A/N: You could say this is the real start of the story, and I'm pretty pleased with the result. So much so that it ended up being the longest chapter so far.
Again, to answer Reviews:
GustavoIVS: Yep, way too early for Shiki Potter to make an appearance here. If my calculations are correct, we probably won't see him for another six arcs.
maxtime: Shirou is not going to have a very good time, having to share Fuyuki with those three xD
And as for his magecraft and Kiritsugu, well, he will try to be the best master possible, but in the long run he is useless in the field.
Giuseppe: A note, by "Heaven's Fall" I wasn't referring to Heaven's Feel (True Magic), I was referring to the hole in the sky phenomenon. This is a term I borrowed from a very old English fanfic called Fate/Genesis, for reference.
As for the second point, yes, I concede.
Enforcer as a translation of Enforcer sounds ridiculous. The fact is that the correct translation of this is Executor, a term that was already used for those of the Church. So after thinking about it a lot.
I have decided to tentatively leave it as 'Sicarios' although if I notice that it doesn't fit, then I will have to leave it as Enforcers.
As for the rest, Kiritsugu will do his best, but what he will really teach Shirou will not be within the magical realm for the most part. There will be other characters for that.
Mandatory notice: The Fate series, its characters, and any elements of the Nasuverse present in the following do not belong to me. They are property of Type-Moon.
Clue:
'Thoughts.'
"Dialogue."
"Supernatural voice."
"Thaumaturgy."
Í͕̟͓̈́͑ǹ͛͒co͎͉̍̐n̨̼͔̤̉ͮ͊c҉̘̪̟͉e̖͐b ̬̝̪͢í̡ͣ̏̄̚bͤl̗͙͕̘͠ͅͅe̟̝͓̘̘͍̮ͤ̿͒ͯ̽̒̀ ̺͕̇ͪ
"Alright, let's go over this one more time before we begin, okay?" Kiritsugu asked, only for Shirou to nod.
They were in the shed of the house, which had been cleaned from top to bottom so that father and son could use it without being bothered by the pile of junk and unused things that had ended up there over the years. Among these, they had found a blackboard that Kiritsugu vaguely remembered having used during the first times he gave Taiga his English lessons.
The old teaching equipment was still in good condition and the black-haired boy had decided to use it once again for something more important.
"Okay." Kiritsugu began before he started writing something on it. "Magic circuits are the most important thing for a magician. They are basically what allows a person to be one. Why is that?"
He turned to Shirou, revealing that he had written those two words and circled them both.
The redhead frowned trying to remember before answering. "Because it's what allows you to do magic since you can move energy through these, right?"
Kiritsugu nodded as he drew an arrow extending from the circle he had drawn and let it point to another one - the best sketch he could make of a pipe. "That's right. Magic circuits are the channel that allows one to use energy to perform spells, but what is that type of energy and where does it come from?"
This time Shirou didn't take long to respond, having just read it a few minutes earlier in one of the notes he had taken. "It's magical energy! And it comes from within people and animals, and from the world itself." He exclaimed, visibly excited.
Kiritsugu shook his head slightly. "Not exactly. The energy of the world or ambient energy is called Mana. While the energy that comes from within us is the life force of living beings, and is called Od. What magic circuits allow is to manipulate both to transform them into what we call magical energy."
Shirou's shoulders slumped as he was discouraged for having answered wrong, causing Kiritsugu to sigh. It had been about three weeks since Misaki's misadventure, and the raven-haired man had spent the first few days reflecting on something he considered inevitable: properly teaching Shirou how to use thaumaturgy.
Teaching him to defend himself in a more conventional (not to mention mundane) way was not feasible at that age, and even less so in the world they lived in. No, Kiritsugu had already realized that he should let the redhead take advantage of the talent he had.
Which led them to another problem that was more difficult to overcome than the previous one.
Kiritsugu was not really the best magus nor the best teacher available. His only experience in the latter field was limited to the little he had managed to teach Maiya, who was in truth one step away from being a person incapable of using thaumaturgy thanks to the paltry amount of magic circuits she had been born with and the poor quality of these.
