At a yakiniku restaurant, Broly had been brought by Taiga Fujimura for lunch. As he rapidly demolished the meat she grilled and dropped onto his plate, he kept glancing through the window at a jewelry store across the street.
"Why are you staring at the jewelry store? Regretting giving away that sapphire your friend's dad thanked you with?"
Following the boy's line of sight, Taiga also noticed the jewelry shop across the way and could not help asking.
"That sapphire Mr. Tohsaka gave little Sakura was top quality. If you turned it into cash, you could probably eat a lot of meals like this."
"No, I don't regret it."
Broly shook his head.
"I gave that rock to her because I wanted her to be happy."
"Then why keep staring at the jewelry store?"
Taiga asked curiously.
"I gave her something, but I haven't given you anything. I don't have that kind of rock anymore, so I want to go to the place that has those rocks and grab some to give to you."
Broly answered very seriously. That was exactly why he had been staring at the shop after noticing it.
"So you want to buy jewelry and give it to me?"
Taiga asked, dropping another slice of grilled pork belly onto his plate.
"Huh? You need money to get those rocks?"
Broly frowned as he ate the pork belly.
"Normally, yes."
Taiga replied.
"Unless you find an unclaimed gemstone mine and dig it up yourself. That'd be an exception."
She added.
"Then where is there a gemstone mine?"
Broly kept asking.
"That I don't know."
Taiga shook her head and took out the sapphire again to admire it. That ocean-blue color really was intoxicating.
"Then can I just take them by force from over there?"
Suddenly, Broly pointed at the jewelry store and clenched his small fist.
"Stealing is wrong."
Taiga immediately began the lecture.
"And if it's meant to be a gift, no one wants stolen goods, right? At least, I wouldn't."
"Huh? You wouldn't?"
Broly froze. Watching the girl who clearly loved the sapphire, he could not quite tell if she meant it.
"Of course not. I'm an honest person."
Said the eldest daughter of the Fujimura family, pure yakuza stock, whose grandfather had just done an arms deal the day before.
"Listen, you're still young, but you can't go astray and become a bad kid."
Taiga could tell Broly was just a simple child.
His understanding of some things was a bit off, but she did not want to see him led astray because of that simplicity.
"What's a bad kid?"
"A bad kid is…"
She stopped herself mid-sentence, because she saw that very familiar "I'm super curious" look on his face.
"In short, just remember this: you mustn't just steal or rob things. If you do, big sister won't be your wife and won't grill meat for you anymore."
The orange-haired girl said sternly. The idea of "no stealing, no robbing, be a good, honest kid" she was trying to instill was completely different from the Saiyan education Paragus had given Broly.
In Paragus's worldview, anything could be taken as long as you had the strength, up to and including the throne under your own king's butt.
The clash of values left Broly a bit confused. But with the help of grilled meat, he quickly took Taiga's side.
To put it simply, the wife currently grilling meat for him—everything she said was right. Broly would nod and agree unconditionally.
As for the old man Paragus's traditional Saiyan values, those did not need much consideration under present circumstances.
Right now, Broly's brain belonged to the Sage of Barbecue. Everything Taiga said was like truth itself, leaving grooves in his mind along with every bite of delicious grilled meat.
The meal cost nearly 30,000 yen, 90% of the meat going into Broly alone.
At the register, the owner could only be thankful he had not opened as an all-you-can-eat place. Even so, he was sweating.
Back at the Fujimura estate, once Broly had nothing to do, he suddenly did not know what to occupy himself with. Spotting the large tree in the back garden, with its lush green leaves that felt somehow familiar, he scrambled up.
"Not soft at all."
But once he lay on the branches, he found this thing that was the same color as Baaya's body was nothing like Baaya to lie on.
"Going home, huh?"
Sakura's successful return home, and the joy she had shown on the surface, had left a mark on the very young Broly.
With nothing to do now, he began to think about what he usually did on Planet Vampa when he had free time.
He would lie on Baaya's body, looking up at the sky that was almost always a cloudless blue. The sky above him now was the same color, but it had white clouds drifting through it. On water-poor Planet Vampa, that kind of scene had been very rare.
"That cloud… looks like the ice cream I just ate."
Broly licked his lips, as if still savoring the dessert he had ordered along with the barbecue.
Fortunately, he had just eaten. He was not too tempted.
"And that cloud…"
Time passed as he tried to decide what the clouds looked like. Gradually, he fell asleep in the tree.
By evening, the smell of food woke him.
He jumped down from the tree without anyone noticing what he had been up to.
Following the aroma to the kitchen, he saw the cooks busily working and thought of Taiga coming to call him to breakfast that morning. So he turned and ran back out of the kitchen.
He went to the room Taiga had told him last night he could come to if he needed anything. Sliding the door open, he barged in.
In the tatami-lined bedroom, a low square table sat in the center. When Broly came in, the orange-haired girl was hunched over it, writing furiously.
"What are you doing?"
As he came up behind her and asked in curiosity, Taiga jumped. Her ballpoint pen skidded right out of the grid on her notebook.
"Don't sneak up behind me and talk all of a sudden. You'll scare me to death!"
She complained, then grabbed some white-out to erase the stray pen mark.
