"So, why are we having breakfast at the Great Hall?" Iris asked as they all sat around the Gryffindor table, eating the breakfast that the House Elves provided for them. Iris had greatly preferred having their meals in the Room of Requirement, as it stopped her from having to deal with the stares of all the people who couldn't normally see her.

"Sunday is mail day, and the owls deliver it to the Great Hall." Shirou said with a simple shrug.

"And you are at Gryffindor table because?"

"No rules against it."

Things were not going so great for Shirou in the Hufflepuff house, as while Tonks and her friends were friendly enough with him, the boys in his own year were not so much, which made life in the dorms awkward. He didn't really talk to them in classes, didn't share any interests and didn't eat meals with them. But he hadn't done anything to make them hate him.

Shirou figured that it had to do with the things that Snape had said, making them feel like it was a sort of imposter among them, though Susan said it probably had more to do with them being jealous.

Not that Shirou had any clue why they would be jealous. It wasn't like he was doing that much better than any of them in their classes, save for Potions. He wasn't a show off and he wasn't rich either.

When Shirou said this, Susan had just looked at him as if he was thick in the head. He asked Iris why, but she didn't seemed to have a clue what Susan had meant and just hoped that it had nothing to do with her stupid celebrity status.

Her being famous had made it hard for Iris, who had become instantly uncomfortable when people approached her as if they had known her all their lives and treated her as 'The-Girl-Who-Lived'. Even Hermione, who was a Muggleborn, had started their first conversation with 'I've read all about you'.

Neither Shirou nor Iris had many friends within their own houses. Even Hermione was really only around because she was friends with Susan, so when Shirou sat with Iris and Susan sat with Hermione, the four of them would be around the same place.

Shirou didn't particularly mind not having friends. It wasn't like any of them were really the same age, and even when Shirou really had been a kid, the number of friends he'd had could be counted on the fingers of one hand, with fingers to spare. Iris also seemed quite used to not having friends, and was perfectly content by herself. The relationship between the two of them felt much like that between Shirou and Sakura, that between a junior and their senior. Which was why he had taken to teaching her to cook when he started to teach Rin.

Also to help her with Potions.

Iris hadn't minded Rin, because the Japanese girl had no feeling of fan warship about her, but Rin was a long ways away from calling her anything other than 'Potter'. Not that she had stopped calling Shirou 'Emiya'. It had only been two days since they all met, so that was natural, as far as Shirou was concerned.

They were only acquaintance and classmates.

"Here they come." Someone in the hall shouted, and Shirou looked up to see the hundreds of owls flying into the hall… somehow. He didn't see any windows, and the ceiling was supposed to only be enchanted to look like the sky outside, yet the birds flew right in.

One bird dropped something off in front of Shirou. A letter from Tom, wishing them good luck, and a Muggle newspaper.

Shirou glanced over the front page and couldn't contain a very Archer-like smirk, mixed with a look of disgust.

"What's with that look?" Iris asked as she saw Shirou's expression.

"It's nothing. Just a bunch of slimeballs getting exactly what they deserve." Shirou said, putting the paper away before anyone could see the front page article. A story about a missing girl and evidence that the girl had been kept locked inside of a cupboard underneath the stairs by her aunt and uncle for multiple years, as well as other stories of possible abuse, including a quote of her cousin calling her a freak and saying that she deserved everything that happened to her and more.

Shirou had started the ball rolling, and they were getting their just desserts.

The owls continued to swoop down, dropping off parcels here and there to the different students, when, to everyone's surprise, one of the owls dropped off a very large package right in front of Iris. A package with a very distinct shape.

A broom.

The fact that wizards and witches really did use brooms in this world… didn't surprise Shirou in the slightest.

The reeds which carried the element of wind which could hold the charm weren't exactly good for making cars with, and while you could make a flying carpet or something, brooms were both more economical and safer.

People playing a high-speed, contact spot on them, which included people getting hit in the head with flying metal balls… that made a lot less sense to him.

He could understand that you don't actually die instantly from a sixty foot fall, and that with a medical witch or wizard on the scene, you could be brought back to basically perfect health, but there was still a risk of falling wrong and landing head first. Not to mention the pain of having every bone in your body broken, even if you fell properly. It all seemed stupid to him.

Not that anyone cared about his opinion as they all as they tore away the wrapping on the magic flying stick, gushing over the 'Nimbus 2000'.

