Chapter One: To Bear the Heavens
An old rusty creak is the first thing I hear before light enters the shed. I twitch on where I lie at my desk before slowly forcing myself to a sitting position with a groan. My bleary eyes make out the form of two figures standing at the entrance. A chilly breeze gives me a brief view of blue hair before a hand grabs onto my shoulder and shakes me.
"Having to wake you up in the mornings is really pissing me off." Shinji says. He lets go of me with a huff. Now completely awake, I can see he and his sister have shown up at my house early in the morning again. Although I had my suspicions on if they were related or not. Their eyes and hair color were completely different, but that might be a case of Shinji dying his hair or something ever since he was young. He had a habit of doing girly things like that, like keeping his hair long and in a ponytail.
Honestly, with Sakura's dark brown hair and aqua eyes, she and Tohsaka could be sisters about how similar they appeared. Sakura gives a giggle in the doorway at Shinji and me. "Good morning, Senpai." She says.
"Good morning, you two." I say. I rub my eyes before stretching, briefly getting rid of any uncomfortable feeling I had from sleeping poorly again.
Frowning, Matou takes in the shed I had been sleeping in. Recently, I had organized everything. I'd ended up staying up all night again, trying to fix a dishwasher for the neighbor. "I see you actually cleaned your shed this time." With his hands on his hips, Shinji begins one of his lectures again. "If you want to be an actual Magus, you have to treat your workshop properly."
"If I was an actual mage, wouldn't you being in here be a bad thing?" I ask, annoyed. To my question, Shinji waves it off with an assessing eye and nods to himself.
"It's different for us." He eventually concludes before turning on his heel. Sakura seems entertained like always at our disagreement. Rolling my eyes, I get to my feet as well.
"In what way is it different?" I call out after him. But at this point, he had left ahead to go towards what I only assumed was the kitchen. "Why does he always steal my kitchen?" I complained to Sakura.
"Nii-san just likes to cook for you, after all." Sakura says. Her teasing makes me grumble, but I brush it off as we walk. "Although I was hoping I would cook with you again today." She says wistfully.
"There's no need for the both of you to cook here. You are both guests." I counter.
At my point, Sakura glances at me. "If you didn't want us to come in and use your kitchen, you should be awake earlier so we don't take it, no?" Her voice is kept light, but it causes my steps to stumble in guilt.
"Even so..." I weakly finish, coming to a halt at my dining room. Continuing forwards, I make my way to the kitchen, but Shinji stops me with a glare and a pointed ladle. He had placed on my apron and tied it around himself, pointedly ignoring the extra aprons I had bought since these two kept taking over my kitchen.
"Sit." Shinji demands. "I'm cooking."
Defeated, I make my way back to the kotatsu across from Sakura. With Shinji distracted by cooking, I take the time to set up the table with cutlery. "So, Shinji was telling me about how your uncle came back from his trip yesterday. How has it been with him back?" I ask.
Honestly, her uncle also had a different hair color, with it being black. Maybe the Matous just all came in different colors?
Thoughtful, Sakura smiles fondly. "It was wonderful to have him back. I missed him dearly, even if it was for a short while." As if telling a conspiracy, she leaned in and covered her mouth to whisper. "Although I think he is more interested in Tohsaka's mother. The two of them have been meeting up often lately whenever my uncle is back home."
Absently, I notice the fact that Sakura has covered one of her hands with a bandage of some kind, which she didn't have yesterday. She must have hurt herself at school or something if she hadn't healed it with magecraft. Even injured like this, her movements were graceful enough to take my breath away.
...sometimes I'd have strange thoughts like this about my friend's sister. With me being this tense around her, it was no good with how long we had been friends. It was discomforting to have these realizations. But that might be a Matou thing, I suppose. Shinji had a natural fluidity to his movement that I was almost jealous about. Deciding to ignore my thoughts, I focus on something else she said.
"Tohsaka?" I ask with interest. We had met a few times with her being the second owner, and her guardian being that priest, but I didn't know her all that much outside of school and occasionally a meeting. I'd been wanting to get closer to her for a while, but I had no clue on how to do it.
Sakura pouts at me. "Ah, are you like the other boys who are interested in Tohsaka?" She sounds both resigned and annoyed as she asks, making me wave my hands in embarrassment.
"No, no." I deny. "Even if Tohsaka is really amazing, I'm not interested in her that way." I lie. I'm sure every boy likes Tohsaka in that way. But it'd be troublesome if I paid it any heed in a way that wasn't just friendship. "Is this to do with your rivalry with her?"
