"I want to go the beach," declared Shirou, puffing out his chest. This statement declared more than it first appeared. The statement carried the declaration that not only had his water magecraft bypassed the limits that were offered to him by the pool but that he was mature enough to be able to discretely practice magecraft in the ocean without being detected as well as big and strong enough to swim in the ocean with only a minor amount of detection.

Kiritsugu sighed at this. Shirou's progress in his control over water had been nothing short of outstanding over the two years that he lived with him. However Kiritsugu had been very busy of late. For some reason there were a record number of dead apostle outbreaks over this summer and he had recently taken up work with the church in an attempt to save as many lives as possible. Needless to say he was currently on standby waiting for news of a particular vicious dead apostle that had done research into heavy crystalline structures. Apparently the dead apostle was trying to recreate the make-up of Type Mercury. It was an impossible task but one that raised the hackles of church and mage associations alike.

Kiritsugu looked at Shirou and raised his eyebrows. "Don't you have school," he said.

"Nope," Shirou replied smug. "Term ended last Friday. Even if I did go it's not as if I would learn anything." That smug look on his face widened. "First in my class and I don't have to study, if I wasn't aware of how amazing I am I would call the Japanese education system useless."

Unfortunately that was true. Shirou's personal connection to Akasha allowed him to observe and comprehend the answers at a higher level than should be possible at his age. At a mere ten years old Shirou had a better grasp of some subjects than Kiritsugu. He had to hold back a smile as he remembered the event at his English class. Shirou was not paying attention and his English teacher repeatedly tried to catch him out. For the first few times Shirou read the English words flawlessly but it continued to the extent it became an annoyance to the boy. The next time he was called out he stood and performed a flawless dramatic rendition of the text using Shakespearean English, putting on different voices while subtly mocking the teacher. It had gotten Shirou suspended for three days, during which Shirou took the opportunity to work on his magecraft, and after returning both he and the teacher decided to ignore each other.

"Don't worry dad," Shirou said. "The tiger is also off, we can go together and she can catch some sun while I find a quiet spot to practice my magecraft." He jangled his wrist displaying a simple mystic code that he built years ago, the purpose of which was to draw in water to the vicinity of his hands and infuse it with his prana. "Besides I've got this and the area around the beach is so humid it will be like I'm in my strongest form."

"The tiger as you call her might not want to come." Kiritsugu said though he didn't believe it. Despite being at each other's throats a lot of the time and the difference in age they were actually great friends. Taiga would volunteer to take care of Shirou knowing that Shirou's independence streak would not allow him to disrupt her own holiday too much.

Shirou shook his head, "All I have to do is suggest that she could use the time at the beach to pick up guys." He smirked, "You know how she's been ever since you turned her down."

Kiritsugu looked away that was not one of his happiest moments but in the end it didn't turn out too poorly. Taiga and he remained friends and Taiga had turned a portion of her boundless energy into procuring a partner before she got too old, a task which she took to failing with a remarkable aptitude.

But Kiritsugu had one trump card. "Why don't you just go swim at exciting splash," he said.

At this Shirou flushed and looked away. Shirou had gone to the indoor swimming pool a few months ago and while he enjoyed the first few times after the sixth time he came back and stated that he was never going there again. Kiritsugu had still not managed to get the story out of him but it was a good way to shut him up when necessary.

Kiritsugu took a deep breath. It was time to discourage Shirou from going to the beach with Taiga while he was not present.

Shirou

"And that's how I convinced dad to let me go to the beach," Shirou recounted to Taiga as he sat on the side seat of the convertible.

"Ha, ha," Taiga chuckled uproariously. "Don't forget Shirou, you promised that I could pick the meals twice if we did this."

"Yeah, yeah," Shirou said. "Hey Taiga while you attempt to find yourself a boyfriend I'm going to do some heavy duty swimming."

"Hey, I could get a boyfriend any time I want," Taiga yelled. "In fact I have a date tomorrow." Taiga pouted. "I bet you he's going to be a kind wonderful guy and we're going to get along well."

