To love a sword

Beta read by Shigiya, Paragon of Awesomeness and Fabled Truth

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-Shed-

"...395…"

"...396…"

"...397…"

"...398…"

"...399…"

One last pull, that was all he needed to finish his daily morning routine exercise. So with sweat dripping down his face, he pulled on his muscles and forced them to do one last pull-up.

"400!"

A few years had passed since the close encounter with the car and him saving that girl. Apparently, she'd tried to find him after waking up, but he asked both Saibai and Ringo to keep his identity a secret. Emiya did not want to deal with anything from that day, nor did he desire to even be thanked in the first place. They respected his decision and asked the hospital to not divulge his identity.

After that, everything returned to normal… aside from the fact that Rito kept bringing that part of the past up again every so often. He could see the fascination his little brother had with the idea of him becoming a hero and saving the life of someone like that. But every time he reminded Rito that anyone with a conscience would have done the same, and there was nothing heroic about it.

Knock!

Knock!

Someone was on the other side of the door.

"Shirou, breakfast is ready!"

It was Mikan, calling him to join them before leaving for school.

"Coming, give me a moment."

The girl had changed a lot, having grown quite a bit in the last few years. Now attending her fifth year of elementary school, and by all accounts performing very well amongst her peers. Even growing old enough to stop calling him Onii-chan, though she did slip back to it from time to time — much to her own embarrassment.

"Hmm, I'll have to clean things up here." Emiya said while looking around the cluttered room.

Filled with a bit of everything, from books, spare parts for different vehicles he kept around, and a forge along with an anvil. It should be noted though, that the forge was as far from the books as was possible.

Why a forge?

Mostly because he wanted to find a hobby, experience this miracle of having control of his life after immeasurable time as a Counter Guardian, and finally do things he enjoyed. He found himself regressing into habits he had long forgotten, rediscovering a part of himself he expected to have died long ago in the midst of his torment. The former Counter Guardian used the opportunity to try out forging simple blades, an activity in which he often found himself being caught up in the process.

Why forge a blade, or anything for that matter, if he could just Trace it? Because that was what he wanted to do, have fun with the process and… experience a sensation of pride with every weapon or trinket he created with his own hands.

They were not fakes, not mere copies of weapons and items belonging to another. These were his own creations, real, forever belonging to him and no one else.

"The hurdles I had to go through to have this in here… even Rin wasn't as stubborn as Ringo."

But that didn't mean he stopped practicing his magecraft.

"Trace... On."

Judging the concept of creation

Cyan energy started to burst out from the young man's palm, blazing and swirling like an uncontrollable wild flame. Without the scarcity of Mana, any Magus would have an easier time to use their magecraft here than in his previous life as a human.

Hypothesizing the basic structure

The wild and untamed aura paused for a moment as if time around it had stopped, then it resumed and began to expand, taking the shape of a single curved sword.

Duplicating the composition material

The color of steel began to morph around it, the greenish-wispy aura slowly becoming solid such that it was tangible now. One of the two swords that he used regularly during his time under Alaya. Something that required little to no Magical Energy to create but still held excellent craftsmanship from its creator.

Imitating the skill of its making

Sounds of gears and wheels spinning resonated inside his mind. The image of a dead wasteland covered with swords flashed before his eyes, its sky filled with colossal gears, but with a faint amount of sunlight pushing through the dense smog.

Sympathizing with the experience of its growth

From the moment it was created, it held little to no purpose. Not even made for war or combat. Just created for the sake of creating something.

Reproducing the accumulated years

A sword that came from a regular blacksmith who was forced to sacrifice everything to bring it to life. From the use of human qi given from the willing sacrifice of his wife, and the years' worth of blood sweat and tears.

Excelling every manufacturing process

"Bakuya…"

The sword still looked as perfect as before. Even after more than a decade of not fighting once, Emiya could still see himself wielding this blade without any issues. Though it would still take some time for his body to catch up.

Though he had mastered these steps long ago to the point where he no longer needed to do them to use his Tracing, Emiya only used it during such moments. Maybe out of boredom, or something else...

"That's enough for now." He dismissed the blade, making it vanish in motes of light.

After grabbing a towel to wipe away his sweat, he walked out of the shed and stood outside with the sun hitting his face.

