Matou Shinji and the Heirs of Slytherin

A Harry Potter / Fate Stay Night Story

Disclaimer: Though I wish it were otherwise, I do not own or in any way, shape or form hold a legal or moral claim to elements of either the Nasuverse, the Potterverse, or other works I may reference in the course of this story.

Summary: Trouble is brewing in the Wizarding World. In the wake of the Stone Incident, Albus Dumbledore has begun quietly preparing Britain to survive the coming war. The Stone Cutters, a new organization at Hogwarts for the most talented and distinguished of students, seek new blood to bolster its strength. The Boy-Who-Lived seeks his destiny as the Heir of Slytherin. And a boy from the east meets a specter of the past.

Chapter 21. Sidpa Bardo

Matou Shinji had only ever been to two funerals in his life: the grand affair that had been the memorial service for both Sialim Sokaris and Quirinus Quirrell, and now the relatively austere ceremony that was Emiya Kiritsugu's.

But perhaps that should be expected, for where one was effectively a state funeral to honor two fallen "heroes", the other was a private gathering open only to friends of the family – with Fujimura Raiga, the head of a local yakuza group, perhaps the most important person there.

…at the very least, he was the chief mourner, so Shinji assumed that it was so.

In silence, the mourners had assembled the morning of the Winter Solstice, a full 49 days after the death of Kiritsugu, with men clad in black suits and ties, and women in kuro muji – the plain black mourning kimonos customary in Japan (with black obi and black accessories), as opposed to the white garments traditional in Buddhist funerals in other countries – and had proceeded quietly into one of the rooms of the Emiya house.

Were it not for his exposure to traditional Japanese architecture in Mahoutokoro, Shinji would have been rather surprised at how it was laid out, having lived in Western-style buildings for the majority of his life. But then, many magi influenced by Western ideals tended to live in Western-style dwellings, which made Shinji wonder if Kiritsugu had known that and had bought this old complex – a rare example of architectural history – as a way to hide in plain sight?

Western houses were more closed off, more suitable for acts and works done in secret, more useful for shaping and restricting the flow of prana, while prana simply flowed freely through this this space, as if there was nothing to hide.

…except for perhaps the detached storehouse, which could be closed off entirely. (The dojo, though separate, also wouldn't do). Perhaps some work had gone on in there, though as he passed by it, Shinji was pretty sure there wasn't much space for much of the equipment that could usually be found in a magus' atelier or laboratory.

Still, it couldn't have been much, which made him wonder how much Emiya Kiritsugu had practiced his craft in the years after the Fourth War.

He suspected he would find out after the service, if the solemn-faced Shirou did indeed still wish to talk to him. At least, Matou Shinji assumed that had been Shirou's intent in inviting him to the funeral.

So he held his tongue and walked in step with the rest of the procession, entering the appointed room where the body of Emiya Kiritsugu lay in its coffin, clad in a traditional kimono that had been crossed right over left, with an altar and picture of the man nearby.

There was silence for some moments, as the assembled looked upon the deceased, before Fujimura Raiga spoke Kiritsugu's name and announced the beginning of the service. After that, the mourners simply waited, sitting with hands together in prayer as they awaited the entry of the officiating priest. To his surprise, the officiant turned out to be the head of the Ryuudou Temple, the building which lay at the heart of Fuyuki and functioned as the keystone to its leylines.

'Well…he was an Einzbern. I shouldn't be surprised he made some connections in life.'

Though that didn't quite make sense after a moment's consideration, given that that ancient family was even more reclusive than most others, as disdainful of outsiders as the purebloods of Magical Britain seemed to be with their talk of Mudbloods and muggles. Perhaps Kiritsugu being allowed to marry into the family was a sign of that changing, accepting the inevitable – though he supposed the connections could have been made after the Fourth War, when the Magus Killer found himself living in Fuyuki for reasons Shinji had still not been able to figure out.