As much as he cherished the memory of his adoptive mother figure Natalia, Kiritsugu had to admit that among her many strengths, being a good teacher was not among them. Hence, he could blame his lack of skill in that field.
So after almost a week of thinking about what to do, she had managed to draw up a kind of study plan for Shirou, who had been overly excited after receiving the news, judging by the strength of the hug she had given him.
And forced to take one of Sougen's vials quickly before the curse decided to take effect and ruin his afternoon.
And that was what they had been doing for the past two weeks. Practically teaching him some basic and intermediate concepts of thaumaturgy and the supernatural world in general, and taking their time to explain them in detail in the best way that a nine-year-old could understand.
Shirou had adapted fairly well to some subjects, but had some difficulty understanding others, sometimes as a result of Kiritsugu not knowing how to summarize a part. That had led him to suggest the redhead take notes and read them over from time to time before their little lesson.
"Shirou, don't be discouraged. Even if you've been studying for a few days, something like this is hard to understand the first time you're told about it." Kiritsugu commented, and in some ways he wasn't far from the truth. Children of magi families who had been designated as heirs learned such things from the time they started walking and practiced spells as soon as it was declared safe for them to use their magic circuits (or much earlier, according to particularly impatient parents).
"I know, it just bothers me that I don't remember everything." Shirou sulked in his seat as he picked up the notebook he had left on a small table beside him and with a pen, he outlined his own note, which said letter by letter what Kiritsugu had stated.
At least eight pages of it were covered with notes like that and the occasional doodle that showed the best possible copy of some of the drawings Kiritsugu had made on the blackboard.
The information was varied. It contained notes on esoteric topics like the ones they had just reviewed and others like the profile of a magus (Shirou kept writing it as 'magician' since he didn't see any difference) to the name of the most important factions in the Moonlit World like the Magus Association and the Holy Church.
The revelation that the latter possessed entire divisions that were dedicated to hunting monstrous beings such as vampires and demons did not seem to have surprised Shirou much, who had seen several films on the subject, courtesy of Taiga, and had even asked jokingly if the latter did not have a vampire who hunted other vampires within its ranks.
Kiritsugu had gone silent in response, causing the redhead to gulp as he questioned within his mind that so much he had considered as fantasy was quite possibly a reality now.
"I think I have it." I speak again, after closing the notebook and pointing to the blackboard. "Magic circuits allow us to take our own energy and that of the air to be able to convert it into fuel for spells."
"Very well." Kiritsugu nodded before looking somewhat apologetic. "When you forced your nerves into a fake magic circuit, you used your life force to manipulate it and then threaded it through it, generating magical energy that you used to try and reinforce something... I was very stupid not to realize that."
"Old man, what did we agree on with that?" Shirou protested with some reproach. Having his father beg for forgiveness every day only made him feel guilty.
Kiritsugu sighed. "Yeah, sorry." The raven-haired boy made a hand gesture before beginning to erase what was written on the board. "Well, a promise is a promise." He mentioned, making Shirou blink before realizing what he meant.
A knowing smile crossed her face as she resisted the urge to rub her hands together, remembering the promise Kiritsugu had made a week ago.
That he would finally teach him how to use his magic circuits. A prospect that had kept the redhead more than on the edge of his seat (literally and figuratively) for days, and that he was going to finally experience in the near future.
Kiritsugu noticed her enthusiasm and approached confidently, for unlike the theoretical knowledge he had been imparting to her, this was something he had adequately prepared for.
"Do you remember what I told you about the trigger?" He made sure to ask so that nothing unexpected would happen.
"I have to think of an image and sensation when they open. That will connect it to my circuits, and I can open them whenever I focus on it." Shirou recited while nodding. "That's my mental trigger."
"Yes, it's the most basic form of hypnosis one can learn," Kiritsugu replied with a grimace. "It has to be something you can imagine well. For example, mine is the hammer of a gun being fired, though there are other ways to do it as well."