Not that everyone was in such good moods about it. Draco Malfoy made an appearance to snidely remind her that it was against the rules for a first year to own their own broom, saying she would be expelled for it, which was immediately countered by Professor McGonagall informing them all that she herself had made the request in order so that Iris could participate on the Gryffindor Quidditch team.

"You might have gotten away with it this time Potter, but I'm watching you." Malfoy said, glaring as the Professor walked away.

"Leave her alone, Malfoy." Shirou said in a tired voice from his seat, as he was one of the few people who hadn't bothered to get up.

Malfoy shifted his glare from the rest of the them to Shirou, a look of anger on his face. "You stay out of this 'Emiya'." He said the name as if it was a curse. "Don't think I didn't find out that you aren't even a real Emiya. Just a Mudblood orphan who is using the name of someone bigger than you." Malfoy then perked himself up to his full, not so impressive high and smirked at Shirou. "Unless you are willing to prove that you are more than that, by meeting me for a wizard's duel."

The people who heard this seemed to gasp at Malfoy's audacity, as duels were against school rules, but Shirou only sighed. He was tired of putting up with this, and didn't feel like dealing with this talk of a duel, so he would just dissolve the situation the way he always did when a magus tried to challenge him to boost their reputation.

In the Clocktower, magi rarely conflicted with one another. It wasn't productive, and usually, the hierarchy meant that everyone knew their place. But on the occasions when disagreements started to get heated, they didn't just immediately go to blows.

It was usual that one of the magi, the stronger one, would first flex their magic power at the other in an attempt to make them back down without the need to expose any of their secret mysteries. When met with a magic power that was greater and more controlled than their own, the weaker magus would usually back down. You didn't live very long if you didn't know when to tuck in your tail.

Now, Shirou had never been much of a magus, and his total magic power couldn't frighten many at the Clocktower. In fact, most magi would barely register it as more than a tickle underneath their magic resistance. But he had always been able to weave in enough bloodlust to remind any would-be challengers that he was a Magus Killer with a list of big names under his belt, and that there were definitely safer people to pick a fight with if they were trying to build a reputation.

Believing that this Wizarding World society probably had a similar practice for avoiding conflict, Shirou turned his gaze to Malfoy, looked the pure blood straight in the eyes and let him have it. "You should be glad I don't feel like crushing you, brat."

Shirou did hold back on the bloodlust. He really did. He wasn't about to go all out on an eleven-year-old boy, regardless how much of a twat he was. But as he projected his presence towards Malfoy, the boy's reaction was stronger than he had expected.

The boy stumbled back a step, his eyes widened and the color drained from his already pale face. He started to give off a sound of someone choking on their own tongue, then his eyes rolled back and he fell over.

Shirou just blinked at him for a moment, unable to figure out what had just happened. How in the world did someone of the old blood succumb to such a weak presence. "Is his line defective?" Shirou wandered out loud as people panicked and Malfoy was carried off to the Hospital Wing by Crabbe and Goyle, who were looking back at Shirou with wide eyes, full of fear.

…Well, wasn't his problem.

"Shirou, what did you do to him?" Iris asked.

"I projected my magic energy at him in a threatening manner." Shirou explained. "It's a simple parlor trick used to scare off aggressive dogs. The magical equivalent of baring your teeth at someone and growling. I can't believe he actually fainted."

"Can you teach me how to do it too?" Iris asked.

"Iris!" Hermione objected.

"There wouldn't be much for him to teach you." Rin said as she came over to see what the noise was about. "Just sending your magic energy in a direction is about as complicated as sending sparks out of your wand. Though I agree with Emiya that it really shouldn't be something that can make a wizard faint like that. I guess Malfoy is just a coward." Of course, she didn't know about the bloodlust. But seriously, it was just a little bit of bloodlust. Rin looked again at Iris' new broom and smiled at the girl. "Congratulations on being the youngest Seeker of the century."

"Thanks, I guess." Iris said awkwardly. "Still feels weird that I am getting rewarded for breaking the rules during my first flying lesson."

"Hey Shirou, you should try to become the Seeker for Hufflepuff house." Susan said in earnest.

"Hm? Why?" Shirou asked, never having considered joining Quidditch.

"You did pretty well on the broom in our first class, and you also have clairvoyance. You'd be a natural." Susan insisted.

"...That doesn't exactly seem fair." Shirou said with a frown.

