Chapter 2

Mason runs down a metal hallway while alarms are ringing all around him. He sports a brown robe and a bloody right eye. He holds his hand over his eye as he tries to figure out where to go next. Blaster fire is being heard firing behind him along with numerous voices being heard in the same direction.

"The kid ran down this way!"

"He's only seven, how hard is it to kill him?!"

"Don't let age fool you. He's still a Jedi!"

"I see the young Jedi! Keep it up brothers!

"He's trying to get to the escape pods!"

"Shoot him down!"

He continues running trying to escape from the owners of the voices. Blue blaster bolts fly past him just barely missing their kid size target. He halts at an open blast door and hits the button to close it. The pursuers wearing white armor come into view trying to shoot the kid before the door closes, but fail in their attempt. As he takes a moment to catch his breath, he overhears a voice from the other side.

"Dank farrik! We can't open it from this side and comms are down. Get the slicer, we'll have to cut through it." The leader of the group orders.

Within moments sparks start flying from the side Mason is on. He turns to start running but fumbles to the ground only to find himself in a new area. The area is dark with only dark gray mist around him. He picks himself up trying to figure out where he is. He turns as he hears a rumble behind him. Now he hears a moan to the right of him as he turns that way. There is a mangled green female body in torn robes matching his crawling towards him with a trail of blood following it. The green tendril-like hair drapes down from the head. There are cuts and blaster shots all over the body. Pieces of skin are missing all over the body revealing bone and organs. The mangled head is now in view. The jaw bone is showing as the remaining blood drips from it. The eyes are completely yellowed out seemingly like it would fall out of the eye socket at any moment. The zombie-like corpse continues to crawl ever closer to him. He drops in horror as he sees who it is.

"M-m….master Rissa?" He barely manages to squeal out.

"Why Mason?" The Nautolan body cries out like the air is completely removed from her lungs. "Why did you leave me to die? Why would a nobody apprentice leave their great master to die?"

Mason is unable to answer as he can do nothing but shiver in fear.

"You are no Jedi! You abandoned me! You betrayed me! You left me to die at the hands of the clones! You can't save anyone! You are weak!" The corpse continues to say as it nears Mason.

"But..." Mason whispers back.

"You let me die! You who were like a son to me, let his own mother figure to die in agony!"

"No!" Mason says louder.

"You let Kiritsugu die! The man who took you in when you had nothing. The man you call a father is dead! All because you were still weak!"

"NO!" He yells

"You leave bodies of the ones closest to you everywhere you run. You let us die and you will let Shirou die as well!"

"NO!" Mason bellows. His eye flickers yellow as he closes his eye and sends a force of energy around him pushing the body back.

"Oof!" A new voice calls out.

As Mason opens his eye he sees Shirou against the wall rubbing the back of his head. Mason takes a look around his room to see wooden walls and him in his bed. His stuff is thrown all over the room. After taking a few seconds to process that he is back in his bedroom he looks at his brother and runs over to him.

"Shirou! Are you alright?" Mason asks.

"Yes I'm okay." Shirou says standing back up. "It's been a while since I've been on the receiving end of your nightmares."

"Sorry about that. I thought I got it mostly under control, but it seems like I still have a ways to go."

"Well it's a lot better than what it was when Dad first brought us here. The whole house felt like it was going to fall apart at night. When it happened the first time, Dad was washing up and ran out almost naked with only a towel around his waist."

"Oh god, don't remind me. I try not to remember waking up to that sight. It's not an image I want to see."

They share a light laugh together. It was moments like this Mason is glad to be back with his brother. Shirou knew how to calm him down after a nightmare. Mason used to have them nightly when he first arrived at the Emiya household. Kiritsugu tried all he could to quell the destructive nightmare. Everything from magic to drugs that gave dreamless sleeps, but he quickly learned that someone attuned to the Force is anything but easy to deal with. However after months of failing attempts, a solution came from a source he didn't expect. One night as he prepared for another night of shaking, he felt a small tremor start but it died off rather quicker than usual. They usually last for half an hour, but this one lasted a couple minutes. He ventured into Mason's room to uncover the mystery only to find Shirou laying right next to his adopted brother. This was the first time Kiritsugu saw the two boys do anything with each other than the occasional greeting in the hallways. From this interaction is where the boys started on their journey to become brothers and over that year the dreams started to appear less often as Shirou would go to Mason's room and calm him down. Kiritsugu would ask Shirou years later why he decided to do that and Shirou just looked at his father like the question was a no brainer.

"What kind of Hero of Justice would I be if I didn't help my brother?"

