There was one thing that might save Shirou from being pounded into pulp by Fuji-nee's wooden sword collection, and that was Sakura's cooking. He held onto that with every last fiber of his being, and prepared for the storm.

The sound of an angry Taiga Fujimura was comparable to that of a jet engine, and today was no exception as she stormed the house. "SHIROU!" she howled again, coming in hot, homing in on him like some kind of heat-seeking missile. She skidded to a halt in front of him, and jammed an index finger into his face like an accusing god.

Shirou had the briefest moment to contemplate the sight he must make. He hadn't looked in a mirror since the fight, but if Sakura's reaction had been anything to go by, his neck was a frightful sight. Illya had healed the worst of the damage to his face, but his eye was still a little swollen, and a scrape still marred his cheek. His clothes still looked fairly clean, at least. He didn't know if he could suffer the indignity of still being covered in dirt and blood right now.

Sakura stood behind him, and he could imagine her projecting inner peace at him. She was so quiet, and she was easily startled, but she never seemed particularly perturbed by Fuji-nee's antics. She was solid bedrock, immune to the bringer of chaos before him. That image helped him keep his cool. "Uh, hi, Fuji—"

"Don't you 'hi Fuji-nee' me!" She shouted, and it was a wonder that the window over the sink didn't shatter from the sheer force of it. She hadn't noticed the state of his body, but that wasn't especially surprising. You have tunnel vision, Fuji-nee… "You missed school today, and you didn't call out sick! I swear, this is why I need to come and check on you in the morning," she went on, shaking her head sadly. "You probably thought it was Sunday, didn't you?"

"Um," Sakura said from over his shoulder, and Taiga froze where she stood. The gears turned in her head, the little hamster wheel in her brain spinning uncontrollably as she put pieces together. "I can explain, Ms. Fujimura…"

Taiga didn't reply. She just stared. Something clicked, and her eyes first widened, then her face twisted into a knowing, catlike grin, and finally forced her expression into one of stern disappointment. "So this is what Shirou has been up to…" She couldn't quite keep the glee out of her voice.

Shirou glanced back at Sakura to see if she knew what Taiga was on about, but Sakura had gone about as red as cooked lobster and (apparently) lost the ability to speak. "Fuji-nee, I don't know what you're implying, but I have a good excuse," he said, which wasn't true at all, and he hoped that she'd interrupt him to yell some more so he could have another minute to think.

Fuji-nee, always the agent of chaos, remained silent as she crossed her arms over her chest.

"Well," he said slowly.

Taiga stared expectantly.

"You see," he said even more slowly. He could see Rin over Taiga's head, shoulders shaking with silent, barely contained laughter. He pleaded for help with his eyes, but she just laughed harder.

Taiga raised an eyebrow.

"The reason I'm home…" Think, Shirou, think! But his head was empty. Sakura was sick… no, that doesn't make any sense. I'm sick! No, she's already seen me, and I look healthy, apart from being beaten up. How did people just lie at the drop of a hat like this? It was harder than he'd expected.

He glanced back at Sakura, who was continuing to fail to come to his aid; she was too busy staring very intently at the ground with crimson cheeks. She was usually the one who was good at defusing Fuji-nee when she got like this, and she was hanging them both out to dry.

"Shirou," Taiga said calmly. "As your teacher, I can't approve of this kind of irresponsible rendezvous." Was she trying not to smile? It looked like she was trying really hard not to smile.

He blinked. "Irresponsible… rendezvous?" What does that even mean? I get being mad that we missed school, but this is ridiculous.

"But," she said loudly, then leaned forward and nudged his forearm with her fist. "As your beloved Fuji-nee…" She winked at Shirou, and he flinched as she leaned in to stage-whisper. "It's about time."

Sakura made a choking noise, and Rin looked like a blood vessel was about to burst in her face from the sheer effort of keeping her laughter silent.

Shirou wished he understood what was so funny.

"I'll have to assign detention, of course," Taiga mused, rubbing her chin, looking more conflicted than Shirou had ever seen her. "And Sakura, I'll have to talk to your homeroom teacher…" Her eyes narrowed. "Sakura. Was Shirou a gentleman?"

Sakura made another sound that sounded like she'd swallowed her tongue. Behind Taiga, he watched Rin slowly compose herself, forcing the laughter down until she wore an expression of perfect serenity. She inhaled silently, exhaled. "Actually, Shirou being a gentleman is why we're here," she finally said, swooping in like their collective knight in shining armor.

