Deep within the city of Fuyuki City or more specifically the Japanese residential area Miyamachou a great battle was being waged between two individual's that far surpassed the limits of human ability, this battle was taking place in the backyard of the Emiya household owned by the 17-year-old high school student Shirou Emiya. If anyone other then the two combatants were to stumble across the brawl then they would think that they were looking at a scene from either a high budget action movie or an anime, though then again they would realistically stunt there in shock as their minds tried to process what they were witnessing.

     One of the combatants was a purple haired beauty wearing a black skintight outfit wielding twin nails attached to a chain that was connected to each over, however the strange bit was that she had a full blindfold over her eyes and yet she continued to stab, kick and move as if she could see just fine despite the blindfold covering her vision. This person was Rider, a heroic spirit summoned into a servant container by a master in order to compete for the Holy Grail was currently trying to take the life of her opponent despite her inability to do so, based on these results it would be obvious to an outside observer if they were witnessing the fight to think that she was fighting another servant due to his ability to hold his own against her. However the truth would be harder to accept, as he wasn't a servant but a human magus, which seemed to confuse the servant immensely as she didn't think that there were any people in the modern era capable of fighting a servant despite her weakened state.

     Said miraculous human was a 17 year old male with red hair and amber colored eyes while wearing a blue and white long sleeve shirt and blue jeans, this man was Shirou Emiya and right now he was using a pair of swords to parry each of Riders attacks while managing to slash, burn and freeze her at the same time. The first sword he was currently using was a short sword resembling a gladius with the runes Sowilo, Perthro and Isa carved into the metal in order to give the sword the properties of both fire and ice that both burn and freeze its enemies at the same time. The second weapon was longer then the first and had five runes carved in instead of three which were a reversed Sowilo, Uruz, Raidho, Tiwaz, and Raidho again, when these letters combine they set the sword ablaze as well as increasing the users strength and speed, its name was Surtra weapon based on a fire giant of Norse mythology of the same name.

     With these weapons combined the young man managed to use them in conjunction with his personal fighting style that he had developed after sparring with Fuji-nee for so many years, it was an insane fighting style that he had developed in conjunction with his Prana Burstability in which he would leave fake openings in his guard so that his opponent would go for them, then he would use Prana burst to triple his speed in an instant so that the enemy wouldn't have time to mount a proper defense. Of course there was a downside to this strategy as the fake openings type was developed against enemies that were far stronger than he was when he wasn't using Prana Burst and had to be less skilled than him otherwise he would suffer a serious injury since he leaves actual openings in his guard meaning that it was more affective against monstrous familiars and dead apostles.

      For someone like Rider though he had to modify his fighting style somewhat since she was obviously more skilled than him being a heroic spirit and all which is what his Structural Analysis came in. As part of his specific brand of Projection magic that he had developed over the past 1 ½ years he was able to scan the personal history of a weapon not only during its past but also its present. He had first discovered this when he had sparred against Fuji-nee one time when she wielded Torashinai against him, in a bit of panicked frenzy Shirou though it was a good idea to scan her sword while she was wielding it in order to get some ideas on how she would use it, needless to say the results were fruitful as he was able to predict what his guardian was going to do before she even knew it. This new facet of his ability with tracing allowed him to use his Structural Analysis in order to predict his opponents moves without using experience to tell what they were going to do, a sort of Fake eye of the mind as it were.

Of course his abilities with this new insight were still lacking which was why he had been practicing using Structural Analysis in order to read his opponents moves for the past year until it was basically second nature to him. This new fighting style of his deemed to have been effective since he was able to start catching up to Taiga in winning their spars and was also doing alright against Rider as he used Prana Burst to multiply his abilities so that his body could keep up him reading the servants attack. Which proved to have been effective as she was covered in burn marks and frost bite from where he was able to counter the servants attacks, of course Shirou had a few share of injuries himself thanks to the servants B rank agility who seemed to be pleased as they would undoubtedly slow him downsomewhat.

