Chapter 2: The New World

The Rusting Sword: Shirou Emiya

A week has passed since the meeting with the goddess. Yes, it seemed that woman really was a goddess of beauty. One that was highly loved by the country they were summoned to...

He could still remember it vividly, being engulfed in a bright light for the second time in a single day. When Shirou's vision recovered, it was greeted with a room with an intricate design, the walls filled with gold and silver, the floored lined with an expensive-looking carpet. Around him and the highschoolers were knights lined with metal armor holding swords and spears. The surrounding reminded him of the memories he's experienced, Saber's memories.

Once again, Shirou entered a state of focus. Reinforcing his body on instinct. With swords ready to be summoned at any moment.

"Ah! Welcome heroes! I am the princess of this country…" A girl exuding elegance had begun to address the group of newly summoned heroes. Exchanging pleasantries and such, he only half listened to it all. Politics, Shirou's mind concluded. Shirou hated politics. Before they separated he had left all the details for missions to Rin, he disliked looking at mask after mask trying to decipher ulterior motives.

Focusing instead on the knights, he began to record all of their weapons into his Reality Marble. Slowly absorbing all the information he could from the sword, he concluded that for now, these knights were friendly enough. As his focus shifted from the knights to the princess, he was greeted with her looking intently at him, as if she was expecting something. An answer, he guessed, but what was the question? Shirou guess he might've overestimated his ability to catch important parts of a conversation. Without Rin's daily rants he was out of practice.

Shirou calm his mind and loosen his tense stance, it was safe for now, facing the princess with the most amicable smile he was capable of and scratching his cheek lightly. He tried to make his next words as respectful as he could, he was rude enough as it is.

"I'm sorry... Princess, I didn't quite catch what you said." Turning his gaze once again at the knights before turning back to her "I was… fascinated by your knights' armor and weapons."

It seemed to have done the trick, as the princess' smile widened a bit, looking proud.

"That's quite alright, Shirou-sama. The temple knights are the pride of our Holy Republic after all. I was simply asking for your name. My name is Almina and I am the princess of the Holy Republic Lenaria, the country that you've all been summoned to." The Princess spoke clearly and with confidence. Bowing slightly with elegance while introducing herself.

"Ah, my name is Emiya Shirou. It seems I'm a summoned 'Hero'" Shirou replied with a bitter smile. Bowing lightly, Shirou hoped reciprocated the princess' welcoming gesture. At the corner of his eye, he noticed Reiji glaring at him with killing intent. Shirou returned the gaze, furrowing his brow at the boy's attitude. Though that only seemed to enrage the boy more. He didn't understand the boy's reaction, yet something about it made him feel peeved. Reiji reminded him of someone, no, it was worst, someone with the arrogance of the King of Heroes but missing the overwhelming presence and power. It made Shirou showed his mischievous side, something he developed to counter a certain Twin-tail magus.

"You got a problem, Boy?" Shirou scoffs out with sarcasm. "You look like I just slept with your mother or something." he continued, getting the exact reaction he wanted from the boy. It still unnerved him how similar he is to Archer. The similarity had only become more and more obvious as time went on. It was one of the reasons Rin had stopped chasing him. She always looked pained whenever she saw his changes, like she had failed something…

Focus.

Reiji entire body was shaking with his hands closed tightly, was it from anger or embarrassment? It didn't matter. The goddess had given a selfish child a gun with no safety. He had no confidence in changing the boy, there's a reason his origin fits him afterall, so Shirou will do what he does best. Right now, he needed to test the gun. As the teenager ran towards him throwing a punch. Shirou's mind calms and slowly take everything in. The kid was strong, with both high mana and physical capabilities, he could even be at servant level, in the eyes of normal humans he was strong, too strong. But, Shirou was never normal was he.

As the attack came close enough. Shirou easily sidestepping the attack, grab hold of the outstretched arm, hooking one of the teenager's leg, then proceeded to slam him down to the floor restraining him in a chokehold. After years of traveling from battlefield to battlefield, even from modern time weaponry, he could still learn something worthwhile, such as close quarters combat from the soldiers' knives. While nowhere near the level of Assassin's or Saber's Swordplay, it was efficient. As the boy continued to struggle with all his might Shirou had to adjust his hold accordingly, lest he accidentally kills him.

