After a bit of ringing the phone connected and the cheerful voice of Taiga sounded
"This is Taiga Fujimura speaking, who is on the other side."
"Taiga-nee it is me, shirou emiya." said shirou
Perhaps sensing something in his tone of voice she left her flippant tone of voice behind and asked in a serious voice
"Did something happen ? shirou! You don't sound well. Tell me what happened."
"Dad. he passed away last night." blurted out the redhead in a measured voice.
These words sounded like thunder in her ears and she dropped the phone on the ground with a thud. As she stood there stunned in disbelief clear crystal droplets started falling down her eyes. The man kiritsugu represented a lot for her, a teacher, her idol, the one who gave her a path to find her dream and her 1st love. She would never talk to anyone about this as this was something she was both ashamed and proud of, she easily fell in love with a man named Kiritsugu Emiya who expertly avoided all her advances and those are what made her sink in deeper.
The sound of her sobs and hurried footsteps echoed in the pone before the beep of the signal being cut echoed in his ears. Rin helped him look presentable and then they cleaned the bloodstains left by him across the house. Finally, everything collected was set ablaze in the forge and by the time they were done vehicles arrived outside the emiya residence from which a panicked taiga along with her father and grandfather stepped out.
Taiga rushed forward, and the old man moved with a measured pace. He had already seen many of his friends pass away in his long life and profession. The feeling of outliving friends was not new for him, and his way of expressing his grief was well known, so he walked the way, remembering all he could about the man named Kiritsugu Emiya.
Inside looking at the smiling face of the man who now had transformed into a corpse over the course of a night tears leaked out of Taiga`s eyes. Still, his gentle smile of relief made her strangely feel at peace with the current situation. She hardened herself and wiped her eyes as she looked to the side and saw shirou. She decided that she would take care of the boy now that he had nobody else to rely on. This will be her responsibility for being his elder sister as well as her tribute to kiritsugu.
Then her gaze shifted over to the girl standing beside him, she had long brown hair roughly tucked into a ponytail with aqua-coloured eyes. She was wearing a brown overcoat-like sweater and stood beside the boy while holding his forearms. Looking at the 2 kids standing in the corner taiga furrowed her brows because Shirou's face did not have any ripples of sadness in it and his eyes were enough for her to understand everything. She had seen this look 100s of times in the past years, the look they shared when they got lost in crossing their swords and losing track of time, the look of holding everything back and living in the moment. She then asked who was Rin as she focused on her.
Rin introduced herself as Shirou's classmate and the boy confirmed her as his friend whom he had called to the emiya residence to work on a project. As the tigress of fuyuki was about to dig deeper into this she was interrupted by the hitting of feet on the floor, which revealed her grandfather walking towards them.
The old man came to the boy, put his hand on his head 1st, and then clamped his shoulders silently. The wordless conversation went on for some time and after Raiga finally comforted the boy he moved towards the corpse of kiritsugu and the others stood there in an uncomfortable silence till he came back with a solemn look on his face which revealed traces of the time gone by. He slowly pulled out a paper envelope stamped with a seal and said
"Kiritsugu gave me this folder a few days before today and asked me to arrange the legal procedure. Now I think it's time to explain them."
what he didn't say when he asked why was kiritsugu making these arrangements like he was attempting something fatal, to which the magus killer had shown a weak smile and said
"A man can't run away from his past and it will always catch up to him after some time."
the men had enough tactics understanding that whatever was coming was not something Raiga cant help solve and the best help he could provide was handling the document in a discrete manner. so he opened the document and stated
"Kiritsugu Emiya had declared Taiga Fujimura as the legal guardian of his son Shirou Emiya in case of his death. Shirou Emiya is to be his legal heir and inherit all his assets including this house as well as all his investments and savings."
"As the heir is underage his guardian is responsible for representing him in all legal matters except financial cases. Where Raiga Fujimura which means I would be responsible for managing all his investments and related matters."
He then showed a little toothy grin and said
"As his guardian, which means you taiga are still dependant on your allowance even after you are a adult due to your lack of sense for money."
This last statement broke apart the solemn mood and nearly cracked Taiga`s newfound determination to take care of shirou. This left him with mixed feelings as it was now clear that kiritsugu was well aware of his incoming death and had even made preparations for it, while he had noticed the decline in his father`s health but had given up on finding the cause after the man had dodged the questions and said it was the side effect of using too much magecraft in the grail war which had injured his body and his circuits were damaged due to the curse of the grail. Still, he could understand that his father was lying by omission and saying half-truths but he chose to ignore it and is regretting it now.
Everyone pays the price of their choices and he was paying his right now, Raiga explained that he had about 3 million dollars worth of investment under Kiritsugu`s name at different companies and organisations, he gave a small run down about them and finally took a long breath. Then he said
"Finally, his last wish is that he should be buried at Ryoudouu temple instead of the church."
After this Raiga pulled away the unwilling taiga and went to Issei`s father to consult him regarding the arrangement of the funeral. After that rin cracked a gem and gave shirou a final burst of healing and then left as she had to take care of Aoi Tohsaka. Time passed and quickly a funeral was arranged and following the wish of the deceased the funeral was kept small and simple. Taiga took shirou to a clothes shop and got him a black suit but when she went to help him put it on she found that he had seamlessly put it on.
Later when the tailor recommended combing his hair back they did so and moved on to the temple after Taiga wore a black kimono. While they walked by they didn't notice the few stands of white hairs in the ember-like red hair of the boy. As he said we pay the price of our choices and his body was also paying for pushing it beyond the limits and the activation of the crest frameworks.
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The time went by in a blur for shirou and he lived his life systematically while Taiga kept visiting him periodically which disturbed his magecraft practises a lot making him focus his time on forging.
Rin came to support him at first but like a cruel prank from fate, the condition of her mother Aoi had rapidly deteriorated making her time stretched thin as she had to spend a lot of time in the hospital to take care of her. During this time Shinji learnt about the death of Shirou's father from Issei who learnt about it from his father. Shiji tried to cheer up and comfort shirou in his own way.
From Shinji, this news spread to Sakura who asked shirou about this directly, he answered this with a nod and smiled at her. This is what she admired about this boy, while she was afraid and hence responsible for her suffering, he still showed her a genuine smile and compassion even when he was in grief.
Unlike a fake her who met him under the orders of that man, still, she was still sad about the death of his father as now that man would make her follow him home and taint that place with his hands. But she was also equally excited to meet and know more about her senpai.
(A/N: and that's it, guys the quality might be a little iffy as I am busy af nowadays. My schedule is packed and there are lots of records to write, notes to maintain and books to study.
The difference between animals and things will be the death of me, but still, it's interesting to learn new things. So my schedule is jampacked and it will take some time till my schedule gets adjusted.
So anyways any guess who will now die next? Someone is about to die.
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THANKS FOR READING:)