Interlude ~ Grand-Mama.
"Master, the food is ready."
Ritsuka, who was lazily flipping through manga in the infirmary, quickly hid the volume under the blanket upon seeing the scarlet Servant.
"Haa, Master. While you're being treated, I won't be strict, but... know your limits. Reading poetry or prose would bring far more benefit to your intellectual development."
"But I like manga."
However, the scarlet Archer, Emiya, impassively took the manga, handed the Master a plate with his special nutritious ration, and left in silence.
Some time ago, Ritsuka, bored to death, entrusted his carefully saved "Saint Quartz" to Deadpool. When asked to roll the summon exactly ten times, Deadpool, without hesitation, threw the stones into the "Fate" Heroic Spirit summoning system.
"I regret summoning him..." Ritsuka muttered.
At first, he jumped for joy when Emiya himself appeared in the Archer class. Deadpool assured him that it was a "four-star gold" or something like that – in short, a very cool Servant. But as soon as he settled in Chaldea, he immediately took over the kitchen and unilaterally took on the post of "mommy."
"De-e-ear! Your wife has come-e-e!"
Before Emiya could leave, Kiyohime flitted into the ward. She intercepted the Master's hand, which was about to eat, and armed herself with a spoon, intending to feed him personally.
"I have hands, you know..."
"Oh, dear. Do you want your other hand to break too? Come on, taste your wife's cooking. A-am!"
Ritsuka had no choice but to obediently accept food from Kiyohime's hands. "Mash, if you're anywhere nearby, save me!" he pleaded inwardly.
"Lunch has been delivered to Master in the best possible way. I apologize, I stepped away for a minute, and already there's a commotion."
"It's nothing. It's trivial for me."
Returning to the kitchen, Emiya tied on his apron with his usual gesture and immersed himself in cooking. Next to him, the red-haired woman, Rider Boudica, calmly tasted the boiling broth.
"And also, that... Deadpool? Stop wasting ingredients on your pancakes."
Emiya glanced in that direction and felt a throbbing in his temples. Chaldea's food supplies were already running low, and surviving on self-sufficiency was becoming increasingly difficult. But Deadpool, either not understanding the situation or ignoring it, grabbed all available ingredients and, by some miracle – if not by alchemy – turned them into a mountain of pancakes, which he now admired with the pride of a creator.
"Want some syrup?"
"It's not about the syrup!"
When Emiya shouted, Deadpool finally realized that he had probably overdone it with the quantities.
"We'll give it to the little one, it's no big deal."
"Do you want him to turn into a pig?!"
While these two exchanged short barbs, Boudica, watching them, continued to stir the soup with a gentle motherly smile.
"Do you have a head on your shoulders?! You know perfectly well our situation in Chaldea, and yet you do such reckless things. Because of your selfishness, Master will have to tighten his belt in the future. A true Servant must first of all care for the well-being of his master, and you..." Emiya continued to scold his partner.
The stream of grumbling was endless. Looking at Emiya in his apron, who was scolding him just like a strict mother, Deadpool grumbled:
"If you whine, I won't show you my guns."
"...From now on, make more of these wonderful pancakes!"
"Hey, don't start kneeling here!"
Boudica couldn't stand it and intervened, seeing how Emiya's anger instantly turned to mercy at the mention of "guns." In fact, the strange relationship between Deadpool and Emiya had its own backstory.
◇
"Servant Archer. I have answered your summons. Are you my Master?"
When Emiya was first summoned by Ritsuka through the "Fate" system as the highest-ranking hero in the entire party, he maintained a neutral and even slightly arrogant demeanor, as befits Emiya in any world.
However, his gaze immediately caught sight of another scarlet Servant – Deadpool, laden with a wide variety of weaponry. The Archer's eyes involuntarily sparkled.
"Hmm, this equipment looks... fresh. However, firearms are the pinnacle of arms manufacturing. Immense destructive power with ease of use. Magnificent... magnificent specimens..."
Deadpool, not missing the opportunity, decided to cast a line:
"I don't need these 'peashooters.' Want to borrow them?"
For a moment, for the briefest moment, Emiya's eyes read an enthusiastic: "Really?! Seriously?!" but he quickly regained control. He realized he had almost fallen for the scarlet chatterbox's trick. But what could he do? A Heroic Spirit using dual pistols as Noble Phantasms... that's just cheating. And damn cool... Emiya desperately tried to suppress his inner excitement.
"W-what nonsense. My projection magic allows me to easily copy... something like that."
He tried to joke it off, but Deadpool, squinting, pulled out two heavy black metal "Desert Eagles" and began to playfully jiggle them in front of his nose.
"Listen, your projection is a fake copy. Why would you want a pirated version when you can get the licensed one? Steam is always better than torrents, you get it?"
"Stop it right now!"
Trying to maintain his last shred of composure, Emiya roughly pushed him away and ran out of the room. From that day on, he was hooked.
"Oh, these men... they go crazy over such trivial things." Boudica shook her head, continuing to smile. Emiya might have seemed like the "mommy" in terms of atmosphere, but she was the real mother here.
"Oh, Pool? You dropped your pistols."
After finishing with the spices, Boudica covered the pot with a lid and noticed that the departing Pool had casually left two blued handles on the floor. Emiya, who was cutting vegetables, flinched and pretended not to notice the weapons lying there, although he himself was eyeing them with all his might.
"Leave them. He'll come back and pick them up himself. We have plenty to do."
"Well, as you say. I'll go rest a bit then, good luck here." Boudica, seeing right through him, just chuckled, patted him on the shoulder, and left the kitchen. Emiya was left alone.
"Ahem...!"
They wouldn't leave him alone. Those elegant lines of black metal. Massive, heavy, with a huge caliber, promising monstrous flame and power – any man would feel a tremor before such perfection.
"Pull yourself together, Emiya. I am the mother of Chaldea... no, the cook... no, no, I am a Servant! Concentrate. Concentrate!"
He furiously began to chop, but after a minute...
"Ah, what the hell!"
Dropping the kitchen utensils at random, Emiya lightning-fast picked up the pistols and looked around. No one.
"Wow... How beautiful. Just look at them. Too cool... Dual barrels are just illegal."
His eyes shone. The weight of the weapons in his hands instilled confidence in their destructive power. As long as no one was watching, he quickly scanned the structure of the mechanisms and saved the blueprints in his projection library.
"Heh-heh..."
Looking around again, he began to pose effectively. Dual pistols had become a symbol of style long before Hong Kong action movies. Effectiveness and realism are not important. Masculine romance, by definition, should be timeless.
"Phew... It's so good that I was summoned as an Archer."
"Good, right?"
"Smile! Click!"
Startled by the familiar voice, Emiya dropped the guns. Deadpool, who had appeared behind him from who knows when, pointed his smartphone camera at him. Emiya turned pale and froze like a statue.
"Y-you were... spying on me all this time?"
"Of course. I spied, I spy, and I will spy."
Emiya's desperate scream echoed through the corridors of Chaldea.
***
Read the story months ahead of the public release — early chapters are available on my Patreon: Granulan