Chapter 1

It was a cold night in Fuyuki City but that did not deter the young ten years old Emiya Shirou from practicing his Magecraft. His father, Emiya Kiritsugu was out on one of his trips leaving him alone at home, well not all alone as he had Taiga accompanying him during the day but even she had to go back home at night.

Anyways he was now practicing his Magecraft but to do so he first had to create a magic circuit so that he could use the prana though that circuit for his spells. It was one of the basics that his father had taught him, he also told him that sometimes using circuits could cause some discomfort and even pain if someone was not used to them, his father had also admitted that a long time ago his circuits cause him quite some pain due to overusing them but that faded after he had become more experienced in using his circuits.

Thus Shirou was well aware that it might be painful to use his circuits but he was also become quite used to the pain that accompanied the creation still that did not mean that he had to like the feeling of a hot rod shoved down his spine every time he created a circuit.

But that feeling was becoming familiar to him and thus Shirou after gritting his teeth to push back the pain went about practicing his spells all the while carefully keeping track of his circuit which he knew had a limited lifespan of only a few minutes.

After practicing his spells for some time Shirou felt his circuit stain and start to fade away thus he stop practicing his spells and waited for the circuit to fade.

Shirou could not help but sigh as he felt the circuit fade. "Why can't I keep up my circuits for hours on end like other magi?" he asked himself even though he knew the answer.

His father had explained to him that he had no talent for Magecraft and due to him being a first generation magus without the backing of generations of research learning Magecraft would be just detrimental for him.

Shirou could see why his father wanted him to stop learning Magecraft as even the basics demanded quite a lot from him and he was barely making his due with them. he shuddered a bit when he thought about how his father said other Magi could keep dozens of circuits active for days when he was failing to keep just one active and that too for minutes only, his father sure was right when he said that he had no talent for the art.

Still Shirou would not let his lack of talent deter him from learning Magecraft after all his foster sister Taiga had told him many stories of how many untalented people had achieved greatness due to their efforts and hard work. So Shirou was going to follow their example and not give up.

"But what can I do?" Shirou thought as his most glaring problem was his inability to create more circuits and sustain them for a long period of time.

He reviewed what his father had taught him on the subject and how magi were able to pass down circuits to their descendants.

"Hang on Dad never said that I had to create my circuits using my own nerves only." Shirou thought for a moment as he recalled his father's lesson. "Does that mean I can create circuits using other materials and outside my body?" Shirou questioned himself it was a random thought one that had quite a high chance of failing but the more Shirou thought the more the idea appealed to him. If it worked than almost all of his problems would be solved and he would be able to finally advance his Magecraft.

While Shirou knew that he could fail he decided to pursue the idea and see where it leads him to, it was not like he was doing something drastic and his father had told him that most Magi were scholars who loved to do experiments to further their Magecraft, so Shirou thought why he should also not do so.

Shirou briefly thought of asking his father before he did anything but then he decided that he would surprise his father if his experiment succeeded and if he failed than it was no harm done too.

With that in mind Shirou began to pounder on how he was going to go about his experiment. The first thing he needed was materials then everything.

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3 Weeks Later

Over the past three weeks Shirou had tried almost everything he could think of for his project of creating Magical Circuits outside his body, a project which he dubbed 'Pylon'. Shirou was not even sure when he had named his project pylons but it involved his foster sister Taiga and a lot of video games.

Still even with the random yet strangely fitting name Shirou went ahead with his project.

So far he was unable to find the perfect material for his project but he was able to devise a method by which he would choose his materials.

The method he employed was a simple one, simply flood the object with prana and see how it reacted.

Shirou first used this method on some plastics and found that most of his prana around 80-85% were simply bouncing over the plastic and dissipating into the air, the plastic also seemed to leak prana and thus was not able to hold them for long period of time which was one of the criteria Shirou was aiming for.

Likewise cotton and other fibres were able to conduct his prana better but they also leaked them into the air though at a much slower rate, though Shirou still had to waste around 60-70% of his prana simply filling them.

Shirou then tried filing his prana into some metals, he first tried with a piece of iron "I wonder if this would work or not" Shirou wondered how a piece of metal would react to his prana. closing his eyes he focused on filling the metal with his prana.

Shirou had been doing this over the past three weeks and so he was becoming accustomed to his prana travelling though his body and into the object in his hands. Shirou was surprised at how the metal seemed to greedily absorb his prana and only about 10% prana dissipated into the air and the rest, 90% was absorbed by the metal.

Shirou was so surprised by his discovery that he forgot to stop channelling his prana into the metal and the metal promptly exploded in his hands.

Coughing a bit Shirou recovered from the sudden explosion.

He found his hands bleeding a bit with some burn marks. It was painful Shirou would admit but it was not as painful as creating a circuit.

"Still I should clean it up and bandage it, so that there is no infection and that Taiga-nee does start worrying again." Shirou thought as he looked at his bleeding hand, he then looked at the burnt piece of metal and let loose a smile, he had found his material.

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4 months later

Four whole months had passed and Shirou was progressing well with his project. He had learnt quite a lot in the two months regarding his project and metallurgy too.

Shirou over the past four months found that most metals were great prana conductors and that the shape of the metals played a great part too. So far he found that metals that were shaped like a blade or could be used like one could conduct his prana at a near 99%.

While that was good news it also led to many explosions too. The good thing was that Shirou had become good at treating cuts and burns he also found a curious fact about himself too.

