Shirou

"Kiritsugu must have been cursed," Shirou thought as he contemplated the abomination that was their current kitchen. The oven was burnt, blackened to an extent he didn't think capable with modern appliances, the sink was full of some blue foul-smelling liquid that quite frankly he didn't have the balls to analyse and worst of all the resulting mess was a frankly inhospitable landscape that stood as a monument to chef skills so tremendously poor that he wouldn't even dare to test Avalon against it.

"Omelette rice," Shirou said, his face frozen in a rictus of incredulity. "How is it possible to mess up Omelette rice so poorly?" Seriously it beggared belief; maybe Kiritsugu had some kind of hidden sorcery trait like "epically poor cooking" that tainted his every attempt turning really simple meals into a hellish landscape of pain, terror and humiliation. Shirou had survived the past week by using his newly found power in order to add [edible] the list of attributes that the food possessed in order to be able choke it down but there were two problems with that.

Firstly he had to witness the attributes of the food and see the "skill" that went into making it. That in itself was a trial as every attempt stretched his rapidly failing sanity further. He watched with ever growing astonishment at Kiritsugu's attempts feeling ensuing emotions of shock, awe, humour, disgust all leading up to a numb feeling.

Shirou tentatively poked the omelette portion which had somehow been able to take on the feeling of glass tapping it and listening to the tak-tak-tak noise that signified a screw up.

The second reason was that it grew harder and harder every time to add that so much desired [edible] trait. He had already given up on even attempting adding the [tasty] trait after his first meal. His new power needed no prana but it required incredible amounts of focus and either watching Kiritsugu's many failures were draining him of his willpower or the food was evolving and adapting against Shirou's attempts. Realistically he knew that Kiritsugu's cooking while tremendously awful didn't quite possess the sentience necessary to adapt to his new power only allowing the first option which was useful showed him the limits of the ability.

When he had told Kiritsugu about his new ability he was shocked. He had immediately got him to try it out on other items. He had found out it seemingly required no expenditure of prana and bore some similarities to the magecraft of alteration and structural analysis only much more powerful.

While structural analysis could give a blueprint of the object it wasn't known for giving an objects history, or its purpose, or its desires. They decided to test it and after half an hour of sitting opposite each other Shirou found himself able to occasionally pick up on Kiritsugu's thoughts. Kiritsugu stopped the test right there and told Shirou to wait for him to come up with a conclusion.

For as terrifying as that ability was it was nowhere near as scary as his other ability. The ability that seemed like alteration at first was quickly found to be more powerful and different than the subject. Alteration apparently allowed a magus to alter an objects shape to fly better or be more resistant to fire. It was incredibly limited and bore some resemblance to projection or runes either changing the physical shape of an object or automatically enacting an effect through magecraft. That was when things stopped being as fun for Shirou. The ability was deadly serious and while it required him to be quite close to the object there was virtually no limit to the things he could do when in the range of that person. He had tried it on the food to make it [edible] on the oven to make it [unburnt] and after Kiritsugu's express permission and an hour of psyching himself up he used it on Kiritsugu in order to remove a blister he had got under one of his fingernails. The effects of the last trial were as horrifying as they were enlightening. Kiritsugu confirmed that rather than healing the blister it seemingly instead altered his existence so that he never acquired one.

This ability horrified Shirou, before this he had seen his abilities as a superpower, something only he had, a special thing that he could use for fun. This skill however had too many frankly unnerving uses. After this he resolved to keep his abilities hidden from all others except Kiritsugu and swore to never use his powers on another human except without their explicit permission and consent.

His abilities had some drawbacks though. It required a great amount of willpower to use, something Shirou as a child did not possess. In addition some objects were able to resist his power. After the first time he claimed Avalon he found himself unable to affect it as if either he had grown weaker or the scabbard had grown stronger. In addition while he could understand a lot of what Avalon could do he lacked context for its powers. He could understand the healing because that is an effect he can visualise. However he couldn't comprehend how it was made or what were it makers. He understood the makers were [the fae] and they made Avalon from a [certain divine mystery] but to his mind it was just way too unfamilliar for him to visualize almost as if he had to put together a puzzle with half the pieces missing.

