After Broly left the Matou house, some worms slowly gathered around the headless corpse in the worm pit and reformed an old man's head where the neck had been.
"What a dangerous brat. There's no way that kind of power belongs to a normal human, yet there's no trace of magical energy on him. That guy must be a Servant."
That was the only explanation. Precisely because Matou Zouken understood the gap between himself and a Servant, he had played dead the moment his head was blown off. After all, his true body was right here in this worm pit, and he truly feared that a real fight would end up damaging it.
"The Matou family's participation in this Holy Grail War isn't a secret. But who's the one behind the attacker? Why take that child Sakura from the Matou house? Do they think they can use the child to threaten the Matou family, or are they planning to use her to threaten the Tohsaka family instead?"
Muttering to himself, Zouken walked out of the basement, paced down the corridor, and stopped abruptly at a window by the corner.
"Or it could be that Tokiomi Tohsaka sent the attacker. Maybe he discovered that the Matou family's magecraft affinity had shifted from Water to Worms, and not wanting to openly break the alliance with the Matou family, resorted to this trick to take his daughter back from us."
The glass reflected the ghoul-like face of the old man, but his sharp eyes narrowed during his monologue.
"No, that doesn't fit that brat Tokiomi's personality. He's rigidly attached to the Tohsaka family's dogmatic precepts and isn't the type to break a pact from the shadows. With his absolutely calm and competent magecraft professionalism, so-called family affection probably isn't enough for him to break his principles either. But then again, you never know. Humans are creatures of complex emotions. What if that brat Tokiomi…"
At that point, Zouken stopped.
"I really am getting senile. Things like this should be tested. If a simple test can tell me the answer, why stand here guessing wildly?"
He shook his head and continued forward.
"Eh, Grandpa, you're home?!"
He had just reached the corner when he ran into his grandson in name.
"Ah, no, this isn't the time for that. Grandpa, Sakura's been taken away by some dangerous guy. You have to save her."
This foolish grandson has no aptitude as a magus, yet he has a child's innocence and kindness. Who knows what that innocence will twist into when he grows up and realizes he's a talentless failure? Just thinking about it makes me a bit excited…
Hm?
As a Matou elder, I'm actually looking forward to my descendant's distortion and suffering. It seems my soul really is collapsing. The Grail, the Grail—I must obtain it soon, before I completely forget I ever existed as a magus. But before that…
"Shinji, have you finished your holiday homework?"
"Uh, not yet, Grandpa, but this really isn't the time—"
Young Second Master, flustered, still answered his grandfather's question.
"You haven't finished your homework, and you're here wasting time talking to me?"
The creepy smile vanished from Zouken's face as he directly scolded Shinji.
"Get back to your room and finish your holiday homework."
"But Sakura, she—"
"She's just your foster sister. Her matters are none of your concern."
Young Shinji felt wronged, but did not dare defy his grandfather's will. He could only return to his room.
....
In Fuyuki City, where the Fourth Holy Grail War had already begun, a conflict was unfolding inside a rice bowl specialty restaurant.
Here's what happened: Broly was happily eating pork cutlet rice bowls when the restaurant suddenly refused to serve him any more rice.
"Why won't you bring any more food?"
"It's not that I don't want to, but you two kids ordered so much. Do you really have the money to pay?"
The owner folded his arms and spoke with skepticism. With the economy not doing well lately, there had recently been people who dined and dashed at his place.
Today, two kids with not even a single hair on their legs yet, barely up to his thigh in height, came in and ordered a huge meal. When asked where the adults were, they said the adults would be along later.
But after half the food they ordered had come out, the so-called "adults" they mentioned were still nowhere to be seen. The owner could not help but suspect that this might be another pair trying to eat for free. With more than half the food still in the kitchen, he came out to ask what was going on.
"Money?"
Broly froze for a moment, then an explanation surfaced in his mind: money was the usual medium of exchange used to purchase food.
Broly understood at once. This must be this world's equivalent of Baaya blood. But he did not have any, so he looked at young Sakura.
"Excuse me, how much do we have to pay for what we ordered?"
The girl asked politely.
"Counting the rice bowls that haven't been brought out yet, altogether you owe…"
The owner named a price. Young Sakura took out the allowance Shinji had given her and carefully counted it, only to find she barely had enough coins to cover a fraction of the bill.