Shirou found that he was a fast healer most of his wounds caused by his experiments were either healed in a day or three at most. While Shirou was unsure why he healed fast, he was thankful for it as it kept his father and Taiga from asking too many questions.

Shirou also in between had been tinkering with lots of machines and making trips to the local junkyard for any usable materials.

Due to him making so many trips to the junkyard and why he was tinkering with machines a lot, Taiga had started asking him a lot of questions and while Shirou could not say that it was for his Magecraft project he made the excuse of saying that he was interested in engineering and machines in general.

Taiga seemed very happy with his excuse calling him a budding genius and what not.

Shirou felt bad for lying to her so he started visiting the library so that he could read on some books to keep up the charade of his false interest in engineering.

His first trip to the library was well headache inducing as he could not make head or tails what the books were going on about but after several trips to the library and hours spend on the books with a dictionary and thesaurus on hand Shirou could say that he was at least able to grasp the most basics concepts in the books even when he did not understand much.

He even found books solely dedicated to metallurgy which helped his Magecraft project a lot though he still needed a dictionary and several reference books on hand for each session. He also tended to borrow books by the dozen when he found out that he could.

Now due to him making several trips to both the junkyards and the library and towing back several pieces of scrap metals and books with him, Shirou had gained quite a small reputation in the city as a budding engineer.

This had the side effect of alienating most of the kids that were around his age leaving Shirou almost friendless. Shirou had made a friend in the past four months and she was more than enough for him.

He still wondered just how she went from bullying him to becoming his friend.

Recounting the meetings between them it went something like this.

Flashback

"Hey Bookworm why are you carrying so many books?" one of the kids who were playing in the park asked.

Shirou was on his way back from the library and heading home with the books he had borrowed, he was taking the usual route home which involved passing through the park. Shirou wondered why they were asking him now when they had left him alone before.

"To take them home and read." Shirou replied.

"Wow really?" the boy asked sounding a bit shocked "But they are such thick books. How are you even going to read them? They must be really boring too." the boy said as he examined one of the books.

"I'll manage." Shirou said while trying not to grimace, the books were boring to read no doubt and even he got tired of reading them for hours on end and deciphering what most of the words stand for and meant. It was a tiring and time consuming process but one that had greatly helped Shirou with his Magecraft.

The boy simply stood there and stared at him as if he was an alien, "Wow, you're quite the bookworm aren't you." The boy finally said.

"Hey Mitsuzuri come back we're starting the game." one of the boys called out.

"Gotta go now later, bookworm." With that said the boy left, Shirou could only stare at the boy as he left.

"Strange kid." Shirou thought out loud, shrugging and heading home.

Flashback end

After that first meeting Shirou and the boy often met at the park, sometimes the boy would help Shirou carry his things home and other times Shirou would be dragged into one of his games.

Strangely it was only after three weeks or so that he had learnt the boy's name, Ayako Mitsuzuri.

It sounded like a girl's name but Shirou simply accepted it as he had seen things stranger in his time with his father and foster sister, Taiga and well it was not like he was normal too, so Shirou simply accepted that his new friend had a strange name.

Yes, friend.

Shirou did consider Ayako as his friend and well it was hard not to do so not with the domineering presence the boy eluded. Shirou really was helpless against the boisterous nature of his new friend and was more often than not seen as a minion of the boy. While such image kind of hurt his budding pride as a magus, Shirou simply accepted it as even he could not deny that he had become Ayako's minion in all but name.

Even if Shirou greatly lamented the fact, he could not deny that it was a fact of his life.

Still Shirou did enjoy Ayako's company and his friend did seem to like him too and had on many occasions even defended him from others. While Shirou thought that it was a pointless endeavour defending him, a fact thought that he really did not want to share with Ayako god knows what the boy would do to him if he found out. Probably tell him to man up or have some pride in himself. Shirou did appreciate his friend's efforts.

Leaving aside the thoughts of his friend for now Shirou focused on his project.

So far he had gained quite a lot of practice with Structural Analysis and Reinforcement, two basic spells that had greatly helped him in his endeavours. Still he felt that he could do more with the two spells though what those things were simply eluded him.

"And I am still having trouble with my Projections and Alteration."

Now those two spells were something that really were bugging Shirou.

For projection it was fairly simple, his projections did not last long enough and were quite brittle and easily broken.

As for Alteration, well the numerous explosions and injuries he got during his experiments were a testament to how dangerous altering something could be. Though, Shirou was slowly beginning to understand just what to alter and what not to get the least amount of backlash.

It was still a far cry from being a good spell that he could use though, especially with his abysmal reserves.

"But once I finally finish my project most of my problems would take care of themselves."

It all came back to his lack of multiple circuits and his project. Really most of Shirou's problem could easily be solved by his project and the increase reserves he would get as a result.

His projections being too unstable or brittle? Pour prana to make it last longer and reinforce it with more prana. Alteration proving to be a problem? Pour more prana as a stop gap measure, Etc. etc.

He really needed to complete his project it seems.

"I wonder if I should start researching spells for my 'metal' affinity in the meantime." Shirou thought as he stared at his notes. He knew it would still quite some time for his project to complete as even if he was able to finish the theoretical part of his project, there was still the practical part which would require quite a lot of tests and practice taking months on end to complete.

Shirou would have gladly single-mindedly pursued his research but he had learnt that he had to pace himself least he burn out.

