Fated Cruelty

Perfect and idle. In the high school of Fuyuki city, everything seemed dull, to at least one student. Aqua eyes casted nowhere in particular as the school day reached lunch time. Rin Tohsaka was the perfect student. She came from a distinguished family lineage, was rich, had perfect grades, held every boys' hearts, but she could have cared less. She cared mostly for nothing, except for her blood sister—Sakura Matou.

Every time the thought of her sister appeared, Rin felt guilty. Their father gave Sakura to another distinguished family out of a favor he owed the head of the Matou family. And what did Rin do in reaction to this? Nothing. She sat by and had let her father give away her only sister. Sometimes she wondered: "Why her and not me?" But she can never find the answer to that question because her parents are dead. She had so many questions, but will never find the answers to them.

Sometimes she wondered why she even continued to live. But then images of her little sister would pop up and remind her of her very few reasons to live. The other was to carry on the sole lineage of her family.

What was worse out of everything, her little sister Sakura doesn't even remember the Tohsaka family.

As lunch time ended, Rin got out of her reflecting pose, where she leaned against the fence on top of the school's rooftop. She walked to class and sat in her usual seat. But the teacher wasn't there when the bell rang. He was never late. He was always the punctual type.

After a few minutes of students fussing over whether should go look for him or not, their teacher arrived with a boy with blond hair tied in the back with some bangs. The class greeted the teacher. "Good morning class, hopefully I didn't make you wait long. I was talking to our new student about some things. Would you like to introduce yourself?"

The boy stepped forward from the teacher's side to face the class. He slightly bowed his head. "Hello, my name is Pendragon Arthur. Please treat me well." He rose from his bowed position and saw some girls practically eyeing him.

"Tohsaka-san," the said girl took her gaze from the outside to finally the front of the classroom, "will you be so kind as to show our new student around?"

"Yes, sensei." She curtly said.

"Splendid! Pendragon-san, please sit next to Tohsaka-san."

Arthur did as he was told and took the vacant seat next to her. He was about to say something, but thought better not to till after class.

After class, everyone gathered their things and was off. "Pendragon Arthur, right?" Rin reaffirmed.

"Yes, and you are?"

"Right, Tohsaka Rin. Pleasure." She slightly bowed to him. "That's a foreign name, is it not?"

"Yes, it is. I just moved from Britain." Arthur explained.

"That explains it. But your Japanese is very fluent?"

"Yes well I've studied it for many years. Japan has always been a country I was interested in learning about."

"If you don't mind me asking, why did your family move? Britain seems like a lovely place."

Arthur's eyes looked at the school's courtyard as he tried to envision his own in Britain. Instead of sand and light grass here and there, his school's courtyard was filled with lush greenery. The grass was always green and had a sparkle to them. There were hedges decorating the sides with small trees scattered around to give it a not-so-empty feeling. "Yes it is," he smiled at the not-so-distant memory, "but my family stayed. I'm studying abroad."

Rin found it odd that he would study abroad at a school that didn't even have lodgings for foreign exchange students. But then again, not all high schools had foreign exchange students. She thought back and realized that he was the only one in their school. "So you live alone?"

"Sadly, yes. It is quite odd but I am hoping to get used to it soon."

Rin shows him his classrooms and the different facilities like the library, cafeteria, and also showed him some of the dojos and other afterschool activities. "Would it be too late to join kendo?" He asked.

Rin wasn't really experienced with the school life but she observed it well enough to know some basic things. "I don't think so; all the clubs are usually open to newcomers. But they might just dislike having to go over the basics again. I think that's the only concern."

"Then I guess there won't be an issue then." He gave her a small smile.

As they reached to the front of the school to part ways, Arthur shyly said, "If you ever want to come over, you are more than welcome to." He gave her a smile.

Rin thought it somewhat odd for someone to be so trusting, but she did just spend a couple of hours with him. She gave him an affirmative nod and separated. As she was walking back to her empty mansion, thoughts of Arthur's offer floated in her mind. Maybe I'll take him up on that…

She definitely knew what it was like to live alone. But she has been doing it for more than five years. Sometimes she would get a visit from her guardian but it became rare when she turned into a teen. She didn't live with her guardian, because, frankly, she did not like him at all. And he felt the same, but he still treated her well as he promised her father. It was definitely a different experience a normal girl growing up would have.

As Rin walked home, she would pass by the Matou household. She would look beyond the gates to see the windows. She would subconsciously hope that her sister would look out of her window, see her, and rush over to her. But, of course, it never comes true. She never stayed long afraid that Sakura's new father would notice.