"Hn!"

He stretched, accentuating his defined muscles and well-sculpted abdomen. Not having to fight against armies of enemies and creatures capable of destroying civilization itself, Emiya found himself a bit restless at times. His mind had long since grown accustomed to near-constant conflict, and now having spent years living such a peaceful life was… difficult for him at first. So aside from his hobbies, he also spent a lot of time just exercising to maintain a healthy body.

"So, the second week of my first year of high school, huh…" he did not know what to expect aside from sleeping through every class. At least, that was what he did for the first few days.

He entered the house where he found a half-asleep Rito munching on his food while watching TV.

Mikan was cooking some simple eggs while in her uniform. He smiled when he saw her wearing a magical girl apron he bought for her as a birthday gift.

"Ah, Shirou, you're finally he—WAH!"

The girl jumped in surprise as she saw him enter the house without his shirt, putting his upper torso on full display. Her face burned a deeper shade of red than his hair, and her eyes even had swirls in them where the pupils should've been.

"Wha-What-What are you doing without a shirt!?" She shouted.

"Why are you this embarrassed? All three of us used to have baths together, it's not like you don't see me like this every day." He said while taking a seat next to his little brother who looked like he was lost in his own thoughts. "Morning Rito."

"..."

"T-That's not what this is about! You need to act more decent around a lady!"

"A lady? Where?" He jokingly turned his head around, looking around the kitchen in puzzlement, further poking fun at Mikan.

"Muuuu, I'm talking about me! I'm not a young girl anymore."

"You're twelve," he said with a deadpan stare. "And I feel like we've already had this conversation."

Mikan just pouted cutely before returning to tend to the kitchen, not wanting the eggs to burn. Though their conversation was loud enough to wake Rito up from his daydreaming.

"Eh, what's happenin—Wah!" Much like Mikan, he cried in surprise when seeing the topless figure of his very fit older brother sitting next to him. He nearly fell out of his chair until Emiya grabbed him by his shirt and effortlessly pulled the boy back into his seat.

"Don't start falling so early in the day, we haven't even eaten breakfast."

"A-Ah, sorry, Nii-san. I was just a bit surprised there." He said embarrassingly while laughing awkwardly.

"What's going on with you spacing out like that? I can see something's bothering you."

It wasn't hard to see that something was plaguing his mind. Rito was always quite an open book, easy to read and predict. Going so far as making even Mikan tease him about his nature.

"No… it's nothing." Rito said, shaking his head. "I was just thinking about school and stuff."

Mikan came forward, dropping a plate filled to the brim with eggs, bacon, and two bowls of miso and rice. Her big brother always had a rather big appetite, especially in the morning.

"I know what's bothering him." A smirk similar to a certain Counter Guardian's came to her face. "It starts with 'Haru', written as 'spring' and ends with 'na' from 'nanohana', the Rape Blossom."

Rito's face turned crimson red, unable to meet his siblings' gazes. "N-N-N-No! It's not like that! It's got nothing to do with Sairenji!"

Ah, now he understood, Rito was probably gonna try and confess, again. The redhead knew about his brother's crush since last year, ever since the garden incident with the dog.

"I wonder what will happen this time," he mused, with Mikan nodding along. "Last time you got hit in the head by a pot of flowers. And before that you nearly got run over by a car, then there was the time where you came this close to getting crushed by a stampede of zoo animals."

He never expected an individual to exist with such bad luck, even if he and a certain hound dog were to combine their bad luck, it would still not come close to Rito's.

"I'm still waiting for him to get hit in the head by some kind of sports ball." Mikan shrugged.

"I-It won't happen! I will confess to her today for sure!"

"That's assuming you don't suddenly get knocked out or sent flying by something even more unbelievable than before, or just can't muster up enough confidence to talk to her in the first place. Which you have to admit, has happened all too often. Nevermind the way you often stand in place staring at her from behind some random corner, making yourself look like a stalker."

The boy sighed in disappointment, knowing his brother had a point. Several in fact.

"Don't sulk, just talk to her. I don't understand why you find the idea of talking to her so difficult."

"It's easier for you to say that, Nii-san. I've never seen you stutter or hesitate when talking to girls. Heck, you even look annoyed more than anything most of the time. I don't have your brains, looks, and personality to make my life easier."

