章 1004: 18
017 - On moving and meeting new people
School has been… almost normal today. Besides my exciting date with Rin during lunch break, the only point of note has been Shinji skipping without a word of warning. Since Sakura has been missing since yesterday, the rumour mill has put two and two together to get twenty two and wasted no time to start with the wild theories.
"There's a betting pool?" Haku whistles in amazement when I tell her on the way back home. "Any interesting options?"
"I put a thousand yen towards 'Secret Inheritance War'." I answer with a shrug. It amused me and I'm not paying tithe this month, I can afford to waste some spare change. "It wasn't even the wildest theory out there."
"Do they even know there's a smoldering crater where the Matou Mansion used to be?"
"Give it another day." And won't that give Rin another headache? I'm sure she went out of her way to establish a reasonable explanation, but I don't think she's realized just yet how little the rumor mill will care about 'reasonable'. "I'm honestly expecting 'aliens' to pop up as a potential explanation by then."
"Isn't Archer technically an alien?"
"Yup!"
"I think I'll put my money on that one, then." She nods. "What about Fuji-nee?"
"She'll blow a gasket, of course." I answer with a sigh. "Now that she has reasons to believe Sakura's home life wasn't exactly happy? She's smart enough to notice that something's been wrong with her from the start. She also knows more about Kiritsugu than any mundane person has any right to know."
"She's going to blame you for blowing up the mansion, isn't she?"
"Of course she is. Expect me to be called to her office first thing in the morning tomorrow. I just wish I knew what she'll do once she's done yelling at me."
"Yeah, hard to tell whether she'll congratulate or condemn you, she's unpredictable like that."
"Nothing liberal usage of hypnosis can't solve," I answer before grimacing. "I really hope it doesn't come to that, though."
"We both know Fuji-nee is bound to learn something she shouldn't or otherwise unknowingly interfere with the War. She cares too much for things to go any other way."
"I know, I know!" I cut her with a plaintive tone that's definitely not whiny. "Allow me a bit of wishful thinking, okay? I'm not exactly thrilled about the idea, no matter how necessary it might become."
"Want me to... do it for you?" Her careful offer catches me completely by surprise. "I know I used to suck at hypnosis, but Caster has been teaching me lately."
"Hey, who's the evil chessmaster manipulator here, Haku?" Medea has been teaching her? How? When? Stupid women and their stupid secrets, why is it that I hear about it for the first time now? "The least I can do is take responsibility and do the dirty deeds myself."
"Please, you are a big and fluffy teddy bear with delusions of evilness, Nii-chan." Haku huffs in amusement. "I'm obviously the ruthless yandere secretary who makes sure the problems go away before her boss notices them."
"… Yeah, no. I don't see it." Haku is too nice for that. "And I take offense to that comment. I'll have you know I'm plenty evil. I lie and cheat and manipulate, what else does one need to do to get some respect around here?"
"Yes, yes, Nii-chan. You are a very evil teddy bear." She agrees patronizingly before changing the topic before I can protest further. "Let's pick up Sakura and get to the temple already, okay? I want to meet our new ally."
"Knowing my luck, it'll be Summer Scathach somehow." I grumble. Caster confirmed her success at summoning Assassin, but refused to reveal their identity through the telepathic link, claiming she wanted it to be a surprise. "Better prepare for boot camp training from hell. At least she'll be useful against Lancer."
Our meeting with the Head Monk is… something. He's an old friend of Raiga-jiji, so we've known him since forever and that goes without a hitch. But then he invited us to have tea with him so he can 'introduce us to someone' and things got interesting. For one, that 'someone' is, of course, Medea. For another, Issei is here too.
Issei Ryuudou (not to mistake with Issei Hyoudou) son of the Head Monk, who we first met at Homurahara high, who has a crush on Haku he has no idea what to do with, who hates me with the passion of a thousand suns and, in the canon timeline, harbored a strong distrust against Medea out of pure instinct.
Medea, of course, wasted no time to start 'flirting' with me. The next step in our plan to build a credible alibi for our future frequent meetings. An abused woman wanting to regain control of her life by seducing a younger and safer man will hardly raise eyebrows. That marvellous, marvellous bias that would make the situation creepy if our genders were reversed will take care of the rest.
That and mind-whamming. So much mind-whamming. I'd be surprised if any monk bats an eyelash at catching us making out in the middle of the temple grounds.
… Double standards? I know about those! It's when you treat the people you care about one way, and everyone else gets a different treatment! What do they have to do with anything?
