Here we go again. Thanks, Sherlock. Hard-carrying once again.

Illustration soon. Gonna give p atreon a while to get the poll going.

Speaking of which, thank you to all of you on p atreon. I do my best to not paywall anything, so anything I offer you guys is formatted in such a way that it doesn't impact everyone who reads on open platforms like FFN, QQ, and SB. For that reason, I know that what I offer might not be as enticing as reading 5 or 6 chapters into the future (though I certainly try to counterbalance that with other perks however I can). You're all awesome.

Join my discord. It's free and you can stay on top of what I do lol.

X

"Hua-a!"

Ichika came shooting down from the sky and braced his body in preparation for a faceplant that never came. He contorted his body at the last minute and prevented further injury.

It was good that he was making some progress, at least. That was the fifth time today that he'd landed, and only the first time that it wasn't a crash. He managed to get his feet under him, even, wobbly as they were.

"Impressive, Ichika! If we practise together a little longer, you'll defeat the other class representatives handily tomorrow. I'm sure of it. Ufufufu…"

The boy looked over his shoulder and smiled weakly at Cecilia Alcott. Even now, he was having a little trouble wrapping his head around how everything came to this.

There was going to be a tournament amongst class representatives. What did that have to do with him? Nothing. Or at least, he thought it had nothing to do with him until very recently. After all, Cecilia was the class rep, wasn't she? The girl beat him and so she got to fight.

Nope.

For reasons beyond him, she handed the title over to him after having gone out of her way to fight him for it in the first place. He thought she was mocking him at first, but she'd been acting differently ever since. She was nice, sometimes. Deferent, even.

Sometimes.

All of which was to say, when she offered to help train him for the tournament, he was more than happy to accept. Hell, if that was all there was to it, he was sure that this could have been an overall positive experience.

SMASH!

A giant metal sword smacked Cecilia in the ass, knocking her to the ground. Houki stared down at her imperiously.

"What do you think you're doing, Alcott? He might get hurt if you hit him that hard."

"I—I—I didn't hit him that hard!"

"Yes, you did!"

"You hit him much harder!"

"Wha—!"

"You smooth-brained baboon. Not an ounce of self-control in you."

"Who are you calling a baboon, Dipstick!? And of course I hit him. I use a sword. Ichika uses a sword. What else am I supposed to do?"

Ichika nodded to himself assuredly.

Right.

This sucked.

Cecilia was being nice and offered to help him, so he accepted. Houki was being nice and offered to help him, so he accepted. He saw a miraculous opportunity to smooth things over with the both of them and he took it. Never did he think that it would lead to this. Why were they even arguing, anyway? It wasn't that strange to ask for advice from multiple people, was it?

At least he now knew that he wasn't the problem here.

While the two of them continued their bickering, the boy looked down to his armour-clad hands contemplatively.

He'd learned a lot about his IS at least. It was a lot like Chifuyu's in that it was tailored to close-range combat. It had the toolset of a specialist that maximised raw power at the expense of a well-rounded… well, everything else.

For Chifuyu, it worked great. It helped to make her the best, even.

He frowned.

He wasn't Chifuyu, though. He wasn't any good at this—compared to the people he was expected to compete with, at least.

When he first came to this school he wasn't really expecting anything from himself. This had nothing to do with him, after all. What he wanted to do with his life was unrelated to the Infinite Stratos and the people involved with it.

That had changed, voluntarily or not. Mediocrity was not acceptable. He had things to prove. To himself. To Chifuyu.

"..."

He looked up to the stands. Someone was watching him—glaring at him—but only for as long as it took them to notice that he was staring right back.

Lingyin huffed and stormed off. His expression softened remorsefully.

That was… another thing that he had to deal with. Somehow.

Lingyin was a student that had transferred in just recently. More than that, though, she was his childhood friend.

She was really, really angry at him right now for reasons that no one would give him for love or money. He refused to let his relationship with her bite the dust, though.

His solution was simple: since she just so happened to become a class representative through some obscure means that he didn't care to look into, he had the chance to fight her in the upcoming tournament and beat some sense into her.

The problem, of course, was that he was terribly unprepared and the match in question would be held tomorrow.

Hence his frustration.

Not being any good at something you didn't care about was one thing, but when it got in the way of something that meant a lot to you, it felt like a kick in the ass.