As for how Shirou had found out his affinity, well his experiments and experiences and all told him that he had a strange connection with metals for the most part and though the mangas and anime that his foster sister Taiga made him watch once in a while, had told him that 'metal' could be considered as an elemental affinity too.

While his father had not told him much about elemental affinities, he had admitted that metal was a totally legit element though one mostly ignored by magi as they tended to only appear in eastern magi, which were looked down upon, and favoured the more flexible and powerful 'ether' element.

So it was logical to assume that his elemental affinity or simply element was 'metal'. Shirou knew he could be wrong but all the clues did point toward 'metal' as his affinity.

"Where should I start with?" Shirou mused trying to come up with ideas for his metal affinity.

Shape shifting metal seemed to be the most basic spell he could think of on top of his head and with metal like mercury it would be quite easy to manipulate it too.

"But I have to be really careful while handling mercury due to its poisonous nature." Shirou noted as he wrote down his ideas in his book.

"Golems and robots seem like a good next step to pursue but I really have to learn a lot of other things to make it really work. I'll just put it down as a possible avenue."

It seemed like a good idea but Shirou did not think he had the time or expertise to progress much into that area.

"Energy conduction seems like it could both help with my spells and my project but seems really difficult to pull off." And it was going to be a hard one if what Shirou had read in the library were true.

"Still the possible rewards are just too much to pass up." So with that in mind Shirou noted it down. The topic seemed quite versatile too the more Shirou thought about it and the possible rewards like he said were just too much to ignore.

"I guess I really have to do quite a lot if I am going to be any good at magecraft huh." Shirou wondered as he wrote down his ideas. He had always known that he was a third rate magus with no talent and very little in the ways of magical education but if there was one thing Shirou was good at then it was being persistent and being an all-round stubborn boy who would work hard to achieve his goal.

Without talent and proper magical circuits and knowledge, all Shirou could do was move on, move on with sweat, blood and tears marking his work till their completion. Just…just like what he had done so long ago, under the black sun and the raging fire. Shirou could do nothing more but move on, move on and work towards his goals. Then maybe just maybe one day, he could smile like his father had.

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One year later

It had been a year but Shirou had made some progress with his project. He was now able to create artificial circuits that could conduct his prana, without decomposing or exploding. Now that just left him with the problem of making the artificial circuits produce prana.

On that end Shirou extensively analysed his own circuits and made notes on how the circuits were drawing mana from the air and od from his body and mixing them together into prana.

This task was far from easy as Shirou could not keep up his circuits for a long time and the pain sometimes became just too much for him to bear after multiple times. Even though he had improved quite a lot due to making extensive use of his circuits, he still had come to a roadblock of a sort for now and had to go about at a slow pace.

Shirou had also begun to read a lot of medical book on the human autonomy which had helped in healing some of his used nerves and help him access to some of the older circuits that he had used long ago.

Now Shirou was no expert healer but he knew that he had a very fast recovery rate that was simply too good to be natural and in the past four months he had learned why it was so.

It seemed that Shirou had something inside of him in the very literal sense, something that allowed him to heal at a very fast rate. He had discovered it when he was doing a full analysis of his body.

When Shirou first analysed his body, he did not find anything strange. It was just his first analysis so the information he received was somewhat sparse and confusing for him. Though after some few sessions, Shirou had become adept at analysing his own body and made a habit of doing so to keep track of his body's growth.

It was during one of these sessions that Shirou discovered an anomaly in his body. The anomaly by Shirou's meagre senses seemed powerful just too powerful not only that it was utterly alien in its nature, having both a physical form yet none at the same time and possessing powers and abilities greater than what Shirou could ever imagine.

Shirou simply bolted to his father and told him of what he had discovered.

It was then Shirou found out that his father had embedded in him a conceptual weapon called Avalon, the scabbard of the Legendary King Arthur. The scabbard had extremely powerful healing abilities and could even heal fatal wounds and even stop one's aging keep one young forever. But its healing powers would only work at their fullest in the presence of King Arthur and for everyone else it only healed minor wounds and injuries.

Shirou was intrigued with the scabbard after his father's explanation and after that day Shirou devoted some of his time to unravel the mysteries of the scabbard.

So far Shirou had been unable to find out much about the scabbard and its full powers, but Shirou did manage to make use of the scabbard's healing powers to heal him. He was able to do this by powering the scabbard and directing the healing energies towards the places he wanted to heal. This did result in Shirou recovering slower than usual but in return he was able to heal some of his minor wounds in an instant. Using this method Shirou was able to heal and repair all his nerves into top condition again.

Shirou was even able to direct the healing energies into his hands one time which made his hands gain a golden green glow. Shirou theorised that if he was able to fully project the healing energies from his body, he might be able to use it to heal others. While that would take a lot of practice it was something that Shirou felt would be worth investing in.

In the meantime Shirou at least did not have to worry about running out of nerves to convert into magical circuits or crippling himself in the long run.

As for his project Shirou had gained much from analysing his circuits and he found that it was his soul that played a part in the process of converting mana and od into prana. This meant that if Shirou was able to somehow inject his soul into objects, then theoretically he should be able to create working artificial circuits that could generate prana. That begged the question just how was he going to impart his soul into objects.

The question had plagued him the past few months but Shirou did not seem to be any closer to solving it.