In any case, it was all great fun. Not only flirting with Medea, which is something I doubt I'll ever tire of, but also watching Issei go from glaring at the seductress cougar trying to prey on a fellow student to indignation when he realized I was flirting back.
The look of utter confusion when he realized he didn't know who he disliked more was priceless, as it was the way it turned into a conflicted expression. I can't read minds, but I'm pretty sure he was torn between his instinctive impulse to interfere with our happiness on principle, and the more rational parts of his mind telling him to leave us alone, since that would keep us away from everyone else and we deserved each other.
Heh, I'll agree with him on that later part, at least.
Then Haku and Sakura sit on both sides of him and he's suddenly too busy trying to navigate through a minefield of cheerful double meanings and 'innocent' innuendo to give us any more consideration. Frankly, that's mean of them. I can only wince in sympathy at the way the poor sap is desperately trying to avoid offending the girls.
"It was great meeting you, Megissa-san." Yes, I suggested that name for her. Not very original, but I'll reference my favorite works wherever I please, thank you very much(1). "But we really should retire to our rooms and make sure everything is ready for the night."
"Oh? I'm sorry to hear that." She comments dejectedly, before letting her eyes glint in what I'm sure everyone not in the know will read as poorly disguised eagerness. "Maybe I could help you set everything up?"
"Of course, it would be my pleasure." I smile at her, playing the part of the naive high-school student. I can't believe anyone who has actually been a teenager before will buy it, but here is the Head Monk proving me wro– is he winking at me? Nevermind then. "Any excuse to keep enjoying your presence is welcome."
"Wait, Emiya-san!" Issei finally jumps, his (urge to ruin our day) upstanding morals apparently overwhelming his better judgement. "Are you really going to invite a woman you just met into your room?"
"Don't worry, Issei-kun!" Haku puts a hand on his shoulder as she raises from the table, 'accidentally' keeping him from standing up himself. "Sakura-chan and I will be there, keeping an eye out for untoward behaviour!"
… Yeah, I have no doubt they'll be watching with a hawk eye, ready for the chance to jump in.
1'Megissa' is the pseudonym adopted by Medea in the fic Path of the King, and I'm told it means 'Witch' in whatever the language.
The Head Monk takes us to the corridor leading to the east wing, apparently the part of the building where the guest areas are located. He leaves us there, citing urgent business and entrusting us to 'Megissa-san who already knows the layout' in a way that's not suspicious at all.
… I can't even tell whether he's playing wingman or just mind-whammied.
As soon as we get into the first room, my opinion tilts heavily towards mind-whammy. In front of us lies a very spacious room already furnished in a most unbecoming way for a religious building. The little bookcase on the corner might get a pass, if it wasn't filled with (trash) light novels and the blatantly western table and sofa would clash painfully with the austere basic design of the traditional eastern room, but… it's the electrical appliances that really take the cake.
Air conditioner, flatscreen TV, minifridge, audio system… is that a Playstation?
"Well, here we are." I speak out, pointedly refusing to comment on the state of the room. "What are we working with, Princess?"
"Four rooms intended as separate bedrooms, alongside a kitchen and bathroom, taking this whole wing of the building, Master." Medea answers professionally. "As you can see, I've taken the liberty to adapt the ones we won't be needing for other uses."
"There's only one bedroom now, isn't there?" Medea smirks smugly in lieu of an answer, and I don't need to look to know the wheezing sound behind me is Sakura's reaction to having all her fantasies fulfilled in a single fell swoop. "What will the other rooms be used for, then?"
"As you can see, I took down a wall here to make the living room as comfortable as possible. There's a second, smaller room beside the bedroom. It's soundproofed and is designed to be used when someone wants some privacy away from the group. I guess it can be used as a changing room too, if someone is feeling particularly bashful."
"Master." Ecchan suddenly materializes with those words, somehow managing to convey enthusiasm without a facial twitch or the tensing of a single muscle. "I have a request."
"No moving the bookcase into the secluded room." Haku declines immediately. "We wouldn't see you again."
There's a tsking sound coming from Ecchan at the prompt denial, but more tellingly is the way it's echoed by Medea.
A soundproof, isolated room that can also be used as a changing room, huh? Something tells me Haku just saved Ecchan from a grim future there.
"I have also taken liberties redesigning the kitchen and bathroom, Master." Medea recovers swiftly, continuing her explanation with a demure demeanor that belies her last reaction. "I'm confident you'll find them lacking nothing."
Of course she did, because why not. I let out a defeated sigh, I don't know why I didn't see this coming. She kept to the austere stetics of the original temple rooms in the canon timelines, but that probably had very little to do with Medea's respect for the place and everything with Kozuki Souichirou's thoughts on the matter.
"I guess this is my life now."
"Master?" She asks worriedly, no doubt noticing my defeated voice. "Have I displeased you?"
"No, not really. It's just that I expected… Nevermind." I'm hurriedly backtracking before I know what I'm doing. Taking a deep breath, I put my thoughts in order and force myself to smile. All this might've been unexpected, but it's hardly a bad thing. "Good job, Princess, I'm sure we'll enjoy the fruit of your hard work while we stay here. Just make sure everything is back to normal when we leave, please?"
She hurries to nod with a relieved expression that makes me feel like a jerk for worrying her in the first place.
"What about a workshop?""
"Oh, I claimed the inner shrine as my Temple and layered it with enough wards to make a dragon question his sense of direction." She informs happily. "The monks won't even remember there is an inner shrine until I take them back down. The place is fascinating. To find a place of power such as that shrine, during this washed away age, even considering confluencing leylines and the proximity with the Greater Grail, it shouldn't be enough to…"
As Medea continues gushing as an overexcited child over her new workshop, I can't help but smile supportively while silently resigning myself to a lack of a workshop of my own until we return home. Something tells me I'll need a Command Spell to be allowed entry. And then another to keep her from kicking me out, and then another to refresh that second order five minutes later.
"... And that's why I'd like to study this place in detail once we're done with the War and can focus on more academic pursuits."
I keep smiling and nodding until she finally runs out of words, a warm feeling in my chest at seeing Medea become so enthusiastic about the topic. Oh, there are other things she's enthusiastic about, but there's something earnest and pure glistening in her eyes as she goes on and on about magical theories and experiments that you just can't see when she's perving on me or Ecchan.
I might also be feeling a bit depressed too, with how over my head half of those terms and concepts went. I'm supposed to be a genius at everything, but I guess you can't just match caster from the Age of Gods just with that.
A look around reveals that I'm the only one who stayed to listen to the end. Ecchan has inevitably retreated to the bookcase corner, though she seems to have made an incursion into the kitchen at some point beforehand. Haku is sitting on the couch beside Sakura, a remote in her hand as she performs the sacred and time-honored tradition of going through five hundred channels to find absolutely nothing to watch.
"Well, are you going to introduce me to the mysterious Assassin?" I have been patient enough, haven't I? I can finally get my answer, right? "Please tell me it's not Consort Yu. Oh, hell, I jinxed it, didn't I? It's Consort Yu for sure..."
"While leaving you to agonize over nothing for a while longer is a tempting prospect, Master…" At Medea's words, there's a miserable, keening sound that makes her chuckle. It didn't come from me, no matter what anyone tells you it didn't. "I'm not cruel enough to go through with it. Assassin, dear, why don't you introduce yourself to your father?"
Oh, thank god, the suspense was killing m– Wait a minute, 'Father'?
There's no golden glow as the Servant materializes, because Assassins have this little skill called ([Subtlety]) [Presence Concealment] that would be kind of ruined if they started glowing like a disco ball every time they deastralized. One moment, Medea is standing alone in front of me, the next there's a white-haired child in a white sundress at her side.
"Assassin - Jack the Ripper." She introduces herself, glaring daggers at me as she takes a step forward to put herself between Medea and me. "I'll gut you if you are mean to Mommy."
"Jackie, dear." Medea calls her Servant, apparently dumbfounded at this development. "That's not a nice thing to say to your daddy."
"Don't care." Jack pouts, giving the impression that she would cross her arms and stomp the floor if she wasn't wielding her daggers at the time. "If he's mean I'll gut him."
"Such an earnest and good girl…" Medea places a hand on Jackie's shoulder, apparently realizing what this is about. She's a smart woman, after all. And it's not that hard to understand why the spirit of the children of prostitutes would distrust males in general and parents in particular. "But no eviscerating Master without my permission, okay? I'll be most cross if he dies."
She nods reluctantly, and I can't help but sigh tiredly. I seem to be doing that a lot today, huh?
Jack the Ripper… AKA Ass-as-sin, the loli stripper or Miss Mental Pollution. Cares little about males, eats body parts for breakfast and fantasizes about digging her way back into a womb in a display of regression that would make Tiamat herself feel uncomfortable. She's as likely to gut me and eat my entrails as she is to cuddle between Medea and me on the couch.
So I act the only way it makes sense for me to do. I crouch down to be at eye level with her and and...
"Nice to meet you, Jackie!" I say, putting a hand on her head. "I hope we can get along!"
Just another smile to protec. Sure, why not? What's one more at this point?
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