Fool's World: The Chariot (ch. 7) (Patreon)

There were people in the halls, drawn to the unfamiliar sound coming from in front of the school gates. Teenagers stood by the windows looking out, all muttering questions under their breaths or to their friends. The teachers were ushering the kids to go back into the classrooms, but teenagers were stupid. They didn't feel like they were in danger, so they didn't take any precautions. But, that quickly changed with the sound of shattering glass.

A bullet tore through a window, and with how it shattered, I knew that the bullet had to be a hollow point. The sound of the panicked screaming almost drowned out the pained scream of a boy as he dropped to the ground, clutching his stomach. His light brown jacket was quickly darkened as a bloodstain soaked his jacket through. The kids around him panicked, one stepping on the fallen teenager in an attempt to getaway. Shirou practically dove to the wounded teen, shoulder checking another fleeing teenager to prevent them from further injuring the him as he helped apply pressure to the wound while dragging him to the perceived safety of a classroom.

It was convenient for me, I thought as I sprinted for the broken window. I skidded to a halt, glass crunching underfoot as I put a foot on the window ledge. "Hey, wait-" I heard someone protest, probably one of the teachers ushering their students to safety, but I threw myself out of the window to take the quick way down.

It was easy enough to guess why they had tried to stop me -- I was on the fourth story and I only seemed to recall that fact when I was halfway towards the ground. My body moved on its own, instinct kicking in to save me from breaking both of my legs. As soon as my feet touched the ground, I threw myself forward, transferring the momentum as much as I could. I lost the worst of it as I rolled to my feet, and the little that I didn't, I used to sprint forward.

The Yakuza that were guarding the gate were pinned down, one of them was bleeding badly as he tried to stem the flow of blood from his gut. The others traded fire with the assailants, poking their heads up to fire at a black car that took the bullets like a tank. The sound of gunfire was a lot louder the closer you got, I noted as I sprinted straight for the wall of the school.

My gun weighed what felt like a metric ton in my waistline, but I didn't dare draw it as I leaped up, my foot digging into the concrete wall as I threw myself over it. That was my ace in the hole for the Grail War and guns were hard to come by.

Which is why this was just as much of an opportunity as it was an issue.

Throwing my legs over the ledge, I looked down to see that there were assaulting Yakuza directly beneath me that were hugging the walls and using them as cover to creep forward. Given that the car had a clear view of them, it was easy to guess which side they were on. There were three of them lined up below me, and I sailed over the head of the middle one. Twisting as I sailed over, I reached back and caught the edge of the wall, my fingers digging in to stop my momentum… then swinging back toward it with all of my strength.

The three were focused, but not so much that I went unnoticed. The middle one turned to look at where he thought I would land, only to catch a high knee to the nose that slammed the back of his head into the wall with a sickening crack. He let out a pained grunt before he slid down the wall, unconscious, while the one behind him that was on my left leveled his gun at me. It was blockier than a pistol. An Uzi. Useful.

This felt a little too familiar to me as I lashed out, diverting the barrel of the Uzi while simultaneously ripping the back of the gun out of the Yakuza's hand. The gun clattered to the floor faster than the man could pull the trigger. He reacted by trying to catch me with a punch, but I followed the instincts ingrained in my body and grabbed him by the arm, using his momentum and poor footing to throw him over my shoulder at the third member of the group. The two men crashed into each other, throwing both of them off of their feet. I took a moment to kick the Uzi away, but the other still had his gun.

Leaping up, I used the wall to give me a bit more height by putting a foot on its surface and using it as a springboard, and when I descended, it was directly on the face of the Yakuza that was on the bottom of the pile. His nose was flattened and I knew he would be swallowing teeth. Given how still he was, I’m sure he blacked out from the blunt force trauma, taking him out of the fight. The man on top of him was dealt with a quick kick to the temple, knocking him out cold as well.

I heard the whiz of a bullet flying by close to my head, and felt the sharp sting of concrete shards hitting my face as the bullet narrowly missed me, and I knew that I had been discovered. My gaze darted to the men holed up in and around the car -- they were parked at an angle, using their car doors as cover.

