Disclaimer I in no way own any of the franchise I am writing of. Fate/Stay Night is the property of Type-Moon.
With a sigh of annoyance Shirou stepped into the shower and as the hot water ran down his body he thought of how he could become stronger. After experiencing yet another gruesome death at the hands of the other competitors of the war he realised how powerless he truly is.
"How can I be a hero of justice when I can't even protect those closest to me."
Over the time he had spent reliving the war he had come to understand his powers. The single spell allowed to the being known as Shirou Emiya, Unlimited Blade Works, but even that was not enough.
'I can't even use that as I like.' A blush coming to his cheeks as he remembered the few times he had to use his Reality Marble when facing a greater enemy such as Gilgamesh and the mana transfer rituals performed to make it possible.
"Ahhhhh it's all because I don't have enough prana." As what's the point of being able to pull legendary weapons from out of thin air if you don't have enough energy to be able to do it more than a few times before you run out.
"Why couldn't you just teach me properly dad?" 'I still can't believe Kiritsugu never noticed that I was potentially killing myself whenever he taught me magecraft.'
With a small frown Shirou muttered his mantra, "trace on," and pictured a gun being cocked inside his head ready to be fired. A small drain on his Od as he activated the only spell he could really get to work successfully before these loops started, structural grasping, the ability to understand the structure and design of an object as if viewing a blueprint.
Though he normally uses it on machines to help him find their faults in order to repair them, but this time he targeted the spell upon his own body.
Going from his skeletal structure, to his organs and muscles, even the veins and arteries that carried his blood through his body recording the exact information. As Shirou Emiya is in essence a sword allowing his powers to function at their full capabilities.
Looking into the details of himself to the cellular level finding the damage left after years of badly practiced Magecraft, the single cannibalised nerve cell that he created the night before the loops began, it was a miracle he hadn't paralysed or even killed himself it was only due to Avalon that he was still alive.
Searching deeper now knowing what to recognise after having accidentally activated them multiple times before, his twenty seven fully functional magic circuits still dormant and heavily damaged from disuse lay hidden in his soul a metaphysical copy projected onto his body.
Clenching his teeth, preparing himself for the pain he knew was going to come Shirou forced all of the prana his nerve could channel into his still dormant circuits.
"Okay. I must never attempt to unlock my circuits while in the shower."
'When you have spent so long dying heroically trying to fight against myths and legends, it really is embarrassing when you accidentally paralyse yourself in the shower fall over and drown in the water while naked. To die before the war even officially began and from that.' "Archer must never find out," he spoke with all the resolution he could muster knowing how his possible future self would react if he ever found what happened.
"I should ask Rin later for more information." As his last trial ended up frying his nerves and all the other times they actually opened were completely by accident.
"To think she would be so upset to hear what I'd been doing. I mean I was the one who was taught wrong, it's not like I wanted to use my nerves as circuits if I knew I had proper ones." He said with an exasperated tone yet with a happy smile on his face.
"At least she showed me how to open them properly."
The gun was cocked in his head and prepared to fire, the words on his lips "Trace on."
"I need more practice."
Though the rust haired teen thought he would be able to now open his circuits, having someone do it for you and doing it yourself were to completely different things. Especially when that someone was Rin Tohsaka, a person who was in almost all ways his superior in the magical ways.
"I need to do it I just like she did." With a determined expression set on his face as he sat and meditated on the floor of his workshop.
Rin's explanation of what magic circuits were going through his head, 'While not physically a part of the body the magic circuits are like a second set of nerves which overlay with those present in the body, a part of the soul used to channel prana through the body in order to enact mysteries.'
What Rin taught him showed that he couldn't just force all the prana he could muster at his circuits in hopes of awakening them, 'I need to take it slow and steady guide the energy to the paths and let them unblock it.'
His previous attempts were like forcing water into rusty pipes. The sudden influx of water or in his case prana wouldn't open them up just making them burst and be even more damaged if not completely destroying them outright, the energy needs to be directed so not to wreak havoc.
'Just like when I first traced, give the prana a purpose commands to follow the paths already within my body.'
"Trace on."
Hello and thanks for reading chapter four and I do hope you enjoyed it. I want my Shirou to slowly grow over my story until he can truly become someone who can fight on par with servants and gain his harem. The story has been receiving a lot of positive support which motivates me to write so please favourite, follow and review but most of all I hope you enjoy what I have written.