Beta read by Shigiya.
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-Fuyuki-
(A few days later)
After the long vacation, both Shirou and Taiga returned to their respective lives back in Fuyuki. The former became busy with all the assignments and homework he had missed as well as spending a few more hours helping out Neko-san in Copenhagen. The woman was about to pay him his regular monthly wage even after he was absent for nearly two weeks—something which he didn't find fair.
Unfortunately, his boss remained indifferent to his argument and just shoved the money inside his pockets. So Shirou just decided to work extra hours every day in order to make it even, but once again got chased off by Neko-san who stated that he needed enough time to study and rest.
He did end up being grateful to her as this allowed him to continue his nightly patrol of the town. There wasn't much going on these last few days, no robberies, street mugging, and other crimes in the parts he frequented. No matter how hard he tried, Shirou had to swallow the bitter fact that he couldn't be everywhere at once. Even with reinforcement, it could take a while to run from one end of Fuyuki to the other.
Taiga meanwhile, was swamped with paperwork. Despite stating that she was going out of the country for an extended period of time, it didn't stop her work from piling up along with much homework Taiga forgot she gave her students to complete before her vacation.
Shirou wanted to say that she deserved it after lying to the Principle over the reason for their travel, but in the end, he just enjoyed cooking once again in a fully equipped kitchen with his reliable 'sous-chef' whom he missed a lot as well.
"Good morning, Senpai. Have you finished preparing breakfast already?" said Sakura as she entered the living room.
"Yeah, breakfast is done. All that's left is setting up the table and cooking the fish." he said while bringing out some horse mackerel from the fridge to cook.
"Oh, let me help, I'll prepare the dishes."
Sakura was cheerful as usual, her mere presence made the room brighten up in an instant. Shirou felt bad to have left her alone for the whole trip. As far as he knew, the girl never had any true friends and usually spent her days with him and would immediately go back to her house.
Some would argue that he was the same, but every other day he would pay a visit to his father's grave at Ryuudou Temple and have a chat with Issei if he had the time. Amongst the few people he interacted with at school, Issei was the most mature one out of them. Talking to him felt comfortable and natural, they both understood each other. And the monk in training was also very respectful of people's privacy and personal life, including Shirou's.
Issei talked to him frequently; he planned to become part of the Student Council, the president if things went smoothly. For now, Issei played a minor role and helped out as a secretary more than anything. Meanwhile, Shirou didn't have any plans for high school in particular. He would just continue living the way he was right now and continue to practice his magecraft.
After that?
Well, Shirou planned to maybe travel to other countries where there are ongoing wars and conflicts ravaging the lands. He could use his expertise to help out the innocent and families who had nothing to do with all the death and destruction.
But that also meant leaving everything he grew up with behind and hardly seeing the people he loved. That fact alone made him consider this decision only after he finished his studies.
"Oh, this is the smell of Shirou's omelet. I see, you're making breakfast this morning."
The Fuyuki tiger had arrived for her food.
She sat near the table, wearing her work clothes and a slight amount of makeup.
"Breakfast will be ready in a bit, make yourself comfortable, Fuji-nee"
First, he needed to cook the fish he prepared for this morning. The price had once again gone up slightly, and Shirou made sure to keep a record of his expenses and make certain adjustments to his budget for the month.
"Sakura, can you use the dishes in the middle? That will make it look better."
"Um, this one with bumps?"
"Yeah, that. You have to think about the plates too or it's an oversight. Oh, and the radish is already grated."
Sakura took out a dish from the back, her hands reaching up the cupboard and as her clothes shifted that he spotted a bruise on her wrist.
"—!?"
His heart skipped a beat.
"Hold on, Sakura." he said, dropping everything he was doing and rushing to the girl's side, making the latter confused by his sudden change in attitude.
"Yes, what is it, Senpai?"
Her confusion soon turned into embarrassment as Shirou without saying a word grabbed her arms and pushed back her sleeves.
"S-Senpai?" she said, stuttering while also trying to force down the blush creeping up her cheeks. "I-Is something wrong?"
"What's that on your wrist?"