I met the gaze of the one that had noticed me taking out their friends and took the pot shot at me. A middle-aged man with slicked back hair and a goatee. He had his gun leveled at me, already firing another shot and forcing me to move.

I cut across the street, kicking the Uzi into a stormdrain to make sure it couldn’t be used on me since there was no time to grab it. There wasn't any cover around us -- there were no cars parked on the side of the street, and the roads were suspiciously empty. There was no taking cover. But I could make that a problem for more than just me. With how the car was parked, the Yakuza trading shots with the guys holed up by the front gate were protected from that angle. From behind, not so much.

The Yakuza took another shot at me that zipped by my head, and his eyes widened when I sprinted towards the car, intent on taking their cover from them while using it myself. For a long second, I only had eyes for the man that had his gun leveled at me, hyper-aware that his finger was on the trigger. He pulled the trigger, but nothing came out. He had used up all his ammo. He reacted quickly, emptying the magazine in the gun and slamming in a new one before he hastily leveled it back at me.

Time seemed to slow down, yet at the same time speed up as I only had eyes for the man, like everything else was blocked out of my mind. A brief moment of absolute focus that seemed to last minutes as I rapidly approached, crossing the distance in the blink of an eye.

The moment I saw his finger begin to squeeze down on the trigger, I dropped to the ground, skidding across the street. The bullet sailed by harmlessly overhead as I closed the distance between us. The bottom of my foot caught the edge of the car door, forcing it to close with all my weight and momentum behind it. I don't know if it was debilitating, but I couldn't imagine it was comfortable to get squeezed between the car and its door. The man's pained scream alerted the others, but they didn't look over in time.

Slapping my hands on the ground, I spun sharply, my leg sweeping out to catch the man that was taking cover near the driver's seat at the ankles and knocking his feet from underneath him.

As he fell, I grabbed his gun as it clattered to the ground, and took aim at the ankles on the other side of the car. It was the first time I ever fired a gun, but I had half-decent aim, and my targets were less than six feet away. I fired four times -- the first was a miss, the second struck one of their ankles, the third was a miss when the other flinched back when the former was hit, and the fourth managed to get him in the ankle as well.

And I thought that would be the end of it. When you are in that bad of a spot, self-preservation instincts kick in and you give up. But that's not what happened. The Yakuza with the goatee fell on me, having recovered from getting the car door shut on him, his hands lunging for my throat. There was a wild look in his eyes, I saw, as I flung the man over my head, stopping his lunge cold by planting a foot in his gut and flipping him over me. Rolling to my feet, I narrowly managed to avoid a tackle from the Yakuza I had swept to ground during my slide and who had gotten back onto his hands and knees, and redirected him into the side of the car.

I lashed out with a hand, catching him by the back of his head, and slammed him into the window of the car. The bulletproof glass rattled in its frame, and the man dropped like a sack of potatoes, but the man with the goatee was already back on his feet, now brandishing a knife. My eyes narrowed as he let out a loud war cry as he rushed forward to stab me. There, I learned that I hadn't needed Nobara's help when dealing with a thug with a knife. As he lunged for me, I reached for his wrist, catching it as he slammed me into the car, stopping him before he could sink his knife into me. The muscles in my arms trembled as I fought to keep the knife from inching towards my gut. Rearing back, I slammed my forehead against his nose, flattening it in a jet of blood.

A knee to the balls loosened his grasp on the knife enough that I managed to rip it away from him. Now that he was disarmed, I grabbed him by the sides of his head, looking into his crazed brown eyes. I headbutted him once. Then again. And another time. And a final time, just to be sure. I felt blood running down my face, but I'm pretty sure that it wasn't mine.

Dropping the now unconscious man, I realized it was suddenly deafeningly quiet. Well, it was hardly silent with all the cursing and people shouting in pain, but compared to the chorus of gunfire, it was practically silent. Wiping the blood off of my face with my sleeve, I glanced over at the Yakuza that had defended the school to see that they were looking at me with wide eyes. Then I turned my attention to the ones I got the drop on first. Something tugged at the back of my mind as I looked at them, a nagging feeling that something was off.

Or, rather, that I wasn't seeing something I should be. Then it hit me. There were only three men laying on the ground near the gate.

