Plop, plop, plop... all the blood in his veins began to rush amidst the frenzied heartbeat.
Gudong... the sound of saliva being swallowed came from his throat, and his breathing began to become messy.
Hallucination? Or, were the clothes actually torn before he picked them up? Emiya Shirou stared at the two pieces of cloth lying on the ground, then suddenly froze.
No...
Although other things were still densely covered with thin lines like cracks, Emiya Shirou couldn't see the existence of [threads] only on the two pieces of fabric that seemed to have been cut open with a knife.
"
No way..." Emiya Shirou's mouth trembled stiffly. He almost subconsciously wanted to take all this as an illusion. However, the scene in front of him continued to force him to face reality.
The [thread] that ran across the surface of all things.
And the fabric that was gorgeously divided into two and lost [the thread] after that.
...No, not sure yet.
Emiya Shirou's breathing became rapid. After a moment of silence, he made up his mind and turned his gaze to the clothes in his hand.
He first unfolded the folded clothes, and then gently pulled them on both sides. After confirming that the clothes themselves were not damaged, Emiya Shirou gently moved his trembling fingers along the [line] and touched the fabric.
— Patter.
Accompanied by the same sound as before, the cloth fell to the ground, revealing the obvious result.
"..."
His head hurt.
The contents of his stomach rushed up his throat.
The beating of his heart became more and more intense, like an overheated engine.
Shiro Emiya, who was sweating profusely, sat slumped on the ground. He endured the nausea that kept pouring into his chest, raised his palm, looked at his own hand, paused as if hesitating about something, and then put his palm against his eye sockets, gently closing his eyelids.
Then, he took a few long, deep breaths, trying to stabilize his pounding heart and chaotic breathing as much as possible.
Calm down, calm down... He had clearly learned the common sense of magic from his father, so what was the point of losing his composure when faced with a little setback?
But to be honest, at the moment when he raised his palm, Emiya Shirou really couldn't resist the urge to destroy his eyeballs directly.
If he hadn't realized that this body belonged to another [Emiya Shirou, perhaps, after losing that moment of hesitation, he might not be able to see anything now.
No matter how unwilling he was to face reality, the result was already very clear.
The extremely strong presence of [death] that he felt on those thin lines before was not an illusion.
Whether it was a nightmare or reality, he had clearly dreamt of becoming a partner of justice, but after going through a series of inexplicable events, he gained a pair of eyes that could clearly reveal the [death] of all things within his field of vision.
Compared to a gift, it felt more like a cruel irony and mockery from fate.
"Using vision to observe the death of all things..." Emiya Shirou lowered his palm from his eyes and opened them again, wearing a pensive expression. "Could this be the so-called magic eye?"
The subtle rainbow light mixed in his amber pupils, giving them a strange and captivating appearance.
He recalled his father's words, that most magicians would reconstruct their eyes with magic circuits. Through this technique, the eyeballs, the visual organs that perceived external light, would be transformed into tools that actively interacted with the outside world
—a mystic eye.
However, artificially modified magic eyes generally couldn't handle powerful magic. After all, the magic released by the magic eye was nothing more than a projection of magic. Its advantage lay in the convenience of trigger conditions and extreme secrecy. So most magicians possessed magic eyes with simple effects like charm or suggestion.
The ability to perceive the concept of [death] in the form of a line, as Emiya Shirou currently experienced, was an ability that approached the realm of miracles.
"Wait, if that's the case, could the headache I felt from the very beginning be because of..."
Because the magic eye suddenly activated, had the magical power in his body... or his life force unknowingly been consumed?
After all, no matter how extraordinary it was, the ability unleashed through the magic eye should be considered a form of magic.
He hadn't thought about it before, but now that he considered it, this feeling of pressure in his brain... was very similar to the pain he felt when the simulated magic circuit failed to form.
It was just that, compared to the intense pain that erupted when the quasi-circuit failed to form, the pain he currently felt was much milder, but it lingered in his brain.
With this realization, Emiya Shiro temporarily stopped cleaning the storage room. He placed the clothes he was holding on the ground beside him, sat down cross-legged, and then focused on regulating his breathing. He tried to turn his pounding head and racing thoughts into a blank canvas, concentrating all the attention he could muster.
And then, as he withdrew his awareness from the external world, he skillfully directed his vision inward, towards his own body.
However, when his consciousness successfully "saw" the scene inside his body, Emiya Shirou was stunned for a moment.
He was an ordinary guy with no magical talent.
Kiritsugu had told him that only those with magic circuits could become magicians.
However, Emiya Shirou had never possessed anything like the number of magic circuits or the magical achievements passed down through generations in magical families—
—His father had told him this in the past.
To be able to use magic without a magic circuit, Emiya Shirou had to simulate the nerves in his body into a pseudo-circuit and connect them internally. Only then could he convert his life force into magical energy, just like other magicians.
Therefore, in most cases, even when he directed his vision inward, he would initially see nothing but darkness.
But if, according to what his father had said, he didn't have a magic circuit...
What were these twenty-seven circuit board-like objects emitting a bright light?
He hadn't even had the chance to create a similar pseudo-circuit yet.
In the end... even if he wanted to create a pseudo-circuit, he could only manage one at most.
There shouldn't be any reason for a sudden emergence of twenty-seven of them—and so on.
Emiya Shirou couldn't help but open his eyes wide in shock, blinking in confusion.
Could it be that this [Emiya Shiro] from Nagazora City, who had never learned anything about magic, unexpectedly possessed a magical talent that even he himself had never possessed before?
'Sigh... at a time like this, if only Dad were still around...'
'No, you idiot, what am I thinking?'
Emiya Shirou shook his head, cursing himself silently deep inside.
In this world, Kiritsugu wasn't a magician. Asking him this question would only bring unnecessary trouble.
'However, if those twenty-seven circuits I just saw were all activated...'
Could it be that these uncontrollable magic eyes were continuously releasing their abilities because these circuits suddenly activated?
If that were the case, would it be possible to suppress the uncontrollable mystic eyes by closing the circuits?
As these thoughts spun around in his mind, Emiya Shirou couldn't help but touch his eyes with both hands, trembling slightly.
Because... it was hard to say whether this abnormal ability was a blessing or a curse.
"Trace on [Synchronization·Start]..."
He decided to do it. Reciting the mantra of self-suggestion, and attempted to make his consciousness touch these twenty-seven magic circuits brimming with magical power.
The process of contacting the circuits with his consciousness unexpectedly went smoothly.
Compared to forcibly converting the nerves into unified magical power with the pseudo-circuits, controlling these circuits that were already open didn't present any difficulties for Shirou Emiya.
and then... of course, something went wrong.
"...!!"
"Why is this... what's happening..."
Completely overwhelmed by unfamiliar sensations, he involuntarily let out a bewildered voice, accompanied by copious amounts of cold sweat.
There was no pain, and it didn't feel like the backlash he often experienced when improperly installing the pseudo-circuits during practice.
However, the moment he tried to close these circuits based on his previous experiences, an intense hypothermia, accompanied by a paralyzing shock, invaded his senses in an indescribable manner.
