Author's Note: I hope you enjoy this chapter, in the next chapters Powder/Jinx will have a more active role.
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Arco Narrativo: A new addition to the family
Episodio 1: Mash you wanted a baby girl for christmas right? (II)
Chapter 1: The Simplest Solution to a Complicated Problem
Plot: The Last Master of Chaldea and Mash Kyrielight are walking through the snow in search of a disturbance. Eventually the Master and Servant duo find a certain blue-haired girl.
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The world called Ysatnaf in its 20,000 years of history has gone through three Great Catastrophes that have changed the entire world and its inhabitants.
Today, 1021 years have passed since the last Great Catastrophe, known as The Black Beast.
The planet features a purple boiling ocean that can dissolve most biological materials; flora that appears to have been created by Poison Ivy; monstrous flora straight out of Monster Hunter; and a rather hostile climate system.
One of the iconic traits of Ysatnaf is the fact that nearly all of the land on which this world's civilizations stand is actually the decaying corpses of ancient, gigantic beings called Titans.
Among the numerous nations that occupy the territories of this world are seven countries that have existed since the time of the Second Great Catastrophe and have always been considered the Seven Powers of Ysatnaf.
Questi sette pilastri del mondo sono: The Grand Duchy of Bahamut; The Federation of Leviathan; The Kingdom of Gorem; The Republic of Garuda; The Principality of Ramuh; The Empire of Ifrit; The Theocracy of Shiva.
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At the far northern hemisphere, in the center of the Grand Duchy of Bahamut, lies a Colossal Titan in the shape of a dragon, occupying an area comparable to the United Kingdom on Earth multiplied by 8 and arranged in the shape of a +.
At the center of this dragon-like Titan rises the mountain range, Suruasoget, the "Himalayas" of Ysatnaf, famous for hosting the highest mountain in the world, Coroana, at 13 thousand meters above sea level.
On this nearly impossible-to-conquer mountain stands Bahamut Castle.
Bahamut Castle is a huge, dark and imposing fortress, with a mix of Romanesque, Gothic and something else typical of the Boiling Isles.
The whole thing was built using a black stone resembling obsidian and reinforced with crimson metal plates and an alloy resembling bone.
Just standing in front you can see a huge entrance gate reinforced to withstand a long siege, numerous red glass windows, all with obsidian bars in front for extra protection.
Countless very tall towers that become ever taller as you approach the center, where there is a large clock tower, which seems the most eerie place of all.
Bronze pipes and escape hulls run like wild vines across much of the castle.
Stone statues of gargoyles, metallic statues of knights in armor of dragons and birds, followed by white stone representatives of creatures unknown to the common world decorate the towers and every entrance to the castle.
Not far from the current location of Bahamut Castle, a Master and Servant pair are walking through the snow, entering a barren forest, where there is not a living soul.
All small and medium-sized animals have hibernated or migrated away.
This area of the Grand Duchy of Bahamut is about to enter a three-month long winter, filled with blizzards and icy winds.
The couple stopped for a moment.
"Mash, the disturbance is close, I can hear its echoes, but they are starting to fade." The Master, whose features are hidden by a cloak, declares, managing to sense that something has happened nearby.
Alongside the Master is Mash Kyrielight, the Demi-Servant girl who is dressed as Miss Claus.
"Senpai, are you sure you didn't imagine this "Force disorder", you haven't slept in a week, you should work less and relax more." Mash said worried as always that her Senpai might be working too hard.
"Mash tell me what date is it today?" asks the Master, while looking around carefully, searching for this "disturbance".
"According to the Earth calendar, it is December 1, 2035. But, using the local Ysatnaf calendar, today is the first day of the Frost Period of the year 1021 after the defeat of the Black Beast." Mash replies, listing the two worlds' data most important to the two of them.
"Soon there will be Christmas, New Year's, then in January there will be four birthdays, mine, Adeline's, Marcy's and Lilith's.
"I will have plenty of time to relax, not to mention the holidays and traditions of Ysatnaf during the Frost Period." The Master of Mash replies, wanting to get as much work done as possible before holidays, birthdays, and travel between worlds intrude on his schedule.
