From Fake Dreams

3

"Dinner's ready!" Shirou's young voice shouted from the kitchen, prompting everyone in the traditional building to all the occupants inside. The boy's call made all of the intended listeners to twitch their ears in response.
"

FOOODDD!" Taiga shouted as she made a beeline for the dinner table and instantly began to chow down on each section of the meal as soon as the boy put the plates down.
"Calm yer arse down lass!" Shouted Sirius in Japanese, somehow with a strong an accent as he had in English, as he skidded to a halt in front of the table just behind the highschooler before eating as fast as the girl. "Save some of ta grub fer ta rest of us!"
"Honestly Sirius…" Waver sighed as he walked into the room third with a book in his hands. "Do you have to be like this? What would your peers say if they saw you eating like this?" He sat down while brushing his hair out of the way before quickly grabbing a bowl and getting some choice sections of the remaining dishes before they disappeared.
"They'd say somethin' stupid cause the lad can cook betta tan any of ta bastards back home and they're wastin their time talkin when they could be eatin!" The eldest roared with a full mouth.
"Here here!" Taiga shouted with equal fervor.
"Guys, can you please at least leave some for dad?" Shirou moaned as he managed to swipe some food for himself with practiced ease. "You know he's been really tired lately…"
"He'll be here when he wants to be." Waver stated in a calm tone, eating properly. "Besides, it's fairly obvious that you already saved some of the meal for him in the kitchen."
"Little Shirou's so cute like that!" Taiga swooned as she briefly leaned over and rubbed her cheek affectionately against the blushing an pouting boy. Sighing contently the girl resumed eating. "But yeah. Kiritsugu-san has always been really tired, but he seems more out of it than normal lately…" The teen looked at Shirou curiously. "It was odd too since he started to get worse around the time Shirou needed that surprise operation…" She smiled happily. "But since you two guys are here we have nothing to worry about! I was so surprised when he came back with you two and said you were all family!"
"Barely." Waver grunted. Honestly, he, Sirius, and Kiritsugu are not alike in the slightest. Even with a strong hypnosis spell it would take a while to convince a fair number of people of this. The fact that the girl believed them so easily spoke wonders about her feeble resistance to magecraft… or her gullibility. It didn't help that Shirou had taken the initiative and had started to call the two newcomers Sirius-jiji and Waver-nii. "We just happened to be in the area for a while and decided to crash here. It's cheaper that way."
"Speak for yerself lad." Sirius grunted from behind a bowl he practically had in his mouth completely. "Ah'm loaded."
"If that's the case, then why did I have to pay for your ticket here?" Kiritsugu asked with a tired grin from the doorway before slowly walking to the kitchen to get the food that Shirou had set aside for him.
"Wanted ta see if ya would." Grinned the largest man. "'Sides. Someone had ta cover Natalia's debt ta me. Ya've gotten soft ovah ta years lad."
"Funny…" The ex-assassin mused as he sat down. "I seemed to remember a large man crying while watching a romantic comedy film on the flight here…"
"You're finally up Kiri-kun!" Taiga swooned with teary eyes. "I was worried about you!"
"Don't worry." The man grinned as he began to eat. "I still have a year left in me I think…"
The teen pouted. "It's no fair when you talk like that. It makes it sound like you really are going to die soon." She grinned and began to poke him in the side. "But we all know that's not true. You're barely older than some of the noobies that my uncle smacks around…" She paused before turning to Sirius. "… Although even he was surprised when you smacked them around even harder when you first got here old man. Where did you learn those moves old timer?"
Sirius grinned as he remembered smacking around those cocky fresh Yakuza thugs on his way to the compound his first day in town. "Ah lass, ah'm from Ireland. Me kin like ta play rough an smack one another round fer shits an giggles. Many of ta lads don't consider themselves men till tey break at least 3 of teir limbs and a couple o ribs… in one fight."
Taiga blanched. "Right…" She turned to the boy who was equally disturbed by the man's description of his version of a rite of passage. "Shirou… please don't go to Ireland alone with him, even if he is family…"
"Way ahead of you Fuji-nee…" The boy shivered.
"This is the reason why you're not allowed into many of the important meetings and trials anymore…" Waver commented, still keeping his noble and uptight posture while still eating.
"Bah…" Sirius grunted as he turned to his meal again. "Lads these days have gone soft. The whole lot of ya…"
The dinner continued on like this, with Sirius and Taiga providing life and energy to the table while Waver and Shirou just pointed out how silly they were being to various degrees and Kiritsugu smiling faintly and occasionally laughing along with the others. It went well into the night. Waver helped Shirou clean up and Taiga left soon afterwards…
It was only then that the training resumed again.
"So lad…" Sirius grunted as he stretched out his body. "Ya finally get used ta yer new additions yet?"