"Well blood is regarded as something that houses the soul in ancient times. So could I make use of it?" Shirou wondered as he flipped through a book containing information about ancient myths and supernatural beliefs. Now in modern times a person might find these facts silly and nonsensical but Shirou knew better than to outright dismiss them as he was a magus in the modern world, though even he knew too take the said facts with a grain of salt.

"Blood, would it really work?" Shirou wondered as he thought about the validity of using it. After thinking sometime Shirou decided to at least give it a try, who knows it might just surprise him but he did not have much high hopes.

"Oi, Shirou I knew I would find you hear." Shirou heard a familiar voice call him.

"Ayako! Keep your voice down this is the library." Shirou instinctively replied, he had gone through this a lot of times to know where this was going.

"Yes, yes keep your voice down or we will get thrown out. I know, I know you've told me only a thousand times or so." His friend replied uncaring of the consequences. "Now stop reading and get ready we are heading out."

"Heading out where?" Shirou inquired, curious at what had gotten into his friend.

"You forgot again didn't you." Ayako deadpanned "What a forgetful minion I have, I really wonder about the merits of reading all this books with you having such a poor memory capacity."

Shirou did not rise up to his friend's insults as that was something of a routine between them. "Ok, ok, I am a forgetful minion." Shirou relented, not in the mood to go into one of their long triads, "So mind telling me what I have forgotten."

"Why our treasure hunt of course." Ayako said, beaming with excitement. "Today is the day we find the treasures that the dragon left in bottom of the river and NO EXCUSES! This time Shirou." Ayako said dragging him out of the library.

The occupants of the library could only sigh used to the unusual sight after a year-long exposure. Even the librarian had long since given up on restraining the two kids.

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Shirou returned home bedraggled and wet. Ayako had not let him go till he was dead tired and even then Ayako still wanted to go a few rounds more. Sometimes Shirou wondered about the benefits of being a minion.

Still after taking a bath and having dinner Shirou went to work with his latest idea.

Grabbing his tools and his unfinished prototypes of the artificial circuits, which Shirou had dubbed 'Prana Knives' due to them being shaped like knives, Shirou got to work.

He first made a small cut in his palm and collected the blood from the wound. He let the wound heal after he determined that he had collected enough blood for now.

Shirou then carefully poured the blood on one of his prana knife Shirou took care to let the not let the blood spill on other parts of the knives and only on the parts that acted like circuits to channel for his prana.

He then wiped out the excess blood and after taking a deep breath began to start his experiment.

Shirou felt the prana knife freely draw and channel his prana in a manner that Shirou had become all too familiar with.

Shirou felt the knife hum with power as the prana coursed through it, and felt the blood on top of the knife's circuits start to become hot due to the heat the knife was generating. The first phase of the experiment was now complete

Shirou then began to start the next phase, this one was a bit tricky to perform but Shirou just wanted to check whether it was possible or not. So, Shirou began to alter the blood on the blade and the circuits and began to merge them, coating the circuits in a layer of blood and letting the metal of the knife absorb the blood and the iron in it to fuse into a new alloy of steel and iron.

Shirou felt his blood respond to his will as it twisted and bent the metal of the knives to accomplish its task. The blood on the knife began to boil as the heat generated by the circuits grew until the blood began to boil and form vapours.

Shirou heeded no mind to the heat or the now boiling blood as he focused on altering the blood and the knife and began to initiate the final phase of his experiment. Pouring more and more prana into the knife Shirou willed his blood to act as a bridge, a medium, a door of sorts. By now Shirou had no idea of what he was doing but he continued nonetheless.

Shirou then felt something break off of him and flow into the knife along with his prana, something small yet important at the same time. He also felt the connection between him and that part beginning to break, as Shirou felt it go further and further away from him. Shirou tried to maintain that connection but he could feel it slowly slipping from his grasp until finally Shirou could no longer sense it.

As soon as that strange connection disappeared from his senses, there was a bright flash of light which blinded Shirou and an explosion which sent him hurtling to the other side of the room.

Shirou groaned as he lay down on the floor, his body racked with pain from the explosion. After he recovered from the sudden explosion, Shirou surveyed the shed his body still sour with pain but that was nothing compared to the state of the room.

The table Shirou had being using was now nothing but cinders and ashes with the knife that Shirou had been experimenting on reduced to a pile of red hot molten slag, the floor scorched with burn marks and parts of the room covered in black soot.

Looking at the scene, Shirou grimace at the level of destruction, it was not the first time something like this had occurred but Shirou thought that those days were far behind him as he had come a long way. Guess this would teach him not to get complacent with his safety measures.

Still Shirou felt that this experiment while largely a failure had shown him a path that would allow him to finally complete his project. That strange wisp and connection that he had felt during the course of the experiment was the key, of that Shirou was sure off. Now he just had to determine what exactly that feeling was.

Looking at the room again one thought passed Shirou's mind.

'Good thing dad is not here to see this or else I would have a lot of trouble explaining all this.'

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6 months later

It was a quite night in the city of Fuyuki. Its residents sound asleep in the comforts of their bed, with only a handful of people awake at this late hour of midnight, some working to complete some projects, some just wandering around and some patrolling the streets both policemen and gang members alike.

Among those who were awake, in a small shed of his home, a young boy of Eleven years of age was trying something that was in the realm of miracles.

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"Just a little more" Shirou grunted as he concentrated on his task, "just a little bit more." He used all the accumulated knowledge he had gained in the years of his training and pour all his Prana in to his intended target all for the sake of making the spell work. It had taken him two years of constant training and research to get this far, theories upon theories, experiments upon experiments, all accumulating to this this moment.

