Muramasa's Legacy

Kiritsugu Emiya did not suspect that the lone survivor from Fuyuki great fire is a descendant of the legendary swordsmith. Grasping this one last chance to change the future, he hid the precious relic within the boy's body… Soon Shirou will participate in the next Grail War and face his family's oldest legacy. Will his blade cut through fate itself?

Prologue: The Heart of the Sword

Kiritsugu smiled bitterly through tears. Along with the boy's hand, he grasped the last one tiny bit of hope. Broken as he was, he still dared to believe...

"To find someone like him in this cursed place…"

Kiritsugu was not actually able to think, when he blindly wandered through the ruins in search of survivors. Like a walking dead among wraiths, he was willing to cling to something – anything! – that would not let him break completely.

And there he was, a frightened child, trapped in the rubble. The boy's red hair was covered with dust, his empty eyes staring at the overwhelmingly dark sky. His little hand reached out to silently ask for help.

Emiya grasped those little fingers, happy that at least one person still lived in this raging inferno of death and despair…

And then the relic, which was hanging, almost forgotten, at Kiritsugu's belt, responded to this random child. It resonated with a weird kind of energy, as if the both of them were walking the same path of magic.

A sword can react like that only to a creator of swords.

Frowning in disbelief, Kiritsugu took a moment to examine the boy's aura and circuits. He had already seen – or rather felt – magic of this special kind. Actually, large amounts of it were still present in the air, as the main cause of destruction around.

"Could it be…?"

Maybe it supposed to end like this? After all he had seen so far, Kiritsugu was more eager to believe in a cruel twist of fate or a bigger plan, than in simple accidents.

Emiya unsheathed the sword. It was not only a stunningly beautiful, ancient blade, and a precious relic, but also a core that had let him summon a powerful familiar for the Grail War. A Servant, who had vanished quietly after performing his lat task, not so long ago.

When the Third War had ended with failure, the Three Founding Families realized there's something wrong with the Grail. They did not want to risk summoning Heroic Spirits as Servants anymore, afraid that they can free themselves from their control. But they did not want to abandon the Grail either, so they decided to modify the summoning system.

To achieve it, they needed new kind of relics, which should be relatively easy to obtain in this Far East land, away from the hostile eye of the Church. But the perfect items should also be surrounded by legends to give them power. The choice seemed obvious at the moment: Japanese swords, sacred weapons that held within the souls of their former owners, met all the requirements.

So the mages merged the Servant summoning system with an old art of local sages - the ability to manifest the Heart of Things. Materializing a Tokuen Danshi, the sword warrior-deity, and fitting one into a class container, turned out to be easier than expected.

The mages were pleased. They wasted less energy on maintaining this new type of Servants, but still enough to activate the Third Magic in the end. Also, the entire process seemed safer, both for the surroundings and the participants.

It was much better than that, actually. Kiritsugu had witnessed it personally. His own magnificent Saber was also quite reliable and easy to control. The Mage Killer could say that everything was going smoothly and according to plan during the Fourth Grail War…

Until that cursed Servant of Tokiomi Tohsaka went rogue.

"He and the priest…"

Emiya suspected that those two won't give up their twisted wishes so easily and will do anything to resume the brutally disturbed war. To secure their future win, they would probably try to find and destroy other powerful relics.

But the former Einzbern Master won't give them satisfaction of claiming HIS sword. He didn't really care about the blade's legend or worth. Even the fact that Saber did well, loyal to the very end, was a secondary matter right now.

For a long moment, Emiya only kept staring intensively at the weapon in his hand, like he was trying to break through the barrier of time and space and get all the answers he so desperately needed.

Was he allowed to bind destiny of this innocent boy to the ancient soul residing in this blade?

If those two cooperate, maybe even fate can be changed?

Kiritsugu smiled bitterly through tears. Along with the boy's hand, he grasped the last one tiny bit of hope. Broken as he was, he still dared to believe… No, he wished that…

With a look of determination in his eyes, Emiya decided to act - to challenge the machinations of fate one more time. After all, there was no better place for the sword than under care of a descendant of such legendary swordsmith.

Willingly or not, one day they will have to find their own answers.

Ten years later

In the underground workshop of her mansion, the young head of the Tohsaka family entered the summoning circle.

"Everything's ready. My mana is at its peak now. I'll get a Saber for sure!"

Rin was really optimistic about this summoning. After all the troubles she went through to obtain that particular sword, made in the Heian era, immortalized in poems and desired by many for its unparallel beauty, she hoped to draw a powerful card in the Grail game. Who could possibly rival her chosen sword, in all its awesomeness?

Of course, that legendary Mikazuki Munechika was older (not much, though!), but the specialists agreed that her relic is superior, from the point of view of perfection of forging technique and condition.

Still, the fame gives boosts to a Servant, right?

Shaking off such ridiculous thoughts, Tohsaka took a deep breath and placed the blade in the centre of the old summoning circle. She's been told that Touken Danshi, even in form of Servants, don't need such kind of drawings or the old ritual formula, but she felt the need to recite it anyway. It was like a tribute to her father, and their ancestors before him, who gave up everything to preserve the noble traditions of magecraft.

"For the elements, silver and iron…"

First the lines inside the circle started emitting a pure white light, stronger with every word added to the spell.

"Fill, fill, fill, fill, fill…"

Then the cherry petals appeared out of nowhere – a clear sign that the ancient magic of saniwas' activated as well.

"My will creates your body…"

This was it! Now the sword disappeared from Rin's sight, completely covered in twirling petals.

"…and your sword creates my destiny."

The petals went higher and higher into the air, and the pressure in the room became unbearable. It was a proof that something insanely powerful is near!

"Come forth from the circle of binding!"

