Chapter 9: Alteration
I do not own Fate/Stay Night and stuffs:
o. o. o.
In a distant remote castle:
The man looked past his window silently upon the massive grounds that he claimed as his own. Bounded field after field surrounded and permeated his property in an intricate lattice of defenses that were a testament to his skills as a magus… yet still while this was beyond virtually any magically capable human of modern times, the fortress' defenses were still lacking when compared to those of his kin…
He shook his head. Honestly… he was indeed a capable individual among his kind… yet it was still centuries before he would attain the level of power he would need to truly be worth the rank he was designated among the 27…
Until then however, he would rely on his collection to stay alive and buy time…
"Father…" A female voice stated rather calmly to the standard human ear, seemingly appearing from the shadows behind the owner of the land.
To the man however, he heard the sweet voice of his daughter holding back some form of excitement, nowhere near the extent she had had when he had been promoted to one of the noble ranks, but still significantly eager. "Yes daughter? What news do you have?" He asked curiously, stroking his beard as he did whenever he was or was about to think. "Did you find the artifact?"
"No father. Brother is still searching for it… however I have found out that that man who you were always rather eager to… speak to has been active lately…" The younger smiled confidently. "He's away from the city as we speak…"
The collector's eyes widened momentarily before he donned a small but satisfied smile. "Ah… is that so daughter? Good work. I was disappointed when I originally found out how he spend all of his time in that blasted area… however now I can finally speak to him and give him some requests without any interruptions…" He walked lightly to a nearby cabinet where he stocked some very fine alcohol and poured himself a small glass of liquid from a rather valuable looking flask. "If you could dear daughter, please visit our dear friend as soon as possible and give him my request and invite him here. Be convincing if you need to be, however do not go overboard, he is a valued guest after all… but if that is the case, it would be best to bring your brother to be safe…"
The female looked at her father curiously. While by themselves the siblings were fairly capable fighters, together… "Bring brother? Are you sure that is necessary father?"
The human looking male chuckled faintly before swirling the alcohol in his glass. "He is a very capable person daughter. He would have to be in order to gain my interests after all…"
o. o. o.
England:
"So what's it like ta be a Lord lad?" Sirius grinned as he leaned up against a tree and drank some beer.
Thock.
Waver shrugged as he smoked another cigar. "It's a great honor… but honestly I'm getting sick of the dirty looks. The Archibalds pretty much gave me the title in order to enslave me to their family…"
Thock.
"… The mages with 4 generations or less of history are all jealous as hell of me because I somehow got the title…" He continued, ignoring the odd sound from several feet away from him.
Thock. Thock.
"… And those with huge family backgrounds are insulted that a commoner with no outstanding magical ability could get such a title, and honestly if I weren't so glad to be recognized for my work I would have agreed with all of them." He concluded. "To be frank, the only redeeming quality that I think I have is that I'm a bookworm, I'm fairly quick at learning most forms of alternate magic, and I don't restrict myself with pride like most lords."
Thock.
"Ah ya get used ta it." Sirius grunted as he looked at the obliterated soda cans that were laying on the ground. "Hold on ah sec. Ta lad needs more targets again…" He commented before taking out a knife from one of his pockets, pricking his forefinger and muttering a quick spell under his breath. The moment a single drop of blood fell to the ground, all of the cans seemed to not only revive, but placed themselves back on the small stone ledge where they had been set just a minute earlier.
Waver however looked in the direction of where the source of the soda can mutilator was. "Forget me though. Shirou's made some impressive progress in these past few years. How far did you say he is right now?"
Sirius looked in the youngest boy's direction and channeled some prana to his eyes. "Eh… bout 3/4ths of a mile… give or take…" He watched as three spiral shaped swords in the form of arrows blurred through the air and each nailed a revived soda can dead center in rapid succession.
Thock. Thock. Thock
Waver whistled, clearly impressed. "I have to say… it's not often you hear of a magus that age who can pull some long ranged activity like that…" He grimaced. "Especially so soon after that little mishap with that experiment of his…"
Sirius scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "Yeah… it was a good ting you were here lad. Ahm not tat good wit tose kind o wounds… Ah have ta admit though… ah didn't expect sometin like tat ta happen when he attempted ta try tat spell…"
"I wouldn't have either." Waver shrugged. "The idea and concept behind it is pure genius, and he is certainly the only person I can think of that can perform it… however the execution still needs a great deal of work if he wants to use it for its intended purpose…" He chuckled. "Funny… Shirou trains so much with weapons… yet it's the first real defensive spell he's trying to make that's done the most damage to him so far…
"Any ideas on how ta fix it?" Sirius asked curiously.
The lord glanced at the elder man before letting out a long stream of smoke exit his mouth. "A couple, but they all involve a load of research and effort. One path involves making the spell manifest as a portion of Gaia's existence while maintaining its properties, effectively doubling or tripling its prana cost, and another involves much studying of how the planet moves with the respect to the universe… neither are easy things to go about doing mind you…"
Thock. Thock.
"So…" Sirius sighed as he glanced at the setting sun. "We have 2 more years…"
Waver nodded. "Yeah… time really flies when you're life is on a clock…"
The old man glanced at the 24 year old. "How's he progressin in oter fields lad?"
Waver paused, inhaling deeply before exhaling again. "Average." He stated calmly. "Other than his fields of specialty and bounded fields… he's completely average and unremarkable in terms of thaumaturgy. His circuits are exceptionally good, in number and more so in quality… but he's still just average. He's more suited to be an enforcer with the way he approaches things… but Bazett could have told you that…"
"Aye she has." The red headed man nodded. "Ta lad seems ta be gettin pretty good in terms of fightn with 2 swords… though she can still kick his arse up and down these hills if she felt like it…"
"So long as she hasn't shown him Fragarach at least." Waver smirked.
"Secret weapons are secret fer a reason lad." Sirius shook his head. "Ah'd be surprised if ta lass actually showed it ta him."
"So you say, but that girl does occasionally act out." The younger magus glared at the elder. "If you haven't noticed, she has a tendency to bolt whenever it's time to do chores around the place or whenever she gets assigned a mission from the higher ups…"
"Ah yer just jealous cause ya wanted ta spend more time wit ma lass…" The old man chuckled darkly.
