Shirou's dreams were full of the images of bullets tearing through flesh while the image of a massive fleet of ships floated in the background of his dreams.
He started awake throwing off the covers of his bed. "Wait," he corrected, "this wasn't my bed."
The eiderdown was a deep scarlet and the combined with the soft feeling of the matress. He felt more comfortable then he had in a while. His futon at home was perfectly comfortable but this bed had ascended past the ranks of mere comfort into the realm in which only the furniture gods can go. This was the kind of bed that walked around calling all the other beds mongrels and deriding them as cheap copies.
"Wait this is stupid," Shirou forcefully pulled back his thoughts on track as he scanned some more of the room. It appeared to be some sort of medieval castle structure with stone walls and a high roof. Turning his head to the side he jerked out of bed at the sight in front of him.
To his left there was a large glass window. Outside the water was all manner of aquatic life swimming through water, he idly noticed a school of tuna. All of that was overshadowed by the dark shadow that slowly moved through the ocean. Now actually looking at it, he concluded that it must have been the beast below the waves and it was in the shape of a large whale.
"Magnificent isn't it," a voice appeared next to him. Once again Shirou started whipping his head around as he once again saw the woman that had saved him on the ship. He idly noticed now that he was not in imminent danger of dying that she was quite absurdly voluptuous in a way that most Japanese women weren't that combined with her blond hair that ran smoothly down her back and sides and her blue eyes gave her the appearance of a handsome foreigner. The second thing Shirou noticed was that she was still in the bikini that did a poor job of concealing her curves.
"If I had gone through puberty, I would probably be having distinct problems talking to you right now," Shirou said unashamedly.
"Oho, what a compliment," the lady raised her hand up to her forehead. "And from such a cutie also. You're going to break a lot of hearts when you're older kid."
She smiled. "Now tell me little magician, what's somebody like you doing in this spot of the ocean."
Shirou tensed and instinctively went to analyse the lady using his power and immediately regretted it. Sumire, apostle ancestor, and marble phantasm; these words flashed through his head accompanied by terrible meanings. Images of blood and death wormed their way inside his mind and he began to feel light-headed.
Shirou fell off the bed, a small part of his brain realizing that he was wearing pajama's now, meaning that he must have had his clothes changed by the aforementioned Sumire. His breaths felt shallow as if he couldn't get enough oxygen, and his heart was beating in his chest to the extent that it was painful. He scrambled to his feet, noting that his legs were shaking and his palms were sweaty, to see Sumire looking sadly at him.
"I see," she said, "you're just a kid. Thought so." She favoured him with a pitying look. "You're far too young to be fighting at your age. You have amazing levels of prana and as a magician you are truly a force of nature but you're just too young."
"I took down that captain didn't I?" Shirou said defensively. "He was much stronger than a human."
Sumire sighed again, "Indeed you did. It was quite a good show for somebody your age. That captain was at the level of a standard vampire; a being that surpasses human speed and toughness. You actually took him down remarkably easy. No," she shook her head, "for your age fighting at that level is exceptional. As expected of a magician, you truly stand apart from normal rationality."
"Magician," Shirou said. "I don't…"
"You're a few centuries too young to be lying to me kid." Again the female dead apostle smile showing a mouth full of fanged teeth. "I saw what you did; you took an object from his very reality marble and deleted it from existence. While I'm not an expert on magic, I am an expert on magecraft and what I saw was no magecraft."
"What do you want?" Shirou, blurted out. "Why did you save me and why are you keeping me here?"
"Who says I want anything from you kid?" Sumire replied turning away from him and heading out of the room. "Now follow me kid we've going to talk about what the next step is."
"What next step," Shirou yelled as he reluctantly followed the lady.
"Why to take down that Svelten bastard. He is definitely coming after you now." She turned to look at Shirou. "While he won't have recognized what you did as magic he would know that a young boy somehow inflicted damage on his very soul. He was already going to come over to try and capture his prize already, what you did just hastened his actions."
"Why are you helping me?" Shirou continued yelling. "You're an apostle ancestor. Shouldn't you be helping him or draining my blood or something."
"Nah, I don't really go for that factionalism bullshit and I haven't drunk human blood in five centuries. Nope it's an all seafood diet for me." She turned towards him and mock stage-whispered. "It's how I keep my figure."
