"Miss Tohsaka, isn't there someone else standing beside you?" Yuto said it with a little weight behind the words.
His eyes went straight to what looked like empty air beside her.
It seemed there was nothing there.
In truth, that wasn't the case at all.
Rin went awkward and flustered at once.
A trace of panic crossed her face, and her hands started moving without knowing what to do with themselves.
"There really is someone standing there." Tohru put a hand on her hip and pointed right at the spot Yuto had been watching.
"Um... well... that's..."
Just as the young lady of the Tohsaka family stammered, unable to come up with an explanation, specks of light appeared in the air beside her.
The light gathered and slowly took the shape of a man.
He was tall, dressed in a tight red-and-black outfit under a matching coat. He was fairly big next to an ordinary person, with white hair and white eyebrows to match.
His face was stern, but still handsome.
The moment he appeared, Rin stamped her foot. A flush of temper spread over her face as she pointed at him.
"Didn't I tell you not to follow me?! You were supposed to stay home and keep watch!"
The furious young lady looked like a tiny tiger trying to roar.
It was also strangely adorable.
The white-haired man in red only sighed. His eyes lowered a little as another tired breath left him.
"You're my Master. I can't just ignore you when you decide to walk into an unknown place, only because you told me to stay behind. If you die, that affects me too."
His voice was calm, but the words came out cold.
His face didn't change at all as he said them. He looked like a man who cared about nothing.
'Master.'
The moment Yuto heard the word, curiosity crossed his face.
His eyes moved to Rin and happened to pass over the back of her hand.
There seemed to be something there.
But Rin caught where he was looking at once.
She snatched her hand away and covered it with the other to hide whatever was underneath, then put on a face like nothing had happened.
Unfortunately, she looked painfully unnatural.
Yuto smiled faintly.
He'd never taken part in a Holy Grail War, but that didn't mean he knew nothing about them.
Quite the opposite.
Thanks to what Iskandar and El-Melloi II had told him, he understood a fair amount of the finer points.
A Master was the mage a Servant followed.
Command Spells were crystals of magic carved onto a Master's hand, able to force a Servant to obey an order or see something through.
Iskandar and El-Melloi II had explained all of it to him before.
And now the girl in front of him — there was a very good chance she was taking part in a Holy Grail War.
Illya from earlier seemed to be the same.
So could Tohsaka Rin and Illya be connected somehow?
Yuto couldn't help wondering.
Just then the white-haired man in red stepped forward. He ignored his Master's furious face and put his attention on Yuto instead.
Something hard to name flashed through his calm, cold eyes.
It vanished so fast that no one caught it.
Then he spoke. "Good morning, Boss."
Being ignored so completely made Rin angrier still.
Yuto smiled and nodded to him.
He knew that anyone who became a Heroic Spirit had to be someone who'd left a real mark on human history.
Going by the way things looked, this man was Rin's Servant.
So of course Yuto was curious.
Which great hero out of human history was standing in front of him?
"Hey! Archer, are your eyes and ears growing out of the soles of your feet?! Your Master has called you several times already!"
Rin shouted it at the man called Archer.
The title made Yuto more certain than ever.
The girl and the man in front of him were almost surely taking part in the Holy Grail War.
Archer calmly turned his head and looked down at Rin.
His brows drew together.
Then a quiet scoff came out through his nose.
There was a hint of the same arrogance in it that Gilgamesh so often wore.
Rin blew up on the spot. "You bastard! How did I end up summoning such a disobedient Servant?!"
In her temper, she raised her right hand.
A red light began to shine on the back of it as a strange pattern rose to the surface.
Yuto watched with interest.
Unless he was wrong, that had to be a Command Spell.
"Hey! Are you serious?!" Seeing what she meant to do, Archer finally lost a little of his cool.
To anyone in the Holy Grail War, Command Spells were precious things, able to turn everything around at the deciding moment.
Their pair had already lost one..... and that had happened because the girl acted without thinking too.
Now, watching Rin about to throw away another, Archer's calm slipped.
His nervous reaction finally brought a smug look to Rin's face. "Hmph! If you're a Servant, then behave yourself and listen to your Master!"
