Shinji Matou opened the door to his apartment after a long day of work. He was tired, planning to head straight to bed and sleep in the next day, but that plan was instantly no longer on the table.

Because standing in the entry hall of his small apartment, was none other than the kaleidoscope, the father of jewel magic, the wizard marshal, Zelretch himself.

The two simply stared at one another for a moment before Zelretch gestured toward the living room, and walked away from Shinji toward it.

Shinji was terrified. He knew of what Zelretch was known for, and from what he had heard, Zelretch played favorites. Tohsaka was one such favorite, taken under his wing as an apprentice of the Clocktower to the most powerful mage alive. If he was here before him, it probably meant that Tohsaka or Emiya had blabbed about his past.

It meant he was about to die.

So shinji strode right into the small living area of his apartment and stepped in, finding Zelretch sitting at his table, a cup of tea in hand, and a cup of tea opposite him on the table. "Sit."

Shinji sat.

"Drink."

"So its poison is it?"

Zelretch looked at Shinji and raised brow before chuckling. "I am not here to kill you, boy. Though you are eminently deserving of such a fate."

"I am," Shinji admitted darkly as he took a sip of the tea, finding it to be slightly minty in flavor. "May I ask why you are here, if not to kill me for what I have done in the past?"

Zelretch drank the tea in his hand and set the cup down, eyes leveling at Shinji and looking at him as if he was a piece of mold, or a case of lung rot. "I was speaking with my apprentice,her boyfriend and sister, your adopted sister, and the conversations shifted toward the war."

"So you are here to reprimand me for action four years old, or older?"

"Yes, but not quite," Zelretch said darkly. "Shinji Matou, after the war, after your life was saved by Shirou Emiya, you left Fuyuki and moved here, to the Ukraine. No contact with anyone from your previous life."

"Who would want to contact me?" Shinji scoffed. "I certainly don't want to talk to them."

"I think you are lying. To me, and to yourself," Zelretch said with a smirk before he took out a small metal disk, a stopwatch by the looks of it. "You have regrets."

"So what if I do? You don't know me?"

"I know you have been a monster who has done terrible things, and that you may have realized as such. I know that you left Fuyuki to get away, to understand your own feelings, to understand how you feel about realizing our past actons. And to further attempt your entry into magic."

"What is your point?" Shinji almost demanded, getting more than a little impatient at being mocked and reviled in his face as he was.

Zelretch tapped the table and in that moment the pocket watch opened up and catapulted a small metal fragment onto the table in front of Shinji.

"What is this?" Shinji ask as he moved to touch it.

"An option," Zelretch said, causing Shinji to recoil his hand away from it. "Simply put, I am bored, and you are a pathetic waste of humanity. As such, both problems can be solved with a bit of creative free thinking."

Shinji looked at the piece of metal, then to Zelretch and said nothing. He was of course angry over being insulted, but he knew that Zelretch was right, about basically everything that was said. And while it didn't make it easier to hear, he knew that snapping at Zelretch could be the end of him.

"It is simple. Take that piece of metal, and I shall l transport you to an alternate dimension of this world, where you shall take part on a Special grail war there called the Great Grail War. Additionally, if you accept this, I shall release the blockages upon your magic circuits, allowing you access to all that has been evading you for the time of your life."

Shinji stiffened. His magic circuits being blocked was the one thing he had never been able to fix. It had been the one thing stopping him from his birthright of magic, and even if he now understood that the Matou crest was a horrifying thing, and gone with Zouken's death, he still had spent the years keeping up with studies on the off chance he found a way to unblock his circuits. "Why, would you offer me such a thing, when I don't deserve ANYTHING?" he said, stressing the important word, and his own feelings about his situation. He was after all, not a person who deserved a second chance.

Silence filled the small room or minutes on end as Shinji glared at Zelretch waiting for an answer. It didn't matter what the answer was, he just wanted to know why he was being toyed with.

"Because, as I said, I'm bored," Zelretch said with a smirk. "If you agree, I stop being bored. Whether you die flailing about like a lost lamb, or prove yourself actually capable and perhaps become a better person, hardly matters. Because regardless of which outcome, I stop being bored for a time."

"And if I refused?"

"You won't," Zelretch said in a sure tone. "Could you give up the one thing stopping you from proving your linage? From proving that your years of study, study that you continue to do, was not in vain?"

"I . . . . . a master would need a familiar, and that would need a catalyst," Shinji said. He couldn't refute Zelretch's words, but he could poke holes in his plan.

Zelretch simply smiled and pointed at the shard of metal. "what do you think that is?"

Shinji scowled at it, a mere piece of metal, making Zelretch laugh heartily.

