Disclaimer: I own nothing and am not making money off of this.

Shirou was deeply confused as his consciousness slowly returned to him.

He felt weak and was in a good deal of pain, but that was par for the course for him at this point. He'd been in pain for the last nine years, ever since the end of the Holy Grail War. In fact, without Saber's magic energy lingering within Avalon, Shirou would have succumbed to his injuries, the damage done to him by Archer's arm before it was amputated and the Avanger's 'Curses Without End' a long time ago.

But then… How was he still alive now?

Last he remembered, he was saying goodbye to his three wives and daughter as the last of Saber's magic energy ran dry, the six year old Yuri holding back her tears as she saw her father off, Rin, Sakura and Rider barely controlling themselves as well.

There had been nothing they could do. Not after all the damages Shirou's body, mind and soul had suffered. No magic they possessed could stop Curses Without End from snuffing out a human life, especially one as weakened as Shirou had been.

While he had been sad to see them off, Shirou had a good life with them, and loved them all deeply. Perhaps his love managed to win out. Perhaps it was strong enough to let him have another morning.

…No.

Shirou groaned as his eyes opened in the poorly lit room, which smelled of sweat, incense and a bit of burning wood. The place was entirely too hot and his eyes went to a blazing fire in the corner of the room, where something was burning to make the smell.

The bed he was in was unfamiliar and surrounded by a bug net, and the room had various decorations that he didn't recognize… or did he? He couldn't really say. They seemed familiar but…

Damn, his head hurt and his body was killing him… literally.

But as he raised his arm and touched his face, seeing a bit of his bright blue hair out of the corner of his eye, he already knew something wasn't right here.

A quick use of Structural Analysis confirmed two things for Shirou. First, he was not currently in the body of Shirou Emiya. Second, he was currently dying from a mixture of his Od crystalizing inside of his veins and a slow acting poison.

Acting fast, he used reinforcement magecraft to destabilize the bonds that held the poison together, causing it to break down into harmless elements, before launching conceptualized blades at the chunks of solidified magic energy within his body, cutting them into small pieces and letting his Od flow again, even if that flow was a little altered.

It caused a good deal of internal damage, but he patched himself up with stitches made from tiny swords.

Emergency repairs done, Shirou laid back into his pillow and stared up at the ceiling. "What is going on?" Shirou asked himself in Japanese.

A reply came, panicked words spoken in a language that Shirou couldn't understand, until his mind suddenly switched gears and everything translated. "High Priest, you're alive! Thank the Gods, you're alive!"

Shirou turned his head to see a young man, around fourteen or fifteen years old, with brown hair and looks that bordered between maturity and those of a child, and he was of a fair height. Probably popular among women who like them young but with at least plausible deniability. His plain gray robes were probably someone's fetish.

…He was familiar, but Shirou couldn't quite put a name on him.

The young man, barely more than a boy, dropped to his knees and grasped the edge of the bed that Shirou was in. "I am so sorry, High Priest! You had told us not to give you anything you haven't checked yourself, but after you collapsed we didn't know what else to do. So when the other Blue Priests gave us medicine for you we…"

"Enough." Shirou said, stopping him. The young man looked up at him with tears in his eyes. "Food first. Then an explanation."

"Y…Yes! Of course!" The young man shouted.

"And get someone to put out that flame. I can hardly breathe."

So Shirou ate as the young man, Fran, told him everything that had happened.

The boy looked hurt when Shirou asked him for a name, but his hurt turned to worry when he asked what his own name was.

Apparently, Shirou's name was Ferdinand, he was the Head Priest at the temple, one of the Blue Priests that possessed magic and ran the temple, while Fran was a Gray Priest and one of his assigned servants, along with two other young men.

Blue Priests were children of nobility that no one wanted, while Gray Priests were children of the commoners that no one wanted… Shirou could remember these things, though the memories weren't his. It seemed he had some of Ferdinand's memories, but they were not clear.

Ferdinand had entered the temple shortly after turning 19, and was forced to fill the 'Chalice of the Earth Goddess' with magic energy, something that was supposed to have been done by ALL of the Blue Priests, but which was still not even close to halfway finished by the time Ferdinand had entered the temple. This was on account of a lack of Blue Priests after some kind of blood purge elsewhere in the country depopulating the nobility and suddenly making unwanted children wanted again.

Being that Ferdinand had more magic power than all the others combined, he filled the chalice before the Spring Festival so that the magic energy could be delivered on time to the farming villages, but had to drain himself dry doing so, using several dozens of potions to restore his magic energy in order to force the job to completion.

He did complete the job, but collapsed afterwards from exhaustion and went into a coma.

He was given 'medicine' but that only made his condition get much much worse.

…Fredinand was dead. He was so dead that his Od had started to crystallize in his magic circuits. But it seemed that Shirou's soul was slotted in right before the final tolling of the bell.