They stopped at a door that had way more locks than was sensible and Sumire opened it and lead Shirou into a large room with cupboards taking up all the space from floor to roof where the air was noticeably drier. "We've arrived welcome to the crown jewel of my castle, the centre of my oceanic empire, and the place where I hold all my meetings. Welcome Shirou, to the booze room."
Shirou froze. For a moment he stood there looking at Sumire his face carefully blank of all emotions. After a while he spoke.
"Got any sherry," he said.
"Yup, third cupboard on the right," Sumire said already pouring herself some liquor from a brown bottle.
Shirou obtained a small wine glass and poured himself some while waiting for Sumire to continue.
"Any way Svelten's parade takes the souls of all the opponents he's killed. Probably woulda happened to you if I wasn't there. Svelten came here to hunt down a monster, he wants to kill it and add it to his reality marble. When Svelten obtains Moby Dick his rank amongst the ancestors will increase and the power will shift into Altrouge's camp, kinda like a discount PM."
"Okay now you're fucking with me," Shirou said deadpanned.
"It exists," Sumire said slamming her hands down onto the table, her voice already noticeably slurred. "Haven't you already sensed the monster below?"
"That's Moby Dick?" Shirou said dumbfounded. "Who the hell decided to name that thing after the book? Moreover why is some epic level phantasmal beast doing off the coast of Osaka."
"Fucked if I know," Sumire slurred. "But we gotta stop him. We're a magician and another apostle ancestor we should be able to at least put up a bit of a fight."
"How can I?" Shirou yelled. "I nearly died against the vampire. If it wasn't for your assistance I would have died in my own blood riddled with bullets." He choked back the memory. "Why do you think I'll be able to do it now?"
Sumire paused from her drinking and shook her head. "I'll probably lose to him, but if you take out enough of his minions I might be able to sink his boat. If that happens he's screwed. Dead apostles can't swim and he's a pirate so that means he can't swim twice over."
"But you saw how I did I lost I couldn't do anything against all those crew there were just too many." He looked up at Sumire who was giving him a curious glance. I'm not strong enough.
Sumire swirled her liquor looking contemplatively. "Do you know why you lost?" At Shirou's dumbfounded look she continued. "You had post battle fatigue, probably as a result of the fact that this was your first battle ever. Your prana reserves were fine. Even throwing water around like a drunken monkey you could have swept the board with those suckers." She took a gulp of the liquid. You had no injuries, you weren't even tired. That's quite impressive for your age. Care to tell me what mystic code you had to keep you going so strong and if there's a copy."
She paused, "Nah probably not." She winked. "If your stamina stays as good I may have to ask you to come see this poor onee-sama when you're older."
Shirou flushed deliberately not thinking about the fact that she was still only wearing that bikini.
"Secondly," and at this she paused looking drunk but serious. "You're too slow by miles both your reaction time and your actual movement speed are while very good for a ten year old still far below what you need to be able to fight against these opponents. Seriously the only reason you were able to survive against that man was because you stayed out of melee till the end, the boat was wet and that limited his speed and the fact that he wasn't really trying to kill you."
Shirou took a sip of his sherry looking downcast as if he knew what he was going to happen.
"So my question is this." She affixed him with a stare her eyes briefly flashing. "From what I've seen the fourth magic deals with analysing an object's," at this she paused. "Origin, character, role, concept, something like that and changing it. What is so scary in your past that you refuse to even acknowledge your own origin?
They sat in silence for ten minutes. Shirou sipping his sherry delicately while Sumire demolished her liquor with the subtlety of a rat in a cheese store.
Finally Shirou spoke, "About two years ago I lost everything in a fire my family died in front of me and the pain was unbearable, I think."
"You think," said Sumire turning away from her rapidly depleting wine collection. She made a gesture with her hands as if to tell him to continue and stop stalling.
"I lost my memories of them in the fire. I remember some basic information such as the fact that I had siblings and I think I had a grandfather but aside that." He tapped on his head. "Empty."
"I see. So you want to avoid the pain that you will feel when you remember what you lost. No that's understandable but not completely the truth." Sumire looked into his eyes looking past the pools of liquid; her gaze seemed to dig about into his skull. "Hmm, I see." She looked at him. "You're scared."
