That day started like so many others before it.
No sooner had Shirou opened the door to the classroom did he hear the familiar shout. "Prepare yourself!"
A boy dressed in a white Chinese style top and loose black pants jumped over the first three rows of desk and started to do a spin kick in the air, his long braided ponytail hanging out behind him.
Shirou stepped out of the kick's way, then when the attacker tried to follow up with a back hand, he half parried the attack before grabbing the wrist. Before a whole second had passed, Shirou had the boy on the ground, one arm locked under his knee, while Shirou's held the other hand and pressed his other knee into the boy's shoulder blades, pinning him to the ground.
"Morning, Lee." "Goodmorning, Lee-kun." Shirou and Rin said casually as the boy struggled.
"Mor'ing... Shirou, Hikaru-chan." Rock Lee said from his position on the ground. Shirou released him and let Rock Lee get back to his knees. He punched the ground. "Rats! I lost again!" Then surprising to anyone who was not familiar with Lee, he pushed his legs up into the air and started doing vertical push ups. "If I could not beat Shirou... then I will do fifty vertical push ups before class starts... and if I can't do that, then I will run around the entire village during lunch break." He grunted as he struggled with his self inflicted punishment.
"Very well, we'll leave you to that then." Rin said, patting Lee's leg as she passed, making the boy struggle to maintain his balance until Shirou helped to stabilize him really quickly.
Some members of the class laughed at Lee. "What does he think he's doing?" "Dead Last should just give up. He doesn't have what it takes to be a ninja." "They probably let his father be a ninja out of pity for them." Lee closed his eyes at their words, but didn't stop doing his push ups.
Shirou looked up at them with a disappointed look. "Ignore them Lee, just keep it up. I'm sure you'll show them all one day." Shirou said, giving his bit of encouragement before continuing on.
Rin third row, second from the back and sat down in her usual spot next to the window and popped open her book. She ignored the looks they got. She knew they were there, but she simply chose not to react to them. The peanut gallery never mattered one bit to her... no... not one bit. She didn't care that more than half the girls in her class were staring at Shirou and whispering to each other.
Shirou was oblivious to this fact. Even when Anko had tried to explain to him that girls went for boys who were strong, smart, and would improve their families station, it never registered to him that she could be talking about him. He had assumed that she had meant Neji.
While Neji was definitely a target, he wasn't the only or the biggest one in there year. Shirou might not have even been in the top ten of the class grade wise because of some troubles he had with one of the basic jutsu, but he was still obviously a cut above the rest. He had long since mastered the other jutsu, and was the best in class when it came to weaponry and hand to hand combat. Though he could easily be one of the best in the village in both of those categories. Having an index of over ten thousand different fighting styles made picking up new ones and finding holes in his opponent's a piece of cake for him. So even if he couldn't analyze someone's fist at a glance, he would get their style down after just a few minutes of watching.
Even if Shirou had no real family influence or history within the ninja community, he wasn't poor and his blacksmith skills were something that were well sought after. Not to mention that every single one of them whose parent knew about what happened during the Kumo incident had told them to do whatever it took to catch Shirou's eye. It didn't seem to matter to them one bit that he was already engaged.
Shirou wasn't the only one though. Several of the boy's in the class seemed to have fallen in love with Rin as well, and hated Shirou for his connection to her. Not that any of them were brave or foolish enough to even think of asking Rin out. Shirou may have been easy going, but he was strong, and Rin herself was fairly scary when she wanted to be.
Actually, no one in the class ever seemed to recognize the engagement, with the exception of Anko. She only mentioned it to rub it in the other young boys and girls' faces and to try to see if she could get Shirou or Rin to flush.
"Morning, Neji." Shirou said as Rin's cousin moved up the stairs towards his seat in the row behind them, right behind Rin herself. Neji didn't respond to Shirou, only giving him a slight glare with his featureless eyes as he passed.
"Good morning, Onee-san." Neji said to Rin, giving a slight bow of the head.