Rito had always envied that side of his brother, always so confident with his words and actions. He walked around without fear, lazed around all day yet still always aced his tests despite never once studying, and even had a physique many would kill to have. Even his buddy Saruyama called him a chick magnet on many occasions and considered Shirou as the number one enemy of all the boys in the school.

Emiya sighed.

"Don't talk like that, if that's your reaction every time then you'll never improve. You're physically fit and have looks that surpass mine; you got Mom's face after all."

"Says the guy with a secret female fan club…" the boy muttered quietly.

He choked on his food, drinking some water to help as he coughed.

"Wait what?"

A secret fan club? Since when? And why!?

"Yeah, I heard from Saruyama that he overheard some girls planning a get-together where they were gonna trade pictures they've taken of you in secret from last year onward." Rito muttered quietly.

"But... how? I thought the other students didn't like me?"

His little brother shrugged, "I guess some people like that side of you."

A shiver crawled up his spine; the people of this world were weird. Even Rin didn't have to deal with such an outrageous thing despite her popularity. And what had pushed them to create a club centered around him? He barely participated during class, barely talked to anyone outside of school, and generally spent his free time fixing any school appliances that would break down or just laze around.

What part of all that did these people find attractive?

"…Anyways, forgetting about my case for a moment, you still need to get used to talking to Haruna. Just bring her a small something during lunch, an onigiri or can of juice, and strike up a conversation."

Rito snorted, "Like anyone would ever do that and expect it to work."

"I did," Emiya said nonchalantly, drinking his cup of tea.

"What!?"

Bam!

The boy fell out of his chair, and neither of the other two were surprised by his over-the-top reaction.

"Hauu..." The boy moaned in pain.

He immediately got back up and grabbed Emiya's shoulders.

"When!? Tell me, please!" He pleaded.

Was it bad that he was getting some amusement from his brother's distressed state? Probably, but it was too much fun to ignore. Mikan was visibly struggling to hold in her own laughter, but then again a twelve-year-old wasn't exactly a great measurement of maturity by any standard.

"Just after the whole garden incident. I wanted to thank the girl and went over to give her a treat during lunch. She was evidently a nice person, and we exchanged light conversation and even talked about our favorite books. I gave her some cooking tips when trying her bento and that's what basically happened. If I remember correctly, that was the same day I first caught you peeking at her from the corner of the street… Rito, you really need to cut that out; I can only be there to bail you out from being mistaken for a stalker so many times."

Rito looked at his brother in astonishment. He said that so casually, most likely not realizing how impossible such a task was for him. And didn't this sound like it had been a date!?

"Now, now, don't start panicking about some crazy theories, I just wanted to thank the girl and nothing else. I'm not interested in her." He really wasn't, Emiya just appreciated her honesty and earnest effort.

"By the way, did you know she has a dog? Just in case you ever get lucky and end up at her place. Lock the door before getting on her bed, we don't want a small mutt to ruin everything."

Emiya smirked when he saw both of his siblings go red at his comment.

"Nii-san!?"

"Shirou!"

Geez, they were certainly an easy bunch to tease.

Yet these were moments he'd grown to appreciate more and more with each passing year. His initial theory about all of this being an illusion had been dying slowly. This was real life, and just living in it brought him immense joy every day.

Who would have thought, a cold killer like him, someone who killed an uncountable number of innocents while working as Alaya's lapdog. To now sit in a kitchen enjoying a meal with his siblings, whether they were related by blood or now was irrelevant — for every member of the Yuuki family genuinely saw him as one of their own.

{Break}

-Sainan High-

It didn't take long for them to finish their breakfast and to hurry up for school. Mikan left first, having a few of her friends come by to pick her up so they could walk together.

While both of the boys went to put on their uniforms and leave last.

After a few minutes of walking, they finally reached the front gates.

"Do you think it'll work out?" Rito asked, looking nervously at him.

He rolled his eyes, "Don't overthink simple things; she is human just like both of us. If things don't work out as expected because you were interrupted, then just try again some other time. Life is never easy, so you need to toughen up and be ready for it. And for the love of every deity in existence, please pay attention to your surroundings and be mindful of your footing when walking up to her. I don't want Haruna to call the police or have you get expelled when you suddenly fall on her with your hands somehow making their way inside her shirt."

