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This was the sound of one particularly rainy night as a white-haired woman with red eyes hurries through the quiet outskirts of Fuyuki city. While it would be understandable for someone without an umbrella to be running through the rain to find shelter. But that would not explain the dread on her face and how she is passing through every roof, desperate to escape from... something... or someone...
As she turns around, she could vaguely see a lanky purple figure far in the back quickly approaching her from the back, its features vague.
"Get away!" She breathlessly shouts, and despite trying to sound threatening, her voice came off more as pleading. The lady tries to hinder it by pushing down various trashcans and other things to no avail as the being merely hovers over them.
The chase continues, this time she goes into the thick nearby forest as she mutters to herself, "If I can just get to that castle I can-" But before she could finish her thought, she trips on a tree root she wasn't able to see, spraining her ankle. She groans from the pain before quickly looking back. She might not be able to see that being, but she is sure as hell that it hasn't let up on its chase. With that thought in mind, she soldiers through the pain to stand up.
Or at least she tries to. However, the moment she stood at full height, a purple gloved hand lands on her head, sending a shiver down her spine as its fabric caresses her soft silvery hair. She freezes from terror as the hand slides down her hair before clamping down on her pale face. The hand then forcefully turns her head to its face and...
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-
"Why are you screaming? You helped make that story." A girl with a black pair of twin tails complains as her other classmate screams herself into coughing.
The classroom's lights are flipped on as a boy wearing glasses, turns off his flashlight. "I am glad to have destroyed the vixen's eardrums with that story... even if it meant sacrificing my dear classmate's throat." He pushes up his glasses before walking back to his seat.
The English teacher at the time, a woman with a dark purple shade of hair looks shaken up as she looks at the student with the glasses, the fear still fresh in her mind. "T-that was g-gr..." She takes a deep gulp before continuing. "A great little story Mr. Ryuudou. Well done."
The boy proudly pushes his glasses up, the shine covering his left eye seemingly accentuating his pride in his work. "Much appreciated, Miss Kazata."
After managing to recompose herself, Miss Kazuta stands in front of the class to congratulate the boy. "And with Mr. Ryuudou's work, we have shown everyone's work for this week's activity." She then looks at the clock and sees that it's almost recess time. Seeing this, the woman then turns to everyone and announces, "Alright, before you go. One last thing. Earlier this morning, our English teachers were told that an all-high school play will be happening two months from now. So, if any of you are interested, please speak up. Auditions will be starting tomorrow and ending exactly a week from now. If you want to join, just head over to my desk after school to sign up, kay?"
The students all collectively give their responses. Shortly after, the bell rings and they all leave the room.
Issei Ryuudou begins making his way through the halls of Homurahara High where he is waved by a couple of people...
As he turns the corner, he is confronted by a cocky voice. "Hey there Ryuudou-san."
Issei turns to the side and looks at Shinji with two of his female classmates right beside him.
"Hello, Matou-san. Lively as ever, are we?"
"Of course, Mr. President of the Student body."
"So what is it, that you want, Matou-san?"
Shinji looks to the girls next to him and tells them, "It's been a pleasure to have you, today ladies. But I'll be having a personal talk with Ryuudou-Kun here if that's alright with you?"
The bolder of the two, a muscular blonde girl with long unkempt hair nods, before saying, "Alright Shinji-Kun. It's been fun today. See you later at class," which the meeker of the two, a thinner girl with dark red hair covering her eyes, merely nods. The two then walk off talking to each other.
"Oh and see you after school! We'll be having Chess practices alright? The next tournament's in a week!" Shinji calls out one last time before turning back to Issei.
"So?" Issei asks, somewhat curious as to what the scion of the Matou family wants from him.
Pausing a bit for dramatic effect, Shinji proceeds to talk while placing an arm around the boy's shoulder.
"You see buddy, it's Sakura's birthday at like Thursday next week."
"And?" Issei asks, feeling a sense of foreboding from how Shinji started with that statement of all things as well as how Shinji is calling him 'buddy'. He never calls him buddy.
"No need to sound super defensive, buddy."
"No."
"Eh?? I haven't even told you the whole thing already." Shinji complains about the immediate turndown.
"You only ever call me buddy or use pity tactics when you want something from me that involves causing trouble one way or another." Issei reasons out as he pushes his glasses up.
"Oh come on! Name one time!" Shinji smugly challenges Issei to which the similarly aged teen stands in place. He then turns around and walks off. Assuming this to be submission, Shinji follows closely behind, his smugness not letting up.
