Chapter 24: The Infatuated Alaya
The Lion King bit her lip lightly, her gaze drifting subconsciously toward the red-haired youth who was walking toward her.
"Shirou Orihara..."
The look the Lion King directed at Shirou was incredibly complex. Her eyes kept shifting between tender, loving softness and icy, frigid coldness. Right now, the two personalities were in a state of near-perfect equilibrium; if but a moment longer passed, the balanced scales would tip toward one side or the other.
It was precisely because of this that when Shirou pulled her into his embrace, he met with only the slightest resistance. It was not that the Goddess was willing to be this close to Shirou, but that Saber's will at this moment was so strong that even the Goddess found it difficult to suppress.
The beautiful face of the young girl before him held a mixture of subtle pain and nostalgia, and those eyes were shifting hues between sapphire and yellow-green.
Saber: "Shirou..." The Goddess: "Let go of me...!"
Words of tenderness and icy rejection reached Shirou's ears. Shirou looked at Artoria's face before him and slowly lowered his head.
"It will be over soon, Saber."
The power of the Word of Command fixed Saber and the Goddess's personalities, allowing them to coexist within that single vessel.
Singularity—Sacred Round Table Realm: Camelot, repaired.
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Returning from the Sixth Singularity, Shirou and Saber bid farewell to Gudako and Mash, heading back to Fuyuki City in 2004. After this journey through the Singularity, Shirou was finally able to begin a pleasant vacation. He intended to lounge around lazily for an entire month, ignoring everything during that time.
On the first day of his vacation, Shirou and Saber reunited after a long time apart, and naturally, they had plenty of catching up to do. Physically, Saber had matured significantly compared to before, providing Shirou with an entirely new experience.
Her features were already exceptionally beautiful—her delicate eyebrows were like distant mountains, her eyes like polished lacquer, her elegant nose twitching slightly. Her flawless,
fair face was without a single blemish, and her warm, rose-petal-like lips were embedded within this picture-perfect visage.
The mature charm exuding from her moving, curvaceous body—an undulating landscape of beauty—momentarily startled Shirou. When paired with Saber's gentle and graceful personality, this mature physique seemed to radiate tenderness and allure from its very bones.
However, occasionally in the middle of it all, that Goddess would very mood-breakingly take the lead, raising a smooth, polished foot to step onto Shirou's chest, suddenly and strangely reversing the roles of attacker and defender.
"Hmph! I won't let you enjoy yourself that easily."
The Goddess's personality was vastly different from Saber's; she was as cold and frosty as an ice queen, filled with a noble and elegant aura.
"A lecherous man like you deserves to be punished."
And so, Shirou was mercilessly trampled by this icy queen, possessing absolutely no capacity to 'resist.' There was no help for it—he was too weak, unable to defy the authority of a Goddess.
Even so, this Goddess's speed of defeat was even faster than Saber's.
By the next morning, Shirou still felt a lingering sense of unfulfilled desire. However, it was best not to be too demanding; it was good to do other things to cultivate one's sensibilities as well.
In the days that followed, Shirou was constantly harassed by a certain "someone."
The Counter Force—or more accurately, Alaya—had been bombarding Shirou with information as if it had gone insane. It was like a stalker-level text message bombing that made Shirou want to block the sender entirely.
The general gist of the messages was—
Alaya: "Shirou, Shirou~ Could you please...?"
Shirou: "No way!"
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That day, Shirou had just returned home from grocery shopping with Sakura and was planning to prepare lunch when he suddenly spotted Rin and Scathach, who had arrived unannounced.
"You two are here for...?"
Rin quickly answered Shirou's question.
"Shirou, I have to go to the Clock Tower tomorrow, and... well, I was wondering if you could... keep me company for a little while..."
Rin was always like this; she would speak quite fluently at first, but once she reached the crucial point, she would start acting shy and fidgety.
"The Clock Tower, huh... Sure. Let's consider it a vacation."
It just so happened that Shirou also wanted to see if the Clock Tower had undergone any changes over the last decade. He could even drop by to see Waver teaching his classes at the El-Melloi classroom; that should be quite interesting.
Seeing this scene, Sakura carried the groceries into the kitchen, and Illya followed to help. The attentive and gentle Sakura gave Shirou the space to talk with Rin.
"You're still a high school student, aren't you? Why are you going to the Clock Tower?" Shirou asked.
Even if she wanted to study abroad, Rin's schoolwork and family business in Fuyuki weren't settled yet, so it naturally wouldn't be possible to go to the Clock Tower that quickly. Rin had her own thoughts and her own path to walk, so Shirou naturally wouldn't interfere with her carelessly, but rather respect her ideals.
"It's just family business. My father's old friends, things regarding my registered magecraft... in short, a lot of troublesome stuff. I thought I might feel a bit more relaxed if someone were with me."
"I see... Then why didn't you ask Scathach to accompany you?"
Shirou swept his gaze toward the Queen of the Land of Shadows standing to the side. However, this mature beauty immediately shook her head slightly, wearing a meaningful smile.
"Forget it. I have no interest in interrupting the two of you on your dating trip."
"Hey! Lancer, what—what—what are you saying?!"
Rin's face turned beet-red in an instant, and she glared at Shirou.
"Don't you get the wrong idea! It's not a date, hmph!"
"..."
Shirou looked at Rin in silence, until the girl started letting off steam from the top of her head, before he asked, "When are we going tomorrow?"
"Let's meet at the airport entrance. I wouldn't mind if you brought other people, Shirou; after all, it's just a normal trip. Yes, just a normal trip!" Rin emphasized, hands on her hips.
"Mm, got it." Shirou nodded, letting her last sentence go in one ear and out the other.
Tsundere girls really were easy to understand.
After confirming the departure time for tomorrow, Rin ran off to the television to play games with Illya. It was said that she had recently practiced a new set of moves and claimed she was now invincible, ready to slaughter everything in her path.
Scathach, who remained behind, curiously asked Shirou about his encounters in the Sixth Singularity, "Sacred Round Table Realm: Camelot." Shirou didn't mind sharing the people and events he had encountered with her.
"To think that even after being petrified for 1,500 years, one could still remain true to their original intentions—what a dazzling and precious knight."
After listening, beyond her sentiments regarding the Lion King and her praise for the knight named Bedivere, Scathach was also curious about Shirou's powers, the origins of which were unknown to her.
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