Summary: Shirou is a (Third Generation) Dragon Slayer in the Fate world. Without access to his Dragon Slayer magic and with a voice in his head, he sets out to uncover his past and fulfill his dream.
Edited for canon compliance and more reasons.
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Fire; fire. Everything was fire. He walked until he no longer could. Not because he was tired; his lungs were simply full of toxic gases.
Haven’t remembered this in a while, Shirou thought; instead of waking up, though, he ended up in what he thought was another dream.
“Shirou,” an armored monstrosity said, very large and shaped similarly to a dragon from Europe’s legends. “Shirou,” it repeated.
Shirou examined the creature carefully, but without fear. It was then he realized that it wasn’t armored; it was simply made of metal. The creature spoke again.
It kept saying his name and the voice, however inhuman, sounded familiar.
Shirou woke up drenched in cold sweat, shivering. ‘What was that… metal dragon thing?’ He thought, taken aback at the nature of his new dream.
‘Either way, I gotta prepare for school,’ Shirou thought, ‘Fuji-nee will know if I’m late and be angry, and Shinji is gonna mock me again.’
Shirou made breakfast, which he ate by himself, Taiga being at her University’s dorm. She checked on him daily, of course, and ate his dinner in what she called killing two birds with one stone, which with his limited knowledge of English sounded ridiculous - even Magecraft would have a hard time accomplishing such a thing.
Two years had passed since Kiritsugu’s death, and Shirou was coping; he had become more abrupt and less polite since then, though. Even if, according to his older sister figure, it was mostly Shinji’s fault.
‘Why does everyone rag on Shinji, anyway?’ Shirou thought. He found the other boy very fun, even if he was a bit… prickly. After all, Shinji was the one who introduced Shirou to videogames and archery both; he was also the one who was there and stood up for Shirou.
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The history teacher, Akebino-sensei, kept droning on; Shirou, having not had a restful night, was slowly lulled to sleep.
“Shirou. Shirou,” the metal dragon- no, Iron Dragon (and how did Shirou know that?), said again.
Shirou just looked at it.
The Dragon said, “you idiot brat. It is I, M---------,” the buzzing in the boy’s ears drowning out the rest of its- no, his, sentence.
Shirou shot up, causing Akebino-sensei to scold him and the rest of the class to laugh at him.
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In the teachers’ lounge, the printer was out of order; naturally, instead of calling in an expert, the first person they spoke to was the ‘Fake Janitor’ of Shinto’s only Middle School. They were cheapskates according to Shinji, but Shirou didn’t really mind.
Everyone cleared out, even the teachers knowing better than to get between Shirou and his self-imposed mission.
“Trace On”, he whispered, activating the artificial Circuit he had just made. He used Structural Analysis on the device, only to fail, causing himself pain. He held his temple, hearing a vaguely familiar metallic rumble, which he soon recognized as the Iron Dragon’s voice.
Feeling very foolish for following the instructions, Shirou tried Reinforcement on a balled up paper until he succeeded perfectly (and somehow, despite not having used it right in years, it took only two tries); then, he swallowed said paper ball.
Is something supposed to happen- uh oh-
Warmth spread in Shirou’s insides, which steadily turned into burning; he was being boiled alive from the inside out. He also felt dizzy, and his limbs went numb.
For all of Shirou’s agony, though, his pain tolerance was high enough to only let out a small moan. Then, the feelings subsided; only a milder burning remained, spread throughout his body.
Shirou was worried that he was getting sick, but after a bit of deep breathing, he stopped feeling so dizzy, and feeling returned to his limbs slowly.
‘What was this supposed to do?’ Shirou thought. In hindsight, it reminded him of the failed creation of a Circuit, but it couldn’t be that. Deciding he would check at the shed later, he whispered his aria again, only to feel a lot more than one Circuit.
In fact, there were what he thought was a hundred or more, except he couldn’t pick which to use. Shrugging again, and ignoring the dragon’s voice saying something about a Magical Core, he scanned the printer with unheard of difficulty, even for him, due to his condition; it was like a person with a high fever trying to walk a tightrope, but he managed it.
Pinpointing the problem, he set out to fix it, using mundane means, of course; he was a bit dizzy still, could barely move, but he controlled himself - his instincts telling him that it was temporary helped.
-----
At Shirou’s ‘workshop’, night
Shirou tried meditating to reach the dragon that might or might not be in his body.
He thought, ‘are you there, Iron Dragon?’ Feeling a bit stupid. He certainly didn’t expect a response.
I am here, Shirou. My name is Metalicana; do not forget again.
The young boy flinched.
I was your foster father before you met Kiritsugu; do not ask of your birth parents. I know nothing about them.
