Fire.
Pain.
His skin cracks from the heat.
The reek of burned flesh fills his nose.
The screams of the dying echo in his skull.
In the distance looms a dark tower, radiating its evil upon the ruined land.
Is it … laughing ?
He forces himself to walk, his tearful eyes taking in vision after vision of horror ...
… The fire fades.
The smoke turns into mist, which dissipates to reveal a forest of dark trees that stretch up and up, blocking all sunlight.
The pain vanishes from his body, replaced by tension.
His heart beats in his chest, lightning-quick.
He knows he is not alone ...
He feels the hot breath of a monster on his neck, and turns to face it, raising a sword he does not remember drawing -

November 28th, 2002 AD – Emiya residence

Golden eyes snapped open as Shirou woke up, drenched in cold sweat, the image of the beast his dream-self had been about to face already fading from his mind. The reality of his room crashed back into focus, banishing the last remnants of his nightmare clinging to his awareness. For a moment, he remained immobile, taking deep breaths and waiting for his racing heart to slow down. Once he no longer felt on the verge of cardiac arrest, he focused on his tensed muscles and forced them to relax. Only when he knew he wasn't at risk of a nasty cramp did he rise from his futon and begin his morning routine, his mind still trying to make sense of his dream.

After leaving him alone for a long time, the nightmares had returned since Kiritsugu's death, seemingly stronger than ever. At first, there had only been memories of the fire – ashes and burnt flesh, red sky and a black sun hanging overhead – but then the other, even stranger images had started to creep in – strange shapes darting in the mist, furtive silhouettes hiding in the shadows …

He had no idea where they came from. As far as he remembered, he had never been in a forest like the one in his nightmares. He had even done some research, and it didn't look like any forest in Japan. The trees weren't of any breed he could find in the books, and the beasts – when he managed to remember anything about them beyond a sense of wrongness – were anatomically impossible. Scales and fur met along random lines across their enormous bodies, and mouths with fangs too large to be able to close flowed with venom … the only thing he could imagine them to be were the ancient Magical Beasts that had roamed over the Earth long ago, in the long-gone Age of Gods.

Even the sword he wielded in those dreams was strange. Where the rest of his nightmares were mercifully vague upon waking, that weapon was burned into his mind with perfect clarity. More research had shown that it was of western make, but again, Shirou had never seen a weapon like that before. So were those dreams simply the product of his imagination, or some lingering memory of his life before the fire that his mind was trying to complete with pieces of his Magecraft-related lore ? The doctors had told him that there was very little chance that he would ever recover his memories from before his adoption.

Of course, the most obvious source for these dreams was Avalon. The scabbard was still implanted inside him, and he had no idea how to remove it, or even if it could be. But the forest of his dreams was unlike any of England, and the sword certainly wasn't Excalibur. Even if it were, how …

"SHIROU !"

The shout drew his attention away from his ruminations. He recognized the voice, and it nearly made him panic as he realized the nightmare had made him rise from bed far later than he thought.

"I am coming, Fuji-nee !" he replied, putting on the last of his clothes. His nightmares could wait : the Tiger of Fuyuki needed to be fed.

In the three years since Kiritsugu had died, the now-fifteen years old Shirou must have cooked breakfast for Taiga Fujimura hundreds of times, to the point that he was confident he could do it in his sleep if needed. His big sister and guardian came to the Emiya residence almost every morning, fully expecting Shirou to treat her to another chief-class breakfast. The teenager put up with it because he liked to cook for other people, because he liked Taiga, and because even he could recognize a cause that doomed when he saw one.

"Hello, Fuji-nee," he said as he entered the main room. "Hello, Sakura."

"Good morning, Shirou !"

"Hello, Senpai."

The purple-haired girl standing in the kitchen smiled as she saw him approach.

"Sorry, Senpai," she said in an apologetic tone. "I started without you."

"That's not a problem. It was probably a good idea anyway."

"Are you okay ? Usually, you are ready before I arrive …"

"It's nothing. I just had a nightmare."