Mason's first day of school was filled with questions after he introduced himself to his new classmates. What felt like forever for Mason, the lunch bell rings. A male student with purple hair stops him and Shirou as they walk to the door.

"You never mentioned you had a brother. After all these years we've been friends and you keep things from me." The student says.

"Ah, sorry I forgot about it. I didn't mean to keep things from my friends." Shirou responds.

Mason looks over, "Shirou, why don't you introduce me to your friend?"

"Oh right. Mason, this is my friend Shinji Matou."

"Matou? Ah you must be Sakura's older brother Shirou mentioned last night."

Shinji frowns, "Yeah that's right. I'm guessing since you know who she is then that means she was over at your place last night again."

"She was." Shirou replies back.

Mason feels a weird tension building in Shinji, but before he could say anything a girl with dark hair in twin tails coughs loudly behind them.

"Ahem. Excuse me but you guys are blocking the doorway." She says.

The two brothers turn to face her while Shinji decides to end the conversation there and walks away. Shirou and Mason move out of the girl's way and she passes through them. Dumbfounded about what to think, another male student with glasses walks up to them.

"Tohsaka-san is the same as always, but she showed up at the right time to stop whatever was about to happen." He turns to Mason," By the way I'm Issei Ryuudou, the Student Council President."

Mason nods to him, "Nice to meet you Issei."

The President raises an eyebrow and Shirou begins to talk to him. "Sorry about my brother being informal like that. As you can see, he's not Japanese so the custom of usually calling people you just met by their last name isn't used by him despite living here for five years already."

Issei sighs, "That's alright. If he's anything like you then we'll all get along just fine. That being said, he doesn't look anything like you."

"Ah, that's because I'm an adopted brother." Mason explains.

"That would explain it. Anyways sorry I can't stand and chat, but Shirou I actually came to you because there's something that needs to be fixed. Do you have the time to take a look at it?"

"Fix? Why doesn't the school janitor fix it?" Mason asks the president.

"I am. Didn't you know that Shirou is the unofficial janitor around here?"

Mason stands there confused as Shirou explains, "I tend to fix things around here since it's cheaper and faster than getting the school to do it. I actually don't mind doing it."

Mason just sighs, "That sounds like something you would do. Alright don't let me keep you from it. I'll take this time to explore the school."

They part ways as Mason begins to walk around the school trying to get familiar with it. He decides to head down the steps. As he turns the corner, he bumps into someone. The girl lets out a small yelp as she steps backwards from the sudden appearance of Mason. When he looks at who it is, he instantly recognizes the student he ran into.

"Oh sorry about that Sakura. I didn't know you were there." He says to her.

She looks up to see Mason standing there. "Ah Emiya-senpai sorry."

"You can call me by my first name."

"Oh ok, Mason-senpai."

He faintly blushes hearing her say that. As much as I like the sound of that, Mason thinks to himself, it'd be too much for me to handle. After a second to recompose himself, he looks back at Sakura standing there with her head tilted with a puzzled look. Damnit, why does Shirou always get the cute girls? I noticed that the girls in this school look at him like he's water in a desert.

"Um, Mason-senpai?" She asks.

He shakes his head before speaking. "Ah, just Mason is fine."

"O-oh, well then…" She shuffles, "M-mason?" She sputters out with a light blush.

Dank farrik, this girl is going to be the death of me if she keeps up like this. He thinks while still blushing as well.

"Ahem. Well Sakura, would you like to have lunch together?" He asks her.

She is taken back by the request. "Really? Wouldn't you rather have lunch with your brother than someone you barely know?"

"Well to be honest that was the original plan, but Shirou got called away. So since we already ran into each other, we should go have lunch. Besides, if you are always coming over to help my brother then this will give us a chance to get to know each other better."

Sakura stands there to think about it. She doesn't have much interest in anyone other than Shirou and was about to reject the offer, but there was something deep down that was drawing towards Mason. Maybe this feeling is a good way to learn more about Senpai, she thinks to herself, or maybe it's something else but I have to find out why. After making her decision, she nods to him as he smiles at her acceptance. They find a bench in the hall as they start to dig into their lunch. Sakura takes peaks at the person beside her trying to figure out what this is that she has felt. She begins to think to herself again. It's obviously not what I feel about Senpai. I doubt that anyone could replace that. Perhaps if I manage to win over his brother, then Senpai might see me more as a woman. Mason notices her glances since he too was doing the same, but he was already clear about why he was doing it. As cute as she is, anyone can tell plain as day that she likes Shirou. Although it's too early to call it love, I do find her rather attractive. Why Shirou hasn't made a move yet is beyond me. I know he is rather oblivious, but come on man. It's probably best not to act on my feelings about this matter and come between them. For one, I don't want to ruin whatever this thing is that she and him has going on. And two, I don't need another reason for the darkness inside of me to raise and take over me. I already have attachments with Shirou and Taiga so adding a third would make any would-be enemies have more targets against me. Beside the last Jedi who let the darkness take over them fell to the dark side and resulted in a war. How they willingly followed the Count into a war with the Republic makes no sense to me. Although there is something about her. It feels as if she has something deep inside her as well just waiting for a chance to take control. Also she is glancing at me a lot. Better think of a subject.

