AN: If I'm not mistaken, this is the last chapter I had published here before I started removing them. I'm going to post up to chapter 30, so don't go anywhere.
[EMIYA SHIROU]
[THE GAMER]
[LV 27- 15000/26000]
[HP: 2700][MP: 35][MC: 27][ST: 920][SP: 11]
[STR: 45][DEX: 47][INT: 50][WIS: 33][CHR: 102]
After only showering himself, since there was no more warm water to bathe in, Shirou went to the living room where he found Taiga and Yoruichi (now clothed) sitting at the opposite end of the table.
Both women sported scratch marks on their faces.
"SHIROU!" Taiga shouted, pointing an accusatory finger at Yoruichi. "What exactly is your relationship with this woman?"
Shirou crossed his arms and tilted his head.
"She's a freeloader, I guess," he explained. "An exhibitionist too."
"Hold up!" Yoruichi protested. "I'm no freeloader. I've paid you in information about your father."
"Hm. There is that," Shirou agreed. "I'll take it back."
"Wait, is that the part you object to?" Taiga asked of Yoruichi.
"I'm confident in my nudity and clothes tend to get in the way of my ability to shapeshift."
"Shapeshi... you are that cat!" Taiga realized and slammed both hands on the table. "How long have you been living with Shirou?"
"Dunno," Yoruichi shrugged. "A little over a month?"
"Shirooooou! What is the meaning of this?"
"I thought the two of you had squared this already," he sighed.
"I thought she was hiding from those people that almost killed you."
"Pfft! No way. They were just a nuisance to me."
"Then why are you here?"
"I ain't got any other place to live in this city, and I've made a few enemies. However, they wouldn't think to look for me at a Magus's place. Those idiots from the Wei Clan knew of our association because you helped me get away from them, but even the guys in Soul Society don't know I'm living with you. People don't tend to put up with me for very long."
"I wonder why?" Taiga said sarcastically.
"Taiga... please drop it," Shirou said firmly. "Regardless of how inappropriate she can be at times, Yoruichi-san is a good person. She just gets a kick out of making me squirm."
"Yeah, that's about right." Yoruichi confirmed shamelessly.
"Do you promise there is nothing going on between you two?"
"Of course." Shirou nodded.
"Man, you sure are protective of him. You should have figured by now that he can fend for himself quite well. If I didn't know any better I'd say you almost sound like... like a jealous girlfriend. You hypocrite."
Yoruichi rounded on Shirou with an accusatory look in her eyes.
"Saeko knows." he said before she could a single word in. That one statement brought Yoruichi short.
"What?" she blurted out.
"Saeko knows," he repeated. "She's the one who pushed for Taiga and I to hook up."
"I knew it! The more prudely they act the more of a pervert they actually are."
"Wait... you think that Saeko is a pervert because she agrees to share her boyfriend and not because of how young he is?" Taiga asked.
"To be a Magus is to walk with death," Yoruichi quoted. "Anyone who knowingly takes the path of Magecraft of their own volition has no business being considered a child. Yeah, Shirou is young and ridiculously easy to take advantage of, but it's not because he's naive. Rather it's because he decided that's who he wants to be."
"Yeah... that sounds about right," Taiga concurred before slamming her fist on the table. "BUT! That doesn't change anything! Even if I share him with another woman - no, because I already share him with another woman - I can't stand a trollop trying to seduce him away from me. Inside his own home, even!"
"Excuse me... a trollop?" Yoruichi blinked. "Huh. I haven't been called that in a long time. How nostalgic."
"That's not how you are supposed to respond to something like that." Shirou complained.
Yoruichi snorted. "Look, I'm over a hundred years old-"
"You are what?" Taiga exclaimed.
"-and I didn't live this long without having my share of lovers through the years. I don't put out to just anyone, but I'm not someone you should look up to for moral guidance, in case you were wondering. I've been given worse epithets I assure you, and most of them were not misplaced."
"I'm sorry," Shirou told her.
"Ha! What for? Like I said, most were not misplaced."
