The Emperor's New Clothes
and Other Tales of the Fifth Grail War

Servants were magnificent beings, weren't they? How could they not be? They were the very souls of great heroes of old given flesh and breath once more, and with that came the prestige of their legends, their pedigrees crystallized physically in the form of their Noble Phantasms.

They were humans who had risen above humanity, literally transcending their earthly shells to become one with the spirit of the Earth. No longer merely human but something more. Something greater.

Shirou's cheek twitched. "Saber," he breathed slowly. "We need to do something about your clothes."

The short, blonde Servant of the sword tilted her head sideways as she looked at him. It was adorable. "Oh? Do you spy a problem with them, Praetor?"

"Well..." How to put this delicately? "I can see your underwear."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Indeed! Such was the design's purpose."

Shirou rubbed his forehead. This is why you should never meet your heroes. "Are you sayi—no. Never mind, I don't want to know. What I'm saying, Saber, is that most women in this day and age don't walk around with their panties in plain sight. Among other things, it would be incredibly suspicious if you were to walk around in public like that." Although, admittedly, she'd more likely be mistaken for a shameless cosplayer than a magically conducted embodiment of a hero.

"Loathe as I am to admit it," Saber grunted, "your words ring with truth, Praetor. It is anathema, but such is the nature of the predicament. These garments, wondrous as they are, would draw far too many eyes to my splendor." She flapped the skirt of her dress emphatically. The undulation increased her cleavage's magnetism by three orders of magnitude and nearly tore Shirou's eyes from their sockets, proving her words. "However, fear not, Praetor! For scenes such as this, I have prepared a change of costume!"

"Wait, really?" He hadn't considered that Servants might have more than one outfit. Then again, they were magical, and his knowledge of the Servant-system mechanics was fuzzy at best.

Shirou watched her chest bounce as she puffed up with pride—well, more pride than usual. "Indeed! And worry not, Praetor. I assure you that these vestments will keep my undergarments adequately concealed. The world may lament that I must hide my glory under a bushel, but your safety is paramount." She nodded to herself. "Yes, it must be a necessary sacrifice."

"Ah, yeah," Shirou agreed, not that he understood her rambling. "Anyway, sorry to trouble you like this, but the sooner you can change, the better." It was getting close to dinner time, and Sakura or Taiga—or both!—were bound to show up any time now.

"Of course, Praetor. It will be but a moment. No, not even that." She smiled slyly at him. "And I would not refuse an audience." Saber laughed heartily when Shirou flushed and abruptedly about-faced. "Your naiveté is endearing, Praetor. It's difficult not to make sport of you."

"J–just change already, Saber," Shirou grumbled, not turning his head.

"You'll find, Praetor, that I already have. You may avail of my visage once more."

"That was quick." Well, whatever she was wearing, there was no way it could be worse than—"What. Is. That."

That was, in some ways, better than the first outfit, but, in nearly every other way, was far worse. That was something that looked like the mutant love-child of a wedding dress and a gimp suit with a zipper fetish—complete with a mockery of a veil. On the other hand, that showed far less skin. Somehow, that was not a reassuring thought.

"It seems you are taken aback once more by my pulchritude, Praetor," Saber said, turning slowly in place to show off that.

"Saber. I can see your—," he choked, "—your rear." Indeed he could. The designer of the dress had seen fit to remove a panel in the shape of a diamond on the lower back. So low, in fact, that a good 50% of her bottom was visible, crack and all.

"Yes, isn't it magnificent?" She wiggled her exposed backside in his direction. "Truly a sight to see, is it not?"

This had to be a dream. An incredibly odd wet dream. A product of his chemically-overloaded adolescent imagination. And if it wasn't? Well, Shirou refused to be part of that reality. In fact, maybe he could substitute his own reality instead. Wouldn't that be grand? "Are you even wearing anything underneath that?" he regretted asking immediately.

She grinned over her shoulder. "Indeed!"

Shirou's eyes snapped to her rear, then back to her face, then back down again, to confirm that, indeed, there was no such thing covering the area. "I don't see anything." Well, other than her impressively taut posterior. No! Don't think about it!