"Wha?" Sputtered the lord as he coughed on his cigar. "What the hell gave you that idea?"
"Oh ah see tings…" Laughed Sirius before a slew of arrows took out the remaining soda cans in rapid succession. "Not bad…" He muttered. "So ya tink he can do a ritual for ta war wit his current abilities?"
Waver nodded. "It wouldn't be as professional as most, but he is definitely capable enough to do so right now if he wanted. He probably would be able to feed his servant more prana than the average master with his current abilities as well. Of course that is him now. We still have more time to work on his flaws…"
Sirius sighed and closed his eyes in deep thought. "… Tats what ah tought…" He muttered and crossed his arms. "… Ah just hope tat he doesn't hate us afta he opens ta box…"
Waver frowned. "That's not for another year though, when we finally start training him for the war itself… Shit! Dodge!" The lord ran away from the soda cans and hit the deck, barely followed by Sirius before several dozen spiraled swords shot through the air at blinding speeds and absolutely destroyed the general area where the targets were, tossing up several clouds of smoke in the process as well as completely obliterating whatever soda can there was left on the ledge… and the ledge in general. "Damn it!" Coughed Waver. "I told him not to practice any variants of gradient parallel when we were in the way!"
Gradient parallel, aka, "complete copy" or in short the copy spell. A variation of projection in which the caster does not use an image from his mind as the base for his mana to take form after, but an object itself instead. It was slightly more applicable form of projection in the eyes of standard magi in the world as many found it easier to replicate what was right in front of them instead of something they attempt to blueprint in their minds. Like the original spell though, the produced items will erode in time due to the fact that Gaia recognizes them as irregularities and will erase it to restore the natural order. The distance from the original that the copies can be adjusted as well as the number that can be manifested are solely dependent on the caster's ability to confidently and stably weave large amounts prana evenly among the various clones. Due to the lack of significant experimental applications that this spell can be used for, in addition to the large amount of effort it takes in order to learn it, not many magi bother to learn this spell…
Of course Shirou was a practitioner of thaumaturgy that focused more on "practice" than "theory"… and his practice found this particular spell rather useful… especially when applied to his projected arrows and designed to activate after a small amount of time.
"At least ta lad's getting betta at it." Sirius chuckled amused as he brushed himself off after getting his hearing back. "Ya kno… ah had completely forgotten tat "complete copy" was a variant of projection till ah did a little research on it… funny what we can skip ova in class…"
"Funny doesn't pierce us with full of holes made by swords Sirius." Waver coughed and stood up. "As impressive as it was, I'm willing to completely ignore the sensation of being impressed this time in favor of being irritated that I was almost skewered by swords flying through the air…"
"Kill joy…" Sirius grumbled as he looked at his watch. "Ah… ya gotta go soon. Ta lad's flight is soon…"
"It's not my fault if we're late." Waver shook his head. "You and Shirou are the ones who wanted to do some last minute ranged training since he can't do it much back in Fuyuki. Plus I can't leave you to get Shirou to the airport…" He shivered. "You are by far the worst driver I have ever seen… and that's when you AREN'T drunk…"
"Second accordin' ta Kiri." Sirius laughed. "He claimed his wife held firs place in tat bout…"
"Guys!" A third voice shouted in both English and alarm from the direction the projectiles came from. "I'm so sorry! I thought that I had it this time!" Waver and Sirius turned to see 16 year old Shirou Emiya running to them at a very fast rate, no doubt thanks to his advanced reinforcement enabling him to run at almost 30 miles an hour, something that would cause most physically focused magi to drool in envy. The boy was tall and a bit lean, but in extremely good shape. He wore a blue and white tshirt with loose tan carpenter pants and sneakers, however the most notable trait about him was the facts that his skin was slightly tan and a few of the hairs on his head were going grey prematurely. Sirius and Waver had determined that it came from the boy's frequent use of projection over the past few years, however at the current rate the changes were happening the boy probably wouldn't go full grey until maybe the end of his college years.
"Ya did have it lad!" Sirius called out as the boy approached them rapidly. "Ya had it all ova ta place!"
"Funny." Waver rolled his eyes as he used some prana to clean himself off. "Come on Shirou. You have a plane to catch and I have a work to do at the tower."
"What about Bazett-nee?" Shirou asked curiously, still adding the honorific despite speaking in the native language. "I thought she was coming to see me go as well."
"Ta lass is gonna come by ta visit me and give me a lift back ta London tomorra. She couldn't make it t'day cause her assignment took too long." Sirius waved his hand casually. "T'night ahm gonna get smashed wit a few old mates from ta nearby town."
"Give Bazett my condolences." Waver shook his head. "She's going to have a hard time dragging your massive carcass back to the shop."
The eldest looked affronted. "O'course she is! Look at me! Ah'm bloody huge lad!"
The lord ignored the least mature of the group to turn his attention to Shirou. "Let's go. I have your luggage packed in the car and I have the car keys…" He paused and saw the boy looking worriedly at Sirius. "All the car keys…" The 24 year old added, knowing that the boy was extremely wary of the old man drunk behind the wheel. "You have your cell?"
"Yes mom…" The faker rolled his eyes as he took out the portable communication device from one of his pockets. Normally magi didn't tend to use modern technology, deeming them useless and inefficient compared to magical devices. However due to Sirius's and Shirou's specialties and Waver's willing to stray from the norm on occasion, all three were able to see the usefulness in being able to communicate and exchange information over long distances in the middle of public without using prana or looking suspicious. In addition to that, Shirou and Sirius were also rather adept in other fields of technology and engineering as well. So much so that the old man, if his claims were true, actually made and enchanted several computers from scratch that could hack into anything and was now sitting upon what he claimed to be the greatest databank of non magic related secret documents in the world…
He was still wondering what to do with it all other than abuse it to pay the bills.
Waver patted the boy on the back and began to walk to the workshop. "Good. Come then. Since you were so eager to experiment with your prana just now, you should be glad to know that before you get on the plane you are to structurally grasp 500 complicated objects completely before we get onto the plane… including the plane."
Shirou froze and paled. "500? Are you serious?"
The Lord smirked. "Of course. How are you to improve your understanding of yourself, your weapons, and the world around you if you hold back on your training?"
