If Chapter One: Tiger, Meet Badass Dude
Izaya Orihara decides to troll an unsuspecting Taiga Fujimura Sensei, it backfires, spectacularly. Unsuccessful, he decides to poke the hornets' nest of the Mages Association, and get Shizuou's attention too.
Author's Note: I'm sorry everybody, but I got ulnar nerve entrapment in my right arm so I have to use this speech to text too write this story. So this will be the fanfic I'll be working on for a while, the other story Path of the broken Mage has words that are too hard to pronounce. Since I've added a bunch of names into the speech recognition dictionary I'll be focusing on the story until my right hand gets better. Updates will also be slower. Thank you for bearing with me.
Masaomi Kida woke up the next day feeling rather excited. After all, he wanted to spend time with Shirou. Hs cousin had promised to show him the rebuilt New Town that afternoon.
Wondering out of his room, he made his way into the kitchen, he found Sakura Matou cooking breakfast.
"Good morning, Sakura," Masaomi greeted her.
"Good morning, oh Masaomi, I mistook you for Sempai!" Sakura Matou blushed in embarrassment.
"Breakfast is almost ready," Sakura Matou replied. "Shirou is probably freaking out in the Emiya dojo."
"Thanks, I'll go find him," Masaomi replied, walking out the door. He made his way to his cousin's dojo. He found in Shirou doing pushups inside.
"Hey!" Masaomi greeted him, "So this where you are in the morning, do you always work out every day?"
Shirou continued doing pushups, "It's part of my daily routine. You have a limp; did you hurt yourself before you came here?"
"I didn't exactly hurt myself, more like, my best friend shot me in the leg," Masaomi sighed. He touched his bandaged leg.
Shirou stopped doing pushups and stared at him. "He shot you in the leg?! What would drive him to be that?!" What would drive someone to do that to their best friend?
"Mikado Riyugamine wanted to escape having ordinary, unexciting, boring way. He hated it, and so he decided to form an online gang, each was originally a joke, but with some unwanted help, the online gang, the Dollars, grew until people started saying they were really in the gang in Ikebukuro in real life. He didn't know I was the founder of another gang, the Yellow scarves, this lead us to inadvertently fight each other without knowing it. The tree that three of us, myself Mikado and Anri, you will keep secrets from each other.
"He founded a color gang?!" Shirou shouted in shock. "I knew you got into trouble, but having a gang, are you crazy? You could get arrested!"
"Back when I started the Yellow Scarves, it was just a bunch of elementary schoolers beating each other up, just typical brawls, then I took some very bad advice from my girlfriend Saki, and listened to an info broker, Izaya Orihara. He manipulated me into starting a gang war between the Yellow Scarves in our rival gang the Blue squares. My girlfriend and it ended up being collateral damage after they kidnapped her and broke her legs. I was going to rescue her, I was running to where she was then I just froze. I never forgave myself for screwing up, right when she needed me the most."
"I understand that you wanted to save her, but if you hadn't started a gang, this would happen to her." Shirou crossed his arms and frowned.
"I know," Masaomi sighed, "That was my decision and I have to live with it. Eventually, we had to confront each other after he could no longer distinguish fantasy from reality. He wanted that the Dollars to become an urban legend, the Headless Rider."
Shirou's mouth gaped a little. "The Headless Rider?! You've seen it?! I've only seen it on YouTube."
"Yeah, she's a real alright, her name is Celty Sturluson, and she's a dullahan, she visits and those who are about to die, she doesn't really do that much anymore. She's a transporter, a courier."
Shirou looked at Masaomi, "Isn't she a type of fairy? I thought fairies ate people."
"Maybe, maybe not, who knows? I've never seen Celty eat people." Masaomi laughed. "I don't know what other fairies are supposed to be like, but Celty is one of the nicest people I know. She's also the sanest person out of everyone I know in Ikebukuro. She's also the most human person I've ever met. And she's a fairy!"
Shirou laughed, "For someone who barely knows me, you're sharing all your dirty secrets with me."