At the mention of a rivalry, she seems embarrassed. "I'm not being her rival or anything." It was her turn to be embarrassed. "I just don't want to fall behind..." she mumbles at the end. I don't get it myself, but Sakura always had this weird thing going on with Tohsaka for as long as I both knew them.
Interactions would always be awkward between the two of them, and it seemed as if Sakura always looked up to Tohsaka, and Tohsaka would check up on Sakura without talking to her. I'd run into her sometimes when Sakura, Shinji and I would all go to Kyudo practice. But I didn't know if that was just the case of her being friends with Mitsuzuri.
Shinji brought over our breakfast with a pleased smile to his face, serving us all portions. It was only then that he took off my apron and placed it back. "I'd like to see you outdo me this time, Shirou." He says, smug.
"You mean like he always does?" Sakura asks coyly.
Shinji's triumph fades with annoyance. "I don't want to hear that from you. You're still the furthest behind." Sakura's face falls in disappointment. "But you'll get there, eventually." Shinji quickly amends, with a hint of panic on his face.
"Thanks, Nii-san?" Sakura says, confused.
"You're welcome."
We quickly start our meal after the conversation dies off. The meal is genuinely excellent, and I internally made notes about what I would make next to hopefully surpass Shinji. He had a bad habit of basking in his victories enough that I could work my way through his natural talent and make a better dish, eventually. But it was getting harder and harder to surpass him.
Shinji was one of those people who was just naturally talented at anything that he set his mind on. Even his ancestor, who I had heard was a big deal, had taken a personal interest in him from what he had bragged to me about.
Finishing our meals, we got up and headed towards the front door to make our way to school. I didn't like not getting any training in today, but I'd make up for it later tonight when I had the time.
We fill our trip with small talk about the day and school, before we have to separate at the school gate. Sakura almost visibly has a transformation as her entire attitude changes once we reach school. Much more elegant, with a lot less of her casual behavior like she had with us, she makes her way towards where the rest of the underclassmen would be. She avoids eye contact with most other students.
"I wish she would just act normally at school." Shinji sighs. "I don't know why she gets so shy. She knows I'd ruin anyone who would try to make her life hard." He gripes again for more times than I can count. I'd been so worn down by his big brother syndrome, I could only shrug at this point.
"You can't protect her from the world all the time." I point out. "At some point you have to choose who you can and can't protect, and what you can protect them from." I never thought I'd start using parts of what my father had taught me for something so unrelated.
"But that's what I like about you, Shinji." I say. I give a small smile to Shinji, my voice filled with admiration. "Protecting people no matter what is what a hero does."
Pleased at my words, Shinji visibly preens, even as a hint of embarrassment fills his face. "It's only natural that I'd be impressive like that."
A thought occurs to me as panic fills my brain. "Oh, actually I have to go!" I jog away from Shinjis confused form. "I promised Ryuudou I'd help him out this morning."
I don't turn back to see what Shinjis' reaction is, but I can hear the disappointment and annoyance in his voice. "Whatever." He says behind me. I felt bad about leaving him like this. Usually we'd do Kyudo practice and then hang out before class, as long as I wasn't helping someone else.
Climbing up the stairs, I eventually made my way into one classroom and find Ryuudou sitting at one desk, quietly doing some of his coursework before class. How diligent.
"Sorry for being late." I say. Making my way to the air conditioner, Ryuudou glances up from his work to give me a dry look. "You're still early, you know?" He counters. The air conditioner lay on the floor, accompanied by the spare tools that I had bought and left at the school, thankfully. He must have grabbed them with me not arriving as early as I had hoped too.
"You didn't have to grab these. I would have gotten them myself." I say.
"I feel bad enough as it is asking you to help with so much Emiya. This is small in comparison." He says. Taking the time to pick up his notes, he makes his way to the exit. "I'll leave you in here. Let me know once you are done."
Once he had left, I flipped the switch in my mind, activating all 27 circuits in my body with the sound of a hammer firing. "Trace On." I mutter. The form of what I was fixing comes across my mind, with all of its details. It's only a simple matter of using reinforcement and some elbow grease to get it in working order. I turn off my circuits before making my way outside.
"It's done." I say.
Ryuudou can only shake his head in amazement. "I still can't believe how skilled you are at this. I'm not sure I believe you when you say that you don't plan to work with machinery." He says.
"It's just a hobby." I reply. "Doing stuff like this is just to help. There isn't much else to it."
"You should have just joined the student council if you wanted to help. With how much you aid me and the school, you might as well be a member all but in name."
Stubbornly, I shake my head. "I can do more without being part of the council. That's all there is to it." I put a tone of finality in my voice to hopefully end the conversation here.
