AN: For those that have seen the raw of Carnival Phantasm ep 12: Hisui fixing the wall while other stuff is going down in Origami Blades, I totally called it, right? Right? I was early to the ruranra!

Sorry for the delay, I just got a new computer and spent a good few days first just transferring stuff from the netbook I was using before, and then have been distracted with other stuff. Like The Old Republic. And rereading Beowulf for one of my classes this quarter. And being able to watch HQ anime once more. And original works. And so on. You can probably blame any and all of the above for future slowness.

Fate/Far Side: Synchronized Body

Chapter 1

Before This

It might be nice, however, to get in some kitchen duties before everyone else was awake, just to show my thanks. And, though Kohaku had deterred me from cooking on my own once I'd found a place to settle in yesterday, if I could get to work fast enough…

I went for my clothes, dragging a fresh set out while crossing the hall to the washroom for this wing of the house; everything was absolutely silent at this time of the morning. Kohaku made mention of the sibling pair of Tohnos as being the only family members living in the estate, and that the elder brother was traveling. With Kohaku and her sister Hisui, that made all of three people to run across in a location that, well, felt a little dead otherwise. It reminded me of my own place a bit, back before and right after the Grail War, and the thought was a little disquieting.

I quickly washed my face and got changed, hurrying back to straighten my bed up, then taking off as fast as I could while still being quiet to look for the kitchen. Kohaku struck me as an early-to-rise type, so I wanted to see if I could just absolutely beat her into the kitchen and get started with something so she had no ability to refuse.

The house was silent—a good sign—though it also had a sort of unsettling presence when it was so, not quite haunted mansion but not exactly the most comforting of places. It creaked in all the wrong places and was absolutely still when it should make noise. Sneaking around in it felt doubly troubling, like it was built to hide all the wrong sort of aspects. Completely unlike the Tohsaka or Matou houses, for instance, where the hidden things all felt, well, traditional.

I guess it sounds really stupid when consciously thinking about it.

When I made it to the dining room, the light inside the kitchen was already on. I sighed, shoulders slumped, and defeatedly dragged myself through the doors. Kohaku was indeed inside, though it looked as if she had just started. "Ah, Shirou-san," Kohaku said when she glanced over her shoulder, "you're up much too early!"

I couldn't help the put-out look that formed on my face. "I wanted to try and beat you down here, get some breakfast made for everyone."

Kohaku grinned, somewhat like the superior look she gave me last night over weeding out information on Tohsaka. "I see. Well, you can try your luck some other time, but I warn you, little grasshopper, I shall be prepared. My domain is this kitchen: it is my world!" She paused to wave a finger at me. "You shall not defeat the master."

I sighed again. "Such a hopeless batt—hey, what's that?" I pointed past her shoulder toward the window.

The maid refused to take the bait, her eyes narrowing at me. "Do you think I was born yesterday, Shirou-san? I look away and you steal my skillet."

"I would never stoop so low."

"Then I look away and you club me over the head, shove me into the closet, then have free reign on the kitchen."

"It wouldn't have been the closet," I said, holding out my hands helplessly. "The pantry is closer."

Kohaku nodded, slowly turning back to where she had been pouring cooking oil into the aforementioned skillet. "If you must, I will allow you to help, if it means I can stop looking over my shoulder every five seconds for a sneak attack." She moved over to another place at the counter where she had a whisking bowl. "I'm going to be preparing omelets, though I suppose some hash or another Western side would be appropriate to accompany it."

Yes, delegate me the simple side that can only support the main dish. I eyed her suspiciously in return, though she had turned away from my stare. "You win this round, ruler of the Tohno kitchen. But my invasion will commence, regardless, and your territory shall fall."

Regardless, I made my way to said pantry to take a look around for the potatoes that Kohaku implied I should get started on. To just help out was enough to begin with, at the very least, and maybe I could weasel my way into full kitchen duties later.

Kohaku hummed as she worked, and the general air as we prepared breakfast reminded me a lot of home, of much simpler times. Teaching Sakura to cook, watching her come alive from that shell she'd put around herself; listening to the television in the other room as Fuji-nee caught up on local news or how the Vissel League was doing in the latest soccer tournament. It brought back a homesickness that I'd not felt for a long while and I had to focus on the slicing of potatoes to turn my thoughts away.

