Fate/Reach Out
Chapter 4: Final Push
Taiga took the terms of the "challenge" seriously to the point it seemed jarring for Sakura and Shirou. For the following month, she put Shirou through several DNA and blood tests with different hospitals and clinics, keeping numerous appointments with several different doctors and making sure Dojima did the same. She wanted no excuses from him when the proof hit the table. Copies of the birth certificate, photos, anything she could find from the folder and the results from the numerous medical tests changed hands as she pushed Dojima and her resources to the limit.
Taiga ignored most of Shirou's complaints about the process. He never was one for doctors as long as she'd known him.
Dojima cross-referenced everything with his own research and memories of his sister's family to make sure everything checked out perfectly. At certain points he devoted several hours poring over the same document trying to find any sort of hole in the information that would deny possible relations with Shirou and the potential complications it would bring to his and Nanako's life. As the weeks and tests passed, it finally started to sink in. This wasn't some con artist masquerading as his nephew: Shirou Emiya was in fact Yu Narukami.
He hadn't slept a wink the night he finally accepted it.
Whenever they talked on the phone, though, the boy made an awkward assertion that he would prefer his new name over his original one, since he was fond of his adoptive father. Considering Shirou had lived for a decade with that name, asking him to change it now when his memories were still gone made no real sense anyway. Dojima had no complaints; at the end of the day he was still his nephew, after all.
March 10, 2011 – Emiya Residance
"I even got to talk to Nanako again for a bit," Shirou explained at dinner. "She's still a little shy, but I found out that she cooks breakfast from time to time. Maybe we could share recipes."
"Another cook, you say?" Taiga grinned, delicately cutting her share of roast duck. Of course, considering her love of good food, "delicately" did not mean "slowly" in the least. While she was glad that the redhead was connecting with his family again, she was also making an effort to keep Shirou's attention at dinner.
Over the last couple of months, the frequency and duration of Shirou's calls to the Dojima household had risen sharply. At first, he would only spend a few minutes about once a week trying to grasp for a topic, but now he would call almost every other day and sometimes talk to his uncle and cousin for almost an hour, sometimes more if he managed to talk to both Ryotaro and Nanako in one night. It was getting to the point that Taiga was starting to feel a little left out.
'Well, so long as he keeps cooking for me, I can tolerate it for a little bit longer,' she told herself.
"Your cousin sounds like a sweet little girl, senpai," Sakura added, pausing in her meal to comment. "A shame what happened to her mother…"
"Yeah…" Shirou agreed solemnly. "She's still learning, but she started cooking for breakfast after her mother died, since Dojima-san is always busy."
"Well, point is that you're hitting it off with them!" Taiga assured him. "Sooner or later, you might even get to visit them!"
"Funny you should mention that," Shirou smiled slightly. "Dojima-san and I have been talking about it, and he was thinking about arranging for me to stay with him in Inaba for a while."
"That's great, senpai!" Sakura offered her support, genuinely happy for her upperclassman. He was finally going to see his family! A day trip once in a while would be great for him, and if needed, perhaps even a week or two to really get to know them. "How long would you be staying?"
The redhead's smile turned a bit sheepish. "About that… Well, I still have school and I can't set that aside. Between Dojima's job and that, I can't see it working right away."
Taiga nearly dropped her chopsticks at that. "Eh? After all this trouble you're not going to visit them?!"
"Think about it, Fuji-nee: it's not as if I don't want to go, but as it stands, the only way it could work is if I either waited for summer break or just bite the bullet and spent my next school year at Yasogami like Dojima suggested. As much as I would like to meet my family in person, it's just not feasible right now."
If this were any other matter, Taiga would have agreed with the assessment and let the matter drop. This time though, hearing Shirou give up so easily after the months of effort she put into the search and the proof caused a tick in her brow. "Come on, Shirou! What's missing a few days? This is your family we're talking about!"
"You guys are my family, too, you know," Shirou muttered. He didn't notice Sakura blush a little and missed Taiga fighting down a smile. "I wouldn't have much chance to really get to know them without staying for a long time there, anyway. We're pretty much strangers for the most part."
