Fate: Bonds Beyond Humanity

by Apprentice of Life

In a world where all can be real, what does it mean to be human? What is the meaning of humanity? A meeting between a human and a devil will have them discovering the truth while chasing their dreams. My take on the combined worlds of Fate and DxD with characters from other franchises if they can be adapted to it. Harem.

12. Chapter 12

Fate/Bonds Beyond Humanity

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12-The Cat And The Investigation.

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The car ride was silent for the first few minutes. This time Shirou was in the front with Liz while Rin and Kuro shared the back seat since the magus was the one with the maps, not that they were going to be used since Liz knew the way but it was better safe than sorry..

"Didn't you already check the park?" Rin asks the cat at her side and it nods.

"Yes, I checked alone, but Shirou is the one connected to the event. If there is a chance for something to happen it will be when he gets closer to it." It was a sound idea since he is the last survivor standing. The redhead's hands were shaking just thinking about it.

Liz keeps an eye both on her charge and on the road. She honestly doesn't know what he will do depending on what they find.

And Shirou is in the same boat to an extent. "Kuro-san…can you stay close to me? Just in case I have-"

"Sure, no problem." Understanding the young man's concern, the cat doesn't even wait for the car to stop and jumps on his lap once again. "It will be good to be carried everywhere. Save my energy in case of an emergency."

"Thank you." Kuro says nothing else but Shirou appreciates the gesture. "The park is our best first bet anyway. Easier to take a look."

Rin nods. "Yes, public space and all that. But I can bet all my jewels that there won't be anything in the park. Even if you started a ritual in a place like that, unless you have a strong boundary field covering you, everyone is going to see it."

"Even with a boundary field you are going to have lots of important people wondering what is happening in such a place." Kuro agrees with Rin. "But we will look into it anyway. Best hypothesis: we find what we are looking for and are done. Worst one? We have two other places to look."

"Any idea of a ritual like that would be for? Again, considering that the destruction wasn't the goal or it was just an accident?" Rin's knowledge of massive rituals is severely limited, the scale was just too big for it to be practical for her family.

"I did some research and suffice to say, nothing good." The black cat shakes its head and then lays on Shirou's in a way to show her neck. Immediately the redhead starts to scratch it. "There are summoning rituals, sacrificial rituals, destruction invocation, forced resurrection, attempt to get to the Root, attempt to time travel, attempt to construct an powerful artefact, attempt to-"

"That is a lot of attempts!" Rin interrupts.

"Because if they had worked they wouldn't be called 'attempt' and we would know that it would have worked...probably." Kuro points out with what Rin would call a coy smile.

"Time travel?" Shirou couldn't help but ask.

"There is a sorceress that can do it but there are so many parties keeping an eye out for it and so many safeguards keeping an eye on that particular magic that it is a mess on and off itself." Kuro then lifts its paws in a shrug. "Suffice to say that you would have to be more powerful than the planet with the safeguards that the God of the Bible himself put up. Still, someone may have tried to do something like that and it may have backfired."

"In other words: there is too much for us to take a proper guess." Rin decides to say after processing the information.

"Pretty much. If it was easy I wouldn't be investigating." Kuro shrugs again. "In this situation in particular it's more frustrating. It's either that everything went perfectly right and we have a one in a million possibility of finding the cause or something went terribly wrong which puts that number up to infinity."

"Which is why we can't leave any stone unturned." Shirou comments and no one disagrees. "We check all possibilities and hope to find something."

Liz looks at Shirou again before turning her eyes completely to the road while Rin sits back on her seat to wait for their arrival in the first location.

Kuro stares at Shirou, he is still scratching her neck but he himself isn't noticing this. 'He is focused on the mission, that is good. If anything he is the only person here that has a right to know what really happened that day. However, I better keep an eye on him to make sure he doesn't go too far and become obsessed.'

Arriving at the park, everyone drops off the car, their goal is the center of the place and since it was a public spot they expect a simple stroll with no complications. There are lots of people around, enjoying the summer and having picnics or other activities.

Shirou was completely focused on his surroundings, trying to either smell or feel anything in general. "Relax your shoulders," Kuro whispered in his ear, "you are tense and everyone can see it."

The cat wasn't referring to just his companions either. People were already looking at him since he had a cat on his shoulder and his posture was enough that many were noticing he wasn't in a positive state of mind.

"He is right, you know?" Rin approaches his other side, shaking her head. "We are just teenagers walking in the park. Nothing to see here and you need to remember that. Besides the cat on the shoulder that is."

"Right, sorry." Shirou tried to calm himself but that didn't help much. His shoulders were still tense and his face carried a frown.

Both Rin and Kuro let out a sigh and everyone just walked to the center of the park. There is a fountain, nothing grandiose and just decorative, some birds are flying around, benches, trees and a well taken garden with some flowers surrounded by healthy green grass.

"Kuro-san… do you mind if I ask a question?" The Tohsaka head decides to distract herself with something that was bothering her.

"Of course Rin-san, you can ask me another question." The magus didn't let the provocation affect her and asked what she really wanted to know.

"Are you someone's familiar and what is your part on the investigation team for the ley lines?" The cat made sure to show it was thinking.

"Oh my, that wasn't one question but two in the guise of one." The tone was accusatory but with a cheerfulness in it.

"What can I say? I like to multi-task." A chuckle comes out of the black cat's mouth.

"I have no master but I have someone to report to. I'm also one of the main investigators of this whole mess and I have spent months learning Fuyuki's history and as much of the case as I could." Kuro says in a cheeky tone. "I'm the most qualified person to investigate these events. However I will admit that I have run out of leads until Shirou points us to your place."

That meant that the investigation was practically closed as 'incomplete', both for the recent events and to the older ones, unless they find something relevant in the areas they have to look at. If they find nothing and unless the Magus Killer has something else to add to them there will be nothing else to do.

That if someone can get a hold of the man when his son can't.

"Do you think my father took a look at this?" Shirou asks, still looking around the park.

"Maybe? I don't know." The cat says sincerely. "If he did and didn't report then he may have found nothing or he found something too dangerous and shutted it down. Either way it would be after he saved you since, well, you got saved in the first place."

"Kiritsugu-sama tried to investigate the events. Looked for Shirou's original family." Liz's voice had everyone looking at her. "He found nothing at the time for what I can recall."

"The fact that you can't recall doesn't mean he didn't find something or another." Kuro points out while looking to the side and waving to a group of kids who waved back. "Either way, even if he didn't find anything I wish to speak to him to get the details. Even if it resulted in nothing."

"Hard to believe there was a fire here once." Rin points out while taking a look around the park herself, changing the subject to something more immediate.

"Yes, the city didn't measure efforts to fix the town after the fire." The cat tells those present while looking at Shirou's face. "I bet if we call a team of specialists here they will tell us that this place also has a bigger ley line than the original."

"You sure?" The twin tailed magus asks in shock, receiving a nod.

"Not absolutely but it makes sense when you think about it. If the new vein reaches Homurahara then there must be more all around the city while the existing ones got bigger after the event. It certainly explains the recent economic boon that Fuyuki is having in the last few years." While Kuro explained, Shirou kept looking around.

'Nothing. I am feeling nothing.' He didn't even need to say it, everyone could see on his face that he was getting more agitated.

"It's fine, you know. I am getting nothing either." Kuro tries to reassure him.

"I have been here a lot with my family." Rin decides to try as well. "If there was something I am sure we would have picked it up."

"I can't remember this place before." Shirou says suddenly.

"Before?" Rin probs him and he shakes his head.

"During the fire, before they fixed it. I don't know if I walked around here. I can't help but ask myself; 'it's here dad found me?'" No one could give him an answer to that. "I expected some insight or maybe some magic or… I don't know. Something." Liz places her hand on his empty shoulder.

How many times had he passed by the places where the fire occurred? The city looked like the tragedy never happened in the first place and Shirou can't help but wonder where he was when it started and where he finally fell down.

Just standing there, knowing what happened, even with everything looking normal, Shirou feels a nausea popping up and more frustration. 'This place is better now but it was still that hell once. I can barely believe it.' But he also felt a sense of relief that the place was better, that the hell was over, that the darkness gave way to a new day.

"We still have two more places to check." He nods at his guardian's words. "Which one is closest?"

The redhead pulls out the map from his pocket and everyone takes a look. "The region changed quite a bit." Kuro observed. "But a direction is still a direction."

"Unfortunately they are both at opposite sides." Rin laments.

"Doesn't matter." The cat head shakes as she points to a spot on the map. "We aren't in a hurry so we just need to pick one of the places and check it."

"Both are private buildings. I doubt they are going to be as easy to enter as the park." Shirou says, comparing the map on his hands with the one in his house.

""Magic."" Both cat and his fellow magus echo to him as they say the word.

"Fine then." He concedes their point. "The apartment would be easier while the company may have a tougher security."

"How much do you want to bet it will be the company that will have something?" Rin's question wasn't something Shirou wanted to think about.

"Oh, that is a sucker bet if I ever heard of one." Kuro agrees with Rin 's assessment. "But we will have to check the apartments anyway. If there is nothing expecific, I can have a team renting a place to try and investigate the ley lines."

"A good amount of authority you have there." Kuro brushes off Rin 's comment as Shirou and Liz stay silent.

"There is nothing wrong in calling a team to investigate something suspicious, regardless of authority." The cat was smiling as Rin frowned at the answer. It is clear that the magus was trying to figure out exactly who Kuro is.

Some apartments in Japan are smaller than in the rest of the world. A single room area with a single bathroom and kitchen and nothing else is not uncommon in certain areas. That is the kind of apartment that the investigators were now looking at and to gain access they needed to call for someone to open the door for them.

Fortunately it is not really necessary since they can look around and hypnotize anyone that finds their presence suspicious. They didn't need to enter the apartments, only the building itself.

Some of the residents looked at them and one commented how pets weren't allowed but Rin 'convinced' them that they were there for a visit to their friend and they let it go thanks to some restrained use of hypnosis.

"Anything?" Kuro asks Shirou and he shakes his head. "Well, this place is a bust too."

"Any idea of what it was before?" Rin asked with a sigh.

"Your father's map doesn't say but it was a building of some kind." Shirou shows it to her and they can see some details of the structure.

"It was probably a small one. Maybe a house or something similar?" Rin ponders what kind of property her father would buy in case their home was attacked. "Father is picky with his stuff, always gets the best even when he shouldn't. If he was going to change his base it would be for something he can get some comfort for himself."

"But the area before the blast was still in development." Kuro says with confidence. "It wouldn't have been anything that big since it was a residence for a small family."