As soon as he made that inquiry, her mood dropped as well as a slow-growing dread filled up her guts. Sakura resisted the urge to pull away her hands as she didn't want him to see more of her damaged self.
"Oh… it's… it's nothing."
She looked away awkwardly.
And that told him who caused that bruise. "Shinji again, huh? What does he think he's doing, beating on his sister!?"
Shirou felt his hand tighten into a fist as he clenched both his teeth. For a brother to treat his own sister in such a manner and bruise her as well? That was crossing the line, and even if Shinji was his friend, the redhead knew that he needed to stop the boy from continuing to treat Sakura in such a way.
"This is not okay, Sakura. I'm having a talk with him."
The moment he mentioned that, Sakura's eyes widened in panic. She hastily went to Shirou to stop him.
"T-That's not it, Senpai… you misunderstood! Um, well… I fell and hurt myself. I'm a bit clumsy, you know? So I fall often when I'm not paying attention and get hurt a lot. This t-time I was walking down the stairs and slipped on water." Sakura stuttered as she talked, yet even he could see that something wasn't right with her tone.
"Don't lie," Shirou scolded and to further prove his point, he forcefully folded her sleeves to show the entire arm and just as he feared... there were many black spots. "How can you get bruises like these from falling over? I swear I will go to Shinji and teach him a lesson, I'll break a bone if I have to!"
He felt weird getting too angered over anything — especially getting so furious to want to cause harm. Generally, the best approach he would usually take with such things was to talk things out, but this never seemed to work out with Shinji. Having Sakura suffer for no reason and get hit by Shinji was just pushing all of his buttons.
"N-No, Senpai! This doesn't have anything to do with Nii-san. I really did this myself, so you can't get mad at him!" Her face reddened with how Shirou pulled her sleeves away and how he caressed her arm.
Shirou fell silent, frustrated over Sakura that remained adamant on her claim. It was useless to say anything to her at this point.
Even he could see that she wasn't being truthful. There was a thing as caring too much, and Shirou believed that Sakura cared too much about her brother and their relationship as friends.
Yet she looked at him with such eyes that begged him to stop and leave the matter as is.
"All right," It took a lot out of him to say those words, but he didn't want to make Sakura any more uncomfortable than she already is. "If you say so, I'll leave it at that."
Sakura realized how she basically forced him away from the problem, but she believed it to have been the best course of action for Shirou's safety.
"Yes. I'm sorry, Senpai."
"Why are you apologizing? It's Shinji's fault."
He decided that he would still have a talk with him anyway. Whilst doing such a thing meant going behind Sakura's back, Shirou found it to be a necessity as he wanted for the girl to not live in such an environment. Sakura was one of his first and oldest friends and the last thing he wanted was to turn a blind eye to her problems.
"..."
At the mention of Shinji's name, Sakura looked away awkwardly—refusing to meet his eyes.
In other words, he was definitely the cause of that bruise. Sakura's lie about falling down was so bad that even a child could figure it out. Matou Shinji had a bad habit of being hard on his sister when things didn't go his way or when he felt that she was looking down on him. They were soon going to become high school students, he expected some form of maturity from the boy, yet he kept getting worse.
'I hope I can ask him why he did such a thing in the first place and confront him about his abusive behavior as a brother.' Shirou thought.
Being a sibling was an important role one needed to always be mindful of. What kind of older brother would cause his sister pain? Shirou could never imagine himself doing such a thing… ever.
Yeah… sister…
{Flashback)
(A few years ago)
"Hey old man, why do you keep so many guns around if you're no longer an assassin?"
A young boy asked his father, Kiritsugu, as the latter was teaching the basics about gun handling and management.
For anyone, the thought of teaching a kid anything gun related was unthinkable and criminal even. Kiritsugu would have preferred for him to have followed the same example as well, but he knew that it would become a fruitless endeavor.
The cruel world that awaited him soon on the other side of the world. Magi weren't the kindest of people, they were powerful people who would kill off his son by just hearing his name and Shirou didn't possess the ability to protect himself from them. His magecraft was… limited, to say the least. Not that he himself was a good teacher, to begin with, but Shirou found any sort of result at a much slower pace than any Magus he met in the past.
