Heir to the Blacksmith

by Plasma Assassin

Shirou Emiya, born to a Clan following the name they had not officially been called in centuries, chasing after a dream created by their ancestor as relentlessly as any other Magi family reaches for the Root. This is the boy that Kiritsugu Emiya and Irisviel von Einzbern find in the rubble and mud of the Fuyuki Fire, and this is the boy that they adopted.

2. Growing Pains

Shirou huffed as he looked at the splintered and chipped plank of wood that he had been trying to carve into a sword, looking down at the singular book from his birth family currently lying open and balancing on his thigh. Reading some of the particular words was still difficult for the young boy but he had been getting the hang of it in the last few months since his new parents had revealed the identity of his previous family. Golden-Amber eyes scanned over the page showing the diagram of an average sized katana.

It, of course, was meant to be a diagram for creating one using metals like iron or steel but Shirou was able to feel Irisviel's anxious fretting, even from across the property where Kiritsugu had dragged her, just because he was using a knife to carve the plank. Shirou had tried to weasel his way into the forge once, right after Irisviel had let him know in fact, by trying to convince his parents that it was ok. That attempt was shut down basically immediately by Kiritsugu with a dead look in his eyes that made Shirou shudder even now.

He hadn't tried since. But the moment he was able to make a sword from a plank of wood that met the supposed standards of his family he would ask again. It had been a little over five months after all, he was getting better!

Clicking his tongue in annoyance he picked up the half carved-out sword and placed the edge of the knife against the wood, beginning to scrape it along the surface to start carving out the bottom half of the Hamon. Except after barely a second of carving the knife seemed to suddenly stop and twist in his grip, his fingers gripping tighter on instinct to stop it from twisting and ending up causing the knife to suddenly jolt forward with his arm, skipping forward and cutting into the wood further along than he wanted to go. With a groan of annoyance the red haired child leveraged the blade back and forth to slowly slide it out of it's surprise wooden sheath before it suddenly shot out. In the blink of an eye his hand had gone from hovering just above the wooden plank to impacting his face, making him moan in pain as he dropped the knife and placed his other hand on his face, over where he'd hit himself.

Moving the muscles in his face to move his nose around he felt that it wasn't too bad of a hit, though that didn't stop him from rubbing it for a moment as he reached down for his dropped knife. Picking it up in a tight grip he began to channel his Od into it just as Irisviel and Kiritsugu had been teaching him, his mind instinctively grasping out and latching onto the information fed into it by his use of Structural Grasping on the tool. The information it gave him was something that didn't surprise him but certainly annoyed him, judging by the scowl and narrowed eyes he was giving the offending object.

Of course it kept screwing up, the blade was beginning to go blunt and chip. The thing that annoyed him most of all about said blade going blunt was that he didn't even realize until he had consciously used Structural Grasping on it. Based on the journal he had been reading, older members of the Muramasa clan would have been able to tell the problem at a mere glance from meters away. Yet Shirou had been unable to tell when he had been holding the damn thing.

The fact that he was still only seven and had only been working on his skill at such an activity for five months didn't even occur to him. Afterall, his family had been a family that excelled at such activities and craftsmanship. The fact that he not only couldn't even do something as 'simple' as carving a wooden sword only brought back a familiar feeling he experienced every time he dreamt of the fire.

Sighing he stabbed the knife into the grass next to him and stared at the failed project that was carving his wooden sword. Despite his annoyance and impatience to grow in skill at sword smithing, there was something uniquely calming about the ability. It was similar to one of his new favourite hobbies, cooking, but even that couldn't give him the peace of mind that trying to create a blade gave him.

To be completely honest he had no idea if it was his status as an Incarnation, or as a Muramasa, that lead to such feelings in himself. Regardless, the occasional dreams he had of the blurry forge and the inconsistent something captured his fascination with sword smithing and he just couldn't seem to let it go.

"Shirou" The young boy snapped out of his daze with a jolt and turned around to see his father standing over him "Were you thinking of something?"

"Mhm. Just about carving the sword" He mumbled in reply, standing up and wiping his pants down to get any grass off.

"This one seems to be a failure as well?" He questioned, not unkindly but rather just simply pointing out a fact.

"My knife went blunt and I chipped it" Shirou huffed in annoyance, glaring down at the handle of said knife.

