A short while later—
"Relax. I told you, I came to Fuyuki for something important. I'm not leaving until it's done."
Baiye stopped, helpless. He'd gained a literal shadow-ghost: wherever he went, Sakura followed. He turned and looked at the little tail behind him.
"..."
Sakura pressed her lips together and said nothing.
"Fine. Follow if you want," Baiye sighed.
Her thoughts weren't hard to guess.
She'd barely walked through the door before Zouken Matou dragged her into the worm pit. If she said her initial impression of the Matou household was -10000, it wouldn't be exaggeration.
As for the Tohsakas…
Baiye had talked with her after rescuing her yesterday. She'd said Tokiomi Tohsaka had explained—carefully—why he was sending her to the Matous. Sakura hadn't understood everything, but she remembered the core: "Leaving is good for you and your sister."
That was why, when Baiye asked in the worm pit whether she wanted to return to the Tohsaka home, she'd answered, "I can't go back."
And considering it was Tokiomi himself who handed her to the very man who tossed her into the pit the moment she arrived… even if Baiye said that, by magi standards, Tokiomi wouldn't risk probing an ally's foundation and likely didn't know how twisted Zouken had become—
How Sakura felt about Tokiomi right now was anyone's guess.
New home: negative affection. Old home: unreachable.
So naturally, she clung to the one hand that had pulled her from the water—Baiye.
They entered the kitchen.
Everything—pots, pans, cabinets, stove—had been replaced. Rice, flour, vegetables—fresh and stocked. Baiye nodded with satisfaction. After asking Sakura what she liked, he used a chunk of winged-lion meat he'd conveniently brought back from Esdeath's world and set a meat porridge to simmer.
The person who'd renovated the kitchen was Zouken's eldest son and the Matou family's "public" head: Tsuruno Matou.
Yesterday, after Baiye dealt with Zouken and led Sakura out of the now-bugless underground pit, he ran into Tsuruno—who'd come to investigate after hearing Baiye's final, insect-clearing lion's roar.
After a round of friendly negotiation—
Learning that Zouken was dead and that Sakura would inherit the name "Matou," Tsuruno happily agreed that "Sakura Matou will be the head of the Matou household from today onward." He also promised to manage the family's mundane assets until Sakura came of age, at which point she could decide whether he stayed on or retired with a payout.
—Don't misunderstand. "Friendly negotiation" meant exactly what it said. Tsuruno's "happiness" was genuine.
Why?
Because the magus named Zouken Matou, who threw Sakura into the pit the moment he got her, was merely being "consistent" with his own bloodline.
As his soul rotted under centuries of erosion, Zouken started applying his vile amusements to his clan as well.
By Tsuruno's generation, even though Tsuruno's aptitude was so poor he was only a nominal heir, he still understood exactly what kind of monster his "father" (actually an ancestor five generations back) was.
Before, there was no choice—he endured fear of Zouken and disgust for the Matou craft.
Now Zouken was gone. By Baiye's arrangement, the Matou family's enormous worldly fortune would be under Tsuruno's control for the next decade-plus. Even in the worst case, when Sakura came of age and stripped him of authority, he'd still retire with enough wealth for him and his son to live carefree for the rest of their lives.
It wasn't exaggeration to say that Tsuruno—who had grabbed his son Shinji Matou overnight and checked into a luxury suite in Shinto—had been bouncing down the street.
While the porridge simmered, Baiye talked Sakura through what would happen next, so they wouldn't repeat this morning's misunderstanding—where he merely stepped out and she thought she'd been abandoned again.
"You'll often leave like last night…" Sakura blinked. "Then those books in the study… aren't they useful to you anymore?"
"Not quite," Baiye shook his head. "It's just that, for now, the other side helps me more."
Zouken had lived five hundred years and once traded knowledge with legends like Leonardo da Vinci and Paracelsus. Even if, in the last century or two, he'd mostly squatted in Japan and rarely traveled, his earlier three centuries of collecting were still impressive.
Analyses of basic magecraft, exploration of concepts like Origin and the Root, practical tests of modern magecraft, research chasing the Age of Gods… Judging by the dust and wear, Zouken probably hadn't touched those books in a century. But they were real, lined up on the Matou study shelves.
Unfortunately—
"Magic Circuits…" Baiye sighed inwardly.
The hard gatekeeping of "innate aptitude" kept him outside the world of magecraft.
He could only hope the Fourth Holy Grail War, one year from now, would go smoothly.
Compared to the Matou library—which was largely useless to him at the moment—the danger-beast meat in Esdeath's world offered immediate, tangible benefits.
As long as you could eat, you could break human limits—no talent required.
And Esdeath was unusually generous as a world owner:
"I'm not interested in this sort of thing right now. My regular hunts cover my needs.
I want battle. I want strength.
But if you need danger-beast flesh, I can keep the task posted so you can hunt yourselves. As long as you don't go too far, you can take your kills with you."
That was her response when Chika, feeling the combined benefits of danger-beast meat and Baiye's posture, asked whether Esdeath wanted to set up a long-term trade.
"Help…?" Sakura bit her lip. "If I can keep helping you, Onii-chan… then you'll never leave me behind again?"
"What are you thinking?" Baiye ruffled her hair. "Sakura's this cute—help or no help, I wouldn't—huh?" / "Mm~"
The Command Spells on Baiye's hand—marks that had appeared years ago after he dealt with a serial killer named Ryunosuke Uryuu and had remained dormant ever since—suddenly activated, sending a burst of information into his mind.
Before he could process why, he looked over—following a moan-like sound that rose at nearly the same moment—and saw three vivid red marks appearing on Sakura's hand.
…Wait. That's allowed?
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