MMMS 117

On the road back to Einzbern Castle, the forest stretched dark and still beneath a sky so clear it looked carved from glass. Cold starlight filtered through the trees, tracing silver along the path.

Ryuuto walked ahead, the Chains of Heaven slack between his fingers. Morgan and Artoria flanked him at a steady pace. Irisviel followed close, her breath visible in the night air.

“So this is what once bound the Bull of Heaven…” he muttered. “If the user’s strong enough, it could even hold Mother still—for a full hour…”

He twisted a loop of chain around his palm, gaze distant. And then—just like that—his thoughts drifted somewhere far less appropriate.

Tiamat bound in increasingly obscene positions… one image more outrageous than the last.

“Ugh. No. Absolutely not.” He shook his head hard.

“…Gross. That smile was disgusting,” Morgan said.

When he looked up, all three women were staring at him. Artoria’s brow was furrowed. Irisviel looked confused. Morgan had already put a full step of distance between them.

He coughed. Twice. Loudly. “Ahem. Anyway… all five enemy Servants are down. Only the Grail’s descent remains.”

"...Yes," Irisviel said softly. "This day... it’s finally here."

She exhaled and stretched, arms raised above her head. “I’m exhausted. First thing I’m doing when we get back is taking a hot bath.”

“You didn’t even fight,” Artoria said with a smile.

“I did,” Irisviel pouted. “Lancer was being mean again, and even I got sand everywhere. It got in my clothes!”

With no warning, she slipped next to Ryuuto and wrapped her arms around his. Like a puppy that decided it belonged to him.

“Will Lord Ryuuto sleep in my room tonight?” she asked sweetly.

“Mm… no. I’m just going to take a shower and crash in my own room,” he said, shaking his head.

Morgan watched him, head slightly tilted. Then her lips curled into a slow grint. “Fufu, I never imagined our Master was a Beast.”

“A Beast…” Artoria repeated.

“Seven calamities born from humanity to destroy humanity,” Irisviel murmured, as if reciting a bedtime story. She sounded more curious than afraid. “I thought those were only rumors.”

She smiled up at him, calm and unshaken.

Of course she wasn’t afraid.

She’d never been human to begin with.

“Ugh…” Artoria let out a faint sound beside them, her expression flickering with dismay.

She’d suspected the truth ever since Ryuuto overwhelmed Gilgamesh in their first clash. But suspicion was one thing. Reality was another. Now that the truth was laid bare, something in her chest pulled tight.

Beast VI.

The very evil she once swore to destroy… was her Master.

How was she supposed to face him now? Treat him like a Master? Like a monster? Or something in between?

“…Speaking of which.”

Irisviel’s voice broke through the silence, bright and thoughtful. She tapped her chin, thinking back to the night they’d summoned their Heroic Spirit.

“When Lancer first appeared, didn’t you say your reason for coming to this world was to defeat—”

“Ah ah ah ah ah! Irisviel! Stop talking! Don’t say weird things!” Artoria lunged, flailing to shut her up. Her hands clamped over Irisviel’s mouth like a panicked schoolgirl guarding a secret.

“Mmph! Mmm—mmmmmph…!”

“What are you two doing?” Morgan asked dryly, raising a brow as she watched them.

She shook her head, stepped in close, and smoothly linked her arm through Ryuuto’s.

“Master~” she purred, eyes glinting. “Let’s ignore them and talk about our date plans instead, shall we?”

…

“Phew…”

Artoria sank into the bathtub with a quiet sigh. Her pale arms folded beneath her full chest. The heat soaked into her shoulders, loosening muscles wound tight from too much tension, too many thoughts.

The water—infused with emerald-green bath salts—steamed gently around her, casting a soft haze in the air. Against that mist, her fair skin gleamed like ivory. The gentle swell of her breasts floated just beneath the surface, touched by ripples and refracted light that made them seem otherworldly.

She leaned her head back and let her gaze drift up toward the high window, where stars sparkled like scattered gemstones. The sky above the Einzbern forest was the kind she could never find in modern cities—quiet and unusually clear.

It reminded her of when she was still king.

Back then, baths were a rare luxury. As a knight riding to war, she could seldom afford them. Being a woman in secret, she often went without entirely, relying on enchanted cleansing spells Merlin had taught her.

Even at Camelot, the duties of the throne left her little time for indulgence. A quick rinse, perhaps, before donning her armor again. But now, with no battles pressing, no crown demanding her presence, she could soak in silence, letting time slip through her fingers like warm water.

“…This feels like a vacation. What am I even doing?”

She murmured the words into the steam, half-laughing at herself.

The memories of earlier that day floated back like bubbles rising to the surface—vivid, warm, and ridiculous.

Her elder sister on one arm. She herself on the other. And between them, their Master—head barely reaching their shoulders—as the three of them walked down the busy streets of Shinto.

People had glanced their way. Not with suspicion, but with curiosity. Admiration, even. Artoria remembered the thrill of it.

At the restaurant, she’d pressed close to him, leaned in sweetly, and opened her mouth with a playful “ah”—letting him feed her with a blush on his cheeks. His breath, warm and near. The food delicious. His eyes closer still.

It hadn’t felt like a mission. Or duty. It had just… felt right.

Then came the arcade. The fighting games. Her pride shattered in match after match as Ryuuto demolished her without mercy. She’d sulked. Actually sulked. Even pouted. And he’d just laughed.

And when he handed her the lion plushie he won at the claw machine—presented with the casual grandeur of a knight offering a crown—her heart had actually fluttered.

By the time she returned to her room that night, she didn’t know what she felt. Embarrassed, a little. Overjoyed, definitely. It was a giddy, restless kind of happiness she’d never known as king.

She hugged her knees tighter, letting the warmth climb her cheeks again.

‘This feeling… how do you even describe it?’

If there’d been a bed nearby, she would’ve rolled across it in wild joy.