"Hm" Was all the young boy got in reply, looking up to see Kiritsugu staring at the knife for a few moments before shaking his head "Your mother and I will be busy for the rest of the day so we'll do some training early" He said matter-of-factly as he began to walk towards the Dojo on their property, hearing the rustle of fabric indicating Shirou was following him.

"Are we doing sword training or Magecraft today?" Shirou asked, a thinly veiled excitement in his tone that got a fond smile from his father for the briefest of moments.

"Sword training for today. It's been a couple days since we last worked on it"

"Ok. I've been doing the drills like you taught me" Shirou helpfully supplied, getting a nod from Kiritsugu as he opened one of the doors and walked in, letting Shirou close it behind him.

"Good, then we'll go through them first before starting a spar" Kiritsugu explained, grabbing one of the lighter, weaker, shinai lining the wall.

Silent as a wraith he took a few steps to be standing close to the middle of the room, waiting for Shirou to grab a shinai of similar make to the one in his own grasp and walk over to him.

"Go through the drills and I'll check if you've done them properly" He ordered, watching as his son nodded without complaint and began to go through the motions he had been taught two months ago and had been stuck with since.

Kiritsugu did this for two reasons, one: it gave Shirou something to train on that both wasn't and would likely help with his Magecraft. Two: by sticking to the same drills he hoped to get the basics ingrained into Shirou's mind and body so that should something ever go wrong, he had all the training necessary to fall back on.

And he knew that others, non-Magi, may have seen his methods as harsh or his demeanor as uncaring, they were anything but. For a child coming from a Magus family, starting at seven was highly unusual, especially one as old as the Muramasa had been and, based on Shirou's circuits and Crest, as thriving as their bloodline had been. Kiritsugu himself had started training younger than Shirou had, but he supposed that Shirou could have had some training before the fire, but he'd never be able to find out so he focused on what he did know and could work with.

Despite the strict and grueling training though, Shirou never once complained about it. Whether it be sword smithing, swordsmanship or Magecraft he went at it with the exact same level of determination and reckless abandon.

With a simple tap of the end of his shinai he pushed Shirou's elbow up a bit more, helping to increase the efficiency at which he could maneuver his own shinai. The boy accepted the correction without anything other than a grimace of annoyance that seemed directed more inwards than at Kiritsugu and went about his drills actively trying to keep his elbow up.

It was something that he and Irisviel had noticed about Shirou, even the slightest mistake seemed to be some sort of mortal sin to the boy. A fuel to his drive and determination that seemed never ending but at the same time would lead to an inevitable explosion or burn-out, both of which they wanted to avoid.

"Alright, time for sparring" Kiritsugu said, barely waiting a moment before lashing out with a thrust at Shirou's left forearm.

It was considerably slower than he could have done it of course, but he knew by now the speed he needed to fight Shirou with the get the best results. The young boy just barely beginning to block the attack when Kiritsugu let the momentum die out and pulled his weapon back.

Holding the blade in just a single hand, Kiritsugu went on the offensive against his son, forcing him into positions where he either had to rely on his training to get him out of it or try and predict Kiritsugu's moves to do so.

The Magus Killer was primarily a firearms expert with above average skill at close range with a combat knife. Though his skill with a sword wasn't to be ignored either, a lifetime of seeing technique after technique and studying said techniques to find exploitable weaknesses giving him an edge that let him make up for his own lack of actual technique. It was only a minute into the spar that Kiritsugu's eyes narrowed as he pressed an advantage he had forced out of Shirou by breaking his guard.

And just like clockwork, the moment Shirou was pushed into a corner all of his training flew out of the window. Small hands gripping the handle of his shinai as he stepped into the attack and swung at his father.

And just like every other time, the attack never landed. Kiritsugu having ramped up his speed to hit Shirou before Shirou's blade even got close. Watching his son crumple and slide along the floor of the dojo for a moment he couldn't help but feel annoyance well up within himself.

"You abandoned your training, again" He admonished watching as Shirou slowly pushed himself into a kneeling position, breathing heavily.

"I-I just have to hit you right?" He responded back, looking up at his father.

"Without taking risks like you just did"

"I don't see the problem" Shirou responded, eyes filled with genuine confusion as he tilted his head.

"If this had been a real sword you would be dead" He stressed, trying to get the importance of his statement through the thick head of his son.

