As one might be able to tell from reading this chapter, I came up with this idea during the Valentine's event (NA 2019, to be specific). Started writing it all at this time, too.
As such, the next three chapters including this one will all be set sometime shortly after said event and involve Amakusa's reactions to some of the gifts his Master received. And after that there'll probably be a compilation chapter dedicated to multiple less lengthy reactions to other return gifts.

Anyways, on with the story!


For the first time in a while, Amakusa found himself walking to his Master's room with cleaning utensils in hand.
With the chaos of Valentine's Day having just passed, he figured his Master's room would be covered in chocolate and would need some cleaning. Considering she'd been the main target of the many chocolates created, it wouldn't be unthinkable that some of the chocolate Servants had managed to breach her room and make a complete mess.
Only, as he entered her room, he realized this task would require a lot more effort than just cleaning…

If someone had told the Ruler that a single room could be crammed so full with what seemed like the most random objects collected through all of Chaldea yet somehow still leave space open to walk, he wouldn't have believed them. Chaldea's bedrooms just weren't that large.
And yet, standing there he was forced to stare at the proof that this was in fact was completely possible. He couldn't even see the bed anymore as it was obscured behind a veritable wall of math(?) books, but he could see a faint gap between said wall and the actual wall where a person could squeeze through to reach the bed. Provided it wasn't buried underneath even more return gifts, of course.
… Rather than cleaning up the traces of chocolate he saw here and there, perhaps he'd do better to focus on trying to find a storage room for all of these…?

Actually, speaking of chocolates…
Amakusa approached Gudako's desk – while sidestepping a fishing basket repurposed as an impromptu fishing rod, walking staff, spear and etc. holder – which was covered with various chocolates. The amount on it alone was impressive, but looking into the trash bin next to it he saw what appeared to be the wrappings of about the same amount.
Considering it was only a day after Valentine's, was Gudako's stomach alright after eating that much?
Then again, he considered as he looked at the stacks of return gifts, perhaps she'd eaten such an amount to clear up at least some space inside her room. It would make sense to store or throw some of this away to make space, but he doubted Gudako would do that with presents she received.

The room was absolutely riddled with objects Amakusa had never seen before: A boar hoodie hanging from the coat rack, a giant bust of Nero standing on the bedside table (that could only have come from Caligula: Nero had enough of an ego that she'd send one herself, but she was neither skilled enough to sculpt this, nor would she not have given chocolate), a mini piano next to it, a pile of what looked like even more math books stacked into the shape of a throne over in the corner… Truly, imagining the amount of chocolate Gudako must've made to receive so many return gifts would have to be staggering, yet another proof of the young Master's dedication to her own Servants. In a way it was admirable, and Amakusa was certain that the others respected her for such effort as well.

Though looking at it all, he was glad he'd given her food instead, which wouldn't take up any space once it was eaten.
… But perhaps he should've done something different with the food, as his Master had seemed somewhat disappointed by his return gift, even though it was handmade and she'd admitted it tasted good. In particular, her face turned dark when he mentioned his aim to mass-produce it as a souvenir… She did question his sincerity.
On a different note, after finding out his handmade food tasted good, Gudako had narrowed her eyes at him and asked if he had a talent for cooking in general, maybe even have a talent for housekeeping in general. Amakusa had to conclude that every day, the amount of people – both Servants and humans – that believed he and (Archer) Emiya were not related dwindled…

Deciding to focus on cleaning the chocolate stains left behind here and there, Amakusa started working. It all went fine, until he saw… that.
Lying on the desk almost innocently, between what would've looked like a bag of convenience store chocolates were it not for the image of Hundred-Faces printed on the bag and a collection of rough-looking chocolate that Amakusa had also received some of – it took him an entire day of scrubbing his tongue with a toothbrush before he could get the bitter taste out – laid a key. Not just any key, but what appeared to be the key to a hotel room, the hanger reading '2017'.
In his defense, Amakusa tried to ignore it. It was clearly something his Master had received, likely a valentine's return gift. If someone decided to give her an entire hotel room or something, well, there were certainly generous Servants eccentric enough to give her such. Only, those Servants were usually so generous and eccentric that they would've just given Gudako an entire hotel to start with, not just a singular room. Then in this case it seems less likely that the gift was the room itself, but rather it was…

Amakusa didn't jump when the door suddenly opened and Gudako herself walked in, but it was close.

