If You Can Stay a Good Person for Life Without Changing Your Original Intentions, Then You're a Saint

In the end, Shinji was still caught by Isshin.

Under normal circumstances, something like this would have been nearly impossible. After all, Isshin was the kind of model student who would never chase anyone or run through the school or hallways, no matter what happened.

For Shinji to be caught by someone like Isshin, he had to thank a certain English teacher for her assistance, as well as a twin-tailed girl who just happened to stick out her leg beside Shinji's escape route at exactly the right moment.

Watching Shinji lie sprawled beside her, having fallen flat on his face and now clutching his nose in pain, the twin-tailed girl—Tohsaka Rin—covered her mouth, a hint of surprise appearing on her face.

"Oh my, Matou. How could you be so careless? Isn't that why the school rules say not to chase and roughhouse on school grounds?"

"You little—!" Shinji gritted out as he turned back.

"Make sure you never do that again, okay? You could get hurt."

"Caught you!" As footsteps drew closer, Taiga's voice rang out.

Rin turned and politely greeted the approaching Taiga. "Good morning, Fujimura-sensei."

"Oh, Tohsaka. Good morning."

"Matou, this is your karma." Isshin slowly stepped forward with a ruler in hand, pushing up the glasses on his nose as he spoke.

"Tch." Shinji clicked his tongue and slowly rose to his feet. "The ancients really were right. Women and petty men are impossible to deal with."

"Matou, I was planning to punish you with the ruler, but I never expected you to say something so enlightened. Your ruler punishment is canceled."

With that, Isshin held his right hand before his chest, closed his eyes, and quietly recited a Buddhist chant. Shinji followed suit, closing his eyes and reciting one as well.

Seeing the two of them acting like that, two red irritation marks visibly appeared on Rin's forehead. The satisfaction of successfully getting revenge on Shinji vanished without a trace.

"Just you wait!" Leaving those words behind, Rin turned and strode into the school building.

"Shinji, that was Tohsaka, right?"

"Huh? What are you talking about?" Shinji looked at Shirou in confusion.

"The girl you confessed to in middle school."

"What?!" Isshin cried out in shock, his expression turning grave. "Matou, you're the boy who confessed to that vixen at our school gate on the first day of middle school?!"

"What, Isshin? You only found out now?" Shirou said helplessly.

"Looks like you won't be escaping ruler punishment today, Matou! Afterward, copy the Buddhist scriptures a hundred times!"

"Are you serious?" Shinji was speechless.

"Of course! If you get involved with a vixen like that, your life is completely over!"

"So Matou knows Tohsaka," Taiga said from the side, looking rather surprised.

"No, I didn't know her at all before entering high school." Shinji shrugged.

"No way. Didn't you confess to her in middle school? Why would you confess to someone you didn't know?"

Seeing Taiga's curious expression, Shinji sighed softly. "Sensei, you have a surprisingly gossipy side. Anyway, morning homeroom is about to start. If you don't hurry, you'll be late."

"Ah! Oh no!" Only then did Taiga realize it. She hurried toward the school building, not forgetting to turn back and remind the others, "You three, hurry up too! Don't be late!"

Watching Taiga's hurried retreating figure, the three boys exchanged looks and smiled helplessly at the same time.

That afternoon, after school.

Shirou should have gone straight to Archery Club activities after school, but instead, he stopped Shinji, who was yawning and carrying his bag as he prepared to leave.

"Shinji, I want to talk to you about Sakura—"

"Emiya." Shinji lowered his head and leaned closer to Shirou, cutting him off. "You're the type who hopes everyone around you can be happy, right?"

"Huh? I... I guess so."

"Mm, that's good." Shinji narrowed his eyes with a smile.

"Huh? You..."

"Unlike you, Emiya, I'm actually a very vulgar and selfish person. I don't have your pure heart that thinks only of others. I'm what you'd call an ordinary person. Anyway, goodbye, Emiya."

Shirou watched Shinji turn to leave after saying those incomprehensible words, utterly baffled. It took him a long while to come back to his senses.

"Wait, Shinji..."

But Shinji did not respond. He simply raised a hand and waved behind him, leaving without looking back.

After club activities ended, Shirou returned home and repeated Shinji's words to Sakura.

"Maybe it's because my brother... has things he isn't good at too." Sakura lowered her head, her expression complicated as she spoke softly.

"Huh? Shinji? He has things he isn't good at? But he can do everything perfectly."

Shirou was rather surprised.

"Yes..." Sakura nodded lightly and responded in a quiet voice. "Things he's... very, very bad at."

"I see. I don't really understand, but with Shinji's personality, he definitely wouldn't give up easily."

Sakura said nothing. Nor did she say that the thing she meant was something her brother could never accomplish no matter how hard he tried—magecraft.

"Come to think of it, what has Shinji been doing lately?" Shirou asked, recalling something.

"He seemed to have become interested in astronomy over the past month. He bought an astronomical telescope and books about astronomy. When I took out the trash, I also found some diagrams he'd drawn of star trajectories and things like that."

"Another passing whim..."

"But the other morning, it seemed like he threw everything out... or moved it out. He probably sold it all as secondhand goods."

"That really was a short-lived interest."

The night before last, three previously undiscovered asteroids posted on an online forum by an anonymous user had been confirmed by the National Astronomical Observatory. They were indeed three real asteroids that had never before been discovered internationally. Due to technical limitations and the other party's deliberate concealment of their identity, the anonymous user's identity could not be confirmed. They could only roughly trace the IP address to Miyama Town, Fuyuki City...

Watching the current affairs report on television, Shirou gave a wry smile and looked toward Sakura. "Sakura, could this be...?"

"It was probably my brother."

"I'm completely beaten." Shirou lowered his head and sighed heavily. "Is Shinji a monster?"

Screech—

"Shirou, did you hear?" The moment Taiga entered, she spoke impatiently. "They say someone discovered three asteroids all at once, and they're from Miyama Town."

"Yeah, I just heard. And Fujimura-sensei, you probably know who this person is."

"Seriously? I know them?"

"Yeah, it was probably Shinji. Sakura said that Shinji happened to be researching something similar recently."

"Matou? Huh?" Taiga looked surprised. "Then why didn't he reveal his identity? The discoverer can name the asteroids."

"Probably because Shinji has already lost interest in that subject." Shirou shrugged.

Taiga: ...