"So, what are you doing?"
"Homework. I am a student, you know."
"What's a student?"
"There you go again. Kids shouldn't ask so many questions."
She pulled him into her arms and started rubbing his head.
Still, given his circumstances, she forced herself to answer patiently.
"A student is someone who studies knowledge.
"If you want to live in this society, you have to learn things.
"So, Broly, do you want to learn knowledge?"
"Can knowledge be eaten?"
"Knowledge isn't something you eat. But if you study well, you can get into a good school. If you graduate from a good school, it's easier to get a good job. With a good job you can earn more money, and with more money you can buy all kinds of food you like. So, you could say it's 'edible.'"
Taiga guided him step by step.
"Then…"
Broly thought for a moment, suddenly slipped out of her embrace, and went limp to his knees at her side.
"Wife, I want to learn!"
With his small hands on the floor and his head bowed in a dejected pose, Broly said this.
"Eh?!"
Taiga stared, dumbfounded, having no idea what he was doing. It looked like he was begging for something, but it was not quite dogeza either.
"You don't have to do that. If you want to go to school, I'll just ask Grandpa."
As soon as she said that, Broly answered "Oh," and popped right back to his feet.
The information in his head had not lied to him. It had given him a very effective way to ask for things.
Clearly, the shut-in otaku's fragmented memories were acting up again.
A famous scene from Slam Dunk had been reenacted in the Type-Moon world.
Sadly, no one here was likely to get the reference.
"Right, did you come into my room for something?"
Taiga asked.
"I came to tell you it's time to eat."
Broly said honestly.
"What, scared to eat alone?"
Taiga assumed the boy was a bit intimidated by the yakuza in the estate and did not want to eat with that crowd.
"No. You came to call me to breakfast this morning, so I thought I should come call you to dinner."
Broly shook his head and gave his real reason.
"Eh?!"
Taiga froze, then suddenly hugged him.
"Broly, you're really cheating, you know that?!"
She rubbed her face against his.
For an only child like her, this kind of adorable, well-behaved little brother type hit every one of her preferences.
Yes, he was scary and exhausting when he got into question mode. But the fact that he came to drag her away from homework because she had woken him for breakfast that morning…
It sounded ordinary. For someone who had a little brother and was used to being called to meals, it was ordinary.
But for her? Even if someone cared enough to call her to eat, it would just be some big, burly yakuza—like that scar-faced guy.
Now look at this kid, happily accepting hugs and cheek rubs. How could that lunkhead compare?
As Taiga rubbed his cheek, her Happiness Value kept climbing, only stopping when it reached 55.
"Can we go eat now?"
Broly finally asked. He did not really understand why his one sentence had made her so excited and happy.
"Sorry, big sister will go eat with you right now."
Taiga replied with a bright smile. They had only known each other for a bit more than a day, but being around this boundary-less kid felt just like suddenly having a well-behaved little brother.
While the two of them were heading to the Fujimura dining hall, next door at the former Fujimura residence—just sold yesterday—magus killer Kiritsugu Emiya was feeling a bit depressed.
"It seems being too cautious isn't always a good thing."
Running into the Tohsaka girl who had been adopted by the Matou family at the Fujimura estate yesterday had set Kiritsugu's mind spinning.
He had even gone out today to investigate it. Before he could turn up anything, the Tohsaka girl adopted by the Matou family had been sent straight back to the Tohsaka house.
Thinking it over, Kiritsugu realized that running into her really might have been just a coincidence. He had not been discovered. No conspiracy was closing in on him.
But because of that overcautious mindset, he had wasted an entire day of potential rest. With his already short sleep, that made things even worse.
"Maybe we should call off tonight's operation and let you sleep."
Maiya Hisau suggested.
"No. In the Holy Grail War, every second counts. Something definitely happened between the Tohsaka and Matou families. I need to use this opportunity to quickly take care of that Clock Tower lord…"
Kiritsugu rejected her idea.
Before coming to Fuyuki, he had devised a fishing plan—having his wife Irisviel pose as Saber's Master and trying to lure enemies out.
The good news was, they got hits. The bad news was, nearly every possible enemy showed up, and one even casually announced his real name.
None of that was the real issue. The real problem lay with the first to bite: a Lancer whose spear skills were genuinely impressive.
His martial prowess had actually allowed him to wound Saber, the supposedly invincible King of Knights. Worse, the lance, a Noble Phantasm, carried a powerful curse that prevented the wound from healing.
Their opening gambit had failed, and his Servant had been slapped with a nasty debuff. It was a deeply annoying situation.
Thus, Kenneth El‑Melloi Archibald, the formidable Lord of the Mineral Department at the Clock Tower—one of the hardest enemies in this war—had become a top-priority target.
More importantly, that highly skilled magus seemed to hold mundane methods in contempt.
Upon arriving in Fuyuki, he had ostentatiously chosen a luxury hotel, bought out the top two floors, and turned them into a heavily fortified magical workshop.
For an ordinary magus, storming that place would be nearly impossible. But what if you used non-magus methods?
Among the supplies Kiritsugu had procured were large quantities of detonators and explosives. He intended to give that Clock Tower lord a chance to experience the deep, profound love of Mother Earth—gravity!