The childish teacher pointed at her charge with her chopsticks. She had put in too much money, burned a lot of favors (more accurately, her grandfather had used some of his pull for her), effort and a lot of time into tracking down Shirou's blood relatives and getting them to interact for him to just give up when he was obviously starting to connect with them. "You aren't going to spend your entire life in Fuyuki City! Going over there getting to know your family wouldn't be a bad thing!"
Shirou shrugged. "Like I said, Dojima suggested that I spend the next school year in Inaba, but that just seemed a little extreme-"
"If that's what it'll take, then I'll allow it!" Taiga roared.
Shirou and Sakura's utensils froze with their hands. An eerie silence stretched out between the three in the room, the students staring at the teacher blankly. When it became clear from the stubborn frown that Taiga was dead serious, their expressions morphed to shock. Shirou outright dropped his chopsticks, mouth opening and closing like a gaping fish. Sakura's reaction was more subtle but unmistakable; her soft smile faltered, her eyes were wide with horror, one of them making a slight twitch.
"What?" Sakura squeaked softly.
"Are you… serious about this, Fuji-nee?" Shirou finally choked out.
"That's right, Shirou! I've decided! It's high time you got to meet them face-to-face! If Dojima thinks you would be welcome for a year, than that's what it'll be!"
"B-but…" Sakura started softly. "Why does senpai have to leave? Can't they just come up here? There are plenty of spare bedrooms here."
"W-well, Nanako's just starting elementary school and Dojima's a police detective which keeps him from home with odd hours. They have a tough enough time as it is juggling their lives ever since Nanako lost her mother. I couldn't just ask them to drop everything for a day trip out here. Nanako also told me that Dojima gets called in at random, too." Shirou explained, taking a mouthful of rice mechanically.
As it stood, Shirou's sense of responsibility and desire to inconvenience as few people as possible pretty much dictated how the visit would have to work. He didn't mind waiting for summer, but Taiga's pressure was hard to resist. To be fair, she had put a stupendous amount of effort into reuniting the family, so not going to meet the Dojima family face to face must have been tremendously frustrating for her.
To be honest though, Shirou felt bad having to leave Homurahara as well. The student council always counted on him to fix the supplies and appliances around the school, especially Issei Ryuudou, a freshman already slated for a council position starting next year. Shirou promised to take some time to repair as many of the old appliances as he could before he left for Inaba for them.
'Huh. I'm already thinking as though I've already decided to go… Am I really that eager?'
"Sensei, why are you pushing this so hard?" Sakura pleaded, her hand clutching the table tightly enough to turn her knuckles white.
Taiga gave the plum-haired girl a disarming smile. "It's not that I'm pushing him to visit, I just don't want him to have any excuses to avoid this. If we let it sit, he'll grow comfortable just talking over the phone and might never get around to meeting them."
As Sakura gaped at her like a fish, Taiga turned her attention to Shirou again. "That being said, you need to keep that 'super hero' stuff of yours in check; Dojima's a cop, so he'll handle all the crime stuff. Just have fun with Nanako-chan while you're there, and maybe make some new friends at school. Or even hang out at their Junes place. No way can anything dark, sinister or unusual happen over there!"
"I'll try," he answered, which wasn't a complete lie. He would still practice his magecraft in secret, but he wouldn't expose himself either. A small town like Inaba might very well have a near-nonexistent crime rate, especially with someone like Dojima watching the place.
Taiga then puffed her chest out in a defiant lecturing pose (while still sitting down). "And for your long-term homework assignment: you are to learn and master all of Yasoinaba's meals and delicacies so you can prepare them for us back here for our enjoyment!"
Shirou laughed; same old Fuji-nee. "I'll do my best!" Now that, he knew, he could accomplish without fail.
With that decided, they continued their meal in silence. Sakura just sat and stared at the two them for several minutes, almost unable to comprehend what just happened.
Eventually Taiga noticed her daze and looked concerned. "Sakura, I understand you're upset, but try to be happy for Shirou, alright? A year's not forever."
"R-right," Sakura nodded, ignoring whatever dark thoughts circled in her head. "Of course… It's only a year…"
Only one lonely, long, painfully atrocious year without him…
A/N: Bit on the short side, but it's just about time getting into first week of April in the P4 timeline.
Still, no Shirou for a whole school year? Poor Sakura. Things won't get easier from here either for anyone involved.