Shirou's Thirty Million Avatars

"Without money, there's no way to get animal blood. Can't exactly use my own, right? That wouldn't be enough either."

Shirou took a dozen slow steps along the street, a thought gradually surfacing in his mind.

Come to think of it, the boots Coachman Shirou had stolen from Nero were still sitting in the White Mist Space. To avoid Nero punishing him as a thief, he had to summon a Servant as soon as possible—ideally within two or three hours.

The timeframe was too short, making things a bit tricky.

In that case, he might as well borrow someone else's summoning circle.

The Matou family—he had no idea if they'd already summoned a Servant, but he could definitely sneak in and use their circle to summon his own.

Besides, this was a perfect chance to test whether an ordinary magus could handle his Elementalization.

With three years of training in the Pirate World, dealing with a decrepit old worm shouldn't be a problem.

Inside the dim basement of the Matou family.

"You remember the summoning chant, right?"

"Yeah."

"Good. But when you recite it, you need to..."

Before he could finish, Zouken Matou suddenly paused, frowning as he looked toward the stairs.

There, a surge of white cold air was rolling in.

In an instant, a layer of white frost covered the basement floor.

Following that came the deliberate sound of footsteps.

"Who's there? Daring to break in here—do you think the Matou family has no one left?"

As Zouken's probing voice echoed, countless insects swarmed from every direction, rushing toward the stairway above.

But the insect horde seemed to trigger an avalanche. More snow poured down from above, instantly burying the swarm.

Insects kept emerging from all sides, only to be buried and frozen by the snow one after another.

In the blink of an eye, the basement was nothing but a vast expanse of white.

"With magic on this scale, who the hell are you?"

The next moment, the footsteps slowed, and a red-haired child appeared before the two of them.

Shirou walked down the stairs, glancing back and forth between Zouken Matou and Kariya Matou.

"Looks like your bugs can't handle the cold."

Before coming to the Matou house, Shirou had considered freezing the insects with ice.

But turning snow into ice required a ten-second delay, and in battle, ten seconds could be a fatal opening.

So his initial plan was to use Elementalization to escape if things went south.

He'd climbed over the wall into the Matou estate, but before he'd taken two steps, the insects had spotted him.

Just as he was hesitating whether to flee immediately, he realized the bugs were already freezing to death from the snow he'd casually produced.

That settled it—no need to run.

At the end of the day, his Pirate World self had been so focused on developing low-temperature abilities that the snow he created kept getting colder and colder, but he'd never actually measured the temperature. He had no reference point.

Still, judging by the current situation, it was at least minus fifty or sixty degrees Celsius.

"Whose child are you? At such a young age, to use magic this powerful..."

"Is that your last words?"

"Wait! What are you here for? Given your age, you wouldn't happen to be connected to that little girl, would you? I could give her to you."

Shirou looked at Zouken, a few meters away, and shook his head slightly.

"Five years ago—or rather, five years from now—you said the same thing. Can't you come up with something new?"

Five years later, he'd brought Rin and Kirei as allies to rescue Sakura from the Matou house, and Zouken had said something similar back then.

Honestly, despite his utterly vile nature, Kirei had treated him decently on the surface.

But the grudge of murder and the debt of upbringing canceled each other out. In this life, Shirou had no intention of getting tangled up with Kirei again.

A flicker of thought crossed Shirou's mind, and snow instantly engulfed Zouken Matou.

Humans were more cold-resistant than bugs, but extreme cold would cloud the mind and stiffen the body.

The moment he was buried in snow, he lost all ability to resist.

Watching Zouken turn into a snowman, Kariya Matou clenched his fists, then slowly let them drop, hesitating as he asked:

"Who are you? Are you... his enemy?"

"No. I'm here to save Sakura."

"You're Sakura's classmate?"

"I'm one year above Sakura—her senior. Though, in this timeline, she and I have nothing to do with each other yet."

As he spoke, Shirou had already walked over to Zouken Matou.

By now, after ten seconds of transformation, Snowman Zouken had completely turned into an ice sculpture.

After carefully observing the ice sculpture for a while, Shirou fell into thought.

It seemed that in the Pirate World, the temperature of snow had been developed to an extremely low degree.

Although it took ten seconds for the snow to transform into ice, snow at such a low temperature could still kill even without freezing solid.

After all, not every world had humans with resistances as absurdly high as those in the Pirate World.

From the current situation, his earlier estimate of minus fifty degrees was too low—this snow was at least minus one hundred degrees.

