FATE/Probability

Sakura`s gut feeling came true, in the dark basement of the matou household sat the abomination in the human skin and the pathetic fool of a magus zouken as he looked at his shivering granddaughter and with a slight sadistic smile said 

"You know what to do now, don't you?"

Looking at her nod he sent her away, his reasons for sending her for this were multifold. 1st he sensed the unexpressed emotions in the girl and decided to use them in a way to prepare her for his plans, 2nd he was initially unconcerned about the boy because he was adopted and hence would not possess the crest or ability of the magus killer. Even if he did poses them they were redundant as long as he didn't confront them, now that the magus killer was the source of his fear the magus killer was dead and he sent the girl to spy on the emiya household.

What nobody knew was that he could easily hear through Sakura and even control when required, but he mostly preferred nudging her in the direction he desired by simply magnifying certain emotions in her.

As Sakura planned her moves shirou was focused on different things, the presence of Rin had become scarce nowadays and even when she covered it up he could perceive her haggard appearance easily. Still, he gave her space as he still blamed himself for his last outburst the night of Kiritsugu`s death. He threw himself into training to avoid the grief as well as the sudden imbalance in his ability that aroused.

That night when he forced his body the parts of the crest embedded on his back began fusing with him and from an inactive organ, they felt like a part of himself that he could use albeit if he ignored the burning pain that came with it. His od capacity naturally grew as he trained like a madman and his physical growth but it still remained a pond compared to Rin`s lake. Another aspect of the magic crest that he didn't understand earlier came to light.

 Magic crests are unique like the magecraft of each mage but they share some common applications and basic spells, like the life preservation and the ability to draw od. Normally old crests are optimised to draw the minimum energy required to function but Shirou`s crest was an in-between.

For example, in Rin`s case, the circuits that make up her crest act as subcircuits for her and allow her to effectively double and sustain her energy output. Well they are kind of redundant for her as her own could easily function for the normal capacity and that's already monstrous but when needed she could withdraw the mana stored in her gems and still control it easily enough to give the raw output of a missile strike ignoring the mage craft's effect of mysteries enactment.

What this meant for shirou was that his crest was half like a sub-crest made from a fragment of the emiya family crest hence a brand new sub-family crest plus it also barely qualified for being a 1 generation old crest of a mediocre magus family. Except for some scraps of temporal magecraft, the core ability of innate time control and the additions by his father most of the crest was blank and he could use it like a circuit to draw the mana from his od.

Using this the 1st time his mana pool was drained like a broken tub but it gave him a sudden inspiration that he aimed to try out now. Standing absolutely still he took a breath and a hammer struck in his mind, not stopping there he pushed mana onto and ignored the feeling of being branded with a hot iron he made his crest framework light up.

Trying to copy the technique of the girl and her subordinate's inspiration from it, pushing all the mana into his weapon a spare katana he forged, he focused on it. He pushed the mana into the gaps in forging that he could recognise, as his mind went deeps it was like the scene of the blade being forged was playing in front of him and suddenly he swung the sword.

With the sound of air being cut, the blade splintered into pieces but the mana surrounding it twisted like a tornado and carried the fragments as they left a grove in the garden before disappearing. He sighed at this as he aimed to do something completely different and not be forced to release the energy to avoid injuring himself.

He wanted to imitate the phenomenon of mana brust but on a small scale and a bastardised way as he lacked the ocean of magical energy of a dragon in spirit. He went back to training after the fate`s joke of giving him a rudimentary version of his future signature technique when he was trying to copy artoria`s staple technique. He concluded that he needed to use the mana on his body to achieve a mana burst but quit as soon as he tried, he understood that trying now was equivalent to letting his body blow up in a shower of blood.

As he practised time went by as Sakura started meeting with him more often and trying to cheer him up. He guessed that she was very uncannily perspective and had somehow caught the feelings he had tried to drown down, well misery attracts company and her being more understanding of human nature was not unfound. Most of their talks moved around the mundane parts of life and did not dive into anything personal, by now shirou had spoiled her pallet with his cooking and elevated her choices.

So she expressed her desire to learn cooking from him to which he agreed in a heartbeat. They decided that she would come to emiya residence to learn cooking, as she was strangely very resistant to the idea of shirou coming to the Matou mansion. He had considered doing so 1st as Sakura was a girl and kiritsugu had made sure to drill the concept of respecting women into him directly and indirectly. 

He had grown into an unhealthy habit of having a sword beside himself to either train or simply apply mental suggestions to himself. The pain from the crest was becoming more frequent and the knife kiritsugu had got from him 1st had long splintered when he had stabbed a Mamushi through the mouth and bisected his head from the gut. He still kept the chain as a keepsake but it will not suffice for the required purpose.

After collecting information from various sources shirou found that the way to bring a sword to school would be to take part in the iaido club and learn there. He approached Taiga his guardian who was nearly drunk and was very touchy-feely with him, pulling his head out from a bear hold by the tigress of fuyuki he asked 

"Taiga-nee can I join the iaido club? Please sign this paper and let me carry the swords I made for practice."

As soon as she heard this taiga exaggeratedly held shirou and proclaimed with fake hurt in her voice 

"How can you do this to me shirou!! How can you betray me and go to learn another sword art instead of kendo?"

"What's so good about practising sword in slow motion and as a dance, swords are meant for fighting and feeling the thrill not only practising as a show."

After shirou calmed her from her train of proclamation about him committing heresy and the betrayal coming at a price etc she dragged him to the dojo. As they fought shirou was pushed back and forced to defend, he was getting hit a lot less and defending spectacularly but whenever he tried to go for offence instead of counter-attack he lost ground, nearly training 5 years had already given him plenty of experience and onset of puberty had also proved to be a boon as his trench gap was closing rapidly.

Well, an adolescent male is as strong as an adult female so it was normal plus the continuous intake of supplements had strengthened his body a lot plus the integration of the crest has proved to be a boon for it too. When shirou was as strong as her in a physical confrontation he was outmatched in skill and was forced to act in defence, regardless of how many times Taiga said it he could understand what "lacking ferocity in his strike" meant.

Finally, when the form was signed he went to submit it the next day after that he was replied with a wait for processing and sent away. As he returned from the room he felt a familiar presence nearby and purposefully moved towards it. There he found Rin walking in the corridor all alone with a downcast and vacant gaze walking away lost in thought.

As they say, once bitten twice shy, the similarity between Kiritsugu`s gaze and the current rin`s was enough to send alarm bells ringing in his mind and he dashed towards her in an instant as thoughts be dammed.

(A/N: I will give my thoughts in the next chapter, now I am just busy af. I finished this while sitting in an autorickshaw

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THANKS FOR READING:)