Sirius chuckled as he watched the 2 younger males walk away. Ah to be young again and worry about the simple things like too much training… albeit Shirou would probably have a massive headache the size of his mother in law by the end of the 500 scannings, but it was still technically safer than some of the other things he could be practicing. Smiling to himself lightly, the man turned in the opposite direction with the intent to be thoroughly smashed for an extended period of time.
o. o. o.
Fuyuki:
"I am rather impressed…" Kirei commented as Rin stood in front of him defiantly with her arms crossed but still maintaining a confident smirk. "I didn't expect you to fully complete the training I had in store for you 2 years early…"
"Careful fake priest." The Tohsaka sighed aridly. "You almost sound happy that you're done with me."
"On the contrary." The messenger of god corrected the girl. "I am happy that my charge has progressed so much in such a short amount of time. It speaks wonders of both your talents and of mine."
Rin rolled her eyes. "Who do you think you are fooling? You merely guided me in the directions I needed to go. The one that did all the work and effort was me."
The priest chuckled and turned to a nearby door. "But is that not the way that it should be between a true master and student with strong bonds? For the master to point out the direction the student must go and trust in the student's abilities, and for the student to trust the teachings and advice of the master? The bond between both would be so absolute that they would not question the other's abilities at all in the process, it is a fascinating concept isn't it?"
Rin faltered as her argument was turned against her so smoothly. "Bu… tch." She turned her head to the side and looked away haughtily. "Don't get ahead of yourself Kotomine. You know as well as I do that you barely taught me anything other than combat tactics and advice, and that was mostly stemming from your training in the church."
The man nodded. "Indeed… though you took quite well to those teachings as well… though you did get a bit too into it at times. Dare I ask who you were thinking of during your mock spars?" He pretended not to notice the twitch in the girl's hand.
"I… was simply looking at you faker." She snapped. "The sight of you annoys me to no end! I just want to beat your face in sometimes!"
Kirei sighed. "You would not be the first I'm afraid. My personality is after all one that does not appeal to many in today's society."
"You're telling me." The girl muttered, flipping her hair. "So let's just get on with this already. The sooner I'm done with you, the sooner I can do my own experiments and have a life again. Maybe I'll start by hunting down magi that are in town if there are any…"
The priest's face stilled. "I would advise against that Rin. You are very talented in many fields and have access to both prana and magic, however it would be best if you waited to gain more experience with me when it comes to combat before you leave to fight your battles alone. There are some magi out there who are unnaturally cunning despite having fairly common backgrounds and limited ranges of spells. I for example, would have little trouble killing you should you attempt to end me here despite my limited experience in performing magic and underdeveloped circuits."
Rin snorted. "Yeah but you're an executioner. Name me one magus that fits that quota that could defeat me hands down as you said."
Kirei could have named a multitude of individuals that fit the bill right then and there, including but not limited to her father and several enforcers that he had come across during his missions… but one name seemed to pop out among the others. "Kiritsugu Emiya." The man stated calmly.
Rin froze. "Kiritsugu… Emiya?" She repeated with a sharp eye. "Who's that?"
Kirei watched the girl carefully. The name rung a bell with her for some reason, but it didn't seem like she knew the man. He decided to humor her a bit and continue, if only to give himself some more hints. "He was a freelancer of extremely high skill and talent… so much so that he was dubbed the Magus Killer by the association and the church, both deeming him an individual to keep an eye on." He looked up as he remembered the man who caused him so much trouble in the 4th war despite only meeting him once. "In terms of a magus, he was fairly average, however from the way he fought and carried himself you could tell that he did not carry himself like one in the slightest. Poison, bombs, guns, blackmail, bystanders, he used any and everything at his disposal to the highest efficiency to take out his objective magus or not... and I assure you he had managed to kill any and all magi he was assigned to take out before he died. He was not restricted by either the magical world's moral codes nor the normal worlds. While I did say that as a magus he was average, as a specialist he would clearly stand a head above virtually all others in the association, enforcers included. You would not stand a chance against that man in combat, that much is certain." The priest turned to the girl with calm eyes. "He was the master of Saber in the last war, and the one responsible for the catastrophe that happened at the very end of it."
Rin was silent as she stared at her guardian with calm calculating eyes. "… Was he the one who killed my father?" She asked calmly.
Kirei closed his eyes and turned around. "It is unclear." He replied. "From what I was told, he was indeed responsible for taking out the most number of contestants in the war, killing Lancer, Beserker, and Caster as well as most of their masters… but the identity of the one who overtook Tokiomi is shrouded in darkness…" He should really become a poet. Being able to speak of himself so calmly yet so ambiguously on the drop of a hat must be a talent of sorts. "What I do know however was that at the end of the war, his servant and Emiya's were the last of the 7 standing… before the man for some deluded reason forced his Saber to destroy the grail…"
The room the 2 were in was silent for several seconds before Rin spoke up. "… I'll keep that in mind the next time I try to fight someone…"
"Please don't make it a habit." The man commented. "Overestimating an opponent is just as bad as underestimating one and can lead to overextending yourself and wasting energy."
"Thanks for telling something I already know priest." Rin grunted, clearly in a darker mood now. "Just finish the ritual already so I can get on with my life."
Kirei nodded with a calm and emotionless face. Inside on the other hand he was pleased to see that his words managed to spawn some sort of turmoil inside his student. He didn't know exactly what events he had just put into motion, however he was certain that they would be very interesting to say the least.
o. o. o.
He was dreaming of swords again.
Ever since Shirou had learned of his origin and element… of what he truly was deep down, he had frequently dreamed of swords of any and all kinds. Long, short, straight, curved, eastern, western, bastard, flamberge, holy, demonic, enchanted, blessed, cursed, elemental… the list was endless. Only the weapons he had already seen in real life appeared clearly when he dreamed while the rest were blurred to the point that even if he could focus his prana in that dazed dream state he would only be able to grasp the vaguest purposes of the weapons in front of him…
However recently, swords were not the only thing he saw when he dreamed.
Once more he found himself in that unidentified location, sitting alone on that blurry hill looking outward over the vast field that melded itself with the oddly colorless sky in the distance. From what he could tell, there was nothing defining the area around him other than the hill itself and the swords embedded blade first into the earth all over for as far as he could tell. As hard as he tried, he could not gain any details about the earth or sky around him. Even the colors eluded him despite the fact that he could clearly tell where the ground stopped and the air he breathed began. It was almost as if the dirt was still deciding what materials it should be made of and the sky was deciding what color it should be…
And the dreamer himself was fine with that as he looked around himself, peacefully waiting on the only hill there…
Waiting?
