Fanfic / Tainted Ideals

Tainted Ideals is a Fan Fic for Fate/stay night, a 'what-if' story that follows the path Shirou would take if he was saved by forming a contract with Avenger and wishing upon the remains of the Holy Grail. He escapes the fire without ever meeting Kiritsugu and is adopted by Kotomine Kirei. We watch the result of Shirou being raised by an amoral priest and the King of Heroes; by the third chapter Shirou has summoned the Servant most suited to his heart, and soon after the Fifth Holy Grail War begins in earnest.

Tainted Ideals can be found on Fanfiction.net, Beast's Lair, and Spacebattles. At the moment Fanfiction.net has the most up to date links to the newest chapters. This fic has not been updated since 2012.

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This work provides examples of:

• Aloof Big Brother: Gil generally carries himself in this fashion, but is shown a few times being at least somewhat caring of Shirou and gives him exotic plants for his garden. He was also the one who discovered Shirou's talent for living matter manipulation.
• Anti-Hero: Shirou is an Unscrupulous Hero at best. If it weren't for his Morality Pets, he'd probably be a Nominal Hero.
  • In fact, in one of the alternate timelines Stormedge revealed, Shirou was either Type V or a full blown villain. He more or less won the war with Gilgamesh as his Servant, ate the world, and went off on intergalactic jaunts to consume more planets.
• Avenging the Villain by Proxy: Constatin's goal is to avenge his brother by killing Kiritsugu's daughter after his earlier attempt to kill Kiritsugu himself failed miserably.
• Awesomeness Is Volatile: Archer uses flaming arrows that violently explode on contact.

• Badass Longcoat: Given (indirectly) by Kirei to Shirou.
  Shirou. For when faith is not armour enough.
• Big Eater: True to canon, Saber. Assassin, while also a Big Eater, can't hold a candle to her.

• Body Horror: Shirou's familiars are absolutely horrifying. Rin has tried to get Shirou to stop disfiguring his creations. Now he just hides them from her.
  • Not to mention Shirou's own combat magecraft. He can turn his own arms into claws.

• Break the Haughty: Done to Shinji sometime prior to the Fifth Holy Grail War.

• Canon Foreigner: Constantin, Master of Caster. Since very little information is available about her canon master Stormedge more or less made him up.
  • Word of God: "He is. Sorta. We don't actually know anything about Caster's canon Master (other than the fact he was an idiot), so I just thought of a reason he'd be less stupid and rolled with it."
• Character Catchphrase: Rider (aka Francis Drake) lampshades her EX-rank Luck whenever she does something improbable with "Call it luck."
• Cool Big Sis: Rider acts like this toward Rin.
• Covert Pervert: Rin's Imagine Spot with Shirou wearing nothing but a leash.
• The Corruption: What the Grail Mud does. Yet Shirou seems relatively well adjusted.
• Creepy Child: To the surprise of absolutely no one (except Rin), Kotomine Shirou.
  • It is likely thanks to her efforts that Shirou grew up to appear as normal as he does. In fact, Sakura doesn't think of Shirou as anything but a normal, mundane boy from her school.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Rider. She might act like a bit of a flake, but never get on her bad side.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Saber VS Constatin & Caster. Saber's insanely high magic resistance meant they never had a chance.
• Curious as a Monkey: Shirou develops this thanks to his general emptiness - something has to fill it. It manifests in ways from wanting to check that plants really need sunlight to wanting to compete in a ruthless war between magi, and he approaches each in almost exactly the same way.
• Cursed with Awesome: Taken quite literally with Angra Manyu possessing Shirou. Yes, he's a pseudo-Lesser Grail thanks to the shards of the Fourth Heaven's Feel Ritual's grail being fused with his body. Yes, his mind, body, and soul have been warped and fused with All the World's Evils. But compared to some very minor and disregarded negatives, the bonuses he's gotten - incredibly powerful biomancy and Nigh-Invulnerability that lets him come back from the dead - are more than worth it.