"Secrets nearly got me killed, so I'm not going to have any between you and me, 'kay?" the blonde haired teenager smiled.
"Is that the only reason you're telling me this?" Shirou asked, curious.
Masaomi gestured at the young Mage, "You're an honest guy, I can tell that just by looking at you, I feel like I can trust you, and it's been a very hard for me to do that since Izaya manipulated me."
"I'm glad you feel you can trust me, we are the family, aren't we?" Shirou asked as he finished his pushups.
Masaomi rubbed the back of his head. "Yeah, anyway, Mikado had slipped a cog, if you know what I mean, fantasy and reality blurred itself in his mind, and he wanted the Dollars to become an urban legend. I tried to snap him back to reality, even if I had to kick his ass to do it. I thought I could literally beat sense in him. But he retaliated by shooting me the leg. He told me he felt so awful for doing that and he felt that he should kill himself. He shot himself in the head, saying he was excited to see the afterlife, thinking maybe he would end up becoming something like Celty. If Celty hadn't covered him in her shadows stopping the bullet, Mikado would have blown his brains out right in front of me."
"It sounds like you've been through a lot with your friends, and Anri, what was her secret?" Shirou asked as they began walking out of the dojo.
"She was the Slasher, well, one of them anyway, there was more than one. She possesses a demonic sword called Saika, the sword loves all of humanity, and wants to love them by cutting them and taking over there will. It wants to take over humanity; Anri told me that Saika keeps talking incessantly about loving everyone and her."
"How does she deal with it, the voices in her head?" Shirou asked, horrified.
"Anri told me that she is incapable of loving others, so she lets Saika love other people for her. But I can tell she loves Mikado, and me in her own way, but she has romantic feelings, she's again them to Mikado. I'm just a loser after all," Masaomi laughed.
"So I told you all my dirty secrets, now you have to tell me something about you."
Shirou looked thoughtful. "I'm going to tell you something that you must never tell anyone else. Can you do that, can you keep a secret?"
"Yeah, I can keep a secret, but what would someone like you have to hide?"
"I'll be honest with you and say it right now; I'm a Mage and have been for awhile now." Shirou gauged Masaomi's reaction made his news.
"You, a Mage? Really?" Masaomi asked, surprised. "I knew Celty was a fairy, so I suspected magic could be a real, but the closest thing I've seen to it is Celty's body and her disembodied head talking and she holds it under her arm."
"I've never seen a disembodied head talk before," Shirou seemed fascinated that there were supernatural creatures that moved freely among humanity.
"Celty seems like a very good person. And don't tell Fuji-nee about me being a Mage. She doesn't know."
"'kay, she'd probably freak out if I told her," Masaomi laughed. "She probably wouldn't believe me anyway."
"It sounds far-fetched, she didn't even know that my father Kiritsugu Emiya was a Mage," Shirou laughed. "Sakura probably finished breakfast so let's go eat."
They headed inside the house. Taiga Fujimura greeted them as they sat down at the table.
"It's nice to see that you two are getting along so well," Taiga smiled broadly. "I only found Shirou's adoption papers recently. Did you sleep well Masaomi?"
"Yes I did, thank you for asking, had a nice dream about a bunch of hot chicks."
"Really? That's when your dream was about?" Shirou slapped the back of Masaomi's head. "Is hitting on chicks the only thing you ever think about?"
"Well, it is my hobby, hitting on and picking up the hotties, live by the boobie, die by the boobie!"
"You're such a perv! How do you have a girlfriend?" Shirou asked; his cousin was very strange when it came to women.
"Saki knows I kid around a lot when it comes to girls, she knows I'll always come back to her home in her how many women I fall in love with."
Just then Rin Tohsaka and Saber walked into the kitchen and sat down.
"Good morning Shirou," Rin greeted him; "I hope you didn't mind us joining you for breakfast."
"No problem, there's plenty for everyone," Shirou nature them, "I figured you would be stopping by. I was planning on taking Masaomi showing him around Fuyuki."