"Oh? Running away, are we? Can't handle that I'm right?" Shinji taunts only to be met with silence from the boy with glasses. They continue walking until they arrive at the student government office. Seeing this, Shinji's smirk widens as he says, "Heh? Now you're going to do a complete 180 on your decision eh? I don't fault you for that decision."
Shinji goes silent as he watches what his compatriot was doing. Rather than reach into the file cabinet where he keeps all the school request papers, he instead reaches into the file cabinet where a portion of the school records is placed. Issei then begins to sift through the various surnames until happening upon "Matou." After making sure it was Shinji's specifically, he proceeds to pull a sizable thick folder of offenses out.
"Hey... buddy... l-let's think about this for a second..."
Instantly gone was the self-approving air of confidence that the purple-haired boy had. Rather, in his place was the visage of an apprehensive fool who knows he's been got.
"July 3, 2000 Codename: The Sea Trebuchet." He relays out making the purple-haired boy sweat even further as he pleads out, "buddy, chum. Pal! Y-you win, ok?"
"It is 10:34 AM. Matou Shinji has requested 2 days before bringing a good 75-foot-long piece of plexiglass. Conclusion: Matou Shinji managed to catapult half of the plexiglass into the roof, causing multiple cases of property damage along its way."
Issei then closes the book with a sense of finality as he says, "Case one out of twelve."
After hearing that onslaught of truth, Shinji could be seen curling up into a ball on Issei's chair before bursting out, saying, "Oh come on! This one isn't even that bad!"
Shinji then proceeds to slide towards the window where he was looking down with contempt and... sadness?
Curious, Issei approaches him and looks down as well only to see the school's track and field area. Looking closer at where Shinji's eyes were trained, he notices Sakura sitting on the bench happily talking to Shirou. Then it clicked for him.
Shinji realizes he can't sweet talk his way around this one and so then forcibly lowers his pride and says with a much lower tone, "I... I know I don't have much of a good track record with you but... she, Sakura, has been distancing herself from me lately, and I'm scared I am losing her to that Emiya bastard with how fucking PERFECT HE IS AS A HUMAN BEING-"
He realized his voice was rising and paused before calming down enough to continue. "And... she and Yuji are the only family I truly got left... losing even one is a bigger deal than anyone might think. I... just want her to know that I still care."
And there it is... the crux of all of this... Weighing things, Issei then takes a deep breath.
The feeling of bad omens was still there... but seeing how badly Shinji is taking all this, he supposes it couldn't be TOO bad right? Besides, if he can get the local priest in on this, he can maybe pass it off as a religious retreat... right? Well there's the fact he's Buddhist and the priest is not... eh, he can always reason it out as him just acting as a supervisor or something like that.
A hand then rests on Shinji's shoulder as Issei says, "I'll talk with the school. I might be able to convince them to set up a small private event like this.
Shinji cries while hugging Issei making the boy freak out at the surprising amount of strength the lanky boy has on his body.
"I'll go tell her right away!" Shinji says while running off to Sakura making Issei shake his head. As he walks off as well, he mutters, "Man, I wish my brother was like that."
Back with Shinji, the purple-haired boy begins running off to meet his sister when he accidentally bumps into someone. "Gah! Watch it!" Shinji shouts as he rubs his head only to hear whoever that was snap back, shouting, "says the person running down the hallway!"
Shinji then looks up and meets eye-to-eye with a black-haired twin-tailed girl in his class. Their gaze lasts a little bit longer before Shinji stands up and runs off, merely giving her a "SORRY" before running off.
As she watches, she could only mutter, "huh..." in disbelief, before a voice in her head asks her, "master, is there something wrong? I think I've recovered enough for me to- urk!" She then knits her eyebrows as she says, "Stay there and rest. Shinji is just acting weird is all."
"Could he be another master?"
"No, that's not it. He just bumped into me and was strangely not flirty this time. It was like he was in a hurry or something."
"Yeah, weird..."
Meanwhile, back with Shinji, he arrives at the track and field area and sees Sakura and Shirou chatting while the boy was mopping the spectator stands.
"Sakura! Hey!"
Seeing Shinji, Sakura's eyes glaze over as she looks at him with an indifferent look.
"Oh hey... it's just you..." she coldly refers to him which struck his heart.
"Come on, you're still angry about that?" Shinji pleads out to his younger sister as he approaches. "I'm sorry already. Forgive me please."
She just turns away again. This finally annoys him and he whines out, "I'm sorry I freaked out earlier but all I said was that I didn't agree with your crush on Emiya!" This snaps her out of her apathetic gaze as she makes her freak out, especially because Shirou, who stopped paying attention at this point, then went, "Was I called?"