"But I'm not"

"Because this isn't a real blade"

"Exactly"

"You don't step into a line of attack and let yourself get hit Shirou"

"I still don't get what the problem is tou-san" Kiritsugu sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"Throwing your life away is bad. If you develop these habits now, when it's an actual blade you'll kill yourself just because your body moved on instinct"

"But if I take the enemy down then-"

"Then nothing Shirou. There's no coming back from that"

"I don't need to come back" Shirou denied with a shake of his head.

"Excuse me?"

"I don't need to" Shirou reaffirmed his statement.

"Shirou, you can't throw your life away"

"It's not throwing my life away if I'm helping someone"

"…You aren't a sword, Shirou. You can't just swing yourself at an enemy until you shatter" The minute tensing of his son's body let him know that he'd hit the nail on the head with his guess.

"I am an Incarnation of a Sword though…" He muttered.

"That changes nothing Shirou, you're still human"

"But if I can help people-"

"Then you'll die having helped only a few people when you could have helped more" Kiritsugu cut him off coldly, getting a flinch from the boy "You aren't worth nothing Shirou, despite what you think. You're a human being with worth and throwing that away will achieve nothing" He kneeled down in front of his son, exhaling deeply when Shirou refused to look him in the eye.

"Alright, how to put this in a better way..." The Magus Killer muttered to himself "Shirou, you're studying your family's books on sword smithing, correct?" He waited forty seconds before Shirou finally cracked and nodded his head in pure silence "And you believe yourself to be a sword correct?"

All Shirou did was nod. Kiritsugu mentally sighed at his sons behaviour, sad beyond words that the fire had burned away so much of Shirou that it left this poor boy with a multitude of different complexes that all clashed and amplified each other.

"If you are a sword, you believe that you should do everything possible to make up for being the sole-survivor of the fire. Including putting your own life and health on the line?" After another half a minute of waiting he got another nod "Then what happens to a blade when you continuously hit it against a rock or cover it in blood, Shirou?"

He didn't get an answer, but that didn't deter him. He knew what Shirou was doing, trying to retreat into a shell to protect his view on the world and hope that Kiritsugu would leave it alone should he stay silent long enough.

If it had been Irisviel having this conversion, it might have worked. But unfortunately for the boy, he wasn't facing Irisviel, the bubbly and prodigious Homunculus that had only heard stories of the worst humanity had to offer and only briefly glimpsed it in the Fourth Holy Grail War. Instead Shirou was facing his father, Kiritsugu Emiya, the man who had seen and experienced amongst the worst of humanity for so long that to try and fix it, had become among the worst of humanity.

And it broke him.

"If you won't explain, then I will" He warned, getting a small jolt from the form of his son as he stared at the polished floor.

"T-The blade will chip and rust until it snaps or becomes…."

"Useless" Kiritsugu finished for him, getting a violent flinch from the boy.

"I won't become useless!" Shirou snapped his head up and glared at his father, a fire in his eyes.

"If you keep running at things with no regard for your health then you will be"

"D-Don't say that!"

"And why not? It's the truth" Every word hurt Kiritsugu down to his soul, but he knew that all of them had to be said.

It wasn't like doing something detestable for the greater good was a new feeling to the professional assassin after all.

"It's not! It can't be!"

"Again, why not?"

"Because I just want to smile like you!" He slammed both of his small hands into the floor of the dojo.

Glowing green lines lit up his skin and both of his exposed forearms lit up with an intricate set of Magic Circuits that put even the completed Emiya Crest to shame. Luckily his emotional outburst of Prana didn't channel itself into a spell, but it still made Kiritsugu tense up on instinct.

"Smile like me?" He questioned, unsure what he meant for the first time in this conversation.

"That night…when you saved me. The smile on your face….I want to feel that! I want to be able to smile like that! If I can smile like that- I-If I can feel happiness like that. Then that has to mean I've made up for everyone I walked past!"

There was a desperation in the words of his son that Kiritsugu felt on a spiritual level. The desperation of a boy trying to decide on the path of his life when everything seemed intent on dragging it down kicking and screaming into darkness and despair.

"Shirou. That smile….If you ever wear that smile, then that means that I and your mother have failed somewhere down the line"

"Huh?..." Shirou blinked away some of the wetness in his eyes as he looked at the melancholy expression of his father.