"Oh, hey Amakusa. Sorry, I didn't know you were cleaning: Want me to come back later?"

"No, it's fine: I was almost done." Looking things over Gudako noticed that he was in fact as good as done, not a chocolate stain in sight. Amakusa had continued cleaning diligently while stealing glances at that key.

"Oh, now that you mention it, I don't see any of the mess the chocolate Servants left behind anymore. Thanks!" Amakusa answered Gudako's smile with an infallible one of his own, but hidden behind that smile his thoughts remained focused on the key, debating when the best moment to bring it up would be.

"It's going to be a lot more difficult storing all of these return gifts, though. Would it be alright if I ask you to help with that sometime soon?"

"Of course: I shall do my best to aid you." Noticing a lull in the conversation, Amakusa took this chance to bring up that.

"Master, by the way, while I was cleaning up, I found something odd…"

"Hm? You did? Probably one of the gifts, then: some of those were pretty unique…"

"Ah, nothing strange, just something that stood out to me, really. If I might ask, why do you have a key," Amakusa gestured to the offending object lying oh-so innocuously on the desk in the least accusing way possible, "to a hotel room?"

"Oh, that? I suppose it looks rather strange, though I didn't really think about it amongst all the other stuff here. Anyways, I got it from Fergus: he invited me over to a room from a city we once rayshifted to."

"… Fergus?" Amakusa had not had many interactions with the Saber, but he knew more than enough about his reputation to know why exactly the man had asked his Master to come to that room. And honestly, he didn't like his motive one bit.

"… I see. Well, you turned him down of course, no?" Amakusa wasn't sure why he even felt the need to ask: Gudako had resisted the charms of so many Servants (admittedly almost all of them were women, but he didn't want to think about how Gudako might actually fall for any of the male Servants' potential advances) that surely she'd not be seduced so easily?
And then Gudako spoke. And then Amakusa felt his world crumbling (if only a little).

"Actually I went to see him there: it'd have been rude to refuse, no?"

"…"

"… Amakusa? You're making a weird face. Amakusa?"

… He could hardly believe it. 'It'd have been rude to refuse', that was all it took for a Servant to convince their Master to-.
It was more worrying than anything else. If this was truly how she thought, then she'd accept anything a Servant – or perhaps even worse, an enemy in disguise – offered her, no matter how obvious their ulterior motive. What would she do if someone once offered her an obviously spiked drink?
Amakusa noticed he'd stopped breathing (not that such a thing was all that necessary for a Servant, but not doing it reflexively made him – and more importantly the humans around him – feel uncomfortable) and forced himself to take a breath through his nose. It did not relieve the pressure in his chest in the slightest.

"Um, hello? You've been staring at me like that for a full minute…"

No, no, he had to remain calm.
While it was certainly one hell – excuse him, heck – of a shock to the Ruler, he had to remind himself that times were different now. Not only were… relations before marriage acceptable – no, practically the norm – now, physical intimacy in general had become a far looser idea than it used to be. There was no reason for a healthy young woman to refuse such an offer if both parties were consenting adults (not old enough to drink, but old enough to decide over her own body? How did that make any sense?). And if Fergus had wronged Gudako in any way, there were more than enough other Servants who'd (sometimes literally) roast the Saber alive for that.
He knew there was absolutely no reason for Gudako to not be allowed to accept that offer, and yet… To Amakusa, the idea of his Master – no, Gudako – having relations with someone… It was an image that made him sick down to his core. It was confusing more than anything, really. He hadn't seen himself as narrow-minded, yet he found himself desperately wishing that this was all just some misunderstanding, that Gudako had just gone there to see the room and nothing more…!