"Sounds good to me," Masaomi laughed. "So tell me, how do you know all these beautiful women and how did to get them all to come over to your house on a regular basis?"
"That's a long story, I don't have time to tell it now," Shirou looked around and noticed Taiga Fujimura had left in a hurry. He figured she was goofing off. But what he didn't know that she was doing something far more important, battling her new nemesis, Izaya Orihara.
"Well it if it isn't Fujimura sensei, the tiger of Fuyuki," Izaya flashed her a taunting smile.
"How do you know my name? And why did you call me "tiger"?" Taiga glared at him angrily. Somebody must have told him that her nickname is tiger in order to prank her first thing in the morning.
"But you are Taiga Fujimura, old man Fujimura's granddaughter, aren't you? You chose to leave the family business and not get involved with the Yakusa. Wouldn't your students hate you they found out who your father was. You would no longer be the beloved English teacher, Taiga Fujimura of Humrahara High School. You'll just be someone they're afraid of because of your scary grandfather. You think you can escape your family's reputation, Tiger?"
Taiga Fujimura was furious beyond words. This man knew way too much about her and her family to be just some ordinary person. And he'd signed his death warrant and made his funeral preparations.
"Tell me, mister, what's your name?" Taiga asked in a furious voice.
"My name is Izaya Orihara; I'm an info broker from Ikebukuro. I couldn't help but want to meet the person who asked me to find out about Masaomi Kida. It turns out you're an interesting human; and I love humans, all of them. Why did you ask me for my name?"
"Because I wanted to know what to put on your tombstone! 'Cause I'm gonna kill you!" Taiga Fujimura screamed furiously and she swung her special training shinai, Tora Shinai at Izaya. She hit him so hard he was unconscious before he hit the pavement.
"That's what you get for calling me by my nickname, not once but twice!" she screamed as she glared at his inert body.
Izaya Orihara slowly got up and rubbed his head. "You know, Fujimura sensei you're fun. You reminded me of Shizu-chan. Same temper and everything. Well I've gotta get going, I'll see you around Tig—"
She hit him so hard with the Tora Shinai, knocking him off the ground like a golf ball that he was airborne high enough to impress Shizuou Hewajima, had been walking by and heard the Fleabag taunting another victim.
"You're not going anywhere, you Fleabag! I heard everything you said to her! You're gonna ruin her life because you think it's funny?!"
Shizuou turned and grabbed the Emiya gate and pulled. Taiga Fujimura gaped in shock and awe as he ripped the gate out of the concrete and lifted it up.
"I'm going to kill you, and this time you don't have a getaway car!" Shizuou hurled the metal gate at him and he went flying.
Just then, Shirou, Rin, Saber, and Masaomi came running out of the house just as Shizuou picked up the gate.
"Holy shit!" Masaomi exclaimed. "Shizuou is here in Fuyuki?! I thought he was still in Ikebukuro!"
The group watched in awe as something that shouldn't go flying went flying through the air as if it were a toy!
"You owe me a new gate!" Shirou shouted in anger in disbelief. He didn't know that a human could be strong enough to rip apart a metal gate.
"Don't worry kid; I'll buy you a new gate. I got a part-time job at a bar called the Copenhagen. I'll be the bartender, at least until I can kill that Fleabag!"
"That's just great, and now I have to work with you!" Shirou groaned.
"And who are you?" Taiga asked in awe.
"I'm Shizuou Hewajima, I'd love to stay and chat, but I have to go kill that Fleabag, Izaya Orihara."
Everyone except Masaomi had never heard Shizuou scream before, "IZAYA!"
Shirou thought that had to be one of the loudest screams of a person's name he'd ever heard.
Shirou didn't think a man Shizuou's size could run that fast, but he went sprinting off at a ridiculous speed, chasing off the man his cousin had told him to avoid.
"Looks like my day is going to be eventful," Shirou said to himself.
"You're so lucky!" Masaomi exclaimed. "You've seen Ikebukuro's strongest man and he didn't even have to go there!"
"I don't cal getting in my gate ripped apart lucky!" Shirou snapped.