"Senpai, you shouldn't wait for holidays and birthdays to get proper rest. Too much work is bad for your health." Mash said, sure she had said similar sentences hundreds of times, maybe a few thousand.
But with poor results in most cases or with short-term effect.
"Mash, how long have we known each other?" The Master asks, staring at a precise point in the forest, surely he has found a trail.
"The simplest answer would be 18 years. But taking into account time travel, timeline resets, time differences between dimensions, well, we've known each other for about 25 years." The girl in the Miss Claus costume replies, needing a moment to do the math in her head.
"We've been together for 1/4 of a century, both as Master and Servant, and as close friends and lovers for the last decade. In all that time I've managed to survive despite my sleepless night habits and other things." The Master said, not seeing things from Mash's perspective.
Without saying anything else, the Master moves his arm as if punching the wind, with this movement the snow has moved, creating a path for two people.
"Let's move, Mash, we're close." The Master declares as he walks forward with Mash following him.
For a minute they were silent, walking along the newly created path.
"Bruce, by hook or by crook, I'm going to get you to lie down on a bed and sleep." Mash said with a serious expression, using her Master's real name.
Bruce, the Last Master of Chaldea, stopped abruptly and turns to face Mash, approaching the lavender/pink haired girl.
"I like to see your dominant side, Mash." Bruce said, bowing his head to get closer to his Kohai's ear.
"I'm waiting to see how you do me and I hope it involves violence and chains, after all I've been a bad boy this year." Bruce said in a smooth tone, showing his masochistic preferences.
Mash blushes intensely, despite having experienced everything in her physical and romantic relationship with her Senpai, she is still embarrassed to talk openly about these things. Ironic that Mash has no problem wearing dirty clothes.
Once these words were spoken, Bruce walked away as if he had done nothing important, returning to his present task, finding the source of this disturbance perceptible only to him.
"Sleep is overrated, my unique and enhanced physiology allows me to function without basic necessities for long periods of time." Bruce said, having said similar words many times to Mash, whenever she worries about him.
"But you still need them at some point." Mash said, knowing that her Master has his limits and a bad habit of overstepping those limits for better or worse.
"I am as lucid as it is possible for a person with my blessings and curses, even if I were not, I could not ignore such an event." Bruce said, lightly hitting his head with a fist.
For all those who know Bruce well, they quickly learned that Bruce's mind is twisted, he simply does not possess the common sense of a human being.
"I take your word for it Senpai, if you weren't, I wouldn't have escorted you out of the castle and interrupted my homework, as you can see I was picking out the right dress for this year's Christmas theme." Mash said, moving her hands over her red dress.
"You know you don't have to make an effort to impress me, the main source of your beauty is your shining soul. But I appreciate a change of look every now and then." Bruce states, not speaking in metaphors.
The Last Master of Chaldea possesses the ability to see a person's souls, a skill useful in determining whether an individual is trustworthy or not.
But this ability has developed in Bruce a sense of beauty and attraction to unique souls, being the first thing he looks for in a woman or an effeminate man.
"I know, but you can't beautify a soul, I don't even know what a soul looks like." Mash comments with a slight blush, not knowing what her Senpai sees in her.
Suddenly, under Bruce's hood, his pointed ears twitched, having caught a sound that did not come from nature.
"Mash, apply the reinforcement to your ears, then turn your head to seven o'clock." Bruce orders in a serious voice, pointing to a specific spot in the forest.
Mash follows his Master's command, touches his ears and applies Reinforcement, one of the basic spells of Magecraft.
Soon Mash's hearing has reached a superhuman level that allows her to perceive everything, Senpai's breathing and heartbeat, the wind blowing through the branches of the trees, the wings of a certain crow flying over the forest, and even the cry of a little girl.
Mash's pupils dilate, she has gone from calm and collected to energetic and direct.
"We have to move now, Senpai, there's a little girl who needs help!" Mash exclaims, making it her priority to help the defenseless, especially children in need.
This time it's Mash who moves first, scouting ahead, following the sound of the crying.
"I love seeing your chivalrous passion combine with your maternal instincts," Bruce comments, before sprinting forward, following Mash.
