Reborn in Type-Moon: Starting by Adopting Sakura - Chapter 37

[Changed Manaka’s way of addressing Yuu from "Master" to "Sensei" to avoid confusion with the existing use of "Master" in the Nasuverse.]

The rain had stopped by the time they got to Akihabara. The sky looked washed clean, and puddles turned the pavement into mirrors that caught the buildings overhead.

Irisviel got out of the car in her stocking feet, carrying her broken heels. The wet concrete felt cold and gritty through the thin fabric. She hated it, but the shop was right there.

The door chimed when they walked in.

Manaka was by the bookshelf with a broom, golden hair still damp from washing, wearing that maid uniform that made her look charming. She saw the wet footprints Irisviel was leaving on the wood floor.

"What happened to you?" Manaka's smile was polite. Professional. The kind you give customers.

Though underneath, she was clearly annoyed.

"My heel snapped," Irisviel said, holding up the evidence.

"Come in before you catch cold. Wet stockings are the worst."

Then Manaka looked past Irisviel, and her whole face changed. The fake customer-service smile disappeared, replaced by something warm and soft.

"Welcome home, Sensei."

"I'm home." Yuu smiled back at her.

This was their routine. Every day, Manaka waited by the door for him to come back.

Today she looked particularly charming in that outfit, white stockings and all.

"You're early," she said, still holding the broom like she'd forgotten it was there.

"Nothing much happening. Figured I'd come home."

Irisviel had already gone upstairs. Manaka stepped closer.

"Sensei, I'm so bored here all day. I want to come with you next time. Help you with whatever you're doing."

Yuu touched her hair. "I'd like that."

Her eyes lit up. "Really?"

“But I probably won’t be going out for a while.”

"Oh."

Yuu followed Irisviel upstairs, leaving Manaka to sweep the same spot over and over.

Artoria was waiting on the second floor, quiet as always. But she was studying Irisviel like she was trying to solve a puzzle.

"She's different," Artoria said.

What kind of different, she couldn't say. Even someone who'd spent years learning to read people couldn't pin this one down.

Yuu brought Irisviel to his workshop.

"Can you show me the Dress of Heaven?" he said.

She nodded. "Mm."

The Dress of Heaven was the most important thing the Einzberns had. It was magical, sure, but it only worked on Irisviel. She was the Lesser Grail, which meant she could absorb souls. The dress made that happen.

It looked like white fabric, but it was actually gold. Seven rings were sewn into it—one for each soul it could control. When a Servant died, their soul got absorbed and one of the rings would light up.

The whole thing was part of the Einzberns' obsession with the Third Magic. They'd been working on it for a thousand years.

Nobody else could touch the dress. It would turn regular humans into gold on contact. Only spirits or artificial humans like Irisviel could wear it safely.

That's why Yuu needed her to put it on. He wanted to understand how the soul-absorption worked.

He'd learned some dollcraft from Touko back in the day. If he could figure out how Irisviel's circuits connected to the dress, maybe he could build his own soul vessel. Or at least something that could hold Servant souls temporarily.

It wouldn't be easy. The Einzberns had been perfecting this for centuries.

Sure, he'd gotten a tour of their facilities once, but still. Finishing this before winter? That was optimistic, even for him.

"Um... Yuu..."

Irisviel had changed into the Heaven's Dress. The fabric looked almost weightless against her skin, so smooth it seemed like it might slide right off if she moved too quickly.

She stood there under the workshop lights, waiting for him to look her over, and her face was flushed pink. Her heart was racing like crazy—she felt like a bride on her wedding night.

It was weird. She'd already opened up to him completely back in the car, but somehow wearing this dress made her feel more naked than before, even though it covered way more of her.

"Y-Yuu..." Since she was wearing the Dress of Heaven, she couldn't really move around normally. She kept her head down, face burning red with embarrassment.

Her pale thighs pressed together awkwardly, and every small movement made her stockings rub against her skin with these tiny friction sounds. The white fabric created that gap between her hem and thigh-highs.

Yuu focused his sight, and suddenly the dress wasn't just fabric anymore. The metallic threads began to separate in his vision, showing him their true structure. He could see the magical patterns running through the weave like glowing veins, how each thread connected to the next in this impossibly complex network. Layer by layer, the dress revealed its secrets to him—the way the soul-binding circuits were embedded right into the material, how the magical energy flowed from one section to another.

After watching her for what felt like forever, he finally spoke. "Iri, raise your hands."

"...Eh?" Irisviel felt like her Magic Circuits were about to short-circuit. She couldn't move.

Yuu could tell how mortified she was, but this was work. It had to be done.

"Lift them," he said again, and this time his voice was firmer.

Her arms shook as she raised them, exposing her underarms.

The Dress of Heaven was insanely complex. It stored souls, connected to the Greater Grail, and channeled the Third Magic. Any one of those functions would be considered grand thaumaturgy. Even the best magi would need years to build something like this.

The reason he needed her to move around was simple: Yuu had to see how the dress "flowed." Understanding its structure was the only way he could figure out how the Lesser Grail actually worked.

"Raise your leg."

"..."

"Your forearm."

"..."

"Next, your waist. Can you bend forward... say, 160 degrees?"

"......"

"......"

Yuu's workshop was going to be running nonstop from now on. Not just today—from now until the Holy Grail War started, this was going to be his life. Trying to reverse-engineer the Lesser Grail was turning out to be way harder than he'd thought.

And obviously, he needed Irisviel's help the whole time.

You can't reverse engineer something without a working sample. Without her, this was impossible.

…

The summer was dragging by, and Manaka was pretty sure it was the absolute worst one of her life.

Her Sensei spent every single day locked up in that workshop. Sure, he'd always been a workaholic, but this was ridiculous. She barely saw him anymore.

And she knew better than to bother him when he was working.

But here's what really got to her—twice a week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays, that woman would show up wearing barely anything and waltz right into his workshop.

The door would slam shut. They'd be in there until crazy late at night, and when she finally came out, she looked completely exhausted.

Manaka would hide around the corner, chewing on her handkerchief so hard she was going to rip the thing apart.

It was infuriating. Absolutely infuriating.

She was so jealous she could scream.

If someone had to help Sensei in the workshop, why couldn't it be her? What did that woman have that she didn't? Okay, fine, maybe a few more years of... development. But still.

Even though she was dying inside, Manaka kept playing the perfect little student. Every day she'd wait for her Sensei to come back, then light up when he told her she'd done well.

As long as she could have that, she'd be okay. She had to be.

But the jealousy was killing her.

She wanted to be the one locked in that room with him. Just thinking about it made her face hot and her breathing weird.

Of course, this summer hadn’t been particularly kind to Sakura either.

Manaka used to spend all her time following her Sensei around. Now she had a new hobby: watching Sakura be miserable.

It wasn't exactly thrilling, but it passed the time. Especially when Manaka was having a bad day—seeing Sakura's pouty little face always cheered her up.