Artoria knew subconsciously that she wasn't welcomed in the fairy village. It doesn't really take much to figure that out, just simply look at their expression long enough and you can see the slight traces of disgust in them. They never once called her by name, only by the title of 'Caster'.
She didn't understand why that was the case, they never really elaborated on it but they never seek to harm her either so as long as she behaves herself in the village, they mostly leave her alone. Which is fine for her as she can never get along with anybody in the village anyway. They just seem…too different from her anyway to really get along.
So she would go back to her stable after her long day of work and play with her staff. The same staff that just appeared one day in the stable. She didn't know why but she felt drawn into it, as if it was something that it was missing from her.
Of course she never showed it outside the stable, lest the villagers might take it away from her like her other things as well. This was something special for her and she would be damned if it would be taken again away from her.
As she fiddles the staff with magical power from her Divine Patterns, she begins to feel a strange surge of unknown energy, flowing from somewhere into the staff. It didn't seem to harm her nor affect anything else so she let it be, seeing the strange energy coalesced into the crystal.
She continued to watch on curiously for about a few minutes before all the strange energy had been fully absorbed by the staff. She poured magical energy into it to check for any strange effects but so far there was no effect on the staff even after that weird spell was completed…if it was a spell to begin with.
As she was just about to simply leave the staff and prepare her dinner, a strange voice suddenly echoes through her mind.
'Oyah? What do we have here? A fairy that is practicing magecraft?'
She was startled by the voice, letting go of the staff that dropped immediately to the floor, eliciting a cry of pain from the mysterious voice in the staff.
'Ouch! That kinda hurt, young fairy. You should really be careful on how you handle your elders. Some of us are far more fragile than others you know.'
Caster could only gape at the talking staff as if it was the most interesting thing in this stable. She has never once heard the staff talk at all in all her years of wielding it. Perhaps it was that strange energy that formed earlier, allowing it to talk? She couldn't tell really..
"Umm…Mister Staff… why are you talking just now…" she had no idea why she was asking this question. It sounded dumb in her head and when she poke but that was the best response she could have made from this revelation…probably.
The staff didn't make any weird movements like a certain magical stick but only glowed from the crystal. 'Oh goodness, you think I'm the staff? Wow that is a good one, perhaps I should name myself The Staff! Hahaha!' The voice from what she can tell is a male that had a soft gentleman vibe to it. He sounded…childish but yet mature at the same time. 'No, my dear, I'm not the staff despite my sounds of pain from earlier. I was just playing along with the theme because your face looked quite adorable.'
Caster could only blush embarrassingly as she grabbed the staff and immediately chuck it right out to the wall. "Don't say things like that! You're making me feel confused!"
The voice in the staff could only chuckle. 'My apologies, it was not my intention to confuse you, please forgive this humble voice for this transgression.' Caster could feel that the voice had a hint of mischief behind that apology but held no malicious intent onto her so she let go of it for now.
She took a deep breath before conversing again with the staff. "Ok but honestly, why have you contacted me then and how did you know about the staff in my place? I haven't gone out too far from the village nor revealed the staff to anyone so you shouldn't be able to find it either."
'Well, of course I was the one who gave you the staff myself after all so I know how to contact you through it.' The voice answered the question which stumped Caster on her thoughts. She always wondered who gifted her this staff in the first place and to have the owner or rather the one who gifted her the staff, talk right before her is pretty much a boon for her.
Caster let out a small smile. "I see…thank you for the staff…Mr…?"
'Oh none of that Mr nonsense, you may call me Merlin.'
Ah Merlin, at least she finally knew who gave her it…
…
…
…wait..
"WHAAAAAAT?! MERLIN?! THE SAME ONE TRAPPED IN AVALON?! THAT ONE?!" She couldn't help it. After all, the idea that Merlin was the one who gave her this staff just seems…inconceivable…impossible even…
She only has heard rumors of the mysterious magician who was trapped in the Gardens of Avalon, forever watching the world in his tower. And so you can forgive her disbelief in that statement alone.
The voice chuckles once more. 'The one and the same and now it is time for me to ask you, Caster Artoria a simple question…
Do you want to become a magician?
