At lunch break, Shichen couldn't find Rin to eat with.
Because after he called her "small," she got mad.
Figures—no matter how confident a girl is (even with legs for days), she'll still care about that kind of thing. And honestly, who would ever complain about having more advantages?
Shichen knew it was a slip of the tongue—he'd said the wrong thing—but all morning he couldn't find a chance to apologize.
Her class didn't have PE today. When he tried to look for her, she kept dodging him. And since they were on campus, he couldn't push too hard without crossing lines. There wasn't much he could do.
When a girl is angry, it's serious. Shichen spent the entire morning thinking about how to make it up to her.
They still weren't close enough for some methods—those would just come off as him being a creep.
After turning it over and over, he decided to start with what she liked most: money.
Rin's magecraft relied on gemstones, and the one thing his Gate of Babylon never lacked was gems.
To show sincerity, Shichen didn't even eat lunch. He followed Rin's aura and finally found her near the stairwell.
"Rin—"
"Shh!"
He barely got her name out before she grabbed him and pulled him into hiding, clearly trying to stay out of sight.
"Rin?" Shichen looked at her, confused.
"Keep your voice down. I think I found another Master," Rin whispered, her tone serious.
"A Master? Where?"
"There." Rin nodded toward downstairs.
Shichen followed her gaze down the stairs and saw the back of a male student in uniform.
His blue, seaweed-like hair was painfully distinctive.
"That's…" Shichen frowned.
It wasn't that he didn't recognize him—the hairstyle was infamous—but what bothered Shichen was the feeling.
That boy barely had any "living" presence. It was like a puppet.
Even the way he walked looked wrong—his silhouette was sluggish and empty, like a sleepwalker.
"That's Shinji Matou," Rin said.
"You know him?"
"I've never really interacted with him, but anyone from the Matou family is someone I keep tabs on."
"Same as your family, huh."
"Yeah… and it looks like he's the Matou Master." Rin's eyes flicked to Shinji's hand.
On the back of it, a bright red mark—Command Spells.
He wasn't even trying to hide it.
And honestly, he didn't need to. The three founding families—Einzbern, Tohsaka, Matou—were guaranteed to have at least one Master each.
They were the ones who created the Holy Grail War. There was no chance they'd sit it out.
They also knew each other existed, so they knew each household would produce a Master sooner or later.
And in this school, there weren't many people with the qualifications anyway, so hiding or not hiding didn't change much.
The Grail War was meant to remain secret. Servants were too powerful—if it went public, it would cause massive casualties and panic, and collapse social order.
Mages didn't want that.
And school was a high-visibility place. Any Master with a brain wouldn't start a fight on campus.
Which ironically made it safer.
"Do you know him well?" Shichen asked.
"Not really. I've never talked to him. I've just heard classmates say he's kind of… superficial," Rin replied.
"Yeah…" Shichen nodded.
He knew Shinji Matou well enough: hated by a lot of guys, but still popular with plenty of girls—good grades, good looks, money. Most people didn't have an omniscient view of what he was really like.
But this Shinji wasn't the Shinji Shichen remembered.
"Shichen, why are you asking me all this?" Rin gave him a weird look.
"Because he feels… off."
"Off?"
"Yeah. I was wondering if you'd know more, since you're both from mage families."
"Not a chance. But he shouldn't even have much talent for magecraft. So why is he the Matou Master?" Rin frowned.
"Maybe the Matou family doesn't have anyone else suitable," Shichen suggested.
"Huh? You mean—"
"Don't worry about him for now. We're at school—there's nothing we can do here anyway."
"I know, but…" Rin hesitated.
"Heh. I didn't expect you to be this battle-hungry," Shichen teased.
"Who's battle-hungry?! It's just—this is the Holy Grail War. It's a rare chance—"
"With me around, it's all a non-issue." Shichen grabbed her wrist so she couldn't slip away again. "Let's deal with our problem first."
"Our problem?" Rin looked at him like she had no idea what he meant.
"Don't give me that innocent face. You've been dodging me all morning—did you forget?" Shichen reminded her.
"Ah!"
Rin finally remembered, and her expression turned colder.
"It's because you mocked me."
"I wasn't mocking you—"
"You said I was small! How is that not mocking me?" Rin glared, cheeks puffed in frustration.
"…Alright. I was wrong. I'm sorry." Shichen apologized immediately.
Even if he'd meant it neutrally, he knew the truth: sometimes the most honest words hit the hardest.
To him, "small" wasn't a big deal. To a girl who cared about it, it was a jab.
"Hmph!" Rin huffed and looked away, still unsatisfied.
"That's it? One apology and you think we're done? You're going to solve this with one sentence?"
"Of course not. I'm making it up to you."
"With what?"
"Can we leave this spot first? There are a lot of people…" Shichen warned.
"Huh?"
Rin froze, then looked around—and froze harder.
At some point, they'd ended up surrounded by a crowd of students.
What the heck?
"Rin really is with the new teacher!"
"They were totally pressed together just now—"
"So bold! On campus!"
"I don't know why, but I ship it…"
"You ship everything. This is literally teacher-student romance."
"PE teacher doesn't count!"
"It still counts!"
"Whatever. She can 'deny everything' until graduation and go public later—there's only a year left anyway!"
"Rin probably isn't thinking that far…"
"I'm shipping it no matter what!"
"…Rin, what is this?" Rin stared blankly.
"Us standing here too long drew attention," Shichen said. "Teenagers love gossip."
"This is way too much gossip!"
"You said you didn't care, right?" Shichen tugged her wrist. "Come on—rooftop."
As he started pulling her upstairs, he warned the crowd, "Go do whatever you were doing. Don't follow us."
The students stopped out of instinctive fear of teachers, but that didn't stop the gossip.
"Eee—he's dragging her by the wrist!"
"That's basically hand-holding!"
"It's the wrist!"
"Where are they going? Don't tell me—"
"It's school! No way!"
"School doesn't ban it."
"You guys are insane."
"Why are you so pressed? Still hung up on Rin?"
"I—You girls are impossible!"
Rin let herself be dragged to the rooftop, but her eyes stayed on Shichen's hand around her wrist.
She'd heard plenty of the comments.
"Hand-holding"… this didn't really count, right?
Shichen looked completely casual… and yeah, he had multiple partners. To him, this kind of contact probably meant nothing.
And last night he'd even slept beside Artoria.
They were adults—Rin didn't have to guess what "sleeping together" implied.
Otherwise why would Lily react like that?
And Lily had seen the future version of herself.
Just imagining it made Rin's face burn.
"What's wrong?" Shichen asked once they reached the rooftop and he finally let go.
Rin's cheeks were red.
"Huh? Nothing!" Rin said way too loudly.
"…Why are you yelling?" Shichen stared.
"It's nothing…" Rin muttered, mortified.
"Whatever. You girls are always randomly like this." Shichen sighed. "Anyway—I'm giving you your compensation now."
"…What compensation?" Rin quickly latched onto the new topic. "And I'm warning you, I'm not easy to fool."
"Relax. You'll love it."
"I want to see what—" Rin started, then suddenly sucked in a sharp breath.
Because in Shichen's hands, a huge pile of gemstones appeared—high-end, flawless gems.
She couldn't look away.
For pretty jewels, there were very few girls who didn't like them.
And Rin liked them even more—not as accessories, but as ammunition.
They were spell materials.
"Shichen… don't tell me this is the compensation?" Rin swallowed hard.
"Do you like it?" Shichen grinned.
"I LOVE IT! Shichen! You're amazing!"
Rin lunged forward and hugged him, totally forgetting she was angry.