2026 (???)
Chaldea
"I'm a genius!"
Ritsuka looks up at the beaming inventor with a wry look, halfway through chewing on a egg sandwich; the only food he's had in… well actually come to think of it this is his after lunch snack. Honestly a bad idea, it's just wasted carbs that he'll have to work off at the gym later, at least Chaldea isn't facing a crisis situation right this moment anywa--dammit he got distracted again, focus you fool focus. "Yesh hyou arrh," he nods astutely, and swallows. "Why're you telling me this? I'm eating."
Leonardo Da Vinci, such as she is, giggles and taps him on the tip of his nose, and giggles some more when Ritsuka recoils and paws at it. "There's a reason, silly boy! I solved a problem that should be impossible to solve! You'll thank me later~" She looks around after giving the empty seat opposite him a passing gaze, and Leonardo frowns. "That's odd… aren't you usually with your sister and Mashu?"
"She's fat and trying to work it off," Ritsuka responds casually. "Mashu's taking d'Eon to the medbay after they got piledriven by Gilgamesh after their daily inquest. What's up?"
"Oh, no, I was just hoping for a variety of reactions." Da Vinci frumps in displeasure and immediately gets over it. "Oh well, I have to get going anyways! Busy busy busy! Anyways, Ritsuka, you should head over to the summoning chamber at your nearest convenience. I managed to fix the FATE System's catalyst protocols!"
Ritsuka blinks. His eyebrows rise up like flipped switches. "You actually managed it?! We can actually put our catalysts to use, instead of relying on random chance?!"
"Yes!"
"We can finally summon some fucking Assassins?!"
"INDEED, Ritsuka! Indeed!" She leans forward to pat him on the head and giggles. "You may thank me later, you know where to look. Ta~"
Da Vinci hops off with a skip in her step, like she didn't perform high treason against the court of NoHeadpatsEver, but Ritsuka doesn't care. He crushes the quarter of his sandwich he hasn't already eaten into a ball, jams it into his mouth, and sprints off in the direction of the women's gym.
----
"Kana, something amazing has happened."
"You're finally one of the girls," Kana says proudly. Wiping a single tear from her eye, she spreads her arms. "Welcome home, little sister. I'm so proud."
"Firstly I'm five minutes older than you, secondly fuck you, thirdly this is better."
Kana frowns, and pulls back the hood on her maroon exercise hoodie. "I don't follow. I always wanted a little sister."
"Leo fixed the catalyst system."
His sister gasps and claps her cheeks. "Oh my gosh that's amazing." She frowns, looking out the corner of her eye, and then folds her arms. "Wait, do we even have any catalysts?"
"No, but I have an idea."
"Ordering fast food and disguising it as your own cooking?" Kana laughs, a finger over her lip like a bad mustache. "Hohoho, delightfully devilish Ritsuka!"
"You should cut down on the fast food yourself, fatty." While Kana gasps in faux-offense, Ritsuka pulls out his notepad. "I made a list of random shit we could try, and finally summon a goddamn assassin."
"No vampire fiction."
Ritsuka nods, and then throws the entire notepad away. "Plan B it is."
"...I know that notepad is probably empty, but it was pretty funny." Kana nods sagely. "I approve. Anyways, you made a list?"
"Yes. I just need to write it down, and then we figure out what could summon who."
"Or we could just grab a random thing and wing it."
Ritsuka frowns thoughtfully, then shrugs. "Don't see why not. We can always summon again."
----
The pillar of light in the summoning chamber dies, and in its place at the center is a large traveling case. Not a servant, not a cleverly solisophistic metaphor, literally a large wooden chest with metal banding, a lock, and everything.
It looks strangely familiar. But then all old chests kind of look the same.
"...I think she broke it," Kana sums up succinctly.
"We summoned a fucking box,' Ritsuka says, and then laughs. "Looks like you fucked it up!"