It had been a long and hard road filled with failures upon failures; some which had almost taken his life on occasion were it not for his incredible luck. But even though he had failed so many times Shirou was determined to make his idea a reality. For it was an idea that he had conceived on his own born from the emptiness that plague him since that 'fire'.

"I am so close now, must not lose concentration." Shirou grunted the pain cause by his circuits almost unbearable but with success so close he could not give up. Then a bright flash engulfed the shed blinding and knocking him back.

"Uhh… That hurt." Shirou moaned in pain. He was quite disoriented by the sudden flash but he had gotten used to such things as they were a prime indicator of failure.

"I guess it was a flop today as well." Shirou lamented. "It's always like this. I am this close; this close to making it work and it all goes to waste." He ranted feeling quite frustrated with his repeated failures.

Sighing he muttered. "I better clean up and try again tomorrow." But just as he was about to put away the materials a faint blue glow caught his eye.

There in the middle of the table, his target glowing with a faint humming blue glow. Shirou knew what this meant after all his work the past year had finally bore fruit. All the time spent in the library, the time spent trying to find the perfect material and all the time spent in structurally analysing things had finally bore fruit.

"Success at last." Shirou whispered in awe as he saw the product of his work. Analysing it he found out that it was not as good as he expected it to be and would not last too long maybe some two months at the most and after analysing it he knew he could make better versions of it.

While he did not get what he expected the fact that his spell and theory work made him happy.

"I finally did it." Shirou said joyfully. "I finally did it!" he laughed with joy. "I finally turned a Knife into a Magic Circuit. I can't wait to show it father."

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"So you turned a Knife into something can act like a magic circuit, Shirou." His father, Kiritsugu Emiya, said looking at the glowing Knife and him. His face seemed emotionless but Shirou knew his father well enough to tell that he was irritated just like the times he did something and got into trouble.

"Yes but it's a bit more complicated than that." He simply muttered with a nervous smile on his face. 'Maybe this was not a good idea.' he privately thought.

His father simply sighed and asked "Shirou, do you even know what you have just done?"

"I turned a Knife into Magic Circuit?" he simply answered not seeing what the big deal was. Was this not something that Magi could do? After all that was what the Magic Crests were right?

"Yes, Shirou you turned a knife into a Magic Circuit, something that Magi in thousands of years have not being able to do." His father told him.

"WHAAAATTTTT?" He screamed "But surely someone must have been able to do what I did? After all you did say I was a third rate Magus." he asked his father, he could really not believe what he was hearing.

"No, Shirou. No one in history has been able to do what you have done. No one, not even magicians like Merlin too. Hell, I don't think Magi have even thought about it too." he father simply responded.

"B-Bu-but…." Shirou simply mumbled, really even if it had taken him almost two years to get finally create a working magical circuits that he had long theorised about it during the time his father had first begun teaching him and the time he spent theorising about it to overcome his weakness, so he was really shocked at how someone had not done what he had achieved much less thought about it.

Looking at the shock expression of his son Kiritsugu decided to calm him down, he was still worried about the implication of his son's actions but he was also a bit happy at his son's success, with him doing something that was once thought impossible. Still hearing him mumble about his research was interesting and it seemed that he had being doing it for the past two years.

"Shirou, calm down and tell me from the beginning how you created it and by beginning I mean when you first thought about it and how you began your research." that seemed to get the boy out of his shock.

The boy seemed nervous and embarrassed but then he began to talk animatedly about his research.

"Well, I think, I first thought about it when I was thinking if I can turn my nerves into circuits then can I turn other things into Magical circuits too. So I began to go through things which I could use for converting things into circuits and went to the library to read up on the different kinds of materials that might help me. I found that wires namely electrical wires or simple copper wires were the best with glass like objects and crystals being a bit better. Though with how hard it was to find the later I mostly practiced with wires though later I found that if I use a bladed object like Knives and scissors with wires wrapped around them, I could fuse the wires into the blade of the Knife or Scissor and turn the wire into a magical Circuit, with the wires acting like nerves and the Knife acting like a body."

Shirou spoke animatedly about how he went about his research. Kiritsugu had caught on the turning nerve into circuits bit, he remembered how he taught Shirou how to do so and how it was supposed to be a last resort, it seemed the boy had forgotten that bit he would have to later punish him for that. Though from what he was hearing it seemed that Shirou was unknowingly creating Mystic Codes.

"I then kept analysing my circuits every chance I got and then began to modify the wires and the Knives and turn them into circuits. At first I thought it would be simple but then I was proven how hard it was, with the wires being different than nerve, inorganic and all that, and being outside of my body it was quite mana intensive with how it kept dispersing into the air. Though as a result I now have quite good control over my Prana both in and out of my Body. From there on it was simply a series of tests after tests for materials and the spell till I finally got it right last night." Shirou finished with a big smile on his face, covertly leaving out the fact that he may or may not have split parts of his soul and infused them on the knives. He still had doubts on that front.

Kiritsugu could feel the pride his son had over his success and this was one of the times he had seen his son with such an expression, the other being the times his son had successfully cooked a new dish?