Shirou hesitantly nodded as he rubbed his chest… where 3 magic circuits were implanted. They were all that was left of the Emiya clan's thaumaturgical crest.
Despite the fact that it carries little meaning now, the Emiya name did have a fair bit of history to it. The family lineage dated back a few centuries and focused on 'time manipulation' in their quest for Akasha. The original crest that had belonged to Kiritsugu's father, the clan's 4th head and a magus that had a sealing designation and researched forbidden magic, was confiscated by the magus association upon the man's death. Kiritsugu had managed soon afterwards to get permission to implant 20% of that crest into his back after Natalia managed to call in a few favors. However instead of trying to further his clan's research and improve on it once more, the assassin merely used the crest as a tool and giving him the power of innate time control.
Simply put, the spell was designed about creating a bounded field and then making "adjustments" in the flow of time on the space inside of the field so to create a difference between it and the passage of time outside of the field. Taking the time of the "outside" as a standard, the time in the "inside" can be either accelerated or slowed.
The major drawback is that the efforts necessary to use this ability increases in proportion to the size of the bounded field made and to the deviations between the two flows of time. Usually the user would need to channel huge amounts of prana and use time consuming rituals when activating high level thaumaturgy to use this, but Kiritsugu was able to mostly bypass that by limiting the size of the field to his own body and even then for very brief spans of time. Although this doesn't let him do much outside of his body, it gave him great control over the rhythm of his bodily functions, letting him do physical feats above humans by accelerating or simulating a state of suspending animation by slowing.
However this particular use of this magecraft put a heavy burden on his body. Once the field is lifted, the world will forcibly, more often than not violently, correct all time deviations in the affected space, which in this case is his own self.
He experienced these feedbacks to the extreme firsthand during his final fight in the war against Kirei when he accelerated his body to 4 times normal speed. His body would have shattered upon itself hundreds of times over, and did, however Avalon, the legendary sheathe of Excalibur, was implanted in his body at the time and repaired the damage as soon as it was done…
It still did nothing to prevent how much it hurt though.
Shen he was cursed by the cursed grail, not only were most of his own magic circuits fried, but a good majority that made the small crest on his back were as well. Only 3 had remained intact. It was far from enough to perform any form of moderate clan based thaumaturgy by themselves despite their quality, let alone make an innate time field… yet they could still serve a purpose… he just had no idea what just yet other than giving the boy a small boost to his reserves.
Asking Waver and Sirius to implant the boy with the barely considered crest had taken a little bit of convincing on his part. Grafting a crest onto another person had always been an extremely risky procedure, especially when the one receiving it was not a blood member of the clan… yet Kiritsugu pointed out that there were so few circuits to be shifted over that the odds of something going truly wrong, even if neither men were actually qualified to do such a task, were rather small. Shirou was still a child, so he could still adapt to them fairly well. Plus the boy still had Avalon still implanted inside his body, which also increased his odds immensely but neither Waver nor Sirius knew about the noble phantasm's existence in the boy yet. Kiritsugu wanted to keep that small piece of information to himself and maybe Shirou for as long as possible so that it would have the greatest chances of staying inside the boy and enable him to project the scabbard flawlessly.
And so the faker recovered quickly. Within a week of the implants, Shirou was up and going to school again. He still had to take the standard drought that many recipients took to ensure that nothing went wrong (much to the boy's displeasure since he claimed that it tasted like old wet cats), however other than that he was pretty much recovered at this point and now possessing a solid 30 magic circuits in his body…
However this did not come without a price as the 3 men soon found out. Despite their small number, the remaining circuits in the man had been serving a purpose in their prior bearer as they had been doing something that most crests were designed to do… keep their bearer alive. It wasn't until after the operation that the men realized that without the crest, Kiritsugu's body had lost a significant part of what kept it going after the war. According to Sirius after a detailed analysis, the man had reduced his time alive by half… meaning instead of the rough 2 years he had expected to last, he only had 1… give or take a few months.
"So what should we train him in first?" Waver asked curiously.
"First we have him practice his tracing and his projection, like we do before and after every session." Kiritsugu stated from the porch. "This time we're going to push things a little bit though. Sirius?"
"Aye." The large man nodded as he took out what seemed to be a pair of normal gloves. "Ta fabric in these mitts were crafted wit magical processes, makin' tem stronger tan tey look lad. Let's see what ya can do…"
"Remember your 8 steps Shirou." Kiritsugu lectured.
