Summary: What happens when you play with magecraft carelessly? Probably not this, but it's happening anyway.
Genre: Humor
Not The Intended Use
or
Misadventures With Magecraft
(And Other Supernatural Powers)
Disaster 1:
Using Reinforcement Magic on Your Cock
In which Shirou uses reinforcement on an actual chicken
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Shirou didn’t know where it had come from.
It had shown up that morning out of nowhere.
He had no idea how it managed to get inside, or why it even wanted to be here. In fact, there wasn’t even any way it could have gotten inside, unless it had somehow learned to fly.
There was a chicken wandering about his house.
He had spent the last half-hour trying to shoo it outside, but it was incredibly stubborn. Both his and Sakura’s continuous efforts had failed to remove it, and it had actually bitten her. No question about it, this chicken was a nasty piece of work. Like if someone had transformed Shinji Matou into a fowl, this vicious soon-to-be-poultry would be him. But dirtier.
He had forbidden Rin from using magecraft on it to avoid damaging the house, but he was beginning to reconsider whether that had been a wise choice. The mangy bird was scratching up the floorboards something terrible. So much so that he was beginning to think he might have preferred having scorch marks all over the wall. Fortunately, he and the two girls weren’t alone.
“Saber, it’s coming your way! Catch it!”
Even the mightiest of chickens could not overcome a Heroic Spirit. It tried to run, but Saber was faster and defter. Thus did King Arthur triumph over a small feathery animal. She carried it outside.
“Shall I toss it outside or is right here fine?” she asked. The chicken bit her fingers savagely, but she didn’t pay any attention and simply materialized her gauntlets to ensure it couldn’t try again.
Tohsaka answered first.
“Outside. Let’s do this the right way.”
“Very well,” Saber nodded. Shirou opened the front door while Saber kept a tight grip on the struggling bird.
She tossed it away, none too gently, but not hard enough to injure it. It would probably get run over by a passing car anyhow, but this was a bad chicken. She didn’t need to care.
“Is everyone okay?” asked Sakura.
“A bit frustrated, but otherwise, I’m fine,” said Tohsaka. “Thank you, Sakura.”
She knew how Rin felt: She had just swept up, and now there were filthy white feathers everywhere. That bird was crazy inconsiderate.
“It is almost lunchtime, is it not?” Saber asked, trying not to sound too eager.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Shirou nodded. “I’ll start preparing something.”
“Thank you, Shirou.”
Unfortunately, things were not fated to go smoothly that evening.
“Senpai, I’m sorry,” Sakura whimpered, “I know I was supposed to bring some groceries with me today, but I lost the money you gave me.”
The truth was that Shinji had just stolen it from her, but she didn’t want to worry Shirou. Everything would be fine, just like it always was.
“It’s okay, I’ll just run out and get something. I’ll be back in half-an—”
His eyes gravitated to the floor between him and the girls. He blinked.
There stood the violently obnoxious bird.
“Bawk!” it clucked. The four residents couldn’t help but feel like it was mocking them.
Shirou picked it up by its neck and threw it back out the door, slamming it shut when the bird tried to get back in.
“Why is it so fixated on getting in here anyway?” Sakura asked.
“I have no idea, but in the meantime, I’m going to see if reinforcement magic can remove the scratches in the floorboards.”
“Spoiler alert,” drawled Tohsaka, “it won’t.”
Her comment earned her cold stares from the two other human residents.
“What?! I can fix it myself! Just give me a few minutes, I’ll think of something!”
The chicken clucked at her disdainfully.
Shirou nodded as though he could understand it.
“It’s got a point you knowait, how the hell did it get back in here?!”
“Is that a rhetorical question, Shirou?” asked Tohsaka. “Because if it’s not, I got nothing.”
“It hasn’t even been a whole minute since you threw it outside!” Sakura gasped.