Kana shrugs nonchalantly, and Ritsuka grumps at her lack of a reaction. "Probably! I don't hit a home run everyday. Anyways, might as well open it. Might be something good inside! Or it might be a mimic." Kana scratches her chin. "Are those the ones that melt clothes?"
"No, they eat you whole."
"Ah, nice." Rolling her shoulders, Kana draws her Azoth Blade, Asriel, and pops open the chest. Inside is a space larger than should be present inside even such a large chest, complete with magical reagents, random mementoes, and a brunette and a redhead - wait.
Peering in, both Kana and Ritsuka see a disgruntled girl with black twintails, sitting down with her arms hugging her legs alongside a younger boy with rust red hair, who is trying to make sense of the situation. She looks up, reacting to the sudden light and--
Kana drops the lid. The chest closes shut with a hefty thud.
Ritsuka and Kana stand over the chest for several seconds.
"...Girl what the fuck."
"That," Kana points, "Was a young mom. And a young dad. In a box that we summoned." She sheathes Asriel and holds her hands together, tapping on her chin. "Yeah, uh. I'm not mentally prepared for this shit."
"I know, I saw them too. Why the fuck would they even be in thi--oh." Ritsuka looks over the chest again, hand running over the age-worn grooves, and his eyes widen with every brush. "Oh. It's that chest."
"...It's that chest." Kana sighs heavily and shakes her head. "Fantastic! I thought it burned with the house! I hoped it did!"
"Calm down woman you hate that chest more than me."
"Those two weeks never. Happened. You hear me?!" Taking a deep breath to compose herself, Kana pushes the corners of her mouth up to force a smile and pops the lid open. "Hey there! Sorry, didn't know how to handle this… this."
"She's kind of an idiot," Ritsuka adds drolly beside her, earning a dirty look that he doesn't even bother acknowledging. Because it's true and she knows it.
"I see," is a teenage Rin Tohsaka's flat reply. She gives the boy, a young Shirou Emiya, a dirty look. Shaking her head, Rin looks up again. "I'm not going to ask you how you got into my house, but if you two can help us out I might overlook it."
"Yeah, about that…" Kana sucks on her teeth and tilts her head. "Yeah, let's get you out first."
----
"So you're members of a secret organisation dedicated to protecting human history, and you are currently fighting in a war to save humanity from incineration when you just happened to summon my chest. And you're both Masters on top of that." Kana and Ritsuka nod at every single one of those statements, while Shirou stands off to the side just looking on with a blank expression, and Rin sighs. "Right, is there anything else I should know?"
Ritsuka glances at Kana. "Should we tell her?"
"No."
"It's fine, I figured it out already." Rin waves her hand and then sighs while cradling her head. "Dear me, I'm younger than my own children…"
Shirou looks at Ritsuka, and nods. "That explains why you look like her. I guess even Tohsaka's children are good Masters, huh?"
"That's only to be expected! I would never tolerate mediocrity in my own children!" Rin glances over at Kana, visibly sweating and averting her eyes, and frowns. "Sorry, did I say something?"
"D-Don't worry about it, m… R…" Kana lets out a huff. "You know there's no not-weird way to address you so I'll just call you Miss Tohsaka… no, that's weird too."
"Very," Rin agrees. She puts her hands on her hips and turns to Kana. "So, who's your father? For my future reference."
Ritsuka exchanges a look with Kana. An involved discussion ensures in an instant, through a language only twins could ever learn. At least, Ritsuka likes to think so. Really, they just sort of look at each other and imagine what the other one is saying. They turn to Rin. "Rather not say," Ritsuka responds. "Ryuudou Issei," Kana says simultaneously.
Rin nods at the both of them, eyes closed. "Understandable," she says to Ritsuka. "Liar," she says to Kana.
"Matou Shinji?" Kana tries again.
"One more and I'll shoot you with Gandr."
"...Emiya Shirou?"