I had noticed that there were four hanging around near the parking lot where that lot originated from. Someone was missing.

"There's one inside," I shouted at the Yakuza guarding the gate after putting the pieces together. I broke off into a sprint. Grabbing hold of the iron spokes, I used them to help me flip over the school gate, landing lightly on my feet. I looked at the Yakuza, and my eyes were just as wide as theirs when I saw Shirou was right there with them, pressing his jacket against the wounded one's stomach to staunch his bleeding. During the firefight the other two hadn’t been unscathed. One had his eyes close and his face was bleeding from shards of concrete, while the other was holding his shoulder.

"How do you know one is inside?" Shirou quickly asked, blood on his hands and his expression serious.

"The attack on the gate was a diversion for someone else to slip over the walls without notice. There's at least one other Yakuza here," I voiced my theory.

"Shirou, go protect Miss Fujimura. I'll be fine. Go!" the man who's bleeding Shirou had been staunching snapped, pushing Shirou away when he hesitated. Shirou looked at me, his expression grim, but we both took off running when I gave a curt nod.

"Who's Fujimura?" I asked as we entered the building. The halls were empty, but there were those that were poking their heads out, emboldened by the lack of gunfire.

"She's my guardian," Shirou answered, but then he hesitated. "She's the granddaughter of the head of one of the Yakuza families in the city. But they're small. Nothing like this has ever happened before- she's not even connected to any of that shady stuff. She's just a school teacher!"

Huh. While the reactions could be throwing me off, I think I needed to rework my theory that Shirou had serious Yakuza connections. While he clearly had connections to the Yakuza, it was a very different arrangement than I had. The thugs clearly knew Shirou, but if there was a choice between her and him, they seemed to pick her based on the fact that they were willing to send him into danger. I decided to put a pin in the theory for now.

Though, as I followed Shirou through the halls, I was forced to wonder where Nobara was. It didn't seem like her to miss out on the action.

As we headed up to the second floor, I discovered it was because she had found her own action.

"What..?" I heard Shirou mutter as we made our way up the stairs. Nobara stood not far off in a ready stance, her hammer in her hand and four bodies at her feet, all of them groaning in pain. She didn’t look like she had broken a sweat as she offered a fierce smile at the two of us.

Nobara lowered her hands, “You took care of the others? There's something up with these guys, they didn’t go down easy. It took a couple of swings for me to put them down.” She seemed to catch the odd look that Shirou was giving her, but he shook his head.

“Has anyone gotten past you?” he asked, and Nobara’s scoff was answer enough. Not that it wasn't obvious from all the bodies littering the floor. Shirou didn't stay to chat. He took off running towards one of the classrooms, hurriedly sliding open the door. While he did that, I looked at Nobara. She nodded at me, taking note of my torn-up pants from my slide and giving me a curious look, to which I shrugged.

“I think we’re in the clear,” I said, speaking about a lot more than just the attack on the school. I spared a glance out the window to see the flashing lights of the police as their cars pulled up outside the gate of the school. “But, I think we should lay low,” I tacked on, and we both started to walk, leaving the unconscious gangsters on the floor while I went to check up on Shirou. Nobara picked up on what had went unsaid, because she was visibly relieved, letting out a sigh of relief.

She seemed happier that the odds were we wouldn’t have to fight Shirou than I was. And I was confident that we wouldn’t have to fight him. His reactions to this kind of threat were telling. If he had a Servant, then he wouldn’t need to put himself at risk. Nor would he be so worried about this Fujimura. Unless he was an amazing actor, of course.

Stepping inside the classroom, my gaze swept over the crowd. It was overfilled with students, about three classrooms worth. The smell of fear was palpable as every eye in the room went to me, and I’m guessing that I didn’t exactly reassure them since I wasn’t wearing a uniform and I obviously wasn't one of their teachers. Shirou was speaking quietly to a young woman that probably wasn’t that much older than me -- She had light brown eyes and hair, and was pretty, wearing an open turquoise cardigan, black-striped yellow shirt, and jeans that ended below the knee.