The seeker's job was to find the snitch, a task that sometimes took hours because of how small it was and how large the arena. But with Shirou's clairvoyance, he could find it instantly, even if it hid within the stands.

"It's your natural ability, so no one should have the right to complain." Susan insisted. Not that many of the Gryffindors who had heard her suggestion weren't already complaining.

"Actually, in the 1865 rendition of the international rulebook for Quidditch, there was a ban on the use of seekers with clairvoyance, sweepers with natural divination abilities, and beaters and chasers with supernatural strength." Rin informed them. "He could play any other position, but not seeker."

'...No. I can't play any position, except maybe sweeper.' Shirou thought, but didn't say aloud.

He wasn't sure if 'Mind's Eye (True)' counted as a divination ability. It could probably be argued either way. It wasn't really divination, but it would allow him to perfectly predict the actions of the other players, the paves the balls would take, and even changes in the wind, so it might as well be.

"Really? They are so rare, I didn't think they would make a rule for them." Susan said, a little dejected.

"It came after a huge outrage during World Cup involving a seeker who had clairvoyance ending every game within three minutes." Rin explained.

"You sure know a lot about Quidditch." Iris said.

"The Quidditch program at Mahoutokoro is really good."


The hammer met steel again and again.

Shirou was in the Room of Requirement, fashioned into a magical forge.

Merlin hadn't bothered to repair Caliburn after its initial breaking, due to the fact that Arturia had received Excalibur, making it no longer necessary. Not to mention that swords of selection always had the negative side effect of inducing jealousy in powerful men, leading to more betrayal and wars.

It also might have been a punishment for Arturia. A way of scolding her for having gone against her code and breaking the sword in the first place.

Regardless of Merlin's reasoning, Caliburn had remained broken, and in this reality, the shards had been stored within the Sorting Hat, to await Arturia's return. But the shards had noticed Shirou and had come to him, feeling the residual energies from Avalon burning within his soul.

Shirou wasn't sure what he was going to do with the shards at first, but eventually decided to reforge them back into a sword.

Reforging a Noble Phantasm wasn't simple, but he did have examples of it being done before, even with another sword which fit the archetype of a Sword of Selection, if not one that chooses kings. Not that it was making things easy.

"This isn't working." Shirou said, tossing his hammer away and running his finger through his hair. "The Room of Requirement can produce a lot of things, but it isn't up to the task of mimicking the forge Regin used when he reforged the two halves of Gram back into a singular whole."

The ancient dwarf had skills, techniques and tools lost to time, and while Shirou could mimic the skills and techniques that the dwarf had used, without the proper forge and anvil, he wouldn't be able to recreate that miracle.

The easy solution would be to take the shards into his Unlimited Blade Works in order to reforge it there, as he could manipulate that world in order to create the conditions necessary to forge the blade.

But the problem there was the amount of magic energy required to make use of his Reality Marble. Even with Rin's help, he was only able to use the Unlimited Blade Works for a few short minutes. Meanwhile, it would take hours, probably multiple days, to complete the sword, and his body wasn't even as strong as it once was. Being only half his old volume meant only having half as much magic energy in his circuits, and he hadn't had enough in the first place.

If he didn't use the Unlimited Blade Works, he wouldn't be able to reforge Caliburn. There was no way around it. So the question was, where would he get the extra magic energy?

It was as Shirou was asking himself this question that he felt an outside source of magic energy flowing into him, and he shot up with a start.

He looked all around him before his senses managed to track down the source, causing his hands to go to his pockets, where his twin wands were hidden away.

The wands seemed to have understood Shirou's desire for more magical energy within his body, and so they reversed the flow of magic from them. Rather than him melding his magic in them in order to perform a spell, they were sending their magic back through that same connection into him.

It wasn't much. Each wand only contained a few threads of the body of a Phantasmal Creature, but they still generated magic energy, and the familiar like bond between them meant that Shirou's body did not attempt to reject it.

Glowing lines started to appear on Shirou's body as his magic circuits were topped off, and started to overflow into the pieces of Rin's magic crest that she had once grafted onto his body for the sake of fighting in the Holy Grail War.

Shirou now had the kind of magic energy he would need in order to summon the Unlimited Blade Works, at least for a few minutes at a time.

He wasn't sure how many times he would need to stop and recharge. How many weeks this would take. But he was more than willing to get it a shot.

"My Body is Made of Swords."


