This was an alliance Vita of the Wolkenritter would have rather avoided.
“You…”
She sighed.
“This is an important mission; if you fail, this whole thing loses its meaning.”
“Well aren’t you hardworking,” replied the voice on the other side of the confessionary.
“I’m just tired. Of so many things,” Vita admitted, resting her forehead on the cool wood panel.
“You do sound tired, Vita-san. Very well, this time I will go along with your deviance.”
”Oh fuck you. You know I’d normally take care of it myself, but I have my own role in this plan, so I’ll have to leave this to you. Can I count on you?”
Caren Ortensia’s lips stretched with the subtle glee of Mephistopheles upon damning Faust’s soul.
“I assure you, everything shall be as you command. You may leave Emiya Shirou in my capable hands.”
“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of!” Vita admitted.
“Ufufufufu~”
“Don’t pick this moment to start ‘ufufufu-ing’! You do it on purpose, don’t you!?”
Slurp~
“Don’t lick your liiiiiiiips!” Vita was clutching her hair at this point. “It’s not sexy when you do it; it’s just plain scary!”
Emiya Shirou could not possibly know, but a very interesting day awaited him.
“Mou, whatever! Let’s do this!” Vita gave up in a number of ways and decided to just move on. “Operation ‘All the Harems’ is go!”
“Excelsior!”
Vita turned to look at Caren oddly. The Church supervisor to Fuyuki returned the look with her usual stone-faced expression.
“…what?”
***********************************************
MISTRESS’ DAY
Inspired by Heroslayer’s ‘Mahou Senki: Lyrical Days’
***********************************************
“Yes, yes, please wait a minute!” Emiya Shirou cried out as he hurriedly turned off the stove and took off his cooking apron before making his way to the front door and whoever was insistently pushing the doorbell. That day he was in fact not expecting Vita, so this was truly an unforeseen visitor. However, the number of people who visited his house in Fuyuki was rather small and it was fairly easy to eliminate candidates, so he had a pretty accurate idea of who it was by the time he made it to the entrance.
“Good morning, Caren,” he said as he opened the door. “What can I do…for…you…?”
A bat. Not the animal, the sports implement. Metal, not wood.
Caren Ortensia, clad in her clothes of office—the priestly ones, not the lewd ones—held a baseball bat with her right hand.
“Good morning, Emiya Shirou,” she greeted in her usual inexpressive tone of voice. “Would you be so kind as to close your eyes for a few seconds, please?”
Shirou…stared at the placidly smiling girl for several awkward, quiet seconds. His left hand twitched a few times, but his conscious brain was not really sure of what exactly it wished to do with that hand. Face-palming? No, that did not really cut it this time.
“…Ca, Caren,” he finally said. “You know, Caren…”
“Hmm?”
“Caren, I…it might be hard to believe, but I like you. Really, I do.”
“I am rather fond of you as well, Emiya Shirou,” the priestess replied, her honest feelings better portrayed in her pristine smile than in the words themselves.
“Well, sometimes I really wonder,” Shirou argued back. “I mean, do you really think me the kind of person who would fall for…for…” Shirou twirled his uneasy left hand, vaguely signaling in the direction of Caren’s bat. “…that?”
“Hmm.” Caren looked at the hand, then down at her bat, and then at Shirou’s face once more.
“I take it that means no?”
Shirou…inhaled deeply…and then exhaled. He allowed the early morning air clean his lungs and his thoughts.
“…I would say it does, Caren.”
“I see,” she said, unceremoniously dropping the bat as it no longer served a purpose. “I should have gone with my original plan, after all.”
“Probably, yes.” Anything would have been better than…the bat.
“Very well; would you agree to do me a favor if I offer you an irreplaceable treasure of incalculable value?”
Shirou frowned as a minor alarm rang in the depths of his psyche.
“What…treasure…?”
“My virgini—”
The sudden, intense pain of Shirou’s head striking the doorframe drowned the end of Caren’s sentence fragment. Caren frowned.
“Hmm. You probably did not catch that. I said, my virgini—”
Caren would swear the doorframe trembled from the sheer violence of the second impact. Regardless, it was a different issue which bothered her.
“You are not letting me finish my sentences. That is awfully rude, Emiya Shirou.”
Shirou gaped at the white-haired beauty, his face a most eloquent banner screaming “how dare you!?”
“I understand that I cannot begin to compare with some of the impressive ladies in your harem, but I would like to believe my virgi—” *Bam* *BAM* “—does not mean so little to you. Stop doing that.”
“Stop talking! Just…just come in, please.”
“Hmm. So you agree to my terms.”
“No! I just meant—”
Caren shook her head while unabashedly stepping forward and into the house.
“At long last, I will be devoured by your insatiable libido. I would lie if I said I was not prepared for this; we both knew this day would arrive sooner or lat—eegyan~!”
A strange but unusually cute, high-pitched sound escaped Caren’s lips when Shirou roughly seized her by the shoulders and pushed her against the wall, promptly closing the main entrance now that Caren’s was completely inside. Indeed, it was the advanced two-armed
kabedon.
Her body restrained by the strong grip of Shirou’s hands, Caren could only look up at the man four years her senior, whose unexpectedly serious stare rendered her legs weak and made her eyes quiver in…what? Trepidation? Anticipation?