So, Kiritsugu found himself forced to face the reality that he might end up not having enough time to teach Shirou everything he could to protect himself. With each passing day bringing him closer to the doorsteps of death, the Magus Killer decided that he needed to accelerate Shirou's lessons and start familiarizing the boy with his field of expertise.
"These weapons were left here before I met you, I keep a certain measure of self-defensive measures across every location I operated in—this place being one of the many places. And if by some stroke of misfortune, someone associated with one of my targets were to find me then I'd need to prepare myself in time."
"Wow," Shirou marveled at the display in front of him. "It looks so cool!"
It wasn't anything impressive for Kiritsugu, even if this place was his former residence, most of his tools and weapons were left to be destroyed in the Einzbern castle built near Fuyuki during the Fourth Grail War. Nearly every piece of heavy machinery and gadgetry he owned consisted of a mystic suit made to withstand bullets and deadly traps, like landmines, C4s, and some special made unbreakable strings. All were left in the castle which was later destroyed by the war.
What he had here were basically scraps, aside from that one item…
"Hey, dad, who is this girl?"
"What?"
Shock formed in his eyes as he turned to see Shirou holding a small picture of him and Illya playing in the snow.
A picture that was taken by Irisviel which he left here a long time ago.
"Where did you get that!?" he shouted, rushing to Shirou's side and finding a box filled with many similar pictures. Some of which Irisviel herself was also present.
'I should have left them somewhere else!'
Kiritsugu didn't want Shirou to get knowledge about Illya and Irisviel! It was far too early for him to find out about his past, he didn't even think the boy grasped the reality that his father used to be an assassin for hire, yet!
'They're no one!' was what he wanted to say but couldn't bring himself to do it.
"They are…" his family? His sister and mother who couldn't save the latter from dying during the Grail War and his sister—who is locked up in a castle by Jubstacheit and fed lies about her father?
"She's so pretty!" exclaimed the boy as he held another picture of himself and Iri sitting on a bench in the park. "Can I meet her one day?"
"..."
"Old man?"
He called out to his father, worried about his sudden silence.
"It's nothing." A hand came to rest on Shirou's head, gently ruffling his hair—much to the dismay of the younger boy. "You find her pretty?"
"Yeah!"
"Well so did I," he couldn't help but smile, remembering his time spent with Iri. "When I first met her, she didn't show much emotions at the start, but held a vast amount of knowledge that made me look clueless. It was later that she started becoming more open and emotional. Acting all innocent and joyful, filled with life and an unending amount of love for nearly everything. She truly was like sunshine in my world."
"She sounds like Fuji-nee's long-lost sister."
Kiritsugu, for the first time in a long while, burst out laughing when he heard his son's words.
"True, now that I think about it, those two would have gone along extremely well. Their personalities complement each other and both act like kids from time to time. They could have become best friends by now…"
"Can you tell me more about them?" Shirou asked.
Kiritsugu sighed.
'There is no going back after this.'
Sitting down next to his son, he began telling him a story about a blank doll he met many years ago. Without a personality she could call her own yet remained one of the most knowledgeable beings in the world, Kiritsugu decided that it would be better to show her the world outside the castle. Why he did it in the first place he did not know. Maybe out of pity more than anything.
But soon, that doll started to change and become far more colorful than any of her clan's other members. For how little time she lived, she managed to create an innocent yet mature personality to herself—much to the shock of her creator. She followed him everywhere, smiled, and comforted him whenever he felt tired and sad. In a way, he began relying on her far more than he expected at first, and he did so without any regrets. He saw her as so much more after, and fell in love for the first time in his life.
And from their union, a small flower bloomed, bringing in more joy to both him and his wife—they named her Illyasviel.
"I… I have a sister…" Shirou muttered, not knowing how to react to such a piece of information. "Is she… still alive?"
From how his father talked about the woman, Iri, he spoke as if reminiscing of the past with a melancholic air around him. Shirou was no stranger to the concept of death and seeing how broken his father looked when talking about them made him realize that he might never be able to see his other family members in the future. But he didn't say anything about his sister that made him think that she wasn't alive, so he held a small amount of hope.
