Fate/Reach Out

Chapter 3: Forgotten Identity

"I found your family!"

Those four words kept repeating in Shirou's mind like a broken record, the rest of the world suddenly irrelevant. He just sat and stared at the photo like a deer in headlights.

Family? He had family?

That word was so foreign to him… all he could remember was Kiritsugu saving him from the fire and adopting him. His fondest memories were spending time with him and vowing to follow his father's dream of being an ally of justice, someone who saves others from harm no matter what.

But this…

Who were those two people in the photo holding him? Was that even him sitting on the woman's lap? He couldn't recall anything of that earlier life, yet the picture drew him in all the same… but why? It wasn't as though he saw the picture and knew these people where his parents or anything like that; the fire had stolen even that tiny surety. But… he couldn't bring himself to disregard the image it presented. Maybe they were his birth parents, but what did this all mean?

Were they still alive? Did he worry them? Did they hold a funeral? Were they close? If so, how close?

Taiga's next hesitant words broke him from the confused maelstrom of questions for a moment. "I, uh… I'm sure you know that they've been long since recorded deceased because of the fire. You were the only survivor in that event, after all."

Yes, he figured as much. Shirou instinctively knew his family was gone when he woke up that day in the hospital. Why would Fuji-nee show him that picture though if the memory was pointless now?

At least he thought it would be pointless, but he did feel a strange sensation of closure hearing this and seeing the picture still in Taiga's hand. He had a family. He wasn't completely alone. That was good… right?

That still didn't explain why she dug this up now, of all times. Nor did it explain how she even found out any of this or when… or answer any of the thousand questions barreling through his head.

"But I got some good news!" Taiga quickly added. "This folder I found on your family included this picture and a copy of your birth certificate! Your closest living relatives happen to be your uncle, Dojima Ryotaro and his daughter Nanako."

Relatives? Did they think he was dead too? Should he even bother talking to them after all this time? What could he say? How would they react? What were they like? Where did they live?

And, again, why was she telling him this now?

"It wasn't easy you know, getting all this! I had to ask my grandfather for a… a favor." No one in school save for Shirou knew that his hyperactive teacher was really a yakuza lord's granddaughter, so she was leaving it vague for Sakura's sake. Shirou was able to pick up that subtle hint and let the matter drop there. "Luck would have it that they caught wind of a detective Dojima in Inaba solving a murder case! Sounds cool, huh? He's a local hero, just like Kiritsugu!"

No, Ryutaro Dojima and Kiritsugu Emiya were vastly different, even if Shirou had never met the other man. Dojima was an ordinary policeman that acted as a public ally of justice, not unlike the criminal dramas he's seen from time to time. Kiritsugu was secretive about his past, and seemed to imply he avoided the spotlight concerning his actions. However, there was no doubt in Shirou's mind that the things Kiritsugu did were of far greater scale than any ordinary cop did. But the man was a magus, and Taiga or Sakura didn't need to know that.

"Inaba isn't that bad of a place either; real rural country town, lots of scenery, a hot spring inn, and a new Junes department store just opened there recently. Doesn't get a lot of tourism, but from what I read, it sure sounds homey!" Taiga was rambling now. Her wild gestures only filled Shirou with confusion as she continued to lay out the virtues of small-town living.

She stopped for dramatic effect… or looking earnestly thoughtful of what to say next, judging by her sidelong glance and the hand stroking her chin. "Well, uh… that's the end of my lecture I suppose! Any questions?"

Both students continued to stare, understandably confused. Sakura recovered first, turning to Shirou with a growing smile. "I-isn't this great, senpai? You have living relatives to your birth family!"

Shirou hesitantly reached out and took the photo from Taiga's hand. His eyes never left it during her speech. "Do they know?" he asked. His fingers traced the surface of the photo, over the smiling faces of the man and woman kept alive in a wrinkled, forgotten image. "That I'm…"

"Well… no," she admitted. "Not yet. I was thinking hearing from you first instead of me would have been a good first step."

"How?" Shirou asked.

Taiga reached for her dress pocket again, this time producing a small slip of paper with a string of numbers written on it. "Give them a call, silly!"

"A call?" Shirou parroted. The very idea of contacting these… related strangers… was less tempting and more frankly terrifying. What if they didn't care about him? What if they had forgotten he was their relative? What if Dojima didn't know what he looked like? Would he even be able to feel anything for them?

Come to think of it, he didn't even know what his uncle and cousin looked like either! "Do you have a picture of them too? Of the Dojimas, I mean."