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In less than a minute, the Master and Servant duo arrived at the center and found… Powder. The little blue-haired girl was curled up in a small ball in the snow, crying and freezing to death.
Seeing this scene Mash's heart almost breaks, she is a woman who takes great care of children, seeing a little girl in this state hurts her insides.
"Mash, why are you standing there staring like it's a car accident?
You're the one who wants to be a mother and carry a baby, go do something." Bruce said, giving Mash a little literal and metaphorical push.
Mash approaches Powder and lowers herself to the girl's level.
"Are you okay, little girl?" Mash asks in a calm, gentle voice, not wanting to scare the blue-haired girl.
Unfortunately, Powder did not respond.
Bruce approaches Mash and the little girl at a slow pace, just enough for him to adjust his appearance into something more human and approachable.
Once he gets to Mash's side, he lowers his hood, revealing his face, well, the human variant of his face to be precise.
Bruce's face has soft, delicate features, thin eyelashes, and an androgynous structure, reminiscent of Artoria Pendragon or Morgana Le Fay.
Because of these characteristics, it is easy for Bruce to be mistaken for a woman, which has happened very often.
Its skin color is light white like milk, smooth and free from spots.
Bruce's hair is pitch black and is worn in an unusual two-braid hairstyle.
The longest braid falls behind his head and reaches to his knees.
The shorter braid is made to cover the left side of his face, this braid reaches down to his chest.
Bruce's visible right eye is light gray in color.
"Where is your family?" Bruce asks, lowering himself to Dust's level as well. The Last Master of Chaldea senses no living soul nearby.
The blue-haired girl jumps slightly at Bruce's question.
She raises her tear-soaked head towards Mash and Bruce, looking with her sad eyes at the Master and Servant pair.
'I have a feeling this lost little bird has imprinted on me and Mash.' Bruce thinks, comparing the little blue-haired girl to a certain ugly duckling (The Ugly Duckling and Me).
Before either of them could do anything, the little girl lunged forward, hugging Mash and Bruce tightly, pushing her head into Mash's chest.
"They abandoned me, I have no one left." The blue-haired girl confesses, staining Mash's red dress with her tears.
The lavender-haired woman wastes no time in hugging Powder tightly.
"Everything will be fine, now we are here, two heroes to help you." Mash said, confiding in the girl, unaware that her words will have an impact on the child.
'My dear Mother Owl has given me not only a taste for gambling and pyromania, but also a talent for collecting animals, small, rare and homeless. I will have to prepare a room in the castle for a long stay.' Bruce thinks calmly, less affected by the child's desperation than Mash.
Bruce, not being heartless, even though some think otherwise, reaches out and strokes Powder's head.
"Little girl, I don't care who you are or what happened to you. But as long as I'm around you don't have to worry about a thing. I've saved the world dozens of times, I can save a little girl." Bruce said in a confident voice, continuing to caress Powder's head.
The blue-haired girl is confused, she doesn't know how she ended up in this snowy place and who are the two women comforting her (Powder will be added to the long list of people who have mistaken Bruce for a woman).
But she strangely feels safe with the two of them.
'Mash, I see round ears, this little girl looks human but I can tell she is not, or at least not a human known to us.'Bruce communicates using his mental connection with Mash, not wanting to worry the girl with words that might make her worried.
'Senpai, but that's not possible, there are three portals that connect Ysatnaf to Earth, you have one, Luz has one and Eda has the last one.
Both are kind-hearted women, there's no way either of them would take a traumatized child to a place like that and leave her alone.' Mash replies, knowing her almost-mother-in-law and almost-sister-in-law very well.
'The portals the three of us possess are not the only means of crossing the void between worlds. I keep mine more out of nostalgia than necessity, I have no longer needed it since I became a Planeswalker.' Bruce said, certain that the child's presence is connected to the disturbance he felt.
Mash is about to say something else, but Powder closes his eyes and falls to the side.
Mash moves suddenly and grabs the girl, holding her in his arms.
"Senpai!?" Mash asks in a worried voice looking in Bruce's direction for instructions.
Although Mash was a young girl born and raised in Chaldea, one of the most advanced places on the planet, and was raised by Leonardo Da Vinci and Doctor Romani Archaman.
