He chases a dream

Forever striking cold steel

Under his blue skies

He lived unwanted

Had forged blades with no equal

Under darker skies

In a forest, far away from here.

A man stood in a forge, striking at the bar of glowing metal held in his hands furiously, showering the dirty stone floor with sparks. He was short when measured amongst other men, but then again, he was hardly ever seen in their company.

His hair, crimson and bound as the fire of his forge, saw to that.

The noise was horrendous. The oil that filled the vats along the walls shivered in time with each swing of the man's hammer. Yet he felt no discomfort, stuffed as his ears were with expensive wax plugs.

He stopped hammering for a second to inspect the work, grunted and stuck it into the quenching vat nearest him. He grabbed another bar out of a second vat and carried it over to a furnace, throwing it onto the coals.

As he was starting to work the bellows he became aware of someone behind him, though he was not quite sure how he knew that.

"What is it?" He said, taking out his ear plugs.

"This one has no need to shout," said a soft female voice.

Sengo Muramasa blinked and cleared his throat. "Apologies. It has been a day or so since I have used my voice." He grabbed the bellows and began working them powerfully. "Is there something you need, friend?"

"You have yet to see my face and still we are already friends, swordsmith?"

Still Muramasa did not turn around. "If one breathes, if one dies, if one laughs and cries," he grunted as he pumped the bellows harder.

"Oh? One is not at all as uncouth and ill-tempered as one is infamous for. Though brusque, one appears to possess a poetic nature."

Muramasa snorted. Picking up the white-hot bar of metal with a pair of long tongs, he slid it into another quenching vat. Only then did he turn around to see the woman he talked to.

She was the very picture of Imperial beauty. Tall for a woman and clad in a formal kimono that looked out of place in a mere blacksmith's forge. Her dark brown eyes were alight with interest and her rosebud lips were curved in a coy smile. A light blue piece of sapphire shaped like a wing was pinned to her hair just above her left ear.

You could not enchant this man known as the Forger of Demon Blades.

But this woman came close with a look.

"There are perhaps three kinds of people who interrupt me while I work," Muramasa said, drawing off his thick gloves and tossing them upon a nearby anvil. "There are those who are desperate and believe that their emotions will somehow make the tales surrounding my blades anything more than utter nonsense, and then ask me to forge a blade for them with all the meagre wealth they have on them."

He pointedly looked over her fine silk dress, at her smooth hands clasped together just below her stomach, at the lack of pockets.

The woman's smile did not quite grow, but tilt happily.

"Then there are those who believe, either because of their station in life or the amount of money on their person, that I will forge a sword for them on their whim." He pauses, a sudden thought occurring to him. "I suppose they are right, but I feel that one should know I have turned lords away before."

"And ladies?" she asked, her smile widening.

"And finally," said Muramasa, ignoring her. "There are those who are not altogether, how should we say, mundane. Am I correct, lady?"

She spread her fingers wide, as if presenting him to a watching crowd. "Perhaps," was all she said. Her smile was unnerving.

He let out a heavy breath and turned away from her, picking up the first bar of metal out of the vat, inspecting it critically. He dragged a callused hand along its shaft, grunting in dissatisfaction as he heard the metal sing shrilly. It was the finest metal it could be with conventional forging techniques, indeed, some of the finest swords were comparable to what could be made from this, in this land of the rising sun.

But no matter how one forged it, iron was still far too brittle to be made into the kind of weapon he wanted to make.

What am I doing wrong? He wondered.

"Perhaps one should add some more carbon into the mixture, some two to a hundred parts per iron."

Muramasa looked at the woman. She looked back at him, face blank and eyes questioning whatever was the matter with him.

"What did you say?" He asked, very quietly.

She tilted her head like a curious fox. "Need I repeat it?"

He knew that this was a turning point for him. If she were a vampire or some other kind of malicious youkai of the Moonlit Night, this could even be the end of his life.

He knelt upon the ground and laid the sword reverently to the side, elegant as a samurai. Then he bowed his head low to her against the ground. "Please," he said without hesitation.

She smiled then, as if at some private jest. "Humble and bold as well. Indeed, perhaps you are one of the few of this time worthy enough to use this one well."

The smith did not care much for her tone of voice, nor her cryptic words, but her statement from earlier had tugged on a part of his soul, his very origin as a being. It had not been unlike the feeling he had first had upon picking up his first hammer.

Then she spoke through those rosebud, cherry-petal coloured lips.

Muramasa could not remember the words she said. Nor would he remember how exactly she disappeared from his forge and how the rest of that day ended.

He would however, remember that night, and the cold bed he woke up alone in the following dawn.

But most importantly, through all the scorn and hatred and slander that would follow him until the end of his days and beyond, he would remember her words as the sound of steel singing against his trailing finger.

In a forest clearing, far away from here.

Shirou Emiya sat upon a small boulder with his legs crossed, his eyes closed, hands resting atop his knees, facing up.

The very picture of serenity.