It took her a bit by surprise due to the serious tone that Merlin used and also due to the nature of the question…somehow she felt like she was asked this question before from a distant dream that she can't quite reach yet. She wasn't sure why she felt that way but in the end, it did not change much from her final decision.
"Yes Merlin, I want to become a magician. Please teach me."
Shirou opened his eyes to the world of his Japanese-style ceiling.
He blinked his eyes for a bit, trying to see whenever or not what he is seeing is currently real. He decided to test it by pinching himself, feeling the sensation of a needle, poking at his skin.
"Yup, I'm awake." He let out a sigh as he got up from his futon. This isn't his room he noticed as his room was far smaller than this, rather it was a spare room that he would allow guests to sleep from time to time, so whoever dragged him here must have not known that fact and decided to just dump him in a room that has a futon on it.
He stared at his closed shoji to see hints of sunlight, being filtered into the room. As he was about to stand up to open it, a sudden flare of pain stabs his entire body, a sensation similar to when he practices magecraft, a hot iron rod shoved into his back, but the pain is far worse than normal.
He buckled down to his knees, gritting his teeth to prevent a whine of pain from him. It's taking all his willpower to just keep on kneeling and preventing himself from going back to sleep. But it's getting morning soon and he needs to prepare breakfast for Taiga and Sakura soon. He bears the pain as he slowly gets up and walks very carefully towards his shook before sliding it to the sides.
The harsh glare of the sun forced Shirou to close his eyes for a moment, before opening them up as it adjusted itself to the light. He realized that it's far later in the day than her though, around either noon or afternoon as the heat is way too harsh for early morning.
He could only let out a sigh of disappointment for sleeping in like this. He hoped that he didn't worry Sakura or Taiga too much. Or made Taiga angry for missing breakfast. Most likely she will make up for lost time in dinner. Shirou shivers at that very thought.
But…why did he fall asleep like that though?
It wasn't as though he did anything last night-!
"I ask of you, are you my master?"
"Emiya Shirou, what is your decision?"
"I won't fight, I'll abandon my rights as a Master."
"I see you're alone now, Onii-chan."
"Are you all right?"
"Suit yourself. Berserker, kill her."
"Servant Caster at your service. Until I can find my master once more, I will be here for you, Master."
He gripped his head in pain as memories from last night started flooding in. The memories of Saber, Rin having her own servant, that strange priest, that giant hulking beast, another Saber that uses a staff and him becoming her master…
He widened at that last thought as he checked his left hand to find…his command seals still faded away.
He could only sigh in disappointment, did it mean that he failed in contracting Caster because he no longer had the command seals to do so? But that wouldn't make any sense right? Caster said it was a success…so why were his seals still faded?
He could only sit down at his futon, flaring up more pain from his body as he winced. Why did his body begin to feel like this though?
As he tries to not agitate anymore pain from his body, his door opens, revealing Caster with a tray of grilled fish with some vegetables on it and a bar of chocolate?
"Oh Shirou! Thank goodness you are awake. I was gonna wake you up if you were still asleep." Caster said as she dropped the tray of food before sitting down close to Shirou. "How are you feeling right now?"
"I'm fine Sa- I mean Caster." Shirou almost slipped up Saber there for a moment, remembering his old servant. He frowned at that thought. He wondered if Saber managed to find a suitable master in time…but there is no point in thinking such things. After all…
'I don't deserve to be by her side after I abandoned her after all…I'm just a coward, nothing more.'
Caster frowned at the slight difference in expression of her master and decided to distract him. "Well, you should eat up master! You probably haven't eaten anything since last night and it's kinda already afternoon so…"
Shirou widened his eyes as it's already afternoon?! What about Sakura?! Taiga?! What did they think about when he was knocked out cold? In fact…
"Caster…were there any visitors that arrived at my house in the morning?"
Caster nodded. "Yup, a purple hair girl and a brown one, but don't worry, I have upgraded the boundary field that you have placed down. So it will incentivize people who go to your house to leave and do something else."