"So," Mason begins, "how did you meet Shirou?"

"Well, he was friends with nee-san and we were introduced to each other." She replies back.

Silence falls on them again with both of them trying to think of something to say.

"Um, what happened to your eye?" She asks him.

"I, uh, don't really like to talk about it much." He says covering his right eye.

"Oh sorry." she says looking back down at her food remembering what he said last night at dinner about it. That's right, only Senpai knows what happened with his eye.

"Don't worry about it because it's a perfectly normal question to ask. In fact it's the question I get asked the most. It's just the story isn't pretty and probably not a thing to say while eating. As I said, I've only ever told Shirou and our father about it. Although I will say it happened ten years ago."

She thinks back to ten years ago and remembers. "Was it from what happened to the city back then? Were you a part of it?"

"Yes and no. Yes I was a part of it." In the aftermath at least. He thinks to himself, but before anything else could be asked the bell rings ending lunch. Mason breathes a sigh of relief. Saved by the bell. It's easy to reveal things to her for some reason. Anymore and I could have very well told her about it.

"So," Mason begins as he and Shirou walk home. "What do you make of Sakura?"

Shirou tilts his head, "I think she's a good friend. She may be shy at times, but she has a good heart."

"Is that all? Nothing else at all?"

"Well she is cute as well, but other than that nothing else really." As Shirou says this a thought comes to his head. "Why are you asking? Could it be that you-"

Mason's face goes red before he stumbles out, "I-I don't know what you could be thinking."

Shirou presses on, "That reaction is exactly something you do when you do know what I could be thinking. Besides from what you tell me, the Force allows you to see into people's minds. So it's a safe bet that you do know exactly what I'm thinking."

"Dank farrik," He swears to himself.

Shirou chops Mason's head. "Hey just because that curse word has no meaning on Earth doesn't mean that you can casually say it like that."

Mason groans, "I never should have told you what that means."

"Even if you didn't, the way you use it clearly indicates that you meant to curse. Anyways back to the subject of Sakura."

"Well… I've noticed there's a big personality difference between her and her brother."

Shirou narrows his eyes but sighs as he realizes that Mason will not go any further with Shirou's intended route, "Well those two usually get along fine with each other despite being so different."

Mason raises his eyebrow, "What do you mean by 'usually'?"

"Well there have been instances between the two. Such as where Sakura has some burses on her from her brother."

"You mean he has hit her?"

"That's what I gathered from it. I've confronted Shinji about it already."

"Wait just a minute! So he has hit his sister, who is also your friend, to the point where it left marks and you stayed friends with him?!"

"Well when you put it like that it sounds bad, but I already sorted the matter out," Shirou says, looking to the side.

Mason brings his right hand to his forehead while exhaling slowly. "Shirou being a hero of justice doesn't mean staying friends with someone like that after having a simple talk. I've only just met him and just from that brief conversation alone I can tell he still treats his sister unlike a person. But knowing I probably can't change your stupid stubborn mind about it, let's get back to why I brought her up in the first place."

"I doubt you're in any position to lecture me about stupid stubborn minds mister 'up and leaves for five years without a word'."

"You're not going to let go of that any time soon are you?"

"No I'm not. Anyways her brother is not why you originally brought up Sakura?"

"Like I said, it's just a feeling I'm getting. Not the one you are thinking of. Kind of like there's something deep down in her."

"You mean like a secret she's hiding?"

"I'm not sure."

"Then what do you mean then?"

"You know how there's a darkness inside of me? I'm getting something from her, but different from what I have. Something forced into her."

"In the time that I've known her, I haven't seen anything like that from her. And if it isn't like what you have then I'd say you're probably just misreading something there. Trust me I've known her for a while now. There's nothing in her that would be harmful in any way." Shirou pats him on the shoulder.