"I'm not," Shirou yelled.
"No, you are," Sumire spoke resolutely. "That's okay to know oneself is the scariest possible thing you can do. I've seen strong men learn they are weak, good men learn they are evil and brave men learn they were cowards all along." She put down the bottle of alcohol she was currently pouring. "That knowledge can kill a man just as surely as blade or poison. But unfortunately you are in no position to hold back. Enemies are sure to come for you and as a magician your enemies will be greater than most." She paused, "look kid I like you. I don't really need a helping hand in taking out that Svelten bastard. But you need to see the fight. You need to learn what you're up against." She quickly stole the remaining sherry out of Shirou's hands and downed it in one gulp. "Are you ready to do this?"
"Yes Sumire, I think I…"
"Onee-sama," Sumire corrected.
"What," Shirou deadpanned.
"In exchange for giving you that advice I want you to call me Onee-sama." Sumire crossed her arms beneath her breasts.
Shirou smiled a trace of nostalgia from a source he couldn't identify coming over him. "Thank you, Onee-Sama."
Sumire squealed, "Oh, I could just eat you up. Wait not actuallt eat you, I said I don't eat humans, more like eat you sexually but it's platonic."
They both paused for a moment. "Let's just do this," Shirou said and focused his powers on himself.
The first thing he noticed was Avalon, his constant companion. He had seen a hell of a lot of use of it over the years. From burns when he was cooking, to the time he cut most of his finger off while cooking to the time he got a whole jar of chili paste in his eye when…
Now that he thought about maybe chefs walk with death as well.
Past Avalon he saw the memories of his last two years with Kiritsugu. He examined his time at school; while he was on good terms with some people he didn't have any close friends. His magic was a large portion of his life and it was something he could not share that subsequently set him apart from his compatriots. Even then he still found himself taking an interest in his fellow children's lives. Their worries and concerns were so petty now but they each contained a seed of the person they would become.
He saw his many experiments at cooking. While he started barely a fraction over Kiritsugu in skill his mastery of the culinary arts had rapidly swelled and he had reached the coveted designation of being actually pretty good. He enjoyed cooking and teasing the tiger with his cooking as well as subtly mocking her lack of proper housewife traits. Even then he would never deny her food. He loved cooking both native and foreign dishes and he loved the smug sense of satisfaction he got from watching somebody who was genuinely happy to eat one of his dishes.
He saw his many attempts at magecraft. Kiritsugu had always been so exasperated with his way of going about with his magecraft but there was this air of satisfaction. Unlike Kiritsugu who learnt spells that were the most effective to do his job or a typical magus who searched for the Akasha. Shirou created spells that he was either interested in, like his water breathing skill which took him eight months to get right or that looked cool like his instantaneous freeze or his multi-water bullets. While Kiritsugu tried to teach him how to make a bounded field Shirou succeeded magnificently in the most infuriating way possible. He memorized it and then created a weak boundary field and using his magic altered it to be conceptually identical to the bounded field Kiritsugu set up. Shirou still laughed at his reaction to this day.
He came to the memories of the fire. While they were bad and he still shivered at the feeling of absolute evil contained in the flames he had long come to terms with the event.
He saw the gap a portion of his memories, his soul that had been burnt out by the fire. He hesitated for a fraction of a second and then took the plunge.
"It was too easy," were his thoughts. He remembered his parents' names and he shed a silent tear for them. He was a baby that was never planned to happen but they had loved him anyway. Three children were considered too much for a magus family but his parents had never made him feel like he wasn't wanted. They had spoken to him once when he was younger about learning his own magecraft distinct from the Aozaki family and they believed he would become a great magus beyond compare. It was ironic but the very day after they died he reached Akasha and became a magician. Nowadays his magic tended towards cool and powerful elemental spells.
His siblings had left before he had even been able to read and aside from some brief half-faded memories he had no recollection of them at all.
He remembered his grandfather a strict old man who he did not remember having any good recollections of. He obviously wasn't important to me.
