The quiet of night settled over the Emiya household. Crickets sang outside, the moonlight filtering through the small training yard behind the house.
Kaito stood barefoot on the worn wooden floorboards, his body loose, breath steady. In front of him was a wooden target dummy scarred with countless cuts and dents from years of practice.
He raised his hand slowly, fingers spreading as his voice dropped into a calm, steady rhythm.
"...Trace, on."
The air shimmered. Sparks of light flared at his fingertips, coalescing into shapes.
One blade appeared. Then another. And another.
In seconds, six gleaming swords hovered around him in a deadly orbit, their steel catching the moonlight.
With a sharp motion, Kaito thrust his hand forward.
The blades shot out at once—six streaks of silver piercing through the night air. They struck the wooden target almost simultaneously, shattering it into splinters. The sound echoed across the yard, sharp and final.
Kaito exhaled, lowering his hand. The swords dissolved into motes of fading light, vanishing as though they had never been there.
He clicked his tongue. "Tch. Six... That's the maximum I can maintain right now."
The target lay in pieces at his feet, fragments scattered like bones across the ground. His eyes narrowed. Not enough.
'If I can't go further, then I'll never reach his level.'
He closed his eyes, breathing deep. The words came unbidden—etched into his very soul.
"...Trace, on."
This time, he wasn't summoning many. He was focusing on precision. On memory.
Twin flashes of light flared in his hands. When the glow faded, he held two blades crossed before him.
They were not ordinary swords.
The hilts were perfectly balanced to his grip, the edges gleamed with the polish of a master craftsman, and their design mirrored one another like reflections. They were the twin weapons his father had forged—not copied, not imagined, but truly his family's legacy.
Kaito tightened his grip. They felt solid. Familiar. Like an extension of himself.
"...Father's blades," he murmured. His stance shifted naturally, body aligning with the rhythm drilled into him since childhood. The twin swords traced arcs through the air, each swing swift and clean, cutting the night with a whistle.
Sweat glistened on his skin, his muscles burning with the weight of endless training. Yet his movements didn't falter.
Each strike was a vow. Each motion a promise.
He would master this power. He would carry their legacy forward.
The fire of the forge burned in his heart as his blades flashed again beneath the moonlight.
The twin blades gleamed in his hands, their weight steady, familiar, perfect.
Kaito's grip tightened as a voice rose unbidden in his mind—deep, firm, and warm.
"Kanshou and Bakuya. A pair of twin blades... the pinnacle of my craft. You could call them my masterpiece."
His chest ached. The words carried pride, strength, and a love that no forge could burn away. Young Kaito looked at his father with admiration.
But then—fire.
The image struck his mind like a hammer. The forge he had once watched with awe, now an inferno. Blades twisted and broken. Steel warped and shattered under the heat. The twin swords, his father's greatest work, cracked and ruined among the rubble.
And among it all—two figures, motionless on the blackened ground.
His father. His mother.
He was seven again, standing amidst the wreckage. The smoke stung his eyes, but it wasn't the smoke that made him cry. His small hands had reached out, trembling, toward the bodies that would never rise again.
"Mother! Father!" His own voice echoed in his skull, high and broken, raw with grief. "No—please! Wake up!"
The memory stabbed deeper than any blade. The smell of ash, the unbearable heat, the sight of their still forms burned into him. He had screamed until his throat gave out, but the flames had swallowed his words.
Now, years later, the grown Kaito stood in the same yard, his fists clutching projected replicas of the twin swords. His eyes opened, fierce and blazing beneath the moonlight.
He raised the blades high, the memory searing into his resolve.
"...I won't let it end there." His voice was low, but steady, like steel drawn from the fire.
"I'll carry your swords. I'll carry your will."
Kanshou and Bakuya crossed before him in a sharp arc, the edges whistling as they cut the air. The impact of his strikes shattered what remained of the wooden dummy, scattering splinters into the night.
Sweat dripped down his face, but his eyes never wavered.
The forge still burned within him. And he would forge himself into the blade that his parents had entrusted to the world.
Kaito steadied his breath. He shifted his stance, feet sliding across the worn wood of the yard. The movements came to him not from instinct, but from memory.
His mother's voice whispered within him, soft yet unyielding.
'If you strengthen the body, you must also strengthen the heart. Every swing, every step, carries meaning. Don't just strike—flow. Don't just move—connect. These swords were made for you. Move as though they are part of you.'
His grip tightened, and his body began to flow.
Step. Slash. Turn. Guard.
The twin blades cut through the night, tracing arcs of silver under the moonlight. Each swing was fluid, every movement precise. His body shifted seamlessly from offense to defense, from strike to block, from speed to stillness.
It wasn't random. It was a form. A dance. The style his mother had drilled into him since childhood, designed specifically for these blades—meant for him and him alone.
The wooden posts set up in the yard cracked and splintered under his strikes. Reinforcement surged through his arms and legs, his muscles honed and steady. With every swing, his mother's lessons echoed in his mind.
"Don't waste motion."
"Let the blades move with you, not against you."
"Balance is everything—twin swords are strongest when they are one."
His breathing grew heavier, but his focus never faltered. The twin arcs of steel crossed and parted, their rhythm faster and faster, until his figure blurred into motion.
Finally, with a sharp step forward, Kaito brought both blades down in a finishing cross. The last wooden target split cleanly into four pieces, collapsing with a heavy thud.
