A.N. This is the product of me entering the writing contest hosted by Alex Kellar. The topic is forbidden or impossible loves. I entered during the pre-start stage of the contest so I got to claim one of the bonus characters.

And for those wondering about Technician's Order, I am working on it. I just have trouble with a character which is leading to Writer's Block.

Telekinetic's Sword

By Worldbringer of Joseun

Chapter 1: A Searching Sword

"Miyu! Miyu Emiya!" Shirou shouted to the woman heading to the contestant's seating.

Shirou dodged through the crowds of people attending the Vytal Festival, trying to get to the woman on the latest winning team, the one who had to be his adopted sister.

Shirou broke free of the last person between him and the black-haired, golden eyed woman placing her foot on the bottom of the stairs.

"Miyu Satatsuki!" Shirou shouted, trying out a different name his sister might have used.

She didn't respond. Perhaps she had changed her name? He could see why she would have after all that had happened on their old world.

Shirou raced forward, managing to get up right behind the long black-haired woman before his hand landed a touch on her arm.

The woman momentarily froze before turning to face him. The lack of recognition on the woman's face stopped Shirou's heart. It wasn't her. It could have been, maybe. A few stirrings of hope fluttered in his chest, refusing to die.

Stupid, stubborn hope. But it was all Shirou had left in him. A machine-like determination that refused to just die while hope still burned in its furnace.

The woman's team members also stopped as they noticed her not continue walking on with them. They turned and walked back to casually surround her and now him. Their arms were crossed over their chests, feet planted wide as they stared at him, frowning at him, especially the brown skinned girl.

Swallowing hard, Shirou tried to ignore them. I've been in worse situations, he thought. Still, he felt the stirrings of danger, one that could actually threaten him, a left-over trait from installing the Archer card during the Grail War, as the golden eyes focused on him.

"I'm sorry, but who are you?" the woman asked, eyes narrowed as her stance changed to a more defensive one.

"I'm Shirou," Shirou said, a tad impatiently before asking desperately "Are you Miyu?"

"Miyu?" she repeated, a slight frown creasing her face. "I don't know anyone named Miyu. My name's Cinder Fall. And you are?"

"Ah," Shirou grimaced. A false lead.

Shoot. He had been so hopeful too. He had been looking for her for years now and this was the first lead he had ever received.

"I'm sorry. Shirou Emiya," the man introduced himself as he took a step back and out of her personal space. "You just looked like her so I hoped you were her."

"And you thought that your girlfriend would want to see you if she didn't respond?" the only male on the team of four snorted in disdain. "Get real, dude."

"Miyu's my sister," Shirou explained, turning to face the man while still trying to keep as many of the people in sight as he could. "Adopted sister, really and she was kidnapped several years ago. You just looked a lot like her so I hoped…"

Shirou trailed off as the group examined him more closely, paranoia dancing in their eyes.

As for Shirou, he was getting suspicious too. This group, they didn't act like normal people. They acted like they had a dangerous secret to hide.

Well, as long as their secret wasn't Miyu, Shirou really didn't care. Government, magus, or criminal, his only concern was finding his sister.

"I see," Cinder said carefully. "You saw me and thought that I might be your sister."

"Well, not as much," Shirou confessed. "A detective saw you and thought that you might have been my sister so he called me and I came here to confirm if you were her. Really, sorry about this. I got too overexcited. You really look a lot like her though."

It was true. Cinder Fall resembled Miyu quite a bit. Her skin was as fair as Miyu's, their facial shape was the same, and both Miyu and Cinder had the same long black hair. Furthermore, after Miyu had made her wish to be his sister, her eyes and Cinder's were the similar shades of golden brown.

If you put the two side by side, you could be forgiven for thinking they were sisters.

The team of four glanced at each other, suspicion in their eyes before Cinder spoke up again.

"So you someone was watching out for a person who looked like me, saw me somewhere, and then know someone who looks like me, enough to reach out when I didn't respond to her name," Cinder clarified. "What I want to know, is why did you reach out when I didn't respond and how did you end?"

"Well, you look really a lot like her. Uncannily so. And when I saw you at the opening ceremony, the camera was out far enough that I couldn't see that you weren't Miyu," Shirou sighed as he shifted his feet in preparation to turn around and leave the floating stadium. "I suppose that you are a bit too old to be her though. Miyu would be around 14 by now. Sorry again about-"

Shirou stopped, a thought entering his mind.