For obvious reasons I was not going to suggest inflicting pain on yourself to do it as some did, while the other alternative was a complete no.
"Hmmm, okay." Shirou settled back into his seat and closed his eyes, ready to begin. That made Kiritsugu sigh as he readied his hand, which he was going to channel a light pulse of magical energy into Shirou that he would use to "open" his circuits.
Among the many things he hadn't told his son yet was the fact that his current thirty main circuits according to Sougen were not closed but dormant. That practically indicated that they had been opened long ago and at least used at some point.
As doubtful as it was, one could believe that this had happened the first time Kiritsugu had tried to 'teach' Shirou thaumaturgy and left it at that.
But Kiritsugu didn't just have enough instinct to know that such a thing wasn't true. Another piece was in charge of destroying that theory for better and for worse.
The presence of a Magic Crest in Shirou, which judging by Sougen's analysis of the different circuits that composed it, had at least four generations was something truly unheard of, although it could explain things like the number of Shirou's circuits being relatively high.
This factor only occurred in families that had practiced marrying members with magic circuits so that the child would inherit a good amount. The quality of these was variable and sometimes it was very high in ordinary people.
The answer was more than clear: Shirou was the heir to a family of magi.
Although trying to get an answer out of the redhead was useless, since he didn't remember a single bit of his life before the Fuyuki fire, courtesy of the immense trauma he had suffered in that event, which according to the doctors who had treated him during his stay in the hospital as well as Sougen's professional opinion, it was very likely that these would never return naturally.
That left Kiritsugu with some doubts as to whether there would be any consequences to activating something like that given the conditions, but according to a phone conversation he had with Sougen a couple of days earlier, it was harmless.
Of course, saying it was one thing and doing it was another.
Just in case, he used his free hand to grab one of the vials resting on a nearby shelf as a precaution, and drank the contents. The taste of it wasn't really pleasant, but compared to how the curse made him feel it might as well be the sweetest tea of all.
Using thaumaturgy without these would activate the curse, and the effects of the curse would intensify the more magical energy was used. By drinking one of the vials, this could be avoided under one condition: The vial's sanctifying effect would lose potency as long as the same thing happened.
While a simple pulse of magical energy wasn't much, he preferred not to risk it, especially with Shirou involved.
With her resolve already firm, she activated her magic circuits and placed her right hand on Shirou's back. "Now." She announced, already sending energy from her palm.
Shirou had been electrocuted once, and also burned by the stove once. The sensation that suddenly washed over him was a sting that carried both memories and made him shiver in place.
He heard Kiritsugu's voice and gritted his teeth as a hot river seemed to be slowly flowing inside him.
With difficulty, he tried to grab onto any image that might come into his head, but all he could do was perceive again and again that powerful torrent of energy that threatened to flood every part of him and drown him from within.
Again and again he tried to conjure something, but the maelstrom that had formed inside him prevented him with a powerful impulse.
Shirou gritted his teeth and stood firm in that vision, until he finally grasped something that gave him strength.
A barrel appeared in his mind, attached to a simple grip and guard. A whole series of parts unknown to him joined together, and finally revealed the trigger, which he pulled with all his might, letting the hammer of the gun ring out.
And then.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen...
More than two dozen parallel lines manifested around him, all glowing with a fury that shone between shades of green and pale blue.
Slowly, the vortex inside seemed to calm down as the currents within it lost strength and its contents poured into the lines as if they were irrigation canals.
Channels whose number continued to increase.
Twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight...
And out of nowhere, it was suddenly cut off.
"Shirou!" Kiritsugu shook him gently, "Are you okay?"
The redhead blinked in pain after the surreal experience he had just lived. "Ughh," he complained as he brought his right hand to his temple. "That was... weird."
Kiritsugu pulled out a small thermos of water he had prepared specifically for the occasion, and nodded sagely. "I remember the first time I had to go through that, it felt like I had been hit by a motorcycle."
Shirou grimaced at that and sighed. "Sorry old man, it took me so long... I could only feel that warmth even though I tried to think of anything else. I guess we need to try again." He added, swinging his legs.
