"Ow. Uh, if you could, like, not grip my arm so tightly like that, I'd appreciate it..."

Wincing sharply in bed, I grit my teeth in the darkness of my room. I've turned off the lights, and Tamamo and I are about to go to sleep. I'm still not comfortable with Tamamo raiding my bed every night, but tonight I don't particularly feel motivated to try to convince her to bunk elsewhere.

"I'm sorry! I'll put some more healing on it - " Tamamo gasps softly, trying to rectify her error and swiftly sitting up on her side of the bed to take a look down at my arm.

"No, it's fine, just...just don't hold my arm too tight, that's all..."

But Tamamo's already sat up and turned on the lamp that stands next to the bed on the nightstand.

"Are you sure, Master?"

"Yes," I say firmly, gazing with equal firmness up at her with my head still resting against my small pillow. "Just give me some space for my arm to work with and I'll be fine."

Clearly not willing to completely obey my words, Tamamo reluctantly and slowly turns off the lamp and descends beneath the covers again, still in her usual miko clothes. But as much as she tries to cuddle as closely as physically possible to my right arm without aggravating it, Caster still respects my wish and keeps her distance. She does, however, make an unspoken compromise by gently placing her hand on mine, clasping her fingers in between mine quite tenderly. My first reaction is to protest, but...it's a comforting feeling, me as a guy having a girl who clearly cares for my well-being hold my hand, even with the knowledge that I barely know said girl for more than a few days, if that. I briefly wonder silently to myself why it is that I have such a hard time adjusting to Tamamo cuddling up right next to me while I'm a lot more okay with letting her just hold my hand.

"How many times does something like this happen, Master?" Tamamo quietly murmurs to me. "Where you head out on some kind of business and you get injured?"

"Not often, actually. This's the first time something's happened to me in quite a while," I shake my head a little. "This used to happen way more often when I was first starting out as a mage, though, and especially back when I first became Resident Guardian, just after my dad died. But those were the days when I was a real amateur, when I didn't know what the magical world was like very much. Now that I know a little bit more about it, I've been able to protect myself better."

"But that still means that you got hurt a lot in the past?"

I shrug a little. "Bound to happen. I turned out okay in the end, though."

A brief but painful silence ensues on Tamamo's part. Even in this complete darkness, now that I've gotten a little bit of a grasp of Tamamo's personality and thought process, I can tell that she doesn't like this response at all.

"How do you normally deal with big injuries?" she asks.

"Depends on the injury. Take my arm tonight, for example. How I dealt with it earlier today was that I decided to drive straight back home without treating my arm first because it was dislocated; I needed to set my arm back in place before treating it properly, but if I were to do that outside of my house, there would be a chance that I would've just passed out on the spot because of the pain that I would've put myself through doing that. So I came back home and would've started treating it, because then if I did pass out, I would at least be at home, rather than outside where it could get potentially more dangerous. If it were a less serious injury, I probably could've treated myself on the spot and come back home."

As I'm explaining my thought process to Tamamo, I suddenly remember that I still need to clean my car of the blood that's spilled in there. I'll have to take care of that tomorrow.

"But you didn't pass out when you set your arm straight earlier..." Tamamo points out.

"Guess not."

I feel Tamamo clasping my hand a bit more firmly. "You're quite accustomed to pain, no?"

"More than a normal human should, yes. But I did have a lot more painful stuff to deal with in the past, so...you could say that I've built up a bit of tolerance to it. Still doesn't make the pain any easier to deal with."

"Then why do you say you've built up a tolerance to it?"

"In the sense that I can feel more pain before passing out. But that has nothing to do with how much the pain itself hurts; that I can't do much about, unfortunately."

I hear Tamamo sighing somewhat.

"Well, now that we're here, do try to rely on us to help you deal with things like this," she mumbles, gently rubbing my fingers quite deftly with a various combination of her own fingers, all while still clasping my hands. Very impressive motor skills. "I can already tell that you're quite the loner type, Master. Perhaps I've already told you that?"

