Tohsaka Rin hesitated.
She wasn't one to do it often, or as Shirou and Saber noted on occasion, she wasn't one to let her hesitation show very often. Still, this man was supposed to be the master that taught her very ancestors, and the most feared man in the association.
"Excuse me, Zelrech-san." She pulled her best behavior and knocked on the door.
"Come in Child." Came the response, in a deep rumbling voice. She squashed her flight response, and buried her fear deep down. So what if he was known to put his disciples through hell, and make them insane? Her ancestor did learn from the man, and there wasn't a single line in her notes that said the man was anything but sane.
Just because common rabble tried to imitate Tohsaka blood and failed, it meant nothing to her! She was a prodigy! And she wasn't backing down just because her knees were shaking!
She pushed the door open, noting that he was seated in a large couch with a book in hands a pair of reading glasses in his nose. On another couch a redhead was fingering some sort of flattened tv screen and discussing something unintelligible with a man clad in high collared white cape and suit. In Japanese no less!
"Zelrech-sama, I respectfully ask you to help me in my quest." She bowed deeply, and noted little movement, if the man's glasses reflection were anything to go by.
"You want my help for the kid right?" He chuckled deeply. "The one that ran away because the sealing." He elaborated at her silence.
Was that it? She had thought him of all the people wouldn't side with the lords, especially the Einzberns, due to their long standing grudge over the Grail War.
"Geez girl, you think too much!" He outright laughed. Laughed! "I can almost hear the engines and cogs turning and see the smoke escaping through your ears!" Rin swallowed her anger the best she could, even as the other two joined him in chuckling. "Of course I'll help." She saw a fond smile cross his face, and thought that perhaps Shirou had talked, no, even cooked for the master of the second in occasion, no other way to explain why he would care about him.
"Let us start them." With a wave of his hand, a portal appeared in front of them, and he motioned her to go forward. Years of training suppressed a life of instinct that screamed for her that it was dangerous, that she would die, and she walked in, eyes closed expecting everything:
A pit of lava, being dropped in the middle of the sky, or perhaps inside a dragon's stomach.
Instead, she stepped in a perfect ordinary, well no, it was very beautifully carved wood corridor, lightly curved with tall and thin windows in the outer side and shelves with large tomes on the inside.
"The alarm of the basement has gone off again..." A beautiful voice called from a high-backed chair, where an equally beautiful, no, even more gorgeous owner was reclined, lazily messing in a computer-like device.
A younger girl glared ineffectively from the terminal she was operating, finishing a few keystrokes before she spoke: "I'm turning the surveillance on, but the archives are your responsibility." The cuter of the two females stated, and then snorted un-lady-likely as soon as the screen opened. "Forget it, is just the old goat again... No! Wait, he brought company, some girl in red." The younger glared at the screen in annoyance, while the other was all curiosity.
Zelrech had barely stepped out of the portal before he opened his arms and spoke in a reverberating voice: "This, Rin, is The Root, the immense library of knowledge of all the events of the world."
"The Root!?" Rin looked around in surprise. She had expected something less… common. Maybe if the corridor was crystalline, with floating spheres of mana showing images of the multiverse… and souls roaming around. "Seriously?" She spoke in disbelief. "I… expected… more." A pause, "Anyways, where are the newer files? This stuff is probably from the time of Gilgamesh!" She complained, swallowing the disappointment at the dream of any magi turning to be something so mundane.
The man chuckled again, and motioned to the point where the corridor was curving upwards. "You see little girl, after the illumination period, they started gradually changing the code, and they put the archives in some sort of slabs of plastic and metal..." Zelrech explained, annoyed. "While the older registers are nothing but old Norse runes, the newer ones, shaped like lines and harsh angles are much more difficult to make sense."
