A visual guide for The Clan has been drawn(!) up for the children and most of the wives. head on over to the link to view it

(andarion. deviantart. com/ art/ Emiya-Clan-212798888)

(a/n) - random thought which prompted this omake. fuuko is described as a shameless flirt, but she's a half-sekirei, which means she WILL react to somebody in the future... so why does she do it?

here's my own answer. beware of info dumps, but i like world building.

Fate/School Days - 07

As was common nowadays, four girls sat by themselves at a table near the edge of the school cafeteria. They were a small island of calm, the lunchtime chaos somehow flowing around their table by a wide margin and giving them a semblance of peace for them to discuss... whatever happened to pop up in their minds at the time.

I love runic wards, Karin thought happily for the umpteenth time. She turned to her sister responsible to say as much when she noticed the girl in question poking at her bento with an unhappy look on her face. She mentally changed tracks with a blink and made a querying noise.

Keiko frowned a bit more before she spoke, still not looking up from her meal. "It's not right," she finally complained.

Karin shared a glance with her third sister, sitting beside the morose gunslinger. Sakuya returned her glance with a shrug, then turned back to Keiko.

"Is this about Fuuko?" she asked. The redhead nodded in response as the other leaned back with an audible 'ahhh' breezing from her mouth.

The middle schoolers of the Emiya Clan tended to organize themselves by their grades, so it wasn't a common occurrence to find them all together in the same place during class periods. On the other hand, it wasn't uncommon either for them to pass by each other in ones and twos as they traveled from class to class. Fuuko, the sole third year amongst their numbers, was more or less alone in her grade since her birth date was just shy a few weeks from the cutoff which had kept her from the other siblings in her age group.

Her relative isolation was one theory the family had to explain her reputation. Many of the more cynical members simply said she was channeling her mother. Either way, it seemed Keiko and Sakuya had recently walked past a hallway where their elder sister had been enjoying one of her latest 'conquests.' The reminder of that memory made Sakuya suddenly flush and break into sub-vocal chuckles.

Keiko ignored her and stabbed at a strip of meat with her chopsticks. "She really shouldn't be playing around with boys at her age," she said grumpily.

"This isn't some jealousy popping up, is it?" Karin was well aware of the stories passed around her sister's mother. Though Rin-kaachan had hardly taken advantage of it, it was well known that she had been a popular idol during her own school years. It was entirely possibly her sole child would have her own expectations for her life.

Keiko chewed on the idea as well as her food. "Partially," she admitted. The same thoughts had apparently been running through her own head. "But it's not just that." She lifted her head finally to stare across the table, taking in the girl who had stayed out of the conversation as well. "She's almost 15 now."

Beside her sister, Koyuki suddenly froze. The snow-girl's uniform seemed to flutter as she settled into immobility, her eyes locked onto Keiko. Karin, on the other hand, continued eating without comment, as if the words held no meaning to her.

"So?"

Keiko frowned, "She shouldn't be fooling around with boys because she shouldn't be getting into a relationship. Not at that age."

Karin wouldn't meet her sister's eyes. "What's so wrong about having a boyfriend at 15?"

Cyan eyes narrowed at the opposite redhead. "You know. You were the one that helped Matsu-kaachan come up with the statistics."

"Statistics for what?" came the artificially light reply.

Sakuya was blinking rapidly as she looked back and forth between her arguing siblings. Koyuki was still frozen in place.

Keiko sighed. "Sekirei Reacting."

Karin finally did look up to meet her sister's stare, "Oh?"

Nobody knew what constituted maturity for a Sekirei. A few assumptions could be made given their human-like forms, but even despite the massive amounts of research MBI had put into the subject - both before and after the Emiya takeover of the company - a Sekirei's Winging Ritual still defied any single set of guidelines.

In various countries the 'legal' age for adulthood was anywhere between 18-21 years of age. Biologically, humans reached maturity between 12-15 years of age. Sekirei, for all that they looked human, had a huge range of time for them to mature - judged by when their biology felt it necessary to seek out an ashikabi and perform the ritual. Some like Kazehana-kaasan didn't react to anybody until she was well into adulthood, and wasn't even winged until many years after that. On the other side, Kusano-kaasan and Shiina-ojisan had both winged at ages a human would be considered adolescent.

