Disclaimer: I would like to think that, by nature of the format with which I am spinning this yarn, I would not have to say this. On the other hand, best to err on the side of caution. Therefore, I am stating here that I do not own any of the properties that this story is based on, such as Type-Moon and nitroplus's Fate/Zero light novels and ATLUS's Shin Megami Tensei video game series.
Zouken Matou dragged the little girl along as he shuffled towards the basement. His left hand grip held tight in her hair like a vice, never budging despite her whimpering as she tried to keep up. The sound of his walking stick impacting on the ground seemed to go right in tandem with the grandfather clock in some other room of Matou Manor. If anyone who knew Zouken bore witness to this sight, the most unusual thing they would note was his heaving and panting as he stalked closer to his destination. Rarely did the man exert himself, especially in his fragile state. Perhaps the only compliment one could give the man was that he wasn't tripping over his own robes in his haste.
Someone was knocking on the door. Three rapid strikes on the front door, and then silence. Zouken stopped for a moment, the notion of anybody looking for him at his time being absurd to him. After a short moment, Zouken started to pull the girl along again when the knocking on the door came back. This time he heard a muffled shout for him, and interesting enough, for the girl as well. The voice sounded familiar, a little bit different but close enough that one name instantly came to mind: Kariya.
'So the prodigal son returns to seek salvation for the little one,' the old man mused to himself as he continued on. The last living descendent with the magic potential to reinvigorate the Matou bloodline and its withering legacy, Kariya Matou had expressed disgust at the family methods and chosen a life of exile and solitude. The last that Zouken had gleamed of Kariya's actions through a familiar was a short meeting with the Tohsaka's wife and child, and then a mad dash to the manor. 'Too late to play hero now, boy,' Zouken thought as his brittle hand reached for the cellar doorknob-
"I thought that people were supposed to answer the door when someone comes knocking."
It must have been the shock, the sudden rush of adrenaline that hadn't been activated in decades, or the fact that it was HIS voice, Zouken had never spun around so fast to meet this mysterious stranger in his entire life. The girl yelped as she was flung to the floor by the old man's unexpected movement, tripping over his walking stick in the process. She didn't have the energy to get up, but she glanced upward at the person who got such a reaction and set her new grandfather on edge unlike she had ever seen before. It wasn't really hard to spot him. In all the darkness that the Matou manor seemed to perpetuate, the stranger was in what looked like a quite comfortable chair with a rack of candles providing the only warm, yet unnatural, light in the house.
Mr. Stranger was clad in a dark blue suit ensemble with a white shirt and yellow tie around his neck. He rested his face on his left hand with his arm on the armrest, leaning towards the candles that seemed to make his blond hair and yellow eyes sparkle like gold, and his skin white like marble. His finger tapped his temple while he stared at the two people in front of him.
"... Cypher." The name escaped Zouken's dry lips with a hint of fear, and the stranger smiled.
"You remember, after all. Age hasn't slowed you down completely then, Zouken," the one known as Cypher said with a sigh of relief. He finally got up from the chair, and walked forward a few steps before kneeling down to look at the little girl. "She's yours? I thought the Matou bloodline couldn't produce capable heirs anymore."
"A generous donation from the Tohsaka family... They had a spare, and I happened to remember our old ties," Zouken spoke slowly as if he was reminding himself how he came to possess the girl in the first place. A light laugh came from the younger man as he held his hand out to the girl, She looked at it quizzically before finding herself pulled up to her feet anyway. "Listen to us, Zouken. We talk about her like she was some brood mare, does she not have a name?" Cypher asked the old man, then he turned back to her. "Well, child? What's your name?"
She didn't answer right away. She couldn't help but be unsettled by this stranger who, despite the show of courtesy and decency she hadn't experienced since her arrival here, seemed more alien than the walking mummy that said he was her grandfather. She looked away from the new man's doll-like face a few times before... "Sakura."
"Sakura... what a pretty name. For a pretty girl, too," Cypher said as he turned back to Zouken in glee. The old man merely returned a stare that would have evaporated water before curtly nodding. "Yes yes, enough about the girl. What is your business here? We have not met in 59 years yet you suddenly see fit to grace me with your presence?" Zouken seemed to strike the ground with his cane harder as he walked around the others, clearly unafraid of the familiar intruder now.