"Actually," Shirou slowly started turning back to Cinder. "If it wouldn't be a bother, could I ask you if you have seen anyone like her? She looks a lot like you, same hair color, same skin tone, same brown eyes."

"No, I'm afraid I haven't seen anyone who looks like me," Cinder said, one arm crossing under her chest. "But if you would give me your contact information, I could send a message to you if I see anyone like that. Do you have a picture of her?"

"No," Shirou shook his head even as his hand dipped into the bag on his back and pulled out a reward poster centered on a drawing. "I have an artist's sketch but we never had a camera."

Cinder looked at the drawing. The artist had been very, very good and had an occasional commission as a police sketch artist, all of which he displayed in his studio. The artist had been happy to sketch a picture of Miyu and let Shirou copy it at a discounted price.

And Shirou could tell from the surprise on Ms. Fall's face that she could see the resemblance between Miyu and herself. Only Miyu was much younger than the woman.

But there wasn't the spark of recognition that Shirou was hoping for.

"My apologies," Cinder said as she got out her scroll. "But if we see her, we'll make sure to call you."

"Thank you," Shirou said gratefully. "My name is Shirou Emiya and my contact information is…"

As the man rattled off his online address, the team reputedly from Haven all noticed that the man made no move to get out his own scroll.

"So, anything we should do about him?" Mercury asked as the white-haired and tanned man walked away casually slipping through their encirclement like it didn't matter. But he definitely noticed it and was watching for the first hint of action. He just didn't feel threatened by them. Took guts, skill or overconfidence to act like that.

"The same thing we do about all potential threats, investigate first and I'll decide later," Cinder said, eyes still on the suspicious stranger. "He could have been trying to flirt but that would have been a horrendous attempt. Unfortunately, I have heard worse. He could be an agent for some group. He could be genuine and desperate. Desperate men would go unreasonable lengths. But who looks for an adopted sister at his age and with their age gap?"

"Maybe she was kidnapped by some terrorist group," Mercury jokingly suggested.

Like the White Fang went unsaid. They knew better to discuss it out in public.

"Or it could be a lie and he is trying to sneak closer to you," Emerald offered up, glaring after the man.

Oh, jealous Emerald. Just because I asked for his contact information doesn't mean that I intend to date him. It was just a way to conduct a background check.

She needed more than just a name and a face after all.

"Emerald," Cinder said softly but firmly. "Go follow him. Make sure you aren't seen but observe his actions and where he is going. Don't interact with him. Just gather information on him."

"Yes ma'am," Emerald replied promptly and walked after the stranger.

"Mercury, investigate the man's history," Cinder ordered as she sent the contact information from her scroll to his. "I want to know where he is from and if his sister actually exists. Find out his travel logs and who he is affiliated with and what his plans are. Use everything you can to investigate for anything suspicious. And while you're at it, see who was the detective was."

"Got it boss," Mercury lazily saluted before opening his scroll and started examining the man's information using the CCT hack as she had subtly ordered.

His mockery was barely acceptable for public image. Cinder decided to not rebuke him for it.

Out in the open at least.

Glynda sighed and slumped a little over her tea in the safety and security of her dorm.

Beacon's teachers were all experienced Huntsman. They had learned at Huntsman schools, fought in the wilds, faced numerous threats and killed a variety of Grimm.

Port held the record for variety of Grimm killed.

But all of that came with a price.

They had come from different backgrounds and walks of life. Ozpin had once been a street rat. Port had been a village boy from near the borders of the kingdom. Peach's family had skimped and saved and she only managed to get into Beacon on a scholarship. Oobleck had come from a middle-class scholar family. And Glynda's father had been an advisor to one of Vale's councilors.

But some things were universal. Such as they had all slept with their teams in the dorms. They had all spent times out in the field.

They had all learned to always sleep alongside their teammates.

It was one of the things they had learned. If you were apart from your teammates, you died. If you were alone, you died. If a Grimm attacks in the night and your teammates aren't nearby, you die.

They had all lived this long. They had each spent anywhere between one and several decades as active Huntsmen and Huntresses and were still alive with all their limbs.