Taiga glanced back at Rin, frowned, and turned back to Shirou and Sakura. "Miss Tohsaka, now isn't the time to—"

The color drained from her face.

As stiff as a corpse with rigor mortis, she turned back to look at Rin, who was smiling politely. She turned back to Shirou and Sakura. Back to Rin. Back to them.

This wasn't going to be great.

"WHAT KIND OF HAREM ANIME IS THIS, SHIROUUU?" she wailed, uppercutting Shirou in the chin with a closed fist and the full force of two decades of martial arts training. Pain flashed through his face as his neck whipped backward with a wordless grunt, and he staggered backward, directly into Sakura.

Sakura squeaked out a panicked "Senpai!" and caught him under his arms, straining to keep him upright. It took a few seconds longer than it should have, but he got his feet under him without bowling poor Sakura onto the ground. The room spun. Feedback whined in his ears. Great, more head trauma, he thought woozily. Just what I needed.

"You've been corrupted!" Taiga sounded overwhelmed and angry and on the verge of tears as she yelled. "Your whole generation has been corrupted! This isn't what the little Shirou I raised would have done! I knew Kiritsugu was a bad influence, but this!"

Finally standing completely under his own power, Sakura's delicate hands removed themselves from his body, and the sudden absence felt strange. "Fuji-nee…" Talking made his jaw hurt even more, and he felt like he needed to make sure he still had all of his teeth. "I think you just broke a lot of laws with that punch…"

"And you've broken my heart as your Fuji-nee," she replied in a plaintive whine, flapping her arms like a particularly upset flightless bird. "When Issei made you watch that awful Magi Mari show, I knew that you wouldn't be the Shirou I raised you to be anymore…"

"You didn't raise me at all," he mumbled, rubbing his tender chin. "Stop saying that." Sakura shuffled nervously until she was standing where she could see his face, and he tried to give her a reassuring smile. Whatever face he actually made was somewhat less soothing than he intended, it seemed, as Sakura pressed her hands to her mouth in horror.

"How could you say something so cruel, Shirou?" Taiga asked him, tears in her eyes, as though she hadn't just decked him with everything she had.

"You've got the wrong idea, Ms. Fujimura," Rin said calmly, but even in his current state he could hear the edge of genuine dismay in her tone. That's right, she isn't used to seeing Fuji-nee like this. "You see, Emiya stayed home because he got badly hurt in a fight."

"A fight?" Taiga's upset morphed to concern, which then morphed back into anger. "What are you doing getting into fights, Shirou? I raised you better than—"

"Actually," Rin said, smoothly speaking over Taiga, who had no choice but to surrender to Rin's commanding presence. "Emiya got hurt because he was defending my honor." Taiga blinked, confused, her brain seemingly working in overdrive to parse this new explanation. "There was a foreigner who was harassing me at the store yesterday, and he came to my rescue."

Taiga frowned and looked at Shirou again, who was looking at Rin with his mouth open like a fish out of water over the easy lie. This time, she really looked, and noticed the bruises on Shirou's neck. She'd just barely missed punching them, and guilt flashed across her face. "Shirou…" She said quietly. "Is this true?"

Shirou didn't trust himself to speak and ruin the lie, so he just nodded.

"I didn't feel safe at home all by myself after that," Rin continued, "and Emiya was kind enough to offer me the guest room. I'm an upstanding student and a very good judge of character, you see, and I knew he wouldn't try anything inappropriate." She gave Taiga a respectful bow, inclining her head just enough to make it convincing. "If you're acting as his guardian, Ms. Fujimura, then I'm sorry that we didn't inform you."

Taiga looked like a trapped animal. "But! But Sakura!" She pointed at Sakura, like a little kid playing I Spy. "If all that's true, then why is Sakura—"

"I came over this morning like usual," Sakura said earnestly, turning to smile at Taiga, her worry wiped away completely, leaving only the kind of innocent sincerity that one just couldn't help but believe. Taiga flinched; Sakura's sweet and honest demeanor had done massive damage. "And when I saw what had happened to poor Senpai, I made him stay home. You know how he is when he gets sick or hurt, right, Ms. Fujimura?"

That's devious, Sakura! He expected lies from Rin, but he'd never realized Sakura could deceive so proficiently.

"Hmm…" Taiga hummed reluctantly, closing her eyes. "He tries to make it worse. That does sound like Shirou…" She was running out of ways to misinterpret the situation, and the unconscious part of her that enjoyed making a fuss could sense it.