Sakura nearly screams but manages to catch herself. She then slaps Shinji away as she shouts, "N-nothing Senpai!" Shirou looks at her in confusion, scratching his head, but not thinking too much about it.
Yuji suddenly appears behind Sakura, wearing a track-and-field outfit while saying, "Oh, he was talking about you and how she wants to" only to be shaken by the purple-haired girl. "Yuji-nii! Don't side with Nii-san on thiiiis!"
"Eh? Side? I'm just clarifying what Shinji-nii is saying." Yuji reasons out only for his name to be called out from the side by a loud masculine voice.
"Itadori! You still have three laps left! Don't get overconfident just coz you're faster than everyone else!"
Yuji laughs nervously as he said, "C-Coming, Coach Karasu!" He then asks Sakura, "Tell me what Shinji-nii is gonna talk about kay?"
He proceeds to return to the running course once more.
After waving him farewell, she returns her gaze to her eldest brother who kept quiet while waiting for Sakura to return her attention to him finally
"So... what do you want baka-nii?" She says, still somewhat pissed at Shinji for nearly revealing her crush on their roommate/friend/unofficial brother figure, Shirou.
Shinji takes a deep sigh, before asking her, "So... do you remember that place you talked to me about nearly a week ago? You know, the one we used for Issei's project?"
Hearing this, Sakura perks up but then becomes confused. "Yeah? Fuyuki Woods? The one where there's supposedly a creepy giant castle? What about it?"
"Well, you know how you said you would kill to go there? I... sorta managed to convince Issei to let us camp out there. Y'know... so you could see it for yourself... like you wanted to." He then does jazz hands while quietly celebrating, "Happy Birthday."
Sakura's eyes suddenly sparkle as she hops and up and down. "Yes! My first ghost hunting expedition!" Hearing this, Shinji quietly mutters to himself, "For once, Yuji's influence on my sister is benefiting me." He then looks back at Sakura and stops her, "but! There's a "but" in this. Issei only allowed it under the pretense of a retreat. So if you want to do some digging, we're gonna have to do it in our free time and discreetly as well."
"Yooo, that'd be siiiick!" Yuji suddenly chimes in once more, and once more, the coach shouts at Yuji.
"I already told you not to get distracted Itadori!" To which Yuji whines out, "but coach. I'm not even part of the gym class. I'm part of the occult club and you just told me to join this ."
"Think about the school pride, Itadori!" The man was about to go into a speech but was immediately cut off by Yuji intentionally sighing loudly before running back in. "Fiiiiine! Leave me alone after the race, alright," before zooming back into the running which makes the coach sigh before continuing his job.
After that shenanigans, Sakura turns back to Shinji and goes in to hug her older brother excitedly only to stop as she accusatorily asks him, "what's the catch?"
This puts Shinji for a loop as he gives a genuinely confused, "what?" Sakura then explains, "whenever you give me something nice like this, half of the time, there is either a favor, pack, or other extra clause included. If it's me giving up on senpai, then I'll have to politely decline..."
"What? No! There's none this time around! Believe me!" Shinji quickly replies and seeing her still-unconvinced face just groans and walks out in annoyance.
Seeing this reaction from her older brother, Sakura realizes he was telling the truth and tries to stop him, shouting, "Wait!" but he was too far away by now. She lowers her head with a frown but that's when a hand rests itself on her head. She turns around and sees Shirou who, despite being unable to genuinely smile, tries to do so anyway, before assuring her that, "Shinji just needs some time to cool off. Don't worry about it Sakura, he doesn't seem mad at you."
"Thank you, Senpai." She smiles at him which prompts him to tussle her hair much to her embarrassment.
The coach from earlier then declares, "And that's a wrap, folks. We have one more practice due tomorrow and then the event on Wednesday. Got it?"
With tired groans, the runners all voice out their acknowledgments with Yuji happily going, "Yes sir."
"And Itadori, I will be having a word with you in a bit."
Yuji rolls his eyes before nodding. While everyone else goes to change, Yuji runs back to his cousin and housemate.
"Yo, Sakura, so what's up? What's up with Shinji-nii earlier?"
Shirou who had just finished cleaning the seats then returns to Sakura's side, asking her, "oh yeah, what WAS he talking about? Everything was so loud from the running and shouting earlier that I didn't really hear much."
"Well... before he ran off, he managed to convince Ryuudou-senpai to establish a retreat at the Fuyuki woods. Y'know the part where there is supposedly a castle?"
