Fate/Still in the Kitchen
"My lord, why is there no option to assassinate the enemy trainer?"
"Ah, it's a game for children? Violence between humans is seriously restricted."
"But if one knows that a fight is inevitable, surely incapacitating your foe from behind is the logical choice."
"I guess the game developers thought the whole Pokemon vs Pokemon fights would be redundant if they had that feature."
"Oh… I see, Pokemon is in the title. My lord is truly wise."
Serenity was staying in the Temple for a bit playing Medea's GBA game Pokemon Sapphire.
Sure she could have went out to scout, but you wanted to both minimize the chances she was found out to be allied with you (Master of Caster) and also to make sure she enjoys the smaller things in life.
You couldn't help but want to spoil the young woman and Medea a whole lot considering their rather dreary legends.
On the more pragmatic side, Medea was enchanting a few of the daggers/dirks carried by Serenity along with working with you on the exorcism blade.
From kīla's, to black keys, to various holy blades… we checked through various ritual and blessed weapons in Unlimited Blade Works for the concept that would be the most effective to use.
"Ah, Bingo."
"Did you find something useful?"
Medea asked you when you exclaimed Bingo all of a sudden.
"Well, I think I found one of the better bug-killing weapons that I can retrieve at the moment."
"Oh? Do tell Shirou." Sakura said as she refilled your cup with green tea.
You had convinced her to stay at the Temple until you dealt with Zouken tonight.
You may have mentioned teaching Shinji a lesson, but Sakura was adamant that Shinji wasn't "that bad".
Well, Medea determined to make some charms to ward off "violent handsome men" like Shinji just to keep Sakura safe later on.
Considering that Shinji apparently didn't have Magic Circuits according to Sakura, you supposed he wasn't a particularly huge threat.
Although you will be sure to get rid of any avenues of power for him just in case he goes full serial killer and makes a trap using Formal Craft or something to kill Sakura or you.
"It's a certain blade used by the prophet Elijah-"
"Do you mean the prophet Ilyas?" Serenity interrupted, only to shirk back in regret.
You smile at her to indicate that you weren't angry for her interruption.
Sometimes she seems to be excessively… dedicated in certain aspects, is the best way you could put it right now.
"Ah, right, he was called that in Islam if I remember. Well," You trace out the primitive yet blessed blade that had been used to slay many prophet's after Elijah had proven God's power over the prophets of Baal. "I'll be using the Hebrew one just for convenience. Elijah challenged 450 prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel to whose god would answer them. To cut a long story short, they pretty much cut themselves and cried out for ages before failing to call down fire to burn a bullock prepared as an offering. Well, fire came down for Elijah and after some scuffle, he killed all of them with a sword."
"Now, the thing is that Jewish scholars have interpreted the title of "Lord of the Flies" as the Hebrew way of calling Baʿal a pile of dung and his followers vermin. As such, over time, this blade gained some Anti-Insect and Anti-Divinity properties that had the effect of 'severing' the "vermin" from their lord. In this case, it's effective towards insects that serve a singular being."
They all had a good idea on what this blade's effect could do.
Within an area of the blade, insects with a singular or similar purpose would be rendered nearly useless or uncontrollable.
Medea then used the other weapons we experimented on to make a few enchanted blades out of some alchemy she knew that would extend and amplify the effects of that certain sword of Elijah.
… After the breakthrough, we all took a break from whatever we were doing.
Medea continued playing Final Fantasy X and happily hummed something about not being able to wait to kill 'Seymour', whatever that was about.
Serenity was clinging on to you while sitting on your lap silently as you were jotting down some cooking ideas that were "Halal" for her.
Those were mainly fish dishes.
Medea tried to do something productive just now like looking at the Greater Grail (but she wasn't feeling like it) or trying to wake Bazett up, but her coma/nightmare about Black Keys seem to be continuing.
It wasn't a physical or magecraft related issue. Something was deeply wrong… that, or it was rune magic gone wonky. You sure hope it wasn't any issue to do with curses within the soul.
"Senpai, you wouldn't mind if I cook dinner for tonight, do you?" Sakura offered.
"Ah, really, you can leave it to me Sakura. You're a guest-"
"You're technically a guest here too."
"-Well, you're more of a guest than me. So you shouldn't work yourself too hard."
"Mmm, no! Senpai is the one working too hard, so you should rest up a bit before tonight."
"Haa~ But I have this really nice Salmon Coulibiac planned, how about you do tomorrow and I do tonight?"
"Well… okay, but I'll hold you to that then, Senpai~"
"I'll count on that I suppose."
"That said, since when can you cook a French and Russian dish?"
"I've been looking up some recipes."
"Ah, I see I see! You were that worried about me beating you in Western food huh?"
Wait! Has this Shirou Emiya's cooking stagnated?
One would think having a rival cook would spur him to greater heights.
"Hmph! If you think you've caught up with me then you are sorely mistaken, my cooking rival."
"... Oh! That's strange, I always thought of you as my cooking instructor. Eh, so you one-sidedly thought of me as a rival huh… Emiya-kun~"
… What… For some reason, she was really scary all of a sudden even though she's smiling.
It also triggered some memories about that devil in red you saw in EMIYA's memories.
Wait… fuck, shit, you may have misinterpreted some parts of Shirou Emiya's relationship with Sakura Matou.
"... Um, Sakura. I think there's something we need to talk about."
And so you broke the truth to her about the whole different world thing, and your own story about the Holy Grail War. You left nothing out.
Her reaction was colourful, to say the least.
Somewhere in the middle, you realized that Sakura didn't actually caught on to you not being her Shirou even if she was getting extremely suspicious about some things. So you probably panicked unnecessarily.
You're not sure why, but after listening to your story she asked to be alone for awhile.
You expect it had to do with processing the revelations but… (Pick one)
[ ] Even so, you didn't want her to deal with it alone. So you chased after her.
[ ] You decided to leave it be, perhaps she was disappointed in you so…
[ ] Write-in
It was finally time to deal with Zouken, Sakura still needed a home for now unless she wanted to sell the house eventually, so you would preferably to this with minimal damage.
As for Medea and Serenity… (Pick one)
[ ] You asked the both of them to leave you to it. It'll be better if no Servants were present since you didn't want the Master of Caster to be associated with killing off the competition yet. (Medea goes off to plant surveillance spells and Serenity scouts around)
[ ] Have Serenity go out to scout but keep Medea cloaked nearby in case you need backup (Serenity scouts around, some Caster support in this fight)
[ ] Get Serenity to stick around while Medea can get back in the kitchen after she's done with her preparations around Fuyuki (Medea goes off to plant surveillance spells, some Assassin backup)
[ ] Tell them both to stay in the kitchen (No one other than yourself at risk of discovery, a different time for their covert activities is chosen)
[ ] Write-in