He looked up to notice Sumire staring at the wall. He felt wetness on his face and realized that his tears weren't actually so silent after all. Wiping his eyes he once again focused on his very being. His body, soul and mind were now all analysed, quantified, aggregated and translated into a record of his existence. He was [Shirou].
He stopped shocked. There was one part of his soul that he wasn't able to quantify. No he wasn't even able to analyse the anomaly. He dug deeper into the records of his existence and came across one memory, one portion of his being that refused to be forgotten and assimilate into the greater collective. It was the memory of the voice in Akasha. Even today after having seen true monsters in the form of a dead apostle ancestor and a living world filled with countless ships that being still stood head and shoulders above the creatures that existed on Gaia.
Shirou smiled ruefully, "How could I have forgotten," he mumbled to himself. "When I survived the fire, when I returned from the root, when I claimed Avalon, I took the name of the strongest being I have ever met." He clenched his fist his eyes shining with determination. "And one day I'm going to live up to that name," he stated his resolve renewed.
[Shirou Inke]
xxx
They sat aboard some kind of rickety raft that Sumire had dragged out of one of the many rooms of the castle. The day had long turned to dusk and while Sumire was humming to herself while idly fishing, Shirou had spent the time just examining himself. While he wasn't naturally narcissistic, and he would deny that he was until his dying breath. He was well aware that his body had always been in good condition. He trained fairly frequently and he was both pretty strong and fast for his age, the presence of Avalon letting his body build up muscle quickly when exercising.
Now however he saw it in a different light. His body was tough yes, but it was full of imperfections, parts that were not strong enough and parts that sluggishly accomplished their job with a mere adequate performance. Compared to Sumire's body, and at this he stealthily looked at the women next to him, his body was simple wheel and pulley set compared to a production line. The female vampire next to him noticed him looking and gave him a sultry look. "Ahh, Shirou you're looking at me again." She put her hands on her cheeks and shook her head. "Could it be he's entranced with my beauty? Is he dreaming of taking me away and ravishing me?"
Shirou coughed, "Firstly I doubt anybody could do anything to you against your will. Secondly and I mean this in an entirely platonic way, your body is incredible."
"Oh," Sumire replied as she started flexing her arms, "are you checking out these guns."
"Something like that, but it's different. Not only are there no perfections in your body but it appears to be unrealistically strong. I mean I can see how it was efficient and effective it is. Much more than any human I've seen but it appears to work better than can be physically explained." Shirou shrugged his shoulders. "I'm not explaining it well enough am I?"
"Ahh," Sumire snapped her fingers. "Mystery, yeah it's something that all old things get. Moby down below is probably dripping in it. Usually only phantasmal beasts and us ancestors get it. Maybe as a magician you can get it if your body diverges enough from what can be called human. Don't worry about that now. It makes things tougher."
Sumire looked quizzically at him. "Didn't you learn this at magus school?" She smiled, "Or are you one of those guys that just plays around with magecraft until you find something that works." She smiled at Shirou's flustered look. "Don't worry I like guys like that," she said.
"Now onto the important stuff," she paused, "why is your bracelet flashing."
"It's kind of my alarm that says I've stayed out to late. I'm going to get an earful from my old man when he gets to me." He blushed at that.
"Okay," Sumire smiled, "now for the important one, why are you sitting on a raft waiting for a showdown with a dead apostle ancestor who can kill you with a snap of his fingers." She continued smiling as she pulled on she cast out her rod again. "Doesn't seem to conducive to your overall health does it now."
Shirou gazed out at the ocean. "It's simple his reality marble, Parade, disgusts me. While Im usually easy-going about most things, that thing is not something I can permit to exist in my ideal world." He turned towards Sumire and smiled. "Besides I can analyse you remember, you haven't killed anybody in the last four centuries, you're a pussycat."
Sumire was suddenly standing over him faster than he could react to her hands on his shoulders in an iron embrace. "What did you say brat," she said her voice crushing in its intensity.
Shirou looked at her and then slowly raised his hand and petted her face. "Pussycat," he said.
Sumire fell down laughing. Then she leapt up immediately no sign of playfulness. "He's here," she said no trace of humour in her voice.
Shirou stepped to the edge of the raft and dipped his foot in the water. "[Poseidon's eye]," he intoned ignoring the strange look Sumire gave him and definitely not blushing.