"Huh" She couldn't even imagine what those would look like, and the man shrugged again, "And they keep then in these black fridges, probably to prevent degradation." and sure enough, they were now in front of a black box twice the side of a person with blinking lights, and emitting a soft humming noise. The old man ignored this and opened the door pulling a green slab and speaking again: "See what I mean, these runes and lines have nothing to do with the ones in the bo-"
Rin looked at the thing in disbelief, then at the man, then back at the green slab… and she couldn't keep her laughter in check anymore. "This... Is a circuit... old...man." She said between laughs, then took a few calming breaths. "I'm not well versed on technology myself, but if my classes of school were right, we will have to buy a few tools to see what's in there."
...All the while, Upstairs...
"He pulled the theta-nine-alpha-seven-zero plate, Urd, call the security!" Skuld, the goddess of the future demanded angrily.
Urd, the Norn of the past shot back instantly, voice laced in sarcasm: "Soo, little sister, all is well and fine when he mess with the books, but the moment he put his hand on the mainframes, is the end of the world!? Relax, kid, those are just backup storage anyway, and he will do as always, stare at them for a few minutes then put them back, if he does anything stupid, we call the Valkyries. Simple." Is not like could simply expel the old coot, he had permission after all. "See, they're gone...The old man can't use computers to save his life, and is not like the mainframes were accessible by normal means anyway." As always, the chocolate skinned beauty handwaved her responsibilities completely.
...A few minutes later...
"You sure that all this equipment is really needed?" Zel inquired suspiciously, easily carrying the TV-like screen by its base. "One of my disciples can do it with a portable terminal or something like that…"
"Well, if my old informatics class serves me right, this is a CPU, so we need a screen, keyboard and mouse to be able to use." Rin assumed her lecture pose for a second, but broke it and searched the floor for something, "And the first step..."
...Upstairs...
"They're back." Skuld stated from the screen, while her older sister was pouring herself a drink. "And they brought stuff."
"So what?" The half demoness rolled her eyes theatrically. "Is not the first time Zel uses the basement as a safe box. And certainly not the last."
"Urd, what is the red girl doing, she is reaching for-" the entire building became dark, and alert messages and shrill beeps came from the few machines that stayed on.
"Turn the computer off!" Rin stated proudly, before the corridor lamps turned red, and her world dark.
"The power cord..." Skuld stated dryly, crossing her arms indignant. "I'm not being responsible for this, I warned you! But noo! You choose to do nothing. Now some Luddite pulled the plug of Yggdrasil and a few universes!"
Urd nearly lost her trademark dark skin for a moment, so pale she turned. "Erm, please tell me you did your backups?"
The most tech-savvy of the Norns rolled her eyes and sighed, pulling the keyboard and punching a few commands. "Always…" A chime sounded from her machine, where a terminal window prompted ominously:
…reboot complete. Restore Multiverse from the last saved state? (Yes/No/Info)_
She punched the Y button and looked as the very time turned back a few minutes, back to when the red clad omnicide was laughing on the basement floor. "I'm not well versed on technology myself, but if my classes of school were right, we will have to buy a few tools to see what's in there." Urd quickly picked the keyboard and typed an administrative command implanting a suggestion on the man, to prevent the incident repeat.
He shot a dirty look at the surveillance, and frowned, but nonetheless answered his companion: "No need." With a wave of his cane, the master of the second opened another portal and a dropped a second girl on the floor right before a large backpack.
Rin stared at Rin for a moment, before the newcomer got her eyes on Zelrech. "Oh root no!" She paled. "I'm not the one you want! I'm unamusing, unassuming boring talentless girl! Leave me alone!" She cowered in the corner holding her backpack as a makeshift shield.
"Talentless?" Her mirror image parroted, confusion quickly giving way to anger. "How can I be talentless?! Pull yourself together!" She grabbed her other self and drew her palm back, but the tip of the cane forced her hand to lower.
"While eight times of ten you end as the Tohsaka Heir, sometimes you don't." He frowned. "Sometimes you even escape being given to the Matou family." One of the Rin's paled, while the other looked sighed miserably.
"I got to be the heir somewhere?" The other asked in wonder.