"I know." The boy sighed. "Judging the concept of creation, hypothesizing the basic structure, duplicating the composition material, imitating the skill of its making, sympathizing with the experience of its growth, reproducing the accumulated years, excelling every manufacturing process, and then executing the actual projection itself." He recited in a tired tone. It wasn't that he didn't care about the steps… on the contrary the boy literally thrived on them once he actually knew what his steps were… and learned what all those big words meant… but like any kid he simply didn't like reciting the same things over and over again. Especially if it sounded boring.
"Hmm…" Waver mused, contemplating and analyzing the 8 steps the boy used in his structural grasping magecraft. Projection was widely known as a rather empty subject to study since anything made would be of fairly low quality and wouldn't last long despite the fact that it was in theory very advanced… however that was partially due to the fact that the subject was incomplete to a degree. Most magi just pretended that the fact didn't exist… however if this boy's additional steps were the missing piece of this puzzle… then it certainly would explain a great deal…
He still doubted the boy could actually recreate a noble phantasm though…
"Trace… on." The boy muttered as he stared at the leathery gloves in Sirius' possession. "… Concept of creation…" He started off slowly after a few seconds. No doubt he was not used to analyzing magical objects and it had an effect on how fast it took the boy to finish his analysis. "… Accumulated years…" The boy continued, his eyes never turning away from the gloves as they narrowed. The three elder men looked at the boy curiously as he let out a slow breath and held out his hands and focused. A bright but brief flash of light appeared before them before a similar pair of gloves appeared in the boy's possession.
Waver watched as Sirius walked over to the boy and inspected his attempt. "Well Sirius? How did he do?"
The mystic code maker made several grunting noises from his throat as he made a verdict. Looking at the cloths from every angle and occasionally channeling prana through each one to get a feel for their construction. After a few minutes the large man nodded. "If ta originals were a 10, ta lad made a 6…" He mused, causing the boy's face to fall. "Ta quality of ta material he made is lackin' and ta magic inscribed in it is a bit on ta weak side too compared ta tha original…" He paused for a moment before grinning. "But still fer a projection tis is pretty damn impressive lad. Tis cloth here is part hair from a pegasus and refined in dragon fire. I make these beauties fer high ranking equipment making magus tat gotta work in ta most hellish places. Ah wouldn't expect even high level noble bastards ta be able to make anything higher than a 2 when it comes ta projectin somethin as complicated as tis, and even tat's pushin it."
"Let me have a look…" Waver walked up and took the projected gloves for inspection. Sirius had left out a bit in his complimenting the boy's work. One was the fact that the boy had actually managed to reproduce the magic inside the glove at all, something that had until then been absolutely unheard of. Channeling his prana into the cloth, the man indeed felt the resistance and nature of both unicorns and dragons in the material enhancing its magical and natural resistance to levels that were far beyond what normal gloves could provide for humans. He could also tell that there was a stronger foundation to the materials than any other projection he had encountered. Most fabricated items were empty on the inside… these gloves however seemed to possess everything the original had… albeit a bit weaker in quality and somewhat distorted in some areas. Overall though, the gloves in his hands were still of higher quality than the standard protection gloves that many magi use for rather dangerous experiments. "… It's not bad… for a child…" Waver mused, taking quiet pleasure in the boy's pouting. "Can you make another right now?"
Shirou shifted a bit on his feet. "Maybe. I have trouble calling up the images of things after a certain amount of time after tracing them… other than knives and things like that for some reason…" The boy held out his hand and within a moment one of the kitchen knives he had used to make dinner that night nearly instantly appeared in it. "I don't really have to think that hard about them. I don't know why…"
The elder 3 didn't even bother to look at one another to tell what the others were thinking. "It probably has to do with your element or origin." Waver commented. "We know your element isn't one of the standard 5, so odds are its affecting your projection ability in some way."
"Yeah yeah… why can't anyone figure out what my element is?" The boy sighed. "I mean it would have been cool to shoot fireballs and stuff… but at this point I really just want to know and get it over with already…"
Sirius laughed. "Ah lad. Don't get yer knickers in a bunch. Yer doin just fine right now." He reached into one of his pockets and took out a pink jewel. "Try yer stuff on tis fine gem right here. Same as b'fore…"
The pattern repeated itself constantly over the next hour. Sirius would take out various random magic related objects that he's made or used over the years and the boy would attempt to grasp everything about it and then reproduce it. The boy's work was fairly constant according to Sirius, never straying from the 5-7 range… other then the case when he showed the boy a scalpel that was used in dissections of large and powerful magical beasts. Shirou not only finished his analysis in a few seconds that time, but had produced a copy that was nearly a borderline 9.
"Alright! Tat does it!" Sirius sighed as he put away his last example. "It's fairly obvious tat ta lad has some kind a link ta sharp an pointy things. Ya have one hell of a special lad here lad." He grinned to Kiritsugu.
"He is capable of incredibly high levels of projection…" Waver admitted. "But what else can he do?"