Then again, he doubted Rito would get in any trouble given how the principal was a notorious pervert himself. How that guy still walked freely, all while running a school full of hormonal teenagers, without being sent behind bars was a miracle in itself that he wasn't even going to try to comprehend.

As they walked inside the school, many students became visibly wary of him and started to shy away. Going out of their way to give him extra space and even avoiding eye contact — especially the boys.

"They still avoid you…" Rito said, sad about how his brother was being treated.

"Don't pay them any attention, I don't care in the first place how people see me."

"It's my fault, you shouldn't have to deal with such a thing…"

He looked at Rito, the boy now looking frustrated instead of nervous. His hands clenched whenever someone would hurriedly walk away from them.

Kids had a bad habit of jumping to conclusions despite only having the most minor of details, without ever trying to use logic to understand a certain event, and in one particular case Rito almost became a victim during an incident in which the school's garden was destroyed. If he and Haruna hadn't been there, then Rito would have gotten the same treatment he was dealing with now, except it would have likely been much harder for Rito to withstand.

Of course, Emiya never used violence to protect Rito from their scrutiny. They were just kids who didn't know better. So instead, he concentrated their hate on him by using his words to berate them for jumping to conclusions and talking down to everyone. It was only later thanks to Haruna helping him out did they find the culprit to be just a dog.

At that point, the students forgave Rito, but some still held a grudge against him.

"It wasn't your fault, you tried to repair the damages and that girl just happened to come at the wrong time and assume the worst without even questioning you."

"Didn't you make her cry with that harsh scolding you gave her?"

"I merely spoke the truth. Just how dumb must she be to think that you, someone who constantly went out of his way to take care of the garden, would out of nowhere destroy all of your hard work with a small trowel? Both of you just came from class, so it's not like you could have done that in a few seconds, and she didn't even ask questions. What else would I call her aside from a stupid girl who needs to get her brains checked?"

Rito chuckled a bit, remembering that day as clear as day.

"You said something worse than that, even the teachers were speechless."

"You think so? I don't remember."

After talking for a bit more, both went their separate ways. Rito found Saruyama and went to the second floor while Emiya went to his shoe locker.

Classes would start in ten minutes, so maybe he could—

"Yuuki Shirou!"

His thoughts were interrupted by someone calling him from behind. He preferred people calling him Emiya or Yuuki, but Shirou was still something he preferred to avoid even if he had grown to accept it. And out of everyone, only one person insisted on calling him Shirou aside from his siblings.

"Good morning to you too, Rin. Still as expressionless as always. You would look better if you smiled for once, we don't want people to mistake you for a robot."

A girl stood behind him, with brown hair tied in a ponytail by a blue scrunchie with bangs hanging on either side while having chest-length hair strands hanging on either side and clear brown eyes.

Kujō Rin, technically his senpai a year above him.

A name that held a special place in his memories, but now he stood in front of someone who could be considered the complete opposite of his last Master.

"And you still continue with your less-than-appropriate comments." She said, keeping her face neutral.

"Did you wait till Rito was away to talk to me?"

She nodded, showing the first signs of an emotion on her face; disgust.

"While he is your brother, I would rather not approach someone who will molest me at the slightest chance. I've seen how he pounced on Sairenji Haruna last week and I would rather not be anywhere near that pervert."

Ouch, if Rito was here then that comment would have hurt his feelings for sure. Emiya couldn't help but sigh, there was little he could do about this aspect of the boy, he couldn't always tail his brother even the second of the day in order to make sure he wouldn't fall on someone.

"He isn't a pervert, he's just supernaturally clumsy around girls." He said.

The principal was the true pervert. Most of the boys here were quite messed up, with all of them thinking with their lower heads rather than the one containing their brains… an attitude shared if not spearheaded by the principal, who arguably behaved even worse. The fact that Sainan High School's student population was mostly female also convinced Emiya that it was that man's doing.

"Young, old, it doesn't matter. This is a school, and school is a place for studying and learning! As long as one is willing to study and learn then they will be accepted into my school!"

This was his explanation to the public and no one questioned it afterward.

Not a single one. Aside from Emiya himself it seemed.

It was a miracle that each of these girls performed quite well in class with high grades.

