AN: Hello everyone! I'm TurquoiseMonarch, an aspiring fanfiction author. This is my first fanfiction so please be civil and tell me what I can improve on at a later date.

Shirou Emiya. A name prominent in the Clock Tower, a friend of many and a foe of more, he served as a Freelancer for over 40 years, in those years he never felt rest, he never felt peace, just for a single promise. And now he is finally dead, in the ripe old age of 86, he now rests at a tomb besides his father in Fuyuki, Japan. He left his will to his wife, Rin Tohsaka, heir of second magic. He lived a full life, saving people here and there, making sure his children and grandchildren had a bright future.

Little did he know, that he is not finished yet. His true lineage calls for him, his true origin, his soul birthed by an action of a sorrowful god, and now he returns, to the time where it all began.

10,000 years ago.

Hephaestus rummages through the piles of metal in his workshop, seemingly looking for something. "I was sure that I discarded it here…Aha!" There he found a sphere, not just any sphere but a fragment sphere, things used by gods to explore the lower realms without anyone noticing their divinity. As its name suggests a fragment sphere puts a fragment of a god's being to an artificial body, then that body is deployed to a location a god's choosing, then a god can possess that body and start exploring.

Hephaestus discarded his after a failed transfer. Everyone except a few gods laughed at him, Aries even said " The cripple can't even do something as basic as a fragment transfer. Ha!" That is when he discarded the sphere. But today was something different, he realized that he didn't retrieve his fragment after the failed transfer, being the god of the forge and metalwork this piqued his interest. The fragment seemingly disappeared, at first he thought that it was just because the transfer failed, there were no failed transfers before his, so he cannot be so sure.

But after centuries from that experiment, he felt that his fragment is back, somehow…different. He then rushes to his piles of junk, determined to retrieve a part of himself. But his fragment didn't return after touching the sphere, he tries a different method, he projected his divine aura to the sphere hoping it would overwhelm the fragment and swallow it, it still didn't work. Then he thinks of something only a brute like Aries could think of, he puts it in his anvil and proceeds to hit it with all his might, a crack appeared, he smiled and continues to hit it even harder, this time blue flames appeared on the crack. Then he notices the blue flames are entering his body, he again smiled thinking that his method worked.

Inside the sphere an old souls awakens, Shirou Emiya thought he had died "What is happening? " The old man asked himself "I was sure that I died at the Emiya Mansion, is this afterlife? What is that bright light in the ceiling, I sense something odd beyond that light, A Divine Spirit? Why do I know the feeling of a divine spirit?" Then he looked at his old calloused hands as it starts to disappear in a particle of blue flames. "What!?" he panicked "Am I being absorbed by that light!?" He then braced himself. "This is clearly not good" he said blankly. Then it went all black.

Hephaestus felt whole again. But something was weird, his body continues to glow blue, rejecting the fragment. "Argh!" a sudden headache occurred to him, memories of another life all came flooding in."Sh-Shiro E-Emiya? Who- Argh!" He clutches his head attempting alleviate the pain. Numerous cracks like the ones in sphere appeared in his body, spouting blue flames like a volcano. Then His body explodes in a bright light, his skin molting like a reptilian. "Aaaargh!" He slams his face as he passes out on the floor.

Shirou wakes up to the sight of a forge "Where is am I?" he looks around seeking some familiarity. "This looks like my old workshop at the Tohsaka manor, Did Rin bring me here?" He sees weapons hanging from racks at the wall. 'Trace On!' He used structural analysis on them and found something so farfetched that he couldn't believe it himself. "Hephaestus? But that's impossible, the age of gods have ended long ago. Is this one of Aoko's experiments?" He walks through the workshop hoping to get some answers, then he sees a mirror. "What!? Th-that face" he saw his own reflection, Once Snow white hair returned to its auburn color, tanned skin reverting to its natural pigmentation, steel colored eyes being olive once more, and a youthful face that looks too much alike his daughter.

"This was my face in my early twenties, did I go back in time?" his questions were answered when he accidentally touched a hammer. "The object's history…so that's why I sensed a divine spirit. Hephaestus was hitting a sphere with this hammer, and my soul was somehow confined in that sphere" He further scanned more memories. "Then my soul fused with Hephaestus…so I did go back in time, according to the memories I gained Hephaestus was searching for something, I could vaguely recall his time in Olympus."

(Sigh) He sighed in exhaustion, then he proceeds to sit down in one of the benches and starts contemplating his current situation. "So, self-recap...I died of old age, heh.. suck that Archer! Then I found myself in a void, which is apparently inside a sphere owned by honest to God (gods?), Hephaestus himself, then my soul was absorbed by Hephaestus, then I somehow took over his position…" a pause "I need to relax."

Shirou then thought if something, his magecraft, how did godhood affect his magecraft ? He the used his signature aria to trace a mundane sword. "Huh, it didn't change much, but how about this!" He then traced the weapon owned by one of the most dangerous enemies he has ever encountered, Berserker's axe-sword. "What? It didn't even make a dent in my prana reserves, it seems that Hephaestus' domain over forging helped me with pulling weapons from the bladeworks."

hours later*

Shirou found out that he has a near infinite amount of prana, he concluded that divinity might have a hand with this, he checked one of Hephaestus' latest memories. He found out that Zeus scheduled a meeting today, the other gods might get suspicious if he didn't attend. One fact he learned about the Blacksmith god, is that despite being mocked at every moment he is there, he never missed a single meeting. "Then how do I explain the sudden changes… I'll just do it like I've always done, I'm just gonna wing it."

A few minutes have passed, he now wears Hephaestus' signature attire, which consisted of a gold chest plate, a single gold pauldron placed in his right shoulder, a red sash, and a pair of gold grieves and boots. 'This might need some more adjustments, but I don't want to be late so this is good for now.' He now stands in front of the giant gates of The Pantheon. "Relax Emiya, you've dealt with egotistical people on a daily basis on the clock tower, gods aren't so different right?"

The Gates open and he steps forward, "Here goes nothing ."

AN: And that's all for now thanks for reading. I'll just upload short chapters for now because I'm still practicing.

See you next chapter whenever I have the time to upload.