Shirou could not help but admire Caren Ortensia’s features upon drawing his face mere inches from hers. He had met her a lovely fourteen-year-old. Three years later, he would be the first to admit she had become a very beautiful woman. Her unusual hair color, her porcelain face and her slender figure could mesmerize any man fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of them. Shirou and the others had seen her in her exorcist attire throughout the years, and Zafira had put it best: “dem legs, man!”
“Damn it, Caren, why do you have to ruin all your loveliness every time you open your mouth?”
Flattery at point-blank was something Caren Ortensia had absolutely no experience at—she is a member of the Church, after all. And while sexuality is one of her major avenues of teasing other people, the fact remains she is as inexperienced at matters of love and sex as Shirou, if not more.
“Eh…?” Thus, that was Caren’s most eloquent of response to Shirou’s rather reckless, but undoubtedly sincere thoughts.
“So? What do you have to say for yourself, wicked priestess?”
Caren’s lips quivered. For the first time since they met, she felt awfully conscious of his warm smile, of the intensity of his eyes like amber, of the warmth of his body forged by unholy flame and torturous magecraft, of his awfully well-shaped, utterly masculine anatomy that could probably swipe her off her feet and effortlessly have its way with her…
“Uh-um…” Her voice, oftentimes imperturbable, had shifted an octave or two. “Be…please be gentle?”
Shirou’s smile became a flat look, but that did not last long, for he could not hold his own laughter.
“Eh? Eh?” Caren was out of proper words, and Shirou laughed a bit louder, tenderly stroking the young woman’s pristine hair much to her embarrassment.
“Damn it, you’re cute, so I can’t for the life of me ask you to change your ways. Turns out I’m just another weak male after all.” He shook his head in exasperation at himself. “Come on in, I always end up making too much food, anyway.”
Caren needed a few seconds to get her feet to work, so she watched Shirou’s departing back for a while, wondering if the cold, itchy feeling in her chest was in fact disappointment.
As for Shirou, well, he had a smile on his face.
He knew a victory when he saw it.
***********************************************
“A beach trip? That’s the big thing?”
Caren explained the actual purpose of her visit while enjoying Shirou’s high-quality breakfast.
“Yes,” she said. “Vita-san and Yuuno-san have made arrangements for…well, everyone. They said it has been a while since we have done something like this, and it would be a different way to celebrate Nanoha-san’s twenty-first birthday.”
“Hmm…” Shirou’s tone of voice sounded unsure, but it did not reflect his actual thoughts. If it was for Nanoha’s sake, of course he would be okay with it.
“Well, I see no problem with it. Did you come here just to invite me?”
“Not at all. Confirming your presence was only the first of my objectives. I have here…” Caren stopped talking to reach for
something inside her robes. A piece of paper. From a priestess robe without pockets.
Shirou…was half-amazed, half-terrified.
“Whe-where…where the hell did you take that from?”
Caren saw the opportunity to regain…whatever it is she felt she lost back there at the entrance. Presenting her most enticing, teasing smile, she replied with another question.
“…would you really like to know?”
Shirou pursed his lips for a moment.
“…nah, I’m not that curious.”
“The answer
might be ‘inside my bra’.”
“I just said I wasn’t that—wait, what do you mean, ‘might’—no, more like, you wear a bra!?”
Triple tsukkomi chain. You have reached far, Emiya Shirou.
Caren’s eyes widened in a mixture of delight and triumph, and Shirou knew he was screwed. Again.
“Do you always imagine me going commando, Emiya Shirou?”
“Well, yeah—I mean, no! I mean, ugh! Ugh!”
Caren’s smile was a promise of pleasures beyond words concealing eternal damnation. Shirou face-palmed.
“Really…I always wondered if there was a way your father could have possibly been a worse human being than he was,” he confessed. “Now I realize, he was not a woman.”
Seemingly unbothered by the disturbing allusions to her progenitor, Caren chuckled in delight.
“Don’t be silly, Emiya Shirou. Were my father a woman, he would have simply succumbed to your lustful charm just like all the others.”
“Ew! Ew, Caren, ew!”
Only direct exposure to All the World’s Evil could elicit a rictus of horror to match Shirou’s current expression.
“The H-scene would have probably occurred in the confessionary. That’s kind of the norm for the church characters.”
“Shut! Up! Caren! Please! Ugh!”
“Or maybe some exposure play; you know, doing it in front of the children in the underground crypt.”
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaarggggghhhh!!!”
Caren unflinchingly watched her host repeatedly bang his head against the low dining table.
“I cannot help but notice you are practicing self-flagellation with worrisome frequency today. Have you awakened to a new, dangerous path of depravity?” She sighed like a mother who has given up on her hikikomori child. “Oh God, forgive this wanton beast, lost in the hell of carnal pleasures. He knows not your pure, pristine love, so please forgive his ignorance.”
“Forget what I said earlier! Please, change your ways! Change them a lot! I think you’re the one who needs an exorcism!”
One more time, Caren examined the feelings swirling in her chest like butterflies in spring. There it was, that familiar bliss she experienced whenever she exchanged words with Emiya Shirou. He was not the only person to elicit such feelings; in fact, most conversations she partook of ended with a degree of such satisfaction. However, no other person elicited these feelings of delight so consistently and strongly. Truly, what a dangerously gifted man, Emiya Shirou. And what a hopelessly sinful woman she was, so desperately hungry for more.
