Taiei Shopping Town, Saturday
A moderately busy and popular mall favoured by many citizens of Tokonosu City, it offers a lot of things to cater for the various needs and interests of its guests. Usually, the mall was filled with people even on the weekdays, but today the customers are sparse, it's not like there are barely any customers but the density was visibly lesser than usual. This situation to some people is a blessing since it gives them a more spacious breathing space.
"haaah…" Shirou exhaled a sigh at a corner of the arcade area.
He went here with Artoria and Aoi to have some fun and also let Aoi get more familiar with Artoria. They had breakfast in his house before setting out to the mall. First, they went shopping for girl's clothes, when he asked if Artoria wanted any of the clothes she politely declined his offer saying that none of the clothes were particularly to her liking.
After window shopping the group went to the arcade and played some games. It turned into Aoi and Artoria amused by Shirou's complete domination of the basketball game machine, shattering the top score with ease. A minute ago Aoi wanted to try the photo booth, and for this, Shirou excused himself by saying that he needed to rest a bit. In truth, he just doesn't feel comfortable taking a picture of himself and then applying trendy edits on top of it.
He decided to take a short nap while waiting on one of the benches while waiting for Artoria and Aoi to finish their photo shoot.
"Ara, Shirou-kun, I didn't expect to see you here."
A woman's voice called to him, she sounded surprised to see him there.
When he looked at the source he saw Saeko with a large and long cardboard box in her hand. She was wearing a loose dress with a floral pattern and a comfy-looking cotton jacket.
"Busujima-san, good to see you, what are you doing here?"
"A few of the kendo club wooden swords broke, since I had nothing to do I volunteered to buy the replacement in the sports section from this mall." She sat beside him while resting the bunched-up wooden swords against the wall.
"How about you, Shirou-kun? What are you doing here?"
"Accompanying someone, they're in the photo booth right now."
Shirou signalled with his head toward the photo booth, by chance, Artoria and Aoi were just about done with their photo shoot and were currently walking toward the bench where he and Saeko were sitting.
"Onii-chan!", Aoi in her usual borderline deadpan expression and low unenergized voice, called to him while uncharacteristically waving a couple of sheets of printed photo in her hand. Despite her poker face, Shirou could notice a small smile on her face, he was glad that Aoi seemed to be having a good time.
When he received the photo, he saw a deadpan cat girl with a double peace hand and a blushing blonde older cat girl with a crooked awkward smile. Whether the older cat girl was holding her laugh or embarrassed, nobody knows.
"Sorry, to make you wait Shirou… and your friend are…"
"My name is Busujima Saeko, nice to meet you." Saeko politely introduced herself to Artoria.
"Nice to meet you too, I'm Artoria Pendragon." Artoria returned the introduction with the same degree of politeness.
While both don't have a problem with each other, since they still don't know about each other it was natural when there was no conversation followed after their introduction. Noticing the stalemate between them, they turned to the only one who could break the ice between them. They looked at Shirou who was currently indulging Aoi's want.
"So, what is your relationship with Shirou?", noticing that Shirou was already in his personal world doting on his sister Artoria decided to let her curiosity take the steer of their conversation.
"We're classmates and I sometimes sparred with him in the school kendo dojo."
"You practise sword? What a coincidence, I am also a swordswoman myself." Realizing that the other person was also following the way of the sword was already a lubricant to smooth their relationship in her opinion.
"Ah, Busujima-san, she is the one whom I said I learned the sword technique basics from", Shirou momentarily phased out of his bubble and decided to throw in a little snippets of his own to the two girls.
While Shirou was busy doting on his sister, Artoria and Saeko surprisingly became friends in such a short time. From a three-man party mall vacation, it was turned into a quartet by noon, with the kendo swords Saeko bought being relegated to Shirou to hold.
0o0o0
By sunset, Artoria decided to pay a visit to Shirou and Saeko's school as she went along with them delivering the new wooden swords to the club.
The sight of the school during sunset was different compared to other high schools, you still can see student activities even at this late hour due to the Fujimi Academy being a boarding school. Before the curfew time, the student was free to move around the school grounds.
Fortunately, since it was a weekend, the rule regarding visitors was pretty lax compared to weekdays, as long as the visitor was an acquaintance of the student they were free to enter and if they wanted to see around the campus, one had to be accompanied by at least one student.
Walking the hallway, Artoria garnered a lot of attention being the foreigner herself and also because she was accompanied by one of the most famous female students in the academy, Busujima Saeko.
The witnessing students were surprised by the duo they were late to notice the pack mule who followed them while carrying a lot of wooden swords.
Aoi wasn't ignored either, there were a few occasions when he had to buy something outside the school grounds and Aoi who misses her big brother begged the parents to let her join his venture. On these few occasions, he was never alone, some of his friends were with him since the amount of things they bought wasn't something a single person could carry. Naturally, when Aoi crashed into their shopping trip, his friends came to know her. She was pretty well known by his friends because of that.
"Ara, Busujima-san you have friends coming? Hm? Ara! Aoi-chan and Shirou-kun are here too!"