The spoiled young lady's words came out like a lion cub trying to roar.
Archer sighed.
Without another word, he sat down at the counter.
Yuto watched the whole exchange with a smile. He simply found it entertaining.
Rin sat down too.
She reached behind her head and lightly brushed her hair, and the long strands traced a graceful arc through the air.
Then she hooked a finger through it and tucked it behind her ear, showing the small curve of her earlobe.
Someone once ran a survey asking which small thing a woman does catches a man's eye most easily.
The most common answer was tucking their hair behind their ear.
To men, that one simple movement seemed to reach right in and take hold of the heart.
It was strangely captivating!
"I happened to wake up early today, so I'd like something simple. Can you make that for me, Boss?" Once she'd collected herself, Rin was the perfectly mannered young lady again.
"Of course. Would this gentleman like anything as well?" Yuto nodded with a smile, then looked at Archer.
The man shook his head.
His face didn't move at all, he looked almost mechanical like a robot.
Yuto didn't dwell on it and headed into the kitchen to make Rin's food.
At this hour, you could probably call it breakfast.
He also told Erina and Hisako to go home. There was no need for them anymore tonight.
What the two of them needed now was proper rest.
...
A while later, Yuto brought Rin's meal out.
A sunny-side-up egg, a serving of egg custard set inside its own shell, and a carton of milk.
He always kept milk in the restaurant, since he needed it for cooking now and then.
The fried egg, the custard, and the milk made a light breakfast that suited the girl well.
Rin thanked him and started eating.
Archer stayed beside her with his arms folded across his chest.
The pose made him look deep in thought.
He seemed to be turning something over, and his eyes would drift now and then toward Yuto and Tohru.
Something seemed to be hiding in those deep eyes.
Just as Rin was nearly finished, an offhand question from Yuto made her go rigid.
"Miss Tohsaka... are you taking part in a Holy Grail War?"
Her gaze froze on the spot.
Archer, on the other hand, hardly reacted. He only glanced at Yuto.
"B-Boss, how did you know?!" The strain made Rin stumble over her words.
Yuto smiled and pointed at the back of her hand. "I guessed."
Rin's face turned deeply unhappy.
Countless thoughts went off in her head all at once.
She ran through every possibility she could think of, then worked each one through to its end. It all happened in an instant.
By the end of that moment, the look in her eyes had changed.
She watched Yuto with both caution and worry.
There was no need to spell out what that meant.
Yuto smiled. "I'm not from your world, and I have no interest in taking part in the Holy Grail War. I just happened to learn a little about it."
His answer took some of the wariness off her face, though her thoughts were still going hard.
After a fierce round of arguing with herself, she finally chose to believe him.
"That's a relief." She sighed.
Thinking it over, Yuto couldn't possibly be an enemy mage.
If he were, he'd have attacked her already. Why would he go to the trouble of making her breakfast?
Rin felt extremely lucky.
She didn't know how strong Archer really was, but next to a dragon, he was probably nowhere near enough.
Not having to face something that terrifying was worth celebrating.
"There's no need to be so tense. I only heard about the Holy Grail War by chance. As for everything else, I'm just a quiet man running a restaurant."
"I'm sorry, Boss. That was reflex. Things have been tense lately." Rin apologized.
Archer, meanwhile, turned his eyes on Yuto.
A secret only he knew sat deep behind them.
"Where did you learn about the Holy Grail War?" Archer asked.
"I just happened to hear about it somewhere else." Yuto answered with a smile, meeting the man's eyes straight on.
Ever since Archer walked into the restaurant, Yuto had felt him watching, several times over, when he thought no one would notice.
For some reason he couldn't name, the man had been studying him.
Archer might not be an ordinary man.
But then, neither was Yuto.
He carried the blessings of gods, and he'd taken in a portion of Yuuka's youkai essence as well — a power close to the root of nature itself, not something you could explain away in a few words.
With all those odd things strengthening him, Yuto's senses had grown very sharp.
On the surface, Archer looked perfectly normal.
But those repeated glances made Yuto suspicious.
It seemed the man wanted something from him.