Yes. He was waiting. The sensation he was experiencing couldn't be defined as anything else. His body somehow knew that its place was there on top of that hill until… until… something happened. What… his mind did not comprehend, but everything else in his being seemed to know without a doubt... and he somehow knew that it would come so long as he stayed where he was right now on the highest point in this mysterious field…
So he waited and watched for the moment that the thing he was holding out for would arrive and he would be moved from the hill of blades…
And waited… and waited… and flew…
… And flew?
Wham!
"We're hoooooooooome!" Taiga Fujimura yelled happily as she climbed out of the car door that she had just literally kicked Shirou out of. "Doesn't it feel good to be back!"
Shirou… merely felt good that he had just barely managed to reinforce his body enough on reflex that he didn't break anything when he landed face first on the pavement. "Somewhat Fuji-nee…" He grunted as he picked himself up. "It would have been better if you didn't almost kill me as soon as I got her though…" He flinched as his head began to ache…
Much like Waver had claimed, Shirou had indeed performed structural grasping on 500 objects of various sizes, complexities, and ages on his way to the plane. Cars, trucks, buildings, phones, clothes, food, cash registers, security equipment, security personnel attire, clothes, watches, planes of multiple types and sizes, an entire terminal of London Heathrow Airport, the list went on for a very long time. So much so that by the time Shirou was to enter the plane, Waver had to hypnotize several flight attendants to get him inside due to the fact that the boy was barely lucid and responsive. The second they dropped him into his seat, the boy had passed out into a sleep so deep they barely managed to wake him up when the plane landed in Japan. From there the boy had managed to deal with the mere borderline skull splitting headache he still had, get his luggage, go to the bathroom, find Taiga and the Yakuza ride she had brought with her, and hypnotize them to let him sleep for the duration of the 4 hour ride back home…
Obviously he had forgotten to slip in instructions on how to wake him up once they finally arrived. Still, his headache was still only on a mildly painful level now. He could easily deal with it now.
Taiga of course didn't really care about that. Shirou was home, alive, not crippled, and thus physically capable of cooking for her. Him being in pain didn't really matter for her in her current joy filled state as she patted him heavily on the back. "Aw don't be such a killjoy! We all know you're tougher than that Shirou-kun!"
"For some reason I don't feel happy to hear that." The boy mumbled as he turned to see the 2 Yakuza that had escorted them from the airport take his luggage out of the trunk. The one taking his stuff was fairly big and tan while the other casually standing next to him was on the smaller and skinnier side…
Chack. Chack.
The Emiya's mind instinctively began to perform structural grasping on the 2 men the moment he looked at them, analyzing their clothes, their body types, and anything they might have been carrying on them. The one with his luggage had a Kevlar vest on underneath his business clothing and somehow had a gun strapped to his side… though he couldn't tell what model. The smaller of the two's clothes were also built to withstand combat, but the padding was more for blunt objects and knives than bullets. He wore 3 chains of valuable metals underneath his collared shirt and had a large knife of some sort in his pants pocket, one that he could tell he had a fairly long history with but nothing else since he was only looking at its general status through the man's clothes… both men were fairly used to basic combat and skirmishes, things that most Yakuza participated in from time to time, but nothing on the level of finesse that he had been training for…
"Something catch your eye Emiya?" Asked the smaller man curiously, snapping Shirou out of his analysis. While the boy preferred to stay on the opposite side of the law to the men there, he would admit that he was on fairly good terms with more than a few of the members of the local "families"… mostly because he did repairs for a good number of their bikes for very reasonable prices and he kept to himself.
"Ah…" The boy laughed and scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "Yeah sorry. It was nothing… just thinking about some stuff."
The man nodded. "No harm done. Be careful bout lookin at people like that though. If I didn't know you as well as I did, I'd clock you before asking what your problem was for looking at me like that…"
Shirou winced. Sirius had pounded the habit of doing structural grasping on anyone suspicious looking into Shirou about a year earlier and the boy was still having trouble controlling himself from time to time, especially when he was tired. Technically the habit was an absolute boon to anyone who was fighting someone new for the first time if their ability in the skill was high enough. Armor, weapons, even fighting styles could be completely divulged before the fight would even begin. Sirius claimed that he could even determine what a person's element was at the drop of a hat so long as it was among the basic 5, though that may be simply because of his status as an average one. Shirou on the other hand, was capable of dissecting a person's clothing and armor remarkably quickly as well as weapons and what the person was carrying on them. Unfortunately, so long as they were concealed, the objects he scanned were greatly reduced in terms of detail. For example, the knife the Yakuza had on him could be one of a multitude of models, all of which the boy could reproduce and project if he saw directly, but since it was in the subject's pants pocket he only knew that an unenhanced knife of a certain length was in the man's left pants pocket and he seemed to know how to use it. As for the individuals he scanned, Shirou could only determine at best: if the person was injured or sick, the person was channeling any prana or was enchanted/cursed in some way, if they had any history with any tools they had on them, how experienced in combat they were, and what their body was built for. It was a limited range of information, but it was useful none the less.
"My bad." He grimaced. "I've just had a nasty headache for a while and well… Fuji-nee just kicked me out of the car…"
The big Yakuza laughed. "Heh. No worries kid. Yoshi just likes to push people around from time to time." He walked to the driver's side of the car. "Oh, yeah. I almost forgot. The boss wants to ask for your help on fixing his bike again this weekend. He overdid it again driving around the mountain ranges a couple of weeks ago and nearly had a fit when Taiga told him you were away." He chuckled. "The boss nearly beat a few of the other guys senseless to try and get their bikes a couple of days ago…"
Shirou laughed. "Yeah sure. Tell him I'll get right on it as soon as I can."
"Oi!" Taiga yelled as she grabbed onto the boy's ear and began to drag him to the main entrance of his home as the car drove off. "Stop talking about the boring stuff! I've been holding out all day for your cooking and now that you're here I can actually do something to make it come out faster!"
