Kiritsugu Emiya was conflicted.
It had been a year since he had adopted the boy he had saved from his unknowing destruction of the life he had known before the fire. Kiritsugu did not regret destroying the Holy Grail of course but he acknowledged that he had played a large part in the incident that would lead to the destruction of most of the Shinto district and leave his new ward as the only survivor.
He had told him about magecraft from the start even though personally Kiritsugu thought there was nothing to be gained from knowing of the world of Magic. His experiences were that it would only result in tragedy. He would prefer his first acknowledgement of himself as a Magus to be the end of the topic but he had to prepare pills made with Thaumaturgy in order to prevent the toxicity from the pure magic of Avalon from poisoning what was now his adopted son.
His son had seemed lost the first few weeks and months after his adoption. He had gotten attached to a topic Kiritsugu had preferred he forgot existed. He had even requested for instructions in magecraft. While he was as far from a typical eight-year-old as a child of that age could differ and was likely not just simply enchanted by the mystique of magic he had also just gotten his bearings in life after the fire and Kiritsugu feared that refusing him could set him back significantly. As such, Kiritsugu had placated him by teaching him magecraft.
Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, it had turned out his son had possessed an impressive count of magical circuits at twenty-seven. The quality was average but that could be improved. While there were some Magi that had possessed many more circuits with some even reaching absurd numbers such as over a hundred circuits when including their family crest, twenty-seven was still well above average. It was more than what he personally had even when taking into account the Emiya family magical crest. It was especially impressive when taking into account that by all indications and his previously inactive magical circuits, Shirou had not possessed a magical ancestry. His magical circuits were likely just a product from a mutation when he had been conceived.
Kiritsugu had been reluctant to instruct the young Emiya in magecraft. He had to placate him however and so he had decided to teach him about the basic arts of Material Transmutation. He had also given him some background about the world of Magic. Kiritsugu had taught him the basic steps of the spells that would trigger the effects but he had not taught him much more or even any tips to help his progress. Kiritsugu had hoped that this would be enough to keep him occupied for a long while. Besides, the process used in Material Transmutation was the basis of many spells in magecraft and so it could be said that Kiritsugu had taught him the basic gateway to the majority of spells in magecraft,
The young Emiya had mastered the three basic arts of Material Transmutation scarily quickly. He had recognized the main concepts of the art and had through this recognition of its basic principles at its core been able to guarantee success at every step of the spell. Kiritsugu had started to dread the day where his son would perhaps demand to learn more spells. While Material Transmutation was of a moderate difficulty to master, but with each aspect of the spell having the potential to be optimized to greater levels such that even the most skilled Magi would often not be able to get the full potential out of the spell, it was still a rather repetitive and boring process that could only be done by continuous practice.
His son had appeared to possess considerable talent within the realm of magecraft. This combined with the quantity of his magical circuits would make him a delectable talent and potential apprentice for any master seeking a protégé. Kiritsugu had been expecting him to ask for more which was why he had been surprised when upon his questioning his son had replied that he wished to understand and master the basics to a greater extent before seeking more.
His son had been preoccupied with one aspect of a spell that was required in order to activate Material Transmutation. His son was occupied with a spell called Structural Grasping. Structural Grasping was a spell used for an essential part of Material Transmutation. Structural Grasping was a spell that had allowed an individual to analyze the structural composition of the object and view the internals of each object as though it was on a blueprint.
His son's focus on this aspect of his magecraft was due to his curiosity. While he had been understandably empty when he had first started in his new life after the fire, he had gained what was a boundless curiosity and an instinct to try to understand everything around him. He had already used to spell on everything in the house that he could get his hands on from electrical appliances to the mechanical parts of different objects and any other object that the young Emiya had been inquisitive about.
The extent of his son's curiosity about the world around him had been so much that he had often delved into the realms of precariousness and foolhardy recklessness. When going out, he would occasionally use his ability on objects in the public such as cars upon ensuring that there was no one nearby that had spotted him.
It had been another act of recklessness that the young Emiya had made what could be considered a possible costly mistake. Fortunately, this was only from outside eyes. Shirou Emiya had analyzed using structural grasping and was currently in the process of tuning and modifying the bike of Fujimura Raiga, the head of the Yakuza and an associate of Kiritsugu Emiya…
"Oh! What is this?... your son seems to possess quite a talent, Kiritsugu…"
The young Emiya Whipped his head around, rather startled at footsteps of individuals entering the garage.
"Father, why haven't you opened the garage before? I didn't know that you had possessed so many interesting objects?" Shirou inquired.