The owner noticed her predicament and added, "If we only count what you've already eaten, then you just need another 2000 yen."
Young Sakura: "…"
That's the downside of not having even started grade school yet—she could not do the most basic addition and subtraction, and the bill had clearly exceeded her budget.
Sakura looked at Broly, as if hoping for help from this slightly older boy. But Broly only returned a helpless look.
If Sakura could be considered a child of civilized society, then Broly was a wild kid from a barren Dragon Ball star.
His father, Paragus, had only taught him how to fight, not how to do math. The bits of information that sometimes floated through his mind hadn't taught him that either.
So Broly was someone who only knew how to order and eat, not how to calculate—just a pure rice-bowl-eating idiot.
Right now, with no Baaya blood (money) of this world, he really could not help the girl in front of him.
Their exchanged glances, together with Broly's innocent, pure eyes, made Sakura realize something: the tailed big brother who had rescued her from the worm pit was apparently so poor he could not even afford a normal meal. She could only turn to the owner. "I don't have any more money."
"If you're short on cash, you can get an adult to come pay for you."
The owner said.
Sakura fell silent. When she left the Matou house, she had thought she could finally go back to her real home.
It was only after following Broly into the restaurant and eating that she suddenly remembered what her father had told her the day he sent her away.
"Sakura, from today on, your last name will be Matou. You will no longer be a child of the Tohsaka family. Neither I nor your mother will have any relation to you.
"From now on, when you see Rin, do not treat her as your sister. You will be colleagues on the path of magecraft, and also rivals.
"If, one day, you two sisters must fight each other, you must not feel sad. On the contrary, you should be glad—glad that your talent in magecraft was not wasted…"
After a father had said such words of severed ties, did that home still truly have a place for her?
Sakura did not know. But she did know one thing: if the owner tracked down her biological father, Tokiomi Tohsaka, over an unpaid meal, it would surely cause that elegant, gentlemanly father great shame and embarrassment.
"I don't have a home. My mom and dad don't want me anymore."
Sakura said in utter dejection.
Restaurant owner: "???"
"So you're planning to dine and dash?"
His expression grew dark, his tone turning harsh.
"I can help work to pay off the bill."
Sakura quickly said. Her magecraft aptitude meant she had received more education, including about the oaths and bargains magi made.
That was why she had been confused but not noisy when sent to the Matou family. All in all, she was a very sensible child.
Her maturity drove her to want to use labor to pay off the shortfall on the bill, but she overlooked one thing: she was far too young.
"Are you kidding me? What kind of work can a little kid like you do?"
The owner clearly did not accept her proposal. Judging by their clothes, these two did not look like poor children or homeless kids. He simply assumed they had argued with their families and run off. No matter what, he insisted the girl call home and get a parent to come.
"Reminder: Sakura Matou's Happiness Value is dropping. Please pay attention to her condition."
The Crystal Palace warning surfaced in Broly's mind, and only then did he notice the girl's distress.
"Hey, don't make things hard for her."
He said bluntly.
Hearing this, the owner looked over and asked, "So you have money to pay the bill?"
"I don't."
Broly shook his head at once. If he had this world's Baaya blood, he would have already paid.
"Then can you call home and ask your parents for money?"
The owner asked again.
"I don't know who my mother is, and my father isn't in this world."
Broly shook his head again.
"So you've got no money and no way to call home, and you're playing games with me?"
The whole thing increasingly looked like a dine-and-dash, which angered the owner further.
"Believe it or not, I'll call the police and have them take you two brats who eat and don't pay?"
He threatened, not realizing how the children's eyes toward him were growing more dangerous.
Broly indeed did not have this world's Baaya blood, but in the past he had never had the concept of using Baaya blood to exchange for food.
When he was younger on Planet Vampa, he and his father Paragus obtained food by doing the most primitive thing: hunting and killing Vampa spiders.
In other words, killing the restaurant owner—the current "owner of the food"—was, in Broly's mind, the simplest solution to the problem of not having enough Baaya blood to trade for food.
However, obtaining food without any exchange could disrupt the ecological balance. Back on Vampa, when he ate Vampa spiders without giving anything in return, it had not destroyed the planet's ecology.