"I see. One of the other Blue Priests tried to kill me then. That's concerning." Shirou said, tossing up the blankets and getting up from his bed.

"High Priest, please, you need to rest." Fran said urgently, though he didn't reach out to touch Shirou, as if Shirou was not supposed to be touched without permission.

"I've been in bed long enough. I need to deal with the other Blue Priests now." Shirou replied.

"...They are not here." Fran said, stopping Shirou. "While the High Priest was unconscious, the others left to deliver the small chalices."

"I see… Was anyone outside of the temple informed of my condition?" Shirou asked.

"To the best of my knowledge, no." Fran replied. "Forgive us. We would have sent word to the noble district, but none of us can enter, and we dared not turn to a commoner doctor."

"Good." Shirou replied, changing gears. "How long until the others get back?"

"They left three days ago so… about ten days should be the common length of the journey." Fran replied.

Shirou nodded, glad he had time before his enemies would return. "Lead me to my workshop."

"Your workshop?" Fran asked, blinking.

"The place where I keep my materials." Shirou explained. "My memories are fuzzy. I need you to lead me there."

"Of course." Fran said, giving a deep bow. "But perhaps I should assist you in getting dressed first."

…Fucking nobility.

"Make it quick." Shirou said, holding his arms out and letting the man go to work.

After being dressed Shirou went to Ferdinand's office, following behind Fran, who kept excellent posture as he walked. He really had impeccable manners for a man his age.

Once in the office, Shirou was greeted by two other gray robe Priests, Zahm and… another one whose face didn't bring up any names, who looked to be doing paperwork, though the paper was stacks of chopped wood that were being carved into. They immediately stood and greeted Shirou as 'High Priest', though didn't expect any response as they returned to work.

Fran led him to a door in the back, one with no handle but a stone embedded in the door.

Shirou had been worried about what kind of traps would be guarding Ferdinand's workshop, and was kind of banking on sudden flashes of memories to get him in, but as it turned out, there was only a magic energy threshold that had to be passed.

In order to get into the room, you just needed to possess a certain amount of magical power.

At first, Shirou was shocked by the arrogance of it, but then in a moment of self reflection, he realized he now had as much magic power as Rin and Sakura. A frankly stupid amount of power that few in the entire world could hope to compare to, let alone rejects like the Blue Priests.

And a few flashes of memories did come to him, informing him that this was not Ferdinand's workshop, but his secret room, and that his workshop was in the villa located in the noble's district. Nothing inside of his secret room was valuable enough to be guarded by more than this, and the room was meant more for privacy.

"High Priest, are you sure you wish to be alone?" Fran asked, his concern overwhelming his belief that he would not speak without an invitation to.

"I will be fine. Make sure no one disturbs me until meal time." Shirou said before walking in and closing the door. He immediately searched everything in the room, looking for whatever was useful.

Five books on magic, fat more because of the fact that parchment was fat rather than the total number of pages, and a few loose documents here and there involving designs for magic circles and magic tools.

The magic circles and tools were interesting, but Shirou put them aside for the moment and got to work on the books.

He was looking for a solution for the crystalized magic power within his body, as while it wouldn't kill him, he was being forced to surround his circuits with steel in order to stop the bits from causing serious damage to him as they circulated in his magic circuits. He needed a way of getting rid of them.

The hours he spent reading the books felt more like rereading as Ferdinand's memories of them and related materials became more clear.

The magic system in this work was archaic, as the age of the Gods never ended and nearly everything that anyone did depended on Phantasms surrounding the Gods. More precisely, on prayers and on 'Schtappes', a type of magic wand created from 'Divine Wills' which made use of a system created by the Goddess of Wisdom for nobles to use magic within the country.

There were magic items which made use of Formulacraft, but the type of Spellcraft used by a magus didn't really exist.

There was also potion making and the use of Feystones, the crystalized forms of magic power that are left behind when a creature possessing magic dies. Crystals that would normally be broken down by the Will of Gaia back in Shirou's old world, but which remained here.

It took three hours and Shirou went through three of the five books when he finally remembered a potion that could help him. The book was on Feybeasts, one called the 'Lord of Winter' which would appear every year and cause an unending blizzard until killed.

Its Feystone was an ingredient in a potion that would break down the solid chunks of mana inside of his body. There were three other stones, each related to one of the seasons and elements and each had to be harvested at a particular time.

…The deadline for the first one was in five days.

Shirou would have to leave to go and get it, but once he left, he was not coming back to the den of vipers. He would need to grab as much as he could from this place and Ferdinand's villa before he left.

Luckily, Shirou had known of a means to store items within a space distorting mystic code, based around Rin's miniskirt. Shirou would bring everything that wasn't nailed down with him, and most of what had been nailed down through mundane means.

Never knew what would come in handy later.