it was Prana as much as a fleeting feeling, impossible to grasp at, yet always there. Overall, it added to the chore that middle-school was: some subjects and teachers were all right but what was up with asking him about some noble killing a bunch of people to help another bunch of people ages ago? He could recite the facts well enough, but why were they asked to form opinions about the past? It happened. Draw conclusions. Move on.

Sadly, his outlook wasn't appreciated by the history teacher, and his recent personal-opinion-free essay had earned the boy a rare C-, which he had brought home. Neither he nor Dietrich really cared, but it was still unnerving how inefficient school education was with distracted children and teachers who had to fight for every scrap of attention. Why couldn't everybody just focus, finish all the lessons in half the time, and then do something productive?

Shirou finally understood what the sense of foreboding was about when he got home. In the kitchen, oil sizzled happily, Sakura hummed a lullaby, and the air smelled of fried chicken—that was business as usual. What wasn't was the additional company present in the nearby dining room.

Gladstone sat in a corner, a mischievous smile on his lips.

"Welcome home, Shirou."

"Thank you…"

This was when Taiga Fujimura barreled into the conversation from her spot at the table.

"SHIROU, WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT STARTING A HAREM?!"

"Erm… Nothing?"

"Right. Because I didn't think my cute little brother would ever stoop so low. HAREMS ARE BAD, SHIROU! STOP MAKING YOUNG, BEAUTIFUL, CLUELESS GIRLS FALL IN LOVE WITH YOU!"

That was when the final occupant of the room tried to speak up. By the quaver in her voice anyone would be able to tell this was not the first time Tohsaka tried to stop Fujimura's train of thought. Unfortunately, it was far too much like trying to stall a literal train with her meager body.

"I am not in love with—"

"No, no, of course you aren't, you poor girl. SHIROU!"

Shirou sighed and rubbed his eyes in frustration before walking up to Rin.

"Good evening, Tohsaka-san. Can I get you anything?"

"Um…"

Tohsaka looked completely lost at this point, blinking and looking at each person in turn. Of them all, only Sakura and Dietrich seemed completely unperturbed. Both looked entertained, as a matter of fact.

"Right," said Shirou. "Water it is then."

"Dietrich! Shirou is ignoring me! My little brother is ignoring me!"

"No one is ignoring you, Fujimura-san," Dietrich said. "Some idiot new underling gifted her a cake."

The boy groaned. Taiga was like a four-year-old on speed most of the time and giving her anything with a high quantity of sugar in it was tantamount to giving said kid stimulants and throwing sleep-deprivation into the mix. All restraints were snapped, and the tiger turned into a maelstrom of chaos and destruction.

As Shirou set a glass of water on the table in front of Tohsaka, he said, "Sakura. Please, a lot of meat for Fujimura-sensei. With a lot of fat."

Their only hope for survival now was to make the rampaging beast sleepy.

Later that day Fujimura was happily snoozing somewhere in the house after being tucked in by Dietrich. The rest of them were still in the living room, finishing up the brick chicken with fries Sakura had provided.

"This is good, Sakura."

"Senpai is still better," the younger girl said.

Tohsaka was looking between them with a degree of fascination normally associated with seeing an extinct animal. She mumbled something under her breath before looking up and fixing Shirou with her gaze.

"What's up with the knives?"

Dietrich laughed.

"Sneaking around a boy's bedroom? How unbecoming of you, Tohsaka-chan."

Gladstone's teasing smile, Sakura's smirk, Shirou's frank surprise—they made Rin's face go red like an overripe tomato.

"Anyway, you kids talk it out. I have some chores in the city."

After Gladstone left, Shirou was left inside with the three women. Thankfully, Taiga was taking her catnap deep enough in the house to not hear anything. Emiya did his best not to look at Sakura until the girl smiled.

"I know you are a Magus, senpai. But why knives?"

At this moment Tohsaka suddenly remembered something and pointed an accusatory finger at Shirou.

