Tohsaka Yukio was Rin's elder twin brother. As he possessed neither of his sisters' unique talents, his life was ordinary, normal, untouched by the troubles of magic and magi — until, one cold, February day in 1994, it wasn't.
Fate/Recursive Wisdom (Fate/Stay Night)
- Thread starter James D. Fawkes
- Start date
- Created
- Status
- Ongoing
- Watchers
- 545
- Recent readers
- 0
- Threadmarks
- 17
-
Statistics (16 threadmarks, 70k words)
User Total James D. Fawkes 16 -
Loading…
Foreword
James D. Fawkes
Court Scribe
- Location
- Avalon (Isle of Mists)
Look. Up there. See that? Up there, at the top. Yes, there. That thing we call a summary, or a description. If you're still here after that, or if you clicked on the story and only now see it but still decided to stay, welcome.
First off, The Characters: Emiya Shirou has a supporting role in this story. He's still the protagonist of his own tale, but I'm not going to try and one-up Nasu by writing his conflicts as the main focus when FSN managed to do the job quite well already, so although he features prominently, he's not the protagonist of this story. Rin will also feature prominently as an important member of the supporting cast, but she's not quite the protagonist, either. The main focus of this story will actually be Medea as the Servant and an OC Master, Tohsaka Yukio, Rin's elder twin brother. (By seven lousy minutes!) They're deuteragonist and protagonist respectively.
Speaking of...
The OCs: Strictly speaking, there are three. One of them is mentioned only by name and never appears because there aren't enough female characters in the Clocktower who are both around the main characters' age and not so important that using them for the purpose I needed would get me in trouble, the other is a Servant who is mentioned in the lore but never expanded upon (come on, she's one of my favorites; you guys should already know who she is), and the third is the protagonist of this story, Tohsaka Yukio. The rest of the characters will be straight from canon, either FSN itself or the expanded Fate universe.
If you want to be pedantic about it, there's a fourth OC, but that's just a canon Heroic Spirit in a class they never showed up in during canon, so that doesn't really count.
Tohsaka Yukio: Is an OC and technically a Self-Insert. I say technically, and I mean that in every sense of the word: he isn't just a drop-in who was tossed into the story by Zelretch (really?), he's not a SI disguised as a random OC (yes, those of you who do it, no one is fooled), and he's not a SI who woke up as a baby and perfectly remembers all of the details across 18 years as he grew up to match his mental maturity (come on, seriously?). Yukio is very much built and designed from Nasuverse mechanics, made with rules that govern the setting, and like any good SI, he became his own character long before the main conflict started. The things he inherited from me aren't all good for him, either.
Expect a character more like Lang Noi's Gekko Keisuke from Catch Your Breath rather than... I dunno, I don't really read stories with really bad SIs, so I don't have a counter example.
What to expect: Fate/Stay Night. Yukio is not a Mary Sue or Gary Stu or what have you. He isn't perfect. His plans don't work out flawlessly. He's not some super mage that makes all the rest look like chumps. He's not an edgy, misunderstood genius who no one acknowledges but is actually better than all the rest. Yukio has some advantages, but he is, by and large, a first generation magus, and he doesn't have a Reality Marble to push him past where he should be.
He's better than Fate/Zero era Waver Velvet, but that's not exactly a high bar.
Like with FSN, things will start fairly slow. After all, as you'll see in the first chapter, the story starts a whole month before canon Day 3, when Shirou summons Saber. I get to fill that time with Yukio trying to get everything in order before things kick off, so the first 8 or 9 chapters will be a lot of that and a lot of establishing his place in the setting.
Romance: There will be some, because this is FSN. I'm not going to tell you who ahead of time, but it should be very clear fairly early on.
Update schedule: There isn't one. I'll post on Sundays as and when my buffer fills up, but this is a side project I'm working on simultaneously with Hereafter. Chapters are undoubtedly going to come slower than that story's.
Special Thanks: to all my supporters in the usual place, for helping to make this possible. Their support helps make writing these stories possible, and I'm profoundly thankful to all of them.
First off, The Characters: Emiya Shirou has a supporting role in this story. He's still the protagonist of his own tale, but I'm not going to try and one-up Nasu by writing his conflicts as the main focus when FSN managed to do the job quite well already, so although he features prominently, he's not the protagonist of this story. Rin will also feature prominently as an important member of the supporting cast, but she's not quite the protagonist, either. The main focus of this story will actually be Medea as the Servant and an OC Master, Tohsaka Yukio, Rin's elder twin brother. (By seven lousy minutes!) They're deuteragonist and protagonist respectively.
Speaking of...
The OCs: Strictly speaking, there are three. One of them is mentioned only by name and never appears because there aren't enough female characters in the Clocktower who are both around the main characters' age and not so important that using them for the purpose I needed would get me in trouble, the other is a Servant who is mentioned in the lore but never expanded upon (come on, she's one of my favorites; you guys should already know who she is), and the third is the protagonist of this story, Tohsaka Yukio. The rest of the characters will be straight from canon, either FSN itself or the expanded Fate universe.
If you want to be pedantic about it, there's a fourth OC, but that's just a canon Heroic Spirit in a class they never showed up in during canon, so that doesn't really count.
Tohsaka Yukio: Is an OC and technically a Self-Insert. I say technically, and I mean that in every sense of the word: he isn't just a drop-in who was tossed into the story by Zelretch (really?), he's not a SI disguised as a random OC (yes, those of you who do it, no one is fooled), and he's not a SI who woke up as a baby and perfectly remembers all of the details across 18 years as he grew up to match his mental maturity (come on, seriously?). Yukio is very much built and designed from Nasuverse mechanics, made with rules that govern the setting, and like any good SI, he became his own character long before the main conflict started. The things he inherited from me aren't all good for him, either.
Expect a character more like Lang Noi's Gekko Keisuke from Catch Your Breath rather than... I dunno, I don't really read stories with really bad SIs, so I don't have a counter example.
What to expect: Fate/Stay Night. Yukio is not a Mary Sue or Gary Stu or what have you. He isn't perfect. His plans don't work out flawlessly. He's not some super mage that makes all the rest look like chumps. He's not an edgy, misunderstood genius who no one acknowledges but is actually better than all the rest. Yukio has some advantages, but he is, by and large, a first generation magus, and he doesn't have a Reality Marble to push him past where he should be.
He's better than Fate/Zero era Waver Velvet, but that's not exactly a high bar.
Like with FSN, things will start fairly slow. After all, as you'll see in the first chapter, the story starts a whole month before canon Day 3, when Shirou summons Saber. I get to fill that time with Yukio trying to get everything in order before things kick off, so the first 8 or 9 chapters will be a lot of that and a lot of establishing his place in the setting.
Romance: There will be some, because this is FSN. I'm not going to tell you who ahead of time, but it should be very clear fairly early on.
Update schedule: There isn't one. I'll post on Sundays as and when my buffer fills up, but this is a side project I'm working on simultaneously with Hereafter. Chapters are undoubtedly going to come slower than that story's.
Special Thanks: to all my supporters in the usual place, for helping to make this possible. Their support helps make writing these stories possible, and I'm profoundly thankful to all of them.
Prologue: Witch of Betrayal
James D. Fawkes
Court Scribe
- Location
- Avalon (Isle of Mists)
Prologue: Witch of Betrayal
All around her, there was quiet.
In the distance echoed the sounds of fighting, the thunderous booms of powerful Noble Phantasms clashing, the crack of smacking flesh, the rumble of the earth breaking and shattering beneath kicking feet and punching fists that surpassed the strength of mere humans.
And yet around her, there was nothing. She was alone with her own breathing, alone with the swirling of more magical energy than she had ever before witnessed with her own eyes. Nothing and no one stood between her and her goal.
Saber still fought far off. The remaining Masters were still busy with one another, trying to stop the Grail or bring it to fruition, each for their own reasons. In truth, the Grail War was still not yet finished, and the vessel prepared to accept the souls of the defeated had not yet been filled. A wish could not yet be made upon it.
And yet Medea stood before the Great Grail, and she was the victor.
"What was it you said to me?" she asked the silent air. The vast torrent of magical energy that roared around her like a hurricane seemed to drown her words out. "If I made it to the end against all odds and stood before the Grail to make my wish, you would kill me yourself?"
She should be laughing. She should be crowing her victory, because he had told her he would crush those who stood before the Grail with a wish in their heart, even if it was her, but he was nowhere to be seen. He could not enforce the promise he had made to her at the beginning of this all. He could not stop her.
Was that not something to celebrate? Was she not the winner of this Grail War? She had schemed and plotted and waited for this moment, biding her time so that she could sweep in at the last moment and claim the Grail for herself, and it had all paid off, now.
With this much magical energy, she could achieve anything she wanted. With this much power at her fingertips, why, she could build her own Grail and use it to fuel whatever sorcery she imagined. There was nothing beyond her, now. She could have her wish granted at a whim.
And yet… In spite of that…
Medea looked up at the womb of the Grail, at the grotesque visage of a skeletal, half-formed fetus with four enormous eyes and too-long limbs. The miasma of corrupted magical power that seethed off of it and hovered over the ground like mist was corrosive and vile, even to a Heroic Spirit like her who was formed more from grudges than adulation.
Even this was not truly an obstacle. It was exactly as had been foretold: a creature of incredible power that specialized in the killing of humans, a thing of darkness and curses closer to one of the Beasts, an Evil of Humanity, than a proper Servant. But it was still weak and defenseless, and therefore at her mercy. Like this, nascent and not yet fully manifested, she could smother it in its womb and plunder the Grail for whatever she desired.
This was it. This was what she'd struggled for, what she'd almost died for, this was the end of the crooked path she'd been walking. Right here, right now, it didn't matter if the Grail War hadn't technically ended, because with this much power at her fingertips, she was the winner, no matter what.
And yet…
And yet, she was hesitating. Victory was within her grasp, and all she had to do was reach out and take it with her two hands. There was nothing stopping her, nothing standing in her way, neither Servant nor Master to prevent her from subverting this whole system for her own ends.
And yet she hesitated.
Why?
Why? Why was she hesitating? What was stopping her from claiming her prize?
Nothing. She couldn't think of a single reason. There was nothing in her way and nothing at all to stop her. She had no reason.
No, that was wrong. It wasn't that she didn't have a reason.
Rather, the one reason she could think of was a reason she absolutely couldn't accept. She'd spent too much time and effort denying it, turning away from the possibility, and scorning him for his willingness to believe it. She'd spent too much time tricking him, too much time lying to him, too much time and effort twisting him around her finger.
It had all been a lie, it had to be. Yes, from the beginning, she'd always known she could do it, she would do it, and that she'd have to in order to make it this far. Lying to him and leading him on, tricking him into believing in her, trusting her, that had been part of the plan ever since he had saved her.
She'd even given him her body, made herself vulnerable just so that she could take advantage of his. Seduction was the witch's oldest trick, the original sin that men blamed her for. She had seduced Jason, surely, and killed her brother to sell it. What difference did it make if this time such an accusation was true?
And with her tongue, she'd promised him loyalty. With her lips, she'd sealed that promise. In the bedchamber, she'd given that promise weight. No man could surrender so much to a woman and not believe her his.
All so that she could do as her legend said she would and betray him at this very last moment.
But what if the only person she'd wound up lying to was herself?
Damn it. Damn it.
She drew Rule Breaker, held it out, gripped it with shaking hands. The easiest thing in the world would be to stab herself with it and be free of the contract, free to betray him and take the Grail, free of the threat of his Command Spells when he realized her treachery.
And yet, she couldn't do it.
No, she couldn't be that much of a fool, could she? That day, when he'd so calmly and with such conviction told her she could transcend her legend, she had scorned his naiveté. She had long come to terms with who and what she was and his pretty words wouldn't change any of it.
And yet they returned to her now.
"Self-actualization, you called it," she murmured. "To cast off the shackles of my legend and become a hero. A chance to be true to who I am, rather than who I was forced to be."
She'd derided them then, and she absolutely should, now.
But…
The phantom sensation of his lips on hers tingled. His breath on her ear, his fingertips dancing along her naked skin, his body flush against hers. The memory of his scars under her touch. The sense of calm contentment to feel the warmth of his body next to hers.
Why? Why couldn't she get them out of her head?
His trust, his belief in her innate goodness should be meaningless to her. How could it compare to the deepest, most heartfelt yearnings that had been carved so completely into her being that she felt them now, millennia after her death? It simply couldn't. It was the same as weighing a feather against a pile of gold.
But… In spite of that…
"You're a fool."
She spat the words out like venom. Even she wasn't quite sure who she was addressing them to, herself or him. Maybe she was saying it to both.
Who was the greater fool, then? The fool who believed in her, despite knowing exactly who and what she was, or the fool who fell in love with him, in spite of her intentions to stab him in the back?
Or maybe she was the only fool, for not knowing that she'd become so good a liar she could deceive herself so completely.
A month. That was how long it had taken him to win her over so thoroughly that she'd never realized it. A month. That was all the longer it took him to steal her heart.
It felt far too short. Maybe if her younger self had been summoned, she would have been so susceptible as to find him that charming. The Princess of Colchis may indeed have been so easily seduced.
But the Witch of Betrayal should never have fallen at all.
Damn it. Damn it all. And damn him, most of all, for making her love him.
Because there was no other choice she could make. Now that she'd come this far, now that she'd made it before the Grail, there was no other outcome that could possibly have resulted. This was a foregone conclusion.
Knowing what she was sacrificing now didn't make it hurt any less.
She lifted Rule Breaker, her Noble Phantasm that canceled all contracts and reduced all magecrafts back to their origin state. Her hands no longer shook, because she'd made her decision.
For a moment, she closed her eyes and didn't bother to hide the lone pair of tears that leaked out. She thought of her family and friends, the ones she'd left behind when she'd sailed off with Jason. She thought of her father, her brother who she'd mutilated, the various staff and ladies in waiting who had been kind to her. She thought, at last, of the young man who had been the first to offer her a real and true smile since that fateful day, the first since she'd left Colchis to honestly love her, whether or not she deserved it.
"I'm sorry."
And she thrust her crooked dagger down.
All around her, there was quiet.
In the distance echoed the sounds of fighting, the thunderous booms of powerful Noble Phantasms clashing, the crack of smacking flesh, the rumble of the earth breaking and shattering beneath kicking feet and punching fists that surpassed the strength of mere humans.
And yet around her, there was nothing. She was alone with her own breathing, alone with the swirling of more magical energy than she had ever before witnessed with her own eyes. Nothing and no one stood between her and her goal.
Saber still fought far off. The remaining Masters were still busy with one another, trying to stop the Grail or bring it to fruition, each for their own reasons. In truth, the Grail War was still not yet finished, and the vessel prepared to accept the souls of the defeated had not yet been filled. A wish could not yet be made upon it.
And yet Medea stood before the Great Grail, and she was the victor.
"What was it you said to me?" she asked the silent air. The vast torrent of magical energy that roared around her like a hurricane seemed to drown her words out. "If I made it to the end against all odds and stood before the Grail to make my wish, you would kill me yourself?"
