Aiko shifted around in her restless sleep. Rousing from her slumber, she uncurled her body and looked around the room. It was a decent-sized room with minimal decoration and tatami mat flooring. She heard someone clearing their throat and saw a very unamused Iihito staring back at her.
“Please don’t do that again. I think I only slept for 4 hours this time…”
Tilting her head as she got off her friend's legs, Aiko furrowed her brows. "How did I even end up here?"
“I don’t know, you kinda just plopped onto my legs all of a sudden…”
Aiko shuffled around the room, glancing at Iihito with a sheepish look. "I'm so sorry. I haven't sleep-walked for a few months, so I thought I was done with that. This is so embarrassing."
“It’s all good. Just taking note to lock my door the next time I sleep.”
Sniffing the air, Aiko smelled something delicious. Her eyes shone and her ears perked up in response to the sound of food cooking in the kitchen. "Right. I'm just going to go check on breakfast. I can smell it cooking right now."
“Mhm, I’mma just go brush my teeth. Be there for breakfast real quick.”
Nodding at the odd habit, Aiko walked out of the room and followed her nose to the kitchen where Shirou was cooking breakfast.
Shapeshifting herself to look more human, she snuck up behind Shirou, and spoke into his ear. "Hey. Need a hand with anything?"
“Oh, no. I’m almost done with everything. Thanks for asking though.” Shirou smiled before finishing off the final plate of breakfast.
Washing her hands in the nearby sink, Aiko looked around the kitchen. "Let me help set the table at least then."
“Oh no, I’m almost done with that too. The last plate was the one I was preparing for myself.” Shirou continued to smile.
Aiko walked over to go sit at the table with a quiet sigh. "Ah. Well. Okay. I'll just go wait for everyone else to be ready then."
Soon after she sat down she heard a loud slam, and a certain excitable tiger began to yell from the front door. "Shiiirrrou! FOOD!"
“Yes yes, breakfast is on the table. Please remove your shoes before entering the room.” Shirou responded, unfazed by Taiga’s sudden appearance, before placing his breakfast on the table.
Heading towards the table, Taiga glanced towards the new face in the room. “Who’s she?”
Aiko glanced at Kiritsugu with a questioning eyebrow. Receiving a nod, she smiled and got up to introduce herself. "Usagi Aiko. One of Kiritsugu's colleagues."
Looking between the two of them, Taiga decided not to press for details she probably didn't want to know. "Huh. Alright."
Walking into the room, Iihito took a seat before making a sign of the cross. Finishing off with a rather Japanese “Itadakimasu.” Clapping her hand together before taking a look at the breakfast infront of her.
Almost halfway done with her food, Taiga paused. "There's another one!?"
“Hmm?” Iihito looked back towards Taiga. “Can I help you?”
Finishing off her food, she slammed down her plate. "Are you also working with Kiritsugu?"
“In a way, I’m here to treat Kiritsugu’s conditions. He was experiencing severe lethargy and kidney disease, so Aiko brought me here to help out one of her colleagues.” Iihito answered before taking the first bite of her breakfast.
Looking as if she had come to a realization, Taiga leaned forward to examine Kiritsugu. Seeing that he seemed to be doing better, she leaned back and exclaimed, "So that's what it was! I knew he wasn't feeling well lately."
“Mhm, also you’re a teacher right? I’m quite underaged by Japanese standards so I’m meaning to find a school to attend to. Can’t get away from education if I’m just 13 years old, you know?”
Blinking as her mind caught up with the words being spoken, Taiga seemed to be experiencing the equivalent of a blue screen of death. "Wait. You're thirteen? Seriously?"
“Yeah… Just because I can patch people up a bit doesn’t mean I’m a fully fledged doctor.” Iihito said before going back to her meal.
Taiga looked at Kiritsugu and back at Iihito in slight agitation. "Kiri, you mean to say you hired a doctor that's not even out of grade school? Is she even qualified?"
“I didn’t hire her, Aiko did. And she was able to pull off what most doctors couldn’t.” Kiritsugu rested his eyes.
Looking up from her now finished meal, Aiko gave Taiga a knowing smile. "You get to know a lot of really weird people in our line of work. Some of them just happen to be actually amazing."
Iihito pretended not to listen in.
Tapping her finger on the table, Taiga made up her mind. "You know what? I'll ask around about getting you tested for school. I'm sure it will be good to actually get the graduation papers at least for proof of education if you want to go to university later on."