Shirou looked at Taiga and arched his eyebrow. "Bet you it's a disaster."

"You're on," Taiga roared. "But Shirou is it okay to leave you like this to swim on your own," she said with some concern. "You're still only ten, are you sure you don't want to stay with me."

Shirou's eyes softened. "Nah, go have fun. I'm sure you've got some of your friends on the beach. If I don't meet you back by five then something terrible has happened to me and you should call my old man. He'll track me down."

"Don't even joke about that," Taiga huffed as they pulled up to the beach. While Osaka wasn't the busiest beach by far due to the fact school was out it was relatively busy. As such it definitely did not fit into his ideal of what a good place to practice his magecraft was.

As such as soon as they parked Shirou swung his feet out car flipping his body out of the seat and into the parking are. He waved goodbye to Taiga and left her to park the car as he headed down the beach in an attempt to find a more quiet stretch of water.

It took him nearly half and hour until he came to the spot. A quiet cove guarded by rocks but still allowing access to the ocean so that he could both practice his magecraft and enjoy the water.

Shirou quickly changed into his swimming attire a pair of trunks and a white t-shirt and began to warm. The image of water exploding from the ground clicked in his head and he was flooded with the soothing warmth of his magic circuits. He fed a minor amount of prana into his personal mystic code, which he privately to himself named Princess Blue, and was gratified to see about a cubic metre of water lift up and begin to hover around his hands in a vaguely spiral shape.

Shirou had after many months of trial and error found there were two ways of manipulating water. The first way was to place his hands near a source of water and inject his prana into it, eventually after a lot of training he was able to get it to a state that if his circuits were active with a nearby water source he could manipulate the water giving it simple commands like creating a shield or firing it like a bullet with only a seconds concentration. The major advantage of this was that it took relatively minimal effort. He quickly used the water gathered around his hands and fired four bullets of water in different direction against the rocks. The water travelled quickly and made dents in the rocks. Shirou frowned, he didn't have the equipment to measure the speed but he still felt the water was too slow. His water was not evadable by most humans, but that was still not good enough to deal with the inhabitants of the moonlight world.

The second way he could control the water was to simply create the water with his prana. This technique was actually based on projection that Kiritsugu had showed him. While projection was mainly based on solids Shirou had spent enough time training with water that he was able to bypass that restriction. While it cost a lot to create initially Shirou could do a lot more with it. Shirou stopped feeding prana to his mystic code allowing the water pooled around his hands to drop unceremoniously to the floor. He took a breath and briefly concentrated before summoning prana and creating about a liter and a half of water. Shirou then once again fired off four shots at the rocks noting as he did that the conjured water went quite a bit faster. This time however when the water bounced off the rocks he pulled on the connection to the water that was created of his prana and forced it to strike the rocks again and again.

That was the essence of why he wanted to train at the beach. He wanted to combine the advantages of both styles or at least eliminate the disadvantages. To that end he stepped into the water pumping his prana as he went into the ocean and forced the water to rise. He spent the next few hours trying to get as much work done as possible. Shirou created waves trying to keep his prana from flowing out of the water for as long as possible and manipulate it from a distance as well as practicing turning his prana into water efficiently.

Unfortunately the idle day was not bound to last. Shirou had succumbed to the temptation of his own cooking and started eating his lunch at 11-30 giving his circuits some time to cool off from the practice when he felt it. His sixth sense tingled as he was assaulted by the sensation of ripples. Kiritsugu had long ago taught him how to sense magic. When Kiritsugu had used a simple fire spell to show him initially he likened it to the feeling the ripples from a droplet in a glass of water.

If Kiritsugu's two line spell was a mere water drop the encroaching feeling of prana was a typhoon. Shirou shot to his feet scanning the sea for any evidence of the object that had created such a huge sensation of magecraft. He found himself involuntary sweating a bit before he forcefully calmed down. Flaring up his circuits he walked over to the meeting place of sea and sand and purposefully stuck his foot in the surf.