On the way into the restaurant, he had also seen plenty of individuals in this world who had no tails. By that logic, killing just one such tailless individual should not cause any major ecological issues.
Besides…
Broly glanced toward the curtained kitchen. The smell of cooking kept drifting from there. Once he dealt with the man who owned the food, everything in there would be his.
The more he thought, the more tempted he became. Just as he clenched his small fist, ready to hunt the owner—
"Bang~"
A slammed table sounded from the next table over.
"This is really hard to listen to. Hey, owner, you're an adult, aren't you? How can you bring yourself to bully two little kids like this?"
"And who might you be, exactly? What's this got to do with you?"
"The great Fujimura Taiga! You're right, this has nothing to do with me. But I can't stand watching an adult like you bully two kids."
The speaker was an orange-haired girl with a single ponytail tied at the back of her head. One hand slapped the table while the other pointed at the owner, her expression righteous.
"How is this bullying? Since when is asking someone to pay their bill bullying? They're the ones who don't have enough money for the food they ordered!"
The owner argued.
"Yes, they don't have the money. But don't they have their reasons? Weren't you listening just now?"
One didn't know his mother, his father was dead. The other had no home anymore, seemingly abandoned by her biological parents.
"How am I supposed to know? Kids lie all the time. What if it's just a story they made up to get out of paying?"
The owner's face looked strained.
"I'm not lying."
Broly and Sakura spoke up at the same time, denying it in unison.
Taiga Fujimura nodded. She chose to believe them.
"And if they're not lying?"
She asked the owner.
"I run a restaurant, not a charity. Am I just supposed to lose money?"
He shot back. Orphans should be eating at shelters. What were they doing eating for free in his place?
"No, you shouldn't be losing money. But people really hate the way you're handling this. Would it kill you to speak kindly to them? Facing children this young, you actually talked about calling the police to arrest them."
"I was just trying to scare them, okay?"
The owner protested. In this day and age, with protections for minors, it was practically impossible for two very young children to be jailed over a dine-and-dash.
At most, the police would come, give them a lecture, and call their parents to pick them up—if those kids even had parents.
"Scare them?"
Taiga raised her voice, stomping her shoes loudly as she marched over. She jabbed a finger at the owner's nose and began lecturing him.
"Do you have any idea how much psychological damage that kind of scare can cause kids? What if they grow up terrified of the police and unwilling to trust them? Can you afford the social responsibility for something like that? Children are like beautiful flowers, but in this society, there are always some bad adults who want to trample them…"
As it approached mealtime, people came in off and on. Seeing the argument inside, many realized this might not be the best place to eat right now, but it was a good place to watch some drama.
Any customers who weren't in a rush stayed, clustering at the door to enjoy the show.
"All right, all right, it's my fault, okay? I'll apologize to them. Just stop."
Seeing the crowd building at the entrance, the owner realized that if he let this incredibly combative girl keep going, rumors about him bullying poor, helpless kids would spread, and he'd be branded a heartless adult with no sense of social responsibility. He backed down.
"Hmph. It was your fault to begin with. At least you know when to quit."
Taiga exhaled heavily through her nose like a victorious general. The owner apologized to the two kids for scaring them and chose to accept the partial payment from the girl, letting the rest of the bill go.
"Pop~"
But then, Taiga walked over and slapped two 1000-yen bills down in front of him.
"I'm not someone who bullies people just because I can. I'll cover the rest of these kids' bill."
She said.
"All right, ma'am, you're really kind-hearted."
The owner's attitude flipped. From cursing his bad luck, he shifted into warm hospitality mode.
"By the way, ma'am, if you'd just told me right away that you'd cover their bill, I wouldn't have argued with you."
"Ha, no thanks. After arguing with you, I feel a lot better."
Taiga had been butting heads with her parents lately over dyeing her hair, leaving her pretty upset.
Using this chance to righteously speak out and pick a fight let her vent all that pent-up frustration.
The owner: "…"
So you stood up because you wanted an argument, right? That had to be it.
Still, since she paid the bill and saved him from taking a loss, he decided not to charge extra for the "emotional value" she had just provided.
"Please come again!"