Her face was pale, completely devoid of blood while her eyes bounced around. “Was… anyone hurt?” she questioned in a worried voice, her eyes settling on me as I entered and zeroing in on my leg. I had a few scrapes from where the denim gave out, but they were scratches. The woman, Fujimura I’m betting, looked at them like they were fatal bullet wounds. And when she wasn’t looking at me, she looked at Shirou’s blood-covered hands.

“No one’s dead,” I said, sparing a glance at the students. My eyes were drawn to Rin Tohsaka, whose eyes were narrowed into slits as she looked at me and Nobara. Probably trying to figure out if we had any connection to what had just gone down. “The Yakuza were dealt with.”

“What were they doing attacking the school?!” I heard one voice shout out in the back of the room, and that was the crack in the dam.

The questions came pouring out in a tidal flood -- the panic was palpable. They were reeling from what had happened. I didn't begrudge them that. But, then a purple-haired kid leveled a finger at Taiga and screamed at the top of his lungs to be heard.

"This is your fault, right?!" He screamed, making Taiga flinch as if struck. "They were here for you!"

"Shinji!" Shirou snapped as the tension in the room grew exponentially, all of it directed at Taiga, whose expression all but confirmed what Shinji had said. The guilt and anguish was written plain as day on it. I had my questions about that because I knew that this entire situation wasn't normal. I did my reading. The last time something remotely similar like this happened, it resulted in sweeping anti-organized crime laws. Ever since then, the criminal underworld stuck to the shadows.

But, that's not what I focused on for now. Instead, I kicked out my foot, kicking one of the desks hard enough that it caught air, landing on the other side of a row over near the door. With the action, it was suddenly very quiet as all eyes were on me. I looked directly at the kid apparently named Shinji, sorting through my own feelings before settling on the words.

"That attitude of yours really rubs me the wrong way," I said, striding forward, my hands in my pockets, and blood on my face. Rin was watching me like a hawk, while Shinji looked surprised that I was singling him out. Like he thought he had just been another voice in the crowd, using it as cover to stir up a shitstorm without fear of the consequences. "You all hid here, shaking in your boots, and the moment the coast is clear, you start hurling blame. I don't like that."

Shinji realized that the others around him were backing off as I approached, but he didn't back down himself. "What were we supposed to do? We're just high school students and they were Yakuza. They had guns." He stressed the word, and the crowd seemed to take that as a valid point. And maybe it was. I'm pretty sure I was the odd one for choosing to fight gun-toting gangsters.

But that attitude still pissed me off. "For starters?" I said, picking up another desk and hurling it towards the door. It landed with a crash against the other one, "Making a barricade would have been a nice start. Doing something other than standing around hoping that someone else dealt with the problem or came to save you. You were scared. I get that. But that's not an excuse to do nothing." I took another step forward, forcing Shinji to take one back.

"Nobara stopped a couple of them from coming up. Let's say she wasn't here -- what would you have done when they came through that door?" I questioned, my voice low. I knew the answer. And so did all of them. And that's what I didn't like. I didn't have any real reason for not liking it. I wasn't pissed off on anyone's behalf either.

I couldn't stand the idea of someone just doing nothing. There were some cases when it was a valid option, but this wasn't one of them. They had no clue that those guys wouldn't swing open the doors and spray the entire classroom. They weren't even doing the bare minimum to help themselves. They just stood around, doing nothing, and hoping that they made it through the emergency. Prayers and wishes weren't worth anything if you didn't work to make them come true.

"You would have done nothing," I told them what they already knew. "If they were here for her, and you have no idea if they were or not, you all would have done nothing while she was murdered in front of you." I didn't like it. I just didn't like it. It rubbed me wrong on all the wrong levels. "You're pathetic."

Shinji grit his teeth, and I think he only realized he was taking a swing at me when I punched him in the face before the blow even came close. He hit the ground hard, a hand going to his face as he spat blood on the ground. Must have bit his tongue. I looked at the crowd and I saw…

"You all are. At least he had the guts to take a swing at me," I said scornfully as I turned around, pointedly not looking at Rin. Shirou held Taiga and looked at me like there were so many things he wanted to say, but he couldn't say any of them. Taiga, however, looked shell-shocked. This wasn't the time or place, especially now that the cops were here. "I think I overstayed my welcome. Later," I said, waving goodbye as I left the classroom.

