White Ink

6

Shirou fidgeted as he sat on the train. He had been analysing himself for the past hour trying to find out what the difference that Sumire had alluded to was. He eventually gave it up as a bad job and started inspecting his mystic codes. Due to Sumire hurrying him he had packed everything taking even the most useless of the many items he had either got given by Kiritsugu, bartered for from Sumire or obtained/created on his own.

On his left hand he had a ring that was the spiritual successor and vastly more improved version of his previous water generation bracelet. It was made from a rock from the moon and it built around the concept of being able to absolutely control the water in the same way that the moon could control the tides. Shirou had built it himself using the fourth magic and thus it was vastly superior to the majority of mystic codes. He grimaced as he recalled the difficulty of obtaining the actual materials. In his quest to find a rock from the moon he had ended up with a small mountain of cannabis, that Sumire found to amusing to help get rid of. Right now in the Emiya house in the garage hidden beneath a pile of junk lay a heap of marijuana that Shirou had no way of disposing of besides telling his father and he didn't want to get scolded for purchasing drugs.
The second mystic code was his boots. Initially Shirou wanted to make them able to make him run faster or fly or teleport. All of his attempts to do that failed dismally so he gave up. Sumire stingily refused to teach him how to teleport and he valued her too much as a friend to even think of stealing her technique.
"Eventually he merely reinforced the existence of the shoes to make them strong and hard so that they could stand up to the additional force of his kicks and carved specific ridges onto the soles of the shoes that with a flare of his prana would inflict explosive runes on whatever he kicked.
Lastly his final mystic code was the one he was the most proud of. It lay on his neck and looked like an ordinary chain that led beneath his shirt. In fact it was anything but normal. The necklace fully took in small amounts of mana from the atmosphere and released while binding it to a miniscule amount of od. This basically allowed him to use his [Poseidon's Eye] on land without having to cast the spell or intone the incantation. He was proud of his spells, really he was, but every time he used one of his named spells in his spars with Sumire he incurred her persistent mockery. He did not have fourth grader syndrome dammit. He fights zombies and vampires; he's allowed to have cool sounding attacks.
Well one vampire he fought and the other he repeatedly gets his ass his ass handed to him in their spars.
The last mystic codes he had included a kind of sucking sweet that turned saliva into acid, useful if he ever found a way to use it without Avalon immediately having to do heavy-duty tongue healing afterwards and a glove that would freeze the person by manipulating the water in their body, this actually briefly worked with Sumire and he managed to kick her in the face with his rune boots, when her face regenerated, about 0.3 seconds later she congratulated him sincerely before handing him another asskicking, the glove unable to stop her at all afterwards.
As he finished taking stock of his various mystic codes the train pulled into the Misaki station. He exited the train station and pumped some prana into his necklace to detect any threats to his person in the city. After about four seconds of channelling the answer made his head start to ache.
"What the hell," he thought. When he tried this in the town of Fuyuki the blank spots were usually Gilgamesh and Sumire whenever he was in. Minor but readable spots included the Matou and Tohsaka manors but he usually avoided examining them closely. He wasn't interested in stealing the secrets of their brand of magecraft.
The Tohsaka's brand of magecraft resolved around jewelcraft and the storing of prana in jewels, this was basically a type of magecraft that meant you were incredibly useless ninety-nine days out of one hundred and on the one day you could output incredible amounts of prana using incredibly expensive jewels. No Shirou could output enough prana on his own without having to laboriously save up power. Besides it would mean that he would have to keep the jewels on him all the time or risk being attacked on one of the ninety-nine days.
The Matou magecraft had initially enticed him. The concept of absorption that they specialized in seemed significantly ill-defined that there could be many interesting spells that he could steal for his own and adapt into his own magecraft foundation. This changed when he sensed the horror that was Zouken Matou. His body disgusted him to such an extent that he had immediately withdrew his senses. Too Shirou's senses he stood out as something that must be destroyed. If he were to meet him in the street he would strike him down but until then he was content to avoid him.
Misaki town was just as bad if not worse than Fuyuki. He sensed a single massive black spot and a slightly smaller one on opposite ends of the town. In addition he sensed a magus family.
