DISCLAIMER: I own nothing. Fate/Stay Night and any related series belongs to Kinoko Nasu, Type-Moon and/or their respective owners. I don't gain anything from the following text

Who Needs Swords When You Have Fire?

Prologue

It was all his fault. Kiritsugu Emiya thought that destroying the "Holy" Grail everything would be fixed. He didn't know how or why, but at some point the Grail have been cursed by a Dark God's soul, especially Angra Mainyu's, an ancient Persian God.

However, little did he know that it truly wasn't the Dark God, but just a poor man from a village that have been chosen randomly to be the embodiment of All The Evils In The World. He knew no other thing, as he forgot how his life used to be before being kidnapped and tortured constantly.

It wasn't like he wanted to be evil, but he had no other choice.

That's why just after Kiritsugu ordered to his Servant to destroy the Grail, Angra Mainyu started laughing. Why, you may ask? That was because they destroyed the Lesser Grail, but the Greater Grail under the mountains was left untouched.

During his laugh, Angra Mainyu released a fire. Not any fire, but one that carried all of his curses and had more prana in it than anything that a modern Magus would be able to do.

In fact, most likely nobody would be able to survive it.

Nobody except the boy who was destined to doing it. Who no matter in which timeline you were, he will always find the way to survive. Being saved by a broken Magus, a twisted Executor or a Golden King, someone always found him.

This time wasn't that different, but the kid happened to be...Luckier, if you want to put in that way, though I wouldn't say so. He happened to be walking in the street, a particular street which the fire for some reason didn't reach with its full might. And thus, his injuries weren't that serious compared to most of his counterparts.

Then, why wouldn't I consider him lucky, you ask me? Because the tainted Grail isn't something to leave things at chance.

Angra Mainyu, at seeing this, decided to play a little with the boy. Sending all of its curses at him, a twisted black...thing enveloped the boy.

And, oh man, how it hurt.

Pain flowed through the boy's body, making parts of his body that he didn't even know that were there to hurt. Ironically, there wasn't any physical harm, it was all Angra Mainyu playing with the boy's nerves to see how much he could last.

That's when the boy caught Angra Mainyu's attention. No matter how much pain it made him feel, he didn't scream nor twist in pain. It was quite unnerving, even to the embodiment of All The Evils In The World. As he had claimed that nobody except certain dog and that spider were better than him at killing humans, Angra Mainyu felt quite irritated at that sight.

After all, the boy found a way to keep walking even taking into account the pain. Unknown to Angra Mainyu, the young boy kept discarding little by little all of his emotions and feelings, only leaving untouched his will to live.

Fear, sadness, happiness, remorse, excitement, even hope. He lost all of those that could be called human basic emotions.

He was nothing more of an automaton, a living corpse, right now.

He walked and walked, until his feet just couldn't endure it anymore and he fell, his mouth practically kissing the ground, burning his head with some stray flames. He did not care. He couldn't feel the pain that would be an indicator in that his legs just couldn't walk anymore, or rather, he just couldn't acknowledge it. He wanted to live that badly.

'You truly don't want to die here, huh?' A distorted voice sounded inside the kid's head. 'Very well, I'll ask you something then. If you provide me with entertainment as long as you live, I'll spare your life in this occasion. What do you say?'

He didn't even think about how he was probably going crazy as he just nodded his head. He didn't care if this voice in his head was just his imagination, if there was the small chance of it being something else that could actually save him...He would take it, no matter the price to pay. Was he truly in the right mind?

'Haha! I knew it! Oh, this is going to be so funny!' The voice sounded inside his mind again, this time pure amusement could be sensed in it. That's when Angra Mainyu caught sight of him.

A man with messy black hair and even darker eyes was walking through the hell, looking for a survivor.

'Hmm, should I let him 'save' you?' The voice pronounced the word 'save' with obvious sarcasm. 'Fuck it, why not?' The boy could literally feel the voice shrugging while those words were pronounced.

'By the way, you can call me Avenger'

As Avenger spoke, the boy felt as the pain stopped, giving him full control of control of his legs once more. Well, 'full' wasn't the exact way to describe it, as he could barely move.

But it was enough.

Using all of his strength, the boy stood on his feet once more. This action didn't go unnoticed to the black haired man, who ran towards the kid, tears forming in the corner of his eyes.

The man caught the boy in his arms, muttering "Thank you" time and time again, an smile which expressed as much happiness as humanly possible formed on the man's lips. It was almost as if he was the one who had been saved.

'Why?' The boy thought. Was this man smiling because of him? Why would he do that? He hadn't done anything to gain such a reaction, all he did was trying to survive, letting everyone die around himself.

And yet, the boy couldn't bring himself to regret it. He wanted to live, why should he care about other's lives? Why wanted this man to save someone so badly? He just couldn't understand it.

Looking at the man's face with a confused look, a thought propped inside his mind. 'Why does he smile like that? Could I ever be so happy?'

'Nope, you won't. You know, with having a demon stuck in your mind and all that stuff I don't think that you are going to be happy anytime soon.' Avenger's voice echoed in his mind, mockery was present in his tone. 'Oh, this is going to be so funny!'

It was quite unnerving, how someone could think of the suffering of a child as 'Funny'. Granted, for some reason he was called 'Angra Mainyu'. You don't exactly gain the name of a demon doing selfless acts and giving money to the poor, after all.

The man continued saying "Thank you" time and time again until he realized that the boy was staring at him, and how stupid he may have looked.

Coughing in his hand and cleaning the tears in his eyes, the man spoke to the boy.

"What's your name?" He had said.

"Shirou," The boy answered after a few moments, as if trying to remember something distant.

"Well, Shirou-kun, I'm Kiritsugu. Can you walk on your own?" Shirou just nodded.