"Dad, can you finally start to teach me how to reinforce my body now?" Shirou moaned. Despite using magic constantly for the past hour, he wasn't that tired. Performing projection and structural grasp magic was nearly second nature to the boy now, even if what he was projecting now was a bit different than what he was used to making. Plus his additional circuits had increased how fast his internal reserves, his od, recovered. "You said if I was good you would teach me when I got back…"
"Reinforced yer own body?" Sirius raised an eyebrow. "Tats a bit advanced fer a lad like yerself ta try, isn't it?"
The boy pouted. "But I've been doing it to practically everything else while dad was gone! Other than living animals I've gotten really good at it! I've been practicing on plants and they get really green and strong when I do!"
Waver blinked. "Reinforcing… plants?" Reinforcement in general was also an incomplete but still fairly practiced thaumaturgy. It pretty much was pumping prana into something and enhancing its purpose or a concept. The thing about living things was it was significantly harder to do as they naturally resisted any foreign prana being injected into them. Practicing on living plants though… it wasn't a bad way to start things off for a noobie.
The boy nodded. "Yeah! Watch this!" Shirou ran to where several bamboo shoots were growing around the side of the house. Quickly projecting a knife, the boy cut one of them down so that it was close to the root unusually quickly. Not noticing the looks of interest the other men were giving him at how quickly he had projected a weapon in his hands, he dispelled the knife and focused his od once more. "Trace on." He grunted as he quickly made a quick structural grasp on the shortened plant before he let his prana flow into it, judging roughly how much he needed to use to strengthen one of the plant's purpose's of existences, the ability to grow quickly and strongly. The men were surprised as the shoot slowly began to regenerate itself from the ground, only greener and stronger looking until it reached the same height it was before. "See?" The boy grinned. "It took me a while to get it down right since the plant is hollow and alive, but I can do it really easily now!"
Sirius whistled as he tested out the shoot and found it extremely durable an healthy looking. "Damn. Lad really wants ta impress ya lad."
Kiritsugu sighed and shook his head with a grim smile. The boy still was only an average at standard thaumaturgy, but for everything that related to his reality marble he was a borderline prodigy. "Fine. You win." He looked at the discarded bamboo shoot. "Sirius, can you pick that up and reinforce it to be strong for this?"
"Sure lad." The big man shrugged as he got up and did just that, standing the plant in front of him like a staff.
"Now Shirou, I want you to start this off slowly." The father lectured. "You're going to reinforce your body in general, and try to break the shoot that Sirius has with a punch. He's very skilled at this particular spell so expect it to be strong. Remember my lessons on how to punch correctly so that you don't hurt yourself. Get a grasp on where the gaps in your own personal structure are before filling them with prana. We can focus on particular body parts later. This is just so you get a feeling of what you're supposed to do later."
The small red headed boy nodded eagerly. "Right!" Focusing his prana inside his own body, Shirou glared at the stick in front of him. He had done structural grasping on his body multiple times before in order to prepare for this moment. From what he could tell, other than the odd golden… thing that resided in his body, he seemed pretty much like any other human. Taking his father's advice, he very slowly trickled his od into the imperfect gapes in his body until they were for the most part filled…
"Ya done yet lad?" Sirius grunted. "Ah wanna sleep tonight ya know…"
"Yeah, just finished…" Shirou nodded as he walked up to the enhanced bamboo shoot and took a basic martial art stance before punching it as hard as he could… and cringed as he felt the impact of punching a concrete wall with his bare hand, leaving only a small crack.
"Not bad…" Sirius mused as he looked at the crack. "Ah pumped enough prana in tis sucka ta make it as hard as metal. Ta even crack it shows ya managed ta enhance yerself a fair amount, especially since yer such a wee one…"
"Owww." Shirou wept comically in response, cradling his hand.
Waver snorted as he walked up to the boy and checked the hurting body part. "Should have seen this coming you know. The life of a magus is filled with close encounters with death and painful experiences after all…"
"Owww." Shirou agreed.
"Nothing's broken but I think he still might have bruised himself slightly." Waver commented before he started performing a quick spell that would heal the damage quickly.
"Ya gotta focus more prana in ta gaps in yer bones first lad." Sirius lectured. "Tat's where yer foundation lies and its fairly easy ta find tem. Ten ya fill up ta gaps in everytin else. Once ya got ta hang of tat two step process ya can do it almost instinctively when yer in a big brawl. It also helps out fer practicin fer when ya wanna pump up specific body parts. Trust me on tis lad. Ahm pretty damn good at structural graspin, reinforcement, an alteration meself since it helps out wit me work… though ya already got me beat in projectin…"
"Alteration?" The boy tilted his head to the side confused.