"[Poseidon's Eye]," he intoned and the powerful spell took effect using the medium of water to sense out all objects in a five kilometre radius. His blood went cold. There were two objects and while the first one that was floating three and a half kilometres away was fearsome it was dwarfed by the monster beneath the waves.

Poseidon's eye used his affinity of water as a medium to carry a miniscule amount of his prana. While the amount of prana was so miniscule that it could not be detected it itself served as a medium to use his special ability. However objects that contained a lot of prana would cause the small amount of prana to bounce off and thus he couldn't get an accurate reading. It would be more accurate to call [Poseidon's Eye] a reverse sensor spell as it was able to detect everything but beings with great prana.

Thus while he could detect numerous fish, a few dolphins and even a couple large sharks he was only able to get the vague impression of something about forty metres and shaped like a boat for the floating object.

The other object was even worse. Shirou could only see it as a hole in space indicating that it had blocked off one hundred percent of his prana. Worse still the blank spot that represented the monster under the waves had shifted a bit when he used his ability indicating that it had detected his prana. That required water affinity beyond what is possible for a human. Shirou was filled with both fear and trepidation at the thought of actually meeting that creature.

Still though if he was sensible he wouldn't go near either the boat or the beast. Shirou turned to walk back onto the shore and found himself utterly unable to take a step. His curiosity warred with his sense of self-preservation. With a sigh he realized his conservative side had lost. If he walked away now he would probably regret it forever. He walked forward into the ocean, sunk beneath the waves and activated his favourite spell ever.

"[Neptune's Breath]," he intoned silently as he took a deep breath water gracefully bowing out of the race into his lungs. His reserves recovered by rest and a good meal he wrapped himself in a blanket of controlled water and sped towards the boat. By all the gods he loved that ability. Technically this was the first time he had used it in the ocean but he had already tried it with both fresh and saltwater. But that had been mainly him sticking his head under the water in the bathtub. Kiritsugu had firmly vetoed him remodelling an extra room into an indoor swimming pool.

As Shirou approached the object he began to feel the ripples get stronger as if the whole boat was a construct of magecraft. He once more used [Poseidon's Eye] noting that the monster down below had not moved and that the boat was only a few hundred metres ahead of him. Swimming forward he got his first look at the boat. It was magnificent as if it had just come out of a shipyard as opposed to sailing the seas. There was not a scratch on the ship.

Coming to the side of the boat he poked his head out the water. Then he slowly lifted himself using the sea to push himself aboard. His snuck up the side of the rigging and got a first glance at the odd crew.

"What the hell?" thought Shirou almost struck dumb. This looks like some sort of seventeenth century pirate ship. "What's a thing like this doing off the coast of Osaka?" He pulled himself aboard the apparently deserted ship. "Hmm it is a nice ship though wonder if I can persuade the old man to let me keep it?" Shirou mused to himself.

"That might be little difficult I am afraid I've been allocated this ship and I wouldn't really like to give it up, ya see," a voice came from the side.

Shirou leapt to the side away from the voice noting as he did so that the empty ship was not so empty. Standing not ten feet away was a brown-bearded man wearing a disgustingly typical pirates outfit. He had the hat, he had the boots, and he had the trenchcoat. A stray thought went through Shirou's mind that he pulled the trenchcoat look off far worse than his father did.

Shirou eyed them warily, "where did you come from," he said.

At this the pirate chuckled. "You board my ship and you stand around and ask questions." At this he became serious, "No I'm afraid I'm going to have to capture you and take you to my master." He grimaced. "Sorry kid I don't really want to do this but I don't have a choice he owns my soul, ya see. Prepare yourself."

Shirou took the brief moment to examine the captain and he subsequently nearly blacked out from the information. Kiritsugu, all of the most complex appliances, even Kiritsugu's Thompson Contender which inflicted the effects of his origins onto a person. None of that compared to this.

In that brief instant he saw an army. Trapped and dammed to the vessels that they served upon in a world owned by a monster. Parade. Parade. Parade. That damned word resounded through his head showing the suffering that beast inflicted upon the trapped.

