Day 3: Shirou — Magecraft
Shirou's recovery continued at a remarkable pace. He soon felt well enough to get out of bed and walk around the house. When he removed the bandages from his chest, there was no mark to show he'd ever been injured at all. Whatever this healing power Saber had bestowed upon him was, it was truly miraculous. He was performing some stretches to work out any residual stiffness when he felt Rin and Red Archer cross the bounded field onto his estate. He quickly headed to the front hall to greet them. Red Archer was nowhere in sight, perhaps concealed in spiritual form, but he quickly spotted Rin. She was hauling a couple of bulging bags of luggage, which was a bit more than he'd pictured when she said she was just going by her house to pick up a couple of things.
"No need for concern." Rin said by way of greeting. "The terms of our temporary alliance are still in place; and I've given Red Archer a thorough talking-to, so you don't have to worry about him trying to pull anything underhanded. A good thing, too, since you don't seem to have either of your Servants with you at the moment: if he had talked me over to his way of thinking, we could've ambushed you just now when you came to answer the door."
"Um, they should be nearby... somewhere..." Shirou stuttered.
"Like I said, no need to concern yourself about it." Rin said. "We're working together for the time being. Seeing as how you're up and about, I figure you might be feeling well enough for us to begin cooperating now."
"Sure." Shirou said. "Cooperating on what, exactly?"
"On your training." Rin said. "If you're going to contribute to this alliance, I need you to be able to back your Servants up with magecraft. Sure, having summoning two Sabers may seem impressive, but calling up your Servant is only the first step: to be an effective Master, you need to be able to provide them with support. Given the obvious deficiencies in your training, I figured we should start with the basics and proceed from there."
"Okay, that sounds good." Shirou said. "Let me show you my work space."
He helped Rin carry her bags to the toolshed where he performed his daily meditation and magecraft training. Rin examined the space with a skeptical eye, but finally nodded her approval.
"Good enough for a beginner, I guess." she said. "Now, you can start by showing me how you go about your magecraft."
Shirou sat down and focused his attention within himself. Isolating one of the nerves within his spine, he began the process of converting it into a magic circuit. It was a slow and painful process which felt like sliding a burning iron rod down his back, but due to his years of practice he was able to keep the pain from showing on his face. It probably wasn't possible for Tohsaka to think any less of his abilities than she already did, but he didn't want to show any weakness in front of her. His magecraft might not be as impressive as anything she was capable of, but he took pride in it and did not want to display anything less than perfection for her eyes.
"Okay, that's enough." Rin sighed and shook her head. "I can't stand to watch this any longer."
"Am I doing something wrong?" Shirou asked.
"Something?" Rin asked him. "How about everything? I've never seen someone go about things in such a wrongheaded way. Have you really been doing this every time you performed magecraft over the last ten years? I'm frankly shocked you haven't crippled or killed yourself by now."
"It's not that dangerous if I keep my concentration." Shirou said, a little defensively. "And anyway, I'm just doing it the way Kiritsugu taught me."
"Well, either he taught you incorrectly, or you completely misunderstood what he was trying to teach you." Rin said. "More likely the latter than the former, knowing you."
"Are you just here to insult me, or are you planning to actually teach me something?" Shirou asked.
"I'm just trying to think where to begin." Rin said. "Your whole process is so wrong that I don't know where to start. Maybe you could help by explaining what... exactly... you think it is that you're doing."
"Well... Kiritsugu told me that prana exists in two forms: mana and od." Shirou began. "Mana, the greater source, is the magic energy that exists free in the world; od, the lesser source, is the magic energy that exists within a magus. Od on its own isn't enough to power spells; one needs to draw on the greater source, mana, to perform magecraft. What defines a magus, then, is the existence of a magic circuit: a structure which is capable of extracting mana from the world and processing it into prana which the magus can use. So, in order to perform magecraft, what I do is use my od to convert one of the nerves in my spine into a magic circuit which lets me... cast..."
Shirou trailed off when Rin slapped her forehead.
"Wrong." Rin said. "Completely wrong. Emiya-kun, a magic circuit is spiritual, not physical. It's part of your soul, not your body. You're ignoring your actual magic circuits to create makeshift ones out of your nerves; and what's worse, you're repeating the whole process from scratch each time instead of using the switch you already possess."
"What's that mean?" Shirou asked.
"It's like... it's like..." Rin struggled for words for a moment. "Okay, it's like this. If someone moves into a brand new house for the first time and wants to turn on the lights, they need an electrician to install the switch and the bulb and the wires that run between them. But from that point on, whenever they want to turn the lights on or off, they can just flip the switch that's already there. What you're doing is like ripping out the walls to install a new wires every single time you want to turn the light on. It's crazy! And dangerous! And, well, just plain stupid!"
"So how do I use this switch thing, then?" Shirou asked.
"Fortunately for you, I have something that can help with that." Rin said.
Rin rummaged in her bag and pulled out something small, red, and crystal-like. It looked almost like a ruby gemstone.
"Swallow this." she said. "Don't chew; just swallow."