Shirou grimaced, knowing that Taiga may come back again around dinner time so he needed to ask Caster to make changes. "Umm, thank you for that Caster but that as my caretaker and my fellow classmate who would go to my house every day…can you change the boundary field to allow them to go in?"
Caster shrugged. "I could do that if you wish, but would it be wise? After all, you are technically a master again. Would it be wise to let civilians stay in your house where it could be attacked by an enemy master?"
Shirou gulped at the very thought of Taiga and Sakura getting attacked in his house while this war was still ongoing but… he just couldn't help it. "I get what your saying but…they always visit here everyday. Taiga might eventually figure out something is wrong if she keeps trying to enter my house only to leave afterward without eating."
"Eating? What does that have to do with them visiting you?" Caster tilts her head in confusion.
Shirou gave a blank stare at Caster. "Everything."
Caster could only sigh. "Very well Master, I shall change the boundary field at once."
Shirou gave a small nod as thanks before staring down at the meal provided by Caster. He decided to eat the meal, it would be a waste after all.
As he eats the meal, Caster shuffled nervously as she watched Shirou eat her food. Shirou raised his eyebrow at her action before shrugging it off and still continued to eat.
Overall, the food was decent. Some things could have made the dish better, such as adding less salt to the fish, maybe cooking the vegetables a bit more and adding some more seasoning but he enjoyed it enough so he was ok with this.
After finished eating, Shirou did a dogeza to Caster. "Thank you for the meal Caster, it was really good."
Caster smiled at the success of her cooking. "I'm glad that I can be of assistance in your time of need Shirou." As she was about to get the dishes, Shirou stood up to clean the dishes himself before flinching in pain again.
"Shirou! Please don't get up! You haven't fully recovered yet, let me clean this for you."
"No, let me do it Caster. It was the least thing I could do-" Shirou tried to argue but was silent immediately as Caster glared straight at him.
"Shirou. You are suffering from severe mana depletion and backlash of your magic circuits. The food I fed you was to mitigate that. The pain you are feeling is the side effect of severe mana depletion, not to mention the fact that your magic circuits were forcibly activated in that manner after we made the contract. I was able to mitigate the damage to your body at least so the worst has passed. It will take a while before you can even move properly. So please relax and let me clean this up and then I will start working on getting you healed up. " Caster's tone held for no argument as she swept the tray in one go and left his room before Shirou could even refute it at all.
Shirou could only groan at his uselessness before lying down instead, breathing slowly as the pain subsided afterward. But her words only made him realize something.
"Wait… forcibly activate Magic Circuits? I thought you had to make Magic Circuits from scratch?"
Caster did not go back immediately to her Master after she took care of the dishes. But instead decided to modify the boundary field around her and strengthened it as well.
She was quite surprised to discover a boundary field erected here, considering that her Master hasn't even unlocked his Magic Circuits yet (which is something she intends to address very soon) but she figured that someone else did it for him. She wondered who built this boundary field that serves no purpose other than to warn enemies with ill intentions.
But she won't dwell on it for too long, instead focusing on changing the boundary field settings to let these people that she has seen before, allow entry to her master's home. It didn't really take that long to do so and once she was done with that, she continued the modification of the field around her.
She began by adding more layers of defense towards it. To begin, she has brought out a pot of water and a bundle of wood in the backyard near the shed. She pointed her wand towards the pot of water and began channeling her Magical Energy towards it.
The water begins to bubble from the pot before slowly coming out of it, its shape is like a whirlpool that it's constantly running. Two glowing green eyes stared at Caster, confirming it's allegiance towards her.
This was the first time she ever did this type of summoning. Even back in Britain, she only did this spell because she was quite curious if she was capable of summoning mid-fight, which wasn't the case. It took time and concentration to just summon an elemental to her side.
Her summoning spell works by using the element of choice to use as a vassal, in which case the water, then using Magical Energy to will it's form to what she desires and finally, using a bit of [Spiritual Evocation], she managed to draw a lesser spirit into the vassal. Now the lesser spirit provides the Magical Energy needed to sustain its form and it can be given simple orders to follow.