Kiritsugu looked around, indeed… it looked as if Shirou had been busy, different tools and some non-lethal gadgets from Kiritsugu's days of being an assassin were lying around, the sports bike that the Einzberns had bought to take advantage of Saber's riding skill had also looked as if it had been touched. In the few hours that Kiritsugu and Raiga had been conversing, Shirou had been quite occupied in the garage newly opened for the purpose of storing the Elder Fujimura's rare special edition sports bike. It was also the bike that he had been modifying.
"This bike was slightly damaged and it had many flaws from its construction. I was currently modifying the structure of it to improve its reliability as well as efficiency. How well did you think I had done this father?"
Shirou said in a matter of fact tone as he looked straight at his father in an inquisitive manner. He had not even turned his head to take notice of the Yakuza boss.
The elder Fujimura had clarified that the bike was his rather than Kiritsugu's. He was not angry or vengeful upon the modification of his bike as though would be typical from the public perception of a Yakuza boss. He had instead offered Shirou a kindly smile and had gave him a sum of money upon his finished modification of the bike.
The incident had served to develop a connection upon the elder Yakuza and Shirou. Shirou had gained a good impression and a positive sign from the attitude of the elder Fujimura. The elder Fujimura had heard of Shirou's state after the father and through a blend of empathy as well as genuine affection through his liking of the boy had proceeded to treat Shirou akin to a grandson.
That was not Shirou's only encounter with a Fujimura. Ever since he had moved in with Kiritsugu, there had been a woman of the age of a teenager coming over every so often. She was Taiga Fujimura and she was the granddaughter of the aforementioned Raiga Fujimura, the head of the Yakuza.
Part of her routine whenever she had arrived at the Emiya residence was to get into a spar in Kendo with his father, Kiritsugu. They were sparring with wooden Kendo sticks. Shirou had gotten rather entranced with the bout. His father had what could only be described with greater skills over his opponent. There was an inherent ease in which he manoeuvred around and parried her blows.
Taiga had appeared to possess what could be called a better form that possessed a more inherent grace and professional look to every blow. Kiritsugu had easily dealt with her with greater instincts and superior reflexes as well as skill derived from what was most likely experience.
This observation of their bouts had signalled the start of Shirou's new interest… Swordplay.
Not too long after the incident of Shirou's initial observation of his father and Taiga, the young boy had picked up an interest in swords and had requested and been trained by his father. He had also begun regularly sparring with both the Elder Emiya and the Female Fujimura.
The Fujimura teen had become rather unusually attached with the Pair of Emiya's and seemed to desire regularly spending time over at the Emiya household. It was due to this that she had attached herself to Shirou in her quest to help Shirou better understand the world around him. She had also developed a bond with Shirou and had self-proclaimed herself as his sister. Shirou, not knowing any better, had proceeded to accept the proclamation at face value.
This turn of events had become a positive boon as far as Shirou had been concerned even if he didn't quite know what to make of it. The Fujimura heiress had somehow managed to influence the Elder Fujimura to fund a restaurant nearby.
Ever since Shirou had been adopted, they had been eating out or having deliveries nearly every day. The rare exceptions in which Kiritsugu had tried to cook had not turned out well. Shirou had not had a great culinary experience after his lost memories after the fire but even he could tell that there was something very wrong with Kiritsugu's cooking.
The funding of the restaurant nearby was one of the greatest boon's from knowing the Fujimura's. His father was utterly dreadful at cooking and in an incident where he had be spurred on by Taiga had created an eldritch sentient abomination when attempting to make a dish for what was to be his anniversary of adoption.
After getting out of the sentient sludge that had wished to engulf everything living or dead, the Emiya pair had resigned to forever eat out.
It was after getting too exhausted from constantly having to go outside for every meal that Shirou had attempted to teach himself cooking. While magecraft was still his main focus, he had deviated some time to develop his budding talents in cooking. It appeared that he had some potential in the culinary arts. Shirou could also find some enjoyment in consuming decent food for once.
Shirou's routine now after a year after his adoption had been the spending of most of his time developing and satisfying his curiosity in magecraft. It was through many instances of practicing spells that Shirou had noticed what could be called an instinct at the back of his mind whenever he had performed a spell.
The instinct had manifested itself as tiny pricks and prods as though navigating Shirou into the right path of thinking. The instinct had served to alert Shirou whenever he had run into a concept in magecraft. This instinct had served to tell Shirou the basis of whatever magecraft he was performing as well as what areas the spell itself was flawed in.
It is through this Instinct that when using the spell called Graduation Air that had projected artificial items with magecraft made out of air that Shirou had been alerted that the spell was in a optimized but incomplete state and that there was a possibility that great gains could be made to the results of the spell by simply improving and refining it into a far superior version.
