The line on the opposite end was deathly still after he finished giving his explanation; not a noise to be heard aside from an idle tapping that droned on until an acute snap of something breaking ended the call.
His lip twitched, a blank expression over his face as he stared dumbly at the phone in his hand while a shudder traveled down his back.
She hadn't even responded before hanging up.
That wasn't normal given his surrogate elder sister's easy-going temperament. Loud and boisterous, she was the type of person to enliven a party with her childish antics such as crying when a close associate called her name wrong. She was also irresponsible, clumsy, and prone to sporadic bouts of lethargy, making it difficult for anyone to realize that she was actually the granddaughter of a Yakuza group.
He thought back to all the individuals that had doted on him in his childhood, and sighed when he considered the fact that they were probably more than just the friendly eccentrics he knew them as. Worse, with the maturation of an impulsive heiress, they were led by an even bigger eccentric.
A feeling of unease welled up from within him, but there was nothing he could do now but hope that Taiga wouldn't take things too far. From what he knew, the Fujimura group should have enough ability to deal with the situation safely. Unfortunately, what he grossly failed to understand with his superficial knowledge was that the situation was akin to David vs Goliath; the representation of a syndicate's overall strength based on length of history, and the Fujimura's were an ancient family of many generations.
Mobilizing was as simple as calling forth an order.
More so for the young Heiress who was babied in her adolescence and still thought fondly of by many in the Fujimura group despite her status. In fact, to many uncles and aunts within the group that helped raise and watch out for him and Taiga in their youth, they were as good as adopted children to them.
A family even if not by blood.
A warmth spread through him upon thinking of this, as regardless of what he did in life, he knew that there was still a place waiting for him back home. And yet, why was he feeling so apprehensive?
Only time would tell.
Placing the phone back over the counter, he made his way to where Rin was busy setting up her own workshop but decided that it was better not to disturb her. Instead, he ended up making his way to the porch facing the soft glow of the cloudless moon above.
Arturia was there, straight backed and sitting quietly, ever diligent and dignified.
'Welcome back,' she would always say to him when he returned, a soft smile on her lips as if waiting for him meant the world to her.
And perhaps it did.
In another time and in another place.
A Sword that searches, and the sheath that would never stop waiting for a Dream's End. The miseries suffered in life, eventually concluded upon a lush field of grass; a utopia beyond the reach of the world.
"Shirou?"
A voice called out to him, breaking the daze he didn't even realize he had fallen into.
"No, Arturia, it's nothing," he said, smiling before taking a seat next to her. "Its just, the moon never changes does it? Both in the past and in the present. It's like were still in Fuyuki."
Arturia nodded her head, the two falling into a comfortable silence broken only by the distinct noise of a stomach growling.
He gradually shifted gaze towards her, watching as she attempted to appear indifferent, but was failing due to the reddening of her cheeks and her inability to meet his gaze. Subsequently, her face lowered and her bangs overshadowed her features, an embarrassed quiver in her lips.
He stared, the sight before him in stark contrast to the violence of the War that they had fought together, yet he wouldn't trade the moment for anything. Arturia had become someone special to him long ago, their memories entwined through a sleep cycle. He knew of all the hardships she had faced and all the difficult choices she had made, creating a heated desire from within him.
He wanted to make her happy, to give her a life of constant joy and elation much like his feeling towards Rin.
His thoughts broke abruptly when he noticed Arturia purse her lips, the intensity of his stare taken as a judgmental one.
"H-Hunger is the enemy," she mumbled out in a soft-spoken voice, her stutter a result of her shame.
He laughed, ignoring the way her eyes shot up to glare at him indignantly, her hands clasping tightly over the hem of the dress she wore. All the same. His views of her would never change, the sight before him endearing.
Inwardly he made a promise to himself to make the most of the situation.
If fate wished him to temporarily put aside his pursuit of his dreams to train to be a proper chef, then so be it. He would create his own menu and serve both Arturia and Rin something new every night.
And today's menu for the Emiya family was going to be a feast.
After all,
He sat up, tussling Arturia's hair as he walked passed her and towards the kitchen.
Hunger was the enemy.
Classes in Totsuki were divided into many fields of culinary arts which were each individually assessed by trained instructors. As he had been temporarily exempted from public classes due to Senzaemon's arrangements, he was still expected to do other miscellaneous things instead to practice his skill mastery.
Garden maintenance, for example, was what he had done the other day with the goal of bettering his discernment towards the quality of ingredients. He plowed soil, tended to the crops, and aided the professionals with small-time tasks in his spare time without complaint. As such, many of the gardeners had an exceedingly good impression and evaluation of him that Senzaemon was promptly made aware of.
This was even more so for the utility department that maintained Totsuki's high-end culinary equipment such as ovens, deep-fryers, and other various appliances. In which case, he was a literal fish to water.
His Structural Grasping magecraft made it so that any appliance he was working with appeared as a literal blue-print in his mind. Any defects or abnormalities were known to him within seconds of inspecting any machine. He didn't have to worry about others learning the secrets of the moonlit world either as he was discreet in his actions, activating his magic only when in contact.
As a result, there was no issue he could not solve in the department, whether it be replacing broken parts or fixing the problem itself, he could do it all alone.
It wasn't long before he was considered as something of a free handy-man in Totsuki, yet he didn't really mind as much given how similar the situation was in Homurahara. At least he wasn't called a Fake Janitor.
His lip twitched.