"Damn it all." Leysritt von Einzbern growled to herself as she waved her wand at the broken projector, hoping to repair it, but only getting the sound of frying electronics that she suspected meant it was now even more damaged.

She didn't particularly care that she was in front of a bunch of impressionable first years. She'd picked the role of teaching Muggle Studies because she figured it would be easy. All she would have to do is bring a projector and cassette player, modified to work at Hogwarts, and run a few of her soap operas and romcoms, stopping every once and a while to explain what exactly the Muggles are doing whenever they interact with electronics.

It was easy enough to claim that she was exposing the kids to Muggle culture through the videos and it wouldn't require her to actually teach. Even if her sister Sella only had to teach a singular Alchemy Class a week, it would still be more actual work. She also used the same argument for dressing in comfortable, modern clothes, rather than those heavy robes, saying she was dressing like a Muggle teacher.

But six hours a day five days a week for three weeks was too much for her poor projector, and now it was broken.

What would she do? She didn't have a back up projector. What if they tried to make her actually teach?

"Can't you use the Reparo charm?" One of the Hufflepuff boys suggested. A Muggleborn, probably, since he seemed to think that magic could just magically solve everything. Leysritt hadn't even bothered to memorize his name.

Leysritt was about to snap at the boy in frustration when someone else beat him to it. "The Reparo charm requires you to know the magical name of the object or have a detailed understanding of the object and its break. It really is only good for simple objects and can't be used to repair complex objects and don't know the magic name of, or objects that are magical in nature, such as a wand or broom." Hermione Granger stated, the Gryffindor girl showing off her knowledge of the spell.

"Two points to Gryffindor." Leysritt said with a sigh. "Ms. Granger is right, so unless one of you knows how to repair a Muggle movie projector, I'm afraid we are going to have to open up a textbook."

The groans from her audience made Leysritt feel a little better, since misery loves company. But before she could go back into her office to find such a textbook, someone else spoke up.

"I can do it." Shirou Emiya said, causing Leysritt to stand up a bit taller and stare at him.

It had been a matter of debate between Sella and Leysritt whether or not there was any sort of connection between Shirou and Kiritsugu Emiya.

On one hand, they looked nothing alike, and what few behavioral similarities there were could be attributed to them both being Japanese. But on the other hand, he did make that one Slytheron boy pass out with nothing but his magical presence.

"If you think you can, go ahead and give it a shot." Leysritt invited him.

Shirou walked up the projector and opened it up, looking at the wires and different components inside. "The fan is full of dust. Probably the reason for the damage." He said as he poked around. "Yep. Heat damage to the transformer supplying power to the chip. Should only take a moment." He brought out a wand and placed it against a piece inside of the projector. "Reparo." Instantly, the power started to flow again and the projector came back to life. "That certainly makes things a lot easier than replacing the chip by hand." He said as he closed it up.

"Shirou, why do you know how to fix a projector?" Iris asked in disbelief.

"While I was still in Japan, I had a part time job as a repairman." Shirou said.

"I thought you worked as a cook?"

"I had other jobs. I also did motorcycle repairs, and I worked as a tracker for people who were hunting game in the countryside." Shirou said as if it was the most natural thing there was.

"Already a workaholic at such a young age." Leysritt said, almost feeling ill at the thought of so much work. Though Kiritsugu had been a workaholic as well. "Say, Emiya. You wouldn't happen to be related to someone by the name of Emiya Kiritsugu, would you?"

It wasn't hard to see Shirou visibly freeze, his eyes widening in obvious recognition of the name.

Shirou had started to get used to hearing familiar names in this world. While he didn't know Leysritt, Einzbern had been one of the families involved in the Holy Grail War. Illyasviel von Einzbern had been the name of Berserker's Master, the little girl who had her heart ripped out of her chest right in front of him.

But to hear Kiritsugu's name, the name of his savior, his father and the source of his heart's desire, had been unexpected.

"I'm… not really an Emiya." Shirou said after finding his voice. "I was orphaned by a large fire when I was seven. It killed my family and all my neighbors. There was no one who knew who I was, and I couldn't remember a family name, so they just put Emiya. So I'm not related to anyone named Emiya."

"Why did they choose that name?" Leysritt asked, curious.

Shirou should have lied, but he didn't really know how to at the moment. So when he opened his mouth, something close to the truth came out. "Because the man who saved me from the fire was named Emiya."