"It's good to see you to, Neji-kun." Rin said, rolling her eyes.
Neji had been fairly close to Rin and Hinata as children, when they all played or trained together. He viewed Rin as an older sister, even if she was only older than him by about a week. And even though they didn't all live within the Clan walls anymore, they saw each other a lot.
While he was grateful to Shirou for his involvement in the Kumo incident, he never liked Shirou, mostly because he seemed to have so many secrets with Rin that Neji was not privy to. Rin always saw the jealousy as being rather adorable in the young boy.
So when Rin and Hinata left the family compound, Neji blamed Shirou for it. Few people knew about it, but after it happened, he challenged Shirou to see if he was worthy of being with his Onee-san. It hurt the genius's pride to be so completely and utterly beaten by someone who supposedly had no training in hand to hand combat.
Neji had been forced to acknowledge Shirou's skill. That didn't mean he had to like it.
Rin's smile didn't last as she noticed something different that morning. Neji had a chakra hiding bandage wrapped around his forehead. "Isn't it a little early for you to be getting that? Or were you planning on leaving the village for a trip?" Rin asked her cousin.
"No. It was just a precaution. You know how things have been." Neji said, his arm twitching as he resisted the urge to reach for his forehead.
"Utter foolishness." Rin said, crossing her arms. "That seal is supposed to be a defensive measure against foreign powers, not internal."
"It does not matter. I would never try to take the Clan." Neji said, remaining calm.
Ever since Rin's decorations, the Hyūga Clan had been becoming more and more divided. Hiashi tried his best to control their actions, but with the future that had always been controlled by the Elder now seeming so unknown, things were getting a little out of hand. Opinions within the branch families ranged from completely shedding the Clan's old identity, to taking drastic measures to return things to the norm.
One of the ways of doing so would be to find a different plausible heir to the Clan, preventing Rin from making her changes. Neji's name had been one of the few who could have possibly contended for the title, as he was genetically indistinguishable from being a son of the current Head. Even though the young boy would have never considered fighting against Rin, it still made him a threat to Rin's ascent to being the next head. Therefore, some one who wished to support her pressed for Neji to receive the Caged Bird Seal early, even though Rin herself didn't want any such thing.
"I'll remove it." Rin said shaking her head.
"Onee-san, you don't..."
"I'll remove it!" She said more sharply, giving her cousin a look that told him not to argue. Neji quickly shut up.
"What's got you two so worked up?" Tenten asked as she walked up to them.
"Family matters." Neji said, looking away. It was something that was said in the Village to politely say 'none of your business'.
"Oh, is that so. I'll just leave you to it then." Tenten said before slipping past Rin and to the seat on the opposite side of Shirou. "Hey Kuroshi-kun."
"Morning, Tenten-chan." Shirou replied.
"Hey, can you tell me how you do that trick with the Shuriken where you..." Tenten started to go off asking Shirou about weapons, with the boy giving his best answers.
Rin frowned as the girl gave Shirou a big smile. Tenten had used the 'childhood friend' thing and a common interest in weapons in order to get close to Shirou. Tenten had been trying to compete with Rin ever since she found out that Rin and Shirou were friends. She was one of the few people who still didn't call Shirou Shirou as it was in her eyes a name that Rin gave him and a symbol of possession. The preppie blown haired girl with her twin buns hair style was the number two girl in class. Though it would be decades before she could even think about competing with Rin.
No matter how much Rin told herself that it didn't matter because Shirou only saw Tenten as being a child and wouldn't go for her, it still irked her a bit to see her trying to cling to Shirou from time to time. She annoyed her more than the other girls because she had actually muscled her way into their little group, while the others were kept at bay by a mixture of Rin's intimidation and Shirou's complete inability to tell that they wanted to join the group.
What right did that girl have to come into things? Rin and Shirou had known each other longer than this girl had been alive. Tenten didn't even know the first thing about Shirou and she was trying to fight Rin for him when she didn't have anything more than a school girl's crush.