Shirou's short red hair gently swayed in the breeze. Not a single sound other than the movement of the wind was made in this verdant forest. But his mind was elsewhere, not unable, but simply unwilling to take note of this discrepancy.

"Trace, on."

His magic circuits, already activated, pulsed all along the left side of his upper body. A long beam of crackling blue light coalesced into existence parallel to the ground above his palms.

He had made over a thousand blades like this, had even Projected the hollow skeleton of a divine construct once. The seven steps to Tracing a blade, even the Noble Phantasm of a hero of ages past, were as easy as breathing to him at this point.

Judging the concept of creation.

But here he paused for a split second, slowing the rate of his prana for just half a second to see in his Mind's Eye the steel that was his body shiver—

And the hammer struck, forcing him to move on lest his Reality Marble collapse.

-Hypothesizing the—

-Duplicating the composition—

-Imitating—

-Sympathizing with—

-Reproducing—

-Excelling every manufacturing process.

The blade that appeared in his hands was heavy, a blade that had once killed a fell dragon.

It crumbled into steel dust seconds later, into motes of prana soon after.

Shirou frowned. Making a failure of a Projection was acceptable, the drain on his prana reserves almost negligible.

No, he frowned because he had been close that time. Close to seeing the connection between his Origin and Element and, perhaps, a path into the Akashic Records.

He sighed and looked up at the red, sunless sky.

Shirou Emiya still looked as youthful as he had been the day he had asked Zelretch for a favor, the day he had stepped into his Reality Marble, perhaps even younger. His Unlimited Blade Works kept all the swords he had ever seen in prime condition, and what was he if not a sword?

Well, he had stopped counting how long ago that had been after the first ten years he had spent here.

Dull amber eyes closed again.

"Trace, on."

His attempts to reach the Root were not because of any of his own desires. After all, as with so many things, a sword is devoid of meaning until someone gives it meaning.

To be a hero of justice—had been one such meaning he had spent fulfilling to the best of his ability in his early youth.

The Fifth Holy Grail War had changed all of that. He had fought and spoken with heroes of ages past, all filled with greater meaning to their existences, greater purposes, regardless of whether they had been spirits or not. Shirou thought he had found his calling affirmed in these warriors, most of all, in the King of Knights who was his Servant.

Until he met a certain Archer-class Servant. Until he spoke and fought with him, and finally realized, towards the end of that frantic melee, who that man was.

A field of swords had stretched before his eyes then. A world of regrets and sorrow. A world of rusted and chipped iron thrust into dead earth, below a sky of crackling dark clouds and immense gears.

Shirou Emiya realized that day two things: the first was that the meaning he had taken up from Kiritsugu Emiya was brittle, unable to bend to abide the stresses that came with striving to be a hero of justice. The path to save all that he could was a hypocritical paradox, one that demanded he help even those monsters who attacked the innocent, even at his own expense.

That realization still did not deter him from his path.

This Shirou Emiya was a different man from his future self, perhaps he always had been.

If Saber had injured that Archer—

If he himself had not been taught magecraft by Kiritsugu—

If and only if he had not been saved that night of flames and black mud.

But regardless, from that unimaginable pain and suffering his future self had suffered, that man had forgotten the one thing that had kept Shirou in the Holy Grail War when he had been presented with the option of withdrawing:

It was not wrong to help others who could not help themselves.

Thus, his aria had been completed.

He would never become Archer.

But that was only the one chapter to his story. While he worked to have the Grail destroyed at the end of the war, he had found another purpose to his life, and a promise made to the one woman he would always love.

Avalon. Where she would be waiting for him.

He had sought many a path before this one. For ten years after the Holy Grail War he became not a Hero of Justice, but a simple hero, and chased that dream, never once shirking in the promise he made.

Even this was another route that could lead to seeing her again. He was not trying to get to the Akashic Records for the sake of it being the greatest ambition of most magi.

So even now, he continued to strike cold steel.

Until he saw her again.

Here.

"Are you sure that you got all the star quartz ready?"

"Who do you think I am, Ritsuka? This isn't my first summoning you know."

"I know, it's just…I feel like something's going to be off about this one."

"Jeez, you say that about every summoning we've done."

"Every summoning you've done, sis."

"Hey, I've gotten us some kickass Servants!"

"I'd call him a lot of things, but I would not call the Phantom of the Opera 'kickass'."

"Um, senpai, I'm sure that Phantom-san would take offense at hearing you say that."

"Mashu, I'm sure he would forgive me if Gudako told him to."

"Just for calling me that, I'm going to tell him you said that about him after this is over."

"Uh, sis, please don't. I don't want any of our Assassin-class Servants angry at me. I'm sorry for calling you Gudako, please forgive me."

"Hah! Say that like you mean it, peasant!"

"Are you channeling Nero's spirit?!"

"I am not hearing an apology, brother dear!"

"I'm sorry! Please don't tell that guy I said he wasn't kickass!"

"Masters…the summoning?"

"Oh woops, sorry Mashu, got carried away there, hehe."

