Chapter Text
The problem with reincarnation is twofold. Either A: you forcefully take over an existing person’s body, or B: you’re reborn into a baby’s body. Me? I got both, on account of my second new body receiving a fatal wound the moment I wound up in it.
Being reborn as a teenage Emiya Shirou sucks ass, doubly so for being reborn in that specific moment. At first, I’m dying from a fallen tree branch. Then, I’m running down a dreamlike, suddenly appearing, nighttime hallway. A freshly bloodied spear emerges from my chest as I stumble into Emiya Shirou’s body. I suddenly feel dull shock at the sudden burst of why-am-I’m-not-dead pain.
“Eh?” I exclaim; the spear yanks back into my chest, my legs no longer working as the world goes sideways. Instead of falling on my back, thereby allowing the larger exit wound to face upward, I flop onto my stomach. This in turn allows more blood to flow out of my body than otherwise would have occurred. A swifter death than in Fate canon is probably why I didn’t hear Rin’s feet, but only notice her shadow over my body as the darkness of death greets me a second time.
When I wake up, it’s not to any familiar setting. The sudden darkness and coldness has me wailing at the realization of not dying once but twice in less than a minute. Thus, a young baby boy by the name of Emiya Shirou is born to a female blacksmith married to a retired shinobi in a small village on the outskirts of the country known as the Hi no Kuni. And with his, my own rebirth as a baby begins.
It shames me to admit it, but I wasn’t a good baby. My cries would constantly wake my parents. Which could be partially blamed on my very frequent nightmares. Burning fire, dying screams from my second life; had me whimpering in fear. But what truly struck bloodcurdling terror in me is the snap of unseen tree branches large enough to crush a car. The flash of so many blades reflecting flames that a flash grenade would have trouble being brighter accompanying the sounds didn’t help at all. When my first birthday came around, my crying would sometimes continue into the day, my eyes intently burning and the random blurring only additional reasons for me to bawl. After my second birthday, however; the constant eye pain began to fade from my eyes.
My dad, Yama Shirou, despite having retired from shinobi life when he married my mom in his teenage years, has been working as a merchant to aid Mom in bringing in money to pay for bills and forge supplies. With a year of merchandizing under his belt, he’s the one who often fritted over me the most in my first year during the rare chance he was home. His stories of being a merchant were enough of a distraction to my pain and nightmares, as well as a source of information pertaining to the outside world. Sure, I vaguely knew I had been born in the land governed by Konohagakure from the visiting shinobi’s flak jackets; who are visiting our house for weapon repairs and what not. In the end though, it’s Dad’s stories which serve to further cement the idea in my young mind. The realization of being in the same country that contains Konoha; and thereby the setting of Naruto, really hit home when I discover the house is situated in a small village, too tiny to be even considered a proper town. I morn the precious things now gone forever as I step outside for the first time. The act allows the sun to directly hit my eyes, the flash reminding me of the many blades in my nightmares. An ugly sob escapes me from the physical and emotional pain. My mother’s callused hand ruffles my hair as I hiccup away while rubbing my eyes, the comforting motion enough for me to break out of my flashback. Strangely enough, it also starts a sudden tugging sensation in my chest. There wasn’t any pain with each tug, and Mom’s kind eyes and words were enough of a distraction from the strange sensation as well.
After distracting me with the forge she works in, I find myself spending most of my early five years helping Mom out with delivering materials from the house to the forge. During most days when the forge is well-stocked, I aid Dad with his merchandising work; as whenever a shinobi would appear while Dad was away on a business trip, I would have to take care of the packages. Apparently, whenever a package arrived, depending on who it was going to, it would be sealed away upon arrival to our house in sealing scrolls tossed into three large crates near the door. One crate for high-ranking deliveries or ANBU packages, the second for civilians only, and the last one is where Dad would put normal shinobi packages in. It’s a simple system of organization, and one I rapidly mastered. Sure, it’s a minor pain having to get the neighborhood’s only other retired shinobi to unseal the scrolls to verify the packages, but it’s better to be safe than sorry by accidently delivering a ANBU scroll to an unsuspecting, civilian customer.
Almost every day passes like clockwork. I get up, wince at the slight twang from my chest, get dressed and help Mom start the forge. After that, I do the menial work around the house such as chores, fetching packages for visiting shinobi and cooking for the family or late-night visitors with pride. It’s at the end of each day I go to the forge and use it, carefully meditating before using it without any chakra, or magic, if I had Emiya’s powers here.
