Tick-Tock:
"Master, are you certain that's a good idea?"
"Hm? What do you mean?" Gudako looked up from where she was doting on a small spider automaton to look at Amakusa, her expression indicating she had no idea what he was referring to.
"Well, that spider, it's the collaboration item made by Mephistopheles and Nursery Rhyme, no? The one infamous for exploding from the slightest shock?"
"Yes, what's wrong with it?"
"… Does the explosion part not concern you?"
With a shrug, Gudako said: "not really, no."
And that was that, although Amakusa always looked twice the following weeks when cleaning his Master's room, vigilant to ensure he didn't accidentally bump into the little contraption.
No visitor to Gudako's room was able to relax until it got blown up. No one was sure how it happened, but the leading theory is that one of Gudako's stalkers tried sneaking into her room, bumped into it and set it off. In Amakusa and many others' opinion, it was a load off their shoulders.
Bayard's Mane:
"Amakusa, wait up!" Amakusa halted as he turned around, seeing the Master of Chaldea approach him from the other end of the hallway.
"Ah, Master. Do you need something?"
With a nod, she said: "Right. It's actually about this." The 'this' was accompanied by Gudako pointing towards the woven choker she was wearing. Amakusa recognized it: Saint George had been making it as a return gift for the chocolates Gudako gave him, and had asked the other saints' aid in imbuing it with prayers.
"George mentioned you also helped with making it." He confirmed it with a nod.
"Yes, what about it?"
"I just wanted to let you know I really like it, and so I've been thanking everyone who helped make it. I already ran into Jeanne and Martha, so you were the only one left."
"I'm glad to hear you like it so much, though I must admit the initiative was completely Saint George's."
"Even so, I appreciate you helping him. Well, that was all I wanted to say, and I've still got some things to do, so see you around!" With a wave Gudako left the Ruler behind, who returned said gesture.
As she walked back to her room, Gudako touched the choker, pondering one oddity about it she had noticed.
It seemed that every time she wore it Blackbeard tented to stay quite a distance away from her. Perhaps it had to do the choker also has warding properties…?
Bitter Bitter Bitter Chocolates:
Gudako entered Chaldea's cafeteria, only to notice a familiar figure sitting at one of the tables.
"Oh, hey Amakusa!" She called out as she walked up to him.
"Ah, hello, Master," the Ruler returned her greeting, though Gudako noticed he was making a rather uncomfortable face. Just as she was wondering what was wrong, he eyes wandered over to what was lying on the table in front of him, and she instantly understood: lying on a napkin was a small pile of pitch black chocolates, the cutesy shapes hiding its extremely bitter taste from the unassuming gaze.
"You're trying to eat some of Jeanne Lily's chocolates?"
"I take it you received some as well, then?" Gudako nodded, and opened the lunch box she'd brought with her: inside it were more of the same chocolates, as pitch black yet cute looking as the ones on the table.
"I just couldn't continue eating them like this, so I was thinking of trying to melt them into hot chocolate, add some milk and sugar to soften the bitterness, and drink it like that."
"Hot chocolate? I see, that's a good idea. Might I add my chocolates to that as well? We'll share the drink, then." Gudako nodded, and the two moved onto the kitchen to borrow a stove and other necessities.
Eventually – after going through two bottles of milk and an entire package of sugar – they managed to lessen the hot chocolate's bitterness enough that they could drink it without much issue, at which point they both agreed that it tasted pretty well like this.
Secret, Prized, Treasured Albums:
Amakusa Shirou Tokisada was dutifully cleaning his Master's room when he stumbled upon them.
He'd been putting her freshly-washed clothes into her closet when, lying on the bottom pressed against the wall, he noticed what appeared to be albums. There were three of them, with covers in blue, green and red.
It seemed like an odd thing, placing such books in the closet. He figured his Master would want to place them on her shelf or desk instead, but maybe she had a reason to stuff them in here?
In trying to determine where to put these mystery albums, he took the top album – the blue one – with the intention of opening it to see what kind of book it was.
But just then, his Revelation skill kicked in, and a shiver went down his spine. It was a brief image of himself, lying horribly mutilated and probably dead on the floor of this very room, but it was enough to make him realize just how dangerous the thing he was holding inside his hand was. And if the other two books were as dangerous as this one… Well, Amakusa was now rather concerned that his Master was holding onto objects this dangerous. It made sense why she stuffed them in the back of her closet like this, though in his opinion it wasn't enough: what if one of her many stalkers decided to go through her belongings and came across this? It'd surely end horribly for someone, at least.
As such, the Ruler took the three albums and hid them inside the room, hoping no one would ever stumble upon them.
And just to be sure, he said a quick prayer for his Master, that she may never encounter those albums again.
Victory Rose:
As was usual, Amakusa entered his Master's room with cleaning utensils at hand.
As was less usual, said Master was still in her room at this time of day.
And as was just plain concerning, she was lying with her head lying on her desk, clutching her stomach with a pained groan.