Only Peter Port didn't feel uncomfortable sleeping anywhere other than near other Hunters. But he was Peter. He told stories of fighting Grimm off while he was still asleep.

Judging by his bouts of sleep walking, it might have even been true. And as the stress of providing security for the Vytal festival mounted, he had been sleep walking more often.

Such as two nights ago when Bart Oobleck had had to spend most of the night dodging Peter's attempts at fighting a creep in his dreams when the portly professor had sleepwalked from his married housing suite into the single professor dorms.

Fortunately, throwing Bart's cup of hot coffee into Peter's face woke him up and they were all able to fall back to sleep once Peter had left.

But the stress of the festival was too much!

Glynda barely had enough time left for herself in between being deputy headmistress of Beacon, teaching the combat lessons, fixing the damages to the academy, disciplining the students, and participating in a secret conspiracy to save the world and protect the maidens and relics.

Adding the Vytal Festival into the mix was pushing her past her limits!

She needed some help! Another combat teacher, a maintenance worker, an assistant, someone! Soon she would be at the point where she would accept even Qrow's help with her classes!

And she hadn't made that mistake since the last time the Vytal Festival was in Vale!

Glynda took off her glasses to rub her eyes.

She was tired. And the festival wasn't even half-way through yet.

But there was always more work, Glynda knew.

Always more.

She took another sip of tea before opening her scroll.

She couldn't wait for this to be over.

"Spam, spam, spam, spam, porn spam, a bill, another bill, more spam, spam, some bills, more spam, and ooh, what do we have here?" Mercury mused out loud as he looked through Shirou Emiya's mailbox in the security of their room.

Cinder let him work while she examined Emiya's recorded transactions. Most of it was for food and the like but there were a bunch of suspicious transactions. Some going into his accounts and some going out. And involving a lot of random people spread out over the country of Mistral.

Either he was doing odd jobs for basically everyone including several known criminal syndicates and being paid in small to moderate amounts or this was a complex web to disguise the money flow.

She wasn't doing anything important right now anyway and most of detective work was sifting through loads of nothing to find one grain of something incriminating. She had done it before to find the home of Marcus Black.

Very boring but necessary.

"Hey boss," Mercury called out. "Apparently, he hired some detective agency near Haven to look for his sister and they saw you board an airship to here and thought that you might be who they were looking for. That's why he followed you here."

"I see," Cinder cocked her head. Random chance and a random sighting. Or was it? "Investigate the agency. If they are a front, then I want to know who they are a front for. Also, we took that plane several weeks ago. When did he get here?"

"Let's see," Mercury said, tapping his scroll a bit. "It looks like he arrived just a few days ago in Vale after getting a passport. And he bought a ticket for the festival the day the festival began. Judging by the time stamp, he probably bought it soon after the first broadcast which included all the competitors lined up."

"Hmm," Cinder mused. She and her team had joined the other teams in standing in front of the crowd to start off the festival. The broadcast would have allowed him to see her. If he was really looking for his sister, he probably picked her out of the lineup immediately and then acted on it.

It looked like Emiya had just taken a chance at following her to Vale, hoping to find and talk with her. Then he got somewhat lucky at being able to talk with her, only to discover that she wasn't his sister.

Altogether, things were lining up to indicate that he was just looking for his sister, and using any opportunity he found.

Painting a picture of a desperate man. Or was that he wanted her to think?

"But from the hospital records which are the earliest records I can find about him," Mercury said. "I would say he might have been a member of a Mistrali crime family who quit and managed to survive the exit proceedings. After that, he got his new identification and left for a new life. Started searching for his sister right away."

"It is either a cover story and he is a mole for someone or he decided to quit a criminal syndicate in order to avoid starting an underground war as he tried to get the girl away from a different gang," Cinder mused. "However, as long as he didn't fight, no criminals were turned in. But he has no compunctions at killing bandits if they attack."

"Not a mole," Mercury disagreed. "If he was then this cover ID would be much better. We wouldn't be questioning it this deeply if he was. He didn't even have a birth record until he needed a passport and I am certain it was faked by one of our former forger's competitors. Not to mention his age is kind of young for his appearance. The identification says that he just turned 20. Also, the information on his hospital record and his passport don't match. The kid in the hospital either went white early and had a late growth spurt or some identity thief stole the kid's identity and sold it to the man we met. Only he really doesn't look like the kid's whose identity was stolen."