Nobara spared everyone one last glance before following me out. We were nearing an exit when she spoke up, "None of these guys were normal, Majima."

I wouldn't really know. I went for debilitating injuries right out the gate, but I took her word for it. "We'll let the police do their job… but I think I might need to make a call."

…

The media coverage wasn't what I expected. Simply because the attack on Homurahara Academy was one of many. It caught some headlines because of the location, but the leading headline was far more encompassing than a single attack.

Yakuza Infighting?

All across Japan, there were reports of assassination attempts, gunfights, and murders. Regardless of how public the locations were, and with no thought or regard to injuring civilians. The media was reeling from being barraged with reports, leaving them unable to properly give a clear picture of what was going on. But, one thing was clear. The Yakuza clans were imploding in a spectacular fashion.

The Tojo Clan, one of the largest clans of the Yakuza, had major subsidiaries fighting each other, as well as attacks by the Omi Alliance, the second-largest clans of Yakuza, who were also infighting. The resulting mess could only be described as a free for all. So far, there were no winners.

I closed my phone and blew out a sigh, "What a mess," I remarked, tucking my phone into my pocket before I rested my head against the wall that I was leaning against. "But, it's not our mess."

"Do you know what's going on?" Nobara asked and was very unimpressed with my shrug. But it was the truth.

"Either someone's gambit is going spectacularly right or horribly wrong, "I said, giving my take. I'm not sure whose plan it was or why, but I didn't have to care. My focus was on the Grail War. And it seemed by far the more pressing and dangerous of the two situations. After all, with this mess, the Tojo Clan would be too busy to look for me with a civil war and a gang war going on at the same time.

Nobara frowned at me, clearly unsatisfied with the answer, but she didn't have a chance to grill me because a car was pulling up. Shirou got out of the back seat, looking surprised to see me. And I was surprised to see that he was joined by a girl with purple hair and purple eyes. She wore the same school uniform, though she had a red ribbon tied into her long hair. She looked surprised to see us, and given how she looked at me and Shirou, it seems that he didn't tell her that he had a newly discovered brother.

"Yo," I greeted.

"Sorry for making you wait outside -- the police wanted to question us," Shirou said, sounding genuinely apologetic.

I waved him off, "Don't worry about it. Everything okay on that end? How's Taiga?" I asked, standing up. At my question, Shirou's lips thinned, and I'm guessing the answer was 'not well.'

"She's fine, she just… thinks that she put her students in danger, and she's not listening to anyone that says it wasn't her fault," Shirou said, his tone grim.

The car took off once the doors were closed, but it had lingered for a moment. "School has been canceled for the foreseeable future, so I think she'll get the time to feel better." Then he gestured to the very pretty purple-haired girl that approached with him, "This is Sakura Matou, a friend of mine. Sakura, this is Majima. My… older brother," he said, the words sounding unfamiliar as he said them.

"You were the one that dealt with the Yakuza attacking the school?" Sakura asked me, her tone quiet and sweet. And I had to fight to keep my expression friendly. Matou. One of the other three main families. It seemed like I was meeting all the major players one after another.

"I helped too!" Nobara interjected, crossing her arms.

To that, Shirou bowed, making Nobara uncomfortable with the gratitude that she had all but asked for. "Thank you both, but… there is something I should tell you. Please come inside. We can talk there," Shirou said, raising up and meeting my eyes. I nodded as I stepped out of his way so he could open the door. All the while, I wondered what exactly he had to discuss with me.

My gaze went to Sakura as she followed Shirou inside a long hallway after both of them took off their shoes. What were the odds that a Matou was here? I'm guessing that it was related to the Grail War. It made the most sense.

Following Shirou into a living room area that had tatami mats acting as the floor, a low table with a small kitchen sectioned off on the left side of the room. I took a seat while Shirou prepared tea. Nobara looked around at the place with a sense of wonder, while I caught Sakura glancing at me.

I cocked an eyebrow, making her look away sharply. Which left it to me to strike up a conversation, "So, how do you know Shirou?" I asked, keeping my tone friendly.