"Ah yes, how quickly I forget that I have business in the first place. Distracted by the little lady, I suppose," Cypher said as he laughed, and then he shocked Zouken by walking towards the front door with Sakura. "Now, little Sakura. Your grandfather and I have some grown-up things to talk about. Could you wait outside for a little while? We'll be done soon." He left Sakura at the front door with the only pair of shoes at the door, her own, and left for Zouken without waiting for an answer.
Sakura didn't really know what else to do, so she put on a jacket and her shoes and opened the door. What she didn't expect was for somebody to run into the door the same time she opened it, and then fall on her.
The excavation efforts at Cornwall had been a success. He saw the scabbard with his own eyes and sensed its divinity. Jubstacheit von Einzbern, known more commonly as Acht, bade the search team farewell as he returned Avalon to its case. His mind was at ease for the first time in centuries. Finally, the Einzberns had gotten a hold of a promised victory in the Holy Grail War.
After the summoning relic was put away for safekeeping, the Einzbern family head went to his study, the Einzbern library. Each wall was lined with massive books and the shelves went all the way up to the ceiling. The only light in the room came from the sunlight through the windows, a candelabrum unlit and forgotten on the round table of the center next to a worn-out red book. Acht sat in the only chair in front of the desk and opened the book to find it blank.
It had been a long time since he had done it, Acht admitted to himself, and thoughts of the War to come were foremost in his head nowadays. He shook his head, reprimanded himself for his fleeting moment of weakness, and straightened himself out on his chair. He smoothed out his white robes, sat up straight, then with a deep breath, he became as still as the dead. Not a millimeter of movement could be sensed from him, not even his chest moved as he drew breath. His eyes barely opened to a slit, and he slowly raised his left arm. His worn fingers touched the blank pages of the book, and in that instant, lines appeared to form words upon words until the pages were full. As the words appeared, images played out in Acht's mind:
The Third Holy Grail War was a revelation for the Three Founding Families. Their alliance had shattered once their differing ideals for the War came to light, with the Einzberns desiring to achieve the Third Magic, and the Tohsaka family seeking to reach the Root. The Makiri threw in their lot with the Einzberns, but Acht saw the man called Zouken behind the scenes, driving his descendants towards his own goals.
The strife between the Three Founding Families in itself wasn't a bad thing at all. Indeed, now that they each had their own goals in mind, they could each give it their all, unfettered by cooperation and driven by competition, to see the Holy Grail War to the end and their wish granted. Perhaps if the War had proceeded as expected, someone might have even won.
Before the Third War commenced, a lone stranger appeared to each of the three families, bestowing a unique relic upon each of them to bless their pursuit of the Holy Grail. The Einzberns were given a fossilized piece of skin, said to belong to an Eternal Warrior who had fought and emerged victorious in countless battles. The Tohsaka were given a unique type of incense, and the family head was instructed to meditate with it under the full moon to reach a higher understanding of Akasha. The Makiri received a curved jade that would bless their family and descendants with magic talent and long, prosperous lives. In addition, each of the families were given a gift from the man's own illustrious masters, a candelabrum that would provide a guiding light in their path for the Grail.
When asked for a name, the messenger merely called himself, "Cypher."
The Einzberns used the skin in their summoning, only to call a pale imitator of the Avenger class, and he had been among the first casualties. The Tohsaka family head, upon inhaling the incense as instructed, entered a frenzied state in which he killed many of his own family members before succumbing to asphyxiation. Zouken, learning of the jade that was given to his proxy, took the relic for himself and accused the other families of the theft while the Einzberns and Tohsaka blamed the others for sabotage.
In all the chaos, nobody noticed the candelabra suddenly flickering wildly.
Fiends of Hell descended upon the Holy Grail War. The Masters were quickly cut down, their efforts to combat the Avatars of Death utterly futile. The Servants were rendered powerless by the loss of their Masters, and they too fell to the Grim Reapers. The final blow in the War was dealt at the Einzbern home, where countless homunculi were scattered across the burning land, torn and shattered to pieces barely resembling anything human. Acht could only watch as a Fiend riding a Great Seven-Headed Beast gently picked up the Grail Vessel, and decapitated it in one swift motion.