"Yes," Kiritsugu said sternly. "She is still alive, Shirou. And to me, that's all that matters now."
The main Einzbern castle's defenses were near impossible to break through with his current degrading state. Each attempt became harder and harder to progress. Jubstacheit knew of his attempt and just kept taunting him with his daughter, probably feeding her lies about how he abandoned her and completely hid the fact that her father was risking his life to reach her during many attempts over the years.
At this point, he had given up hope of ever retrieving her. Adding his inability to save his daughter as one of the many regrets that have piled up in his mind. For now, he wanted to protect the only one he had left, he wanted to watch over Shirou until his last moment.
"Then why isn't she with us?"
"..."
Kiritsugu didn't know how to answer his son.
"I… it's because I've become too weak to bring her home."
How Irisviel would be disappointed in him was apparent to the Magus Killer. He failed both as a husband and a father, making them pay the price in the end.
"Then I'll bring her back."
Kiritsugu winced, almost not surprised by the boy's answer. He knew Shirou well enough to predict the boy's train of thought, and this one wasn't something he wished for him to try. The Einzbern were one of the most influential families in the Moonlight World, becoming their enemies was not something anyone could survive.
"No you won't—cough!"
He was prepared to scold the boy, but getting riled up caused him to experience a wave of pain throughout his body, and cough up a bit of blood.
Another grim reminder that he was running out of time.
"Why not?" Shirou said. "I promised to become a hero in your place, and what kind of hero would I be if I can't save my own sister?"
"You will be a fool to do so! You'll be needlessly putting your life in danger trying to face an opponent whose power you cannot comprehend. I tried, trust me when I tell you that I tried my best to get her back, but the people keeping her locked up are too dangerous for even the most skilled Magus, let alone you, Shirou."
"But—"
"—But nothing! Don't you get it Shirou? You will have no army by your side to keep you safe, you barely started learning about magecraft and these people have centuries worth of accumulated knowledge and experience. Without any sort of backing and significant power, you are nothing but an ant they won't hesitate to crush."
His words were harsh, even hurtful, but they were the truth and Kiritsugu wanted to push this point inside Shirou's head. The only possible way he could think his son would be able to save his sister was to either get the director or vice director to order the Einzbern. Or, become so powerful that he could do it by himself, which he doubted Shirou could amount to such. Even with an above-average count of Magical Circuits and a possible ancestry of magecraft users, Shirou had nothing which could give him the edge. Even his talent with spells and magic was abysmal—having learned nothing but Structural Analysis, Reinforcement and Projection so far.
All he wanted was for his son to live a peaceful life in Fuyuki, without going on a suicidal mission.
He failed Iri and Illya, but he wasn't going to fail his son.
"Let's leave this topic of conversation, let's continue our training."
After that talk, Shirou never brought up matters concerning his sister ever again, for he knew that his father wouldn't help him on that end. But he hasn't stopped thinking about it, as if he could ignore it in the first place. One way or another, he promised himself to bring back Illya.
He was a hero and a brother, it was his duty to do so.
{Break}
(Present)
Safe to say that finding any information about Illya and her family was near impossible without having some sort of connection to any Magi, outside Luvia who he met recently, that could help him out.
Though Kiritsugu did mention about them having built a castle somewhere in Fuyuki, so he had his first clue there. Yet there was no record of such a construction anywhere in the maps, or address books and even Fujimura-san couldn't find anything related to it.
It was like they managed to snuff out every bit of news relating to their family.
As expected from a Magi family.
But not all hope was lost.
He found another clue while rummaging through his father's old belongings. Including notes and some sort of research done in a particular sort of field of magecraft—homunculus.
Shirou initially planned to make a stop in London and enter the Clocktower. Planning to buy and dig up more information upon anyone who matched the facial description of his sister and the field of magic. With how Kiritsugu described Irisviel, calling her a doll at first was a clear indication of her being a possible homunculus.
Fortunately, he managed to make a friend who could help him out from the other side.