"Did you know, ever since I was a young boy, I wanted to be a Hero?" He suddenly spoke, slowly lowering himself to sit next to his son who already seemed enraptured in his story.

"A Hero?..."

"That's right. A Hero that saved the world from hunger, poverty, war, all of it. A true Hero of Justice"

"Did you become that Hero?" Shirou asked, excitement beginning to creep into his voice.

"No." It was a single word, said in such a blank, unquestionable tone that Shirou felt like he had just been punched as he flinched back.

"No?..."

"No. I was never able to become that Hero….And I doubt I ever will"

"Then…Then I'll become that Hero for you!" The sound of shattering glass echoed through Kiritsugu's mind.

In a single instant adrenaline pumped through his veins, his pupils constricting as his heart beat began to rapidly pick up its pace. Alarms ringing in his head as images of burning plane wreckage, collapsing buildings and blown up houses and vehicles seemed to flash before his eyes in an instant.

However….However despite his panic, no; his terror, at the thought of Shirou trying to take up the mantle of his fools dream. The urge to instantly shut him down as he had been for most of the conversation seemed strangely missing, leaving a new, strange, method in its stead that Kiritsugu enacted without a moments hesitation.

"Shirou…" The boy was almost forced to look his father in the eye as he placed a gentle hand on his shoulder "There is not a single world. Where I ever want you to become a Hero"

"H-Huh? But why?"

"Because to be a Hero. Is to be and do everything that I have been warning you against since you started your training. Shirou, to try and be a Hero I always had to pick the many over the few. I killed people to stop them from hurting others. And that lead me to kill even more to stop the same thing. And more, and more, and more. The more I saved, the more I had to kill" He could see a heart broken confusion in the boys eyes, the idea of 'Hero' and the broken image of his father struggling to fit together in his mind.

"B-But couldn't you have just talked to them? Convinced them to stop? Or, or! You could have just brought them to jail!" Shirou said passionately, only to deflate as Kiritsugu shook his head, his lifeless black eyes staring into Shirou's own.

"I've tried both methods Shirou. Putting them in jail lead to their friends and family trying to kill me or them breaking out or hurting more people. And talking to them?...It changed nothing, he sucked the Prana dry from every hostage he had the moment he realized I wouldn't try to kill him off the bat"

"I-I…B-But.."

"Being a Hero is to chase after an ideal. Not a dream, Shirou. An Ideal. You try to save everyone you can, but the world isn't kind. Trying to stop them peacefully will never work against true threats and that just leads you onto a path of a killer. I tried to be a Hero, Shirou, and it broke me" The full weight of the deadness in his father's aura crashed down on the boy like a tidal wave.

It was nothing in particular that stood out to Shirou. However there was a shift in his body language. A slouching of his shoulders, a relaxing of a muscles, a loss of shine in his fathers black eyes. They were all small things, insignificant on their own. But when they were combined? Shirou felt like he was staring at a living corpse. A body that had somehow had its soul irreversibly shattered and yet still clung to life, despite having no reason to live anymore.

And having lived in such a state for the two weeks following the fire, Shirou understand the hell that was that mental state. For the briefest, briefest of moments, Shirou opened his mouth to speak.

Hot metal. Constantly shifting forms. An elegant, dangerous beauty to the weapon that no change in form would ever get rid of. A resolve to see it completed.

His mouth clicked shut so fast that it made an audible sound in the dojo. A strange fear filling him despite his previous thoughts. To fall into that mental state again. He didn't want to feel like that again. He left people behind the last time he was like that. People died because he didn't help them the last time he was like that. He would never find out more about that weapon if he was like that.

Was trying to become a Hero worth it? Worth risking going down the same path that Kiritsugu had gone down and been swallowed by? A small part of him said yes, absolutely. He needed to atone for everyone he left, for everyone that didn't survive when he did. He needed to feel that happiness he had seen in Kiritsugu's expression when he had been found. And yet, a larger part of him said no. Not in a million years. That, that sort of happiness came from a darker source. That trying to achieve the same happiness Kiritsugu had shown that terrible night meant being useless, obsolete, not worth having lived for so long that just the slightest silver lining put him over the moon.