"Similar to our home?" Liz asks and the cat nods. "Could it have been a workshop from another magician?"

The other three look at each other and Rin decides to voice her thoughts. "My father would have made an observation but what he wrote isn't in this location."

Indeed, the small note the elder Tohsaka had written spoke of the last location and what it was before, a warehouse with plenty of space and defensive potential. It was clearly the first place he would retreat in case of an attack or something similar.

"There is no running from that now." Shirou starts marching again. "Come on, we are wasting daylight."

"Maybe we should stop to get something to eat?" Kuro offers the redhead. "Or even to drink? We have been looking for a couple of hours already."

"We can do it after checking the company." No one disagreed with him, they just followed as they left the building and walked across the park again.

"Any idea of what this company is about?" Rin decides to ask on the way but gets no reply. "Seriously? Nothing?"

"It wasn't of interest until your father pointed us to the location." Once the cat finished Shirou followed up.

"I passed by them a couple of times but never really paid attention." It was when he was going around with his family, mainly his mother and sister, while they wanted to get something in town.

To him it was just a big building on the other side of the street and he never needed to even get close to the place, much less ask what they did.

He remembers some occasions that he passed by the area, usually too distracted by his family to look around attentively to anything else. Add to the fact that Shirou probably passed for the area at least a half dozen of times since he can remember and him remembering any detail was a hard endeavor since the place never was of any interest to him.

"Internet?" Liz's question snaps Shirou out of his thoughts.

"Good thinking Liz!" The woman smiles when he praises her as Shirou fishes for his cellphone.

"What? Do you have a computer in your pocket or something?" Raising an eyebrow the cat looks at Rin with pity.

"I know your house is old fashioned but you seriously are behind the times." The girl almost had a vein popping out of her head.

"What? You are telling me that computers now fit in a person's pocket." The cat silently nods. "Are you for real?" She then sees Shirou picking up a cellphone. "That is just a phone. Nothing more."

"And a few years ago, you would be right." When Kuro said that even Liz was looking at Rin with pity.

"What? I have one too… I left mine at the house since I don't use it much." Now even Shirou was looking at her almost like she was lost on the street. "Stop looking at me like that."

"Remind me to get Rias to teach you how useful these things can be one of these days." Shirou would do it himself but it was the devil who used it for business. He can still tell her some stuff. "The more modern phones can be used for a huge variety of things, including work. It is still more comfortable to use a computer for most stuff but even then some people may prefer the phone. In this case I will just do some research on the place we are going to take a look."

The redhead stops walking and everyone waits as he tipped the street of the company and other details that would help on the research. The first result was all they needed.

"Says here," Kuro read on his shoulder, "that it is an accounting firm. Not many details but it ain't like they would divulge much on a public site in the first place."

Going around the firm's official website they manage to find pictures of their employees on the upper bracket, including the actual boss. A man with long black hair, he looks young too but had a scar over his left eye that gave him a dangerous look. "This is their main guy, Yurameshe Takiwara."

"There is also the dates of construction and some other information, nothing much." Kuro comments about the information. "Still, good job Shirou. Now we have a name we may use to enter if necessary. Just have Rin here to be a cousin or something."

"Then we hypnotize them until we find what we need to find." Rin concludes, accepting that with the hair color she could pass as one of the guy's family members. "If there is something to find at all."

"It doesn't hurt to check." Shirou starts moving again and Rin ends up raising an eyebrow at Liz who looked at her for a second before starting to follow Shirou again.

The company building was big, they had seen some pictures but it was still bigger than expected. "Does an accounting firm need that much space?" Shirou asks anyone to see if he would get an answer.

It was Rin who gave one. "If they have to do even half of the work that I had to learn and for a bigger number of people then yes, yes they do."

The building has 10 floors but was large enough to occupy a whole side of the street. There were huge windows on all sides and the closest buildings around it were on other sides at a good distance.

They could see the emblem of the company on the building close to the top and at the side of the entrance gate, a black shield with two swords behind it. From observation it appears that there was only one real entrance that had two guards and could be used for people and cars with enough space for four to enter at the same time but one is used as an entrance and the other as an exit.

"If I didn't know any better I would call this a fortress." Kuro comments amused and the others could see why.

The building is pretty much isolated, there were no other structures that would allow anyone close to the windows and walls. On the ground level there was a stone wall that was being watched by two security guards and cameras in some places.

"Are we sure this is just an accounting office?" Shirou was beginning to doubt that.

"...No comment." Rin said, understanding that it was too much security for it to be something normal in a city like Fuyuki.

"Now, now, don't jump the gun. There may be a reason for this." Kuro tries to say but Liz was the one shaking her head.

"Usually the security in places like this is inside." They couldn't disagree with the argument. Cameras on the outside were a thing but adding that to security guards, two of them, a stone wall and the isolation in a small city like Fuyuki is pushing it.

"Okay. New plan." The cat offers an alternative. "You guys go and pretend you are students doing some homework, question the security but don't try to force passage." Kuro then jumps out of Shirou's shoulder to Liz's. "We will stay back and reinforce if something happens."

The students nod to each other and Shirou places a hand on his pocket to Trace a notepad and a pencil to help sell the story more. He gave them to Rin and then made another pair.

"We will be waiting here out of sight. Remember that we are in the middle of the street and that there is still daylight so no mess and don't do anything that can be seen." Kuro instructed and the duo nodded, taking steps to cross the street and reach the building.

"Do you want to talk or let me do it Emiya?" Shirou shakes his head.

"You take point Tohsaka. I can't lie to save my life." Accepting that, both magi move to the sidewalk to then go towards the gate.

Rin started planning their approach, first she was going to get the guards attention to appear non threatening, then she is going to give compliments and ask if she can ask them a couple of questions. If the response is positive she will proceed to ask some trivial things until she can get to a question they definitivally can't answer to try and direct them to call a superior to help the poor students.

Plan ready, she goes to raise her free hand when Shirou suddenly grabs her arm and turns her around. Rin was ready to protest when she noticed her fellow magus' eyes. There was an urgency there, something that had been present the whole day but now it is less frantic and more focused.

Something is wrong and she can tell by the sudden attitude. Shirou is not the kind of person to just act randomly without reason and him pulling her like that means that he was taking her away whatever is bothering him.

Took them getting into an alleyway for him to stop. "You better have a good reason for this Emiya."

"Let the others get here first." Shirou looks around and raises his head for a second. Rin couldn't exactly process what he was doing even if she knew he was doing something.

It took a few seconds for the white haired maid and the black cat to arrive. "What happened?" Kuro asks without wasting any time.

"Boundary field around the building." Rin was skeptical about it.

"You sure? I felt nothing." Kuro nods in afimation to Rin's comment but Liz raises a hand in his defense.

"Shirou is good at detecting such things. Remember he felt Buchou first before you?" At the question Rin takes a step back while the cat looks curiously at the redhead.

"Okay, give me a moment to investigate. After that we will decide our next step." The cat jumps on the walls and reaches the rooftop of the buildings around them, planning to jump the whole distance on the firm's own rooftop.

"Is it a good idea for him to go alone?" Rin decides to dismiss Shirou's question.

"Never mind that. This is the second time you managed to outdo me, supposing you are right." Which she is willing to accept. "How are you doing that? Do you family practices some kind of magecraft that helps with detection and is inconspicuous?"

"No, I use smell to detect magecraft and I use it to find hidden spells around." Rin raises an eyebrow and questions him.

"Are you a bloodhound or something? And how do you even train yourself to reach that level?" Because Rin did train a lot to get to the level she was at and she isn't even closer to Shirou on that aspect.

"My sister used to help me with that." Shirou turns to look to the side while Rin starts to tap her foot on the ground.

"Well…? Aren't you going to elaborate?" Maybe it was something she could use and that made her interested but Shioru was half ashamed of talking.

Liz had no such thing. "His sister used to prank him." That stopped Rin's action and she turns to Liz but upon seeing that her teacher wasn't going to say anything else, she turns back to the only male present.

Shirou realizes he wasn't getting out of this without an explanation. "As you know; I am a specialized magus and because of that most usual training methods either don't work for me or I have to work twice to make some things work. Because of that I used to spend a lot of extra time training when I started to learn magecraft." Shirou started to smile. "Because of that I was speeding too much time studying and my sister didn't like that, she also wanted to, to quote her; 'spend more time with her beloved brother.'"

Remembering those times he could almost see a smaller version of himself trying to read a book that was too complicated for him. It was before he understood some of the implications of his origin and he was trying to learn basic magic even when his mother told him to slow down she would find a better way to help

When he wasn't studying he was training and the only times when he wasn't doing either was when he was cooking or his family asked to do something. During those times he frowned a lot at his failures and there were a lot of them.

Then, one day, his sister decided that he should play with her.

"Shiroooooou!" Illyasviel Emiya steps in front of her younger brother, almost making him trip and drop the book he was reading. She was looking down at him since she was a little taller than him. "Let 's go play!"

Even if she was older, Illya liked to act like a child sometimes. Not in a malicious way or anything similar, instead she would be direct when she wanted something and insist on it until she got what she wanted.

"Okay." He had no problem with that. "Can I finish this first? I'm trying to learn how to find fluctuations of mana."

"Did you manage to feel your circuits?" He nods. "Got the image of the spell on your head?" Another nod. "Is the intent firmly in your mind?" Once again he nods and she frowns "Then what is wrong?"

"I think my origin is stopping it from working again." It was a simple spell, he should be able to do it but he was failing every time. "Instead of feeling the boundary fields around the house I kept just this feeling that something wants to jump out of my skin and nothing else."

Illya frowned and stopped to think. Shirou watches as his sister paces back and forward in the hallway for a moment before snapping her fingers. "I have an idea that can help you and we can play at the same time."

Tilting his head, Shirou ends up following his sister outside and waits for her to tell him what they were doing, she produces a blindfold and gives it to him. "What is this?"

"We are going to try and help you by improving your other senses." She expected him to go along with the idea but he stayed quiet. "Really? Nothing."

"What should I do? You haven't explained yet." Illya facepalms at her brother's comment.

"We really have to get you more movies. I want you to blindfold yourself so we can get you to feel mana better since the normal method of meditation isn't working." Shirou raises his hand. "You don't need to treat this like school."

"Mom likes when I raise my hand before asking a question." Illya looks ready to make a comment but her shoulders drop and she gestures to him to ask. "How is that going to help exactly?"

"Well… I think using your eyes may be distracting you, giving you too much to focus on instead of just looking for the magic itself. If your skin isn't working then we are going to work with your other senses, or maybe the extra concentration will help you find spells better." Illya explains slowly and then waits to see if Shirou was going to ask something else. "Then, after you find a sense you can use, we will work on it."