"Isn't that dangerous out there?" Shirou asks, concerned about their well-being but only the wind answers him, as Sakura had already run off home to prepare for their trip, and Yuji was called off by his coach already...
Somewhere else, a telephone could be heard echoing through the nave of a church that closed for the night. Moments later, and the tapping of dress shoes approaches it as a tall man with medium-length brown hair in a cassock approaches it and takes the call.
"Who am I speaking to?" The man answers in a deep baritone voice.
On the other end, a familiar voice then timidly answers.
"O-oh, good morning Father Kotomine, it's Ryuudou Issei, the student president of Homurahara Academy."
"Ah, if it isn't the heir to the Ryuudou temple. Tell me, how may the Church of God help you this night?"
A bit miffed by that bit about being called the heir, Issei nearly grumbled but reeled himself in. "Well... you see Father Kotomine, we were hoping to set up a retreat for... a few of my classmates and I, and... well... we've exhausted our options for people we could call up to act as an authorized figure and... well..."
Putting two and two together nearly instantly, the priest then continues the line of thought. "So you thought to call me."
"Yes. Sorry about that." Issei says, trying not to sound sheepish as he does so.
"Hm, interesting." The priest says, seemingly amused by those words.
The man then gives his reply, saying, "I will ponder on this. Give me an hour or so to think."
"Thank you so much for your consideration." Issei thanks the priest before hanging up to leave the priest to stew in the silence.
Suddenly, a voice beside him then speaks. "You should take it, Kotomine."
The priest turns to the voice and immediately bows in respect. "My king."
In front of him now was a man with ethereal holden hair and red eyes that pierce much in the same way a predatory animal's would. He wore a black biker outfit and stood with a proud aura on him.
"Kotomine, do you know why I tell you this?"
"I am merely a humble servant of God, I cannot hope to comprehend your words, your majesty."
The man hums in thought to that reply before walking away, saying, "Oh and by the way, bring that offspring of yours, that will be all."
Kotomine's eyes widen as he looks up and asks, "but my king," only to be cut off by the eyes of the man with golden hair.
"Is that doubt I sense, Kotomine?"
Sensing his mistake, the priest lowers his face and apologizes. "It is not in my intent to do so. I wish to simply ask what you wish of the daughter with which I have been estranged to."
The blonde's glare softens into a smirk as he says, "call it a... royal hunch... but I believe that the upcoming events will be... far more interesting with her around." The smirk then gives way for a full-on grin.
"Besides, this new play will need more actors if it means to build up on the previous one, yes?"
The priest then nods as he bows, replying, "I understand now. Thank you for the enlightenment your majesty."
"Good, now make the call."
"... As is your will."
Meanwhile, back at school, Yuji was alone as Shirou, Shinji and Sakura had already gone ahead as well as the rest of the running club of the school. Just as he was about to go home, he was stopped by his coach earlier. The man beckons him to the steps outside the school to sit and have a chat. Reluctantly, he agrees.
"So, what is it this time, coach?"
"Sit down, boy."
Yuji is somewhat caught off guard by the man's now softer tone and obliges, curious where this conversation was going. He sits next to middle-aged man who proceeds to take out a flask of alcohol before taking a swig from it.
"Er... what's up coach?"
"I want to talk to you about the race earlier."
Yuji sighs before looking back at the coach and reluctantly asking, "what about it?"
The black-haired pale-skinned middle-aged man instead chooses to look off into the night sky's expanse and sigh.
"Tell me, do you understand the reason why I'm pushing you so hard to run as fast as you can?"
Yuji then looks at him in intrigue. "Er... yeah..? You keep saying it. The whole 'for the school's honor' thing you keep going on about."
Hearing this, the man chuckled unexpectedly. "Looks like I got acting chops after all."
This surprises Yuji who proceeds to ask, "Wait, that was all an act?" The man then replies, "always had been," before expounding.
"Well, not completely..." He then looks down at his alcohol flask and takes another drink.
"It ain't an act that I want you to win the race so that more people get interested in the art of sport... but it isn't the full truth either. You see... I've begun noticing that, ever since Raiga Fujimura, who I understand to be one of your legal guardians, passed on from that mysterious disease of his, you have been lacking... motivation to do... well... anything physical really. You even resigned from the Homurahara baseball team to join the club known by most others as the slackers' club."
"Well, those are my own choices. I don't see why I have to explain anything to you." Yuji replies defensively.
Seeing the growing hostility from the young man, the middle-aged teacher places his hands up as he says, "Hey now, I'm not picking a fight. Look... I'm sorry if it sounds like I'm trying pry into your private life, that's not my intention."