He couldn't help turning his attention to the observation deck where his sister sat, forced to do her duty as an instructor and supervise the students that rented out the arena. She was tapping away at her phone, curiously enough. It wasn't a habit of hers; she must've really been driven to her wit's end by her little brother's ineptitude, huh? So much so that she couldn't stand to watch.

I'll have to do as much as I can in the next few hours, then. If only for my sister's mental health.

"Houki. Cecilia."

They both stopped beating the tar out of each other long enough to throw him an owlish look. The sudden hardness of his tone must have thrown them for a loop.

He bowed.

"Please. Help me."

X

Shirou stared down at the restaurant menu listlessly.

It was lacquered, one big sheet, slightly moist from being freshly wiped, full of pictures of dishes and their corresponding price and serving size, separated into their respective categories for ease of comprehension.

It had been a while since he'd eaten out, mostly because he had no reason to. He and his wife preferred home cooking, both because it gave them freedom to eat whatever they wanted and it tended to be cheaper more often than not.

Chifuyu wouldn't be home for a little while—she mentioned needing to stay on campus to oversee an intracurricular tournament for the next few days—so if he did cook, it would just be for himself. It was already troublesome for her to come home every night on a regular day—something that he made sure she knew he appreciated—but this time there was just too much on her plate.

It was unfortunate, but since he usually bought ingredients the day-of to avoid waste, there wasn't enough of anything left in the house that he could use to make a meal for himself. In the end, he decided that buying ingredients for one person would just cost more in money and energy than picking something up from the Chinese family restaurant down the block.

And so, here he was.

…He could go for some mapo tofu Gài fàn. He liked the dish enough, but actually making it at home proved to elicit some complicated feelings within him that the househusband would much rather not delve into.

The man was about to wave down a server but then—

"I would like to speak to the chef, please."

Instinctively, Shirou looked up.

The one speaking was a twin-tailed teenager, and despite speaking in perfect Japanese she was clearly Chinese. She carried herself regally in spite of the clearly foul mood she was in. A barely-touched plate of Yangzhou fried rice and Sichuan green beans sat in front of her, inviting and waiting.

The waiter—he looked like a college student, either a part-timer or a relative of the owner—could only incline his head apologetically.

"I'm afraid the chef is very busy at the moment–"

"The restaurant is half-full, everyone's orders have been served, and you don't offer desserts. Once again, I would like to speak to the chef, please."

She was young, fourteen or fifteen at most, and from where he sat he noted she sported fang-like teeth.

The waiter sighed. "I'll go ahead and ask him." He turned and ducked into the swinging door leading into the kitchen.

And as the door swung in place, Shirou set the menu down for what was to come, pouring himself a cup of the complimentary barley water.

Within a minute, a harried, bulky man in a white tee and navy apron flecked with grease stepped out, a badly abused towel on his left shoulder. He effected a polite smile as he arrived at the scowling girl's table.

"How can I help you?" He started.

She narrowed her eyes.

"Guǎngdōng de?"

The chef nodded proudly. "That's right."

"How can you claim to be from the mainland so proudly and claim to serve authentic Chinese food when you serve stuff like this?"

The chef froze. A stillness blanketed the room as conversation ceased, and cups and cutlery stopped clinking.

Shirou took a sip of barley tea.

"Excuse me?"

"What's with the rice?!" She pushed the plate forward in disgust. "It's soft! There's barely any texture to it at all. You definitely know you're meant to use leftover rice, why on earth would you go and do the opposite and use fresh?!"

"Our clientele is of an older demographic, Miss." The cook patiently explained. "People have complained in the past about it being too hard, so we adapted by using fresh rice. It's easier for them to chew this way, so—"

"So what?!" The girl shut him down. "If people have chewing issues you serve them soup or porridge, not ruin a perfectly good fried rice! And what's your excuse for the beans?"

The chef's expression was turning stonier by the minute. "Excuse for what?"

"The fact that there's no yácài in the mix isn't even the biggest issue! You can't call this Gān biān sìjì dòu if it's barely been Gān biān. The beans aren't blistered properly, so it's either your wok isn't hot enough or you haven't even fried it long enough. Aren't you ashamed to call this Chinese food?"

"Little lady," the chef crossed his arms, carotid artery pumping, "it's not a very good idea to piss off the people who cook for you. You stand alone in your complaints."