"I still don't get why I can't just use my eyes." Illya rolls her eyes at his complaint.

"Because 99% of boundary fields are going to be invisible or hidden in some way." Mystic eyes wouldn't have that problem but Shirou didn't have them. "Besides, this will help you get the more subtle emissions of energy that most inhabitants of the moonlit world let out when they are about to use magic or just preparing something."

It is a good skill to have to avoid troubles. A skill that any inhabitant of the moonlit world has to learn in some way shape or form and a hurdle to Shirou since it's more difficult for him to learn than to anyone else.

Instead of disagreeing or fighting on his sister's theory, Shirou decides to go along with it and blinds himself for the duration of the exercise. "Okay… now what?" He receives no direct answer, instead he feels something hit him on the back of his head. "Ow! What was that?"

"Pay attention." Illya's voice to the side and he turns in that direction only to be hit again, this time in his arm "You need to focus, Shirou. Find the mana I am producing and zoom in on it."

"But how?" He gets hit again, this time on the chest, making him lose his balance and fall to the ground.

"That is what you need to figure out. Forget your skin for now; focus on anything that can help you find my mana." The girl keeps hitting him with something that he can't see. It wasn't outright painful, only when he turns wrong and falls to the ground he feels a little pain that doesn't bother him.

He tries to forget his skin and focus on his ears first, using Reinforcement to try and solve the issue, that lasted until Illya talked and he almost felt his ears explode from her voice and got hit on his head again.

Next was his nose. The garden of his home didn't have much, it had grass and something but besides his sister and himself there wasn't much around to disrupt him. Shirou could smell the sweat on both himself and his sibling and that was throwing him off on finding her since his own smell was getting in the way.

But that wasn't what he should find, it was her mana, the unique signature she produces when she uses magic. That is what he needs to locate.

A few more minutes later, the redhead was starting to grow irritated with his failure, being hit constantly wasn't helping his mood. If anything, the whole thing was even harder because he couldn't concentrate properly.

The rhythm of the exercise starts to slow down and Shirou begins to think that his sister was going to suggest they stop. It was only when he had a few seconds to compose himself he could hear someone taking deep breaths.

"Illya? Are you alright?"

"Yes- just dandy." She was out of breath and that concerned Shirou.

"Did something go wrong? Why are you exhausted?" As far as the redhead could understand, his sister shouldn't be tired at all.

Her mana reserves were bigger than everyone else's in the house and from what his mother told them when explaining why his sister needed to learn to defend herself she actually produced the equivalent of a power plant of a large city.

"I just- I need to focus a lot, to make sure that the mana is not hurting you." The comment reminded Shirou of something he read once about how using mana inside the body is easier than outside and that is why magi are more efficient than spellcasters.

But even if his sister is a magus, she is trying to help him by using spellcasting and she isn't used to it. Add to the fact that the masses of mana are considerably big but harmless, the size of a fist or a bit bigger, and that means she is using a lot of mana and concentration to help him.

"Let's continue." Her voice comes from another direction and he guesses that her next attack will come from there. He was right, so he also needs to add in his assessment that Illya is also running around to make things more difficult.

Illya never had the best constitution for most things, it's the main reason why she decided to follow the path of alchemy, to use her mana to do things that she don't want to do by using constructs and other creations.

His sister was going out of her way to help him and Shirou would answer in kind. Since his nose gave him less issues than the alternative, he focused on it to find Illya's signature, getting hit a couple more times on his back, neck and shoulders. But while he was pushed around he didn't fall to the ground again.

While the source of Illya's theory can be debated since it was something she saw on the TV, there is no denying that humanity can grow by surpassing adversity. He is blind but can still move, can still concentrate and can focus when he finally gets used to being pushed around.

The result is Shirou first dodge comes by bending his body to the right and then spinning himself in place for the second tag. Illya ups the intensity and starts hurling her projects a bit faster but remaining stationary so Shirou could tell that the next three came from the same direction. He jumps, moves his neck to the other and side steps the follow up.

Noticing that her brother is escaping almost all her shots Illya goes a step forward while launching three more projectiles, this time at once. Shirou dodges them prompting her to repeat the process but with more mana being spent.

Shirou can smell it, her mana smelt like lilies and snow after a calm day sitting in front of the fireplace after a gentle storm. The redhead was dodging her attacks left and right when suddenly a lot of mana came from the front and hit him enough and he fell on his back.

Before the boy could get up his sister was already on him, taking off the blindfold. "You need to remember to defend yourself Shirou. There is no point in knowing something is coming if you can't do anything about it."

"I'm still not that good with magic as you are yet onee-chan." He could see how happy she was when he called her that.

"Of course you aren't!" She said while giving him a hug, his head between her arms and chest. "But you managed to feel the mana anyway! I am so proud of you!" She stops and looks him in the eyes. "So? How did you do it?"

"I used my nose." His sister was impressed.

"Good job! That is how you do it! I knew my training method was going to work!" Then Illya stops for a bit and asks him a question he would later regret answering. "Want to get better at it? You still are not all there compared to me or mother."

"Yes. I am ready for it, onee-chan!" He felt himself being hugged tighter.

"Don't worry! I have a plan! By the time we are done you will be able to smell magic instinctively without even having to think about it!"

The next day Shirou got up with a smile on his face, Illya said that she would be using the night to get his training regiment ready and he couldn't wait to begin. He enters the bathroom to brush his teeth and he barely begins when he is hit by water, cold ice water.

Looking up Shirou can see one of Illya's birds with a bucket made of the same material. "You fail!" It says with his sister's voice before disappearing.

Shirou had only one reaction to that. "MOM!"

"Your sister dropped cold water on you?" Rin, laughing so much that she has to fight to breathe, asks the question.

"That she did." Shirou tells her with a smile.

"And you just called your mother?" Rin still couldn't keep her face straight.

"You can bet I did. Have you ever had cold water dropped on you after you barely woke up?" That scared the hell out of his child self. "In my defense I did what anyone would have done in that situation…but my sister explained that she wanted to help me."

"By using pranks?" Incredulity was in her tone but Shioru was not surprised.

"In those times her proficiency with the spell was shoddy and mana emanated from her constructs like beacons of light. If anyone paid close attention they could find them easily." That first time he barely was out of bed and he wasn't expecting the surprise. "After she explained to the rest of the family the idea of me learning how to smell mana by instinct by pranking the hell out of me, Illya got scolded… for not warning me first since I needed to at least be a little prepared for that in the beginning."

"So your family actually approved of that insanity?"

"Yes." Funnily enough it was their father that said it was a good experiment but that they could stop at any time if Shirou wanted and the pranks would be limited to the house. "Those were good days."

"I don't think that being the victim of pranks everyday was a good thing." Then Rin heard Liz chuckle but once she turned to look at her, the maid's face was stoic as always.

"Weeeeell, mom said I could prank my sister back." The magus in red couldn't believe her ears.

"I… didn't know you had that on you." Shirou chuckles.

"She said that since my sibling was helping me develop my awareness I should help her develop the same and since Illya was better at defense than myself I had to get creative." And so it was.

Shirou was not a prankster but he could see her point. They never did anything overwhelming or gigantic but they used their spells and ingenuity in any way they could to get the other, Illya with her constructs and Shirou by picking up her traps.

"There were rules but the point was that I got better at detecting magic and Illya got better at running." Rin raises an eyebrow and asks.

"Why running?"

"My sister is a bit lazy and has a nasty habit of sleeping too late and waking up late as well. Lets just say that during the duration of our conflict, at least the first week, she couldn't sleep as much as she wished..." And that was why there were rules.

Both sides also used their own methods to disrupt the other, Illya with her traps by using constructs, smaller boundary fields and minor spells while Shirou was more creative and better with his hands to the point he once set the bed up to break apart after a couple of minutes of her sleeping. The whole thing lasted until one of the traps caught Sella in the crossfire and it was decided that Shirou was already proficient enough since he wasn't falling for any of them either way.

In a certain point of view the goal was reached and he became a capable sensor for active mana but his sister still had bad sleeping habits.

"...No comment." Rin says not wanting to delve into her own sleeping habits and Shirou nods. "Your sister? Was she also a student of Homurahara?" The Tohsaka tried to remember if she ever had seen Illya around but was failing.

"She is a few years older than us. If she wanted Illya could have gone to a college last year but decided to move to the Clocktower this year."

Rin's curiosity got the better of her when Shirou delivered that information. "Your sister is a student of the Clocktower? What is she studying? Did she get an apprenticeship?"

"Calm down Tohsaka." The girl was talking fast and barely breathing when Shirou stopped her. "What she is studying is a secret, it's her own project and I will leave it at that." Rin nods in acceptance. "But no, she doesn't have an apprenticeship and is there building herself up with her own strength…"

Rin noticed the longing in his voice. "Is this the first time she spends so long away from home?"

"Yeah… I miss the rest of my family and can't help but admit it would be great having them around now." Not just to finally talk with his father but he misses everyone in general.

His mother's eccentricities, Sella's stern but caring personality, Illya's company and even his old man's unflappable attitude. He missed them all.

Rin could see the emotions passing by Shirou's face and began to wonder if the same would happen with her sister. 'Will Sakura be the same once I go to the Clocktower?'

That was the plan, that has always been the plan since she was a child. To complete the high school of mundane education and then go to develop herself more in the exterior and find means to expand her magecraft with her father using that education.

"I am sure your family misses you too." Rin couldn't help but say. "Besides you have Liz here as well."

The whitehead said nothing but nodded to show that she agreed with the magus. "I know. Believe me I do. I think without Liz around I would have gone insane." He smiled at the maid to show he meant it.

"Are you better now?" Rin decides to ask and Shirou looks at her surprised until he nods. "Great! We need you on the top of your game today Emiya. Even if that firm has nothing to do with what we are investigating they are still suspicious."

"Shirou." He said with a smile. "I just told you something that I don't tell everyone. You can call me Shirou."

"Feh. Sure, if that is what you want." She offers his hand for him to shake. "Call me Rin then. It's kinda unfair for me to call you by your given name and don't let you do the same in kind."

They shook hands and relaxed. "How long do you think it will take for Kuro to come back?" None of the women present had an answer for that. Shirou sighs and says. "I will give-"

Suddenly a black mass drops on the ground in front of them. ""KURO!"" The three exclaim in a panic and approach the downed cat. With their feline companion hurt Shirou reacts fast and produces an EM and stabs it to initiate the healing process.

"Purr...That is good...healing." Kuro comments, not moving to allow him to heal the damage. "That place has a strong boundary field. Jumping in was a mistake."