That was no way to live. Not as a human, not as a sword, not as anything. It was the path for those with no other meaning in life, of those that hated themselves so much that even thinking of having another goal in life was akin to life-ending taboo. And Shirou… Shirou just couldn't do that. He had his family Magecraft to learn. He had other paths to atonement that Irisviel had hinted at. He had to make that weapon from his dreams. To throw it all away and travel the same path as Kiritsugu….He couldn't do it. Every time he so much as considered the thought, considered his wish to smile like Kiritsugu had, he saw that weapon and the figure hammering on it and the thought that if he died…

No. He made up his mind. He wouldn't become a Hero. He would become a sword smith so skilled that he would finally bring that sword to fruition. Yet, how would he atone to those he left behind? How would he make up for the sins he already carried, that blackened his very heart and soul?

"Tou-san…" The fire in Shirou's eyes had died out sometime during his internal reflection, but the hardness of them had not "I won't become a Hero"

Kiritsugu sighed quietly in relief, a weight lifting from his shoulders that felt like it had been crushing him ever since the word 'Hero' had left his sons lips.

"But…I still want to help people" Kiritsugu mentally groaned, of course it wouldn't be that easy "I left all those people behind. I left them to die just so that I could save myself. I-It just doesn't feel right to do that again….I can't just turn a blind eye"

"Hmmm. Then help" Shirou blinked in surprise at his father's words "You don't have to be a Hero to help people Shirou" A glistening of something glossed over Shirou's eyes as he stared at his father intently "Help people. But please, don't put yourself in the way of danger for just any person"

Shirou's confusion must have shown on his face because as Kiritsugu next spoke, he shook his head at the same time, seemingly to reinforce his point.

"Throwing yourself in the way of an attack or spell for any person you see is what a Hero would do" He spoke, using Shirou's new aversion to be a Hero to try and instill some self-preservation in him "Find people you care about. People you can laugh with. You can cry with. People that you want to protect with every ounce of your power, technique and mind. People that bring out the best in you and that will protect you just as you would protect them. If you want to see yourself as a sword….then find your scabbard or wielder. Don't allow just anyone to use you until you break. Find and allow only the best of the best of the people you know to do so"

That….Shirou could agree with that. The thought filling him with a warmth that was alien to him. It felt like happiness but, more. A new emotion that he had trouble quantifying in any manner or capacity.

"Do…Do you have anyone like that?"

Kiritsugu still for a moment before smiling softly and looking at Shirou, keeping his gaze on him before slowly letting it drift towards the window where he could see some of their house.

"For a long, long time I didn't. But now? I believe I do" And that same warmth that Shirou had felt inside himself seemed to ooze out of every word that Kiritsugu spoke.

That. Shirou wanted, more than anything else, to feel that once more.

In a blank void containing only a single light surrounded by kitchen knives and shinai, land began to fill.

XXXxxxXXX

Two Weeks later

Shirou scrunched his eyebrows together in concentration, both of his eyes closed. His mind focused only on the mental image he had of the knife from his kitchen, the tingle of Od being created by and leaving his Magic Circuits keeping him anchored in reality as he slowly worked on the spell.

The knife in question was a fairly simple utensil. A low-carbon steel made up the blade, a fact that Shirou had complained about to his parents about multiple times, and a mechanically carved and polished wooden handle was placed on it. There was nothing remotely unique or magical about it. Which made it perfect for him to practice his newest spell on.

Gradation Air, otherwise known as Projection.

It had been the second spell he had been taught, Irisviel teaching him the basics of the spell and a few pointers before leaving him to work on it by himself.

Feeling the drain of Od disappear he stopped trying to pump it out of his Circuits and opened his eyes to check on his handiwork, and immediately narrowed them in annoyance. Even to his relatively inexperienced eyes the blade in his hand was a terrible facsimile of the one sheathed in a wooden block a couple meters behind him. There were bumps and warps where there shouldn't have been. Lightness in places it was meant to be heavier and heavier in places it was meant to be lighter. For one of his first castings of the spell, even getting the blade the materialize was a very good first step.

But of course, Shirou didn't see it that way at all. He had used Structural Grasping on that knife, and the others like it, so many times that the blueprint was pretty much burnt into his memory. He was fairly certain he knew more about those blades and their compositions than even the manufacturers themselves did. And yet, when given the 'simple' task to recreate one using Projection, he had been left with this sorry mess?

No. Absolutely not. He would sooner give up this Magecraft then accept this as the result of using it.

