Emiya Clan – Ouran Sidestory 01: Kyouya

It was nearly midnight when I first heard the soft tapping on the door. I was sitting alone in my room, not an unusual occurrence since I often stayed up quite late while organizing my activities for the next week. The activities for the current week I had long since taken care of, although I was experienced enough to leave plenty of flexibility in that schedule to accommodate the random whims of that kind-hearted moron. Lately, however, I'd found my hours taken up by a pair of brand new puzzles.

Haruhi Fujioka was almost-but-not-quite an open book. Information on her personal and academic history was readily available. There were a few notations which made her unusual, especially her father's occupation, but I had seen these patterns often enough to know that the data currently available on her would not tell me everything I needed to know about her.

However, this could easily be resolved through simple observations, and I'd already taken steps to get acquainted with Ryouji "Ranka" Fujioka. Our correspondence, combined with my own personal observations of Haruhi herself, would tell me everything I needed to know about her and what buttons I might need to push to ensure her cooperation, should the need ever arise.

As for my other puzzle... "Enter," I called out, keeping my eyes focused on my laptop's screen.

Seizaburo Tachibana, the head of my personal guards, quietly opened the door, closed it, and moved to stand before my desk. "Young Master," he said stiffly. "I regret having to report failure in the task you have assigned to us."

My fingers paused on the keyboard as I lifted my head to stare into his sunglasses. "You were unable to determine the target's place of residence?"

"That is, unfortunately, the case," Tachibana said. "The target remained on foot for roughly a kilometer without demonstrating any signs he had noticed our presence. However, we lost visual contact with him as he entered the more crowded portions of the downtown city. By the time Honda was able to insert himself into the area, approximately twenty-seconds after, we had lost him and were unable to reacquire visual contact."

"Where were you when this happened?" I said, looking back down as I typed notes into the computer.

"Downtown Shin-Tokyo."

"Thank you, Tachibana," I said. "That will be all." I leaned back slightly as the guard left the room as quietly as he had arrived. I had sort of been expecting this result. Takeshi Emiya was truly a puzzle worth solving. In contrast to Fujioka, there was very little information I could find on the third year student. Previous school records only stated that he had always been a a top-graded student, and that he had most likely grown up within Shin-Tokyo. Information on his parents, even their names, were curiously absent from his records. The same went for his place of residence.

My own personal impressions of the student indicated a very controlled personality, which were partially backed up by the information his clients had passed back to me, assuming those conversations contained accurate information. He had implied he was the eldest child in his family, which certainly fit with the sort of rigid discipline he acted with. His reactions to the Hitachiins were somewhat abnormal; though they generally succeeded in irritating just about anyone, Emiya's reaction had gone further, almost as if he had been personally offended.

That either suggested an extremely sheltered lifestyle, not terribly unusual for the heir of a major family; or overexposure to the exact opposite, which could imply a history similar to Tamaki's, except he had taken it much harder than the Suoh had. Given that information on him was incredibly difficult to find, this suggested the latter situation was more likely.

If Takeshi were the bastard child of a powerful individual, it would explain how he had access to enough money to attend a school like Ouran without having to go through the scholarship program. His father's family – since I had no knowledge of a powerful 'Emiya' family I assumed the name came from his mother's side – being shamed by the affair, would likely have the resources to strike all important information from public record. Takeshi would have grown up extremely sensitive to reminders of his sordid past, which could explain why he reacted so strongly towards Hikaru and Kaoru. Even his escape of my guard's observations may have come from a childhood spent avoiding his father's family guards.

As for the final piece of this puzzle, I had performed my own research into all major companies based in Shin-Tokyo, searching for any signs of the name 'Emiya'. I finally found a match in Mid-Bio Informatics, a bio-technical pharmaceutical conglomerate. MBI was mostly a technical company, patenting their research for commercial applications elsewhere, like in the country's airport screening system. Even Ootori Medical licensed some of their scanning devices in their higher-end hospitals.

The CEO for the company was publicly listed as a Takami Sahashi, but I found a small notation in their personnel files for a Sakura Emiya, their Chief of Public Relations. Bringing up pictures for both women, I immediately took note of the latter's purple hair and eyes. I also saw enough similar features between Takami and Takeshi to believe the student was a relative of hers, probably a child of her son and this Sakura.

It was purely circumstantial of course, so I'd keep quiet for now, but I still felt a triumphant thrill as I made a mental note to continue researching along this particular line. That could wait for later, however. In the meantime, I still had to complete my duties as a Host Club member and work out the details for this upcoming match between Takashi Morinozuka and Takeshi Emiya – no, Takeshi Sahashi.