The Thirsty Girl's Guide To Summoning (Fate/Isekai)

Chapter 47: Moving Forward

The door opened and closed again. Ren opened her eyes, but she seemed to be alone in the darkening room. Something moved at the corner of her vision and the back of her neck prickled. Jack appeared to be a cute little girl, but Ren could never entirely set aside the fact that the child Servant was also a dangerous and inhuman killer.

On the other hand, that wasn't a truth to be changed by setting her at a distance, so she softly said, "Hi, Jack."

"Hi, Mommy," said Jack from right beside her, as her Presence Concealment faded. "Rider said you wanted to see us?" Her green eyes shone unnaturally bright in the chamber's gloom, and the points of her face seemed accentuated to knife-like sharpness.

Ren held up the brush. "Time to untangle that mop of hair, kiddo."

Jack reached up and pulled on a strand of her own hair, crossing her eyes to focus on it. Then she looked at Ren again. "But why?"

Exhaling softly, Ren took the strand of hair from Jack's fingers and ran the brush lightly over it. This was what she'd expected in the Raven Tower: questioning, doubt, even anger. Jack had only clung to her then, too rattled by the strange situation to question. But now that they had time, now that she'd managed to tend to everybody else before Jack, Ren had to pay the piper.

"Because I want to keep you with me," Ren said.

Jack leaned back, pulling her hair away from Ren and tilting her head. "We don't understand. Is it because we kill and dismember? Is that why you want to keep us?"

Ren's mouth tightened and she tilted her own head to match Jack's. "No. I want to keep you because you deserve better than being thrown away."

The testing expression on Jack's face became genuine confusion. "Huh? We are thrown away. We don't deserve anything. That's just the truth."

"Jack... you deserve a hug if you want one, at least. Because everybody does." Ren put the brush down and opened her arms.

The little girl looked at her warily for a long moment, crouched on the end of the bed like she was about to spring. Then she crept into Ren's lap and nestled against her chest. Carefully, Ren closed her arms around her.

"Some mommies didn't throw us in the river," said Jack softly. "They let us be born and hugged and kissed us. Then they gave us to other mommies and went away and our new mommies let us starve until we were nothing but howling bones."

"That's not what happened yesterday," Ren said, remembering what the enchanted Jack had said about the worst mommies not even noticing when their little one was dragged away. "They stole you from me, and when I woke up I was very upset."

"Hmm," muttered Jack, rubbing her nose against Ren's chest. "Is that true? We don't know. Maybe if it is, we should go back inside and start over, so nobody could ever take us away again. And then you couldn't get tired of us and give us away." She looked up, her eyes glimmering. "That would be good, right, Mommy?"

Ren's stomach clenched reflexively. "I think Ritsu would be pretty sad if that happened. She'd miss us."

Jack's mouth twisted in dissatisfaction. "Ritsu... guess that might be true." She considered. "Ritsu's nice and we're supposed to help her, but she's so busy she might not even notice."

Ren shook her head a little and picked up the brush again. This time when she began to draw it through Jack's hair, the Servant didn't resist. Instead she sucked on one of her fingers, making little thoughtful noises.

As the magic charge began to build in her hair, Jack's little shoulders relaxed a little. "I like berries. They don't fill me up but they taste and pop so good!" Ren noticed the shift in Jack's speech and her own shoulders loosened as well.