I blinked wearily as I came to, trying to remember how I fell unconscious in the first place. 'What happened? I arrived back at the inn with Troper, Rin was about to say something to me, then Yukari came in and was about to start a fight with Rin and Saber, then Fuji-nee and Iliya started yelling at me about harem expansion-'

I blinked again, but this time in surprise at that last memory of being chased around my old training dojo by my old neighbor and enemy. I thought back the slightly earlier memory of me passing out, and figured that it was a dream. I then thought back to the much earlier memory of Troper telling me that his abilities caused really weird dreams, and figured that it was his fault due to the trope he cast on me. In any case, I decided to push those thoughts to the back of my mind for the time being.

As I sat up, I found myself to be in my room, likely placed there after I passed out. More importantly though, I saw that Rin and Saber were sitting on either side of me.

I tensed, but neither of them spoke. The three of us simply looked at each other uncomfortably, not sure were to begin. I thought Rin had something to say earlier, but it seemed she changed her mind or lost her nerve.

"So," I eventually said, trying to break the silence. "How long was I out?"

"Three hours." Saber said. "We've only be in here with you for the past half hour."

I nodded as I took stock of myself, stretching my limbs as I did so. I still felt tired, but less so than I had this morning. It would still take another night's rest to get me back up to full, but now at least the weariness wasn't seeping into my bones. I also saw (with some confusion) that I was in a different set of clean clothes. "When and how did I get changed?" I asked.

"That's not important." Rin said, though turning to her I saw a light blush on her cheeks.

"Did you want to talk to me about something?" I asked slowly. I still wasn't quite sure how this conversation was going to go. The two of them seemed to have calmed down considerably since last night, though that didn't mean they weren't still upset. Lord knows what they must think of the whole situation now that they've had time to consider it.

Rin rubbed the back of her head sheepishly, in a motion which I was sure she had picked up from me. "Well, I wasn't planning on talking so much as inflicting pain on you until I came up with a better idea, but it was decided that that probably wasn't the best way to handle this." Her eyes briefly flicker to Saber before turning back to me. "I was kind of hoping I would know what to say to you by the time you woke up, but all I have is… why? I know what you said last night, but you have to have a better explanation than that."

I gave a small sigh and proceeded to explain myself as best I could. It was mostly the same thing I had told Troper when he had asked about it, though the words seemed somewhat hollow in my ears. I didn't believe that it would justify my actions to them, but at least it might help them understand.

Rin simply stared at me with a small frown on her face as I talked, and Saber kept her expression neutral. After I finished there was a pause before Rin said "So, you really thought you'd never see us again?"

I gave a small wince at the edge in her voice. "Well, yes. I'm just one guy against the entire Mage's Association. There was nothing I could do to get around that, and if I did somehow met with you again, you'd probably end up sharing my fate. Hell, I'm pretty sure that would have happened already if Troper's Rin wasn't impersonating you right now."

Rin blinked in surprise at this information while Saber said "Even so, it seems that you just gave up on us while we were still trying to find you."

"It's not like I wanted to!" I exclaimed. "I would like nothing more than to just go back to the way things were, but I can't live in the past. Not when there's so much I have to do now."

"Things like your harem of alien bimbos." Rin said darkly.

I turn to the magus, my own face darkening as I did so. "You know that's not true, Rin. And you shouldn't trivialize the plight of an entire species because of this." I may have said that with more anger in my voice that I would have liked, but Rin's low blow had really gotten under my skin. The idea that she thought I would abandon her just because I had ended up with a number of women attracted to me was rather insulting.

Rin opened her mouth to give a retort, but she stopped herself. Instead she gave a sigh and rubbed her eyes. "I know. You're only person I know that I can trust is telling the truth when they say that. But that still doesn't change the fact that you slept with another woman! How the hell am I supposed to feel about that?"

I looked at the ground. "I was hoping you'd understand-"

"What I understand in that you did it for a completely stupid reason! You did it not because you wanted to, but because you felt like you had to! Since when is sex something that you have to do regardless of what you want?"

