Fujimi Academy, Tokonosu City.

Break Time.

For the most part the day, Shirou never found himself in the school. He did come to school, people can see him sitting in the class, see him goes outside to eat his lunch, to everybody else he was as normal as he can gets by his known daily routine. But his mind, his mind was everywhere except school, this morning event's shock comes late and it struck him hard when he arrived by the gate.

The person he admires, the girl he longed for, and the woman he loves. Their meeting was a sudden one, in the middle of the special night after he almost lost his life for the second time, fate brings them together. Their time together was short and filled with ordeal, a mere two weeks, details was lost to him, but he remembers the feeling blossomed despite having their life constantly on the line. Their separation was as sudden as their meeting, he had given back the treasure that belongs to her, she confessed her love for him. His quest to find her again was a one-sided promise he made to himself that he didn't know reciprocated with her similarly one-sided promise to never forget about him while she hoped to meet him again in her final resting place in Avalon. With luck, by means none aware of how, Artoria was extracted from her final resting place and went through a process of reincarnation while keeping all of her previous life physical body and soul despite starting from infant again, it was almost like she was restarted with her memory intact. Shirou was also gone through the similar process, even as far as keeping his reality marble with all of his armoury intact, the aria was also similar to what he had come to be familiar with in his past life. Breaching many limitations known to man, the both of them has attained the miracle that reunited the both of them.

"Now what?"

He was happy from the bottom of his heart, he truly was. It just that he was caught off guard by the sudden reunion. It was a swift change in him, his mind changed gear from looking for her to thinking about things he could do with her, he thought of so much stuffs he was overwhelmed and now he back to square zero, he doesn't know exactly what he wanted to do.

"Shirou-kun, what's on your mind? You seemed out of it for the majority of- no, you were out of it all the morning."

A woman with long purple hair reaching her thigh, greeted him with mild concern, a lunch box of her own in her hands.

"Ah, Busujima-san, no, It's nothing."

"There is nothing to worry about then."

Saeko Busujima, a skilled Kendo practitioner Shirou befriended in middle school. She was the daughter of Master busujima, a man especially skilled in the way of the sword. Shirou himself never met the man, but from what he heard and what Saeko told him, he sounds like an honourable man he would like to meet at some time, unfortunate, Shirou was busy with his new life, new family, and retraining his magecraft and battle skills.

"…Shirou-kun, could I request something?"

"Yes?"

"Could I ask for a spar after this or after school?"

"I can spare time for a spar… but why so sudden?"

"Call it a woman intuition, but I've been feeling a little restless lately. It's like my body and soul was subconsciously preparing for battle all the time… it bothers me."

"All right then. Let's do it after school, it's not good to exercise after heavy meal. I could spare maybe… 15 or 30 minutes before I have to pick up Aoi. She said she wanted to play with her friends a bit today."

"Thank you, Shirou-kun."

0o0o0

After school, inside the Kendo Dojo.

Saeko and Shirou covered… well, their school uniform. Only equipped with Bokken without any form of protective equipment at all. This was their usual go to set of equipment many people would say reckless, but these two doesn't mind at all.

"Alright, Shirou-kun, I'm ready, please don't hold yourself back."

"Sure."

In the past, he had some reservation when Saeko said he doesn't have to hold himself back, but she proved to him that underestimating an opponent is a part of negligence and he almost ate a square solid whack to forehead.

The two fighters stand at ready in their respective position with their bokken held up tight.

Both of them goes for the common kendo stance, but both of them also knows that the spar will not go anywhere near the usual kendo spar would go. The point system be damned, without the confine of the rules, all kind of banned moves and tactics will be used with out remorse by both fighters, the spar becomes closer to a real fight with whoever fell down off their feet being the determiner between the victorious and the defeated. Both fighters will fight with all they had without sacrificing the beauty and the principle of their sword style.

The air inside the dojo was peaceful and serene, despite the suffocating stillness of two people staring at each other, each of them wary of each other and formulating a plan to takedown each other.

The stillness broke when Shirou went for the first strike, a fast minimalist swing but carrying a lot of momentum of the wielder whose body advancing forward with explosive strength.

TAK!

Saeko easily blocked the strike and immediately went for a counter, snaking her wooden sword around his, aiming for quick swing at his forehead with enough power to daze normal people if it hits.