But the funeral was proceeding, with the priest – and a coterie of monks - beginning to chant.

No one else spoke.

No eulogies were given.

The last rites were simply carried out: the chants to expound the teachings of the Buddha –a reminder of the transience of this phase of existence and how samsara (the cycle of death and rebirth) would catch all in time; the offering of incense – with each person going to the altar to burn a stick or two, the scent of which purified the participants, with the smoke rising from it delivering the thoughts and prayers of the mourners to the deceased; and a brief sermon on the goal of liberating oneself from desire, from the notion of self so one might escape the cycle.

'It's funny. The tenets of Buddhism are not that different from a magus' perspective, given that in both, one should move beyond the desires and attachments of flesh to escape death and rebirth, since our souls are recycled after death for those yet to be born. Well, those of us who aren't practitioners of witchcraft, who will bypass that cycle and have an afterlife…'

Symbolic of the man passing on, Emiya Kiritsugu was given a new Buddhist name (kaimyō), a long, complex name written with elaborate, archaic kanji beyond the grasp of most Japanese people today, so that his soul might not be led astray by those mentioning him in conversation.

And that was all, with Fujimura Raiga announcing the end of the service and inviting those who wished to join them as the body was taken to the crematorium, for Emiya Kiritsugu had left behind only an adopted son, and so it was their duty to stand in his family's stead.

Shinji caught Shirou looking at him as the yakuza leader said this. Apparently, he was to come with them, to observe the last – and final – rite in the company of Fuyuki's movers and shakers.

So he nodded and joined Shirou as the procession – this time led by mourners carrying the coffin – headed outside, loaded the body into the waiting hearse, and then got into their cars to follow the hearse to the crematorium.

To this day, Matou Shinji wasn't sure how much time the drive there had taken. All that he knew was that it was quiet, with no one speaking, no one moving more than necessary, almost as if the car had contained living statues.

But soon enough, they arrived, with the procession unloading the coffin and bearing it inside, setting it down upon a tray and watching as it was slid into the cremation chamber.

Then, as if a spell was broken, everyone began to breathe, to speak at once, with a number of people turning to leave. And why not? It would take about two hours for the body to be burned to ash, and there was something unsettling about these places of death for most.

"Shirou, are you staying?" Fujimura Raiga asked, his voice unusually solemn for those that knew him.

"Yes, Fujimura-san."

"Don't be so distant, boy. We're family now," the man replied gruffly.

"Yes, grandfather."

"That's better," the old man, a hint of a smile crossing his lips. "It will be nice to have someone calling me grandfather who doesn't ask me for an allowance. And maybe from you I can expect great-grandchildren sometime." He pointed down the hall with a gnarled cane, towards a door there. "You can wait in the family room, if you wish."

The Yakuza leader's eyes moved to regard Shinji, who – aside from Shirou – had been the youngest person at the funeral by far. But the boy was unintimidated, meeting the man's eyes unflinchingly. Having grown up with Matou Zouken for a grandfather, and with Aozaki Touko for a master – not to mention having the puppet of the greatest practitioner of the Dark Arts Magical Britain had ever seen as a teacher – Matou Shinji was relatively inured to such things.

So the old man just nodded curtly before turning back to Shirou.

"Hn. I suppose you have business with your young friend," he concluded, not being any stranger to unusual meetings. "There's a waiting room down the hall that was reserved for the use of the family. No one should disturb you there."

And then they were alone, the two acquaintances standing in an otherwise empty room, ill at ease with one another. The tangle of secrets, of things hidden, things unsaid had sprung up like a thicket of thorns, choking out the seeds of any open conversation.

"Matou."

"Emiya."

So they started – then they stopped, not knowing how to continue. Both knew things about the other – or at least suspected – but they didn't know what they didn't know about the other, and this made them wary.

Shinji, certainly, had learned not to volunteer too much information unless asked, and while he might have once been on amicable terms with Shirou, that was before he learned the man's adoptive father was the infamous Magus Killer. Besides, knowledge was power, and speaking first was a concession he was not about to make.