"I hope you're right," Mason says as he begins to think. Although Shirou thinks it's nothing, I better keep my eye on her to be sure. I have this uneasy feeling something is about to happen. I don't usually get feelings like this, especially since the last time I felt like this was ten years ago.

Shirou and Mason are in the middle of the dojo inspecting their equipment as Sakura and Taiga watch them from the side lines. Mason holds a wooden sword as Shirou holds a bow and a quiver on his back full of arrows with a rubber ball at the end and a smaller wooden sword at his side. They both stand on opposite sides readying themselves. Mason holds his sword in front of him as Shirou readys an arrow on his bow. They stare at each other for a minute as they size each other up. Sakura looks back and forth at both of them and hears Taiga clap her hands once. At that sound Shirou notches the arrow back as he lefts the bow up towards his brother. Mason stands himself in a defensive position as he awaits the shot. Shirou releases the arrow and Mason breathes in as he focuses on the arrow coming to him. He feels the Force around him and he uses it to predict the arrow's path and increases his reflexes to knock it out of the air with the sword. He then starts moving towards Shirou while keeping his sword out in front to try to block any more arrows. Shirou releases more arrows, firing them off faster and faster as Mason closes in on him. Mason blocks a few more arrows coming at him and dodges the ones he can't swing at. When they get close to each other, Shirou uses the bow to block Mason's sword he reaches for his own sword. With the bow dropping, the fight becomes close quarters and both engage in a sword fight. Mason quickly gets back into a defensive position as Shirou starts going on the attack as his sword is shorter and easier to move. Mason watches his brother's sword bringing his own to meet it each time. No matter where Shirou swings Mason is there to block it. The swing goes high. Clash! The next goes low. Clash! The next is a thrust to the stomach. Clash! Clash! Clash! Damn! Shirou thinks to himself. Even after ten minutes of this, I can't seem to find an opening. Mason's defensive fighting style is tough to break through. Luckily he isn't that good at offense otherwise this match would have ended the moment I dropped my bow. Although if this drags on anymore then I'll lose since his fighting style relies on the opponent getting tired and taking advantage of their mistakes. Shirou takes a deep breath from his nose as he stations himself for a final attack. Mason watches his brother as he accepts the challenge with a smile by positioning his sword from the front to his side and holds it by his head. Shirou arches an eyebrow but meets the smile with one of his own. Oh he's not using form three anymore. If Mason is anything like his past self, he knows he's not that good at anything but the defensive form three fighting style. It'd be unwise not to take advantage of it. The two women watching at the sidelines watch in baited breath to see how this duel will end. Seconds feel like hours for a moment as both brothers tighten their grips around the handles. A sweat rolls down Shirou's face and falls off. When the drop hits the ground, they both move towards each other. Shirou takes a couple swings at Mason before their swords clash with each other in the middle. They both hold the swords there and push with all their might trying to overpower each other. They stare at each other with a face of determination and a smile before Mason shifts his weight to the right and the swords both swing downwards. Caught off guard with the change of momentum, Shirou loses his grip and gets disarmed. Mason kicks the short sword away from its user and swings his towards Shirou. As the sword reaches Shirou's neck, he stops and looks downwards. He sees an arrow pointed to his own neck. Shirou managed to quickly pull an arrow from his quiver and have it hover in front of Mason's heart. The two take a minute trying to catch their breath before lowering their weapons and shake each other's hands.

"You two definitely got better over the last five years." Taiga says to the brothers.

Shirou sighs, "Well not better enough it seems. I still can't get through Mason's defense."

"Don't beat yourself up like that," Mason says as he puts a hand to Shirou's shoulder. "You've definitely improved a lot compared to the last spar we had. If you put down that bow and train more with swords then you could become an even better swordsman than me."

"Are you just saying that to try to make me feel better?"

"No, I really mean it. Call it a fighter's intuition, but I can feel that swords suit you better than a bow ever could."

"Perhaps you're right, but I'm not just going to put down my bow like that."

"Fine be that way then." Mason sighs defeatedly.

Shirou is in his magus workshop late that night. He calls it that, but it's nothing more than a tool shed with a little work area inside. Shirou grabs a metal pipe as he begins his normal nightly routine.

"Trace on"

The magical circuits in his body begin to activate. Light blue lines glow across his body and onto the pipe. Analyzing structure. He does his routine as usual. He tries to strengthen the pipe even more than it already is, but it's incomplete and ends up using a lot of magicka from it. He frowns and tries again using less magicka but fails. After repeated failed attempts, he ends up exhausted; he then hears an amused laugh at the door. He looks over to see Mason standing in the doorway.

"It's rude to stand and laugh at people you know." Shirou says.

