Greetings, BL. I thought I'd try my hand at writing something, a serious take on a silly premise. This fic is also on FF.net at https://www.fanfiction.net/s/1366422...hining-Ripples and Ao3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/25743766. It's also on Sufficient Velocity too, but as of this writing it's still in the approval queue because I don't have enough forum posts. I hope you like it, and if you don't I understand.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything here, it all belongs to Type Moon, or Hirohiko Araki, or whoever else I end up referencing at some point.
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Prologue: Swapped at Birth
Today, Zelretch, while in the middle of reading a thick book of mysteries, was suddenly struck by an intense feeling of meddlesomeness. More so than usual, at least. He could feel his face twitching involuntarily into a smile, feeling it just as readily as he could sense the sheer dread rolling off Tohsaka when she noticed his expression and dropped out of her hands the newest project she’d been working on at her bench. He always found his disciple’s reactions hilarious, especially the way her eyes bulged open and her jaw slowly slid open and slack. No harm in teasing such a surprisingly bright student, he thought. He took a moment to marvel on the fact that the most prodigious member of the unremarkable Tohsaka family, someone who’d managed to achieve the recreation of the Jewelled Sword in six generations - far beyond his expectations, and whom he’d found promising enough to take as a protege, was so easy to tease. Then again, he thought, it was natural to be on edge around him. Even if you were his student. Especially if you were his student.
“Tohsaka,” he said, “I’m going to do something fun.”
“What is it, teacher?” the student replied. Her tone was respectful yet somewhat guarded, not in the way a cat might tense up when its territory is encroached on, but rather more like a child who’d done something wrong quietly awaiting the stern punishment of a parent. In a way, it was incredibly funny and, honestly, never got old.
The wizard stood up from his chair and set down the book he was reading. “Let’s just say that if this works, you’ll never be able to refuse anything I ask of you ever again.”
He walked off into the dark void of his special space, leaving Tohsaka to stare dumbfounded as his steps echoed through the nothingness.
---
While Tohsaka was preparing whatever else was needed to perform this yet another act of meddling in human affairs, Zelretch took a moment to think about his idea. In the world where his student came from, her sister, a poor unfortunate soul called Tohsaka Sakura, was taken in by his former student, Makiri Zolgen, one of the greatest minds of the magus world in spite - or maybe because of - his fundamentally evil nature, which even back then Zelretch had considered enough of a problem in the making to not entrust the Jewelled Sword’s blueprints to him. The newly renamed Matou Sakura would then suffer years of horrific abuse at the hands of both him, what with what passed for “training” under the Matous, and her new older brother, a brat with blue hair named Matou Shinji, with no ability to use magecraft and a generally odious attitude to the point of being worthless and pathetic (Makiri’s thoughts, not Zelretch’s), and it didn’t take much to figure out that Tohsaka Rin hated both him for his actions towards her sister, and herself for her inability to do anything for Sakura. In fact, saving her sister was one of the things she’d been the most vocal about since Zelretch took her in as his protege.
In another world he’d observed on his down time for pure entertainment, another blue haired boy, a far cry from Shinji’s whelpery, had become the centre of that world’s destiny, with the rivalry between himself and the adopted brother whom he loved and whom hated him spanning more than a century and shaping the fate of the world as they’d known it. Rather than Shinji’s arrogant, nasty and warped personality, this other boy - Jonathan Joestar was his name - was a blazing heart of righteousness, courage, and shining justice, like the sun shining through storm clouds and pushing away the rain, a honest to goodness gentleman with a fierce inner strength. His gentle and sympathetic, yet driven and determined spirit that let him live through great personal tragedy while maintaining his fortitude stood in stark contrast with Shinji’s haughty, controlling and vile personality that couldn’t accept any form of loss or perceived inferiority, capable of doing unspeakably evil acts if he thought he’d been treated with contempt. It was honestly a pity, Zelretch thought, that he couldn’t observe the world of Jonathan Joestar for long, in part due to the equally meddlesome nature of a certain American president in yet another world, who had somehow acquired the ability to use a form of the Second Magic and hop through worlds. That was a mess to deal with, and Zelretch never used that term lightly.
One particular detail, however, was what Zelretch was thinking about when he came up with this idea on a whim.