The current area he was in was inside a senior year kitchen, and he was busy testing for blunted knives by cutting various ingredients. It wasn't something that he was tasked by Senzaemon to do, but something the staff maintenance people had asked him a favour for.
Given his personality, he didn't refuse.
The room itself was spotless, polished tiled floor and ceramic table-tops lined with assorted ingredients available for use.
The steady sound of chopping echoed within the room, he being the only one inside and working at the far corner by the entrance. It would feel too uncomfortable if had decided to work at the center of the room after all, yet no matter.
He placed the knife he had just tested back into one of two piles he had sorted out. One was labeled 'sharp' and the other 'dull,' the knife he tested joined the sharp pile.
Sighing, his gaze shifted towards the rest of the untested knives and he absently picked another up.
What he should have had been doing at the moment was thinking about the Shokugeki against Eizen, but with how busy his life was, it was rather difficult. Should he prepare anything, or perhaps leave it to chance? Besides, he felt that something was off with the timing of the people targeting him and his first meeting with Eizen.
There was three million riding on the cook-off. He couldn't just not be apprehensive about it.
Still, the one who worries is the one who loses. He needed to compose his mental state as there was no need to get flustered and lose whatever natural advantage he may have.
With that thought in mind, he distracted himself by deciding to work on his magecraft.
Gaze darting across the room to make sure it was empty, he closed his eyes and steadily reinforced the knife in his hands.
It was a dull glow of light, a flash so indistinct that unless anyone was paying rapt attention, they would have had missed it. Unfortunately for him, someone did as they passed the glass entrance of the room.
Faint interface patterns stemmed throughout the knife as the glow fully receded, and by the time he opened his eyes, it was to stare at a pair of yellow orbs and slitted pupils.
"Watcha doin?"
A voice registered in his ears, playful yet curious, he unable to understand how a woman could suddenly appear right in front of him so fast.
He immediately stiffened, the knife in his hands subconsciously placed behind him.
The woman in front of him had fiery red hair that covered her left eye and hung down passed her chin. Her brows raised slyly when she noticed his actions, but thankfully she didn't do anything.
Her face was strikingly attractive, soft features and defined cheek bones giving her a noble-woman's disposition, and yet she drew away from the character trope with her personality. She acted nothing like a noble-woman, her hands pressed forward on the counter top as she leaned on them and inched her chest forward, neglecting the concept of personal space.
However, that wasn't what he was concerned about, rather, his mind was racing with the notion that his magecraft might have had been seen. The consequences of which he didn't want to think about.
Magic was not to be known to the general public not only due to the fact that it would cause an uproar, but because it may weaken magic further in the current Age of Humanity.
He kept silent as he observed her, looking for anything to give away whether she had seen his magecraft or not yet not finding anything.
"Well," he began tentatively. "What do you think I was doing?"
The woman before him hummed to herself before straightening her back and standing tall, just a couple inches shorter than him.
"Don't know," she said absently, smoothing the hem of her student uniform, a collared long sleeve and skirt.
Thereafter, she stared at the knives he had used before turning her attention back towards him.
"I've never seen you in class before, and it's a rather odd time for you to be practicing your knife skills now, ain't it?"
She crossed her arms, grinning broadly.
"Never too late to practice," he answered without much thought, mind working on overdrive.
It didn't seem as if the woman had seen his earlier display which greatly relieved him, but at the same time he felt as if the woman before him would only serve to make his life in Totsuki more complicated.
It was a gut kind of feeling, more so when it felt as if he'd drawn the attention of a cat.
He didn't like the way she was smiling at him.
"Well, if you have nothing else to say, then there are other things I have to do," he excused himself, inwardly apologizing to the person who'd asked him of the favour to test the knives.
He at least still did over half, so it should be enough.
In response to his words, the woman said nothing, watching silently as he packed his things and left. Meanwhile, her eyes slowly shifted towards the knife he had reinforced and had no choice but to leave behind with the other knives because it wasn't his property.
The woman had been masking her curiosity before due to the way she had seen the alarm in his eyes, but he wasn't present at the moment.
Expression shifting to curiosity and intrigue, the woman picked up the reinforced knife and examined the edge.
Dull.
Was her assessment. She was exceedingly skilled in knife-handling and didn't need to test the knife to know whether it was blunt or not. Of course, Shirou could have had done the same with structural analysis, but he was tempering his culinary arts by actually making a habit of cutting vegetables.
Further inspecting the knife in her hands, it was with a sudden alarm that she realized that she'd cut herself.
Impossible.
She was a skilled chef and was certain that the knife in her hands was too dull to break skin without enough force. All she had done was gently slide her finger across the edge as a test.
She stared at the knife in her hands hard, yet no matter how she saw it, the knife's edge was blunt.
Careful this time, she touched a finger over the blade's edge again, and a trickle of red fluid gradually slipped down her finger.
Her expression blanked before she turned in the direction Shirou had walked away from. Unfortunately, he was already long gone. As such, her attention shifted towards the ingredients Shirou had cut, the meat products in particular.
Everything was smooth, requiring an extensive degree of knife handling skills to accomplish that was perhaps even equal to her own.
All kinds of thoughts formed in her head, but only one feeling remained.
She was intrigued.
Sorry for delays, school mid-terms and projects took away from my time to work
P a treon. com (slash) Parcasious
Vasto of White's update coming next at Sunday the 21 or Monday the 22 unless complications occur
-Edit: I caught a fever on Sunday so the update will probably occur on Tuesday instead