Emiya Shirou had died, and he had been reincarnated.

It had probably been around two years since he was reborn, and he had come to understand a few basic things about the new world he found himself in.

His name was now Rudeus Greyrat, but his parents would call him Rudy. He was born to Zenith Greyrat and Paul Greyrat. And he was cared for by Lilia, a maid.

One of the major things he had learned was this world's language.

It took a while to comprehend, but the vocabulary of a single household was extremely limited and eventually he was able to put a word to the objects or concepts.

Still, he knew he had picked up on it awfully fast, if only he would have managed to learn English at the same speed. Taiga had always held his grades over his head.

He had also learned to read.

Paul would occasionally read to him a fairytale about a hero who vanquished a demon and saved the world.

Placing together the spoken words with the words written down wasn't an easy feat, but he managed.

Paul Greyrat was a knight of sorts, and he would occasionally leave and come back hours later. His sword would rarely see action on his ventures.

During his freetime, Paul would either be caring for a horse at a stable in the yard, or be practicing his sword forms. He was pretty skilled with a blade.

Zenith Greyrat was a seemingly unemployed Mage, and when she wasn't spending time with her son, him, she was simply roaming about the house doing whatever she felt like, even occasionally helping the maid.

Lilia, the maid, mostly spent her time supervising him and when she wasn't doing that she was fixing up the place.

Still, even with the two women who hardly left the interior of the house, he was more often than not left unsupervised.

He set all the childish knickknacks away in a pile before he stood up. There weren't any issues with his development, his body was functioning rather normally.

After closing the wooden door to the room he had been left alone in, he walked to the center of the room and held out an empty hand.

Within the blink of an eye, a replica of Paul's sword materialized in his grip.

The sword appeared to be too long and unwieldy for his small body, but Reinforcement allowed his body to hold the weapon.

Paul was skilled in three different sword styles, and he also mixed together the moves at his convenience.

Unfortunately, Shirou — Rudeus was incapable of fully utilizing the sword.

Paul's sword techniques were complemented by encasing his body and blade with Mana. However, for some reason, that ability couldn't be performed by his son's body.

As if it was a glitch, whenever he attempted to replicate the skill, the Mana would malfunction and evaporate immediately.

If he focused, he could get the effect to last for a single strike before it vanished, but he decided that would be inefficient.

Instead, he simply copied the sword, and placed it against the wall.

He would then Project a small nameless blade that held no history, and then he would practice what he had read off of Paul's blade.

Shirou didn't push himself too hard, he didn't want to stunt his growth, and all he really needed was the skills, not necessarily the strength.

In his previous life, he hadn't really trained his body to use a sword, aside from a few practice sessions with Taiga, and then the small amount of training he had done with Saber.

When he truly fought, he mostly ended up relying on the combat experiences of the weapons he had Projected.

On the topic of his Projections, he had yet to fully access his Reality Marble: Unlimited Blade Works.

Something unknown had occurred when he was reincarnated, now his unique spell was seemingly compressed and he had trouble extracting data from it.

He couldn't locate any of the Noble Phantasm he was familiar with, or the prominent ones that Archer favored. Even the nameless sword he held had been difficult to discover.

So far his arsenal was extremely limited to a few nameless weapons, Paul's sword, and the kitchen knife.

There was little he could actually learn from Paul's sword. He didn't have the right size for most of the footwork or moves. All he could really gleam from it was a proper stance and a few of the basics.

After about an hour of training, he dismissed both swords and then sat back down by the knickknacks.

He then Analyzed some of them and Projected a few copies.

Early on in his training in this life, he had discovered that his Mana Veins, the source of the innate Mana in his body, were rather similar to muscles in the sense that after being exhausted they grow back stronger.

It was a rather wild thing to behold. His capacity to contain Mana had already surpassed the maximum amount of Magical Energy he had ever held during the Grail War by himself.

It was almost as much as Archer's Arm or Tohsaka's Gem.

'I'll probably reach the end of my growth soon.'