Mash is not a woman expert in the branches of medicine and science.
She is certainly a capable woman in the laboratory and an excellent assistant, but the more complex and surgical elements are beyond her scope of expertise.
In Bruce's case, he is a scientific and magical expert in many fields, feeling more at home in a laboratory, doing experiments that defy the laws of nature than going to the mall.
"Calm down, Mash, the girl fainted from exhaustion." Bruce states in a calm voice, placing a hand on Mash's shoulder.
"The little girl has suffered a lot in a very short time. If that wasn't enough to get her off her feet, she's left alone in one of the coldest places on the planet with some pretty thin clothing." Bruce explains why Powder was knocked unconscious.
"You're right, Senpai. She's freezing, we need to warm her up." Mash said, looking at how cold the little girl is.
Mash took off her Santa hat and the top of her dress, revealing a red Christmas-themed bra.
She being a Demi-Servant possesses superhuman resistance to the cold, even if it weren't for that, it wouldn't have stopped her.
Masha dressed Powder in her Christmas clothes, trying to warm up the fainted little girl.
"Mash, your soft heart is one of your strengths, but sometimes you let it control you too much. I remind you that magic is better than any dress." Bruce said, turning his palm towards the sky.
Instead of using his Magic Circuits, Bruce gathers the Red Mana present in the world around him, channels it into his body, concentrating it in the palm of his hand.
A small sun full of heat and energy appeared above the palm of Bruce's hand.
With a simple wave of the hand, the little sun rose above the trio's heads, starting to emit heat as if it were a hot summer day.
"I forgot I had magic at my disposal." Mash confesses with an embarrassed expression.
She was so worried about the child's health that she forgot that she had learned Magecraft for healing purposes and that she had learned some tricks for using Green Mana and White Mana.
Bruce stood up, the little sun moved with him. The Last Master of Chaldea used his good eye to look at Powder, not her physical appearance, that doesn't interest Bruce, but what lies inside the little girl, her soul and... her Planeswalker spark.
Bruce's stoic face didn't move, but his gray eye flashed with surprise.
"Senpai, I recognize that look, what did you see and does he have to wear my Ortenaus armor?" Mash asks, as he picks up the blue-haired girl and stands up.
The Demi-Servant woman has long learned that when her Senpai's eye glows it is a sign of something bad or good, but there will definitely be chaos and explosions.
With one step Bruce steps in front of Mesh, as if he wants to kiss her, but his attention is not brought back to Mash's lips, but to the little girl in Mash's arms.
"She's a Planeswalker." Bruce said with a small smile, pointing to the little girl.
Mash's eyes widen in surprise at this news.
"Are you sure, Senpai? After the Phyrexian War, the number of Planeswalkers dropped and there have been no signs of new Planeswalkers in recent years." Mash said, remembering how many Planeswalkers lost their powers at the end of that conflict.
"Mash, how many times do I have to tell you not to ask stupid questions?" Bruce comments, finding some of Mash's questions pointless or self-evident.
"I am a Planeswalker, I recognize one of my kind. Though she is a child, who ignited her spark less than an hour ago. The little one has just taken her first journey through the Void Between Worlds, ending up in a Multiverse greater than any imagination." Bruce said, stroking the blue-haired girl's head, knowing she will have much to deal with in the future.
Planeswalkers never have it easy, they are the most dangerous creatures in the multiverse and play an important role in it.
"This means that bringing her home is impossible. She could come from a world unknown to us." Mash said, worrying that the child will never see her homeland again.
"It would be important if the little girl still had a family or a home, but from the turmoil I can see in the little girl's soul, she doesn't have that anymore." Bruce states, crossing his arms, being able to tell a lot from a person's soul.
"The little girl must have suffered so much, Senpai, what do we do with her?" Mash asks, not knowing what to do with Powder.
"Another silly question, Mash. We'll take her to Bahamut Castle, where she'll be given a warm, comfortable bed, along with the best care available." Bruce said, having a treatment plan in his head and a list of medical tests to do to see what's good and bad for the little girl's system.
"Of course, she'll need a warm place to rest and care. But what do we do with her in the long run?" Mash asks, having no long-term plans for Powder.