He came back to reality to block a sword heading straight towards his chest. Instantly a wall of water arose, his mystic code drawing in water from the drenched and humid atmosphere as well as the water all around the boat. He immediately counter attacked sending four water bullets at his chest but they were all dodged by an inhuman swiftness.

"Right," Shirou chided himself. "Not human don't forget about that." He immediately created another wall of water but had to jump backwards as the wall only stalled the sword swung at him by a second.

"Huh is he using some form of reinforcement on his sword," Shirou thought idly. He scanned the sword briefly and his blood ran cold. "Fuck, I'm in a reality marble. Parade is a reality marble." Somehow the monster had drawn this ship and the captain straight out of a reality marble. He wasn't sure that if he killed the captain he could just be brought back to life.

"Okay," Shirou think what can I do. "Think, think. Wait." He examined the captain using his power, that he must really name in future so he can stop thinking of it as "his power", and "oh my god he's got a gun." Shirou summoned a wave of water and threw it at the captain knocking him off balance and causing his shots to go wide.

"Hey," he said to the man trying to kill him. "Hypothetically if you were free and alive would you choose to be liberated from this?"

The captain was on his feet again almost immediately and swinging his sword, which Shirou now recognized as a cutlass at his head. "Aye lad. But what can you do."

Shirou ducked under the cutlass, the blade taking a few hairs off the top of his head. The captain continued, "I've been like this for so long I've given up hope. What can you do," he said stabbing at the off balance Shirou.

"This," said Shirou and grabbed his hand. Using the second part of his mysterious power on the water. Normally it would take a couple of seconds to gather the willpower to effect a change to an object but Shirou was intimately familiar with water in general and thus it took only a split-second to affect a change.

The concept of freezing was imposed on the water and the captain was stopped dead in his tracks, the ice had instantly frozen and prevented him from moving a single muscle.

Shirou had taken the captains statement that he would choose to be liberated from this hell as permission. Reached into the captain's very being and tore to shreds the concept of [parade] that applied to the captain.

For a second the captain froze and looked in Shirou's eyes. "Johnathon Wellberg," he said. "That is the name of the man whose eternal gratitude you possess." And with that statement he faded away to nothing.

"Ha, ha," Shirou laughed. He had done it, his first fight. He nearly died, he thought. Slowly overcome with fatigue he sank to his knees. He felt mentally drained and while he had not depleted his reserves of prana his reckless fighting had caused them to take a dip.

Suddenly he felt a ripple. Not wanting to believe it, dreading the outcome he raised his head.

The ship was filling up with other pirates. The death of the captain must have triggered something because they materialized out of nowhere. He noticed with the feeling of despair that all of them were under the effects of [parade].

"No, no,no,no," Shirou thought frantically. I won. I defeated the captain. Despair welled up as he saw guns raised. The crewmen keeping their distance. He tried to rise to get off the ship where it was safer but his legs refused to move.

"Is this how it ends," he idly thought as all the guns fired at once. He closed his eyes anticipating the pain.

But no pain came. He waited a second. Two seconds. Five seconds. The sound of gunshots kept repeating but no bullets hit him. He opened his eyes to see the back of a woman standing before him.

She was taller than he was. He estimated over a foot taller. She was tanned and wore a two piece bathing suit with a polka dot pattern. She had blond hair. And she was impossibly dangerous.

Even looking at her all his senses screamed at him to surrender. To give up. This woman was so out of his league he might as well be walking to the moon.

The woman turned around and smirked and Shirou idly noticed she had bright blue eyes.

The gunshots had not stopped but a bullet never reached her. The woman slowly and dramatically raised her hand and Shirou found himself unconsciously holding his breath.

Then she brought her hand down and the place where the pirates were standing, the boat and indeed the very space seemed to be instantly wiped from existence. The boat rocked and the lady leapt at him wrapping him up in her arms and dragging him down into the ocean below.

Author Note. Can you guess who the woman was. BTW Shirou never actually sensed her. She remained hidden from his sight. Against my better judgement I stayed up late to finish the story. Please read and review. I'm very tired now so goodbye.