He simply had a head-start on his magical development, but he was sure he would reach a wall or plateau soon enough.

After completely exhausting his Mana Veins, he used a bit of Od to dismiss the large pile of copied children toys.

Then he opened the door to his room and peeked around, the two women seemed to be chatting downstairs. He used a bit of Od to Reinforce his hearing, the topic seemed to be about what to have for dinner.

He could also hear Paul, outside, grunting as his sword slashed through open air.

After leaving his room, he began exploring some more, there really wasn't anything of importance, however he soon found a chest containing five books.

Among them was the bedtime fairytales that were read to him quite frequently, another storybook about swordsmen, and three informational books.

…

…

For the next year, he incorporated reading the three books into his daily schedule. It took a while, but he had reached a level of literacy that allowed him to decipher a few complex words.

The books taught him much about this world. From kingdoms to plants, from monsters to magic, he read about many topics.

Magic in this world seemed to follow a different set of rules, and it had made it seem like casting spells would be easy.

It had been quite misleading. Even after multiple chants, he struggled to properly cast a beginner spell.

Then again, Magic wasn't as simple as math or writing, it could be as incomprehensible as astrophysics at times.

Still, he didn't give up, and for months he traced the image of the spells in his mind as he tried again and again.

Perhaps his toddler vocal system was just incapable of producing the proper tones, cadence, inflections, or even basic articulations required of him.

'Or maybe I'm mistranslating the words, I did basically guess with most of them.'

On the upside to his failures, he would constantly drain his Mana Veins rather quickly.

"Let the great protection of wind be on the place thou seekest. I call on the rush of a gale here and now. Wind Blast."

Perhaps he should sneak away, since maybe the reason for his failure was that he simply wasn't saying it loud enough. He could see that being the reason behind it.

Regardless, he flipped the page of the book held open on an arm and moved on. After re-familiarizing himself with the next chant, he reached out his other hand, closed his eyes and focused on visualizing the intended result.

"Let the great protection of ice be on the place thou seekest. I call upon the chill of a biting frost here and now. Ice Sword."

Reminiscent of the pain his Magic Circuits would cause when they activated, his Mana Veins felt like they were flooded with an unbearable liquid heat. And then they felt like they were being crushed and chopped up.

The heat and pain had entirely engulfed his hand, and his eyes snapped open from the sensation.

In his grip was a short and foggy icicle with a small cross-guard, and a thin layer of ice had frozen his fingers together. Frost was creeping down his arms and barely stopped before it met his elbow.

After a single heartbeat, which pumped blood through his body, he felt an explosion of intense pain.

The skin on his hand and arm were turning unhealthy shades of blue and purple, and the rest of his arm began to swell.

He immediately Reinforced his arm, but that only slowed down the damage.

For a moment, he debated how to proceed, however, the damage was done, he would need to be healed regardless of how he dealt with it. So he made the most logical decision.

He clutched the book against his chest and stepped out of the spare room he had been hidden away in.

"Zenith! Lilia!"

He had begun talking a while ago, but he mostly just repeated what he heard, regardless he had never called out before.

So presumably, even they would know something unnatural had happened.

As he walked down the steps, he was met with a wide-eyed Zenith. Her gaze was firmly locked onto his arm for a few seconds, and then her expression visibly shifted as she realized what she was seeing.

"Rudy!"

She almost leaped up the staircase.

"Uh, um, ah, uh stay still, baby." She stumbled over her own words as she struggled to speak, her hands and fingers twitched with indecision. "Follow me, Rudy."

Then she gently led him to the washroom.

"Let the great protection of water be on the place thou seekest. I call a refreshing burbling stream here and now. Water Ball!"

She repeated this chant and spell a few times as she filled a wooden tub with water that had manifested from her palms.

"Let the great protection of fire be on the place thou seekest. I call the bold heat of a torch here and now. Fireball!"

She said this once and then she held the flames that appeared in her grasp over the water for a bit.