She stared at him a bit longer, trying to decide whether he was putting on a strong front or not. Eventually, whatever she saw must have satisfied her, and she turned back to her cooking.

Falling into the familiar routine, the two of them quickly prepared breakfast with the sound of the TV in the background. Taiga had tried to help prepare breakfast once – once being the operative word. She hadn't been quite as bad as Kiritsugu, but that was such a low bar to clear as to be meaningless. Shirou had made it clear after that that barring extreme circumstances such as severe illness on his part or the end of the world, Taiga wasn't welcome in his kitchen.

Sakura hadn't been good either at the start, but unlike Taiga, she had been willing to learn. After a year, she wasn't at Shirou's level yet, but she could help him, and even cook on her own to Taiga's lofty standards when it came to Emiya cuisine.

The three of them ate together, before Taiga left for her job at the city's high school and Shirou and Sakura began walking together to the middle-school where the two of them were students. They were all going almost to the same place – Homurahara Academy provided education from elementary school to high-school, though in separate buildings – but as a junior assistant teacher, Taiga needed to arrive early to prepare for the day.

The November air was cold, only beginning to warm up under the rays of the sun. The two teenagers walked quietly side by side. In the year since they had first properly met, they had grown comfortable with each other's presence.

Shirou remembered how he had first met Sakura. She had been looking up at him from the floor of a grocery store, staring at him without any emotion while he held the fire extinguisher he had just used to clobber a would-be robber into unconsciousness. The criminal had been on the run after his gang had been crushed by the Fujimura Group and had needed some quick cash. Unfortunately for him, he had chosen to rob the very store where Shirou had been buying food that day.

Seeing Sakura in shock, Shirou had asked her where she lived so that he could escort her home … but the suggestion had only resulted in her showing emotion for the first time – fear. Somehow, he had ended up bringing her home with him, given her some hot tea and called Taiga for help. It had been an … interesting conversation with his guardian, but he had managed to convince her he hadn't had any nefarious intention for the girl sitting in his living room. Taiga had called Sakura's family to inform them of the situation, and after dinner, her grandfather had come to pick her up.

Apparently, Sakura's father, Byakuya Matou, had died not long before, and Sakura was still distraught. Shirou had made sure to tell Sakura that she was welcome in his home whenever she wanted, and the very next day, Sakura had turned up on Shirou's doorstep in the evening, asking if he could teach her to cook. Things had grown from that point until Sakura came to the Emiya residence almost every morning to help cook breakfast, and often in the evenings as well.

Shirou didn't know for sure why the girl chose to spend so much time in his house, but as they reached the gates of Homurahara Academy, he was fairly confident that one of the reasons was waiting for them.

Shinji Matou didn't look happy to see his sister come to school with his friend – but then again, Shinji rarely looked happy, except when he was flirting with a girl – or several. The blue-haired teenager was well known as the school's playboy, seducing and dumping girls after a few weeks – and yet somehow there were always more willing to let themselves fall for him. Shirou was baffled by it all, and he could understand if Sakura didn't want to spend much time in her family home. Shinji was always boasting about bringing his latest conquest home … though strangely, his relationships always tended to end not long after. There had even been a few cases of the girl in question leaving Fuyuki altogether, though Shinji's involvement had never been proven.

"Here is your bento, Onii-sama," said Sakura, handing over a wrapped lunch to Shinji. He took it with a scowl before turning away and going inside without saying a single word. Shirou sighed, and at his side, Sakura's shoulders slumped. Her relationship with her brother … wasn't the best. Part of him felt guilty for knowing that it had only gotten worse since Sakura had begun coming to his house – but he would not turn her away, even when Shinji had demanded it of him.

"Hello, Emiya-kun, Sakura-chan," came a feminine voice from behind him. "You shouldn't waste your time on him, you know."

"Hello, Tohsaka," greeted Shirou as he turned back, followed by Sakura's own mumbled greeting. For some reason he had never been able to find out, the purple-haired girl seemed to dislike Shirou's classmate. It couldn't be jealousy : while Rin Tohsaka was considered the most beautiful girl in their school according to what Shinji had told him, he didn't think Sakura's own beauty was inferior in any way. Maybe the older girl just rubbed Sakura wrong.