The group ran into one of the teachers at Fujimi Academy High School. Hayashi Kyoko, a ping-pong club adviser, a beautiful teacher wearing glasses. She has her reddish brown hair kept in a loose ponytail on her back with some escaping strands of hair hanging in front of each of her ears. Known to be quite strict in her class, but many of the male students remember her for her mature charm and her full figure with emphasis on her large breasts.
Kyoko came to know Aoi in one of Shirou's Shopping ventures in the town, at the time since it was something related to her class, she offered her car which was a fairly large off-road jeep to help him and the other shopping task force to carry the items. As usual, much to Shirou's parent chagrin, Aoi begged for a crash landing at his mission place and encountered them when they were waiting for their order to be processed. Kyoko was instantly attached to Aoi ever since.
"Good evening, Hayashi-sensei. This afternoon, I was in the city to buy some equipment for the kendo club when I came across Shirou and his companions, he offered to help me carry it back to the dojo. I accepted his offers."
"As helpful as usual Shirou-kun. Aoi-chan, are you okay? Your brother seems to be unable to keep even a day only for you, aren't you lonely? Oh, right, he is now off the dorm and back living in the house again, isn't he? Good for you~"
Kyoko was busy pampering Aoi while playing with her cheek, then she suddenly seemed to be reminded of something.
"Ah, I almost forgot, I have a business to attend to. See you later, Aoi-chan~"
She stood up and checked her phone, then put it back inside her skirt pocket.
"Then see you in class, Busujima-san, Emiya-san. And…"
She glanced at Artoria who was standing beside Saeko.
Noticing the sign, Artoria calmly introduced herself, "Greetings, I'm Artoria Pendragon, a visitor."
"Greetings, Pendragon-san, please enjoy your visit to the Fujimi Academy Campus."
With a final nod, Kyoko walked away to deal with the business she delayed earlier.
0o0o0
The rest of the way to the dojo was rather eventful, with curious people brave enough to ask about Artoria, girls who know and dote on Aoi's cuteness, and boys who pestered poor Shirou about his relationship with the two beauties walking in front of him.
"Hey, Shirou! Who is that pretty blonde?"
One of his friends sneaked beside him and whispered to him in an urgent tone.
"She is my girlfriend."
He answered curtly with a faint blush on his face, not wanting to drag the conversation any longer because he still felt a bit of embarrassment for stating outright that Artoria was his girlfriend, he wasn't used to saying such a word. To outsiders, he looked like a shy boyfriend who still struggled to admit his relationship… which was what he exactly was.
Ignoring the murmur of disbelief behind them, they arrived at the dojo.
Shirou dumped the new wooden swords on the sword barrel, while Aoi was busy feasting on the sweets gifted to her by the female students they met on the way. Saeko stood beside Shirou counting and inspecting the condition of the wooden swords, she also had a note in her hand. Artoria looked around the dojo, scrutinizing everything while comparing it to the dojo of the Emiya Family back then.
The dojo was far bigger than what the Emiya family had before, obviously, since the one in Emiya's residence was a privately owned dojo and wasn't built with massive capacity in mind. There were other things she wanted to comment on but noticing Shirou and Saeko were done with what they were doing, Artoria stopped what she was doing and approached them.
"Shirou, it's already late."
Surely, the twilight had darkened approaching the night, and they also noticed Aoi nodding off by the wall. Aoi was struggling to keep herself awake and was failing.
"You're right let's go home. Busujima-san, we will go first."
"Alright, I will stay here to check other equipment I might miss. Thank you for the help, Shirou-kun."
They talked a bit more before they finally split off.
It seems that Artoria and Saeko have exchanged contact as they feel they've something in common.
0o0o0
Shirou, Artoria, and Aoi were currently on a bus, sitting side-by-side with Aoi on his lap.
"Shirou, about our conversation a few days ago."
The bus was empty, with only an old couple at the front and Shirou's group at the far back.
"Nn."
Shirou gestured for her to go on.
"When I talked with Busujima-san, it seemed for some days, she had also felt the same worry as mine. The worry that something dangerous was about to come. I haven't told her that I also feel the same feeling, but it doesn't forebode a good sign. I know it's baseless and vague since it was coming from only feeling, but I want you to be extra careful for a few days onward or maybe weeks, Please."
Artoria grabbed his hand tightly.
"This body is far weaker than what I had as a servant and the body of the life I had before. I lacked my strength, my sword, I still could feel my dragon core but even that wasn't like what it was before. I'm afraid I can't protect you as well as before…"
Artoria looked at Shirou right in the eyes, he couldn't help but focus his whole attention on those staring green eyes.
"So please, I repeat, be wary of anything and if something did happen… don't do anything reckless. You have your family who will be directly impacted if something happens to you, and I don't think the miracle will happen twice if I lose you now."
After finishing her piece, she doesn't wait for his reply as she leans on his shoulder.
"Sigh…as you wish, My King…"
He could hear a content sigh coming from the blonde leaning on him.
"…Doesn't that mean I'm your Queen, Saber?"
That joke earned him a pinch in the thigh.
0o0o0
A/N: The first time I watched HOTD, Kyoko sensei's character kind of hit the right spot, it was a pity she died early.
