11 - The (Not-so)Scholarly Struggles of Shirou the Sword

After finishing their meals, the Sleepers started to be called on for their interviews. Once it was Shirou's turn, it went something like this:

"Would you like psychological counseling."

"No thanks."

"Would you like to share the rank of your Aspect?"

"Transcendent."

"Can it be used for combat?"

"It makes me slightly stronger than others, I think."

"Would you like to share the details of your First Nightmare?"

"Not really."

As Shirou left the room after lying and avoiding anything that could paint a target on his back, he saw Sunny waiting for him at the table in the corner, as he had already finished his interview before him.

Sunny glanced at him before asking, "Did you tell them about your Aspect?"

"Just enough so that my physical capabilities were acceptable. You?"

"I said something similar, although I told them my Aspect was only Awakened."

"I told them mine was Transcendent."

Sunny snapped his face towards Shirou, "Are you an idiot?!"

"…Did I do something wrong?"

"That Caster guy is considered to be amazing just for having an Ascended Aspect! By telling the interviewer that, you've made yourself stand out!"

Shirou thought about his words for a moment.

"Uh… it's better than saying that it's a Divine Aspect though, right?"

"Even saying that you have an Ascended Aspect would cause heads to turn!"

Shirou looked around to see that their was nobody nearby, before leaning in towards Sunny.

"Considering that you can differentiate killers from other people, I'm sure that you saw it as well."

The shadows in the corner darkened, almost as if light was being swallowed by the darkness.

Cool trick. Wish I could do that.

As Shirou lamented that his Aspect doesn't make him look cooler by changing the atmosphere, Sunny suddenly spoke:

"Yeah. He's like you if you were tall, handsome, and in the middle of a manhunt."

"Sunny, I don't think that you're in any position, in the most literal sense, to be commenting on my height."

Sunny's brows furrowed.

"I'm not short!"

"I never said you were."

"You implied it!"

"…It's not my fault that you're vertically challenged."

"You aren't much better!"

"So you admit that you're short?"

"You… bastard!"

As Sunny reached across the table in an attempt to strangle Shirou, they both hear an announcement stating that the rankings of all of the Sleepers were posted.

The duo looked up at a screen, scrolling up from the least likely to survive, to the most likely. At the bottom was Cassia, the blind girl that Shirou tried to help earlier, with Sunny just above her in second-to-last place.

After a while, the screen arrived at the top, showing the top three most likely to survive.

"Oh, by the way, it turns out that you can get away with lying."

"…What?"

"The sword the interviewer had next to him told me that he was extremely gullible, and had no Aspect Ability that allows him to detect lies."

"…How did he even get hired for this role?"

"…No idea."

The top three Sleepers were, in ascending order, Caster, Shirou, and someone named Nephis. Shirou was surprised after reading the words next to her name.

"Changing Star…"

Shirou thought for a moment before realizing that she probably got a True Name in her First Nightmare.

"Sunny, she probably has a Divine Aspect."

"Yeah, I thought so too."

"Oh, by the way, the reason I told them that my Aspect was Transcendent was because of Caster."

"I feel like we were just talking about something more important…"

Shirou ignored Sunny's complaints, and explained his logic to him.

"That Caster guy will probably be a threat to somebody, although, I have no idea who that someone is. By making myself seem exceptional, I can try to find the person he's hostile to, and get him to think that I'm an obstacle he has to deal with before he kills them."

"…What are the odds that you just happen to find and identify this person?"

"Well I just need to find Caster first, and see who he's trying to get close to. Speaking of which, he's walking to somebody."

"He won't actually try to kill someone in here, right?"

"…I'm pretty sure your smarter than me, Sunny. I'll let you think about that on your own."

Sunny's hands twitched, as if he was going to try to strangle Shirou again.

Caster approached a silver-haired girl who was sitting alone at a table.

She's not also blind or something, right?

As Shirou was too far away to hear, he could only see them talking, but not hear them. The girl seemed to be able to talk, hear, and look directly in Caster's eyes.

Oh, so she's normal.

As Shirou was about to turn around and continue his conversation with Sunny, he heard the words, "Lady Nephis", come out of Caster's mouth. He realized that she was not only another potential Divine Aspect user, if her True Name was any indication, but also the most likely target for Caster.

He's trying to suck up to her a little bit too much…

He looked at Sunny who seemed to have similar thoughts to him. They both spoke out to each other at the same time.

"She's the tall girl from the gate!"

"She's the tall girl who made me look short!"

Sunny realized what he just said, and simply looked up at the ceiling. Shirou sworn that he saw a tear roll down his pale face.

"…I meant to say the same thing you said."

Shirou wondered why Sunny seemed to say things against his will, but decided that he was probably just mixing up his words and thoughts.