"It's the step between reinforcement and projection." Kiritsugu explained. "It gives an object a property that it didn't before. For example you could alter a branch so that it had the property of a bow, and then reinforce it so that it not only takes the shape of one, but becomes a stronger bow in the process. Or you could alter a stone so that it has the property of "sharpness", and then reinforce it to the point that it becomes a stone knife or sword whose quality depends on your skill of reinforcement, structural grasping abilities, and definition of sharpness. It's a magic that many alchemists are rather fond of using from time to time."
"Alteration works 1 of 2 ways." Waver continued. "Permanent and not. Permanent alterations for the most part change the shape of the object, maybe some of the materials inside of it, and the overall quality of the object. Non permanent alterations could range from additional qualities such as setting things on fire to enhanced strength. These additional qualities are temporary since they usually require a source of energy to fuel them. There are of course exceptions but we haven't gotten that far yet with your education. Once more though, this ability requires not only a strong ability in structural grasping thaumaturgy, but imagination as well since like projecting you have to envision clearly and definitively what this additional quality is." He withdrew his hands from Shirou's. "There, I healed your hand."
"Cool…" The boy whispered as he pulled his hand back and flexed it before looking at his teachers. "Wait… if I can add something to an object with alteration, can I take something away too?"
Sirius grunted and scratched his chin. "Well… in theory ya could… ahm fairly certain that a few of dismantlin and decomposition spells are based on tat concept. Ah myself sometimes do tat when ah gotta restart a project from scratch an need ta reuse all ta raw materials ah can… but ta take away a single aspect from a complete object…" The man absentmindedly began to draw figures that only he could see in mid air. Sirius was no longer a teacher at this point but something that virtually all magi at the clocktower claimed to be at heart, a researcher. "… So tere would be foundation to a concept tat doesn't exist anymore... tat would probably be addressed by Gaia or ta caster's mana in order ta be removed… Dependin on how ta foundation is set up an how significant ta concept was ta ta structure, ta object would either decompose on itself inta its base elements, become unstable an implode on itself… or ta shape would be completely left alone an ta concept would be completely removed… minus ta concept itself if it had an influence on its physical shape…" He frowned and began to walk around in circles. "But what about ta prana consumption an rate used ta cancel out various concepts an approach an execution of the removing process in order ta maintain ta structure of complicated objects? … Ta reduce a complete object in definition inta a lesser but still complete object in pure definition…"
Waver blinked before groaning and shaking his head as Sirius began to walk around in circles thinking furiously . "I don't believe it, a kid actually managed to inadvertently inspire Sirius to start to create a new branch of material transmutation spells. Thank Akasha I'm focused in the department of spiritual evocation and not in the department of mineralogy."
"Sirius, if it's possible could you please not do any experiments with your new field of research in my home." Kiritsugu asked casually. "I like having one."
"Sure. Get… a home an all tat… ah'll do it later…" The large man absently replied as he continued his theorizing.
Kiritsugu sighed, coughed a few times, and then shook his head. "Waver, can you keep an eye on Sirius and make sure that he doesn't do anything reckless? I'll take over Shirou's training for the rest of the night."
"I was going to do that anyways. It's not like either one of you could stop him if he started to get out of control…" The teen sighed before walking over to the eldest one there and began to talk magic theory with him, no doubt keeping the man's thoughts on the subject to theory and not practice.
"Am I going to see some cool experiments soon?" The boy eagerly asked his father, not having seen any truly advanced forms of thaumaturgy before other than his projection.
"Hopefully not." The father cringed. "I didn't set up a bounded field that restricts shockwaves, loud noises, flashes of light, and images of experiments around the house when I got it. I was hoping that we would keep things small for a while longer. If he does now, we'd be in big trouble…"
"Trouble? You mean with those association guys?" Shirou tilted his head to the side curiously.
The brief image of a small island set aflame filled Kiritsugu's mind… a memory from his childhood. "Yeah. Those guys. It's always good to not anger them…" He sighed. "I'm not saying to join them, but don't go out of your way to irritate them either… and exposing thaumaturgy to the masses is something that makes them VERY angry."
"I see…" The boy quietly nodded before the two sat quietly on the porch. Kiritsugu silently took out a second cup of tea and gave it to the boy who wordlessly accepted it as the two gazed upon the moon. "Hey dad?" Shirou asked slowly. "I was wondering… when I do structural grasping on myself, I see this golden stuff in my body that other people don't have. When I try to look at it I kind of get a picture of this thing in my head, but I can't see it clearly. Do you know what it is?"