As for Shirou, he was a little suspicious, as there was a lot the Matou boy hadn't told him before he'd had to, and one of the first lessons Kiritsugu had drilled into him was how powerful information could be. What a magus could do – or sometimes the fact that one was a magus at all – could save one's life, if one's opponent did not know

So the seconds ticked by silently, turning into minutes, until one of them broke the silence.

"…you're a magus, aren't you?" Shirou finally asked. Given that his maybe-friend was normally out of the country, this might be the one chance he had to verify some of what his adopted father told him with someone who was in the know, but wasn't overly invested in it.

Shinji raised an eyebrow at this, and flicked his hand towards the door, with two strips of paper – ofuda of sealing and warding – flying from his sleeve and activating, separating the room from the outside, leaving Shirou a little wide-eyed.

"I'll count that as a yes," the child of the Magus Killer stated, to which Shinji smiled ever so slightly. "But then your family is a family of magi…isn't it?"

"Like the Tohsaka and the Einzbern," Shinji admitted indifferently. "The Three Founding Families of the Holy Grail War, as you know, since your adopted father participated in the last."

Shirou stiffened a bit at Shinji's comment.

"…but why ask me?" the Matou scion continued, raising an eyebrow. "Why not ask Tohsaka? After all, she is the Second Owner? At least on paper."

In reality, the one who controlled Fuyuki was the priest named Kotomine Kirei – a former Executor and member of the Holy Church, if what the kitsune had said was correct.

"I have my reasons," Shirou replied, glancing over at the ofuda on the door.

"Among them the fact that she could ask you to leave Fuyuki, since your father never asked for permission to stay?" Shinji questioned archly.

"…that's certainly one reason," Shirou admitted, frowning now. His…friend…was very hard to read. "You sent me a gift, though. The suit of armor. You already knew who my father was…didn't you?"

The Matou boy blinked at this, managing to keep any other sign of reaction from his face through sheer force of will. Shirou thought he already knew about Kiritsugu's past due to the suit of armor he'd sent? At the time, he'd just wanted to impress the people he knew in Fuyuki, and so had picked out the most extravagant gifts he could imagine, but if this worked in his favor…

"I know who he was, yes," Shinji stated simply. He didn't want to say he hadn't known – and he didn't have to, since he knew now. "The other reason. The one you haven't mentioned. It's the priest, isn't it?"

Shirou took a step back, staggering as if Shinji's words had struck him physically.

"How did you…?"

"My own contacts have…concerns about the power he wields," Shinji related, frowning ever so slightly. "But there's more to it than that for you, isn't there?"

The adopted son of Emiya Kiritsugu was silent for some time as he thought about how to reply. At last though, he shook his head.

"Dad considered him the most dangerous Master of the Fourth War," Shirou admitted, looking almost relieved he could talk about this with someone. "He and the Second Owner – Tohsaka Tokiomi – worked together to try and fool the rest. In the end, he and Dad were the last two left standing – and Dad shot him in the heart."

'Shot him in the heart? But the priest is…'

"…shouldn't that have killed him?" Shinji asked, wondering if the churchman had some kind of rare revival ability. "Unless he used magecraft to regenerate…"

But he trailed off, seeing Shirou shake his head.

"Dad used special bullets that would have stopped that from happening…"

"As befits the Magus Killer," Shinji noted, his expression smoothing out into a blank mask once more.

"Yes," Shirou affirmed, not even trying to hide his frown now. "There's something else though. The Fuyuki Fire."

Shirou swallowed. It was difficult for him to talk about this, even now. The voices – the whispers – they haunted him in his dreams and when he woke. Those he could not save. Those he had let die. Those he had essentially killed so that he could live.

