Black Clover is owned by Yūki Tabata

Chapter 1: Prologue

Sometimes he wondered if what he had achieved was truly real, the returned freedom that had been taken by his foolish choice of continuing the path of being an 'Ally of Justice', the path that his father-like figure when he was still Emiya Shirou had taken and that he had decided to follow just to know if he could feel the same happiness that the broken man had felt in that moment... he could not recall the events completely, for his memory has been messed up for living out of the time flow— making him, technically, one of the oldest beings on the existence and for someone as old like him it was hard to recall many events, even if those events were very similar to each other.

The human mind and memory was a fragile thing after all.

He remembered bits of it... how they destroyed a pillar of the evil essence that had corrupted the Grail and wanted to be born in the world, they... as in the people that he had long since forgotten about. How he had made sure that everyone would survive, even if it was at the cost of his existence... Hahaha, he still was a fool, wasn't he? Even after eternities, he still put the lives of others over his own. It was for the best actually, his old foolish self had given up on his wish of becoming an 'Ally of Justice' and he...they both had managed to save as many lives as possible. The life of the Knight King who he had failed to save her heart when he was young, the life of the both sisters that had gained a special place in his heart, the life of the little snow fairy that was destined to die months after the war ended, the life of the innocent monster that was put in the hands of the gods just for being too beautiful... finally, he had managed to save them all, and they would all live a peaceful life thanks to the usage of the Third Magic that the little fairy had obtained.

Knowing them, they would have probably been fucking like rabbits some months after he was returned to the grasp of Alaya, for no Mystery could be able to free him from the grasp of the Will of Humanity, not even a Mystery that defied the laws of the universe... or so he thought. After all, True Mysteries, mysteries that would never be able to be reproduced or understood by science for it was understanding the very nature of the universe, were not something that a Third-Rate Magus like him would understand.

Illya... yes, he remembered the name, finally. Illya had managed to use the Heaven's Feel in order to overwrite his existence at her will, but as Alaya was putting a lot of resistance on it... they all decided— just after he had proposed it— to send his soul into an alternative world where the Will of Humanity had no influence over his existence with the help of that insufferable Wizard Marshal.

A request that he accepted... he didn't know why and that he had accepted so quickly scared him, he said that it was a payment for all the fun that all the versions of him had made for him but he somehow did not believe him, there had to be something under the lines in here... now if only he would know what.

She had managed to isolate his consciousness and a part of his soul from the main 'body' that resides in the Throne of Heroes, leaving it as a hollow body controlled fully by Alaya... everyone won! She kept her best pet and he would get his freedom.

"It's a boy, Airi! It's a boy!"

The woman that held her cried out, all of them looked excited to see him, from the little that he was able to see, he felt tired and tries to voice out his complains to leave him on a bed, but his vocal cords had yet to properly develop, so all that came out of his mouth were noises without a single meaning to understand.

He was not able to hear them completely as if they were distant voices, his consciousness began to fade as soon as it has been returned, the last thing that he was able to hear was the voice of a young woman.

"Shirou... his name will be Shirou."

And so it started the second chance of his life... however couldn't had that geezer bloodsucking mother- No, the sisters of his mother will hear his silent furious mumbles and considering his short age of four years old, it was not a good thing that they heard him talking like an adult— the reason why he barely said anything to everyone, even his mother—... although he could probably use his adorable young face to make his mother believe that he had heard it from one of her sisters or a member of the clientage. But knowing his mother... she was too perceptive for someone so young.

Barely fifteen years had passed since the day when she had been named, that was the age which she had when she had given birth to him. One of the oldest, if you were to count the amount of time that he had been conscious, beings that have existed, a being taken outside the normal flow of time, forced to go through all the battlefields of Humanity and end them by himself. The training that the Will of Humanity had given to him after he had accepted its proposal for giving him a greater understanding of the universe and its secrets, as well a greater magical power... all in order to achieve a beautiful yet impossible dream that had never been his, disregarding all of the people who he had considered special in his heart once... a long time ago. Unlike the younger self that he had last witnessed, that version of Emiya Shirou... that Emiya Shirou was truly a hero, more than he had ever been.