Sakura nodded demurely. "I was afraid he'd hurt himself or try to come to school if I left him alone, so I had to be there to take care of him." She pressed an index finger to her chin and tilted her head, feigning confusion very convincingly. "Isn't it a good thing to help someone in need, Ms. Fujimura?"

If that look made Shirou's heart quaver, he could only imagine what it was doing to Fuji-nee, who saw Sakura as something like a little sister to protect. Indeed, she rocked back again with a grunt as Sakura scored a critical hit.

"And since he got hurt defending my honor," Rin said, dealing Taiga the finishing blow, "I just had to stay and help out. It was the least I could do, you see."

Taiga dropped to her knees, knuckles pressed against the cold floor, defeated. The mighty tiger had been slain.

Sakura leaned down to gently pat Taiga's head; statuesque, she didn't move. "Ms. Fujimura," she said gently. "I think the stew is ready, if you'd like some."

"I thought I smelled something good!" Taiga declared cheerfully, popping up and brushing herself off as though nothing at all had happened. "Thank you, Sakura! You're such a kind and considerate girl."

Shirou rubbed silently at his jaw.

Having suffered a crushing defeat, Ms. Fujimura was surprisingly normal as they ate. It was sort of a weird time to eat, but Sakura had started cooking at a weird time. Not quite dinner, not quite lunch. Senpai and Rin, at least, hadn't eaten beforehand, but Ms. Fujimura had insisted that she was still stuffed from a big lunch, said she'd just have a bite to be polite, and then ate two and a half bowls full of stew.

"That was really good," she sighed, pressing her cheek onto the table so hard and relaxing so deeply that that it looked like her face was melting into a contented puddle. "But is there a weird smell?"

Senpai had insisted that they allow him to clean up, so while he was washing dishes, Rin and Sakura exchanged a quizzical look. "Um," Sakura said, "a weird smell, Ms. Fujimura?"

The teacher nodded, squashing her face in new and interesting ways. "I've been smelling it since I walked in."

Sakura frowned. "I cleaned up a little, so you might be smelling the chemicals…" She didn't smell those anymore, though, and besides, would anyone call that a weird smell.

"Maybe it's not a smell," Ms. Fujimura said, rolling her face away from Sakura to look at Rin. "I feel cold, too. Is there a draft?"

Rin blinked sedately.

Don't tell her about the broken window, Sakura tried to communicate with her eyes.

"Not that I'm aware of," Rin said calmly. "I don't feel particularly cold."

"Hm…" Taiga looked unconvinced. "Shirou."

Senpai didn't respond; either he was still mad about being punched in the face, or he couldn't hear her over the sound of the sink. Sakura suspected the latter. Even when he was mad at Ms. Fujimura, he didn't usually give her the silent treatment.

"Shirouuuuu." Her voice had taken on the kind of whine she got when she felt like she wasn't getting enough attention. Sakura couldn't help but smile at that.

Again, the thought came unbidden to her mind: Could this be the new normal? For a moment, she allowed herself to get lost in an indulgent fantasy wherein she and Rin and Ms. Fujimura and Senpai all spent time together like this; cooking and laughing at Ms. Fujimura's ruckuses and just… feeling content.

There had been a part of her that had always been afraid of any kind of change; that anything that might potentially disrupt the equilibrium the three of them had built was a threat to the one part of her life that was genuinely peaceful. But now, with Tohsaka-senpai here with them, someone who should have been an intruder felt instead like… if not family, then an old friend.

It was strange. It was a warm feeling.

She didn't have a lot of those anymore, so she treasured them where she could find them.

As if to intentionally interrupt her pleasant reverie, Ms. Fujimura broke the silence with an ear-piercing shout. "SHIROU!"

All three of them jumped; Sakura covered her ears with a wince, while Senpai whirled as if the noise had been a gunshot. Suds dripped off the bowl in his hand as he started as Ms. Fujimura, his mouth agape. "What is it, Fuji-nee?" He asked incredulously.

"Do you have ghosts?" she asked, as if this were a perfectly reasonable thing to ask someone. "I figured it out. It's not a bad smell or a draft. It's evil spirits."

"Evil… spirits…" Senpai said, and Sakura could tell exactly what he was thinking — there was absolutely a new evil spirit in the house since the last time Ms. Fujimura had been here, and he was struggling to come up with a convincing lie when a simple "of course not" would do.