She orders the Water elemental to return to the pot and sure enough, it does without much of a fuss, although she can still tell it's there, judging by the two glowing green eyes. Seeing as the spell is working properly, she instructs the elemental once more to defend this place and her master should anyone with ill-intention come about. The elemental then simply disperses from the pot as water vapor into the air.
The being is still there lingering in the air, but is basically invisible to the eye until this place or her master is being attacked. The elemental will appear once again to fight should any enemy come forth to the base. This was one way of defending her base. By summoning elemental beings and then having them be dispersed into the air around the newly modified boundary field, she can ensure that there will always be guards in this place, even when she won't be around her master all the time.
She then goes to the pile of wood and proceeds to light it on fire with a match before doing the same thing on the fire itself. Sure enough, the flames began to coalesce in a form, similar to the water elemental, this time with orange fiery eyes staring down at her. She let out a small grin before commanding the elemental to disperse as well into the boundary field. It nods its head before doing just that.
She then summoned both the wind and the earth elemental as well. Since there is air and earth here in the front yard, there was no need to gather anything else unlike the water and fire elemental. The wind elemental takes the form of a small tornado as for the earth elemental takes the form of a golem, similar to those Spriggan she has fought before. The wind elemental has grey storm eyes while the earth elementals have amber eyes, similar to that of her master.
She ordered these beings as well to disperse and appear to defend this place as well, should they be attacked. The wind elemental node before dispersing in a gust of wind while the earth elemental actually buries itself back to the ground from where it was summoned.
Satisfied with her summons, for now, she begins to focus on strengthening her boundary field. For one, she makes it so that it will hide Magical Energy from the outside unless they enter it. Another thing is she adds a defensive barrier that can reflect magical attacks against them should they try to attack the house from the outside.
She also adds a spell that will actually force Magical Energy into their Circuits, like overloading their souls with too much Magical Energy should they start using spacecraft with hostile intent in here. Admittedly, this can be countered easily by just not accepting the foreign magical energy into their circuits but it would be used discreetly to disrupt them mid-casting, that way she can counterattack quite easily.
She also added an illusion-based defense on the boundary field. Now when you look at it from the outside, no matter what the interior looks like, it will look the same on the outside. This way, she can actually do more things in the front yard without having to be worried about exposing to magecraft from the normal people.
She wants to do more upgrades, perhaps summon a few more elementals but she needs to take care of Shirou now. She must have been here way too long.
She went to the back door which leads straight to the kitchen. She then walked towards the bedroom that she believe it's Shirou's since he is the master of this house, thus, has the biggest room. It would be weird if he used that very small room she passed by earlier as his own room. That would be dumb.
"Sorry for the long wait Shirou. I was busy upgrading the boundary field and putting up some security for the time being. Now I can actually start your treatment." Caster explained to Shirou who is currently lying down on his futon. "Please sit up, I need to do a checkup on your body."
Shirou did just that and Caster placed her palm on his back, using [Structural Analysis] on him to check for anything that needs fixing up.
It took about an hour or two of treatment but finally, Shirou is finally able to move his muscles without being numb or being too painful for them.
"It seems that because of the sudden awakening to your Magical Circuits that had just been awakened, your body wasn't accustomed to the amount of Magical Energy and it was running rampant around your body. I just helped stabilize it. Now you should be able to use Magical Energy much easier. It just took me a while because using my spell to analyze your body takes a while." Caster explained to Shirou while he was busy cleaning the house. He wanted to go to school today even if he was late but Caster insisted on staying here to recover due to his sickness. He eventually conceded due to the threat of Caster screwing with his boundary to prevent him from leaving ever again.
"But seriously though…How did you perform your magecraft before? I'm pretty sure I detected you using magecraft while you were defending me. I wasn't sure what spell it was but it had to use Magical Energy to power your spell so…how?"
Shirou paused from sweeping the floor before turning to Caster. "I didn't even know I had Magical Circuits in my body in the first place. I thought you had to create them every time you used them…isn't that how you would use your magecraft Caster?"
Caster could only stare dumbfounded at Shirou's explanation of his usage of Magical Energy. And thanks to her [Fairy Eyes], she knows he absolutely believes in what he is saying and doing…which is even crazier!