She should be laughing. She should be crowing her victory, because he had told her he would crush those who stood before the Grail with a wish in their heart, even if it was her, but he was nowhere to be seen. He could not enforce the promise he had made to her at the beginning of this all. He could not stop her.
Was that not something to celebrate? Was she not the winner of this Grail War? She had schemed and plotted and waited for this moment, biding her time so that she could sweep in at the last moment and claim the Grail for herself, and it had all paid off, now.
With this much magical energy, she could achieve anything she wanted. With this much power at her fingertips, why, she could build her own Grail and use it to fuel whatever sorcery she imagined. There was nothing beyond her, now. She could have her wish granted at a whim.
And yet… In spite of that…
Medea looked up at the womb of the Grail, at the grotesque visage of a skeletal, half-formed fetus with four enormous eyes and too-long limbs. The miasma of corrupted magical power that seethed off of it and hovered over the ground like mist was corrosive and vile, even to a Heroic Spirit like her who was formed more from grudges than adulation.
Even this was not truly an obstacle. It was exactly as had been foretold: a creature of incredible power that specialized in the killing of humans, a thing of darkness and curses closer to one of the Beasts, an Evil of Humanity, than a proper Servant. But it was still weak and defenseless, and therefore at her mercy. Like this, nascent and not yet fully manifested, she could smother it in its womb and plunder the Grail for whatever she desired.
This was it. This was what she'd struggled for, what she'd almost died for, this was the end of the crooked path she'd been walking. Right here, right now, it didn't matter if the Grail War hadn't technically ended, because with this much power at her fingertips, she was the winner, no matter what.
And yet…
And yet, she was hesitating. Victory was within her grasp, and all she had to do was reach out and take it with her two hands. There was nothing stopping her, nothing standing in her way, neither Servant nor Master to prevent her from subverting this whole system for her own ends.
And yet she hesitated.
Why?
Why? Why was she hesitating? What was stopping her from claiming her prize?
Nothing. She couldn't think of a single reason. There was nothing in her way and nothing at all to stop her. She had no reason.
No, that was wrong. It wasn't that she didn't have a reason.
Rather, the one reason she could think of was a reason she absolutely couldn't accept. She'd spent too much time and effort denying it, turning away from the possibility, and scorning him for his willingness to believe it. She'd spent too much time tricking him, too much time lying to him, too much time and effort twisting him around her finger.
It had all been a lie, it had to be. Yes, from the beginning, she'd always known she could do it, she would do it, and that she'd have to in order to make it this far. Lying to him and leading him on, tricking him into believing in her, trusting her, that had been part of the plan ever since he had saved her.
She'd even given him her body, made herself vulnerable just so that she could take advantage of his. Seduction was the witch's oldest trick, the original sin that men blamed her for. She had seduced Jason, surely, and killed her brother to sell it. What difference did it make if this time such an accusation was true?
And with her tongue, she'd promised him loyalty. With her lips, she'd sealed that promise. In the bedchamber, she'd given that promise weight. No man could surrender so much to a woman and not believe her his.
All so that she could do as her legend said she would and betray him at this very last moment.
But what if the only person she'd wound up lying to was herself?
Damn it. Damn it.
She drew Rule Breaker, held it out, gripped it with shaking hands. The easiest thing in the world would be to stab herself with it and be free of the contract, free to betray him and take the Grail, free of the threat of his Command Spells when he realized her treachery.
And yet, she couldn't do it.
No, she couldn't be that much of a fool, could she? That day, when he'd so calmly and with such conviction told her she could transcend her legend, she had scorned his naiveté. She had long come to terms with who and what she was and his pretty words wouldn't change any of it.
And yet they returned to her now.
"Self-actualization, you called it," she murmured. "To cast off the shackles of my legend and become a hero. A chance to be true to who I am, rather than who I was forced to be."
She'd derided them then, and she absolutely should, now.
But…
The phantom sensation of his lips on hers tingled. His breath on her ear, his fingertips dancing along her naked skin, his body flush against hers. The memory of his scars under her touch. The sense of calm contentment to feel the warmth of his body next to hers.
Why? Why couldn't she get them out of her head?
His trust, his belief in her innate goodness should be meaningless to her. How could it compare to the deepest, most heartfelt yearnings that had been carved so completely into her being that she felt them now, millennia after her death? It simply couldn't. It was the same as weighing a feather against a pile of gold.
But… In spite of that…
"You're a fool."
She spat the words out like venom. Even she wasn't quite sure who she was addressing them to, herself or him. Maybe she was saying it to both.
Who was the greater fool, then? The fool who believed in her, despite knowing exactly who and what she was, or the fool who fell in love with him, in spite of her intentions to stab him in the back?
Or maybe she was the only fool, for not knowing that she'd become so good a liar she could deceive herself so completely.
A month. That was how long it had taken him to win her over so thoroughly that she'd never realized it. A month. That was all the longer it took him to steal her heart.
It felt far too short. Maybe if her younger self had been summoned, she would have been so susceptible as to find him that charming. The Princess of Colchis may indeed have been so easily seduced.
But the Witch of Betrayal should never have fallen at all.
Damn it. Damn it all. And damn him, most of all, for making her love him.
Because there was no other choice she could make. Now that she'd come this far, now that she'd made it before the Grail, there was no other outcome that could possibly have resulted. This was a foregone conclusion.
Knowing what she was sacrificing now didn't make it hurt any less.
She lifted Rule Breaker, her Noble Phantasm that canceled all contracts and reduced all magecrafts back to their origin state. Her hands no longer shook, because she'd made her decision.
For a moment, she closed her eyes and didn't bother to hide the lone pair of tears that leaked out. She thought of her family and friends, the ones she'd left behind when she'd sailed off with Jason. She thought of her father, her brother who she'd mutilated, the various staff and ladies in waiting who had been kind to her. She thought, at last, of the young man who had been the first to offer her a real and true smile since that fateful day, the first since she'd left Colchis to honestly love her, whether or not she deserved it.
"I'm sorry."
And she thrust her crooked dagger down.
Chapter 1: Unexpected Everyday
James D. Fawkes
Court Scribe
- Location
- Avalon (Isle of Mists)
This is the story of the bloody ritual known as the Holy Grail War and all of the lives that it touched.
Chapter I: Unexpected Everyday
"Isn't it obvious? He was supposed to leave."
It was a nostalgic image from ten years ago.
A man in an elegant red suit stood before her, smiling.
To her, his daughter, he had given the strength of his blood and his striking blue eyes.
This was the last time she had ever seen him.
He treated her somewhat roughly, in an awkward attempt at fatherhood. He offered her no true goodbyes, as a normal father might, nor words of kindness and love. Instead, he delivered a few parting pieces of advice, a handful of final lessons to his student and heir.
Everything that he felt needed to be said was said. The path of a magus was harsh and cruel and had no place for a soft heart, and so he showed her no softness.
Then, he turned away and disappeared from her life. If she had known that it would be the last time she would ever see him alive, she would have never let him leave without expressing the love of a daughter for her father.
But that was not to be.
Jiri-jiri! Jiri-jiri! Jiri-jiri!
"Ugh."
She groaned and rolled over onto her stomach, burying her head underneath her pillow. She pressed the fluff against her ears to drown out the noise.
It didn't help.
Jiri-jiri! Jiri-jiri! Jiri-jiri!
"Shut up, already," she groaned miserably.
But the alarm didn't stop, it kept merrily chiming on, ringing shrilly as though to alert her to an intruder.
That would be preferable, if she was honest. A reason to actually get out of bed. However, the boundary surrounding her house possessed no such feature, so it was only an ordinary alarm clock doing exactly the thing it had been designed for.
That did not mean she had to like it.
Ah, but, even if she didn't like it, she needed to go to school, didn't she?
Jiri-jiri! Jiri-jiri! Jiri-jiri!
"Alright, already."
Lifting one arm, she slapped her clock to shut off the alarm. When she peeked out blearily from beneath her pillow, the time read seven o'clock.
"Damn it," she grumbled, rubbing tiredly at her eyes as she forced herself up. "I don't like it at all, but I need to get up or else I'll be late for…for…"
For what, exactly?
It was currently the winter vacation, and a Sunday, at that, so there was no school for her to be late to.
"Guh." She dragged her hand down the front of her face. "I set that alarm last night without even thinking about it?"
It was a Sunday during winter vacation, so she had no school to go to and no reason to wake up at seven o'clock in the morning. There was no pressing concern that needed to be handled, and therefore no reason why she ought to get up so early.
"In other words, I could have just stayed in bed."
Of course, there was no reason why she couldn't still. Since there was nothing that needed to be taken care of and still a few more days left of vacation, it was a perfectly valid option for her to lie back down and get as much sleep as she liked.
"Maybe that's too greedy, though…"
On the other hand, if she stole as much sleep as she liked now, then it would likely be even harder on her when vacation ended and it was time to go back to school. She was not a morning person on even the best of days, and so if she got too far off her schedule of waking up at six thirty, she would surely suffer when it was a matter of necessity rather than discipline.
"Ugh!"
She threw herself back down on her bed and buried her face into her pillow.
"I just want to go back to sleep, though!" she moaned.
That wasn't really all that much to ask, was it?
BANG
The sound of the front door slamming open echoed. She scrambled off of her bed, slipping and falling off of her mattress, and landed on the floor, butt first.
Could it be, there was really…?
"RIN-CHAN!" a familiar voice called brightly. "I'M HOME!"
An equally familiar feeling of frustration and indignation rose up in Tohsaka Rin, and she snatched up the nearest thing she could grab — a slipper from under her bed — and raced out of her room and down the stairs.
A familiar young man, a boy her age with dark brown hair and bright blue eyes, stood in the entranceway, grinning broadly. The moment she saw him, she tightened her grip on her slipper, wound back her arm, and —
"STOP CALLING ME THAT, DAMN IT! YOU'RE SEVEN MINUTES OLDER, NOT SEVEN YEARS!"
— threw it at his head with all her might.
Tohsaka Yukio, her older twin brother — fraternal, of course, although they looked similar enough that people might be tempted to think otherwise, no matter how little sense it made — only laughed and ducked his head. He needn't have bothered, since the slipper missed him by a mile.
"Come now, Rin-chan," he said, still grinning. "Is that any way to greet your elder brother, who has been gone for over six months?"
"Kuh!" Rin's eyebrow twitched and her fists clenched — and then, suddenly, she relaxed, released the tension in her shoulders, and offered him a big, bright smile. "You're right," she said calmly. "How silly of me. It should have been a knife, not my slipper! Right, Big Brother?"
Rather than flinch, Yukio just laughed again.
"There you are," he said warmly. "It's good to see you, Rin. It's been way too long."
He dropped his luggage unceremoniously and stepped forward, throwing his arms wide.
"If you try to hug me, I'm disowning you," she told him flatly.
And as though she hadn't spoken at all, he wrapped those arms of his around her shoulders and pulled her against his chest.
Into her ear, he whispered like a sigh, "I'm home."
Rin let out a long, impatient breath through her nose, rolled her eyes, and then slowly hugged him back. "Welcome home."
After a long moment, he let her go and stepped backwards to hold her at arm's length, looking her up and down. Inspecting her. Marking her growth.
"You're more beautiful every time I see you," he told her.
Rin rolled her eyes again. "Stop treating me like I'm your daughter. I'm your sister, remember? Saying stuff like that to me is creepy, not sweet."
Yukio chuckled. "Fair enough."
Rin stepped back a little more and cocked one hip to the side, regarding him expectantly.
"So? What news from the Association, then?"
Yukio shook his head and gestured behind him to the luggage still sitting outside the open front door. It was not much, only a few meagre supplies that one might take on a short vacation, and how Yukio made that much last six months, she had no idea.
"First, let me get all of this stuff inside, before what little heat this old place has escapes outside. Make some tea while I get it all sorted?"
Rin nodded. "Alright."
Yukio turned back towards his luggage, and Rin made her way to the kitchen to put the kettle on for tea. While the water heated, she reached into the back of the cabinet for the special tin that she never touched — it was reserved for Yukio, his private stash of Earl Grey, and Rin let him have it; she preferred Eastern teas, anyway.
It said something about him that the tin, enchanted to preserve the freshness of its contents, was one of Yukio's first successful projects into magecraft.
When the tea was ready and had been steeped for the exact amount of time recommended, she poured it into a teapot — the one from the cheaper china set, rather than the more expensive, almost unused one meant for honored guests — set it on a tray, and grabbed Yukio's favorite mug. Then, she went back to the drawing room.
"You know," she began as she entered, "I know we're not exactly the most traditionally Japanese family to ever live, but if you're going to flout most of the things we do observe, you could at least have an oriental taste in tea."
He shot her an amused glance. A smile curved his lips.
"All of the other things I do that probably have our ancestors rolling over in their graves, and that's the part you find most offensive?"
"I've given up on most of the other ones," she told him as she set the tray down on the coffee table. "I figured I could at least correct your abysmal taste in tea, though."
"Sorry, but green tea has always been bitter and undrinkable to me," he said. "Besides, if it wasn't for me, we wouldn't even be able to afford loose leaf tea as regularly as we can. I figure our honored ancestors would forgive me much, since I saved us tons of financial trouble. By the way, here."
He tossed her a package, which she caught. It was a small, brown, nondescript box without any particular markings.
"What's this?"
"Your birthday present," he told her. He made a gesture with his hand. "Go on. Open it."
Rin hesitated for a moment, then began to work at the tape that held the box closed.
"It's about a month early, but I figured it's better to give it to you now than to wait."
What came out of the box was another box, this one black and with a hinge on one end. When she opened this box, it was to find inside a piece of jewelry.
"A necklace?" she asked.
It was made of gold, a chain with a small pendant in the shape of a dolphin. Sparkling from the place where the dolphin's eye should be was a small, blue sapphire.
"Formal wear," Yukio corrected.
Surprised, Rin blinked and looked over at him. "A mystic code?"
"Bought the necklace from a jeweler, but I customized it myself," he clarified. "It's got nothing on King Arthur's sheath, and it's not on the level of a Dead Apostle's healing, but that's got some powerful restoration magic. As long as you've got the mana to spare, your head's intact, and your heart isn't completely gone, that thing should keep you alive long enough to heal from just about anything."
"Huh," she said. "That's…seriously impressive."
"Healing's the one magic I'm good at," he said dryly. "I should hope my skill with it is impressive."
Not for lack of trying or effort. Yukio had inherited the same level of talent and, arguably, genius that Rin had, it was just that Rin was the heir to the Tohsaka magical lineage with an incredibly rare attribute, and Yukio, with his utterly ordinary attribute, therefore, had missed out on a lot of the training that came with that burden. Too, the lack of a magic crest was a disadvantage that had left him playing catch-up for longer than he probably liked.
Somedays, Rin wished he had been the one to inherit the Tohsaka Crest. But what always stopped her was the bitter realization that she, too, likely would have been given up, as Sakura had been, so that her innate talent and powerful magical attribute could flourish. Their fractured family was already shattered and broken beyond repair; if the alternative was not to be with any of them at all, then she would count her blessings that she at least still had her twin brother.