However unknown to the servant these injuries only served to make Shirou stronger thanks to a special set of runes he had Rin tattoo to his back in order to give him an edge in a fight.  It was a special rune sequence using a total of 22 letters tattooed along the spinal column in order to improve Shirou's physical abilities in proportion to the amount of damage he receives, this of course includes the built up body heat generated by his circuits allowing him to use his many nerve circuits longer than before and increases his general output since his body can now handle the strain better than before (within reason of course). This meant that as long as Shirou doesn't run out of Od or mana to use he could potentially grow stronger over time of a fight drags out, of course this isn't without its drawbacks as the runes are constantly active whenever he is in a fight meaning that he can't use the maximum amount of prana he can produce since some of it is channeled into his runes. Which proved to be a huge boon to his abilities since as he was facing against a heroic spirit he needed all the advantages he could get, deciding that she should change tactics Rider broke out of the deadlock she had with the redhead and backed away, intending to use her nails as mid-range weapons. However Shirou was ready for this.

"trace on" he said as the hammer in his mind was pulled back activating dozens of his circuits in the process allowing about ten of his water elemental arrows behind him to be traced into existence as well as another ten for wind so that he could fight Rider at mid-range as well. He chose Water and wind for several reasons, first his wind arrows were faster than his other projectiles due to their properties negating the wind resistance as they travel through the air, while water on the other hand is very effective against spiritual beings like servants hence why he chose these two instead of his more destructive arrows. Plus there was also the fact that they had the unlikely chance of causing collateral damage unlike his other elemental projectiles, he may not mind fixing the damage but it would also takevery good explanations for Sakura and Fuji-nee as to why there were multiple holes in his yard.

"Trigger off" he said as he stopped making copies and proceeded to aim a couple at Rider who froze at the unexpected ability of her target before he let the hammer go and fired one wind to hit and stagger her before she can dodge and a water arrow to finish her off. However Rider once again proved just why she was accepted into the throne of heroes in the first place as she used the nails on her chain weapon to deflect the first arrow and dodged the second, despite her magic resistance being able to negate spells below C rank the arrows Shirou were firing were both physical and magical in nature which would allow them to bypass her protection.

     Then there was the fact that her endurance was at a very low E rank so despite the weak nature of Shirou's attack his water arrow would do some damage since it is affective against spiritual beings like her. Seeing that his first barrage didn't work the faker decided to increase the rate of fire and launched the rest of his traced arrows at her only for Rider to go into a sprint in order to dodge Shirou's fire, however that worked just fine for him as the arrows were meant to lure Rider towards him in order to fight her up close since he seemed to have the advantage in close range combat. If their fighting styles were to have a comparison then Shirou's would be like a hawk that uses its agility to maneuver around its prey in order to study its opponent and find an opening, then uses its wings to hit its pray in order to stagger it before uses its sharp beak and claws to go in for the kill. Rider on the other hand is more like a snake that studies its opponent from a distance but uses its spring like body to leap at its opponent and strike at their defensives before they have a chance to react, so even though the snake is slightly faster than its prey the hawk is able to predict the reptiles attack and move out the way before its venom could affect it in any way.

Which was why Shirou side stepped Rider thrusting her nails towards Shirou's heart and used his sword to attack her from the side, only for her to trap the weapon between her chains forcing him to let go of it before letting it disperse back into prana. That was 35th time Rider managed to destroy his traced weapons, after all with her C ranked strength that makes her thirty times stronger then the average human meant that his projections only last about 2 or 3 hits before they break and he has to trace another pair. Shirou's tracing uses about 10 units of prana every time he has to trace sword due to his unique element and origin being Sword, meaning that just used up about 350 units of prana necessary to trace the weapons needed to fight Rider and since he dual wields then he has to use an extra 350 units tracing another sword for the other hand, meaning that from the beginning since his fight with Rider he had used up 700 units of prana. Plus there were the 1000 units he needed to match the servant physically withprana burst, as well as an additional 100 every minute needed to keep his injury/strength rune craft array tattooed on his back activated meaning that he had used up a grand total of 2100 units of prana since the fight began. And yet he still hadn't used up more then a 5th of his total reserves which after spending every night making a new nerve circuit since he started high school, which meant that he has a total out put of over 18000 units of prana if he pulls out the stops. Seeing that he needed another of his Icefire blades in order block Riders kick he let the hammer on the gun barrel be pulled back before another of his hand made mystic codes materialized in his hand, which was just in time as the superhuman woman would have sent him flying and broke his ribs if he was a second late.

