To love a sword

Chapter 45: Awakening Part 1

Beta read by Shigiya, FabledLife and Paragon of Awesomeness

.

.

.

-Sainan, Yuki Household-

For the better part of his existence, Emiya had never been a heavy drinker, to say the least. He never had much interest in getting drunk, and in his past life, there was rarely any room for such an indulgence. Too much was always happening around the world, and his younger self kept trying to shoulder more than he should have. Between responsibilities, combat, and constant problems that demanded attention, alcohol simply never became something that appealed to or stuck with him. It was not a matter of discipline alone; he just never felt the need for it.

Even so, he always believed that he could hold his alcohol well enough. He was not reckless; furthermore, he knew his own limits. Granted, his current body was different from the adult one he once had. Physically, it lacked the same tolerance and build, even if his soul and mind remained the same. Still, a single bottle of soju should not have pushed him to the point of losing all sense of himself.

The former Servant of the Bow refused to believe that he was that fragile.

The one thing he had never accounted for, however, was the possibility of alien alcohol. It was not something he had ever imagined himself dealing with. The drink they had consumed had completely bypassed whatever resistance his body possessed. It hit him hard enough to erase the entire night from his memory. No fragments. No blurry pieces. Nothing at all.

"You cannot be serious," he muttered under his breath.

He sat at the edge of his bed, elbows resting on his knees, fingers pressing against his temples as he tried to fight through a throbbing headache. The room felt warm, and the faint scent of perfume mixed with something else lingered in the air. He searched through his memories again and again, but every attempt returned empty.

"If it were one of them, then I could look past it and accept it to some extent. But both of them together? There is absolutely no way I would have ever agreed to that."

He spoke with confidence, yet reality stood right in front of him. His head slowly turned toward the sleeping princess. He had grown used to seeing Lala naked in the morning, given how casually she treated such matters, but today the details in the room made things harder to ignore. The sheets were tangled. Clothing lay scattered across the floor. A chair had been knocked slightly out of place. None of it looked like a simple accident.

He had hoped it might have been nothing more than a drinking game. Perhaps someone had suggested stripping as part of the rules. Maybe it had ended with all three of them collapsing onto the bed in a careless heap and passing out from exhaustion. That would have been easier to accept. A misunderstanding caused by alcohol.

"You look as if the world is about to crumble."

The amused voice came from the bathroom. The sound of running water had stopped at some point without him noticing. The door opened, and Ryouko stepped out, wearing only an open shirt that barely covered her generous chest and some string panties. Her damp hair fell over her shoulders as she dried it with a towel.

Compared to him, she seemed far too calm.

"That might as well be the case. If Gid were to find out about this, then I doubt there will still be a planet Earth by lunchtime."

She rolled her eyes lightly. "You are exaggerating. He may be an eccentric ruler and an overprotective father, even if his actions with the candidates say otherwise, but he would not destroy Earth. He likes you."