She'd tried to help him, of course. Shore up the holes. At least teach him the basics. But her own instruction had been interrupted by the Grail War, so there'd only been so much she could do.
"You really don't give yourself enough credit," she told him, trying to be supportive. "Your jewel magecraft is perfectly acceptable —"
"You mean mediocre."
"— and your grasp on the basics is solid."
"In other words, good enough to match a second or third rate magus," he translated.
Rin grimaced. It wasn't exactly untrue, but… Damn it, couldn't he just accept her compliments?
"A-Anyway," she said, changing the subject, "you went to the Clock Tower, right? Some sort of business you were handling?"
"Ah, that." He grimaced. "Well, uh, I was actually there to take care of a bit of inheritance. Dear old Dad set up a couple of betrothals for me."
"Betrothal? Like an arranged marriage?" She blanched. "Wait, hold on — a couple? As in, more than one?"
Sheepishly, he held up three fingers. "I managed to whittle it down to three."
Rin sputtered and felt her face turn red. "What?! That doesn't make it any better, you know! 'Whittle it down' means there were more beforehand!"
"Dad was prepared," said Yukio. "He had a whole bunch of contingencies in case his preferred matches were rejected or renegotiated later on, so…um, well, it was basically every eligible female heir or family head within ten years of me. Plus or minus."
Rin twitched. Plus or minus… That meant that he'd said no to at least a couple seven-year-olds.
Wait.
"You did say no to the seven-year-olds, didn't you?"
Yukio had the grace to look affronted. "What do I look like, a lolicon?"
"That's not a no."
"Geez, you think you'd have more faith in your favorite brother," he griped. "Yes, Rin, I said no to the seven-year-olds. And the ten-year-olds. Everyone under fifteen, actually, which was basically everyone who was younger than me by more than maybe a few months."
Rin let out a breath. "All right. So, you said three. Who does that leave, then?"
"Well, there's Dad's preferred match," said Yukio, "a girl a few years older than me by the name of Lilieve Synestella. She's probably the entire reason why there are contingencies, actually, because there's apparently some clause in the betrothal contract about how it can be negated if the Synestella's family head — which is Lilieve, now — decides I'm unworthy of her when it's time for the contract to be fulfilled. Which is probably what's going to happen, if I'm honest."
"She sounds like a stuck-up bitch," Rin commented.
"You know," Yukio began slyly, "there are some who would say you —"
"If you finish that sentence, I'm disowning you."
Yukio let out a laugh. "Wow, twice in one day? You must really have missed me!"
She flushed. "I-idiot! That's not it at all! As the head of the Tohsaka family, it falls to me to ensure the prosperity of my family, and a marriage like that can't be prosperous if both sides aren't satisfied with the arrangement!"
"If you say so."
"A-anyway!" she said, trying to regain her dignity. "You said there were three. Who were the other two?"
"Ah, right." He snorted. "Well, the second one was the Edelfelt family. By a strange twist, the head also retired young and left the headship to his daughter, a girl by the name of Luviagelita. She's about our age, actually. Might be a year or so older, at the most."
"And the third family?"
Yukio grinned sheepishly. "I, uh, don't remember?"
Rin stared at him flatly. "…What?"
He shrugged. "I don't remember. I stopped paying attention during that meeting, so that's probably why they didn't call it off altogether, because I didn't express any interest in doing so."
"How can you not remember?" she sputtered. "Yukio! This is your future wife we're talking about! How are you supposed to have a prosperous marriage if you don't even remember her name?!"
"Because it doesn't matter!" he protested.
"Doesn't matter?!"
"It doesn't!" he said. "Even if the Synestella say no, the Edelfelt definitely won't!"
"You don't know that!"
He grimaced and wiped a hand down his face. "Actually, yes, I do. She told me so herself."
Rin's brain ground to a halt. "What?"
"Luviagelita told me herself that she'll accept if the Synestella reject me," he explained. "She told me flat out, in no uncertain terms, that if Lilieve says no, she'll take me, no matter what. Something like, since the Tohsaka family of thieves stole one of the Edelfelt sisters during the Third Holy Grail War, it was only right that the Edelfelt family take one of the Tohsaka siblings, now. It was just a shame I didn't have the Crest that we apparently stole, too, because her family's been wanting that back for decades — or so she said."
"That's what she wants you for?!" Rin demanded. "To repay a grudge her family's been holding for seventy years?!"
He shrugged.
"And of course, you said no!"
Yukio grimaced. "I didn't get the impression I was allowed to."
"Of course you're allowed to!" Rin groaned and pinched at the bridge of her nose. "Please tell me she was at least ugly."
"Smoking hot, actually," Yukio said casually. "Everything the right size and the right shape in the right place. Takes good care of herself, too, she's in really good shape. Only thing awkward or odd is the way she styles her hair — old-fashioned, Victorian era curls. A little strange, but it doesn't make her less attractive."
"Yukio."
He smirked. "Of course, the personality was less endearing. Really got the 'I'm better than you, plebeian,' thing going on, like she talked down to me the entire time. Plus, she's got this most god-awful laugh that she must have practiced, because there's no way it's natural."
Rin blinked. "Her laugh is what throws you off?"
Yukio straightened, lifted one hand up to his mouth daintily, adopted the most superior, condescending expression she'd ever seen on his face, and then demonstrated. "Oh-ho-ho-ho-hoh!"
Rin felt her eyebrow twitch.
"Like a hyena," Yukio agreed as though she'd spoken. "I think she's actually trying to go for that 'refined noblewoman' kind of thing, but it just doesn't sound like that at all."
"…She really sounds like —?"
"Yes."
"And if the Synestella say no, she'll —?"
"Unfortunately."
Rin grimaced. "What about the Synestella, then?"
"Cold," said Yukio. "Formal. Well-spoken and precise, with a dignified bearing. She's certainly pretty, and there's probably more of a personality under all of that ice, but she's the sort of woman who seems way out of my league."
"No chance she'd accept you, then?"
He chuckled a little. "A chance, sure. Maybe even a fairly decent one, relatively speaking. But I have major doubts that it'll actually happen. She's basically royalty, and we're…well. Backwards orientals."
In other words, realistically speaking, his only actual option was to be the trophy the Edelfelt family used to gloat over the Tohsaka. A feather in Luviagelita's cap, an object over which to be bragged, a tally mark in one family's ledger for the sake of revenge.
No dignity. No elegance. Just a life attached to a woman who wanted to degrade him and his family.
"I could cancel them," Rin offered. "I'm the head of the Tohsaka family. I could cancel the other contracts, if you asked me to."
It wasn't the magus sort of thing to do, but then, Rin had found that she wasn't cold enough to be a pure magus, anyway. At least for her twin brother, Yukio, she was willing to put his happiness before the family's success.
Her father was probably rolling in his grave.
"Mmm," Yukio hummed noncommittally. "Well, there's still a year before any of the contracts are due for ratification, so I suppose I have time to think about it, don't I?"
Rin blinked. "You're going to go through with it?"
He shrugged.
"I haven't decided, yet. I admit, I find it an interesting idea. There's a certain appeal to melting the ice queen's heart. And just imagining how much it would stick in everyone's craw up there to have to mention the Tohsaka name in the same breath as the Synestella is incredibly gratifying. To force them to have to kowtow to one of the 'orientals' that they look down on so much…"
He trailed off, closing his eyes and tilting his head back.
"…Yukio?"
"Shush, I'm fantasizing."
Rin snorted, smiling. "You dweeb."
He chuckled a little, but then his smile dropped and he sighed.
"In all seriousness, I haven't made up my mind, yet," he said. "Admittedly, the idea of being trapped in a loveless marriage, even if the woman herself is breathtakingly beautiful, doesn't much appeal. The possibility of building a romance after the fact exists, but there's no guarantee on that end, so it's not something I would bank on. On the other hand…"
He trailed off.
"What?" she asked. "'On the other hand,' what?"
"If I'm consort to someone as high ranking as the Synestella, or even the Edelfelt, then I should have far more than enough influence to ensure you a sponsorship to the Clock Tower, after you graduate."
Rin blinked, momentarily stunned by his admission, then leaned back, pressed the fingers of one hand against her brow, and let out an explosive sigh.
What an idiot. A selfless, self-sacrificing idiot who really loved her more than she probably deserved, but hell if she didn't love him just as much.
"Ah, geez," she said, exasperated. "You don't need to keep taking care of me, you know! I'm a grown woman, now, not a little girl! I don't need you to hold my hand every second of the day!"
Yukio laughed at her and smiled a small, nostalgic smile. "Well, I can't help it. I am your older brother, after all."
"By seven minutes!" she pointed out sternly, jabbing at him with her index finger. "Seven! Minutes! That's such an insignificant amount of time that it's basically irrelevant! We're the same age!"
He shot her a sly grin. "Do you still have that stuffed dolphin I bought you for your eighth birthday?"
Her face lit up a brilliant, cherry red. "Th-that doesn't have anything to do with this!"
She did. It had a place of honor on the top of her chest of drawers, sandwiched between the handful of family photos from when they were all whole and unbroken.
"What about the stuffed tiger I got you for your ninth?"
On her bedside table, next to her alarm. There were days when she accidentally knocked him down while trying to shut it off.
"I —"
"Does it still roar when you squeeze it, or did you wear the battery out ages ago?"
Of course it still roared. She'd had the battery replaced five times since she got it.
"Th-that doesn't mean anything at all! Yukio! It doesn't! It…!"
But her words and the red that covered her whole face, creeping down her neck, only made him laugh more. Against someone else, there would have been no surrender, because Tohsaka Rin didn't back down, no matter what. With Yukio, however, she knew better than anyone else when she'd been beaten, and so, rather than dig an even deeper hole, she gave up and stopped fighting.
"Damn it," she muttered, embarrassed. "I can't beat you when you know all of my weaknesses."
When the laughter died and all that remained was a smile, he told her, "Never change, Rin. Keep being my precious little sister forever, okay?"
She didn't reply, except to scowl and look away. Even if she'd surrendered, her pride would not allow her to agree to something so humiliating.
"Alright." He let out a sigh and set his empty mug down atop a saucer on the coffee table as he stood. "I'd better go and get everything unpacked. If I don't do it now, I'll wind up putting it off for the rest of the week."
Rin blinked. "You're staying?"
He smiled wryly. "That is why I brought my luggage back."
"Don't play stupid! That's not it at all, and you know it!" She huffed. "I was asking whether you'd be staying home for a while or heading back out, again!"
"For the foreseeable future, yeah," he said. "Well. I'll have to go back, eventually, to figure out the whole marriage contracts thing, but unless something comes up, I'll be here, yeah."
Which meant she'd get to see and spend time with her twin brother again, rather than being by herself in this big, empty mansion, alone, constantly faced with what she'd lost.
"Good!" She nodded. "That means there'll be someone else around to share cooking duty with. Since you've been gone, I've had to take care of everything myself, you know!"
Rather than argue as he might have when they were younger (Yukio hated cooking, although he wasn't half bad at it), he just laughed and gave her shoulder a pat as he left to take care of his luggage.
"It's good to be home, Rin."
And then, he was gone. A moment later, she could hear him trudging up the stairs, suitcases in tow, and making his way back to his own room.
When she was alone, Rin huffed out a sigh and smiled fondly at the place where he'd been sitting.
"Welcome home, you big goof."
Chapter 2: Gentle Everyday
James D. Fawkes
Court Scribe
- Location
- Avalon (Isle of Mists)
Chapter 2: Gentle Everyday
"Are you ready, Yukio?"
I awoke slowly, rising to consciousness one moment at a time, as the last vestiges of my dream echoed in the back of my head as though down a long tunnel.
…No, that wasn't right, was it?
A dream was fake, a thing without substance or reality, the lurid imaginations of the subconscious mind as it dealt with extant stressors through symbolism and metaphor. To wit, it was the mind's way of dealing with the problems that plagued it even unto the sleeping world.
What I had just seen now could not, therefore, be called a dream, because it was not something that had been conjured by my imagination, but was, rather, something that had already occurred in reality. An unavoidable truth that could not simply be dismissed as the conjurations of my subconscious.
A memory.
The memory of the moment when everything had changed, and the person known as Tohsaka Yukio could truly have said to have been born, and yet to have died, as well. The memory of my enlightenment, and also of my damnation.
I groaned and leveraged myself up into a sitting position, pressing the heels of my palms against my eyes.
"Maybe it's coming back here, after spending so long away," I muttered to myself.
I had been gone six months, after all. It wasn't entirely out of the question that returning to my childhood home after being gone for that length of time might have stirred up old memories. It could even have been the familiar smell of the old place, dredging up stuff I'd thought I'd dealt with ages ago. Scent was one of the most powerful psychological triggers, after all.
I sighed and rubbed at my messy hair.
"Well, it's a hell of a way to start the morning, that's for sure. Digging up old existential crises and questions of self-identity. I could even be forgiven for rolling back over and getting some more sleep. Totally reasonable."
I stopped, blinked, and then laughed.
"Wow, I really am her twin brother, aren't I? That sounds like the kind of excuse Rin would make to stay in bed in the morning."
Good grief. If she and I weren't fraternal twins, we'd be perfect for each other, wouldn't we?
"…I just had a very dangerous thought, right now, didn't I?"
Damn it. Of all the things to inherit from him, those sorts of sentiments for my sister were exactly the most troublesome, and I could most certainly have done without them.
That was part of the tradeoff, though, I suppose. It couldn't be as easy as advantages all the way down, that wasn't the way things worked. The things I inherited came with both their good points and their bad points.
Personally, I blamed some of it on the doujinshi scene, here in Japan. That sort of thing was almost shockingly popular, among the less…mainstream media, and even in daytime anime and primetime slots, it was way more common than it was in places like America or Europe. But oh, it was okay, they weren't really brother and sister, they were cousins, or he was adopted, or she was adopted, or whatever contrivance the writers thought up to make it 'acceptable,' and that completely ignored that part of the problem wasn't the bloodline, it was the fact that they were raised as siblings, their entire relationship was built upon that basis, and having incestuous thoughts for your brother or sister wasn't —
And I was going off again.
Damn it. It was way too early for this.
I sighed.
"I'm really off, today, aren't I?"
I smacked my palm against my forehead a couple of times, then ground the heel of it between my brow, as though to push out any weirdness from my thoughts. It didn't really work as intended, but at least it did manage to banish any remnants of sleep. Silver linings, right?
I slid out of my bed and into a pair of slippers, and then, shivering, grabbed the thick bathrobe I'd slung over my desk chair at some point. Was it yesterday, or six months ago? I didn't remember, exactly, because I'd never used it while I was in London.
"Well, however miserable London can get, at least I was warm," I groused as I pulled it on. "Seriously. It rarely even snows, here. How come it's so much colder in this house than an apartment in England?"