"What about it?" Shinji asked. Having been away from Fuyuki at the time, he was rather unaware of the specifics, just that the city had been plunged into flame – not exactly an unforeseeable outcome, given the power of Noble Phantasms, though usually people tried to limit the collateral damage so there would be less to clean up.

"Father thinks…the priest wished for it," Shirou got out, his eyes squeezed shut, every muscle in his body tense with strain.

Time froze. For several long seconds, neither of them so much as breathed. But Shirou, his words stumbling, continued…

"I was…I was in that fire," he managed to say. "The only one saved. Dad adopted me when I was in the hospital. The others though…"

"Others?"

As far as Shinji knew, there had been no survivors of the fire, except Shirou.

"In the hospital. I remember other orphans. Other children," Shirou spoke haltingly, his expression tight like he was about to cry, his body trembling. "I was asked…did I want to go to the church with the other orphans? Or did I want to go with Dad, who offered to adopt me?"

"Why did you go with him?"

"…because he saved me."

The reply was almost a whisper.

"He…saved you?" The Magus Killer had…saved someone?

"He found me when I collapsed. When I couldn't walk any further. When I was to be burned up into ash – like Dad is now. He used…magecraft to save me. And took me to the hospital." Shirou didn't mention the Noble Phantasm called Avalon because it wasn't really relevant – and because as much as he wanted to talk to someone, his possession of that item was not something he should disclose. He needed it as a bargaining chip in case the Einzbern ever came for him – he knew that much.

"I see…"

Shinji's mind swung into overdrive at the implications of this. Particularly the fact that there had been other survivors and no one remembered them. If what Emiya said was right – and he had no reason to think it wasn't – then those other orphans had been sent to the church on the hill – and had vanished from the official record.

Only the Second Owner – or someone acting on her behalf – could have done that, which made Shinji wonder what the priest had wanted with those children.

"Do you know how many there were?" Shinji asked.

"I don't. More than twenty though," Shirou said. "And from what Dad told me, orphans and kids are what many use for…experiments."

"Well…I can see why you didn't talk to Tohsaka then," Shinji noted. Because if Shirou had talked to her, no doubt word would have gotten back to the priest, and one thing he knew very well was that many magi despised loose ends. But something else occurred to him… "Tell me something, Emiya. Do you have Magic Circuits?"

"…yes."

"And do you remember who you were before the fire?"

Shirou shook his head.

"I don't. Everything I was – it's gone. I have nothing else, and I don't have anyone else I can trust." Shirou half-snorted at this. "I don't even know if I can completely trust you."

"You took a chance."

"What else could I do? Dad's actually…well…the Einzbern aren't happy with him for not winning the Grail," the redhead admitted. "Apparently I have an older sister who they won't let him see. The priest controls Tohsaka. And I don't know your grandfather at all."

"…be glad you don't," Shinji remarked, with Shirou shooting the other boy an odd look. "Not every family is as good as yours."

"But you…you're not here most of the time. And you seem friendly, so…"

"So I'd have little to gain from betraying you, you mean," the Matou scion surmised, shaking his head. "You are Emiya's son, even if not by blood. But there's a lot of that going around. The Matou heiress is my sister, even if she's a Tohsaka by blood. Still, you needn't worry – my path is not that of my family before me. At least not the Matou side of my family."

"Oh?"

This had Shirou intrigued, as he didn't know Shinji had essentially begun following a different path. He didn't know other magi anyway…

"My path has led me to Britain, to a place called Hogwarts, where I've made connections with Atlas Academy and a number of other organizations," Shinji said simply. "I'm something like a knight now, and apprenticed to a powerful magus due to my own achievements. I don't plan to spend the rest of my life in Fuyuki, waiting for a war that won't come for another fifty years, following footsteps others laid out for me. And neither should you."

"What should I do then?"

It wasn't as if Emiya Shirou could ask the Second Owner for letters of introduction to other magi so he could learn from them, not with Kotomine Kirei still in Fuyuki. He wanted to be a mage, to help people like his adopted father had – but at the same time, he knew that even magecraft had its limits, knew that no matter how had he tried, what he did, he could not save everyone.

