… It also helped that they were very willing to buy the firearms and ammo he still had on him left over from the 4th war. After the Einzberns cut him off shortly after his betrayal he was left with only the small accounts that he had always hidden "just in case" which was enough to sustain the two and pay the taxes but he did want some extra cash to blow every now and then. He still kept his Thompson Contender though… leaving a mystic code in the hands of the Yakuza? He was dying soon… but he wasn't stupid.
"You and me both kid…" He laughed. "Do you have anything planned for today?"
"Not really." The boy shrugged. "I was just planning on coming back home and doing some more magic studying. I think I'm getting the hang of my circuits now. It's getting easier for me to focus through getting my circuit to work…"
Kiritsugu paused for a moment, letting the boy's words ring through his mind for several seconds. His dream was already fading away… however what Shirou said had caused one part to stick out barely… "Shirou…" The man asked carefully. "Tell me again how you are using your circuits."
The boy looked at him curiously. "Huh? I just calm down, take deep breaths and make my circuit. It hurts a lot… like sticking something hot and long down my back… but like I said I'm getting used to it now. I'm not going to complain…" He blinked before edging away from his father. "O-old man? Did I do something wrong?"
Kiritsugu said nothing as he thought about his dream… or what he could remember of it anyways. The scenes that were brought up were far too familiar to be a mere coincidence… and it terrified him to be perfectly honest. Another war… another massacre… despite his efforts to put an end to it all it would still continue.
… His dreams… they were both a blessing and a curse to the man because he knew he would die soon. He was virtually powerless…
"Dad?" Shirou asked again. "Why are you mad? I promise I won't do whatever it is again… please…"
Kiritsugu took a moment to try and understand what the boy was talking about when he realized the feeling in his face. He could feel it being hard… emotionless…
He was back in the persona he had thought he had discarded when he had rescued the boy those years ago…
Calming himself down, the cursed man relaxed his features. It wouldn't do to get excited just yet. From what he remembered from the dreams, he… no, Shirou still had time to prepare for everything. "Sorry… I was just… beating myself up for missing something like this." He laughed. "I'm glad I caught it though. Before you go to school Shirou, let's just quickly go over how you are supposed to access your circuit..."
o. o. o.
Some hours later:
Kiritsugu was sitting in his living room making a list of anything he could remember from the dream he had. Despite how much he knew he had seen, the list was rather pathetic. It was a shame that Shirou was only now barely starting to get the hang of using magic... he was fairly certain he remembered a spell that could be used to recall information from dreams. He shook his head... no, even then to learn even one spell for most magai took at least a few weeks to do, and he was fairly certain that a dream watching spell would not make it to his curriculum even if he was a halfway compitent teacher, which he was not.
So far he could only mostly remember basic things, such as the vague color of some of the servants he saw, the color of their weapons, some of their voices, etc etc.
However there were other things he remembered that were unnervingly specific. For example, he knew that the archer from his war was still alive and would most likely play some role in the next war... the thought of the servant's presence unnerved him. The monster possessed far more noble phantasms, relics and weapons that symbolized and represented the power of heroic spirits, than anyone thought possible.
He also knew that Shiro was definately involved in the oncoming war. The boy's red hair and stubborn personality was impossible to mistaken for anything else. Thank the root he had actually managed to fix his bad habit of turning his nerves into makeshift circuits, otherwise the only way the boy would manage to survive the oncoming battles was either by pure dumb luck or if heaven forbid one of the other masters took pity on him... which seems to have happened according to his dreams...
Ugh... this entire debacle was already giving him a headache. Prophesies and visions of the future weren't unheard of. Far from it... however they either tended to occur within people that happened to have magic circuits that were designed to tap into the Root, or when the individual established some sort of bond with a significantly powerful magical source. Random flashes on the other hand, were borderline impossible, especially if he was watching multiple possibilities of the same event... or at least he assumed so. Kiritsugu was not like most magus in the fact that he focused his studies more on the application of magic to get things done, treating it more like a tool where as most prefered to take on a scholerly approach and immerse themselves in research and try to learn and discover as much as possible... by almost any means possible.
He shook his head to clear his thoughts. It was pointless to think about other magi now. The only ones he had had a decent relationship with were the Einzberns... and he blew up that bond when he blew up the grail. If he did show up at the clock tower in England, he would need a damned good excuse for being there. Asians were not well recieved and that went double for freelancers, of which he once was practically the king of at one point. Unless he kept his visit low key, he would no doubt encounter some relative of a magi that he had killed back in his prime...
Though if he negotiated some kind of deal... he did have some tricks for breaking through bounded fields and combat tactics that he was fairly certain at least SOME of the pretencious pricks in the organization might be interested enough in to cut him some slack. He had enough experience with the Einzberns when he was married to Iri for 9 years to talk the noble talk at least.
Looking once more at the list, he glanced down at the last thing he had manged to deduce from his dreams. Shirou was constantly fighting in them... however the method he fought was almost always the same. Somehow, the boy had managed to come up with a form of projection that far surpassed everything that he thought was possible. He seemed to be at his strongest when fighting with two swords... the thinks... or maybe it was that red arm... regardless, projection was not as useless as it had originally seemed to the boy.
After what seemed like hours to the man mulling over everything he had written down, Kiritsugu put down his pen and slowly took the paper to his room. His old japanese style home was fairly large, however he took his time moving from one room to the other enjoying the spring afternoon to the fullest. Should he have more dreams, he would want it nearby to write more information as soon as possible. How many timelines was he watching, what were the abilities of the fighters, how had archer lasted so long... these were questions he prayed he could answer soon, not for himself but for Shirou. For the boy he had rescued from what seemed like hell itself who did not know that he was in the care of the man that was responsible for destroying his past life. For the boy who did not know what trials and horrors were waiting for him many years from now...
Kiritsugu's eyes narrowed once more, donning a face he had once more assumed he had forgotten the shape of. He had found salvation in this boy and he had rescued him. The man was powerless, and he would die long before the oncoming events... however that did not mean he would not do anything to affect those events.
Very slowly, the Magus Killer began to formulate his next steps...
o. o. o.
A/N:
So here's my new story. Sorry for those who were dissapointed in the lack of Oogakari and chaos that pervades my first and succesful story Y.A.W.A.L.E.H., but honestly this one seemed to fit better in my mind then the other Fate story with an Oogakari presence. I might slip in a joke or two for laughs, but for the most part this fic is going to be mostly dark, serious, and fit tones similar to the visual novel.
For those of you who are curious, I am planning on using this fic to kill time between chapters of YAWALEH and it's currently unnamed sequal so that the Naruto manga can give me more info on some characters/plots/pieces of info that I deem too important to just wing at that time.
For those of you that don't know of my previous story, read it if you are in need of a Naruto fic that's decently written, really fucking long, has epic fights, great humor, and overpowered O.C.'s... if you can believe it exists. The review count kinda supports the claim to a certain extent.
As for this story, I will be spending a fair amount of time with Kiritsugu and following how he deals with his new dreams before following up with the time between his death and the start of the war. Characters from Fate/zero will be making appearances and certain actions will be taken during this time. I hope you readers will enjoy what I will do here. Please let me know if it seems like I'm dumping too much information at times. I know how hard it is dealing with Natsuverse physics at times...