Sakura giggled — she was pretty good at faking those — and touched Ms. Fujimura's shoulder. "Of course not, Ms. Fujimura," she said gently. "No ghosts, no evil spirits, not even a mischievous yokai."

Again, she looked unconvinced. She sat up, peering suspiciously around the room. "I have very powerful intuition, Sakura, so I'm not surprised you don't sense such a malevolent presence…" She rubbed at her chin. "Hmm… Now that I know what it is, it seems pretty serious…"

A single glance at Rin screamed that she desperately wanted to break out of her poised and proper image to join in teasing Ms. Fujimura, but that she was too invested in the way she was perceived at school to do so. "Do you have a lot of experience with evil spirits, Ms. Fujimura?"

Taiga nodded seriously. "In my day," she said proudly, "I was an amateur ghost hunter."

"In your day?" Senpai asked, having gone back to the dishes to avoid having to lie to her face. "You're not that much older than we are."

"Respect your elders, brat," Ms. Fujimura said without any ill intent. "Anyway, when I was in middle school, me and some other girls saw this really cool movie about fighting ghosts, and we opened up a supernatural investigations agency out of a stand in my backyard. It's very normal."

"Fuji-nee, I think most kids just sell lemonade out of a stand," Senpai interjected tiredly. "And besides, you told us this story a couple weeks ago."

"But Shirouuu, lemonade is boring, and ghost are cool and scary! Besides, Ms. Tohsaka didn't get to hear about it," she pouted.

"Tohsaka doesn't want to-"

"Actually, I would like to hear about your agency, Ms. Fujimura," Rin said, smiling sweetly at Senpai.

"We never busted any ghosts, but we did a lot of research, just in case we got a client. I know all about evil presences. And this…" She crossed her arms over her chest, blew a breath out her nose, and nodded. "Is evil."

"I'm sorry," Rin said, "but evil how?"

"How should I know?" Ms. Fujimura whined. "Evil is evil! It feels evil! This cold, shivery feeling means ghosts!"

Rin and Sakura exchanged another meaningful glance. Rin mouthed "Assassin?" at her.

Sakura shrugged nervously.

"We need to get her out of here."

Sakura shook her head. Rin gave her a blank look. In reply, Sakura just gave her a tired smile. The truth was, the last few days had been emotionally exhausting, even by her standards, and having Ms. Fujimura's uncomplicated complications around actually felt like a kind of stress relief. Like the sleepovers she'd heard that some girls held after the tension of a big test.

Ms. Fujimura had obliviously launched into a diatribe about how ghosts were attracted to inappropriate behavior, not that she was saying Shirou and Rin and Sakura were up to anything inappropriate, but just in case the thought had entered any of their minds ("Shirou," she said pointedly), she was just so worried that even more evil spirits would appear.

"Unless…" She froze mid-stream-of-consciousness. "There is one other thing that could cause so malevolent an aura…"

Sakura reached out and touched Ms. Fujimura's wrist. "We're okay. I promise." It was about as true as it ever was, and besides; she was pretty good at lying about things being okay when they weren't.

Her eyes narrowed, not having seemed to have noticed Sakura at all. "Shirou. Have you done something bad?"

"Bad?" Rin asked. "I thought we established that-"

"Shirou." Ms. Fujimura's eyes had turned cold. It was a bizarre look on her. "If you need to hide a body, just let your Fuji-nee know. She can help."

Rin's perfect mask cracked, and she choked with laughter.

Ms. Fujimura continued seriously, not knowing or not caring about the laughter. "If my little Shirou is a killer now, then I'll just have to make a few calls, and everything will dis—"

Senpai, returning from the kitchen, threw the damp dish towel at Ms. Fujimura's face. It wrapped around her with a wet slap, and she made a weird gobbling noise as she flailed to pull it off. "You're letting your imagination run away with you," he said calmly.

Fuji-nee just whimpered.

Senpai looked down on her with dispassionate, unsympathetic eyes.

Sakura had always been a little bit envious of their relationship. They bickered constantly, made fun of the other at every opportunity, complained incessantly, and yet… They loved each other. Nothing they said to each other stung, because none of it was meant venomously, and their care for each other as strange siblings ran deep. It had taken a long time for Sakura to understand that. She had spent a lot of time being teased by people she should have trusted, and none of it had been so playful or so meaningless. More than once, in those first few weeks, she had bottled up her anger at Ms. Fujimura's conduct; without context, without knowledge of anything different, it had looked indistinguishable from her own treatment. Now that she'd spent so much time with them, though, it was almost peaceful.