"I am so not in love with you!"

When she saw the dumbfounded expressions on both Shirou's and Sakura's faces, she felt the rest of her blood flow to her face until her toes felt cold. She sat back down.

"I sort of specialize in blades? Like, blades-based Mysteries?"

Tohsaka cocked her head, colour slowly returning to normal.

"So, like Projection?"

Shirou nodded.

"I wish I had knives…"

"Your family has bugs and stuff, right?" asked Shirou. "I don't see how that's worse than blades…"

Sakura slumped looking to be on the verge of tears, and Tohsaka looked between the two of them, unsure what to do. Shirou summoned a scalpel. He made a quick incision on his left arm, then dismissed the blade with the same speed he called it.

"Senpai! Why did you do that? We need water, a bandage, you will bleed out!"

Tohsaka looked simply resigned.

"You are nuts, Shirou. Did you write all those notes on blades to remember how to open yourself up or something?"

Tohsaka noticed that the clean cut on the upper side of the boy's forearm was shallow and didn't bleed much. Shirou just shook his head.

"No, just look."

He closed his eyes, inhaled deeply and frowned in concentration.

"Trace, on. My body is made of blades."

He was too busy opening half of his Circuits, creating a Bounded Field inside his own body all the while trying not to pay attention to the sharp burning pain the protesting Emiya Crest gave off to see the results himself. But the girls' reactions were telling.

"By the Root!.."

"That. What is that, senpai?"

Shirou opened his eyes and saw metal grinding inside the wound as he had expected. Honestly, he had no idea how that particular Mystery worked. It came naturally to him, and it looked like the muscles turned into a jaggy mess of small blades scratching on each other while the bones turned to metal. He was still more than sketchy on significant details like whether it worked on internal organs, and what happened to blood vessels and the like. For now, both the boy and Dietrich deemed the practice to be unsafe if he kept the Field up for more than five seconds. Proper study was postponed until Saber was summoned and brought full-on Avalon regeneration with him.

He dispelled the Mystery and looked dispassionately at the scratches the blades added to the cut.

"What it sounds like. I can sort of turn my body into blades. Stuff on the inside, not skin…"

Tohsaka's eyes turned calculating while Sakura continued to look concerned.

"That shouldn't be possible without some serious damage. Have you ever tried to find your birth parents? Maybe it's a family ability?"

Shirou wasn't about to spill his beans about being an Incarnation and thankfully Sakura intervened.

"Stop interrogating him, Tohsaka-senpai. Senpai, you could simply tell us."

The girl had got a bandage from somewhere in the kitchen and was now wrapping Shirou's forearm, all the while glaring at Rin.

"What? He will heal. You will heal, right?"

"Yes, five to six hours for a shallow cut."

"Five to six—" she stuttered. "You will walk half a day with your arm sliced half-open?"

"It's no big deal. I have a writing assignment from Dietrich, and they feel like an entire day. Right arm is enough."

If ever there was an 'I told you so' expression, Sakura was wearing one now, and Tohsaka felt appropriately chastised. She shook her head.

"You will kill yourself before you hurt anybody else…"

"Hey, it's a Projected knife! It's super, ideally clean, and I don't need my arm for the rest of the day. How else do you think I could show you I can have blades under my skin?"

Judging by the looks he got from the girls, he had a point. In a really screwed-up I-don't-ever-want-to-consider-it kind of way. It was Sakura who replied.

"No, it is not okay, Shirou-kun. You have to take better care of yourself. Didn't Dietrich tell you?"

