章節 997: 11
010 - Obligatory bath interlude
I let out a long sigh as I strip down and enter the bathroom proper. I'm glad the talk with Sakura went as well as it did, especially after the blunder with Rin, but it was still a tense affair. I'm looking forward to relaxing a bit.
"Master." Medea's voice greets me from the side as soon as I close the door behind me. "I'm glad you could finally join me."
She's sitting in perfect seiza on the wooden floor, a towel primply folded by her side and not a stitch of cloth in her body. Her hands are folded in her lap, hiding her sex from view, but not the neatly trimmed bush of blue just above, and her arms press her breasts from both sides doing very interesting things to their shape.
"Princess, you're looking great as always." She nods demurely, but not quite managing to hide the satisfied smirk in her lips at the reaction she's got out of me. "I hope I didn't make you wait for too long."
"Oh, don't worry Master, I just got in myself." She dismisses easily. "But this isn't about me, is it now? I'm sure you've had a lot of stress to deal with today, Master. Why don't you relax and allow this humble Caster to work her magic on you?"
With a grace no human could manage, Medea stands from her kneeling position and walks up to me. Guiding me towards a wooden stool with soft touches and caresses slightly more suggestive than strictly necessary, before pulling the towel around my waist with a firm, sharp tug right before I sit.
Before I can protest, delicate arms wrap around my chest from behind, and two squishy sources of warmth and softness press against my back. A hand reaches upwards, running over my chest and neck before cupping my face, while the other playfully trails its way down my stomach.
"Oh, my. You are tense all over!" She whispers playfully in my ear as her hand trailing down finally reaches its target. "Absolutely all over."
"I guess I could use some..." My breath hitches as I feel her fingers slowly wrap around my dick. "Assistance with relaxing, Princess."
Things get… Intense for a while, but somehow we manage to wash up and get into the bath in the end.
"Now that you're a bit more relaxed, Master." Medea sighs, letting herself sink down to the neck on the hot bath water. "Maybe we can talk about what made you so tense in the first place?"
"What didn't?" I snort, a bit self-deprecatingly. "I had no way to know whether my actions would've influenced Sakura into summoning an unexpected Servant, and I didn't even realize until it was time to broach the topic with her, which was dumb and forced me to take stupid risks. She still summoned Medusa by the way, but I have been making plans as if it was a given when I had no way of knowing."
"It was… a bit of a blunder, yes." She accepts slowly, no doubt thinking about the many ways she could've verified my intel if she'd known to second guess it in the first place. "But such is life, and what matters now is that you learn from your mistake, Master. Nobody is born being a master strategist."
It… hurts to hear that, to see the cogs turning in her head. I'm no longer infallible in her eyes, my words can't be taken at face value anymore. That pedestal she put me in when I saved her a month ago… its shine has dulled a fair deal. I tell myself that this is probably good for our relationship, better to prove I'm fallible on something without consequences than in a way that gets us all killed. I need partners, not sycophants.
And yet it still burns. To accept I was wrong in front of her, to lose that blind faith. I take a deep breath and continue talking, shoving those unbecoming feelings into a corner. I need to grow up.
"Rin rejected my alliance offer, which shouldn't have surprised me half as much as it did, and her Servant…" I think back on the short, tan-skinned girl of white hair and red eyes. "Well, I was fairly sure she wouldn't have summoned the one I knew about, but I damn sure didn't expect to encounter Altera Larva in this War."
"I… don't recognise the name, Master."
"I thought not. It's not a story the Grail would tell you. It's an alternate reality's story."
"Master please, you are above prequel memes."
"Why do you even know about prequel memes?" I doubt the Grail told her that story either. "Nevermind I don't want to know. Case is, she never existed in this reality. But you might know of her counterpart, Attila the Hun."
"Excuse my presumption Master, but…" And here it comes, the doubting of my judgement and second-guessing of my words. I remind myself that this is a good thing for a healthy and balanced relationship and let her ask her question. "How would you know that Archer isn't Attila the Hun? Servants are rarely summoned as children, but it does happen under special circumstances."
"Because Attila was never a child. She wasn't human in the first place and she didn't grow up like one." Altera Larva is only supposed to exist within the Moon Cell, after Velber is destroyed by Saber Venus and the recovered fragments of 'Altera' are put back together from its remains to try and get her back. "At least that's how it should be, the Holy Grail War is known for pulling bullshit out of its own ass just for laughs. So it might be some sort of once-in-a-timeline exception, a what-if scenario of some sort pulled from her own hopes and dreams. Or some sort of Faker Class Servant."
I'm pretty sure Altera has neither [Seraphic Monstrosity] nor [Self-Modification], so her shape shouldn't get weird, but… Servants are weird. There's no way to know for sure.
"I see." She nods after a brief pause to digest my words, letting herself relax back into the hot water. Which should've started cooling off by now, sharing a bath with a powerful witch sure is convenient. "What do we know about her, then?"
"She's usually summoned as Saber, due to her possession of Photon Ray, the Sword of Mars." I start distractedly. In fact, without Saber right there and on my side, I would've doubted Rin's declaration, and even my own appraisal of her status. "Which makes some sort of distorted sense since Rin so badly wanted a Saber. But as a hun warrior, she'd be perfectly eligible as both Archer and Rider too."
"Ah, Master." She interrupts again, sounding more confused than suspicious. "Didn't you just say the two of them aren't the same person?"
"It's… complicated, okay?" I shrug my shoulders in frustration, because it really is. "The Altera from the Moon dreamt of the life of the Altera from Earth while trapped within her seal, and wished to have such a life for herself. Strictly speaking, the Altera from the Moon should only qualify as a Foreigner, it's only through the dreams of Altera from Earth that any other Class is available to her at all."
"It's… not the strangest thing I've ever heard of, I suppose."
"Anyway, I'm sure you'd like the girl. Did you know the Olympian Gods that existed during your time were just the wrecked remains of their original Machine God forms?" I smile teasingly. "Want to take a guess at who wrecked them in the first place?"
Medea's eyes suddenly sharpen, locking into mine with an intensity rarely seen in them. "Tell me everything, Master."
每周推薦票狀態
-- 推薦票
榜單 
-- 推薦票