"Naturally!" Saber responded. "As I promised, my undergarments have been concealed!" She posed, arms akimbo, giving him a full view of the outfit. After a moment, she pouted and tilted her head. "Praetor, you will damage the doorframe if you insist on butting it with your head."

At her question, Shirou paused to rub the new sore spot on his forehead. "No, I think it'll be fine," he said, then went back to banging his head on the wooden frame.

Rapid footsteps were their only warning before the door—a different one—opened.

"Shirou! Food! I'm hungry!" Fuji-nee paused, her enthusiasm put on mute the instant she saw Shirou's continued self-injury. "Um," she hesitated, turning toward the other occupant of the room. "Is something wrong with Shi—WHAT IS THAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!"

The Emperor's New Clothes

"I see." Fuji-nee nodded in understanding, fist to her chin. "So, what you're saying is that Miss, um—"

"Saber," Shirou said as he finished applying a bandage to his forehead.

"—right, Miss Saber lost her luggage at the airport, and all she could salvage was two outfits: the one she's wearing right now and another in the wash." She looked at Shirou sternly. "Have I got that right?"

Shirou scratched his neck. "Ah, yeah, all she managed to salvage was her carry-on bag, which had her toiletries and, uh, that." He squirmed in his seat under Fuji-nee's stare, which had about doubled in intensity over the last few seconds. "So, that's why—"

"Do you really expect me to believe that story?!" Fuji-nee exploded, foiling Shirou's attempt to clear the air. "I'm not stupid, Shirou! That's definitely the type of plot you'd expect to see in a sitcom or a bad romantic comedy, not the sort of thing that happens in real life!"

"No, wait, hold on! I'm telling you, that's what hap—!"

"Praetor," Saber interrupted. Shirou froze at her grave intonation. It was so unlike her it unnerved him. Fuji-nee looked at her warily. "She's caught us out. Now is honesty's turn."

"Wait, Saber, are you—We can't tell her about—!"

"Praetor," she said more sternly. Shirou's mouth instinctively snapped shut. "I offer my apologies, Lady Taiga," she began. "It was my coercion which drove Pr–Master Shirou to endeavor in deceit against you. Yet now the scales have fallen from my eyes, thus here I impart upon you the truth in all its plainness!"

Fuji-nee gave her an unsure look. "Oh?"

"Indeed," Saber nodded, eyes closed, hand to her heart. "For you see..." She paused, not saying anything for many long moments, a serene look upon her face.

Shirou's shoulders tensed, waiting for Saber to drop the masquerade.

"Pr–Master Shirou is a gracious man, Milady Taiga, who in infinite tenderness took to shelter me, the poor, woeful—yet impossibly beautiful—young woman from the predators of the darkness."

Wait, what?

"Indeed, so pitiable I was to be stumbling about with but my own self under the moonlight, abandoned so by my betrothed at the very altar of our nuptial vows and left in the open to wander about like a vagrant with naught but the clothes I wear now, a symbol of a matrimony yet to be and now forever withheld." She extended her arm to the heavens—or at least the ceiling light shining above her. White and gold confetti floated around her, falling from her outstretched hand.

Shirou slammed a palm into his face. There was no way that anyone would—

"That is such a sad story!" Fuji-nee burbled through sudden tears.

—right, this was Fuji-nee, wasn't it.

"Indeed!" Saber agreed. "And it grows more woeful still! My dastard of a husband-to-be and an ever engorging mob of his making made pursuit against my maidenly self, and so I flew into the thicket to find concealment, but—!" She paused for effect. "—escape was not so freely taken. His men consorted with all manner of beasts, but it was the bloodhounds which made me."

"Oh, no!" Fuji-nee exclaimed.

"In the tumult," Saber continued, "my brides-veil sailed adrift in the nightly zephyr and my skirts tore in the snarls of woodland's gnarled hands. My bridal bouquet was chewed upon by the rats and the rodents. Indeed," she grunted, sweeping a hand downward over her front, "here your eyes rest on the scraps of the affair." She cast her eyes downward, a mournful frown on her lips.

"No!"

She nodded, a look of anguish on her face. "Yes, were it not for this most clement of men," she smiled at Shirou, who, despite himself, suddenly found himself blushing, "the fate of my personage would—pardon me. 'Tis a circumstance too terrible to envision." She took a deep deliberate breath. "Master Shirou has returned to me my life, and a pittance is all I have to repay him. I shall carry his debt so long as I draw breath. Yet, here I am, reposed by his hearth, as a leech upon his arm, and yet still he proffers to garb me by his own bullion! It was this occasion that you happened upon us, milady." She looked at Fuji-nee expectantly. "And that is the tale's end! Finis!" She bowed several times as her audience of one clapped boisterously. Shirou merely stared with growing incredulity.

Fuji-nee wiped a tear from her eye. "Shirou's such a good boy, isn't he? Isn't he? Oh, who knew he'd grow up to be such a good Samaritan to help out a poor girl in need and offer to buy her new clothes? Doesn't he know how expensive that would be? What a foolish, foolish, good boy he is, isn't he?"

"H–hey, Fuji-nee, isn't that a little...?"

"Never mind that, Shirou. This poor girl needs clothes—badly!" Saber opened her mouth to object, but Fuji-nee continued anyway. "But—! I can't let you spend your money all willy-nilly like that, Shirou! I'm sure I can find something of mine for her to wear."

Shirou doubted that. Fuji-nee was tall and thin. Saber was short and... endowed. You couldn't find a bigger mismatch if you tried.

Saber, though, seemed unperturbed. "Indeed! Who can say what beauteous delicacies we shall unearth!" She pointed her finger toward the kitchen. "Lead on, Lady Taiga! Exeunt!"

"Bye, Shirou! See you later! Make sure dinner's ready when we get back!"

In their absence, Shirou stared for a long time at a slight indentation on the doorframe. Then he rubbed the aching spot on his forehead in frustration.

Shirou wiped the sweat from his brow. The broth was turning out nicely, and its fine aroma rose with the heat creating a tiny pocket of heaven in the kitchen. The taste wasn't half-bad either.

It was just too bad that there was no one around to eat the food. He turned the heat down on the broth, enough to keep it warm without burning it and sat back down at the kotatsu. It had been nearly an hour since the two had left, which gave him time to cook up a substantial amount of food, enough to feed three at least, but apparently it wasn't enough for the two to solve Saber's wardrobe problem.

Not that he should've expected otherwise. There was something about women and clothes that he still didn't quite get. Even Fuji-nee, the least fashion-conscious person ever, could spend hours trying on clothes, eclectic as her choices were.

A chill ran down his spine. Suddenly, he wasn't sure if letting Fuji-nee pick out Saber's clothes was a great idea. No, best not to think of that. He focused on the warmth of the kotatsu instead to distract him.

The door slid open and, after the shuffling of feet, slid back closed. "Hmm, Senpai? What are you doing down there?"

Shirou cracked open his eyes from the floor. It was Sakura, as expected, looking down at him curiously. He didn't quite remember ever lying down, but he sat up anyway, rubbing at a sudden itch in his right eye. "Huh? Oh, just waiting for Fuji-nee to get back."

"I see you've already finished cooking," she remarked with a tinge of something like disappointment in her voice. She glanced around the kitchen, looking like she might say more, but she didn't.

Shirou scratched his neck. "Ah, yeah. Fuji-nee and—well, Fuji-nee had something to do, and I wanted to be sure dinner was ready by the time she came back. Though..." He looked at the door thoughtfully. "She's taking longer that I thought she would. If you don't mind waiting, Sakura, you can join us for dinner if you'd like. Although I can't tell you exactly when that will be."

"I don't mind waiting, Senpai." Sakura smiled at him as she sat down to his right. "So... where did Fujimura-sensei go?"

Shirou grimaced. How to explain? "Well, the thing about that is that—"

The door slammed open with a bang. "WE'RE BACK!" Fuji-nee stood proudly in the door frame, dressed the same as ever, but Saber was nowhere in sight.

Sakura looked at Shirou. "'We'?"

Fuji-nee's eyes brightened. "Oh! Sakura-chan, perfect timing! We're just about to show off Saber-chan's new clothes!"

"'Saber-chan'?"

"Saber-chan, you ready?" Fuji-nee's voice was filled past the brim with giddiness.

From out of sight, Saber's voice replied, "Indeed I am!"

Fuji-nee mimed holding a mic to her lips. "Ladies and gentlemen! Presenting the Saber-chan's Magnificent Lovely Yes! Yes! Ba-dump! Fashion Show, I am your host, Fujimura!" She paused as though waiting for applause. There was none. "And tonight, we have the beautiful Miss Saber-chan showing off a wonderful fashion item that was supposed to be a gift for Sakura-chan who refused but by then it was too late to return it!"

Sakura suddenly turned very pale.

"Come on out and strut your stuff, Saber-chan!" Fuji-nee slid to the side, gesturing with her arms.

In response, Saber strode into the room, doing a twirl so the audience could see everything.

"Senpai! Don't look!" Sakura lunged at Shirou, attempting to cover his eyes with her hands. But she was far too slow.

Shirou couldn't quite see everything, but it was a damn sight closer to everything than what he expected or what was decent. Hell, "decent" was out the window, the outfit was on the wrong side of risque and veering dangerously close to pornographic, which, sadly, was nothing new today.

Saber was wearing a lavender sweater. Sort of. That is, it was only sort of a sweater, and it was only sort of being worn. It was sleeveless, with a turtleneck collar and exposed shoulders, and at first glance, from the front, it seemed modest enough. That modesty was then stabbed in the heart by a barbed red spear of death. The sweater left the soft pale skin of her back utterly exposed, and the flesh of her breasts threatened (convincingly) to spill out the sides. The back dipped down low, lower even than with the mutant wedding dress, low enough that he could see the t-back of her underwear, which failed miserably on its quest to make it halfway up her bottom and instead nestled itself at the convergence of flesh and flesh.

"So, what do you think, Shirou?" Fuji-nee grinned. Or sounded like she did. Shirou was having trouble seeing through Sakura's hands. "I call it the 'Special One-of-a-Kind-Kind-of Virgin-Killing Sweater Mini-Dress'. Bet you're regretting turning down this gift now, aren't you, Sakura-chan? You can just imagine Sakura wearing this, Shirou, can't you?"

Sakura's voice turned stern. "Senpai, I'd ask you please keep the image out of your head."

Too late. It was scary how easy an image it was to picture. The color and cut would suit Sakura far better than it did Saber, and, attractive as it was on the blonde Servant, Sakura had a certain charm that would—

At that thought, Shirou abruptly and wordlessly shifted so that he was facing directly away from Saber and Sakura, with eyes held firmly shut.

Fuji-nee chuckled at that with a mischievous smile. "As expected of the Virgin-Killing Sweater Mini-Dress."

Shirou ignored her, his eyes still closed. Out of sight, out of mind.

"Fujimura-sensei, what exactly is this all about?" Sakura's voice was tinged with confusion, but oddly even.

"Oh, Sakura-chan, you haven't met Saber-chan, yet, have you? It's so sad. Her fiancee left her stranded at the altar, and–and, then he—what did he do again, Saber-chan?"

Saber picked up from Fuji-nee's failed attempt at telling the story. "Indeed, he left me bereft of love and duty, alone at that mockery of a matrimonial stage, but his manhood could not abide before his betrayals were threefold cast. In turn, after he stole my love, next were taken my dignity then my faith. Yes, the second he snatched up when I turned my misgivings toward him, and so incensed was he that he filled his hands with the garments of my nuptial vows and tore them from my flesh!"

Fuji-nee gasped, once again engrossed in Saber's regaling of the circumstances which led her to the here and now and apparently not noticing the clear and obvious discrepancies.

"Senpai," Sakura's voice spoke near his ear, loud enough that he could hear her over Saber's prattling and Fuji-nee's clapping. "Please tell me what's going on." Ah, so she wasn't falling for Saber's story.

Shirou wasn't sure if it was safe yet, but he opened his eyes a crack to address Sakura. "Well, it's kind of hard to explain..." he started, wondering what he should say. "Anyway, the problem is that she doesn't have any daytime appropriate clothing, and, well, Fuji-nee wanted to–to help."

"'Help'...?" Sakura glanced at something behind him.

Shirou stopped himself from looking, but just barely. "Yeah, so, if you could help sort Saber out, I'd really appreciate it." He gave her what he thought was an apologetic smile.

Sakura gave him a serene smile in return. "Don't worry, Senpai. Just leave everything to me." She said it with such confidence that Shirou couldn't help but feel that she would succeed.

"—then, as in uffish thought stood I in the clearing, bathed in Diana's light, an ursine beast, eyes aglow, made to rend me, unheeding of the thorn and bramble in our line. I feared for my life! But, lo! From the woods came the whistle of an arrow's tip piercing through the night air. It struck the monster true, yet it was unflinching and unfeeling. But attention was off from me! I stole for the cover of shade and darkness while still I had moment. Contrarily, my savior shed his shadowy cloak and stood bare in the moonlight, standing tall against the claws of Mother Nature's champion. The crimson of his hair—a beacon of hope and light that never wavered as he and the creature wrestled—the color is seared in my sight. Their combat stood until morning peered from under its veil, when finally only my hero, Master Shirou, prevailed."

Fuji-nee wiped a tear from her eye and sniffled. "I don't approve of you rolling around with bears naked until morning, Shirou," she burbled, "but thank goodness you were there to save this poor girl!"

Shirou's cheek twitched, and he made a mental note to say a prayer for Sakura's endeavors. She'd need all the help she could get.

An electronic tone accompanied the whir of the automatic door as it slid open. Shirou sighed internally as he stepped over the threshold, returning the cheerful "Welcome!" of the attendant.

He hadn't expected that leaving everything to Sakura would involve getting ejected from the Emiya property, but Sakura had said, "Senpai, I'm going to take a little bit of time. No peeking!" before unceremoniously shooing him outside. It was too late to be of much help at Copenhagen—the commute alone saw to that—so killing time at the convenience store was the most, well, convenient option.

The air inside was considerably warmer than the winter breeze outside, but not so warm he was uncomfortable in his jacket. Still, he unzipped the front about three quarters of the way down as he wandered through the aisles.

Nothing really caught his eye. The various foodstuffs on the shelves were, while not of poor quality, generally not suitable for use as ingredients. Too processed, too much preservative, too artificially flavored. Although he had to admit he was hungry, never having gotten around to serving dinner, he wasn't about to stoop to buying the pre-cooked meals they served. At least, not while he still had food waiting to be eaten.

The pink cover of a magazine on the rack caught his attention. He instinctively glanced toward the woman behind the cash register, who, he noted, was watching him but without any real focus. The other employee had gone off somewhere and was nowhere in sight. Shirou shook his head and grabbed the magazine and stiffly started flipping through it.

The contents were... interesting, certainly, but the target audience of Pichi Lemon was a bit younger than Saber's apparent age, height notwithstanding, so back to the rack it went. Still...

Shirou picked another magazine off the rack. He wasn't exactly certain about women's fashion. He just knew what he liked, he supposed, and none of the women in his life dressed like they did on these pages. Although, admittedly, Fuji-nee was about as fashion-conscious as a rock, and his experience with the girls his age were ultimately limited to his interactions with them at school where they either wore the Homurahara Academy uniform, or various club-related gear.

Of course, this meant that he had no idea which magazine to pick from for Saber to base her fashion on, whether or not Sakura was successful in cleaning up Saber's appearance to begin with. And, although he had faith in Sakura's competence elsewhere, he suspected not even her well-meaning efforts would be bearing much fruit in this particular circumstance. Which meant that he ought to prepare a backup plan: Operation Fashion Study: feat. Saber. He had a fervent hope that this backup plan would also require minimal involvement on his part. With that in mind, he stacked up haphazardly selected issues of various publications, optimistic that at least one of them would hit the mark.

The woman at the register kept giving him funny looks as she rung up the magazines at an agonizingly slow pace. Each tick of the till sent another unbidden bead of sweat from his forehead. She paused for a very long time and stared at one particular cover, her eyes flickering to look at Shirou (who deftly avoided the eye contact) for several long moments before she wordlessly rung that up, too.

The ¥4,053 combined price of six magazines left him wincing, and he silently prayed for the fate of his food budget even as he reached for his wallet.

The sudden sound of gnashing metal crashed through the store. "You've got to be kidding me!"

Both Shirou and the cashier looked up. The male employee was running his hand through his hair, desperately fiddling with the control panel of the slushy machine, and the machine was being entirely unappreciative of his magic touch. It wasn't making a mess—yet—, but the mechanical din had apparently chased off a few would-be customers already. The employee, barely older than Shirou, it seemed, looked to be at the end of his rope.

"Come, on," he mumbled, fruitlessly pecking at some more toggles.

A thought struck Shirou. He still had more time to kill, and he wasn't the type to leave others in distress if he could help it, no matter how diminutive the distress might seem. Not when there was someone to save. "Excuse me..."

Shirou slipped back into his house an hour later, carrying his purchased magazines in a cheap plastic bag. Disappointingly, he had spent more time convincing the employees to allow him to touch the machine than it took to actually repair it. There wasn't much mechanically wrong with the machine, but it had been left in a bad state by improper inputs on the control panel, which was unfortunately not one of Shirou's areas of expertise. Still, he soldiered on and was able to trial-and-error his way to success with liberal use of Structural Grasping to gauge his progress.

The employees had insisted on letting him take the magazines free of charge after that. He staunchly refused at first but soon gave into his baser nature after they agreed to "just" let him have a 50% discount. Perhaps his food budget could still be salvaged after all.

The house itself was so remarkably quiet, no sound but the blaring of the TV from the living room, that Shirou half-thought that Fuji-nee, Sakura, and Saber had all vacated for reasons heretofore unknown. "I'm home!" he called, sliding open the door to the only source of sound.

What.

Sitting in the center of the room was an amorphous pile of clothing vaguely shaped into a caricature of a human figure. It turned as Shirou stepped in, and underneath the many layers, Shirou just barely spotted a pair of sharp green eyes peering back at him.

"Mrmmfmr!" came Saber's voice brightly from the pile. "Ymm'ff rmfmrmmm mf mmmf!"

Shirou shook his head. This had to be Sakura's doing. "Hey, Saber, where'd Sakura and Fuji-nee go?"

"Fmfm Fmmfm fmmf Mmff Fmfmrm—" Shirou pulled down the muffler from Saber's mouth "—on a trek back to the latter's abode, Praetor. They requested I await your return, and so, as you see, I have done as much." She attempted to gesture, but her flexibility was trapped underneath seventeen pounds of cloth, so the movement just caused her to flop onto the floor uselessly. "Pardon my clumsiness, Praetor. This garb, although fashionable, makes even small gesticulations argumentative," she told him, not getting up.

"Fashionable is not the word I'd use," Shirou muttered.

"It appears I may require aid sitting back up again, Praetor. I wish to continue observing Yuuichi's search for his lost past." To prove her point, Saber groaned as though she were attempting to sit up, but otherwise did not appear to move at all. "This is admittedly quite vexing."

Shirou sighed. "Right, let's get you out of that."

He couldn't help but marvel at how Sakura had managed to fasten closed roughly twelve layers of sweaters, coats, and other things on top of one another without a single one tearing so much as a seam. He was having trouble doing the reverse while leaving the garments intact, although given the egregious stretching that had assuredly taken place, he wasn't sure if it was worth the effort. The top layers were now likely unusable to anybody but the most girthy. He thought about that. Donating these clothes to a big-and-tall store might offset the cost of the magazines he'd purchased—assuming of course that Sakura didn't want them back. It would be polite to ask, at least.

With ten layers peeled, Saber, once more sitting up and enraptured by the anime on the television, a rerun of a premiere that had aired on Thursday, looked to be dressed in a respectable two layers suitable for daily winter wear. What they lacked in fashion and color coordination, they made up for in modesty, and Shirou briefly considered not giving Saber the magazines and instead just surreptitiously returning them at some later date.

Still, they were bought now, and they would certainly give Saber some much-needed insight into modern fashion trends. Hopefully. If she got some use out of them, good, and if she didn't, well, he might still be able to return them if she was careful with them, and she seemed the type to care for material objects. Or maybe it was more that she didn't seem otherwise.

He unceremoniously, albeit neatly, stacked the magazines on the kotatsu, and Saber hardly spared them a glance. It wasn't long before the credits began to roll. Saber nodded in appreciation, bobbing to the ending music. "The hint of romance between Ayu and Yuuichi intrigues me. Indeed, the atmosphere has such emotional charge that I fear for their future already."

Ignoring Saber's review, Shirou slapped a hand onto the stack. "Saber, read these magazines when you have the time. The clothes Sakura gave you are fine, but it's probably a good idea for you to study modern fashion trends as well, and these will help with that." Hopefully.

"How generous of you, Praetor," Saber praised, picking up the top magazine and thumbing through it gently. "Indeed, these garbs appear comely as well as functional and better suit my nature as Miss Sakura's do hers."

Shirou's cheek twitched. He hoped "comely" didn't mean she'd pick one of the more risque options in the future. Fashion was one thing, but having to purchase such a thing for her and live with her wearing it around... well, while it wasn't an unpleasant or even unwelcome thought, it would be enormously difficult to explain to anyone who cared to ask. Namely Sakura and Fuji-nee.

"Anyway, study up, and then once you have a better idea of what you want, we might be able to scrounge something up to match."

"A most generous Praetor, indeed." Saber smiled at him pleasantly. Shirou reflexively jerked his eyes away, mumbling, "No problem." Saber continued, "I will consume the contents posthaste. You shan't be disappointed at my performance."

As Saber dug into the magazines, Shirou assessed the state of dinner. He mentally thanked Sakura for having the foresight to properly contain everything so that they would still be adequate if reheated. No wasted food, no cooking a second dinner, and no mad and hungry Fuji-nee whenever she deigned to reappear.

He set aside a portion of the food for Fuji-nee, idly wondering if he should have bought a snack for her from the convenience store, and began the process of reheating the rest. It was a relatively short process, and soon a pleasant aroma was whirling once again through the air.

Dinner was a quiet affair with Saber engrossed in her perusal of the magazines. She was very thorough, it seemed, flipping through the pages and reading each one by one, absorbing rather than just leafing through. Shirou didn't particularly mind the quiet, but he was used to Fuji-nee being around for mealtimes and without her raucousness, things were perturbingly calm. He wondered what was taking her so long to get back.

He was starting to worry when she hadn't returned by the time he'd finished eating, and was contemplating leaving to go find her when Saber suddenly broke her silent study with elation on her face. "Praetor! I've found a solution that requires no further investment more than a paltry! Indeed, this manuscript is Deus ex Machina! I almost regret that such an answer was so readily given without hardship, but alas the knowledge has been seared into my brainstuffs and I can forget it no longer. Stubbornness in this regard is foolhardiness."

Shirou tilted his head in confusion. "Ah, so wait, do you mean there's some fashionable clothing you can wear that we won't need to buy?" That was highly suspect, but his budget was still smarting.

"Indeed. Common household items shall be enough. Truly a golden apple dropped by the gods." She seemed eager.

Household items? Maybe some sort of blanket toga? Had those somehow become fashionable? "Well, if you think so, you can go—"

Saber was already up and gone. "I shall return!" came from the hallway.

Shirou sighed and neatly restacked the magazines. One was missing, which he assumed Saber had taken with her. He hadn't examined them thoroughly enough earlier to recognize which one that would be, however. They were all too similar to him.

He gathered the dishes from the table and began to methodically wash them. The current of warm water running over the dishes was relaxing after earlier's trying hours, and the almost mechanical nature of washing allowed him to drift away for a bit.

"Praetor, have you any—where are the healing pla—ah, worry not, they could not escape my search for long!"

Her voice ripped him right back into reality. He frowned for a moment but went right back to scrubbing.

Behind him, the shuffling of bare feet heralded Saber's return to the room. "My fashion is once more unsullied, Praetor, aside, I'm afraid, from a lack of properly matched stockings, although the text was adamant such an addition was unnecessary. Indeed, although regretful, I must play the hand dealt. With that supposed, lay gaze upon me, Praetor!"

An outfit assembled so quickly had to be something simple like a toga, right? "That was fast," he admitted. "All right, let's see—"

The dish in his hand almost shattered in his grip. A tiny fracture creeped from underneath his thumb with an audible clink.

Saber was wearing—well, she was wearing nothing it seemed like. She was standing in the middle of the living room nude as the day she was born. Not even a scrap of visible undergaments, tops or bottoms. He tried to exclaim in shock or disbelief or, really, anything at all, but all that came from his throat was a pitchy groan tinged with dismay.

No, wait, that was wrong. She wasn't nude. "Saber," he choked. "Are you wearing a band-aid?"

Saber tilted her head. "That would be foolish, Praetor. No, just the one would not be fashionable. I have on three."

Indeed she did. One each was strategically placed over the nipples of her breasts, and a third was determinedly attempting to preserve the modesty of her bottom half with an admirable sort of stubbornness despite the Sisyphean nature of the task. All three were the same color: flesh-toned, which made them all quite difficult to spot on her otherwise nude form. With difficulty, he avoided picturing her with "matching" stockings.

She puffed her chest, which, unbound by any support whatsoever, wobbled enticingly. "Glorious, is it not? Truly a raiment suited for an emperor!"

Shirou opened his mouth to reply, although he was still unsure what he ought to say, but before a sound could leave his lips, the door slid open.

"I'm back from helping a blond, suspiciously handsome foreigner find his way around Fuyuki by pointing him to a police box while on my way back from Sakura-chan's home, and now I'm even hungrier than before!"

Shirou froze even as Saber struck a dramatic pose that showed off all the nothing she was wearing. "Lady Taiga! Look upon my adornments!"

Fuji-nee's smile visibly dropped from her face and clattered to the floor. She was stiff enough that her body proper might have followed, but color quickly saturated her face in defiance. "SHIROU! WHY IS SABER-CHAN NAKED IN YOUR LIVING ROOM?! I REFUSE! I REFUSE! I REFUSE! I REFUSE!"

Saber looked perturbed. "My beauty is a boundless gift to the world! I regret that even you may not be fit to see it for its true glory, Lady Taiga."

"WHAT?! NOT FIT?! BUT I GET MY DAILY EXERCISE IN EVERYDAY!"

"I fear we have a miscommunication."

Ignoring the two, Shirou slowly walked past the bickering women, one next-to-nude and the other, thankfully, not, and began reacquainting his forehead with the wooden frame of the doorway.

CRACK.

"I told you so, Praetor."

Next time on The Emperor's New Clothes...

"You know, Emiya-kun, I gave Saber-chan some clothes. On that first night?"

King Arthur's Fight with the Great Cat!

See you then! ❤

Despite the misleading next episode preview, the following story will not be a continuation of this one. That'll be saved for some future date, assuming I don't forget how to write. It's liable to happen at times. Instead we'll explore another aspect of Shirou's partnership with red Saber: meeting other Servants!

For those who get here, this is the first in a series of vignettes starring Shirou and his summoned Servant, the eponymous emperor, as they navigate the trials thrown upon them by the circumstance that is the Fuyuki's fifth war for the Holy Grail. The stories won't necessarily be told chronologically and will instead skip between various plots and moments as I find them interesting to write.

Blame Raiyoukai for putting these awful ideas in my head.

If you liked the story, review. If you didn't like it, review. Or don't. But seriously please do.