"Uh, Rin?" Saber hesitantly asked her master. "What about the magical contract you made with Shirou at the end of the Grail War?" While we did have developing feeling for each other at the time, Saber was right in that the main reason we preformed the tantric ritual then was to make me strong enough to fight Gilgamesh and keep him from wiping out most of mankind.

Rin glared at her Servant. "Not. Helping. Besides, those were two different situations. If we didn't do that, billions of people would have died. What would have happened if you hadn't slept with Akitsu, Shirou?"

"Umm… she would have remained a broken wreak of a person, constantly trying to fill the empty void inside of her?" I guessed.

"Grrrah!" Rin shouted in frustration. "That still doesn't mean you had to jump straight to sex to help! Did you even think of trying something else first? Like maybe Rule Breaker? Or more research? Or maybe just getting her a therapist?"

I frowned at this. "Yes, I did consider those, but I didn't know if they would be effective. I have no idea what Rule Breaker would do to her given her alien physiology, and I'm so far from knowing anything about magical exobiology that I wouldn't even know where to begin with more research. Furthermore, I think you've realized by now that the Sekirei are psychologically different from humans, so I don't think a therapist would help. A tantric ritual was the best option I had."

"And you always have to do everything you can to help, don't you?" She said with a hint of bitterness. "No matter what it might cost."

"Yes." I said firmly.

Rin stared at me for a few more moments before giving a tired sigh. "Shirou… I just don't know what to do." She said dejectedly. "Some of what you said makes sense, some of it doesn't, but regardless this entire situation is so messed up I don't know how to handle it. Whatever you reasons might have been, we're still hurt. And that's not even going into the all the other aliens flocking around you. You said it yourself, they're not going anywhere, but I still don't have any intension of sharing you with anyone other than Saber. Do you have any bright ideas?"

"I… no." I said, feeling helpless. I turned to Saber, but she just shook her head as well.

"I still believe that a series of duels is the simplest way to handle this." The King of Knights said. "But I doubt the outcome will be a particularly happy one."

The three of us stared dejectedly at each other for awhile longer. Eventually, I said "Well, what do we do now?"

"I just said I don't know!" Rin snapped in frustration before calming down. "Look, maybe we should focus on other things for the time being. Root knows that we have enough to deal with." She said with a grunt. "For right now we should focus on staying alive and stopping the Sekirei Plan."

"And after that, we figure out what to do with our relationship?" I prompted.

She didn't say anything at first, instead looking away with a blank expression on her face. "I don't know if I can forgive you right now." I felt my heart stop cold in my chest, but she continued. "I know you had you reasons and this entire situation isn't your fault, but I still can't…" she trailed off, her voice choking a little. She got to her feet and walked to the door, stopping before it and turning back to face me. "I hope with everything I have that won't be the case when everything else is done, because I don't want to think about what I'll do if it is."

Rin opened the door and looked back at Saber, but the Servant said "I'll be just a second." Rin looked a little surprised, but walked to the hall a moment later.

Trying to keep the feeling of despair from growing any larger, I turned to Saber, who regarded me with an uncomfortable frown. "I understand." She said softly, somewhat to my surprise. "I know what it means to be bound by honor. However it happened, you became responsible for these… Sekirei. It became your responsibly to do whatever you could to take care of them. While I wish it wasn't the case or that you found another way, you did what your sense of honor thought was right."

"Saber…" I whispered, stunned by her words.

She learned closer to me, pressing her forehead against mine and closing her eyes. "I am not going to lose you again because of this." She said. "I forgive you, Shirou."

I sat perfectly still for a few moments longer before I couldn't hold it back any longer. With a choking sound from my throat and tears welling up in my eyes, I embraced Saber as I whispered "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, oh god I'm sorry…" over and over again, realizing that I should have done so from the start.

It was a while after that I managed to get control of myself again, and found Saber giving me a small smile. "Don't worry," she said. "I'm sure Rin will forgive you to. She just needs time."

"Rin isn't exactly the forgiving type…" I remarked dryly.