"How likely do you think that is the case?" Cinder asked.

"Not likely," Mercury evaluated. "I honestly think it is the kid scenario and not the identity thief one. Most people when starting a new life take some things with them. Some cash, mementos, or at least clothes on their back. The kid started with nothing."

"If so, then he is either a mix of incompetent and competent in covering his tracks or he is what he seems," Cinder summarized. "A desperate brother or father with severed ties to criminal elements."

"He could also be using refuge in audacity," Mercury snorted as he considered it. "He could also be a Wildlander who grew up away from civilization. But even I had more information public than he did and I grew up in the mountains."

"And if he is a Wildlander, he wouldn't be in the cities," Cinder mused. "They can't stand the crowding. Unless he really was looking for his sister and is only tolerating it for the sake of the search and is very good at hiding discomfort."

"He is unfamiliar with technology and Dust," Mercury brought up as he sent a list of damage reports to Cinder. There were a lot of incidents soon after his appearance that resulted in damage to Dust based technology but the incidents significantly decreased after the first year. "Guy doesn't even have a scroll. Just uses library and other public buildings to check his information, nearly daily. Has a random spread too, sometimes several times a day, sometimes he won't check for days and then checks from a place distant to where he last checked."

"You are thinking that he is genuine," Cinder stated.

"Yeah," Mercury said, scratching his head. "He is the blend of consistent and inconsistent. You don't see that unless they are a wanderer doing something. He has habits but sometimes they slide. He is definitely hiding something, that's for sure, but it doesn't look like it is tied to us."

"His criminal background," Cinder concluded.

"Can't find hide nor hair of him before that hospital," Mercury agreed. "Probably was some sort of pet assassin kept off the records so that no one suspected his existence. Maybe held in check by his sister being held hostage."

"And when she was kidnapped, his leash snapped," Cinder said, thoughtfully. "If we can find and secure his sister first, we could use him."

Mercury started sweating a bit. Probably because he was the assassin of the group. Bringing in a new assassin would imply him being replaced.

Assassins tended not to survive replacement.

"Oh, don't worry," Cinder reassured Mercury. The situation was too delicate for one of her members to get cold feet now. Personal replacement or recruitment would be more likely to ruin the plan than help at this stage. "He would have been of more use in secrecy but now that he has ties stretching all across Mistral, he wouldn't be able to move without drawing attention. But there is more than one way to skin a cat."

Mercury quietly breathed out a sigh of relief.

"Now we just need to find out what Emerald found out and go from there," Cinder said. "Until then, continue searching. We just need one crack in his disguise to determine if his portrayal is real or not."

Mercury nodded and the two continued scouring the electronic history of Shirou Emiya.

Shirou could feel someone's eyes on his back. He had felt them ever since he got off the bullhead from Amity Colosseum and as he had walked through the streets of the crowded city of Vale.

He let that person watch. He really didn't have anything to hide other than his magecraft. But given how technology worked, who knew what would be magecraft here and what would be science?

Well, other than one of Remnant's magi. But Shirou hadn't met one yet. He had met warriors who used a system of fighting unique to Remnant but Shirou figured it was just complex usage of Dust.

What else could it be and how else would there be so many fighting styles that all assumed the same variety of barriers? Obviously, Remnant had developed a technology that used skin-tight invisible military armor barrier that they distributed to their elites.

As for his watcher, Shirou tried to remember what his father had taught him back when they were assassins and heroes for justice but before they settled down into Fuyuki.

It was something about the merits of letting your opponent watch you be innocent versus the drawbacks of letting them know too much about you.

If Kiritsugu was here, what would he say?

Shirou moved along with the crowd as he tried to figure out what his dad would order him to do.

First, find out who they were. Some people you wanted to let watch you. Like Secret Service or spies. Once they were convinced you were harmless, you basically calmed down the entire organization.

Second, don't let them know your safe house or the full extent of your abilities.

Shirou didn't have a safe house. He had a hotel room right now, but he wasn't so foolish to think that it was safe. It was a good place to sleep and store his stuff while he was in the city. Nothing more.