Kiritsugu raised an eyebrow. "What are you talking about? You did it." He pointed at him, puzzled.
The redhead looked at him perplexed before feeling a slight tickle running down his left arm. He looked at the back of it, not finding anything in particular, until he turned it over and couldn't help but exclaim in surprise.
A series of lines, almost identical to the ones he had seen in that trance, ran from his wrist to his shoulder, glowing slightly. Rising from his stool, he ran to an old mirror leaning against the wall that for some strange reason neither of them had discarded and took a look at his reflection.
The lines were present elsewhere on his body. There was one, following a distinct pattern on his left cheek, while another ran down his neck and down to his torso on the opposite side. Lifting up a portion of his shirt, he could see two more running down from his stomach, and he was sure there was at least one on his back.
"Your magic circuits," Kiritsugu confirmed with some fatherly pride. "There are thirty of them, and they are spread out across your body for now since you are not concentrating on using them."
Hearing that, Shirou closed his eyes for a second and a couple more lines appeared on his left arm, parallel to the ones already on it. He contemplated the phenomenon for a while, manipulating the lines over and over again to make them move and smiled.
"Turning them on is just the first step, Shirou. The next is to transform the energy through them and use it in the spell." The redhead blinked at that and tried to remember one of the parts of what he used to do when he thought he had to create a magic circuit, only to feel Kiritsugu's hand on his shoulder.
"We'll see about that tomorrow, it's not very safe for you to try practicing thaumaturgy right now," Kiritsugu told him gently, although it was clear in his gaze that that decision was not up for discussion.
Shirou, who had already spent two weeks getting used to the fact that his adoptive father really did keep his promise of being a demanding teacher, and that he had to obey him seriously, nodded somewhat reluctantly and fixed in his mind the image of a gun's hammer being fired.
Almost instantly, the lines of light representing his circuits went out and Shirou sighed.
Kiritsugu looked at the watch on his wrist and was surprised to see that more time had passed than he expected. "You can go make dinner if you want, although there's no rush."
That was enough to perk up the redhead's spirits, and he practically bolted out of the shed towards the house, causing Kiritsugu to let out a slight snort of humor.
While Shirou had always been willing to help out with household chores, cooking had been something he had tried to start learning a couple of months ago. However, since a few weeks ago, the redhead had practically conquered the kitchen of the house and declared that it would be his duty to prepare the food from now on.
Kiritsugu, whose culinary talent was limited to microwave food and groceries, had no complaints about it, only making sure his son didn't suffer any accidents. Honestly, he didn't expect Shirou to take that so seriously and once again the power of the redhead's stubbornness had been responsible for proving him wrong.
Shirou had acquired an almost religious fervor in learning how to make different dishes, and the best way to court his ire was to order takeout.
Typically, children would usually get upset if you didn't buy them something they wanted or let them go out to play. But Shirou was indignant when he didn't have the opportunity to practice what was about to become his new vocation.
'If things were normal, perhaps I would be completely focused on becoming a chef instead of learning thaumaturgy.' Kiritsugu sighed before shaking his head, trying to rid himself of those thoughts. What was done was done and there was no point in seeking indulgence in what might have been.
After making sure that there was nothing incriminating left in the room, he left the place, closing the door behind him. He looked at the house in front of him and allowed himself a few more seconds of rest, which he used to activate his respective circuits and focus on the environment.
It didn't take him anything to detect the presence of the boundary field that enveloped the entire property, he had created it after all. The creation of these was something basic for any magus and the area of development was immense. From barriers to things like artificial environments, they were one of the most widely used forms of global thaumaturgy regardless of the era.
I had even heard rumors that a certain faction of the Church had developed one that was portable.
Natalia had taught him a lot about the characteristics of these, but not for their creation. One of the specialties of someone dedicated to hunting heretical magi was the destruction of boundary fields. Fortunately, it had been through the teachings of a fairly reasonable magus that the black-haired man had acquired enough knowledge to create his own.
