Matou Shinji and the Master of Death

A Harry Potter / Fate Stay Night Story

Disclaimer: Though I wish it were otherwise, I do not own or in any way, shape or form hold a legal or moral claim to elements of either the Nasuverse, the Potterverse, or other works I may reference in the course of this story.

Summary: In the wake of Dumbledore's death, Lucius Malfoy has become the most powerful man in Magical Britain. Hogwarts undergoes reforms under the rule of Headmaster Flitwick. Arthur Weasley struggles to fit in as the new Charms Professor. Severus Snape learns that some wrongs cannot be set right. And driven by eerie dreams bleeding into wakefulness, Matou Shinji starts down a dark and dangerous path.

Chapter 1. A Leap of Faith

Through the chill night air he ran, black robes billowing behind him as his feet pounded the ground, his legs – and lungs – and heart – all crying out for mercy, for him to stop.

But he could not.

Even now, his pursuers were gaining, their howls and snarls and bays coming closer despite his reckless pace, their very presence reeking of wrongness, wounds in the world that had not been – could not be – healed. He'd discovered them in the stronghold of his enemies – but he'd been discovered in turn, for stealth meant nothing to those who were not blinded by patterns and false seemings, but could sense the world as it truly was.

Magic – well, most magic – fed them.

Emotion strengthened them – fear, anger, hatred…despair – and more.

And despite his attempts to dampen his revulsion, he hadn't fully succeeded. Not when the very ground shook beneath his feet, the cavern around him collapsing as he ran. His wand was in his hand, but no Freezing Charm would stabilize the ground beneath him.

Not that he had time – or breath – to cast such a spell.

They were gaining.

But then, that was natural. After all, this corrupted temple to things long past, lit by eldritch fires that had burned long before the age of man, was their home, and he was an intruder. Humans liked to forget that there were beings on this earth long before they arose, beings that they had intermingled with, learned from, fought – beings that in some cases lingered on in their genetic memories and the blueprint of their souls.

Sch! Sch! Sch! Scht!

The earth was cracking beneath his feet, with molten darkness seeping up, whispering seductive promises of power to distract and waylay him. But he dared not stop, knowing the danger of being consumed, of the things behind him.

He could not even call them creatures, really, even if they took on familiar shapes, like wolves, birds of prey, or vast worms which burrowed through the earth, things of shadow and night which hungered only to destroy.

'The exit…!'

Yes. There it was.

Ahead of him hung a silver glow that promised some semblance of salvation if he could only reach it, but there was so little time. Everything was coming undone, falling to pieces.

No.

With his heart pounding in his chest from the exertion and the scrabbling of claws on stone echoing behind him, he poured every last bit of energy into his legs, desperate for just a little more speed, a little more distance, before everything fell apart.

There!

With a surge of exultation, he burst into the open – only to skid to a halt as he saw that he was running straight towards the edge of a precipice, below which there was only darkness. The watery moon hung high in the sky above, with a shooting star flashing down into the abyss below.

And behind him, there was a crash, followed by a sibilant hissing, with the hooded figure barely lunging out of the way of a great worm that burst from the ground, rows and rows of vicious teeth dripping with corrosive darkness.

Darkness behind and darkness before.

The decision was no decision at all. With his instincts screaming at him to run, he took a breath, put one foot in front of the other, and took a leap of faith.

Sometime later, Matou Shinji awakened into a world of hurt, with nothing spared or left untouched. His ears were ringing, his vision was a blur, and every inch of his body hummed with pain. And around him, the world was spinning…rocking…swaying back and forth at least.

'Feathers, falling into darkness…'

That was the last thing he remembered before he'd lost consciousness, but how…?

"You are awake then, Matou?" a voice spoke from behind him. A…female voice? "Good."

"…ugh…"

He was standing, or at least he thought he was standing, but he couldn't feel the ground beneath his feet, only something tight around his ankles and wrists, digging painfully into his skin through the fabric of his pants.

"Lower," the voice commanded. "Gently."

And whatever ensnared him complied, lowering him to the ground, where his vision began to clear.

"You do not seem excessively injured," the voice said again, as a bespectacled young woman loomed over him, her black hair falling like silk about her shoulders, her hands glowing with warm amber light.

Sajyou Ayaka, apprentice to the five-tailed kitsune Kaiduka Shiosai.

His current training partner, since he had chosen to focus on his yin affinity – the part of him more aligned with destruction and decay – as opposed to elemental ofuda in general. Given some of the difficulties he'd experienced when attempting to use water and earth, and the relative ease with which he was able to conjure up darkness, he thought gaining a semblance of control over this power might be advisable, so it wouldn't bleed into everything else he did.