"Eh?" Taiga blinked. Then she blushed slightly in realization. "O-oh! Right! I know I have something here…"

She reached into her dress pockets once more, and then to her hand bag, pawing through it for a moment before perking visibly. With an "Aha!" she handed another picture to her ward, Sakura leaning over his shoulder to see.

The photo had a black haired, rugged man dressed in a gray dress shirt and black slacks, a jacket slung over his shoulder and walking out to his car. He was turned back slightly, waving to a little girl by the door to the house behind him. She looked the right age for early elementary school, first grade probably, wearing a three-color plaid dress over a white turtleneck, with brown eyes and brown hair in short pigtails. She was waving too, holding a school bag and just closing the door behind her, but she looked rather sad.

"Where did you get this photo?" Sakura asked. "It looks like they posed."

"Posed?" Taiga blinked again. "Uh, yeah! Posed! It was, uh… a gift! A friend of theirs wanted a realistic shot so he got them doing this!"

What really happened was that the yakuza in Inaba were bribed to get as far as the Dojima residence and take a quick photo of them both. Yes, they needed a bribe to do that much: nearly every criminal or mob gangster Raiga's men asked had shit themselves when asked to try and take a picture of Ryotaro Dojima, and wouldn't accept anything less than a down payment for what they considered guaranteed prison time. Not to mention that shortly after someone did get the picture, he exposed himself to the detective because he forgot to turn off the flash. Needless to say, after all was said and done, the photographer's payment was converted to his bail... and new motorcycle.

Yeah, Dojima was that good.

Shirou now held two pictures and a phone number in his hand, staring between them before looking at his teacher. His expression looked so lost and hurt. "Fuji-nee…"

"I know this is a lot for you to take in but-"

"Why did you do all this?"

It wasn't a how or a when, but a why. Of all the questions he could possibly ask, that one threw Taiga for a loop briefly. She felt a bit offended by that question, really. "What do you mean why? I'm trying to be a helpful sister, you know? Aren't you glad to know the identity of your relatives?"

"I-it's not that," he quickly reasoned. "But they have their own lives, and I can't just intrude into their lives all of the sudden-"

"You've been like this since Kiritsugu died," she bluntly added, stopping his excuse. "You never do archery anymore, you sleepin the shed, you drop everything on a moment's notice whenever someone strings you along for a favor… and you keep putting down the fact that you miss him!"

To be a magus is to walk with death. That was what his step-father told him as he trained him. Death was another part of their lives, and could come at any moment. Shirou reminded himself of this sometime after the funeral, and devoted himself that much further into being what his father strived in life; to be a super hero, an ally of justice…

He couldn't tell Fuji-nee that though. Magecraft was meant to be secret from the general public, and his step-father stressed this greatly. He understood the need to accept the fate of magi and move on for the sake of his father's legacy. But he did admit he did feel a pang of bitterness whenever he thought of him, like now…

"Besides, they need to know you're alive just as much as you need to hear this!" Taiga continued, pointing at the photo. "See that girl? Nanako? That's the same look on your face whenever you hear his name or see his face."

"No it's no-"

Before he could finish, she pulled out a hand mirror from her bag and held it up in front of his face. "Kiritsugu."

Despite himself, his mouth twitched to a frown and his eyes lowered, almost on reflex. It was a brief moment, but he saw his depressed reflection.

Damn it, she was right.

"That's the pain of loss," she said as she set aside the mirror. "She's younger than you were when he died, but I can only imagine what she and her father had to cope with.

Shirou blinked, and then looked back at the Dojima photo. She said uncle and cousin… but not aunt. "You mean, the mother-?"

Taiga nodded solemnly. "Passed away a few years ago."

A tense silence filled the room while Shirou continued to digest this, his expression filled with warring emotions.

"Um, senpai?" Sakura spoke, reminding the other two she was still in the room. "I know it's rather sudden, but maybe you can just give them a call? They're your family after all, and I'm sure they'd at least like to know you're still alive."

Shirou stared between the number and the photos again. His eyes lingered mostly at young Nanako's face. How she braved the fact that she and her father lost someone close to them. He knew that pain all too well. Even if he could not remember his birth family even with the photo in his hand, he always had that knowledge that they were gone in the back of his mind. How hard was it for them, who could still remember their loved ones' smiles?

"Yeah… you're right."

December 20, 2010 - Dojima Residence, Inaba

He's late again, Nanako thought glumly while the ending theme to her show played on TV. She had hoped that by the time her show ended her dad would come back. Some days he did, other days he came home late, and there were even days where he didn't come home at all. She once tried to keep track or see if there was a pattern once, but couldn't find anything.