With a viciousness that would have surprised anyone that had seen it the boy gripped both sides of the Projection and snapped it in half, uncaring of the motes of light that it shattered into. Immediately he began to recast the spell, staying silent as he cast it and tried to keep his Od under control as he tried to recreate the image of the knife in his head.

He was completely oblivious to the reason's why he was having such a hard time with casting the spell. When he had first been introduced to the simple spell that was Structural Grasping he had seemed to subconsciously mutter 'Grasp' whenever he had been using it. An incomplete aria, but nonetheless an aria that aided in his usage of the spell. It was a word that, for that particular Thaumaturgy, held meaning to him but it wasn't optimized and was far from consciously chosen, especially considering the sheer potential his Structural Grasping had.

Currently he was trying to cast a Magecraft without even a One-Line aria. Which while possible for such a spell, especially by a Magus with Circuit potential Shirou possessed, was like trying to go against the current of white water rapids considering the origin of Shirou's usage of Projection.

With a grunt of exertion he finished the spell and looked it the blade over again, scowling at the blatant warping of the blade and snapping it without another word, unknowing of his similarities to his ancestor who would often do the same right after he finished forging a blade he considered too inferior.

For another two hours he continued to try his Projection, failing over and over again. Fixing issues with the blade itself before moving onto trying to fix the issues of the handle, and finding that in doing so the issues with the blade were beginning to return. By the time that Kiritsugu and Irisviel had returned home from whatever they had been doing, Shirou had moved outside and was beginning to stab his Projected blades into a log to both shatter them and release a bit of anger and stress.

"Shirou! Are you ok?" Irisviel called out as she made her way over, cooing at how adorable he looked as he glared and pouted at the motes of light that had been the most recent blade.

"I can't recreate a knife" He muttered like his inability to do so was the cause of every terrible thing that had ever happened to him.

"Well sweetie…it is your first day with this spell after all" She tried to console him.

"I know that…If I was trying to Project a stick or a shovel or something I wouldn't be so annoyed but. But it's a knife!" He groaned waving a hand around.

"Does it being a knife really change that much?"

"Yes!" Shirou whined, jumping to his feet "I know the exact composition of the knife. I've Structurally Grasped it so many times that I basically know everything I can know about it! And then when I try to recreate it…."

"It comes out hollow and weak?" She guessed, knowing that such issues were the Moonlit Worlds main gripe with the spell in question.

"No!...W-Well I mean, they are. But that's not the problem!" Irisviel genuinely blinked in surprise at that.

"Can you try to show me Shirou? Maybe you're casting the spell wrong somehow?" She asked tapping a finger on her chin.

"Ok Kaa-san" He nodded, taking a breath to calm himself before completely stilling, glowing green lines lighting up his skin again.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the knife began to form in his hands. The trained red eyes of Irisviel watching his every move like a hawk. Every minute detail of the forming knife was catalogued in Irisviel's mind and chewed through at a speed that would leave the average Magus stupefied. And finally, as the blade finished forming she held out a hand, silently asking to hold and inspect the blade her son was now glaring at.

The moment it was in her hand she muttered an Aria to herself to begin Structurally Grasping the Projection only to pause. Red eyes blinking a couple times before widening.

'Of course. Such a simple mistake. I can't believe I forgot to teach Shirou this. Aaaaaah! Shirou! I'm so sorryryyyyyyy!'

"Shirou. Sweetie, are you having trouble controlling the spell?"

"Mhm. The Od is hard to create and manipulate and that means that I keep creating knives like that" He pointed accusingly at the knife in her possession.

"Shirou. What's your Aria for Gradation Air?"

"Aria?"

"I knew it… Ok, new lesson on Thaumaturgy for you Shirou. Aria's. The basic idea of an Aria is a phrase you utter that acts as a type of self-hypnosis" She paused and looked at the blank eyes of her son, letting him accumulate and think about the information she had just given him before continuing "This self-hypnosis is the basis for nearly all spells in Magecraft. It allows Magus like you and I to much easily create and manipulate Od from our Magic Circuits or Mana from Gaia. Some spells can be used without Aria's, they're known as 'Single-Action' spells. The reason you're having so much trouble controlling your Od is because you're taking a 'One-Line' spell and trying to use it as a 'Single-Action' spell"

"O..kay" Shirou muttered as he tapped his fingers on his leg in a rhythm, thinking about everything she had told him and trying to make sure he committed her words to memory "Can you do that? Use a 'One-Line' spell as a 'Single-Action'?" He questioned her, curious about the answer.