It just wasn't something that I could ever return to, and that was that.

"Hmmm, your speed is amazing, Shirou-san," Kohaku said as I readied to fry the hash I had made. "Have you ever considered being a sous chef at a restaurant before?" She grinned and absently cracked two eggs over her mixing bowl, as if to show off her own skills. "Or perhaps you are in fact a scout, an agent for some five-star, here to appraise my abilities and will supply me with an under-the-table deal, undermining Akiha-sama."

She had quite the imagination. "I'm sorry to report that I have come here too empty-handed to offer you a job elsewhere. Remember, you found me."

"Oho." The maid folded to a crouch so she could reach beneath one of the counters for a measuring cup. ""Perhaps, then, you are truly a master chef yourself, in a long line of mystical chefs, and have come to this town seeking an apprentice."

"What manga do they feed you here?" I bit the inside of my cheek at that, though, since I should have said something to agree with that, to guarantee a shot at ruling this kitchen. Damn my mouth for running off too fast.

"Manga? No, a manga plot would be…" she paused to clasp her hands together and tilt her head to one side, a stereotypical look of helplessness, "…for you to be a long-haired knight-errant come to rescue me, the simple town maid, from the oppressive reign of the evil Tohno fiefdom. Save me from the evil warlord, Emiya-sama!"

Knight. Ha. "So, shoujo manga."

Kohaku straightened and returned to her work, pouring out some milk into the measuring cup while glancing to her mixing bowl. "You started it. Walking someone of the opposite gender home while sharing an umbrella is a staple in romance stories! Double points in that we were young, so maybe it qualifies as a childhood friend archetype! Hmm, but lacking a promise somewhere in there."

"In like, manga from the eighties. We need to get you more up-to-date." Hypocritical, considering I haven't read manga for the past few years either. Oh well. "I…have to admit, I still don't quite remember this all, though. I do remember meeting someone, but…my memory is terrible, though, at least when it comes to people and names."

The slight smile Kohaku gave me somehow felt out of place when compared to the joking from before. Oddly, it felt more forced, like she was attempting to be sympathetic when she had no clue how to actually behave. "I'm really the opposite, so it isn't your fault. I doubt anyone else would remember such a thing." She shrugged, went to complete the mixture for her omelet. "When you gave your name, it just stuck out to me. 'Protection' indeed. I thought maybe you really were some errant warrior-in-training, by your name."

I really didn't know what to say to that. I mean, if you squinted at everything I wanted to be, everything I want to be, in a way it was an apt description. Even moreso now than before. So, like with anything else, I went with sarcasm. "Yes, my training that day was to use an umbrella to defeat the gods of the rain. Obviously, I was successful, and thus my training in that fashion was complete. I then went on to defeat my father as successor to the great Amegami Ryuu school."

"With an umbrella as a weapon." Kohaku smirked.

"If it works for Ryouga Hibiki…"

"Hmmm." Kohaku glanced to the sink, then back to me. "If I jet you with water, will you turn into a pig?"

I snapped my fingers at her. "That's what this needs. We should make some sausage or bacon for this. A fully Western meal. I think I saw some in your refrigerator…"

Kohaku rolled her eyes and returned her attention to the skillet she had prepared while I went searching for protein. The return to our meal-preparation duties allowed me to stop and consider all of the things said and the underlying theme throughout them all—well, beyond the fact that we both belong in a college manga club or something.

Though it had all been joking, had all been innocent, it just would not leave my attention now that I had a bead on what to look for. The Holy Grail War had gone by so fast that stopping to consider what was going on at the time was impossible, but in hindsight I had thought it over extensively, rewound it like a tape in my mind, reviewed everything I could. The same could be said for things before the war relating to it, like how Tohsaka had been a magi and yet I had never picked up on any kind of clues relating to that.

In hindsight, though, of course Kiritsugu would have been tripping overseas—to Germany, I'm sure. Illya's existence made that all the more apparent.

In hindsight, how I had made it out of the fire when I was sure to have died made sense, that a Conceptual Weapon such as Avalon would have been the only thing capable of saving my life.

In hindsight…

It was stupid to expect much from a teenage boy, I suppose, though it isn't like I could entirely forgive myself not to figure it out, now that I had the time to consider. But Sakura being around all of the time, her reluctance to go home…it had always been in the back of my head that her strained relationship with Shinji had been the source of that. It never occurred to me that there would be a reason why there was a strained relationship with her brother, why her family had never rectified the situation themselves, why Shinji had gone so suddenly one day from my best buddy to an abusive jerk.