Shirou did so. The ruby-like object was cold, hard, and didn't taste like anything particular. As soon as it hit his stomach, a wave of heat passed through him, and his skin began to tingle.
"What was that?" Shirou asked. "Some kind of rock candy?"
"It was a ruby." Tohsaka said nonchalantly.
"What?" Shirou asked. "You're saying I ate an actual rock? Is that even safe?"
"Don't worry about it; it'll dissolve." Rin said. "The Tohsaka family specializes in jewel magic. The ruby was charged with prana, which it will gradually release as it dissolves. The energy it gives off should force your switch open for the time being. Hopefully, that'll allow you to get a feel for your switch, and eventually you'll learn to turn your magic circuit on and off at will whenever you want without having to go through that whole nerve-conversion nonsense."
"If you say so." Shirou said dubiously. "So far, I just feel a little sick."
"Suck it up." Rin advised. "If you'd learned how to activate your magic circuits properly the first time, we wouldn't have to be doing it this way. But once you do get the hang of it, I guarantee that it'll feel a lot easier and more natural than mucking about with your spinal nerves ever did."
"I'll take your word for it." Shirou said.
"Moving on, I need more information about your magic capabilities." Rin said. "I'm going to start by assuming that you don't have a Magic Crest, since you'd hardly have made such a fundamental mistake if you did. A Magic Crest is a sort of collection of all your ancestors' magical research. It allows you to cast any of the spells they developed, without having to do all the work of constructing it yourself..."
"I know what a Magic Crest is." Shirou said. "Kiritsugu had one, but he didn't pass it on to me."
"I'm not too surprised." Rin said. "You're not directly blood related to him, right? Magic Crests are usually only passed down within a single bloodline; if you try to transplant one to someone unrelated, there's a high risk of rejection. Speaking of bloodline, you wouldn't happen to know if you have a Sorcery Trait, would you? I explained them to you earlier at the Church; the Edelfelt family has the Ore Scales trait, for instance."
"I honestly have no idea." Shirou said. "Since these Sorcery Traits are passed down through magus bloodlines, I'd have inherited one from my biological parents if at all, right? But I don't even know if they were magi; I didn't even learn of the existence of magecraft until I met Kiritsugu."
"Well, it's pretty rare for someone of ordinary heritage to be born with magic circuits, so you likely have some magus ancestry." Rin said. "But since you weren't raised from birth to be a magus, you probably aren't from one of the bloodlines carrying the noble distinction of a Sorcery Trait. The last question, then, is what's your elemental affinity?"
"And what exactly is an elemental affinity?" Shirou asked.
"Come on!" Rin said. "You can't possibly be that dense, can you? There are five recognized thaumaturgical elements; Earth, Air, Water, Fire, and Ether. Most magi have an affinity to one or more of the elements. Having an affinity for an element allows you to manipulate that element with your magecraft."
"What's your affinity, then?" Shirou asked.
"All five." Rin answered promptly.
Somehow, Shirou had known that she'd say that. She was the kind of person who had to excel at everything.
"Well, I'm not really sure what mine is, if I even have one at all." Shirou said. "I've never been able to perform any kind of magecraft that summons or controls the elements."
"What is that you can do, then?" Rin asked.
"Structural Grasp and Reinforcement." Shirou said.
"In other words, pretty much the two most useless types of magecraft I've ever heard of." Rin groaned. "I suppose reinforcement might be marginally useful... in a support role... if you're capable of performing it with any type of consistency. Though, from what I've heard, reinforcement is as likely to break something as fix it."
"I've practiced it a lot, and gotten really good." Shirou said. "Well, with swords, at least. I hardly ever break them anymore."
"I doubt even a masterfully reinforced sword would give you even a fraction of a chance against a Servant." Rin said. "But if reinforcement really is all you can do, you might as well practice at it. See if you can learn to reinforce other things. From what I've heard, it's theoretically possible to reinforce things conceptually as well as physically, so if you master your ability you might be able to improve your Servants' parameters by reinforcing their Strength and Agility and such. Though, you should probably make sure you master the basics before attempting something that complex and potentially dangerous. Show me how you do a typical reinforcement. It should be easier for you now that your magic circuit is working properly."
Shirou walked to his workbench and placed a hand on one of the lamps there.
"Trace, on." he said.
He instantly comprehended the lamp's material composition and structural layout, then set about applying reinforcement. It did seem a little different from usual, the prana flowing through his body traveling faster and in greater quantity. The surge of energy actually caught Shirou off-guard, and he failed to properly channel it. The lamp's bulb immediately shattered, blown apart by the improperly-focused prana.
"Of course, it might also take you some time to adjust after doing things improperly for so long." Rin said, placing a protective hand on her luggage. "I brought some tools I used in my magecraft training; but on second thought, I'm going to wait until you get a little practice with your circuits before I let you touch them. Try and perform at least ten successful reinforcements by nightfall, and maybe we can consider moving on to my equipment."
She retreated from the toolshed with her overstuffed bags, leaving Shirou to shake his head at the unreasonableness of her instruction. He might successfully reinforce ten lamps in a week, if it was a particularly good week; ten in a day was impossible. He didn't even want to think about how many he'd break in the process; there probably weren't even enough in the toolshed. He'd have to go out and buy more.
