Heyo FF readers!

Welcome to a new story from me, while this was initially intended to be a single chapter and just left since it was on my comp for so long, I was eventually stoked into continuing it. However, I had accidentally leaked plot points all over the place, thus imma deleting my Author Notes for the most part, sorry if this causes confusion.

Anyhow, enjoy the story!

Emiya Shirou.

The adopted son of the deceased Emiya Kiritsugu, currently living alone on his father's estate in his hometown of Fuyuki City.

Second year student at Homurahara academy, grade average of 2's across the board, known for being a particularly adept student.

Hobbies and interests include mechanics, archery, swordplay and strangely enough….housework.

Overall, a rather normal individual.

Oh, and he's a Magus.

And it was because of this one small nuance of his life that one Emiya Shirou finds himself reclining in a ratty bus seat, on a bright yellow minibus, on his way to his new rather suspiciously named school. Shirou couldn't help but sigh in irritancy as he ran a hand through his almost obnoxiously rust coloured hair, watching the countryside go by as he muttered to himself;

"How on earth did things end up like this?"

Even as he wondered this, that ever so creepy looking bus driver chuckled ominously to nobody in particular, sending another chilling shiver up Shirou's spine. That was another thing that wrung warning bells in his head, there was no way in hell that *bus* driver was even slightly normal. Shirou couldn't sense any ill will towards him from the man with the almost glowing eyes, but he was getting annoyed at how the man, if he could even be called that, seemed to be laughing at some inside joke at his expense.

The magus could only sigh in annoyance at the noise, still wondering just how things could have turned out this strange. Sure, he had no real right to complain. Starting at a new school in the middle of nowhere, in a place he had never heard of was kind of a relief compared to what had been happening only weeks ago. Even now he still winced at the phantom pains that he felt just bringing up those memories brought.

Bringing down his hand from his head, he glared almost sullenly at the mark on the back of his hand, the source of both phantom and real pain, the now invisible mark that was both a gift and a curse, one that was almost ironically placed as a mirror to the command seal that had once graced his opposite hand. Even as he glared at the place where he knew the marks were, he could feel the skin on the back of his hand burning with a fierce intensity-AGONY!-that took all of his self-control not to scratch-TEAR OFF!-to relieve.

Muttering under his breath as he fought the internal battle to calm those annoying thoughts of self-mutilation that came with his soul trying to reject what shouldn't have been on his body in the first place, he quickly returned his hand to his lap, hoping that removing it from his direct line of sight would calm the ill-advised compulsions that he felt towards the invisible sigil that was burned into his flesh.

'I guess Tohsaka wasn't joking when she said she was often struck with the desire to tear her own arm off…'

Once again that ominous chuckling started up at the front of the bus, as if the rather freaky individual had heard his thoughts and found them immensely amusing, inciting another bout of shivers from the Magus.

'DAMN IT!'

He couldn't help but curse at the enigmatic bus driver. He had gone through hell itself within the last few weeks, taken part in battles between titans who could destroy fortresses with their greatest attacks, even fighting toe-to-toe with the King of Heroes himself! He would have thought after being in the presence of legends such as the bloodthirsty yet proud Cu Chulainn, the insidious and twisted Medea, even the great monster that was Herakles himself would have tempered his soul that nothing in this day and age would be able to shake him, yet this creepy bus driver was getting under his skin with nothing but a chuckle!

"Hehehehehe…."

And again!

"Well boy, we are stopping off here to pick up another…student…hehehehe"

Shirou couldn't shake the feeling that this smoking bus driver was seriously doing that chuckle just because he knew it was driving him half crazy! For easily the hundredth time since he stepped on this bus, he wished he had just ignored those warnings he had followed, those letters that had caused him to eventually reject the offer Rin had given him to follow her to London. Of course it wasn't JUST those words that had caused him to make this choice, but that promise he had made to the one he couldn't save, a final request he couldn't refuse from the chivalrous knight now lost to the passage of time….. (1)

JOLT!