‘Wait,’ Shirou “said” to the Dragon, ‘what was I like? Where was I from? How did you end up in my head?’
It’s complicated, Metalicana said in Shirou’s mind, I had to seal myself inside you to protect both of us, and you’re from a very distant land… and time. You were not too dissimilar to how you are now, except you were a lot ruder and more selfish then.
“A different time?!” Shirou said, shouting. A few seconds of contemplation later, he thought to the dragon, ‘well, that does explain some things - like why a Dragon still exists and has made contact with a human. But what were you saying before about a “Magical Core” and why did you have me eat paper?’
You still subconsciously trust me. Not all your memory is gone - or, at least, I hope it’s because of that and not naivete and gullibility, Metalicana told Shirou, making the boy blush.
Then, the dragon said, eating something imbued with Prana forced open your Magical Core; it would have been preferable for something made of iron to be used, but you’d probably refuse. As it was, I needed to help you along a bit, otherwise such a small amount of Magical Energy wouldn’t have been enough. Don’t worry about the burning - it will pass soon.
‘Okay,’ the boy told the dragon, ‘but what is a Magical Core? Is it another term for Circuits?’
Not quite. It’s a dragon’s version of Magical Circuits - I think. You have the Lacri- the factor of a Dragon, and a hundred-and-eight unified Circuits. I don’t know much of this form of magic- Magecraft, I mean. I am not a Magus, after all. Now leave me be - I am tired, Metalicana said to Shirou’s mind.
Shirou had the distinct impression that he and Metalicana bickered a lot in his previous life. Especially if he had been rude and selfish, like the dragon had told him.
Still, the Dragon also patiently explained that the way he had used Magecraft before was incorrect, that he had had Circuits all along, and that he needed to learn how to turn them off. (In exactly those words; well, maybe not so patiently, after all.)
-----
“Oi, Emiya,” someone said.
Shirou turned to see Mitsuzuri Ayako. He said, “oh, Mitsuzuri. What is it?”
Ayako beckoned him closer… then, she flicked his forehead.
“Ouch. What was that for?” Shirou said, reacting more in surprise rather than pain.
Ayako said, “what do you think? Maybe it’s because I’ve been trying to talk to you for five minutes and you had your head in the clouds.”
“Oh,” Shirou said, “sorry, Mitsuzuri - I have a lot on my mind. What did you want?”
“Please set that friend of yours straight,” the girl said, “he didn’t warn me or the faculty advisor he wouldn’t be here in the afternoon practice. Again.”
“I’ll try,” Shirou said, “can’t promise anything, though. He is usually very punctual; he must have had a good reason.”
“Knew I could count on you, Emiya,” Mitsuzuri said, hitting his shoulder lightly. “Oh, there she is,” she said and waved to another girl. “See ya, Emiya.”
Shirou nodded at her, then he looked at Ayako’s friend. Tohsaka, the school idol everyone admired; even Shirou, admittedly. His golden brown eyes met aquamarine; they narrowed - she looked at him like she suspected him of a crime, then turned away. All the while, she was on alert.
The boy tuned out the two girls’ conversation in order to think about the mystery that was Tohsaka. He didn’t remember that girl as quite so high-strung; maybe his memory was faulty? He also didn’t remember Mitsuzuri being friends with Tohsaka; maybe they usually hung out in the weekends, outside of school?
-----
Metalicana didn’t contact Shirou for months, during which Shirou was worried. The dragon had said he was tired. That was almost the last thing Shirou heard from him. In the meanwhile, Shirou was trying to get his power output under control. He used to have the problem of his spells simply fizzling out; now, he overpowered the Reinforcement enough to break the target objects.
He had had the idea to Reinforce his body before; it was proven a pipe dream after over two years of failures, but now that he could use spells successfully, he simply overpowered them.
Still, Shirou persevered. After much meditation, he realized that the nature of a Magical Core was many Circuits working as one - if he put pressure on one of them, he was exercising all of them. Additionally, a Magical Core was not something a human being was supposed to have.
Well, Circuits were also something people weren’t supposed to have, but he knew that he wasn’t fully human now. It took him a while to somewhat come to terms with it, but he didn’t abandon his dream of saving humanity - even if he had been part-dragon to begin with.
After those realizations and a lot of practice, things became easier - Shirou was able to Reinforce even thin paper now, though he wasn’t risking using it on his body just yet. The way he could switch off his Circuits also occurred to him suddenly a week or so after he activated them, when he heard about a murder occurring in Fuyuki. To turn them on, his trigger was the hammer of a gun striking a bullet.
In the meanwhile, now that he knew he could keep up with the Moonlit World in a fight, or be able to eventually, he stepped up his physical training.