In a quick burst of movement, Rin pinned the chicken against the wall. Then when she had gotten a proper grip on it, she strode out the front door, and reinforced her throwing arm. The fowl soared off into the distance. Perhaps one day there would be legends of an amazing flying chicken in Fuyuki. And if one were to see it shooting across the sky it would…actually, no that joke would be in considerably bad taste considering how many people had died in this city to attain just that.
“Okay, it won’t be coming ba-a-a-a…” she trailed off.
There in the front hallway, in front of a stupefied Shirou, Saber and Sakura, stood the chicken, peering up at her with a smug glint in its eye.
“WHAT THE HELL IS THIS THING?!” she roared, “Is this chicken a god?! Is that what this is?! Deus Ex Kotópoulona?! Kami no Niwatori?! Advent Chicken?! Eliyl Hatarnegol?!
“I don’t know, but moments after you threw it, we looked down at the floor and there it was,” Shirou muttered. “And off topic, exactly how many languages do you speak?”
“Four fluently, and seven partial.”
“You have my sincerest apologies,” Saber looked away in obvious embarrassment. “I failed to notice it…rematerialize…or however it managed to return here.”
Rin thought for a moment then realized that they weren’t the only witnesses.
“Archer!” she called, “Did you by any chance observe how it got back inside?”
The red servant materialized atop the roof, looking down at her from his seated position.
“I’m afraid not, I’ve been keeping an eye on Lancer. He’s been watching us for far too long for it to be simple reconnaissance.”
“Nope, that’s really all it is,” grumbled the Hound of Ulster, materializing beside his rival. “I think my Master just does it to bother me. Knows I’d rather be fighting something. Watching and waiting really isn’t my style.”
“Okay, I’ll admit I’m kind of creeped out that he’s been spying on us, but I won’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Does that mean that you saw how the chicken got back inside?”
“I saw some sort of bird get launched halfway across town, but I wasn’t really in the right spot to look through your front door. Sorry kid. Now if you don’t mind, I really shouldn’t have shown myself in the first place, so I’d better get back to work before my Master gets all pissy about it.”
Lancer astralized, and that was that. No one knew how it happened.
“You know, we can’t rule out the possibility that this thing could be a god,” Sakura noted, clutching at her skirt uncomfortably, “I mean, what if this is the Rooster of the Zodiak?”
“That makes it a spirit, not a god. Which is better, but still scary. Of course, the Rooster is supposed to be a noble animal, not a rambunctious houseguest. And if that really is its true nature, why in the world is it here of all places?”
“Why not ask it yourself and see if it answers?” Archer suggested, wearing a self-satisfied smirk that Rin had learned to associate with his lousy sense of humor.
“Not even.”
“So if forced removal won’t work, I suppose we’ll…” Shirou trailed off.
Saber and Sakura both cast worried looks at his somewhat disturbed expression.
“Senpai?” Sakura asked.
“We might have to kill it.”
“Ba-bawk?!” the chicken protested.
Sakura sucked in a terrified gasp, while Archer and Rin just raised their eyebrows. Saber didn’t seem particularly phased by the suggestion. Then again, she was born in a time when people slaughtered their livestock within scant kilometers of where someone would eat it.
“Perhaps we can use this bird?” she suggested. “It’s almost suppertime and we have nothing on hand.”
Shirou did not like where this was going.
“Are you suggesting…?”
“It is edible, is it not?” she asked, her stern tone perhaps inappropriate considering what she was advocating.
“I suppose that… could work.” Shirou said uncomfortably. “But, I really could just go out and buy something.”
“That would take a fair bit of time,” Saber said, downcast.
Shirou sighed.
“Look, I-I guess I’m okay with it if you are, Saber, but…maybe we should put it to a vote?”
“That seems fair,” Saber agreed with a sigh.
“BUCKAW?!” squawked the chicken.
“All in favor of using this jerk for dinner?”
Unsurprisingly, Saber raised her hand.
Rin and Sakura both gave her a look.
Only he and Saber had voted in favor. Sakura had vehemently looked away, and behind the equally unenthused Rin, Archer was doing his best not to laugh.
And of course, the poultry in question was scurrying to-and-fro in the most irritating manner.