"You're not helping his case."

It didn't, but what else could he say? There was no explanation for his clumsiness other than some mysterious power forcing him to fall on girls in a manner that resulted in him groping them.

His eyes traveled to behind her shoulder, where Rin carried a concealed shinai. She noticed his gaze and continued to speak.

"You know why I'm here." She said, closing the distance between them and invading his personal space.

Emiya didn't blush or react to her bold move, knowing the girl didn't have any devious thoughts in her head and was pleading with him for an answer she wanted to hear. The passing students sure did think that something else entirely was going on, some even whispered that it was a love confession.

"Sorry, I'm afraid my answer is still the same. I'm not going to join the kendo club." He answered dryly.

"You can't deny me every time, Shirou."

"I can and just did."

As he was about to leave, Rin stopped him with her hands blocking his way out.

"Why not? We both know you have incredible talent with the sword. I've never seen anyone who's half as good as you, and you're wasting it just to laze around all day! You have the talent to reach the ranks of international-level kendo practitioners."

Because he did not have any desire or need to wield the blade at a mere high school level. His skills with the sword had long since reached a level where practicing by himself was far better for maintaining it than dueling against ordinary teenagers. There was nothing to improve without a powerful opponent to push him to his limits. And that wasn't even counting the skills he could draw on from the many warriors who once wielded the countless swords in his Reality Marble.

Kujō Rin was skillful, but she still couldn't offer him anything even resembling a challenge unless he gave her such a ridiculous handicap that it would be insulting to her, and even then he still might win.

So he only participated for a single day before finding himself utterly bored and leaving, though not before easily trouncing all of their best kendo practitioners. Rin had been hounding him ever since.

He'd also decided against trying out the kyuudo club, since he feared that doing so would result in this problem being doubled.

"Alright, how about this." Emiya grabbed her hand and forcefully removed it from blocking his path. "If you can at any point touch me in a duel, then I'll drop everything and join the club, no questions asked."

"...You promise?"

The girl gave him large hopeful eyes, not realizing just how hard this simple challenge would be. He didn't pity her, she brought this upon herself with that annoying stubbornness.

"I do, now, I have to leave for class, the bell is going to ring soon."

As he was about to walk away, Rin extended her hands with an envelope with his name written in gold. Just a whiff of it overwhelmed his nose with the scent of expensive perfume and lavender. School hadn't even started and he was already getting a migraine, maybe he should have stayed home today.

"Saki-sama requests your presence at her house. She's inviting you for a tea party, consider yourself lucky for receiving such an immense honor."

"More like an immense pain in my ass. This is the fifth time in less than two weeks."

He thought back at the incident where he saved the girl and driver from the car crash. He didn't expect that girl to be Saki Tenjoin, the arrogant self-proclaimed queen bee of the school and trillion-yen heiress.

"I'd rather not deal with this. Tell her she has the wrong person." He said. "Having red hair is not that uncommon; there are hundreds of people in this city my age with the same look."

Rin didn't seem annoyed by his rejection, she continued to hand the envelope to him.

"Do you know how big this is for her? She spent years searching for you with what little she could remember. If you hadn't bumped into her during the entrance ceremony then she would've continued to slowly lose hope. As her protector, I will never allow my lady to cry just because you are too shy to face her."

How knightly of her, she really was born in the wrong timeline, acting like a samurai who was loyal to her master.

"Pot calling kettle black, if your mistress is so keen on seeing me, why doesn't she just approach me herself? It's always you or Ayako approaching me with these invitations and never Saki herself. If I was the person she's looking for, which I'm not, then I would find this kind of attitude very arrogant on her part."

That brought a prominent frown to her face.

"Saki-sama isn't like that! Don't slander her name when you don't know what she's going through. It's not as easy as you think it is, she's… having troubles."

Emiya put his hands up to calm her down. He went as far as to take the envelope from her hand and put it inside his pocket. Rin's eyes gleamed with joy while her face remained expressionless.

"Alright, alright, don't start giving me a speech in the middle of the hall — we've attracted enough attention with all this drama." He pointed with his thumb at the numerous students looking attentively at their conversation like it was a soap opera.

A bit of red crept into her cheeks before she shook her head.