Coming across the hallway is the surprising form of Tohsaka, who seems to have woken up early. "Morning Tohsaka." I say, before returning my focus to Ryuudou. He watches her with cautiousness, having lost track of our conversation.
"Good morning Emiya, and to you as well, Ryuudou." Tohsaka says pleasantly. As she walks passed, she seems to move around as if searching for something. Before I can ask her if I can help, Ryuudou speaks up again. "That Tohsaka is bad news, Emiya. You shouldn't be so friendly with her."
"You say that about all my friends, Ryuudou." I remind him dryly.
"And I stand by my statement." He says. "Those two just have something wrong with them. Normally I wouldn't say anything to be polite, but you're a good person, Emiya. I don't want you getting caught up in something terrible."
"Don't worry." I say "If something is wrong with them, I'll set them right."
Ryuudou sighs in resignation. "That's what I'm afraid of."
The rest of the day was fairly normal and quiet. I had been late to practice, but Mitsuzuri had given me only a light scolding this time. I'd promised to help clean up the clubroom since it had been getting dirty lately to make up for it.
Class was tame, or as much as it could be, with Taiga as our teacher. Apparently, she was the daughter of the yakuza boss that the old man had gotten our house from. But between what I knew of Raiga and her, I couldn't see the resemblance.
Shinji and I ate lunch together, but he was a lot more withdrawn than usual. "Is there something wrong Shinji?" I ask.
He looks me up and down for a moment before relaxing. "It's been getting fairly dangerous lately, huh?" He says in a leading way. "You should stay at home for once instead of helping nobodies."
"What do you mean?" There were those gas leaks lately, but I doubt that would be too much of a problem for me. I made sure to double check my house and the places that I worked out just in case.
"It's only natural, right? You aren't all that good as a Magus, and you don't have any pride. So you'd be better off going away on holiday for a couple of weeks." Shinji says more to himself than me.
"Shinji, I have no clue on what you are even on about." My stare is piercing at how dumb I think he's acting right now.
"I'll talk to you about it tomorrow morning. This isn't really the right place for it." He shakes his head. He pointedly looks towards the people who had just come nearby to sit next to us. "I don't want Tohsaka getting mad at us and making problems if somebody overhears."
That means it's something related to magecraft, but I honestly have no clue on what he could even talk about. But I'm more annoyed that he brought up the topic, alluded to it and then refused to talk about it.
"This is worse than if you just ignored me or said no," I say. My unimpressed stare makes Shinji huff at me before he ignores me and eats his lunch.
"Just get somebody else to clean the room." Shinji demands. Both of us are in the Kyudo club room, with Sakura having joined us in search of Shinji. "Or come do it in the morning." I appreciate his concern, but it's not like I have much to worry about.
"I told Mitsuzuri that I'd clean up after everyone. It's not that big of a deal." I say. Leaning down, I pick up some of the equipment and place it in the right place.
"If it's not that big of a deal, then do it tomorrow."
My brows furrow as I stop between reaching for another piece of equipment. "I don't see why you care so much."
"Nii-san is right. You should go home early, Senpai." Sakura adds before Shinji can wind up into whatever odd mood he was in. Shinji seems emboldened by her statement and nods along.
"Let me just finish moving everything then, and I'll give it a sweep." With both of them teaming up on me like this, I felt my resolve weakening. So instead of keeping to my previous plan, I compromise.
Growling, Shinji nods. "Fine." But to my surprise, he moves and helps me.
"There's no need for that. I can do it myself." I say. From the side, Sakura also joins in as they both help move and clean things. "You two." I say in exasperation.
"If you aren't leaving early because this isn't clean, we can just have it all cleaned early, right Nii-san?" Sakura says. She gives me a wink and takes to cleaning with a cheerful demeanor.
As I reach for the broom, Shinji takes it out from my hands and brushes himself. "You will not win this Shirou, hurry and clean quicker so you can leave." Something about this seems to have annoyed Shinji a lot, but it wasn't uncommon for things to get under his skin. He would always have arguments with the girls in our class.
It didn't take long for us to finish cleaning and make our way home. As we parted, both of their stares linger on me as I faded out of view. Walking through a later afternoon like this, something oddly felt different. As if some kind of energy charged the air. There was no one around either, with empty streets. Just out of precaution, I activated my circuits even if I felt silly about it.
I think my friend's paranoia was getting to me. I rubbed my itchy hand absently.
As I climb up the hill towards my house, where there had been no one beforehand, a girl with red eyes and silver hair had appeared. She seems almost as if a noble girl in her royal purples and white clothing. She stands above me on the hill, as if looking down on me. Without realizing it, I had held my breath as she descended towards me. She smiles at me as she passes me. "You'll die if you don't summon it soon, Onii-Chan."