Seeing Yuji calm down a but, he lowers his hands as he begins to explain much better.
"Okay look, what I'm trying to get at is this. From the outside looking in, you look like you've just decided to stagnate yourself. And seeing you specifically do that is such a damn shame. You still have such a long life ahead of you, Itadori. That, and you're strong... almost supernaturally so."
Yuji couldn't help but chuckle.
"What are you insinuating, coach? That I... take up some cape or something? Become Fuyuki's vengeance and justice? Look, coach, I'm not some hero."
"... Pfffft! BAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
Hearing the coach laugh catches Yuji off guard.
"Hey, what's so funny? Coach?"
After a bit, the coach finally stops laughing, now only wheezing as he wipes the tears off his eyes.
"Itadori my boy, don't be absurd. Ever since the event almost 10 years ago now, the Fuyuki fire, Fuyuki's denizens have since hated the concept of vigilantes prowling around the night and blowing stuff up. Hell, that supposed mystery hero seemingly died during that fire..."
Yuji frowns while looking down after seeing the coach make light of that tragedy but then looks up when the coach finally gets to his point.
"But no... that's not what I mean... what I mean by this whole conversation is that I wanted you to use that strength to help people when you can. I wanted you to live a life you could be proud of when you look back."
Hearing the crux of this talk, Yuji's expression couldn't help but reminisce somberly.
With a soft chuckle he then mutters, "Funny... that's something both my actual grandfather and sir Fujimaru keep saying, Coach Karasu..."
With a grunt, the middle-aged coach stands up before facing Yuji.
"Anyway, I overheard that little talk you had with your cousins and the Emiya kid, and I decided that if the schedule of that camping trip overlaps with the race... I guess you can join them over the race, get yourself sorted."
Yuji is left astonished by this but before he could answer, the man waves him goodbye and drunkenly saunters off into the night. Taking this as a cure to leave, he then shouts out, "Alright then. Take care," before heading out, himself.
Returning to his humble abode, or rather, the Emiya residence which he has since decided to call home, he opens the door and sees Shirou cooking, Shinji setting up the webcam on the computer while shouting at Sakura to slow down and Sakura rushing around excitedly while preparing a bunch of camping and... "ghost hunting" supplies.
It was a homely kind of chaos that made him feel a sense of belongingness despite how busy everyone was.
He flashes back to only a few years ago when this was not the case still. Shinji, while excitable during his first meeting of the Emiyas, simmered down into an almost distrustful aloofness when the weight of everything got processed. Sakura would huddle in the corner, only coming out when either he or Shinji called to her. And Shirou would just robotically stare at everything with not a single emotion escaping his face.
He preferred the current set up...
"Hey! Yuji, you've finally arrived! The hell are you gawking at? See what's going on with that damned radio antenna thing! We can't call Fuji-nee coz something's wrong with it and this is the only time she said she can call us!" Shinji whines out while snapping his fingers as he checks the laptop repeatedly. "I'd ask Shirou, but I'd prefer it if his cooking stays immaculate."
"Ah! Oh! Right, right."
Yuji was snapped out of his trance so he proceeded to hurry to his room to deposit his stuff, before quickly changing. He then runs to the outside and uses his above-normal strength to easily scale their roof where a small caged makeshift radio antenna was built.
"Alrighty then... it better not be those birds again. It'd be a pain if they laid another egg there since I'd feel bad taking their home off..."
As he arrived he sighs in relief to see that that didn't happen after all. It seems their makeshift radio antenna was just knocked As he continued up, he hears a creak and looks down and comments, "Ah, so that's where the hole Shirou was talking about was... well at least he did a decent enough job at fixing it... albeit temporarily... hmm... I'll contact the repair guy when I get the chance soon."
He quickly reaches the antenna and puts it back into standing before muttering, "must've been some especially rowdy raccoons or something. This thing's not easy to knock down."
After finishing, he then sits up with his hands proudly placed on his hips. "There we go."
As he turns to go down the roof, he then catches sight of a vague figure of a man standing atop one of the many rooftops holding a long rod... or a spear... with the moonlight up against the man's side profile.
Yuji becomes curious as he looks only for the man to notice him from all the way from where he was and stare back with his blood red eyes. This freaks Yuji out who proceeds to fall off the roof. Fortunately, the grass breaks his fall.
Shinji then comes running out, asking him, "what the hell man? Are you okay?! What happened?!"
Yuji spaces out for a bit but then grunts in agreement.
"Whoa, Yuji... You ok? You look like you just saw a ghost."
"Uh... y-yeah..."