His abilities to insert concepts into an object were similarly limited. He found he could only place concepts upon the objects that he understood or encountered before. Although the memories had faded he was aware he had eaten tasty edible food before living with Kiritsugu. When he tried to apply the word [unbreakable] on the kitchen appliances it just slid straight off. Kiritsugu theorized the likely reason is that he has not yet seen or comprehended anything he would define as unbreakable and thus had no frame of reference.

Besides that the only other limitations of the ability were the range, the time it took to use the power, his willpower and his own morals.

He took one more bite of the disgusting blasphemy against cooking everywhere noting with a feeling of abject despair that the rice was incredibly hard and yet still was quite slimy.

"I'm cooking from now in this house," he stated his voice containing no doubt or timidity. This was a thing that he would fight and die for. He would cook his food and both of them would like it. Kiritsugu looked up from his own plate and despite the normal blankness of his expression Shirou couldn't help but think he looked a bit guilty.

Kiritsugu sighed, "Fine, fine I give up. Shall we order takeout?" Shirou nodded and began to throw the remaining food away.

Kiritsugu

"Ridiculous," Kiritsugu thought to himself. He had retired to his room tonight to make plans. "Utterly ridicoulous." When he had adopted Shirou he had planned to be a father to him and rescue his daughter from the Einzberns. Shirou had unknowingly derailed that plan when he introduced his new ability. Kiritsugu was aware of what it was, the imposition of a concept on a subject despite having no compatibility. It was the ability to chop the universe into pieces and rearrange it as the wielder likes. It was immediate knowledge of a subject that surpasses mere magecraft. It was the authority to bend and warp reality in a manner only approachable by the gods.

It was magic.

Shirou was a strange child. He seemed so calm and yet he always seemed to look at the universe as if it was a punchline to be enjoyed. His mind seemed far more mature than his years would allow.

Kiritsugu blanched, remembering a few days ago when he was busy planning an assault on the Einzbern castle Shirou offhandedly mentioned that Kiritsugu had killed both of his parents apparently having been killed in two separate hotels in different accidents.

Kiritsugu had tensed but Shirou had merely made a joke that because of that he wasn't travelling with him anytime soon. When he forced Shirou to talk about it, he had merely stated that he forgave him but he would really like it if he didn't get any more of his parents killed. The last part was said uncharacteristically seriously for the young man and now Kiritsugu was pretty sure he was aware of his plans with Illya.

That led to a whole other can of worms. Kiritsugu reckoned himself an incredibly poor teacher of magecraft but Shirou had to be trained. As a magician Shirou would be wanted by the mage associations, the church, various dead apostles and many other rogue magi. In addition he had heard rumours that the counterforce itself attacked those who managed reach Akasha. While he was grateful that they haven't attacked yet attacked Shirou he knew his limits. He would not be able to defend Shirou from the monsters of the world, Shirou was weak now but as a magician in time he would be able to stand up to even the strongest opponents.

A secondary concern but by no means unimportant consideration was of course his Illya. His circuits were better now but even at a hundred percent he didn't think he had a good chance of assaulting Castle Eizbern successfully. The corridors were patrolled by dozens of homunculus and many more combat golems. As a magician when he was a little older Shirou would be able to assist him, and he had in fact hinted to Kiritsugu that he was going to help.

Kiritsugu grimaced; he hated having to ask a young boy to help him where he failed. Thankfully the risk to Shirou was minimal. With some training and Avalon in his body Shirou would be fine against the worst the Einzberns could throw at him.

He retired to bed resolved that tomorrow he would start teaching Shirou magecraft.

Kiritsugu (Still)

"Damn," Kiritsugu thought his kid doesn't stop surprising him. When he had come down the stairs this morning and informed Shirou he was checking his elements and circuits Shirou had immediately informed him he had twenty-seven circuits an above-average number for a magus.

Even knowing the boy previously, his new adopted son had surprised him once more his circuits were all incredibly high quality. He was certain they were of a higher quality then him but he could not tell how much higher. His od was also comparatively large at 120 units much greater than the average magus.

The good news ended there though as his element was water. This was unfortunately an element that Kiritsugu had zero experience with and he had zero chance of actually getting somebody to help teach him.

He looked down at his adoptive son a smile on his face as he observed the smug look on his face his hands behind his head and swinging his legs on the chair. He was pretty proud of his circuits it seemed and he definitely had a reason to be.