Seriously! Who taught Shirou how to basically destroy your nerves for magecraft?! It was as if you just decided to teach magecraft, but instead of doing it the right way, he was taught how to kill himself through magecraft, which is ridiculous! Sure, she doesn't have Magic Circuits but rather Divine Patterns due to her fae heritage, but the activation method is still similar to those with Magic Circuits so hearing this just irritated her.
"Master, who taught you magecraft? Your father?" Caster asked irritably. For whatever reason, Shirou felt like he did something wrong even though he didn't…
"Yes, my old man taught me magecraft…why?" Caster could only sigh at her temporary master's answer. She is not gonna like her explanation on how his father basically set him up for failure but…
"Shirou, can you please explain how he taught you to use your Magic Circuits? I need to know."
Shirou tilts his head in confusion but decides to answer her. "He told me to think of a trigger that would allow me to create a Magic Circuits that I can use the Od in my body. Then I used Magical Energy and used it for my magecraft. But then the magic circuits I made disappear every time so I always make another one each time."
"Did he tell you that the Magic Circuit you made was the switch to activate all of the Magic Circuits that was made available in your soul?"
Shirou stared at her and blinked. He tried to recall if his old man ever told him that…but he could not remember him telling Shirou that. Because once he was able to make the Magic Circuits, his old man taught Shirou all the spells he could use…
He just shook his head, which earned a facepalm from Caster.
"Shirou…either you forgot that important detail or your father purposely did not tell you so that you would stop using magecraft altogether."
Shirou was about to retort back but Caster held her hand out first. "Let me explain first. When you make your Magic Circuits, you use your nerves as a temporary pathway for your Od to go through right? Usually this is a very painful method first time users have to go through before they can use their real Magic Circuits. Now your father could have told you that after you managed to create one, he would have instructed you on how to direct that Magical Energy towards your real Magic Circuits that are within your soul. And since he only told you what spells to use after that, it was clear that he never wanted to teach you or even use magecraft in the first place. What you are doing is basically self-destructing your own body with this method of yours. You could have died at any point Shirou."
Shirou could only gape at the cold reality of Caster's words that his father would sabotage him like this! It just couldn't be true! He swore to become a hero of justice for him on that night so why would he sabotage his chances of becoming a hero in the first place?! It just doesn't make any sense!
"In any case, I have fixed that issue so now you wouldn't need to use your nerves anymore. You can simply use the Magic Circuits you have that are active now for your magecraft. This should make anything you do now more efficient that ever before. By the way, where are your parents? I want to at least ask why the heck would they let his own son use magecraft like that and tell them about the Holy Grail War as well to prepare."
Shirou gave Caster a sad smile before shaking his head. "I don't have parents. Kiritsugu adopted me when…an incident occurred that killed my parents and left me homeless but he died 5 years ago due to a disease of sorts."
Caster flinched. She did not expect this kind answer from him. What was more disturbing is the fact that despite him saying that, he doesn't seem bothered by it. In fact it looked like he was nonchalant about the whole deal. He would have expected at least some form of sadness or trauma from it but it didn't even looked like he was affected by it at all. His smile felt…fake. His eyes were glossy but yet…his tone of voice…
"I see…I'm sorry if I brought… any bad memories…" Caster could do nothing but apologise for her questions.
"It's ok Caster, you did not know." Shirou just smiled at her before resuming his sweeping.
'Something is seriously wrong with Shirou.'
That was the only thing Caster could come up with from witnessing his behaviour. She will find out what this incident is sooner or later. But for now, she has more important things to tell Shirou about.
"In any case, I want to secure our base a bit more before we even leave the house. I would need some more materials to work with. Do you have excess items that you don't use anymore?"
"We can go check the shed, I'm pretty sure you can find something in there. I'll come with you after I'm finished here." Shirou concluded, finishing up his sweeping within a few minutes before they both left to the shed in the backyard.