Nodding along, Iihito took a sip from her tea. “Mhm…”
~~Line break down~~
A few days later, Taiga came back with a bundle of tests. Slamming them down on the table, she grinned at Iihito. "Alright. I grabbed some placement tests for the school I work for, since they had a few extra places this year fit students. I accidentally printed off a few too many copies though, so I thought we might as well have fun with it. Let's see who gets the best score!"
“Uhh, that seems kind of unfair…” Iihito attempted to chime in.
Laying her head on the table, Aiko sighed. "Extremely unfair. There is no way I'd beat her."
Shirou tilted his head in confusion. “Eh? Why so?”
“Aiko was a child soldier who grew up in an environment where traditional education wasn’t as important as learning ways to kill a man.” Iihoto clarified. “Ask her about how the human body works and she’ll come up with blanks, but ask what the important organs are and how disrupting such organs would kill a person. She'll be able to give you a bucket list of details, all of them in great detail.”
Taiga teared up at the implications of Aiko’s life. "That's terrible! What if you wanted out of that life? You can't get a normal job without an education! And what if you need to count the money on your paycheque? Here, do this test so I know how bad it is." She exclaimed as she slapped the tests down in front of them.
“I’ll go grab something you could use to write with,” Shirou said before leaving the room, returning minutes later with a pencil and an eraser.
“We’re not going to test her with a time limit are we?” Iihito asked, recalling her years in 12th grade. The time was honestly a bigger problem than her solving equations.
Thinking about it for a minute, Taiga tapped her chin. "We kinda have to, it's policy. I'll give her an hour and a half to finish it."
Groaning from where she sat with her face on the table, Aiko sat up and took the pencil and eraser. Sitting ready to tackle the stack of papers, Aiko gained a determined expression. "All right. I'm ready."
Drawing her phone, Iihito set the timer to an hour and thirty minutes. “Ok… And I’ll give you five minutes to review the questions before we begin. Don’t touch your pencil.”
Scanning over the documents, Aiko's face went from one of determination to one of horror, then despair set in. "I'm gonna fail so bad."
~~Later~~
Iihito winced at Aiko’s papers. Taking a deep breath, she handed Taiga her phone. “I’m going to leave before I say anything that could influence her answers…”
Iihito quickly left the room shortly after.
Shirou on the other hand decided to help her out. “If you can’t answer a question, you could skip it and go back to it later.”
Kiritsugu suppressed the urge to facepalm.
~~Even Later~~
The alarm rang out its jaunty tune, and the poor girl jumped out of her seat from surprise. "Wah! Done already? But I couldn't even answer half of them!"
Taking the papers and scanning through them, Taiga smiled at her. "Well, technically with the ones you did answer, that just means you are about second-year high school level."
With a dumbfounded expression, Aiko stared at Taiga in disbelief. "Seriously? That's crazy."
Looking over at Iihito, Taiga grinned in excitement. "Iihito on the other hand… You have beyond third-year level scores, but we should probably just put you in the first year so you don't stand out too much for your age."
“Sure, I’ll just tutor Aiko if she wants.”
Aiko decided to go for a walk with a heavy sigh. "Please do. Later though, I need some air to clear my head."
“Alright, just make sure you’re back before the sun sets.” Iihito shouted as Aiko left the door.
~~Walking? Sounds like fun!~~
As Aiko walked down the pier, she noticed a large ship sailing into a nearby dock. Settling in to watch it unload for a bit, she heard a loud commotion happening somewhere on the ship itself. "Huh, I wonder what's happening."
Deciding to get a closer look, Aiko wandered over to see what was up.
Two sailors chased a young man on the deck. When they cornered the stowaway, he decided to jump over the railing and into the water. The sailors yelled in alarm and looked over the edge, seeing nothing but the blue water. The young man surfaced under the dock out of their sight. After failing to bring him in, they cursed and walked away to help with unloading.
Calling out to him, being wary not to draw any attention, she motioned for him to follow her. "Come find me when you escape."
He nodded and looked around for any way to get out unnoticed. Seeing an open sewage pipe near him that seemed large enough, he grimaced and crawled inside.
Watching this with a grimace of her own, she walked her way along the dock to the nearest manhole that was out of sight, and away from the docks. Gripping the manhole cover with her bare hands, she lifted it off and looked inside. A minute later, the man emerged from it, his body covered in a brownish-grey sludge. He took a deep breath of the urban air, his scrunched face softening. He tried to smile but achieved only a disgusted frown. “You called for me?”