He didn't say anything, he was just observing spells being properly casted. He did pick up on the gentle scent of freshly baked grain bread being emitted from her spells.

"Can you put your arm in, Rudy?" She asked after dismissing her fire.

The water felt like boiling oil on contact, but to the less injured portion of his arm it just felt comfortably warm.

"Can you tell me what happened?" Her voice was strange, she was clearly concerned but there was something else contained in her words.

He nodded and held out the book. "I said what was on the page, and then my entire body felt really hot and then there was suddenly ice on my arms."

"…" Her expression shifted rapidly. "Are you okay?"

He nodded again. "It's really painful."

A few minutes passed as the ice thawed away.

"Let this divine power be converted into a satisfying nourishment, and bestowed unto those who have lost the strength to stand once more. Healing!"

Her words were accompanied by a familiar green glow, and the pain melted away as his arm returned to its proper color.

"Can you move your fingers for me?"

From his pinky to his thumb, every finger operated at an acceptable level. He could even roll his wrist with only a slight bit of lingering pain. "It's all better, thanks Zenith."

The fact that he didn't call the woman who gave birth to his body any form of mother, wasn't lost on anyone. However, so far it was just accepted as an odd quirk of his.

He had been parroting words, so he just addressed people by names instead of titles.

Shortly after he had said his parents' names, they would point at their own faces and repeat different versions of mom and dad in their language, and he had simply ignored that.

Eventually they gave up, and just accepted that when he called their name, he was talking to them.

"Rudy, I want you to explain everything to me, I need to know exactly what happened."

And so he answered as best he could while omitting most of the details.

He had simply been trying to read the fairytale on his own, and eventually he had tried to read the other books as well.

He had gotten the basic gist of the words by asking about them when they came up during bedtime and then pieced the rest together.

When he tried speaking the words out loud, something weird happened and then it led to this.

Zenith nodded her head a few times as she held the book and listened to his explanation.

"And you're okay, right?"

"Yeah, you fixed it."

She nodded her head again, and then glee exploded from her eyes and she made excited sounds and pulled him in a tight hug.

"My little boy is a genius!"

'Hmm, well I guess people react to things differently. And she is mage, maybe she's also lacking in common sense.'

He wasn't exactly expecting everything to go this smoothly, but he wasn't complaining.

After ensuring he was okay once more, she hefted him into her arms and carried him to Paul.

The man was currently having a hushed conversation with Lilia outside the house. Both of them jumped slightly as Zenith ran up to them, not that she noticed.

"Darling, you'll never believe what happened." And so she excitedly explained what happened. "If we get him a magic tutor now, he'll probably become a remarkable mage before he becomes a proper adult!"

"Ah, but didn't we promise that if it's a boy, then he'll become a swordsman?"

"Oh, now you care about keeping a promise?" She rolled her eyes.

A flash of guilt traveled across Paul's face as his eyes darted to Lilia and then towards the ground. "F-fair point. Okay, I'll head out soon and put up a notice." He looked somewhat ashamed of something as he rushed off.

Zenith made more excited noises and spun around with son in her arms.

"Okay, Rudy, no more reading this book for you, not until your tutor arrives, I don't want you to hurt yourself again."

He nodded, feeling slightly dizzy. "Understood."

"Lilia, could you help get started on properly teaching him to read and write?"

Almost imperceptibly, a glare filled with intense disdain and disgust met his eyes, before it disappeared behind an impassive mask.

"Of course, ma'am." The maid responded with a small bow of her head.

AN: Y'all get this chapter early for being so good today.

I do think it's funny how differently I imagined Shinji and Shirou would make the other characters act.

So UBW is experiencing some technical difficulties, and he's having some issues with basic elemental magic.

I know Shirou's magical sniffing nose doesn't work as I depicted it, but I think I adds a neat flavor to the magic of different characters. I also think I could have fun with him being something like a bloodhound if there was ever a magic crime.

Ah, Paul and Lilia, smh my head, smh my head.