AN: 12:36 AM, April 30th, 2019. Ok, I've spent enough time responding to the Soda-fiedPsycho, time to start the next chapter!
POV: Kiritsugu
Kiritsugu stood in total silence, staring impassively at the Yakuza Oyabun's granddaughter. The girl, in turned remained frozen stiff. This had been going on for the passed ten minutes or so, the result of Kotora screaming his head off at the poor girl for the better part of two hours. Honestly, it was a miracle that no-one had called the police.
As it was, Kiritsugu had been forced to break out the enchanted earplugs he had once used if he was going to be standing in the immediate vicinity of an explosive, and still been able to clearly make out what his son had been saying. 'Note to self: I need to update the boundary field to extend bunkers noise dampeners to the upper levels.'
Really, he felt sorry for the girl, Kotora had been radiating something just short of blood-lust during the entire event. And while Kiritsugu had encountered much, much worse aura's before, comparing a nine year old to a veteran magi or dead apostle was rather uncomfortable. Of course, in the end it was her own fault. Kotora's reaction was more a result of concern than anything else.
When Taiga had walked into their house the night before, she had been suffering from a multitude of minor injuries, ranging from bad scrapes, to fractured bones to a minor concussion. It had been clear that, had Taiga landed differently after getting thrown off of the bike, she could have died. And Kotora was especially aware of that, as he was the one who healed the worst of said injuries. His reaction was just him trying to get it into her head how stupid she had been. Really, it would be kind of sweet . . . if it didn't involve one of their surrogate family members nearly dying.
Really, she brought it down on herself.
Kiritsugu noticed a blinking light in the metal coat rack next to the door's reflection. Turning to look behind him, he realized that the phone was blinking.
Realizing that he might have missed a call with his plugs in, he quickly rushed over to the phone, removing said audio obstructions from his ears. Checking, he saw that it was Raiga that had called, and quickly pressed the call-return button.
Putting the phone to one ear, he waited for someone to pick up . . . and immediately pulled the phone away from said ear as Raiga roared into the other end, proving just which side of the family Taiga got her growl from. Covering the ear piece, he waited for the Yakuza boss to empty his lungs before he put it back the ear. "Can I listen now, or are you going to try and burst my eardrums again?" he asked, only to be forced to pull it away from his ear again as the yelling resumed.
After several minutes of listening to the old man screaming Kiritsugu finally managed to get a word in. "Raiga, I understand how you feel . . . but I don't think Taiga can really handle more . . . well, to put it bluntly, Kotora screamed his head off at her for nearly two hours . . . yes, I said two hours. I know, I'm surprised at his lung capacity. Hmm? Well, Taiga hasn't actually moved since he finished. Yes, she's just . . . sat there, staring into the distance blankly, blinking every few seconds with tears streaking down her face . . . I think he may have traumatized her, honestly. No, Raiga, I'll give her a few more minutes before I try to"
'Spoosh!' "Gaaaa!"
"Never mind, Kotora just dowsed her in ice water, she's back up. I'll call you back later." Kiritsugu hung up before Raiga could continue. Turing to look at the now shivering Fujimura, he sighed. Kotora, who had already left the room, called from the kitchen in a cheerful tone that only made the girls shivering get worse. "Breakfast is pretty much ready, you two get in here!"
Kiritsugu and Taiga both sat in their respective places at the table, watching as Kotora put the last few touches on his work, smiling and whistling a jolly tune.
Taiga was still wearing her pajamas, and the jacket she had tried to slip out the door in. Both of which were soaked in ice water. She was also wearing a weary, nervous expression, like someone who expected to be attacked at any moment.
The boy walked into the dining room carrying the food on a single large tray, a massive smile on his face. Most people his age would have had a hard a hard time balancing the sheer volume of food on the wooden carrying tool, but Kotora had spent the better part of two years doing as much physical training as possible, and showed no signs of strain whatsoever, and placed the large volume of food on the table without so much as spilling any of the soup.
As his son began to set the table, Kirtsugu noted with some amusement that their breakfast consisted entirely of Taiga's least favourite's.