Like all of his thaumaturgy knowledge, it wasn't anything really elaborate. The one placed in the Emiya Residence only had the simple function of alerting the occupants if a hostile person tried to enter, and given the lack of complexity in its structure, it was almost impossible to find unless someone performed a more detailed analysis and knew what they wanted to find in the first place.
Probably one of the first things he would teach Shirou would be how to detect it and be able to manipulate it in case something happened to him. Boundary fields required maintenance from time to time if they were deployed and even if they had multiple functions.
Feeling satisfied, he deactivated his circuits having finished checking the structure of the barrier and began walking towards the house.
Without further ado, he headed straight to his room, making sure to leave the door closed out of habit.
The room wasn't as spartan as Shirou's by a hair. Outside of a western-style bed and a desk with his old laptop on it, there was also a bookcase with a couple of knick-knacks and a nightstand with a lamp.
A rather comfortable-looking chair was in front of the desk, and it was there that he sat down before turning on the laptop and opening one of its drawers, from which he took care to extract the same envelope that he had become familiar with over the past three weeks.
Trying to teach Shirou also served as a welcome distraction from the truly daunting task at hand.
Trying to find the decapitated head of someone with Pure Eyes of that sort in Japan would be worse than looking for a needle in a haystack, and that was under the hope that said object was still within the country.
It was clear that Makihisa couldn't and wouldn't mobilize major resources to retrieve it because of the risk it presented from the fact that it could disappear forever, which indicated that the tycoon's claim about that thing being invaluable to his family was true.
And that's where he came in. Operating as the hidden hand of this one once again.
The available information that had been given to him wasn't much and Makihisa had stated that he should only contact him if it was absolutely necessary. They may not have signed the geias contract that the two had promised yet, but the value of the tycoon's word was not something to be taken lightly.
Still, Kiritsugu had hoped that this would be enough to get him started. And that had been over a week ago.
Every day, he had gone through the few files he had kept from those days when he was making his preparations for the Holy Grail War as well as some of his notes during it.
As he recalled, he had deleted much of these, and few of the ones he retained still offered any useful information beyond just confirming what he remembered.
Honestly, it was frustrating but there was nothing I could do about it other than read them over and over again, trying to find something else.
Their attention was focused on one person: Saitou Reiroukan, who had been the head of his Clan and perhaps one of the most influential magi in Japan. His involvement in the Fourth War had been no secret to the Einzberns, and he had come close to challenging Tokiomi Tohsaka's hegemony over the city thanks to his regional connections and ties to the Association, being its highest representative in Japan.
But such status was of no use to him in the War, where Kiritsugu had never found him unlike most of the others and where according to Makihisa, he had been killed and robbed of several things.
His eyes fell on the screen where the card he had saved when the Einzbern spies had given him the information that this man would enter the Fourth War was written; miraculously, it was one of the two that had survived along with the one from the Matou representative, which he had proceeded to save after having a hunch that perhaps it would be useful to him later.
Aside from his name, age, and position, there were a couple more pieces of information such as the forms of thaumaturgy in which it had been said that he excelled: Alchemy, Black Magic, Runes (Kiritsugu had raised an eyebrow upon reading that, since the use of these was not really popular in Asia) and Necromancy. That gave Emiya a better image of what kind of opponent he would have been in case a confrontation between the two had taken place in the War.
Easily above the Tohsaka Patriarch, but below Kayneth Archibald El-Melloi. Unless the late Reiroukan had something up his sleeve that rivaled Lancer's Master's Mystic Code, Kiritsugu highly doubted it would have been a more difficult fight.
...Of course, that's not even counting the possible factor of Caster doing something to amplify his Master's power. It had been almost a rule that those who summoned Spell Servants would use their abilities to enhance their own in one way or another. And seeing the identity of the one he had seen two years ago, it was more than obvious that if that had been the case, he would have been in serious trouble if he had sought a confrontation under the same conditions as with El-Melloi.
Although if that was the case... How had Saitou Reiroukan been killed, and where?
It was clear that the answers were not going to be found in those papers or on the computer. That meant it was time to go out into the field and investigate directly.
