BCloud
patreon
MMMS 5
🕑 Added 2025-03-18 23:00:33 +0000 UTCRyuuto left the Sajyou family mansion in Suginami Ward at 7:13 that morning. By 8:03, he had made his way into a private home in Chiyoda Ward across town.
It's funny—in real life, people often say Asians tend to look younger than their Western counterparts. But in anime and manga, it's usually the opposite. Characters with colorful hair and bright, distinctive eyes typically appear much younger than they actually are.
The woman standing in front of him now, Elza Saijo, was a perfect example of this phenomenon. With her German-Japanese heritage, she had striking red hair and vivid emerald eyes. Despite being nearly thirty and already a mother, her youthful face made her look like she could still be in high school.
[Elza Saijo is the Master of Archer in the First Holy Grail War of Fate/Prototype: Fragments of Sky Silver.]
"Even her figure looks like a teenager's," he muttered under his breath as he followed her through the entryway.
"Ara, Ryuuto—did you say something?" Elza turned slightly toward him with a gentle smile.
Feeling a cold shiver run down his spine, he quickly shook his head. "No, nothing at all."
Don't let Elza's sweet smile and gentle demeanor fool you—she's actually quite formidable, capable of things most ordinary Masters could never pull off. In a parallel world's Tokyo Holy Grail War, she once used all three Command Spells at once on her Servant Arash, forcing him to unleash [Stella] at 300% NP. Though to be fair, she was under Manaka's mental corruption at the time.
"Elza," Ryuuto said as he settled onto the sofa. He pulled a thick envelope of cash from his coat and placed it on the coffee table. "Here's this month's payment. I probably won't be able to come by for a while."
"Thank you so much for this." She carefully tucked the money away and bowed deeply, her face showing clear signs of guilt. "I'm really sorry—if only I could be more helpful, if I could bring in more money..."
"No, don't say that. You're already doing more than enough," he assured her. "If anyone should apologize, it's me. I'm the one who dumped this responsibility on you out of nowhere."
Elza's face brightened at his words. "That child isn't a burden at all! Honestly, if it weren't for her, I have no idea where I'd be right now. I can never thank you enough, Ryuuto. If you hadn't come along when you did..."
"Oh look, the ATM has arrived. That's a surprise." A girl's voice interrupted their conversation from the next room. Ryuuto frowned and turned toward the door as she pushed it open.
"Hey! What do you mean 'surprise'? I'm always here exactly when I say I'll be!"
‘...Was that really the part that bothered him?’ Elza paused for a moment, then put on a stern face, placing her hands on her hips as she scolded the girl who had just entered.
"Caren, that's not how you should talk to Ryuuto-niisan, understand?"
The young girl standing in the doorway looked almost otherworldly. Her skin was porcelain white, her eyes a deep golden color, and her silver hair fell in delicate curls around her face. She wore a simple black dress that made her look less like a beautiful doll and more like an angel who had somehow wandered into their ordinary house.
Her name was Caren Hortensia. About a year ago, Ryuuto had essentially kidnapped her from a church somewhere in Southern Europe. She'd had a truly miserable childhood—her mother had taken her own life, her father had abandoned both the church and his daughter, and she'd been raised by an extremely strict priest from a very young age.
In Christianity, suicide is considered a terrible sin, and as the child of both a "sinner" and a "traitor," Caren had been treated as little more than a servant at the church. They hadn't even bothered to provide her with a proper education.
Caren's life changed at nine years old when stigmata mysteriously appeared on her body. Before that, the church hardly paid her any attention. Had things continued normally, she would have faced a much harder life than most. But Ryuuto's impulsive decision completely changed her fate.
"I heard that priest's daughter has some kind of special ability—supposedly she can sense and attract daemons. I wonder if someone like me would register on her radar," he had thought.
With his typical reckless curiosity and "what's the worst that could happen?" attitude, he traveled all the way across the Eurasian continent to find the church where she was staying. As it turned out, his theory didn't pan out—she didn't react to him in any special way.
In his eyes, she was just an ordinary, quiet kid who often looked at adults like they were idiots.
As for why he took Caren from the church? It was nothing more than a spur-of-the-moment decision.
"Hey kiddo," he had said to her. "Want to come with me? I'll show you something cool."
"..."
Caren hadn't said a word. She'd simply walked over to him and silently taken his hand.
And that's how he ended up bringing her back to Japan.
So that's how two lives that should never have crossed paths somehow found each other. Elza, a single mom still grieving her 5-year-old son who died a few years back. And Caren, a 5-year-old girl whose father took off right after her mother committed suicide. Thanks to Ryuuto's meddling, they now live together in Tokyo, just like a real mother and daughter.
Funny how things run in the family. Manaka stole the Holy Grail, and Ryuuto stole a priestess—like mother, like son, apparently.
"Hey, Ryuuto," Caren said as she climbed onto his lap. She looked up at him, those bewitching golden eyes stared intently on his face. "Are you really leaving Tokyo?"
"Well, well... what's this about? Don't tell me you actually want me to stick around, Caren?"
Caren shook her head, sending her shiny silver hair swishing against his chest. "Just don't die, okay? When you come back, take me to Disneyland again."
Clearly in her mind, he was the type of person who went looking for trouble whenever he had nothing better to do.
"It's a deal," he promised without hesitation.
"...Mm." A tiny spark lit up in the child's deep golden eyes.
She quietly hopped off his lap, smoothly pulled a 10,000-yen bill from the envelope on the table, and headed toward the door.
Both Elza and Ryuuto looked at her, surprised. "Caren, where are you going?"
"Meeting my friends at the sandbox in the park."
Elza raised an eyebrow disapprovingly. "Caren, Ryuuto hardly ever visits us. Couldn't you stay home a bit longer?"
"Seeing that Ryuuto is still alive is enough. After all, he's not the type of man who just abandons children."
The incredibly self-sufficient 5-year-old sat down by the door. While slipping on her little leather shoes, she spoke without looking back, "Besides, Ryuuto and Elza are about to go to the bedroom to make a baby, right? Me staying here would be awkward, and Elza would feel embarrassed. So this third wheel is leaving now."
"...W-w-what! What are you saying?!"
In a split second, Elza's elegant face turned completely crimson, matching the deep red of her hair. She lowered her eyes and stammered, "C-Caren, don't joke around like that with adults!"
"Elza, Ryuuto, I'm going out. And one thing, feel free to do it in the house but just don't do it in my room, okay?"
Watching Caren's tiny figure walking away, Ryuuto thought to himself: ...Is this really a 5-year-old?
The door closed with a soft thud.
As soon as Caren left, he stood up from the sofa.
"Well, I should also get going. My Shinkansen leaves at 9:30 this morning."
"I'll drive you to Shinto later," Elza said after a brief pause.
"Huh? That would cost a fortune in gas."
Elza thought of Caren's earnest face and all her efforts. She let out a soft laugh. "That girl... she really sees through everything, doesn't she?" She looked at him, her cheeks still faintly pink. "We shouldn't let that child down after she went to all that trouble for us." With a smile, she grabbed his wrist and pulled him back down beside her.
She pushed the young man, who was a head shorter than her, down onto the sofa. Gently running her tongue across her red lips, she blew a warm, moist breath into his ear. "Do you have any idea how long I've been waiting for you? Thirty days feels like forever. And it's been a very long month..."
Comments
Lucas
Kkkkkk de fato uma besta
Northern Sword God
damn, getting laid already