Having finished his punishment, Rock Lee finally noticed that Neji had entered the room and was about to attack him as well when a large burst of smoke appeared behind the teacher's desk before clearing to show Anko sitting on the desk kicking her legs and grinning at them all.
"Hel-lo there munchkins!" She said chipperly. "Get to your seats so that I can take role, but don't get too comfortable. After a few announcements we'll be doing some actual practice. Hope you didn't eat too big of a breakfast. I'd rather not have to clean up anyone's sick."
Students hurried to their seats before the teacher could get bored of waiting and start throwing kunai at them like she usually did when they didn't move fast enough for her liking. She also had a tendency to get violent if anyone called her 'that crazy snake lady'. Shirou wondered at times if the Tiger had somehow followed them through reincarnation in order to continue to mooch off his cooking.
"Well, looks like no one important is missing, so how about we get this show on the road then. As you all have probably been reminded about a hundred thousand times by your less interesting sensei, your exams are starting up soon. No really pressure, but fair warning, I will laugh at you whether you fail or not." Anko said grinning like a mad woman as she started to juggle three kunai in one hand while continuing to talk. "So today we are going to be practicing your jutsu. Come down when your called and give me the best Clone Jutsu you got."
Rock Lee's head fell down to his desk. "Why did it have to be the clone jutsu..? My transformation might not be good but at least it's something." The usually energetic boy weeped to himself.
"Hey now Lee, don't let it get to you." Shirou said giving him a reassuring look. "Its not the end of the world if one of your jutsu don't seem to turn out quite right."
"Is that what you tell yourself too?" Neji commented off handedly. "I wonder what will happen this time."
"That's not nice Neji-kun! I'm sure that Kuroshi-kun's been practicing hard to get it down right this time!" Tenten said trying to pump Shirou up. Shirou only laughed slightly and rubbed the back of his neck.
"No, the result will be the same as always." Rin said with a short chuckle, getting a glare from Tenten.
"Shirou-chan! You're up!" Anko shouted from the front of the room. Shirou accepted his fate, getting up and moving to the front of the room.
"You should be more supportive. Isn't Kuroshi-kun your friend." Tenten said to Rin. "Kuroshi-kun's really smart. I'm sure he will get this Jutsu down."
"You only say that because you don't understand this Jutsu. Or maybe because you just don't understand Shirou." Rin said shaking her head. "Shirou never does anything wrong. The Jutsu simply does not work with him."
Shirou stood in front of Anko and started to preform his hand signs. Ram. Snake. Tiger. His hand signs were flawless and his chakra control perfect, but still...
There was a pop of smoke and where there should have been a copy of Shirou was a short bronze gladius, its minimalist hilt chipped on one side and the brown leather grip worn down. It fell to the ground were it popped into a cloud of smoke again.
"Ah, that wasn't nearly as flashy as the last sword." Anko said, rather disappointed.
It happened every time. Each and every time Shirou tried to use the basic clone technique, he ended up projecting a empty sword. There wasn't anything Shirou could do about it. He preformed the Jutsu perfectly, it was simply how the jutsu worked that caused it to act strangely for him.
The transformation jutsu and the basic clone jutsu were both forms of projection. Starting points for ninja just like they were starting points for a magus. Each simplified by restricting an element. In the transformation jutsu, the user didn't need to consider the position of the projection, because the position was their own body, coordinates zero zero zero, therefore they didn't have to waste focus on that. As such it was a lot easier than it would be to project another's body into another position.
The restriction on the basic clone jutsu was that it was the users body that was being used. The subconscious mind holder an idea of one's own physical form. The clone jutsu taps into this and uses it in order to create the shapes of the clones.
However, Shirou's subconscious was a rather broken thing. Rather than seeing himself as a human, he spirit viewed itself as a sword, or perhaps, every sword. Every time he tried to use the basic clone jutsu it reached into his Unlimited Blade Works and picked a sword to create an empty copy of.