Rin's face goes beet red almost at the same time as Shirou suddenly develops a coughing fit, and it's almost hilarious just how much he rejects this possibility. Ritsuka wonders just how put-upon his father was back in his youth.
...Considering how put-upon he is now, he should stop wondering.
"That's impossible!" Shirou says to them, frowning in confusion and disbelief. "I like Tohsaka, but I'm not sure if I could be the father to her children. She has actual standards, doesn't she? Like someone who's rich, tall, and is a good magus."
Ritsuka decides against mentioning that he eventually fills out two of three, and that she doesn't care either way. He pointedly also decides against glancing in Rin's direction; the girl-who-would-become-his-mother is already covering her face and squatting on the ground. She would not survive his grand epiphany.
Kana sucks on her teeth again. "Today couldn't possible get weirder."
Ritsuka slaps his face. For added measure, he flicks her in the forehead.
"Ow! Why?!"
"You idiot you said it not me."
From the chest, a third voice stirs. "Mm… What's going on?"
Yawning, a star-headed stick with wings peeks out over the edge of the chest. Three pairs of eyes turn to it, mortified. The stick spots a redheaded girl, and it purrs.
"Oh hello there, Kana-chan~"
Ritsuka screams and starts shooting, while Kana immediately leaps upon the demon stick with her sword in hand.
What happens next will be sealed in the official record, and is considered to have never have occurred.
----
"So eventually we called Da Vinci over and sent them home." Sighing wearily, Ritsuka collapses face-down on the patio. "I'm so tired and it's not even evening yet."
Nodding sagely, Arturia leans forward and pats him on the head. She also pats Kana next to him on the head, but that doesn't matter. "It's a shame that I was fighting in a micro-singularity at the time; I would have liked to meet a younger Shirou and Rin again."
"It's unlikely that they are actually your parents from the past, however," Archer points out beside her. Scratching his chin, he muses briefly on what little he knows on the theory. "More likely, they are simply another potential Tohsaka Rin and Emiya Shirou, called to Chaldea by accident."
"Yeah, I know, but they're still close enough to be…" Ritsuka frowns, and then glares at the Counter Guardian version of his father. "I'm suddenly very happy you weren't there."
Archer leans forward. "Are you implying I would shoot him?"
"Are you saying you wouldn't have made the situation worse just to needle him more?"
"...Fair play."
"Next time we summon a chest," Kana grumbles, "I'm setting it on fire. Wait, no, I'm shooting it with my Gandr."
Ritsuka rolls his eyes. "Sure, give the chest a tummy ache. That'll work."
"It will when I turn its tummy into swords."
Archer opens his mouth. He glances at Saber. He closes his mouth. "I should go," he finally says.
"Same," Ritsuka echoes, and stands up to go when the wall collapses and a man with gold hair, red eyes, and an astoundingly poor taste in fashion flies out. "Oh for fuck's sa--"
Saber steps in front of him in the time between heartbeats. She doesn't even throw a punch, instead holding out a closed fist which Gilgamesh crashes himself against. He recoils and flops bonelessly on the ground. "Well played," the King croaks out, and then falls limp.
"...Thanks, aunt Arturia."
Arturia nods and wrings her wrist. "He really has been trying to suplex you everyday."
"Eh, I give as good as I get now." He looks at Gilgamesh and frowns with concern. "He's not dead, right?"
"Let me try," Kana says, and she pokes him with the pommel of her Azoth Blade. Immediately she falls through a golden portal, shouting 'CHALLENGE ACCEPTED' as it closes behind her.
Ritsuka looks on. He smacks his lips. "Yep, we're not seeing her for at least two weeks. Aunt Arturia, reset the clock?"
"Already done," she says, holding up a stopwatch.
"Excellent. Then I'm off to summon an Assassin."
"Stheno is in her room," Archer points out.
"She's not an assassin, the only important person she killed was herself."
----
It is said that the gorgon's quarter burned that night. The source of the fire was never discovered.