Should've had this old place renovated for a modern furnace system, back when I'd had the chance. Secrets of magecraft be damned, it would've been worth it just to be able to walk around in shorts during the winter months, or at least not have to wear layers in my own damn house.
Tempting, but a toothless thought from the beginning. Rin and I would probably get into the most serious fight we'd ever had if I tried something like that without running it by her, first, and even if I pulled out my best arguments, she'd probably put her foot down and refuse. In the end, she was the heir, now head of the family with everyone else gone, even if I was technically her guardian. As far as the Mage's Association was concerned, her word was law and my place was to obey.
Ah, geez! But it's so cold!
"Tea, tea, tea," I muttered to myself as I shuffled out of my room. "That's what I need. Some tea to warm me up."
I went down the hall, then descended the steps and made a sharp right turn towards the kitchen, where I found a teapot, my favorite red mug, a bottle of honey, and the tin of Earl Grey that Rin never touched. I set the kettle on to boil, then measured out the tea leaves while I waited.
Rin tended not to use honey in her tea. Well, it was more like she tended not to eat sweets or sugary foods, because she was absolutely certain she "knew exactly where it would all go." I found it utterly ridiculous, of course. We — that is, the Tohsaka family — owned one of the relative handful of Japanese honey producing businesses left, the largest and most premium one, in fact. Why not enjoy our own product?
No, I didn't arrange for us to purchase the land, hire the workers, acquire the bees and the beehives, and work out distribution, all so that I could have a consistent source of locally made, quality assured honey to put in my tea. That would just be ridiculous, and if anyone ever accused me of it, I would deny such a thing in the strongest possible terms.
(I totally did. I'm utterly shameless, and even if it was a completely unnecessary extravagance, it wasn't like we were losing money on the business. It was easier to compete simply because honey was by and large imported from China and Korea, and therefore more expensive than my company's locally made and sourced honey.)
"Well," I told the air wryly, "dear old Dad probably would've had something to say about it, but I consider it a worthwhile investment. This stuff is delicious. And besides, it's like that old adage goes: if you want something done right, you've gotta do it yourself."
Just don't ask me to put on a beekeeping suit.
A few minutes later, the kettle began to whistle, and I set about pouring it over my tea leaves, then let it sit to steep. That was always the hardest part about making tea, the waiting. I was certain old Nagato or one of my more Zen ancestors probably would've had something to say about patience and the virtue thereof, likely quoting some Buddhist koan or something, but frankly speaking, I was too cold to care.
It was around that time, just as I finished making my tea and went to the living room to sit, that Rin came marching in, already fully dressed in her usual sweater-and-skirt combo and with her hair styled.
"You're up early," I remarked casually over the rim of my mug.
She grimaced, and for all her apparent readiness, she still looked like she was about half asleep. Yeah, Rin really wasn't a morning person, although being entirely fair, I wasn't much of one, either. And I was still getting over the jetlag.
"I'm trying to get all of my preparations done," she admitted.
"Ah." I took a sip to cover my thoughts and any reaction that might have slipped onto my face. "It's that time again already?"
Like I hadn't been counting down the days on my calendar.
"Yeah." She sighed. "It's early this time, so it's unexpected, but things should start off for real in about a month. I'm holding off on my entry for another couple of weeks, though."
I knew exactly what she was talking about, of course.
The Fifth Holy Grail War. The fifth in a series of failed rituals, conducted as a battle royale between seven magi functioning as Masters and seven Heroic Spirits summoned as Servants. The last one had torn our family apart, leaving Rin and me orphans. Father had died during the fighting, and Mom shortly afterwards.
And my sister intended to enter. Of course. Dad hadn't lived long enough to explain the whole thing to her, so for her, it was really a matter of pride. My sister had a bit of a competitive spirit, after all.
Well, to be fair, so did I.
"I'm guessing you'll want me out of the house and somewhere safe, for the duration."
"Yeah." She sighed again. "Sorry to do this to you, Yukio, especially since you only just got back, but you remember how it was, right? Dad sent us away last time to keep us uninvolved, so I'd feel better if you did the same thing, this time."
Not that it had helped much, but I suppose that one's opinion on that varied, depending on how you defined 'helping.' After all, even if it hadn't gone the way my parents had planned, at the end of the day, I wouldn't be where I was now — in any sense — if things hadn't gone the way they had. In some ways, that was a comfort. In others, it was a curse.
I shrugged.
"Sure. I've already got a place I could stay, actually. There's a house I've been sitting on for a couple of years. Used to belong to an ancestor of ours, wound up in foreclosure hell, then I bought it and renovated it. I can stay there for a month."
It suited my plans just perfectly, actually. Dear Rin-chan just gave me the excuse.
"Thanks," she said gratefully. "That really does make me feel better about everything."
I shouldn't… But, well, I couldn't resist…
"Just don't throw any wild parties with gigantic orgies while I'm gone, okay? Not unless I'm invited."
For a moment, she didn't react but for her mouth dropping open a little and her eyebrows rising. Then, when the words finally registered and her brain had fully caught up with her ears, her cheeks flushed red, so bright a red that I almost expected steam to come pouring out of her ears. Ah, now that was the reaction I'd been looking for.
She shouted, "I-Idiot! J-just what kind of girl do you even think I am, anyway? And what's that supposed to mean, not unless you're invited? What kind of depraved fantasies are you cooking up in that demented brain of yours, Yukio!"
I just laughed, even as her face kept getting redder and redder. She looked so cute, all flustered like that. I just couldn't help myself.
There were a lot of pitfalls that came with it, plenty of problems, but this was, without a doubt, the absolute best thing about being Tohsaka Rin's twin brother: I could tease her whenever I wanted.
"Geez!" she muttered, looking away as she crossed her arms over her chest. "You really are the worst!"
"I'm seventeen years old, about three and a half weeks away from turning eighteen," I reminded her, grinning. "The longest, most serious relationship I had was three years ago and lasted about a week. These days, most of my contact with the opposite sex involves people I can't afford to piss off or people who would use it as an excuse either to dissect me or start a feud, if I did. In this house, with my dearest little sister, is the only place and time I can be so relaxed as to make jokes of that nature."
"O-oh. W-well, I guess that makes…"
She shook her head violently.
"W-what am I saying?! That doesn't make it any better at all, Yukio! I'm your sister, not some giggling schoolgirl you can charm with a smile and a few nice words! You absolutely shouldn't be saying that sort of thing to me! H-hey, Yukio, are you even listening? Yukio!"
But I just laughed more, because I was tired and maybe a little punchy, and god had I missed this. Six months without Rin to tease, spending every day in the company of stuffy bluebloods who either didn't have a sense of humor or thought me so barbaric and backwards that I was little more than a Neanderthal — laughter had been in short supply.
Predictably, Rin surrendered and gave up trying to lecture me. Years of experience had told her how useless it was, but even now, her upbringing told her the proper response was a scolding.
She huffed, folding her arms over her chest. "You're my legal guardian, so I wish you'd at least act like an adult."
I let out a satisfied sigh and leaned back, draining the rest of my tea from my mug.
"That's the great illusion about being an adult. When you're a kid and you see your parents, your aunts and uncles, and your teachers, they all seem to know what they're doing, like they've got it all figured out. When you grow up, though, you realize that no one ever really does have it all figured out, they're just trying to get through the day without the world falling apart around them."
I hummed. "We're like kites, really. Some of us have strings or tails, but only a precious few have both."
"…You stole that from an anime, didn't you?"
I smiled at her. "Shamelessly," I admitted.
Bebop would forever remain my favorite. A song from one of the soundtracks was even in my will, to be played at my funeral.
She let out an exasperated sigh and shook her head. "And the fact that I even recognize that means that you've been a bad influence on me."
I raised an eyebrow, still smiling.
"Would you rather have no idea what a cellphone is and be incapable of using a DVD player?"
Like most magi? went unsaid.
"Sometimes, I wonder," she retorted dryly. "Anyway. I'm not asking you to leave immediately. You just got back, after all. I'm not so cruel to ask you to pack up the minute you've got everything unpacked. But… Maybe in two weeks? The nineteenth or so?"
"That's fine," I said.
"Okay," she said. "I'll be down in the workshop if you need me."
"Shared or private?"
"Shared," she answered. "I'm making the major preparations now, and I'll need the room when I do the summoning. If you don't have any objections…"
"None."
"Good, because I would have overruled them anyway," she said bluntly. I snorted, smirking. "What about you? Are you going to stick around and unpack or did you have some kind of other plans for today?"
"I think I'm going to head out, today, touch base with the people I haven't seen in a while." I stood languidly, rolling my shoulders and grunting when my spine crackled. "It has been six months, after all."
"You're not going to see one of those floozies, are you?" she asked dryly.
A startled laugh tore itself from my throat. "Floozies?"
"What else am I going to call them? All they ever want to talk with me about is you," she groused, then affected an exaggerated, girlish voice. "Tohsaka-san, when is Yukio-kun coming back to Fuyuki? Tohsaka-san, has Yukio-kun mentioned me? Tohsaka-san, does Yukio-kun prefer long hair or short? Tohsaka-san, what's Yukio-kun's favorite type of girl?"
I snorted. "Do they really ask stuff like that?"
"Incessantly!" Rin threw her hands up and made a disgusted sound in the back of her throat. "It's like they've got nothing better to do! You graduated two years ago, you'd think they'd have gotten over whatever schoolgirl crush they had by now!"
"Well, I did graduate two years ago. They probably view that as a sign of success or something, and that's supposed to be very appealing. Other than that, I can't think of anything particularly special I did to earn attention like that."
"You'd think the fact that you're a ronin would cool some of them off. What's the 'official' story now? That you've failed your entrance exams…I think it's up to four times at this point, isn't it?"
"I'm also spending months at a time outside the country, during which, for all they know, I'm off having dalliances with sexy American women or blonde German bombshells. I'm an international man of mystery, off having adventures while they spend their days sitting in a boring classroom, seeing the same sights and the same people every day."
The truth would bore them, I thought. Tense political negotiations with cutthroat European bluebloods could be interesting to some people, but a Japanese schoolgirl would find them terribly dull.
She shook her head. "You're probably right. I swear, they multiplied after you graduated. Before that, I only got those questions once or twice a month. Now, I'm getting them almost daily." She sighed. "At least Ayako is getting a kick out of it."
My lips pursed. "Mitsuzuri?"
"Yeah."
She arched a questioning eyebrow at me, then a catlike smile curled her mouth.
"Ah, that's right, she used to have a crush on you, too."
I shifted uncomfortably, grimacing. Rin laughed.
"You know she got over that almost three years ago, right?"
"You sure about that?" I mumbled.
"Definitely. These days, she does that stuff just to see you thrown off balance. Watching you get awkward and shy is hilarious."
A melodramatic sigh left my mouth. "Ah, but my beloved sister is so cruel."
"It could be worse," she advised me.
"Oh?"
"You could be so dense as to completely miss the fact that a girl has a crush on you, even though she joined the Archery Club just to be close to you."
Or that a completely different girl visits the Archery Club every morning with her best friend, just so she can watch you. Well. To be fair, Rin was also there for Sakura, but people's motivations didn't have to be simple or singular.
"I feel like I should stand up for Emiya, but I can't deny that you're right." I shrugged. "Not everyone can be as clever as me, I suppose. Or as socially adept."
Rin snorted, smirking.
"I hear the doubt in your voice," I said flatly.
"I didn't say anything!" She held up her hands in surrender.
"No, but you were thinking it. Loudly."
"My brother can read minds! Scary, scary!"
She snickered into her hand.
"Right, I can see when I'm not wanted."
I drained the last of my tea from my mug, rolling my shoulders again.
"You're right, I should be getting on with it, too," Rin said, once she'd contained her laughter. "Can you handle dinner for tonight?"
"I guess. How spicy do you want it, on a scale from 'not at all' to 'Kirei's mapo tofu'?"
She gagged.
"Ugh. I'm not looking to clean out my bowels tonight, so something mild is fine."
Neither was I. Being entirely honest, Rin had a better tolerance for spicy foods than I did, even. Then again, I was addicted to sweets, so I had to guess it balanced out.
"Right. I'll pick something up on the way home. I'll see you at dinner."
"Yeah, dinner."
We separated, me heading back towards my room to get dressed and her making her way down to our workshops.
The shared and private workshops were exactly as the names implied: one workshop that Rin and I shared and separate ones we kept to ourselves. The shared one was for projects we worked on together, experiments we were both working on, and just things we were both studying. This was where Rin had taught me the basics of magecraft and where we polished up our jewel magecraft together.
Get it? Polished up?
The private ones were, as the name suggested, private, for personal projects or studies into a field of magecraft that the other didn't know or had no aptitude for. Generally, Rin had more private projects than I did, given she was the heir and had far more training than I did, too, but I had a few things in mine that I was keeping from her.
Such as a certain journal that I hoped she never got the chance to read.
Well. Never let it be said I didn't have contingencies, though.
Naturally, as we were magi, we respected the boundaries of those private workshops. At least in my case, I wasn't so keen on figuring out what my sister did in hers that I was going to risk triggering one of her traps or anything, and while Rin could probably tear mine apart with impunity, the fact she didn't said something about how much she respected me, I liked to think.
Either that, or she didn't think there was anything worth looking at. Decent odds either way, right? I just preferred the version of things where my twin sister actually liked me.
"Well," I said to myself with a sigh, "might as well get going, right? Places to go, people to see, projects to check up on."
A smirk pulled at the corner of my lips as I marched up the stairs.
"I hope you've been keeping up with your studies, Emiya."
"Are you ready, Yukio?"
I awoke slowly, rising to consciousness one moment at a time, as the last vestiges of my dream echoed in the back of my head as though down a long tunnel.
…No, that wasn't right, was it?
A dream was fake, a thing without substance or reality, the lurid imaginations of the subconscious mind as it dealt with extant stressors through symbolism and metaphor. To wit, it was the mind's way of dealing with the problems that plagued it even unto the sleeping world.
What I had just seen now could not, therefore, be called a dream, because it was not something that had been conjured by my imagination, but was, rather, something that had already occurred in reality. An unavoidable truth that could not simply be dismissed as the conjurations of my subconscious.
A memory.
The memory of the moment when everything had changed, and the person known as Tohsaka Yukio could truly have said to have been born, and yet to have died, as well. The memory of my enlightenment, and also of my damnation.
I groaned and leveraged myself up into a sitting position, pressing the heels of my palms against my eyes.
"Maybe it's coming back here, after spending so long away," I muttered to myself.
I had been gone six months, after all. It wasn't entirely out of the question that returning to my childhood home after being gone for that length of time might have stirred up old memories. It could even have been the familiar smell of the old place, dredging up stuff I'd thought I'd dealt with ages ago. Scent was one of the most powerful psychological triggers, after all.
I sighed and rubbed at my messy hair.
"Well, it's a hell of a way to start the morning, that's for sure. Digging up old existential crises and questions of self-identity. I could even be forgiven for rolling back over and getting some more sleep. Totally reasonable."
I stopped, blinked, and then laughed.