He could use most other basic Jutsu just fine. It was only the Jutsu that relied on his subconscious to give them form that tripped him up, as his subconscious contained nothing but swords.
"I hate tests." Naruto grumbled angrily as he ate the lunch Hinata had made for him, picking at it with less energy than usual. "Why can't we just go into the forest and have another practical. Those are at least fun."
Naruto, Hinata and their friends met up with Rin, Shirou, Neji, Tenten and Lee for lunch. All grade levels had there tests around the same time every year, so the younger kids were also in the dumps about the upcoming test.
"You got that right. Who decided that we needed to learn all this math stuff anyways? We're going to be ninja, not... what do you do with math anyways?" Kiba added his own anger to Naruto's.
"It's mostly used in Fuinjutsu and encryption." Shikamaru said with a yawn. "Dull stuff. But it still beats history if you ask me. Reading all those history books is just such a hassle."
"I hate classic literature. Its always so... creepy." Chōji said with a shiver before shoving more food in his mouth. "All that stuff about grown men going after little girls makes me uncomfortable."
"Not too uncomfortable to eat, I see." Shikamaru said with a small smirk.
"It's bad, but not as bad as Shirou-senpai's cooking is good." Chōji said defensively.
"At least you two have good enough grades that you don't have to worry. The dumb blond and me have to pass this stupid thing or they'll hold us back a year." Kiba said pointing a thumb at Naruto. "If that happens my Onee-san will turn me into dog meat."
"Hey! Don't lump me in with you Canine Breath!" Naruto shouted angrily at Kiba.
"What was that Whiskers!?" Kiba shouted back. The two started to get up into each other's faces, preparing to go at it like a fox and a hound.
"Please... don't fight." Hinata said weakly trying to get between the two boys.
Seeing the concerned look on the girl's face, both boys stopped. Naruto glancing away, a bit ashamed of himself for upsetting her, while Kiba flushed and looked down at his feet were his puppy was looking up at him from his food bowl.
Rin giggled to herself at the sight. Kiba had long since had a crush on little Hinata, and was jealous of Naruto for being so close to her. It was funny to watch how things went when the three of them were all in a room together. Especially when Neji was around. The older boy gave the two death glares that quickly caused enough of the blood to drain from Kiba's face to make his flush go away.
If Shirou wasn't good enough for Rin, there was no way in hell that Naruto or Kiba were good enough for Hinata. Anyone who wanted to date her would have to get through him.
A second after their defused fight, Naruto smirked and crossed his arms, puffing out his chest. "Well, unlike you, I don't have to worry about anything." Naruto said. "I'm going to get Rin-san and Shirou-san to help me study. There's no way I could fail."
"Oh? So you're going to finally take your studying seriously? It's too bad that we are going to be too busy tonight to help you." Rin said with a teasing smile.
"Wha!? You're kidding me! Please, Hyūga Hikaru-sama, don't abandon me in my time of need!" Shout Naruto as he bowed to to Rin, his goggles slapping against the ground as he pressed his head against the floor.
"You don't need to bow to her Naruto, she's just messing with you." Shirou said chuckling a little. "We'll help you."
Naruto looked up to Rin with big eyes. "Hm... yes, I suppose we must. Can't have Hinata-chan separated from her little play thing because of a few bad grades."
"Onee-san!" Hinata half squealed, flushing bright red.
"Hey! How come Naruto gets special treatment!" Kiba complained. "I need help too!"
"H...Hikaru-chan..." Rock Lee said, getting up to his feet and blowing low at the waist. "Please consider helping me as well!"
Rin looked over the two and sighed. "You know I used to have a one charity case at a time policy. Now look. Not only do I still have to keep track of Shirou, but now I'm stuck with Naruto-kun and now these two as well." She said, shaking her head. "Oh well, what can you do. I suppose I can help you all if I must."
"You still count me as a charity case?" Shirou said, raising an eyebrow.