The statistics Keiko was referring to was a wide survey of Sekirei from the previous generation as well as the offspring from the surviving numbers. First generation Sekirei-Human half-breeds had a tendancy to not display any Reaction behaviors until after they had matured their human sides, which generally took place during their highschool years. There had been a few notable exceptions, like Reiko-imouto, but by and large a large portion of their generation - especially the older Emiya children - had found themselves 'married' long before they had graduated high school.

That the situation was the cause of a great deal of stress for Shirou-tousan was well known.

Keiko was poking at her food again. But surprisingly it was Sakuya who spoke up next. "She doesn't even have to flirt around... so why does she do it?"

What was less well known is that it was an unacknowledged rift between the children of The Clan. It varied from child to child but it was generally split between the 'normals' - the offspring of purely human pairing - and... well, everybody else. The Sekirei were only the largest group in their large family. There were also vampires, materialized spirits, and if Shinra-imouto's story was to be believed, the planet itself that had lent their genetic material to their offspring.

The normal children had to put up with society's expectations from their mothers; find a mate with good grades, good jobs, and a good upbringing if possible. For the immortals, it was more of: find somebody who won't annoy you for all of eternity. And for the Sekirei, it was more or less: the first person you feel like jumping onto and ravishing. Needless to say, normal courtship rules sort of flew out the window from the start, though there was some lingering envy between the children about how 'easy' one group or another had it.

Karin decided that Keiko and Sakuya's comments were based on that situation. For Keiko, she had been half expecting becoming Queen of the Campus and following in her mother's footsteps. She had always been a sociable child and was looking forward to building up her own little clique. Sakuya... well half of her would jump the closest boy if given free reign and though she kept Yin contained admirably, it was inevitable that some portion would color her Yang personality.

For both sisters, seeing Fuuko more or less Queen of the Males for the entire school was an affront to their sensibilities. Not only was it a wasted effort in their eyes, but she also took away potential attention from themselves.

Envy went both ways though.

"Try to think of it this way," Karin mused. "I'll be the first to say, yes we don't really need to have an active dating life. Our biology will find somebody compatible for us and *bam*, instant family." She looked up to make sure both her normal sisters were looking at her.

"But if you think about it another way, we have very little chance to find somebody on our own."

There was a handful of blinks around her, even Koyuki was staring at her now.

Karin lifted her glasses from her face and propped them on top of her head. "Can you imagine what it'd be like if I reacted to somebody like Hikaru Gosunkugi?" she asked, rubbing her eyes.

Even Sakuya blanched at the mental image involving the extremely odd cultist.

"Now this is pure speculation," the redhead continued. "But I think Fuuko-neechan is doing her own version of training."

Keiko stared. "What."

Karin replaced her glasses and grinned at her sister. "She dates her current boy-toy and gets herself all hot and bothered. She goes however far she wants to with him... and then breaks it off to find somebody else."

"And this is training... how?"

"Simple. When she finally reacts to somebody she'll have two advantages I don't think any of our siblings ever had." Karin lifted a finger, "First, from her very wide range of experience she can decide if this is somebody she actually would like. She's probably dated over half the school by now and that compromises a lot of personality types."

Sakuya was fanning herself now. "Do you think she can give pointers?"

Karin ignored her and raised a second finger, "Next, she's probably had more experience controlling herself than the rest of us combined. I don't think even her mother has that kind of experience."

Keiko snorted. "I don't think Kazehana-kaasan ever bothered to try."

"Point taken. My point, though, is that until the Winging Ritual is completed we are completely free to chose who we want to. Reacting just makes that very, very hard. Fuuko-neechan is just setting herself up so she can actually settle in with a boy... or girl... she actually likes."

All three other girls looked thoughtful at her conclusion. Keiko still wasn't letting the matter go, however.

"That does sound reasonable... but why aren't you two doing it then?"

"Ah," Koyuki spoke quietly. "I feel that for whoever I have a Reaction to, love will find a way..." she said with a blush.

Karin simply shrugged. "A few reasons. For one, I'm not old enough yet where I think I have to worry about it. Also..."

Keiko and Sakuya looked on curiously as their sister rummaged through her school bag for a tablet PC, which she placed onto the table's surface.

Karin's glasses seemed to opaque as they reflected the light from the powered on device. She poked her way through several menus then leaned back.

"Who said I wasn't training myself?" she grinned as she watched her siblings.

Keiko and Sakuya's faces both flushed a deep crimson as they stared at the screen. Koyuki poked her head over Karin's shoulder.

"Ah, I like this one."