The air around the two was silent for several minutes before Kiritsugu spoke up again. "It's the scabbard of a very strong person and a legendary sword Shirou…" He paused before thinking about his next actions very carefully. "Did you practice that mind imagery spell that I covered with you briefly at all before I started you on hypnosis?" The boy nodded hesitantly. The man smiled gently. "Ok… what I want you to do is use that spell on me… but instead of putting something into my mind, I want you to pull the image I have into yours. Just focus on the image itself. Not on me, not on the events, not on the people in it."
"R-right." The boy hesitantly nodded as he slowly got up and put both his hands on his father's head and focused. The spell was basic, so much so that it didn't require an aria from the boy. It didn't require much prana either since Kiritsugu was helping along with the process and letting down all his mental defenses for this process.
It was blurry at first as Shirou got used to the unknown images filling his mind, however he adapted quickly due to his ability to make mental pictures of objects with his structural grasping training. The image was filled with white at first, as if it was taken outside during the winter… yet as the vision cleared the boy determined that Kiritsugu was inside at the time. It looked like a church with stained glass and pillars lining either side of the man, all pale in stone. The floor was equally pale and well taken care of… yet the room seemed fairly sparse other than a few tables, a computer and the lone person in the picture… the white haired woman who seemed to be in even great detail than the scabbard she held in her arms. Shirou was still a child and was not interested in women at all… but even so he could tell that she was beautiful with her long white hair, kind smile and small figure. Her elegant figure and smooth skin spoke of nobility that he occasionally heard about in stories, yet the kindness that was in her expression spoke more of her than anything else… there was little doubt that she meant a great deal to his father…
Managing to shift his attention to the sheathe that the woman held, the boy finally took in and recognized the image that constantly eluded him when trying to identify the golden energy in his body. The scabbard was just as beautiful as the woman in its own way. Shining with a beautiful unmarred gold and adorned with noble blue enamel. It looked so valuable that for a moment the boy couldn't believe for a moment that it was actually used in battle for a king… a king? Yes… he didn't know why, but he knew that was the case. A treasure used in war by royalty… crafted by fairy hands, not human. There was a great deal of history to it and that too trickled into the boy's mind like osmosis. By sight alone the boy knew of its true worth, of its meaning, of its powers, of its experience…
"Avalon…" Shirou whispered with a shocked expression on his small face as he slowly took his hands back from his father's head, the name leaving his lips before he even realized he knew the name of the artifact. "Why…?" He stammered, not knowing how to express his confusion that he had the sheathe of the mythological King Arthur, a historical figure who is so legendary that his name is famous even on the other side of the planet… inside his body.
"I… had acquired it through some connections a while back…" Kiritsugu admitted as he took another sip of tea and looked up quietly at the moon. "When I found you, you were in bad shape. You weren't going to survive… but you were still alive… and I could still save you." He put on a wry and tired grin. "I managed to implant it into you like I did to myself and used its regenerative abilities to keep you alive until I got you to the hospital." He chuckled. "You're pretty lucky. You're the only person I know of other than the Fraga clan in this day and age that has a noble phantasm working for them…" He stopped talking as another coughing fit took hold of him.
"Are you all right dad?" Shirou asked the man worriedly.
"I'm fine…" Kiritsugu rasped as he quickly drank some more tea to clean his throat. "I'm just feeling the loss of those 3 circuits more than I should be…"
"You can have Avalon back if you want." Shirou worriedly offered, concerned about the man's waning health.
"No. I want it to stay in you and keep you healthy." The father smiled gently. "Besides, we can use it for training for you…"
"How?" The small child asked worriedly. "How can I make Avalon in my body help you now?"
"Because now that you've seen it..." Kiritsugu grinned. "… we can make it your final projecting project."
The boy's eyes widened before he began to shiver. "I don't think I can do that dad…" He mumbled hesitantly. "You said that magic beyond my understanding can easily kill me… and I can tell that it would cost a lot of prana in order to make…"
He was calmed down by a gentle pat on the head by his father. "I wasn't talking about now. We still have time to practice it. All I'm saying is that since you now know what it is and what it looks like, you can at least practice the first 7 steps of tracing it in your mind to get a better grasp on it. Besides, since its actually in your body, you will probably get a better feel for it than pretty much anything else you'll ever project once you have enough experience."
Shirou looked at his father skeptically before nodding, taking his word for what they will do later. "That sounds good…" He admitted before looking at the pure white moon in the sky. "… Who was that lady holding Avalon? She was pretty."
Kiritsugu chuckled lightly and donned a small sad smile. "… That was Irisviel. She was my wife…"
"That was your wife?" Shirou gasped in shock. Kiritsugu only mentioned that he was married once to the boy in passing and that she had died. As such the boy never really bothered to delve any further. He calmed down and looked away ashamed. "I'm sorry." He mumbled. "She really was beautiful, but I bet it hurts when you think about her now…"
"Yeah..." The elder Emiya agreed. "But if it helps with your training… I guess I can deal with it every once in a while. You can't run from your past forever Shirou… whether it's karma or just things you want to forget, everyone has to deal with their inner demons at some point…"
The boy shifted uncomfortably in his seat, clearly thinking about something in particular in response to the man's words. "I guess…" He mumbled before turning to the man again. "Can… can you tell me about her?"