"Wow, I really am her twin brother, aren't I? That sounds like the kind of excuse Rin would make to stay in bed in the morning."
Good grief. If she and I weren't fraternal twins, we'd be perfect for each other, wouldn't we?
"…I just had a very dangerous thought, right now, didn't I?"
Damn it. Of all the things to inherit from him, those sorts of sentiments for my sister were exactly the most troublesome, and I could most certainly have done without them.
That was part of the tradeoff, though, I suppose. It couldn't be as easy as advantages all the way down, that wasn't the way things worked. The things I inherited came with both their good points and their bad points.
Personally, I blamed some of it on the doujinshi scene, here in Japan. That sort of thing was almost shockingly popular, among the less…mainstream media, and even in daytime anime and primetime slots, it was way more common than it was in places like America or Europe. But oh, it was okay, they weren't really brother and sister, they were cousins, or he was adopted, or she was adopted, or whatever contrivance the writers thought up to make it 'acceptable,' and that completely ignored that part of the problem wasn't the bloodline, it was the fact that they were raised as siblings, their entire relationship was built upon that basis, and having incestuous thoughts for your brother or sister wasn't —
And I was going off again.
Damn it. It was way too early for this.
I sighed.
"I'm really off, today, aren't I?"
I smacked my palm against my forehead a couple of times, then ground the heel of it between my brow, as though to push out any weirdness from my thoughts. It didn't really work as intended, but at least it did manage to banish any remnants of sleep. Silver linings, right?
I slid out of my bed and into a pair of slippers, and then, shivering, grabbed the thick bathrobe I'd slung over my desk chair at some point. Was it yesterday, or six months ago? I didn't remember, exactly, because I'd never used it while I was in London.
"Well, however miserable London can get, at least I was warm," I groused as I pulled it on. "Seriously. It rarely even snows, here. How come it's so much colder in this house than an apartment in England?"
Should've had this old place renovated for a modern furnace system, back when I'd had the chance. Secrets of magecraft be damned, it would've been worth it just to be able to walk around in shorts during the winter months, or at least not have to wear layers in my own damn house.
Tempting, but a toothless thought from the beginning. Rin and I would probably get into the most serious fight we'd ever had if I tried something like that without running it by her, first, and even if I pulled out my best arguments, she'd probably put her foot down and refuse. In the end, she was the heir, now head of the family with everyone else gone, even if I was technically her guardian. As far as the Mage's Association was concerned, her word was law and my place was to obey.
Ah, geez! But it's so cold!
"Tea, tea, tea," I muttered to myself as I shuffled out of my room. "That's what I need. Some tea to warm me up."
I went down the hall, then descended the steps and made a sharp right turn towards the kitchen, where I found a teapot, my favorite red mug, a bottle of honey, and the tin of Earl Grey that Rin never touched. I set the kettle on to boil, then measured out the tea leaves while I waited.
Rin tended not to use honey in her tea. Well, it was more like she tended not to eat sweets or sugary foods, because she was absolutely certain she "knew exactly where it would all go." I found it utterly ridiculous, of course. We — that is, the Tohsaka family — owned one of the relative handful of Japanese honey producing businesses left, the largest and most premium one, in fact. Why not enjoy our own product?
No, I didn't arrange for us to purchase the land, hire the workers, acquire the bees and the beehives, and work out distribution, all so that I could have a consistent source of locally made, quality assured honey to put in my tea. That would just be ridiculous, and if anyone ever accused me of it, I would deny such a thing in the strongest possible terms.
(I totally did. I'm utterly shameless, and even if it was a completely unnecessary extravagance, it wasn't like we were losing money on the business. It was easier to compete simply because honey was by and large imported from China and Korea, and therefore more expensive than my company's locally made and sourced honey.)
"Well," I told the air wryly, "dear old Dad probably would've had something to say about it, but I consider it a worthwhile investment. This stuff is delicious. And besides, it's like that old adage goes: if you want something done right, you've gotta do it yourself."
Just don't ask me to put on a beekeeping suit.
A few minutes later, the kettle began to whistle, and I set about pouring it over my tea leaves, then let it sit to steep. That was always the hardest part about making tea, the waiting. I was certain old Nagato or one of my more Zen ancestors probably would've had something to say about patience and the virtue thereof, likely quoting some Buddhist koan or something, but frankly speaking, I was too cold to care.
It was around that time, just as I finished making my tea and went to the living room to sit, that Rin came marching in, already fully dressed in her usual sweater-and-skirt combo and with her hair styled.
"You're up early," I remarked casually over the rim of my mug.
She grimaced, and for all her apparent readiness, she still looked like she was about half asleep. Yeah, Rin really wasn't a morning person, although being entirely fair, I wasn't much of one, either. And I was still getting over the jetlag.
"I'm trying to get all of my preparations done," she admitted.
"Ah." I took a sip to cover my thoughts and any reaction that might have slipped onto my face. "It's that time again already?"
Like I hadn't been counting down the days on my calendar.
"Yeah." She sighed. "It's early this time, so it's unexpected, but things should start off for real in about a month. I'm holding off on my entry for another couple of weeks, though."
I knew exactly what she was talking about, of course.
The Fifth Holy Grail War. The fifth in a series of failed rituals, conducted as a battle royale between seven magi functioning as Masters and seven Heroic Spirits summoned as Servants. The last one had torn our family apart, leaving Rin and me orphans. Father had died during the fighting, and Mom shortly afterwards.
And my sister intended to enter. Of course. Dad hadn't lived long enough to explain the whole thing to her, so for her, it was really a matter of pride. My sister had a bit of a competitive spirit, after all.
Well, to be fair, so did I.
"I'm guessing you'll want me out of the house and somewhere safe, for the duration."
"Yeah." She sighed again. "Sorry to do this to you, Yukio, especially since you only just got back, but you remember how it was, right? Dad sent us away last time to keep us uninvolved, so I'd feel better if you did the same thing, this time."
Not that it had helped much, but I suppose that one's opinion on that varied, depending on how you defined 'helping.' After all, even if it hadn't gone the way my parents had planned, at the end of the day, I wouldn't be where I was now — in any sense — if things hadn't gone the way they had. In some ways, that was a comfort. In others, it was a curse.
I shrugged.
"Sure. I've already got a place I could stay, actually. There's a house I've been sitting on for a couple of years. Used to belong to an ancestor of ours, wound up in foreclosure hell, then I bought it and renovated it. I can stay there for a month."
It suited my plans just perfectly, actually. Dear Rin-chan just gave me the excuse.
"Thanks," she said gratefully. "That really does make me feel better about everything."
I shouldn't… But, well, I couldn't resist…
"Just don't throw any wild parties with gigantic orgies while I'm gone, okay? Not unless I'm invited."
For a moment, she didn't react but for her mouth dropping open a little and her eyebrows rising. Then, when the words finally registered and her brain had fully caught up with her ears, her cheeks flushed red, so bright a red that I almost expected steam to come pouring out of her ears. Ah, now that was the reaction I'd been looking for.
She shouted, "I-Idiot! J-just what kind of girl do you even think I am, anyway? And what's that supposed to mean, not unless you're invited? What kind of depraved fantasies are you cooking up in that demented brain of yours, Yukio!"
I just laughed, even as her face kept getting redder and redder. She looked so cute, all flustered like that. I just couldn't help myself.
There were a lot of pitfalls that came with it, plenty of problems, but this was, without a doubt, the absolute best thing about being Tohsaka Rin's twin brother: I could tease her whenever I wanted.
"Geez!" she muttered, looking away as she crossed her arms over her chest. "You really are the worst!"
"I'm seventeen years old, about three and a half weeks away from turning eighteen," I reminded her, grinning. "The longest, most serious relationship I had was three years ago and lasted about a week. These days, most of my contact with the opposite sex involves people I can't afford to piss off or people who would use it as an excuse either to dissect me or start a feud, if I did. In this house, with my dearest little sister, is the only place and time I can be so relaxed as to make jokes of that nature."
"O-oh. W-well, I guess that makes…"
She shook her head violently.
"W-what am I saying?! That doesn't make it any better at all, Yukio! I'm your sister, not some giggling schoolgirl you can charm with a smile and a few nice words! You absolutely shouldn't be saying that sort of thing to me! H-hey, Yukio, are you even listening? Yukio!"
But I just laughed more, because I was tired and maybe a little punchy, and god had I missed this. Six months without Rin to tease, spending every day in the company of stuffy bluebloods who either didn't have a sense of humor or thought me so barbaric and backwards that I was little more than a Neanderthal — laughter had been in short supply.
Predictably, Rin surrendered and gave up trying to lecture me. Years of experience had told her how useless it was, but even now, her upbringing told her the proper response was a scolding.
She huffed, folding her arms over her chest. "You're my legal guardian, so I wish you'd at least act like an adult."
I let out a satisfied sigh and leaned back, draining the rest of my tea from my mug.
"That's the great illusion about being an adult. When you're a kid and you see your parents, your aunts and uncles, and your teachers, they all seem to know what they're doing, like they've got it all figured out. When you grow up, though, you realize that no one ever really does have it all figured out, they're just trying to get through the day without the world falling apart around them."
I hummed. "We're like kites, really. Some of us have strings or tails, but only a precious few have both."
"…You stole that from an anime, didn't you?"
I smiled at her. "Shamelessly," I admitted.
Bebop would forever remain my favorite. A song from one of the soundtracks was even in my will, to be played at my funeral.
She let out an exasperated sigh and shook her head. "And the fact that I even recognize that means that you've been a bad influence on me."
I raised an eyebrow, still smiling.
"Would you rather have no idea what a cellphone is and be incapable of using a DVD player?"
Like most magi? went unsaid.
"Sometimes, I wonder," she retorted dryly. "Anyway. I'm not asking you to leave immediately. You just got back, after all. I'm not so cruel to ask you to pack up the minute you've got everything unpacked. But… Maybe in two weeks? The nineteenth or so?"
"That's fine," I said.
"Okay," she said. "I'll be down in the workshop if you need me."
"Shared or private?"
"Shared," she answered. "I'm making the major preparations now, and I'll need the room when I do the summoning. If you don't have any objections…"
"None."
"Good, because I would have overruled them anyway," she said bluntly. I snorted, smirking. "What about you? Are you going to stick around and unpack or did you have some kind of other plans for today?"
"I think I'm going to head out, today, touch base with the people I haven't seen in a while." I stood languidly, rolling my shoulders and grunting when my spine crackled. "It has been six months, after all."
"You're not going to see one of those floozies, are you?" she asked dryly.
A startled laugh tore itself from my throat. "Floozies?"
"What else am I going to call them? All they ever want to talk with me about is you," she groused, then affected an exaggerated, girlish voice. "Tohsaka-san, when is Yukio-kun coming back to Fuyuki? Tohsaka-san, has Yukio-kun mentioned me? Tohsaka-san, does Yukio-kun prefer long hair or short? Tohsaka-san, what's Yukio-kun's favorite type of girl?"
I snorted. "Do they really ask stuff like that?"
"Incessantly!" Rin threw her hands up and made a disgusted sound in the back of her throat. "It's like they've got nothing better to do! You graduated two years ago, you'd think they'd have gotten over whatever schoolgirl crush they had by now!"
"Well, I did graduate two years ago. They probably view that as a sign of success or something, and that's supposed to be very appealing. Other than that, I can't think of anything particularly special I did to earn attention like that."
"You'd think the fact that you're a ronin would cool some of them off. What's the 'official' story now? That you've failed your entrance exams…I think it's up to four times at this point, isn't it?"
"I'm also spending months at a time outside the country, during which, for all they know, I'm off having dalliances with sexy American women or blonde German bombshells. I'm an international man of mystery, off having adventures while they spend their days sitting in a boring classroom, seeing the same sights and the same people every day."
The truth would bore them, I thought. Tense political negotiations with cutthroat European bluebloods could be interesting to some people, but a Japanese schoolgirl would find them terribly dull.
She shook her head. "You're probably right. I swear, they multiplied after you graduated. Before that, I only got those questions once or twice a month. Now, I'm getting them almost daily." She sighed. "At least Ayako is getting a kick out of it."
My lips pursed. "Mitsuzuri?"
"Yeah."
She arched a questioning eyebrow at me, then a catlike smile curled her mouth.
"Ah, that's right, she used to have a crush on you, too."
I shifted uncomfortably, grimacing. Rin laughed.
"You know she got over that almost three years ago, right?"
"You sure about that?" I mumbled.
"Definitely. These days, she does that stuff just to see you thrown off balance. Watching you get awkward and shy is hilarious."
A melodramatic sigh left my mouth. "Ah, but my beloved sister is so cruel."
"It could be worse," she advised me.
"Oh?"
"You could be so dense as to completely miss the fact that a girl has a crush on you, even though she joined the Archery Club just to be close to you."
Or that a completely different girl visits the Archery Club every morning with her best friend, just so she can watch you. Well. To be fair, Rin was also there for Sakura, but people's motivations didn't have to be simple or singular.
"I feel like I should stand up for Emiya, but I can't deny that you're right." I shrugged. "Not everyone can be as clever as me, I suppose. Or as socially adept."
Rin snorted, smirking.
"I hear the doubt in your voice," I said flatly.
"I didn't say anything!" She held up her hands in surrender.
"No, but you were thinking it. Loudly."
"My brother can read minds! Scary, scary!"
She snickered into her hand.
"Right, I can see when I'm not wanted."
I drained the last of my tea from my mug, rolling my shoulders again.
"You're right, I should be getting on with it, too," Rin said, once she'd contained her laughter. "Can you handle dinner for tonight?"
"I guess. How spicy do you want it, on a scale from 'not at all' to 'Kirei's mapo tofu'?"
She gagged.
"Ugh. I'm not looking to clean out my bowels tonight, so something mild is fine."
Neither was I. Being entirely honest, Rin had a better tolerance for spicy foods than I did, even. Then again, I was addicted to sweets, so I had to guess it balanced out.
"Right. I'll pick something up on the way home. I'll see you at dinner."
"Yeah, dinner."
We separated, me heading back towards my room to get dressed and her making her way down to our workshops.
The shared and private workshops were exactly as the names implied: one workshop that Rin and I shared and separate ones we kept to ourselves. The shared one was for projects we worked on together, experiments we were both working on, and just things we were both studying. This was where Rin had taught me the basics of magecraft and where we polished up our jewel magecraft together.
Get it? Polished up?
The private ones were, as the name suggested, private, for personal projects or studies into a field of magecraft that the other didn't know or had no aptitude for. Generally, Rin had more private projects than I did, given she was the heir and had far more training than I did, too, but I had a few things in mine that I was keeping from her.
Such as a certain journal that I hoped she never got the chance to read.
Well. Never let it be said I didn't have contingencies, though.
Naturally, as we were magi, we respected the boundaries of those private workshops. At least in my case, I wasn't so keen on figuring out what my sister did in hers that I was going to risk triggering one of her traps or anything, and while Rin could probably tear mine apart with impunity, the fact she didn't said something about how much she respected me, I liked to think.