Stretching his senses to the limit he picked up some minor traces of magecraft there but nothing that was too out of the ordinary for a reasonably sized town. Shirou's thoughts immediately drifted from finding Kouma Kishima to finding out what was going on in this town. He suspected that there was a vampire and judging by the dark spot it could have been an ancestor. For a moment he thought about calling Sumire but he dismissed it. Sumire was weaker on land and wouldn't be able to fight another ancestor out of her element.
Briefly the thought that he wouldn't be able to fight another ancestor surfaced in his mind but he quashed it. First there was no guarantee that it was an ancestor. Secondly he was a magician of the fourth. Thirdly if the ancestor did prove to be too much he could retreat using water and steam to mask his retreat. Lastly Gilgamesh said it was necessary and the man had never been wrong in his advice before. From everything from whether the weather would be good today or what material would have the best results in his mystic codes. Shirou had learnt many times never to argue with a clairvoyant as they had already beaten you by the time you started the argument.
Shirou's priorities had changed upon finding out this information. Originally his plans were to find Kouma Kishima and speak to him immediately. The plans were now changed, his first priority was to set up a base of operations, plant the strongest bounded field he had ever seen and then go out to explore the town.
Shirou sighed, while he normally would have to use his own house or rent out a house for the period it now looked like he would have to go to a hotel. He had never quite gotten over the hotel-related incidents when he was younger and would do his best to avoid hospitals in future. It was something that exasperated Kiritsugu as it was a profoundly illogical thing that Shirou did.
After the fifth hotel he had finally found one that didn't use gas and had precautions against both explosives and other acts of terrorism. He fortified the hotel room to the nines with his strongest boundary fields and headed out into the night. Misaki town had somewhat chill autumns but Shirou got around that by activating his circuits causing him to warm up slightly.
He enjoyed the sights of the town while keeping his eyes open for vampiric activity. While he didn't spot any vampiric activities this was mainly because his attention was captured by an event quite early in the evening that required him to return to his hotel.
As he was patrolling the park he came across the sight of a young man, only a few years older than him face down and covered in blood and vomit. Noticing that the man was still alive he gave him a cursory analysis before calling an ambulance. Or at least that's what he would have done if the results of his scan didn't ping up and show him possibly the most interesting thing he has seen in all of his years. With wide eyes he scanned the blood again and then, with a humongous grin slowly overtaking his face he grabbed the boy and dragged him back to his hospital bed.
Shiki
Shiki walked through the streets. His gait was purposeful as he followed a single scent amongst thousands. He ducked into the back-alleys body melting amongst the shadow and began to move with speed faster than he could ever remember. At last his journey came to an end and he noticed a woman walking through one of the back alleys. He noted with some amusement that the woman appeared to be more nervous than usual however whether this was due to the natural creepiness of the alleys or a preys feeble instinct it wasn't clear. Without giving her time to react he jumped down in front of her and tore her to pieces. Blood coated his hands and he gulped down greedily his face steadily taking on a scarlet hue. Gulp after gulp of the lifesaving liquid he quaffed down and when he had drunk his fill he left the corpse there on the ground and headed back to-
Shiki woke up with a start. He frantically looked at the unfamiliar surroundings trying to piece together what had happened. He remembered killing someone, a girl, at this he almost threw up again and started hyperventilating. His hands started shaking and his mouth grew dry.
"Easy, easy," a voice emerged by his side. He jumped and looked to the side noticing as he did that the room he appeared to be in was a hotel. Standing next to him was a boy that looked to be about twelve or thirteen. He had red hair and brown eyes and was dressed in a casual white shirt and jeans.
"I feel like I'm getting Déjà vu for some reason," the boy remarked to himself. "Anyway," they boy continued addressing Shiki, "my name is Shirou. Now," and he leaned towards Shiki looking into his eyes through staring through the mystic eye killers which Shiki vaguely realise he woke up with. For some reason he woke up in different pajama's but with his glasses still on.
"Wait a minute," he said, "did you change…"
"Get over it," Shirou replied immediately. "You killed something non-human recently. Judging by the amount of mystery it blood radiates it was very powerful. I would like to know details."
Shiki flashed back to the memory of his attack he immediately felt the bile rise in his throat and his heart begin to pound. He was brought back to reality by the sensation of a palm to his cheek courtesy of Shirou as he glared at it.
"Please answer me," Shirou said, "and stop panicking you were quite injured when I found you, it took me quite a while to heal you. I would be quite miffed if you suddenly had a heart attack and my work was undone."