"Owowowowow!" Shirou repeated in response to having his ear nearly torn off. "Careful! I need that to hear!"
"Honestly…" The college junior sighed. "Every time you come back from England it's like you turn more into a different person! More of your hairs are going grey and your skin is even darker! People don't get tans in England for winter break!" She began to cry to the sky. "Kiritsugu-san! What should I do? Your son is doing suspicious things on the other side of the world with your family! Shirou says its nothing important but still! I think he doesn't love me anymore! Waaaaa!"
"I get it! I get it!" The male hushed as he looked around nervously and hoping that no bystanders would get the wrong impression of him. "I'll start making dinner now! Just stop crying!"
"Yay!" Taiga cheered, already snapped out of her childish depression as she grabbed his bags and rushed inside before pausing and looking at the boy slyly. "Oh by the way! I invited Sakura over! You know that she's always eager to see you when you get back from your trips."
Shirou blinked before ignoring the suspicious way Taiga was looking at him. "Sakura's coming over? Ok then, I'll cook for her as well but first I have to make sure that I have enough stuff in the kitchen. I just got back so I have to first check what I have that I can use…"
Fujimura paused before glancing at the boy with a disappointed look and disappearing in the house with his luggage. "Ah… it's not my place to tell him…" She muttered loudly as she went to his room.
The faker looked at his guardian skeptically before shaking his head and brushed off what the woman said as another one of her random rants. As he walked into the doorway, he paused momentarily to scratch his left arm near the shoulder, brushing his sleeve up in the process and momentarily uncovering a thin faint scar that went around the entirety of the limb…
o. o. o.
At an undisclosed Location:
The large old man grunted in pain and irritation as he slowly regained consciousness. At first he assumed that he must have gotten FAR more smashed than he originally anticipated and done something incredibly stupid before he fell asleep, until he registered the fact that the aches in his body were not normally the ones that were associated with a punch drunk happy night in a random pub in northern England… they were the aches and pains of a post battle… and getting hit hard in the back of the head in a manner to knock him out…
… Technically there weren't many differences between the two, but Sirius had been through both enough times to tell them apart.
Slowly picking himself up and taking in as much of his surroundings as possible, the man began to make an assessment of his situation. Walls… magic resistant an thick with no vents or drains in ta ceiling or floor, entrance… one, current body state… minimal injuries an limited access to circuits… there's also an enchanted bracelet on my left arm that's designed ta do something nasty but specifics unknown without further analysis. Luckily te bastard didn't mess wit ta runes on my body. The room… a bed, 2 chairs, an a table… all of high quality… The man grimaced as he slowly got onto his feet, his head pounding from the hangover. From ta poundin in me head, ahm guessin it hasn't been long since ah was brought in… but ahm still alive an in one piece… so whoeva took me wants sometin of me or needs me alive an in peak condition ta get it…
"Ahm up already." Sirius spoke rather loudly and a bit irritably. "Ya can show yerself now! Preferably if ya got sometin fer me ta eat! Just ta let ya know! Ahm easier ta talk to when ahm not hungry!"
Unsurprisingly, an old but amused chuckle made itself known from the other side of the doorway. "I see the rumors about your lack of tact were rather accurate…" The voice mused as the owner walked into view. He appeared to be middle aged with slick back dark hair, a full beard, an eloquent cloak over slightly outdated but still extremely formal clothing, and confident eyes. His demeanor was calm and confident as he swirled a glass of wine in one hand slowly. "Still, it is an honor to finally meet you in person Sirius McGinty. I am truly humbled."
Sirius on the other hand tensed the moment he laid eyes on the man. Vampire… He mentally swore as his structural grasping of the individual revealed the inner workings of his body and screamed powerful undead. However Sirius was not new to surprising circumstances and almost instantly regained composure. "Eh." He shrugged irritably. "Ya got one fan ya got a hundred. Can't say I approve of yer hospitality though… such a nice place and no grub? How often do ya play host?"
The man chuckled. Barely up and the human was already prepared to play a game of tongues with him… he truly was impressive. "Not often enough I'm afraid." He sighed. "I am a bit of a recluse you see, granted I still have frequent contact with the outside world but rarely do I actually go out or invite others to merely… socialize."
"I take it ahm not here ta simply keep ya company." Sirius stated the obvious. "Ya want me ta make ya some weapon."
The man nodded. "I would have put it in a less crude manner, but yes I guess that is why I brought you here. Don't be put off though, I am indeed a fan of your work. In fact I have over the years managed to… acquire some of your works to add to my collection and might I say that I value them all quite highly…"
The blacksmith's eyes narrowed, managing to identify his captor from his description of his hobbies. "Yer Louvre."
Louvre, a vampire, or the more technical term dead apostle, who has lived somewhere in Norway for around 500 years, personally taking the blood of 5000 people and infecting many times more if the rumors could be believed. His most notable trait though was the fact that he is a collector of mystic codes and conceptual weapons, making him in a way more dangerous than a vast majority of the dead apostles in the world. If what the enforcers said were true, the man has a pair of successors as well, his son and daughter who each bear his name and make him all the more dangerous. This was due to the fact that it is said that vampire's powers exponentially increase when near blood relatives…
Sirius had a bone to pick with this particular vampire for a while since the blood sucker had a habit of going out of his way to hunt down his customers and steal his work, so much so that the association at one point had restricted him from making codes for anyone other than nobles and high level enforcers for a fairly long time a few decades back in order to prevent the vampire from going after any other high profile targets.
The vampire however didn't seem to care at all what the bigger of the two thought of him and bowed, flattered. "… I'm honored that you know of me."
"Kinda hard not to know of ta vamp tat's made a habit o killn me customers." Sirius grunted. "Ya landed me in a pretty nasty pile o political crap a few years back cause o yer huntin."
Louvre sighed aridly. "I may have been a bit overzealous when it came to furthering my collection, however not all the blame lies with me Sirius. Had their previous owners simple allowed me to acquire the codes, and had the current association not lead itself blindly with its over idealistic and pompous way of thinking, things would have been far more convenient for you…" He stroked his beard thoughtfully. "Speaking of the association… how is the Kaleidoscope fairing?"
Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg. AKA The Wizard Marshal, Kaleidoscope, and Old Man of the Jewels. One of the 5 masters of true magic in the world today… and the number 4 of the 27 dead apostle ancestors. Despite being turned into a vampire years beyond years ago, the immensely powerful man lives his extremely long life as a human and in a high seat in the magus association, using his magic to travel between dimensions to participate in various activities and projects.
It should be noted that one of his previous projects several hundred years ago was aiding the Einzberns, Makiri, and Tohsaka establish the Holy Grail ritual…
Sirius frowned. "No clue. Zel went off ta do his thing couple o decades ago an ah haven't heard from him since. Why would ya want ta know? Most of yer kind aren't too keen on even talkin about him?"
Louvre smiled. "Why it's simple. I simply want to know of the current status of my fellow ancestor seeing as I have recently been honored with the number 10."
Sirius' eyes widened in shock. The 27 dead apostle ancestors are the aristocratic elite of the vampires. Over the years, some of the originals have been sealed away by the Church or have been annihilated. The leadership of some of different factions have constantly changed throughout the generations as they have been replaced, while others still reign as Ancestors in the present era. In fact the number of species in this list expanded as well to include but not limited to an alien from Mercury, a ghost, an actual FOREST, and a dog born from Gaea with the sole purpose to kill humans that is so powerful it actually holds the current number 1 position.
There are some missing numbers yet to be replaced, as they have been executed or sealed away by the Church, but the majority of them are still running all over the world without much to get in their way other than themselves. Most of the ancestors are very powerful beings, and many have the ability to utilize Reality Marbles as they are no longer human and view the world around them in a fashion that does not align to either Alaya, the spirit of humanity, or Gaia, the spirit of the earth.
Their general ranking is not determined exclusively by how powerful he or she is individually, but rather the paramount danger he or she poses to humanity. Zelretch for example, held the spot of number 4 even though he is human friendly, due to the fact that he once literally forced the moon, which was falling to earth, back into orbit… by himself.
Small wonder no one in the magus association ever attempted to slap a sealing designation on the man.
Still, number 10…
"Tat was ta Soil o' Genesis' spot." Sirius grunted, stuck between relief, curiosity, concern, and apprehension. "He was supposed ta be hard ta kill even by yer kind's standards. Who took him out?" Hard to kill was an understatement. With a body that consisted of 666 different monsters and beasts of all kinds whose essences would return to him if killed, the man pretty much was deemed unstoppable unless all of the beasts were killed at once before their essences returned to the original source.
Louvre nodded, his smile dropping a bit. "Indeed he was a formidable individual… if we could call him that due to his slipping sanity and abilities. However even he could not compare to the white princess when tasked to end her, and I heard that the Serpent of Akasha met his final end shortly after that as well… and after all that here I am. With a noble position that is so grand… that I am unable to truly meet its name as I am…"
The larger man frowned. "So ya want me ta make ya sometin tat will hold ya off till ya get strong enough to have tat number."
"Indeed." The vampire nodded. "By my estimates, I still need another 200 years before I acquire the sufficient power needed to earn the number 10. While I do have confidence that my collection can aid me in defeating most of the rabble that would attempt to end me, there are a few individuals that would obviously cause some concern, one of whom is that distasteful "Queen" of the association."
Sirius couldn't help but snort. Lorelei Barthomeloi was considered one of the most powerful magi in the association period. While her family, (which in general was deemed so "noble" that most of the reputable magic families in the world would be considered utter shit when compared to), had a tendency to hate and hunt vampires for sport as a past time, Lorelei took it a step further and hunted them down with a religious passion, and was damned good at it too. Word was she was strong enough to compare with the stronger of the dead apostle ancestors, already having 2 kills under her belt.
He occasionally wondered if she was on his level back when he was in his prime… but he never brought it up seeing as he preferred not to irritate noble females if he could help it. Normal females were hard enough to understand and bring back down to reality without something tearing off a chunk out of your ass.
"Owch." The red headed man laughed. "No wonder ya wanted me so badly. I almost don't blame ya fer kidnappin me now. Tat lass would make anyone run fer ta hills."
"Quite." The vampire said tersely. Clearly he didn't share Sirius' lighthearted viewpoint on the subject. "That being the case though, you can clearly see what I am looking for." He looked at the man in the eyes. "I wish for you to make me an anti-magus weapon. One that can pose a lethal threat to any magically capable being regardless of how strong their defense is and will work without fail. Should you create such a tool for me I will reward you handsomely and leave you alone to your work and I will no longer hunt down any of your clients. Refuse…" He looked at the man coldly. "And I will torture you and abuse your soul until you are nothing but a mindless husk that creates tools for me for all eternity…"
The room was silent for a moment before Sirius put on a dark grin. "Yer gonn have ta do betta tan tat Louvre. Ahm old. Nowhere near as old as you… but I'm still very, very old. Ta be honest, ah could make mahself keel ova anytime ah want fasta tan you and yer dead body can suck me blood. You know it an I know it. Piss me off too much an I'll just drop in ta middle o yer livin room an shit all ova yer couch an carpets like an old family dog. Ya also know as well as I do tat ma family either always stays in London under ta protection of ta Association… or tey're in Ireland wit ta rest of ta Fraga. Yer egotistical, but yer not stupid enough to go afta either. So try ta convince me ta work for ya… or else yer gonna have one big bloody dead body lyin here soon an you'll be wonderin if ya should try ta meet up wit Alcatraz in tat maze he accidentally locked himself in. Even Lorelei wouldn't follow ya tere."
Sirius was referring to the 27th ancestor, Caubac Alcatraz, also known as the Millennium Lock. He was a good friend of Zelretch as well in addition to being a magus on almost the same level, but roughly a century ago the idiot accidentally got lost in a maze he built in a treasure chest of his own creation and no one's heard from him since. Technically no one even knows if he's still alive at this point. It is for this reason that a majority of the other ancestors really don't like talking about him in conversation since it embarrasses them that one of their own had done something so stupid.
