Chapter 13: The beginning of fate
It's been a couple weeks since I've taken up residence here. And I can say with complete certainty about one thing. I have no idea how the hell it was possible for Shirou Emiya to survive any of his routes in the fate series. I'm beginning to think any of the bad ends from the visual novels were more likely to occur.
Without being able to leech experience from his future self, his talent for magecraft is horrendous. Granted he does well with anything to do with swords, everything else is like watching a fish try to walk on land.
His combat skills are... disappointing. Granted I guess I was expecting too much, my expectations were high because I knew what he was capable of in the future. But I suppose it's my fault for believing that turning this wannabe hero, into a fully competent combatant in two weeks would be easy. I considered throwing him into a mountain filled with undead like Scathach had done to me, but there wasn't exactly anything like that nearby.
Besides training whenever he wasn't in school, I would take time to explain things to expect in the future. Not everything of course, just relevant things like the existence of his sister that will try to murder him. The other members of the founding families, that were currently alive. Along with repeatedly warning him about Shinji. Unfortunately he just waved it away, while saying he wasn't that bad. I mean, if it was the Shinji from Extra CCC then I could agree. But this Shinji is already a delusional dick from what I could see.
"Good morning, Miss Tiger." I greeted the sleepy short haired lady.
"It's Taiga! Not Tiger!" Her eyes shot open, shouting out to correct me.
"Oh, my apologies. My japanese isn't so good, you see?" I gave what I hoped was a genuine looking smile.
"Why do I feel like that's not the case, and you're doing it on purpose." She narrowed her eyes at me.
"You must be imagining it, Tiger-san."
"You did it again!"
"Zieg-san, please stop harrassing Fuji-nee." Shirou sighed as he brought some food over. Apparently Sakura was cooking today.
"I have no idea what you're talking about." I closed my eyes to avoid eye contact.
"By the way, you haven't said how long you would be staying here Zieg-san." Sakura asked after coming over to the table.
"Just until my job is done."
"A job that you won't tell me about!" Taiga cut in with a grouchy tone.
"Like I said before, I'm in the same line of work Kiritsugu was in. If you want more information about it, then just ask your grandfather about it." I shrugged. I gave the excuse that I was once Kiritsugu's co-worker and wanted to visit.
"Huh, you're pretty good at this Sakura. As good as Shirou even." I blinked in surprise. Many fanfics made it seem like Shirou was some kind of god of cooking, I mean he was good at it. But this food made by the purple haired girl was comparable.
"Well Sakura has been at this for a long time, admittedly she's starting to overtake me in the kitchen." Shirou admitted the fact, to which I was surprised. Fanfics have failed me once again.
"So when are you two planning on getting married?" I asked out loud, to which Shirou responded by spitting out his food while Sakura seemed like she was choking.
"You know I was wondering the same thing!" Taiga added with a mischevious grin on her face.
"What are you two talking about!?"
∞
"Aha! I got it!" Zieg snapped his finger in realization from his spot on the red-head's back, as he was doing push ups.
"W...What did... you get?" Shirou struggled to ask as he continued his sets.
"I have learned a method that shall be the training wheels of your craft! Until you figure out tracing of course." Zieg said with a confident smile on his face, before abruptly launching off the red-head's back.
"Gah!" Shirou grunted in pain as he was forced flat on his stomach. "What the heck was that for!?" He tiredly yelled, to which the white-haired protagonist just ignored.
"Watch closely Shirou Emiya. For these shall be your training wheels." Zieg declared as he raised his hand, allowing a glowing magical sword to appear in his hand.
"This spell is called the Carian Slicer. Now I will impart to you the knowledge on how to use it."
It wasn't a difficult spell to learn. In fact, Zieg had already personally tweaked it in the past to use with his magic circuits. It was incredibly cost-efficient and effective. He just never really had a reason to use it, since he already had proper weapons.
He had considered giving Emiya Shirou a powerful weapon before, but decided against it. He didn't want it to be a possible crutch that may mess with his growth. Which was why he was only giving him regular swords before.
"As I thought, you really are broken whenever it comes to anything remotely related to swords." Zieg hummed in interest, watching how the red-head picked up the spell in a short time.
"It just felt... natural to me." Shirou admitted, a little awed at the glowing blue blades in his hands.
"Just to warn you before-hand, reinforcement doesn't work on them. And the only thing pumping excess magical energy does to them is make them bigger." He explained from experience. "If projection can be called glasswork in comparison to the original, then this would be similar I suppose."
"Well, it's not like I have much magical energy to use up anyway." He responded, before taking a few test swings.
"True, well let's see how well you can fight with those." Zieg smiled, his own pair of carian slicers in hand.
For some odd reason, Shirou felt a shiver go down his spine. Yet he couldn't understand why.
∞
Time passed by quickly. Days turned to weeks, Weeks turned to months. Zieg wasn't very proactive during his time there. He could have went and intercepted Medea after she had killed her master. He could have eliminated Kirei or Zouken. The point is, there was a lot he could have done. But he chose to just spend his time relaxing, training Shirou Emiya and mastering his own craft.