Shirou sighed, "Okay you are obviously out of your depth. Let's start with your name."
"Shiki," he said. "But who are you and what did you mean non-human." Despite his rising panic that was the thing that he latched onto. If the thing he killed was non-human was it murder. He reproached himself for that immediately bitterness welling up in his chest. Whatever it was it was still a living being and he had killed it.
"Easy there," Shirou said moving up to lay a hand on his shoulder, "what do you know of the moonlight world." After a moment of seeing Shiki's vacant expression he sighed. "Did what you kill look like a human. Yes or no?"
"Yes," Shiki said. "So it's a dead apostle of some description." Upon seeing Shiki's face he clarified, "A vampire."
"But how could somebody like you take down a vampire. No offense intended of course but from what I could tell you're not a magus. Nor are you an exorcist or any kind of other being related to the moonlight world. Vampires are not just strong and fast but inhumanly hard to put down." He paused, "Tell me do you have some form of ESP, are you a psychic?"
Shiki looked up at Shirou's inquisitive face and considered telling him about the lines he saw but every time he thought about those lines the face of the woman who he had sliced to pieces flashed through his face. He grimaced and shook his head.
Shirou appeared to take his silence as a sign that he wouldn't be receiving any more information. He exhaled and handed him a cellphone.
"Call your family or friends to pick you up. I'll be at this hotel for about a week. When you feel ready to talk you can come meet me, my room number is four hundred and thirty on the fourth floor."
"Wait," Shiki called out. "Thank you for helping me."
Shirou nodded and headed out into the night.
Shirou
The night had grown colder. Shirou had after leaving the room decided to cast [Poseidon's Eye again. He noted that the larger of the two massive presences had significantly reduced in power. Despite that reduction it was still strong enough to reject his long ranged scanning abilities. He briefly debated going to check up on the presence but resolved that scared and weakened ancestors would be at their most dangerous as they are more likely to lash out without reason. "Whatever kind of mystic eyes Shiki had must have been really powerful," Shirou thought nonchalantly. He recognized the mystic eye killers and was hesitant to remove them. Even he had to be wary about a brand of power that could harm whatever that thing was. He was a bit disappointed that Shiki didn't want to come out and tell him but he would deal with it. It was his right to keep his secrets and he was hardly going to shit on the guy during such a tumultuous time in his life.
He continued down the streets and took the first steps into the alleyways. Almost nonchalantly he killed the first few dead he came across on the streets streams of water cutting them into ribbons before they could even launch an attack their bodies turning to ash as their bodies dissolved.
He had made a night out of it killing about fifteen dead until midnight. However after midnight at around two 'o clock he quickly got the feeling of being followed. He left the alleys and took a step into the parks. Needing some way to lure out the mysterious follower he sat on one of the benches in the park and stilled his breathing. After about half an hour he heard footsteps, barely distinguishable as the being in the grass approached him. However he heard no breathing or even a heartbeat. He heard a whispered "I'm sorry and then a hand plunged towards his heart.
Opening his eyes he caught the hand moving towards his chest noting as he did that the force behind it was much stronger than that of a human or even one of the dead. Looking up he gazed into the red eyes of a brown haired girl, her face a mixture of shock and anxiousness.
He stood up and examined her from head to toe causing her to flush. "A vampire," he said. "Why would a vampire apologize to me for my death?" Interested he stared into the girl's red eyes and decided to analyse her using the fourth.
Family, love, school, friends, these and more images flashed through his brain in a fraction of an instant and in that time he knew Yumizuka Satsuki better than even her parents. He both blessed and cursed his luck. While many others would fear meeting a vampire Shirou often reveled in the challenge that they would pose to him. This vampire however was far different from all the rest. She had started pulling against his grip trying to get free tugging ineffectively against the firm grip of his hands, this image more than any other solidified her as not a threat in Shirou's mind. She was so hopeless, the perfect image of a high school student that had never fought in her life and that made her situation so tragic to Shirou that it stirred his compassion.
Shirou suddenly let go of her hand and Satsuki went flying back to land on her butt. Shirou stepped forward looming over her and he noticed the sudden pang of fear in her eyes. "Do not move," he said becoming aware of another presence in the vicinity. "I'll try my best to get you back to normal, but in the meantime do not move."