Sakura seemed caught off guard that I would actually care to speak to her, but she recovered well. "He's my senpai at school. He injured himself at work. I decided to help him because… Shinji and Shirou are friends." She said, her expression not really matching her tone.

Ah.

Nobara elbowed me in the ribs, giving me a look that screamed 'say sorry,' but…

"I'm not sorry about punching Shinji," I doubled down, speaking bluntly. "He had it coming. But, I am sorry if I put you two in an award spot. So, sorry." I said, bowing my head ever so slightly. Nobara clearly didn't think that was an adequate apology based on the second elbow to the ribs, but she wasn't the one I was apologizing to.

"That's actually part of what I wanted to talk about," Shirou said, approaching with a tray of steaming teacups. He set it down and took a seat at the table. "Majima… are you a member of the Yakuza?" he asked me bluntly, making Sakura blink in surprise.

"Depends on how you look at it. And how much you want to know about our family," I said, taking a cup. Green tea looked back at me, and I brought the tea to my lips but I didn't drink. Shirou frowned at my response, but Sakura spoke up.

"Would Shirou not want to?" she questioned as Nobara blew on her tea to cool it down.

I looked at Shirou, searching his gaze, and I received a small nod. "We come from a long family of absolute scum," I told him, dashing any romantic notions he had about who our parents were. "Our family has been around since the starting days of the Tojo Clan. It wouldn't be wrong to say that the clan is as successful as it is because of us. So, when our parents died, and you were presumed dead, I was adopted into the Majima family with the expectation that I would take over the family's magecraft."

As soon as I said that final word, Shirou stiffened. His gaze darted to Sakura, who looked down at the tea in her hands. I looked between them, sensing a growing tension. Because Sakura refused to meet his gaze and by the looks of it, Shirou was piecing together why.

So, I continued to break it. "But, I never managed to. Apparently, I'm a trash tier magus that couldn't get into the family workshop until recently. And only after I lost my memories, so when I discovered that our family has spent the past few centuries using humans as lab rats, I wasn't the kind of person that would continue it."

Shirou's expression sank the more that I spoke. "I… when I met you, I was hoping for a lighter story," he admitted. "I suppose Kiritsugu was hiding the truth from me."

Sounds like it. I can't imagine that he wouldn't know what Shirou's heritage was.

"Why'd you ask if I was with the Yakuza? Sounds like there was more to it than just judging a book by its cover," I noted, and to that, Shirou nodded.

"On the way back, the guys that you rescued spoke to me. They said that the Fujimura Group got orders to look for you and to capture you alive. And… those same orders are being given throughout the entire Tojo Clan," Shirou said, making me blink slowly as I processed the information. Nobara looked at me with a slack jaw and I could only shrug at her.

So much for being too busy to look for me.

"Did they say why?" I asked, and Shirou shook his head.

"No. Only that all the families are looking for you. They said that they were going to tell the boss, but as far as they're concerned, you weren't there and they didn't see you." he said, and that was some consolation.

"What did you do?" Nobara blurted looking at me with some astonishment. Like I had secretly picked a fight with the entire Tojo Clan while she wasn't looking.

"I have no clue," I answered honestly. "Unless the entire clan is pissed about the job I accidentally did for Shimano when I met you, then I don't remember what I did."

Shirou nodded, seemingly deciding to believe me. "You can stay here if you need to," he offered, and maybe there was something about that brotherly bond thing, because he seemed pretty quick to brush off the entire Tojo Clan hunting me down. A clan that had around fifty thousand members across Japan.

"I appreciate it, Shirou, but we have a hotel and I don't want to drag anyone into my mess," I said, before I leaned forward. "But, there is one thing I wanted to talk to you about too."

I leveled a look at Shirou, but I was painfully aware of Sakura in the corner of my eye, who continued to look down at her tea. Shirou seemed open to hearing me out and I spared a moment to think that he really wasn't anything like I imagined him to be.

"What are your plans for the Grail War?" I asked him as bluntly as possible. Shirou tilted his head in confusion, but Sakura had by far the most intense reaction. Her head snapped up and she looked at me with wide eyes, like she couldn't believe the words that just came out of my mouth.

I understood how she felt when Shirou responded.

"What's a Grail War?"