His best evidently wasn’t quite good enough, and Rin shot him a soul-crushing stink-eye as she heard him snickering.
And then, with a devious smirk, he also raised his hand, much to his Master’s dismay as well as her estranged sister’s.
“Well, that settles that,” groused Tohsaka, adding a promise of pain and misery to her death glare, still directed at Archer.
Shirou was too busy sighing in resignation to notice. He was really counting on there being a stalemate. He hadn’t even considered that Archer might join the group. Or that Tohsaka would allow it. He was her Servant, and she could just say his vote didn’t count, but if she hadn’t he supposed she must have had a reason.
He really, really hoped she hadn’t just forgotten in the heat of the moment.
“So, how are we going to do this?” he asked.
“Well, you told me that reinforcement magic doesn’t simply make things stronger,” said Saber, “but rather, better at their intended purpose. Would that make a chicken taste better as well?”
“I… don’t think it works that way Saber. I mean, maybe, once certain conditions are met, I guess… I suppose it’s worth a shot. But that didn’t really answer my question, do we slaughter it first or—”
“BUCKAW! BUCK-BA—”
—SMACK!—
And the chicken fell to the floor dead, it’s neck having snapped as Archer caught it and backhanded it across the head.
“That’s…one way of doing it…” he said.
He was at least glad that there wouldn’t be any blood to clean up. Sakura seemed relieved on that front as well.
“So, might we test my theory?” Saber asked, maybe a little too eagerly.
“Okay, okay, I’ll do it.
He supposed that he’d have to do this one way or another. He could do it, he was sure of that much. After all, it was just a chicken, and he’d been getting a lot better at using magecraft over the past week.
“Ooh, so you’re going to use reinforcement magic on your cock?” Tohsaka put a hand over her mouth, not quite hiding the mischievous grin beneath it. “Kinky, Shirou. I didn’t think you had it in you.”
The other three residents just stared at her, and Archer went back to snickering. She allowed it this time.
“Did you have to make it weird?” Shirou finally asked, looking as uncomfortable as ever.
“It was rather crude,” Saber agreed.
Sakura didn’t say anything, too busy trying to hide her face which was so red that she swore her ears must have been giving off steam.
“And since when is this thing my chicken?” Shirou protested, looking at the no more, ceased to be, expired and gone to meet its maker, bereft of life, it rests in peace
recently deceased poultry
“Well, it did seem pretty intent on staying in your house, Senpai.”
“Look, just let me do this,” grumbled Shirou.
Kneeling down beside the off the twig, kicked the bucket, shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the choir invisibule
ex-chicken
“Trace On…”
He could see the chicken in his mind, inside and out. He could see the experiences that had brought the chicken to where it was, though not in enough detail to determine whether or not it was a god or spirit of some sort. He could feel the sweat beading on his forehead. He began strengthening it, slowly at first, then progressing as he further familiarized himself with its body structure. Almost done. Then a sharp pain ran up his spine. Dammit not yet! Just…a…few…more…
—SPLAT—
“EEEEK!”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
“Okay, so that could…probably have gone better,” Shirou admitted as he continued cleaning up the gory mess in the hallway.
“Oh, ya think?” Rin snarled. She was covered, as he was, in blood and former chicken…stuff.
Sakura was in the bath closet with Saber, who was keeping her grounded as best she could while helping her clean up. Getting covered in chicken blood was bad enough, but Sakura had issues of her own. She hadn’t told them what they were, but it had become quite clear lately that something was always bothering her. And her shriek when the chicken exploded was positively bloodcurdling.
In retrospect, he should have done it in the courtyard where he could have just rinsed away a mess with a hose if something had gone wrong. Which was exactly what happened. As if there could have been any other result. He should have known it was a bad idea.
“Do you have any idea where Archer went, by the way?” Shirou muttered, “Couldn’t he be helping us with this?”
Rin paused. She didn’t actually know the answer to that question. Archer had astralized a little while ago and hadn’t reappeared. She had assumed that he was continuing his vigil atop the roof, but when she called for him, he didn’t answer her.