Immediately as his prana dispersed through the water he felt Moby Dick, who was much closer to the surface now. But that wasn't what shocked him, the fleet of sixty ships was what momentarily made him lose his breath.
Sumire jumped up and started stretching. "I guess playtime is over huh," she said sounding disappointed. "And I could be drinking booze, Shirou this is why you don't owe people favours."
She suddenly yelled out, "Svelten you bastard turn back and let me get back to my drinking or you'll regret it."
The words echoed for a brief moment. Sumire appeared relaxed but quickly analysing her Shirou could tell she was on guard.
The strike came in an instant one second Sumire was standing by his side and the next she had backhanded a cutlass that was headed slice Shirou in two with her right hand and with her left hand had chucked him in the direction of the boats. Shirou had only got enough time to get a brief glimpse of the vampire Svelten, idly noticing that he looked too young for a man with white hair, before he was sent soaring hundreds of metres towards the boats. He didn't bother activating [Neptune's Breath] but instead wrapped the water around and flung himself on to the boat.
Sumire
"Damn, he stuck the landing nicely," she thought idly as she battered away another cutlass blow from Svelten, idly adjusting the air around the blade to keep the edge away from her knuckles.
"Rita better thank me for this," she thought. "Nah, actually I had a good time, got to meet had some liquor and even went whale watching. What kind of nation could harm those magnificent beasts," she thought unknowingly making Shirou feel defensive as he blasted off a crew zombies head with a high pressure blast of water.
She swung a fist at Svelten and as he moved to block it, discretely used her marble phantasm and whacked him with the air that surrounded both of them causing him to fly back forty metres where a boat appeared out of nowhere below him and he landed on the deck.
"Geez, you getting jealous seeing me with a younger guy Svelten," Sumire gave him a wink. "Sorry luv it would never work out between us. You're just not my type."
"As usual your wit lacks something vital, Sumire. Actual humour. That insect managed to destroy one of my favourites, I couldn't let him live for that insult." He paused, "it's not too late Sumire all I want is the boy and the whale. You can still leave without recompense, I am dead apostle number eight while you are only dead apostle number twenty-two. I am feared throughout the world as a harbinger of calamity while you are tolerated as a drunken layabout." He looked at her one more time sizing her up. "Go back to your bottles Sumire before I send you to Davy Jones' Locker."
"Okay," Sumire said still cheerful. "I'll just go... SURPRISE ATTACK!
At that she reached to the world around her and translated her position right in front of Svelten's smug face punching down with all her might. He attempted to block with his cutlass but the mystic code that was probably worth more than the vaults of some magus families snapped like a twig and he was forced to jump back. The deck shattered beneath the awesome force of Sumire's punch and a crack appeared along the middle of the boat nearly splitting the whole thing. Svelten looked shocked for a moment then he simply sighed.
"So be it," he said. Behind him from nowhere men started to materialize. Some wore pirate's clothes, some wore clothes from various navies and some wore no identifying outfits at all.
Some carried pistols, some carried swords and some even carried mystic codes. Confronted by the mass of opponents Sumire merely smiled, bunched up her fists and charged.
Shirou
"I think I underestimated how tough this bastard must be," Shirou thought to himself as a ripple of heated and pressurized water burst through the maw of a shark killing it instantly.
His battle had started fine he had boarded the ship and immediately decapitated the first man to cross his path with a single kick. His new style hastily developed while sitting watching Sumire fish, well to be honest it sucked. Shirou hated to use reinforcement despite Avalon healing him of all his wounds because he despised the fact that the difference between perfect reinforcement and a disastrous failure was so close together as to be only a fraction of a unit of prana. Even when he finally started analysing himself six or seven hours ago he didn't feel like using reinforcement. This was mostly down to the fact that it was such a generic style of fighting and partly because he couldn't remember how to do it.
So he had improvised in the six or seven hours while trying to keep his mind off the fact that he was gearing up to help take on an ancestor and he had come up with a sloppy solution that he was sure without the use of Avalon would have sent him to the hospital.
Shirou's magic may have been already been unique in the world but he tried his best to make his magecraft also. Kiritsugu mainly used time-alter magecraft handed down by his clan but he when he used minor manipulation of the elements he used some western style. That was when Kiritsugu dropped the news to Shirou that while many people using the thaumaturgical foundation makes it more durable and less likely for spells to fail this had the downside of making it weaker.