"I think you have."

"Good, because part of becoming a good Master is knowing when to rely on us, you know. We're here for you for a reason, after all."

"Does that include letting you cook more often?"

"Yes. And speaking of which - " Tamamo pulls up close to me, leaping on this perfect opportunity to segway into something that she prefers to talk about a lot more, "how did you like my cooking today?"

"It was great," I nod, remembering the heavenly sukiyaki she made for our second dinner, I guess - the sukiyaki was made with mizuna, oysters, and soft cubed tofu, and she extended the course with grilled unagi and lightly grilled anago. And I don't know how she found out that I like cooking mixed rice, but she even whipped up some mixed rice of her own, this time with thinly sliced mushrooms instead of beans. I'd had mushroom rice before, so it was a pleasant surprise to have seen her present that to us.

"As in, how great? On a scale of one to Tamamo-chan, how good was it?" Tamamo whispers rather strongly.

...what kind of a scale is that?

"...uuuhhhh..." I draw out my hesitation, trying to figure out what to say. "...I'd love to eat it again...?"

At this, Tamamo's instant response is a jubilant, overjoyed squeal, followed by my right shoulder getting attacked by one of her cheeks that she rams against it and begins to rub like she's trying to spark a flame.

"So you have accepted me as your wife already! Why didn't you teeelllll meeeee ~ " she giggles under her breath.

I'm not sure how she got to that conclusion, but okay, sure, whatever. Did she think that I gave her the "please make rice for me everyday" response? That's the only thing that I can think of, that she must've twisted my words enough to get to that point. I feel that this hole that I'm digging is digging itself now, and there's nothing I can do to get myself out of it.

"Though, it'd be nice if I could cook for everyone too," I mention.

Tamamo immediately pouts at me.

"Muuuuu," is her reply.

"...you really don't like me cooking? Mind if I ask why?"

"Because cooking is the wife's job! And since we've already fully established that I am the wife - "

...We've?

" - it's only natural that I take care of everything cooking-related," Tamamo concludes quite firmly, making it very clear that she does not intend to surrender ground on this topic.

"...I mean, I will say that we live in a day and age where men can learn to cook too and it's not a big deal," I shrug. "I personally don't see what's so bad about having either of us cook. And it would be one thing if my cooking was actually terrible, but I have enough confidence in my cooking that it isn't."

"W-Well, I understand that, it's just - you've been living by yourself for a long while, right? So it's just better to leave that int he hands of someone who's just more experienced, ahaha..."

So much for Tamamo sounding like she wasn't going to give up ground on this whole cooking issue. So I continue my offense.

"I'm not even asking you not to cook. All I'm asking is that I can cook from time to time for everyone. And we can even cook together if dinner's something we both know how to make."

"Eh? Uh...c-cook...togeth...er...?"

My right side falls silent for a few moments. It seems like Tamamo is intrigued by this proposition, like she's never been confronted by a question like this.

"...don't like that idea, huh."

"Wait, no, no, Master, I - I never said I didn't like it!" Tamamo hurriedly scrambles to words. "It's...it's..uh...interesting! Yes, interesting!"

But that doesn't answer my question.

Sighing a little, I decide to just let it go so that I can try to go to sleep against the throbbing pain that still pulsates from my right elbow. According to Roman, Chaldea's already booked our flights to France at the end of the week, on Friday, so we leave on the 28th bright 'n early in the morning. They've booked our flights at such a time so that we should already be in the country when the Singularity is predicted to occur, but I'm still worried either way because it wasn't like Chaldea was able to exactly predict with pinpoint accuracy when the first Singularity was going to open up either, so there's a definite risk that, now that we know that there'll be a Singularity in France, the Singularity may hit before we can get there, meaning that we'll have to get there by magical means instead, since flying into the Singularity is going to be a very bad idea.