No. Not 'almost.'

"Shirou, I'm just looking out for you," Ms. Fujimura said. "You don't tell me anything." That wasn't true and everyone there (well, maybe not Rin) knew it. Ms. Fujimura could be incredibly charming, but she lost every last scrap of dignity she had whenever she walked through Senpai's front door.

"I wouldn't tell you if I killed someone, idiot," Senpai said as he finally sat, shaking his head. "You'd disown me."

Ms. Fujimura frowned. "That's not true. I know a lot of scary people."

Rin was just kind of smiling meaninglessly; it was the kind of smile you wore when you wandered into something that felt like none of your business, but where leaving would be rude. Be strong, Tohsaka-senpai, she thought, trying to send good vibes. It'll be over soon.

It was not over soon.

It would never be over.

Though Rin had never personally had the dubious pleasure of taking a class with her, Taiga Fujimura was well known throughout the student body as eccentric; she was loud, she was brash, she was childish. She didn't have the nickname "Tiger Fujimura" for nothing, after all. There were whispers that she'd once challenged a particularly stubborn problem student to a sword fight in a fit of frustrated passion, and then accidentally killed him in a single blow. Both the fact that there hadn't been any suspicious student deaths in the couple years Taiga had been there and the lack of any identifying details were irrelevant to the rumor mill. Rin, of course, had never believed such a ridiculous story. The idea was laughable.

Now, though, she wasn't so sure.

Every eccentric thing people said about her seemed magnified a thousandfold. She cried at the drop of a hat, and she jumped to conclusions, and she teased Shirou mercilessly. Surely such a creature could not be a teacher. She was like a little kid. She was irritating. She was abrasive in a way Rin wasn't used to. None of that stopped her from liking the woman almost immediately.

Whether or not Taiga Fujimura was a good person was not the issue. The issue was that, well…

"Of course I'm staying," Taiga trumpeted definitively. "I just can't allow these two poor girls to be burdened with taking care of you all by themselves." The sun was setting, and Taiga simply would not leave, no matter how politely Shirou implied that she should.

Shirou groaned heavily. "Fuji-nee, I already have enough nurses to take care of me. I don't need one who'll probably poison me trying to brew a cup of tea."

Rather than responding to the jab, Taiga focused in on something else with laser precision. "Oh, I see, I see," she said, nodding thoughtfully. "So Shirou is into nurse fantasies…"

Sakura blushed and choked on a sip of tea; she seemed very easily flustered by Taiga. Even her coughing was polite and restrained; it also made for a fairly good cover for the red face. Rin could see exactly what was going on there, though, even if those two knuckleheads couldn't.

Rin, meanwhile, was absolutely living. She was exhausted and irritated and ready to talk about things that mattered again, but this was priceless. She watched the back and forth with barely restrained glee. She hadn't yet dropped the mask of the perfect, elite honor student, but she had allowed it to loosen a little. "I never knew Emiya was so perverse," she said, feigning mild horror.

With a look as though she and Taiga were plotting to knife him in the back right before his eyes, Shirou shook his head frantically. "Fuji-nee, don't twist my words. You're going to give Sakura the wrong idea."

Rin's grin widened. "Are you saying that I already have the wrong idea, Emiya?" She laced her hands, ladylike, on the table before her. "Or am I just the one with the right idea, and you want to throw me off? I did have my suspicions."

Sakura laughed quietly. "Senpai doesn't play mind games like that, Tohsaka-senpai."

Taiga nodded in assent. "You can't be too clever with Shirou," she said sadly. "It's no fun, because he doesn't understand. He just gets confused if he has to think too hard."

"You're confused all the time, Fuji-nee," he said levelly.

"Everybody's confused all the time," she said brightly. "Some people just pretend they're not better than other people."

"You're a teacher," Shirou said incredulously.

"I bet Tohsaka-senpai doesn't get confused very often," Sakura said earnestly.

Rin thought back to her lingering bewilderment about everything having to do with Assassin, and the way the world had stopped making sense about two days back. "That's true," she said.

"Anyway," Shirou said, desperation straining his voice, "please just trust me, Fuji-nee. Nothing weird will happen."

"If it makes you feel any better, Ms. Fujimura," Rin said pleasantly, "I have a boyfriend already. You don't think I would be so low as to be unfaithful, do you?"