"That's because customers don't bother with complaints anymore, you idiot: they just don't come back!" She snarled. "Do you know how rare it is that I get the chance to eat out? And you have the gall to call this authentic Chinese Cuisine? This might as well be a Bangladeshi Panda Express!"

"Ahhh," the chef rubbed his head in exasperation, "Diu lay, sei baa po."

The entire room tensed.

"What did you say to me?!"

Whatever the chef muttered in colourful Cantonese set the girl off. She shot to her feet and stepped past the waiter so that she could get as close to the chef as possible.

It turned into a full-blown shouting match. Japanese, Cantonese, Hokkien… the insults were as colourful as they were multifaceted and all-inclusive. Despite this, it was clear that a lot of people were getting uncomfortable. Entertained, certainly, but uncomfortable all the same.

Shirou sighed, finished his drink, and stood up.

"Hey. This isn't appropriate, is it? Let's all calm down."

The girl turned to him with a furious snarl on her face.

"Stay out of it, would you?" she snapped at him, switching back to Japanese on a dime. "I've worked at a Chinese restaurant my whole life. I know what I'm talking about, and this restaurant should be ashamed!"

The redheaded man paused for a moment before replying. He wasn't quite sure what that had to do with bothering a group of people for something so insignificant.

"I'm sure you do." he agreed simply before turning to address the staff. "Anyway, I'll pay for her food and speak with her outside. I'm sorry for the inconvenience."

"Don't speak for me, I'm not done! No one asked you to—"

"Sure. Whatever," the annoyed chef acquiesced gruffly, happy to pretend that the annoying girl didn't exist.

The teen's shriek led into a snarl as the chef blithely headed back into the kitchen.

"Thanks. Sorry again," Shirou offered as parting words before handing over a few bills to the waiter and gently directing the kid out the door with a hand on her back.

She spun around.

"And for the record, Singaporean Noodles don't actually exist, you know!" She shouted, waving a fist, "It doesn't belong on the menu–"

"Miss, come on," Shirou murmured, "that's quite enough."

As confrontational as she was with the restaurant staff, it didn't translate to her putting up a fight against him. They stepped outside into a night in its infancy.

"...Who are you?" she eventually asked him once they were alone. She didn't seem to be worried about being led around by a stranger; she felt like she knew how to handle herself, most likely. Still, even though he was the stranger in question, Shirou felt as though a girl her age should be a bit more cautious in situations like these.

She wasn't looking him in the eye but Shirou could see the pout on her face. It was about as obstinate as it was sad.

It was an expression that brought back memories, actually.

"I'm just a guy trying to eat dinner in peace," he answered simply with a teasing undertone to his voice. "Cussing out an entire restaurant because they made their rice too soft isn't really an appropriate response, though, is it? What's up with that?" the man asked, trying to keep his questioning casual.

She was silent for a moment, eyes downcast. It was clear that she had realised as much without anyone needing to tell her.

"Wanna talk about it?" he tried again. The girl was obviously going through something and it was pretty clear to both of them that it only had so much to do with the crappy Chinese food. It was in his nature to butt in, even when he wasn't wanted.

She gave him a side-eye, suspicion oozing from her pores.

"You're not some sort of pedo, are you?"

He sputtered.

"Wha– I'm married!" he cried. "I'm just—you remind me of a girl I know."

She wasn't buying it.

"I don't see a ring," she pointed out.

Shirou scoffed.

"I proposed to her without one and she accepted me without it. It feels pointless to get one now. My wife would kill me if we wasted money on something like that."

She visibly took offence to that. Her face quickly morphed right back into frown.

"A ring isn't a waste of money!" she insisted. "It's how two people show that they love each other. You need a ring."

Shirou considered it.

"... Really? I think the two of us are doing fine on that front without it." He shook his head. "I don't see how a metal band would serve to help us express our love to another."

"Not like that! It's how a guy and a girl show the world that they're taken. That they love each other!"

"I don't really see the need for that. Neither would my wife, come to think of it." He shrugged as the girl's expression turned scandalised. "She's not the kind of person that puts much stock into what people think about her."

"No woman doesn't want to show off her husband to anyone who'd listen! Are you–" she stopped, a thought occurred to her, "Are you two ashamed of each other or something?"