Unfortunate for her, the counter was accounted for as his sword made a quick recovery and locked her sword in a spin downward. He finished the first spar with a swing that stops merely a centimetre from her defenceless neck.

The first duel was won by Shirou.

"It must've been really weighing on your mind, Busujima-san. You wouldn't fell for that move if you're not distracted. It seems both of us has something weighing our mind after all."

"Fufu, I apologize for the sloppy display, Shirou-kun."

Both of them went back to their initial position, but now they're sporting a faint excited smile on their face.

The spar started again, but now, it was Saeko who initiated the attack. A wide step followed by a heavy horizontal slash, while it leaves her open for attacks it also presents an unignorable force for the opponent to not defend or dodge.

Shirou chooses to took a backstep to get outside of her attack range and then following up with an overhead strike while she hasn't recovered from her initial strike. This prompted her to discard the notion of recovering her stance and dodged aside, she will take the chance to slip in a thrust to his side ribs.

Well, Shirou ate the thrust and lost some air from his lung. He could've avoided the thrust but alas, just like he said, both of them had something in their mind that interfered their thought process.

"hahg, I was careless."

"A payback~"

On Saeko's face was a faint trace easily missed cheeky smile, taunting Shirou to clap back. Shirou responded accordingly…

0o0o0

By the end of the spar session, both Shirou and Saeko had numerous minor bruises that was luckily easy to hide under their daily school uniform. These bruises were also the sign that they were especially distracted today for them to allow such sloppiness making their body a sandbag to their opponent attacks.

Before Shirou went home and Saeko went back to her dorm, both of them went to Cafeteria to buy some energy drink.

Saeko was having a light beautiful smile adorned on her slightly sweaty face.

"Thanks for today, Shirou-kun. It was fun."

"You're welcome, I felt the same."

Saeko considers Shirou a close friend to her who also thread the way of the sword, even though his style was a bit odd, as in, he doesn't stick to a single style only and he was almost equally proficient in any sword technique he uses. To her, fighting Shirou was like fighting a lot of people making almost every session of spar between him and her feels like a new encounter each time. Adding that and she felt comfortable talking to him about things outside of sword and martial arts, she got herself a close friend she could let herself out like a little girl playing with kids of her age.

Shirou himself was fine, even welcoming her presence since she was an honourable person in general. Her polite mannerism and calmness make her appear more mature than the others of her age and easier for Shirou to talk to.

Their relationship does not contain a lot of words, even since the first time they meet in middle school. The majority of their interaction could be summed up to, meeting in a dojo then spar or sitting near each other in silence and sometimes talks about martial arts or other topic they found interesting, a bottle green tea was almost always present whenever they meet up. Despite years of knowing each other, the thing they know about each other can be considered minimum, both of them understands that secrets are exist for a reason and they silently agreed not to dig each other secret too much unless the secret owner talks about it first.

Saeko especially enjoyed the relaxed anonymity of her relationship with Shirou. She was close enough with him to be able to deduce what kind of a person he is but most of his past prior meeting her and his home life was unknown to her, she was also sure the same was also true for him about her. When she was with him, she could be relaxed, she can be having the worst day of her life and he won't excessively pry about it unless she was willing to talk about it.

Just like now, for sometimes she has been plagued by vague bad premonition, she sometimes caught her body subconsciously tensed in anticipation of battle when there was nothing around her, she mostly ignored the gut feeling but alas it only makes her consciousness in a constant state of alert for enemies. Today, she was at her limit, this caused her to look for an outlet for her excess adrenaline coursing through her body. She sought for Shirou to appease her wanting for action, since he was the only one in this school, she could spar with that does not requires her to hold back and him ended in hospital. Shirou was good, better than most opponent she had ever fought, she doesn't know how he does it but she won't care. Knowing that she won't severely hurt him even if she was going all out was relieving although frustrating at the same time. It's not like she was severely out classed, it was just in her eyes, Shirou's defensive play was overwhelming and his counter attacks was also very punishing, she could go all out to land a solid hit and he will always find a way to reduce it to mere graze and then returned with a counter attack that was hard to defend to. Today was a rare exception when he was very distracted that she could land a square hit on his body with medium effort on her side. That on itself was an oddity worth an attention from her.

She wanted to pry further but remembering the tacit understanding between the two regarding their personal life secret, she decided that whatever it is was not worth it to chase further.

Finishing her energy drink, she said goodbye to Shirou who went to pick up his sister and went to her own dorm.