Fate: Beyond the Gate

2

Walking alone down a narrow corridor, a man stood tall despite the harrowing nature of what awaited him ahead. The trial had already ended, the verdict reached long before a formal hearing. What he was walking towards was nothing more than a formality held within the Clock Tower for a Magus that had supposedly reached a position of the highest prestige. It was an honour and an accomplishment written down within the Clock Tower's very history, and yet, what did all that matter?

The man grumbled under his breath, a hand reaching up to scratch the back of his head in a manner he had not done in years. It would have broken a particular person's hearts to see him deferring to old habits now in his time of greatest peril, but fortunately, no one else was around.

This was his fault. The very result of his own actions.

He wore a plain white t-shirt beneath a green sweater he kept open down the center. On his legs were a pair of ordinary blue jeans contrasting with a pair of brown shoes. He looked perfectly ordinary, his red hair kept short and clean to give a modern appearance. Out on the streets of the twenty-first century, he would not have looked out of place aside from perhaps his bronze-coloured eyes.
From his demeaner, to his humble personality, one would never have suspected him to be a Magus, a user of magecraft, a lower branch of magic. For someone who'd often relegated himself to be a third-rate, it was ironic that he was now being held in high regard by the magi of the Mages Association for his particular brand of thaumaturgy.
His name was Shirou Emiya, and today marked the end of his three-year career working as a field agent, mercenary, and enforcer ever since he'd left Fuyuki after graduation. He was twenty-one, and he was both at the beginning and the end of the prime of his life.
On the back of his left hand, a branded magic seal shone with a dull blue light, a symbol of his incarceration. It was called a Sealing Designation, and it was the direct cause of his unfortunate situation.

For most magi, a Sealing Designation was to be abhorred above all else, for it spoke of the forced end of their individual research, but in Shirou's case, he'd never been much of a magus. Research was never the focus of his craft. He'd only ever had one goal, and that goal itself was what had landed him in this particular situation.
He wished to be a Hero, an Ally of Justice. To save the life of another, he'd never hesitated to throw himself at danger nor dwell over the consequences of his actions unless it affected the well being of another.
A Sealing Designation was not a light matter. Those of the Carillon Observatory, or the Secret Judgment Division of the oldest room in the Clock Tower were the ones to decide on who got designated, and in this case, Shirou was the intended recipient.
He was stupid, but he didn't regret his actions.
Those branded with a Sealing Designation were generally divided into two paths, Hermits and Philosophers. Hermits got the better end of the deal and were often left alone due to not being an immediate threat. Philosophers on the other hand, were the priority due to their abandonment of conduct to further their own craft, thereby threatening the secrecy of magic should they be too careless.
In Shirou's case, it wasn't the abandoning of conduct that landed him a Sealing Designation, it was the opposite. He'd tried to hard to save others to the point where he risked revealing magecraft to the world. His latest stint was his worst, since not only did he almost endanger the secrecy of magic, he revealed something Rin had warned him to keep under wraps to other magi at all costs: His Reality Marble.
Reality Marble's were borderline True Magics that were primarily said only to be possessed by Undead Apostles.
Shirou's Reality Marble centered around the concept of swords and weapons. Given enough magical reserves, he could manifest said weapons from his inner reality at will. He'd been forced to utilize this power to prevent a war between two civil groups.
His disregard for secrecy by using his magecraft out in the open was only mitigated by the fact that both sides confused him as the reincarnation of a deity. Of course, this was only after he'd deployed his Reality Marble out in the open to swallow the explosion of an explosive warhead launched from both sides.