Rin wasn't lonely. She had survived so long without needing others' presences. How she had coped with her loneliness when she was younger was that she buried herself deep into her father's old library and studied. But at her age, she had finally gone through most of his research and had really nothing else to read.

The next day at school, Arthur was having a slight problem. People kept looking at him as if he was a shiny toy that everyone wanted. Mostly the girls. He was receiving jealous looks from the guys. He sighed to himself thinking it was probably because he was a foreigner.

A girl popped out of nowhere. "You're the new student right?"

"U-um, I believe so."

"Well I think you're pretty cute, want to be my boyfriend?" She gave him a wink.

Arthur started to blush lightly as he tried to get away from the girl slowly. "I-I am sorry. I do not think I should do such a thing. If you will please excuse me." As he departed from sight, the rest of the students surrounding the dumped girl started to spread rumors.

He had an objective today. He wanted to join the kendo club. It was the closest thing to his real practices—fencing. He had brought his fencing gear but he was well aware that you could not fence unless you had a sparring partner. And to his knowledge, no one had any knowledge of fencing.

Relocating the kendo club wasn't hard. He went inside and saw that there were a handful of people inside. He stood at the doorway absorbing what was in front of him. The battles they had had less strikes but one could tell they held so much power. "Excuse me, did you have a question?"

He turned around to see a boy with glasses and slightly wavy short hair. He was taller than him by a good amount. "Yes, I do have a question. I was wondering how I could join the club."

The boy looked him up and down, seeming as if he was trying to assess his physical capabilities. "We don't accept rookies at the moment. Tournaments are in a couple of months so we don't have time to train new people."

Arthur explained before the boy was about to shoo him away. "I never said I was 'new'."

The taller boy reassessed him and said, "Well you'll have to talk to our president. I'm the vice president Ryudou Issei. And you are?"

"My name is Pendragon Arthur." Arthur gave a slight bow to him.

"The president will be coming by later after school. He might want to have a match with you to assess your skill so be prepared, okay?"

Arthur nodded and left to go to class. But as he was walking, the stares never ceased. He officially started to not care. He experienced more stares back at home than now. At least he knew the reason for the stares back at home.

Once he got to his classroom, most of his classmates were already there, including Rin. He calmly sat down next to her with his uniform jacket buttoned to the neck with a very calm expression. They greeted each other. But Rin was more perplexed by what was outside the door while they were waiting for their teacher to arrive. Girls kept peaking inside the room just to look over to their general direction and left commenting as if they were checking out a zoo exhibit.

Rin looked over to her classmate. "You are aware of those girls looking at you, right?"

"Yes, I am well aware. Since yesterday, people have been staring at me. Rin, do you happen to know why?"

Rin was a little shocked that he would even ask why. It was pretty obvious. She pointed at him, which startled him. But she wasn't pointing at him in a harsh manner, but more like a playful one. "Obviously, they all are crushing on you."

Arthur started to stiffen as his blush became apparent. "I don't understand. How does one have those feelings for someone when they do not know each other?"

Rin blinked at him. Where in Britain did he live! Under a rock somewhere? She found his confusion utterly laughable.

Arthur was looking rather blankly at Rin, who was laughing way more than people would expect that it was grabbing other students' attention. The elite student that doesn't talk to anyone is talking to the new student AND is laughing! "Tohsaka-san, I'm sorry but I do not understand what you are finding funny. If it is from what I have said, I do not appreciate your laughter."

Rin's laughter started to die down. "I'm sorry, but I find it… interesting, I guess would be the closest word, your question that is."

"Why would you say that?" But their conversation came to an end as the teacher arrived. They agreed to continue the conversation afterschool.

While everyone was packing up to leave, Arthur was waiting for Rin to finish packing up. Rin noticed his presence and knew he was still waiting for an answer. "I found it funny that you have a more traditional way of thinking. But to answer your first question, …"

"Traditional?" Arthur cut her off.

"Yes… where guys would court the girl and then not have sex before marriage type of deal." He really has no clue does he?

"That is not how it is here?"

Rin started not knowing where they were going. She thought they were walking to the front of the school, but she passively started following him. "Where are we going by the way?"

"Oh, my apologies. I decided to join kendo and the vice-president asked me to visit the club afterschool."

Rin nodded and continued with her explanation. "Here and now almost all over the modern world, people see features they like in someone and just want them for themselves. So they go through dating and all these little things."

Arthur tried to understand but he could not wrap his mind around the new concept before him. But once they entered the kendo dojo, he did.