Once again Shirou barely managed to bite back a curse as the bus bucked again, knocking him out of his reverie as the now slowing yellow rust bucket (as he had taken to naming it) groaned as the driver pulled up. Glancing outside, he expected to see at least a good few people lined up outside, after all the bus driver had said there was only one more stop after Fuyuki City and as it currently stood, Emiya Shirou was the sole student that was going to be attending this *Yokai* academy.

'Monster Academy, of all the things they could have named a school….'

As Shirou once again slipped into grousing about his situation, another boy finally got on the bus. As the new boy started to ascend the aisle, glancing nervously at Shirou as the mousy haired boy tried to decide whether to pick a seat near the only other prospective student or keep his distance for now, Shirou discretely took a slight sniff of air.

While this action would seem strange to those who didn't know him, one of Shirou's traits was his *6th sense*. Rin had once tried to summarise it to him as an incredible sensitivity to disturbances in the natural order of the world, a highly and surprisingly advanced instinctive version to the comparative ability to detecting changes of Mana in the air that most Magus had to train to develop. Also for whatever reason, his mind had decided the easiest way to associate this *6th sense* was to interoperate it as an olfactory perception.

All he really understood about that explanation was that he could literally *smell* changes in the areas about him, or detect if a person had abnormal traits to an average human, such as the presence of a Magus. In that case, his ability was extraordinary as Rin had guessed that he could *sense* the *Origin* of an active Magus, an ability that would make any other Magus green with envy. Of course, that was providing said Magus didn't decide that perhaps dissecting him would be a good idea to discover how he developed such advanced instinctive capabilities.

Turning away from morbid thoughts, Shirou couldn't detect anything from the boy which very much surprised him. One of the letters from the so called *Headmaster* had hinted that the pupils who attended this *Youkai Academy* weren't entirely normal. While he couldn't tell what the hell that annoying bus dri-

"Hehehehe!"

-ver was, he could tell he wasn't human, the distortion in his senses from the bus driver could never be considered human, he couldn't even associate the scent his 6th sense identified the mysterious man with against anything he knew. The only thing he knew was that it was strong, not anywhere near the level of strength that even the weakest of the Servants from the Holy Grail War had, but he could tell whatever being the bus driver was, he didn't want to casually make an enemy out of it.

However, the boy who had finally mustered enough courage up to take the seat on the adjacent side of the bus from him, and who was now fidgeting nervously as he tried to figure out a way to perhaps open conversation with the Magus was definitely 100% an average everyday human, no scent of eldritch or demonic powers, nothing otherworldly, nothing based on Mana or Odo, just your average human. If anything the scent just felt…..mediocre, as if it was trying to make itself less noticeable, although how on earth it managed to do that almost flummoxed the Magus.

"umm…err…."

Shirou almost laughed as he heard the flustered attempt to talk to him from the boy on the other side of the bus, his face starting to blush slightly as he already realised he was sounding like an idiot in his attempts to talk to the sharp eyed Magus.

"Emiya, Emiya Shirou." He decided to throw a bone to the boy; it was obvious he was suffering enough just trying to think of a way to talk, so giving a name would perhaps help him gain momentum.

"Oh…h-hello Emiya-san!" the boy finally managed to get out, smiling nervously as he tried to get the greeting across. An answering smile from Shirou as he shifted in his seat to better face the boy gave him enough courage to finally say "My name is Aono Tsukune!...umm…are you going to Youkai Academy too?"

"Yep, I guess were both heading to the same madhouse, eh Aono-san?" Shirou replied with a widening grin, getting an answering chuckle from the other teenager, finally getting the boy to relax a bit from the tenseness he did have, before quickly adding "There's no need to call me that though, Shirou is just fine with me."

"Oh, okay Shirou-san, if that's the case then I'm fine with just Tsukune too!" Tsukune replied with some more excitement in his voice, finally glad he had somebody to talk too. He had been nervous all day with having to go to this new school as the last ditch option when he flunked the High School Entrance Exam. It hadn't helped when the bus which pulled up was nigh on empty and the bus driver looked really intimidating, I mean why on earth did it look like his eyes glowed?

"Hehehehe!" an almost answering chuckle came from the front of the bus as they finally started on the way to their new school, causing an involuntary wince in both Shirou and Tsukune. Turning his attention back to the other prospective student on the bus with him, he took half a second to finally get a proper look at the other boy, having been too nervous a few minutes ago to really do so.