This means that, since I have no choice but to assume that I won't be coming back home for a prolonged period of time, I have to prepare accordingly - I have to mail my agents and business partners in China and my usual clients here in America that I have to be out of the office for some time due to family related stuff. Luckily for me, my dad, having been a side-mage much like myself in his days, already established this fact with everyone, which means that all I need to do is tell them that I won't be around to answer their calls or emails and they'll understand. I've made it seem like I just can't work outside of the house when I talked about this with the girls, but truth be told, I can actually work even without a laptop thanks to ENIAC; as long as I have a wireless Internet connection, ENIAC can give me access to my email, and I have all of my business data backed up on it as well. It's just that it's a lot more convenient working at home where I have full access to all of my resources - that, and while I can call people using ENIAC, it has to broadcast the call using magical energy, which means that they can be detected by other mages or magical entities, and obviously I don't want that.

"Master?"

"Mhm?"

"I spoke with the others while you were away earlier tonight; they said that you're actually a really strong Master," Tamamo murmurs. Her voice has a neutral tone this time, but I can still pick up a very slight sense of concern.

"...so they say," I say slowly, choosing my words carefully.

"What, do you deny it?"

"I don't deny it. But there is a part of me that tells me that they're only saying that because they haven't had someone quite like me as their Master before. I don't know, just a feeling."

I turn my neck so that I face her for a moment.

"What do you think?"

"Well, I haven't actually seen you fight yet, so..."

Ah, that's right...I keep thinking that she has, just because of the way we first met, with her stopping Saber Alter from shoving Excalibur Morgan down my throat.

"But even if you might not agree that you're strong, per se, at the very least, it would seem to me that you're quite adept at combat yourself," Tamamo continues on.

"So what're you tryin'a get at here?"

Tamamo clears her throat quietly, upon being prompted.

"Please try to stay out of danger when we go to France," she says resolutely. "From what I've heard from everyone else, especially when they told me about how you participated in the fighting directly in the first such Singularity that you encountered before I was summoned, you seem to be the type of Master who won't hesitate to get involved in the fighting."

"Thanks, Captain Obvious."

"I-I wasn't done yet!" Caster squeals lightly, squeezing my right hand that she still insists on holding, by the way. "And so my point is, I feel like you're going to go out of your way to fight in places where it's just too dangerous for you to be fighting in. I heard about the part when you saved Lily-chan from Alter-san, and you suffered the temporary loss of your arm to do it. If something like that happens again, there's no telling that you might get even more badly hurt. I know that earlier this evening, you told Alter-san that you don't claim to be a hero, but you can't try to hide the fact that you're the type of person who would put yourself in harm's way for others, even your own Servants. That's no good, Master, no - good - !"

Tamamo taps my nose strictly in sync with her words.

"Well, normally I try to fight smart and in ways where I don't deliberately put myself in harm's way, but I guess you won't believe me after what you've been told..." I sigh yet again. "But I will say that that's only when I'm operating by myself."

"Oh, so you do try to keep other people in mind when you work with other people?"

"Yeah. I like making sure that my teammates or allies or whoever's on my side are safe, for the most part. It's...it's a habit I picked up from work, because in my line of work, if I treat my clients and business partners right and make sure that I can do everything I can for them to make their lives easier as far as our work's concerned, they tend to appreciate that and treat me the same way. Obviously that's not always been the case, but most people aren't too unreasonable."

I then snort a bit louder than I mean to.

"Now, people in the magical world, on the other hand..."

"Yeah, I know, right," Tamamo pouts too in agreement. "People let magic get to their heads sometimes, and they turn out all weird and stuff..."

I frown quite deeply in the darkness of my room, because Tamamo either lacks self-consciousness or she just doesn't give a flying fuck.

"It's good that you have people who're like that. You don't wanna know the kinds of people I've seen and had to deal with..." Tamamo grumbles, nuzzling my right shoulder and pulling even more closely to me.

"I mean, I've met my fair share of those kinds of people too. It goes both ways..."

"How did you have to deal with them?"