"It depends on the spell and person. If you can achieve it, however, it will still always be stronger and more efficient when you cast is as a One-Line" Irisviel explained, her knowledge as both an Einzbern and as a Homunculus shining through.

"Okay….what Aria should I use?" He questioned, his confusion manifesting physically in his blank expression that Irisviel always felt sad by seeing.

"It has to be something that holds meaning to you Shirou. The more meaning it holds to you in relation to the spell, the more effective you'll be able to utilize it"

Shirou nodded once again his eyes gazed on the ground before he took a deep breath in, held it for a moment, and then released. Looking back up at her he opened his mouth.

"Can I go to the public library?"

"H-Huh?" Irisviel blinked a couple times, dropping the Projected knife in her hands to the ground.

"Why do you want to go the library sweetie?" She asked, kneeling down so that she was more ay eye-level with him.

"I want to make a good Aria. I need to learn more words…" He mumbled, ashamed at his lack of widespread vocabulary.

"Oh. Of course you can Shirou! You remember where it is, right?" He nodded, remembering when he had been dragged their by Irisviel a couple weeks ago "Have fun and stay safe!"

He just gave her the smallest of smiles and nodded, making his way inside to grab a jumper before he made his way to the library. With his back to Irisviel as it was he missed the way that a shudder and sudden jerking wracked her frame, Kiritsugu approaching her from the side and offering her a kandkerchief.

"You can't keep putting it off Iri.." He muttered lowly, listening to the purposefully muffled coughing of his wife.

"The operation is going to leave me out of commission for at least a month Kiri. We can't just leave Shirou"

"The longer you wait the more time it'll take to recover afterwards" He admonished her, using facts that she knew but facts that wouldn't change her decision regardless.

"Y-You'll have to take missions from her as payment Kiri….I want you to enjoy this for just a while longer" She tried to convince him.

"I was always going to have to go back to taking up contracts Iri. That was never going to change. Whether it was for the Clock Tower, a random Magus or family, or even Touko. I won't regret taking those missions to get you help, even if I had to leave for one right this second"

"I know….After his 8th birth-" She couldn't help but be cowed and go silent at the hard look in his eyes"

"That's still over 6 months away Iri"

"I can survive till then" She shot back, shaking her head and dabbing her lips with the handkerchief "I'm not using much Magecraft anyways and we can-" She coughed lightly again, waiting for a moment before continuing when no more pain wracked her chest "We can make it a joint trip. We go and get me fixed, wait for me to recover and then save Illyasviel"

She could see that her words had, if nothing else, seemed to hit some point of logic in Kiritsugu. Though she also knew her husband well enough to know that she had far from fully convinced him.

"You're not going to budge on this issue are you?" He droned monotonously, getting a shake of her head in return "Fine. Three days after Shirou's birthday and no later. And if the deterioration speeds up, we're going earlier" He spoke his terms, his voice hard and unforgiving.

"…Ok. That's fair" She acquiesced with a slow nod.

"Good, now you need a drink. I know that blood doesn't taste the greatest"

"It's so gross!" She whined childishly, waving her arms around as Kiritsugu helped her to her feet.

XXXxxxXXX

Later that day

Rin Tohsaka grumbled to herself as she adjusted her jacket, stepping into the warmth of the library. Aqua eyes scanning over the shelves and people mulling about with residual annoyance from the origin of what had lead her here.

Ever since the last Holy Grail War, Rin had been left living by herself. No mother, no father and no sister. W-Which is obvious because she doesn't have a sister of course! Just a girl she knew very well from the Matou family that she hadn't seen in over a year.

However in living by herself with only the priest of the local Church, Kirei Kotomine, to look over her. She had no one to teach her or aid her in her pursuit of Thaumaturgy and increasing her skill in such abilities. This is had lead to her beginning to go through the library of her family estate to learn more advanced and useful Magecraft. However she had hit a slight snag in her studies…

'HOW DO WE HAVE AN ENTIRE LIBRARY IN THE HOUSE AND NOT A SINGLE DICTIONARY!? HOW ARE CHILDREN LIKE ME SUPPOSED TO LEARN!'