"What would I do without you Mashu…"

"I—I'm sure you would be fine on your own, senpai."

"Mashu? Are you okay? You're turning a bit red?"

"You're an idiot, Ritsuka."

"Hey, what is that supposed to—Mashu why are you nodding?!"

"Anyways, dense morons aside—"

"Hey!"

"—Time to roll!"

Above the summoning array dots of prana form into a circle. And they begin to spin.

There:

A spirit stirred. A calling, asking for its help in a Grail War that isn't a Grail War.

How curious. Naturally it would refuse a normal Grail War summons, as it is not being called by catalyst nor is it a fighter at all, making the possibility of it being granted its wish so close to zero it would not be worth trying.

But it can sense the abnormality of this summons, and the vast power that is behind it, rivaling the grail itself.

Perhaps this power would be amenable to help the spirit on its own time. After all, what harm could it do now to try?

The light takes it.

He paused a moment before projecting another blade.

He stood, a nameless katana held in his left arm, considering the sunless sky.

Light shone down upon his face, and he heard a call asking him for his help.

He does not need to think about why. This is one of the reasons, he suspects, why she had loved him.

He accepts.

The light takes him.

Here.

The light fountained up towards the ceiling as it always did when summoning a new Servant, the whine of and thrum of prana being forced into a physical being rising to a fever pitch.

The only male Master of Chaldea could have sworn he heard the only other Master of Chaldea, his sister, yell: "Boo-yah!"

He would have rolled his eyes if they weren't so tightly shut.

The keening of a new spirit being brought into the world begins to die down, as the fountain of light dissipates slowly.

Despite himself, Gudao is looking forward to meeting his sister's new Servant. Maybe she'll finally have summoned someone who could rein her more reckless impulses in?

He hears her trip on her own feet, hears her let out a yelp as she crashes onto her butt.

He sighed, not making a move to help her up, like any good brother did.

Right, like that's ever going to happen.

Somewhere.

"I am Sengo Muramasa. A pleasure to meet you."

"I'm Emiya Shirou. The honor is all mine, swordsmith."

"Oho? You know who I am but do not hate or disparage me?"

"I know of your demon swords, Muramasa-sensei. They are unpleasant indeed, but the evil that they carry was not forged into them during their making. Rather, the curse they all bear reminds me of something similar I had seen before."

"Where was this?"

"In the curse that killed my father."

"You have lived a storied life."

"Is that not why we are here?"

"Hm. I suppose you are correct. Wait, your soul, it's—"

"Likely the reason I was chosen to be your vessel, sensei."

"But, how? This is something…impossible."

"I am but a third-rate magus, unable to cast the simplest of spells to light a fireplace or repair a broken window. But for all that sir, my body is made of swords. If not you, then perhaps I would be speaking to Goro Nyudo Masamune, or perhaps Weyland the Smith."

"I see…"

"Will you use my body well, Muramasa-sensei?"

"…You were not born with the name Emiya."

"How did you know that?"

"You are one of my descendants, as surely as my name is Sengo Muramasa. Hah! I'll bet your hair is the color of autumn leaves as well."

"I…am descended from you? How do you know that?"

"The same way I can tell your soul would sing at my touch. You share the same core as I.

"Your Origin was Sword as well..."

"I cannot in good conscience use you as a vessel anymore, my boy."

"What? But—"

"That was to be my wish to the Grail, Emiya Shirou. To leave behind a successor who would not repeat the mistakes I made in trying to forge the perfect blade. A successor who could simply live for the sake of living. To see my wish fulfilled on the cusp of entering a Holy Grail War…well, the feeling gives me some measure of peace. Yet, we have both already answered the call."

"Yes, sensei."

"What do you wish to do, Emiya Shirou? We cannot go back as easily as have come."

"I want to help the ones who called us. I want to see if their causes are just, and if they are, I will help them however I can. But more than that…I have a wish of my own."

"Yes?"

"I want to see someone again."

"Hah! Well said indeed! Then here is what you must do, my successor! Take all the swords I have, all the power I can spare. Were it any other human I have no doubt they would shatter, but your soul is unique. An infinite world of swords is a perfect place to rest the countless blades I have forged in my time, and I cannot think of anyone else better to inherit my own experience than my own blood."

"Thank you for your trust in me, Muramasa-sensei."

"The honor was all mine, successor. Farewell and good luck, my successor."

"Farewell, Sengo Muramasa."

Emiya Shirou opened his eyes slowly as the light gradually dimmed into the darkness. The first thing he saw was the girl sitting on the floor in front of him, looking up at him with unkempt red hair draped slightly over wide amber eyes.

A memory flickered to the front of his mind. A memory of a girl silhouetted by the moon, turning to face him, regal and poised.

Shirou smiled at the girl, unaware he was standing with almost as much grace as his beloved King of Knights once had.

"I ask of you." He says. "Are you my master?"

A moment of silence goes by as he waits for her answer.

She slowly turns red.

She says something then, that will forever baffle him:

"Meep."