The young Emiya, having not been educated in the ways of a traditional Magus, had placed a focus on this, looking to see what the ordinary Magus would have missed out in ignoring this simple spell. Kiritsugu had always told Shirou that with the decline of Mystery and subsequently Thaumaturgy, the regular Magus had perhaps not been able to advance as much as they should be able to due to having a mindset too limited. Shirou had embraced the Elder Emiya's advice and had been maybe too invested in researching at times. He was still advancing in every aspect of his magecraft however and so whatever he was doing must work to some extent and he had not faced diminishing returns yet.
Shirou Emiya had been frustrated. The source of his frustration? It was regarding his attempts at refining and improving the spell of Graduation Air. He had run into a block recently and he had no idea how to get out of the block. He simply did not know enough about magecraft to recognize how one would go about improving and refining an already established spell.
What was important was that he first had a concrete objective in mind when refining the spell. After all, what was the use of improving a spell when one failed to consider what improvements should be made? He had decided to focus on the flaws of Graduation Air in its current iteration. The biggest problem was that Graduation Air created an object out of air. It was not a real object but rather a facsimile of one.
It was due to this that the sentient spirit of the World had recognized the objects made from Graduation Air as an inconsistency, seeking to correct this error in the World. As such, as long as the Magus casting the spell had ceased to provide more magical energy to the object created, the object would eventually fade away after a short period of time.
There were ways to extend this period of course, the more concrete the structure of the object created, the more specific the creation of the object and the more materials in which one visualized the object to be made with, the illusion of the object made by Graduation Air would last longer and be more stable.
Even with this extension of the life of the projected item, it was still horrendously inefficient. Ignoring the basic inefficient cost in magical energy, the mental effort required had made this skill not worth it for many Magi across the world.
The nail in the coffin for the irrelevance of the spell was the strength of the object projected. The strength of the object was only ever as strong as it was originally pictured to be. With the magical energy used in creating such a weak object, a Magus could have simply used Reinforcement to make an existing object much stronger.
This were the set of goals that Shirou had aimed to accomplish by improving the spells. He wanted to make the object stronger and more permanent. For the time being however, he had to have a better grounding in magecraft before starting on his project. He had to practice on other aspects of magecraft.
He had alternatives. Material Transmutation was a trio of skills anyway. He had decided to work more on the other aspects. Reinforcement and alteration. Reinforcement was the hardest skill of the trio and had required the most practice. Fortunately, Shirou had a lot of time to practice. It was through this continuous practice of the spells that he already knew that he had gotten a breakthrough of some sorts in his magecraft.
Shirou had found out slowly as he used structural analysis more regularly that he was able to get more information out of the objects he had analyzed. As opposed to simply getting an image of the inner constructs and workings of the objects as well as the base composition of the object, Shirou was now able to get the history of the object as well as the ways the object was used. It was not all sunshine and rainbows however, it was quite a pain trying to get more information out of an object, apart from lengthening the spell time, it had also cost a lot more magical energy just to force the object to provide more information.
Due to Structural Analysis being essentially the cheapest spell in Thaumaturgy with regards to the cost of magical energy, the end result was still negligible but Shirou felt that when analyzing an object with a long or complicated history, the cost may increase at an exponential level.
It was surprising when on a regular day Kiritsugu had announced that he was to go on a long business trip to Germany for a month. This was a rather weird occurrence to Shirou. While Kiritsugu had gotten a job recently after making sure Shirou was settled after the fire, there were no indications that he was now a businessman.
Shirou had not thought too much one way or another about the business trip. He was mostly apathetic to the situation but he was surprised somehow. Kiritsugu had been looking out for Shirou since the fire and while Shirou had gotten most of his bearings, he would think Kiritsugu would have some reservations.
Quite Surprisingly, on the second day of his father's trip, Shirou was visited by Raiga Fujimura.
"Eh? Old man Fujimura, why are you here? You do know that Kiritsugu has been on a business trip and wouldn't be back for a month, right?"
"Ah… Shirou, your father had thought you would be bored of being cooped up at home while he is on his trip. Would you be so kind as to accompany this old man on a trip to a museum?"
Shirou Emiya agreed to the trip. So, this was what his father had arranged for him when he was out on the business trip. Raiga was undoubtedly here to look out for him on his father's behest. It was expected the Taiga would show up at some point as well. All he hoped was that this would be an eventful trip.
