While once again this chapter's little more than a description of Amakusa cleaning the room, from the next chapter on the focus will shift more to anything else going on or being thought – sometimes during cleaning.
While she'd given him a questioning look, Gudako had no issue with Amakusa making the cleaning of her room a regular task of his. Quite the opposite, really: she said his work last time had been amazing, and she particularly appreciated his finding of the talisman. The Servant in question had been admonished, though Gudako didn't let slip which Servant had placed it and Amakusa had no intention of prying further into her private matters.
(The only thing he thought was that she truly was an amazing Master for being able to recognize which Servant had placed it with just the talisman.)
Well, he hadn't pried about much that is. There was one thing he'd asked her about, after all.
Once more Amakusa found himself in Gudako's room with cleaning utensils in hand. While he'd be making the bed, since he was here just last week he didn't deem it necessary to change the sheets just yet. She'd barely even slept in with all those rayshifts lately, after all.
As he got started on cleaning the desk, he couldn't help but throw a glance at the heavily locked drawer in passing. Gudako had told him without shame or hesitation that it was her underwear drawer. Apparently Kiyohime – and occasionally a few other servants - had a tendency to take 'souvenirs' from there, as Anderson had spotted her walking around with a pair on her head. The very same day she heard of this, Gudako had Da Vinci-chan start making the lock, and ever since it appeared Kiyohime hadn't tried breaking it open.
Amakusa had to admit that he was most certainly not jealous of the amount of attention his Master received. While it would no doubt feel flattering at times, it was a bit too much when one had to be concerned over the privacy of their unmentionables, of all things.
Refocusing his attention on the desk, Amakusa noted that it was easier to do this type of work when one could actually put items away instead of placing them into neat piles: Gudako had told him in which drawers he could put the loose stuff on her desk. By the time he was done, all that was left on the desk were the pens neatly placed into a holder, an empty notebook and an unfilled report for a recent Rayshift Gudako would be filling in the next time she was in her room.
Like last time Amakusa now moved onto the bedding, fluffing the pillow and straightening the blanket. He glanced underneath the bed as well, but this time there really was nothing more than dust bunnies. Speaking of which…
After dusting the remaining furniture, Amakusa grabbed the tools he didn't have with him last time: a broom and a matching dust pan. He quickly got to work sweeping up all the dust and dirt on the floor, making sure not to miss the dust bunnies underneath the bed. Soon enough all the dust was gathered and Amakusa was pouring it all into the trash bag he'd brought.
There was not enough in the laundry basket to justify throwing it into the washing machine just yet, so mopping the floor would be his last task for the day.
He'd brought the bucket and mop just in case, but as it turned out – despite Japanese customs – Gudako wasn't in the habit of removing her boots before entering her room, so any dirt and other stuff she stepped into during rayshifts just got brought right into her room. Well, he could understand her being too exhausted after clearing a singularity to bother with kicking her boots off before faceplanting on the bed, so he wouldn't be bringing this up as an issue. Besides, the mud stains weren't that hard to remove.
After making sure there was not a speck of dust left in the room, Amakusa gathered up his tools and headed back to the utility closet. There was slightly more of a challenge putting things back this time – a staff member was busy filling a bucket of soap water for some mopping of his own – but a Servant didn't need to be an Assassin to be able to sneak past an ordinary human unnoticed.
And so it was that Amakusa survived another day of cleaning the unusually adored last Master of Chaldea's room, noting that the satisfaction of doing such simple chores well really was its own reward – or at least it was for those who were used to having to clean nothing but blood from their blades after a battle.
Perhaps he'd ask the other Shirou – the archer whom one could mistake for having taken up permanent residence in the kitchens after the addition of yet another Altria – to teach him sometime, so he could improve his work.
