"Orange, you finally came back!"
"Yo, Roy."
Between her fingers, Aozaki Touko held a lit cigarette, the air around her curling with smoke.
"So this is the attendant you picked? The little brat's finally grown up, huh!"
Her gaze fell on Kasumigaoka Utaha—playful, yet tinged with genuine admiration.
Utaha was struck speechless.Why did everyone who met her immediately assume she had something going on with Roy?
"Nice taste in clothes, too!"
Touko pointed approvingly at her maid uniform.
Utaha glanced down at herself, then realized.…Wearing something like this, no wonder people misunderstood.
"Where's the thing I asked for?"
Roy sat at the table, eyes burning with impatience as he fixed them on Touko.
"You're in such a rush. You should know me by now—if I hadn't found it, I wouldn't have come back."
Touko shrugged, her crossed legs shifting as she casually reached into nowhere and pulled out a wooden box, sliding it toward him.
"Here. Take it."
Roy fought to steady his excitement as he opened the box.
Inside lay a small, blackened lump of iron, threaded with worn patterns that bore the weight of centuries. Yet it had been carefully maintained, free of rust or grime.
"Thanks, Orange!"
Cradling the thumb-sized piece of threaded iron, Roy's face lit up with satisfaction.
"That'll be two hundred million dollars," Touko said lightly, extending her hand with a smile.
"Two… hundred million?! How about I just give you my Mystic Eyes instead?"
Roy wiped at the cold sweat beading on his forehead, stunned by the price.
"Hah! Who the hell would dare use your Mystic Eyes?"
Touko burst into open laughter, unrestrained.
"But I'm serious about the value. Relics from the Age of Gods always fetch more than that. You've no idea how many places I had to scour just to track this one down."
She sighed dramatically. "And after all that, I come home and you don't even offer me a cup of tea? Kids these days, really…"
"Utaha, pour some tea."
"Yes, sir."
"Hey, at least pour it yourself if you want to show gratitude."
"Should I whip up a full Imperial banquet for you instead?"
"That works too."
"In your dreams. Even if I knew how, the ingredients don't exist anymore."
Roy chuckled.
A moment later, Utaha returned from the kitchen, carrying plain boiled water. She gave Roy a fleeting, thoughtful look as she set the glass before him.
"If you can laugh like this, Roy-sama… that's what matters most."
Touko arched her back, stretching with a satisfied groan, her elegant figure leaving nothing to the imagination.
"I'm going to bathe. After running around for so long, I feel like I reek."
As she walked past Utaha, Touko gave her a gentle smile, gestured toward Roy, and then left the room.
Utaha blinked, then nodded slightly, placing the water in front of him.
"Roy-sama, you've been laughing quite openly today."
"Have I?" Roy looked genuinely surprised. "Do I usually laugh… falsely?"
"No, not falsely, exactly…"
Utaha hesitated, searching for words. Her novelist's talent for expression served her well.
"Normally, you do smile, but it feels… empty somehow. Like it's second nature, a kind of gentle mask you wear. But today's smile—it was real. A smile of someone actually happy."
Roy understood immediately.
In other words, Utaha believed his smiles until now had been a kind of duty, not lies, but concealing something beneath. Today, however, he had smiled from the heart.
"My training's still lacking, then." Roy muttered under his breath.
"What?"
"Nothing." He shook his head, meeting Utaha's puzzled eyes.
"Utaha, tell me—between my usual smile and today's, which do you prefer?"
"M-me?"
Caught off guard, Utaha's cheeks warmed. She brushed a strand of hair over her face to hide it.
"If I had to say… of course today's. But… I don't dislike your usual smile either."
She had been ready to declare her preference for his genuine joy without hesitation. But at the last moment, she recalled yesterday—when he had comforted her with that familiar, gentle smile. Instinctively, she added the second line.
"I see…" Roy mused.
Utaha exhaled slowly, relieved, her blush cooling at last.
By the time Touko finished her bath, Roy was already in the kitchen, preparing dinner.
A full Imperial banquet was impossible in this era, but ten or so fine dishes to show his gratitude—that much he could manage.
Hayasaka Ai and Utaha helped by his side.
As for the attack by corrupted Servants earlier that afternoon, few in the city knew. The populace remained immersed in the fragile peace they so desperately clung to—though it could be shattered at any moment.
At dinner, everyone, especially Touko, ate with satisfaction.
Afterward, the two girls cleared the table, while Touko slipped into the corridor, lit another cigarette, and leaned back with obvious contentment.
Roy, meanwhile, carried the threaded iron piece into the storeroom.
The place was cluttered with farm tools and cleaning supplies, piled atop a large gym mat like the kind used in school classes over a decade ago.
He inscribed runes across his hand, pushed the mat and junk aside, then paused to catch his breath.
Beneath it lay a magic circle carved into the floor, its grooves thick with dust despite the years of concealment.
"Round two… let's begin."
Roy drew a deep breath, placed the threaded iron within the circle, and raised his Command Seal-marked hand.
"I hereby proclaim—"
The chant spilled from his lips once again, each verse feeding power into the circle.
Light erupted, pure and dazzling, spilling out to fill the warehouse.
Outside, Touko squinted toward the glow leaking from within.
"…Can he really pull it off?"
By all rights, it should have been impossible.A Master could only possess one Servant. That was the law of the Greater Grail—established not only for fairness, but to protect Masters from being crushed by the strain of multiple contracts.
But Roy was different.
He bore the Mystic Eyes of Reversal, the power to manipulate all sorcery. He had already tampered with the Grail's mechanisms in secret, bending its rules so that he alone could command two Servants.
With a resonant hum, the circle's brilliance dimmed, the winds subsided.
And within, a new figure took shape.
"Oh-ho, I see. This time, the foundation is Rider, huh? Ah, what a pity… if it had been Caster, we'd have been golden."