"You will always be my charity case. I still remember how hopeless you were when we first met. You really haven't come very far since then, now that I think about it. You're still an idiot." Rin teased Shirou.
"But you've come such a long way. Sometimes I'm half convinced that you actually have a heart." Shirou said, rolling his eyes. "All those years of scolding your childish behavior must have paid off. With a bit more hard work, I might even make you an honest hard working member of society."
"That sounds about as unlikely as me teaching you the meaning of self preservation. Then again, is there even a point when you don't even understand how to die properly. You know that people are supposed to die when they are killed, but when it comes time to actually implement that rule, you always seem to mess up. Immortality through stupidity. Some people would be jealous." Rin switched to English so that the others wouldn't be able to understand.
"You do realize that you died too, right?" Shirou said, also making the switch.
"Then you seem to have been a horrible influence on me."
"Their doing it again." Tenten mumbled to Neji. The white eyed boy didn't respond. He just focused on his tea. The two of them kept going back and forth with none of the others having a clue what was being said. Rin maintained a pleasant smile the whole time, while Shirou kept his own sarcastic expression in check. Finally, Rin must have said something that managed to get underneath Shirou's skin, because the boy twitched and shrank down, his head sinking so low it nearly tunneled into his shoulders.
"What did you say to him?" Hinata asked.
"I told him that if he wanted more free time, we could pass ownership of the kitchen over to you." Rin admitted, seeming proud of her victory. "Anyways? If some many people want to study, then I suppose we can all do it together. Make a bit of a party out of it."
"That sound like a good idea." Chōji said, a dazed look coming over his face.
"You're only saying that because you want some more food." Shikamaru said, taking note of a small line of drool coming out of the corner of his friend's mouth.
Chōji scowled at the lazy boy. "What about you? Are you going to go?"
"Hm... good question." Shikamaru said, looking over at Rin and then looking away again. "Think I'll pass. Too many troublesome women for my liking."
Shikamaru believed that Shirou was the ultimate proof that women ruined the lives of the men who they ensnared. Rin and Anko were both the panicle of his idea of troublesome women. Shirou was always forced to be working and never seemed to just relax. What kind of monsters have a boy his age working? Worst of all, Shirou seemed to have gotten to the point where it was like Stockholm Syndrome, where he actually believed that he enjoyed it.
Shikamaru might have been alright with Hinata, but that was because she didn't try to make anyone do any work. She was more of one of the guys as far as he was concerned.
Tenten was bad, but only as bad as any other girl. She had a long way to go before she could reach Rin or Anko's levels of ruining a man's life.
"So you aren't going to come, Shi-kun?" Rin said, smiling evilly. "Not even if I were to talk to your mother? She's been hoping to get you more involved in your school work."
Shikamaru tensed up at the mention of the Nara Matriarch. Neither Shikamaru or his father ever dared to defy her, and always tread carefully to avoid her wrath. "Troublesome woman." He grumbled angrily as Chōji snickered.
"Troublesome indeed." Shirou said, nodding in agreement. Rin looked like she was taking pride in being called such. "Sorry Shikamaru-kun, but you might as well try to have some fun with it." He looked over to Neji and Tenten. "Do either of you want to join in?"
Neji was quiet as he weighed his options. On one hand, he didn't see the appeal in helping out the younger kids, some of whom he personally wanted to chase away from little Hinata and Hanabi, as they were bad influences. On the other hand, it was a good enough excuse as any to spend some time with his cousins.
Tenten on the other hand was much more excited. "Yes! I mean, I'm sure that I'd be able to help to. I am their senpai after all, and you know that I'm pretty good at this stuff." Shirou was rather confused. The girl was showing signs of both pride and embarrassment. Shirou himself was unfamiliar with the feeling of pride.