It was quite something to hear the joy and pride in Shirou's voice. Ever since he had saved the boy from the fire, Kiritsugu knew that Shirou was almost devoid of any emotions and there were only a select few things that would make Shirou show emotion, Cooking being one, helping others another and if Shirou's current expression was anything to go by than Magic would become something that could give Shirou genuine joy and allow him to express his emotions.

Still even if Magic brought Shirou great joy it was and had brought him great grief and troubles too. What Shirou had done could not be ignored nor simply forgotten, it was just too big of a find and even if Kiritsugu was not a traditional Magus even he could see the benefits and far reaching consequences of Shirou's research.

Kiritsugu had to take some measure in order to secure Shirou's life and safety as he could not simply leave things to chance, especially something like this. If order magi found out or worse, the Clock tower found out than getting a Sealing Designation would be the least of Shirou's worries.

"Shirou, frankly I am happy and proud of your achievement" Kiritsugu could see the boy practically lit up with joy at his words "but there are things that you would have to know about before I can allow you to continue your research and learn certain things to fully understand what you have achieved."

"What things?"

"Things about Magi and the Mid-night world, I had thought that you would not delve as deep into that world as I had but it seems for you own safety you have no choice but to learn about it." this was the best Kiritsugu could do for his son, he had failed to rescue illya so far and with the curse he feared he would never be able to do so.

But he was determine not to lose his son as he had lost his daughter and so with a heavy heart he began to tell Shirou about his past and the life of a Magus. But first he had to teach his son the correct method to use his magic circuits.

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3 months later

Kiritsugu in the past three months had done a lot of things for his son.

He had gotten into contact with some old acquaintances and dug some of his hidden stashes of resources to gather magical books and resources for his son. Some of his stashes included old mystic codes and magical researches that Kiritsugu had pilfered of the corpses of his enemies and their workshop.

While Kiritsugu was not a traditional mage and had never being much into magical research, he did collect spell and researches that he felt could come in handy with his career as an assassin. While he destroyed some of the truly dangerous research he came across or handed them to the Clocktower to seal them, Kiritsugu he sold copies of some of the minor research to the noble families in the Clocktower to gain some additional funds for himself and secure some allies.

This method had drawn the ire of quite a lot of the noble families in the Clocktower but Kiritsugu made sure that he did not provoke some of the more dangerous families like the Barthomeloi, not only were they infamous for their Magecraft and Noble Blue Blood but they were also the only family who did not seem to disdain modern technology and in fact were quite adept at it. This fact alone made Kiritsugu wary of provoking them.

But the rest of the Clocktower had been fair game to him and Kiritsugu had gain just as many allies as he had gained enemies in the Clocktower, which was why the Eiznbern had approached him in the first place. Though even the Eiznbern did not know the true extent of the resources that he had kept hidden from them, in fact Kiritsugu even had some research notes on the Eiznbern Homunculus creation from the rouge Eiznbern mages he had hunted down.

After getting into contact with his acquaintances and acquiring the proper magical texts, Kiritsugu tried his best to teach Shirou Magecraft and about the moonlight world. Kiritsugu did not teach Shirou any assassin skills or even his methodology as he did not want Shirou to follow the same path as him, though he did impart some skills on discretion, stealth and subterfuge and gave him ideas about how to avoid the detection of most magi.

As the months went by Shirou improved in ways neither Kiritsugu had foreseen. Shirou found that for some reason knives and bladed objects worked best to recreate as 'Prana Knives'. Shirou told him that it might be due to his metal affinity that was the reason behind this, Kiritsugu still had doubts about Shirou's affinity but he went along with his son on the matter. Since then Shirou would always analyse any knife, sword and bladed object he came across and would try to project them. After which he would use alteration to modify the projected knives.

At first Kiritsugu was puzzled at what Shirou was trying to achieve thus when he ask Shirou what he was trying to do, he was shocked, though in hindsight he should have seen it coming.

Shirou was trying to alter the knives and embed Magical Circuits into them. He theorised that if projections only needed Prana to sustain themselves then giving them the ability to generate their own Prana would make them last almost indefinitely.

While Kiritsugu was not a traditional Magus, he knew that such an act should be impossible but it was somehow working for Shirou. If Kiritsugu had to compare what Shirou was trying to do then it was like he was creating crude copies of Magical Crests, without the knowledge embedded in them.

It was a crude and simple solution and one Magi could never think off or even hope achieve. But since Shirou was able to create artificial Magic Circuits, one that Kiritsugu still could not wrap his head around, it was of no consequences to him.

Shirou was successful in his endeavour and using this method had been able to project and maintain quite a good number of assorted blades and knives, though he found out that using an already existing knife yielded much better results as there was no Prana spent to maintain its existence.

Kiritsugu also found that Shirou had somehow linked himself to the knives and was able directly use the Prana generated from them like they were his own Magical Circuits. This in turn allowed Shirou to use more mana which he used to create better circuits, which in return expanded Shirou's 'Prana Pool' as to say giving him access to more Prana by which he could create more High quality circuits.

It had turned into a vicious cycle of never ending expansion.

There was a problem though with having the ability to generate so much Prana, the problem of storing the excess Prana. Shirou was able to solve this little problem by crafting a Sword with three gems in its hilt, two small gems at the centre of the cross guard and one large gem at the bottom of the hilt.

The gems were also no ordinary gems they were specialised gems made by the Edelfelt, made specifically to store Prana and could store up to Prana equivalent of 5 A-rank spells each. By linking the magic circuits directly to the gems, the gems acted as a magical storage for the Prana generated by the Sword. This in turn made the Sword an incredibly powerful Mystic tool, if only in terms of the sheer support value it had.