"The decision was made the moment I came here," he said as she got up out of the seat, a glittering gateway of crystal forming behind him. "Do show me a good showing, and don't worry, you'll get the information you need when there, and anything you are holding when you touch it will come with you."

And just like that, Zelretch stepped through his portal and disappeared, leaving Shinji with a choice.

It wasn't a hard choice, so Shinji immediately headed to his room and began packing some clothes into a suitcase. His room was not large, big enough for a single person bed, a wardrobe, and a desk and little else. The wardrobe contained his clothes for his days off, as well as his suits for his job, while the desk was much more important. A scattering of boos on magic taken from the Matou Mansion before its destruction, a few of them on crests, a number of small journals where he kept his own study notes. Compare to most mages libraries and journals they were pathetic, but it was all he had, and he was intent on getting more over time. He had nothing else related to magic though, no jewels, no materials of any kind, nothing.

Without open circuits it wasn't like he could actually cast anything after all.

As he grabbed a couple journals and tossed them into his suitcase Shinji paused and then very slowly opened one of the drawers of the desk, picking up a tow picture frame, the kind that had the frames connected by a hinge, and considered it. He knew what pictures were in it, but he hadn't looked at them in years. Not since before the war.

Taking a deep breathe he flipped the picture frame open. The left picture was a pair of small ones, one with himself, Sakura and Uncle Kariya all smiling together happily. Taken a year before the fourth Grail war. The second was one of him and Sakura, both smiling, though Sakura's smile now that he noticed was muted, forced. This one was taken a couple years after the Fourth Grail war, during the time Zouken was trying to make Sakura into the family heir.

The picture on the right took up the whole frame and gave him mixed feelings. A picture of him and Emiya. Both were wearing shots and t-shirt, dirtied by grass stains and dirt. A soccer ball was on the ground between them, and both were smiling towards the camera. Two kids who were the best of friends and happy as could be and having the time of their lives.

"Back when things seemed, simple," Shinji said grimly as he closed the photo frame and tossed it into the suitcase as well. Shaking the thoughts from his head he opened another drawer and pulled out a pistol, an Mp-446 Viking chambered in 9mm, and threw it as well as the second magazine of ammunition for it in as well and, once he doubled checked if he missed anything, closed the suitcase and headed back into the living room.

Zelretch was gone, there was no sign that he had ever even been there aside from the small fragment of metal that sat on the table. Even the teacups were gone. He stepped up to the table and moved to touch the fragment before stopping just shy of it.

Was he really going to throw what little bit of a life he had and risk himself in a grail war in some other kind of timeline bullshit, just to open his circuits? Just to look for what he was missing in his life? Just to Prove Emiya right that he-

Shinji shook his head, cutting off the final thought. The answer was obvious. He picked up the fragment.

He expected to find himself falling through a portal, a feeling of vertigo, flashing lights, something like that.

Instead he was simply just no longer in his living room, but standing on a gravel road. Glancing around the first thing he se was a house. A modest size and of stone construction primarily with a tall wall surrounding its property. It was backed against an area of forest, and glancing behind he could see that the gravel road he was one led to a main road a short ways away.

He turned back to the house and found its front gate and its front door, was open as if inviting him. So he stepped forward, past the threshold of the gate, feeling nothing, and then stepped into the house, again feeling nothing.

The house had a simple layout. The entryway was connected to the living room and kitchen, and a stairway went up to the second floor. What pulled his attention first though was the living room table, where a lit lamp sat, illuminating a number of items that were easy to discern as he got close. A folded letter, an ammo box, a cellphone, a debit card, and a knife. He picked up the letter first and opened it.

Good you're reading this.

I'll make this simple for you by putting this in point form, so pay attention boy.

You are in Romania, near the cities of Sighisoara and Trifas, both of which will be locations of conflict in the upcoming great grail war that will start in a month or so.

Yes, you have a month to prep, make good use of it.

As promised I have unblocked all of your magic circuits, so you should have potential ability almost equal to Sakura or Tohsaka. You do not however, have a crest, so obviously you will need to do some practice and begin planning what form of magic you want to turn into your specialty in the future.

When you decide you will find some books to help you invest in it, no need to thank me.

The ammo case has more bullets for you gun, and the cellphone has a few numbers on it you should find useful, including this dimensions mages association materials requisition line, as well as the number of a priest who is acting as a sort of leader for the red faction of this war.

Do not trust him under any circumstances.

Oh yes, and this war does not have seven servants, it has fifteen. Two teams of seven servants and then one extra class servant, ruler, to watch over the war itself. You will be on the red faction team, taking the place of another entrant whom I, dealt with.