Kotora devided the food into the usual portions, which is to say, a reasonable amount for Kiritsugu and himself, and all the rest for "the moocher". Said moocher looked less than pleased, for once. However, their most recent . . . conversation, still fresh in her mind, she chose to suffer in silence.
She shoveled the first bite into her mouth as if it was poisoned, which, if her face afterwards was any indication, it might have been. Swallowing with as shiver that racked her whole body, she began to squirm like she was resisting the urge to jump up, tears building up in her eyes.
Taking his own first bite, Kiritsugu found the most likely reason for Taiga's discomfort. Kotora like his food spicy, and had, today, decided to go all out with the seasonings.
Kotora, at that moment, turned to the poor girl, and with his angelic smile and demonic tiger-samurai both in full effect, chiped "Be sure to eat every last bite, Taiga-nee! I made it specially for you!"
And she suffered . . .
POV: Kotora
I sighed as I leaned back into my chair, head pounding. After the initial shock had worn off, I had spent the better part of the next hour worrying my head off at Taiga's condition. This lead into me spending hours planing how to tell her off for her little stunt. Also, It means i got no sleep. And I still had to talk to Kiritsugu . . .
It had been an hour since Taiga had left, to her own relief, and I had already done the dishes, sweeped the floors, and done every other chore I could think of to put it off, but the time for the talk with Kiritsugu had arrived. In light of this, I found myself sitting across from him in the living room, where the former magus killer sat in his recently returned tiger-print chair.
I groaned, then yawned, the action serving to further accent my state. Looking my adoptive parent in the eye, I asked. "Do we really have to do this now?" The old man didn't answer for a moment, just matching my gaze nursing a cup of tea I had mad him. After several minutes of waiting, I realized I wasn't going to get an answer and relented, my shoulders sagging. "Fine."
I leaned back into the chair, looking at the ceiling, trying to figure out how to explain the feeling that had plaged me the passed few days. Finally, I decided to begin with a question. "You remember when I told you . . . just how much I know, old man?" I asked, waving my had around me before resting my head on said hand.
Kiritsugu just nodded, waiting for me to continue. I jumped up to my feet, pacing back and forth in a rather stressed maner. "Types! Dead apostles! Servants!" I said loudly, waving my hands around in the air for emphasis. "Phantsmal beings! Demons! GODS!" I returned back to my chair and flopped down with a huff. "How am I supposed to feel . . . safe, when I know all that's out their? That were only one human sacrifice away from a world ending event?"
I sighed heavily, sliding partially out of my own chair, eyes once again focused on the ceiling. "I know, that it's stupid. I mean, why should I need to worry about things like that? It's not like I can change anything, but . . . " I trailed off. Straightening out, I leaned on my knees, looking at the ground between my feet. "I don't like feeling helpless. I felt helpless in the fire, and I don't want to feel that way again."
I clenched my hands into fists from their position on my legs, bunching up mu pants. "I can run faster than any other kid in town. I could probably knock out one of Raiga-ji's bodyguards with on punch. I can dodge bullets. I can USE MAGIC. And none of that makes me more than a particularly big bug in the grand scheme of things." I grit my teeth, liquid pooling in the sides of my clenched eyes as the stress forced me to tears. "I mean, it shouldn't be my problem! But, it feels like it is! And that's, that's . . . " I trailed off, hands to tightly clenched that I risked tearing holes in my pants.
After several seconds, I heard a world weary sigh. Forcing my tear-stained eyes open, I looked up at my adoptive parent, who was hauling himself out of his own chair. Walking over to me, got down on on knee and placed a hand on my shoulder. "I don't know what to say." he began, not meeting my eyes. "I know that anything I could possibly say is something that you've already thought of, Kotora. That's just the kind of person you are."
He turned his head, now looking me in the eye. "I won't lie to you, everything you just said is true. The chances of you ever being able to do anything about things like that, of ANYONE, being able to do anything at all, or so minuscule that there's no point thinking about the possibility."