Valuing all lives yet holding on a greater stand the ones that had a place on his heart, fighting alongside them instead of trying to protect them from afar, leaving them out of the danger... but out of his life as well. Only when the string was on his neck was the time that he looked back at the past, one of the strongest memories of his life, unable to be forgotten no matter how much time 'passed,' the memory of his simple house, cooking for the women that he could not remember their names but he did remember their faces and their voices.

Even when facing the worst that the Will of Humanity had made him pass through, it was that memory which had kept his, what little he still had of, sanity intact.

And that was what he had gained now, a family, peace, tranquility... but he knew that it would not last.

"Darling, why are you out of bed at this hour?"

Called out his mother of this life, Airi, she was called, a foreigner whose parents had sold her in order to pay their debts, if what he had read from her diary was true and not one of the books that she made as a hobby for she knew that no one outside their 'family' would read it if she were to publish them to the public market. It was only luck that the owner of this establishment, and almost all the red light district, had bought her freedom and not a person of other intentions. Yes, the old lady had made his mother a prostitute, but it was better than to be a slave in the mines or a sexual slave for a sick noble.

He stared right at her with his calm and somewhat relaxed— or at least that was what he tried for a man that had only known wars was hard to relax— and smiled gently.

"I was unable to sleep so I decided to walk a little."

It was true, a simple answer, but a true one, for even though he has been interacting for a few years with this world and its life force, it still surprised him that the Age of the Gods was still intact in this place... or maybe this was still the Age of the Fairies for how abundant was the mana on the air. For not even in the records of the Age of Gods that he had heard about and had witnessed had this... bottomless amount of mana, making even the most ignorant of the people able to use the magical arts, even kids could use it if they studied hard enough and had a good amount of Internal Magical Energy.

Such was the case of his mother, don't misunderstand, she was not ignorant when it came to many topics but when it came to the magical arts that she had tried to teach him... she left a lot to desire, with all due respect, even he— A Third-Rate Magus— had been able to teach better than she had, as he vaguely remembered in one of the few memories that he could remember, even if it was just a little and could not remember all that hey had talked about, he still remembered the things that he had done along them after he had saved them... now, had they actually learned from him or were they already Magus? He could not remember other than him showing his brand of Magecraft to the children... maybe he had been just entertaining them and not teaching them.

Too many memories conflicted with each other so he was not able to remember it correctly, like many other things.

A book with three leaves on the cover, the design of it was as if the cover was also a page with several letters written on it that seemed to be moving, releasing a white aura appeared in the hand of his mother. A hand made out of magical energy, its color white with black symbols running through it, it's shape was big enough to make him unable to escape from its grasp. The book was a magical item of the rarest kind from the world that he came from, almost as rare as to find a mortal been born with Mystic Eyes only compared to those of the Age of Gods, but in this world, every and single person seemed to have it.

A Grimoire, a Pseudo-Sentient Mystic Code that empowered one's spells to a greater level, connected to the soul of the user, but unlike his native world, the grimoires of this world were magical items capable of growing up as the user grew up as well inscribing the spells that one would develop as time passed on it. The leaves in the covers had meaning if he remembered straight— very similar to the using a shamrock to illustrate the — each leaf represented faith, hope, and love. His mother had also once told him that a four-leaf grimoire meant good luck, fortune in life, symbolizing the great magical power that they owned and would own, however, there was also the five-leaf grimoire which symbolized the devil, sorcerers that had fallen from their negative emotions and got themselves connected with the devils.

How did she know such information? She had told him that she heard lots of things in her daily work.

"Shirou, how did you got out of your room? I am pretty sure that I had left you all— oh."

Yes, oh. His mother stopped right at the entrance of the large room that held all the orphan children that 'belonged' to the owner of this place, one of the reasons why there were not orphans on the streets of Kikka on the nights. The women in charge of taking care of them were more asleep than the children, the books that they were supposed to read to make the children sleep happily were spread on their bodies, occupying the beds of the children as their snores were loud enough to slightly move the beds. The children around them, using their painting to make the two women into linen of the creativity of the children.

