To love a sword

Chapter 7: Zastin

Beta read by Shigiya and Paragon of Awesomeness

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-Early morning-

The morning turned out to be weirder than she expected. No… Come to think of it, things had actually been weird since yesterday.

First, a random meteorite of all things crashed into Sainan High School, apparently nearly hitting her brother, Shirou, and another girl just when Rito was about to confess to Haruna Sairenji. Then later that night, she finds her oldest brother gone from the house and showing back up at the front door hours later with a beautiful sleeping cosplayer in his arms, saying she was their new guest.

First off, she’d never seen him together with this girl before, yet she kept mumbling suspicious things in her sleep while Shirou was clearly trying to divert her attention. He then set the girl to sleep on the living room couch after gathering some pillows and blankets for her.

'He even took off all her clothes! What is going on here!?'

She checked on her after Shirou went to bed, and the possibility that her brother and this girl were close enough for him to undress her butt-naked raised plenty of alarms in her head. Did something happen while she wasn't paying any attention? Did her brother somehow get into a relationship with a foreign girl without anyone finding out?

So many questions passed through her head, yet she didn't have a single answer.

Furthermore, another strange thing happened this morning.

"Please, take this gift as thanks for taking care of Lala-sama and as an apology to the one known as Yuuki Emiya Shirou-sama!"

"Yes, we have bought the finest ingredients you Earthl—I mean food the Japanese like to consume daily. We have scoured the world wide web for the best options just for you and your family."

Two weirdos came to her house's doorstep early in the morning. Both of them looked like they fell inside a blender and into a pit of fire, in that order. They were covered with many layers of white bandages that some of the neighbors mistook for mummy cosplayers while smelling like charbroiled meat, which attracted the attention of several neighborhood dogs and cats.

They quickly left with a number of dogs hounding after them, though only after having dropped off a large grocery bag filled with expensive fruits and weird vegetables she didn't recognize. Mikan stood there for a few minutes, staring at the items with sunken eyes, and waited. Her lack of sleep didn't help, she was already having a headache before even going to school.

Wanting to clear her mind, she dropped the goods on the table before going to the garden. The clock on the wall still showed that it was ten minutes before six o'clock, just ten more minutes before Shirou would wake up for his daily exercise in the shed. Why he always trained so hard every day despite already having a body that made all her school friends blush at the mere thought of him and forced her imagination to go wild many times — completely against her own will, for the record! — was a mystery.

"Well, might as well water the plants." This wasn't something she did often, her brothers always took care of the garden every day. "I'll take some pills before going to school… or I can just have a nap in the infirmary."

A few minutes later, she filled the watering can and began using it on every flower and plant around her. She had been observing Shirou and Rito do this task for years, so Mikan knew the right amount to use. Her eyes went to the patio, where she used to sit on Shirou's lap while he would always read her stories of all kinds.