"From what I know of Zouken Matou, he definitely has Brain Worms hidden elsewhere. So, I'm going to use snow to cleanse the entire Matou family estate."

"Wait..."

Before Kariya Matou could finish his sentence, he noticed that, centered on Shirou, an endless surge of snow was gushing out, instantly covering the ceiling and walls.

"What were you going to say?" Shirou turned back to ask.

"Sigh... forget it, nothing."

Kariya Matou let out a long sigh. Regardless, the death of Zouken Matou had lifted a weight off his shoulders.

Just then, he suddenly noticed the Command Seal on the back of Shirou's left hand, and his expression shifted slightly.

"You're a Master too? Where's your Servant? You can take my life if you want, but please... don't hurt Sakura."

Shirou was momentarily taken aback, then quickly realized he must have misunderstood.

Indeed, when someone was in the middle of summoning a Servant and another Master suddenly barged in, it looked like a fight was about to break out.

"Don't worry, I'm not your enemy. Also, I haven't summoned my Servant yet."

"Who... are you exactly?"

Kariya Matou paused, then asked cautiously:

"Can I trust you?"

"Of course!" Shirou answered without hesitation. "I'll explain my background when we're in front of Sakura."

"Sakura?"

Kariya Matou's face was full of worry. Ignoring everything else, he limped up the stairs.

Seeing this, Shirou let out a soft sigh and followed behind him at a slow pace.

A cripple and a short-legged boy—their walking speeds were about the same, their steps nearly in sync.

Chapter 6: A False Story

Section 6: Chapter 6: A False Story

Stepping out of the basement, Kariya Matou froze in place.

Everywhere he looked, there was nothing but white snow.

The hallway floor, the windows, the ceiling—all covered in snow, a vast expanse of white that added to the chill.

"Sakura!"

Kariya Matou limped through the snow, nearly falling several times.

Seeing this, Shirou hesitated for a few seconds but didn't go to help him, silently watching from behind.

Soon, Kariya Matou stopped outside a room.

Because the door and walls were thick with snow, he stared for several seconds before pinpointing the doorframe.

He tried to wipe the snow off the lock with his hand, but the moment his fingers touched the snow, they suffered severe frostbite.

This sight made Shirou lower his temperature estimate even further.

"Sakura! Sakura! Are you okay?"

But no matter how loudly Kariya Matou shouted, no sound came from inside the room.

He gritted his teeth, turned his back, and slammed into the lock.

The next moment, the door burst open.

What greeted their eyes was a young girl sitting on the bed, wrapped in a blanket, shivering.

Her eyes were hollow, lifeless, staring blankly at the two at the door, like an exquisite puppet.

The sight made Kariya Matou's heart clench. He limped over, hugged her, and said:

"It's over now. Zouken is dead. There's no more danger."

As he spoke, tears suddenly streamed down his face.

"I'm sorry, I'm so useless... If I knew magic, if I had the power to resist Zouken, I wouldn't have let you suffer so much."

"Grandfather is gone?" Sakura repeated expressionlessly.

"He's not your grandfather," Shirou couldn't help but say.

Kariya Matou gave a slight nod and said with great seriousness:

"Indeed, it's not."

Just then, he noticed Sakura's body still trembling and quickly looked at Shirou:

"It's too cold here. Can we talk somewhere else?"

"Of course." Shirou glanced around, then mused, "But the entire Matou estate is buried in snow. I doubt there's a spot not covered by it."

"All of it?"

"Yes, all of it."

"Then... can you remove the snow?"

"Impossible." Shirou shook his head slightly. "Have you ever seen water that's been spilled, taken back?"

Even Admiral Aokiji couldn't undo the ice he'd created.

"In that case, let's go to a hotel. Until the snow melts, this place is definitely uninhabitable."

Shirou thought it over and rejected the idea again:

"No, let's summon a Servant first. With something like this happening at the Matou family, other Masters are bound to come check the situation."

"If we haven't summoned a Servant by then, we'll be in danger."

Though the Holy Grail War officially begins only after all Servants are summoned, who knows if someone might jump the gun.

After all, a Master with Command Seals but no Servant is no different from a child carrying gold through a bustling market.

Besides, Coachman Shirou is still waiting for me. I need to summon a Servant quickly—can't drag this out too long.

"This..." Kariya Matou glanced at Sakura, huddled in her futon, his face showing hesitation. "Sakura is safe now. I don't plan to continue the Holy Grail War. If you want, I can transfer my Command Seals to you."

"I understand how you feel, but that's just running away."