'I'll send her the pictures of Illya and Irisviel. Asking her to research any family related to that particular field of magic as well.'
Seeing how Kiri described them to be a dangerous bunch, he expected for the family to be well known and for Luvia to have no difficulty in finding them.
"First that girl needs to learn how to send emails…" Luvia was smart and persistent, he was sure she would figure it out soon enough.
"Senpai?" Sakura called him, shaking Shirou out of his thoughts.
"Uh, oh?"
Seeing how he was about to burn the salmon, Shirou quickly hurried and finished plating everything and releasing a sigh of relief. Getting distracted in the middle of cooking was a huge mistake.
"Sorry about that, I got distracted." he apologized, scratching his head in embarrassment.
"D-Did you… um, you won't cause any trouble with Nii-san?" Sakura asked hesitantly.
"Huh? Yeah, I guess I won't."
He was only going to have a talk with him.
"I won't try to have a fight or anything anymore, I mean, he's a good friend of mine so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.."
Yeah, he did feel a bit scummy from lying to her, but it was for Sakura's own good.
"I know that senpai is a gentle person, but you do end up getting involved in more violent situations for no reason when it comes to looking out for other people. Like that last time, you tried to go up against a bunch of upperclassmen from another school."
"Well, they were harassing some of the girls from our school… I couldn't just remain by the side and let these people continue doing such things." Shirou argued, defending his actions.
"You didn't even inform any of the teachers and ran straight up to the leader and pushed him off his bike. Then proceeded to get ganged by the group."
Now it was Sakura's turn to get angry, Shirou really needed to learn to put his safety first.
"That was just a one time thing…"
"You once tried to get in between a fight between street thugs."
Oh right, he forgot about that… Issei was the one who dragged him away before he could do anything. How did Sakura know about it? Issei must have ratted him out.
"That doesn't cou—"
"—Senpai, there was also the incident a few months ago at Copenhagen when a few drinks were getting rowdy."
"..."
Shirou was speechless, it wasn't like he was searching for trouble, these things just happened when he was nearby and he couldn't ignore them.
"Fine," he grumbled in acceptance. "So I do end up in trouble from time to time, but I swear that I only did it to help people."
Sakura giggled at his behavior, finding his pouting to be cute.
"I believe we should hurry up, Fujimura-san will be in a bad mood if we don't get her food."
"Right, breakfast will be ready in a minute."
Better have a feast prepared for the tiger.
{Break}
It was almost seven thirty in the morning, everyone managed to finish their breakfast right on time. Sakura and Fuji-nee had already left for their morning club practice and classwork for the latter.
Shirou stayed behind to finish up the dishwashing and send an email to Luvia while he was at it. Classes didn't start until 8:30, so he had a bit of time to work on other things around the house. Some of which consisted of getting up to date with his notes, thankfully, Issei made sure to print out some copies for him.
"Alright, time to run." Locking the doors to his house, Shirou began running to school.
Along the way, he was greeted by some of the locals. Ayame-san, one of the few florists in town, waved at him. Others greeted as well, the butcher and random passersby. He returned the greeting and continued to make his way to school.
"Good morning, Emiya."
Just outside the gates, waited a familiar male student.
"Yo, Issei, didn't expect to find you waiting here for me."
Out of everyone he knew, Issei was probably the most mature person he knew. Even being more diligent and dedicated in his studies than any student or teacher.
"Classes don't start for another five minutes, and I found it weird how you were still not here. You don't usually come to school this late."
"Ah, sorry about that. Since my house is quieter in the morning, I decided to take some time and copy your notes. You know how I won't be able to have a lot of alone time in school." he said while handing over some of Issei's notebooks.
"I'm glad to see you're working hard to catch up on your studies, Emiya. Though you don't need to push yourself that much, I can understand that you might not feel well after experiencing such a deadly disease. I admire you for continuing to study despite being treated just a few days ago."
Shirou facepalmed his face, seeing how the poor excuse Taiga left behind was coming to bite him back.
"It's not that Fuji-nee lied about me having a deadly illness or something. I'm perfectly healthy and not about to die or anything like that."