That was when Metalicana contacted him again.
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Shirou. You’re doing it wrong, you moron.
‘Metalicana,’ Shirou said mentally, ‘I was worried for you. But what do you mean I’m doing it wrong?’
The dragon sent him a mental image of how that particular exercise was supposed to be done.
‘Got it- wait a minute. How do you know something like calisthenics and exercises?’ Shirou asked his dragon tenant.
Metalicana said, it’s a dragon’s intuition. It also allows full-fledged dragons to gather information they otherwise wouldn’t have any way of possessing. I am informed that you now possess a skill called a ‘C-rank Instinct’, though I’m not quite sure if it’s related. That may also have something to do with the way you’ve distanced yourself from that ‘Shinji’ boy lately.
‘What do you mean?’ Shirou asked. He thought he had simply neglected Shinji because he put all his time into Magecraft. No, that didn’t make much sense for him. If he was being hypnotized or mind-controlled somehow-
Worry not - it is not mind control. It is simply your instincts warning you that someone is not trustworthy. That boy may be a lot more malicious than he lets on, Metalicana “said”, unfortunately, the flashes of knowledge can be quite random, and I can only tell that he is most likely a snake in the grass.
-----
The brat was being stubborn over his friend, intent on disregarding Metalicana’s sage advice and his own instincts. Shirou’s nature hadn’t changed as much as the boy seemed to think - still stubborn and literal-minded. Still, he would learn to trust his own intuition, one way or the other.
Metalicana hadn’t expected to be able to speak with his foster son. The Mana in the air was, indeed, thicker than Ethernano had been in Earthland four hundred years in the past, but nothing compared to present Earthland; it shouldn’t have been enough to even let the dragon survive for long.
He suspected it was a combination of Dragons being more powerful in this world, Shirou’s unusually strong stamina -and Od, as he believed was the name of one’s internal magical energy- and, most importantly, something else inside Shirou amplifying the latter and even healing Metalicana.
Unfortunately, the Dragon Intuition only provided vital information, and the definition of ‘vital’ varied in random ways. He knew nothing of the item inside Shirou, other than that it was, in fact, an item and not a creature.
Of course, Shirou’s further increased healing factor only made Metalicana more determined to push the boy’s body to its limits and beyond. ‘Ah yes,’ he thought, ‘I was not known as the most merciless of training instructors among dragons and Dragon Slayers for no reason. The boy will learn to curse my name - again. Hahahahaha!’
-----
A new recruit had come to the Archery club and introduced herself. Her name was Matou Sakura, and she was a freshman.
Her talent with the bow was almost prodigious, but Shirou was worried - that look in her eyes was so… empty. Her smell also was off; it reminded him of rot and decay.
He tried to make conversation, but the girl was closed-off, and gave mainly one-word answers. ‘Is this girl seriously related to Shinji?’ He thought, more than a little crept out.
When he saw Shinji follow her, Shirou decided to go after him to ask what the deal with this Sakura was.
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An angry voice rang out. Shirou was worried, so he checked things out. What he saw ended his friendship with Shinji. Or, rather, what the boy said afterwards and how Shirou reacted did.
Shinji punched Sakura in the cheek, but the girl didn’t react, which only made Shinji angrier. Shirou could barely contain himself, but resolved to think things through.
Then Shinji grabbed Sakura’s breast, and all bets were off.
-----
Shirou was sulking. He truly had thought of Shinji as his friend, even if the guy was a womanizer and had a prickly personality. But what happened, and the way Shinji reacted showed him he should have never befriended that- that worm.
“What the hell are you doing?!” Shirou yelled at Shinji after opening the door fully.
Shinji turned and smirked. He said, “ah, Emiya. What’s up?” Pretending he hadn’t just been touching his sister inappropriately.
“Shinji,” Shirou said, suddenly quiet, “this isn’t the worst you’ve done to her, is it?”
“I don’t see how that’s your business, Emiya,” said Shinji, sealing his fate.
Shirou punched the piece of trash, the way Kiritsugu and Metalicana had instructed him to, nearly shattering Shinji’s jaw.
He had gotten in trouble for violence in school, but it was definitely worth it. Matou Sakura had started living with the Fujimuras (Fuji-nee’s parents) and came by the Emiya residence almost as often as Fuji-nee herself did.
Unfortunately, Shirou simply couldn’t connect with the girl, though she didn’t seem to resent that and still treated him with politeness. She was also a lot more animated nowadays.
She also insisted she should try to take care of him, including cooking for him, but Shirou adamantly refused. Her expression nearly made him falter, but he still didn’t trust the girl, Shinji’s victim or not.