"Ehem!"

His mother cleared her throat loudly enough for both women to wake up, wide as plates were their eyes went they gazed on the terrifying aura of his mother who had finally let her spell dissipate and left her only son on the ground, they straightened their backs and made a military salute to greet her, forgetting to wipe out the line of saliva that was falling from their beautiful faces.

"We... we are going to talk later about this." Both women paled at her words. "For now check on what kids had left this room while you two were sleeping."

Sometimes he questioned if his mother had been a member of the militia before for how hard and imponent was her voice, her whole posture even screamed discipline in this sort of moment.

It did not take too long for them to find the other children that had escaped after he did. Shirou already knew that the children would not go too far away from the room as they preferred the safety of this room, wide enough for the fifty children to sleep together and play as they liked in this wide space of this room, at worst, they would go to the garden that the big sisters made in order to relieve their stress and admire the many flowers that they had acquired with the money of their work.

A few minutes later, all the kids were very comfortable tucked inside their beds, still laughing from the look of the two big sisters as they left the room.

"Kids, order please." More than a suggestion, it was an order that made every kid bury themselves in the thick blankets that kept them, some, the ones unable to contain their laughter, used their hands to cover their mouths. "Good." Her expression softened as she got on the seat in front of the bookshelves with almost all of the books that everyone had gotten with their money or had written, and although the bookshelves behind her were apparently very few on number, the whole quantity was hidden by a spell that came from one of the big sisters with Spatial 'Magic'... even now he still had some kind of weird feeling every time he referred the Magical Arts of this world as Magic. For someone like him, a Magus of the XXI century whose description of 'Magic' was the magical arts that could never be able to be reproduced by science, something that went against the very laws of the universe.

"One of romance." One of the girls said.

"A Nursery Rhyme." A boy said, backed up by his female twin.

"A mystery one." One of the oldest kids said.

But it was the choice of the youngest of the children, barely 3 years old was she, that his mother had ended up picking.

"One of your stories."

Her mood brightened at the fact that everyone agreed with the soft voice of the youngest child, even though she tried to hide it, he could see through her stiffened expression and the brightness of her aura.

"Are you sure? My stories are not that good."

That was always what she said, she was embarrassed about her stories actually, her stories seemed to be made more by a child than by an adult, the story of Knights that went to save the princess from the claws of the dragons and that sort of thing. However, he did not understand why, but her stories were completely identical to the stories to the legends of his world, even the way that she had written the stories were extremely identical to the legends and myths of his world.

... Today's story was oddly familiar, it was almost as if it was his own.

The tale of a lonely sword in the shape of a man.

Steel was his body, fire was his blood and glass was his heart.

Overcame a thousand battlefields, unaware of the cost, the pain, nor victory.

Never accepting retreat nor defeat.

Never understanding what he had until he had lost it all, understanding it as he stood at the end of his life, surrounded by the loneliness of silent plains of steel and fire that was his soul where only the gears on the sky were moving. A sole purpose, that of a sword.

He always stood there, waiting for the next war that humanity would surely come.

His life would never again shine with the same brightness, for he would never know what was peace ever again.

His body was surely made of swords.

Yes... his body was made of swords, indeed it was.

But finally, after eons of wars and bloodshed, the sword had found peace, even if it was going to last a short time... he would no longer abandon those who he held dear to his heart.

His life would never shine with the same brightness... it will shine with greater light. They, who have not abandoned them even when he had abandoned them, have made sure to open him a path where he could make a light greater than the one that he had lost.

He owed them to live a life where he could feel the most comfortable with.

This was his story, the story of a rusted blade that has finally known peace after living a personal hell of an eternity of killing.

A peace that he would take the most pleasure on, by living it at its fullest.

Ahhhh... I was kind of bored, had a little free time and this idea had suddenly popped up on my mind, is it good?

Please, leave your thoughts on the review section.

See you next time :)