Amakusa immediately put the cleaning tools down, rushing over to her side, already wondering if he should get a healer like Martha or Irisviel, or someone with medical expertise like Nightingale (whom he'd rather not call if unneeded as she'd surely put Gudako through more suffering than she was currently experiencing) instead.
"Master, what's wrong?! Are you hurt!?"
"Huh? Oh, hi Amakusa." In contrast to the concerned Ruler, Gudako looked quite calm, despite her obvious pain. She even gave him a small smile. Seeing she wasn't in danger calmed Amakusa down a bit, although he wasn't entirely assured that she was alright.
"Master, are you alright? I heard you groaning in pain."
"Oh, you heard that? Sorry about that, it's actually pretty stupid." An slightly embarrassed expression on her face, Gudako nodded her head towards something on her desk. For the first time since entering the room the Ruler took his eyes off of her to see what she was gesturing towards, and what was standing on the desk was the largest cake he'd ever seen. It was, with no exaggeration, humongous. Even more noticeable was that quite a large slice had been cut out of it, and combined with the empty plate and fork lying next to it, it wasn't difficult to conclude what had happened.
"As you can see, I stupidly ate too much cake, and gave myself stomach ache. It's really my fault for underestimating how filling this stuff was: Boudica warned me, but it still took me by surprise."
"I see. But why didn't you stop eating the moment you noticed you were getting full?"
"Well, I was honestly planning on just eating a small part of it today, but after taking it out of my fridge I just couldn't fit it back inside, so to avoid letting it go bad I tried to ate some more."
With some minor disbelief Amakusa walked over to the fridge to open it and see how that was possible… only to find himself with Gudako's apparent skill at stuffing the majority of her chocolates into it without anything being squished or the fridge itself bursting open.
From behind him Gudako remarked: "It's like trying to put things back into an unpacked suitcase: they never fit as well as they did the first time."
"Actually, do you feel like helping out with finishing this? I think I've just proven that I can't eat it all alone."
"I don't mind, but I fear that even with the two of us that would be too much cake. Instead, might I suggest handing out slices to some others instead?"
"Oh, that could work! Who do you have in mind?"
"I was thinking of the child Servants."
With a nod, Gudako said: "Right, that makes sense. And I'm sure Boudica won't mind if I share some with them, too. Alright, let's do that!"
And right after saying this she laid her head back on the desk, once more clutching her stomach with a groan.
"We'll get right on that after I can look at food without feeling sick again…"
Homemade Cookies and Object X:
Amakusa was going to enter Gudako's room to clean it like her normally does. Was, until the door opened and he had to dodge a dumbbell flying right towards him.
It was quite the impressive dumbbell, too: it hit the floor with a sound that made the Ruler worry one of the floor tiles was going to crack, and finally came to a halt when it rolled and bumped into the wall.
"Amakusa, sorry about that!" He switched his gaze from the dumbbell to his apologetic Master, who approached him from her room.
"It's fine, I had no problem dodging. But might I ask why you were throwing a dumbbell at the door?"
"Well, I wasn't actually throwing it at the door: I threw it at the floor, when it then bounced and flew towards the door. It was just really bad timing that you happened to be standing outside at that moment."
"Then why were you throwing a dumbbell around in your room? I don't imagine that's too healthy for the floor."
"You see, it's not actually a dumbbell. Just take a closer look, you'll see what I mean." With a nod the Ruler did so, picking up the weight with no problem.
The moment he touched it he understood what Gudako meant: rather than the metal of a normal dumbbell, this was made out of something else. Along with the brown color he only now noticed and what appeared to be tooth marks along various parts, it wasn't difficult to realize this was in fact a chocolate shaped like a dumbbell (and it was impressively solid enough that its weight wasn't too far off, either).
"I got it from Martha, along with some other food. I managed to eat the rest no problem, but I just can't seem to break a piece off of this one: it's quite hard. So I was trying to shatter it so I could just let the pieces melt in my mouth instead of trying to chew, but as you can see that didn't work."
"Indeed, it's rather impressive that she managed to make something edible this hard."
"I'm rather bothered: I tried a lot of things now, but I just can't get it to break. I'm afraid I'll have to put it in a pot and just let it melt, after all."
"Well, I'd be willing to help see if we can't find a way to break it, first."
"You will? Thank you!"
Despite the Ruler's help, after trying countless things they eventually had to resort to asking (Archer) Emiya to project a sword sharp enough to cut through the chocolate, as conventional weaponry (or at least as conventional as black keys and a katana enchanted to the level of a Noble Phantasm can be) proved to be of no use.
When they were actually able to taste it, however, they all had to agree there was nothing at all wrong with the taste.
Aaand that's it for the Valentine's stuff (at least until I get to this year's content)!
I hope you enjoyed reading this, and depending on which Servants I've gained between last year's Valentine's and the next one, I might do multiple larger chapters like earlier, or just another collection of small scenes like this one.
Either way, until next time, for some more miscellaneous chapters!
