NOVEL ONLINE FREE Chapter 117: Chapter 119: Please Kick Me
"Master, you're so mean! You went to Tokyo to have a big meal all by yourself." Arturia pouted, complaining to Shinji.
"If you wanted to go, you'd have to be able to leave Fuyuki City! Didn't I bring back lots of food from Tokyo for you? What are you still unhappy about?" Shinji's face twitched, full of helplessness.
"Heh." Arturia let out a cold laugh, waving a snack package in front of Shinji. "Is this spicy senbei, a specialty of Fuyuki City, a Tokyo snack?"
'Even so, you still ate quite a bit.'
Shinji raised his eyes, blowing the bangs on his forehead one by one to express his inner frustration.
When he returned from Tokyo, he had already anticipated that Arturia would be angry about him eating without her, so he had specially bought a lot of snacks as compensation.
However, when Shinji thought of this, he had already returned to Fuyuki City, so he could only buy snacks from a local convenience store and pretend they were Tokyo specialties.
Unfortunately, Arturia saw through it.
Actually, Shinji didn't really mind that Arturia noticed the snacks; after all, he wasn't trying to hide it. But he was quite annoyed that Arturia thought he had been feasting in Tokyo.
The one who actually indulged was Shirou, not him!
He, Matou Shinji, hadn't eaten a single bite.
When he thought about the outrageous payment that Janice had demanded, Shinji felt uncomfortable all over.
Shirou, on the other hand, had a great time that night, to the point where Shinji felt like giving him a slap on the head, just like Li Yunlong, and saying, "Leave some for me, dammit!"
"It must have been tough for you guys to guard the house this time." Shinji smiled kindly at Arturia, speaking in a somewhat appeasing tone, "I'll treat you to two big meals later."
"Three!" Arturia said, drooling slightly at the mouth.
Shinji's face twitched again. "Fine, three it is. But why are you holding up four fingers? Put one down."
"Tsk." Arturia thought she could get away with it and get an extra meal out of him.
"Sakura, your plan didn't work." Arturia turned to complain to Matou Sakura, who was sitting on the other end of the sofa.
"Idiot, you were too obvious." Sakura sighed, pressing a hand to her forehead.
She hadn't expected the usually sharp-minded King of Knights to be so dim-witted when it came to food.
'If I traveled back to ancient Britain, could I trade a meal of king crab for the entire British Isles?' The more Sakura thought about it, the more she believed it was possible.
"How bad was the food in ancient Britain, anyway?"
"Sakura, it's not as bad as you think." Lancelot felt the need to defend the round table knights' cuisine.
"Is that so?" Sakura asked curiously.
Lancelot nodded. "It's not as refined as modern food, but aside from the mashed potatoes Gawain made, the other dishes were at least edible."
Sakura's eyes narrowed as she quietly asked, "Then why does your king act like a starving ghost?"
"Well..." Lancelot smiled wryly and explained, "Because every time we marched, the king would order the entire army to train together. This left the cooks in the army exhausted from the training, with no energy left to cook properly."
"So, whenever they made meals, these exhausted cooks would just chop up the ingredients and throw them all into the pot."
"To them, as long as the food was cooked, their task was complete."
"Pfft—"
Shinji, who had been eavesdropping on the conversation, couldn't help but spit out his water.
"Onii-sama!"
"Sorry..." Shinji apologized between coughs. "Now I understand why Arturia always says, 'It was terrible!' with such a gloomy face whenever we ask about British food."
"Why didn't you tell her?" Sakura continued to ask.
Lancelot smiled wryly for the second time. "Merlin said that the king needed to discover this on her own to truly understand human nature. Besides, Merlin also said that the king struggling with food was... very cute."
Back then, Lancelot hadn't understood what Merlin meant by this because he still thought of Arturia as male.
But after learning the truth... Lancelot could only agree wholeheartedly—"Merlin was right!"
"I see."
Sakura looked at Arturia, who was still fretting over food, and imagined her troubled expression.
She immediately understood.
"I see? You're full of nonsense."
Shinji knocked on his sister's head. "Didn't you say you didn't want to watch UBW? Why are you watching TV with us today?"
Sakura covered her mouth, chuckling softly. "Today's episode features Emiya-senpai shining on the screen. As his kouhai, I have to cheer for him."
"Really? I feel like you have ulterior motives."
Today's UBW episode did feature Shirou in a cool moment, but it also portrayed Shinji getting humiliated.
Shinji had every reason to suspect that his sister was here to mock him.