Kiritsugu had gotten those gems from a past Edelfelt Magus he had hunted down and looted his stores of equipment and research materials. He had of course handed the research materials to the Clocktower but not before making some copies and had kept the gems and other materials that he had found. It was not the first time he had done that nor was it the last.

With 121 high quality circuits, with each circuit capable of producing 50 units of Prana, the sword was capable of producing 6,050 units of Prana at once. Not to mention the extra prana that could be stored in the gems. Frankly that sword alone was capable of sustaining a Servant like Saber at full power.

Though Shirou did not stop just there as he went further and somehow managed to project multiple copies of the Sword each altered in ways so that they were capable of sustaining their own existence and still be able to produce quit a lot of Prana.

It would have enough for most Magi to create such a sword and hail it as a masterpiece of a Mystic Code but for Shirou it was just another step that he had taken another step toward an unknown goal. With every sword he created, he found more imperfections and flaws that could be fixed and surpass his previous creations, the more he created the more obvious the flaws became and it became easier to fix those flaws.

Kiritsugu did not know what Shirou was trying to achieve but he knew that Shirou would not stop till he had achieve his goals, he could just hope that he could stop the boy from going too far in pursuit of his goals.

While Kiritsugu was happy that his son was improving in the field of Magecraft, he made sure that his son also lived a life as a normal boy. Taiga helped a lot in that regard, as the girl often dragged Shirou into arcades, bookstores and the few tournaments she participated in. The boy while was quite reluctant to go with Taiga had soon began to look forward to the trips.

Ayako, Shirou's close friend, also made sure to drag the boy on one of her many adventures throughout the city. The way the Shirou was subservient to the girl made Kiritsugu lament the fact that Shirou had become 'whipped' at a very young age.

While the nature of relationship between the two made Kiritsugu worry about Shirou's future, it also brought him joy to see that Shirou would have a lifelong companion in his friend after Kiritsugu had passed away. Sometimes though, Kiritsugu really wished Illya was here with them to see the antics of her younger brother.

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It was summer break for Shirou and while it was a great day to play outside, Ayako had gone on a trip with his parents thus leaving Shirou with no one to play with. He was after all known as the boring bookworm in the playground and thus many of the kids did not seem to want to play with him.

But instead of wasting time lazing about Shirou decided to work on his latest project, a Prana sword that could store huge amounts of prana. He was using seven of the middle quality gems that his father had given him for his experiments, four of them were embedded on the sides of the cross guard, two at the centre of the cross guards on both sides and the largest gem at the pommel of the sword.

The blade was also hollow at its centre which would allow the prana to flow more easily onto its length and increase its overall sharpness and striking power. Though Shirou's main goal was for the blade to channel the stored prana and release it in a large wave of power, like the ones Shirou had read about in Taiga's mangas.

He had been at it for hours now and had almost reached its completion, after giving it some final touches Shirou declared the sword complete.

Analysing the sword Shirou saw that it was quite sturdy and could endure quite a lot of punishment too, it was also quite heat resistant and would not melt easily due to generating insane amount of prana, his creations really had a tendency to turn into slag due to excess heat they generated. Still Shirou wondered if this would allow the sword to act like Heat Blades from the Gundam series. Now that was something worth checking out.

Shirou checked the time and saw that it was still quite early in the day, guess he had completed his project earlier than usual.

With nothing to do for the rest of the day, Shirou was at a loss for what to do for the rest of the day.

His father had gone on his trips again, Ayako had gone with his parents to a long trip and even Taiga had gone off somewhere for the week. He really was alone in the house.

With nothing better to do Shirou picked up one of the random books from the shelf and started reading it to pass the time.

It was a book about familiars and contained a ritual for familiar summoning. The topic really interested him and Shirou knew that he would have no problem sustaining a large amount of familiars now that he had solved his prana supply issue.

With that in mind, Shirou skimped through the book, memorising all the important details and rituals for familiar summoning and creation, determined to summon or create a bunch of familiars.

It took him some time to note down and memorise all the details but Shirou was finally able to do it. Going over the rituals Shirou decided to use the more simple familiar summoning ritual instead of the complicated familiar creation process for his first try.

The summoning ritual consisted drawing the ritual circle, the blood of the Summoner, a catalyst, if the Summoner wanted to summon a specific being and lots of prana for the actual summoning.

Seeing the simple and almost bare bones requirements, Shirou went about with the preparation.

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It was quite late at night when Shirou had finally being able to complete the summoning circle. He had messed it up quite a lot of times while drawing the circle and had to start again from scratch, what should have been a task that should have taken only minutes to complete had turn into hours due to his carelessness.

Still he had finally been able to complete it.

"Let silver and steel be the essence."

Shirou chanted the first lines of the summoning spell.

"Let stone and archduke of contracts be the foundation."

"I call upon the guardian of the Heavenly scales."

The circle glowed in response to the chant and Shirou noted that it was now drawing power from him and his prana blades. But what Shirou did not know was that a small circle hidden from view in the shed also began to glow in response to the ritual and Shirou's words.

"Protectors, defenders, rulers and saints, we ask for you to head our call, our contract through the vast reaches of time and space itself."

"As I call upon thee to accept this contract and become my familiars, my sword, my shield, my mind and soul, and accept this new life that I offer."