Matou Shinji and Jonathan Joestar. They both had blue hair. With the Second Magic, ridiculous and impossible things could be done. That was the nature, after all, of True Magic.
Zelretch chuckled. He was definitely going to enjoy seeing Tohsaka’s reaction to this.
---
As he walked up the stairs of the mansion, Matou Byakuya found himself in something of a hopeful mood. Or what passed for it, considering the wreck of a man had been teetering on the edge of the pit of despair for many years now. It was the natural consequence of a childhood of neglect in favour of the younger brother who could actually perform magecraft, as opposed to himself, both the true and rightful heir to the Matou name and a complete waste of space who was born without the ability to properly utilise what meagre magic circuits he had, and, despite all the favour heaped upon him, Kariya, that cowardly bastard, had the sense - and ability - to run away from the old worm when he had the chance. Byakuya gritted his teeth at the unpleasant thought of the younger brother he held no love for. The one hope of the family (Byakuya scoffed) had dropped everything and ran off, leaving behind his responsibilities to an unprepared and very resentful Byakuya. While he would never admit it, Byakuya secretly admired Kariya just a tiny little bit, for running away and escaping the clutches of the old worm. Of course, that speck of admiration was utterly smothered by healthy helpings of resentment and blame.
But now? He had married a woman with an “inheritor” sorcery trait that should enable their child to have circuits, and said child, a son whom they’d agreed to name Shinji, had just been born. Byakuya was feeling the most hopeful he’d ever been in his entire wretched life. Their son had to have circuits. Shinji had to become the heir. Shinji must, or else Byakuya’s entire life would have been a waste of time, and the man shuddered to think of what would happen if the worst came to worst. During his wife’s pregnancy, the stress of having a pregnant wife plus the familial burden of being the Matou head and the task of producing a viable mage for a heir had caused Byakuya to pick up the bottle as a refuge from the world, but no matter how much he wanted to live a comfortable and carefree life (or drown himself in alcohol, whichever one took less effort), the duties of the family came back to him, and Byakuya wasn’t quite ready to quit caring, not yet. The old worm was on the very edge of completely giving up on him, and Shinji becoming a magus would save Byakuya’s disgraces, somewhat. That was his hope for his son, selfish as it may be. Byakuya never denied it.
As he entered the room where his wife and son were sleeping, Byakuya took a moment to think about his hopes for Shinji. Awkwardly stroking the blue curls on his son’s head as the infant lay in the arms of his mother, he realised how little he was suited for family life, having been neglected during his formative years. But no, this would no longer stop him, Byakuya thought, Shinji must have circuits. He would raise him to be the best magus and heir to the Matou name he could possibly be, and prove to the old worm himself that he was not completely useless, no matter how much he wanted to down three whole bottles of spirits and forget the world around him existed. He didn’t even try to think about what would happen if Shinji were to be incapable of sorcery, because he knew he’d fall into the pit of despair and never climb back out.
“Grow up strong, Shinji. Don’t let me down,” he whispered.
The boy wriggled and squirmed in his mother’s arms, revealing a star-shaped birthmark on his left shoulder. Byakuya briefly noticed the mark, but paid it no heed as he left the room and gently closed the door behind him.
---
In another world, twenty years later, Dio Brando sipped from a wine glass and watched from his castle in Windknight’s Lot as his infinite zombie army marched out into the night to conquer the world. Jojo, the pathetic whelp, was dead, and Dio, frankly, considered his adopted brother too much of a weak worm to even bother with turning into a zombie. The arrogant and nasty yet craven and disgraceful boy was nothing like the child of a gentleman to the point where Dio wondered if Jojo even really was the son of George Joestar, but Dio didn’t think much of it. Better a weak worm than a genuine obstacle.
But Dio Brando and his curiously pathetic brother are not the focus of this tale.
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A/N: Before you ask "what in the world are you thinking", trust me, I don't know either. The idea emerged in my head one day to put Jonathan Joestar in Shinji Matou's position, partly because they both have blue hair and partly because Sakura deserves a better brother than canon Shinji.
I am very much not an experienced writer by any means and I am horrendously out of practice, so my apologies if the quality is lower than the standard expected of most fic writers.
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Originally Posted by RoydGolden