Shirou was always cautious when around Rin Tohsaka. He knew she was a magus, and he was fairly certain she didn't know he was one : like his father had told him, he was very careful to keep his hidden talents secret. Not that Tohsaka was any slouch in that department : the only reason Shirou knew she was a magus was because Kiritsugu had told him that the Tohsaka family were the Second Owners of Fuyuki, the magi responsible for the territory in the eyes of the Mage Association.

Rin Tohsaka didn't resemble the picture of a typical magus that Kiritsugu had painted for him. While not exactly approachable, she was always polite, and was one of their year's top students. He was also fairly certain she didn't have a basement full of the corpses of her experiment victims.

"He's just a prat," continued Rin, glaring toward the direction Shinji had left. Her distaste for Shinji had been known across the Academy since she had very publicly rejected his advances. "And you shouldn't waste your time cooking for him if he isn't even going to thank you, Sakura."

"For all his flaws, Shinji is my friend," he intervened, sheepishly, "and Sakura's brother. Please don't say that sort of things about him …"

Rin shook her head, letting a glimmer of frustration enter her voice. "He is a pervert and a playboy," she said, and neither Shirou nor Sakura could deny it. "You shouldn't make excuses for him ..."

"Senpai," Sakura raised her voice, "the bell is about to ring. We need to get to our classrooms ..."

"Ah," realized Shirou, noticing the time. "You are right. Well, see you at lunch, Sakura."

"Yes," replied the younger girl, smiling at him. "Have a nice day, Tohsaka-senpai."

Rin looked between the two of them before sighing and giving up.

"Fine, fine. You are right. Let's get to class."

Following Shinji, the three of them passed through the gate leading to the middle-school section of Homurahara Academy. After they entered the building, Shirou and Sakura parted ways, the latter going to her classroom on the first floor while Shirou followed Rin to the second, taking care to keep enough distance between them that no one would think they were walking together. He had already made that mistake once, and explaining to the girl's rabid fans it had just been a coincidence they had met at the school's entrance wasn't worth the effort. Thankfully, they weren't in the same class, so doing so didn't risk him arriving late.

Reaching the classroom for the class 1-C with only a few moments to spare, Shirou greeted his classmates and sat down, prepared for another day of Japanese education.

"That is all for today's lesson. I know the week-end is coming up, but you still have class tomorrow, so remember to do all your homework. Issei-kun, if you would ?"

"Yes, sensei," answered Issei Ryuudou, the class representative. "Everyone, stand … bow."

"Emiya-kun. You are going to that bar again ?" asked Issei as Shirou gathered his things.

"It's a diner," the redhead replied defensively, "not a bar. And yes, I am."

"You do know our school doesn't allow us to have part-time jobs, right ?" said Issei, pushing his glasses up with a long-suffering look.

"It's not a part-time job," protested Shirou. "I am just helping a friend of my sister move some boxes around. I am not paid or anything."

"That may be so," sighed Issei, "but while you are technically in the clear according to the letter of the rules, you are definitely breaking their spirit. The prohibition of part-time jobs isn't just because of under-age labour laws. It's also so that we can focus on our studies. And whether you are paid or not, you are still spending time there that should be used learning and doing homework … not to mention the fact that, regardless of what you claim, I know for a fact this place also serves alcohol."

"As long as I keep up my grades, I don't see the problem," pointed out Shirou.

Issei sighed again. It was something he often did when talking with Shirou. As the heir of the Hyuudou Temple, Issei was already training to be a monk, and he was fond of saying that dealing Shirou was testing his patience more than any trial his father had set upon him.