"Why did you jump in a boundary field? Are you an idiot?" Rin complained but the cat took a deep breath while Shirou was healing it. "Hey. Don't ignore me. Why did you try such an assanane idea?"

"Because I thought I was powerful enough to break it." Kuro admitted, a little ashamed by the mistake. "I didn't expect that the field would have such a strong anti yokai quality."

"Ah, so you are a yokai. Makes sense." Rin was almost bragging but Kuro wasn't going to let that slide.

"Yes, yes, I'm a yokai. Why the surprise? We were the ones called to investigate the ley line." A vein almost pops off on Rin's forehead.

"Then why the secrecy?"

"Because we have no idea who is responsible for all this and I am trying to keep everything incognito." Before Rin could reply that Shirou picks the cat on his arm and glares at them both.

"This is not the time nor the place. We don't know if someone is in pursuit." Shirou steps out of the alleyway followed by the two other women. They start to walk away from the location. "Are they suspicious or not?"

"I won't lie; I don't know. That depends if the boundary field is registered or not." After Kuro said that Rin added.

"Then we need to talk with the Second Owner… but Rias-buchou and Sitri are out of the town." That made Shirou sweat cold..

"Then we need to talk with their replacements. I didn't want to involve devils but it's the only way of knowing if there is anything suspicious there." Kuro continues. "Even if they are not responsible for the fire, the devils can guarantee us passage to ask questions."

"Good thing we have the magus with a pact with Gremory." Rin brags about the situation. "Shirou! You must have a way to contact the devils in town right?"

He should have but he rejected it, thinking about not wanting to give anyone else trouble. 'Highlight is 20-20.' Shirou laments due to the circumstances.

"I have the number on my phone." But he is rescued by Liz.

'Liz you beautiful woman! I am making you a feast tomorrow!' Instead Shirou says. "Let's take some distance first. Once we are somewhere safe we make the call."

…

Inside the firm there were plenty of employees working mundane tasks, people drinking coffee, taking a smoke break or talking about plans to leave later for a karaoke or a bar.

Deeper however, in one of the mains offices there wasn't a single piece of technology, instead was a woman meditating. Her whole body was covered by blue robes and only the lower part of her mouth was visible. In her hands was a beaded brown necklace that she was using as a focus.

She was meditating in a circle surrounded by several kinds of kanjis written all around her. The circle on the floor also was present above her in the ceiling and part of it lights up before dimming and becoming simple letters once more.

Then she raises her head and looks at a man who was watching her. "I apologize. The intruder escaped."

The man grunts. He is tall with a strong build with considerable muscles, his black hair was short but combed down and with a mildly trimmed neck beard. He is dressed in a fine suit without a tie and looks like a relaxed office worker with some buttons of his white shirt loose beneath the suit. "Any idea of what it was?" The woman nods.

"The yokai part of the field was the most active. It successfully repealed the invader but wasn't able to neutralize them." Another grunt comes from the man.

"Must be a powerful monster to not die in the attempt. The rooftop is where our best defenses are." The woman then asks a question.

"Should we inform Yurameshe-sama?" The man shook his head.

"He is busy with something and there is no need to bother him with trivial stuff." The woman raises a complaint.

"And what if the invader tries again?" The man moves to exit the room.

"Oh, they will. Nobody worth their salt would give up on their first try and if they survived that they must be strong." And with the last comment that the man leaves and starts walking around the firm.

While his dressing style is relaxed every other employee that passes him calls out with respect and he answers in kind, he keeps going until a man with combed black hair and glasses starts to walk with him side by side. "How was the meeting, Yakada-san?"

Unlike his fellow ravenhead he was properly dressed with his suit pressed and taken care off. With his glasses, the man appeared a intelectual while his disposition was that of a salar man that likes to do his job. Like the taller man, he is also complemented by the other worker, giving a wave in reply with a smile.

"We have a problem above but nothing conclusive yet." Both keep walking throughout the corridors until they get to a hallway with a machine selling snacks. "We don't have an identity or reason but I doubt that will just quit after just the first try."

Another three people pass by them but they barely notice the talk. "Should we call the main office?" Yakada shakes his head.

"No need to bother the higher ups with this, our security is going to take care of them if they return." Now it was the other man's turn to shake his head.

"I heard rumors that a high breed cat is still around town, even if our spies can't tell what she is doing and where she has gone these days."

"Hmm, maybe you are worrying too much, Sakashite." Sakashite fixes his glasses. For a moment he doesn't reply.

"Or maybe you aren't worried enough, Yakada-san." To that the man gets his snack and opens it while walking again. Taking a bite of his candy he offers it to his co-worker but the man waves it off. "You know you eat too much of these right?"

"Meh, don't care." He takes another bite. "Back to the topic-"

"Because you refuse to take care of your diet." Yakada chooses to ignore that comment.

"Back to the topic," He glared for a moment but the smaller man raised his hands, holding his peace, "I'll get some of the boys ready, just in case. Probably just a bunch of yokai anyway." That didn't tranquilize Sakashite.

"I still think we should call the upper bracket, this operation may be compromised." That made Yakada stop and look at his friend.

He stood there looking with a semi glare but Sakashite didn't move or bother to do anything but fix his glasses. It looked like Yakada was about to say something but instead he just ate some more candy and started to walk again.

"I won't waste my time calling an upstart." Instead of following, Sakashite just shakes his head and walks in another direction.

"You could at least talk with sensei." But he receives no retort, the muscle man just turns a corner for his office and another stands there for a moment before shaking his head again. "Talk about stubborn."

Walking to the main office he talks with some of his friends on the firm, asking some of them how they are doing or if they are alright in general before proceeding. If he was not mistaken, in a few days it's going to be the birthday of one of them and Sakashite almost forgot to buy a gift.

However the conversation didn't leave his mind. "You just don't want to bother to follow someone more competent than you if they are younger." He mumbles while passing by some cubicles and sitting down on his own. 'I suppose it doesn't matter if it isn't the cat doing something but you should at least tell sensei in case he needs to call them anyway for a report. They are the heroes afterall and we are the hands that keep them going.'

Turning on the computer in his station he starts to do his mundane job but keeping in mind that he would have to be ready when things may start getting messy later. Sakashite was a firm believer in Murphy's Law.

…

Calling a devil by phone is actually quite inconvenient since they don't get summoned and most of them prefer to always negotiate face to face. When Shirou identified himself, the devil basically got into auto pilot with the mission of pleasing him and the best way he saw to do it was calling him to a restaurant to have the talk in the best possible environment.

The redhead believes that going to a restaurant to get information they could get by phone was a huge waste of time but he is also too nice to say that. So the group went to the most expensive restaurant in Fuyuki.

None of them were really dressed for it but the place wasn't open properly and they were escorted inside without troubles, guided to a table with six chairs where a devil was sitting and waiting patiently for them.

Shirou could smell that that person was a devil since they didn't have the same control as some of the ones he knew. A theory sprung on his mind that the individual must not be used to hold himself back in this world.

The devil had short purple hair and an aristocratic face, and was dressed in an old fashioned suit with a top hat on the table that made Shirou think he would be in the right place in the past century instead of the modern day. Even the tie, or at least what Shirou thought was a tie, looked too out of fashion to ever be proper in a modern setting as anything other than a costume.

Still when the man saw Shirou he got up and waited for his approach on the table a little more before extending his hand. "It's an honor to meet you, Emiya-sama. My name is Garrachi Felomine, a knight of my King Zeoticus Gremory."

"Nice to meet you, sir-"

"Please, no need to call me sir. I am here for your convenience while also protecting Rias-tan territory." Realizing the man was still just looking at him Shirou decides to introduce the others.

"These are my friends, Liz, Tohsaka Rin and Kuro." After the short introduction the man recognized them as entities.

"Well met, my ladies. Especially you, Tohsaka-san." Rin raised an eyebrow at being singled out.

"May I know why Garrachi-san?" The devil chuckles.

"Like me, you are a member of the house of Gremory, even in a different instance and class. You may not be a devil but we are technically co-workers." She couldn't disagree with that and before she could say anything else the man motions to the desk. "Please, sit. If Emiya-sama called for me I shall do my best to make sure his needs are attended to."

A really big part of Shirou felt bothered by such a concept and once he placed Kuro on the chair to his side he turned back to the devil to say. "I am sorry I am bothering you with this." The cat lays on the chair and closes its eyes. 'It must be exhausting, taking that much damage with such a small body.'

"Not at all." Not a moment passes before the devil replies. "You are the official magician chosen by the future head of the Gremory Clan. Even the personal magician of the actual head is second to you in your wishes. Say the world and I shall use all the Gremory assets in the city to accomplish any task you require of us."

The whole idea sounds absurd to Shirou, the fact he carries that much influence by association didn't make real sense to him and he had to remind himself that these were technically Rias' subordinates, even if indirectly. It was a thing that completely slipped off his mind until that moment. It was one thing to receive materials for work, it's another to know he had people that would follow his every word.

He managed to process enough to breathe a bit and ask a question. "Can I get information on those that are dealing with the moonlit world in the town?" The devils nod.

"All of those we have present knowledge of. People who need to start a business, set up workshops, pretty much any one that wants to set up in Fuyuki and practice magic legally." Then the devil joined his hands on the desk and placed his chin on them. "But I can't just give you this knowledge without reason. Can you tell me what this is about?"

If it was Rias he could probably just ask and he would get it, but regardless of Shirou's relationship with her and the fact that she is the Second Owner and future head of the Gremory the man before him was still her father's servant, not hers and he wouldn't give him something that could go be prejudicial to another client that easily.

This person may have to obey Shirou but if the instructions are unreasonable then they would stall and avoid carrying out his wishes, something the redhead could respect. "I found a boundary field in the city today. It was surrounding a whole building, an accounting firm."

That got the devil to raise an eyebrow. "Are you telling me that in all our patrols we never crossed paths with such a thing?" The way he said it made evident that Garrachi didn't believe what he was hearing. "What is the name of the firm?"

"The Reaguard Accountancy Agency." Garrachi makes a magic circle and from it a lot of papers appear on the table.

"Do you have the name of the owner?" Shirou shakes his head.

"No, but the actual manager's name will do?" Shirou presents his phone with the page still open on the web site of the company. It was founded by a group of people but no intel on the actual owner.

The devil reads for a second before snapping his fingers and another man shows up as if out of nowhere, another devil. "We rented the restaurant and made sure the staff didn't show up today. However it would be remiss of us to not treat you well, especially if you brought us information about a clandestine operation in our territory. Please, ask whatever you want."