He would teach her a lesson to never pull off such a stunt by feeding Taiga her least favorite food and maybe giving her a cold shoulder for a week or two. And Fujimura-san could scold his daughter for once, that man was too doting on her.
"... Honestly, I'm not surprised." Issei said calmly. "Guess I won't be needing these then."
To Shirou's surprise, the monk in training removed a box of gloves, hand sanitizers, and masks from his bag before stuffing them in his locker.
"...Did you think that I had the plague or something? This is too much!"
"One can never be too careful." Issei said, adjusting his glinting glasses which shined white from the sunlight.
Shirou sighed, being used to his friend's somewhat weird antics at times.
Speaking of friends.
"Hey, Issei, have you seen Shinji lately?"
"Hugh, that slimeball again? I don't get how you two can be on good terms with how rude he's with you and everyone else. His condescending and arrogant tone just grinds my nerves whenever I'm near him!" he ranted, massaging his temples. "To answer your question, yes I've seen him roaming around the halls and trying to flirt with some of the younger girls. I honestly don't understand what girls see in him—she's his sister, not his slave."
"I see… Listen Issei, I need a favor from you. It's something very important."
If he wanted to talk to Shinji, he needed Sakura or anyone else as far away as possible. He wanted this to remain secret and not involve anyone else.
"This day is just full of surprises, first you come later than usual, apparently don't suffer from a dangerous illness, and are asking me for a favor? As they say, the Sun must be rising in the west." Issei joked, before returning to a more serious state. "Tell me, I'm all ears."
"I need to talk to Shinji about how he's been treating Sakura lately."
"You saw the bruise on her hand?"
This shocked Shirou.
"You knew?"
"By accident, Matou-san was handing me some papers in the student council office when I saw some marks on her hand. We both are familiar with her family and regularly keep an eye on her, so it's obvious that the only one responsible for such a thing is either Shinji or that she got injured from an accident. Though you suddenly asking to meet Shinji tells me that my former idea was the correct one."
Shirou didn't know whether to be impressed or scared at his friend's deductive skills.
Hopefully he never learned of the Moonlite world.
"Are you secretly planning to become a detective?"
"Very funny, Emiya. But no, I'm just more observant than your average student as a monk in training and I still plan on taking over the temple duties like my father." he boasted. "So, what do you want me to do about Shinji? You know reporting him to the Dean won't help us and could potentially worsen the situation."
"No, I'll be the one talking to him later on in the evening, after school hours. I want you to distract Sakura long enough by asking her to help you out or something. Or, find a way to have Shinji stay in school longer than usual so that I can convince Sakura to return to her house without him. Basically, anything to keep her away from all of this, she's been too protective of Shinji and won't let me confront him."
They stayed silent for a minute, Issei seemingly pondering on his request. Both of them knew that ordering the blue-haired boy to do anything was near impossible. He was a slacker and hated helping out with simple things around the school.
"Kinda weird why Matou-san keeps doing so, that girl is a mystery to me."
"I guess she doesn't want to cause any 'unnecessary' trouble over her involvement."
Shirou found this way of thinking completely wrong. Sakura needed to stop enduring this kind of treatment if it was hurting her and Shinji needed to learn to become a better brother.
"You know… I could mention that a certain girl wants to talk to him behind the main building, all alone." Issei said with a small evil smirk emerging from his face. "I believe that'll work wonders and he won't mind staying an hour or two."
Shirou was a bit hesitant with that idea.
"A-Are you sure about that? Feels kinda wrong to do that."
"Do you want your plan to work or not? A small lie won't hurt no one if you're doing this for Matou-san's sake."
Issei was right, he needed this to work out.
"Fine, do whatever you want, I'll be waiting for him this afternoon."
Shirou hoped the meeting would go well and for Shinji to realize his mistake.
Hopefully… nothing wrong would happen.
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The next 5 chapters of Snafu, Harry Potter and my 2 Fate fics (Fate Coiling Sword having 3 chapters) are already available on my P@treon. With 4 more Broly chapters at /NimtheWriter. Also, I post monthly commissioned arts on each story, already posted a few on an Archer's Promise and Snafu.