"Hey now." Shirou shot her a glare. "Don't be rude. Not every couple is the same, you know."

She crossed her arms and very pointedly looked away.

Shirou sighed.

"I can't imagine a relationship that relies on something so superficial lasting all that long, to be honest. And what are you, in middle school or something? You sure seem to have a strong opinion on this."

When she pointedly made an effort to keep her mouth shut, he could only sigh. He walked over to the vending machine a few paces away and pushed a few coins into the slot.

She watched him curiously.

"You like iced hojicha?" he asked.

She grumbled about something or other under her breath that he interpreted as a "yes". He silently handed the can to her; they leaned against the wall and cracked open their respective beverage.

"...I'm a highschooler, not a middle-schooler," she finally proclaimed after a moment. "I'm… I'm not a kid."

"I'm sure you feel that way." he acknowledged.

She glared at him.

For a little while longer, nothing else was said. She hadn't left yet, though.

The girl's hardened expression finally dropped.

"I was a real jerk, wasn't I?" she tried again.

"Yeah."

The girl slowly slid down the wall until she was on her haunches. There was a soft click as the canned tea was placed on the pavement in front of her.

"... So there's this boy—"

"Pfft."

"Shut up!"

She looked like she was about to hit him for his unsolicited giggle but she restrained herself.

"Sorry, sorry. Continue."

Her anger melted back into something more sorrowful.

"When we were younger, he promised he'd marry me."

Shirou didn't choke, but it was a close thing.

"He did! We hadn't seen each other in a while; a chance came for us to reunite, and I took it. I transferred schools just to be with him, only for him to not remember any of it! Worse, when I tried… prodding—" she seemed hesitant about her choice of words "—he said he vaguely recalled the gist of the promise but not the meaning of it! He's either being deliberately stupid or he actually is that dense and ignorant, and at this point I don't know which possibility is worse!"

"As…" Shirou struggled for the right word, "unfortunate as that sounds, I feel the need to clarify… just how did he misinterpret a proposal? It's not the sort of statement that leaves much to the imagination."

At this, she faltered slightly.

"I… He used to come to my family's restaurant a bunch. I wasn't cooking yet—my father wouldn't let me in the kitchen during service hours—so we'd hang out together. We were great friends, and one day, we promised each other that he'd eat my sweet and sour pork everyday once my cooking got better."

Shirou nodded, taking another sip of his drink as he waited for her to continue.

When she remained silent, Shirou turned to her in mild confusion.

"... Where's the part about marriage?"

More silence.

The man suddenly had a headache. "You asked him to marry you like that?"

"I thought Japanese men had a thing where they'd say that they want to drink a woman's miso soup every day as a way to propose." She was very red. "And we don't serve miso soup at our restaurant, so I had to make do with—"

"With sweet and sour pork." Shirou finished, incredulous.

"W-well, I had to be delicate!" The teen waved her arms, absolutely flustered. "It's not like I can just be direct about it."

Privately, Shirou thought that she absolutely could have, and should have been direct but chose to remain silent as he mulled over her story.

The teen sighed. "I know it's not the most straightforward way to go about it, but there's no way that he wouldn't be able to put two and two together. It's like I'm the idiot for thinking that our promise meant anything to begin with."

"Well, yeah, kind of."

His flippant and unwarranted remark made her bristle.

"Excuse me!?"

He levelled a serious glower her way. It was enough of a turnaround from his up-until-now easy-going demeanour that it caught her flat-footed.

"Don't underestimate marriage. How old were the two of you when you made this promise? The third grade or something?"

"The fifth grade!" she insisted, for all the good that did.

He snorted.

"Were you two close back then?"

"We're childhood friends!" she stated confidently. "And I told you: he came over to my place and ate there every day!"

"...Be that as it may, you're both still kids. You can't hold your childhood friend to a promise that he made to you when he was just ten. Circumstances can change."

"Of course I can! The entire point of a promise is that it's upheld despite changing circumstances! Otherwise, why do we even bother?"

Just for a moment, Shirou stilled.

For a moment, he was there again, under the full moon with his father on the veranda.

But it ended as quickly as it came, and Shirou was back with the girl, still nearly driven to tears, the skies bereft of the moon's presence altogether.

Hah… she was being awfully hard-headed about this.