Louvre stared at Sirius with an unreadable expression before sighing and sipping his wine. "You really are as uncouth as they say. Small wonder you got along with Kaleidoscope so well." He took out a small sheet of paper from his clothes and began to read it. "You have been rather active as of recent years… traveling to Japan of all places and spending time with some boy and the recently promoted Lord Melloi 2…" He lazily looked at the unmoving Irishman. "I really don't know what this boy has that would interest you so much, but it would be a shame if he was among the casualties inside that city…"
"… Yer playing a dangerous game vampire…" The man growled as his mind worked frantically. Shirou was good, there was no doubt about that… but he had no actual experience in fighting other than sparring with Bazett. Throwing him head first into a major vampire incident was akin to suicide… even if he had powerful abilities, the odds of ANYONE without any experience surviving such a situation were so slim it wasn't even funny.
o. o. o.
Somewhere in Japan, a certain young man with mystic eye killing glasses sneezed.
o. o. o.
Having a dead apostle in Fuyuki City would definitely throw almost all of their efforts to keep Shirou's abilities under wraps out the window… but at the same time… there was an opportunity to get rid of the priest. At the very least he could force Louvre to waste some precious resources. Speaking of resources… "Tere are some pretty big people in tat city… an a nasty executor lives tere too… are you sure you can handle tem?"
"Humph." The aristocrat snorted. "A bunch of eastern hicks and a single priest? I have no reason to be worried in the slightest. Neither does my daughter… and in the case she does come across some trouble she has a few pieces of my collection to counterbalance anything a commoner could possibly use against her…" He walked away. "I'll give you a few days to reconsider your options Blacksmith. Until then I hope you enjoy your stay here…"
The blacksmith was quiet for a small while as he listened to the man leave… before smiling very faintly. "Well ten… I hope she's properly equipped for tis job o hers… cause until ya show me otherwise, ahm just gonna sit here an watch ta show from here…"
o. o. o.
Fuyuki High School:
Shirou calmly stood on the archery range line and drew back the longbow that was from the school storage, arrow notched, and hand back past his ear. The target was put farther away from him than normal for high school students, but for him it made little difference. The arrow will hit just above the direct middle of the target… He mentally concluded as he stilled his body and let loose the arrow, causing it to fly through the air and embed itself in the bullseye, a centimeter above the dead middle.
His ears were filled with clapping as he turned around to see many upperclassmen and students his age applauding him.
"Way to go Emiya." Smirked the current captain of the Archery team, someone whose name he hadn't committed to memory just yet. "I've occasionally seen you practice back when you were in secondary school, but it seems like you just keep on getting better if that's even possible. With you we could easily get ourselves ranked in the nation." He turned to the other upperclassmen. "You hear that guys! We actually have a chance at winning now!" A series of loud cheers responded, causing many of the underclassmen to shift around embarrassed.
"I'm not really all that impressive." The boy laughed sheepishly and scratched the back of his head.
"Please." Snorted Shiji Matou with a smirk. Shirou had been decent friends with the boy since the previous year despite the fact that their personalities didn't match at all. Between Shinji's overconfident and egotistical personality and Shirou's low key and stubborn personality, many people wondered how the two could stand being around one another. "The only time you miss is when you want to Emiya. I don't see why you downplay that so much… you could easily get a decent scholarship into a good sports school if you play your cards right." He smirked. "Well, that is if you decide that being a janitor isn't the life you want after all…"
"Coming from the guy that's still having trouble getting the arrow near the center of the target…" Ayako Mitsuzuri, another freshman snorted, getting some others to laugh as well.
"Hey Emiya, how much do you practice with a bow in your free time?" Another upperclassman asked. "Do you have any special equipment?"
"Special…equipment?" The boy repeated nervously, his mind instinctively blueprinting the bow made up of several materials that technically weren't released to the world's populace yet. "Er… yeah I have a few… but they were gifts from a family friend and he lives in Europe. Sorry."
"A European bow? Must be pretty high quality stuff." Nodded another older kid before patting the boy on the arms. "It must be pretty tough if you need to be this solid in order to use it…"
Shirou shifted uncomfortably on his feet. He was rather proud of the fact that he was in extremely good physical condition, but during his last year of middle school he had made the mistake of taking off his shirt to cool off in the middle of track and field day, giving everyone a good look at him. He wasn't ripped by any means, but he apparently had "muscles in all the right places" according to a few people he talked to, whatever that meant. After that there was a period of time where a significant number of girls began to spend time with him… and even faster still those girls stopped…
Oddly enough it was around that time that Sakura decided to visit his home more frequently after school…
"I just do a bit of working out every day after school and my temp job is fairly heavy labor." The boy feebly attempted to explain. "It's nothing big."
"That's not what I heard…" Giggled a classmate of his behind him. He pretended to have not heard it.
"You're still doing that job Emiya?" Shinji asked incredulously. "You really have to prioritize your time more. What's more important, some minimum wage job or the club?"
"Leave him alone Matou." The captain sighed. "It's Shirou's decision to do what he does. We just have to respect it…" He paused for a moment before grabbing said Emiya by the shoulders and crying manly tears. "But you won't abandon us will you? I want to have at least one good year in this club before I graduate!"
The boy laughed nervously. "Eheheh… y-yeah…"
o. o. o.
Several hours later:
"So how was your first day as at the high school archery club sempai?" Sakura asked curiously as she helped him cook dinner. She had really come a long way since she began to learn how to cook under his wing, but she still had a long way to go. Because of his travels, Shirou was proficient in both Eastern and Western dishes much to the delight of anyone who realized that they could do requests and get satisfactory results regardless of what they asked for. Sakura, while not as good as Shirou, was improving rather quickly and it would only be a matter of time until she was as good as he was in western dishes…
Till the day she surpassed him though, he reigned as absolute king of the kitchen and there wasn't a damned thing anyone could do or say about it.
"It was as expected." Shirou shrugged as he stirred the beef stew. "Upperclassmen wanted me to win them tournaments, some more than others, others were a bit more skeptical of my skills, and Shinji brought up the fact that I was still working…"
The girl looked down guiltily as if she was the one who did so. "… I'm sorry that nii-san is so rude to you all the time. I have asked him to be nicer but…"
The faker patted the girl on the back. "It's ok. That's just Shinji being Shinji. I'm used to it." He looked at the girl worriedly.