"Stop struggling, you're only making it worse." An animalistic growl was the only answer he got as the struggle increased. "I can either stop when you black out, or when you calm down. Either way, it's your choice, Boy." Shirou sneers in return. He didn't know what came over him, but rather than his normal pacifist attitude, the only thing that came out were taunts and jokes. He had already ascertained the kid's power, with his own increased limitations it wasn't much to him. But… but what if it was an ordinary human taunting the teenager, what if it was a crowd of people sneering at him. Would he kill them all? With that power…

"Get off of Reiji!" A sword was placed on Shirou's throat, the knight's sword? Aiming his focus towards the one holding the sword, he was welcomed with the wrathful face of the girl with the black ponytail, Shiroe. Gazing at the well-crafted sword he started to Reinforced himself, on instinct, with this the sword wouldn't be able to harm him, much.

"You should really tell him to calm down instead." Shirou scoffs. "He was the one who was giving me the 'do me' eyes the entire time." The comment only increased the struggle below him. With his enhanced hearing, he could hear the knights sniggering and some of the highschoolers growling.

"Stop doing that!" the Swordswomen yelled out next to him. "You're the one who keeps taunting him! You're the adult here, shouldn't you be acting your age!?" The girl proclaims, in her mind Reiji was always right.

Age doesn't matter when you've been given supernatural powers. He wanted to say, but he doubt they've figured out how much power they were given as of yet. Age, huh. He couldn't even remember his age, so it shouldn't matter should it?

Releasing a long sigh, he made up his mind. Adding a sudden increase of strength to the chokehold, and getting a shave from the Swordswomen. He choked out the kid then move away from the Shiroe in one smooth motion, placing both of his hands up in mock surrender.

For a first impression, it was horrible. Rin would've died from laughter if she saw everything he did. Still, everything went smoothly enough, he managed to measure boy's power. He could then judge the girls' power by comparing theirs with the boy. Reiji was healed by a priestess and woke up in a short amount of time, though no lasting harm was done. Shirou had managed to gain the ire of all the other heroes, the princess, and being at the swordpoint of a teenage girl in less than an hour after being summoned to a new world. Typical.

Everything still continued on. From his observations, it was all planned out already. It was just a simple tour with the exception of the occasional glares he got from the teenagers. From the Princess' explanation, the heroes were going to be trained. It was the best way to fully integrate with a new power, it made sense and it would indeed be useful for normal heroes. They were also introduced with the court mage and the knight captain, their personal trainers. Though they seemed skilled, Shirou's particular magecraft couldn't really be improved with a mage's help even if it was a good one, Rin's already done all she could. And while the Knight captain was indeed highly skilled, Shirou was already experienced enough and with the ability to retrace the skills of his weapons previous owners, it wouldn't be much help.

He would have to train himself in getting used to this new power. Shirou needed to know his new limitations. His Reinforcement required detailed information on both his Mana and his Physical Abilities. Too much and he would explode in a mass of gore, too little and he would just be wasting Mana. The knowledge on the limitations of his oppositions is also required. From the looks of his soon to be trainers, the court mage was decent enough for a skilled mage in the clock tower but they were no Rin, the knight was skilled enough to be one of Saber's knights but they would be nowhere near the high-classed knights let alone the knights of the round table. It wouldn't be enough. If the other "heroes" decided to kill them all…

Focus.

It's possible that they were not the strongest. At least he hoped. His second objective would be information. From what he could tell, Shirou could not only talk and listen to the new language, he could also read and write it. That was good, all he needed was a library. "Summoning", "Heroes", "Demon King", etc. Too many things that are obscure, too many variables.

The tour continued on with little important technicality, nor were there any new interesting information. They also met the King, but Shirou was too focused to remember what happened and it seemed the other heroes and the princess focused on each other too much to remember either (AN: Poor King). Everything continues without issue. It's almost suspicious. Or maybe, maybe it was the calm before the storm… Looking at the group of teenagers flirt and argue with each other, he wanted to laugh at his own paranoia. Living as a mercenary and studying under Rin, it was a hell of a way to get rid of his naivete...

He had excused himself from the feast early, being escorted by a maid to his personal room. The food was decent enough… But, looking at those teenagers brought back his memories in full. It was a bitter pill to swallow and… he didn't want to regret the path he chose. But, when the memories of everyone eating at that dinner table resurfaced. The memories of him cooking next to Sakura in a comfortable silence, of Rin teasing the senpai/kouhai duo, of Taiga barging in demanding food, of Saber seating regally full of elegance and charisma that is until her stomach growls strongly and her face sports a healthy flush. It was the memories of the people he either left behind or was unable to protect. It was a regret that would haunt him, Shirou slowly took out a red jeweled eyeing it intently. Would it be better to destroy it, he thought. It was the only physical object he had left to remember them, the only remaining anchor.