He pulled me into a hug. "And I know, that you know, that that's not your fault." He sighed. "And you know that it's not your job to worry about these kinds of things. But . . . " Kiritsugu trailed off, and inhaled deeply.
"Kotora. You should focus on what you can do, and not what you can't. I know it's hard for you to acknowledge the dangers out there, but remember, every normal person in the world is forced to acknowledge to possibility of nuclear war. What your going through is not unique. The only difference is the nature of the threat. But, you know that to, don't you?" Kiritsugu sighed. "I understand that there isn't any good answer to your problem. The only thing to do is to keep living and hope for the best."
"But, if you keep pushing yourself the way you have the passed few days, then you will seriously hurt yourself. Your only a pre-teen, you shouldn't be using adults as the benchmark for your own strength its not healthy. You can break thick boards with your bare hands, and outrun anyone who isn't professional athlete. You should be satisfied with what you've accomplished already."
"The old man let go of me and stood up, patting me on the back. "I'm sorry if that isn't the answer you looking for, but it's the best I'm able to give you." He brushed the wrinkles out of his shirt. "Now, lets get you to bed, you've been awake for far to long already." he grabbed my hand.
I sighed my self, "Sure Dad . . . but . . . your wrong about one thing."
"Oh?" He raised one brow.
"Thoes people who live in fear of atom bombs. They don't have any chance of escaping their fear, because science has no real defence against a direct nuclear strike like that yet. But, there are means to beat all of the supernatural threats I'm scared of. It's not a question of "do the means exist?" it's a question of, "Can I do them?" or "Can I get access to them?"
POV: Kiritsugu
Kiritsugu leaned forward in thought, looking out into the courtyard of his home. He was sitting on the back steps of the porch, which, he felt, gave the best view of the gardens scattered around the courtyard. Kotora seemingly had an interest in decorative plants, and tried to make him by them whenever he could. The end result was a yard filled with everything from bamboo to ornamental plumbs standing alongside the original evergreens that dotted the yard.
Of course, the boys real obsesion seemed to be Bonsai tree's which he spent a good deal of his spare time attempting to make. No less than twenty fledgling(sapling) miniature trees sat in a neat row along the back fence.
Honestly the hobby was somewhat relieving to Kiritsugu, as it showed that the boy had interests beyond magecraft and combat.
The former magus killer frowned as a bitter sweet memory came to the forefront of his mind. One that was a source of conflict to him to that day.
Flashback
Kiritsugu paced up and down the halls of the building, shoes clacking on the hardwood floors in a rhythm as constant as any clock. His heart pounded in his chest, and while his breathing seemed controlled, the truth of the matter was he felt quite stressed.
It was a full four months since he had choose to take in Kotora as his foster father. In that time the two had settled into the old japanese style house, though there had been some hiccups along the way, sutch as the time he had set the kitchen on fire while making coffee, or the time that he had caused the toilet to back-up and overflow.
In the time the two had spent together, Kiritsugu had tried continuously tried to get the boy to open up about his past, however beyond a few slip ups here and there, such as mentioning how "His sister hated math", he remained largely silent on the subject, only saying he could never go back, and that it was best to put it behind him. Beyond those few clues, the only thing that he had managed to find was that the boy was an evangelical Christian.
That itself was somewhat concerning, as, as far as Kiritsugu was aware, while evangelical presence in japan increases since the end of the second world war, there were no such churches in Fuyuki's general vicinity. That gave the impression that he had to have come from a considerable distance away. That begged the question, why was he in Fuyuki?
While to boy seemed more or less removed from his life before the fire, his nu-explained history had a weighty affect on Kiritsugu's mind. Since Kotora had chosen to come with him, he had been trying to find the courage to tell the boy about his own past as a magus, however, hearing the boys refusal to talk about his history, and his hesitation to accept Kiritsugu's offer, the mage had lost his nerve, and been trying to get it back ever since.
"Oi, old man, is something wrong?" the voice of the source of his mental conflict sounded out behind him, almost making him jolt in surprise.
Turning around, he mentally chastised himself for getting so lost in thought. "No, Kotora-kun, I just have something on my mind at the moment." he said, trying to calm his beating heart. His fight or flight response was still set to full from the war.