Nanako knew her dad was doing an important job. She felt proud whenever she told her friends at school about how he went around Inaba catching and beating up bad guys. It wasn't so bad either because whenever she played with mom, it would seem he would be home before she even knew it. When she was awake that is.

But things weren't the same when mom died. Things were tense without her, and she and dad barely talked to each other during dinner. She learned to do laundry, clean up around the house, and sometimes cook when her dad didn't order take-out. It wasn't hard and her dad would at times compliment her on a good job. She still missed her mom though…

Riiiiing! Riiiiing!

Jolted from her increasingly morose train of thought, Nanako jumped from her cushion and ran to the phone. Was it her dad? She hoped it was! She picked up the handset and eagerly held it to her ear. "Hello?"

"Uh, hello," an unknown male voice answered back. "Is Dojima-san there?"

Nanako frowned as her shoulders slumped a little, feeling her dad's absence again. "No…"

"Oh," the voice was awkward and nervous, but it didn't sound bad for a stranger. "Who is this then?"

Nanako remembered what her father told her. "My dad said I shouldn't give my name to strangers," she recited with a bit of pride.

The voice on the other line laughed lightly. "Your dad's pretty smart."

"Anyway, dad's at work and mom's…" Dead? In Heaven?"Gone," she settled on.

"…Oh…" The voice fell silent for a while. Nanako could hear breathing on the line though. "…When will your dad get back then?"

"I don't know," she answered after a moment's pause. "He's always out at night."

"Doing what?"

"Detective stuff," said Nanako. It wasn't too personal to answer questions to this man, right? "He's a detective. Who are you?"

"I'm uh… your cousin… I think."

She frowned slightly in confusion. "You think?"

The door to the house opened. "I'm home!"

Nanako's eyes brightened and turned to the new voice. "Welcome home, dad!"

Ryotaro Dojima kicked his shoes off at the front step and hanged his coat before walking up to his daughter. "Who's on the phone, Nanako?"

"A guy who says he's my cousin, he thinks. He wants to talk to you."

"'He thinks,' huh?" Dojima smirked slightly before accepting the phone. It was a pretty amusing identity for a prank caller. "Hello? Ryotaro Dojima speaking. Who is this?"

"Uh, hello Dojima-san," the voice answered with a nervous tick. "This is your nephew; Shirou Emiya."

Dojima snorted. "Nice try, but I sure as hell don't know a Shirou Emiya for a nephew. Thanks for wasting my time. Goodbye."

"Wait! Wait!" the voice cried frantically, and Dojima stopped reaching for the receiver. This ought to be good, he thought. "Sorry, I've been called Shirou for so long that I forgot my first name. What I meant to say was… I'm Yu Narukami."

Dojima's eyes widened. "…Yu?" If nothing else, he would give the guy credit for doing his homework: he did have a nephew by that name at one point, but the boy had died ten years ago. A massive fire had broken in Fuyuki City where his sister was working at the time, all but gutting the urban center of the city. There were supposedly no survivors from the Narukami family. The last she had seen of them was when Yu was a baby, offering to babysit him while they went overseas for work, as usual. It was mostly changing diapers though…

That being the case, how did this joker find that name?

But hearing his supposed deceased nephew calling him ten years after the incident sounded fishy to him, detective or not. "I don't believe you." Identity theft was growing increasingly popular as a crime nowadays, so this could very well be someone that dug up his information somewhere.

"Honestly, this is hard for me to take in myself," Shirou answered… or was it Yu? "I only just found out my birth name today."

He sounded genuine. Most people wouldn't wait so long to contact their relatives if presumed dead. Unless… "Amnesia, is it?"

"I think so. I don't remember anything before Shinto burned down, not even my old name. But I know I was there. I still have nightmares about it, really."

Well, that would check the story out. Anything that would kill several hundred people at once happening right in front and all around you qualified as traumatic in his book too. It would also explain why he didn't call until now, but not why he called now. "If that's true, then how do you get this number? Or know if I'm really your uncle?"

"Fuji-nee found out."

"Your adopted sister, I presume?"

"My current guardian," Yu-Shirou corrected. "Up until recently, I lived with my adoptive father who saved me from the fire, and Fuji-nee would come over because her grandfather was friends with him."

"Recently?" Dojima asked.

A brief paused followed. "He passed away… five years ago."

The detective's brow crinkled in sympathy despite his suspicions. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"It's fine, really. I'm more concerned of your daughter though, losing her mother so early."