"He is the one who came up with the whole thing. I mean, it doesn't leave scars scars, and I need to see how the Mystery is working…"

Rin noticed that as the boy kept speaking, her sister seemed to grow more and more agitated. Sakura spoke to Shirou with such caring, worry, and kindness that one would need to be an imbecile not to put two and two together. The harem comments would require one to be algae. Some type of moss or, possibly, the oblivious boy Sakura had an obvious crush on. Scratch that, Rin was lying to herself, and it wouldn't do. Tohsaka read her share of mushy romance novels, to her eternal shame, and she thought she knew what a crush was allegedly like. Sakura had known Emiya for years, and it was only around him that she acted normal. 'Madly in love' seemed to be the more appropriate expression for her sister's feelings. It took her a supreme effort of will not to facepalm at that very moment.

While Sakura was cooing over Shirou's wound, Tohsaka realized she couldn't hope to rip her sister away from the boy.

And yet, Shirou was broken to the point of being outright suicidal at times. In a rational, infuriating kind of way, and this wasn't something she wanted her little sister to be around. Neither Gladstone nor the old Matou gave a crap, so it was up to her to ensure Sakura's safety, no matter what memories being near the younger girl unearthed.

That day Rin Tohsaka decided to befriend Shirou Emiya, for her sister's sake. She couldn't completely silence the little voice in the back of her head that insisted she was doing it for herself too. Obviously, the voice spoke about talking Dietrich into giving her lessons to fix the gaps in education the fake priest had left.

###

Shirou had known for a long time there was quite a bit wrong with him as a person, now he was forced to add his propensity for getting weird friends to the list. His best friend would almost surely become a temple monk after finishing school, but one guy could be a simple coincidence. Taiga was a crazy, shinai-wielding elder sister type, but not including her on the list would have been unfair. Gladstone had never filled his father's shoes completely, apparently satisfied with the image of a quirky mentor and older friend, so he had to be counted too.

Before Rin appeared, he had been able to think of Sakura as normal, apart from the fact that she spent most of her free time at his house for some reason. And was a Magus with bugs living inside her body, but at least the bugs were alive and didn't cut flesh like his blades did. She wasn't very comfortable talking about her family's practices. Based on the bits and pieces he had gleaned, there were a few dozen worms that worked as Magic Circuits. His own Crest was much more dangerous: Shirou still had to endure the constant pain of rejection battling with regeneration.

Enter Tohsaka Rin: the school idol, model student, and revered beauty. Someone worshipped by everyone around their age. Impeccable, intelligent, and noble. And an absolute annoyance, overbearing nag, and spring of confusion in private.

Apparently, he was nuts but sort of okay, and needed her wisdom. In return for this she would kindly accept modest offerings of food and being included in Gladstone's non-specialized lessons. On the day she and Sakura first visited him together Rin offered that deal, promptly accepted it by herself, and left the house before Shirou could blink. She then started showing up at his place two or three time a week. Tohsaka never walked with Emiya and Matou from school; she pretended to go home and then doubled back. This happened on random days at a random time, which irritated Shirou like few things could. He hated heating up food and had to brush up on a variety of cold dishes. If Rin appreciated all that work, she never showed it.

Dietrich agreed to everything suspiciously quickly, as if he had been expecting or, worse yet, hoping for two extra students sneaking into his classes. Although it might have simply been the chance to take a look at the techniques the two longest-running families in the region used when performing Mysteries.

Because Sakura immediately started to furiously alternate between blanching and blushing whenever Matou's Mysteries came up, Gladstone started their first lesson with Tohsaka.

"So. Since we will be working together from time to time, I think we should cover the basics of your specialties. You can correct me if I'm wrong at any time, Tohsaka-chan. Now, the Tohsaka brand of Mysteries is similar to the one employed by the European family Edelfelts."

"Gems, right?"

"Right, Shirou. I'm glad you've been doing your reading. Imagine a Mystic Code; the whole Mystery woven into an object, ready to be actualized. Is it clear in your minds? Good." He crossed out with flourish some unidentifiable objects on the blackboard. "Now forget it. Gems are actually crappy Mystic Code material by themselves: they are small, hard and it's far too difficult to cover them in runes or some other material to make the Mystery work. But you know what they are great for?"

"Storing Prana."