The kitsune had agreed, and had tasked his less-than-amused apprentice with training the boy in these affinities. Sajyou Ayaka hadn't made any verbal protest, acquiescing to her Master's request as she had so many others, but there was something off about actions, something stiff. Granted, she did work with him in understanding and harnessing his natural affinities, and he had learned much…but it seemed this was the first time she'd had to teach someone, or to duel with someone less skilled, as she hadn't held back at all.

"…you're a Witch, right?" he'd asked, wanting to be sure, since he hadn't ever seen her with a wand, unlike most of the school's students.

"Not in the way you mean, but yes," the other had answered enigmatically.

And then the duel had begun, with Matou Shinji quickly finding himself overwhelmed by the viciousness of her onslaught.

Wave after wave of feather-like darts, shredding his ofuda, blocking his spells, and rendering any resistance futile.

It wasn't like how Tomas fought, as the puppet was always disciplined, if more than a little contemptuous of the skill of others. It wasn't how Kaiduka fought, obviously holding back against an inferior opponent, displaying a skill level just a hair above what a given trainee was capable of so they could think and adapt, so that victory was never quite impossible.

It wasn't even how Quirinus Quirrell fought.

The other had injured him far worse with a single word, but that had been very, very deliberate, and there was nothing deliberate about Ayaka's actions. The bespectacled girl's spells always seemed tinged with desperation, as if every battle was a matter of life and death, regardless of who she faced.

It was as if she wasn't fighting him, but something else she saw in his place, something so dangerous that even the slightest hint of resistance needed to be crushed.

"…it's a good thing you're good at healing, or I'd be dead by now," Shinji croaked, though he frowned as the girl flinched at his words. "No, it's not your fault. I was distracted."

'…well, this time.'

But that part went unsaid, even if it was true.

After being blasted into the ground over and over again by her feathers, he'd begun to employ the darkness against her. At first, he'd tried obscuring her sight with the dark cloud he'd used against the troll, but she'd just increased the volume of projectiles she sent forth. He'd tried bringing darkness to the room and using his ofuda to stop or blind her, but these were consumed by a deeper darkness.

Finally he'd learned to shape the darkness into a shield that could stand a wave of her projectiles, giving him enough time to move and counterattack…

…or at least he'd thought so until he'd been yanked into the air by vines that had sprung up under him, with other vines unfurling and pulling his body taut, just before a next wave hit, knocking him mercifully unconscious - but not before pain seared through every part of his form.

"…you don't just have a yin affinity, do you?" he asked, noting both her glowing hands and the vines which had bound him, now retracting. "Growth and healing…that's yang."

The other's lips tightened as she finished her ministrations and stepped away from the boy.

"…yes," she admitted reluctantly. "It is."

"Rare," Shinji commented, his body groaning in protest as he brushed himself off and rose to his feet, retrieving his wand from where it had fallen on the ground. "Most people are one or the other, your Master said."

"Most," was the eloquent response.

It was hard to get much out of Sajyou Ayaka, even at the best of times. She did her duty, sparred him, gave basic instruction and so forth, but there was little about her that seemed human at all, much unlike Tomas, who definitely had a sense of life to him despite his present inhuman nature.

Though speaking of inhuman beings…

"Where is Kaiduka anyway?" Shinji hadn't seen the kitsune in days, and the self-proclaimed guardian of the City Below generally checked in on his apprentice once a day, normally, so not seeing him at all was rather odd.

"Okushiri Island, Hokkaidō," the bespectacled girl answered. "Helping with relief efforts in the wake of the tsunami."

The tsunami that had struck the north in the wake of a massive earthquake (7.7 in magnitude) on July 12, less than a week after the Tanabata celebration, dealing massive damage to Okushiri island and its surrounds.

"Oh," Shinji said. It never would have occurred to him that the kitsune would have an interest in humanitarian work. Neither magecraft nor the Witchcraft of Hogwarts taught people to be anything but selfish, after all. Then again, there was a rather large population of foxes in Hokkaidō. Indeed, one of the two species of foxes native to Japan lived only on that northern island. "…helping humans or youkai?"

There was a moment of silence, and Shinji half wondered if the fox's apprentice would answer at all, but answer she did.

"Whoever he can," she replied at last. "There may be some new youkai in the city soon."

"Surprising."

"Not for a servant of Inari."

Later that day, Matou Shinji found himself working with his Master as she instructed him in Ancient Runes, a topic in which Aozaki Touko was reasonably well versed, given that she was a visiting Professor at Mahoutokoro. Since he had chosen Ancient Runes and Arithmancy as his electives in the coming year, he thought he might as well get a head start on one of the subjects.

That, spending more time with his Master could only be a good thing.

She'd been kind enough to allow him to go to Fuyuki during the winter holidays, instead of following her to Mifune while she undertook the design of an apartment building, but if he didn't show more appreciation and interest in her Craft, he feared she would lose interest.

And so far, what he learned had been quite interesting.

