What do I do now?
In the back room of the church at the edge of the city Kirei stared at the door. He'd dropped Rin off at home after the ceremony had been finished, well aware that he had rushed somewhat and paid not near the usual amount of respect expected of him. He simply had too much to think about.
A servant, Kiritsugu's Saber, and of course she recognized me, but with a child? He would have laughed at the unexpected similarity had he not been so distracted.
How is she still in this world? And more importantly why? The grail had been destroyed, the fire had come and ravaged the city. No servant should remain, and yet there she had been, her very presence unmistakeable.
She used the name 'Einzbern', the ones Kiritsugu served as representative to. Had they been the ones to orchestrate her continued presence?
But the child… He could not have possibly been one of their homunculi, so where does he fit into this?
Kirei released a slow breath from his nose, his blank gaze boring angrily into the opposite wall.
Any other disconnected servant could possibly be dealt with by a Baptism Rite, but her… Her magical resistance was beyond even the typical Saber's, and even if she
could somehow be weakened what was to say she was without a master to have survived for so long? Had the boy held her command seals? Was she serving someone else now? Even with the rite he would need something to weaken and hold her while he cast it, and those would be difficult enough to arrange on their own. Not to mention that he knew full and well he would not be able to match a Saber Servant in close combat.
He needed information, he needed some kind of plan, he needed
something.
Resting his chin on clasped hands, Kirei immersed himself in thought, his brow furrowed with concern.
=======
What do I do now?
That was the question that had circled Arturia's mind ever since that momentary meeting in the afternoon. There were other important ones such as
how did he survive if Kiritsugu got to the grail first? And
where has he been for the past six years? But ultimately inquiry into the past was a far less productive course of thought than inquiry into the present. Kotomine Kirei was alive, and apparently the guardian of the Tohsaka heiress. His servants had been taken out by Rider in the last war, which meant he couldn't threaten her on any direct physical level but the king knew well that the battlefield was but a single aspect of conquest.
The Einzberns may already know of her survival and they hadn't acted against her yet, so Kirei going to them with her new name wouldn't likely provoke a reaction right? After all, even if they didn't know already, the name was such a minor insult compared to having killed their representative and destroyed the grail. After all, it wasn't as though anyone had seen him order her action with his command seal besides Archer, and…
Arturia shuddered at that though only for a vibration to shoot through her arms accompanied by a screech of steel on steel assaulting her ears. Instinctively she jumped back two steps, letting Shirou's sword slide off her own and down to the floor where its blunted tip dented the wood with a heavy 'thunk'.
"'Sensei?"
Shirou blinked at her and she felt a rush of embarrassment, she hadn't even been the one to slip up as Shirou's strike had been the one to move slightly off angle, meeting her own blade too heavily, and in her distraction she'd been unable to compensate for or evade the misaimed strike until it was too late. Still, even if it hadn't been her error she'd slipped up in instruction nonetheless. Foolish of her.
"Halt." Belatedly she signaled the end of the session. It was a simple exercise, Shirou would strike from each of the eight positions while she would block those strikes, then they would switch and she would do the same. "Your aim was off." She let herself fall back into instruction, reaching out one hand. Obediently he handed her his training sword, watching her hold both weapons up as she inspected them. Sure enough, the metal had scratched from the slide, and dented very slightly from the force of the blow, not near enough damage to ruin the blade but a mark nonetheless, the fifth to mar this second training sword.
His first blade hadn't needed replacing when she did, but their move to contact strike practice last year once Shirou had grown tall enough to approach her reach had been an occasion to commission a new one anyways. The boy - though by now he would be approaching manhood in her time, Arturia reflected - had been painstakingly careful with the new blade, and while there had been more than a mere five mistakes over the course of their training since then, only those five had been mistakes that had left marks that could be seen even now.
Ordinarily she would have asked him to repeat that strike until he could perform it flawlessly five times, but that lurking distraction still preyed upon her mind. She pushed it down for a moment.
"Apologies Shirou…" The use of his name marked the shift from master and student to mother and son. "I think I'm simply a little distracted today." She held out the training weapons, pointing to the scratches on the metal. "It is nearly time to eat. We will end practice early today. Please clean up the training floor and weapons."
"Understood mama." If he was disappointed Shirou didn't show it, and Arturia had to smile at the strange mix of formal and informal speech that coloured even his everyday tone.
"I'll meet you in the living room."
She left him pulling out the cleaning and sword care supplies while she made her way towards the door, already sinking into her thoughts as she exited into the darkened hallway outside.
Arturia knew that perhaps she should have been more rigorous in keeping up with the survivors of the fourth war. From what she'd gleaned the majority of the masters had been highly connected mages and so many of them had surely possessed allies or family who would be interested in following up on the disastrous conclusion of the final confrontation. In the first few years she'd simply been trying to lay low and not attract too much attention, something she felt she had succeeded in despite the unfortunate blunder that was her assumed family name (and really could she even call that a blunder? The Einzberns hadn't turned up to follow up on it after all.)
Today had been the first direct contact she'd had with any survivor since that night though, and it had only worried her. Killing Kirei was out of the question since such an act could easily bring more mages down on her head. She doubted he could threaten her directly, but he knew that she was with Shirou, a human child. A point of vulnerability.
Then again, he'd been accompanying a child as well, a young girl, strangely familiar…
So what could he do against her? And what could she do to protect this life?
=======
What do I do now?