"Luckily for me, the vast majority of those kinds of people were my enemies. So most of them I don't have to worry about anymore."

"What, because you killed them all?"

"I'll leave that to your imagination."

"Then what about people you didn't like who weren't your enemies?"

"I have my ways of, uh, never having to deal with them again. It's..." I reach my other hand up to scratch my cheek. "...it's kind of a cop-out way of dealing with them, I'll admit. I just don't feel like I have the patience to force myself to deal with people like that, people whom I don't like or feel like I just won't work well with. Rather than taking the time to learn how to deal with them, I'd rather just get rid 'a them, one way or another."

Another brief moment of silence.

"...then..." Tamamo whispers softly to me, "...what about us?"

"...you're worried that I don't like you or the others?"

It's Tamamo's turn to sigh a little this time. "Well, you did say that you wanted to get rid of us because of your contract thingy with Chaldea..."

"But that wasn't because I didn't like you girls; you girls weren't the reason for that."

"But I'd imagine that if you liked us more, you would've, y'know, maybe given us another shot..."

"I mean, I am...but that's not the point."

I pause before continuing.

"In any case, I'll try to keep myself out of trouble while we're over there, and in case something happens to me, I'll do my best to keep myself alive, since I think I'm pretty good at that. But just keep in mind that if the situation calls for me to pitch in, I will."

I feel Tamamo squeezing my arm.

"Then if that's how you feel, don't mind if I stay with you for the duration of this Singularity," Tamamo declares.

Shrugging again, I calmly accept her deal. "Sure."

"And tomorrow, Master, will you allow me to conduct a small little spar with you? Just so that I know what you're capable of."

"Are you gonna try 'n kill me like Salter was?"

"No, of course not!"


Tuesday, April 25th.

As promised, Tamamo and I now face each other on the grass field at Meridian Park. I spent all of this morning after waking up bright and early at five o'clock letting my contacts know that I'll be out of town starting this week until further notice, so I was busy with that all morning, on top of the usual workload for today. For now, though, it's not even half an hour since we had lunch, and the three Artoria's are sitting on the sidelines, near the paved walkway that wraps around the grass field for people to take leisurely walks on, either by themselves or with their dogs. Lily had a fine time just earlier playing with someone's Corgi that they were walking just before I activated my presence concealment field - it would appear that Lily has a big soft spot for pets, as she kept longingly looking after the Corgi as it and its owner went on their peaceful way, even after I set up the field.

"So..." I call over to her, though not very loudly, since we're only standing some ten or so meters away from one another. "How do you wanna do this? Since you're a Caster and all..."

"Even if I am a Caster, I have my own fair share of martial arts experience!" Tamamo proclaims quite proudly, actually, looking quite smug about it. "But unlike a certain brute to my left, I won't be fighting to kill."

I feel a momentary flicker of sinister intent from my right. Guess where that came from.

"Then let's hurry it up - there's not too many people here now, but in about an hour, there'll be a lot more people here, since school'll be out and kids and their parents'll come by 'n stuff," I explain to Caster, cracking my knuckles quickly. "Do you want me to make the first move, or you?"

"Well, since I'm the one who wanted this, I shall start! Here I come, Master!"

I can't help but wonder if this kind of combat initiation is going to happen every time I stumble across a new Servant. From what I've heard and read, Masters in Holy Grail Wars don't usually have Servants running around testing their Masters' combat abilities, but...oh well, there's always room for unprecedented matters, I guess.

Tamamo snaps up her right hand, pulling out a set of three talismans all intricately scribbled with calligraphy ink kanji, which I presume she pulled out of her sleeve, and with the flick of her elbow, she throws all of them at once at me. The talismans go flying a lot faster than I expect, and keep in mind that we're still only standing some ten meters away from each other. My reflexes trigger at the first moment I realize that I'm under attack, and just like yesterday, the world grinds painfully to a near-halt as I have a few precious moments to assess my best move, which I determine to be to kick myself off the ground backwards to land on my back and dodge the incoming talismans Matrix-style. And the moment I make this decision, my perceived flow of time resumes quickly, like water gushing out of a garden hose after the nozzle is held almost completely shut for a moment.