Plopping the manhole cover back where it was supposed to be, Aiko shrugged. "Let me just hose you down first."
Pulling out a super soaker from behind her back, she sprayed him down with medium-high pressure and almost hot soapy water. She did a full circle around him, making sure to get every inch of the filth off of his body. She even left him smelling vaguely of mint. "That should do it."
He shook some of the water off, spitting out what got in his mouth. “Much appreciated, but how?”
With a shake of her head, Aiko stifled a laugh. "Ufufu. It's just one of the perks of my NFF Services. Let's walk while we talk, the air here is still foul."
He scratched his chin, his eyes squinting a little as he let out a sly smile. “Fine then. Keep your secrets oh ‘Great and Powerful One.’ Make sure to keep the knife off of my back, okay?”
With a nostalgic smile, Aiko sighed. "Hah. You remind me of a good friend of mine. He was really fun. It almost makes me wonder."
His eyebrows scrunched up a smidge, his smile growing wider. “Can I ask what his name is? There is only one of me, but a close second will be fun to learn about.”
Turning to him with a sly smile of her own, Aiko had an inkling feeling that he was someone she knew, and she hoped she was correct. "I knew him as Alanstrocity. He was an absolute treat to write with. We meshed really well."
His eyes widened in surprise before he broke out into a grin. “Well! If it isn’t the fox girl addict. Have you become what you so desperately wanted to have?”
Smiling, Aiko began to lead him back to where she was staying. "Kind of. But technically my servant form is also a bunny."
“Unfortunate. Still, you’re a floof. So not all is lost.”
Aiko guided him along the sparsely populated streets and back towards the Emiya residence. "Well. If you come with me, I'll see about getting you set up where I am staying for now. You'll probably need to convince them yourself though, I'm really not good at people stuff."
He nodded his head with gusto. “Sure! Oh, I go by Raynell now. Lead onwards! I’m dying of malnutrition!”
Nodding with a smile, she brought them to a stop in front of a large manor. "I can hear that. Your guts are trying to eat themselves." she noted. "I should tell you my name before we go in. Aiko is my chosen name in this world and Usagi is my family name. Usually in Japan they use Family names unless you're super close, so that means you can call me Aiko. Also, you'll probably be able to get away with it in most cases anyways, since you're extremely obviously a foreigner."
Walking up to the door, she knocked three times, and called out to the owners. "Mr Emiya! I'm back!"
Walking towards the gate door, Kiritsugu stared blankly towards the two.
“Aiko, who is that person you brought along with you?”
Waving to Raynell's… Everything, Aiko beamed. "A friend from back home! I wasn't expecting him at all!"
“A… friend?” Kiritsugu raised his brow.
Raynell nodded his head. “Yup! Caught word that Aiko was heading to Japan. Didn’t have the money for the ticket though. Kinda had to become a stowaway…”
Kiritsugu deadpanned. “Excuse me for a moment.”
Minutes later he came back with Iihito. “Can you repeat what you had just said to me?”
“Oh, hey Alan.” Iihito waved toward him.
“Hey!” Raynell’s face lit up, then his face began to scrunch. “I’m sorry dude. I recognize your face, but it’s really hard for me to remember names.”
“Really? That’s a surprise, I usually show up as a red vampire loli in front of you.”
“Huh, must have changed make-up, haven’t you Ozzy?” He pumped his fist in excitement.
“Nah, someone just shoved it to my face when I was asleep.” Turning towards Kiritsugu Iihito asked. “So, what do you need me for?”
“Originally I intended for you to see if he was lying or not. However, seeing how friendly you are acting in front of him, I’ll assume he is friendly.” The man admitted. “I’m assuming you want to strike the same deal as last time?”
Raynell scratched his cheek. “A roof over my head full blown meals? Definitely! With me here, you don’t need to worry about any medical bills!”
“We already have someone who could do that,” Kiritsugu responded before being interrupted by the person in question.
“Mine is a noble phantasm, also it only cures things. It doesn’t heal. I think it’ll be smarter if I didn’t have to reveal my noble phantasm’s true name whenever someone needs to remove a curse would it not?”
“You have a point.” Kiritsugu nodded. “Very well, so long as you are of no harm to our family.”
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