And when the hurricane of magical energy and cherry petals finally fell down...

"O-ho, ho, that certainly was surprising!"

"Huh?" Rin blinked, not believing her own eyes.

Her Servant was surprisingly slim, white-haired and clearly attached to a crane motif in its every possible form. Even his white clothes, similar to an outfit worn probably by a samurai from very ancient times, made him look like a shapeshifting bird, which decided to visit the realm of men for a while.

Even after noticing all those details, Rin still hesitated, not sure if the summoning went as planned.

No, the same crane motif from the blade's tsuba was now attached to the man's clothes, in form of a golden buckle, so there was no place for mistakes. This guy WAS the manifestation of the sword's heart. He would probably look elegant, noble even, if not the fact that he was laying flat on the floor, with his face down and his clothes wrapped around him like a wet towel.

After a moment of tense silence, the freshly summoned Servant looked up at Tohsaka, and chuckled, ignoring his not very fortunate position. Even his eyes, mysteriously golden, were smiling to the girl.

"Yo! I can see that you, too, are surprised, my new Master!" Another disturbingly cheerful chuckle. "You know, there is a reason why saniwas put the sword upright into the ground before manifesting its heart. No one likes to land with a face to the ground… That glowing circle on the floor did not help either."

"Oh." Tohsaka frowned, as always trying to hide her embarrassment behind a scary face. "But the summoning worked fine, I guess?"

"It did." The man stood up at last and brushed off the dust from his sleeves. They, indeed, resembled crane's wings, both in shape and color. "You've just robbed me of my dramatic entrance, that's all."

"You've been summoned to fight in the Grail War, not to impress anyone."

He sighed, pretending to feel heartbroken.

"You don't look like someone who avoids a bit of thrill in life, Master, so what's with such boring welcoming lines?"

"This is not about 'thrill' – it's about trust." Rin winced, more and more annoyed with every passing minute. "And I can't trust you not knowing who exactly are you."

"Oh, forgive me, I thought it was obvious." His 'wings' spread behind him, when he kneeled before the girl. "Servant Rider, Tsurumaru Kuninaga, has answered your calling. Let's hope to surprise everyone together!"

"So you're not a Saber." Tohsaka sounded disappointed, hurt even, like she has just lost all hope. The fact, that she ignored such warm declaration of obedience, was not very nice or promising for their further cooperation.

The man did not seem to care – or he just tried to cheer his new Master up.

"Aren't we all Sabers? I mean, in a matter of speaking…" His smile was so charming and contagious, that Rin couldn't remain angry for long. "We're - literally - swords. And Servant classes are just containers." Rider shrugged, probably to his own thoughts. "Don't worry, Master, I'm an experienced warrior, you can leave the fighting to me."

Tohsaka did not answer, only stared at this strange guy. It was hard to tell, if she's still doubting his worth or just remains lost in thoughts.

But Tsurumaru wasn't the one to give up easily or left his curiosity unfed. He tilted his head and asked nonchalantly:

"You just can't take me seriously, after seeing me wiping the floor with my face, can you?"

"I will, after you prove your worth in battle."

He sighed overdramatically.

"As you wish. Have I at least deserved to know my Master's name?"

"Rin. Rin Tohsaka," the girl replied reluctantly, cursing her own lack of manners. She was tired and excited, yes, but not the point of forgetting how a Tohsaka magus should behave! And letting her own not-even-a-Saber-class Servant embarrass her was just unforgivable!

Not waiting for his answer, the girl turned around and left the underground workshop. Although excited and desperate to know everything about her new familiar, she decided to rest and calm down first, to avoid acting like a stupid teenager in the presence of an ancient soul.

Rin didn't order Rider to follow her upstairs, but Tsurumaru did it anyway.

"Hmmm." - She heard him humming suspiciously behind her back and frowned, not knowing what to think about it.

"What, you're disappointed with your new Master or something?" – she asked, a little bit too provocative, maybe.

"Not at all. I have no reason to. Unless you robbed a grave or a temple to get me, like it happened countless times in history..."

Even Rin's ears went red after hearing that, and she was happy that Rider cannot see her face at the moment. It was not like that! She only opened the abandoned box... Mages do much worse things for less important reasons!

Feeling the tension in the air, they both remained silent almost all the way up the stairs.

"Where are we going, Master Rin?" – Tsurumaru asked eventually, leaning on the handrail.

"Not WE. I am going to rest in my room." She turned around and accusingly poked Rider in the chest. He looked suspiciously happy about it. "It's your fault for draining my mana, so you stay here and let me sleep as long as I need to."

"And what should I do until then?"

"I don't know." Rin rolled her eyes. "You're not a baby, are you? You can take care of yourself. Your task is to guard me, but you can also take a look around, clean up the house or something…"

A dangerous sparkle flickered in Rider's golden eyes, making Tohsaka alert for no particular reason.

"Understood, Master Rin! You will be surprised in the morning, I can guarantee that!"

The girl almost froze at this last declaration, realizing that she rather wouldn't like to know what he meant.

NOTE: by a 'deity' I meant Japanese term 'kami', which relates to deity-like spirits of things, places and such. A 'kami' is something less than a Western god, but also more than a simple spirit of something. Anyway, they are higher in hierarchy of creatures than humans.

So… Muramasa Shirou is awesome, don't You think? I just couldn't ignore the fact that there are Muramasa's swords running around also in "Touken Ranbu", and it just clicked together. I would like to know what You think.

You don't have to know "Touken Ranbu" to enjoy this story. At least I hope so. I also plan to add Servants' profiles later, to make things as clear as possible. This is also my first crossover, so please don't eat me just yet.

Of course, characters and all belong to their respective owners – and my bad writing is mine alone.