Shirou was not impressed and the result had led to him with both the power of his magic and his unmatched creativity and determination to create his own foundation. This was done by him writing a close to one hundred page report on how his spell foundation developed, what the various principles are and a few frankly embarrassing rants about the superiority of water as an element. Shirou was inspired by the gods and the idea of the age of the gods and so he tried to fill his brand of magic with "magic that could have been used by gods."
Quite frankly that was the pinnacle that his magic had ever been used for. Trying to impart the quality of "realness" on a fake magical system so that Gaia would not reject it had taken him over a thousand tries and months after months of work. Even then he had to shore up the system every fortnight as a few cracks would appear.
This newness gave him an instinctive knowledge over how to create new spells in a far shorter amount of time at the price of having to shore up the foundation a lot sooner. His new spells that he developed was his way of replicating and in time improving on the standard reinforcement. He called it [Ryuijin's perfect body] a technique that manipulated the water in his body hardening the water in the skin cells and manipulating the water in his muscles to move his limbs faster than ever before.
Using that new form he had gone through the first ship like a typhoon through a village. His hands were propelled forward with humongous speed and pressure, easily crushing the bones and breaking the body of those who appeared before him. While any bullets or weapons coming his way did very little damage to his hard skin. Due to inexperience he mainly focused on reinforcing his front and summoned water to block off any attempts at flanking him. Anybody who had escaped his melee range was brought down by gusts of seawater, his own conjured water or even their own blood that littered the deck.
Within no time whatsoever the ship was cleared and he had dived into the water to track down the next ship. That was where the problems appeared.
Apparently Parade keeping the soul and thus the power of whatever it killed didn't apply only to sailors. Instead Shirou found himself battling against a hoard of sharks. These foes were significantly tougher than the sailors. The first one had nearly taken his head off and the subsequent retaliatory punch that would have killed a sailor only knocked the shark back to retreat and try again. What was worse was that the sharks were actively preventing him from heading for the other ships. He had long dropped [Ryuujin's perfect body] and now was using both [Poseidon's eye] and [Neptune's Breath] liberally to stay alive.
Shirou quickly manipulated the water sending spikes of moving water that did nothing but give the shark a gentle push. "Think Shirou," he said to himself. "What can I do? Temperature changes are out, they're sharks and I don't know what species half could be tropical and the other half could be polar. I can't use the pressure to crush them because while I do that I'll be vulnerable." He shook his head if only there was some way of making waves of water deadly underwater. His head snapped up. "That's it." He grabbed a handful of water and chucked it at a shark swimming below him, as he released the handful he altered the water using his magic to add the concept of explosive to it.
It should be noted that Shirou had not yet gained the wisdom and ability to moderate his conceptual imprinting. Only the fact that he hastily reapplied [Ryuujin' perfect body] stopped all his internal organs from being destroyed. As it was he was flung out of the water landing on the deck of a ship. He looked up to see both Sumire and the vampire with white hair staring at him. Standing up he casually ran his hands across his body checking for injuries, causally ignoring the two vampires standing there as well as the lakes of blood that covered the deck.
"You," the white haired vampire Svelten said. "You're the one that cost me one of my favourite captains. It was a grave mistake coming here. I'm going to feed you to the fish."
Shirou ignored him, while he still looked okay and had taken no massive injuries he was really in no condition to fight. His reckless use of his new magic as well as Avalon healing all the cuts and scrapes he got had left his prana at barely over a third.
"Ready to take this guy down," he shouted to Sumire with false bravado.
Sumire smiled back, "ha, we're probably going to both die."
"Fools," Svelten said. "I'm going to have you begging for mercy by the time I'm done with you." More men started materialising behind his back. "And then I'm going to take that damn whale and then AHHHHHHHHH." His voice trailed off into incoherent screaming.
Suddenly the ship they were on as well as all his crew flickered and faded and Sumire, Svelten and Shirou all fell into the ocean.
Sumire and Shirou merely bobbed up and down while Svelten flailed his weakness to water and inability to swim coupled with his mysterious injury left him incapacitated just staying afloat.