Feeling the ground thump the back of my hoodie jacket, I immediately peek down to see where Tamamo is, if she's moved at all, but she hasn't; seems like she's just thrown those initial talismans to test my reactions and nothing else, but judging by the look on her face, it seems that I've somewhat impressed her. The talismans she's thrown at me don't go off, as I've already warned Tamamo not to create collateral damage, because the field that I've erected here in the park is a presence concealment field, not a whole Reality Marble like Salter's Singularity was - the last thing we need is to make Lily cry because we've accidentally hurt the Corgi that she's made friends with just a few minutes ago.

"Hai!"

Uttering a rather cute cry, Tamamo suddenly leaps up into the air, this time with both hands full of even more talismans, right over me at a height of about twenty meters. I don't hesitate to see what she's about to do, preferring to exert my efforts into getting the hell out of the way of whatever she's about to throw down at me, so I turn to my left and push myself up off the grass to flash-step out of the way before a funnel of scorching flame spews down from above. So much for not trying to kill me.

"You said that you weren't gonna try to kill me, what's up with that?" I shout over to Caster once I brake to a halt and turn around to face her.

"Those flames were nonlethal! Even if they hit you, it's not like you would've actually been burned or anything ~ !" Tamamo calls back, giving me the peace sign while playfully sticking her tongue out of the corner of her mouth. I definitely recall mentioning last night to her about people who were hard to get along with in the magical side of the world...

I swiftly raise my own hand up over my shoulder and snap my fingers, and behind me, some six blue runes snap into place into the air and begin to shine before soon letting loose a quick hail of blue energy bullets aimed downwards at the ground so that they won't go flying out of the park on accident. I don't bother aiming them directly at Tamamo because the purpose of these runes isn't to damage her, but rather to cover my approach. In response, Tamamo conjures out of nowhere a flurry of large, fancily decorated mirrors with gold frames, and they snap themselves to place too in front of her, creating an invisible barrier that flashes a dark violet each time an energy bullet pelts it, reflecting the bullets back down into the ground in my direction.

In the brief chaos of the flying bullets, I burst off the ground to close the distance between me and Caster. The barrier that she's set up is a perfect opportunity for me to test an anti-barrier spell that I've been quietly working on, as my recent magical encounters have pitted me against mages or enemies who like relying on magical barriers a lot, and testing it out on the barrier of someone like Tamamo no Mae is probably a good way to see how much more I need to calibrate it.

Pulling back my right arm, I release the spell into my arm, and it visibly wraps around my arm until it reaches my fist, at which point it connects to the front and back of my wrist and causes my fist to shine subtly with a blue afterglow. This is done before I take my last flash-step to reach Tamamo's barrier so that when I appear right in front of it, I'm already in the motion of throwing my right fist forward to punch the barrier in an attempt to break through.

And just as I expected, my fist connects with the barrier - and does absolutely nothing. The caliber of a barrier created by a divine Servant is indeed on another level than us puny mortals. But because I knew that my anti-barrier reinforcement spell was really weak because I'd only barely finished creating it last week or so, I put a lot of power into my punch in an attempt to compensate for its lackluster strength, so all I end up doing with this attack is hear the knuckles of my right fist emit a series of spine-tingling CRACK's that go off so rapidly that it just sounds like one big elongated crack instead. My body registers the pain faster than I can physically react to it with facial expressions, my arm screaming as the nerves starting from my hands up get set on fire. Now I begin to feel very thankful that Tamamo has chosen to sleep with me, as her nursing overnight while we slept has restored my arm to full health after yesterday's little incident.