Either that, or she didn't think there was anything worth looking at. Decent odds either way, right? I just preferred the version of things where my twin sister actually liked me.
"Well," I said to myself with a sigh, "might as well get going, right? Places to go, people to see, projects to check up on."
A smirk pulled at the corner of my lips as I marched up the stairs.
"I hope you've been keeping up with your studies, Emiya."
— o.0.O.O.0.o —
There's two more chapters still in my buffer, and two more in the works. The next chapter will come out as and when those two are finished and I have a minimum buffer of 3 chapters. Technically, the first interlude is done, but it's so out of place that I can't count it as part of the buffer, right now.
I also have an outline I've been piecing together for where this story is going to go, so I'm not flying blind or anything.
Special thanks to all my Patrons who have stayed with me this far, through all the rocky moments and dry stretches. You guys are the best, and your continued support is invaluable.
If you like what you're reading and want to support me as a writer so I can pay the bills, I have a Patreon. If Patreon is too long term, I have a Ko-fi page, too. If you want to commission something from me, check out either my Deviantart post or my artist registry page for my rates. Links in my sig. Every little bit helps keep me afloat, even if you can only afford a couple dollars.
I also have an outline I've been piecing together for where this story is going to go, so I'm not flying blind or anything.
Special thanks to all my Patrons who have stayed with me this far, through all the rocky moments and dry stretches. You guys are the best, and your continued support is invaluable.
If you like what you're reading and want to support me as a writer so I can pay the bills, I have a Patreon. If Patreon is too long term, I have a Ko-fi page, too. If you want to commission something from me, check out either my Deviantart post or my artist registry page for my rates. Links in my sig. Every little bit helps keep me afloat, even if you can only afford a couple dollars.
Last edited:
Huh, interesting so he taught SWORD-FOR-BRAINS? Anyways interesting and I wonder given the first chapter about the future now...
Icipall
Don't worry, we can fanfix that!
- Location
- Cold snow fields of Finland
Hey, I remember this from your snippet thread. I had hoped you'd expand on it. Watched.
Just some light commentary this time.
"By seven minutes!"
Eh, 5/10, not really cracking up how it could.
Just some light commentary this time.
Is this also going up on fanfiction.net by any chance?
James D. Fawkes
Court Scribe
- Location
- Avalon (Isle of Mists)
And on AO3. I just didn't have the chance to do it earlier today.
- Location
- Southern California
Oh my gosh is this happening? Is this refined princess and reserved lady going to get the route she so thoroughly deserve (cause its obvious that they were going to do that)
Cause if so then yes!
Hmmm I wonder if this is Tokiomi talking about OC Protag or Kirei being a dick?
I already love this guy
H-wow guess having a family member who isn't dead or forced to no longer acknowledge really changes someone
Cause this is surprisingly sweet
Hm not as good as Rin's normal pendant but still extremely impressive.
.......Well didn't expect that. Don't know why I didn't that sounds like something a mage would do.
Ya know I don't know why but for some reason I immediately thought about Yvette.
Maybe its due to having weird names
Hmmm wonder how likely it is that she's actually a tsundere who actually didn't know what to say?
Oh?
*Fist pump*
That is a fucking win if I've ever heard one!
....Thats pretty damn rude
I mean she's not entirely wrong. Its honestly a miracle the Edelfelt family didn't go to legit war with the Tohsaka's for taking their crest, actually the only reason why they didn't is because of their sorcery trait.
Honestly I'm surprised that Tokiomi didn't give him to their family, would have accomplished the same thing as having their families marry and would have allowed him to be a mage under a very powerful/influential family in the clocktower
You mean adorable
Seriously she's awesome
Hmm for some reason I'm kind of reminded of Ophelia
*Rin and her stuffed animals*
[/QUOTE]
That is so adorable
.......Anyone reminded of Azaka?
Wow didn't even think of Sakura.
Poor girl
Ya know if he wasn't a total scumbag who everyone (including myself) would love to castrate I think he might get along with Shinji.
Though maybe Cu would be better?
Oh my gosh this man know true magic! He's performed a miracle!
Well doesn't that sound familiar
Eh......EHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!?
Chotto matte!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Not a bad start. Rin may be a total tsundere, but she is also a genius and a badass who can be very sweet. It's what makes her such a great character, so I'm glad to see her handled fairly well so far.
I'll keep an eye on this.
I'll keep an eye on this.
AionVal
(Verified Figment)
- Location
- Beyond The Veil
I'm very interested in what this has to offer. I really like James' style, especially when it comes to Fate AUs. This will probably scratch the itch that was left after I ran out of Fate/Revenant.
That healing Mystic Code sure sounds like a water-down version of Avalon.
Huh... Between this and the comment about King Arthur's Sheath makes me think that Yukio might possibly be treating Shirou as a research material? in exchange for magecraft lessons.
That healing Mystic Code sure sounds like a water-down version of Avalon.
James D. Fawkes
Court Scribe
- Location
- Avalon (Isle of Mists)
楽電
Ten points to the person who figures out what that means and what it's being used for in this story. Hint, it's a play on words.
Ten points to the person who figures out what that means and what it's being used for in this story. Hint, it's a play on words.
Either she broke her contract or the grail.
AionVal
(Verified Figment)
- Location
- Beyond The Veil
らくでん？(rakuden) That is one weird combination. Is that the reading you had in mind, or some alternate reading? 'Cuz if it is it might mean something like comforting call? or maybe electric music?
...Is this some slang for metal?
Honestly the closest thing I can think would be as a shortening of 楽にした電話 (らくにしたでんわ) meaning "a phone conversation that puts you at ease."
I have no idea what it could be in relation with Fate.
I should go and re play the VN. It's been years.
James D. Fawkes
Court Scribe
- Location
- Avalon (Isle of Mists)
Yes, Rakuden. Like I said, it's a play on words. It's a side detail in chapter 5, and I was maybe a little too proud of my own cleverness, because apparently, I'm not the first person to have realized the inherent punniness.
AionVal
(Verified Figment)
- Location
- Beyond The Veil
I await with upmost curiosity for the joke to happen. Really hope it doesn't fly over me. It's been a while since I've looked into Canon FSN.
The17thImmortal
Seeker of Sanity
Does it also have any connection to rakuten (楽天), i.e. "optimism"?
James D. Fawkes
Court Scribe
- Location
- Avalon (Isle of Mists)
You're close, but not quite there.
Chapter 3: Touching Base
James D. Fawkes
Court Scribe
- Location
- Avalon (Isle of Mists)
Chapter 3: Touching Base
There was nothing quite like a hardened wooden pole rushing towards your face.
Thwack
It wasn't the same as facing down a real sword, with naked steel and a sharpened blade.
Thwack-thwack
There wasn't quite the same sense of danger, of your life and your body being at risk. One wrong move wouldn't see you maimed or dead.
Thwack
But it wasn't so safe that you could afford to take hits without concern. Especially when you weren't wearing official kendo safety gear, the kind worn on the regional, national, and professional circuit.
Thwack-thwack-thwack
How had I heard it put before… "Death can come even from a wooden sword." One wrong hit to the head, one indelicate blow to the ribs, and you could die just as easily as if you'd been stabbed with a real katana.
Thwack
Even so…
And… parry!
THWACK
There was something much less tense and much more carefree about sparring with a bokken or shinai than a life or death battle with live steel.
The shinai clattered as it hit the ground, rolling over the wooden planks of the dojo until it came to a halt. The owner blinked down at his empty hands, surprised, and I relaxed, resting my own shinai against my shoulder.
"That'll be my win, Emiya," I said matter-of-factly.
Emiya Shirou's face screwed up into something like frustration, and then it smoothed out and he ran a hand through his sweaty hair.
"Yeah," he agreed with a sigh. "You beat me again, Tohsaka."
"No!" Fujimura Taiga wailed from the sidelines. "Shirou! How could you lose, again? You make your beloved Fuji-nee look bad! How can I defend my title if my star pupil loses so easily?"
"I just can't get a read on you," Shirou admitted, ignoring her. "Every time we spar, you're further and further ahead of me."
"It's because you don't practice," I told him. "You would probably surpass me easily, if you actually dedicated yourself to the art of it."
That, and I rotated out my shinai so that I never used the same one twice in a row. Those completely unfair eyes of his that recorded the experience of any weapon he saw were useless against a weapon that had no experience attached to it.
It probably helped that I was using a self-made style developed from Irish Bataireacht. The nimbler, almost breezy kind of motions were quite different from the grounded rigidity of traditional kendo forms.
"Yeah, I guess so. It feels like I've heard that before."
I hummed.
That was because I'd told him so, before. He'd probably heard some version of it from Fujimura-sensei, as well, although I was fairly sure she was still on his case about quitting the Archery Club.
Knowing her, Mitsuzuri at least never let him go a day without pestering him to return. There was something to be said about persistent girls, I supposed.
"You'd have more time to focus on it if you just learned to say no, you know. Helping people isn't wrong, but not every problem is one you yourself need to fix personally."
He laughed.
"Yeah, it feels like I've heard that before, too."
Because I'd told him that before, as well. If I hadn't known him better, I might have thought my admonishments and advice were simply being ignored, but understanding Emiya Shirou came down to realizing that helping people was basically a compulsion for him. No matter what I said, he would never be able to stop.
Trying to curtail some of that into more reasonable habits had been an exercise in futility from the very start, hadn't it?
"Shirou!" Fujimura-sensei howled like she was some kind of wounded beast.
I grimaced and turned to her, plastering a fake smile on my face.
"If you want to defend your honor as a kendo champion, Fujimura-sensei," I said with Rin's exaggerated politeness, "then you're certainly free to take his place for the next round."
She stopped her exaggerated crying instantly.
"Oh…?"
Shirou froze, eyes wide and mouth dropped open.
"Oh no," he whispered.
"Oh-hohoho!" Fujimura-sensei stood, pointing a finger at me dramatically, like something out of a manga. "Naturally, I accept!"
What even is my life?
How was this woman even a real person? She made me exhausted just watching her, and I was easily ten years her junior. That sort of stamina and outgoingness was just ridiculous.
Still. Emiya Shirou was a rank amateur, no matter how hard I'd been trying to drill swordsmanship lessons into his head. As a matter of comparison, defeating him in a spar with nothing on the line wasn't something I could take pride in. If there was someone here in Fuyuki to safely use as my measuring stick, Fujimura Taiga, a master of kendo who only lost in the nationals as a result of a cosmetic violation in her shinai, was the best choice.
"Here we go…" Shirou sighed.
Fujimura-sensei switched places with him, and as though she'd been waiting for it the entire time, she pulled out her special shinai, complete with the tiger-striped charm dangling from the hilt. Smiling, full of confidence, she took her stance opposite of me, a thing of perfection without flaw. It wouldn't be inaccurate to say her form was the epitome of Japanese kendo. It was simply that good.
The epitome of Japanese kendo… But my goal was something far beyond that. I couldn't win unless I surpassed the peak of human martial arts and reached a level to compete with the legends of old.
I let out a breath and stilled my racing heart. My mind honed itself into an edge. My line of sight narrowed to encompass only my opponent and the space that separated us. The rest of the world became unimportant. There was only me and my foe.
My grip on my shinai tightened. The stance I took was low with a center of gravity closer to my ankles than my hips. It resembled a Japanese kendo stance not at all.
Then…
First step, surpass the speed of sound.
Second step, erase the distance that stood between me and my foe.
Third step, unleash an attack that could shatter the enemy's sword in a single blow.
This, the power of the martial arts of the ancient Celts, unseen for nearly two millennia. The Vantage of Swiftness that carried me forward, the Swordbreaker that destroyed the opponent's weapon. With this, I claim victory!
Swifter than lightning, I struck —
THWACK
— and blinked up at the ceiling.
THUMP
"Ah?"
I was on my back?
"Tohsaka?"
When had I fallen down? I had just been racing towards Fujimura-sensei, hadn't I?
Slowly, gingerly, I sat up, prodding gently at my throbbing ribs. There was no stopping my wince, but thankfully, I wasn't seriously injured. A bruise, one easily healed when I got home and there was no one watching, but no outright breaks or apparent fractures, so nothing I needed to worry about right now.
More importantly…
I sighed. The bruise on my chest throbbed. "Again, huh?"
"Oh yeah!" Fujimura-sensei crowed, more to herself than anything. She made exaggerated flexing motions, like some kind of bodybuilder showing off her hard work and bulging biceps. "Fuji-nee's still got it! The reigning queen keeps her crown!"
Shirou gave me a sympathetic smile. "Again."
Damn it. Fujimura Taiga was a prodigy of kendo, but even she had nothing on the likes of a Servant. If I couldn't even beat her, what chance would I have against my true enemy? Taking on such a monster with skills and performance that couldn't even best an ordinary human kendo master…
Double damn it. Ten years of preparation, and this was all the farther I managed to make it? Did all of that work amount to nothing? Was the bridge between me and my goal so insurmountable that it had never been anything but a dream from the beginning?
To have lost to Fujimura Taiga again certainly seemed to say so. Her speed, strength, and skill still put her ahead of me, and the gap hadn't closed, yet. Ten years of training hadn't been enough to overcome the benchmark for my progress.
There was, at least, one area where I held the advantage, though.
"Fujimura-sensei," I said sweetly, taking my revenge, "it's unbecoming of a teacher to lord her victory over one of her students."
"Guh!"
Fujimura-sensei stumbled, clutching her belly as though I'd punched her in the gut. A look of agonized shock marred her face.
"Furthermore, it's absolutely unbecoming of a woman your age to act so childishly. As an adult, there's a certain example you need to set to those younger than you."
"Urk!"
She collapsed to her knees, shoulders hunched and head hung as Torashinai clattered to the floor. That easily, I did with just a few words what I'd been unable to do physically and disarmed her of her weapon. In a breathless, strained voice, she wheezed, "An adult… my age…younger…than me…"
Then, the Tiger arose, roaring. "So what if I'm almost thirty?! What counts is that I'm young at heart, you know!"
That's exactly the sort of thing someone ashamed of their age would say, Fujimura-sensei.
Shirou chuckled awkwardly. "That's Fuji-nee, alright…"
Good grief. The woman who had so easily defeated me after ten years of hard work refining my style couldn't even be a cold, calculating badass, she had to be a ditz who behaved closer to three than to thirty. There was something just monumentally unfair about that.
"Anyway," I breathed out. "Say, Fujimura-sensei, do you think I could borrow Emiya for a few hours? There's a few things I need to discuss with him."
"Oh?" Her face twisted into a cruel expression only older sisters knew how to make. "Is it time for some boys' talk, Tohsaka-kun? Or maybe there's a confession that's about to happen before my eyes? Ah, Shirou, if that was the way things were, you only had to say so, you know!" She nodded sagely. "Fuji-nee is nothing if not supportive!"
The way this woman's mind worked…
But her simplicity and earnest nature was also what made her so easy to manipulate.
"Fuji-nee," Shirou began tiredly.