Though... Rin had only specified ten successful reinforcements. She hadn't particularly said that they had to be lamps. For some reason, his rate of success was a lot higher when he practiced on swords. Shirou didn't know why it was, exactly, but modifying the structure of swords came naturally to him in a way that other objects didn't. Perhaps it had something to do with the elemental affinity stuff Rin had been talking about — though he wasn't sure exactly which of the five elements control over swords would count as. Earth, he supposed, since their primary component was metal; or perhaps they fell under the domain of Fire, since they were birthed in the heat of a forge.
Thinking of fire in relation to swords made him recall the strange exploding weapon which Red Archer had employed in the battle against Berserker. Though the Servant had fired it from his bow like an arrow, Shirou instinctively knew that its true form was a sword. He was well-qualified to tell the difference: no matter how good he'd gotten at firing arrows as a member of the school's archery club, their structure had never resonated with him the way swords did. Though Shirou had only laid eyes on Red Archer's projectile for a moment, it was permanently etched into his memory. He comprehended its structure down to the finest detail, and it sang to his soul in the manner unique to swords.
On a whim, Shirou picked up one of the practice swords he kept in the toolshed and began reinforcing it, trying to alter it to resemble Red Archer's sword-arrow. A great rush of prana flowed through his body once more; but this time, it was orderly and controlled. The sensation was difficult to describe, but it felt like he was working with the power instead of against it; like his magic circuits were naturally shaping it into the form he desired. It was as simple as thought itself for Shirou to overlay his mental image of the sword-arrow over the sword he was holding, and then direct the prana towards modifying the points of difference.
The sword in Shirou's hands grew longer, thinner, and curled into a horn-like spiral. But the closer it got to mimicking the sword-arrow's appearance, the more flawed Shirou found it to be. The sword-arrow was a Servant's Noble Phantasm, a Divine Mystery that had been wielded by an Epic Hero in times of legend. The practice sword, in contrast, was naught but mundane steel, wrought by mortal hands. Though Shirou could imagine the sword-arrow with perfect clarity, he couldn't overcome the deficiency of the practice sword's inferior composition. An unbridgeable gap existed between the perfect ideal that existed in Shirou's mind and the crude reproduction he held in his hands. The ideal sword called to him, demanded that he make it real, and his magic circuits burned with the desire to comply; but there was no way for him to make the transition to it from the flawed specimen he held in his hands.
"You'll never succeed like that." a voice said.
Shirou dropped the sword in surprise and quickly turned around. Red Archer was leaning casually against the wall, watching Shirou with appraising eyes. He had probably been following Shirou ever since Rin had returned; at some point he'd switched from spiritual to material form, but Shirou had been too engrossed in his reinforcement to notice.
"You cannot force any ordinary object to conform to the hopelessly naive ideals that exist within your mind." Red Archer said. "Any attempt to try is doomed before it has even begun."
"Why are you here?" Shirou asked. "Go bother your Master."
"There is only one magic that is allowed to you, Shirou Emiya, and that is to put shape to your mind." Red Archer continued. "You can take dreams too beautiful for this ugly world and make them real, if only for a fleeting time."
"Why are you telling me this?" Shirou demanded.
"Put all thought of this amateurish reinforcement out of your head." Red Archer said. "There is only one thing you should be imagining, and that is yourself at your most powerful. If you cannot defeat your enemy with what you have, then imagine something with which you could. Do not strive to construct a sword which can match your ideal; strive to imagine your ideal in such detail, such perfection, that the ideal itself becomes real."
Shirou felt like his prana was overflowing and burning him up from within. Sparks seemed to fly through the air between him and Red Archer. His ears were filled with the illusory sound of the clashing of swords and the grinding of gears.
"Your magic is not the magic of reinforcing a blade until it achieves perfection." Red Archer said. "It is the magic of imagining an already-perfect blade, and imposing your dream of that blade upon reality."
Shirou's head throbbed with pain and he instinctively squeezed his eyes tightly shut.
...I have created over a thousand blades...
When the pain passed and Shirou opened his eyes, he found himself holding a sword. It was not the sword he had been reinforcing, which lay on the ground at his feet. This sword was a thing of utter beauty, as much a work of art as it was a functional weapon. It was perfect in every last detail, as though the very image of an ideal sword had leapt from Shirou's mind and taken solid form within his hands. He now understood the arrow-sword on an intuitive level, as wholly and completely as if it had been a part of his very body from birth. Information seemed to flow into him: it was called Caladbolg II, the Fake Spiral Sword, and was a B-rank Noble Phantasm which could be elevated to A-rank if fired so as to explode on impact.
Then, like frost melting into dew, the sword dissipated into a glittering mist. Its existence had been as fragile and fleeting as a soap bubble. But, for that brief span of time, it had undoubtably been real.
"I can't believe I'm giving advice to someone I want to kill." Red Archer muttered. "I must be out of my mind."
The Servant turned and left the toolshed without further comment, leaving Shirou alone with his thoughts.