Kiritsugu looked at the boy with a small amount of shock before relaxing again and smiling. "…Yeah… I guess I could…" He smiled.
Even without bringing up Illya the man talked continuously and happily about the woman he loved with all his heart until they realized that it was past time to go to bed…
That night both father and son slept more contently than they had done for a long time…
o. o. o.
The next day:
Waver leaned against a wall on a seemingly random street smoking a cigar. He had taken up the habit only a few months earlier, and even though it was somewhat unhealthy for him it helped cool his nerves down. He had always been rather short tempered, and he assumed it was part of the reason why until recently many of the teachers in the clock tower had always looked over him despite his hard work and promise.
Looking up at the sky, the teen wondered if he honestly thought he would be in Fuyuki city again after coming back to England. The experiences he had here were truly traumatizing yes, however they played a huge part in helping him grow up. Slightly to his side he could see the bridge and river where he had seen 2 servants die in spectacular yet horrifying ways. The first was Caster when he immersed himself into an amoeboid like giant tentacle water monster and after much trouble was finally taken out by Saber's Excalibur… and the other was on the bridge when Archer and Rider fought one another with their strongest noble phantasms…
A few doors down from him an old man walked out of his home with a fairly large amount of trash and dragged it to the curb. He was a foreigner easily, western European or American from the looks of things, however that was not that surprising since this part of Fuyuki had a fairly high immigrant population.
Waver glanced at the old man with a barely interested look on his face as the geezer grunt under his load before chuckling under his breath. Dropping the butt of the cigar on the ground and stomping on it to kill the embers, Waver sighed and walked over to the man. "Need some help old timer?" He asked in English.
"Heh." The man chuckled as he lurched the large bag again before turning around to the offering passerby. "That would be well appreciated. My back isn't what it used to be, especially in this heat. Thank…" He paused as he saw the teen's confident smirk. "… you…"
"It's been a while." The magus chuckled as he walked up to the bag and moved it the rest of the way. It wasn't that difficult for him even though he was of average size. He also didn't mind as much getting his hands dirty from time to time, though his pride still limited him at some points. Brushing his hands against one another he turned around. "How's life been gramps?"
Glen MacKenzie and his wife Martha had been Waver's room and board during the previous war. Hypnotized into believing he was their grandson, they housed and treated the boy (and later rider in his corporal form much to Waver's initial shock and mental strain) as if he was their own. Surprisingly though, whether it was due to a mistake on Waver's part or because the old man had a stronger than expected resistance to magic, Glen had managed to deduce on the last few days of the war that Waver wasn't his grandchild. However despite this he allowed the teen to stay for multiple simple reasons. The boy's presence made his lonely wife happy, Waver didn't seem to be taking advantage of them other than for room and food, and because Waver seemed to be an honest kid that was just involved in something rather big.
When Waver finally left their home, he had hypnotized Martha to forget everything regarding his stay at the house other then "their grandchild had stayed over for a few weeks and she truly enjoyed it", which wasn't hard since she truly was happy during his stay according to Glen. As for the old man himself… Waver didn't do anything. It was a major breach of protocol as far as the magus association was concerned, but to be blunt about it the old man wasn't going to say anything about Waver's stay to anyone. He knew the boy was involved in something big and he was old enough to know to stay out of it and too old to do anything about it.
"Waver…" The Canadian man whispered before walking closer. "Is that really you?"