Noticing the maid in front of him stop. He looked up to see a nervous young girl with a flushed face, stuttering while attempting to point out his room. While Shirou was reminiscing, he never noticed the maid looking back at him seeing his tender expression nor did he noticed the gazes of the many servants that had passed by. Ignorant to it all, Shirou had simply smiled and offered a small word of thanks before entering his room alone. Organizing his thoughts, he started to search the room, after his nose has confirmed the absence of magic of spies, he began to work on his first objective. He began to recreate his crude attempt at a Bounded Field.

"Trace on."

Projecting the mystic codes that Rin had helped him craft. He began to stab them on the grounds and the wall while keeping in mind to hide them from plain sight. After the 9th dagger was stabbed into the fireplace, a wave of mana made itself known to his presence. A sign that the Field was a success. After Rin's countless attempts at teaching Shirou to create one had failed. She had opted for second best, using his tracing as a basis, they created a dagger that could create a basic Bounded Field, preventing the mana inside to be detected, alerting the creator of intruders, and slightly obstructing the mana of the intruders in case of combat. It was basic for Rin at least.

Satisfy with his work, Shirou began to sit on the floor with crossed legs. Closing his eyes he began to focus on the weapons inside his Reality Marble.

"Trace on."

Judging the concept of creation.

Hypothesizing the basic structure.

Duplicating the composition material.

Imitating the skill of its making.

Sympathizing with the experience of its growth.

Reproducing the accumulated years.

Excelling every manufacturing process.

It was a process that was second nature to him, it took barely a fraction of a second and his hand was greeted with a familiar weight.

Kanshou, one of the "married swords" the swords that would always attract one another.

But, opening his eyes it was not the result that he expected. While the sword looked the same and felt the same. It was more powerful. It was not degraded at all. No. It was more powerful.

Taking a moment to observe the black sword. He finally noticed the amount of Mana required to trace it. It was minuscule, even less than the amount needed for a nameless ordinary sword. Was it because of the quality of his Mana? Was it the lack of Gaia and Alaya restricting magecraft? Or was it related to the "unique power" that self-proclaim goddess mentioned? It hurts his brain just thinking of all the possibilities, which one was the case? Or was it everything combined?

"Sigh~" combing a hair through his snow white hair and gazing at the night sky with his silver eyes. Shirou made a wistful smile, he wished Rin was here.

"This is going to be a long night." With that, he once again began to fully focus on his magecraft

That was how he spent the first day in this new world. Time still went on uninterrupted, Shirou was able to accomplish his 2 objectives without any complications. The training was uneventful and he purposely only showed enough power to be equal to the strongest of the heroes. He wanted to travel alone, it wouldn't do anyone good with how much they hated him. If he was too weak then he would have to follow them, if he was too strong then they would have to follow him. So in the eyes of others, Reiji and Shirou were equals. Though the boy himself would say differently.

They had also been given titles, to complement their own strengths:

The Hero of Light, Reiji

The Sword Maiden, Shiroe

The Black Haired Sage, Chiyuki

The Exploding Princess, Kyouka

...

The Hero of Wrought Iron, Emiya

Today was the 7th day after being kidnapped by a goddess, the day that they would start their journey towards the Kingdom of Darkness. Even though he had to leave the innocent people from that war to fend for themselves. This was a war between demons and humans, there would be millions of casualties. While he didn't trust the biased information from the books he read, it was enough.

It didn't matter which side was good or bad. Shirou was never good with politics. All he needed to do, all he can do, was sacrifice the few to save the many.

AN: so uhhh, seems like my writing is just getting worse and worse.

Honestly, if anyone is still reading this thing, I'd really appreciate if you review and point out flaws or suggestion for me.

I'm not the best at thinking ahead and planning things out.

So I might miss things and the story won't make sense, sorry.

Let's see, details, details.

1: This won't be a harem.

2: I don't really think I can keep writing it without major skips after they fully leave for the demon land (again, this is my daydreaming, not a fully conceived story)

3: uhhhh, idk, ah! I'm not 100% into the technicalities of the Dark knight novel, could barely remember all their names. So I'll probably turn a few(alot) of things into my favor. ;D

Welp, thanks for reading my horrible writting. Please review so I don't have to think too much about fixing the mistakes XD