Little Ghost

"Speaking of which, your family's really loaded, Emiya. These ingredients are all high-end market goods!" Shiki leaned against the fridge, arms crossed as she spoke.

She was the only other person in the kitchen besides Shirou. But she wasn't there to help him out—her stated reason for being there was, in her own words, "I just can't believe a shorty can cook that well. I've got to see it for myself."

Shirou was pretty annoyed by that remark. For now I'm small, but in the future, I'll be a one-meter-eighty badass.

In Japan, one meter eighty was indeed tall. But outside Japan... well, everyone knew Japanese height was a sore spot. WWII Japanese soldiers weren't even as tall as their bayoneted rifles!

"Because I can't stand that. Cheap stuff's no good, so I just go straight for the pricier options." Shirou handled the various ingredients with practiced ease, his movements fluid and dazzling.

Trace On!

As he spoke, he projected another chef's knife gleaming with cold light. Ever since mastering Projection Magecraft, he'd never had to sharpen a blade again. Magic—if you didn't use it, it was wasted.

He turned the blade, its smooth surface clearly reflecting his face.

Sh-sh-sh!

Several flashes of cold light passed, and the cucumbers, carrots, and potatoes on the cutting board were all diced into uniform cubes.

"What's wrong?"

Seeing Shirou's movements suddenly stop, Shiki asked.

"No, nothing. Just that the main course for this meal has arrived."

"Huh?"

Shirou walked straight out of the kitchen to the entrance. He pulled open the door, and just as he'd said, the star of tonight's dinner had arrived.

A pure white Las Noches uniform, eyes the same dark green as Shirou's, pale skin, tear tracks beneath the eyes, and a half-helmet of bone-white with a horn attached to one side of the head.

In appearance, this person was identical to the Cuarenta Espada, Ulquiorra Cifer from Bleach. And in fact, he really was that Cuarta Espada.

Slung across Ulquiorra's back was a bluefin tuna over a meter and a half long—that was the real star.

"Looks like you found it," Shirou said.

"Didn't you already know that?" Ulquiorra replied in his distinctive voice.

"Even so, seeing it in person and sensing it through the soul link are totally different feelings!"

Ulquiorra didn't say much more. He simply tossed the bluefin tuna to Shirou. "This should be enough, right?" he said.

"Yeah. And since we're originally one and the same, I guess I don't need to invite you to dinner, do I?" Shirou joked, but the other didn't seem amused.

"Whatever. Just let me go back quickly."

"Got it, geez. Even though you're a part split from my soul, you're so dull!"

Ulquiorra's body began to dissolve into spirit particles, speckles of reishi sinking into Shirou's body—or rather, his soul.

Ulquiorra's appearance was no accident. Shirou's soul power was far stronger than most other transmigrators, because he had three times the soul mass of an ordinary person. To better utilize this power, Shirou had carefully studied Kirie's dual-existence ability and, referencing Primera Espada Coyote Starrk's situation and his soul-splitting technique, divided his own soul into two freely detachable parts.

In terms of form, Shirou now had three states.

The first state was his normal one, no explanation needed. The second was just now—one person split into two. The third state involved turning Ulquiorra into a Zanpakuto, and only in that form could Shirou perform Resurrección.

"Shirou, is someone there?" Seeing him standing at the entrance for so long, Kiritsugu asked.

"No, I had someone deliver a fish. It just arrived." He answered casually, then, under the stunned gazes of the others, carried the absurdly large tuna into the kitchen.

An hour later, the Emiya family dinner began. Unsurprisingly, the meal took a turn that was both unexpected and entirely predictable.

Shirou brought out over thirty dishes in total, cuisines from all over the world represented. Half of those dishes were made from the giant tuna, leaving Mikiya genuinely shocked. A fish making over a dozen dishes—is this guy even human? More importantly, none of them repeated! God, how much can this kid eat?

Shiki didn't react much, but her chopsticks never stopped until Shirou and Touko's "battle" began.

Kirie seemed a bit off this time, for some reason. Fujino, as usual, had a low presence. For some reason, even without the tragic experiences of her original timeline, she still had that dazed, adorable look.

Shirou chalked it all up to the world's Correction Force. After all, if something as absurd as the Counter Force existed, a Correction Force wasn't that strange.

Of the eight people at the table, Illya was the liveliest, but she ate the least. As a homunculus, Illya didn't have a concept of being full. By design, her appetite was fixed—once she hit that limit, she stopped.

Kiritsugu brought a bottle of red wine from the car, claiming a business associate had given it to him. But Touko took one look and pointed out that the winery had produced no bottles that year due to a bad omen, so the wine was fake...

Well, Kiritsugu was always Kiritsugu, not Tokiomi, and certainly not that Magecraft Priest. Hoarding wine was out of the question—never happening in this lifetime.

At the end of the meal, Shirou and Touko started their eating contest again. The tuna weighed over forty jin, and at least thirty of those went into the two of them. Mikiya only learned today that his boss could eat that much.

Touko lost to Shirou again, this time on speed. To fill her up, they'd need another whole table. Last time at the barbecue place, the two of them had accounted for half a month's business—a testament to Touko's terrifying appetite.

As for Shirou, there was something he'd never told anyone: it wasn't that he had a huge appetite, but that he digested incredibly fast. Ninety percent of the food he ate was automatically converted into magical energy and stored. Not only that, but even while breathing, he absorbed mana from the atmosphere. Sometimes Shirou wondered if he'd eventually develop something like the Holy Grail's function. Of course, if Touko found out, she'd probably lose it.

After dinner, the sky was fully dark. Kiritsugu saw Touko and Shiki to the entrance. What he didn't know was that on a distant high-rise, a woman in a black trench coat had just lowered the sniper rifle aimed at him. "That brat Kiritsugu... looks like he's doing pretty well. Let's finish this commission quickly, then go find him."