Hagrid was having an unusual time in Japan. For one, everyone immediately figured out he wasn't human, but half-giant at first glance. For another, they clearly didn't care about it one whit. When he saw the mythical creatures class and the large amount of those with fangs or claws, well, he gravitated to the area rather quickly.
McGonagall let him go...she had no idea what the hell Dumbledore was smoking when he sent the man with her as escort. It had been hard enough getting through airport security and then finding a seat that would fit him. She eventually gave up and had him inside an expanded trunk with something to read, as there were no seats big enough for him.
He was so reimbursing her for this.
She saw a girl with bright red hair that outdid the Weasly family and green eyes spot her. Beside her was a blond boy with red eyes, and a red-haired boy with brown.
She blinked. The last time she checked, Rowena had black hair and green eyes, not red.
"Amy, this is McGonagall from England," said Kiritsugu.
Amy tensed at the word England and immediately went to Gil's side. Shiro made a point of staying between the two.
Minerva was horrified that the girl believed she was a threat. Just what the bloody hell had the Dursleys done to her to make the daughter of James and Lily so timid and afraid of adults?!
McGonagall visited the classes in Japan...and left feeling distinctly overwhelmed.
Japan had a far better grasp of magical schooling than Hogwarts did and they didn't feel the need to hide magic from the normal people as much as the English did. In fact they hid in plain sight, something most of the graduates from Hogwarts wouldn't be able to do because they were so out of touch.
Most of their courses were so advanced that she had trouble understanding some of it. It made her ashamed to find out that what she would consider Mastery-level transfiguration was considered advanced.
Hagrid planned to move to Japan because they had figured out his heritage and said that his past wasn't of any concern to them since the wizards never bothered to do any real investigating.
Dumbledore was a nice man, but Hagrid had always felt cramped in that tiny house.
Dumbledore was beyond shocked when Minerva and Hagrid returned, only to have his deputy headmistress all but attack him in fury.
"You complete and utter fool!" she hissed.
"Whatever seems to be the problem Minerva?" asked Sprout.
"I have seen Rowena Potter, and thanks to you the girl is a complete wreck! Frankly I am glad she is not leaving Japan, because it is far better for her to be away from the snake pit that is the Ministry these days!" snarled McGonagall.
"What happened?" asked Flitwick.
And so she told them. Finding out that the girl-who-lived had been so abused that she couldn't be in the same room as adult men had come as quite the nasty shock. About the only relief they did have was that a female doctor had checked and the girl hadn't been violated, but from the amount of emotional trauma that was a moot point.
Even Snape would be hard pressed to view the Potter girl as James' daughter after hearing that.
"What of her familiar?" asked Dumbledore.
"Apparently in Japan there are things called Servants which are basically human spirits with certain abilities that act as familiars when summoned. Neither her adopted father or her familiar in question have any idea how she managed it, since according to them she shouldn't even be old enough to sustain one yet. And she didn't go through the usual methods. She has no idea what a Servant is or what they are able to do, and instead tends to hide behind this Gil as if he were her personal shield from the world. It's a miracle the poor girl isn't a recluse by now," said Minerva.
Kiritsugu had only given her the bare bones of what a Servant was, and Gil had just confirmed it without explaining why they found it surprising she had accidentally summoned him.
The sheer amount of magical energy for her to have summoned him long before the war was to come back was enormous...most Magi couldn't pull it off without getting the Command Seals first, and even sustaining one without the use of the Grail or someone helping to lighten the load was impressive itself. The fact she had no idea what a Servant was or had even known about magic before that...well, that was just icing on the cake.
Hearing McGonagall's report on the girl who Dumbledore had blatantly left in the hands of abusive muggles, the teachers were all left horrified at the life she had. Finding out the girl was submissive to the point where she was easy prey to anyone with a sufficiently bossy personality was not the thing you wanted to hear when talking about your savior.
Amy was enjoying her life, as timid as she was.
"Ano, Kaede-chan?" asked one of the girls in her class. Sakura Matou if she remembered right.
"Yes, Sakura-chan?"
"We were wondering what you wanted to do for the school festival?" asked Sakura.
"Ano..."
Amy didn't know what to think of this school festival stuff. At least Gil was in her class. She looked for him and found he was reading another manga after one of the guys had gotten him hooked on the stuff...he particularly liked violent ones like Hellsing and Darker Than Black. Occasionally he would read a more light one like D N Angel.
Today it was something called Maid-Sama. It was one of hers from what she could tell.
"How about a maid cafe?" suggested Gil, not looking up.
"Maid cafe?" said the other girls.
"It's simple and it would make things interesting. The guys could be the butlers or greeters. Though in Kae's case she might be better suited for the cooking duty," said Gil.
Gil was the only one who got away with calling her Kae, instead of by her first name Kaede. Though sometimes he just called her Amy.
"Well, maybe not as a maid cafe...but a regular one could work. But I'm not sure that we should be competing with the sempai's cafe," said Sakura.
Sakura was of course referring to the fact Shiro's class was doing a cafe as well. Specifically a butler cafe.
"What if we were to combine the two classes?" said Gil.
"It's been done before!" said Misa cheerfully.
Gil was elected to talk to the upperclassmen about joining the two concepts. Shiro had no problem with it...so long as Gil was given the position of head butler to avoid issues.
Which basically meant he would be in charge of all the guys.
"So it's decided then? A joint cafe?" said Gil.
"Yeah, yeah. I am not wearing a maid outfit though," said Rin. She had been elected as the class representative.
"Well I'm not putting you in charge of the girls, and you aren't on cooking duty...how about as the other greeter?" said Gil.
"How about in charge of the money?" said Shiro.
"That might be better," said Gil.
