[Yes, instructions intensify! Now it really feels like she's helping properly. Mash begins work on the carrots and onions with a nod. Knife work isn't her specialty, and the cuts are far from expert, but they're passable, even if her technique could use some work. (And even if she begins to tear up at the onion-cutting pretty quickly, so when she responds to Shirou, she might look and sound a little more upset than the conversation warrants.)]

Yes . . . she really is. Ever since we met—I could sense that she was, and it didn't take very much time at all for her to prove it. She's the kind of person who doesn't even have to think about being good. Or—maybe it's that she doesn't have to think about being human. I think that's worth even more, to me.

[She sniffles conspicuously, but—]

I-I'm all right, it's just the onions!