"No menu?" Rin asks and the devil just smiles.

"My dear, this place is only a venue for a meeting. Our kitchen staff is ready to serve anything Emiya-sama wants and you all as well by default since you are his friends. However, I fear we have nothing for cats." The devil said, smiling at Kuro's direction who just looked at him for a moment before going back to napping.

Shirou scratches the back of the cat's neck and says. "Some good meat and milk for Kuro will suffice but make sure it's cooked." The devil who just arrived, a skinny guy with long blond hair picks up a notepad to write the requests. "Well? What do you guys want?"

Dinner was not that far off and depending on how much time it took to solve the whole matter it was better to get everyone fed anyway and so the redhead wasn't going to deny the opportunity to try someone else's cooking.

He also had hopes that the devil would find the information fast and they would leave after a light meal but when the man summoned another stack of papers he knew it would take some time for him to check every name of a really long list.

Looking around he could see that Kuro stuck close to him and tried to act like a normal pet would. 'Is he taking a nap or just pretending?' Shirou honestly couldn't tell.

Rin asked for some dishes that she wanted to try but Liz was milking the situation for all it was worth it asking for a lot of food, in the quantities that he usually cooks on special occasions. 'Maybe I should hold back the feast for a couple of days.' Shirou can't help but think while he watches as dozens of dishes are brought forward.

While the group eats, the devil investigates. Checking name after name with calm and patience. Once in a while he makes sure to check the information on the phone when he sees a similar name but after a couple of minutes and checking the list of the devil's biggest clients in Fuyuki he comes to a really unpleasant conclusion.

'Someone passed our security.' It couldn't be as simple as someone learning magic and nobody noticing, the boundary field would be in a house or an isolated place. 'Why does a firm need a boundary field?'

He keeps checking every name on the lists he had, every contact that all the devils that usually live in Fuyuki were properly registered but none was part of that company. There were businesses that wanted defenses and protections against thieves and they had defenses made by both devils and/or magicians by paying a fine.

'A rogue magician, someone powerful without a doubt, can be working on our territory. That can't be allowed to stand!' But that was a supposition, he would need to investigate further. 'At least this magus proved to have some worth. When Rias-sama announced she had found someone to form a pact with in less than a decade, one that she roped the whole family in, many wanted to revoke her status.'

But that wasn't going to happen with Sirzechs as Lucifer. The Maou just looked his 'former' family in the eye and said he would evaluate the magus himself. After the two siblings had a conversation, the older sibling approved her choice and said that she didn't need to give any reason per the pact conditions.

If there is one thing that is known in the Gremory house and many of their closer allies is that Rias has only to ask and her brother will deliver with no strings attached anyway, the whole exercise was proof of that.

The devil was curious and wanted to know more about the magus but if the first action that he did wasn't a demand but the exposition of a potential breach on their security then Shirou was already showing his value.

'To investigate I will need to coordinate with the rest. I really wish the Phenex still had some presence here. Now we are understaffed.' It was the duty of the family of the caretakers of the town to take care of the territory if the actual rulers were indisposed.

During the previous year when the heiress left the town the Phenex also left with them to the Underworld and the Phenex family also sent reinforcements to help defend and manage the town while they were out.

This time only three families poured their resources in, the families of the three heiresses, and because other devils also have business and other previous compromises the number of them present was now short.

They still have access to other resources and could use some money to hire from the locals but they were proud devils and would do their best without the need for assistance of any kind, regardless of their numbers.

It didn't change the fact that there still were not many, only 23 devils were present in the city. It was less than usual with the heiresses and many of them were weak, only 3 of them were high class including Garrachi himself.

'A firm with a boundary field is not a problem, it's the fact it is unregistered. I will have to call Zeoticus-sama to ask what to do and for that we are going to need the three leaders of the squads to agree in making contact.'

While the heiresses of the three families were friends, their families themselves were neutral and without a definite leader to their coalition most of the decisions were made by vote and while the Gremory family and their members are obliged to listen to Shirou's requests and do what their can their actual numbers were 8 of 23.

Garrachi will have to present his case to the other devils in Fuyuki, he is sure that they would want to investigate anyway but nothing was guaranteed and politics can get in the way. Shirou is still an unknown identity and maybe the Gremory devils will need to make some preliminary investigation to make sure they have evidence to present to their fellow devils.

Nodding to himself the devil prepares to report what he needs to do when he notices the number of empty plates on the table. Garrachi shouldn't be surprised since he knew the food was good and some would want to enjoy it but it was only one person, the white haired woman, eating and it was her pile alone from what he could see.

"What is the name of Maou?" He mumbles and looks around to other devils, basically the whole eight members of the Gremory group were called to help. 'Did- did I take too long to think?'

Liz was cleaning her mouth with a napkin while everyone watched her shocked with the exception of Shirou who had his hands covering his face. 'I remember now why I control her meals. She could eat a chain of restaurants out of business if we let her.'

"2 out of 10." Liz declares like an executor and some of the devils on the ground that were previously teleporting and running around to make and get food look at her.

"What?" One of the devils, a woman with chestnut hair asks.

"2 out of 10. That is how much you guys get on the Shirou scale." The woman didn't like what she heard.

"'Shirou scale'? What the hell is that and what right did you have to complain about my cooking?" She slams her fist on the table. "I will have you know I have been cooking for the Gremory family for over two centuries! Me and my sisters are some of the best chefs in the Underworld! My talent is so in demand that only being a part of my King's harem and its privileges stops me from searching for work somewhere else!"

Liz didn't look impressed. "2 out of 10. Your cooking was excellent, the meats were well mixed with the sauces but you made mistakes. Some of the dishes were too well cooked which took out some of the flavor."

"Bullshit! I took out those dishes at the perfect time!"

"It wasn't perfect." Liz's voice was firm and even if she didn't shout it was still enough to get the woman to step back. "You mistimed it for a few seconds." The whitehead then shakes her head. "I don't understand why you are upset. Reaching the Shirou scale means you already surpassed any 10 out of 10 most chefs would receive."

Shirou was lamenting the situation while everyone else looked at him like he had grown a second head. Everyone except Rin who could understand what Liz was talking about to an extent. It wasn't just magic that Shirou used to enhance the flavor, he always made sure to cook it to perfection.

It was Akeno who commented to her once, that Shiruo was like an artist making his dishes in a way that could be called unnatural by not only using Reinforcement but also Structural Analyses guranting that it would always finish cooking exactly on point.

'Still… the food was good, her standards are just too high.' Rin can't avoid the thought as she sees the devil turning to Shirou.

"I want a cooking match!"

"Okay, this is stopping now!" Garrachi gets up and starts to push the other devils out. "Thank you all for the services, take the rest of the night off while I will still need to talk with Emiya-sama."

"But-" The man wasn't having it.

"You can't challenge our VIP! Where in the world is that a good idea?" While the devils sort themselves out Shirou felt something on his leg.

He takes his hands off his face to look at Kuro. "Now I really want to taste something you make without rushing." Was all the cat said before laying on his lap.

"No problem." Shirou barely could reply before the devil came back.

"I apologize for my associate." The redhead shakes his head.

"No need, that is partially our fault." He looks at Liz who looks back shamelessly.

"I only spoke the truth." And she left it at that.

There was a moment of silence until the devil clears his throat. "Emiya-sama, I must inform you that your concerns have been duly noted and that once I have reunited with my comrades we shall investigate this firm that you spoke about."

Shirou felt great hearing that until he realized something. "Wait, weren't the guys here your comrades? Or you need to call more?"

"That they are." The devil admits. "But such circumstances call for action not only from the Gremory group but the groups of all devils present in Fuyuki."

Finding the situation reasonable, Shirou nods. "So the firm really has nothing to do with no one from the town?" Garrachi nods and Shirou asks another question. "How long until you can act?"

"At the latest, a week?" That the redhead didn't want to hear.

"'A week'? Why? Can we go check it now!" The devil raises a hand to calm the young man.

"Peace Emiya-sama. This is the sort of thing that can take time. This firm existed for a couple of years already and as far as we know it is just an irregularity." He was underplaying the situation but he didn't want to upset the VIP in front of him. "You don't need to worry. I am sure I will be able to convince my compatriots and we shall deal with this unknown firm in a swift manner."

Before Shirou could say anything else he felt a sharp pain on his leg. Looking down he notices Kuro with its eyes open and takes a deep breath. "Alright. Thank you."

The devil raises an eyebrow but nods. "I appreciate your understanding, Emiya-sama. Don't worry, once we find out why this irregularity is in place I will have a report sent your way."

With that the meeting was over, the devil didn't have the guts to offer anything else considering that Liz decimated the kitchen staff and the natives of Fuyuki started to march out.

Only when they were a couple of steps away from the restaurant Shirou felt safe to say. "We need to investigate that place."

Rin looks at him with incredulity in her face. "The devils are already going to investigate. What more could you possibly want?"

Shirou looks at Kuro and the cat nods. "They will but it's going to take a while." The black cat was in Shirou's arms since he didn't want it to walk yet. He received no complaints. "The main issue is paperwork. If all the devils in town mobilize there is going to be a lot of paperwork to be made and the Gremory needs to present the case on their side in a way that can convince the others to move. That can take a week of straight work depending on how they go about it. The evidence is not even going to be hard to get since a boundary field can be invisible but it isn't inconspicuous when you know it's already there."

"But a week is too long." Shirou points out.

"Depends." Was the cat's reply. "If you believe that they are part of the fire then it was almost 10 years ago and there was no incident after. The anniversary of the real tenth year mark is a couple of years away and nothing really happened. On the other hand if you think they are involved in something else you may be right. But in this case what is it to you?" Kuro made sure to look him in the eyes. "You wish to know the truth of the fire. This can all be a coincidence. Let the devils take care of it and enjoy your break."

"That is true." Shirou admits easily. "But I don't like the idea of leaving such a thing alone. Someone can get hurt if I don't do something."

"'I?'" The cat made a point to show it was raising an eyebrow.

"Actually yes, you?" The redhead asks with a smile. "Or are you telling me you aren't planning to investigate that place again?"

"Cheeky." The reply came with good humor. "Yes, I still plan to investigate but you don't need to involve yourself anymore." Shirou was about to say something before he was interrupted. "And don't worry about me either. You healed me completely and once I got enough rest I will infiltrate the place in my true form and that stupid barrier won't stop me."

"Even then I still want to help." Shirou says with conviction. "Besides, the idea of leaving someone in a dangerous situation by themselves is not something I can do."