Despite her internal screeching that at this point was more resembling a pterodactyl more than a human being, outwardly she was the perfect picture of a shy, young bookworm of a girl. Making no effort to keep outward appearances of a perfect heiress when surrounded by people she would likely never see again and screeching at the top of her mental lungs.

"Oh, hello little lady" The old lady at the desk of the library said kindly, leaning towards Rin a bit "What brings you here today?"

"I…" How did she make it all the way here without any form of cover story. Stuff it, half-truth it is "I'm trying to study something but there are some words I don't understand. I'm looking for a dictionary?"

"Oh what nice manners, your parents must be so proud!" The old woman beamed, ignorant to the tightening of her facial features and the slow progression her hands took in taking the shape of fists "The Dictionaries are over there dear. Do you need any more help finding them?"

"No thank you ma'am. I'll be ok by myself" She politely declined, ignoring the old woman's praise once again as she made her way over to where she had been directed.

Flexing her hands a few times she muttered some curses she definitely shouldn't know at seven years old and kept walking. Idly looking around as she did. It was impressive the sheer volume of books that this library held. But the aesthetics left much to be desired and from what little Rin knew of the Clock Tower, even one of the department specific libraries would put this one to shame any day of the week.

Snorting to herself in amusement and rolling her eyes she noticed she had reached the aisle she was looking for and turned down it, her gaze trailing down a few books before turning to look further down the aisle and-

What. The. Hell.

It was right there! Hanging in the air like a non-visible gas that only she was able to see. Someone had come into a Public Library and used Thaumaturgy! How- why- who-

"There's no way that any of the Matou family used it so blatantly in public. And Kirei never leaves the Church so that means…..There's someone else who can use Thaumaturgy. That I don't know about. And is willing to use it in public…" She muttered, her eye twitching and a minute amount of Prana flowing out of her form, ironically doing exactly what she was angry at the mystery person for doing.

Well now she had two objectives. One, get a dictionary to bring home and learn more Magecraft, and two, act as a proper Second Owner should and find out who this mysterious Magus was. And when she did, she'd bring the full might of the Tohsaka down on them for sneaking into her city and not telling her about it.

Quietly, at the end of the aisle a middle aged man walked past. Pausing for a moment to look down the aisle and see the bent back form of Rin as she quietly cackled with a scary gleam in her eyes. Without another wasted moment he just started walking away with a raised eyebrow.

"Kids these days. They just get weirder and weirder I swear…"

XXXxxxXXX

Discord Code: ctMzhq3

Greetings ladies and gentlemen.

It is I! Lord Plasma, the writer who always posts chapters this large so soon after finishing the chapter before it! *Pointedly ignoring the four Uni assignments drawing closer to being due*

But seriously, don't expect chapters this often going forward. My muse is fickle, petty and fuelled by nothing but spite and unicorn blood with a dash of stress mixed in there. Treat back-to-back chapters like this as a treasure because as long-time readers of my works can tell you, they fucking are.

How did you guys enjoy this chapter tho? I hope you did XD I am very happy that I managed to start the story off strong with chapter 1, based on all your comments. And speaking of, I'll reply to a couple.

DannyPhantom619: Mood. I need to save up Saint Quartz though because the new banner just dropped and I only have one ;-;

Animan10: Thank you! It's a fun idea that I was stewing on for a while before I finally decided to write it.

1740: This will be a Harem but I don't think Gray will be added to said harem, sorry

Guest: Yes. Incarnation is something from Fandom. And this is a fanfiction. Shirou also doesn't have a magic crest from the Muramasa family in Canon. What's your point?

ServantDreamer: It's fine if you aren't the greatest at English, I enjoy the support regardless. And yes, Incarnation is already a thing in Fate. And in light of this knowledge I am going to change nothing and simply have one word have more than one meaning. XD

RandomCraziness: Thank you. And no, no I am not ok. I fucked my eyesight for a solid few days and kept getting minor headaches but it was worth it.

Imperial Briton: I love that idea for Iri. When I finally get around to making an end-of-chapter omake at some stage that will be one of the first ideas XD

SentinalSlice: So, for your two questions I have a singular answer. You'll have to see x3 But I'm glad you're enjoying it and yes, the Muramasa clan Crest is much bigger than the Tohsaka Crest XD

And that's all. Have fun, don't be fools. Stay cool and it's midnight so im gonna sleep before my discord admin bonks me….again.