But Shirou had a point, and he knew it. While not an academic prodigy, Shirou was still within the top ten percent students of his year. In mathematics, his scores had even surpassed those of Issei himself on a couple occasions … and the only reason the class representative hadn't taken it badly was that Shirou had also beaten his nemesis Rin Tohsaka at the same time. The look of utter shock and disbelief on the girl's face when the test results had been displayed had been more than enough to dispel any discontent on Issei's part. It had also resulted in some of the girl's admirers stupidly thinking that hurting him could earn them her favor … but that wasn't important.

"Just make sure not to go home too late," Issei surrendered. "Like sensei said, just because it's Friday tomorrow is no reason to exhaust yourself."

"Yes, mom," replied Shirou, rolling his eyes. "See you tomorrow !"

On the way to the school gates, Shirou met Sakura. He had already told the girl that he was working this evening; the two of them would meet again tomorrow morning. Before leaving, he repeated his promise to teach the girl how to cook Salisbury steak, one of Taiga's favorite foods, over the week-end.

"I will see you tomorrow," he called out before leaving the girl. She nodded and waved back.

Shirou didn't notice that, as soon as he left Sakura's sight, the girl's eyes turned lifeless, even as her face lost all expression. Slowly, mechanically, the girl started her own walk – but, like every time she didn't go to her senpai's home, it would be a long time before she returned to her own 'home'.

The backdoor of the Copenhagen opened, and Shirou emerged from the bar – no matter what he had told Issei, one couldn't deny that the Copenhagen was a bar first and foremost, even if it also served food – and into the twilight. Immediately, he noticed someone waiting in the dark, shadowed alleyway, their back resting against the wall, a cigarette glowing between their lips.

The tall, muscular man with tanned skin and short, spiky hair was dressed in a nice white suit that, for all that it would have looked right at home at any business meeting, was also carefully tailored so as not to hinder movement. It was also cut to hide the small bulge on the man's waist, where he was hiding his concealed weapon. The camouflage was enough to trick a quick glance and allow him to walk in public without the crowd panicking, but Shirou had more than enough experience to recognize it.

Ordinarily, a middle-schooler's reaction to being face-to-face with an armed man in a dark street would have been panic. But Shirou was not an ordinary middle-school student. He also knew this man, and knew that he had nothing in particular to fear from him, nor from any member of the Fujimura Group. There were some perks of being Taiga's little brother and food provider, even if he would still love her without them.

"Good evening, Kamido-san," greeted Shirou with a respectful nod.

"Hey, kiddo," replied the man in a gruff voice. "Taiga-chan told me you were working here, though I have no idea why … You done for tonight ?"

"Yes. Hotaruzuka-san just needed help with the inventory. Is there anything wrong ?"

The man looked down at him with a weary expression for a few seconds, before sighing and handing over a thick envelope.

"There," he said. "It's our thanks for your help last month."

Shirou made no move to take the envelope. "I didn't-"

"You didn't help us because you expected a reward, I know," interrupted the Yakuza. "But cleaning out that warehouse and leaving those punks tied up for us was still a big favor. If we had gone in ourselves, things would have turned ugly real fast. Same if the police had gone in. I don't know how you did it, and I don't want to know, but you prevented a few of our guys from being either injured or killed."

Shirou grimaced. That was true. The Russian mobsters who had taken over the warehouse in Fuyuki's harbor had been using it both as a drug lab and as a fortress. They had known they were on another gang's turf, and they hadn't hesitated to use their weapons. If not for his 'special talents', he wouldn't have made it out in one piece.

Even with those, he had been forced to employ violence to render all twenty-nine men unconscious once stealth had failed him. He hadn't technically breached the rules against revealing Magecraft since he hadn't used any flashy mysteries, nor displayed any abilities that were beyond those reachable by normal people … but had the mobsters known that the masked individual they had been desperately fighting was only fifteen, even they would have thought something unnatural was going on. Thankfully, he was quite tall for his age : even someone like Kamido-san only had a few centimeters on him.

Since the mobsters hadn't seen his face or heard him speak – he would have tried to ask them to surrender, hadn't he known from experience that it was useless – the odds of them realizing they had been beaten up by a teenager using magical powers were so slim as to be negligible. Their own sense of pride would keep them from revealing the details of their defeat, and the Fujimura Group knew better than to discuss their secret trump card where outsiders could hear them, so the chances of the confrontation reaching the ears of the Clocktower were also small.