In his eyes, Shirou was kind of intimidating. Even though the smile on his face was obviously friendly and his eyes showed interest in his fellow student, as a whole Shirou just looked intimidating. Just from looking at his bare arms, you could see incredible muscle definition and tone; it was obvious that he worked out a lot. There was also his hair, and it was this that made him nervous of Shirou when he first laid eyes on him.

The rust red tones were shot through with specks of pure white. To begin with the red looked far too vibrant to be natural, so on first glance he looked like a delinquent who dyed his hair, but on closer looks it got even stranger. Almost at random, it seemed the red hair was interspersed with white. It didn't look like a gradual process, there were red hairs, and pure white hairs, nothing in between at all, no faded reds, no greys, just pure strong rust red, and blindingly bright pure white. Tsukune could only guess that maybe Shirou was an albino, after all those flint grey eyes couldn't be natural either….. (2)

A loud deliberate cough from said boy and Tsukune instantly tried to duck his head away, realising he had been caught staring at what could possibly be a terse subject to his fellow student.

'Go figure it would be the hair again…' Shirou almost groaned internally as he saw the boy flinch and try to disguise his rather impolite staring. It was one of the many things that he had to adjust to after the end of the Holy Grail War, alongside the admittedly more disturbing impulses to tear the flesh off the back of his hand. When Rin had first seen his new look, even she was at a loss for words. She couldn't hide the pain and concern she felt from him at seeing his new state, even if she still acted the same prideful way as she always did. There had been an unsaid, unspoken agreement between them at that moment to never bring up these changes again. Shirou didn't need to be reminded how much his looks were changing to reflect him.

It didn't save him from the wrath of one Tiger of Fuyuki City though, Fujimaru-sensei had spent easily 5 hours *reprimanding* him in the dojo with her evil Shinai. It was on that day that Shirou came to realise that the Tora Shinai was actually a conceptual weapon, born of the painful moans of the hundreds, nay thousands who had suffered the wrath of the almighty Taiga. From that day forth, not only did he come to understand the true hatred Fujimaru-sensei seemed to have with *delinquents*, but UBW gained a new addition to its armoury.

Back to the present, and it seemed after his initial slip-up, Tsukune had taken it upon himself to make up for having noticed his new fellow students *problem* by embarrassing himself with telling his own *problems* to the Magus.

"L-like I said, my name is Aono Tsukune, 15 yrs old and admittedly I'm about as average as you can get, 3's in all areas. I've got no real hobbies as I….kinda suck at anything physical and I don't really have the mental skills to do much….totally mediocre huh?" Tsukune listed off, hoping that by maybe talking about himself, he could introduce himself better, but all he really succeeded in doing was depressing himself.

Shirou couldn't help but pity the lad, he had a depressingly low amount of confidence and it really shone through with how he spoke about himself. He tried to give the boy what he hoped was a reassuring grin as he replied "Maybe you just haven't figured out what your good at yet?"

"Hm…." Was the only reply he got for a few seconds as Tsukune just rested his head on his hands, staring out at the passing countryside for a bit. As he did so, Shirou realised that something was a bit strange about the situation, they had managed cleared the town a bit fast to already be out in the countryside. He just chalked it up to not noticing and losing track of the time, once again ignoring the strange, all knowing chuckle of the bus driver.

Tsukune fortunately managed to bounce back out of his funk pretty fast, once again turning eagerly to Shirou as he asked "Um, if you don't mind me asking then, do you have any hobbies or interests Shirou-san?"

The Magus had to bite down quickly what his first, most instinctive reaction to that question was, didn't need a fellow student to ask too many questions if he said *saving people* and he didn't feel like uncovering that old paradoxical argument anytime soon, least of all with a person who probably wasn't aware of the true hardships of the world outside of normal happy society.

'Small talk, focus on small talk'

"Well, I guess you could say I have a few, but my main passion is in….fixing stuff I guess?" Shirou finally replied with a slightly unsure grin on his face as he tried to summarise the best way to describe himself.

