Ch 54 – 21 May, First Turning Point 04

The audiovisual room was on the fourth floor of the special-use building. Which was his usual meeting place with Utaha. It had been such a long time since they met, even though they still worked nearly every day. As Utaha would send every 'scene', which is usually a segment of a story from a visual novel called, she wrote to be checked.

If Kouta remembers in the anime, Tomoya found that Utaha's writing kind of didn't work well with the style of dating sims. Which was understandable as she had only experience working in light novels and that was her first time writing outside her expertise. But since Kouta always checked her work with the help of his memories. He found her work in the making F/SN became more polished and the tone had become really nearly exactly with the original.

This was a significant step forward for their project.

Even so, there was something more important than that for Kouta at this moment. Since this time, Kouta hasn't met with Utaha alone. He would introduce Eriri or Kashiwagi Eri to Utaha.

Kouta felt it was a good time for them to meet each other, especially after Eriri had been tamed, and without any drama between them, Kouta hoped they would have good chemistry or friendship like in the latter half of the second season. When they would work with Kosaka Akane.

After knocking on the door and hearing Utaha answer him, Kouta opened the door and walked into the audiovisual room. Of course, Eriri followed him inside. Utaha was sitting alone on a metal chair, reading a very thick hardcover book.

"Ah, Kouta…" Utaha was about to greet Kouta when she realized someone had followed him. It was Eriri who went inside the room and walked behind Kouta like an obedient girl.

"Good afternoon, Utaha-senpai, it feels like it has been a long time since the last time we met." Kouta greeted Utaha while Eriri looked at Utaha and bowed a little and gave Utaha respect.

"Ah… Good afternoon. Well, it may have been nearly two weeks since we last met." Utaha replied with a sour look as though she might not be happy.

"Yeah, that's long time ago… Ah, by the way, there is someone I need to introduce to you." Kouta said, shaking off Utaha's displeasure. "She is Sawamura Spencer Eriri, my classmate is also our illustrator, Kashiwagi Eri." Kouta continued by introducing Eriri to Utaha.

"Nice to meet you, I'm Sawamura Spencer Eriri from 1-G, from the art club, also known by the alias Kashiwagi Eri." Eriri bowed a little and behaved like a good student, like she always did in the school.

"Ah… I'm Kasumigaoka Utaha from 2-C. Nice to meet you, but wait… Are you serious?" Utaha introduced herself and showed a reserved smile on her face, before she realized and threw the question toward two of them.

Well, it was a different circumstance for Utaha to know Kashiwagi Eri as Eriri. In this world and in the anime, the situation can be said to be reversed. In the anime, she knew about Eriri before learning she was Kashiwagi Eri; in this world, she knew about Kashiwagi Eri before learning she was her junior.

It surprised Utaha, that someone she thought would be much older, as she found her skill to be good, and she also liked her manga that worked together with Kouta would be someone younger than herself. She couldn't help but feel respect for her.

"Yes, you may not have expected it, but someone like her, a daughter of a high-class family that is looked up to by her peers, would be someone who draws erotic-stuff." Kouta smiled, as he was mostly joking around.

"Shut up… I can't help but like what I like…" Eriri quickly replied and pouted her lips, her expression disgruntled.

"That might be true." Kouta chuckled and smiled.

"Well, of course. I wouldn't expect someone at such a young age to draw those things." Utaha responded by tapping her feet on the ground. She might be surprised and happy to see the real Kashiwagi Eri, and of course she knew that Kouta knew her well. And from Eriri's introduction, Utaha knew that those two were classmates.

After seeing how they interact, Utaha couldn't help but gaze silently at Eriri, and maybe there was a little jealousy in her tone. She appeared to be envious... when she realized she wasn't the only one who was close to Kouta.

In Utaha's mind, she thought Kashiwagi Eri would be an adult. It was understandable, since there was no way people would think someone like Eriri would draw that stuff. Utaha was surprised to learn that Eri was around Kouta's age and that she might be working with Kouta like herself.

No, Eriri might have got more than her since they're making manga together too. And the fact that it was someone like Eriri made her feel a little threatened.

Especially, even someone like her who didn't really care about trivial things at school… She might have heard about Eriri being talked about by her classmate. That's how famous she was.

Frankly speaking, yeah, by knowing the truth, Utaha jealous of their intimacy. Even so, she took a deep breath and calmed herself down, before asking the question.

"Okay, so why only now?" Utaha wondered about this.

"Well… because she was hiding the fact that she drew erotic-stuff…"

"But… she was…"

Utaha wanted to tell them, 'why bother? When she's that good.' Her words stifled as Eriri responded to the question.

"Geek shaming runs deep… Also I've experienced how things could get bad if someone found out…"

"Eh… Really?"

"Yeah, there are crazy people in this world…" Eriri told Utaha how dangerous the world was. Eriri stared at Utaha with blank eyes, muttering incoherently about how dangerous and unfair the world was…and that there were crazy people in this world.

"You've been through a lot…" Utaha said it from the bottom of her heart in a sympathetic voice.

"Ahaha… Yeah… Thanks to someone."

"Well, anyway… for now we might need to have a meeting like this. After all, the midterm test was already over. So we can focus on making this and we could publish it in the summer." Kouta explained their schedule project to them once more.

In the end, F/SN was a long game to make, in Kouta memories, the first two-story arcs completed were Fate and Unlimited Blade Works; the latter was partially presented to the public in a preview booklet at Comiket in December 2001 before it was translated into code, edited background images and sprites, and debugged audio-visual effects. On March 3, 2003, the demo had been released, and Fate/Stay Night was released in Japan on January 30, 2004, for Windows PCs.

But with Kouta memories, and the power of those two genius heroines… Kouta was confident that they could finish one story arc in the summer. And by using the names of Kashiwagi Eri and Kasumi Utako, their game will be alright.

"Well, I think we'll be fine. I've already finished most of the prologue after all." Utaha said as she looked at the schedule and agreed with Kouta's schedule. "How about you, Sawamura-san?" Utaha asked sincerely, putting her palms together.

"Me? Well, I think I can finish all of the character models this month. Since Kouta's character design is already good. So it's easy for me… I just need to wait for the 'scene' from you, Kasumigaoka-senpai." Eriri replied with a fake smile. The two of them spoke as if they were getting along, but there was a weird aura between them.

"It's fine. I will send it shortly."

"Glad to hear that."

Eriri responded as she observed Utaha. Well, she remembered what Kouta said before they came here. She thought he was a bit too confident, but with these interactions with Utaha…

Eriri knew that Kouta's suspicion that Utaha already had feelings for him was true.

'Those womanizer!' Eriri couldn't help but curse him in her mind. So that meant she needed to help him. Never in her dream would she help the man she was fond of to get another girl.

But Eriri couldn't help it, after she lost her only love… A long last lingering love to her childhood friend. She felt like someone lost in the desert… thirsty, hungry, and with nowhere to sleep...and found an oasis that not only gave her water, delicious food but also such a wonderful place to sleep.

Eriri was hooked… and felt there was no other place that could give her those pleasures.

So just like that, Eriri came toward Utaha with a smile on her face and said it to her.

"Kasumigaoka Utaha… I think it's better for you to forget about him."

"Hah…" Utaha was surprised by such a provocative word from Eriri.

"Yeah, I just said it's better for you to forget about him." Eriri, to be honest, truly wanted to warn her, but at the same time, the way she worded it. Truly misleading…

Utaha took Eriri's words as a warning to her to get away from the guy Eriri liked, which annoyed her without knowing the truth behind those words.