Artoria walked over to the living room, a glass of cold water in her grip. Inside, Medea had taken Medusa's usual place and was splayed across the sofa, switching from one channel to another on the TV.
Without another word, Artoria pulled a chair out from the nearby dining table and dragged it over with a single hand, settling it beside the sofa and taking a seat.
A report from the TV drifted over, reaching both of them, and their eyebrows jumped.
"—reports coming in of an incident roughly half an hour ago. Police say they received multiple calls describing a young man cornering a woman against a storefront on the block near central Fuyuki. Callers described the man as unnervingly composed throughout the encounter, despite the woman appearing visibly shaken."
The news caster paused, looking down at a paper on his desk, his eyes moving left to right before he continued from there.
"According to witnesses, the man is said to have fled the scene at what one caller described as 'impossible speed,' reportedly clearing a full city block in a single bound before officers could arrive. No arrests have been made at this time."
Leaning forward with furrowed brows, Artoria closed her free hand into a tight fist. "Harassment still takes place like it used to during my time? If the offender doesn't get caught soon, I shall go and search for him myself and hand him over to the authorities as a knight should."
With a lazy swing of her head, Medea glanced sideways. "Why hand him over to the authorities? Better to just capture him and use him as a live battery to power our boundary field."
"We will do no such thing. It is not our place as citizens to mete out justice for another's crimes," Artoria said, finally sipping her cold water, eyes still fixed on the screen.
"You and your rigid rules. If only Master was here, he would've knocked some sense into your thick skull, since you won't listen to me either way." Bringing the remote up, Medea changed to another channel.
After finishing her glass of water, Artoria replied while shaking her head.
"He won't ask me to change my ways. Instead, he might reprimand you for living an unethical life, adhering to no rules and regulations."
"Heh. Keep living in your own delusions. Of course Master won't scold me, he trusts me too much for that, more than any other Servant. I was his first one, after all." Tilting her chin upward, a wide smile spread across Medea's face.
Artoria felt her temple throb, hairline fractures surfacing over the glass in her hand from her grip.
Taking that reaction in, Medea brought the back of her hand up to cover her smile, her lips moving imperceptibly.
"Master held my hands through the dough. With you, he just sat beside you and ate. I wonder which shows his trust more?"
Body jerking sideways, Artoria felt like someone had stabbed her side at those words, a crack ringing out from the glass in her hold.
But then she snapped back and her composure reasserted itself, and her counter came twice as hard.
"He ate with me as an equal. He guided you like a student. Which one sounds like trust to you?"
Medea's brows twitched, one side of her lips stretching wider behind her hand, a vein popping on her forehead.
"He touched me. He only watched you eat."
Teeth grinding beneath her composed facade, Artoria fired back.
"Observation is the highest form of respect. He measured me as a peer."
Medea's eyes turned to crescents, her tone sweet as honey.
"He measured you. Like a math equation. How romantic."
The glass in her hand shattered, its shards about to fly in all directions when gold flared inside her palm, disintegrating every single one into dust.
Artoria shifted sideways along her chair as Medea rose from her splayed position, sitting on her shins now.
Both faced each other, one's expression blank, the other's smile spread wide across her face.
The first to attack this time was Artoria, her hands resting on her lap, back straight, grace impeccable.
"Master raced me as an equal and let me win. He wanted me to be happy."
Medea leaned back, arching her spine, hands cupped against her cheeks, tilting her head slightly.
"He let you win. You didn't actually win."
"I crossed the finish line first, and that is winning," Artoria said.
"A mother lets a toddler cross the finish line first. That does not make that toddler an athlete," Medea countered.
"Are you comparing me to a toddler?"
"I'm comparing your victory to a toddler's."
"My victory involved three bowls of udon consumed in under two minutes. That is an athletic feat by any standard." Artoria's fingers dug into her thighs.
"He manufactured that feat. He adjusted his grip efficiency and extended his swallow intervals. You didn't actually beat him, you just beat a handicap." Dropping her hands from her cheeks, Medea pointed a finger at the dining table.
The whole house quaked as Artoria pressed her foot deep into the floor. "He wanted me to beat him."
Medea went quiet, then attacked from another direction.
"He was losing convincingly, and you didn't even notice until much later. Tell me, what does that say about your legendary Instinct?"
Silence fell.
Artoria pivoted and pounced from another angle.