The circle glowed with power and began to send tendrils of magical energy out into the shed, while the hidden circle guided the ritual circle to the place where heroes of old rested, the Throne of Heroes, and Avalon searched for its master among the lost heroes.

"If you accept this contract and agree to our word, then heed our call, as we summon thee and appear before me and become my familiar."

Shirou's voice was sincere and was heard among the many heroes that resided in the throne, but they were not interested in a mage that was simply looking for a familiar. Had it been a Grail War they would have answered his call but alas without a war and the reward of a wish many turned simply chose to ignore the summoning.

Though fortunately for Shirou he had used Avalon as a catalyst for the ritual, even if he did so unknowingly, and thus Avalon forcefully pulled a copy of its master into the summoning and the magic of the ritual marked it as the familiar for Shirou. The copy Avalon pulled was not the exact copy of its master as their history was vastly different and not native to the world Shirou inhabited but that was just a minor detail that the ritual simply ignored in favour of completing its given task.

Still even after grabbing a copy of the Legendary King of Knights, the ritual still had a lot of power to spare and until it used up all of its power it would simply keep on searching for familiars that suited the Summoner.

Fortunately the ritual had access to a place that had just house entities that would make top-tier familiars, unfortunately for everyone else the ritual also had enough power to forcefully kidnap all save the truly powerful heroes and even then with Avalon in the mix there were only a chosen few that could escape the mass kidnapping.

After the King of Knights, the ritual send tendrils of energies in the form of spectral hands that grabbed any that it could find and send it towards a portal that led to the Summoner. Its first victim was a pink haired woman dressed in a kimono that looked eerily like the legendary King of Knights, then it proceeded to try and grab a blue hair man in a skin tight suite but the man was able to not only dodge the spectral hands but had also somehow tied himself to a tree making it difficult for the hands to drag the man towards the portal. So instead it settled for the purple haired woman that had been accompanying the blue haired man.

The spectral hands also grabbed a sleeping woman with fox features, and a woman who looked suspiciously like the 'White Princess'. Oh well, the ritual was going of its intended parameters but it had power to spare and time was running out so it was going willy-nilly grabbing anyone who were unlucky enough to be near its range.

That included a woman dress in green with cat features, a Valkyrie, an elf like girl and a woman with hair as bright as gold and red piercing eyes.

Seeing that the ritual had finished using all the prana it had received it finally ended its mass kidnapping and send the captured heroes to the summoner, he would have to take care of them now.

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Clocktower, London

Wizard Marshall Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg, sensed ripples forming in the fabric of the reality.

Somehow, somewhere, someone had managed to summon Heroic Spirits, way ahead of the 5th Grail War, and in Fuyuki of all places too.

He used the Kaleidoscope to search for the cause of the ripples and the Summoner and was soon able to find out who it was, Emiya Shirou. Zelretch knew that the boy was destined to be a Master of a Heroic Spirit but not this early in the timeline, not only that it seemed that the boy had used the spring time summoning ritual to boot and added tonnes of prana into the ritual to make things complicated. In context the boy, Emiya Shirou, had pulled a Louise for his familiar summoning. And here Zelretch was thinking that things were going to be boring for the next seven years or so.

A prime entertainment material had dropped into his lap and Zelretch was not going to let it go.

Looking at the now full shed, the identity of the summoned spirits surprised Zelretch. They were all powerful in their own right and not only that they were not even contained in Servant Class containers to restrict their Noble Phantasms or handicap them of their legendary powers.

It seemed that he was going to have to interfere and try to run damage control, there was no telling what the summoned women would do to the poor boy and it was just too risky to let them go just like that. And here he was thinking of standing by on the side lines and just watch the fireworks.

Hmm, now that he thought about it, his counterparts had never tutored a young Shirou like they had tutored NINOs and HINOs. This Shirou also seemed to be more Magus like in mannerism and outlook so it might be a good idea to take him as an apprentice too. Well at the very least it EMIYA's expression when he found out about his counterpart would be amusing to say the least.

The boy might also make a good playmate for his granddaughter too, the girl was becoming more and more like his in-laws day by day. He was not going to let her granddaughter become a stuck up Barthomeloi, damn it.

He really should go and help Shirou before the poor boy gets skewered by Scathach.

That woman really had a nasty temper.

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AN: DONE AND DONE FINALLY!

YES, I know it took a long time to release this but damn it did my other stories and plot bunnies sap my attention like a black hole.

Anyways, this story is rewritten and as you guys can already see I have made quite a lot of changes too it. The servant list is also damn big and they will be the final list and no extra summons what so ever, unless I kill someone off or give them other servant powers via a complicated plotline. Yes that can and will happen in the future.

Now as for the Arcs regarding this story, for now I am thinking of going something like this.

Training Arc and Bonding: Fate-verse, HSDxD-Verse and Mahouka Verse.
Interlude: Magical Girl arc: Fate-verse, HSDxD-Verse, Mahouka Campione Verse.
Cannon Storylines: Fate-Verse, Mahouka Storyline.
Interlude: Of Gods and Magical Girls: HSDxD-Verse Campione Verse
Cannon Storylines: HSDxD-Verse and Campione Verse.

Well at least that is what I am aiming for at the very least, I'll try to keep things consistant and not change things much and try to follow up on my set timeline. Anyways what do you guys think of everything. Tell me about them in the reviews.

Till than this is Tale Master, signing out.