Shirou shook his head, but spoke no further. Yoruichi furrowed her brows, then her eyes widened and she looked away.
- I'm sorry you had to outlive so many people you cared about. -
"What? What just happened?" Taiga asked, looking between Shirou and Yoruichi.
"It's nothing," Shirou replied."Look Taiga. I know how it looks, but Yoruichi-san is a good person. She enjoys messing with my head but she's not interested in me like that."
"Yeah. Everyone's a brat to me, but I prefer my men to meet me at eye-level. No offense."
"None taken," Shirou agreed.
"Ahhh! You just don't get it," Taiga said in exasperation. "You might think that way right now, but Shirou is going to get under your skin sooner or later if you hang out around him. Mark my words."
Yoruichi rolled her eyes. "I'm sure he will."
Shirou felt like joining Yoruichi in dismissing Taiga's claim but with a mental command he brought out Yoruichi's relationships screen.
The relationship bar sat at 3250/5000 with the status of Cherished Friend.
That brought Shirou short. Sure, he thought of Yoruichi as a friend at this point. They were clearly past being casual acquaintances that was for sure.
For someone who held everyone in higher regard than his own self, differentiating levels of affection wasn't a simple task. He was only starting to grasp the concept that some people's lives were more important to him than others, but he didn't have many shades in that department.
He either cared, or he cared a lot and because of his broken mentality he couldn't easily comprehend being elevated above the basic level.
Therefore he was quite baffled about this development. Attraction wasn't at play here (yet). This was purely affection.
Why? He never did anything to deserve such thing.
'She must be very lonely,' he concluded and he was not wrong, but he also underestimated his own role again.
Shirou genuinely cared and other people could feel it. His insanely high charisma only meant that people paid more attention to him and therefore they noticed it more, subconsciously answering in kind.
Only when his presence in their heart grew enough they started to think of him as a man. Once that threshold was met, they would see past things such as age and attraction would start building up.
Taiga had been unlucky in this regard.
Her levels of affection for Shirou were already high and stable before his Gamer Powers awakened and his charisma started piling up. The sudden change was what threw her for a loop, whereas it didn't with the likes of Saeko, whose affection never stagnated and naturally blossomed into romantic love and attraction.
To sum it up, Shirou grew on people so naturally that they didn't even notice it until they they were in too deep to pull away, but even Shirou himself was only vague aware of these mechanics.
More importantly he couldn't escape them unless he decided to stop caring and helping others, which was something he would never do.
The two women continued bickering and Shirou decided that it was high time he got breakfast going. Food would probably shut them up better than anything else he could do or say.
Some thirty minutes later, his prediction proved true. The banquet he provided was more than enough to steer Taiga away from worrying about hypothetical relationships between Shirou and Yoruichi.
Speaking of the latter, she had her share of the meal in religious silence but slipped away before Taiga could emerge from her food trance and resume the conversation.
However, she shouldn't have bothered. Shirou had provided enough food to keep her busy until she had to leave for work in a rush, thus making the whole thing moot.
Although it wasn't an active skill in his repertoire, Shirou had long since mastered the fine art of handling tigers.
[br]
When he went to school that morning, Shirou expected to sit at his desk and read the books he acquired from Tohsaka. For the most part, that proved to be the case.
Everything went just fine during ordinary classes but something happened during PE; a minor incident between rowdy boys.
Soccer was the most played team sport played by kids his age, and Shirou elected to play goalkeeper every time because it made it easier for him to hide his vastly superior physical ability. Purposefully missing a few shots every now and then was a game within the game to him.
However, everybody else tried their best, and as it sometimes happens in the course of an intense physical competition, someone got injured.
There should be no need to name the person who volunteered to help his classmate to the infirmary.
"T-Thank you, Emiya-kun," said the limping boy, Takashi, who had a arm draped across Shirou's shoulder to support himself.
"Don't mention it," he replied. "Here we are. Nurse-san, are you in? There's a patient for you."