And he already had an idea of where exactly to start.
xXx
Thirty-year-old Genki Toyoka was a troubled detective. When he first moved to Fuyuki a couple of months earlier, he was quite pleased with how quiet the city was. It was the kind of place he wanted his daughter Yumiko to grow up in: lively and densely populated but without the crime rate of other cities of the same size.
In retrospect, he should have known better. Five years in law enforcement had taught him that just because you don't see something doesn't necessarily mean it's not there. His opinion of the city and its inhabitants had changed dramatically in the past fifty days, starting with his colleagues.
Initially, he wasn't surprised that they were somewhat relaxed. Apart from the few robberies, there weren't that many crimes to keep the police forces on their toes. But as time went on, he realized that most of his colleagues were lazy and incompetent. Truth be told, he knew that he was too serious and inflexible when it came to his job, so his opinion might have been a little biased. But the fact was that most of his colleagues were too eager to leave a difficult case on someone else's shoulder.
While Genki couldn't blame them for Fuyuki's seemingly calm environment, he couldn't forgive his colleagues' behavior either and didn't bother to hide it. To say he was displeased was an understatement and that, coupled with his work ethic, made him an outcast within the department with the sole exception of those who worked in the archivist. Of course, while his colleagues disliked him with a passion, they couldn't bring themselves to get angry with him either. For one, the man was tough as a brick wall and no amount of enmity would make him back down, and second, he had the support of the higher-ups for the same reason. All in all, Genki Tokoya was a man not to be trifled with.
While knowing all of that made him proud of himself, it greatly hindered his job. Being new to the city meant that he didn't have nearly the same amount of knowledge as the rest of the detectives. Therefore, he had to rely heavily on his flabby assistant who had lived and worked in Fuyuki his entire life. However, the man, while kind-hearted and well-intentioned, was about as reliable as a house of cards on a windy day, which further complicated Genki's job and life in general.
Let it not be said that luck does not smile on the stubborn. On the other hand, the threshold between a blessing and a curse is often such a thin line that it is inevitable to cross it.
That was a truth that Genki Tokoya was about to discover for himself.
"What the hell?" He groaned as his laptop froze as he looked through the previous cases. With a loud beeping sound, it shut down and refused to boot up again. "Wonderful; just what I needed at a time like this. Kaito!"
"W-What's wrong, senpai?" The scrawny detective asked as he looked inside Genki's office.
"This damn thing stopped working. Call the maintenance man for me, will you? I'll go outside."
"Uh, okay, but... you can use my computer if you need to," his assistant offered.
"So you can have an hour of recreation while I work? No way. Besides, I like paper better than these modern pieces of crap that don't work when you need them most."
He would have truly accepted Kaito's offer if he had known what kind of test awaited him.
The detective walked down the hall to the station entrance and out onto the street, muttering all sorts of curses to himself about everything related to his job: the environment, his colleagues, his own equipment, and even the coffee he was serving.
Genki shook his head, not bothering to hide his frown as he walked towards his favorite convenience store, located just around the corner. And when he was almost at the corner, he ended up bumping into someone who seemed to have been walking on the other side.
"Ugh." The detective groaned, somewhat stunned by the blow. What was missing, it had really been a bad day for him. He was about to utter another string of curses against the poor fool who had been responsible, when he heard the voice of a man who couldn't be any older than him ask politely.
"Are you all right, Officer? I'm sorry, I didn't see you coming." He was a tall man whose most notable features were his spiky black hair and a two-day-old beard. He looked like a typical office worker who had just lost his job.
"No, I'm not. Be more careful." He growled, trying to push him away with a wave of his hand. But the man didn't move, and merely stared at him. "What are you looking at me for? Get lost!"
"I need you to do me a small favor." The man suddenly spoke as his eyes seemed to have suddenly become sharper. Genki felt as if his legs had turned to jelly, and his eyelids were beginning to droop. He tried to shake his head, but the sudden sensation was too strong, and he quickly gave in.