'I can already sense the faint Magical Energy in the area…so this is where he uses magecraft huh?' Caster thought as she entered the shed…to find herself kinda disappointed. Then again, she doubted that Shirou was prepared to enter this Holy Grail War in the first place so its to be expected.
Still though…
"This is your workshop? I may not be a normal magus but I'm pretty sure that there should be at least something in here that helps you for your research in magecraft. What do you do here?"
Shirou scratched his face nervously. "Umm…since I always failed at magecraft…i never did establish my workshop nor asked my old man to make me one. I wanted to perfect the spells I learned before moving on to that advanced stuff I guess."
Caste could only shake her head before looking around in the shed. She begins to rummage through the junk that she could maybe use for her Territory Creation skill.
But so far after 20 minutes of searching thoroughly, all she had found so far were…not that much.
Nails, bolts, drill, some wood, even metal sheet. If she didn't know any better, her would say that this shed is storage for construction materials…oh…
"Shirou, are you planning to become a construction worker in the future?"
Shirou tilts his head towards her, holding a pipe in his glowing hand as he was testing his Magic Circuits. "Nope. I don't know why that stuff is there. I just…didn't bother to touch any of that stuff."
Caster hummed at her master's answer before closing the box again and moving on to the next box, but just before that, something caught her eye.
She saw a faded summoning circle here. She touched it and analyzed it. The spell has been used up at this point. But she knew…this was the place that her master summoned his servant, by accident before forfeiting in the war and meeting him there in that road with that hulking beast.
She decided not to tell Shirou about this. It's not important anymore, not to mention that he may still feel a bit bitter about what happened with his previous servant so she moved on.
As she moved towards the next boxes, a pile of pipes were haphazardly placed there. She tilted her head in confusion but didn't think anything of it and decided to pick up the pipes and placed them back to the other boxes. But when she picked it up though…
"!"
She was shocked that this pipe she was holding…is a projection. Thanks to her [Fairy Eyes] all the hidden truths in the world were laid bare before her. But that wasn't what surprised her though...it was the fact that it hasn't even begun to degrade at all. Even though it should be gone due to Gaia, somehow it still remains here, unaffected at all.
"Shirou…did you project this?"
Shirou gets up from the floor and is walking over to where Caster is. He found the projected piles that were considered failures to him. "Oh yeah, that's nothing. Those are just pipes that I projected when I was testing the spell."
"When did you projected this?"
"About…7 years ago I think? Why?"
Caster could only gape at his answer. 7 years… 7 years ago he projected this pipe…the pile of pipes on her feet…and it's still here until this day…
That's…impossible.
"Shirou…do you know that items made with protection should disappear at some point right?"
"Do they? I thought they only disappear if you make them disappear though. I use projection every now and then to make temporary things like pencils and pans when I don't have enough money. After I buy them, I just dismiss them. Like this." With a mental command from Shirou, all the projected pipes disappeared in motes of light in front of Caster's eyes.
Caster blinked…and blinked again before staring at Shirou with deadpan eyes.
"You don't really know anything about magecraft do you?"
Shirou felt insulted by this. "What do you mean by that Caster!?"
Caster rubbed her head, nursing the headache that is her master. "Just…sit down there, please. I will teach you some of the basics of magecraft myself."
Shirou narrowed his eyes before going back to where he was before and sat down. Caster could only rubbed her head further in frustration as she analyzed her temporary master once more.
'So basically I got a third rate magus who has been using his nerve for God know how long as magic circuits, dismisses his servant in a battle royale for a wish-granting cup, gets almost killed by his sister, and his projection somehow doesn't disappear…Im gonna have my work cut out for this.' With that thought, she sat down in front of her master and began teaching Shirou what her own master taught her before.
This will be a long day for Caster.
Date posted: April 5 2022
A/N: Back again with this fic. Didn't really like how I left chapter 3 with no Shirou and Artoria Avalon so here it is.
I took some creative liberties with Caster's magecraft, aka the summoning of elementals thing. Not like we saw her did really anything unique besides creating the Holy swords…but hey, still haven't read LB6 so maybe it's just me.
Anyway, if you enjoy this story, Follow, Favorite and Review. I will Xian you guys later. Chow!