Suddenly Shirou was blinded by a bright light. He heard the noise of an engine approaching and rubbed his eyes furiously to clear them. What he saw made him pale. Kiritsugu stood at the boat and he didn't look happy. Without saying a word he brought up his Walther WA2000 and shot Svelten in the head. He then repeated the action again and again until he stopped regenerating and his body had sunk beneath the waves.
Only then did he look at Shirou, "I'm not happy," he said, confirming Shirou's suspicions, "but I'm glad you're okay."
He lifted his hand and pulled Shirou up into the boat. Sumire had somehow got into the boat while nobody was looking.
"Thanks for not shooting me." She said with a smile.
Kiritsugu just drew out a cigarette and started smoking as he started up the engine. "I do want to survive to raise my boy you know." He took another drag. "If I shot you I doubt I would have gotten out alive."
Sumire just gasped, "I could never hurt one of Shirou's friends." She raised an eyebrow out of interest how did you manage to track down Shirou.
Kiritsugu didn't answer but Shirou's eyes flickered down to his bracelet momentarily. "I see." She said.
"Pity today's over," she continued, "you never got to see the whale."
At that Shirou's eyes widened and he looked at Kiritsugu pleadingly.
"I should make that your punishment," Kiritsugu said looking down at Shirou.
"It's a phantasmal beast," Shirou said with a note of desperation in his voice.
Kiritsugu sighed and turned to Sumire. "Do you have a way of calling it up he asked."
"Why of course," Sumire replied and stuck her hand in the water. "Marble Phantasm."
The night was silent for about twenty seconds and then about a hundred metres away the water exploded. The waves buffeted the boat and a dark silhouette blocked out the stars as the whale drifted closer Shirou's mouth dropped open in astonishment, Sumire started grinning madly and even Kiritsugu dropped his cigarette. The whale was huge but greater by far were the ripples it sent to the world just by existing. Shirou analysed the beast and was overcome by the history of it, it was so old and so powerful. A creature that had seen the end of the age of the gods and a creature with so much mystery it warped the world just by existing.
Shirou reached out and he felt that the beast was weighing him up for the moment. And then the beast moved close enough to touch and Shirou laid a hand upon its skin. It felts like nothing he ever saw before and for the first time he comprehended that this beast was not made out of earthly materials but fantasy itself. Overcome with emotion and the stress of the day Shirou fell into a faint with a smile on his face.
For his stunt with the dead apostle ancestor Shirou was grounded for a month. Sumire stopped by from time to time invading their household and teaching Shirou water magic. Shirou was never allowed to go to the beach. Taiga's date failed to a quite excessive degree.
Author note. This was my longest chapter so far. I was going to post halfway through but I didn't feel like an all talking chapter. As I am a new answer I will endeavor to answer all the reviews I get in the hope that it will encourage people to tell me when I fuck up.
DPSS, Alucard Bellsing, The Rupture congrats for being correct.
Rangle Technically he already is a monster. But you're correct. While Zelretch and Aoko are both monsters it is a thing they grow into. Shirou is monstrously strong for a ten year old.
I wonder if you noticed anything. I can't exactly tell you what servant (if any he's going to get) but yes Shirou will be a master of H2O
Guest its not about how hard it is to use the first magic but that it had no immediate methods for life saving. Kiritsugu used Avalon more while saber was gone and Shirou was more injured. He was dying in the hospital. While a master of first magic could probably materialize a cure anything pill at that stage Shirou couldn't.
Darkjaden The fourth magic basically boils down to manipulation of concepts, truth, origin as explained in this chapter. In the typemoon verse everything that exists is recorded by Akasha. Shirou's power allows him to change the records. The power is as broken as it sounds. There is a quote from the wiki about magic that says "if only it ended at the third." The way I've chosen to interpret it in this fic is that the forth and the fifth are by far the most dangerous with the ability to change the past and alter the records they could do some serious damage to society if misused. Do you know counterguardians normally kill new magic users. Shirou isn't dead because he is currently hidden from Alaya's sight. As he grows older that protection will wane however.
Please read and review. I'm finding this writing quite addictive. I will attempt to take a break while I prepare the next arc. Don't be afraid to criticize.