Kuro stares at Shirou for a moment before the cat starts laughing. "Nyahahahaha! You are funny Shirou. Stupid too but the good kind of stupid." The cat smiles and decides. "Fine, we can work together for a while longer but we need to act fast since they can either be strengthening their defenses or planning to run away. We have to investigate it soon."

That was the main reason they can't really wait for the devils, even if the unknown firm is doing nothing wrong, if they did and their plans are away from completion then they may just run away and set up shop elsewhere.

"Woah, woah, woah! Are you two really going to do what? That is an stupid idea." Rin chose that moment to show her displeasure. "We have no idea of who or what we are dealing with here. The devils are already going to do their jobs, let it go." She makes a point to approach Shirou to make sure she was going to get her point across. "You have been gung-ho since this whole mess started. I get that you want to know more about the fire and who started it but that company probably has nothing to do with it. Have some common sense and let the dangerous stuff to others deal with it!"

Shirou raises an eyebrow. "Rin… Even if they had nothing to do with the fire, which we are not sure about, I refuse to let that go that easily." He smiles. "I will just walk there and ask."

"Bwa?" Was Rin 's complex response.

"You want to… go in and ask?" Now it was the black cat who sounded surprised. "You think a shady company is going to deliver their secrets if you just go in and ask?"

"Well, no. But what is the harm in trying a more gentle approach first?" While the cat could see his point Rin just found herself looking at Shirou like he was mad.

She decides to talk with the other person on the street. "Are you going to let him do this?" Liz tilts her head at the question. "You are his guardian! You are supposed to keep him out of trouble! Are you going to let him run towards it?"

Liz nods. "If Shirou has a good reason, I will if he lets me be there to stop anything dangerous." After hearing that Rin can only let out an exasperated sigh.

"You don't need to come, Rin." Shirou felt that needed to be said. "You already helped us enough. There is no need to put yourself at risk for me."

'I really want to strangle you right now.' It was the way he said it, no malice or wish to guilt trip her in the situation. He was telling Rin as it was and that he wouldn't blame her if she decided to walk away. And that was enough to get on her nerves. "Fine! We are doing this! But we need a plan! Just marching there and demanding a meeting won't help us at all!"

"Rin-"

"Zip it Shirou!" She was not going to give him a chance to change her mind. "Does anyone have any idea how we are doing this? We have no authority! No power! And no real reason to have them talking to us!"

"Infiltration?" Was the cat's suggestion.

"You felt their boundary field on your skin." Rin replied while pacing around in the street. "What are the odds the part you stepped in is the only one with fields? That is not how it works. We need to enter by the front door or go by brute force and that is not what he wants." She finishes pointing to the redhead.

"A-" Rin places a finger on Shirou 's lips.

"Going there and knocking on the door is not going to help us unless we give them a reason to talk. Two students may be able to convince them to even get us in but let's be realistic, before we just wanted to look around, now we are after answers to real questions." She lets out an exasperated sigh. "We also don't know who there knows about our world. Ask the wrong person and we will need to hypnotize someone and that may offend the other party and then we end up fighting anyway."

"Money can make them talk." It was Liz who suggested, raising a hand. "When we first arrived in Fuyuki, a lot of money was really good to create cover stories and protect our family."

The other three look at each other but it is Kuro who says. "IF we had enough money to bribe someone or something we would still need time to find someone willing to take it and give us the intel. If we even had that much money in the first place."

Liz frowns but then nods after a second. "Get in the car." She was the first to go and positioned herself to drive while the rest looked at her confused but comply with the order. Once everyone was inside Liz starts to drive before talking. "Your parents have a place in town where we can get some stuff from there."

"What?" Shirou was having some troubles to understand.

"What do you mean?" And he wasn't the only one since Rin was the one questioning. "Do they have a bunker full of weapons or something?"

"That too." Liz admits, shocking the three passengers. "But if it's money we need, they have another, something your mother insisted they had in case they needed to impress someone." The driver takes a sideways look to Shirou. "It's what we need right? To impress and ask questions?"

"Well, yes." Kuro admits, still on Shirou's lap. "Did the Magus Killer ever need such things?"

"No, but it's still there and we can use the stuff." Informs the maid. "Is either that or attacking directly and risking a fight in the middle of town be it day or night."

A place like that has to have more security than just a boundary field, that was clear and what Liz was saying is simple, bet on appearances and try a diplomatic approach or try to fight their way in.

"It still is going to be risky either way. If they have any hostile intent we will be walking in their territory in lesser numbers." Kuro mentions but Shirou offers a suggestion.

"What if we do this in the middle of the day? A place like that has to have normal workers right? If we show up in the middle of the day for everyone to see then we are in the clear." The redhead smiles at his plan. "Think about it. We walk in, asking for some service, take a look around and walk out. If we find something we will have evidence to get all the devils in town in the case."

The Tohsaka couldn't disagree with that. "Let's first see what your parents have that can help. After that… we make a plan."

It was the docks where Liz took everyone, more precisely to a warehouse in the middle of them. Lots of naval vessels are constantly going in and out, fishing boats, cargo holders and all the other forms of business are going around at the moment.

They keep following Liz until they arrive at the side door of a warehouse with a man guarding it while smoking a cigarette. He sees them approaching but stepped back instead of confronting them, nodding at Liz while she entered the side door.

"Who is that?" Shirou couldn't help but ask.

"A member of the local Yakuza." Liz informs while flipping some switches to the side. "We have a deal with them. They watch this place and keep it clean too."

"Reputation, deals with the mob….Now I can really believe Shirou is the son of an assassin." Rin comments and Shirou doesn't know what to say since she never brought up her opinions on the matter. Liz goes to the side for a moment to mess with the switches. The lights are turned on in the warehouse and they can see everything inside.

There is a tarp covering what appears to be a car, some boxes of different sizes around the place and a table on the corner with five chairs around it. At a wall there were lockers and Liz approaches one, opens it with a combination and pulls out a duffle bag, throwing it at the table.

The students don't make any moves but the cat is curious and jumps to check the bags contents. There was money, a lot of it, together with some fake IDs for a specific member of the group. "Color me impressed. Your father made you a get away bag." Hearing that the magus duo also start to check the contents.

"Passaportes, driver's licence, and other stuff. All of it in different languages." Rin comments while pulling out one that got her attention. "You know… you do look more scottish than japanese."

Shirou takes the document from Rin's hands while checking all the others around. "Liz…please explain."

"It's in case of an emergency. But you can use the money and the documents now right?" The maid gets one document, also in japanese and passes it to him. "This one can be useful."

Shirou took a look at the picture and could see himself but with white hair instead of his usual red. The name also was different but to a more familiar one. "Einzbern?"

"Surviving heir searching for the man who destroyed his family." Liz then picks another one. "There are other identities. Pick one and we can use it."

Most of them had him with a different hair color and registered him at an older age. He can almost see that they were all the same picture but always altered in some way shape or form. Shirou couldn't even remember when he took the original photograph but he can't deny that they all were him.

Another bag is dropped on the table. "This is my bag. Same deal, documents and money in case we need to run. The lockers can be open by any member of the family…that is it. Use wisely."

Looking at the money on the table Shirou realized he didn't know what they were going to do with it. "That can be enough to fake something." Kuro points out looking at the covered car. "But I believe that is the main reason why you showed this place to us."

Accenting to the point, Liz steps over and removes the tarp. "Shirou…this is insane."

Rin doesn't understand much about cars but she can identify something expensive by just looking at them and she could tell that the car before her is a rich man's car. Add all that with the money on the bags and documents and supposing there was more she was sure that Emiya was rich even before he even met Gremory.

Shirou was too busy to hear her, using Structural Analysis on the car and taking his time to sort out the information about it. It is a Lamborghini, a black car that looked just out of the fabric but actually was well conserved and even upgraded in some ways with bullet proof glass and other magical features. Shirou could tell by the story of the car and that his father had saved no expense to make it both a disguise, a weapon and a really fast getaway car.

"Tohsaka-san." Kuro's voice snapped the two magus from their shock. "I suggest you leave this place and forget all of this happened."

"But-" Now it was her turn to be interrupted.

"You weren't sure Shirou was the son of a dangerous man, now you know. If you want to leave then this is your best chance. I promise that I won't do anything about what you saw and heard today."

"He is right." Shirou was so caught up with the events he almost forgot about Rin's situation. "Even if you had a suspicions this was confirmation and-"

"Okay, stop! Both of you!" Rin shut them both up before taking a deep breath. "'A magus walks with death' and I am also part of Rias Gremory household...technically. If I ran away every time that I met someone dangerous even by association I better run to a desert and forget the rest of the planet." Rin holds her hand to her breast. "I am Tohsaka Rin, actual head of the Tohsaka family and I refuse to be cowed. If they want to endanger my home then come on and try it! They won't walk away alive!"

Silence was her reply, no one could say anything for a good while and Rin was starting to blush. The blush got even more intense when Kuro started to laugh out loud. "Nyahahahaha! Is there something on the water in this town? I just keep meeting interesting people around here! Nyahahahahaha!"

"Kuro-san!" Shirou was about to say more but he was interrupted.

"Yoruichi!" The cat suddenly said, stopping her laugh. "My real name is," suddenly the cat started to emit a glow and her form changed little by little. Sitting on the desk was not a cat anymore but a woman with sharp eyes and an equally sharp smile, "Shihoin Yoruichi. 4th head of the Shihoin family and leader of the investigation team in Fuyuki. Nice to meet you all!"

All stare at the woman that now sat on the desk crossing her legs, Rin was speechless, Liz was watching the woman with much more attention now but Shirou couldn't look anymore and turned around to look at a wall, his face practically glowing red.

Rin points at her. "You are a woman?"

"Never said I wasn't." Replied the former cat with a smile. "My voice gets somewhat gruff as a cat. Is that why you all thought I was a man?" The teasing of her voice and her lopsided smile said it all, she was finding everything funny.

Then Yoruichi notices Shirou still looking at a wall and debated a little bit how much she was going to tease him on it. Because she was going to do it either way.

"What is wrong, Shirou? Having problems looking at me now? Did you like my cat-form that much?" If he turned around he would see a huge grin on her face.

"You…are naked...Yoruichi-san." A frown appears in the woman's beautiful face before it turns into a smile again.

"Shirou, we are planning to invade a building together. We are now comrades in arms. Partners in crime so to speak" Shirou turns around a bit but looks back to the wall immediately when he notices she was pretty much posing for him. "You can use my name without formalities, it's fine by me." Her smile grew more. "You can also look, I don't mind."

He did look back for a second but then returned his stare to the wall, blushing more. She was laying on the table, her eyes not leaving his head as she allowed her curves to be shown without any shame. Rin herself was also blushing by both watching the situation and because of the woman's appearance that she couldn't help but find appealing.