"Maybe it took me years to understand that your love for me is not platonic, but romantic, passionate, sexual. But you, Mash, have your moments of density." Bruce states, not holding his tongue.
"Senpai, I don't understand you." Mash confesses, which happens often, but this time she is truly lost.
"A month ago, you asked me to help you have a baby, I don't understand why but you woke up one day with the desire to carry a child in your womb and give birth to it.
"Because I love you and at this point one more or less child won't change anything, I've decided to help you conceive a child." Bruce said, speaking lightly about a rather private and intimate topic for Mash.
"We had sex almost every single night and sometimes multiple times in a single day, taking up a lot of my time from research. After 72 sexual encounters between the two of us, you still haven't gotten pregnant." Bruce said in an annoyed tone mostly at himself for not being able to help his female best friend/lover with her breeding project.
"Sorry." Mash replies, her cheeks red with embarrassment and shame, looking down.
"Your status as a Demi-Servant has had many benefits for you, but unfortunately it has given you a very low fertility rate." Bruce said, speaking of Mash's problems.
"I am a second generation hybrid that can be considered at best 3/8 human, making children with me is more difficult, not impossible at Bahamut Castle there are seven little girls who are mine.
I have never used a condom in my life and have had sex almost regularly for almost 21 years with the same group of Witches (Trinity Seven).
Having only seven little girls several years apart says a lot about my ability to impregnate a woman," Bruce said of his struggles.
"I didn't tell you this but I recently took some tests, and it's according to the tests. My sperm and your eggs are not compatible with each other. Separately, each of us could have our own children, even if it takes a little effort and a lot of trying, but together the chances are 1 in 10,000." Bruce confesses with a sorry tone, hating to break this news, right now.
The woman with lavender/pink hair doesn't say anything, her eyes are sad, but not surprised by the news, there were already thoughts like that in her head.
"I was thinking about some options for us:
- Ask for the assistance of Giulia Von Espada, the great healer woman of the Illuminated World of the Moonlight, a treatment for both to increase fertility.
- Creating a homunculus with our combined blood, he or she would technically be our unborn child.
- I could take your genetic map, use it to create a clone of yourself, but at the age of a newborn.
-Use magic to swap our genders, maybe if I were the woman and you were the man we would have more blood to generate a child.
- Asking for a favor from a divine or cosmic being, even if that would be the last option." Bruce has listed some methods to solve their problem, although some are strange or out of the ordinary.
Mash can't help but smile, appreciating that her Senpai is making an effort to find a solution.
"But look what the Multiverse sent us, a little girl to adopt. Adoption is definitely the easiest way to solve it, we save nine months of pregnancy, the tumultuous first years and the need to teach her the absolute basics." Bruce said in a happy tone, stroking Powder's head.
"Senpai, we can't take a little girl we don't know, bring her home and say we're her parents." Mash said, finding this idea a little too similar to child abduction.
"Actually, we can, this mountain and the rest of the island belong to me and my word is law." Bruce declares, literally being able to do whatever he wants within his kingdom.
"Senpai, don't play the card of being the Archduke and Lord of the Castle." Mash said, not liking it when Bruce acts like Gilgamesh (Archer).
"Adopting without documents is a family vice. That's what my Dear Owl Mom has done, over and over again with huge success stories.
Most famously, when Eda kidnapped King from those Asur ruins, believing him to be a pet in distress." Bruce recounts how his Mother Owl "kidnapped" the smallest of his adoptive siblings.
'I love Eda, but she should have made more effort to raise you better or give you a better sense of respect for rules and the law.' Mash thinks, having like many other people several discontents towards her almost mother-in-law.
Eda Clawthorne instilled in young Bruce both good and bad habits.
The good ones saved the world, the bad ones became a headache for those who had to live with Bruce.
"Senpai, the two of us will not adopt a child without asking her permission and getting to know each other." Mash said, setting the record straight for the sake of her conscience.
"As you wish Mash, you and I would be just two adults responsible for raising, educating and training a child who has awakened her Planeswalker spark." Bruce said, agreeing to Mash's terms.
Mash nods, tightens her grip on the sleeping girl, then begins walking with her Senpai towards Bahamut Castle.
Continues ...