Shirou couldn't help but think of his wife. There were an awful lot of hurdles that led the two of them to where they were today, and while they were happy, there was no way that what they had would have lasted if those hurdles and years of effort hadn't been there.

"Do you really want that, though?" he asked.

She tilted her head up at him with a scrunched brow.

"Huh?"

"Do you want a marriage built on a promise you're not even sure this guy understands?" he clarified. "Would you be satisfied with that? Do you honestly envision that being fulfilling to you in any way?"

She had no answer for that. The ground looked awfully interesting all of a sudden.

"I really do sympathise," he told her after giving her a moment. "But try to keep your mind open. And your heart. Ask yourself if this is something that you really want. See where your relationship takes you. The both of you. Get to know the man your childhood friend becomes, not the fifteen-year-old he is now."

"But there's all these new people around him! He even had another childhood friend before we met! I don't… want to lose my first love," she admitted quietly. He could barely hear her.

He smiled kindly.

Not everyone gets to marry their first love.

He kept that part to himself, though. There was no reason to crush her spirit. Who could say whether they'd work out or not? It was something for her to discover, to be sure, but as long as she gave it some thought, he had no business interfering beyond that.

He was just a stranger trying to lend an ear, after all.

"Here I speak with some experience, but…" his eyes turned unfocused, "We rarely understand the full significance of what we promise when we make them. Especially as children. The only thing we can do, sometimes, is our best, and see where things go from there."

Glumly, she swirled the can in circles, weighing his words as Shirou took another sip.

Eventually, the girl got up.

"Hey," she started, before pausing to gather her wits. She brushed it off as needing to dust off her skirt. "Thanks. You gave me stuff to think about… I think."

His smile widened into a grin.

"I'm happy you've calmed down a little!"

She blushed.

"Yeah, well… I'll come back to apologise to everyone, I think. Not tonight, though. It might be good to give them space. Oh! And how much do I owe you for the food? You had to pay for mine."

He waved her off.

"Don't worry about it," he told her before starting to walk away. "You're still a student. Keep the pocket money."

"Thanks! I'll just go ahead and… oh, shit!"

Her exclamation made him stop. He turned back around to see her look at her watch in horror.

"IS Academy has a curfew, I gotta get back!" She straightened, before bowing to him. "My name's Huang Lingyin. Thank you again…"

"It was my pleasure, Lingyin. Thanks for keeping an ear open–" Shirou paused. "Did you say you were from IS Acade-"

Too late, she was already halfway across the street. The girl's pigtails flapped back and forth as she ran and looked back over her shoulder.

"You can just call me Rin! It's easier that way, right? I'll see you around!"

And then she turned a corner and ran off. Shirou was left leaning against the wall, frozen in place, drink in hand, before he schooled his expression into something almost rueful.

"Rin, huh?"

She must have been talking about his brother-in-law, then. He was the only boy attending that school, and that was unlikely to change anytime soon.

Still, the situation she was in was as funny as it was pitiful.

He wondered what Chifuyu would have to say about it. Did she know? Probably.

His head tilted up as he stared at the empty night sky. A serene look crossed his face.

X

X

Emiya Shirou had stared at the phone in front of him for what felt like hours before picking it up and dialling a number. And as it rang, his heart thumped steadily; it wasn't racing like he thought it would: he didn't know what to make of that.

The call went through with a click.

"It's not my birthday already, is it?" A woman's voice came through the phone, weary with the edge of exhaustion, "It feels too soon for this, Emiya."

"It's not." He confirmed, determinedly ignoring the sudden maelstrom of long-buried emotions within his chest. "I'm actually calling for another purpose, actually."

"What?" Shirou could almost hear the woman sitting up in bed. "Are you in trouble?"

"No, no." He was quick to assure her. "I wouldn't—" he caught himself. "No," he concluded simply.

"... right."

"I just wanted to tell you…"

For a moment, the words failed him, as though an invisible force were keeping them in a firm grip around his heart.

Emiya Shirou sighed. He took a deep breath.

"I'm getting married, Rin."

There was silence on the other end of the line.

He gave the woman time to gather her thoughts; the die was cast, and one way or another the two of them were getting through this ordeal today.

"... Congratulations, Emiya," was what she came up with eventually. "I'm happy for you."

Shirou blinked. "You are?"

"Well, I don't quite have a proper grasp on how I feel, to be honest, but that's what people say in these situations, isn't it?"