"Anyways, do you think she has a Divine Aspect?"

Sunny stopped staring at the ceiling, before looking at Shirou.

"Not necessarily. The few Awakened who have gotten True Names in their First Nightmare have never stated that they had a Divine Aspect. Although, they could have just been lying."

"Do you think it's possible to get a Divine Aspect without also getting a True Name?"

"Probably not. I think the requirements to get a Divine Aspect is more than the requirements of getting a True Name."

"Oh, you said that you woke up a dead god in your First Nightmare, right?"

"Yeah, what did you do in yours?"

"I sacrificed my humanity to the War Goddess, who was also dead before being woken up."

"…What?"

"I don't get it either."

"Wait! Why the hell would you need to sacrifice your humanity?!"

"I kinda had to save someone. She would have died otherwise…"

Sunny took a deep breath. He decided to just accept that the boy in front of him was just some incomprehensible lunatic.

"Whatever…"

Shirou looked around the cafeteria and noticed that people were leaving. Most likely to get some sleep after their first day. Shirou got up from the bench and asked Sunny:

"What classes did you ask for?"

"Wilderness survival."

"Huh? Why though?"

"We don't learn that stuff in the outskirts. Nobody has the money to attend school."

Oh, that's right.

"Well I'm going to do live training with Nightmare Creatures."

It was Sunny's turn to give him a confused expression.

"Wouldn't you get better training if you fought against the other students?"

"That might be true for most people, but although I'm confident that I could beat them all in a straight sword fight, the same can't be said for Nightmare Creatures."

Sunny had a thoughtful expression on his face before appearing as if he figured something out.

"Considering what you said before, you're Aspect has to do with swords, right?"

"…How did you figure that out?"

"It's not like you were trying to hide it. First, you made me turn my shadow into a sword. All of a sudden you understood it's exact functions. Then, you told me that you gained information on the interview by looking at his sword. Anybody with some common sense would have figured it out by now."

Shirou was about to retort before realizing that Sunny was absolutely right. He knew that he wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, no pun intended, but he at least thought that he was playing his cards close to his chest.

…Maybe I actually am an idiot.

Shirou had a dead look in his eyes as he looked at Sunny. He emptily said, "Goodnight," before walking away with a depressed expression.

————————————————————

The next morning, Shirou tried to force feed Cassia again, before being roughly pulled away by Sunny. They had similar interactions to the day before, with Sunny getting irritated by Shirou, and Shirou acting clueless to the trouble he may have caused.

Once the bell rang, signaling that it was time to go to class, Shirou attempted to try to carry Cassia to her class. She was blushing and stuttering during the whole interaction, at least until Sunny came and pulled Shirou away again.

Shirou pouted, "Why can't you just let me perform a heroic deed?"

"Because you're just causing problems for her! And stop pouting! It's weird!"

"…I'm not pouting."

Shirou and Sunny split up, with Shirou going towards where they store captured Nightmare Creatures.

He had to sign some forms, since his life would be in danger. They would only come help him if he were to become drastically injured, so if anything bad happened, he could potentially die.

When Shirou stepped into the ring, he saw a tall, slender, and hairy being, with double-jointed lims, and greyish skin. When it noticed Shirou, it immediately started to sprint towards him.

Shirou did not know how to move in this situation, as he relied on [Anomaly] to help him predict his opponents moves. He simply jumped out of the way, seeing the abomination crash into the wall.

Shirou realized that the creature did not have much fine-control over its movements, and wasn't intelligent enough to compensate for it. As the creature was dazed from the collision, Shirou summoned the [Washing Pole], and stabbed into the back of its neck.

[You have defeated an awakened beast, Ghoul Cub]

Oh, well that wasn't too bad!

Shirou asked for another round, and the same creature he had just killed walked was released from a cage. It did the same movements as the previous one, and Shirou used that chance to test [Living Sword].

He dismissed the [Washing Pole], and simply punched the Nightmare Creature in the face. The Ghoul Cub was staggered, but the damage itself wasn't anything to talk about. Shirou felt that he did something wrong, and dashed back to think about it, before the Ghoul Cub was going to come at him again.

[Living Sword] turned his body into a sword, so how was he supposed to use his body now that it has obtained those qualities?

Shirou widened his eyes and looked at the Ghoul Cub. It seemed to be getting ready to charge at him again.

Perfect.

Shirou took this opportunity to test his new strategy. Instead of punching the Ghoul Cub, he instead jabbed his fingers at it's chest.

Surely enough, his hand was wrist-deep into the Ghoul Cubs thoracic cavity. Shirou though of something before moving his hand around to locate it's still beating heart.