"Of course you know that, Tohsaka-chan. I was expecting Shirou-kun or Sakura-chan to answer."

Among Gladstone's pupils only Tohsaka was called by her family name.

"Still, correct. When you craft a Mystic Code, you can embed gems in it and use them to store energy. Tohsaka Circuits are famously suited for the task of charging gems, so they can go one step further. They can forgo the whole Code thing, simply pump the gem full of Prana, and then fuel any Mystery they like with it. Lets you bring a lot of firepower if you have the time to prepare, but gems take time to charge and almost always shatter on use."

Tohsaka murmured something suspiciously like 'bills, pain, bills' under her breath.

"A lot of money is needed, but if a Tohsaka or an Edelfelt have a satchel of gems with enough power, it's nearly impossible for them to bottom out."

Shirou looked at Sakura.

"And Matou?"

"Mmhmmm… Insect control and additional Circuits through implanting very minor Beasts inside them. Although, I must say, Zouken isn't very careful with the training in your case, Sakura-chan—we'll speak more after the lesson."

After they were done, Tohsaka went on to cook supper. Apparently, she got into her head that she wouldn't be one-upped by some crazy third-rate Magus in anything. Shirou and Sakura stayed.

It was strange to see Dietrich completely serious, his face rigid and eyes focused on the girl.

"I didn't want to speak to you before I was completely sure, Sakura-chan. This concerns Shirou as well. It's critical you don't tell Zouken about this conversation unless he asks you directly. How well can you act?"

The girl responded with a smile, carefree and bright.

"I don't know what you are talking about, Gladstone-sensei."

"I thought so."

Shirou just blinked and looked at each of them in turn, hoping for an explanation.

"I assume you know what a Holy Grail is?"

"Yes. The wish-granting miracle created by the three founding families."

Her answer sounded had certain rhythm to it and a lack of inflection to it. College students have been mastering that tone for centuries while reciting boring drivel at exams.

"Good, Sakura-chan. We also know it's corrupted beyond any hope of repair or, indeed, reasonably safe use. Remember Kiritsugu's illness?" A shadow of sadness flickered over his facial features. "The cause was the Grail's essence he got during the last War. Back when he was alive we installed Bounded Fields to monitor the progress of his sickness. After he was gone, I didn't bother to remove them. You have the same type of curse, Sakura-chan, only more concentrated. And I have every reason to believe Zouken had something to do with it."

Losing his father had been bad enough but having Sakura snatched away by that same sickness… That line of thought cut abruptly when the boy remembered that his friend didn't show any of the symptoms. All her physical problems came from the Matou implants, which the girl reluctantly confessed to after starting their lessons.

Strangely passive and cold, Sakura submitted herself for an examination by Dietrich. His fingers trailing in gentle patterns above her skin, mouth mattering mantras, the elder Magus had a diagnosis in minutes.

"You have dormant shards within you, Sakura-chan. Your implants probably help."

"That's fine."

Long after she went home Shirou was still awake. He couldn't be a judge on the definition of normal, but he was quite sure that laughing and chiding him for every small thing five minutes after discovering she had a potentially lethal irremovable curse—that wasn't normal. Dietrich wasn't much help beyond grimacing and telling Shirou crest worms weren't enough to stabilize Sakura fully, and Zouken must have come up with something else. Something suitably horrible for the old worm.

He would probably need to go to Tohsaka for advice about Sakura, and even he knew what a swell idea that was. There was no other way, though, except for tailing the girl, and Shirou wasn't stalker material.

###

Early next morning, Shirou stood inside his Reality Marble. The boy was quite aware he wasn't there physically, but the place was real enough. It didn't take him and Gladstone long to come up with a meditation-based technique that let him plunge into his own private world.