"He said he's going to replace it, he usually doesn't do that for people," Masaomi told his cousin. "So you're going to give me the grand tour of Fuyuki, right?"
"Yeah," Shirou replied, "but now I have to call someone to get an estimate on what it will cost to repair my gate."
"Don't worry, I can wait," Masaomi from his shoulders.
Saber glanced at the teenager, "Are you used to such odd occurrences?"
"For me, this is normal!" Masaomi laughed. "I got used to seeing him around."
Shirou went back into the house to make a phone call. A few minutes later he came back out. Taiga Fujimura left to go to a bar, the Copenhagen to drown her sorrows in beer.
Shirou decided to take them downtown to the batting cages. He had packed a lunch for all of them made up the very delicious sandwiches.
Masaomi watched as Shirou and Saber tried to outdo each other in the batting cages. He soon joined them, noting that Rin was ahead all of them. Masaomi swung the bat, focusing on keeping up with Saber.
After they were done, they settled down to eat lunch in the park.
"Ikebukuro seems to be a very interesting place," Rin noted. "I mean, you've got a bartender who can throw gates around."
"Not just gates, but guardrails and signposts too," Masaomi told her. "But I want to show you something that will blow your mind." He held up his phone.
Rin took from him and stared at the video. She saw a surveillance camera of two bikers riding alongside each other. Suddenly the motorcycle next to the biker with cat ears on her helmet. Suddenly a wire sliced across where her neck was. The female Mage saw the body go flying and the bike into the ground. She'd let her mouth dropped a little, there was no head to be seen anywhere and no blood that should be seen from a decapitation.
"Shirou?" Rin asked. The Mages Association had asked her to search for the Dullahan. She had complied, but every time she went to Ikebukuro she could never find any sign of it no matter where she looked. She wondered if the fairy could sense her presence. The fae were elusive when they wanted to be.
Fairies were very powerful beings that could not be killed in the modern era of humans, even in the Age of Gods, they were difficult to kill, but they often gave humanity Noble Phantasms, so they were still a mystery to humanity.
"Rin, I already told Masaomi about the fact that I'm a Mage, since he has my bloodline he might have the potential too."
"I see, we'll have to test him, then," Rin was thoughtful.
"But when everything I've seen, I can believe that Mages exist," Masaomi told her, "and I already promised to keep Mages a secret."
Masaomi pointed a finger at Rin.
"Just to be clear, nobody goes after Celty, she's a very close friend, and she's very important to me. She saved my best friend from killing himself so I don't care what this Mages Association wants with her, you're leaving her alone!"
Saber was surprised five Masaomi's reaction the regarding Celty. Fairies were very fickle and the more dangerous but she'd never heard of one who regularly aided humans, the fact that she was an incarnation of death made it even more astounding.
After lunch, they headed to the Fuyuki Bridge. Saber found herself stealing a glance at Masaomi Kida, a boy trying to escape his extraordinary life, seeking out the ordinary life he longed for. She could tell by looking at him that he was a man haunted by his past. Saber knew that feeling all too well.
Taiga Fujimura walked into the Copenhagen and sat down at the bar stool, she had been drinking throughout the day with a scowl on her face. She had a very bad day because of that info broker had vanished from sight. She had searched all over Fuyuki for him but she couldn't find him.
"I remember you," Shizuou greeted her, "you're the one Izaya was harassing earlier today. I couldn't find him either. Sorry about that."
"He called you Shizuou Hewajima, I just wanted to say thank you for sticking up for me today. It's not like you know me or anything."
"You seem to know your way around the city, maybe you could show me around so I can get a good idea of where the fleabag is."
"Now Mister Hewajima it's not polite to ask a girl you just met out on a date."
"It's not a date… It's more like a…hunting expedition," Shizuou told the English teacher, giving her a devious smile. "I need all the help I can get hunting down that Fleabag."
Taiga laughed, "Very well, I accept your offer of hunting down Izaya Orihara. But I get the first crack at him."
Shizuou Hewajima smiled broadly, "You got it!"