The main point was that Shirou's intervention had guaranteed nobody had died. Even the Russian mobsters had been delivered to the police alive, if a little roughed up. The Fujimura Group had made sure that there had been plenty of evidence linking them to the warehouse for the policemen to find, while also removing all traces of Shirou's own passage. Nobody had been too badly hurt, and the hard drugs the Russians had planned to introduce to Fuyuki's underground had been seized and destroyed before they could ruin someone's life.

"Regardless of your reasons," Kamido continued, "we owe you for that – I owe you for that, since these fuckers set up shop on the docks and I am responsible for that part of town. How do you think I felt, sending a brat into that den of snakes ? When the boss said you could do it, I thought he had gone senile. When you actually came back and told us it was done, I thought you were lying. So just take the money, kiddo. Give it to charity or something if you don't want it."

Finally relenting, Shirou took the proffered envelope, pocketing it without checking its contents. The gangster sighed at that complete lack of interest, before shaking his head.

"Still, your dad must have been a tough son of a bitch, to raise someone like you. I would have hated to be on his bad side when he was in his prime, that's for sure."

"Ahah …" Shirou laughed nervously. "I still have a long way to go to be my dad's equal."

"Please don't," deadpanned Kamido. "I have heard Fujimura-sama's stories, and I like being able to sleep peacefully at night, thank you very much."

"You are a Yakuza," Shirou pointed out. "I don't think you are supposed to sleep peacefully."

"Tch. Very funny. You are a regular comedian, kiddo. Anyway, I have paid you back now."

Those in the Fujimura Group who knew about Shirou's "work" were all persuaded that Kiritsugu had been some big shot international hitman, who had retired in Fuyuki after adopting Shirou had had trained him to follow in his footsteps. There had been several jokes made at his expense about a movie being made out of that story, and with every seemingly impossible feat Shirou pulled off, Kiritsugu's legend grew, aided by Shirou's insistence that he wasn't at his dad's level yet.

Shirou didn't know what deal his father had made with the Fujimura patriarch, Taiga's grandfather. He suspected that the old man knew about the Moonlit World, but had never raised the issue during their discussions. He had his own deal with the Fujimura Group, separate from him being technically Taiga's ward and actually her main food source.

As long as the Fujimura Group continued being reasonable in its criminal enterprises, he would help them protect their territory from rival gangs. 'Reasonable' meant no civilian deaths, as little public violence as possible, and no drug or human trafficking.

"You gonna stand here all night, kiddo ?" Kamido's voice pulled Shirou out of his recollection. "Isn't tomorrow a school day ? Hurry up and get back home."

He blinked. "You are right. Good night, Kamido-san."

"Yeah, yeah, good night to you too."

The clock in Shirou's workshop ticked, marking the passage of the eleventh hour. It was getting quite late, but Shirou didn't need much sleep, especially when all that awaited him were more strange dreams. He had found out through trial and error that the more exhausted he was when he went to sleep, the less likely he was to experience another dream. He knew Sakura and Taiga were already worried after he had woken up late this morning : it was better to spend Friday half-exhausted than risking repeating the offence due to another nightmare.

The Emiya workshop was a simple one. According to what Kiritsugu had told him of other Magi, calling it a Workshop at all would result in a quick death sentence for the crime of insulting the sacred precepts of Magecraft. From the outside, it looked like a typical garden shed, built at the back of the estate. A variety of tools and pieces laid around, both thaumaturgic and mechanic in nature. A nondescript rug hid the arcane circle Kiritsugu had drawn there years ago at the dawn of the last Grail War, still perfectly preserved.

This was where Shirou worked on repairing and building mundane tools and machines as well as where he honed his limited magical skills – such as Reinforcement.