"Amakusa? Hey, Amakusa!" The Ruler was abruptly shaken from his thoughts by Gudako's face leaning noticeably closer to his, enough to make one nervous if she didn't interrupt the space left between them by waving her hand from right to left in front of his eyes. He blinked.

"… Master? Did you say something?" Confusing Amakusa even more, Gudako let out a sigh that appeared relieved.

"Finally, I was starting to worry something was wrong! You've been staring blankly in front of you for the past five minutes! Yeesh, I was starting to realize just how bad Mash must've had it back when I was stuck in Chateau d'If…" Had it truly been that bad? Comparing it to her time at Chateau d'If was surely an exaggeration, no?

"My apologies: I was somewhere else with my thoughts," but as he said this the Ruler had a sudden realization.

"… More importantly, Master, what did you do there?"

"'There'? You mean Chateau d'If?"

"No, I mean the hotel room. You went there to visit Fergus, no?" Gudako made a face, apparently not appreciating that Amakusa appeared to have no intention to explain his sudden zoning out, but she just shrugged and decided to forget about it: for all that everyone kept telling her she had a way with understanding and befriending Servants, Gudako found they still confused her as much as everyone else.

"Nothing special, really. I arrived at the room, Fergus let me in, and he showed me around." That… sounded innocent enough.

"… Did you stay over there?"

"Well, yes? That's what you do in a hotel, no? Stay the night?"

"… With Fergus?" Oh dear, the coiling in his gut was coming back…

"Yep. It'd be kinda rude to kick him out of the room he rented, no? Well, he took the boring option and slept in the bed, though." Amakusa blinked once more as he processed the meaning of those words. He concluded he couldn't understand.

"… Sleeping in the bed was the boring option? So… you didn't sleep in a bed?"

"Nope! I slept in the hammock!" Gudako almost seemed proud of that. Actually, scratch the 'almost': she was obviously pleased with herself for apparently taking the 'interesting' option.

"… Correct me if I'm wrong, but you said you were staying at a hotel, no? Was it perhaps at some tropical location?" The confused Ruler could think of no other reason that a hotel would have a hammock.

"No, it was right inside a city. A Japanese city, too, though I didn't catch the name of the place."

"…"

"…"

Amakusa finally, finally noticed that at some point during the conversation, Gudako's happy smile had taken on some characteristics of a smirk, and he realized she was laughing at him. He didn't doubt she was telling the truth, but she was purposefully telling it to him only in bits and pieces, enjoying his confusion as he tried to work out what exactly had happened.
Perhaps the girl had been spending a bit too much time hanging out with the more evil-aligned Servants in Chaldea. Or just Cu Chulainn in particular. The grin on her face reminded Amakusa of the ones the older Lancer or Caster wore when laughing at some of the more reserved Servants, only far less inviting to punch when it came from her, and thus easier to forgive.
Well, he supposed it was partly his fault as well for getting so flustered in the first place: it really wasn't like him to lose his cool like that.

After a small sigh, Amakusa said: "Very well, I admit that I have no idea what kind of hotel room you were staying at. Could you elaborate, please?"

"Sure!" Gudako was lucky her sheepish grin – perhaps feeling the slightest bit guilty over leading the Ruler astray (which was actually kinda impressive considering Amakusa's history of scheming) – was adorable, or he might've actually felt a little upset with her for this deception. But as it were it took all he could to not start grinning along with her, simply because her happiness was so infectious.

"Anyways, it wasn't really an ordinary hotel. The room Fergus rented was a pretty fancy one, with all kinds of things to do and see! There was a game console there, so we played some old video games I knew from home. Even managed to beat Fergus at some, too! By the time we were done with those it was already pretty late, so we both just went to sleep after that."

"I see…" Words could not describe how relieved Amakusa felt. He was rather curious about there apparently existing such strange hotels in Japan, but he was too relieved to really question it. It was for much the same reason that the Ruler couldn't bring himself to feel angry with Fergus for clearly having other motives in mind, as in the end the man had accepted that Gudako wasn't interested and just went along with what she wanted to do. In fact, with the wave of relief washing over him made Amakusa suddenly feel somewhat tired, a sensation he hadn't experienced often as a Servant.
Well, he was done cleaning anyways, so it was probably best for him to leave.