He stood up while he didn't cast [Poseidons' Eye] he instead cast his senses trying to identify the ripples all around him. He swung his arms around to catch two objects that were heading for Satsuki taking note of her wide eyes as he moved in front of her. The force behind the two objects were so intense that his arms swung way back when catching them and if he wasn't constantly using [Ryuujin's Perfect Body] he had a feeling that he would have dislocated both his arms.
He immediately took note of the fact that the weapons that were thrown towards him were black keys and thus the person who attacked him was most likely with the church. Taking the black keys into his hands he fired them into Satsuki's shadow that was illuminated by the streetlights. She froze unable to move a muscle.
Shirou scanned the darkness. "You might as well come out now," he said. "Let's talk face-to-face." He paused for a moment and then a silhouette emerged from the darkness. Squinting his eyes he managed to make out blue hair and a feminine figure. He was quite pleased to see that she was wearing priest robes as that confirmed his hypothesis that she was with the church.
"Why are you defending the vampire," she said. "If she was a lover of yours or a friend give up. Her soul has already been corrupted by the apostle blood within her. She will eventually turn on you and drink your blood."
"Ciel," said Satsuki as she had her eyes fixed upon the blue haired exorcist.
"Oh," Shirou said his voice containing traces of amusement, "so you were friends and yet you're so quick to throw her under the bus." He chuckled quietly, "isn't that kind of against what the church stands for, you know love and forgiveness and peace and all that."
"Or was it that you never were a friend of hers." All pretense of humour immediately dropped from his voice. "But then I suppose you burial agency members aren't exactly the most reasonable of people." At this the Ciel started a bit. "Words aren't going to get through to you are they," Shirou said while stretching his arms, while in his mind water burst from the ground and the fluids inside his body started growing agitated.
"But then again I've never exactly been that eloquent," Shirou said and with that as a start both of them attacked.
Ciel immediately threw another two handfuls of black keys at blinding speed towards Shirou, two of them were dodged immediately and the rest were redirected by powerful beams of water drawn in by Shirou's ring and controlled by his willpower. A wide wave of water was created from Shirou's prana and Ciel jumped over it however that brief moment in the air left her open for a second to Shirou who mixed prana into the spit in his mouth and the prana infused spit drilled a hole directly through Ciel's abdomen.
Shirou immediately fired more small beams of water trying to force Ciel to move which would cause her too bleed out. His plan appeared to work as she became slower and slower before finally collapsing in a heap. He turned away to pick up Satsuki when a blade suddenly went through his chest.
"Did you think that would be enough to put down a member of the burial squad magus?" she said to the corpse that was impaled on her blade. "Why is your kind always so arrogant?"
She looked away to her former classmate who was still looking at her with shock and fear in her eyes. For a moment regret seemed to pass through her eyes. "Now it is time for you," she said her voice cold.
Unfortunately she didn't get to carry out that threat as in the very next second her head was separated from her shoulders by a needle thin wave of water that appeared in front of her. In a second her head was reattached and she had leapt back putting some distance between her and the magus she thought she had killed.
"You know for a second there I thought it would be that easy," Shirou said all smiles again. "And you're hardly one to talk," he said his wound appearing to have gone as if it had never existed. "I guess we both have our own forms of immortality. Shall we see whose is superior?"
He shrugged his shoulders, "But then why again are we fighting, despite her amazing potential you know for a fact that Satsuki here is a not even a day old fledgling. She's not the one responsible for the attacks. Why would you waste your energy fighting me, surely you would want to save your energy for the vampire who is behind this."
Ciel looked at him, "It is the duty for those of the burial squad to hunt down vampires wherever they appear. She could grow far stronger if she was to be allowed to escape." She addressed Satsuki personally. "While it is nothing personal Yumizuka I will kill you."
Shirou sighed looking down, "Good to know." He raised his head, "the fact that you would waste this energy attacking me with no hesitation when there is a dead apostle killing indicates that you believe this fight won't lead to a significant disadvantage. This indicates that your healing is based on an external factor such as a church artefact that can heal you indefinitely independent of prana and not something limited such as your own body." Shirou smiled. "Good to know I can't just wear out your regeneration Ciel. I'm going to have to try something different."
He jumped back ten paces and started chanting. Alarmed Ciel rushed forwards ignoring Satsuki for the moment. She closed the distance attempting to run Shirou through with her blade, however that plan was foiled by a pair of runes that had appeared on the grass the moment Ciel ran through it and exploded. Her legs gone Ciel fell on the floor for a moment before the regeneration process started kicking in and reversing the damage done to her legs. That moment was a moment too long as the instant that Ciel had fallen down she had been engulfed in a bubble of water that prevented her from moving.
