Blade Borne to Kill

Chapter 3: Pieces on a Board

Well, with some advice from the review given to me by Disciple of Erebos, I've come to the conclusion that I didn't really give an explanation of WHY Shirou acts the way he does in the story very clearly, which is what I've decided to rectify here in this chapter. To those of you who have read this chapter before on, I encourage you to a least read where up to Zelretch makes his appearance in this chapter, that's where the new content is. Other than that this chapter is mostly unchanged.

But while reading this chapter, I'd like everyone to keep something in mind, much of how Great One's function is left to mystery, such as their perception of time. For all we know, hundreds of years could be seconds to them. Acts so child-like in the story, because he IS basically a child, remember at the Great One end of Bloodborne, you become an infant Great One. Shirou who has been in the Dream for hundreds of years has had NO social interaction with other Great One's at all, and no, the Plain Doll in this fic is not a Great One. So, it's no wonder as to why Shirou hasn't started growing as a person until he actually got social interaction with Kiritsugu and Zelretch.

So I hope you like the more expanded explanation as to why Shirou acts the way he does.

Enjoy guys!

Chapter 3: Pieces on a Board

Shirou looked up at the sky as he laid down on the grass, he was just outside of Misaki Town watching the clouds.

Shirou and Kiritsugu had been coming over here to stay the summer. It was part of the deal he made with Makihisa, that and his daughter, Akiha, had become particularly fond of Shirou.

It was one of his favorite ways to pass the time, other than sleeping.

Three years had passed since Zelretch had started training him in magecraft, and the Great One of Swords took to it like a sponge. But the type of magecraft taught to Shirou wasn't anything like Kiritsugu was thinking he'd teach his son.

Zelretch taught Shirou something called "Tracing" instead of jewel-based magecraft, the vampire explained that this kind of magecraft was the bread and butter of nearly every version of the existence "Shirou Emiya".

That along with Reinforcement and Structural Analysis.

The strange thing was that those weren't his main forms of magecraft, sure he used Structural Analysis and Reinforcement on a nearly constant basis. But even after hundreds of years, he was still a Hunter, and Hunters tended to use arcane.

Blood Forge, a successful combination of magecraft and arcane.

Yharnam was a place completely void of any form of magic. They had arcane instead, while at first glance, it seemed like a form of magic, it was not. Arcane was the blessings of Great One's given to humanity, sometimes they were even given curses.

Blood Forge was based on the abilities of Lady Maria during Shirou's battle with her but taken to the next level. Shirou could take his own blood and or his enemy's blood, and turn it into anything he wanted to, usually a weapon, sometimes he used it just like Maria did. Shirou could even enhance the blood under his control with elements, more often than not he used fire.

But it had a side effect just like Projection had, his red hair was slowly turning black, and his eyes were turning red. Zelretch estimated that his hair and eye color would completely change by the time he reached sixteen years old.

The blood manipulating powers were made possible due to his conversion into a Vile Blood during his time in the Hunt. That and his dual origin of Sword and Paleblood. Shirou got a bitter laugh at that when he found out.

This wasn't the extent of his abilities though.

Shirou raised his arm, his thumb morphed into a twisted mockery of a blade. He had a link to his Great One body that was in his Dream.