AN: Food reference in last chapter was to Honey and Clover, which one of the reviewers hilariously linked to someone making a real-life recipe based on it. Anyway, if you're of college age and have not seen or read that series, I highly recommend it (even if the official American sub fumbles hardcore). Youtube 6l3dI35FHbw?t=1m38s for specific moment.

Fate/Far Side: Healing Hands

Chapter 6

Kind Nights

I made sure to get up early the next day in case Kohaku was still feeling sick. Hisui was awake and she accompanied me to check on her sister, and when it became apparent that Kohaku was still not up to getting out of bed, I was left with the task of preparing meals for the day.

I went with a classic, Western-styled breakfast of eggs and hashbrowns to differentiate from the dinner I had made before, and Tohno-san seemed pleased at least. "It is nice, every once in a while, to have simple comfort food."

The sort of pomposity to her words was starting to sound forced to my ears, and I grinned. Stripped of her position, I really wondered what Tohno-san would be like, if she would come across as more down-to-earth than she projected. Made me curious as to what she was like when she was with friends and classmates.

I helped Hisui clean up after us—well, more like, I tried to help clean but Hisui kept deflecting my attempts—and watched the maid carefully. When I had taken food in to Kohaku earlier, the elder sister had said she felt better, just clammy and a little unsteady, which sounded like whatever illness had attacked her was breaking and she was shaking off a broken fever. It meant that, if Kohaku was feeling closer to normal tomorrow, Tohno-san would be left without excuses for keeping Hisui here.

Unfortunately, the maid gave nothing away, still as economic with her actions and words as ever.

"Would you perhaps be inclined to tidy up the courtyard?" Hisui asked after my third attempt at trying to sneak past her to wash the dishes. "Nee-san usually handles that."

Perhaps a revision of thought. Hisui was normally resistant to asking my help or even allowing me to help in the first place. This was rather new, that she would openly suggest something for me to do. However, if it was merely to get me out of her hair in cleaning here, it might make sense. Of course, the general polite tone she took in the suggestion made it seem like it was an honest proposal that she had not actively thought up as being intrusive or out of place to a guest such as myself. On the other hand, I was already preparing meals and might as well be considered interim staff. Though, if I—

Huh.

Did she know that I'd know what she was doing? Am I looking at Tohsaka in disguise?

"Yes, I could do that," I said before my mind contorted into a painful mess. "Anything in particular I need to do?"

"You should check on the garden. Nee-san grows various herbs there."

"Got it."

The courtyard, of course, was sort of a non-job, since the winter months had left it unused and barren. It rather looked like Kohaku had already swept it as well, since no signs of the dirt that seemed to always appear after the snowmelt were apparent.

So, Hisui was delegating me something meaningless to get out of her hair. Hmm.

I checked on the herbs in the garden, though my knowledge of such things was extremely limited. Indeed, some of the plants looked ready to bloom or grow, while others looked dead to my eyes. Ultimately, I would just have to remember which ones looked like that and report back to Kohaku, I suppose.

There were some gardening tools out, though, leftover quite possibly from when Kohaku had been out here before but had turned in after feeling sick. A broom, a trowel, some flower pruning clippers and the like. I gathered them up and wandered the grounds trying to remember where the storage shed was.

Unlike mine, their shed was literally just a small little shack with various gardening tools and a lawn mower. I put the broom to one corner and replaced the tools into empty spaces on a rack.

Still, it was used, not much dust gathering or cobwebs forming, probably a testament to Hisui and Kohaku's work around the place.

"I ask of you: are you my Master?"

It made me wonder what, if any, goals they had in their life.

Tohno-san was in fact meeting with friends that afternoon, and Kohaku was napping, so Hisui and I had a quiet lunch together of simple sandwiches. And while mine was a relatively normal sandwich meat, cheese, tomato, and some onion, Hisui's included an odd jam rather than mayo.

Er…okay.

"Are you ready for your…move?" I really couldn't figure out a way to edge my way into the topic, though I doubt Hisui would take to the subtlety anyway. I did make sure to try and catch her between bites of her food so she had to respond immediately and could not mull it over.

"Of course. I was prepared days ago," Hisui said.

Defeated.

Fine then, another attack. "I mean, mentally. I'm concerned about what you told me the other night."

Hisui fixed me with a sort of stare that I could not help but feel a little defensive under. "You concern yourself too much with other people, Emiya-sama."

"Saving everyone is a dream only one who has never stained his hands can speak of. Can you, after holding a sword that has taken life, truly say the same thing?"

It probably came across as terribly rude, but the thoughts swimming through my head just made me feel like I had to attack this issue head-on. "That wasn't an answer to my question, Hisui. Are you ready, I mean really ready, to completely leave your life behind?"

"What is your interest? I do not see how it should concern you. It does not affect you in any fashion," Hisui said, standing, taking her plate.