The fact that each rune had power of its own, and could be placed into arrays much like ofuda. That runes could be used to strike from a distance by those who know what they were doing, and could be used to raise bounded fields or other such things.

That the faded scar on Harry's forehead, left behind by the Killing Curse so many years ago was Sowilo – the rune of fire – symbolizing the victory of light over darkness, good over evil. That the one on Harry's chest, after the defeat of Quirrell, was Tiwaz, the rune of justice – the sacrifice of the individual for the good of the whole.

And that runes were one of the disciplines that could be used by Witches or Magi for the purposes of enchanting or creating, albeit to somewhat different practical effects, even if the Tower found them to be of little value, since they were a fairly well known mystery, with no secrets left to discover, and practitioners of Witchcraft rarely had the prana to use them to their full capacity.

"So both can use them?"

"Correct, Matou," the magus replied, "because runes have power and purpose independent of the practitioner. As long as you have prana, you can use them."

Ah…

"So that's how you can teach at Mahoutokoro, even though you're not a Witch," Shinji said in realization. He'd been curious about that for quite some time now, but hadn't really found a good opportunity to ask.

"Indeed," the magus commented dryly. "It provides a nice supplement to my retainer from Atlas." She smiled very slightly as she regarded the boy. "Incidentally, Atlas does find runecaft useful on occasion, so it may be worth pursuing in conjunction with your other arts."

"I-I see!"

It was almost comical to her how her provisional apprentice's face seemed to light up at this. He might be skilled at deception and manipulation for his age, but she had many years of experience on him, and had once been so young herself, though it didn't feel like it.

"In any case, Matou, Hijiri informed me that you intend to find a familiar this summer," Aozaki Touko continued, with the boy nodding solemnly as she raised an eyebrow. "And Tomas mentioned that you've been avoiding him."

"…well, he did attack me with a Killing Curse last time we met, Master," Shinji commented, his lips twisting into a frown. "I wish to build up my skills before I face him again."

"Hm. Not unwise, I suppose," she allowed. "As to seeking a familiar, I approve. Be aware, however, that unlike your colleagues who simply buy a familiar from a store, you will likely need to prove yourself to whatever it is you seek to bind – and that whatever contract you finalize is likely to be provisional."

"…I had gathered that much," Shinji admitted, though he could resist a surge of curiosity. "Master, what of your familiar?"

"Oh? The Director of Atlas mentioned him, did she?" Touko questioned, withdrawing one of her cigarettes and lighting it.

"…she did, Master. She mentioned that in all your adventures, he was undefeated."

There was silence for a moment, stretching on into a minute and perhaps yet more, as Touko took a long, long drag.

"All except one," she commented, with her face going still as stone. "After which he wasn't perfect anymore, because he knew pain – because he knew defeat. And to think it was a human who defeated him…"

"A mage?"

"No, not a mage. Just a teenage boy."

Her words were cold, but distant, as if looking far into the past, onto a scene Matou Shinji was not privy to. There was history there, Shinji could tell, but he also knew that it would probably be unwise for him to do so at this time.

So he waited as his Master cycled through her state of reverie, before returning to the present.

"Apologies."

"None needed, Master," he said with a bow. Something else came to mind though, a note that he'd received from his grandfather regarding the epic that he had sent the man.

'Not Wyrms. Worms. Not the Church. Templars.'

A note which chilled him…as did it mean that what was said in that story was mostly true? That his grandfather had been thought of as a Dark Lord and had been driven out of Russia by a grand alliance the likes of which had never been seen again?

…that Matou Zouken had once tried to rid the world of all suffering and evil?

The last bit was perhaps the most jarring of all, given that that wasn't what magi did. And well, it really didn't match his image of the man who had thrown his mother to a pit of worms or who had himself become a living assemblage of worms.

And just what did the Templars have to do with it? Did that mean that they would one day come after him as they had his grandfather?

The thought was worrying, to say the least.

"I trust your friend will arriving soon, Matou?" Touko asked after some time.

"Yes, Master. Within two weeks."

"Portkey, I take it?"

"Indeed."

"Convenient things, those. But I prefer portals and planes."

"Oh?"

"With those, I can see where I am going," Aozaki Touko explained. "With a portkey, who knows where the destination might actually be, or what the situation will be like when I arrive. For instance, what if someone hijacks a portkey or has sabotaged it?"

"…that is a good point."

An uncomfortably good point, in fact, given that if he were a Dark Wizard, one of the easiest ways to cause havoc would be to meddle with the transportation system that people implicitly trusted.

"In any case, Matou, we had best make the most of your time. You've made good progress these past few weeks, but we do not have much longer before you seek your fortune."

"Yes, Master."

That night, as on many nights before, Matou Shinji dreamed of shadows and blood, of worms and wolves, of shooting stars and leaps of faith.