Confused, I turn on my heel to put her back into view. "Summon?" I ask. But she ignores me. Mulling on her words, I turn back on my heel and make my way back inside. My house is dark as I go through the door, turning the light on.
It was time to train since I had missed my practice this morning. The dojo thankfully had some lights to do my exercises. But it was during this time I noticed an odd detail. My left hand had red bruises all over the back of them. With a frown, I stopped my training to inspect them further than something about them seemed important, but I couldn't remember why.
Leaving the dojo, I made my way to my makeshift workshop. It was a simple matter to make my way into a hidden seam in one wall, where I had stored some things Kiritsugu had left me before he had gone missing. Dusting off the book, I flicked through it, checking the various tags and the side book I made myself as an index. If there was one thing I could complain about the old man about, was that his notes here were terrible compared to how he'd normally write them when we were out on missions.
"Holy grail war..." I muse to myself.
The entire reason Kiritsugu and I had settled down here. Apparently he had once, years ago, been a part of such a war. The war had no victor, and he had lost, which forced him to leave. In the destruction left in the battle, Kiritsugu had found and saved me.
We had traveled for a time as Kiritsugu sought to continue his dream of saving the world. But as he had grown weaker, he had returned here and given me one last task before I never saw him again.
"Win the grail war..." I echoed to myself as I stare at the crude drawing on the page and then my hand.
There wasn't supposed to be such a war in decades, or at least until my I reached my late seventies. I was planning to travel again after school and try to help those in need before returning here. But it seemed as if I had a lot less time than I wished.
Despite having clear evidence, there was none of the excitement I thought I should have, and instead a frown curls on my lip. Why can't I be happy with the chance to save the world? It just didn't seem right to save everyone like that, as if I had cheated.
But it was what Kiritsugu would have done.
The thoughts in my head fought each other as I stared at my hand. Eventually, I shake it and force myself to my feet. The circle the old man had here should still be here, and it hadn't been so long that it wouldn't be usable. I'd see if I could summon a servant first, and then I'd think about the rest later.
With the circle in seemingly pristine condition, and everything ready, I refreshed my memory. "Artificial heroic spirits created using portions of a real heroic spirit's soul into a new composite being. The seven heroic spirits: Avenger, Gunner, Pretender, Ruler, Saver, Shielder and Watcher." I read to myself out loud.
Initially, spirits created in this way had a tendency to have Divine Spirits or other aspects fill in portions of the summoned ghost liner's spirit core. There was no guarantee of how powerful these spirits would be.
That answer made me frown. If I had to trust in fate, it meant I might have to be a lot more ruthless if I got unlucky. The thought gives an unpleasant taste in my mouth. The most likely opponents would be the Einzbern, Matou, and Tohsaka families. Which... meant I'd have to try to talk with both of my friends tomorrow about what to even do about this.
"Only one way to find out." I sigh.
Using the tome so I don't have to memorize the words, I open my circuits once more and chant. My heart pounds wildly as I feel the drain on my energy, with the expected flashing lights and smoke appearing.
"...Protector of the Holy Balance!" I finished.
Everything is hard to see for a moment from the flash of light before I hear some light coughing. Out of the mist stands a girl a little younger than me, who is breathtakingly beautiful, as if straight from some sort of mythical tale. With striking green eyes and golden hued hair with slight curls at the end. She wears a blue hat, a short shoulder blue cape with the inside being red, gold trimming, a white dress, purple bow on her chest, purple stockings and purple boots. The staff by her side towers over her. It's topped with a blue orb caged within a metal wedge with blue casing. Around its upper half, something that seems like wooden roots winds around it. Trailing ribbons and a tassel adorn it.
"Servant..." There is another cough as this girl's musical voice is interrupted. "Saver...?" She asks. "Wait, how did I even get here? What is going on?!" She panics.
I watched, baffled, before raising my voice. "I believe I'm your master?" The confidence in my voice that was there fades, and it becomes more of a question at the end.
As our eyes meet, her face fills with hope for a moment and then furrows in confusion. "Muramasa...?"
"What?" I ask, now equally confused.
End of Chapter One:
Hah, so uh. More story ideas struck once again. Honestly I have probably more then is feasible, and this one jumped out to me. Thankfully, it shouldn't be anywhere near as long as my others are likely to be. Just a simple Holy Grail War where everything will be completely normal like always. Let me know on if any characters seemed too off from how they might seem. I'm hoping to eventually show why such changes are around over the course of this fic.
Once again, I appreciate anyone taking the time to read this. And know that there will be spoilers for the British Lostbelt considering the servant here as the most blatant. And some elements from F/GO and other Fate based universes.