Shirou sweated at this. This Ciel was a monster and was probably much stronger than he was. Unfortunately despite the od that he could feel pouring off her she had not used magecraft at all. All her strength would be for nought when the water that he controlled prevented her from gaining the leverage to move about and his water control wasn't a curse that could be disrupted by running your magic circuits either.
Unfortunately despite his solid reasoning why it would work he could see that reality liked proving him wrong. Ciel was slowly getting up from the restraining water her monstrously high od disrupting his prana he used to control the water. That was where the second part of the plan went through because despite what she said he was not a magus.
He was a magician.
He reached forward and touched the water planting one of his favourite concepts of all time. [Freeze]. While he did have enough control to freeze the water without resorting to his magic, magecraft for this ability proved insufficient due to three advantages magic had. Firstly it could not be disrupted by Ciel's od at all as magic was the highest class of mystery and could only be influenced by a magician. Secondly it was simpler with magecraft he had to remember exactly how his freezing magecraft worked and that always took him some time in the midst of battle. Lastly and most importantly it was instant. Through magecraft he could cool objects down or force water to transition into ice it usually took a between five seconds and one minute for the object to be frozen totally. Sumire was very happy to show him repeatedly how the amount of mystery she possessed gave her a resistance to magic that allowed her to laugh through his attempts to freeze her.
By applying the concept freeze the object is instantaneously frozen. Furthermore the object will resist all attempts to become unfrozen unless heavy force or incredible heat is used as the concept persists and it would take a while for the concept to wear off as Akasha changes. Shirou had experimented by leaving ice cream in the sun and he found that it took the ice cream three days to melt.
The result of this was a frozen priest in a puddle of water. Shirou admired his handiwork, but he wasn't fooled. This kind of set-up probably wouldn't last an hour judging by the power of the burial squad member. He looked over to Satsuki who was either paralyzed by fear or paralyzed by the black keys and came to an idea. He put his hands on the black keys and attempted to lift them. To his surprise despite his strength they didn't budge. He examined them and after a brief scan through them he changed ownership from [Ciel] to [Shirou]. Satisfied he lifted them up and stabbed them into the shadow caused by the lamplight.
Looking down to Satsuki who had started shivering he lifted her up in his arms and headed back to the hotel.
Author note: So another chapter. I really like the character of Ciel she is one of the few characters in the nasuvers said to be able to take on a servant. She actually wasn't fighting at her best for a few reasons. She underestimated Shirou (he only is 13 now) she didn't expect him to be so tough. She actually wasn't so enthusiastic about killing Satsuki. Only when Shirou showed himself as a competent magus was she willing to go in for the kill. Luckily Avalon had other things to say.
Secondly I found this hard to show but Shirou is not only doing this for compassionate reasons. They exist but he also takes pride and joy in his magecraft and magic. Attempting to turn Satsuki human for him would be equivalent to a weekends worth of parties/ a whole movie marathon/ binge watching the newest season of anime.
Guest and Ravenext While he will certainly meet at least one of them I haven't planned any particulars nor would I disclose it ahead of time. :)
Dovahzul Nasuverse likes to keep all its universes separate. Do you know Aoko Aokazi live in the Kumoji manor which was in Misaki town the exact same place as the Tohno manor. Congrats for being the first to call me out on it. I'm shocked how nobody has said Gilgamesh was out of character.
The Rupture Altouge would kill him for what he tangentially did to Svelten. They actually don't know where he is, just that he went missing. Plus Altrouge =Primate Murder=Everyone dies
Tjg Shirou actually does a lot of work on his magecraft and I usually only show it like flashbacks. However there are two semi-self imposed limitations. One he doesn't alter people without their permission. That leads to a route he really doesn't want to go down. Two in chapter 5 Gilgamesh advised him to avoid using his analysis skill on people. Imagine just looking at somebody and seeing all their flaws laid bare, not a nice thing.
Rangle I know but I enjoy replying to reviews. In additon I only reply to those who ask or imply a question. If it ever gets too much I'll just reply to the ones I want.
Thank you for reading please read an review. I was thinking of doing a Christmas omake but to be honest I can't think of anything funny.