He pulled the door open and walked inside. The nurse who had been sitting on a swiveling chair with her back to the door turned around.
"Of course, please have a seat over here," she said patting a stool.
Short red hair framed a young visage whereupon two bright green eyes sat. Underneath her white coat the nurse wore a short black skirt and a light colored blouse that exposed a fair amount of cleavage. It was a look that tethered on being scandalous but somehow barely managed to avoid being so.
Shirou looked away from her, though for entirely different reasons.
"So what have we got?" she asked.
"Nothing much," he replied. "Just a scratch during soccer practice."
"I see, I see. Does it hurt?"
"A little," Takashi replied, squirming in his seat. Unlike Shirou, he brazenly stared at the two mounds of pale flesh that dangled in his face when the nurse bent towards him. The poor boy probably didn't even know that what he was doing was if not wrong at least impolite.
"Well, I'm going to disinfect the cut and that might burn a little, but you're going to be a strong boy aren't you?" she cooed gently.
"Y-yes nurse," Takashi stuttered red faced. A few moments and a bandaid later the wounded boy was back on his feet looking no worse for wear.
"Well done," the nurse complimented, ruffling his hair. "I'm sure you're going to become a big strong man when you grown up."
Takashi beamed like any child how had been given praise would and turned a little more red.
"Race you back to the field?" Shirou proposed, tired of this charade.
"You're on!" Takashi exclaimed. A moment later, the door of the infirmary was flung open and Takashi ran out of the room with a smile on his face and wings at his feet.
Shirou on the other hand hadn't taken so much as a step in that direction.
"Trace On!"
[Nerve Circuit Creation: Success!]
[Reinforcement: Success! - STR x5, DEX x5]
He spun around to a bewildered looking nurse. With a mental command he equipped Shisui from his Inventory and moved.
With a sudden displacement of air he was behind her, standing on her desk and with the edge of his blade resting upon her neck.
[Mikado Ryouko]
[Magus]
[Lv. 35]
"Hi," he said with false joviality. "What's a Magus doing in my school?"
"... what gave me away?" she asked without turning.
"Asking a Magus for their secrets is a dangerous endeavor, I've been told."
"Yet you've asked for mine." she reprimanded.
"I'm the one holding a blade to the other's neck," Shirou observed.
"There is that," she agreed, seemingly unfazed. "Would you believe me if I told you it's merely a coincidence?"
"If we came across each other in the city I would be willing to consider it. In my own school? Not a chance. The only option is that there's something of interest to you here and I'm afraid that the only non-ordinary thing about his place is me. So, let me rephrase my question better. What do you want from me, Mikado Ryouko-san?"
She turned her head slightly to look at him, narrowing her own in careful examination.
"You have some type of Mystic Eyes, don't you? That would account for your exceptional maturity. Pure Eyes, maybe. In an inferior variant, surely; otherwise you would have gone mad from the information overload."
"That's quite the conclusion to jump to," he said, keeping the shock from showing on his face.
"It is, but you're not denying it. I see. You are the honest and straightforward type even if you are a Magus. Lying doesn't come easy to you, does it? How refreshing."
He increased the pressure of the blade on her skin.
"You're playing a dangerous game." he threatened.
"Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Besides, we both know that the smart thing to do would have been killing me on the spot. You didn't because you don't want to. Hmm... such an odd mentality for a Magus. Maybe there is something else going on about you besides those pretty eyes you've got."
"... What do you want?" he asked.
She laughed. "I want you to be my guinea pig, of course. What else could I want?"
"I'm afraid I must refuse."
"I'm afraid you've got no choice in the matter," she replied.
From the sleeve of her coat a small sphere fell, no bigger than a marble. It hit the ground and exploded in a burst of smoke that filled the entire room before Shirou could do anything.
He still knew where he stood relative to the door so he jumped in that direction, rolling in the corridor outside, ready to fight.
However the smoke triggered the fire alarms. Shirou quickly sent Shisui back to the Inventory just as kids from the other classes started to evacuate the building.