"Welcome back, Master!" said Sakura.
Sakura had been designated the primary greeter next to Gil. Shiro and Kaede were on cooking duty until someone else took their place.
This was mostly because Kaede still had trouble with being around guys other than Gil or Shiro.
Everything was going smoothly until...he showed up. Shinji Matou, Sakura's "older" brother.
"Eh...So this was what you were up to, Sakura," sneered Shinji.
Sakura winced. What she didn't see was the way Kaede flinched behind her.
Shinji was a known scumbag who coasted around the girls through his good looks and the fact his family was rich. Everyone knew he abused his younger sister, but she never complained about it.
"This maid outfit suits you perfectly," he said with a cold smirk.
"Shinji! I thought you said you were too sick to help out!" said Shiro in annoyance.
"Oh please, as if someone like me would deign to wear such an outfit!"
Suddenly he grabbed Sakura's arm, clearly intending to drag her out of the room to 'put her in her place'. Rin tensed, wishing this were in private so she could blast the prick. Gil looked ready to toss him out physically.
What happened next shocked everyone. The timid and fearful Kaede spoke up against a boy.
"Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to leave. You're disrupting the other customers," she said calmly.
"What was that you little..." started Shinji, before Kaede did something really unexpected.
She did a basic juijitsu throw and sent Shinji flying out of the room. Then she closed the door before he got up and locked it. She didn't open it until he left the area.
"Kaede-chan!" said Issui in shock.
Everyone knew Kaede was extremely shy around boys...so seeing her toss one came as a massive shock. Including to Shiro.
Gil just gave her an odd look.
"Now you decide to put those lessons to use?" he said amused.
"You knew?" said Shiro.
"Of course I knew. I tend to make sure that she's left alone between classes don't I? Should have seen Kiritsugu's face when he read that permission slip. If I remember right Taiga was all for it," said Gil.
"So Kaede-chan knows martial arts?" said Rin faintly.
"Aikido, juijitsu, and tai chi," listed Gil.
Everyone who knew her stared.
"Exactly what level is she at?" asked Rin.
"Ano...I'm a black belt in two of them and I'll be getting my third later this month," said Kaede embarrassed.
"Kae-chan tends to learn martial arts rather quick. She puts her all into it and even her instructors were impressed," said Gil.
Which was a half truth actually. The reality was that she had asked for the special classes which involved the use of things like Time-Turners. She had several lessons in a week alone, often in different rooms.
Hence why she had picked them up so fast.
"Kaede-chan is scary..."
"So moe..." whispered another.
Gil looked around. Some of the boys in Kaede's class seemed to look at her in a new light, and he didn't particularly like it.
Still, he was glad that she had finally used her skills against a boy...particularly if it was Shinji Matou.
"She finally used Aikido?" said Kiritsugu drinking his tea.
"Way to go Kaede-chan!" said Taiga.
Shiro looked at Taiga oddly.
"You knew too?"
"Of course I knew! Kaede-chan, should we show Shiro-kun what else you learned?" said Taiga.
"After dinner," said Kaede.
Shiro was left in shock watching Kaede actually defend herself from the Tiger of Fuyuki. She was graceful and she knew what she was doing.
"I can't believe Amy knows how to fight...she's so timid!" said Shiro.
"That's the whole point. The truth is that she is mostly over her fear of boys, but she's so used to avoiding them that it's become a habit. So instead she puts her all into learning how to fight as a precautionary thing to give people like Shinji a good lesson in manners," said Gil smugly, reading his comics.
"That was pretty funny," admitted Shiro.
The look on everyone's face when Kaede threw Shinji out into the hall... he knew some of them had to have gotten a few pictures of the event.
"Though I have to admit, the guys did hit her natural personality dead on," said Gil.
"Eh?"
"Amy is quite Moe."
"I still say that having a heroic spirit reading manga like that is weird...and it just sounds wrong when someone like you says the words Moe and Tsundere..." muttered Shiro.
"Yeah, but even you admit that it fits the Tohsaka brat to a 'tee'," said Gil flatly.
"No arguments there," admitted Shiro.
"Are you two done...Gil-kun, what have I said about stealing my manga?" whined Taiga.
Shiro looked at the title.
Gokusen was printed in big letters on the front. He remembered hearing about a series where the daughter of a well known yakuza group decided to become a teacher at a really rough high school and still run the family business. No wonder it had Taiga's interest.
"I bought this earlier, Taiga," said Gil smirking.
"Gil...you are responsible for the damages," said Kiritsugu.
"Hai, hai," said Gil.
Kiritsugu had become resigned to the fact that Gilgamesh would likely be a permanent addition to his house so long as Kaede lived there. Then again, as long as his interest was in Kaede and not Saber, he was actually quite tolerable.
When asked by Kiritsugu why his personality was so different, he found out with surprise that his adult self didn't become arrogant until the gods had his best friend turn on him as revenge for something he had done.
Ko-Gil, as he was called by Kiritsugu, was a much more tolerable person to deal with than adult Gilgamesh.
The only thing that worried him was how the adult Gil would react once his 'age' caught up to him, as Ko-Gil was slowly but surely allowing his body to age naturally so as to avoid suspicion.
Taiga was already going on about what a cute couple Kaede and Gil made.
Kaede watched as Rin bossed her brother around.
"I feel bad for Shiro. She really likes him," said Kaede eating her lunch.
"He did have the bad luck of attracting the biggest tsundere in the school," said Gil, grinning evilly.
"It sounds so wrong for the King of Heroes to use words like kawaii and tsundere," said Kaede.
"Laugh it up Moe-girl...you're the one who got me hooked on that maid series of all things," snorted Gil.
"This coming from the one who got me hooked on High School of the Dead," countered Kaede.