He wasn't sure if he should've tried summoning a servant of his own. The last time he got involved in a grail war, he got blasted by the power of the sun. Even If he did summon now, then he would probably get an assassin by process of elimination. Zieg was actually the master of an Assassin in the Great Holy Grail war. It was only because he intercepted the summoning of Jack the Ripper, and took the command seals.
He kind of missed the little amalgamation of wraiths in the form of a small girl, with a penchant for dismembering people. It was like having a daughter, a murder-death-kill loving daughter who dressed like a stripper. He vaguely remembered being dragged off by the interdimensional FBI for some reason.
Shirou Emiya continued to train under Zieg's guidance. Which consisted of mainly being forced to spar for hours on end, because his teacher didn't have a 'mountain filled with undead'. He wasn't sure what to think of that odd statement.
Today he had to stay back late to clean the archery room, because his friend Shinji was busy and he didn't mind doing it. It wasn't wrong to help people. Although his teacher kept constantly warning him of his blue-haired friend for some reason. He even insinuated that Shinji did something to Sakura, to which said friend gave him an odd smile.
Okay, maybe his teacher was right. He didn't know what was going on, but he would figure it out eventually and put a stop to it.
After finishing his cleaning of the club room, he noticed the starry night sky. He didn't think much of it, but Zieg would spend a lot of time outside. Just staring off at the stars as if he was looking for something.
*CLANG sfx* He nearly flinched at the sound of clashing metal. He recognized the sound in the distance, near the field. After months of training with Zieg, he was roughly familiar with the sound of battle now. He slowly crept closer to survey the situation. Remembering his teacher's lesson on not just sprinting towards the first sign of unknown danger.
He turned the corner and saw it, two combatants in red and blue. Along with one more person on the side, he recognized it as. "Tohsaka?" He muttered the name out loud. However he realized his mistake and slammed his palm at his mouth.
"Who's there!?" The two combatants, who he was sure was servants now stopped and looked over towards his direction.
'Remember Shirou, do not engage in a fight against a Servant without your own. It's near suicide.' The memory of Zieg's lesson ran through his mind. He quickly turned around, and ran for his life.
He could lose him in the school, he doubted a servant would know the layout of his school better than him. His figure zipped through the halls, his legs reinforced and ready to leap out the window. For some reason he still felt danger, a danger that he couldn't shake off.
"You're pretty fast there, kid." His breath halted, before he swerved around to meet the servant. Carian slicers moved in front of him, blocking a red spear. "Woah, didn't expect that there." The blue haired man in a bodysuit that he was now assuming was Lancer whistled. He couldn't respond, it took a lot out of him just to block the thrust that cracked his blades.
"Sorry about this, but master's orders." A sudden force broke through the magical blades, right into his heart. "For what it's worth, you weren't half bad." Lancer solemnly said, sighing at the fact that he had just killed some random kid. Although the kid was capable of magecraft, so maybe he was a master. But he doubted it, considering there didn't seem to be any servant around him.
∞
"How would I get this to work..." I mused in thought, an assortment of tools and metals in front of me. I was trying to build a gun, not a regular gun. But a gun that could fire comet azurs like how Stark from bleach could shoot ceros from his pistols. I considered using the night beam from the Sword of Night and flame as a reference, but it's still in the workshop phase.
"Zieg! They're here!" I was broken from my thoughts, when Shirou came running through the door all frantic and stuff.
"Calm down. Take a deep breath and explain." I waited for him to calm himself.
"The servants, I saw some at school. I was stabbed in the heart, but I woke up just fine for some reason." He was obviously unsure about the last part.
"Oh, is that why Lancer is on the roof?" I raised a brow.
"Yeah, wait... what?" Shirou asked confused.
I pushed him back, in his place a familiar red spear came down. Cu Chulainn was unperturbed about missing his target.
"Shirou get in the shed." I ordered.
"But!"
"We talked about this, get in the shed and do the thing. I'll handle him." I stated with no room for backtalk. Shirou understood what I wanted him to do and ran for it.
Lancer just seemed amused and didn't bother to chase. Instead we remained in the living room, eyes locked.
"Hoh? And how are you planning on handling me?" He smirked, twirling his spear a little.
"I have planned for years, for what I would do on the day that I encountered you. Cu Chulainn."
"You familiar with me?" He raised a brow.
"Indeed, I knew someone who told me a lot about you."
"Really now? As interesting as that sounds, what will you do?"
Without responding, I took out two items from my inventory.
"I will ask you to show me... how to do this!" I declared
∞
Shirou had done it, he had summoned a Saber servant just as Zieg had said. He didn't have time to explain, he just told her to follow him. The distance from the shed and the living room was short. It didn't take long before he opened the sliding door to reveal....
"What are you two doing!?" Shirou nearly shouted incredulously as Saber stopped behind him and raised a brow.
"Shush Shirou! I am concentrating here!" Zieg responded by shushing him. Lancer had a giant bass pinned down on the table with one hand and a knife in the other.
Zieg Aversis was taking lessons from his senior on how to de-bone fish.
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