"Sorry," Mason replies, "But it's nice to see that you still keep trying even when you fail like that."

"I'm not sure to take that as a compliment or an insult. Well, since you're here do you have any ideas Jedi?"

Mason frowns, "You know I don't like being called that. The Jedi known as Mason Shan you speak of died the same day Master Rissa did. But to answer your question, I do feel something in you that might be the cause of it or lack thereof."

Shirou is surprised to hear a valid response from him. Usually when he mentioned the magic of this world, Mason doesn't have much to say on it mostly because he has no affinity for it nor much knowledge that's useful. Although it's not surprising seeing as there's tons of non-magus people everywhere who have no affinity for magic and the few who do try to keep magic quiet from the normal public and even their family if none of them has the skill. They usually cover magic related events up as gas leaks and whatnot. Kind of like that book with the kid who has glasses and a lightning scar on his head that Shirou can't remember the name of. Except reality is much more brutal than those kids' books.

"What am I missing?" Shirou asks.

Mason walks forward placing a hand on Shriou's back. "Well from what I'm feeling, it seems like a lot if your magical circuits are off like someone purposely turned them off."

"Turned them off? But who could…" He stops his words as he comes to a realization. "Dad might have. If you remember he wanted to keep the both of us out of the magus world and wouldn't teach me anything but reinforcement magic when I wouldn't shut up about it."

"True, he would barely even let me use the Force around the house. I'm actually surprised we got what little information about the magus world as we did. Kind of hard to imagine our father was a magus killing assassin who participated in a Holy Grail War. He didn't go into it that much, but we do know that it ended up with the disaster of the city ten years ago."

"Yeah luckily from what he told us, the Fifth Holy Grail War shouldn't happen for another few decades. Speaking of which, did you happen to come across our long lost older sister in your five year travels?"

"I did get a lead in Russia, but I came back with nothing to show for it. I would like to meet her sometime."

"Yeah I took a trip to the Einzbern castle outside of town a couple of years ago, but couldn't get close enough to find anything. Almost like something was keeping me away."

"Someday we'll find Illya, but for now let's deal with your closed circuits. While we were talking I think I found a way to reopen them. Hopefully this will work."

"Oh hey I need something better than hope-" He is cut off as Mason uses the Force to forcibly open the circuits. Pain shoots everywhere inside Shirou as he feels multiple tears within him. After a couple of minutes his pain dies down and he starts panting.

"As always Avalon's healing factor in you is impressive." Mason notes after seeing Shirou regaining himself.

"Wasn't there a less painful way of doing that?!" Shirou shouts.

"Probably but I'm not a magus and you asked for my help. Perhaps you should ask an actual one next time?"

"Like there would be one just around the corner you would call like a plumber or something."

"Well there is that one at the church Father told us about."

Shirou just gives his brother a look. Mason just smiles at it, "Or not. Give your reinforcement a try now. It should (hopefully) be better than what it was. Oh and next time we spar, let's do it without an audience so I can actually see you use your magic in combat."

"You do know that you would still get me beat with the Force even if I use reinforcement magic."

"Well who knows, what I just did for you might help awaken something in you that you didn't know you could do. And I still meant what I said that swords fit you better than a bow. I still got a few lightsaber style training holocrons I can show you to help you improve. Of course it's meant for Force users, but I can modify it to suit non-force users."

"I appreciate it but given that you don't do that well on offense, you might need to go back over it yourself."

"Alright fine I can see that my help isn't needed anymore, so I'm heading to bed. Don't stay out here all night Shirou." Mason says leaving the shed.

Shirou goes back to what he was doing before Mason interrupted. He closes his eyes and focuses himself.

"Trace on."

After sometime he thinks to himself. Well now this is pretty nice. Mason has no idea what he's got coming towards him in the next spar.

Author's Notes

The second chapter is finished and a lot longer than the first. I wanted to get into more of Mason's character and the sibling relationship between him and Shirou. Some of you Old Republic fans might notice the little Easter Egg from Mason's former last name before Kiritsugu found him. At the moment I don't have any plans for explore that more, but as time goes on I might change my mind. Also I'm sure you notice that Mason has taken a certain interest in Sakura and it doesn't take a genius to see where I'm going with it. She will be playing a key role in this story that I hope y'all will enjoy in the future. As for Shirou and which route Fate will play out, I'm doing a little bit of everything while also diverging the story some. Well even though this chapter came out within a week, the next chapter might be a bit longer to come out depending on how much time from work I'll have. Anyways thanks for reading and I'll be back with chapter three soon!