Of the few skills he had learned from his father, Reinforcement was by far the most useful in his "extra-curricular activities" for the Fujimura Clan. On the surface, Reinforcement was deceptively simple. By pouring prana into an object, a magus could make that object stronger, more resilient, better at performing its intended function. In the field, Shirou could use it to make his clothes able to withstand bullet impacts and bladed weapons – and Avalon could take care of the bashing damage that went through. In addition, filling something with prana beyond its capability would cause it to shatter, which was always a useful trick when he needed to get past an obstacle in a hurry and stealth wasn't an option anymore.

But the true use of Reinforcement came when the son of the Magus Killer used it on himself, filling his human body with prana drawn from his spirit. He was a Sword, after all, and a sword could be tempered. If he could reinforce a length of metal, why would his own body be any different ?

Well, for one thing, his own body was a lot more complicated than any object he had ever practiced Magecraft on in his life. It took medical professionals years of study before they were able to ply their craft, and even they would not claim to know everything about the human body.

For another, if he failed in reinforcing a piece of metal, the worst that could happen was it turning into dust in his hands. If he failed while reinforcing his body …

Even so, he had still learned it. Kiritsugu had been able to teach him to reinforce his bones and the whole of his fists, so that he could punch through metal and take blows without breaking his bones – though the skin and muscle beneath were another story. Even reaching that meager level was easier said than done. The first time he had attempted to reinforce his fist, he had ended up breaking almost every bone in his right hand. It had taken Avalon an entire week to heal the damage, which had made it awkward around the home and at school. Kiritsugu had told Taiga that he had strained his wrist while training alone, and she had thankfully bought it, accepting that all he needed was a few days with a sling instead of dragging him to the hospital, where explaining how such an impossible injury had happened would have been much more difficult.

Since his father's death, Shirou had slowly expanded those lessons, until he could reinforce all of his body's outermost layers. Through years of studying human anatomy and trial and error, he had managed to develop a method that worked every time, as long as his focus didn't slip. That was about as good as it was possible to get : as Kiritsugu had repeatedly told him, to be a magus was to walk with Death.

There were parts of himself that he had never touched, however : his brain, his heart, his lungs – all of his inner organs, really – and, of course, his eyes.

Eyes were fragile, almost ridiculously so. Reinforcing them was very dangerous and difficult, Kiritsugu had warned him. The Magus Killer himself had never done it, though he had heard that it was possible – but only among some of the best Enforcers under the control of the Association. And it wasn't as if Shirou could call one of them and ask them for their help.

Nonetheless, the potential benefits were enough that Shirou had spent the last month studying and preparing for his first attempt. In theory, reinforced eyes would be able to see clearly in poor light conditions, and even in absolute darkness – if he was willing to have them glow like a lamp and be an obvious target, of course. And that was only the most obvious benefit – he would be able to make out more details from a greater distance, see motions that were too fast for the normal eye … even, if his calculations were correct, see the flow of prana itself.

So, even if the risk to have his eyeballs explode was very real, he was still going to try it.

Shirou checked his preparations one final time. The containment circle was in place. A quick pulse of prana ensured that it was working as intended. A first aid kit laid just outside it, though it was optimistic of him to believe he would be able to use if something went wrong.

He sat cross-legged in the circle, and took several deep breaths. Then …

Trace, On.

He activated his Magic Circuits, one by one, checking that his od – the only source available within the circle – flowed through each of them correctly. Then, his gaze fixed on the piece of tissue he had brought with him into the circle, he began to reinforce his eyes.

His research had shown him early on that eyes were made up of multiple parts, and he needed to infuse them with prana separately since their capacity was minutely different. First, the optic nerve, which carried the information to the brain. Then the blood vessels and vitreous humor, and finally the cornea, sclera, pupil and lens. He reinforced each individual part in both eyes at once, and as he moved on from one component to the next, part of his focus had to remain on all the ones already done. He could already feel a headache growing, and the spell wasn't even properly active yet.

Without self-hypnosis, even attempting to focus on so many different things at once would have been impossible. But eventually, Shirou finished infusing every part of his eyeballs with prana, and slowly, cautiously, he opened his eyes and looked at the floor in front of him.