I couldn't formulate a response with so many things running through my mind. Curiosity. Pity. Confusion at these sisters and their yin-and-yang personalities. Anger at the concept of duty one derived no pleasure from. The fact that Hisui reminded me so of one lost to this world.

Perhaps, my own issues.

The maid took my silence as answer and stormed out of the kitchen to eat in solitude.

"I make my oath here.

I am the person who is to become the virtue of the heavens.

I am the person who is to be covered with the evils of the underworld…"

Hisui did not venture out of her room for dinner either, so I must have really ticked her off to get her to the point that she would completely ignore her job. On the other hand, Kohaku felt well enough to come out after lunch and, though clearly not up to full, she did chase me out of the kitchen, dual-wielding kitchen knives in the process.

Scary.

"So I believe you made Hisui-chan upset?" Kohaku asked as she passed out the dinner plates. Apparently, she was going to one-up me going Western by producing a steak dinner.

"Yeah. I guess I shouldn't talk about things I really don't know anything about."

Kohaku tilted her head. "We're the ones that keep involving you into our business. I should really apologize to you for all the inconvenience."

"No, I really am butting in," I said, sighing. "I can't leave things alone when I should. Call it a character flaw."

"Hmm? That sounds ominous," Kohaku said, though she was grinning.

"This is what happens when you cling to your ideal, Shirou Emiya. You will forever only know suffering if you persist in placing others before you."

"Yeah," I said. "Well, it is what it is."

For some reason, it was the look Tohno-san gave me that had me feeling a little idiotic.

I turned in that evening feeling frustrated, sad, and annoyed with myself all at once and unsure of what to settle on.

It was a little like déjà vu, a microcosm of the same sort of problem Saber had left me with, and I desperately wished such a concept could be given form so I could do something to it. Like punch it in the face.

There was a knock at my door. "Come in," I said.

Hisui entered, a set expression of defiance on her face, like she was daring me to challenge her again.

I was more surprised though that she would come to me now, though, and I had considered the possibility that she would just leave without telling me tomorrow. I felt my forehead furrow. "Yes?"

"You said that becoming a magus has brought you negative things. You said you would tell me some other time. It is 'some other time.'"

I stared at her.

Really now?

In hindsight, though, perhaps she would be curious. I said that becoming one has not brought me all good things, yet yesterday I ended up regenerating a wound right in front of her eyes. There was probably some kind of disconnect there that she was having trouble adding up. "Yes, I suppose it is."

Perhaps she was questioning a little about her own decisions, so I had to be thankful of that.

If they proved to do anything, though…

"You spoke of making the world a better place. You said, 'Even if right now, it is just to make sure you know that it is both more and less scary than you might think.' I do not understand how these things are related. Nor why you feel that strangers you hardly know would be worth concerning yourself over, considering your evident power."

Evident power. Hah.

Well…again, if I consider it from her perspective, perhaps I do seem like that. Like I have something that could change my destiny, compared to a maid in the service of others.

Maybe, Hisui, you should understand that what I'm aiming for is infinitely greater and more stupid than anything you could.

"I live on borrowed time," I said. "I have almost died multiple times and have been saved by others each time. I think it is very important that, somehow, I'm able to pass that sort of fortune on to those around me."

"Should you not rejoice in the fact you are alive instead?"

I grinned. "Probably."

Thus, my life needs no meaning.

"But still," I said, "I feel the way I do. So I try, whenever possible, to help those around me. Even if they are strangers like you and your sister and Tohno-san." I leaned forward, and despite the distance I sat from the door where Hisui stood, she seemed to lean away from my gaze. "If you're not smiling, if you're not benefiting from my presence at all, what purpose would my life have otherwise?"

"And yet you expect me to think of myself when regarding duties," Hisui said, looking down and away.

"I told you I was hypocritical."

I thought to myself how much I wanted to tell her. It wasn't really even the act of telling her that could cause trouble, but what it might do to the way she looked at the world. The worst thing I could do is convince her that darkness was all that existed beyond these walls.

Darkness and light…

Though, maybe, in the end, it really was about trust. To trust her to come to another conclusion.

"The sad truth of the matter is, for people to live, others die," I said, and even saying those words hurt. The truth of them hurt greater than any wound I could take physically, and every time I uttered them, I wanted so desperately to deny them with everything in me. "A balancing of the equation, as it were. Lives saved one place means others die elsewhere. Or are sacrificed, at the very least. I wish, though…that if I was to be sacrificed, others were guaranteed their lives. And I hope to make that true someday."

"Saber died for you," Hisui said.

"Yeah."

That honest, terrible truth.

Hisui moved to sit on the bed opposite from me, looking at me intently, as if sure I would somehow break down. "Tell me about it, please."

"It's a long story." But the look on her face would not be denied. "Then…where to begin. Uh. Yeah. Okay."

And I told her of the young woman, and her sacrifices and death.

So that my life would be saved.

Healing Hands: Kind Nights, End