Chapter 4
The man that visited the Matous also visit the Tohsaka family to inform them about the new holy grail war coming soon. "I don't believe you, the grail was destroyed-" The man interrupted him, "By Shiro Emiya and his servant, yes I know I been told by so many people that I've visited on the matter. We have created a grail that has true omnipotent power, it works we used to bring you masters back from both the fourth and fifth wars."
To prove his point he summoned Kirei Kotomine in person before them. They were a little shocked but after seeing what happened for the Emiyas, the Einzberns, the Matous, and the Tohsakas he believed him. "What is this all about, what are you trying to accomplish?" "It's quite simple we want to see who wins and gets the grail. The difference is that there will eight wishes, eight masters will get their wish granted along with their servants wishes too. But there will new rules concerning this event if you're interested come to us. Here's our brochure it will guide you." After his speech Kirei decided to spite his teacher and his daughter a bit. "Well I'm glad to see your alive and well, I guess I didn't stab you deep enough to crush your spirit." Before they could even hit him with a spell he vanished along with the stranger. They decided to accept the invitation to see how things would play out.
[Somewhere at an abandoned theater]
Everyone gathered to hear what the host had to say to them. Shiro Emiya was there, his whole family and friends were there too. Even the Tohsakas and Matous arrived to this event. They were restless, who could blame them a new holy grail war was about to commence. The host rose up from the stage and smirked at his audience. "Welcome dear guests, I shall be your host and overseer for this event along with backup from these familiar faces before you. More people appeared on the stage and everyone was appalled to see who they were.
"Hey everyone how's life been treating you?" "We have come as your overseers, it's a pleasure to meet you all." The extra overseers were none other than Gilles de Rais the caster from the fourth holy grail war along with his master Ryuunosuke Uryu. This duo was one of the worst people to ever participate in the grail wars. They slaughtered hundreds of people, mainly women and children for their own so called "Art". Most people wouldn't ever understand why these two would do such terrible deeds, but hey everyone's different so who were they to judge them. Everyone started to make an uproar about this.
"Now now my dear guests let's put the past behind after all, I know the real reason why these two acted the way they did. As such I have also prepared a very special guest for them and you. You can come out now, meet your adoring public with a smile my dear." She started to walk with energy towards the stage shocking everyone with her entrance. "Hi~ everyone tee hee!" She said with a star twinkle and her tongue sticking out. "Oh~ Jeanne~ my dear Jeanne~ how I missed you, after everything that has happened I am able to see you again." "It's good to see you too, Gilles it's been a long time as much as I'd like to talk with I can't afford the luxury, I have to act as one of the overseers of this war." "I understand my fair Jeanne, I shall help as an overseer alongside you to the best of my ability."
After that short conversation everyone calmed down and sat in their seats. "I will now explain the rules for this holy grail war:
Rule One - There will be a total of only 16 masters in this war, however you will work as allies and fight against each other, There are two factions each with four teams, each team will have only two masters to fight in this war it doesn't matter who else you have on your team as long as their are only two masters per team.
Rule Two - The factions are named "Red" and "Blue". The last faction that has servants alive will be declared the victor. You can also summon more than one servant to aid you as a master.
Rule Three - The masters that will be joining this war have already been chosen: Shiro Emiya and Kiritsugu Emiya, Rin Tohsaka and Tokiomi Tohsaka, Shinji Matou and Sakura Matou, Luvia Edelfelt and Bazett Mcremitz will be the "Blue Faction". Kayneth Archibald and Waver Velvet, Kirei Kotomine and Carmen Kotomine, Comedy and Tragedy, Issei Ryuudou and Souichiro Kuzuki will be the "Red Faction".
Rule Four - Just like the previous wars you are allowed to go after other masters and kill them.
Rule Five - There will be no fighting each other until the grail war commences which will happen in 50 years. Word of advice, train as hard as you can until the war or you'll regret it.