It didn't help that the woman was one of the most beautiful they ever saw in their life, she could be a model with her curves, toned athletic body that is without a doubt the envy of many. Shirou had good eyes, an excellent memory and with the woman behind him reminding her of her position he really couldn't help himself but remember what he just saw.

Shirou reminds himself from when he saw Rias once as she exited the shower and his mind just couldn't help but compare and he has to bite his lips to even get some blood on his mouth to try and take his mind off such thoughts. 'This is not the time! Damn hormones!'

The two women both acted quite differently especially when they showed themselves naked. Rias treated such events as nothing or just as she would if she was dressed. It didn't matter for the redhead devil if she was naked or not.

But the woman before him at the moment knows what she is doing, she is confident in herself and has no problems. If anything she flaunted it knowing that people would react, her coffee colored skin and figure being too attractive and the confidence she exuded had an edge that Rias lacked in such situations.

Both were beautiful women but Shirou knew that the one present understood that better than his friend. Like Rin, he was in a state of panic, his upbring compelling him to stare at the wall instead at the woman. A weaker man would have already turned around and an even stronger man wouldn't blame him if he did.

Meanwhile Yoruichi was really amused by her little reveal and exhibition, if anything she found everyone else's reaction quite funny and couldn't stop smiling.

It was then that some clothes were dropped on the yokai's head. "Get dressed." Liz tells the woman while throwing more clothes at her. "Those are some of mine. I think we are the same size."

"Heh, maybe you are a little bigger." Yoruichi steps to the floor and starts to dress herself. "All black? My second favorite color. Do we have something orange around?"

"WHY WERE YOU NAKED?" Rin shouts, pointing at the former cat, her face as red as her clothes.

"Because it's uncomfortable to transform with clothes. When you transform you need to not only take care of yourself but make sure the composition of the clothes get well mixed or else you lose them one way or another." She finishes dressing the top first, a black sweater and takes some time to adjust the sleeves on her arms. "This is going to get hot later."

Yoruichi pulls her long hair so it wasn't in the sweater and puts on a pair of pants while Rin can't take her eyes off the woman. The twin tailed magus snaps herself off her 'trance' and keeps up her interrogation.

"Shihoin is the name of one of the great yokai clans of Kyoto, right?" Rin's question surprised Shirou.

"That is us alright." Yoruichi admits it easily while adjusting the pants, but the younger woman wasn't done.

"Then why do you need us? You are one of the most important people in Japan! Get some more help, woman!" All amusement disappears from the woman's face as her yellow eyes look at Rin with a serious face.

"Because I don't know who to trust." Yoruichi sits on the table again. "This ley line mystery is complicated since the fire may have had malicious intent and someone was trying to hide it. But maybe it wasn't a single person and I honestly have no one here on Fuyuki that I could trust." She smiles. "Now I do. Me revealing myself to you all is me acknowledging your determination and will to see this through." Shirou choses that moment to turn around and Yoruichi's smile grows bigger. "For good or for ill, we must see this to the end. Either we will figure out more about the fire and the ley line or we may find something else entirely but we will do it together."

There was a certain charisma to the woman, her way to talk was decisive and none dared to disagree with her. "Well… You already know my choice." Shirou said with his own smile.

"Fine, good thing we are going to do this tomorrow. It will give me time to get my jewels." Rin crosses her arms. "So? What is the plan my lady?" Rin asks with a considerable amount of sarcasm.

Yoruichi chuckles. "I may be a noble but you don't need to treat me like one. It can be fun to see people scrambling to please me but let's have none of that." She fixes her hair.. "As for the plan, it is simple. The four of us are going to enter by the car entrance and while the three of you distract them I will infiltrate like a cat so they don't see me while using my senjutsu to avoid the boundary field and turn to normal when the coast is clear."

Shirou raises a hand and asks. "Aren't we being the agressive party if you are going to spy on them?"

"They broke the rules first." Yoruichi points out. "Besides, we aren't going to spy on them… just see if they are messing with the ley line and if they have anything to do with the fire." Shirou looks at her sceptically, that was still technically spying. "Look, it's not industrial espionage, we aren't interested in their clients, for now," she whispers the last part, "all we want to know is why they have a boundary field and if they had anything to do with the potential world ending ritual. Something you are really interested in, aren't you?"

The redhead couldn't deny it. "But are we sure we should split up?" Rin wonders and yokai shakes her head.

"If they are hiding something we can reinforce each other, at that point subtlety may be out of the window and we may have to fight our way out." If that happened it was also a confirmation that something fishy was definitely going on anyway, unless Yoruichi is caught first. "I will employ measures that will hide me once we are inside the boundary field. If you feel you can leave, just do, I will be fine."

"No!" Shirou protested immediately. "You said it yourself, 'we are in this together', and we won't lçeave you behind. If we all go in, we all leave!"

The black haired woman looks at him for a moment and then grins. "I like that conviction! Fine Shirou! Then here is what we are going to do!" She picks one of the identities on the bag and throws for the redhead to catch. "You are going to use this identity with Rin and Liz accompanying you! While you try and gather intel 'diplomatically' I'll poke around and see what I can find. When it's time to leave I will give a signal depending on what I find but I probably will find a phone that I will borrow...gonna need a phone number by the way."

"Sure, no problem... how do we get in?"

"Just pretend you are a rich kid wanting to use their trust fund for something. No biggie." The way she spoke with confidence made Shirou think everything could work out. Except...

"I am awful at lying." Rin facepalms when she hears that but she can't disagree with it. Yoruichi on the other hand just laughs.

"And how is that a lie?" She picks up some money and throws it at him. "This is your trust fund, you are going to an accounting office to ask for some direction in a car that is more expensive than most people can buy with a year's worth of salary and one woman in each arm. People want to make money and you are going to appear as an opportunity for anyone with a little ambition."

"All he is going to need to take care of is with his name." Rin takes a look at the identity. "But that isn't going to be hard. I will stick around him and stop him from doing anything stupid like saying he is not Sarake Shishio."

"I am not that bad." Shirou defended himself while looking at the documentation. "At least this one is japanese and I just need to make my hair white…"

"I'm surprised that most of your pictures have white hair." Yoruichi points out. "I mean, it's not a bad look for you but the color is unusual."

"My mom has white hair." Shirou said, a little embarrassed.

"Ha! That explains it." The older woman keeps her smile up while getting up and approaching the car. "Either way, the majority of people want to make money legally and you are and you are going to present yourself like the opportunity everyone waits for. Even an illegal operation won't resist such a chance."

"But if they notice-" Yoruichi interrupts Shirou's question.

"They won't do anything with witnesses around, Besides, I will be close and will help you all fight them off. Just remember to not eat or drink anything offered and everything will be fine."

For a minute or so no one said anything and Shirou started to work with Liz to get the passports and money back to their bags while Rin asked looked around weirdly and Yoruichi just checked the car.

"So…" Rin couldn't take the silence anymore. "We are doing this tomorrow right? When are normal people around? What do we do now?"

"Now," Yoruichi begins, "we go home, get ready for a fight just in case and rest until tomorrow." Everyone keeps looking at her. "What? That is all we can do. We can only start operations by day. Unless you want to break in right now?" Both students shake their heads but Liz actually nods. "Well, if we want to solve this somewhat peacefully, which I doubt but there is no cost in trying, then we wait until tomorrow."

"I suppose that is fine." Rin comments while thinking of some jewels that she will be able to conceal and use. 'Should I tell my father?'

The moment that the question pops in her mind is the instant that Rin wants to dismiss it but refrained from doing it. This situation was simply too dangerous for her to say nothing or even just ask advice.

Even if she is now the head of the Tohsaka family there is much her father is better in lots of fields, not just magecraft but also politics and manipulation, that is how she ended up in this situation in the first place. If he hadn't manipulated her then she would be at home doing her research.

'No use crying over spilled milk. Besides, if I don't keep an eye on Emiya and he gets killed then Rias will skin me alive!' The girl nods to herself, convinced of her reasoning.

"By the way, can I crash with you guys?" Yoruichi asks Shirou and Liz with a smirk.

"Huh?" Shirou was processing the question while Liz made no moves.

"What? Why are you asking to stay with them?" Rin was holding herself back from shouting. "You are rich! Filthy rich! You must have a hotel to go to or something!"

Yoruichi chuckles. "You forget that I'm in a self-given assignment that I told no one since I couldn't trust anyone here. I bailed out from the place where I was staying a few weeks ago."

"Then where are you staying?" Shirou asks gently.

"In a beat up motel that takes cash and doesn't ask questions. The kind of place some students go to have their first time and you have to pay by night." She was not ashamed of the situation. "Since we are going to get together in the morning anyway, instead of me going back to the city I think we should depart from here and making a trip to go there and back is just annoying."

"You are still rich!" There was no way for Rin to stop herself.

"If I mess with my bank accounts someone can find me." Yoruichi said while scratching her head. "And I'll admit that I'm starting to run out of pocket money."

'Is she saying that her pocket money was enough for her to pay for several nights in a hotel, even a cheap one, like it was nothing. Is this the real standard of rich people?' Then Rin turns to the table, still seeing the huge stacks of money there. ' I'm the only one with financial problems here...aren't I?' Tohsaka felt almost as if her soul wanted to leave her body in depression.

"Okay, we have some extra rooms." Shirou had no problems with that. "If you want we can go there to get whatever stuff you left behind."

Yoruichi smiles more. "Thanks Shirou, I have some clothes there but that is it. There is no need to bother if Liz can borrow some more."

"Not at all, we need to get back to town anyway to leave Rin home." Since they were going to go that direction anyway in his opinion there was no problem.

"Jeez, now I feel like I owe you a favor." The yokai says, half in jest, half seriously.

"It's no trouble, as you said, we are partners in crime." Then a thought comes to his head. "We also have to get something to dye my hair. Does anyone know a store that can take care of this?"

"Nah, no need." Yoruichi approaches him and touches his face. "There you go."

"Huh?" The magus says and then turns to Rin who just looks at him with wide eyes.

Liz touches his shoulder, making him turn to her and he could see she was looking at his head. "Your hair is white now Shirou."

"It is?" He questions surprised, tracing a sword with a mirror-like surface to take a look. "It is."

His hair was indeed white, not the same tone as Liz but actually more like silver. Curious, Shirou pulled a single strand to take a better look and he almost couldn't believe what he was seeing.

A part of him remembers that at some point in his childhood he wanted to have the same hair color as his mother or even his father. His hair color was almost like a reminder that he wasn't really their son, eventually he grew out of that phase but seeing it white now brought out that small resentment.