"... Yeah, I guess."

Silence. Save for the crackling of the call between them.

"... I hear you're back in Japan?"

"Yeah. We decided that settling down here would be for the best. Work-related stuff."

"Ah, yes. That much I can relate with."

He chuckled, for the lack of any better response.

"Still, it's funny." The woman murmured. "You left to become a hero of justice and ended up back where you started."

Shirou looked down, curiously embarrassed. "... It surprised me as well."

"... And if you were going to settle down in the end, then what was the point of–" she stopped, "why did we go through all of that if–" she paused again, whilst Shirou kept an iron grip on the phone.

"London really turned out to be the start of nothing, didn't it?" She wondered, voice small.

Shirou grit his teeth.

"It wasn't nothing, Rin."

"... If you say so."

He thought of a dozen things to say, half-formed but well-meaning, to convince her, though that train of thought died off as he prepared to follow through with the purpose of the call.

"Listen, we need two witnesses for the paper signing. I have one already, and… I was wondering… would you…?"

He trailed off, somehow not being able to muster the courage to ask the question properly.

Still, she seemed to have received the message, as he heard her delicate laugh on the other end of the line.

"Shirou. That's cruel." She gently chided him.

"It's not meant to be. I just feel like…" Shirou tried to think of a better way to phrase it. "I feel like you should be there."

"Shirou." He imagined her smiling, some six-thousand miles away. "I'm nice, but I'm not that nice."

He snorted, trying to keep up the fake lighthearted tone to the conversation that she insisted on keeping with all her melancholic quips.

The conversation went nowhere after that, but it was to be expected.

Nowhere: just like everything else.

It was a funny feeling, but "sad" wasn't the right word for it. That was good, he supposed. If nothing else, he felt fairly certain that the decision he was making was the right one.

At the very least, there wasn't a single part of him that would regret marrying Chifuyu.

They exchanged pleasantries for a little while longer. They weren't hollow, it wasn't as if they were simply going through the motions—they cared too much about each other for that—but it felt like something crucial was missing. Something that they had both discarded years ago.

This was fine, too, in a way.

"Good bye, Rin."

"...Good bye, Shirou."

When the line dropped, Shirou stared out of his living room window quietly for a moment. There wasn't any one thing on his mind, rather, he allowed himself a second or two to not think of anything at all.

Then he sighed and picked up the phone once more, dialling another number with comparatively less trepidation.

"... Hello? Is this Ryuudou temple?" He waited. "Yes, hi. I'd like to speak with Issei, please."

X

X

"No. Something came up so I'll have to be away a little while longer. I'm sorry."

Chifuyu stared down at the mess before her with her phone pressed tightly to her ear. The woman's body was tense, though she tried to not let any of that emotion seep into her tone."Is everything all right?"

"It's just an annoyance. We're taking care of it," she said simply before pausing. "There's nothing to worry about."

"If you say so. Don't trouble yourself too much. Just know that everything will be waiting for you once you're able to come back, alright?"

"I know. I'll keep that in mind."

She appreciated him. She really did.

"... I love you."

Her heart melted a little. Despite everything weighing on her right now, a warm smile crossed her lips. Even the sight of her fellow assistant teacher giving her furtive glances of mirth didn't make it go away.

"I love you too."

She dropped the call, sliding her phone into her pocket with a huff.

"So…" Yamada Maya smiled, "how's Shirou doing–"

"Mind your own business." She grunted. "Now tell me you have some good news."

"Not quite." Yamada fretted. "We're doing the best we can, but the combined efforts of Lingyin and Ichika really made our analysis of the remains difficult."

The cleanup crew was running past and around her, frantically trying to gather whatever was left of the rogue IS that interrupted the fight between Lingyin and her little brother. Whether it was controlled remotely somehow or powered by artificial intelligence, she couldn't say. The thing was pretty ruined; Ichika put it through the wringer.

Who was responsible for this? It could either be that organisation, or…

Chifuyu shook her head.

She wasn't prepared to go down that rabbit hole at this time.

She wondered just how she was going to break the news to her husband that a new threat had appeared out of nowhere.

She wondered if it was a conversation the two were prepared for.

Sighing, Chifuyu poured herself another cup of coffee, steeling herself for the night ahead of her.

She couldn't wait to finally go home.