Pride was something that made one over confident and got them killed. It was always best to assume that your opponent was stronger than you were. What was the point in being prideful when there were thousands of beings that could brush you off like an annoying bug if they felt too irritated. He made sure to keep the understanding of both his own abilities and the abilities of the people around him as accurate as humanly possible. He was very familiar with embarrassment, but he couldn't recognize any of the usual triggers.
"That's very true. You worked hard to earn that number two girl status of yours." Rin said with a smirk. Tenten scowled at puffed out her cheeks.
"Ouch." Rock Lee said, scooting away from the girls, anticipating some kind of cat fight. Common knowledge was enough to tell him that it was the best to stay away from such things.
Luckily, nothing came of it, as Shirou, lacking most of the most basic human instincts, hadn't noticed the impending girl problem and spoke up a different question, creating a distraction. "Hey, has anyone seen Sasuke? I thought he was going to join us for lunch."
"He was going to, but he ended up getting dragged away by a bunch of fangirls." Naruto said, pointing out off the roof and to a small area at the edge of the school year where a wall of girl bodies and noise could be heard.
"Poor bastard." Shikamaru said, hanging his head and looking as if he was praying for the Uchiha boy.
"Yeah... can I have his lunch?" Chōji said, eyeing the left over bento. Sadly, it disappeared before he could even reach for it. "Hey!?"
"Moved too slow." Anko said from her position up on top of the water tank nearby as she opened up Sasuke's lunch and started to eat it. "So Princess, what'd Ita-chan do this morning to get under your skin? That lightning you throw at him was pretty impressive. Heard from some of the guys that it came so close to him that his hair was standing on end when he got to work this morning,"
"His butt would have been roasted if he hadn't blocked it." Rin grumbled, crossing her arms.
"The two of you are already squabbling. Can't wait to see how sparks fly when you both actually become clan heads. It will take more than Shirou-chan to be a peace keeper at that point." Anko snickered. "Hey, if you are all having a tutoring party, why don't you try inviting him?"
"No way in hell." Rin said, sticking up her nose. "Even if that emo brat doesn't have anything better to do, I still wouldn't want him around."
Shirou had to stop himself from face palming at Rin's description of Itachi. She refused to see herself as being younger than him, or recognize him as being mature for his age. To her, he was a brat.
Shirou felt a tug on his arm and looked over to see Naruto with a confused expression on his face. "Shirou-san, what's an emo?" Naruto asked, some of the other kids also looking curious.
"An emo refers to someone who spends a lot of time thinking about distressing things." Shirou said, trying to do his best to explain to the children.
"Why would they do that?" Naruto asked.
"Thats... hard to explain. Do you remember when Anko-nee took you to that scary movie?" Shirou said, seeing Naruto shiver a bit before nodding. "Well, some people just like that kind of thing. It causes a sort of rush of emotions and people get addicted to the feeling and start to try to put themselves in that mind set in order to feel it."
"So... Itachi-san acts all unhappy because that makes him happy?" Naruto said, trying to piece things together.
"Um... yeah. Close enough." Shirou said. He honestly didn't understand emos beyond the biological reasoning. There was probably some kind of element of consciousness in there somewhere, but the human perspective of the world was something that existed outside of Shirou's understanding. If only it involved more swords.
I'm going to just start putting this at the bottom of every chapter because otherwise people seem to forget about it.
I remind everyone that not everything I say is canon. I am using various things from Philosophy for the mechanics for Magecraft/Ninjutsu, rather than anything said in canon or on the wiki. Nor is my knowledge of the history or story canon in either Fate or Naruto entirely accurate. Not that I personally care too much. That kind of stuff is like history, and history was always my least favorite subject in school, and a good self contained story can be written without it.
If you wish to suggest changes or additions that you think will improve the story, then feel free, though I maintain the right to disagree with you.
If you have complaints without any suggestions then you can fuck right off, because that's not how criticism is supposed to work.
PS. Powerlevels are bullshit.
PPS. The Sharingan is bullshit.
PPPS. Stop commenting about this thing that is meant only to dissuade annoying comments.