"Onii-sama, how can you say that about your cute little sister?"
Sakura pretended to wipe away non-existent tears from the corners of her eyes, speaking in a pitiful tone.
"I'm just here to support your show."
"If you really want to support it, why don't you go to the bedroom and turn on the second TV? At least that might boost the ratings a bit." Shinji joked.
Of course, this was just a joke—Japanese TV ratings weren't that simple.
The real reason Sakura chose to watch with Shinji was that her scenes with Medusa had mostly concluded, so she could finally relax and enjoy UBW.
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Sakura wasn't the only one eagerly awaiting the latest episode.
Everyone who watched the last episode was looking forward to today's.
According to the preview, today would feature the showdown between Emiya Shirou and Archer.
The audience, who hadn't seen much like this before, were all practically drooling over the scene.
Even though the ratings might be slightly lower due to it being a weekday, the discussion and attention around this episode were definitely not going to lose to episode 8—perhaps even surpassing it.
"Alice, who do you think will win?" Aoko wondered out loud, "I think Archer will win. He looks stronger."
However, Alice's guess differed from Aoko's: "It should be Shirou. Sir Matou said that in commercial stories, the protagonist holds a special position."
"But can a human really beat a Servant?" Aoko was skeptical. "If they could, Kuzuki wouldn't have died."
"Sir Matou probably has his own considerations... maybe." Alice herself wasn't entirely sure about the outcome of the fight.
After all, the battle between Shirou and Archer was the biggest suspense of this episode, and no one outside the production team knew the outcome.
Everyone was dying to know who would win in the showdown between Emiya Shirou and EMIYA, but there was no way Shinji would reveal the result so easily.
The ninth episode opened with a scene continuing from the end of the eighth episode, where Archer unleashed his Unlimited Blade Works.
Despite activating his Reality Marble, Archer had no intention of using it to kill Saber.
After intimidating the greatest obstacle, the King of Knights, and teaching Shirou a lesson, Archer kidnapped Rin Tohsaka.
Then, Archer made his demand—to fight in a place where no one would interrupt them after school.
So Shirou proposed the now-abandoned Einzbern Castle as the battleground for their duel.
"This was once the place where Kiritsugu Emiya and Kayneth fought. Now, it's become the battleground for Kiritsugu's adopted son's internal struggle. I wonder what Kiritsugu would think if he knew?"
Aoko, gazing at Archer as he meditated in the ruined castle, recalled the extended edition of Fate/Zero's DVD special that Alice had shown her—the conversation between Kiritsugu Emiya and his wife Irisviel after Kiritsugu's death.
In that conversation, Kiritsugu apologized to Irisviel, expressing his regrets in life.
But at the end, Kiritsugu confidently expressed his expectations for Emiya Shirou.
Kiritsugu believed that if it were Shirou, he could achieve his dream without becoming a failure like himself or regretting his past.
However, from Archer, Aoko realized that Shirou had only fulfilled the first half of Kiritsugu's expectations.
Emiya Shirou did become a hero, but he deeply regretted his choice, to the point where he wanted to kill his past self for making it.
"If Kiritsugu knew that Shirou would end up like this, he would probably cry, wouldn't he?" Aoko sighed. "Why don't they start fighting already? All this stalling is so annoying!"
On the TV screen, the scene of Shinji and Gilgamesh confronting Archer was playing.
This was a transitional scene before the big battle, but the audience wasn't too interested in it.
Well, maybe not entirely disinterested—at least Rin Tohsaka's legs in black stockings were very eye-catching.
So when Shinji on screen teased Rin, only to get a kick in the face from her pointed toe, many male viewers' first reaction was that it looked incredibly satisfying and they wished Rin would kick them too.
In contrast, Sakura, who had witnessed the filming process and knew how the red mark on Shinji's face came about, couldn't help but laugh.
"Tohsaka-senpai really hit you hard... but that mark suits you, Onii-sama. Now you know that being a playboy isn't a good idea, right?"
Seeing his sister laughing and speaking with such effort, Shinji's face darkened.
What a humiliating moment!
If only he'd known Rin would get so worked up, he wouldn't have been so quick with his tongue.
But there was no regret pill to take, and no magic to reverse time.
'Come to think of it, was this scene where I got hit included in the behind-the-scenes footage?'
The editing of the behind-the-scenes footage wasn't usually handled by Shinji himself; he only instructed the editor on which scenes to include.
'I'll have to check tomorrow. If it's there, I must delete it!'
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