It had been roughly a year since Shirou finally pieced together the fact that Sakura was a magus, though the way the prana in her body manifested indicated she was clearly of a different brand than the standard one. He never did confront her about this fact, preferring to keep things the way they were between them, however he did notice that every now and then… something inside the girl acted up. Normally immediately afterwards she would do something rather clumsy such as trip and head butt a wall, or gaze off in a random direction and ignore the rest of the world. He would have been more concerned with what was happening to the girl if she had made a bigger deal about it, but after every event she would be back to normal almost instantly and behave as if nothing ever happened so he assumed she had everything under control…
Personally, he didn't actually believe that Sakura didn't know about him being a magus and vice versa. She had been all over his house over the past few years and even though the bounded fields around him and his tool shed were pretty hard to notice, even a complete novice would have been able to find them by now. Still, he pretended to play ignorant to their current situation all for the sake of ensuring that the peaceful relationship between the two lasted. Once they both admitted to the other that they knew of their studies in thaumaturgy, odds were likely that they would have to cut ties on the grounds that they would be suspicious of the other's attempts to learn of their craft and family secrets. In a way, they both knew this and that the other knew this, and so the two had an unspoken agreement to never bring up the subject around one another.
"Ahhhh." Shirou sighed as he stretched his arms above his head. "It really does feel good to be home…"
"It's good to have you back sempai." Sakura smiled gently, showing far more emotions than she ever would have several years prior. Her smile though disappeared and was replaced with a look of shock as she saw his tshirt's sleeves fall down and reveal the scar on his left arm. "What? Sempai, what happened to your arm? You didn't have that mark when you left for vacation."
The faker grimaced as he quickly dropped his arms and pushed his clothes back down. "Nothing! It's nothing to worry about Sakura!" He waved his hands frantically. "I was just helping Sirius-jiji with some of his equipment and some got wrapped really tight around my arm! It's nothing!"
The girl puffed her cheeks out angrily before relenting and looking away. "Humph. This isn't right Sempai. If you are going to get hurt like that when you go on vacation then you shouldn't go in the first place."
The boy laughed. "It's ok. It was all my fault in the first place. I wasn't careful with what I was doing and I got hurt in the process. I learned my lesson, don't worry…"
Oh he learned his lesson all right. If he had been 6 inches to the right of where he had been standing that day he would have had his heart cut in half along with most of his body instead of his arm cut off... it was one of the few times he wished his projection skills weren't so exact that they produced almost perfect copies of what he was making…
The two played continued to bicker lightly for a bit before they realized that the dinner was starting to suffer from neglect and immediately got back to work. Keeping secrets from one another took back seat when it came to cooking… especially when Taiga was in the next room moaning about starving to death…
o. o. o.
That night:
Shirou sighed as he sat in his storehouse, AKA his workshop, calmly breathing in and out to soothe his body. Sakura and Taiga had left about a couple of hours ago and in that time he had managed to finish his homework and do some spare studying on random magical facts. He doubted he needed to know stuff about spiritual evocation, but then again it was probably something everyone needed to know at some point to make familiars so he just went along with it.
Now though he was pretty much finished with his research portion of his studies and was now back to practice… and right now he was going to practice something that he had rarely had the time or privacy to do in recent days…
"Trace… on…" The boy muttered, hypnotizing himself calmly as he pictured the object he was tracing in his mind. It was the most valuable and treasured tool he had stored in his exceptionally small library of swords, spears, axes, shields, armors, and other similarly related tools. Feeling all 27 of his original magic circuits warm up, activating with his inner energy, od, and then running on and converting the energy from his surroundings, mana, into prana, Shirou calmly reconstructed the sheathe of Excalibur.
Warmer… warmer… hotter… hotter… his body was burning now as his circuits rapidly produced the energy needed to create the object that was in itself a mystery… yet despite the sensation he was experiencing he knew that this feeling was far from his limits. He had experienced this sensation so many times that he barely noticed the strain he was going through and the sweat that was soaking his shirt. In fact, he knew that what he was experiencing was significantly less than what he originally went through when he first began to project the artifact.
A light flashed in front of the boy… and it was done.
All of this transpired in less than 5 seconds in the real world, but to Shirou it felt like it had been a few minutes. Regardless of what the sensation was like to the boy, the end result was lying in front of him. A perfect golden replica of the sheathe that resided in his body lay in front of the boy. No matter how many times he saw it, the boy couldn't help but awe at its flawless and beautiful design, and try to convince to himself that the real thing actually existed in his body.
"If the sheathe was this brilliant… I could only imagine what the sword or the owner was like…" He muttered to himself aridly as he calmly brought his body under control again with breathing exercises…
That was… until the bounded field surrounding his home was set off.
o. o. o.
A/N.
Don't you just hate it when half of the chapter you were working on just up and disappears on you because the computer was being a prick?
So here's the next chapter. As you can see, I threw in another healthy chunk of natsuverse trivia into the mix in addition to giving Shirou another useful spell that only he could truly abuse to high holy heaven, and hinted at another one that would prove to be useful later on. I'll give you guys a hint, it would do jack shit against an activated gae bolg, but it would stop Berserker's massive destructive attacks in its tracks easily.
So then, bonus points to anyone who actually thought that would use Louvre, who if you didn't figure out by now, is the replacement for Nero Chaos in the dead apostle ancestor ranks after the latter got killed by Shiki and Arucreid in ALL the arcs of Tsukihime. I was actually just bored one day after writing another of the chapters on type moon wiki when I saw his profile and I went: "I have to use him somehow." Luckily, his presence in any of the current natsuverse storylines is so negligible at the moment that his description was never even given, so I can abuse him and his kids without having a guilty conscience. Yay convenience!
As for the relationship between all the characters, I'll try to make things move as much as possible, but seeing as this is a story that's trying to stick to a natsuverse style/theme, it might be a bit more difficult than anticipated, but then again that might just be because I'm slipping in my style of covering 500,000 different perspectives in the story at once. Ugh.
So in other news, Gabriel Blessing is actually alive! He only just got broadsided by the evil step bitch chainsaw wielding psycho mother loving monster called life and was kidnapped for a significant amount of time! But now he's back… and doing another story to get back in gear… but he's back! If you don't know who he is… I pity you. Then after you get over the shame of me pitying you, go to his profile, read his stories: Hill of Swords, and In Flight. Then lament because you haven't read them already.
So that's about it for now. I'll try and be quicker about the next chapter, but no promises. Having 2 jobs tends to eat up a bit of time.
So review! Worship the log! Watch Fate Zero! And Review again!