"Fixing stuff, like mechanics?" Tsukune questioned eagerly

"Yeah, everybody used to rely on me to fix all the really old stuff in our school since the heaters and cooling equipment kept breaking a lot" Shirou replied, his grin turning into a fond smile as he remembered all the times he was constantly requisitioned by either the teachers or Ryuusei and the student council to fix broken equipment. It was a job that he took to eagerly, not only was it a brilliant way to train his abilities, but helping others always felt rewarding, seeing their smiles of gratitude was payment enough.

"Wow, you must have been really good at it then!" Tsukune said with an almost awe filled voice, smiling happily back at the older boy. Shirou could only scratch at the back of his head in embarrassment at hearing such obvious praise from the boy, it wasn't like Tsukune could possibly know that the main reason he was so skilled was because of magic.

The bus ride continued like that for a few hours, as the two students exchanged stories and tales with one another. Shirou spoke of the calmer days in his life, of normal school days and normal if not excitable times at his home with the ever excitable Taiga and the kind Sakura. Tsukune spent most of the time just listening in awe of the more experienced boy, surprised by the knowledge that Shirou had lived alone for so long and was adopted to begin with. He couldn't even begin to imagine how difficult it must have been to not know his parents, and thus was even more impressed with Shirou.

In turn, Shirou eventually managed to coax some things out of Tsukune. It was rough going, not that Tsukune was secretive, just unconfident. When he did start to talk about himself, there was a certain light in the boy's expression, a fondness as he spoke of his family, of his cousin Kyouko who he'd grown up with, of the park that they often played at when they were children, of the friends he made in his old school.

From just watching him speak and listening to him, Shirou deduced one very obvious trait of Tsukune. The boy was a very gentle soul, he treasured the important relations he made with people and spoke of them with fondness. True, he didn't seem to have any outstanding, exceptional or even notable parts to his experiences or traits aside this gentleness which he seemed to have in spades. Once again, Shirou was struck by his initial estimation of the boy provided by his 6th sense.

Mediocre.

The boy was as prime an example of this word as he had ever met. Average abilities, average intellect, no hobbies, little ability to relate with others (it had been almost a war just trying to coax as much as this out of him), failed the entrance exams for High School (something Shirou was pretty sure was difficult to do), an average lifestyle, a normal family.

Mediocre, average, plain, normal.

But there was something about him that just made you smile anyway, his eagerness (once he had overcome his shyness), those gentle looks as he talked about what was important to him, he was just generally likeable even if he was unaware of how or what to do with this fact. It was the kind of person Shirou believed would prove to be a loyal and selfless individual to any who made the effort to reach out to the plain, unassuming boy.

And therein by would prove the problem. Shirou had no doubt where they were going was going to be anything even remotely close to *normal*, and he couldn't help but be concerned for this lad's safety, if he even could adjust to whatever situation they were about to find themselves in. He wasn't sure what they would find when this bus stopped, but he knew it wasn't going to be *normal*, and he didn't know if this *average* person would be able to handle it. He knew he could, but Tsukune wasn't him.

I am the bone of my sword

No, Tsukune was nothing alike to him; he didn't have the steel in him. Maybe he could one day, but not now, he'd be crushed before that could happen.

Unfortunately his musings ended as the bus conductor called out "hehehe, when we reach the end of this looong tunnel, we'll be right in front of the school, I hope you lads have prepared yourselves…."

That announcement sent visible shivers down Tsukune's spine as he listened to the warning. Nearby, Shirou didn't react the same way, but had to restrain his mind from mentally creating the image of the cocked hammer, the mental trigger to start the connection to his magic circuits. He didn't need to be THAT prepared.

Tsukune had to swallow past the lump in his throat as he asked the scary bus driver "W-what do you mean?"

There was a few seconds of chuckling as up ahead, the end of the tunnel started to pour light towards them as it grew in size.

"What I mean lad, is Youkai Gakuen is a veeery horrifying school!"

Chapter over!

Again, cleared up author note so all plot points have been removed. This is a new venture for me as I have never done crossovers, nor done a story with no O.C elements. Hopefully I'll be capable of living up to expectations, anyhow feel free to follow and review, constructive criticism is accepted and encouraged, while ego strokes inspire me to write more, so leave them in the reviews as you wish!