He was an ass anyway, almost as much as you.

Anyway, that fragment I left you will act as a catalyst for you, and only you, and will summon a servant for you. You should already have the command seals, so make sure you summon your servants as soon as you feel ready. But not too early, as it will make your presence known.

The house you are in is yours, and has a yard out back big enough to make a summoning circle for your servant.

Ty not to die too quickly.

- Zelretch.

Ps, before I forget, in this timeline the Matou/Makiri family was killed when the Yggdmillennia family stole the grail from them during the second world war, so you will be seen as a direct survivor that somehow the whole world did not know about until your name gets out. Have fun with that.

Shinji put down the letter and looked at everything on the table, looking it over and picked it up as thoughts whirled in his mind.

The idea of his family having been killed by some other family that stole the grail was absurd; he couldn't imagine Zouken dying easily. He needed information. Lots of it.

"I've got a month," Shinji said as he booted up the phone and looked it over, smiling at the fact it had internet, and a number of files on it that looked highly informative about this timelines history. "Time to get to work."

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Three weeks was a short amount of time. To some it might seem like a long time, but to a magus, and those who studied to become as such, it was a startling short amount of time. But that was how much time Shinji had given himself. In three weeks he would summon his Servant, an until then he would research , study, and plan and prepare as much as he could.

Books in the house he found gave him a moderate understanding of this timelines differences and looking into the death of his family line gave him an adequate fake reason to tell other as to why he was participating in the war.

Contacting the mages association to requisition some materials and equipment had been a, fun conversation full of questions he didn't ask, but they managed to get him what he asked for, and the debit card he had had more than enough funds on it. Enough that he bought a motorcycle.

Mostly out of necessity as the closest town was thirty kilometers away and he was not about to walk that distance for groceries.

Simple bounded fields had been set up around the premise for security, and had already killed two familiars that got to close, and most importantly, Shinji had settled upon what magic he would focus on and turn into a new crest to rebuild the Matou family with. It would take time, but he was happy with its beginnings. It was versatile and useful, and while it still felt like a very 'Matou' choice, he felt it was far enough away from Zouken Crest worms and the horror of that line of Magecraft.

Now, after all his planning, all his studying, and preparation, Shinji stood in the backyard of his temporary home and looked at his work. The magic circle was perfect as he could tell, the catalyst was already in place, and the sun was about to go down. It was the perfect time.

"Now, what was that faction specific chant again?" Shinji asked himself as he pulled out his phone and looked over the notes he was keeping on it. "Okay . . . . . . Silver and Steel, the essence. Stone and the Archduke of contracts, the Foundation. Red, the Color I pay tribute to."

The magic circle began to glow a vibrant crimson, reminding Shinji of when he witnessed Rider's summoning. The circle had been purple back then.

"A Wall, to harbor against the raging wind. Let the four cardinal gates be sealed, and thread the three forked road from the crown reaching unto the kingdom."

The glow intensified, making it hard to see.

"I hereby propose. Swear your fealty to me, and my life shall be your sword. If you abide by the grails summons and follow the laws, then heed my call!"

Shinji could see the fragment of metal, such a miniscule and easily ignored thing, glowing vibrantly as the circle around it. Greater than the circle even. He could feel his circuits straining from lack of real intensive use, power being pulled from them, and knew stating the next lines would be hard for him.

But he needed to say them, even it would make him have to restart the rite.

"I hereby swear, I shall be . . . no, I shall become a good in the world. I shall ward off the evil in this world, and that I wrought."

Shinji could feel the power lancing through him, roiling against the words he altered, but he pushed through. The circle had not lost power. Not yet. He was still good to continue. Probably due to the catalyst, or Zelretch interfering somehow.

"From the Seventh heaven, wielding three words of power come forth from the ring of eternal control, guardian of the heavenly scales!"

In that instant the power of the circle seemed to disappear completely, only for it to blast back to full power, sending out a shockwave that decimated some of the walls surrounding the yard and sending Shinji to his back from the force. He forced himself up immediately though, and through the mist and smoke and steam he could see a figure, and hear its words, and its slight confusion.

"I am a Servant of Red, called here by . . . the ones who walks from a different land. Tell me, are you my master?"

authors note: had this idea kind of randomly, but it was getting in the way of doing other writing so i had to get it written and out. will do more of it in the future, though not sure how fast. will probably depend upon reception. i just like the idea of forcing Shinji to try to aim for redemption even in his own broken, pained way.

guesses as to whop his Servant will be? no it wont be one of the normal apocrypha servant,s his is taking place of one of the Reds.