This time though, I began my mediation by diving into the memories of Emiya Shirou, the life I had lived for a moment, and yet also a lifetime as well. After all, all his memories were there, boxed up in the back of my mind, or maybe boxed up in the back of my soul? I didn’t know, nor care to rummage more on such thoughts, too easily being distracted with my own thoughts in my first life. Unfortunately, said trait was also carried over to my third life as well. Now, which memory is it again….
A dark storeroom, the only light comes from the lantern next to the bearded man sitting cross-legged on the floor. Shirou peeks in, pajamas rustling with the movement. Without looking, the man speaks, a calm voice echoing into the night air.
“Enter, Shirou.”
“Yes, Father. Um, what are you doing here?” the boy asks, tentatively stepping into the room, allowing moonlight to stream into the room behind him.
“Fixing this old, dented clock of ours.” His father replies with a warm, inviting chuckle as Shirou climbs into his lap before turning himself around to watch his father as he worked. The clock itself is an analog clock, noticeably dented from one-to-many falls from Shirou’s nightmares, the most recent having caused the hour lights for the time to fizzle out.
“Now, watch carefully.” Kiritsugu mummers as he holds the clock in both hands, warm green light flowing from the lines in his hands -magic circuits- and into the clock itself. It had taken many nights and days of pleading for the older magus to relent to Shirou being taught Magecraft; and in Shirou’s mind, as the glowing green sparkles dance along the edge of the clock, all the begging was worth it.
“This, is a spell called ‘Reinforcement’. As the name implies, it reinforces an object, but it does so beyond just making the object stronger, it also enhances the object. Hand me the lantern, Shirou.” The green light fades from the clock, which was less dented than before, but the hour time is still missing. Shirou complies, reaching over and handing the lantern to his father’s outstretched, still-glowing hand. After the outline of the lantern and the fire glow a faint green, the light coming from the lantern noticeably increases.
Kiritsugu chuckles at Shirou’s awed gasp, his tiny hands grabbing for the lantern as the magus brings it closer for inspection before continuing with his lecture. “Send magic through an object, and you’ll be able to gain a sense of how its structured, a blueprint or x-ray of the object you send magic through, so to speak.” Kiritsugu says as he sets the lantern down and picks up the clock again. “Once you have the blueprint, you’ll be able to use Reinforcement to turn a broken object into its previous unbroken state, in addition to the previously mentioned uses of the spell, like so.” With a flare of his magic’s green glow, the clock’s hour light flickers on, and the dent is fully removed from the clock’s surface.
“Now according to this fixed clock, it’s far past your bedtime, Shirou.” Clock in his hands, Shirou grins up at his adoptive father, a smile full of hope etched on his face. “Someday, I’ll be as great a mage as you are, dad!” the boy chirps before scampering outside, the light of a crescent moon shining down on his path to become a hero.
The memory ends as I exhale, opening my eyes while trying to retain the important bits I needed from the memory. The spell is called ‘Reinforcement’, uh, magic channeled through object equals blueprint, is the latter required for Reinforcement to occur? Urgh, no, not again!
Just like that, some, possibly key information I had gained from the memory is lost, forcing me to dive again, replaying the memory a second time. Okay, Reinforcement is spell’s name, magic channeled through object equals blueprint of object, and blueprint is most likely required to use Reinforcement on a object, based on Kiritsugu’s wording. Reinforcement reinforces the object physically and… and… urgh what’s Kiritsugu doing with the lantern? Obviously, he is reinforcing it, but it seems to be something more than physical reinforcement, maybe the purpose of the object is being reinforced? That would explain the increased lighting from the lantern, but more research into Emiya’s memories is required to be certain.
I sigh to myself, remembering the empty notebook I had ordered would be arriving later that week. Until then, I would have to rely on my own very feeble grasp on Emiya’s memories to understand them, and possibly an explanation as to why my eyes were hurting along with my chest pain. Unlike my eyes, I kept my chest pain a secret, even from my parents, seeing as they had fretted badly enough over my eyes, so I didn’t want to burden them with it. An owl’s hoot in the distance told me how late it had gotten during my mediation. I glance mournfully at the unused forge before deciding to call it a night and go to bed, unless I wanted to make my parents worry about me staying up too late, lost in my own train of thought.