As for the full extent of his abilities, Shirou had no intentions of revealing the full extent of his magecraft yet. Even to one of Remnant's magus, he would not reveal his Reality Marble nor how many weapons he had stored there.

Shirou decided that he could let this spy follow him for now. Try and shake them off when he returned to the hotel and try to figure out who they were, yes, but that was part of this form of cloak and daggers. It would just remind him not to use magecraft in the open for a while.

As for Shirou's magecraft, it still had the massive jumpstart that linking with his alternate self had provided. He had given up the Archer Card with the ties to the Heroic Spirit inside but he had kept the card installed long enough that some of EMIYA's experiences and skills had rubbed off onto him. Such as telling if someone was following him or had hostility towards him.

Not to mention the Reality Marble with the entire arsenal of a Heroic Spirit at his fingertips.

But none of that helped him find his sister after he had killed Angelica Ainsworth, the holder of the True Archer Class Card.

His memory of the last desperate battle of the Grail War culminating inside his Reality Marble at Mt. Ryuudou rose unbidden to his mind.

A furious pair of storms composed of naught but blades flying through the air at intense speeds only to collide with their counterpart. Great swords being treated as common projectiles. And the mountain felling swords and volcanic colliding divine sword as they fell through the air and knocked each other off course.

And in the midst of that, Shirou charged, using his tracing and swords to block what managed to get through his own storm.

And Angelica had let him approach only to show that she could also use Flash Air to displace his attack, Shirou needed an attack that she couldn't block or see coming.

And when she decided to trap him in Enkidu again while she drew a sword he could not copy or read, he thought of one.

This was his world. It was a part of him. He could project weapons near himself and fire them off.

So why not take advantage of this world being a part of him to create one under her feet? She had tried to do a similar thing on him before he had invoked his Reality Marble. It would only be fair to do it back.

A second later, a brand-new broadsword Noble Phantasm had ripped its way free of the ground and cut the surprised doll in half while the shrinking moon still shone in the sky above his inner world.

As Julian's puppet of a sister died, her card flew off to join the other seven around Miyu. After he ended utilizing the Reality Marble and restored reality by shrinking his own soul and Reality Marble back inside of himself.

Shirou would never forget the relief in his sister's eyes at seeing him, as bloodied and cut up as he was, standing above the featureless doll body that all of the competitors had been.

But Shirou hadn't considered that the Grail was only meant to work with seven cards.

Eight just meant that Miyu had a little more power to work with.

And as Shirou watched his sister go off to a safer and better world, his sister, in a fit of selfishness, magically grabbed him and dragged him along with her.

Really, Miyu. He had fought to give her a new life, one away from all the suffering he had helped bring on her. One with a small share of happiness.

A wish to go see the ocean shouldn't involve grabbing your villain of a brother and dragging him along with her when leaving that world.

Shirou chuckled to himself.

He probably ought to scold her for that. She should have used that extra energy to make her own share of happiness larger. He was fine with staying on the dying Earth if she got to live and be happy.

And now they were on a world that was also dying. Dying with a struggle but dying nonetheless.

Shirou was no idiot. He had seen the estimates of the numbers of both humanity and Faunus-kind versus the estimated number of Grimm.

No technology would allow the horrendously out-numbered humans to win at over a million to one odds. Humanity had too small of a percentage of their population as soldiers to do more than defend themselves. And with the large number of varieties and the sheer amount of space the Grimm controlled ranging from the bottom of the oceans to the peaks of inhospitable glaciers and volcanoes, no weapon other than an Anti-World one would work against them all.

But Anti-World weapons had a problem of their own.

Shirou glanced up at where the shattered moon would be in the sun-lit sky, wondering if the last Anti-World weapon used on Remnant had had some difficulties in targeting flying Grimm like the raven-like Nevermore or the wasp-like Lancers.

Despite all that, Shirou figured that he could probably be fine here. Kanshou and Bakuya were extremely effective against Grimm, their anti-monster property slicing through the black monsters like they were air instead of butter.

If the Grimm was all that he had to deal with, he could carve out a little slice of happiness here for both him and Miyu. He still had many of the remembered skills, weapons, and the abilities of Archer and his own travels with Kiritsugu meant that he could earn a living as either a warrior, a soldier, a mercenary, a mechanic, or a cook with Miyu's help.