The Fiend had a feminine body tightly wrapped in a blood-red gown that matched the Great Beast she rode on, but her face was a clean, white skull. She cradled the Grail head in her arms, then slowly ripped the face off and dropped the rest, not caring as it shattered on the ground like glass. Acht watched as the Fiend slowly turned to face him, looking down at him as she put the face of his ancestor, Lizleihi Justica von Einzbern, on her own skull-face. She poked and prodded at her new face, moving it here or there, occasionally opening her jaw to stretch the face unnaturally until it seemed to set in. The empty blackness of the Fiend's eye sockets under the face's eyelids suddenly glowed red, and the Fiend pitched her head back and laughed to the sky.
Acht could only see an ancestor laughing at him for daring to think he could succeed where his predecessors failed, laughing at his own failure costing his family their future, laughing at him and daring him to kill himself out of despair-
Acht snatched his hand away from the book as if it had suddenly caught on fire, finally freeing himself from his trance. He hadn't intended to look that far into the last Grail War at all, definitely not so far as to see that image again... He opened his eyes and was greeted with darkness. There was nothing outside the windows anymore, as if a black smog had rolled in and obscured all the natural light. That was impossible, reviewing his past memories in this manner was only a process that affected his state of mind for a single fraction of a second, there was no passage of time to consider! Suddenly, light appeared as if a flame had been birthed in the darkness of chaos, and it came from-
There was another man across from him on the other side of the table. His blue eyes reflected by the flames of that accursed candelabrum were the first thing that Acht had noticed. That man's pale skin and blond hair came next, as if the Stranger had melded into being the moment he was bathed in the light of the candelabrum's flames. With a wave of his right arm, the Stranger conjured a chair from nothing and sat in it, silently staring at Acht the whole time. For a while, neither man had a thing to say, then the Stranger broke the silence.
"Jubstacheit. You're looking well for your age." The smile on the Stranger's face could cure cancer for all he cared, Acht hadn't felt this angry and unsettled in decades.
"Cypher, ever the flatterer. To what end have you violated the sanctity of my home now?" Acht slowly growled in a low, deep voice. Cypher softly laughed at Acht's remark, and for a single moment Acht saw the other man's eyes flash red as he replied, "Now now, no need to worry. The darkness will abate soon enough, and this candelabrum won't last long. That feisty bunch isn't anywhere near here, I'm just checking up on an old friend." Acht grunted at that last part and shot back, "Really? The last time you 'checked up' on me was over 50 years ago, and you didn't do any of us favors with that stunt of yours. It took decades for our families to rebuild our infrastructure, even without taking the World War into account!"
Cypher assumed an expression that looked like he was shocked and hurt by Acht's words, and then fixed his face a split second later before replying, "Well I do wish I could apologize, but it seems that the magi of this world are quite different from what I'm used to. It's a whole new world for me, you see? Very hokey rules in place, it was like throwing a magnet at a refridgerator and having it bounce off with the force of a cruise missile." He produced a tea cup out of thin air, sipped it, then dropped it into oblivion again as he caught the look on Acht's face. "Right, magi hate technology. Sorry, it's more like-"
"I know of what you speak. The Magus Killer had the area wired up as one of his conditions for working with us," Acht grumbled as he remembered quite vividly the old arguments that he had with that man known as the Magus Killer, a hated figure among magi but a necessary risk for the Einzberns' chances in the upcoming Grail War. Cypher suddenly had a twinkle in his eye and leaned in over the table with that damned smile. "Magus Killer? Tell me more." Acht was getting more and more impatient with him and replied, "I am not your puppet, Cypher. We both know you know more than you let on."
Cypher leaned back into his chair and sighed, "Jubstacheit, you give me far too much credit. After all, I am not omnipotent." If Acht's eyes weren't fooling him, Cypher seemed to hate that particular word he had just uttered. "...Still, I am happy to see that at least one of the Three Founding Families is learning and adapting with the world around them."
"What do you mean?" Acht asked. Cypher hummed to himself for a bit, then spoke, "You've taken aggressive steps for a family not particularly well known for aggression. Hiring a man called Magus Killer, for starters, and then I look at your summoning artifact. I can feel its power from here, did you know that?" "You exaggerate," Acht scoffed at him.