"Actually," I said cheerily, "you're not that far off! Well, if you're up for hearing all of the gritty details, then feel free to stay and listen." I turned back to Shirou. "So, Emiya, let's pick up from our previous lesson. I said last time that there are particular areas of sensitivity that will respond to the proper stimulation, but there's one in particular that should drive your partner absolutely wild."
One hand held up, palm towards the ceiling, I made a curling motion with my ring and middle fingers. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Fujimura-sensei's mouth fall open and her face slowly turn a bright shade of red as she realized exactly what I was teaching.
The real key was to have no shame. After all, for all her exuberance, Fujimura-sensei was a proper Japanese woman when it came to her morals and norms, with all of the trappings that entailed.
"Remember, the key is consistency and repetition. You'll want to start slow and gradually pick up speed."
"WH-WH-WHAT ARE YOU TEACHING MY POOR, IMPRESSIONABLE SHIROU?!" she wailed.
Gotcha.
"The…what's the expression…pillow techniques necessary for a man," I replied guilelessly. "Neither of us has a father to pass on these skills, so I'm only fulfilling my responsibility as his more experienced senior to ensure that Emiya is well prepared."
"M-m-m-more experienced?" she stuttered. "No! Tohsaka-kun has already known a woman's touch! Where did I go wrong? I thought I raised you better than that!"
Implying you had much of anything to do with my growth at all.
But for all that she frustrated me sometimes, Fujimura-sensei was a decent person and, I liked to think, a friend. There was no point in tearing her down by saying something so hurtful.
An exaggerated, put upon sigh hissed out of my mouth. "Regardless of your opinions, Fujimura-sensei, these are necessary life skills that Emiya will need in the future, and I'm the only one both available and knowledgeable enough to pass them on. Unless you'd like to take over his instruction? Perhaps a woman's experience in this area is more valuable."
Her mouth snapped shut, and she went, if possible, even redder. Then, she threw herself onto the floor, clutching at her head, and started rolling around.
"I-I-I couldn't possibly! Oh, what kind of woman do you take me for! W-with me, Shirou would never…! And besides that, it's not proper! I'm his guardian, after all! It's just not my place to…!"
On and on she went, rambling wildly about why it was a bad idea and wouldn't work and Shirou wouldn't accept it, besides. He and I watched her go, and some of the things that came out of her mouth made me wonder… But those were the sorts of thoughts I absolutely shouldn't entertain, so I tried not to think about it.
Finally, after a minute or two of this, she stopped rolling and stopped talking and went still. Then, she stood abruptly.
"Sh-Shirou!" she announced, voice a little squeaky. "In this particular area, your beloved Fuji-nee will entrust your instruction to Tohsaka-kun!" A little quieter, she added, "His experience will serve you well." Then, at full volume and with max cheer, "See you tomorrow!"
And just like that, she raced out of the dojo and left. When she was gone, I let out a sigh.
"Well," I remarked. "That was a thing."
But when I turned back to him, Shirou was bright red, too, with a miserable expression on his face. He refused to meet my eyes.
"What?"
He sighed and rubbed at the back of his neck. "Did you have to use something like…that to get her to leave?"
One of my eyebrows rose.
"Would you have preferred she thought we were doing the horizontal tango together?"
"The horizontal… N-no, of course not!"
I rolled my eyes. "Then the how of it isn't all that important, is it? The alternative was letting her in on the secret of magecraft, and we both know that she'd stick her nose in far too deep if we did that. Besides, next time, she'll leave us alone without the trouble, because she'll think I'm teaching you…'pillow techniques.'"
He didn't look entirely convinced, so I waved it off. There really wasn't a point in arguing about it.
"Anyway," I said, "let's check up on your progress, now. To your workshop, as it were?"
"To the shed," he agreed. He honestly looked relieved to have moved on from the subject and to something more in his comfort zone.
It wasn't like what I'd said was a lie, I thought as he led me out of the dojo and through the halls of his Japanese mansion. A certain blonde-haired girl king would definitely appreciate the pillow techniques I'd just mentioned, when the opportunity arose for him to employ them on her. More than Shirou would appreciate her own knowledge of how to please a man, I'd wager.
Needless to say, the Rin route wasn't happening, if I had anything to say about it. It was my prerogative as an older brother to jealously safeguard my beloved sister's heart, and I fully intended to continue doing so.
The Sakura route would mean something had gone horribly wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong.
But, if everything went as planned, then the Grail War would go off without a hitch, all of the big threats would be handled, the world would be saved, and neither Shirou nor my sister would have any idea that I'd had anything to do with it. Neat, clean, tie it all off with a little bow, call it a day, everyone could move on with their lives.
That said, I wasn't above stacking the deck, just in case things went wrong. That whole thing with Fujimura-sensei itself proved that I couldn't count on all of my plans going exactly the way I wanted them to — and hadn't I learned that lesson so many times over the past ten years?
Shirou and I stepped into a pair of shoes and walked through the courtyard to the shed; he drew the door open, and I followed him inside to the sight of half a dozen incomplete projects and experiments, refinements on his skills rather than testing new ideas or exploring different avenues of his craft. The best off were the ones that at least somewhat resembled a sword.
"Okay," I said, "let's see how you've progressed. Projection first?"
He nodded, then took a deep breath and closed his eyes. The snap between his circuits being off and turning them on was a visible moment, a tightening of his brow as his mental trigger was activated.
"Trace on."
He held out his hands, and over several long seconds, the frame of a katana slowly took form, sleek, sharp, and with the wrap on the handle fraying from age. The blade slowly filled in, shimmering and shiny, with the burnished bronze habaki and the wavy hamon, tapering into the curved boshi and the pointed kissaki. At the base was the tsuba, rounded and thin, barely large enough to cover the shape of a fist. When it was finished, he let out a breath, opened his eyes, and offered it to me for inspection.
I took it and gave it a look over with just my eyes — at first glance, there weren't any flaws. No holes in the structure, so to speak, where the image used broke down and the inherent weakness compromised the resultant construct.
Then again, this was Emiya Shirou. His projection magecraft had always been top notch, compared to standard practices.
"So far, so good," I said, and Shirou's lips twitched a little.
I took a deep breath and in my head, I imagined my own mental trigger, the crack of a mirror shattering into countless irrecoverable pieces. It thundered through me as my circuits whirred and spun up and turned on.
"Tosaigid eclaimm." Begin analysis.
The structure of the sword in my hands bloomed in my mind's eye, and immediately, I set about examining it for flaws, for areas where the image was incomplete or the material was lacking. Any sign at all that this wasn't the exact sword it looked like, so expertly recreated that it was virtually indistinguishable from the original.
I found none.
Of course, I was also somewhat more limited in my examination than Shirou was. I could only look for obvious malformations; my form of Structural Analysis was not advanced enough to find any mistakes in accumulated history or the manufacturing process, not the way his could. I was only able to determine that the object was "complete" insofar as it was as physically perfect as possible.
Sometimes, I was envious of Shirou's magecraft. The degree to which he was able to reproduce such fine detail in an object, even if it was limited to "bladed weapons," was… Well, there was undoubtedly a combination of magecraft that would allow me to do exactly what he did, down to recording the skill and strength with which the weapon had been wielded, and then projecting that "image" into reality.
The difference was, it would take me years of study and probably generations of accumulated skill. Shirou did it as a matter of course.
I smiled, refusing to let any of my thoughts show on my face. "Remarkable as always, Shirou. I can't find anything at all wrong with this katana."
I'd done my best to help Shirou. To nurture his talent. Five years of — admittedly sporadic — training was nothing to sneeze at, especially when it let me undo some of Emiya Kiritsugu's sabotage. He'd made leaps and bounds in the quality of his projection magecraft in that time, to the point that he was faithfully reproducing even these antique pieces with the mystery they'd gathered over the ages intact.
But there was only so much I could do. My own teachings weren't stellar to begin with, and the one field where I truly excelled was one he was completely incompatible with. Too, Shirou was safe only so long as Kotomine, Zouken, and Rin never realized exactly who he was, who had adopted him, and the fact that he was a magus. Spellcaster, if you wanted to be pedantic about it. The instant he was found out… Well, one of them would give me an earful for keeping it secret, one of them would start planning how to drag him into the Grail War in a way I couldn't plan for, and the last would kick off my worst case scenario.
And there was the biggest problem: because of who he was, I couldn't even begin to imagine exactly how spectacularly bad an idea it would be to take him to London and the Mage's Association, where he would be able to start recording the truly powerful artifacts squirreled away in their vaults — and where everyone who heard his name would probably start making plans to assassinate him while he was still young and inexperienced and hadn't survived a Grail War.
Thus, the inevitable result before me: a perfect replica of a priceless antique that took him far too long to make and was therefore practically worthless in an actual fight.
At the end of the day, there was just too hard a limit to what I could teach him and how much help I could give him. Without the pressure of a Grail War to accelerate his growth and fill out his arsenal with truly incredible armaments, it seemed this was as far as my own skill could take him.
"Okay, then." I flipped the sword up, caught it by the back of the blade with my index finger, and let it balance itself there, wobbling a little as it found equilibrium. An excellent blade, simply not my preferred style.
I spun it around until it was pointed, hilt first, at my "student." He rolled his eyes and dismissed it; it dissolved into motes of golden light that flickered out like fireflies.
"Let's take a look at your Reinforcement next, shall we?"
There was nothing quite like a hardened wooden pole rushing towards your face.
Thwack
It wasn't the same as facing down a real sword, with naked steel and a sharpened blade.
Thwack-thwack
There wasn't quite the same sense of danger, of your life and your body being at risk. One wrong move wouldn't see you maimed or dead.
Thwack
But it wasn't so safe that you could afford to take hits without concern. Especially when you weren't wearing official kendo safety gear, the kind worn on the regional, national, and professional circuit.
Thwack-thwack-thwack
How had I heard it put before… "Death can come even from a wooden sword." One wrong hit to the head, one indelicate blow to the ribs, and you could die just as easily as if you'd been stabbed with a real katana.
Thwack
Even so…
And… parry!
THWACK
There was something much less tense and much more carefree about sparring with a bokken or shinai than a life or death battle with live steel.
The shinai clattered as it hit the ground, rolling over the wooden planks of the dojo until it came to a halt. The owner blinked down at his empty hands, surprised, and I relaxed, resting my own shinai against my shoulder.
"That'll be my win, Emiya," I said matter-of-factly.
Emiya Shirou's face screwed up into something like frustration, and then it smoothed out and he ran a hand through his sweaty hair.
"Yeah," he agreed with a sigh. "You beat me again, Tohsaka."
"No!" Fujimura Taiga wailed from the sidelines. "Shirou! How could you lose, again? You make your beloved Fuji-nee look bad! How can I defend my title if my star pupil loses so easily?"
"I just can't get a read on you," Shirou admitted, ignoring her. "Every time we spar, you're further and further ahead of me."
"It's because you don't practice," I told him. "You would probably surpass me easily, if you actually dedicated yourself to the art of it."
That, and I rotated out my shinai so that I never used the same one twice in a row. Those completely unfair eyes of his that recorded the experience of any weapon he saw were useless against a weapon that had no experience attached to it.
It probably helped that I was using a self-made style developed from Irish Bataireacht. The nimbler, almost breezy kind of motions were quite different from the grounded rigidity of traditional kendo forms.
"Yeah, I guess so. It feels like I've heard that before."
I hummed.
That was because I'd told him so, before. He'd probably heard some version of it from Fujimura-sensei, as well, although I was fairly sure she was still on his case about quitting the Archery Club.
Knowing her, Mitsuzuri at least never let him go a day without pestering him to return. There was something to be said about persistent girls, I supposed.
"You'd have more time to focus on it if you just learned to say no, you know. Helping people isn't wrong, but not every problem is one you yourself need to fix personally."
He laughed.
"Yeah, it feels like I've heard that before, too."
Because I'd told him that before, as well. If I hadn't known him better, I might have thought my admonishments and advice were simply being ignored, but understanding Emiya Shirou came down to realizing that helping people was basically a compulsion for him. No matter what I said, he would never be able to stop.
Trying to curtail some of that into more reasonable habits had been an exercise in futility from the very start, hadn't it?
"Shirou!" Fujimura-sensei howled like she was some kind of wounded beast.
I grimaced and turned to her, plastering a fake smile on my face.
"If you want to defend your honor as a kendo champion, Fujimura-sensei," I said with Rin's exaggerated politeness, "then you're certainly free to take his place for the next round."
She stopped her exaggerated crying instantly.
"Oh…?"
Shirou froze, eyes wide and mouth dropped open.
"Oh no," he whispered.
"Oh-hohoho!" Fujimura-sensei stood, pointing a finger at me dramatically, like something out of a manga. "Naturally, I accept!"
What even is my life?
How was this woman even a real person? She made me exhausted just watching her, and I was easily ten years her junior. That sort of stamina and outgoingness was just ridiculous.
Still. Emiya Shirou was a rank amateur, no matter how hard I'd been trying to drill swordsmanship lessons into his head. As a matter of comparison, defeating him in a spar with nothing on the line wasn't something I could take pride in. If there was someone here in Fuyuki to safely use as my measuring stick, Fujimura Taiga, a master of kendo who only lost in the nationals as a result of a cosmetic violation in her shinai, was the best choice.
"Here we go…" Shirou sighed.
Fujimura-sensei switched places with him, and as though she'd been waiting for it the entire time, she pulled out her special shinai, complete with the tiger-striped charm dangling from the hilt. Smiling, full of confidence, she took her stance opposite of me, a thing of perfection without flaw. It wouldn't be inaccurate to say her form was the epitome of Japanese kendo. It was simply that good.
The epitome of Japanese kendo… But my goal was something far beyond that. I couldn't win unless I surpassed the peak of human martial arts and reached a level to compete with the legends of old.
I let out a breath and stilled my racing heart. My mind honed itself into an edge. My line of sight narrowed to encompass only my opponent and the space that separated us. The rest of the world became unimportant. There was only me and my foe.
My grip on my shinai tightened. The stance I took was low with a center of gravity closer to my ankles than my hips. It resembled a Japanese kendo stance not at all.
Then…
First step, surpass the speed of sound.
Second step, erase the distance that stood between me and my foe.
Third step, unleash an attack that could shatter the enemy's sword in a single blow.
This, the power of the martial arts of the ancient Celts, unseen for nearly two millennia. The Vantage of Swiftness that carried me forward, the Swordbreaker that destroyed the opponent's weapon. With this, I claim victory!
Swifter than lightning, I struck —
THWACK
— and blinked up at the ceiling.
THUMP
"Ah?"
I was on my back?
"Tohsaka?"
When had I fallen down? I had just been racing towards Fujimura-sensei, hadn't I?
Slowly, gingerly, I sat up, prodding gently at my throbbing ribs. There was no stopping my wince, but thankfully, I wasn't seriously injured. A bruise, one easily healed when I got home and there was no one watching, but no outright breaks or apparent fractures, so nothing I needed to worry about right now.
More importantly…
I sighed. The bruise on my chest throbbed. "Again, huh?"