No, the issue was, he hadn't seen Miyu when he crash landed onto this world. The light that protected them from the awareness of what they were traveling through had also blocked him from seeing Miyu in front of him. If she had landed before him, who knew where she was.

Shirou needed to find Miyu. He needed to know if his sister was safe. If she was happy.

If she was stuck on this death world hostile to humanity.

Shirou stopped at the first bulletin board he saw and examined it, taking an opportunity to examine the street behind him for the follower.

Once again, he couldn't recognize any of the faces from the last time he had looked. But he could still feel that someone was following him.

As for the bulletin board, it was rather old. Most of the papers here had that yellow tinge that indicated long exposure to the elements. It probably wasn't used much due to the convenience of a scroll replacing these boards for the purpose of mass communications.

But Shirou couldn't really afford a scroll. Not if he wanted to find Miyu. Not if he wanted to pay detectives to keep an eye out for her. Not if he wanted to bribe criminals into finding her. Not if he was going to see every single human on this planet and could confirm if Miyu was here on Remnant.

Or if she was dead.

Shirou hoped not. He really hoped his younger sister wasn't here.

Because Miyu had never learned how to protect herself. Even one lowly Grimm might kill her.

But if he was going to look, he needed more eyes out.

Shirou reached into his traveling bag and pulled out another copy of the 'Missing' poster that he had made hundreds of copies of and had posted all over Mistral.

Now he was going to start here in Vale.

One poster at a time. One person at a time.

Because if you wanted to accomplish anything worthwhile, you had to start and walk one step at a time. Even if each step only led you nowhere or led you down a wrong path. You had to start somewhere.

What else could he, as an older brother, do?

"Report," Cinder ordered to Emerald, laying aside her scroll, as the girl entered their shared dormitory room and shut the door.

"After talking with you, he left the stadium early without watching the next fight," Emerald reported as she moved towards one of the beds and sat down. "After disembarking, he wandered around town until he found an old paper bulletin board and put up a reward poster like the one he showed you. He then went to a public library, after asking for directions, and looked over several profiles on different accounts and servers. All of them about his sister. He then wandered around town for a while looking at people primarily until he entered into a hotel. I was able to confirm what floor he was on and his room number."

Emerald hesitated, looking down. "He's also very sharp. If it wasn't for my Semblance, he would have caught sight of me a several times. And from the way he was acting, he knew he was being followed and tried to shake me or spot me despite not knowing it was me. I apologize for my failure!"

Emerald bowed low, showing her sincerity.

"Understood," Cinder said, reclining on her bed. "Don't let it happen again."

Mercury's report was more comprehensive. But Emerald's confirmed parts.

Shirou Emiya had appeared out of nowhere, had a criminal history, and had the sixth sense that only comes from experience.

He also had no interest in anything other than his sister it seemed like.

"So, what'll we do?" Emerald asked, her attention on Cinder, like a good tool or pet paying attention to her master.

Mercury's joined hers and the two waited patiently for Cinder's decision.

"Right now, nothing." Cinder decided. "We'll keep an eye out for his sister but for the present, we'll leave him alone. He isn't a threat and interacting with him could make things more complex than they need to be. If we don't do anything, he won't interfere. However, if we are able to meet with him again after our success, we'll consider trying to recruit him."

"So, non-interference," Mercury summed up her orders. He shrugged. "All right, I can live with that."

Emerald nodded her acceptance of the orders.

Cinder glanced at the time and stood up as she stretched after sitting for so long. But now was time for dinner. But before she left, the rest of her team standing up to follow her, she gave one last glance at the image of the man who appeared out of nowhere in Mistral and then spent all of his time searching for a sister that also had no records.

"Second thoughts?" Emerald asked, concerned as she stood up to follow her leader.

"Just that I wish I could have once had a brother like him," Cinder said on a passing whim before narrowing her eyes. "But that is all in the past. I no longer need a protector."

'I am strong now' only was said inside her own thoughts.

A.N. No, this story is not focused on Cinder Fall. She was just a good way to introduce Shirou, one of our protagonists. Now you all know Shirou's motivation, the location and the time frame and what he has been doing since he appeared in Remnant and how he got here. Good objectives for a first chapter.