"Okay Shirou," Kiritsugu said smiling ruefully. I have both good and bad news. Good news is you're going to be a very strong magus. Bad news is I have zero ability to teach you anything about water manipulation."

He looked down into the eyes of his son who was sitting back looking at him with a scrutinizing expression.

"Under normal circumstances I would never say this but due to the presence of Avalon inside you, this should be fine." He paused. "You're going to have to experiment on what works and doesn't work." He shook his head. "I can teach you some easy magic like reinforcement and bounded fields, but I'm afraid you're going to be spending a lot of time in the bathtub experimenting."

He looked up to see Shirou looking at him oddly. "Do you even realize how that s-," he started. "No, never mind," he continued. You realise I don't know how to activate my circuits yet, I haven't been taught."

At this Kiritsugu froze. "Ah, your magic circuits have already been awakened so I assumed you knew how to do that. No matter, the first thing you need is a trigger. It's an image in your head that you can use to flip your circuits from there dormant state to their awake state."

Shirou frowned uncharacteristically for the young boy and closed his eyes. Kiritsugu waited patiently for five minutes before with a whirring noise his sons circuits spun to life.

"The ground bursting forth with water," he said upon opening his eyes. "That's my trigger. Man who ever heard of a protagonist having water powers," he said frowning. "I'm pretty sure it's meant to be either fire or wind, waters mainly the healer." He started smiling again. "Oh well I'm pretty sure there some saying about water eroding all the hardest objects." He pumped his fist. "I'll just have to be twice as awesome and all those bad guys will be like, "Oh no he's swept us away with his amazing powers over water. We were wrong to disregard the element"."

Kiritsugu smiled, it had taken him a while but he had a feeling of Shirou now. The boy wasn't usual for his age of about eight years old. Maybe it was a natural consequence of growing up with a magus family or maybe it was the effects of touching the root but he was incredibly mature, but neither was his childish side an act but rather a portion of his personality that he deliberately indulged. His ability to get overly focused once something caught his attention and his seeming nonchalance about his past were both flaws in his character and deliberately fashioned as such. A thought struck him suddenly.

"Shirou," he said his voice deliberately still. "Have you thought about analysing yourself and trying to recover your memories?"

Shirou halted, his very motion frozen in action. A moment passed in silence.

"Yeah," he said. "I've thought about it." After a short moment he sighed. "I don't really want to." Before Kiritsugu said anything he continued. "My parents are dead and while I do have siblings I believe we were really not close. To the extent I don't have much of a sibling bond with them." He looked up at Kiritsugu again.

"Inke is not my real surname. But I don't feel like reclaiming my surname and dealing with what remains of that family." He smiled again the seriousness fading from his face. "Don't worry Kiritsugu I'm not going to leave you." He said looking smug. "The only reason I'm not taking the Emiya name is it has way too much baggage. I mean seriously a philosopher designate in one generation and a magus hunting magus in the next." He laughed again. "With my abilities I already am going to have too much heat on my heels, I don't really want to add to it."

"Is he aware of the fact he's a magician," Kiritsugu thought inquisitively. He hadn't suggested it to him but knowing Shirou he would already have figured it out.

"Now that I have unlocked my magical powers I must train to unlock my full potential." Shirou said doing a silly pose. "First to the inspiration machine and then to the bath."

Shirou ran away into the direction of the Tv, obviously going to watch one of the many shows he had indulged himself upon in the last week and for the first time in a while Kiritsugu smiled.

Author note. Still have momentum so I thought I should do this. This chapters a bit shorter than the previous one and contains a lot of exposition and for that I apologize. It will be still a few years until Shirou's matured that Kiritsugu and him will rescue Illya. I'm probably going to only be updating in a few more days as I plan the current story arc out. Thank you for reading and please review with anything criticisms or helpfula advice.

Lastly some things about this chapter. Kiritsugu is not cursed he avoided the mud and while he is weakened I have no plans currently of him dying. Secondly Shirou's origin is not known no ritual was done to reveal it. Shirou is a true magician but he has very little idea how to currently implement his power and using it indiscriminately repulses him. Lastly the being that resided in Akasha will not show up but it will as you can see by the title have some influence in the story.