The dimension still wasn't fully stable, but it wasn't a fog-filled sea of nothing anymore. Long silvery-green grass went up to his ankles as Shirou surveyed his domain from the top of the hill he always begun his journey on. There were no blades there: just the grass, Avalon lying on top of the hill, and the red-white light pouring from above. There was no sun; its place was taken by a colossal forge suspended in the sky. Hundreds, maybe thousands of anvils circled the forge, impossibly small compared to it. He had found he could make new blades using that monstrosity if he concentrated hard enough. Flames would surge from its mouth, a blank would fly out and get hammered into a sword on one of the anvils in one swift strike of an ethereal hammer. It then shot down from the sky and embedded itself somewhere far from the central hill.

The blades made that way inside his mind were low quality and took far too much concentration.

His world was fascinating, yet broken. In the four cardinal directions from the hilltop deep bottomless canyons split the endless plain as far as he could see. The quarters were unclear, hazy from the top of his world but as soon as he walked down onto any of them, things changed. Even the sky became different.

Two of them were relatively boring: filled with the fog Shirou had found on his first mental visit here. He supposed they hadn't had a chance to form properly yet. Even the ground under his feet couldn't decide whether it wanted to be hard or soft, covered in pebbles or giving extra spring to his step. One of those two quarters was completely empty; in the other were the more noble blades he had seen.

The most formed of the quarters was a kingdom of snow. All the ground was covered in it, and there were dunes of the stuff. Bright stars and a full moon were the only objects in the sky, the forge invisible from this position. Without a cloud in sight and the air crystal clear, that quarter looked like the Snow Queen's kingdom from an old fairytale: majestic, beautiful, glittering a quiet lullaby in the moonlight.

That was also the place where the blades with the most tragic and disturbed histories ended up. Kiritsugu once took him to an exhibition of medieval torture equipment (certainly not because his father wanted to; Shirou begged for days to see cool, weird knives, spikes and other tools maid to deliver pain and suffering), and all of that stuff ended up strewn haphazardly all over one of the many frozen lakes.

The fourth quarter had begun forming not too long ago, but it had already solidified with nary a wisp of fog in sight. It was a land of constant breeze. Distant sky was covered in dark clouds contorting in a maelstrom of the elements. Lightning lit up the dark every few seconds, and thunder galloped across the plains to assault his ears with its triumphant symphony. The other side of the sky was dominated by a perpetually setting enormous sun that bathed everything in shades of red.

This was not a quiet place: ground was littered with jagged stones and Shirou had to be cautious when walking. The bigger boulders were large enough for a grown man to hide behind and had every shape imaginable, but none of them smooth. The weapons plunged into the earth all had character and ambition. Many traditional Japanese blades that he saw during exhibitions found their way here, and some Mystic Codes too. Mostly those that were not used for outright murder or a noble purpose, but instead served the personal beliefs of their wielders, supporting and urging them on.

It was here that the Noble Phantasm rested.

Kaze no Nagare it was called—the Flow of Wind. An obscure dual katana Phantasm owned by a minor family of Magi. They had hired Dietrich to make a case that could seal its abilities. Despite being swords they were a C-rank Noble Phantasm meant for defense.

The thing about Phantasm ranks is that they are used to valuate a weapon's usefulness under normal circumstances and take into account its limitations. What was C-rank to anyone else had the potential of a B+ or even A- artefact for Shirou.

Its purpose was simple: to deflect arrows fired at the wielder. A basic ability, but it was the way the result was achieved that made it Dietrich's first choice. The Mystery was time-based, increasing the speed with which the swords moved depending on the number of bladed objects around the wielder.

When Shirou started warming up with a few simple sword forms in that world of his, they already moved a bit faster than they should have, but their true power didn't show itself until he summoned additional swords and plunged them deep into the short blood-red grass the area he used for training was covered with.

There was a reason Kaze no Nagare's rank wasn't higher: the blades didn't accelerate the wielder. As the swords went faster and faster, the heavy katanas risked breaking bones in the swordsman's arms. When there were a lot of other bladed weapons nearby, one could use the Phantasm only with considerable Reinforcement, and even then the swordsman's reaction time wasn't augmented. Overall, it was a moderately useful Noble Phantasm that could provide an edge over a group of opponents in a swordfight. Its Aria-activated ability made the swords knock out any and all projectiles fired toward its owner for a few seconds, but this invariably resulted in broken wrists and torn ligaments.