"I am glad to hear you enjoyed it. But if you'll excuse me, I'll go put these," he held up the cleaning utensils, "away and then return to my room."

"You do that. I'll ask you when it's time to start moving some of these gifts, alright?"

"Of course," and with that the Ruler gave a small bow before striding out the room.

As he walked away, it suddenly struck Amakusa that feeling such a large amount of relief like this was not normal. After all, his Master's chastity wasn't any of his business (unless her chosen partner was a threat, but despite not liking the Saber much after this shock, Amakusa was certain Fergus would never harm Gudako). Was he worried about other Servants' reactions if they found out? About Fergus' well-being in that scenario?
After pondering over it for a while he tried to recall other times when Servants looked unkindly on someone making advances on their Master, and when it wasn't out of jealousy he found the motives were often almost familial in nature. He couldn't be sure about every Servant, but at least a couple of the male Servants seemed to view themselves as paternal figures towards Gudako.
Yes, that must have been the same for him: while obtaining the holy grail was still his end goal, Amakusa had decided to put aside this to focus on serving her. And even besides that he'd found himself growing fond of the girl. She might've physically been just a bit older than him, but Amakusa did have all of his experience as a Servant – along with those sixty-or-so years of being incarnated – to keep in mind, all of which he remembered due to being summoned as a Ruler. He didn't view her in quite the same light as the young Santa Jeanne Alter, but that could easily be blamed on the difference in the girls' ages.

Amakusa let out a sigh at how meddlesome he had become towards his Master's private life. While there was nothing wrong with a good bond between Master and Servant, he really had to dial back on the overprotectiveness.


As she saw Amakusa off, Gudako couldn't help but be happy that information given to summoned Servants about modern establishments weren't too detailed.
She wasn't really surprised that Fergus of all people knew that those places even existed, but she had been a bit worried that other Servants might hear her description and have realized it. It was why she decided to tell Amakusa, who was one of the less likely folks to go and slaughter Fergus – or worse, tattle about it to the more jealous Servants. She didn't even want to imagine the cruel death the Saber would've otherwise faced at the hands of other Servants…

Then again, perhaps it had been silly for her to worry about Servants knowing detailed info about something even Gudako was surprised at. She'd always imagined love hotels to be seedy places like in the few manga she'd read that mentioned them, but as it turned out they were pretty fun, and the room service food was great!
(She'd refrained from trying out the cosplay costumes they offered, though if she ever went to one with a guy she liked that way she might consider it.)

Content with how things had turned out, Gudako turned around and happily walked back into her room – only to promptly bump her toe into the chocolate weight Martha had given her.
Yeah, she'd have to get Amakusa to help her with sorting all of these out sooner rather than later, she thought as she hopped around on one foot while she clutched the other, just barely avoiding tripping and breaking her head open on the Nero bust. Though trying to actually eat that solid chocolate weight was going to be a challenge comparable to Spartacus' return gift…


Just, for the record? Not gonna lie, Gudako's slight saltiness about Amakusa's prototype-souvenir cookies was mine. I can definitely get why Gudako questioned his sincerity about it. As such, if Valentine's ever gets brought up again after this set of chapters, expect there to be mention about it.

And I'm a bit worried that Amakusa not realizing he's attracted to Gudako – because let's be honest, that's what's going on here – might seem out of character, but I wrote it keeping in mind that during his lifetime he never got past 17 years old, and that he's unlikely to have had much interest in romance before and during the events of Apocrypha. I'm not counting the bit with Semiramis because unless it's part of the light novel version that I've yet to read that far, we don't get much insight on how Amakusa might've viewed their relationship. From my perspective all we know for sure is that he didn't seem to dislike the kiss she gave him.

Anyways, enough of me making excuses for myself: I just hope you enjoyed it, and thanks for reading!