But all I show on my face is a disgruntled expression indicated by a pair of narrowed eyes as I mask the pain from my hand - if Tamamo finds out about the fact that I've broken my knuckles, she'll end this fight immediately, and even though I wasn't the one who suggested this spar in the first place, now that I'm in the middle of it, I do want to know what kinds of attacks and spells she's got just for future reference. Thankfully the cracks that my knuckles made weren't that loud, and the last of the bullets that were reflected by the barrier are just about done crashing into the ground behind me, further masking their sounds.

But the distraction that my broken knuckles cause allow Tamamo to retaliate by swooping in towards me and barrage me with a flurry of kicks that she throws at me with her right leg, channeling her inner Chun-Li. She attacks swiftly as soon as she realizes that my failed barrier-piercing punch has done nothing, and with the distraction that my broken knuckles has caused, I wind up catching her feet with my face, and the top of Tamamo's foot kicks me around for a few seconds like a punching bag (or a kick-boxing bag?) before she ends the combo with a well-aimed kick at my collar bone. The kicks themselves actually don't hurt, true to Tamamo's promise that she isn't trying to kill me, as they hurt just about as much as getting hit by a pillow - granted, a pillow if someone were to whack you with it with full force.

Even as I grind my back a second time against the grass against my jacket, an idea pops into my head.

"Tamamo!" I call over to her, quickly getting back up to my feet and doing my best to ignore the massive throbbing in my right hand. "That attack, do it again!"

"Again?" she calls back, sounding a little puzzled.

"Yeah. There's something I wanna try!"

But Caster ignores that second bit, as she's nodding to herself with great satisfaction. "Master's recognized my martial arts skills - after all these years training, I knew they were gonna pay off some time! Prepare yourself, Master, here it comes!"

And with that, she dashes across the field, soaring over it like she's flying before landing on her left foot right in front of me so that she can raise her right leg to perform her own version of Hyakuretsukyaku.

The very first kick she throws at me, with all the time and preparation that I need, I parry it with the back of my left hand. However, rather than bursting my mana from the back of my hand to push Tamamo's leg back, I release just enough so that I stop Tamamo's foot's momentum and nullify the physical damage that it can deal against my hand, but at the same time making it so that she's free to continue her lightning leg attack.

My sense of time slows to a crawl once again, but this time, it's nowhere near as painful as it was the first time around. I remember all the places where Tamamo has kicked me with her first Hyakuretsukyaku, so armed with that knowledge, I predict where each of her kicks will go and maneuver my left arm accordingly to parry each of her kicks, releasing just the right amount of mana to get every single parry right. Tamamo's kicks are all well executed and are masterfully timed, supporting her claim that she's practiced in martial arts quite nicely, and this works out in my advantage because her kicks thus follow a rhythm that helps guide my arm to meet her foot in each of the areas where she would've otherwise kicked me.

"Hai!"

Uttering her battle cry again, Tamamo then throws out her last kick at me just like from before, but as soon as I see her turn her back so that she can throw out that kick at my face, my left hand is already where it needs to be, meeting her foot with the back of the hand. Tamamo holds her kick like that for a moment, and her foot simply gently presses against the back of my hand once the invisible mana that I've used to cushion the impact of her kick disperses, and I pull my hand away, flexing it a little before Caster, too, lowers her leg.

"Sorry for making you do that," I apologize to her, giving her an awkward smile. "I just really wanted to try something."

But Tamamo doesn't say anything at first, which catches my attention, so I glance directly over at her. The expression that she's got on is one of perplexed wonder, and I'm not very sure why that is.

"...somethin' wrong?" I ask her slowly, starting to get a little worried that she's found out something about me that she'd rather not know, like in those animes where the main protagonist turns out to have some sort of tragic super power that they don't know that they have.

Shaking her head quickly, Tamamo snaps out of her perplexed look and starts to giggle quite awkwardly, making it even more obvious that she's seeing me in a new light.

"N-No, it's nothing. That was enough for today, I think you'll be able to handle yourself. But you'll still be letting me stay with you when we go, right?"

She skips over to me and wiggles her finger in my face strictly.

"Er, yeah, sure..."