As Rider and Shirou backed away from each over in order to catch their breathsthe two of them eyed each over while going over the info they had just learned from their fight even though it only lasted a few minutes. The Faker was in awe at the abilities that his opponent displayed but quickly got over it as she was a heroic spirit after all and was expected from someone whose skill allowed them to ascend into semi-Devine entities. At the moment he was barely able to keep up with her despite the odds stacked he stacked in his favor but other than that they were pretty evenly matched. Rider on the other hand was amazed that a human magus from this era was able to not only keep up her and not be reduced to bloody fertilizer but was displaying skill that wouldn't have been out of place in her era during the age of heroes, in fact if her 'master' had been here to see this then he would have peed his pants in fright at the thought of fighting this monster of a magus. However despite all that Rider knew after seeing his abilities first hand that the person in front of him was too dangerous to be left alive and it was not because Shinji ordered her to do it but something she saw on his hand that was revealed when the bandages covering his appendages came apart. On his revealed hand was a sword design that looked suspiciously like a command seal except that they were faded out. Meaning that the person in front of him was chosen as a master in the grail war and if that wasn't bad enough then there was the fact that the only servant that wasn't summoned yet was Saber. In other words the combination of the strongest class of the seven powered by this monster of a master would make them potentially the most powerful opponents in the war, now Rider of course didn't have any desire for the Holy Grail but her masters grandfather did which was why her summoner was forced into this conflict in the first place, meaning that if she was to ensure her master's freedom from that 'monster' then she had to win.

"I must admit magus I didn't expect you to last this long against me, I didn't think there were still people in this Era capable of fighting on my level without destroying themselves, you should be proud" Rider complemented as she thought of a way to break this stalemate.

"Thank you Rider" Shirou smiled; even though the person in front of her was trying to kill him he didn't think that she was a bad person despite the amount of blood and malice he could smell from her which made him wonder who she was in life.

"Though I have to admit it fells a little strange being praised by someone trying to kill me but then again stranger things have happened to me before, I don't suppose we can talk this over like civilized people" the duel wielder asked seeing if it was possible for them to come to an understanding, he knew of course is was a fruitless endeavor since she was serious with ending his life but it never hurt to ask right?

"I'm afraid not, while I have nothing personal against you in particular I cannot disobey my masters orders so I am afraid that abide by your wishes" Rider apologized which caused Shirou to sigh.

"Well it was worth a try I guess, so how long are we going to do this?" Shirou asked as he went over his current abilities to see if he could go for another round. At the moment he still had more then ¾ of his reserves left despite him using Prana burst but he had taken a bit of damage from that last bout, luckily he managed to apply some healing runes to himself to take care of most of the damage, however he was got a bit wounded from that last scuffle while Rider didn't look like she was tired at all, meaning that if he had a chance to win then he needed to pull out all the stops. Rider on the other hand was silent in her response as she was planning her next move on how she was going to succeed against Emiya, while she didn'tlook like it that last fight had taken quite a bit of her reserves since she had to heal the damage Shirou did with his blades, and since Shinji wasn't a proper magus he couldn't supply her with a steady supply of prana that her true master was able to provide. Then there was the fact that her opponent's abilities were currently unknown to her meaning that she wasn't sure if that was the full extent of his abilities, and lets not forget the fact that Shirou seemed to get slightly stronger every time she manage to land a hit on him. Every stab made him stronger, every kick made him faster and tougher, meaning that if the fight dragged on any longer then it was possible for him to break the stalemate and turn the tables against her, meaning that if she wanted to win then she needed to bring out one of her trump cards even though doing so could risk revealing her true identity. Blood Fort Andromeda was out of the question since she was currently using it for the school, Bellorophon could work as it was powerful enough to plow through anything the red head tries but there was a possibility he would be able to dodge it with his abnormal physical abilities so that was out. That only left one ability that she could use by process of elimination, which would definably be effective against her opponent, as humans in this day and age don't have very strong magic resistance compared to servants. However if she chooses to use it then there was a very high chance that unleashing it would expose her identity not only to her opponent but any familiars that may be watching the conflict since the power sealed by Breaker Gorgon was featured heavily in her legend. On the other hand if she didn't use it now then there there was a high chance he would get away and summon a servant of his own, meaning that if she wanted to avoid that scenario then she needed to act now.

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End of Chapter..