The look of absolute bewilderment on Shirou's face was comical, but he threatened to topple her carefully aimed lie. Do not say a single word, she thought at him, giving him the most terrifyingly sweet smile she could imagine. Just go with it.

He flinched, but kept his mouth shut, and Taiga didn't seem to have noticed. "Hmmm…" She grumbled skeptically. "What's he like?"

We can play this game if you want. "Oh, you know. Tall. Dark. Handsome. Big bulging muscles." She sighed girlishly, pressing her hands to her chest as if caught in the throes of romance. "He's so very sweet, you see."

"Yeah," Shirou said unconvincingly. "Tohsaka showed me pictures. He's got, uh, tan skin…. kind of grumpy…"

Stop helping, you idiot, you're making me look like a liar. Which she was.

Shirou didn't know when to stop. "He's um… white hair? Really tall?"

Oh my god, is Archer literally the only other man you can picture? This was unbelievable. Taiga was growing suspicious; Rin could see it in the narrowed eyes and deepening frown. She had to step up her game to cancel out how fucking bad at lying to Taiga Shirou was.

Sakura actually came to the rescue. Shirou was inherently untrustworthy about such things to Taiga, Rin could see, but Sakura was much more believable. "Oh, Ms. Fujimura, he's very handsome," she lied effortlessly, sighing in a mirror of Rin's own a moment before. "I met him once. I only wish I could ever be so lucky as Tohsaka-senpai..."

Shirou looked genuinely jealous of the fake Archer-boyfriend they had constructed, his face all scrunched up like a newborn pug. That was beyond stupid, but it helped sell it, so she wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth.

Taiga studied the jealousy on Shirou's face like a scientist examining a butterfly pinned to a board, thoughtful, then smiled knowingly and nodded. "I see, I see. Okay, okay. I trust that Tohsaka won't let you do anything weird to her."

"You're the one with perversion on the brain!" Shirou protested, but Taiga was having none of it.

"I suppose it isn't your whole generation that's been corrupted," she sighed wistfully. "At least some young people these days are still trustworthy."

Rin and Sakura both smiled understandingly at Taiga, while Shirou sputtered incoherently. "You can count on us, Ms. Fujimura!" Sakura chirped.

Now that that was settled, Rin was absolutely positive that Taiga had to be about to leave. She just had to, right?

Nope.

Taiga lingered another hour after that before Shirou was able to successfully eject her from the house. "I'll get in touch with an exorcist," she called over her shoulder, before swinging her leg onto her motorcycle and roaring away.

Rin, watching her drive off, felt drained. "How do you two do this every day?" she asked, sagging pathetically.

Shirou and Sakura looked at her as one, and, infuriatingly, they didn't look worn out at all. "Well, it's not every day," Sakura said, as if that somehow made it better.

"It's just Fuji-nee," Shirou added. The bastard almost sounded chipper. Like he had been energized by that whole ordeal. "She's pretty easy to deal with once you get used to her."

Rin grumbled something wordless, then turned back to the house. "I liked her, but that was so much."

"Yeah," Shirou said with a laugh. "Anyway, what's your plan?"

She glowered at him. "My plan?"

He nodded. "To fix my magic."

I forgot all about that. She was so tired. "Can't we do it in the morning?"

"Tohsaka-senpai," Sakura said hesitantly. "Are you sure that we should wait? Senpai will be a lot safer if Assassin can help more."

Rin groaned, and she imagined the Earth shaking with the force of it. "Fine. Fine! We'll open your circuits. Go to your room, and I'll be in there in a minute. Like I said. Preparations. I couldn't do that with her there."

Suddenly, there was a stubborn set to Sakura's jaw that Rin wasn't a fan of. "Tohsaka-senpai, you still didn't tell us what you're planning…"

Shirou nodded firmly, though he and Sakura didn't exactly seem to be on the same wavelength. "Yeah, does it have to be in my room? Anything you do to fix me, I don't mind if Sakura's there."

"Fine, that's your funeral," Rin said. She even sounded exhausted to herself. "We can have an audience if you're so afraid to be alone in a room with me. It'll definitely be embarrassing, though."

My working title for this chapter was something along the lines of "SOME LEVITY FOR THE LOVE OF GOD." Y'all are going to need it for what's coming.

C:

Thanks as always to all of my readers and commenters, and the next one will be posted, again, in two weeks!

Next chapter: The Queen's Favor