"I-I'm glad you took into consideration Saki-sama's feelings. She'll be waiting for you later, I'll take my leave."

Without waiting for his answer, she hurriedly left right in time for the bell to start ringing.

He didn't waste any time either and walked to his classroom, 1-B. But before he could reach it, he stopped by class 1-A, where he saw Rito talking animatedly with his friends.

He also noticed a small blue-haired girl in the middle of the room, all alone while lost in her own world, reading a book. That made him remember something and made his way toward her as he grabbed a black book from his bag.

Pa!

"Aou!"

She cried in surprise when a book lightly hit her in the head, breaking the girl from her lecture.

"Ah, Emiya-san?" She exclaimed, rubbing the top of her head. "That hurt!"

"Says the girl who could push my brother across the room with supernatural strength."

His comment made the girl panic, unable to come up with any kind of response and just stuttering constantly. Even looking at Rito before carefully whispering to him.

"I-I-I'm sorry, I d-didn't mean to—"

"It's fine," he waved her worries away. "I'm just surprised someone as small as you can pack that much force in a single punch. I was even impressed by it, are you secretly a martial arts master?"

Haruna turned into a mess, her mouth opening and closing as she tried to explain.

"Hate to break your concentration, but I just came to return this to you." He handed over the book with an old painting of a swordsman as a cover — Miyamoto Musashi.

"…You finished it in a single day?" She said after getting a hold of herself.

"I'm a fast reader, and I just skipped a lot of the pages as I was familiar with most of the story already. I was just curious to see if there were any differences between this and the version I knew about."

For the most part, all of the stories he read about heroes of the past were the same as what he came to learn from his past life. There were some changes, names of places that didn't exist, and new heroes he never heard about, but those were not that common. He initially started researching such things to see just how different this world was compared to his own but then his research turned into a hobby, so he kept doing it.

"I see. Oh, I also bought this new novel that got released yesterday and I wondered if you would be interested in it." She rummaged through her bag and gave him another book. "Here, when I read the first few pages, I instantly knew that you would like it!"

She looked quite eager, he checked the cover and raised his eyebrow.

"The Princess from afar? This just looks like your average story about a princess waiting for her knight in shining armor… Why would I be interested in it?"

Furthermore, the back text showed it to be a romance story.

Haruna giggled at his confused face.

"I knew you would ask that. The first chapter may seem quite dull to you, but after that things get very action-packed. There are heroes from legends being written in the story, many of these people are from famous myths and legends I know you read about in the past. They all fight to acquire a special artifact that will grant them their wishes and the Princess is from another land who came to participate as well while facing powerful foes!"

That sounded uncomfortably familiar, almost like a certain War he preferred not to dwell on too much.

"The back text says a completely different thing, it doesn't mention anything about a wish-granting artifact or anything having to do with heroes from the past. Merely that this Princess is in search of true love."

"I'm not sure about it, I didn't read the entire thing, sorry." She was genuinely apologetic.

"Nothing to apologize about, I'm thankful for this gift."

He thanked her again, while also noticing Rito spying on them from the other side of the room. As always, the boy tried to do it discreetly but failed miserably at it and instead just attracted attention to himself from bystanders.

"Hey, Haruna…"

"Yes?"

He should have probably done this from day one, but hoped for his brother to have enough courage and luck to do it himself. But with every failure, Emiya started to lose hope. So he decided to help Rito out a bit.

"After classes, can you wait at the school gates for a bit longer? I have something important to tell you." He said, making the girl tilt her head in confusion.

"Eh, important?"

"Yeah, I'll tell you then."

Without further explanation, he left the class and reached room 1-B. The teacher had already started his lesson, so he apologized for his lateness before taking his seat and then taking a nap like usual. Though he couldn't help but feel the burning glare of someone sitting next to him. She always did that though, so he ignored her.

The rest of the day went smoothly, nothing notable happened until after school.

He ate his lunch with Rito, who was being unusually quiet. He could feel the boy's anxiety coming off him in waves, but he reassured him that everything would be alright and to not stress over his confession. Once they finished eating, he headed towards his next class, 2-B.

The teacher entered the room and began his lecture — on the history of Japan.

A few more classes later, he finally heard the final bell.

Ring!

Ring!