"...What does it say about your cooking that he needed to use a Reality Marble just to make it edible?"
Eyes widening, Medea asked, "You were peeking at us from the distance?"
"Does it matter?" Saber pressed on. "You'd better answer me first."
Medea glared at Artoria. "The Reality Marble was for that dough's resting time, not flavor!"
"The dough, an integral part of udon, and Master needed to rewrite reality itself because your foundation was flawed even with his help."
"He rewrote reality because he was impatient, not because my dough was flawed!" Medea's whole body trembled in indignation.
"A witch of your caliber, unable to wait one hour for dough to rest. How fitting."
Artoria's words made Medea stagger, her body nearly slumping back onto the sofa.
Then she jerked back up and countered, "Master was the one who didn't want to wait! I was perfectly content to let it rest!"
"Then why didn't you?"
"Because he tapped that bowl and started a territorial war with the planet! I didn't have a say in the matter!"
Silence fell again.
One second. Two. Five.
Both of them rose to their feet.
Air between them crackled. Artoria's mana spiked, golden light flickering beneath her feet. Medea's robe billowed without wind, magic circles spinning to life beneath its cloth.
"You want a fight, devious witch?" Artoria's voice dropped low, her foot sliding back into a loose combat stance.
"I'm not scared of you, naive knight." Medea's smile vanished, her eyes narrowing.
Artoria moved first.
She grabbed the chair she had been sitting on and hurled it sideways at the space beside Medea, cutting off her retreat.
Medea rolled back over the sofa, diving behind it as a burst of concentrated mana shot from her palm and struck the chair, sending it spinning into a nearby wall with a crack.
"You threw a chair, Saber!?"
"It was a tactical maneuver!"
Artoria rushed forward while Medea popped up from behind the sofa, three glowing projectiles arcing from her fingertips.
Gold erupted from Artoria's hand, redirecting all three into the ceiling. Plaster and concrete rained down.
Medea grabbed the sofa by one armrest and flipped it entirely, sending it crashing between them as a barricade.
Artoria kicked it aside.
The sofa slid across floor and halted an inch away from the TV, a little more and it would've slammed into the TV screen.
Medea used that brief opening to sprint toward the hallway. Artoria gave chase, catching her witch-robe at the collar. Medea's foot slipped, her heel catching on a rug.
Both of them stumbled.
And crashed into a bookshelf.
Books avalanched onto both of them. A dictionary the size of a shield hit Artoria on her crown. An encyclopedia struck Medea on her chest.
Neither of them let go.
They tumbled sideways into the hallway, rolling over each other twice before Artoria's back hit a wall and Medea's elbow hit the same one.
"You knight! Let go of my robe!"
"Let go of my arm first!"
"I'm not holding your arm!"
"Then who is?"
They both halted for a moment and looked. Artoria's left hand had a death grip on Medea's shoulder. Medea's right hand had tangled into Artoria's hair.
Artoria's eye twitched.
"If you do not release my hair in the next five seconds—"
"One, three, five—" Medea rattled.
"That is not how counting works!"
Artoria pulled. Medea yanked. Both rolled again toward the entrance, Artoria's shoulder slamming into a shoe rack, Medea's knee cracking against an umbrella stand.
Three umbrellas cascaded over them. A rainboot hit Artoria's cheek.
"Enough." Artoria roared, mana flaring, pressing Medea down against the floor.
"Never." Medea hissed back, a magic circle glowing violet beneath her back, preparing to invert both their positions.
A key turned in the front door.
Both froze.
Then the door swung open.
Artoria snapped her face up, her mouth opening, closing, and opening again.
Different magic circles flared inside Medea's cloak, reapplying her ruined makeup in a fraction.
They spoke together.
"Welcome home, Master."
"Welcome home, Master."
I didn't reply.
A collapsed bookshelf, scattered umbrellas and boots, and directly at my feet, Artoria pinning Medea to the tile floor, both disheveled, breathing hard, covered in plaster dust, a rainboot hanging from Artoria's shoulder.
Both of them pointed a finger at the other.
"Master, it was her fault—"
"I was defending myself—"
...
..
.
***
[200 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter]
[10 chapters ahead on P@tr3on = [email protected]/Not_Aaryan]
...
[Author's Thoughts]
Cat fight! Cat fight! First time writing it and I had a lot of fun. Did you all have fun too?