I walked through the streets of Fuyuki. Around me, residence gates were shut, flanked by shops with their metallic shutters pulled down. The sun was still rising, its rays dyeing the world in an orange-gold hue, and silence reigned over early morning.
"You have been following me for some time. Do you want to say something?" I asked without looking back, hands dropping into my coat pockets, eyes tracing the skyline where a few faint stars still twinkled.
Blue particles coalesced, taking the outline of Medea, her heels touching the ground beside mine, hood pulled down to reveal her long flowing hair, arms wrapped behind her back.
"Master... So that little girl was the one you were meeting?" She tilted her head, keeping pace with my stride, her low-heel sandals clacking in the exact same rhythm as my own footsteps.
"You catalogued my movement pattern and practiced while I was gone to align your steps with mine?" I asked after a glance down, the conclusion deduced in a fraction.
"Hehe, do you like it, Master? Now whenever we walk together, the sound of my footsteps will cloak yours." Shuffling closer, she wrapped her arms around one of mine. "Any enemy will have to reach yours after parsing through mine."
Ultimate Assassin could erase the sound of my footfalls entirely. I paused but didn't say it out loud. Her body language told me she already knew it, lips curved in a smile slightly wider than her usual one, pinky finger rubbing unconsciously against my forearm.
"You're telling a half-truth, say what you want plainly." Mid-sentence, my arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her closer and away from a broken tile two steps ahead of her.
"Master, you're no fun~" She shifted nearly her entire weight on my side with a manufactured jerk, arms tightening possessively around mine. "I just want Artoria to watch it and make her fume, is that not allowed?"
Her voice was excessively sweet, but I just gave her a long stare. "Instead of fuming, Artoria would copy you in seconds and add her own footsteps, making it a trio."
Medea snapped her face away with a huff. "So what? I did it before her. I'm the first, not her, and that is enough to brag about."
Artoria has done what you are doing now mid-fight without even trying. I didn't say this out loud either. It was a simple observation gleaned from interacting with women: leaving some facts unspoken yielded better results than listing every logical deduction.
"I thought you were getting along with her after the incident where you both helped each other with the cleaning?"
She whipped her face back toward me, brows scrunching together. When her voice came, it dripped with palpable distaste.
"You seem to have a misunderstanding, Master. Before, that knight was unbearable. Now, she's just a little less unbearable. That is it." One of her hands unwrapped from my arm and rose to gently grip my tie.
I gazed down as she tugged the tie sideways and down. My face dipped, our noses nearly touching, both of us halting in place.
Medea continued. "The only reason I bear with those other women is because of you, Master. If not for you, I would have stabbed them in the back with Rule Breaker long ago."
Her eyes were narrowed, reflecting my face back at me. I could see the fog of her morning breath dissipating a second before it touched my cheek, visible in those same eyes.
Then she cleared her throat and spoke in a tone reminiscent of Artoria. "Hence, I demand compensation for my valiant efforts, or it would be dishonorable of you, Master."
My eyebrow was mid-twitch when I forced it flat. "Again, what do you want?"
Medea straightened her spine, shoulders stiff with a dignified posture that didn't belong to her. The mimicry was uncanny right down to that new furrow between her brows.
"A knight who renders service to her liege is owed a reward, Master. This is not vanity, but tradition." Her eyes held mine, unblinking, exactly as Artoria's would. "I want a kiss upon my cheek. Nothing more. It is a modest request, befitting modest service, and you will not insult me by suggesting otherwise."
A beat passed before the mask cracked, her own voice bleeding back in, lips curling upward. "...Well, Master? Are knights not owed a little honor for their labors?"
I remained silent for three long seconds.
She used the word "demand", and demands from a Servant regarding physical contact fall under Master-Servant relationship, which I am obligated to at least consider.
One thought stream concluded, logically sound.
It's just a cheek. Various cultures greet each other this way. This is a cultural gesture, not an event.
Another stream tried to sound in control, if only it weren't micro-stuttering between words.
You are still holding her waist.
The third didn't even offer a solution, only an observation.
Whatever you decide, decide before the silence becomes an answer of its own.
This was the only one that seemed to have my actual interests in mind.
I was aware that my expression had not moved for several seconds, and Medea was watching it not move with delighted interest, having just discovered a crack in my otherwise composed exterior.
With a sigh, I bent down and pecked her cheek. But the moment my lips touched her skin, violet light flashed nearby, alongside the white flare of a camera flash.
Without looking, I swiped my finger, slicing through a magic circle mounted with a camera some distance away.
As I pulled back, Medea protested, stomping her heel on the ground. "Mou~ Master, I was only trying to preserve a precious memory for later. Why did you have to destroy it?"
"You wouldn't have kept it as a memory; you would have kept it as a trophy. One you could show off to Artoria to gain the upper hand whenever an argument erupts." Pulling my arm from her waist, I buried it back in my coat pocket.
She stopped stomping her heels abruptly, her eyes turning to crescents as she threw a shy smile my way. "Oh my~ You've studied me so deeply that you can predict my every action?"
"I've studied everything deeply."
Leaning forward, Medea tiptoed to reach my ear and whispered. "Then... you can also predict what I'm wearing under my robe at this moment, right?"
"..."
I didn't bother with an answer and resumed walking, ignoring her from then on.
"Hey! Master, wait for me!" She chased after me, arms extending to wrap around mine once again. This time, I shifted my body slightly, letting her arms sweep through empty air.
Medea froze for a second. "I took it too far this time, Master. Please forgive me."
After those words, she lunged at me, and if I dodged, her forehead would slam straight into a wall beside us.
Letting your schemes work twice would show favoritism. So...
I stopped and brought the heel of my palm up, pressing it against her forehead to push her back down onto her feet, maintaining the literal distance of an arm's length between us.
"Master! I'm sorry! Master!" She swung her hands at me in downward swipes, but they fell short. My arm was longer than hers, holding her firmly in place.
"I even completed a tenth of Illyasviel's new homunculus body with Irisviel's help in just a few hours! Look how much blood and sweat I shed for you!" Medea teared up, artificial tears sliding down her cheeks from two miniature violet magic circles rotating over her eyes like glasses, cloaked in invisibility by thirty more circles to hide them from me.
"And those magic circles for your new car! I created half of them! You can't ignore me, Master! You can't be so cruel!"
I was about to reply when whispers from an open window four houses away drifted to my ears.
My face snapped in that direction.
An office worker, his tie half-knotted and a piece of bread stuck in his mouth, had his phone pointed at me. Beside him was a woman of similar age, her phone pressed to her ear, whispering something while glancing at me in between.
... Police. No, not again.
"Waah~ Master!"
Medea squealed as I pulled her into a princess carry and bolted, vanishing down the street in a blur.
...
..
.
***
[200 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter]
[15 chapters ahead on P@tr3on = [email protected]/Not_Aaryan]
...
[Author's Thoughts]
Filing an incident report: one Servant attempted a full-price emotional transaction, Master processed a partial refund via cheek-kiss, camera magic drone was seized as evidence and destroyed on-site. Justice was served. Poorly. Some sod out there is still crying about nothing spicy happening.
Meanwhile the Fuyuki Police Department's emergency line is getting real tired of "man vanished into a blur holding an APPARENTLY unwilling woman" as a recurring Tuesday.
Tip from author: Medea dear, you don't build a five-star relationship overnight, no matter how many magic circles you throw at the problem. Some things can't be rushed with overtime hours. Ask literally anyone who's tried speed-running a first date. It ends the same way, ignored, chased, then hauled off by police within the hour for inappropriate behaviour. Izuru just breaks the sound barrier instead. Efficient, though, gotta give him that.