He got up and grabbed his bag before walking out of the class. Taking a walk through the halls he looked outside to find Haruna standing at the gates like he told her to.

"Emiya-kun!"

She caught him.

'Damn, it hasn't even been five minutes and she's already on my tail. Guess I should be glad she at least left me alone during lunch.'

Looking around, he found a girl making her way toward him with a furious glare.

Kotegawa Yui, a girl with long black hair that reached down to her lower back, stopping just a bit above her waist, and had dark yellow eyes. She was quite popular with the male population with her rather developed… assets.

"Ara, if it isn't Miss Class Representative. How may my humble self be of service to you?" He said sarcastically, making her huff in response.

"Drop the attitude, you did it again today!" She shouted, stomping her foot on the ground. "You said you would pay attention in class after we had that talk on Friday!"

She sure did wake up on the wrong side of the bed today.

"I said I would try to pay attention, I never gave you any guarantee, Yui."

While he spoke to her, his eyes spotted Rito behind a tree spying on Haruna. He was holding a sealed letter while taking deep breaths.

"Besides, I always get great scores on every test, so it's not like I'm not taking my studies seriously. Didn't I also help you fix the computers in the IT clubroom?"

A thing to note about Yui was her hate for the opposite gender. This was a trait he noticed early on when meeting her for the first time along with casually observing her attitude toward other male students. She actively avoided them unless they messed up, then she would come marching over to give them all an earful. Even their first interaction was strange, to say the least; she would barely give him a few words before leaving. Always acted detached and cold, that was until she started seeing him sleeping in every class.

"I'm warning you, Emiya. Such behavior cannot be accepted as a student of Sainan High, you're giving others a bad image of us students and damaging our school's reputation."

Emiya didn't mind her words, despite her rather biased views, she still tried to maintain a strict attitude among all students. She was very law-abiding and never used her position as a member of the Student Council to her personal advantage.

He respected her on that front at least.

'He finally has enough courage to walk up to her.'

Emiya observed how Rito carefully walked further to the gates, paying attention to his surroundings as he told him to do.

"Are you even listening to me?" Yui exclaimed, seeing how he wasn't paying her any attention.

"I am. You don't want me to further ruin the school's image and all that. Sorry to say this but that is an impossible task given the kind of principal we have."

"..."

She sighed, her anger evaporating into sadness.

"Sometimes I wish most of the boys here would start acting more like you. Sure they would sleep all day and laze around, but at least they would get better grades and get work done."

Emiya shook his head, "No, you would have a mental breakdown dealing with more versions of myself."

"Pft—!"

That made Yui burst out laughing which she immediately tried to hold back by covering her mouth. Though she acted bossy all the time, it didn't mean she wouldn't break character on certain occasions.

"I wasn't even trying to joke." He said with a smirk, watching her trying to play it off as a cough.

"I-I didn't laugh! That was just an unexpected cough!"

To be honest, he found it kind of cute and funny to see her like this. She certainly wasn't a fan of his, but she showed more emotions interacting with him than anyone else in the school.

"Though I'm wondering, why are you still in school? Shouldn't you be leaving with your brother?" She asked, no longer feeling like scolding him any further. Preferring to try again another time.

'He's almost there…'

Just a bit more and Rito's long awaited dream would finally come true. A bit sad that he and Mikan would no longer be able to tease him about it.

"No, I'm just watching Ri—!"

Suddenly, his senses went haywire with the feeling of danger assaulting his senses. His eyes tracked the source and he found himself facing the clear sky with nothing in sight. No, there was something… a tiny dot getting bigger by the second.

Woosh!

It accelerated in speed!? It turned from a small dot to a shadow as big as his classroom!

"Look out!"

"Emiya-kun!?!"

He jumped forward, grabbing the surprised Yui in his arms and pushing her to the ground with him shielding her.

Crash!

A fiery black disk-shaped meteorite struck the wall and crashed inside the building. Every glass around them broke into shards while he made sure to safely guard Yui against the debris.

It wasn't until a few minutes later that everything calmed down.

"What…what just happened?" She asked, panting heavily while looking around distressed.

.

.

.

"We just have the worst luck."

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The next 5 chapters of Snafu, Harry Potter and my 3 other Fate fics (Fate Coiling Sword and To love a 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, Broly and Snafu.