"Oh." the boy responded, tilting his head to the side. "So, what's bothering you? Is it anything important?"
Kiritsugu closed his eyes for a moment and gathered his nerve. "Come on. This will be easier sitting down."
walking into the living room, Kiritsugu sat down with a slight huff, waiting for Kotora to take his place across from him. Once the boy sat down, he began. "Kotora, since you agreed to come with me, I've been trying to tell you something. I should have told you already, but I could never find the nerve." with a final, deep breath, Kiritsugu finally revealed the truth. "I am a magus."
Kotora blinked twice, inhaled deeply, and closed his eyes, face pointed downwards. For a moment worried the he wasn't taking the information well. Was he surprised? Scarred? Confused? Angry? Kiritsugu had already figured out that treating him like a ormal seven year old was a bad idea, his reactions were abnormally mature.
Kotora breathed deeply, and turned his head to look straight up at the roof, before looking Kiritsugu right in the eye with a shocking intensity, before saying the last thing the magus had expected. "I already knew that."
Kiritsugu's racing thoughts froze for a moment, before he managed to register what he had just heard. "What?" he muttered in shock.
Kotora clenched his fists, and kiritsugu felt the unmistakable pulse of prana that came with someone opening their magic-circuits. "Your Kiritsugu Emiya. The magus killer. I've known since you introduced yourself."
A block of ice dropped into Kiritsugu's stomach. His thought flew into a hurricane as he tried to make sense of what he had just heard. A thousand questions seemed to leap to mind, but the only one that he could manage to voice was, "why?"
Kotora tilted his head to the side. "Why what?"
Kiritsugu inhaled deeply, held it for a moment, then breathed out before re stating his question. "Why would you come with me if you knew who I was?"
Kotora looked down at his feet for a long moment, which did nothing for Kiritsugu's frayed nerves, before he looked back up at him. "I had nowhere else to go. I couldn't go back, and I didn't know what else I could do. And, besided . . . you looked so desperate, I couldn't say no to you. I didn't really care who you were. I didn't think someone with that look in their eye's could hurt me."
Kiritsugu did his best to steady his heart as he took in the boys words. While he was still from coming to terms with what he had just heard, the more practical part of his mind had listened to the emotional sides insistence that there was no harmful intent in the boy's revelation, and was now pushing him to find out what else the boy knew. "How do you know about me?"
Kotora looked away from him. "I learned about you the same way I learned about magecraft. And dead apostles. And demons, and deamons, and all those things. I was told about them to "inspire" me." Kotora did the kind of huffing laugh one does when laughing at something that is clearly not funny.
"Guess that fear is supposed to be a good motivator. Of course, I don't actually know that much about mage-craft itself. My limit is turning on my circuits and the few spells so basic I figured them out on my own with basically no outside input."
The boy proceeded to project what appeared to be a glass sphere in the palm of his hand and then crush the fragile sphere bare handed, the object turning into blue molts of prana in an instant. "Beyond that, I have no practical knowledge."
The mechanical side of Kiritsugu's mind whirled into action, trying to decipher the information he had been given to form a logical narrative.
Why would he know about magecraft? He must have a relative who taught him, most likely his parents. But why would they teach him so little, assuming the boy was telling him the truth? The boy had mentioned a sister, he may have not been the first choice inherit the family craft, at which point he would be kept away from megecraft as much as possible so as the avoid him being a threat the the heir. But why would they tell him of so many dangerous things? To dissuade him from the life of a magus? Then why would he claim that is was supposed to be inspiration?
Kiritsugu puzzled over the last thought for a good few seconds, before Kotora tapping him one the shoulder. "Oi, old man, you alright? You look kind of like your having a panic attack here." that snapped him out of it, causing him to return to the moment at hand.
Realizing that now was not the time to make theory's about Kotora's past, he turned his focus towards what this meant for the future. He had intended to tell Kotora about magecraft only to ensure that he was prepared for the event of an encounter with Kiritsugu's past life, however, it seemed that he was more aware than he had given him credit for. The only question that mattered right now was . . .