Saber shifted a bit uncomfortably at this. "Well, perhaps you could start trying to win her over with shows of affection." She perk-up as she had an idea. "Perhaps a finely crafted dinner would be a good start. I remember Miya saying that she had some duck stored in the fridge. A roasted duck covered in sauces along with a side of dumplings, rice and-"

"Who am I making this dinner for again?" I asked with a wiry grin.

"You're making it for Rin." Saber said primly. "Of course, I will need to test the quality of food before hand to insure the meal well be good enough to serve as a form of apology." She would have seemed a lot more sincere with this reply if I didn't see a small bit of drool coming from the corner of her mouth.

I gave a small chuckle and the two of us left the room, in much higher spirits than I would have thought.

"That's… a lot to take in." Haruka said as he sat back, mulling over what I had just told him. "So it was another Ashikabi that kidnapped Yukari, and he was blackmailing one of your housemates into working for him. But why did he kidnap her are not just… you know."

I hesitated as I tried to think of a reason other than luring me into a trap. Since Haruka had come for diner, he was naturally curious with how the whole rescue operation had gone. I had obliged him while carefully trying to leave out any references to magic, though that resulted in me making up a good deal of what happened.

I was about to come up with a response when Yukari interjected "He said he wanted to marry me!"

The rest of the table looked at her incredulously, clearly not expecting this response. "You're kidding…" Homura said with a twitching eyebrow. "He wanted you to marry him after he kidnapped you? That is the most hackneyed villain plot I've ever heard."

I gave a sigh as I looked at my sister and hoped that she was exaggerating. I managed to have a talk with her after my discussion with Rin and Saber, and it seemed she settled into a sort of truce with the two. Still, considering how eventful the past few days have been for her, it was probable that Yukari was still a bit high strung, so she could just be falsely remembering things.

"Ah yes, the old And Now You Must Marry Me approach." Troper said as he stroked his bandana covered chin. I still didn't want Haruka to know about him, so he had opted keep his disguise on during the meal. This of course made him look ridiculous, but he didn't seem to care and I long ago decided to stop questioning what Troper does. Frankly, I just glad that he didn't decide to go with the whole Time Police excuse again.

"Uh, Troper-san?" Haruka asked hesitantly. "Why are you still wearing that at the dinner table?"

"Religious beliefs." He said vaguely, and he continued speaking before the young man could question this confusing statement. "Anyway, are we all on the same page now? Because we need to figure out what were going to do next."

Rin, Saber, and I looked at each other a little uncomfortably before I spoke up. "Well, I still think our main priority is to stop the Sekirei Plan. Unfortunately, since the plan has come to a halt due to… outside factors, I still don't know all the details about it. Furthermore, said outside factors could be a serious problem in the future if we're not careful."

Haruka and Kuno looked confused at this, but didn't say anything. Troper said "True, but I have that covered for now, remember? We shouldn't be taken by surprise in any case. Normally I would say you should just go back to your wait-and-see policy, but I think that there's one thing you might want to take care of as soon as possible."

I gave a small nod and a grimace. "Higa and Uzume." I said. With Eltanwise's death and MBI storming his company, the man was likely running out of allies and desperate. There was no telling what he would do in his current state, and Uzume would probably be the one who would come to harm because of it. Turning to Matsu, I said "Matsu, I need you to find out where Uzume's Ashikabi was being kept. If we're lucky, maybe he hasn't moved her yet." Normally I would have pursued the man and the cloth Sekirei as soon as I knew my sister was safe, but considering everything that had happened in the past 24 hours… well, I could only hope that those distractions hadn't cost Uzume or her partner something precious.

Matsu nodded and started typing away on her tablet, but even as she did she gave me a questioning look. "Understood Shirou-tan. But, what are you going to do when you find them? It still doesn't change the fact that Chiho-tan needs Higa's treatment to live. I don't suppose one of your… talents could fix that?"

Before I could respond that I had a few ideas, Troper cut me off. "Oh, don't worry," he said with a gleam in his eye that gave me an uncomfortable feeling of doom. "I have a plan."