Shirou had mostly mastered Reinforcing his own body, he had the experience of the previous wielders to draw on, and he had his father's Circuits to accelerate his reaction time along with the blades.

The boy exulted in the feeling of incredible speed as he spun and weaved between imaginary opponents. Here, there were few limitations. Soon, the last Circuits would be integrated, and he would be able to try this exercise in the real world.

Shirou trained in dual wielding with some of the best masters Dietrich could persuade or coerce into teaching the boy. This meant his teachers either weren't all that good or weren't quite right in the head. As was his habit, the boy didn't think much of himself, but his betters and peers recognized just how easy it was for him to see the sword not as a separate object but as an extension of himself.

As he danced on the jagged plains of his mind, there was only wind, form, and sword. His arms burned, and both he and the Noble Phantasm moved with speed far beyond one possible for ordinary humans.

There was a singular purpose.

To let the blade express itself perfectly through him.

Chapter end notes

This chapter turned out to be mostly about building character relationships. Action and exposition come easier to me, but hey, easy doesn't mean right. The next one will be about Shirou starting to visit Clock Tower and kicking some ass and we'll also be touching on Rin and Sakura's improved training. I think the story is about three chapters away from the start of the Grail War itself.

Also, Kaze no Nagare is a Noble Phantasm that I made up. I needed something completely tailored for Shirou in order to make him surviving the beginning of the War believable (I am not giving him Rho Aias) and wasn't able to find something suitable that he or Dietrich could get their hands on, so Kaze no Nagare was born.

A small summary on Shirou's abilities at this point in the story for interested people.

Circuits. According to the wiki, in the original novel Shirou has 27 Circuits each running 10 units of Prana and they are closed at the beginning (he opens up the entire thing when fighting Gilgamesh, if I recall correctly: before that it's just a bare minimum of Circuits) and using them at full capacity causes him severe pain as a result of a screwed up training regimen and neglect. In this fic he still has 27 Circuits but each is running 25 units by now and all are opened, so his reserves at the start of the conflict will be far larger than the ones Shirou had at the end of Unlimited Bladeworks route in the original.

Knowledge. Shirou is getting Clock Tower-level theoretical education in this story, courtesy of Dietrich and some access to resources in London in the future. As some of you may have noticed, Dietrich is pretty much an exposition machine: I will add a bit to his character but he is here mostly for world building and will not be assisting Shirou directly during the Holy Grail War in order to avoid deus ex machina.

Magecraft. Shirou is mathematically inclined and very focused in this story. He still cannot use Elemental spells properly, but everything else is possible for him, especially with his reserves. His primary focus at the start of the War will be Formalcraft and Runes.

Crest. Answering a question from a guest: Shirou will have twice as many Circuits in his Crest as Kiritsugu at the end of Fate/Zero. This will be combined with Avalon to help heal the damage. You'll have to wait and see how he will use them for time-based Mysteries.

Reality Marble. Right now Shirou can train there through a meditation-based technique but not much more. In the future I hope to make it a significant plot device as well an ace with restrictions attached.

Projection, Reinforcement, etc. More power and some more restrictions. Wait and see.

Replies to some of the reviews:

BBWulf:

Oh, Shinji is the disgusting, abusive, self-absorbed prick with a severe inferiority complex that we all love to hate (and want to kill). That is, his character is canon.

Dragonjek:

Most of the tense switching was due to me confusing Present Perfect with Past Perfect in the Prologue. I have also combed through the entire story and switched everything I found to past tense. Thank you for pointing this out.

And a heartfelt thank you to everyone taking the time to write a review. I appreciate the feedback a lot.

Stay shiny.