Kaito exhaled, lowering the swords. His chest rose and fell, sweat dripping down his temple. But his eyes gleamed with steady fire.
"...This movement is mine." His voice was low, certain. He raised the blades once more, holding them before him.
"The swords you forged. The style you taught me. I'll make them my own."
____
The yard was silent except for the steady rhythm of his breathing and the soft whistle of steel. For hours, the twin blades had carved arcs through the night air, his body moving without pause, driven by memory and will.
By the time he finally slowed, the moon had risen high above, casting pale light over the wreckage he'd left behind.
Wooden posts lay in splinters across the ground. The floorboards of the training space were scuffed and cracked from countless reinforced steps. Shards of broken targets littered the dirt, evidence of relentless strikes.
Kaito stood in the center of it all, drenched in sweat. His white shirt clung to him, soaked through, his chest rising and falling with heavy breaths. Strands of damp hair stuck to his forehead, but his grip on the twin blades was still firm.
He let out one last exhale, then released his focus. Kanshou and Bakuya dissolved into shimmering fragments of light, vanishing from his hands.
"Huff... huff..." He wiped his forehead with the back of his wrist, looking at the mess around him. His lips tugged into the faintest, tired smile.
"...I pushed too far again."
He began gathering the scattered wood, stacking the broken pieces neatly in the corner. Even after hours of training, even with his muscles burning, he didn't allow himself to leave things undone. His parents had always taught him—discipline isn't just in the fight. It's in everything you do.
Once the last piece of debris was cleared, he took a long breath and glanced at the moon.
"Alright..." he muttered softly, stretching his stiff shoulders. "...Let's clean this before going to bed."
His voice was calm, steady, as though the destruction of the training yard was nothing more than another daily chore.
With that, he rolled up his sleeves and set to work, the quiet night swallowing his tired but unwavering figure.
____
Morning sunlight spilled through the classroom windows, catching dust motes in golden beams. Students were already buzzing before homeroom even began, voices overlapping in a storm of chatter.
"Did you hear about it? Some thug with a buffalo quirk got taken down last night!"
"Yeah, the cops said he was out cold when they arrived. No heroes around either."
"Then who stopped him? They said it was just... a student."
Chairs scraped as the rumors spread from one desk to another. Some laughed in disbelief, others whispered excitedly.
At the back of the classroom, Kaito sat with his arms folded, gaze fixed out the window. His uniform was neatly worn, his posture straight, but he made no move to join the noise.
Tooru leaned forward from the desk in front of him, her invisible face tilted toward him. Her blazer sleeve lifted as though nudging his shoulder. "Kaito... they're all talking about you."
He didn't look at her. "Ignore it."
"But it's true, right?" Her voice had that excited lilt she couldn't hide. "You beat that guy like—bam!—one hit after another! That's so cool!"
A few nearby students turned at her outburst. One boy leaned over with wide eyes. "Wait, Hagakure, you were there? Was it really Emiya?"
Tooru's sleeves waved eagerly. "Of course! Kaito totally stopped the guy before the police came! You should've seen it—he was sooo cool!"
Now the attention in the room shifted. Dozens of curious eyes darted toward Kaito. A ripple of murmurs followed.
"No way, Emiya did it?"
"Well, he is number one in class..."
"Man, I thought he was just a study freak."
"He's scary when he's serious, huh?"
Kaito finally sighed, turning his gaze back inside. His sharp eyes swept the room once before settling on his desk again.
"I didn't do it to be talked about," he said flatly. His tone wasn't harsh, but it was firm enough to quiet some of the whispers.
Tooru crossed her arms—or at least, her sleeves did. "Well, still... I think you were amazing."
Kaito glanced at her faintly, then shook his head. "...It was nothing."
But deep inside, he knew it hadn't been nothing. Each fight, each moment of strength, was a step closer to carrying the weight of his parents' legacy.
The classroom noise soon shifted back to normal gossip, though a few eyes lingered on him longer than usual. Kaito didn't mind. He just stared out the window again, the sunlight reflecting faintly in his determined gaze.
The bell rang, and the classroom settled as the teacher walked in with a stack of papers under his arm. "Alright, alright, quiet down. I know you've all got plenty to gossip about, but let's not forget—we're still in the middle of our last term."
Groans rolled across the room, students slumping in their seats.
Tooru leaned back toward Kaito, whispering through her sleeve. "See? He knows too. Everyone's talking about it."
Kaito ignored her this time, sliding his notebook out as the teacher began reviewing yesterday's assignments. His handwriting filled the page with steady precision, as though the whispers and glances around him didn't exist.
Still, he could feel it. The weight of stares. The low buzz of students stealing looks at him whenever the teacher turned to the board.
They weren't used to the quiet, top-ranked Emiya Kaito being anything but the class ace. Now they were seeing him as something else—something more dangerous.
Tooru, of course, couldn't leave it alone. "Kaito," she whispered again, "they're jealous."
He finally gave her the faintest glance. "...That's not what matters."
She tilted her invisible head. "Then what does?"
Kaito paused for a moment, his eyes fixed forward. Then he muttered, low enough that only she could hear:
"Strength that lasts. That's what matters."
Tooru didn't reply immediately. But she smiled behind her invisibility, her sleeves swaying as she rested her chin on her arms.
The teacher's voice droned on, the lesson filling the silence that followed. The classroom rhythm returned to normal—but the air was different. Emiya Kaito wasn't just "number one" anymore.
He was someone to watch.
___
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