"...Follow me. I'm going to take you to the nearest hospital, okay?" Shirou nodded again, not truly paying much attention to the man in front of him.

(Scene Break)

I remember that face.

It was a man.

Tears in his eyes.

And joy in his heart, at finding someone alive.

He seemed so happy.

...But I never understood him.

Why would the man be so grateful?

What was so great in saving someone?

I never understood my father, and I probably never will.

(Scene Break)

The hospital was a mess. Doctors and nurses were running from one point to the other, moving stretchers with people on them. Not even one of them was going to survive.

Those persons were the few that could be taken out of the fire, but it was too late for them. Modern medicine had no way to heal Angra Mainyu's curses. One would need an incredibly skilled spiritual doctor or a powerful artifact like Avalon, King Arthur's sheath, to heal them.

Shirou and Kiritsugu made their way to the receptionist. While Shirou didn't have any visible wound and he didn't seem to have been touched by the dangerous curses, Kiritsugu wanted to be sure that the boy wasn't in any danger. He would have given Avalon to Shirou, but Kiritsugu didn't know how much he would survive without it.

Avalon was the only thing that kept Kiritsugu alive by this point, Angra Mainyu's curse made its way in all his system, killing him little by little. He could feel how Avalon was healing him immediately afterwards, but the little of Saber's prana that remained into it wasn't enough to fully heal him.

In the best case scenario it was barely slowing the process of his death.

"Excuse me," Kiritsugu spoke to the receptionist. "I would like to see a doctor."

"Sir, please understand that we are busy right now, if it isn't urgent please come back tomorrow." The receptionist replied in a dismissive yet polite tone. She seemed to be tired.

"That child," Kiritsugu signaled to Shirou, who had been waiting behind him, his eyes unfocused. "Had been there until a few minutes ago."

"Oh my God," The receptionist looked at the boy, her tone had changed to one full of concern and pity. "Please wait here, a doctor will come soon."

Kiritsugu nodded and the receptionist dissappeared at the end of the corridor, running in search of a doctor.

(Scene Break)

Several minutes passed.

A group of doctors, alongside a few nurses arrived to where Kiritsugu and Shirou were waiting.

Kiritsugu explained how he found Shirou and brought him to the hospital as soon as possible, while Shirou denied to talk with anybody, his eyes were still unfocused.

At first, the doctors thought that he could be having some kind of brain damage, but then Kiritsugu explained how Shirou could talk perfectly, as he did before, but for some reason he now was refusing to do so.

Everyone was relieved at hearing that.

After several checks, the doctors confirmed that Shirou's injuries were little to none. The most serious things that he had were a burn in his back and in his face, the two would leave rather big scars but nothing serious, and some smoke in his lungs.

That's when Kiritsugu just realized that Shirou's face had a burn all over it. He wasn't one to miss details, much less one as big as that, but his mind only had one thought when he found Shirou.

Save the boy.

In his haste to save him, Kiritsugu didn't notice such a thing. And what's worse, were it something grave and Shirou might have been injured badly just because of him.

No, there was no point in crying over the spilled milk. He should focus in something else. For example...

How did Shirou burn his back if his clothes weren't burned? Nobody could explain that, and Shirou's loss of memory wasn't helping.

He could remember absolutely nothing prior the fire aside from his name, 'Shirou'. There was no family name that the boy remembered, he couldn't even recall his parents.

It had to be sad, to not remember even your own mother. But, to Shirou, it wasn't sad at all. After all, he discarded his emotions in the fire, how could he feel sad?

In the end, he felt absolutely nothing about losing his memories. Nor happiness nor sadness.

Just a void.

(Scene Break)

Several days have passed until the doctors let him go, while he didn't have any serious injuries they wanted to make sure that everything was okay.

Every single one of those days, Kiritsugu visited the boy. Despite all of his tries, Shirou didn't talk much with him. In fact, only today, the day that he was given permission to leave the hospital, the boy spoke.

"With you?..." He had said. The man in front of him had just asked him if he wanted to go with him, or be sent to an orphanage. Avenger was telling him to go with the man, but why? Should he listen to the voice in his head?

Yes, he should. The man seemed friendly, and Avenger was rather insistent about it.

"Yes..." Shirou finally said after some moments of thinking, signaling at Kiritsugu with his finger.

The man smiled.

"Very well, wait for me as I go to make it official. I already talked about it with the doctors and they thought that it was for the best," Kiritsugu got up from his chair in front of the boy's bed. "By the way, I'm a Magus." And then he leaved, leaving Shirou alone with his thoughts...

...Well, with his thoughts and the guy stuck in his head.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

AN: Yep, as I promised I re-wrote this. You might ask, why now?

Well, that's easy to respond.

You see, my first fic, 'With Wings And A Mind Of Steel' was just something that came to my mind and I decided to write it...But it wasn't going anywhere.

I mean, I had a few ideas for the plot but it just sucked, I didn't know what to do with it. So I deleted it.

Don't worry, it won't happen with any other of my active fics, including this one. I have solid plans for all of them, somethings may change but the skeleton of the plot is there, and with my first fic it wasn't.

If someone who had read it liked it and wish to continue it, PM me, I will yell you what I had thought for the plot and give you a copy of what I've written, so you can continue it on your own.

And what does all this mean?

That this one will be one of my active fics.

You know how it works. I update one after the other of the three, the next one being updated will be 'The Second Magus Killer', as the previous one was 'The Crimson Saber'.

Don't much more to say. This chapter is shorter than its first version but I think that it's much better, so I'll leave it at that for today.

I appreciate all the criticism as long as it isn't a pointless flame, by the way. And I'm seriously needing a Beta, I already know that.

See ya guys!