Rule Six - The servants from the fourth and fifth will be allowed to join the sixth war if they wish to. But the servant bodies will be different from before, they will be restored with all their circuits they had at their prime but will still be spirits as before in a way. New servants must be summoned in this war, at least one per master must be summoned.
Rule Seven - You will all be given a choice, if you want to upgrade your circuits we will help you increase their quality at maximum to 10,000 units each.
"Follow these rules and we won't have any problems." After his speech everyone left to go back home and train for the war. Shinji was confused, why would he be chosen for the grail he didn't have any power as a magus. As he was walking home Shiro was waiting for him along with his father. "Shinji, I think we can help you." "Shiro you can't help me I don't have any magic circuits, how can I be able to stand a chance against anyone in this war?!" Suddenly a mysterious yet familiar figure appeared behind Shinji and tapped him. "Ahhhh!" Shinji turned around and had an annoyed look on his face.
The figure was the same host at the meeting and he wore a silly clown mask just to piss off Shinji. "Forgive me I just couldn't resist. Now correct me if I'm wrong but did you say you don't have any magic circuits?" "What of it?" "I can help you with that, my master told me to fix any problems before the grail war commences, that includes even helping those who might not have a chance to win. I know a way to help give you circuits, but it will require the help of the Emiyas and mine. So do we have deal?" Shinji thought about it, if he accepted he could be able to use magecraft and free his sister. He agreed and nodded his head to show his approval. "Good, then let's get started. Kiritsugu and Shiro, If would be so kind as to activate the reality marble for this procedure." They both raised their hands and pooled their prana together to cast the reality marble.
Upon summoning, the reality marble looked like a bunch of clocks floating around in a blank void with no ground or sky or oceans to see. After the marble was activated Shiro pooled his mana to help sustain it. "Here Shinji time moves much faster or slower depending on the will of the caster. Here at most what may be one day in the real world can be 12 years here. This is where you will train as a magus for the grail war. As for the circuits leave that up to me, I have brought back the book of false attendment that had both the command seals and the same amount of magic circuits as before. the number is twenty but the quality is low, each circuit can generate only 2 units of prana. However, I know how to increase that quality greatly just for you. In addition I will implant them along the circuits from your father. In total that's about 43 circuits to implant into you. We increase the prana output to at least 1000 units each, So are you ready to learn magecraft?"
Shinji was excited and replied, "Let's get started." The masked man had a sadistic look that scared Shinji. He started to implant the circuits one by one, as a result Shinji's hair gained bleach white stripes and he went through a lot of pain. They remedied the problem by loading Shinji with prana and his youth was restored. Shiro decided to trace another copy of Avalon to give Shinji for his training. After Shiro helped Shinji, he started training with his father and he started creating a new circuit every day in the reality marble and helped his father to create circuits for himself. The host was the one who decided to be in charge of training Shinji. He altered Shinji's elemental affinity and he gained "shadow" as a new affinity along with his existing "water" affinity. Shadow magecraft was strong against spiritual beings like servants and phantasmal beasts. It also had spells that work mainly with darkness and night.
After Shinji practiced hard for 6 years, his teacher started to test his skills by fighting him. Shinji pulled out a couple of paper tags that started to glow. he summoned two shikigami familiars that were made of ice and shadow magic. They proceeded to strike like a hammer and smash Shinji's teacher. "Not bad Shinji, so these are you familiars? You must have worked really hard to be able to control them let alone ones the size of a giant." Shinji didn't pay any attention, he focused on commanding them to destroy him with every intent to kill. His teacher dodged and evaded every single blow that struck the ground, but not a single attack got him.
"He's fast, even despite my shikigami landing blows at such a speed he just moves away like it's nothing." Shinji thought to himself.