"Oh yeah!" Fujimura-sensei crowed, more to herself than anything. She made exaggerated flexing motions, like some kind of bodybuilder showing off her hard work and bulging biceps. "Fuji-nee's still got it! The reigning queen keeps her crown!"
Shirou gave me a sympathetic smile. "Again."
Damn it. Fujimura Taiga was a prodigy of kendo, but even she had nothing on the likes of a Servant. If I couldn't even beat her, what chance would I have against my true enemy? Taking on such a monster with skills and performance that couldn't even best an ordinary human kendo master…
Double damn it. Ten years of preparation, and this was all the farther I managed to make it? Did all of that work amount to nothing? Was the bridge between me and my goal so insurmountable that it had never been anything but a dream from the beginning?
To have lost to Fujimura Taiga again certainly seemed to say so. Her speed, strength, and skill still put her ahead of me, and the gap hadn't closed, yet. Ten years of training hadn't been enough to overcome the benchmark for my progress.
There was, at least, one area where I held the advantage, though.
"Fujimura-sensei," I said sweetly, taking my revenge, "it's unbecoming of a teacher to lord her victory over one of her students."
"Guh!"
Fujimura-sensei stumbled, clutching her belly as though I'd punched her in the gut. A look of agonized shock marred her face.
"Furthermore, it's absolutely unbecoming of a woman your age to act so childishly. As an adult, there's a certain example you need to set to those younger than you."
"Urk!"
She collapsed to her knees, shoulders hunched and head hung as Torashinai clattered to the floor. That easily, I did with just a few words what I'd been unable to do physically and disarmed her of her weapon. In a breathless, strained voice, she wheezed, "An adult… my age…younger…than me…"
Then, the Tiger arose, roaring. "So what if I'm almost thirty?! What counts is that I'm young at heart, you know!"
That's exactly the sort of thing someone ashamed of their age would say, Fujimura-sensei.
Shirou chuckled awkwardly. "That's Fuji-nee, alright…"
Good grief. The woman who had so easily defeated me after ten years of hard work refining my style couldn't even be a cold, calculating badass, she had to be a ditz who behaved closer to three than to thirty. There was something just monumentally unfair about that.
"Anyway," I breathed out. "Say, Fujimura-sensei, do you think I could borrow Emiya for a few hours? There's a few things I need to discuss with him."
"Oh?" Her face twisted into a cruel expression only older sisters knew how to make. "Is it time for some boys' talk, Tohsaka-kun? Or maybe there's a confession that's about to happen before my eyes? Ah, Shirou, if that was the way things were, you only had to say so, you know!" She nodded sagely. "Fuji-nee is nothing if not supportive!"
The way this woman's mind worked…
But her simplicity and earnest nature was also what made her so easy to manipulate.
"Fuji-nee," Shirou began tiredly.
"Actually," I said cheerily, "you're not that far off! Well, if you're up for hearing all of the gritty details, then feel free to stay and listen." I turned back to Shirou. "So, Emiya, let's pick up from our previous lesson. I said last time that there are particular areas of sensitivity that will respond to the proper stimulation, but there's one in particular that should drive your partner absolutely wild."
One hand held up, palm towards the ceiling, I made a curling motion with my ring and middle fingers. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Fujimura-sensei's mouth fall open and her face slowly turn a bright shade of red as she realized exactly what I was teaching.
The real key was to have no shame. After all, for all her exuberance, Fujimura-sensei was a proper Japanese woman when it came to her morals and norms, with all of the trappings that entailed.
"Remember, the key is consistency and repetition. You'll want to start slow and gradually pick up speed."
"WH-WH-WHAT ARE YOU TEACHING MY POOR, IMPRESSIONABLE SHIROU?!" she wailed.
Gotcha.
"The…what's the expression…pillow techniques necessary for a man," I replied guilelessly. "Neither of us has a father to pass on these skills, so I'm only fulfilling my responsibility as his more experienced senior to ensure that Emiya is well prepared."
"M-m-m-more experienced?" she stuttered. "No! Tohsaka-kun has already known a woman's touch! Where did I go wrong? I thought I raised you better than that!"
Implying you had much of anything to do with my growth at all.
But for all that she frustrated me sometimes, Fujimura-sensei was a decent person and, I liked to think, a friend. There was no point in tearing her down by saying something so hurtful.
An exaggerated, put upon sigh hissed out of my mouth. "Regardless of your opinions, Fujimura-sensei, these are necessary life skills that Emiya will need in the future, and I'm the only one both available and knowledgeable enough to pass them on. Unless you'd like to take over his instruction? Perhaps a woman's experience in this area is more valuable."
Her mouth snapped shut, and she went, if possible, even redder. Then, she threw herself onto the floor, clutching at her head, and started rolling around.
"I-I-I couldn't possibly! Oh, what kind of woman do you take me for! W-with me, Shirou would never…! And besides that, it's not proper! I'm his guardian, after all! It's just not my place to…!"
On and on she went, rambling wildly about why it was a bad idea and wouldn't work and Shirou wouldn't accept it, besides. He and I watched her go, and some of the things that came out of her mouth made me wonder… But those were the sorts of thoughts I absolutely shouldn't entertain, so I tried not to think about it.
Finally, after a minute or two of this, she stopped rolling and stopped talking and went still. Then, she stood abruptly.
"Sh-Shirou!" she announced, voice a little squeaky. "In this particular area, your beloved Fuji-nee will entrust your instruction to Tohsaka-kun!" A little quieter, she added, "His experience will serve you well." Then, at full volume and with max cheer, "See you tomorrow!"
And just like that, she raced out of the dojo and left. When she was gone, I let out a sigh.
"Well," I remarked. "That was a thing."
But when I turned back to him, Shirou was bright red, too, with a miserable expression on his face. He refused to meet my eyes.
"What?"
He sighed and rubbed at the back of his neck. "Did you have to use something like…that to get her to leave?"
One of my eyebrows rose.
"Would you have preferred she thought we were doing the horizontal tango together?"
"The horizontal… N-no, of course not!"
I rolled my eyes. "Then the how of it isn't all that important, is it? The alternative was letting her in on the secret of magecraft, and we both know that she'd stick her nose in far too deep if we did that. Besides, next time, she'll leave us alone without the trouble, because she'll think I'm teaching you…'pillow techniques.'"
He didn't look entirely convinced, so I waved it off. There really wasn't a point in arguing about it.
"Anyway," I said, "let's check up on your progress, now. To your workshop, as it were?"
"To the shed," he agreed. He honestly looked relieved to have moved on from the subject and to something more in his comfort zone.
It wasn't like what I'd said was a lie, I thought as he led me out of the dojo and through the halls of his Japanese mansion. A certain blonde-haired girl king would definitely appreciate the pillow techniques I'd just mentioned, when the opportunity arose for him to employ them on her. More than Shirou would appreciate her own knowledge of how to please a man, I'd wager.
Needless to say, the Rin route wasn't happening, if I had anything to say about it. It was my prerogative as an older brother to jealously safeguard my beloved sister's heart, and I fully intended to continue doing so.
The Sakura route would mean something had gone horribly wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong.
But, if everything went as planned, then the Grail War would go off without a hitch, all of the big threats would be handled, the world would be saved, and neither Shirou nor my sister would have any idea that I'd had anything to do with it. Neat, clean, tie it all off with a little bow, call it a day, everyone could move on with their lives.
That said, I wasn't above stacking the deck, just in case things went wrong. That whole thing with Fujimura-sensei itself proved that I couldn't count on all of my plans going exactly the way I wanted them to — and hadn't I learned that lesson so many times over the past ten years?
Shirou and I stepped into a pair of shoes and walked through the courtyard to the shed; he drew the door open, and I followed him inside to the sight of half a dozen incomplete projects and experiments, refinements on his skills rather than testing new ideas or exploring different avenues of his craft. The best off were the ones that at least somewhat resembled a sword.
"Okay," I said, "let's see how you've progressed. Projection first?"
He nodded, then took a deep breath and closed his eyes. The snap between his circuits being off and turning them on was a visible moment, a tightening of his brow as his mental trigger was activated.
"Trace on."
He held out his hands, and over several long seconds, the frame of a katana slowly took form, sleek, sharp, and with the wrap on the handle fraying from age. The blade slowly filled in, shimmering and shiny, with the burnished bronze habaki and the wavy hamon, tapering into the curved boshi and the pointed kissaki. At the base was the tsuba, rounded and thin, barely large enough to cover the shape of a fist. When it was finished, he let out a breath, opened his eyes, and offered it to me for inspection.
I took it and gave it a look over with just my eyes — at first glance, there weren't any flaws. No holes in the structure, so to speak, where the image used broke down and the inherent weakness compromised the resultant construct.
Then again, this was Emiya Shirou. His projection magecraft had always been top notch, compared to standard practices.
"So far, so good," I said, and Shirou's lips twitched a little.
I took a deep breath and in my head, I imagined my own mental trigger, the crack of a mirror shattering into countless irrecoverable pieces. It thundered through me as my circuits whirred and spun up and turned on.
"Tosaigid eclaimm." Begin analysis.
The structure of the sword in my hands bloomed in my mind's eye, and immediately, I set about examining it for flaws, for areas where the image was incomplete or the material was lacking. Any sign at all that this wasn't the exact sword it looked like, so expertly recreated that it was virtually indistinguishable from the original.
I found none.
Of course, I was also somewhat more limited in my examination than Shirou was. I could only look for obvious malformations; my form of Structural Analysis was not advanced enough to find any mistakes in accumulated history or the manufacturing process, not the way his could. I was only able to determine that the object was "complete" insofar as it was as physically perfect as possible.
Sometimes, I was envious of Shirou's magecraft. The degree to which he was able to reproduce such fine detail in an object, even if it was limited to "bladed weapons," was… Well, there was undoubtedly a combination of magecraft that would allow me to do exactly what he did, down to recording the skill and strength with which the weapon had been wielded, and then projecting that "image" into reality.
The difference was, it would take me years of study and probably generations of accumulated skill. Shirou did it as a matter of course.
I smiled, refusing to let any of my thoughts show on my face. "Remarkable as always, Shirou. I can't find anything at all wrong with this katana."
I'd done my best to help Shirou. To nurture his talent. Five years of — admittedly sporadic — training was nothing to sneeze at, especially when it let me undo some of Emiya Kiritsugu's sabotage. He'd made leaps and bounds in the quality of his projection magecraft in that time, to the point that he was faithfully reproducing even these antique pieces with the mystery they'd gathered over the ages intact.
But there was only so much I could do. My own teachings weren't stellar to begin with, and the one field where I truly excelled was one he was completely incompatible with. Too, Shirou was safe only so long as Kotomine, Zouken, and Rin never realized exactly who he was, who had adopted him, and the fact that he was a magus. Spellcaster, if you wanted to be pedantic about it. The instant he was found out… Well, one of them would give me an earful for keeping it secret, one of them would start planning how to drag him into the Grail War in a way I couldn't plan for, and the last would kick off my worst case scenario.
And there was the biggest problem: because of who he was, I couldn't even begin to imagine exactly how spectacularly bad an idea it would be to take him to London and the Mage's Association, where he would be able to start recording the truly powerful artifacts squirreled away in their vaults — and where everyone who heard his name would probably start making plans to assassinate him while he was still young and inexperienced and hadn't survived a Grail War.
Thus, the inevitable result before me: a perfect replica of a priceless antique that took him far too long to make and was therefore practically worthless in an actual fight.
At the end of the day, there was just too hard a limit to what I could teach him and how much help I could give him. Without the pressure of a Grail War to accelerate his growth and fill out his arsenal with truly incredible armaments, it seemed this was as far as my own skill could take him.
"Okay, then." I flipped the sword up, caught it by the back of the blade with my index finger, and let it balance itself there, wobbling a little as it found equilibrium. An excellent blade, simply not my preferred style.
I spun it around until it was pointed, hilt first, at my "student." He rolled his eyes and dismissed it; it dissolved into motes of golden light that flickered out like fireflies.
"Let's take a look at your Reinforcement next, shall we?"
— o.0.O.O.0.o —
Chapter 6 is finished but for the editing pass, so I'm gonna post this one now.
Those are some suspiciously specific denials, Fuji-nee.
There's just too much setup to do for this story. Especially because he's both an OC and a SI, Yukio's plans and preparations have to be laid out, and I'm covering the better part of a month before the Grail War gets started for real. But, by the same token, that gives me 7-8 chapters to endear the readers to Yukio before the main plot really kicks off, so I suppose I can't complain too much.
Special thanks to all my Patrons who have stayed with me this far, through all the rocky moments and dry stretches. You guys are the best, and your continued support is invaluable.
If you like what you're reading and want to support me as a writer so I can pay the bills, I have a Patreon. If Patreon is too long term, I have a Ko-fi page, too. If you want to commission something from me, check out either my Deviantart post or my artist registry page for my rates. Links in my sig. Every little bit helps keep me afloat, even if you can only afford a couple dollars.
Those are some suspiciously specific denials, Fuji-nee.
There's just too much setup to do for this story. Especially because he's both an OC and a SI, Yukio's plans and preparations have to be laid out, and I'm covering the better part of a month before the Grail War gets started for real. But, by the same token, that gives me 7-8 chapters to endear the readers to Yukio before the main plot really kicks off, so I suppose I can't complain too much.
Special thanks to all my Patrons who have stayed with me this far, through all the rocky moments and dry stretches. You guys are the best, and your continued support is invaluable.
If you like what you're reading and want to support me as a writer so I can pay the bills, I have a Patreon. If Patreon is too long term, I have a Ko-fi page, too. If you want to commission something from me, check out either my Deviantart post or my artist registry page for my rates. Links in my sig. Every little bit helps keep me afloat, even if you can only afford a couple dollars.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
That was entertaining. I'm entertained now.
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
I'm interested in seeing what Yukio has planned. There are a lot of moving parts for him to cover and a lot of those parts ought to, by all rights, be able to walk right over him.
I'm also happy to see Taiga get her due. We are always told how strong she is, but we only ever see her get tossed around by Saber. So, it normally comes across as a last-minute and half-assed Worf Effect sort of thing. And a completely unnecessary one considering we already see Saber fight by that point.
I'm also happy to see Taiga get her due. We are always told how strong she is, but we only ever see her get tossed around by Saber. So, it normally comes across as a last-minute and half-assed Worf Effect sort of thing. And a completely unnecessary one considering we already see Saber fight by that point.
Icipall
Don't worry, we can fanfix that!
- Location
- Cold snow fields of Finland
*Picks up a phone.*
Aha, yes, we need one female king Arthur to curb one superhero-in-training's more destructive impulses.
If you ever find the answer, let the rest of us know as well.
Someone else also chasing their dream, I see.
🤣Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-haa!!!
Damn, man, you're firing with all cylinders.
...You know, kudos to you, James, you made me forget for a moment that this is a SI-story.
Stop tempting fate!
Well, Shirou has advanced quite well under your tutelage.
"Now, DON'T DODGE!!!"
Last edited: