Omake 3: FGO 3

It was unquestionable at this point that a spar had to happen. I tried to stop my little daughter from growing interested in fighting her counterpart, yet her other self was really well-versed in pissing all kinds of Mordred with the way she addressed the fellow blonde.

At first, there wasn't any major reason to worry about this. My Mordred had kept herself from reacting over my injuries, but while the girl was willing to listen and comply if I was stern enough to prevent her from making any harsh decision, the same didn't extend to when she was getting grilled too much.

"Long hair, fat chest, what are you, a knight or a girl?"

"I'm a warrior princess," She replied sternly. "And at least I can flaunt the fact I didn't steal my sword from my daddy's collection."

The other Mordred, albeit the instigator, was stung a lot during those instances as she soon realized that my Mordred wasn't exactly someone that was easy to rile up through insults aimed at herself. No, that aspect had long vanished from her mind the moment she started to feel 'accomplished' of the fact those were just jealous attacks at her clear ability in combat and her beauty. It took a look to make her understand beauty didn't translate into outright being girly, and that added to the sense of protected pride she had over her own powers. But soon the insults shifted over to target… me. I saw through those and ignored them, but… well, kids when they grow up, they tend to really build an overprotective barrier over their parents when they know some of the slights thrown at them are not true or unforgivable.

"He is a pacifist weakling. Not even a knight-"

"Why the fuck would he be a knight when he warred until he unified Europe in stable states, you homunculus inbred."

I actually flinched at the harshness of the comebacks. When I taught her that words mattered more during these kinds of clashes, I didn't expect her at the time to grow up into someone so vicious when needed. My baby girl was still childish with the delivery, but definitely a 'killer' with most of them. I felt proud and also… awkward at the fact I taught her to be this fierce with her rebuttals. Something that I learned myself was useful… with still a strong degree of moderation.

"What did you call me?!"

"You heard me- you think I don't know why you are coming at us? You're so jealous of the fact I was lucky that you're taking it on me and my father."

"He is not your father. King Arthur is our-"

"Sperm-donor. An unwilling one at that."

"H-How dare you!"

The skirmish there was put to a stop thanks to the intervention of other Servants, but I decided to allow them both to spar and fight it out under heavy surveillance. I was already feeling the twins' nervousness at this escalation… and DaVinci-chan's irritation at having to fix up any damage inflicted to the training room.

Both girls mustered their armors and swords, with their intent clear to make quite a ferocious spar out of that opportunity, one that was definitely going to see one of them on the ground and in severe injuries. Of course, I was going to prevent this from happening due to how I cared for my baby girl, but I had my own confusion regarding the lack of interest from most of the Ria-faces, as only Ria asked if things were really under control out of genuine worry. It was a perplexing element that was definitely going to land some serious conversation between me and them.

If only Mya was around… she would definitely know how to stop Mordred from being so… eager for this.

The sparring session started and went just as expected. The two blondes didn't hold back in trying to overwhelm each other from the very beginning. Both had extremely aggressive methods to extend their might, but Clarent wasn't meant originally to be used in these instances. Powerful of a sword it was, the blade, similar to Florent, had a clear disadvantage when the type of foe it was fighting was one that preferred to be always on the offensive. Something that my Mordred's own blade complemented and enchanted to the maximum. The sudden shift against the 'younger' girl was sudden, evident and… immediate as it led to her quick defeat.

Armor cracked in some aspects and some blood trailing all over her body, the shorter blonde was quickly brought to her knees at that experience and I could tell that my little daughter hadn't exactly kept in mind that this was a spar and it had to be treated as such from the beginning to the very end. So I wasn't exactly surprised when she eyed me with shock when I stood between her and her half-finished opponent.

"Enough," I muttered, stopping the confused warrior and… soon she noticed how far she had gone with her viciousness.

"O-Oh," She muttered with a mix of surprise and realization. "I… I didn't pay much attention to..."

"I know. You didn't mean that but… you really should get that temper under control while fighting, or someone is going to trick you with that."

The 'older' blonde bowed her head and sheepishly sighed, mostly because this wasn't the first time I told her that and I doubted even in that moment it was going to be the last time. As she calmly walked up to Ria to get a little break, I took care of the downed opponent. Just as I got close enough, Mordred regaled me with an angry look and an unwillingness to accept my help.

"I don't need you!"

"Sadly, you can lament about this as much as you want, but you have too many wounds for your normal healing to take care off."

"I don't-"

"Enough!"

My voice stopped her from protesting even more.

"You are a knight are you? So you should know that allowing yourself in such a state is wrong and foolish, especially when you have to always be prepared for the next combat."

…

Her eyes were wide open once I was done with that, but she was surprisingly accepting of my assistance as I helped her up and led her to a chair before retrieving some medical equipment to help her up. She tensed up in annoyance at the sigh, clearly ready to protest again, but I huffed and gave her a serious look that seemed to be enough to keep her quiet some more.

...

"How… why did you take me- her in?"

A legitimate question, one that I decided to answer quite honestly about.

"It was around the time both me and Ria were consolidating our kingdoms. She was taking care of her uncle, Vortigern, while I marched north to deal with King Lot and Morgan," I explained calmly while tending her wounds. "I defeated Lot and captured Morgan… and it was there that I learned she made a little mistake while creating you."

"A… mistake?"

"I believe it was her paranoia, or something tied to it, but she told me that while she was retrieving the 'element' she missed to produce you… she ended up remaining pregnant," I replied with some hesitation, warranting a frown from her.

"Mother… messed up?"

"Surprising isn't it. Morgan, who has never failed, had done that kind of mess like that."

"She was always precise… it's odd," The blonde agreed. "But… why did you take me?"

"Why wouldn't I? Why would I deprive a child and a new life to have a chance to prove that they weren't her parents?"

"I… I'm not good. I can tell she wasn't good too-"

"Oh, but you were a pest. A little troublemaker that loved to prank around knights, magi and even priests for the sake of gaining people's attention," I recalled with a pleasant hum. "The only times you calmed down was when either me or Mya, my wife, decided to take care of you by bringing you to the garden so you could play Knight and Princess."

"What? Your… your wife didn't mind that I wasn't hers or yours?"

"As if biology mattered for her. Mya didn't grow a noble, and she definitely didn't lose any of the kindness and generosity that I met her living by. You were a bundle of joy that even now she likes to tease and praise when you accomplish great achievements."

"It- it couldn't be that great," Mordred argued. "I still decided to be a fighter when- when I should have been a-"

"Lady that does nothing but prance around, giggle at the silliest bit and can't even lift a wooden stick to protect herself?"

…

"Y-Yeah. Still, didn't anyone have trouble with that?"

"Oh, there were a few vocal ones but… we had precedence of female warriors in Britannia. I believe you had the chance of meeting Boudicca."

"Yes-"

"And that's the thing. The idea of forcing women to be submissive came because society needed to fill up the massive toll that the time period imposed on people and… when religion got mixed up with it, it became apparent that women were slowly forced into secondary roles… until I decided to force a slow reversion and improvement of that matter."

"...I see."

"I'm glad that you're happy with what you got, but I will suggest you take it easy from now on. The bandages will hold but you better not exercise too harshly while in this shape. Understood?" I asked, getting a quick nod from the girl. "Good. Now, I will be back to your other version so I get to check on her too. I doubt she is 100% fine and she will definitely need to get her injuries checked too."

"O-Okay," Mordred muttered weakly, kind of surprised by her calmer mood.

"See you later, then," I hummed quietly while leaving her to her thoughts.

As I was away from her proximity, a few words unconsciously left her lips and got her to blush a tiny bit for a while.

"T-Thanks…

…

...

...dad."