"Come on now." The teen smirked. "Your memory shouldn't have gotten that bad after only 3 years…"
"Yes but… you're not short anymore…" The man blinked, causing the magus' smirk to drop. "… And you actually look like you've done some physical work… and you actually have skin color… and…"
"Ok…" Waver grunted with a twitching eyebrow. "I get it, I was a stick and looked like a closet shut in back then." He sighed. He didn't like to admit it, but he did spend a bit too much time in the libraries and inside back then. "You… you haven't changed a bit though…"
"I'm old and I still have my hair." The Glen chuckled as he walked inside his home and invited the teen. "I consider that an achievement far beyond the average for my age group." The two walked into the kitchen and sat down at the table. "Martha's out with some of her friends playing bridge. She's started quite the club." A dry laugh escaped his lips before shaking his head and putting on a tired expression. "It's nice to see you again, but what are you doing back here Waver? When you left you sounded as if it was for good. Not to mention that around the time you appeared…"
Waver nodded, understanding what the old man was implying. Even though the holy grail war was meant to be kept secret, it didn't stop 1 sky scraper, 2 military fighter jets, a good portion of the nearby landscape, and an entire section of the city from being absolutely destroyed. Not to mention the total death count… "No… I'm here because a friend asked me to come here and help him out with something." He paused and looked around. "However… I wouldn't count out something like that from happening again in… say hypothetically 7 years…"
Glen's eyes widened in shock. "You mean you were responsible for…"
"I was involved." The teen stated tersely. "I won't deny that, however neither me nor Alex performed any of those… actions…" He grit his teeth. The clock tower was well known for performing rather inhumane and distasteful actions from time to time, however Waver himself was among the ones that preferred to keep those not involved from getting hurt. What Caster did to all those kidnapped people when he walked into the "man's" lair… all those people both living and dead who had been warped in inhumane ways… Swallowing the bile that was making its way up his throat from the terrifying memories, the magus continued. "… I have no control over how things are managed… and I'm breaking a lot of rules just by letting you know now… however odds are likely that similar… events may happen around that time." He warned again in a soft tone.
"Why don't you do something about it then?" The old man asked worriedly. "Warn the locals. Surely the police…"
"Glen… remember how I got you to let me stay in your home for over a month?" Waver hinted. "I was being considerate and soft compared to what many others could do. The police are useless. Plus this has been happening once every 60 years for the last 2 centuries. This 10 year wait caught everyone off guard, and even then only a handful know of it at the moment. The less you say about this, the better it is for everyone." He closed his eyes. "I'm helping out someone that's trying to make this… event the last one."
"Waver…" The old man looked at the frowning teen with a concerned gaze before sighing. "You're probably right. It's not my place to question something that I have no part of and it's still up in the air in whether or not I live that long anyway."
"Don't tell anyone. Period." Waver warned. "I know of several people to be extremely wary of in this city that you would never suspect. One in particular is someone whose job is supposed to be to listen to others and keep secrets…"
"I see…" Mused the old man, already having a good idea of whom Waver was wary of. "Oh well… Martha and I were thinking of maybe moving back to America within the next couple of years anyways so that we can be closer to our kids in case we really need them. 7 years is plenty of time to do that…" He got up and walked to the kitchen. "Do you want something to eat Waver? We finally got a new toaster so you don't have to put tons of jam on it in order to make it eatable…"
The magus snorted, having not expected that Glen had been thinking along the same lines he was when they ate breakfast those years ago, feasting on soggy bread and juice. "Yeah. That sounds nice."
o. o. o.
A/N:
Another chapter done and some small explaining to do on my part.
So far Shirou's current arsenal for the war starting off is just Avalon, kitchen utensils, a very unstable access to some time based spells, and some random minor spells that are really meant for crowd control. And then there is the mystery weapon that I have yet to show off yet.
First of all Avalon. Many of you are probably going to complain that Shirou is either too inexperienced to project it or it would be overkill for him to know it right off the bat. Here's the thing though, its Avalon. It's an EX ranked noble phantasm yes… but by that rule just projecting it is going to be an absolute bitch for Shirou even with decent training. He'd be able to project it at best once a day, and its only meant for defensive purposes. As such I think it's perfectly reasonable to enable him access to it now.
At first I wasn't going to have Shirou inherit any circuits from Kiritsugu since the idea of him using accell to make him faster and have more access to his prana would be overkill, plus it didn't fit in with the whole, Kiritsugu can't use magic anymore, bit. However as I did some research and daydreaming and goofing off, I managed to come up with a new use, excuse, and purpose for the 3 circuits that I had remain, one of which was of course, to make people say "Oh so THAT's the reason why Kiritsugu was still alive for 5 years despite being cursed by the grail", while still keeping things fairly balanced. It also enabled me to have Shirou start his Avalon projection training early.
Shirou is not going to use any time related bounded field magic and he isn't going to do what Kiritsugu did when he had the crest. He is going to use the time magic in a way that I have completely pulled out of my ass, yet it is completely believable, reasonable for the mechanics of the natsuverse, and in my personal opinion awesome...
The prep chapters are nearly done now. Kiritsugu's role is pretty much going to end (or is it?) in the next chapter… or two. Then I'll do 2 or 3 in between chapters of Shirou growing up and interacting with other characters and all that stuff… then the war will start and I will do horrible things to people.
As for pairings… That's for me to decide and will happen in due time. If any of you are angered so much by a pairing that you stop reading… then you obviously have NEVER played through the visual novel completely before, and as such have lost my respect. I myself have preferred pairings, yet that did not stop me from playing the game all the way through and enjoying it completely. This isn't Naruto guys. Please don't start another narusaku vs naruhina variant bullshit war here.
So that's it for this A/N.
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