"Do you like it?" Yoruichi smirks. "A little senjutsu trick. Don't worry about it, even if I don't fix it later, your hair will grow into its normal color with time."

"I see." Shirou takes another look at himself and then shrugs. "If there is nothing else we can go now. We will come and get the car tomorrow."

The plan was set and all the conspirators could do now is rest and get ready for the next day promises to be a complicated one.

…

Arriving at the Emiya residence, Shirou presented Yoruichi with Sella's old room, a guest room at that point since Koneko vacated it and would potentially return at the end of the break but it was empty for the time being and was the best room for such a function.

It didn't take long for Shirou to go to bed, he was still agitated from the happenings of the day but he was also anxious to deal with the Rearguard Firm in the morning. Everything was already set and all that he needs to do is sleep.

Sleeping was eluding him tonight.

It could be the worry, it could be the anxiety, it could be just nerves or insonia. In any case Shirou wasn't able to sleep no matter how much he tried and with the free time he was thinking about the whole situation.

The memories of the fire were coming and going but he didn't notice when his life force got messed up, he never did before and being aware of it doesn't make that any difference. He was actually trying to find a reaction but he couldn't get one.

Shirou tried to use Structural Analysis while searching his memories and that disrupted his circuits, stopping him from running a proper analysis.

But his body showed no signs of something going wrong, nothing at all. If anything he would believe that all he had was a panic attack if Yoruichi hadn't said that there was something actually happening with him everytime he tried to access these memories.

'Is there something...that I shouldn't remember?' A conundrum if there ever was any. If there is something that he shouldn't remember he will never know until he remembers it, meaning that he can't know because he can't remember.

Turning in his bed, Shirou closes his eyes, trying to have the night pass faster so he can go and get some answers. Even if he doesn't get the answers he really wants, it is better than just waiting.

"Still awake I see." Shirou almost jumps out of his bed frightened by the voice but he turns around to see the black cat he had grown somewhat familiar with during the day.

"Yoruichi?" He turns to sit on the bed but the cat jumps on his chest, stopping him.

"Don't bother. It is better if you are comfortable if we are to talk." The temporary whitehead raises an eyebrow.

"Talk about what?" The cat shakes her head.

"About what is bothering you." Shirou had to admit he had plenty to talk about.

"Nothing that won't end tomorrow." Yoruichi lets out a groan.

"Please, don't be one of those teenagers that need to fight to take the edge off. I dealt with plenty of them in Kyoto."

"What? Why?"

Sitting on Shirou's chest, Yoruichi sighs. "Shirou, I'm the leader of one of the noble clans of yokais, leader of a fourth of Kyoto and the yokai population as a whole. Don't you think I have a line of men wanting my hand in marriage?

"I know you for less than a day and I know you probably would beat someone to the ground before accepting marrying them." That got the woman turned cat to laugh.

"Nyahahahaha, then you are already smarter than the majority." Then she lets out a chuckle. "But yokais they I am looking for the strongest mate and to prove their strength they challenge each other or do some other stupid thing to try and 'prove their love'." Shirou could feel the sarcasm there. "I wish I could just do what Sesshomaru did and find someone I just liked and get rid of the rest."

"Sorry about that." The yokai shook her head.

"Not your problem nor your fault. But I appreciate the sentiment." A moment of silence passes. "You realize that the odds of that company having anything to do with the fire is almost nil right?" She gets no answer. "If you think about it, odds are that whoever did that died in the ritual as well." Again, no response. "There is also the fact that they must be using the ley line to empower their boundary field, something that may be slowing the ritual if it's still in progress."

"I know that." He said but she just keeps looking at him.

"Maybe intellectually but...a part of you wants this to be the end...doesn't it?" The young man wanted to deny that but he was a terrible liar, even to himself. "You want them to be the responsable, either for vindication or just to leave that past behind-"

"Not that, never that." Shirou replies with a sigh. "I don't want to forget, I can't. There isn't no one else to remember what all of us suffered through, what we lived and most of us died." His eyes changed and Yoruichi could see steel in them. "What I want is justice, for those that departed, for those whose lives they cut short for some reason. If it's not that firm then that is fine, I won't pester them, I won't plague them. But if I ever met the person who was responsible for that hell...I honestly don't know what I will do. All I know for sure is that I don't want to forget it, for I am the last man standing and it's my choice to remember."

The cat sighs but nods in acceptance. "Very well. I just wanted you to be prepared in case they aren't the guilty party."

Chuckling Shirou says. "I was prepared to not find anyone from the moment we stepped out of this house earlier." That surprised the yokai. "I want to find someone to blame, some way to get justice. But If I couldn't find them, then I couldn't and I accept that."

Incredulity appears in Yoruichi's feline face. "Why? I met people that lived for centuries and held grudges by the most minute things. Why are you letting go of something that essentially ruined your life."

Another silence between them, but this time it was because Shirou was trying to elaborate an answer. She could see on his face how he frowned, tried to say something only to pause and think again, repeating the process at least five times before just rolling his eyes and saying. "I can't forget it, but if anything else I blame myself."

"Yourself?" She couldn't believe what she just heard.

"Why did I live where everyone else died? Could I have done something different? Maybe saved someone? I don't know. If I could go back in time, I would do it in a heartbeat. But I can't, so I will do my best to stop any other tragedy like that." He smiles as he says it. "Seeing that much death is awful. I prefer to see people smiling."

"Smiling?" That just made the temporary whitehead smile grow.

"Yes, smiling. The first memory that I have is from my father's smile, then the doctors, then my mother's, Illya's, Sella's and Liz's. I enjoy when people are happy, when they are smiling. It makes me feel better...Kinda selfish when you think about it. I want everyone to feel happy so I can be happy myself." Then Shirou blinks. "Sorry, I ended up talking too much."

"Don't worry. You just answered my question." It also made Yoruichi realize something. 'He is not after vengeance, just to stop something similar from happening, a person like that won't compromise the mission.'

In a sense Shirou is the person that has more reason than any to see its success at the present. For everyone else it was something that needed to be done but for the young man below her it was personal. If there is something that is evil or immoral behind that firm, Emiya Shirou won't stop until they stop.

"Can I ask a question?" Shirou snaps Yoruichi out of her thoughts.

"Sure, it's only fair since I asked plenty from you." With permission he asked something he ended up thinking while he was trying to sleep.

"Why a cat?" The question surprised her.

"What do you know about yokais?" Shirou would have shrugged but he felt that it would disturb her so he chose to reply.

"I am friends with a hanyou but I don't know much. I know about youki and how Setsuna, my friend, sometimes gets hurt when using it too much. She also helps me with the forge with some senjutsu even if she isn't a master of it. The rest I suppose its basic, you guyes stronger and faster than humans."

"Yokai, also can be said youkai, the name is used in all languages when talking about us." Yoruichi begins an explanation. "In the past we were just demons to everyone but true demons, if they ever existed, were beings that devils still hold in high regard to this day and not to be associated with us. There is a joke that the original Lucifer claimed himself as one but was in reality a fallen angel and nothing else but that is another matter. Back to the topic, with all the reverence that demons carry, that is why we kept one name for all languages. Yokais don't need to be malicious, we can look quite human as well and the majority of us is born in Japan. When we are born we already have three forms, a beast-like form, a human-like form and a hybrid of the three."

"And yours is...a cat?" Shirou found that odd until he remembered something. "You are a nekomata right?"

"Nekoshou to be more exact." Another tail sprung behind Yoruichi's back. "We are a species that is valued for our talent on ki manipulation and for that we are highly valued as slaves or employees for people who want better lives." The extra tail disappears. "I use this form to be noon conspicuous but if I wanted to I could easily transform into a giant cat and lay waste to the city. But the hybrid form is the most powerful for a couple of reasons, not that I will bust it out in the middle of a town unprepared, that would raise all kinds of alarms. This one is my weakest form by far, something that I trained to be able to transform into and am one of the few to be able to use it naturally. But I'm also really fast like this, really hard to find and most people don't care about a cat down the street."

"That is cool." He can't deny that it sounded really useful.

Yoruichi chuckles. "Yes, it's cool." Then she turns her head to the side. "But transforming with clothes on is a pain in the butt. You have no idea of the mechanics of it. So much easier to just do it naked."

That made Shirou pause and Yoruichi knows exactly why. She doesn't say anything but he can see the amusement in her eyes, she is patiently waiting for it, waiting for the question.

"My vision in the dark is quite good, you know?" There is no mistaking it, she was amused. "I can see your red face and don't try to pass it as hair, I turned it white."

He tried to deflect. "If you know what I'm gonna ask...do I need to ask?"

"Nya, maybe." She gets closer to his face. "I can change if you want. Who knows? This might be our last night on Earth."

The implication was there and in the context they are in even Shirou could understand. "I...you are making fun of me."

"Not really. I'm a yokai, you are a human, the taboo of it sounds too tempting to let it pass. Besides, you are the only guy that I found worthwhile that is not already taken."

"I am in highschool."

"And in yokai years I would be barely in college, probably I'm in my twenties, twenty one? Honestly, it's hard to pinpoint when you can live hundreds of years, doubly so when you can use ki and just go beyond that." The cat says in jest but somehow serious at the same time, age made no difference for her. Shirou was starting to sweat and Yoruichi decided to say. "Hey, no pressure. If you don't want to do it, we don't."

"I...can't deny that you are beautiful, one of the most attractive women I ever met-"

"'One of'?" She interrupts him.

"I may not be the most normal person but I ain't blind...or dumb." He refused to fall for the bait. However the second was in contention at the moment. One would think that he would get desensitized by walking in when Rias is exiting the shower, four times, but surprisingly it didn't change his reactions. Beauty is beauty after all. "The body wants, the mind wants it too, but...honestly... I think I ain't ready for it yet."

But the temptation is really there and in the privacy of his mind he knows that if she had walked in as a woman instead of a cat he may have given a different answer.

"See? Was that so hard?" She then turns a bit, getting comfortable on his chest. "Now go to sleep, tomorrow is going to be a busy day."

In the end neither minded to do such a thing but both had reasons to not. Shirou didn't know her that well yet and has focused on the mission. Yoruichi wanted him focused and for him to relax and be ready, she was willing to be a distraction but she also came to respect the former redhead's conviction.

"...You are naked...aren't you?"

"I'm a cat...what do you think?"

Shirou decided to leave it at that, else he wouldn't be able to sleep. The temporary whitehaired man decides to also scratch the back of her neck and upon hearing her purr and knowing what he does now one thing he was certain; come morning he is taking a cold shower.

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