“Erm, Tohsaka, you can clean yourself off now,” Sakura said, walking up to the patch of wall they were cleaning. “I can take your place here.”
“Ugh, thank god, I can get the gore off. Thank you, Sakura.”
“Um, you’re welcome!” Sakura yelped. Was she not expecting to be shown common courtesy or something?
Sakura took Tohsaka’s thoroughly reddened washcloth, and seeing that it was only going to spread the mess around if used for much longer, she opted to throw it out and fetch a new one. She had barely returned to chicken ground zero when Rin squealed like a frightened possum (not that any of the house’s residents knew what a frightened opossum sounded like).
“For god’s sake, warn me if you’re undressing, Saber!”
Oh right, she was also in the chicken meat splash zone. It would only make sense for her to clean herself up afterwards. Sakura realized this only after hearing Rin shout.
Rin cleaned herself off fairly quickly and she and Saber both left the bath closet around the same time. Shirou was immediately suspicious of Rin. The lascivious way she was eyeing his Servant was all too noticeable. Sometimes, he just had no idea why he had a soft spot for this girl. She had to have at least one sixteenth of Satan’s genetic material. Or at least be possessed part-time.
She went to fetch herself and Saber some cleaning implements of their own from the kitchen, and moments after she had disappeared around the corner, they all heard a cry of outrage from elsewhere in the house.
Then she came back, not bearing washcloths or a mop, but instead dragging a disgruntled Archer behind her by the collar. And she was not happy. Not even a little. Her eyes were like a pair off blazing infernos raging in their sockets. Shirou was glad that he wasn’t the target of her rage, because that look most certainly could kill, and he was sure that the only reason Archer hadn’t immediately disintegrated was because he was a Heroic Spirit.
“What. The hell. Is that?” she demanded, her voice soft but unprecedentedly furious as she pointed at the object in the Servant’s hands.
“Oh dear,” Saber grimaced.
Shirou and Sakura both gaped. After all that frustration, why would he have gone off and done something like this?
It was white.
It was feathery.
It was looking around skittishly like a spastic meerkat.
It was another chicken.
“Why?” someone whispered.
“Why would you do this?” Sakura asked again, her voice almost devoid of emotion, sounding very much like the recently traumatized girl she was. Well, more traumatized than usual.
Well, now he’d gone and done it. He’d upset his former kouhai.
“Look, I merely thought we could afford to try this again,” he said hiding his mischievous intent with impressive proficiency such that only his intended target could sense it. Turning to Shirou, he added, “Maybe try it out while it’s still alive and can resist your abilities long enough for you to finish working on it.”
…No, Shirou decided, he would not buy this sketchy, scruffy man’s product.
“Better idea; why don’t you just do it this time,” he grumbled, “You’re better at it than I am, and we both know it.”
His future self blinked. He had to admit, he’d been too focused on having fun with this incident, and hadn’t thought to make any countermeasures in case his target refused. He wasn’t going to win this. After all, if he refused, his own Master would get on his case for attempting to add more problems to the list they were already tackling, and he admittedly didn’t want to upset Saber, or Sakura either.
“Fine, if you insist.”
He placed the chicken on the ground and started the process.
“Trace On…”
Like Shirou, he could see the chicken in his mind, inside and out. Better, in fact, considering he had much more experience using magecraft.
“My hair’s still wet,” said Rin. “Just saying.
“Incidentally, if this bird explodes I’m going to set you on fire and use a command seal to force you to stand perfectly still.”
“…Isn’t that…just a little extreme?” Sakura protested.
“Enh, I’m in a bad mood. It’s Shirou’s fault, but Archer is technically Shirou too, so… yeah, I’m sure you get the picture.”
“I…guess?”
Closer to the ground, Archer was still at work. He could see the experiences that had brought the chicken to where it was, though since this was an ordinary chicken, there really wasn’t much to see. He began strengthening it, and unlike his past self’s attempt, things went smoothly.
And then, something happened that he could never have possibly foreseen.
It started changing.
The chicken grew.
It grew, and it grew, and it grew. Archer cut his spell off, but it was far too late to stop the transformation from happening.
Its bones began to shift and most of its feathers retreated into its body, leaving behind a largely scaly, leathery hide. With a sound of cracking bone, it’s wings, no longer digitless, but still somewhat feathery, changed position, and its beak became a muzzle.
Archer’s chicken now stood before them, but it most certainly wasn’t a chicken anymore.
“What manner of dragon is this?!” Saber gasped, Excalibur materializing in her hands.
Standing a good meter taller than them, and growling curiously, was a tyrannosaur. Shirou couldn’t tell which one, but he put his money on tarbosaurus. That one was found in Japan after all.
“Well, uh…that’s… interesting,” Archer said. “I suppose… it was determined that the chicken is a direct descendant of the tyrannosaurus. I’ll admit though, I wasn’t expecting that my reinforcement magic would reactivate dormant genes…”
“I don’t give a flying fuck what you were expecting!” Tohsaka screamed, “Kill it before it eats us!”
It stared directly at them, sniffing at the humans that must have looked like food to it now.
“Vision is not based on movement,” Shirou noted, barely staving off panic. “Good to know…”
“I’m not sure it’s actually that dangerous right now,” Archer noted, “It’s primarily a scavenger. It might not even be—”
The dinosaur roared, its jaws bearing down on the red-clad servant. He dodged out of the way just in time.
“—hungry,” he finished, “So much for that…” he slowly turned his head to look at Rin. “Master, you have my sincerest apologies. I should have known better than to let this get so out of hand and I’ll admit that I bear the full responsibility for causing this particular incident.”
That was all he had time for. The tarbosaurus had already started moving by the time he had finished talking and proceeded to chase the group around the courtyard, snapping at them only to have its teeth turned away by the Servants’ timely defense.
And yet, as he ran, Shirou found that the first thought on his mind wasn’t, ‘Oh god, I’m going to die.’
It was, ‘How in the world am I going to explain this to Fuji-nee?’
Oh, hell, Shirou really hoped that the other residents of the neighborhood didn’t come to investigate the strange loud noises either.
After all, there was a motherfucking t-rex, or something that looked and behaved very much like one, in his house.
At least, Shirou assumed it behaved like one. What did he know of the behavior of Mesozoic fauna? He wasn’t a palaeontologist.
“Can’t we just hide inside the house?!” shouted Tohsaka.
“If we do that, there won’t be a house to hide in within the space of five minutes, and we’d also be putting Sakura in danger! I won’t do that!”
She just snarled in response.
Perhaps the most irritating thing about the dinosaur was how irrationally persistent it was. Saber and Archer would slash at it repeatedly, and it just kept coming! Only Saber was actually making any substantial progress, and even then, her sword was only doing superficial damage to it, with Kanshou and Bakuya proving to be little more than minor distractions, to Archer’s great chagrin. He wasn’t going to expend next to all his mana here to use his Noble Phantasm here against a large animal throwing a temper tantrum, and unleashing Excalibur in the enclosed courtyard would likely destroy the house.
It roared as Saber struck it across the face, knocking Archer aside with its tail even as it recoiled.
They weren’t making any headway. If things continued as they were, they would be resigning themselves to a very long fight.
How long? Well…
---One hour later---
“Why won’t it just give up?!” Rin whined.
“I don’t know? Maybe it’ll tell you if you ask politely?” Shirou shot back.
“Oh, ha, ha, that was so funny I forgot to laugh,” Rin snarked. “If you don’t have anything useful to say then just shut up!”
Over the past hour, she had expended all the jewels she had on her person, and fired enough Gandr shots at it to kill an entire herd of rhinos. On steroids. It was only natural that she was feeling a little worse for wear.
They found themselves backed up against the exterior wall between the guest rooms and the storage shed. It wasn’t the first time. Saber and Archer would manage to get them out of this like they had the last four times, but that didn’t make the feeling of being pinned any less frightening.