[Over where Shiro and Kiritsugu were training]
Shiro was practicing with each weapon he created using his reality marble. So far he had the best compatibility with Excalibur and Caliburn. Shiro flung a spear he created at Kiritsugu, he dodged and shot a bullet at Shiro using his "Thompson Contender". Shiro traced the same shield he used before against his father and it took the hit without denting. Kiritsugu prepared to pour more prana into the gun. So far Kiritsugu created 5 circuits each day since they've trained inside the reality marble, in total his circuit count was 10956. Each circuit could produce 50 units of prana, Shiro's circuits were upgraded to produce 50 units each as well the difference in power was tremendous yet ridiculous, Shiro created 2 circuits each day to help in his training.
The power they had was too much, even vampires, homunculus, dragons, and other non-human creatures couldn't compare with the power they had, they were godly in terms of prana output. To be precise, Shiro had at full power about 258,200 prana units while Kiritsugu had left after giving Shiro his crest and some of circuits was 6 circuits until he started creating new ones each day. At full power Kiritsugu has 547500 units of prana, normally they wouldn't be able to use that much at once, but thanks to the Avalon copies they had in them they could survive the output. Just as Shiro was about to compose himself, the fight ended abruptly with Arturia entering the reality marble they set up. Thanks to Rin Shiro could maintain her existence here with him casting a familiar contract to provide her with plenty of prana. "Shiro I brought some sandwiches for us, do you care to join me?" Shiro looked at Kiritsugu and he nodded, Shiro was happy and sat next to her to enjoy the bountiful meal. "Arturia you got some rice on your face." Shiro licked it up. Arturia blushed beet red and threw a fit out of embarrassment. Shiro giggled at her behavior, after a while she calmed down and decided to train after eating.
She joined them in training and went all out against the both of them. Shiro fired a dozen lances at her and traced a copy of "Nine Lives", he charged at her right behind the lances. She used prana burst to dodge gracefully, as Shiro charged at her full speed using reinforcement she gripped her blade and parry each of his swings. Shiro swung his weapon a 10th time downward, She then swung her blade upward and shattered the giant axe into fragments. Shiro moved back and started keeping his distance. Kiritsugu then ran at her while firing bullets from afar.
When he fired his bullets normally they would only leave a small hole, but thanks to his son's method for creating magic circuits Kiritsugu was able to put more power behind each shot. Arturia slashed each one with precision and speed but each time she did, the bullets would feel like she was cutting a high-speed boulder in two, after she finished defending herself she looked behind her and saw the wake of devastation before her eyes, boy was she scared each bullet left a crater the size of a small meteor impact in the ground.
She charged at Kiritsugu and lunged her sword at him, but he used reinforcement and dodged just in time. She turned around and Kiritsugu had his gun right in her face. By the time he pulled the trigger, she used prana burst to shoot up into the sky and did it again to dive bomb him with a strike. When she landed the ground around them shattered as though it was hit by a meteor. Luckily by the time she struck, Kiritsugu managed to get out of the way in time. "Well, that was an impressive training match. Even though with my circuits restored back to 55,000 units when I was alive you both still managed to make me sweat a bit." She was smiling happily, Shiro suggested they stop training in the reality marble and go back home. They agreed but only until Shinji was ready.
[Back where Shinji was training]
Shinji was panting from exhaustion. After all the attacks he unleashed on his mentor not a single landed on him. "Damn why can't I hit him?!" Shinji then started to change his tactics, he went from fighting a far to close range combat he put about 5000 units into reinforcement and charged at his opponent while preparing a scythe made of shadows. He got close and swung from left to right but his mentor jumped out of the way. "Hah, is that the best you can do? I'm disappointed after all that training you still aren't able to even hit me." "That's funny why don't you take a look at your legs" His mentor looked down and was shocked to see that he had a long gash across both his legs. It was deep but not too deep to the point they were halfway cut. "Damn, I really got done in this time. Still that means your ready for the war my dear pupil." He smiled evilly but Shinji just ignored it, for now all he cared about was winning the grail so he could free his sister.