Rin Tohsaka chewed the inside of her lip in concern. Even at her age she knew well by now that Kirei was no shining example of humanity yet while he'd been negligent in many capacities as her guardian, the one thing he had almost never neglected was her magical tutelage. Yet tonight he was nowhere to be found, even thirty minutes after he should have made his presence known.
She had so wished to ask him questions too…
Ever since that polite boy had shown up with his foreign mother the fake priest had been utterly distracted. Slow to react and even slower to respond. His normally resonant voice had been distant and thoughtful, lacking that frightening weight and certainty that was so typical of his words, and his eyes had never quite looked at her, but rather, through her.
Seeing something else, or some
one else…
And now he was nowhere to be found, as though he'd gone back to his church early rather than stay to do his duty. A choice that left Rin with a county of free time with which to consider this fresh mystery.
Who was that foreign woman? And what had Kirei so concerned by her presence?
The question spun round and around in her mind and she realized that she had not even begun to work on the gemstones she'd set aside. A series of prepared spells to be charged into each stone, ready for use at a moment's notice were laid out before her, and yet, her mind was distracted.
With a rushing sigh, she shoved the chair back from the table and stood, looking left and right, cocking one ear for the familiar heavy footsteps or slamming door that would signal his arrival.
Rin looked to the clock, a frown coming over her face.
[6:42]
If Kirei hadn't come by now, nearly three-quarters of an hour after he should have arrived, she doubted he would show up later, which left her only one avenue to seek answers…
Fifteen minutes later the iron gate barring Rin's front yard creaked open, its owner emerging out onto the street. She looked left, then right, and then turned and began to walk, trotting up the hill.
Rin's process of deduction was simplistic, but effective. For Kirei to be worried about that woman she was likely some sort of magus. Any self respecting Magus would have defenses laid upon their property, and since there were only a few such fields within the city, it was a simply process of narrowing them down, one by one.
It hadn't taken her long to determine that if this mysterious magus was staying anywhere, it was likely the old 'Emiya' estate near the top of the hill overlooking downtown. The church would be a normal place for a visiting mage, but that was out on account of Kirei's surprise, and the other options were all far enough away that more preparation than a simple whim and a handful of gems.
As she quietly pushed open the wooden gate at the entrance to the property, Rin felt the bounded field's magic touch her and immediately quelled a surge of doubt. She wanted to know, wanted to find out whatever she could about this mystery woman and that strange boy she'd accompanied.
Silently she crept across the grounds towards the main house…
=======
In the kitchen, sharp ears picked up the sound of the screen door being eased open, barely audible under the blare of Taiga's television. Arturia smiled to herself, "Just in time… Shirou! Come help me dish up?"
In the hallway, Rin froze at the call. Surely she hadn't been heard had she? No, Shirou was the boy's name, the woman must be calling him from somewhere else in the house. Silently she began to move again, slowly easing her way around towards the main room, ears sharp for the boy she expected to be moving to the same place from some other part of the building. She peered around a corner, then rounded it cautiously. Midway along the hall, the doors to the main room sat ajar, with nowhere to go to hide should someone come from one end of the hall or another. She could peer through, but it would be hard not to be discovered.
In the kitchen, Arturia took the pan off the heat and glanced in the direction of the hallway, her brow furrowing. Was Shirou waiting for something? Ordinarily his footfalls were fairly distinct as he made no effort to hide his presence in his own home, but since she'd heard the door open there had been a distinct quiet from the hallway. Someone was out there to be sure, but they were making pains to stay hidden.
Her armor tingled, ready to be summoned as her senses went to alert. An assassin? A spy? She couldn't well call weapon to hand prematurely, not with Taiga sitting obliviously by the TV, but it couldn't be a servant, which meant the threat they posed was likely limited.
Then her blood ran cold as she realized an entirely different problem. If this person was approaching now,
where was Shirou?
Green eyes narrowed to slits at the thought.
Hurt, kidnapped, dead, another failure on her plate. Helpless fear and fury boiled in Arturia's gut at the possibilities that whirled through her mind. The figure outside was moving up the hallway now, just drawing level with the door on quiet feet as she lunged for it in the same moment. Outside, Rin jumped at the sudden motion, the shadows cast through the open crack serving as a split second's warning before -between one instant and the next- the woman appeared before her. Panicking Rin threw an arm out, the one spell drilled into her since the earliest days of her training gathering at her fingertip in a bead of black energy and releasing as Arturia closed, shooting across the intervening space.
Fizzling into nothing before it could even
touch the furious Arturia, let alone stop her.
Arturia grabbed the girl's wrist, yanking her arm upwards to prevent any further curses and ignoring the cry of surprise and pain as she spun the girl around, yanking her other arm up behind her back "Who-!"
"Kaa-san?"
In that same moment, Shirou had rounded the corner behind Rin and stopped dead, staring at the tableau in front of him. His new classmate, apparently in their house unannounced, and now put into what looked like a rather painful hold by his mother.
For a long instant there was a pregnant pause, and then Shirou raised a single finger and voiced the first of many questions.
"Um… What's going on?"
=End Chapter Six=
Author's Note: It lives! It liiiives! Ahahahahahahahaaaaa!
Thanks to
@BlackHadou for final read throughs for lore-accuracy as well as
@Swordomatic and
@Crow for helping me get the scene with Rin together because I spent SO LONG struggling with that one part of this chapter. I literally had the first two parts written out a full month ago and it was just that last part that kept fighting me.
I promise to not take
fifty fucking days to get the next chapter out, though I do have mandatory overtime coming these next two weeks due to the Christmas rush so there may not be anything until the new year unless I manage to get something together on Christmas Day.