Then, everything went black.
xXx
Kiritsugu looked at the copy of the portfolio he had received from the detective he had hypnotized and frowned. Getting it had been much easier than he thought, and he wasn't saying it because he had to use mental interference after so long, with a surprisingly quite positive result.
No, he was saying that because of how vulnerable he'd been to such a basic Magi trick. Because he'd harbored a small fear that they were protected in one way or another against it, courtesy of the local magical authority.
But in the end, it seemed that those fears had been just illusions, and that there was nothing left to do but turn the page.
He found himself back in his room in front of his desk, which this time was devoid of papers except for the aforementioned document. It was just getting late afternoon, and Shirou wouldn't be leaving school for a couple of hours, which gave him more than enough time to read it and see if what he was looking for was actually there.
I sigh, before pulling out the first one and giving the contents an illegible glance. The portfolio contained Fuyuki's murder records from two years ago. While it was mostly just simple data like names and dates, it was almost chilling how thick it was.
It easily ran into more than three figures, something Kiritsugu found hard to ignore but didn't elaborate much on when deducing the root cause: The serial murders that had rocked Fuyuki during the Grail War that had led to the supposed temporary ceasefire between the Masters to hunt down the person responsible.
Finally, after having passed it over more than twice, he managed to find the name of Saitou Reiroukan, a man of approximately thirty-nine years of age, whose body had been found in a garbage can on the outskirts of Shinto.
He had been identified fairly quickly and apparently transported to Tokyo where the autopsy and other forensic tests had probably been carried out, far beyond his reach. Predictable, but something was something.
At least he knew that a corpse had indeed been in Fuyuki belonging to the poor man. Now he had to find out how he had ended up like this.
Kiritsugu settled back in his chair before stretching out his arms. He took the opportunity to look at his watch and saw that there was still time to pick Shirou up from school, and he let out a sigh as he realized that today would be the day he would actually show him how to use the two thaumaturgies he was almost completely sure he could learn without any problems.
They would need to tidy up the shed later, as it was the only place in the house that was viable for practicing thaumaturgy. Iri had said as much years ago, which was why he had placed the magic circle that helped keep him stable. He may not be an orthodox magus nor did he have plans for Shirou to become one, but even he knew that a good workshop was indispensable.
Her eyes widened at the thought of that word, and she realized what she needed to do.
Finding Saitou Reiroukan's Workshop, where the Tohno Clan was most likely looking for something before it was stolen, was probably where the search was lessened, but the difficulty did not decrease. No, Kiritsugu knew that searching for that place would take more time.
Fortunately I now had a better idea of which path to follow.
xXx
To say that Shirou was excited for what was going to take place right now was an understatement. The redhead had practically been overly excited during the day, much to the bewilderment of his classmates and teachers, who weren't used to seeing him so excited.
Even though he appeared serious, you could see in both his eyes and his posture how excited he was, and there was little reason for him not to feel that way. Because finally, after several weeks, he was finally going to learn real magic.
'No, Thaumaturgy,' he corrected in his mind. One of the first lessons Kiritsugu had given him had been a broad definition of what exactly the thing he was going to practice was called and what it meant. Of course he still didn't fully understand a lot of the jargon, but he had jotted it down somewhere.
"Shirou, pay attention." The black-haired man scolded, making him focus on looking at his father, who was separated from him by a table where several objects rested; a wooden board, a long closed box and a crystal sphere. Shirou had raised an eyebrow at the last thing, and had wondered in his mind if he was going to learn to see the future or something like that with that thing.
"Over a month ago, I taught you how to channel magical energy into an object, do you remember?" Seeing his son nod, Kiritsugu continued. "As you know, I didn't actually teach you what the spell was. I just gave you a few vague instructions, and you figured out a portion of the rest."
Shirou nodded again. "A portion of the rest? So I was doing it right?" He asked, confused.
"Yes, and no. Look." Kiritsugu placed his hand over the crystal sphere and almost instantly, a series of luminous patterns began to envelop the surface of it before fading away. At first glance, no change had occurred. The raven-haired man grabbed the sphere and placed it in front of him, revealing himself to Shirou. He then threw it against the ground with some force.