He had not realized that there was so much details on the floor of the shed. It had always seemed a smooth, uniform surface, but now he could see all the tiny imperfections in the concrete. He could see every strand of fabric in the tissue, and the traces of sweat and dead skin where he had held it. He could see the lines of the containment circle around him, which … glowed slightly ?

He felt a shiver of excitement, which he quickly suppressed before it broke his concentration. The reinforcement had worked, and, it seemed, the process had met his highest expectations. If he could see the minute amount of prana coursing through the Formalcraft array around him, then his calculations must have been correct.

This was different from Structural Grasping, which allowed him to absorb information about whatever he was using the spell on. This was less detailed, but could affect everything in his field of vision at once. It would take a lot of practice before he could use it reliably in combat, but now that he knew it was possible, all that was left was the gruelling training and conditioning. As far as Shirou was concerned, the hard part had been done.

He suddenly realized that he could also see a golden glow emanating from his chest, one that he recognized. He had seen it when Kiritsugu had implanted it inside of him. It was the light of Avalon, just like in his memories … But no. Now that he looked at it again, he realized that he had seen that radiance elsewhere, before Kiritsugu had put the scabbard inside his body. He could not remember where, but …

Metal clashing on metal -

The scent of ozone in the air -

A wall breached -

A forest burning -

A cacophony of angry screams -

Black wings covering his sight -

Caught in his effort of recollection, Shirou didn't notice he had lost control of his spell. His frustration at being incapable to remember made him pour more and more prana into his eyes without even realizing it. Eventually, just as his father had warned him would happen, it was too much for the fragile tissues to bear.

But unlike what Kiritsugu had told Shirou, his eyeballs didn't explode from the overdose of prana – though the result felt just as painful. Instead, without warning, the young magus' eyes suddenly absorbed the magical energy saturating them, draining Shirou's reserves entirely in the time it would have taken him to blink if he had dared do so at this stage.

Around him, the Formalcraft circle shone brightly, the paint he had used to draw it burning itself permanently into the concrete below. Shirou felt the barrier between him and the rest of the world tremble and shatter, and prana flowed into him without his control, passing through his Circuits before vanishing into the seemingly endless pit of his eyes. For several seconds, it was all Shirou could do to maintain the barest of control on his Circuits, keeping them all open so that they weren't burst by the flow of magical energy. Then, finally, it stopped.

To his relief, Shirou could still see – in fact, he could see better than ever. The moonlight passing through the workshop's window seemed to illuminate it like the midday sun, and his own body was nimbed in a faint golden halo as Avalon was activated to begin the slow process of repairing the damage his body had suffered. Looking down at himself, Shirou could see that this damage was extensive : his Circuits had badly overheated, and while they weren't damaged, the flesh around them had been strained to its limits.

Without the protection of the Formalcraft circle, however, his eyes were reflexively Grasping every object in his field of vision, overwhelming his brain with information concerning the age, shape and molecular composition of every object in his workshop. He closed his eyes before his brain broke under the strain, only to be fed a stream of data about the composition of his own eyelids. Still, it was more tolerable.

Slowly, Shirou felt the flow of data diminish and stop as the prana leftover in his eyeballs was consumed by the non-stop Structural Grasping. Carefully, he stood up, opening his eyes to find that he could still see his workshop as if in bright daylight, and half-walked, half-limped toward a table laid against the wall. Using it as support to hold himself up, he looked into the mirror that laid on it, dreading what he would see.

The white of his eyes was criss-crossed by glowing lines, but that radiance was fading away, revealing two perfectly normal eyeballs. Whatever he had accidentally done to himself seemed to be reversible, though his eyes still felt different to him. It seemed that, somehow, the excess prana consumed by the reinforcement had permanently altered the structure of his eyes. He remembered Kiritsugu mentioning something about it at some point, but the memory was distant. At least he hadn't turned himself blind or changed his eye color or any other secrecy-endangering change.

As relief flooded him, the teenager wavered. Then the pain he had managed to block thus far finally hit, and he collapsed outright.