He could save some people, sure – but only if he had the power to. And he wouldn't be able to do that from self-study.

"What did Emiya Kiritsugu teach you?" Shinji inquired in turn, with Shirou tensing at this question, looking at the other boy warily.

Still…it was obvious that Shinji had more training than he, given the ease with which he'd sealed the door, setting up something like a bounded field with a single action. And if he was a knight of some kind, he probably was skilled in combat, so holding back information on his abilities wouldn't help any.

"…how to open my circuits, and the basics of reinforcement and projection," he admitted. "He was going to teach me more, but…" Shirou trailed off. "But he died, just a few days after Halloween."

"I am sorry," Shinji replied. "It must be nice to have a father who cared about you, even if it was only for a few years."

"You mean…?"

"I'm not the Matou heir, Emiya," the boy said sharply. "They couldn't care less what happens to me."

"Ah…"

"Tell me, Emiya Shirou, do you want to live a normal life? Or would you rather learn to become a magus?" Shinji asked, regarding the other boy – the boy which had straightened up, the boy who had met on the playground fighting off bullies twice his size because he wanted to be a hero.

"Dad saved me. If I don't save someone, then that…" …that will have been a betrayal.

"A magus then," Shinji concluded. "Well, you know enough to know that asking the Second Owner for an apprenticeship would be bad at this point, especially if you know something the priest doesn't want you to know." He was beginning to think that Kaiduka had had a point about the Church and its tendrils. "The Matou could protect you if you were engaged to my sister, but I don't think you would want to be part of my family."

Shirou made a face at that, making Shinji chuckle just a bit.

'Besides, that would probably cause all sorts of problems with the Einzbern, so grandfather would probably reject it out of hand, even if arranged marriages are very common among magi.'

Briefly – very, very briefly – he thought of Atlas, given that their research focused on preventing the end of the world, but Atlas was a long way away, and he didn't know if Shirou had the proper mindset to become an Alchemist. Not now anyway, when he was merely Shinji's age and barely trained.

Somehow, he didn't think Sion would appreciate him sending someone like that their way either.

Which only left one option.

"There's a group in Kyoto who I think you should meet," he concluded, thinking that that he might as well pass on the interest of the other. Angering a centuries-old Kitsune wasn't exactly a wise course of action, after all, especially when he still had much to learn. "It might not mean much to you, but they say they might have known your family."

"You mean Dad?"

Shinji shook his head.

"No. Your family from before the fire," he corrected gently, with Shirou looking mutely at him in shock. "And the magical arts they practiced."

"…my family could use magecraft?"

Shirou's voice was barely a whisper. He…did that mean that even if he had lost them, that something might be saved?

"I don't know the details," Shinji admitted. "But if you're curious, I could check for you. One thing is pretty clear though – if you're going to be a magus and not report to the Second Owner, you're going to have to leave Fuyuki."

The words lanced through Shirou like blades raining from the sky.

"Where would I go?"

"Wherever your path takes you, Emiya."

"To…Hogwarts, did you say?"

"No. For now, let's start with Kyoto. You'll hear from me soon, after I talk with those I know."

With that, he summoned back the ofuda as sound from outside returned to the room – a quiet, insistent knocking.

"It's time to go."

And it was.

The cremation of Emiya Kiritsugu's body had been finished, and now the others had begun to gather once more for the last of all rituals – picking the bones from the ashes and transferring them to the urn with chopsticks. The last act of official mourning, when what remained of the person was put away (and the only time where two people holding something with chopsticks with the same time, or passing an item between chopsticks was acceptable – as doing it outside would remind people of the grave).

From feet to head, the body is placed into the urn, for headfirst one comes into the world, feet first one leaves it.

So it was on the shortest day and longest night of the year, as another life re-entered the paradox spiral.