And while I could never have picked up on the magical aspect of it—I was still horrible with recognizing magical signatures or the presence of boundary fields—it of course made sense in hindsight.

Through it all, Sakura had, in her own way, been crying out for help, beneath the smiles she managed to make after a while.

Kohaku joked, made light, smiled and laughed too. But everything she had just said seemed…well, odd. Yesterday, she had spoken in such glowing terms of the Tohno family, of Akiha Tohno in particular.

But as much as it sounded like teasing, I guess my mind would not discount the idea that she truly wanted out of this arrangement somehow. Now that we had some level of familiarity going, even as superficial and surface-level as it was now, and all she could say is a variation of "take me away…"

I just…wasn't that kind of knight, though. No matter how much I could have wished otherwise.

"Shirou-san, if you stand in front of the refrigerator like that, you're going to catch a cold," Kohaku said over her shoulder.

I reached in for the package of bacon that I had spotted earlier. "That's such a misnomer; you don't catch colds by being cold. Didn't you say you had some medicinal training?"

"You have a keen intellect, grasshopper," Kohaku said. "Just making sure you were still paying attention."

"I was merely plotting my eventual takeover of your Empire."

"Well then, my young apprentice, remember, only your hatred can destroy me."

Of course, the true underlying problem here was, we both really needed to get a life.

I was met with Kohaku's sister Hisui as I prepared the dining table. Unlike her energetic sister, Hisui had this sense that she was carved out of marble—she kept still, completely disregarding unnecessary movement in the most efficient of ways possible. It was an odd contrast since they certainly looked almost perfectly alike otherwise. She apologized that she had not woken me as was apparently her task, that I had caught her off guard by how early I had risen.

"I tried to beat your sister to the kitchen," I said.

"I have made attempts to do the same," Hisui said, "but nee-san is very protective of that space." Though Hisui then gave the slightest of frowns, she shook it off and apparently deemed her thought process unnecessary to share. "You are, however, a guest, Emiya-sama. You should not trouble yourself with such things."

"Eh." I gave a noncommittal shrug. "Not my intention to be rude, but, no use trying to stop me." I rubbed my hands together. "Your sister will see defeat at my skills, mark my words."

"Understood." She sounded like she didn't believe me at all. "Akiha-sama will be along, so I will complete the dining table. Please be seated."

I sighed, while making a mental note to never let Fuji-nee visit here. Ever. She would be spoiled forever, and I would never be able to find her a husband. At least, one of the working class.

Akiha Tohno indeed made her appearance not a minute after I had settled in at the table. A slender young woman with dark hair and a dignified sort of air even from just entering the room, I wondered exactly how popular she was at her school—Kohaku had said something about a private girl's academy. I know that back in Fuyuki, she would have given Tohsaka a run for her nonexistent money.

I stood when she entered, bowed, and she seemed surprised at that. "Kohaku brought a guest, and he's well-mannered. Interesting." She bowed in return. "Akiha Tohno."

"Shirou Emiya. Thank you for having me."

"A friend of Kohaku's is…well, I'd say a treat, but she never brings people here," Tohno-san said. "You must be extra special."

I waited until Tohno-san was seated to retake my place. "No, just passing through. Kohaku is just that nice." Hmm, indeed she reminded me of Tohsaka. Right down to the chin-above-the-rest sort of superiority teasing. I could live with that. "She speaks in radiant terms of her employer."

"I highly doubt that, but I'll assure you that only the good things are true," Tohno-san said.

Kohaku took that moment to appear, bearing the plates of breakfast we had conjured up. She then eyed me, then Tohno-san suspiciously. "Whatever he says, don't let him convince you to cook for us in my stead. He's clearly a terrible cook that couldn't even get these hash browns right."

I held my hands out, cracked the joints in my fingers. A war on all fronts, eh? Then I'll show you, Kohaku, how this name of mine works.

Synchronized Body, Before This, End

The "E" in Emiya is a kanji that means "protection" and the "Shi" in Shirou means "warrior."

Amegami Ryuu. I need to stop geeking out over upcoming Ruro Ken stuff.