The sprinklers in the infirmary went off and started pouring water, which cleared the smoke.
Mikado Ryouko was nowhere to be found having fled from the now open window.
"Damn," he cursed, but there was nothing he could do at this point other than joining the other kids and leaving the building.
It looked like he could no longer live leisurely as he had been doing so far.
The fate of a Magus - to kill or to die for the advancement of Magecraft - had finally come knocking at his door.
[br]
Outside of the school grounds, Ryouko walked away at a fast pace. She removed her coat and tossed it into a trash can along the way.
Well, the plan to infiltrate the school had failed spectacularly but she still managed to learn something about her target all the same.
Mystic Eyes. That was certainly interesting, but only marginally. What she was interested in was his body; more precisely the remarkable regenerative abilities that Matsumoto spoke about. A borderline immortality.
If she could isolate it, replicate it, it might be exactly what she needed to make a breakthrough. The missing piece of the puzzle that escaped her for so long.
"Just hold on, love. I'll definitely save you," she murmured to herself as she disappeared into the crowd of Fuyuki City.
[br]
After classes, Shirou returned home. He warily checked the house for intruders but found nothing out of place.
Infiltrating or attacking a Magus abode was generally considered a dangerous endeavor and rightly so. They set up all manner of defenses to protect themselves and their research, therefore it was always preferable to kill the Magus and thus weaken their active Mysteries before trying to move into their territory.
Of course, Mikado Ryouko couldn't know that there was little to fear from Shirou's territory because she could only find out by going there. The Moonlit World preconceptions worked in his favor, but he couldn't count on that lasting for long.
He had already been exposed. Someone had already figured out he had Mystic Eyes. Lilith and her mysterious sister even knew what type. Clearly he couldn't hope to go unnoticed anymore.
He needed to get his skills up to snuff. He would spend the night reading the books that he got from Tohsaka and the next day he would skip school. His grade wouldn't suffer from it, that much was certain.
However, he had at least to warn Taiga.
"What do you mean don't come over anymore?" she asked over the phone.
"Like I said, I got a Magus after me. I'm confident that I can handle myself but if she were to come after you I don't know if I would be able to protect you."
"Damn it! Shirou you can't just push me aside like this!"
"I'm not pushing you aside," he protested. "I love you, alright? I want you to be safe. Please, just let me fix this situation and things will go back the way they were."
"You promise?" she asked meekly.
"Absolutely," he replied. "I'm going to figure out how to solve this situation as quickly as possible."
"I'm holding you to that, you hear me? And don't get yourself hurt either. I don't care if you are unkillable. Don't get yourself hurt."
"I'll try my best." he promised.
"Good. Now get to it. The sooner you fix this, the sooner I can come back to you."
"Yes ma'am!"
He was a bit sad, but he was happy that Taiga had understood. The least she had to do with the Moonlit World, the better.
[br]
After Taiga finished the conversation with Shirou she turned around and marched towards her room. She already had to go to Saeko's place for training, but since this came up another fire lit up within her.
Getting stronger wasn't enough. She had to do it fast or else Shirou would get further and further away from her.
She filled two gym bags of clothes and headed up.
"Tell gramps I'm not coming back home for a while," she told to one of the guys.
"How long is a while exactly?" he asked, knowing full well that the boss would want to know.
"A couple of weeks, maybe a month. I'm off to train!"
The man saw the bokuto strapped to her back and nodded, shrinking back in fright. He believed those days were finally over. He believed that the Tiger of Fuyuki had gone dormant once and for all.
He was clearly mistaken.
He didn't know what could have woken the beast from its slumber and for his own sake he would not try to find out. He would gladly suffer his boss's wrath rather than incurring in the Tiger's. He knew what his chances of coming out whole from both confrontations were and he made his choice on the spot.
His brothers would back him up as soon as they were told anyway.
[br]
Shirou locked himself inside the toolshed, and continued reading the book he had begun that morning. Because of his already high INT, he could memorize almost perfectly everything just by reading it once so he went through the several hundred pages in the span of a few hours. Once he reached the back cover, he received a message prompt.