He proceeded to rip it's heart out, before crushing it in a show of gore. The supervisors simply gaped at such brutality. They had never seen a student be so violent with a Nightmare Creature.

…Damn, I'm so cool!

The view of Shirou smiling with his face covered in the blood of a Nightmare Creature, was haunting to say the least.

————————————————————

Cassia was eating at the lunch table that she usually ate at. The only other people that sat there were Shirou and Sunny. She couldn't participate in combat class, so she was instead helped in getting used to moving around while being blind. The civil worker who was supposed to help her quit, supposedly being horrified after hearing about a red-haired boy who crushed the heart of a Nightmare Creature.

I doubt that anyone actually did that.

"C'mon Sunny! I'm sure she wants some company after being abandoned by that piece of human trash!"

"First of all, she'd probably appreciate if you left her alone for once! Also, did you think that I was going to ignore that last comment! You're finally showing your true colors huh?!"

"Does you're flaw make you colorblind or something? I don't think that my color palate changed in any way."

"It was a metaphor you idiot!"

Cassia couldn't see what was happening, but she heard two familiar voices slowly getting louder. She blushed when she figured that Shirou was going to approach her again, just like he did last night and this morning.

"Cassia, guess what! I got Sunny to volunteer to help feed you, since I saw that you were still struggling with your food."

"…What?"

She heard Sunny quickly intervene, "I never said I was going to feed anybody! Don't lump me in with you on your delusional quest for justice!"

"Just because you didn't say you wanted to help her doesn't mean you don't."

"I'm not going to help someone who doesn't even want help in the first place!"

"Anyways, would you prefer if Sunny fed you instead, Cassia? You didn't seem to like it when I did it last time."

"Don't ignore me!"

Cassia simply sat there in stunned silence. She had never met someone who was so adamant about helping someone they didn't know. It was even stranger when she couldn't read his attributes when they first met. He was like a completely illogical existence.

Well, it did feel kind of nice to have somebody actually worry about me.

"Ok."

"Really?!"

"…What?"

Shirou sounded quite happy, while Sunny was in disbelief and dismay after being roped into this.

"Oh, I don't mean that you can feed me Sunny."

"Huh?"

"Thank goodness."

Shirou's mood immediately plummeted, while Sunny was relieved that he doesn't have to feed a cripple for the rest of his time in the academy.

"You can feed me though, Shirou."

"Really?!"

"Can you stop shouting?!"

Cassia felt her face burn after saying those words. She simply held out her fork, and felt young, yet calloused hands gently remove it from her hand.

"…Shirou, why are you blushing?"

"I'm not sure, I think someone nearby is going through the same thing."

"Is that an attribute or something?"

"Something like that."

She heard the two of them sit down in the bench across from her.

"Alright, Cassia. Here comes the airplane!"

"She's not a little kid, you know?"

"Does it really matter? It used to work completely well for my little sister. Before she started saying that she was too old for it of course."

Shirou sounded quite downcast. Cassia felt her face grow even hotter after hearing say that to her. This time due to humiliation.

…I'm not a little girl!

"Uh… Cassia? Are you alright there? Is it that time of the month?"

"Stop asking weird questions!"

"…I'm not a kid."

Cassia said this in a low voice, so her words were almost inaudible.

"Hm? Did you say something?"

"I said, I'm not a kid!"

She heard her voice echo across the cafeteria, before she heard Shirou talk in the same voice as always.

"I never said you were though?"

"You basically implied it."

"Oh. I knew you were smart Sunny!"

After hearing that exchange, she heard somebody walk towards her, before she felt a presence sitting right next to her.

"Maybe it would be easier to feed you from here."

"I'm not a kid."

"Yeah, I know. Actually, how old are you anyways."

"…15."

"Wouldn't that make you older than me? I'm only 14, so I was still in middle school before getting infected by the Nightmare Spell. Is it a high schooler thing to assume that people think of you as a kid?"

"Of course not! What you had said when you tried to feed me is something parents say to infants to get them to eat."

"…Oh."

Shirou turned silent for a while, before coughing uncomfortably.

"Uh… sorry, I guess? I just thought that it was something people liked to have said to them. I saw a mother doing it with her baby in a park, so I though that it would be something my sister would enjoy. I didn't really associate it with an age group or anything."

"You should have figured that out when you saw that the receiver was a damn baby."

Shirou sounded somewhat depressed after hearing Sunny's words. Cassia decided to turn her face into his direction and open her mouth.

"Is something wrong?"

"You said you were going to feed me, right?"

"Oh, I forgot about that!"

Cassia blushed as she felt food enter her mouth.

"Thanks, Cassia!"

…He's so weird.

"Just call me Cassie."

At that moment, a strange bond was formed between Sword, Shadow, and Oracle.