Shirou’s greatest mistake was not letting Caren open her mouth and voice her thoughts. It was closing his eyes and covering his face as he rolled on the floor in a fruitless attempt to dispel the horrible, horrible images she had conjured in his head. That’s why, when he opened his eyes again, he could not avoid his surprise upon finding the priestess standing right in front of him, her presence looming over his seated form like a hungry mantis ready for her meal.
“What…what is it?”
Caren tilted her head, the perfect image of adorableness.
“Do you not wish to know?”
“Know what…wait, no! No! I don’t want to know!”
His answers were irrelevant. Caren does as Caren wishes.
“Whether I am wearing underwear or not, of course.”
“The fact that it’s a question is a problem in the first place! Stop playing with me!”
The young woman calmly shook her head.
“No, no games this time, Emiya Shirou. I’ll let you see for yourself.”
“Wha—wait, Care—”
That was when the sliding door leading to the inner courtyard opened abruptly, revealing the tall and austere figure of the Knight of the Sword, Signum of the Wolkenritter, accompanied by the Unison Device, Reinforce Zwei.
“Shirou-saaaaaaaaaaaaaan!” Rein cheerfully called. “Vita’s gone crazy at home, so we came here to hang out—uwawawawawah!”
The two members of the Yagami family were met by the absurd scene of Shirou’s upper body concealed by the bottom half of Caren’s priestly robes. Thus they could only see the silhouette of Shirou’s head pressed against the Churchwoman’s crotch, his arms wrapped around her shapely legs.
“Good morning Signum-san, Reinforce-chan. As you can see, Emiya Shirou is currently occupied, investigating whether I am, in fact, wearing underwear. He must have already realized that the answer is, in fact, ‘yes and no’. With this I mean that, yes, I am wearing underwear, but no, I am not wearing a bra or panties.”
“Puagh!” Shirou exclaimed upon finding sweet release. The first thing he did after that was a tsukkomi.
“Band-aids are not underwear! And now I’m really wondering where that piece of paper came from! But more importantly, please don’t kill me, Signum!”
“Wawawawawah…how, how lewd…!”
“Yes,” Caren wholeheartedly agreed. “Emiya Shirou is incomparably lewd.”
“If you weren’t your father’s daughter I’d wonder how your parents raised you!”
Signum sighed, already tired despite not having spent a minute in that house. With a single hand, she pulled Caren away from Shirou and forced her to sit back down by the dining table.
“Spare me the indecency for a change, Ortensia. I came in the hopes of some peace and quiet, and I will
not be denied. Understood?”
“Signum…” Shirou looked up at the beautiful knight like a weeping damsel in the presence of her savior. This person, Signum of the Wolkenritter, would not misunderstand! He would not be beaten up like…like some plain harem protagonist!
Caren got a good look at Signum, and accepted her terms with a courteous nod.
“I understand. In that case, Emiya Shirou and I shall leave you to your rest and continue in one of the empty bedroom—mmmgbgrble!”
Any further attempt at coherent speech was blocked by the twin mouthfuls of rice Signum and Shirou all but shoved in Caren’s petite mouth. With some trepidation, Shirou turned to the little Reinforce Zwei, who had flown to sit on his left shoulder.
“Shirou-san…really has it tough every day, hmm?” The little girl said with a voice and a face full of compassion. It brought Shirou to tears.
Zwei-chan, you are truly an angel!
***********************************************
Even if Shirou was more accustomed to the shinai, Signum made up for the difference with sheer skill and speed. Their wooden swords clashed well over twenty times in less than five seconds; violently, relentless, more ferociously than any of his spars with Arturia. Signum had long given up on asking him to allow her to hold back a little, and he had long gotten past the point where Signum holding back was a possibility.
Signum had a number of people she could ask for a spar, with Chrono’s name at the top of the list, naturally. However, only Fate Harlaown and Shirou here could claim the title of “swordsmen” among them all, and only those two could grant her the joy of an authentic clash of blades. So, she would be lying if she said she did not look forward to these encounters.
This was not a basic spar, nor a choreography of prearranged strikes. Their attacks were intense, almost desperate, as if letting their swords meet each other was preferable to keeping their distance and waiting for an opening. As if they were bursting with energy that demanded to be released, even if only as an inconsequential clash of blades. And their thoughts were the same, for the wide grin on Shirou’s face and the petite smile on Signum’s reflected the same emotions.
“Hmm, hmm…” Caren murmured as she came to a conclusion after a few minutes of watching the exchange. She and Reinforce Zwei sat by one of the walls of the dojo, letting the swordsmen have their fun.
“So…I presume this is also a form of mating ritual…”
“Umm, I don’t really think that is the case…” Zwei muttered with a measure of unease.
“But, it is obvious they extract pleasure from this…combat.”
“Well, yeah…” the little girl, no taller than Caren’s own head, tilted her body from side to side as she pondered her next words. “They are swordsmen, so…they like fighting with swords.”
“But would it not be better if they channeled that aggressiveness in more fruitful ways?”
“Such as?”
Caren…actually stopped herself before voicing her thoughts.
“I…could answer that question for you, but I have the feeling Emiya Shirou would hurt me, and not in a particularly pleasurable way.”
“Ha-haa…”
Indeed, even while trading blows with Signum, Shirou somehow managed to shoot pointed glares in Caren’s direction every once in a while.
“More importantly,” Caren continued, fully turning to face Reinforce. “Tell me more about this ‘Unison’ thing.”