"So what now?" Kiritsugu sighed out.
Kotora, in response, gave him a confused look. "What do you mean, "what now"?"
"What do we do now?"
" . . . I still don't get what your saying. Why should anything change at all? I mean, I knew from the start. All that's changed is that you know that I know. The only thing thats differnet is I'm gona ask a lot more questions about . . . Oi, old man, what are you doing? Hey! Don't hug me so hard! Your breaking my back here! Let go already!"
Flashback End
Kiritsugu shook his head fondly at the memory. He had ended up moving from a foster parent to an adoptive parent less than two weeks later.
After said adoption, Kotora had become much more confrontational about magecraft. At first Kiritsugu had been reluctant to teach him anything, but is soon became apparent what the boy had meant when he called his fears an "inspiration". The boy absolutely despised the 'flight' part of 'fight or flight'. So, when he was told about something that he couldn't possibly defeat, then his automatic response was to try and find a way to do just that.
In his own words, "Humans aren't built to outrun, or hide from our enemies. Wear built to crush opponents with ranged offence and outlast them with superior endurance. If our only options are "run" and "hide", then we've practically already lost."
Of course, the idea that whoever had taught him magic had been taking advantage of the boy's "fight before flight" mentality contradicted his initial theory of them trying to scare him away from the moonlit world. In light of this, Kiritsugu had developed a new theory, tho the boy refused to confirm either it nor it's predecessor.
The new theory was that him and his sister, the only relative he had confirmed the existence of to date, were evenly matched. That is to say, they were both equally suited to inherit the family craft. In resoponce, he and his sibling were pitted against one another. This would explain why the only times Kotora mentioned said sister, it had been to declare himself better than her in some way, which would be notable to him if what decided the boys ability to fight back would be his superiority over her.
That would also explain why he had such an in-depth knowledge of certain topics, such as basic science and advanced mathematics, but next to no knowledge of others, such as history. The most vital ability of a magus was the ability to learn, force feeding a child information to see how well they adjusted to it to determine their ability as a magus.
They boy's constant reiteration that he "couldn't go back" most likely meant that he had ultimately failed his tests. Kotora had mentioned that he had extreme difficulty understanding chemistry. An alchemy focused family would, in fact, consider that crippling. The only thing left unanswered was how he ended up in fuyuki, which could have many dozens of explanations.
Of course, in the end, he supposed, Kotora's past was off little consequence. Especially if he himself didn't want to talk about it.
Kiritsugu was knocked out of his mussing by the sound of a door opening down the hall, and realized that his son must have woken up from his nap. Pulling himself to his feet, he went to check in on him. Hopefully, he wouldn't want to jump back into training, he hadn't actually taken a day off in several weeks.
AN: 3:08 AM, May 28th, 2019. Ok, that took way to long. Didn't work on this chapter for like, three weeks straight. Wrote the first . . . five hundred words? Then just nothing until last Monday. Of course, I do have some excuse. The day I stopped writing, I had a bad night that threw off my sleeping scheduled for the following week. And, by the time I get it back under control, I get a new job. The fact that I started watching Bungou Stray Dogs somewhere in the middle their just added to the problem. But, hey, at least I managed it, right? Ok, so reviews!
beingLazy: If archer actually shows up, still arguing on that, then I may end up making him super OP(at least compared to his canon strength).
Soda-fiedPsycho: Already replied to you in a PM, and you responded, so I don't think I need to say anything here. But thanks for the detailed review anyway!
Guest: I'm still arguing with myself over what else I should add. To be blunt, I, at surface level at least, perfer Kara no Kyoukai to Tsukihime, but I'll admit that my knowledge of either series is limited to fanfics, the wiki pages, and what I can find on youtube. Though, the fic "That Nostalgic Summer Rain" has swaid me even more heavily, though, again, my lack of knowldge on the series makes it hard to do anything for fear of a plot hole(I don't like contradiction canon, unless it's part of the plot)
So, I'd say that that covers everything! Watch out, the next chapters when everything start's for real.