"Omniverse girl! Use your brains." He rapped her on the head lightly for emphasis. "But enough of that, you two can change experiences later. I need your unique talents right now." At her confused look he pointed at the contraption by her side.
"A storage server? …Oh, ok, you're no good with computers I see, it's a magus thing." She crossed her legs and started pulling device after device of her bag and connecting them with colored cables. Looking at the main node of wires, she pulled a few off, before connecting it to a box of hers.
"Shouldn't you turn it off first?" Her other inquired.
"Eh?" Was the surprised response. "Why would I do that?"
"Nevermind her. Continue please." The Second Magician looked at the proceeding with open interest.
The more tech savvy of both Tohsakas sat up crosslegged, taking a small device and opening it, a diminutive computer much to the surprise of the other, and connected the one of the cables to it. Turning the device on, she put reading glasses before touching a silver circled area that activated a few images and a bar started to slowly fill up on the center of the screen.
"I didn't know they made them that small." Zelrech commented.
"Never saw a netbook. Why I'm not surprised." She proceeded to mumble something that sounded distinctly like 'stone age magi' before a beep interrupted her tirade. "Strange. Who uses Norse runes as default language?" She turned to the older mage present "Zelrech-san? Is there something I should know about the person I'm hacking?"
"Not really." The Apostle shrugged.
The Tohsaka heir looked in horror. "Hacking?! You can't cut the root up!"
"What?! I'm not cutting…" She started, only then registering what exactly was she accessing. "The Root…" She looked at the black server in wonder. Then childish, unrestrained glee. "The root is a computer! Oh! The delicious, sweet Irony of it!" She typed madly on her device, and another window popped up, one simple message over the waiting time bar:
Decoding data, please wait…
"Rin?" The Sorcerer prompted both girls to look at him, sighing in resignment. "You'll be Glasses from now on." He pointed at the hacker. "And you Crest." He pointed at the Rin he brought up first. "Ok Glasses, what do you have for us?"
"A moment please, my custom decryption algorithm is running." She looked satisfied at the screen. "Useless knowledge eh Father! Take that!"
… Upstairs …
"She blocked my access!?" The youngest Norn raged at her screen. "How did she even manage that!?"
"Apparently she swapped our main router for her own custom one directly. Quite crafty if I can say so." The bronze skinned goddess noted.
"What are you waiting for!? Call the security!"
"Wait it up kid, they aren't killing any universes yet." She pressed her younger sister against her chair. "Goddesses or not, the old man would cause quite a damage before the Valks get him."
"It's just a human!" The childish goddess tried to wiggle her way out of the chair.
"Actually he is an Apostle, and you're forgetting the old wizard singlehandedly kept the moon from falling on earth by himself. Nah, unless he do something really stupid, we will let him be." She looked at the three forms hunched over the tiny device?
… With said apostle and his 'disciples' …
"What's that?" Crest asked Glasses, and the old man seemed equally confused.
"An index of contents, probably the multiverse." She pushed one of those non-letter buttons on the keyboard, then used the strange square again, and the small arrow danced on the screen, clicking on one space that jumped forward on the bottom of the screen. "Ok, what exactly are we looking for?"
"Emiya-kun's whereabouts." Crest answered.
"Ok, I'll do a database search. It shouldn't take long." Glasses observed, while her fingers moved absentmindedly over the keys. Less than a minute later she was frowning at the screen.
"What?" The bearer of the Tohsaka's crest frowned at the screen. "What does those weirdly named file-thingies mean?"
Glasses were pushed up a cute nose, before an answer was given: "Folders, probably that they only make a different entry if something changes from the base template of an individual, hardlinking the versions with similar enough experiences…"
"I see…" The Wizard Marshall nodded.
"I don't." The other Rin looked with a blank expression.
"Well, even if the universes are infinite, storage space isn't girl." The Sorcerer of the Second explained. "They probably have the basic information registered, and then only write the changes up."
Glasses snorted. "This will take a while. Well, let's start from the beginning…"