“Um…well…like I told you before, it’s a physical merge of Device and master, mostly to enhance mana control, although we can provide other forms of assistance.”
“Yes, yes, but, more importantly, do you experience shared sensory perception?”
The little Device nodded. “Yes, basic sensory input is completely shared, and things like pain and heat can be shared to whatever degree both parties agree upon.”
“I see, I see,” Caren muttered. She seemed to be awfully interested in the topic. “What about emotions? Do you share those as well? Are you like, of one mind and one body?”
“Um…not exactly; there is a degree of emotional transfer through the telepathic bond, but the individuality of master and Device is generally maintained.”
“Hmm, I see…so the enjoyment would have to come from both parties…”
“Wha—what exactly are you applying Unison to in your mind, Caren-san…” A slightly embarrassed Reinforce weakly complained. It was kind of painful that she was already used to this degree of shame after a life as Hayate’s Device.
“So…” Caren resumed her inquiry, not paying attention to the Device’s worries. “…can you Unison with anyone? Could we do it right now, for example?”
“Ah, no…” Zwei rejected the idea and felt strangely relieved about it. “There are a number of reasons I cannot Unison with Caren-san—”
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!”
A shinai flew mercilessly, like a javelin, cutting the air between Caren and Reinforce and spearing the wall behind them. It was Shirou, who loomed over the seated women with eyes clad in righteous fury.
“As if I’d let you! You’re Unison’ing with Rein-chan over my dead body!”
“Ah, no, no!” A slightly frantic Reinforce waved her arms in a conciliatory manner. “For starters, Caren-san doesn’t even have a Linker Core, so…”
“Even if you could, I would not allow it!” Shirou insisted, glaring at Caren while pointing at Reinforce. “Look at her, Caren! She’s pure and perfect! I’m not letting you corrupt her!”
“Buwawawah!” An explosive blush from the fairy-like Reinforce. “P-Perfect…uwaaaaah~”
Caren, unperturbed by Shirou’s heated stare, turned her attention one more time to the little Device.
“I see…so this is Emiya Shirou’s ideal woman…” she concluded, staring at Reinforce as if eager to memorize every little detail of her anatomy.
“I-Iyaaaan~” Rein covered her flushed cheeks with both hands and squirmed in midair.
“Don’t twist my words in dangerous directions!” Shirou complained, just before a shinai struck the back of his head.
“I won,” a mildly peeved Signum declared. No, she was not happy Shirou stopped their duel. And Shirou decided that from that day onwards he would strive to avoid rooms with more than one woman, the poor fool.
“Does that mean you get to have your way with the loser—OW.”
Signum had her own way to deal with Caren Ortensia. It involved swords and not using their sharp parts.
***********************************************
“Shirou-san! Shirou-san!” Having changed to a natural-sized form to walk on the streets of Fuyuki, Reinforce Zwei excitedly called for Hayate’s beloved while pointing at a rather fancily-dressed teddy bear behind the glass showcase of an antique shop.
“Shirou-saaaaaaaan!” Her voice was happiness itself. “It’s so pretty!”
Walking at a more sedate pace compared to the overexcited Device, Shirou and the others watched Reinforce amaze herself with the sights of Fuyuki, wearing smiles on their faces. The little girl made for a lovely sight, capable of warming all but the darkest and coldest of hearts. Shirou felt healed by the unabashed joy in Reinforce’s smile, and allowed the peace of that moment washed over his heart.
And then Caren opened her mouth.
“Wouldn’t you say we look like a family, Emiya Shirou?”
He could not stop himself. He should; he knew in his heart of hearts that he should, but her words were worse than Zouken’s worms, burrowing under his skin and getting in his nerves.
“How…exactly…?”
Caren shrugged as if it were obvious.
“Signum-san and you can easily pass for a married couple.”
Something in the vicinity of “buegh!” came out of Shirou’s throat. Because his brain seemed out to embarrass him that day, it commanded his neck to turn in the direction of the Knight of the Sword. Their eyes met, and they caught notice of the other’s blushing cheeks, which made their own blushing all the more visible. It was a positive feedback loop of embarrassment which only ended when both magic user and swordswoman turned their gazes away like shy preteens dealing with their first love.
Meanwhile, Caren gestured in the direction of Reinforce.
“That of course makes Zwei-chan your daughter.”
“She, she doesn’t look anything like either of us,” Shirou retorted, almost desperate to think of anything other than Signum’s unbelievably adorable blushing face. “For starters, we’re both redheads.”
“Well of course,” Caren agreed. “She has my hair, after all.”
“Did you just turn me into an adulterer in your fantasy!?”
“After many, many unsuccessful tries to have a child together, Signum-san came to terms with the fact that she will not be able to give you offspring,” Caren narrated with a wistful voice. “Thinking of nothing but your happiness, she sought the help of her good friend Caren, who gladly accepted becoming the mother of Emiya Shirou’s child.”
Nodding in unexplainable satisfaction, she looked at something in the far distance.
“A beautiful story of friendship and love.”
“Don’t build a whole setting for your ridiculous jokes!”
“My good friend…?” Signum muttered, sounding rather befuddled.
“And of course, Emiya-san’s honor meant he had to take responsibility for the mother of his child, so Caren now lives with the couple, as Emiya-san’s mistress.”
“
Saishoudoukin!?”
Caren smirked with pointlessly smug satisfaction.
“As expected of Emiya Shirou, you know the right terminology.”
“It’s all Hayate’s fault!”
“Wa-wait! Emiya!” Signum complained with indignation. “Don’t just go and blame my mistress—!”
Shirou glared at Signum, who suddenly realized what she was saying.
“—oh who am I kidding; of course it’s her fault.”
“Shirou-san,” Reinforce, drawn by the suddenly outburst of loud retorting from the adults, called for the cherished person while approaching with a skip in her steps. “Is something wrong? Shirou-san’s face looks kinda scary…”
“Don’t worry dear,” Caren promptly replied, wearing the sweetest of smiles while hunched over Reinforce’s small form to tenderly stroke her hair. “Mama’s just having a serious conversation with Shirou-san here.”
“Mama..?”
Shirou looked at Signum, his face a wordless cry for help. The knight, however, could only shake her head.
“I can’t hit her in a public place.” Yes, that was the only reason. Strangely, the answer made Shirou perk up and clap his hands like a tour guide calling for attention.
“Alright, everyone! We’re going karaoke right now!”
“Yay!” Reinforce clapped happily and innocently. Caren, however, had let her normally narrow eyes widen like saucers.
“You never cease to surprise me with your boldness, Emiya Shirou,” she gasped, and her throaty, whispering voice carried an undertone of anticipation. “Soft SM play in a karaoke room? With our daughter watchin—”
“Shut uuuuuuuuuuup!!! Shut! Up!” Shirou and Signum completely broke character, making little Reinforce jump backwards in fright and seek refuge behind Caren’s back of all places. The priestess stroke Rein’s hair one more time.
“Don’t worry, sweetheart, mama will take care of everything.”
The two sword-lovers fell to their knees.
“I can’t…anymore…” Signum, far less adept to the role of tsukkomi than Shirou, found her limit all too quickly. She collapsed, right on the middle of the street.
“Signuuuuuuuuuuuuuummm!!!!!”
“You are making a scene, Emiya Shirou,” Caren pointed out. Indeed, it was quite the spectacle they were performing. Shirou could only glare by this point.
“You…” he said. “You enjoy this way too much.”
It was like a keyword—well, more like a key phrase. Shirou putting Caren’s feelings into words was like a password to the purest depths of her heart. And then, all traces of anger, frustration or whatever else that could have grown in Emiya Shirou’s chest were blown away by the immaculate, almost child-like delight radiated by Caren’s most honest and pristine smile.
“Yes! Very!”
Emiya Shirou was utterly disarmed by her honesty and, against his own judgment and any measure of prudence, he blushed uncontrollably.
***********************************************
“You know, if Vita wanted me to cook stuff for the beach trip she should have paid for the ingredients,” Shirou commented. It was already the early afternoon, right after a morning of shopping and lunch outdoors for a change.
“Yet you happily stocked your kitchen full of things to prepare for the trip. And you’re making us dinner,” Caren pointed out. She watched Shirou’s cooking exploits from the other side of the counter while resting her chin on her entwined hands. On the other side of the room, Reinforce Zwei tried her luck at a certain game involving a certain Italian handyman—and I don’t mean Assassin’s Creed. Signum watched over her with a plain stare, showing no hint of either interest or boredom.
“I do like cooking.”
“Even for me?” The priestess asked, her face the perfect picture of innocence. It did not suit her at all.
“Even for you,” Shirou admitted, taking a moment to look away from the stove at Caren’s lovely face.
“Then why do you always complain when I come for a meal?”
“Because you come every single day I’m in Fuyuki, and the cost of those extra meals comes right out of my pocket.”
He did not mention that Vita made him cook for her almost every day regardless of location. However, the Knight of the Hammer did pay for the ingredients of her meals, aware as she was of the fact that, well, she eats a lot.
“So, you are demanding payment.”
“With money, Caren,” Shirou replied quickly. “Not with your body or with whatever perverted idea you can come up with.”
Caren could not see Signum nodding behind her, as if silently congratulating Shirou for anticipating the other woman’s obvious plan.
“Hmm…you put me in a difficult position, Emiya Shirou.”
“How exactly!?”
“You will not accept my nubile, pristine, virginal body in exchange for your services.”
“Do you realize what you are saying!? Are you really a woman of the church!?”
“And I don’t really want to give you my money.”
“Gods, you’re so annoying!”
“It would feel like a sin; like the lowly man who pays a wanton woman in a back alley for a quickie.”
“What kind of logic is tha—gods, you’re worse than Hayate!”
“So, the only option I see…” Caren continued as she walked around the counter and made her way to the small kitchen. “…is to create a circumstance in which you providing meals for me no longer becomes a favor provided and thus there is no need for remuneration.”
Shirou made a face. Caren was already standing to her right, looking up at him with her eyes so much like his own.
“What are you going for now…?”
“Emiya Shirou, I am suggesting marriage.”
Silence. Reinforce actually paused her game, so it was really silent.
“…whose?”
“Ours.”
“No way-no way-no way-no waaaaaaaaayyyyyy!!!!!” Zwei jumped to her feet and into the fray before Shirou could even think of a retort. “Shirou-kun belongs to us!”
Signum took a long glance at the Unison Device before adding her two cents.
“I will assume she meant ‘Hayate’. Emiya belongs to Hayate.”
“Yes!” Zwei exclaimed. “Hayate! Hayate’s important! Shirou-kun belongs to Hayate, which means he’s also ours by proxy!”
“Even Zafira’s?” Caren honestly inquired.
“Hey.”
“Sure, why not?”
“Hey!” Shirou felt himself in deep trouble. “I’m fairly sure I don’t belong to anyone!”
Except perhaps the kitchen, which is not a person.
“Anyway, dinner’s almost ready,” Shirou nipped this strange conversation before it could get more bizarre. “Caren, please make yourself useful and ready the table.”
“You are very attractive when you are ordering women around, Emiya Shirou.”
“Try listening to yourself for once!”
Her entertainment aside, Caren actually did as told and brought dishes, bowls and chopsticks to the low table. She also brought alcohol.
“So that’s what you expend your money on?” Shirou sounded like a disappointed parent. Signum also looked a bit put out by the bottle’s very presence, while the young Reinforce stared at it with unbridled curiosity.
“It is not very often that the four of us meet and spend time like this,” Caren pointed out.
“You come here every day,” Shirou retorted.
“I thought it would be appropriate to at least share a toast to this opportunity.”
“Every. Day,” Shirou insisted. “Also, you’re too young to drink.”
Caren turned to Signum, who understood that her thoughts on the matter were required. She thus cleared her throat.
“I am not particularly fond of sake, but Ortensia does have a point. It has been, after all, an enjoyable and peaceful day, and I can toast to that.”
Caren smiled at the swordswoman with sincere gratitude.
“However!” Signum continued. “Only once! A single toast and that will be all! Understood?”
***********************************************
“A-And then…hic! Dat, dat, da-dat, dat Hayateeeeeen! She shaid she had ‘fohgotten’ to wash my undehwear! Hayate you dummy!” Signum narrated before gulping down half a bottle of strong and bitter Japanese beer. “…hic!”
“Signum, I thi-I thi—I think you’ve-fff-buh…whoa…” Emiya Shirou was finding it difficult to articulate sentences. “When did wuh…we…waaah…” He was trying to figure out just when they drank so much; those were a lot of bottles he could see, even when accounting for drunken double-vision. Shirou thus decided enough was enough and tried to stand up; a feat that proved much harder than by any means should be.
“I…I think we should callit a d—whoa!” Slipping on one of the empty bottles, Shirou would have been in for a nasty hit on the back of his head had Caren not interposed her own body to prevent the worst of the fall. However, it would be ludicrous to expect the petite woman to be able to support Shirou’s weight.
“Uwah!” Shirou exclaimed upon falling on his butt. Caren however giggled even as her body hit the floor to his left. Signum, startled out of her drunken monologue by the reckless fall of the other two, stared at Shirou with wide, slightly bloodshot eyes.
“Ah, my, my bad, Caren,” Shirou said, remaining respectful even with his mind addled by booze. Shirou pushed his back against the wall to keep himself from just leaning over to either side. His sense of balance was completely bonkers. The half-Japanese beauty picked herself up, looking up at Shirou with a lovely blush on her creamy white cheeks.
“Emiyaaaaaaaaa…Shirou.” Her voiced lacked the smooth, teasing cadence Shirou was painfully used to. She sounded like a farm girl—or at least the stereotypical image of a farm girl shown in American television.
“Hu-huh? What ishit?” He said, paying little attention to his own blurred voice. Caren leaned closer to him, her eyes widened like she was about to reveal a dire secret.
“I’m drunk!” She whispered.
“Uhh…um.”
“I’m going to hell!”
“If you are…it wo-it wo…it won’t be ‘cause of dis.”
The tsukkomi engine was broken, but it could at least manage something.
“It’sh okaaaaaay…” Caren promptly decided. “I’ll take care of you.”
“You’re taking me with you!?” A chock full of adrenaline allowed Shirou to articulate a full retort.
Caren pushed herself against Shirou’s left side, never ceasing to look up at him with the same lovely but clearly dazed expression.
“Sssssssssssurrrrrre…” She said before snorting at her own voice. “I like you the most, so I’m keeping you.”
“Oh.” The reaction of a drunken man. “Huh.”
“Heheh~” Caren giggled most uncharacteristically before squeezing Shirou like he was her own personal teddy bear. “Emiya Shiroooooooooooooouuu…~”
“No waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!” A shrilly, unbelievably high-pitched voice made the others’ ears ring and glass bottles vibrate. “Shirou-san is miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnne!”
“Bugah!” Shirou was pinned to the wall by the combined weights of Caren and Reinforce Zwei. At least he no longer had to worry about falling prone. The Device with the looks and height of a child looked up at him with big, teary eyes that already made him feel like he had committed a crime.
“Shirou-san’s mine!” Reinforce Zwei repeated, hissing at Caren like a very cute kitten. “And also Hayate’s! But mostly mine!”
“Hayate became an afterthought!?”
“You’re…” Signum hiccupped. Her index finger vaguely pointed in the direction of Emiya Shirou “…’ishgusting.”
“Signum-san…you really should…” Shirou spoke slowly an in short sentence fragments to keep his mind lucid. “…stay quiet for now.”
“Y-You…” Caren then said, one of her fingers swaying between Reinforce and Shirou. “Since when…?”
“Muuuuu!” Zwei pouted adorably, seemingly irritated by having to explain what she thought was obvious. “Shirou-saaaaaaaaaan’s always super nice to me; I’ve always liked Shirou-san lots!”
“Huh,” Shirou and Caren uttered simultaneously, to which Rein retorted with a moody sound like mooing.
“Muuuuuu…you’re makin’ fun of meeeeeee!”
“Uhhh…” Shirou finally noticed the flushed cheeks and somewhat dazed look on the Unison Device’s child-like face. “…Rein-chan, are you drunk?”
Reinforce inhaled deeply just to make her point.
“….duuuuuuuuuuuuuuh!”
Shirou was not offended. “Do Devices get drunk?”
“Hear, hear!” Reinforce called out for no apparent reason. Her loud voice made Shirou groan, which itself made Reinforce giggle.
“I think I’m sweating,” Shirou announced for no real reason. Caren made a shooing gesture to Reinforce’s face.
“Get off, girl; you’re bothering him.”
“Dun’wanna! And I’m not!” The Device replied with a tone as childish as it was stubborn. “Why don’t you get off?”
“No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no…” Caren incessantly shook her head while she spoke. “…no. Whoa.”
The church envoy had to clear her head and wait for the spinning to slow down a little before continuing.
“I’m…the forbidden fruit Emiya Shirou’s about to sink his teeth into.”
“…huh?” Shirou’s tsukkomi engine suffered critical failure.
“You…you’h just a child,” Caren continued by pointing out the obvious. “Children don’ get Emiya lovin’.”
“You people…!” Signum suddenly yelled like a senile old man. “You people are all deviants—!” The bottle in her hand slipped past her grip and met an ignoble end when it crashed on the dining room’s wall, staining both wall and floor with beer left unconsumed.
“…whoa,” the Knight of the Sword said while staring at the mess she had just created. “…shouldn’t have done that.”
Perhaps the clearest sign of Emiya Shirou’s inebriation was his uncharacteristic lack of care about the mess of spilled beer and broken glass. Instead he looked down and to the side, where Caren smiled at him with just as uncharacteristic affection—also, drunkenness.
“Caren, I thought you thought…” Shirou paused for a moment, nodding upon verifying in his mind that he had used the right words. “I thought you thought I am some sort of…deviant demigod or whatever.”
There was a strange yet organic silence after that. A natural result, albeit unexpected. Shirou and Caren stared at each other at length, the taller man calmly waiting for an answer while trying not to outwardly show how aware he was of Caren’s curves all over him. The petite woman was utterly wasted, so she could not care less about being sprawled all over Shirou—it was awfully comfy, though. What she did care about, however, was his hold on the small of her back to keep her from sliding off him like a piece of wet tofu, as well as the neutral, yet somewhat flushed face that looked down at her. His was a firm, manly hold: protective, yet cautious, and perhaps even a little possessive. Were Caren a little more lucid, she might have become the target of her own scolding, calling herself a weak-minded woman for allowing herself to be swayed by the stronger masculine. But she was drunk and brimming to the seams with pent up libido, so she wanted nothing else but to be held by that man and never let go.
She giggled, and if anybody had asked she would not have been able to tell why she did it. A second later, Shirou was blabbering monosyllables in Caren’s mouth while the priestess claimed the insides of his own with the flag that was her tongue—and not precisely in the name of the Holy Church.
“Aaaaaaah!” Reinforce Zwei cried in outrage while Caren’s weight finally pushed Shirou down and pinned him to the floor all the while the robed woman became far more acquainted with Shirou’s mouth than his dentist ever was.
“No faaaaaaaaaair!” The Device complained and even tried to pull Caren away, but the priestess’ grip was firm. It did not help that Shirou, while a little too out of it to reject her or kiss back, still had a firm hold around her waist. Unable to break the slovenly scene on her own, Rein turned to her Knight of the Sword.
“Signum! Do something—what’s with that look!?” Or at least she tried, only to interrupt herself with a fearful cry.
Indeed, the woman who had decried the evils of physical relationships just earlier was now watching, transfixed. Like a pitiful third wheel awkwardly trapped in the same room with a passionate couple—which is precisely what she was—Signum tried her darnedest to keep her eyes away and failed, all the while wondering if she should just leave them to their…enjoyment.
“Caren…!” Shirou managed to gasp out a recognizable word, separating his lips from hers just long enough to blurt out her name. The sultry lady retaliated by further pushing herself against him, so that more of his body could feel her soft anatomy. She also mumbled something that might have been either “please” or “be quiet”.
“Signum!”
“Ah…eh, eh!?” The beautiful swordswoman was finally startled out of her fascination.
“Signum, we have to do something! She’s gonna take Shirou from us!”
“Eh…huh?” Signum had drunken the most, so she was far from in full use of her cognitive abilities.
“Muuu…” Reinforce glowered in drunken anger at her partner’s lack of responsiveness…or pretty much anything else. “Signum wants Shirou-san too, right?”
A switch that should have never been triggered had its threshold dramatically lowered after severe alcohol consumption. So, the Knight of the Sword pretty much broke.
“I’m sowwyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy—hic!”
“Eeeeeeeeh!?” Reinforce flinched in response to Signum’s loud and shrilly cry. Even the couple making out across the table had their gazes inevitably pulled towards the suddenly unhinged swordswoman.
“I can’t…I can’t…can’t help it!” Signum blabbered. “I’m a woman too! I have needsh!”
“You mean sex—”
“SWORD FIGHTS!” Signum’s shout interrupted Caren’s attempt at being utterly unsubtle. “I’m a swordswoman! I want to fight people with swords! Ish that…ish that so bad!?”
Shirou nodded dumbly. He could completely understand the sentiment.
“And itshonly Shirou, Fate an’ za Slasher who can gimme swohd figh’s! So it’s obbo…obio…obviously dose three who sho’ up in my naughty dreams an’ make me touch meeself at night!”
She got no sympathy from the other people in the room struggling to figure out how A connected to B. It was not really as obvious as Signum claimed.
“So the sword fighting is a mating ritual after all…” Caren concluded, seemingly proud that her deduction from that morning proved to be true.
“It isn’t!” Shirou provided a simple retort.
“Well, in any case, we are in the middle of preparations for sex here, so…”
“What did you just say—hmmmgrrrgrble!”
Signum pouted like a child denied her candy, her cheeks darkening to an intense rosiness. Caren squirmed and rubbed herself against Shirou’s anatomy, and Signum saw it as a taunt.
“Uuuuuuuugh…aaah, I don’ care anymore! Reinforce!”
“Yes!” The Device jumped to her feet with almost jubilant glee. “Ready and raring to go!”
“Unison, in!”
The making-out was this time interrupted by a fancy magic light show. While it was not the first time Shirou had seen Signum’s and Rein’s Unison form, this time it was a little…
“Where did your clothes gooooooooooo!?”
Caren nodded in approval of what she was looking at.
“I knew this Unison thing would come in handy tonight.”
“I knew I should have never let you in the same room as Rein-cha—ugah!”
All forms of coherent speech ended when Unisoned (drunk) Signum jumped into the fray of a whole new kind of battle.
***********************************************
Morning.
Yes, this is that kind of half-assed story.
Emiya Shirou woke up with a headache, as people with one too many drinks in their system are wont to do. His room in the Fuyuki household was not good at letting the sunlight go in, so he was at least spared from the painful agony of morning light striking his eyes. Regardless, the hammering in his head was annoying, and Emiya Shirou did not particularly enjoy having his body working at anything less than 100% efficiency.
“Ugh, it’s like a hammer’s striking my head over and over,” he moaned to nobody in particular.
“I haven’t started yet, Emiya.”
Emiya Shirou’s head suddenly became clear and awfully lucid. While his naked body and the fact a weight of some sort was preventing him from sitting up were both causes for concern, it was the source of the voice standing under the frame of the sliding door which made the alarms blare in his alcohol-addled brain.
Vita of the Wolkenritter stood there in full battle garb. Her trust Device, Graf Eisen, rested on her right shoulder. There was a second person—not really; it was the Unison Device, Agito. The basketball-sized fireball floating over her left hand was rather telling, and it certainly explained the unusually high temperature in his room that spring morning. While Vita’s steely gaze said little to the magus, Agito’s face clearly spelled sheer disgust. But, Agito was not really looking at him…
That was when Shirou became awfully aware of the outrageous amounts of woman pinning his body to the futon. Signum had a vice grip on his right arm, crunching up her face perhaps at the sudden increase in the amount of sound and heat around her, but nevertheless sleeping like everything was right in the world. Reinforce Zwei was not even using the futon; Shirou’s body itself was her bed, and she was sprawled all over it as if attempting to cover as much as physically possible with her child-sized anatomy.
“Uh…Vita, this is…”
It was exactly was it looked like.
Vita chuckled, and Shirou thought it was the most ominous thing he had heard since the time he almost did not make it to Nanoha’s fifteenth birthday party.
“You know, it’s kinda funny,” the Knight of the Hammer said in the least amused voice she could muster. “I know I have to kill…”
“Instant judgment!?” The tsukkomi engine was back in order and ready to go.
“…but I can’t for the life of me figure out who.”
“Vi-Vita!” Shirou cried out, hoping he could still resolve this situation without structural damage. “I…we, we can talk this out like civilized people, right…?” He did not hesitate to draw his strongest weapon. “I’ll have breakfast up in no time!”
“Already ate.”
“Well fuck me,” Shirou muttered despondently to the side, knowing he was beaten.
“Thank you for the offer, but I think you already had enough of that for now,” Vita coldly retorted. “For now I’ll settle with beating all four of you a little. You with me, Agito?”
“I’m still wondering why we haven’t started yet.”
“Right. So, Emiya, grit those pretty white teeth of you—bogh!”
A pillow interrupted Vita’s declaration of hostilities.
“Too loud…” Caren’s complaint ended in a half-hearted half-mumble, half-moan. The sudden silence more to her liking, she hummed pleasantly while further pressing her bare chest against Shirou’s, her head using his shoulders as a pillow. Rather than her words, it was the sheer, unbridled bliss on her half-asleep face which sent Vita over the edge.
“Alright, that’s it; you’re meeting that Lord of yours a lot earlier than you expected.”
“Vita, wait, what’s with you!?”
“This is for abusing my trust, you goddamned ero-priesteeeeeeeeeess!”
“Burn together with your siiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnsssssssss!” Agito added her two cents.
“What did I do to deserve—will you people wake up alreadyyyyyyyyy!?”
Shirou had no way to know this would be a very significant weekend in his life. Considering how crappily it began, he cannot be blamed for not having particularly great expectations.
***********************************************
Originally Posted by shounen jump
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