• Daddy's Girl: Illya.
  And more than that, she would prove that she could uphold her fathers ideals. She would make him proud.
• Deal with the Devil: Hardly knowingly, nor with the standard Judeo-Christian Devil, but this is the premise of the 'fic.
• Devil in Plain Sight: Kotomine Kirei and Shirou.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Gilgamesh is displeased enough with stepping in cat mess that he seems to have personally gone and killed a number of cats in the area. Possibly with some of his ancient magical artifacts.
• Dynamic Entry: Ilya via Excaliblast onto Shirou VS Bazett.
• Evil Orphan: Shirou's more amoral than anything else, but he's so close to this trope that it practically doesn't matter. He just happens to have a Morality Pet in Rin while he grows up.
• Face Palm: Shirou when Ilya said she won't kill him 'for now' in front of Assassin. And when Rider saw Shirou collapse in front of her and Assassin.
• Familiar: Shirou's familiars are absolutely horrifying but extremely effective in combat.
• Flat "What": Shows up a fair bit.
  • From Gilgamesh on several occasions.
    • First on learning of his new 'little brother'.
    • Second upon Shirou spoiling Aerith's death.
  • Shirou when he first met Ilya, and when Assassin agreed to ally with Rin despite her obvious dislike towards Rin.
• Foe-Tossing Charge: Not a literal application of the trope, but Kiritsugu fighting across entire continents and decades of old enemies to get to Ilya definitely fits the spirit.
• For The Trollz: The entire Kotomine family.
• For Want Of A Nail: The whole premise of the fic.
• Garden of Evil: This is what protects Shirou's workshop. Rin nearly kills herself several times just trying to examine the plants when the two are eight years old.
• Gender Flip: Rider is Sir Francis Drake, while Assassin is Jack the Ripper.
• Genki Girl: Ilya. Much to Saber's exasperation as a Servant worrying about her Master's idea of prudence.
• Green Thumb: How Shirou typically applies his magical affinity for living material.
• Good Thing You Can Heal: Or Shirou's study of his Healing Factor would go disastrously wrong.
• Healing Factor: Shirou's got one, just like in canon. Unlike canon, he isn't letting a hitherto unknown ability to not die when killed go unstudied.
• Hero Antagonist: Ilya's one of the most righteous and noble characters in the story, but that doesn't mean she's not Shirou's opponent and willing to kill him, if necessary.
• Invocation: Shirou's default aria.
  Shirou: "Analysis start."
• Imagine Spot: Rin has several about Kotomine Shirou, ranging from sweet to raunchy. She denies their existence.
• It Amused Me: The entire Kotomine family, to an extent.
  • And Ilya.
  Ilya: Whether it's falling onto a girl's chest as your love interest walks through the door, or making someone think you're going to kill them, it's all fun!
• It Gets Easier: Apparently averted. Shirou has no trouble killing his first man, and in fact feels better after he does.
• Killer Rabbit: Assassin can be shy, overwhelmingly cute, and have a soft side several miles wide for Shirou. And only Shirou. Everyone else, especially anything female, will taste swift and visceral death.
• The Lad-ette: Rider likes her booze. And her pipe.
• Large Ham: Ilya, "heroine of justice".
• Lightning Bruiser: Saber, nothing in her stats rank below 'A', with her Mana being A+. She was summoned by Ilya after all.
• Lovecraftian Superpower: Shirou. He positively revels in it.
• Luminescent Blush: Rin, as per canon.
  • Bazett too, after summoning Cu Chulainn. She even faints!
• Mad Scientist: Despite using magic, Shirou shades into this. His familiars are perhaps the best example of how ... interesting his ideas can get. Not that this makes them at all ineffective in battle.
• Magical Girl: This is what Ilya wants to be.
• Master Poisoner: Shirou demonstrates a very definite enthusiasm for all kinds of poisonous plants in his first meeting with Rin. Understandably, she's a little put off.
• Metaphorically True: Gilgamesh when Shirou asked him about the Grail. Shirou's Genre Savvy enough to know he wasn't being told everything.
• Mexican Standoff: Between Rider and Assassin. Complete with Gunpoint Banter.
• Morality Pet: Kotomine Shirou has several. Their names are Tohsaka Rin and Saegusa Yukika. Do not hurt them. There is a reason Shirou is classified as a Sociopathic Hero.
  • Coincidentally, Kotomine Shirou is Assassin-chan's morality pet. Hurting Shirou in any manner is also not a good idea.
• Moral Myopia: Shirou has a bad case of this. Word of God describes it as: Tell him that you'll kill ten thousand people if he doesn't say, give Rin a nasty cut on her cheek and he'll tell you to go right on ahead, whistling a jaunty tune as he goes.
• Mundane Utility: The gigantic roses with thorns 'the size of small daggers' apparently discourage wandering cats from dirtying the church garden.
• Not So Stoic: Constantin. He deals with his defeat...poorly.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Rider comes as a ditzy Cloudcuckoolander 90% of the time, but she has an ability to notice what's going on at all times and is shown to be a very competent fighter.
• Oblivious to Love: Despite Shirou being significantly more inquisitive and perceptive, enough to troll Rin for laughs on a regular basis, he seems to be completely oblivious to her attraction.
  • For that matter, he doesn't realize Assassin is going full-blown Yandere over him. Although Assassin is hiding this rather well.
• Omake: Stormedge have written a few. Notably Gilgamesh playing Western RPGs, and another one where Kirei hilariously broke up Rin&Shirou's marriage ceremony to induce a Caren+Shirou end.
  • Find the Shiro/Caren one here.
• Older Than They Look: Illyasviel Von Einzbern, of course.

• Pet the Dog: Both Kirei and Gilgamesh are shown to care at least somewhat for Shirou, and Shirou even considers Kirei a good father.
• Pirate Girl: Rider, affectionately nicknamed Piratits. Arguably more of a Privateer. She's Sir Francis Drake.
• Power Perversion Potential: Shirou, whose origin is 'Flesh'. Connect the dots. Word of God states that yes, Shirou can indeed bring a woman to orgasm merely by touching her.
• Puppy-Dog Eyes: Ilya uses them to get her way with Saber. Who falls for it despite having known Ilya for years.
• The Reveal: Assassin's true identity is Jack the Ripper
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Whether Shirou had one is debatable. Mostly because his target died too quickly to really fit the spirit of the trope.
• Shout-Out: 'Gameplay and story segregation' - from one you wouldn't expect: Gilgamesh!
• Something Else Also Rises: Shirou when he first woke up with Assassin holding onto him.
• Sociopathic Hero: Kotomine Shirou hides it so well that even he is not aware, but he really could not care less about the lives of anybody that isn't explicitly his friend.
• Starter Villain: Constatin
• Stripperiffic: Assassin. She is aware of this and blushes accordingly.
  • Rider, too.
• Supreme Chef: Unlike canon, Shirou no longer meets the criteria. Rin does, though.
• Take That!: From Kotomine!Shirou to FSNcanon!Shirou: "What kind of idiot would simply accept that he had a mysterious healing ability, and then leave it to chance to determine if he ever found out its source or not?"
  • Rin fires one off towards her canon self: "She'd almost used a command seal, a power nearly on par with True Magic, over something as trivial as her Servant teasing her a little. On the actual day of summoning! What kind of idiot would do something like that?"
• The Tease: Rider towards Rin. And we love her for it.
• This Means War!: Caster and her Master's actions cause Yukika to be crippled. Upon learning this, and after a minor Heroic BSoD, Shirou pulls out all the stops to put Constantin's head on a plate.
• Throwing Your Swords Always Works: Shirou wielding Black Keys.
• Took a Level in Badass
  • Avenger, the weakest Servant of the Third Holy Grail War.
  • Sakura, who has become a very confident Matou magus.
• Too Powerful to Live: Archer, seriously.
• Tsundere: Rin well, duh). However, her Rider seems to take a perverse pleasure in drawing out the tsun side. And Rin's 'dere' side is just plain adorable, e.g. when she's thinking about Shirou.
• Tyke-Bomb: Sakura is a different type than in canon. Instead of being shaped into Zouken's own Grail vessel, she is trained by him to become one of his "weapons".
• Undying Loyalty: Saber would give her life for Ilya without hesitation.
• Unexplained Recovery: Shirou told Rin that he got impaled by a sword against Bazett. Rin replies that he got better.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Shirou uses magic to reshape his hands into claws, Alex Mercer style.
• Wall of Weapons: The Kotomine family has one.
• Warrior Poet: Berserker acts like one. He fails miserably.
• Wave Motion Sword: Excalibur, of course. But this time Saber has Ilya the loli-sized dynamo powering her and Saber can abuse it like never before.
• When She Smiles: Assassin when Shirou refuses to let her to face Saber alone. Her smile is so radiant that Shirou can't look away.
• When Trees Attack: This is how Shirou protects his workshop.
• Winds of Destiny, Change!: Possibly what Rider's Luck Stat (Rank EX) and Pioneer of the Stars lets her do.
• The Worf Effect: Avenger eliminating Archer, the most powerful Servant of the Fifth Holy Grail War.
• Yandere: Assassin. Goes to the extreme on 'dere'. Bear in mind that Assassin's true identity is Jack the Ripper.
• Your Soul Is Mine!: Avenger pulls this on Archer for a transgression committed against him in life. Illya tries to do it to Avenger in order to let the Lesser Grail claim the Servant's mana, but Avenger makes sure that he loses the battle less than Illya, squirreling Karna's soul away inside of Shirou, whose status as another Lesser Grail prevents Illya from taking the soul from him.

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