Shirou Emiya had been feeling strangely once he had stepped into the museum…
The museum had been conducting an exclusive event in which only important and influential figures had been invited. Many famous swords and works of craftsmanship were on display. Shirou had been excited as he always somehow had an interest in swords, even at his most empty parts of his life after Kiritsugu's adoption, he had felt this attraction to swords ever since he had first saw one on a television show. He had not had any idea why he had such an obsession with swords but he attributed that to his gender and rationalized that this must have been some subconscious fascination carried on from his life before the fire.
Before this museum trip, after his breakthrough in the realm of structural analysis, Shirou had mastered the spell to a greater level through the continuous use of the spell. He was now able to analyze anything even without touching the object in question. He could find out whatever he wanted by sight alone. He would not disregard his father's warnings about the usage of magecraft in secrecy again and begin discreetly analysing each and every sword on display in the museum.
Shirou was fascinated about the swords that had been analyzed. All of them were of a superior quality and make such that each and every sword on display could be undoubtedly called a work of art. Many swords on display had a rather sad history of spending most of their time as an art piece, spending decades to centuries on display without being used even once.
Shirou had gotten weirdly indignant on behalf of the swords, using his spell had allowed Shirou to experience the lives of the swords being full of ceremony and ceremony, over and over again. Each of the swords so well forged for war had been perverted in their reasons of existence into more of a ceremonial role. Shirou had thought that this was a massive pity, having somehow been able to witness the exact history of every sword at a glance, up till its forging methods, many of those swords had been forged exquisitely but very few ever saw action.
He understood this however, as well crafted as the swords were, the forging methods and materials available several hundred years ago were below par and it was nigh impossible for a sword made centuries to survive battle intact. As such even the swords that had drew blood had been kept away after gaining their fame and languished away, no longer in use. Other swords were broken and only had a use as a display piece.
Nevertheless, Shirou had quite enjoyed the experience and right as he was about to join up back with the old man Raiga, he had felt a strange compulsion, dragging him in the direction of a room out of the way. Shirou tried to resist, but nonetheless followed the instruction to a back room kept discreetly out of the way with only selected guests surrounding a glass case on a table guarded by a large squadron of guards, being able to get a peek at the sword, Shirou it looked rather surprisingly plain with a dark grey or black blade of around seventy and a half centimeters with a larger width and thrusting edge.
While the sword was still undoubtedly among the best swords crafted that he had seen today, it had looked more mundane due to lacking any wavy or interesting patterns, signature characteristics of the swords one would find to be most valuable. It did seem like a sword of an older age however, being estimated by Shirou to be made in the late thirteenth century.
Shirou was rather startled that his ability in structural analysis to improve until now he was able to suddenly possess an eye of judging swords and their quality and make but had chalked it up to using structural analysis on the many swords today and gaining vast knowledge on their forging methods.
Looking to see what was so fascinating about the sword on display before getting spotted by the guards for not being invited to the room, Shirou activated Structural Grasping and looked at the sword that had been so mysteriously kept out of the way from the public eye.
Authors notes:
The first half of the Chapter is from Kiritsugu's POV This is meant to showcase his thoughts about Shirou, the boy he had adopted after a year of living with him.
The rest of this portion is just more details about Shirou's magecraft as well as his latent potential and how he had come to learn magecraft as well as his initial progress in magecraft.
We see what would be a major difference from this Shirou to the one in Canon. This Shirou has a true obsession with magecraft and wanting to learn more. This will be what will cause the deviation of skills from this Shirou to the one in canon.
Due to this Shirou possessing an Origin of Conceptualization, he has an instinct towards spells, this will be quite an important thing to take note of later on. Currently, all the benefit that this ability provides lies in the realms of giving Shirou an extra instinct when understanding magecraft as well as helping him break down spells to what they are at its very core, allowing for better understanding and skill in carrying out spells. His instincts also allow him to know that the spell of Graduation Air can be developed on.
A thing to note is that the prime cause for the reason Shirou is so weak in Thaumaturgy in canon is due to him not using his twenty-seven magical circuits, reducing them to circuits of low quality from disuse. This Shirou, due to having a better instinct with regards to magecraft, had not made the mistake of converting his nerves into magical circuits but rather used the natural circuits that he had already possessed. This is the key crux in which allowed him to be able to quickly master the basics of structural grasping as well as material transmutation, this will of course greatly benefit our protagonist later.
It is important to place the museum visit as a important arc with regards to the beginning of the story. This visit is able to be able greatly advance Shirou's future progress in tracing due to having knowledge of more manufacturing processes and disregarding legends, Japan is essential the best country with regards to the base craftsmanship of swords, relying less on 'legends' but with the most famous swords being the best crafted swords ever to be made.