“Oh, for crying out loud, why won’t it just die?” she moaned.
Saber landed a solid slash to the tyrannosaur’s flank, leaving a deep cut. One of many.
“Shirou, Rin, move now!” she called.
They followed her instructions as quickly as they could. And like always, it just kept coming.
Shirou had to wonder, why wasn’t it targeting the things that were hurting it? Maybe it just knew a losing battle when it saw one and realized that he and Rin were easier prey, even if they were still hard to get at.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, can someone just kill this thing already. I don’t care which of you it is, just finish this thing off!”
As though answering her, someone shouted out two words. She never thought she’d be glad to hear someone shouting the name of a Noble Phantasm that unfailingly kills its target.
“Gáe… Bolg!”
A red comet streaked down upon them and with a flash of light, it tore right through the dinosaur’s thick hide, going clear through its body and reducing its heart to a few strands of shredded muscle.
The tarbosaurus fell forward and breathed no more.
“Close call, but my Master finally decided that it was okay if I saved your sorry asses.”
“Whoever your Master is, ask them why they couldn’t have decided on that an hour ago!” Rin snapped.
“Not my place to question orders, unfortunately. I mean it; it bugs me as much as it bugs you. And now, if you don’t mind, they’re also telling me I shouldn’t talk to you anymore. So long, lassy.”
He leapt away, dematerializing as he landed on the roof.
Saber was at Shirou’s side in an instant.
“Are you alright master?”
“About as fine as I can be. Now my only problem is how the hell am I going to get rid of a tyrannosaur without anyone finding out about it?”
“Don’t count on the Mages Association. They’ll just demand to know how you made it and maybe give us all sealing designations,” Tohsaka muttered. “And I don’t think this is the kind of thing the Church handles.”
They stood in silence for a moment. Then…
“Shirou, a question, if I may?”
“Of course, Saber, you don’t need to ask permission.”
“Thank you, Shirou. Archer said that this beast was the ancestor of today’s chickens…” she began.
“…yeeesss?” Shirou answered slowly.
“Would that not simply make this beast a much larger chicken from ages past?”
“………”
Shirou did not like where this was going.
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Author’s Note: This just in! I’m a bad person, and this story proves it. Well, that isn’t exactly news, but I did many bad things in this story.
We will presently recite all (see: most) crimes committed herein by the fool known as Draconic:
- Referencing ‘T-Rex’s-vision-is-based-on-movement.’
- Not utilizing Sakura to her fullest potential.
- Archer Ex Machina.
- Lancer Ex Machina.
- Rooster Ex Machina.
- Tooting my own horn by using one of my own Cards Against the Nasuverse cards as a story prompt.
- And directly plagiarizing Dead Parrot—deceased, bereft of life, expired and gone to meet its maker, an ex-parrot, more commonly known as the ‘Parrot Sketch,’ by the Pythons. Virtually word for word.
Actually, I probably could use more of my cards as story prompts… And I do think that this story turned out pretty well, all things considered. So the next story will once again be based on a card.
(Five years later)
Actually, no it won't be. This story — and its author's note — were written five years ago, and as such, I had only just scratched the surface of Nasuverse lore when I wrote this. Why am I only posting it now? Because I wanted to make an incredibly cheap gag in the third chapter that I'm sure no one will find funny. But I wanted to do it anyway, and I've been stuck on the second chapter for five years.
You're probably thinking, 'that doesn't explain anything! Make sense!'
In response to that, I can only say this:
I refuse.
You might also say 'You still haven't written the third chapter, and yet you're only posting now because you wanted to use a certain gag in it? That makes no sense! Is it somehow time-limited?'
Well, no, not really… I'm just dim. And the truth is that I wrote two short stories, got stuck on the third, and I wanted to use the third as Ch. 2 because I thought that the story I wrote second would work a lot better as the third chapter than as the second. Anyway, I've bored you out of your skulls, so I'll be going now.
Not the Intended Use – Misadventures With Magecraft
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