It seemed his 'nephew' was too well read into his family life. Either he really did care, or was sticking his nose where he shouldn't. "Is your guardian there right now?"

"Huh? Uh, yes, she-"

"Put her on." His order left no room for negotiation.

Yu-Shirou hesitated; his breath hitched slightly on the phone. "Uh… sure."

He heard brief bickering on the line, most likely between the two people present. He could only make out the "You're ruining everything, you idiot!" before someone spoke directly to the phone. "Hello, Taiga Fujimura here! Alleged sister figure to Shirou Emiya / Yu Narukami! How can I help you?"

Her voice was laced with beaming innocence and confidence, but Dojima recognized it being the same voice that was yelling during the switch. If he had to guess on first impressions, she was the kind of person that would do anything to get things her way. Feigning innocence and whining consistently were common tactics. However, he noticed that her last name wasn't Emiya. Peculiar: if she took over as guardian, one or the other would change their names to fit.

"I'm Ryotaro Dojima, and I want to ask you about the legitimacy of my 'nephew's' identity."

"I assure you that I was able to find legit proof he is your nephew! I've known him for ten years now, and I can say without a doubt he looks just like the little boy if the photo of his birth parents!"

"How is it you found a photo now and not before?"

"A lot of stuff on the people that died was kept in storage, especially those working on or living in the expanded parts of Shinto. I just looked through some folders on what was salvaged from the damage on now useless buildings and apartments."

"You just happened to find the one folder you were looking for?" Dojima asked, honestly surprised.

"Well, it wasn't easy, I'll tell you that much!" shouted Taiga.

"I'll say," Dojima agreed. "But how can you be sure if we're related based on appearances? Has he taken a DNA test?"

The line was silent. "Uh… no?" she admitted.

Thought so. "Goodbye."

"WAIT!" she shouted quickly. "I could get one if that's what you want! It would take a while though, maybe a few days."

"Fair enough," he allowed. "Though I'm starting to get suspicious on how much you know."

"Your sister's maiden name was on Shirou's birth certificate, also in the folder I found. I used the names Narukami and Dojima as the basis of my search."

"That still doesn't explain how you know my home number." His voice lowered to a slight intimidating growl. "Or what happened to my wife."

The silence on her end dragged a little longer this time. "I, uh… know a guy."

The detective scowled. There were too many convenient excuses and not enough straight answers for his liking. "If that's all you're going to say on the matter, I'm afraid this conversation is over. Goodbye."

"STOP DOING THAT!" she cried louder. Dojima had to pull the phone out of his ear that time, wincing. "Listen, can't you just see your nephew once in a while? He really needs a family to connect with, and he hasn't been the same since his adoptive father died!"

The detective frowned; he was going to need a smoke after this. "Even if he is my nephew, and all my years of experience on the field are strongly telling me that he isn't, he has gotten this far without contact with us. I've only seen Yu once as a baby anyway; we'd be total strangers now."

"Then you can start over fresh!" Taiga reasoned. "And I said I would get the proof!"

"It's just not going to work out," he said, reaching for the receiver again.

"Can't you at least do it for your daughter?"

The police detective paused and waited for her to elaborate.

"Shirou, or Yu as you've last known him, keeps downplaying the fact that he's lost his dad: the adopted dad, the only dad he's ever known. He just throws himself into work and fixing things, and hardly goes out with people his age. He's already a first year in high school and I'm worried that sooner or later he might be driven to suicide. All he seems to plan for his future is being an 'ally of justice' like his father supposedly was."

Dojima could faintly hear Yu-Shirou cry out "He was!"on the other line, and Taiga hushing him before continuing. "I can only imagine what your daughter is going through losing her mother, and I think the two of them could really use each other's company, if nothing else."

He turned to Nanako, watching and listening to his end of the conversation ever since she gave him the phone. "Dad?"

She had to be hurting even now without her mother here…

Dojima couldn't stop doing his job. He still needed to catch the bastard that took Chisato from them. But he couldn't leave her alone all the time either. What Taiga just told him sounded rather unhealthy for a boy of any age to go through, and it didn't occur to him that Nanako might go through the same thing. Does leaving a child alone to their own devices too long and lead them to danger? He might never notice the signs until it was too late with how often work kept him away.

"Well, Dojima-san?" Taiga probed again.

Dojima sighed. He was still unsure about this, but if she was going so far just to find them and Yu-Shirou was willing to meet halfway… "Maybe we can work something out... but you're going to need a lot of proof."

If he didn't know any better, he would have sworn he heard her smile proudly on the other line. "Consider your challenge accepted, Dojima-san!"