[As result of a special action a new skill was created]
[Boundary Field Creation - Lv. 1]
[Description: Allows the creation of Boundary Fields. The type of Boundary Fields that can be created depends on the level of the skill. Additionally, special types of Boundary Fields can be created by combining different types or with other compatible Skills. Mana requirements vary with size.]
[Currently Available Boundary Fields:]
[Perimeter Warning Boundary Fields: Warns the user when something crosses the perimeter, according to the caster's detection parameters. Up to 2 parameters can be selected at this level.]
Shirou's eyes widened. This was yet another quirk of the Gamer Eyes. Certainly his progress in Magecraft would be slowed by 90%, but unlike ordinary Magi he could use a new Magecraft as soon as he acquired enough information about it, such as reading a book explaining how to make them.
Of course, this was because in a game one first acquires the skill and then levels it whereas in real life one must learn through trial and error in order to develop it.
Certainly leveling it would take ten times longer than normal because of is Sword bonus/penalty. However… that held true only if he didn't find a way to involve swords in the process and try as he might, he could think of a single reason why he couldn't make sword-shaped boundary fields.
[br]
[Boundary Field Creation has reached Lv. 5]
[Sealing Boundary Fields have been unlocked]
[Sealing Boundary Field: when triggered it closes and locks all doors and windows, preventing exit or entry.]
[Perimeter Warning Boundary Fields has been upgraded. Up to 3 parameters can now be selected]
"Eh eh eh eh!" Shirou laughed to himself, in disbelief mostly. "This is bullshit."
For the past several hours he did nothing but engraving sword-shaped Boundary Fields the size of his arm in the ground of his courtyard. They were silly things that could be disrupted just by tossing some dirt on them and interrupting the flow of Mana but their completion still counted towards the leveling of the skill. Moreover, the small size meant that he used as little as 1 MP to erect them.
Furthermore, because the lower levels of any skill required very little experience to increase them, he managed to raise it several times before the sun rose.
"This is completely ridiculous!" he exclaimed, but he was far from being disappointed. If he managed to get his hand on more Magecraft books he would be able to quickly acquire more skills. Mastering them would probably still take years, but variety had its own unique perks.
Magi were usually limited in how many fields of Magecraft they could learn by a number of factors, such as available knowledge, their resources, time and their own Element and Origin. Shirou would be no different, if not for how his Gamer Power worked.
Knowledge was not relevant. The book he got from Tohsaka covered only the basics of Boundary Fields, but he could unlock more spells on that specific skill-tree just by grinding it. As long as he unlocked it, he could master it without investing anything in research.
The only resource that could affect him was Mana, but he already found a way around it. Time was the same for everyone, but because he managed to turn his Sword-alignment around he actually learned ten times faster than anybody else.
Forget being a third rate. He could become the greatest Magus that ever lived. Reaching Akasha was not something beyond his reach if he earnestly dedicated his life to it.
It was a shame that he couldn't care less about it.
Even if he had the potential he would still invest most of his time into helping others, therefore such a goal would never be met. Magi worldwide would vomit blood in rage if they knew that this blessing had fallen upon such an heretic.
They would surely do everything in their power to rip his eyes out of his skull and use them for themselves. All the more reason not to let the true nature of his ability be divulged to the Magi community. Shirou dreaded what an ill intentioned Magus could do with powers like that.
The problem was there was already a Magus that knew about him having Mystic Eyes. He needed to find a way to deter Mikado from pursuing him further.
He wouldn't kill her of course. The thought never crossed his mind, even when he had been holding a blade to her throat. He could find within himself to threaten but not to kill. Not for his own sake anyway. He didn't think there was anything strange or wrong with this line of though,t and because he wouldn't talk about these things with someone else, lest they involved themselves, it went completely unnoticed.
It would take a great deal of time before anyone realized just how twisted Emiya Shirou was and by that time there would be nothing they could do to deter him from this path.
XXX