Shirou flinched reflexively as he expected to hear the ball shatter into several fragments on the ground, only to widen his eyes when he saw what happened.
The crystal ball simply bounced off it and rolled a few steps until Kiritsugu stopped it with his shoe.
"See? Not a scratch. Check it out for yourself," he said, tossing it to her like a ball.
Shirou caught it without much difficulty and saw that it was intact. He traced his hands over the thin, transparent surface of the sphere and frowned.
"It's one of the most basic thaumaturgies out there. It belongs to the field of Material Transmutation, which consists of spells that interfere with the properties of an object." Kiritsugu explained as Shirou placed the sphere on the table. "It's called Reinforcement, and it consists of channeling magical energy to increase the characteristics of something. As you can see, I made this crystal thing strong enough to not break like it normally would."
"Wow." Was all Shirou managed to say before reaching out his hand towards the board, only for Kiritsugu to direct him towards the box.
His father opened it, revealing that it was filled with pencils. Several round, yellow, wooden pencils with an eraser on top had been sharpened and were placed in the box on top of each other. He picked one up and tossed it to Shirou, who caught it out of reflex without looking away from the box with confusion on his face.
"Inside this box are over a hundred pencils. This is the thaumaturgy you will learn until you have managed to reinforce pencils without breaking them. Just handling one is not enough. Until you can handle at least fourteen perfectly reinforced pencils in a row, you are not going to leave this stage, do you understand?" He asked.
Shirou nodded and continued his explanation.
"Reinforcement involves pouring magical energy into an object. This object can be anything, but certain materials are better at storing and conducting energy than others. By pouring it into it, you strengthen the imperfections and flaws of said object, but add too much and it will break due to the overload of energy. This is why you need a balance in the amount you use. Most magi see flaws as cracks that need to be filled. This helps with the visualization of quantity, but you also need to know how to strengthen how many flaws each object has and how big each flaw is. The best way to do this is by using a structural grip on it. You don't get a very accurate reading, but it gives you an estimate. The last thing you need to know is how a reinforced object affects a mundane object." He continued for several minutes before showing Shirou reinforcing a pencil which he then tried to break, without apparently succeeding. He paused and adapted a thoughtful look. He then continued on with whatever had made him pause.
"One of the tricks to becoming proficient at Reinforcement is being able to pour more magical energy into an object without breaking it. This sounds ridiculously obvious, but in practice it's far from the case. Most magi simply pour enough magical energy to fill seventy or eighty percent of the flaws or cracks, but with enough practice a mage can fill up to ninety. Train even harder and it's possible to reach ninety-nine percent. When you've reached this level, you'll begin to see cracks within cracks that can be filled. This can go on and on, but a vast majority only go for the bare minimum. Only those magi who focus on combat can claim to be experts at the subject."
Shirou raised his hand, as if he were in class. "Like those Hitmen from the Mage's Association you sometimes tell me about?"
"Exactly." The black-haired man nodded, remembering well the times when his encounters with the Clock Tower thugs had resulted in a conflict of interest, but that was a story for another time.
"Now, your lesson will be to try to strengthen all of these pencils without breaking any of them. You have three hours before Taiga arrives and wants dinner, which gives you about two and a half hours before you have to start cooking for her...Remember not to overload your circuits."
Shirou took a pencil from the box and placed it on the table before placing his hand on top of it. Firing the hammer at his head, he activated his circuits and focused on the pencil before muttering what Kiritsugu had told him about his Aria.
" Trace on."
A pair of luminous lines spread across the pencil as the redhead tried to read its structure. After a couple of attempts, he thought he had located a pair of fissures that were surely the faults Kiritsugu was talking about and began to send magical energy towards them. Invisible to the eye, a thin layer began to surround the object and slowly modify it. Stronger, sharper, more durable.
A few seconds after that he heard a crack and grimaced as he realized the pencil had broken in half.
It didn't look like it was going to be a very exciting day. Kiritsugu was going to have to stock up on pencils the next time he went shopping.