"Not at all, not at all. Although, it's a far cry from that piece of skin I gave you on the last war." Cypher seemed content to leave it at that, but Acht seriously wanted to know what possessed the man to say that. "The Servant we called with your 'relic' was a far cry from the Avenger that we were told would surface, Cypher. Do you honestly expect me to believe that a tortured villager could contend with the Legendary King of Knights?"
Cypher looked back at him, and his eyes seemed to flash from blue to red again, only a little longer than last time. "Yes, old friend. While your sheathe is quite the mystery even to my eyes, that skin belonged to a being that has seen the beginnings and ends of countless worlds. Do not be fooled by your failings in bringing that fake to fruition 50 years ago, Jubstacheit. You will see it, with your own eyes, that you had the most powerful Servant of all." This time, the smile on Cypher's face was not something that inspired anger, but a chilling sensation that Acht hadn't felt since that day.
Finally, Cypher got up from his chair, which seemed to melt into the darkness as he walked away from the table. "I've kept you long enough. Thank you very much for talking with me, Jubstacheit. Fairly enlightening and all, but again, it's nice enough to simply reconnect with old friends." He brought up his right hand, but suddenly turned back around to Acht. "Oh yes, congratulations on your Great-Great... well what would she be in relation to you?" Acht didn't take half a second to know what he was letting on now. "They are homunculi. We are not related at all."
At that, Cypher frowned a bit, then smiled back at Acht, his eyes now fully red. "Even so, family is family." And with a snap of his fingers, the candelabrum went out, the sunlight peering through the windows, and it was as if the meeting never happened.
Matou Manor. Home to Zouken Matou, the most heinous living thing in Fuyuki City, and if he was too late, Hell on Earth for Sakura, the youngest daughter of Aoi Zenj- Aoi Tohsaka, the only woman that he had dared to love more than life itself.
Kariya Matou was about to do something stupid, for sure.
One does not simply walk into Matou Manor, after all. There is evil there that does not sleep. His familiars are his eyes, ever watchful for all intruders. The boundary wards around the house will cook you alive through your magic circuits if you're a magus with malicious intent. Normal people, if they're stupid enough to ignore the massive GET THE HELL AWAY FROM HERE vibes that emanate from the house, are shocked into unconsciousness by the wards and devoured to prolong the demon's life. Not with ten thousand magi could you defeat him, it would be folly.
There was a very high probability that things were being over-exaggerated.
Kariya was still just outside the gate, a tiny voice in the back of his mind telling him to hold on, maybe get some help from the local police and do this the normal way. The louder voice in the back of his mind said that with Zouken, you couldn't take chances. Sakura might have already been changed, and even if it's all that's left to do now, minimize the damage to her and get her out of there.
This is between you and the old man, get Sakura out of there and back to her family.
With that thought in his mind, Kariya took a deep breath, pulled the hood of his hoodie off his head, steeled himself, and leapt over the gate and ran to the door! Good, he didn't explode from the inside out, wasting his magus potential wasn't such a bad thing after all! "Old man! Open up!" he cried out, banging against the door and turning the knob to no avail. Realizing how bad this might look to outsiders, Kariya turned around to see if anybody was watching him.
A little boy with red hair was walking a dog, a Pomeranian. They were both looking at Kariya, and Kariya looked back. Two whole seconds went by, but they felt like an eternity to him. Finally the boy ran back the other way, but the pomeranian kept its eyes on Kariya as it followed its owner.
Kariya quickly turned back to the door. "Old man, I know you're in there! You can't even leave the house, open the damn door!" A few more strikes on the door for good measure. It couldn't be that Zouken was slow walking to the door, he didn't operate like that. He'd seen it with his own eyes before. He practically teleported, swimming in the shadows like a parasite that lived in those-
'Parasites! Maybe I'm too late and he's just sitting there, laughing at me while watching Sakura get-' With renewed vigor, Kariya now started to ram the door with his shoulder. "Sakura, hold on! Kariya-ojisan's here!" Hoping his voice could reach her wherever in the house she was, as insane as the thought of the physics working out like that could be, Kariya kept ramming the door, hoping that eventually it would give. But damn, it was like running into the door of a bank vault each time!
'Geez, he must have focused all his defenses on the door to lock me out!' Kariya thought. If that were the case, he would have to take the door down in one hit. He stepped back from the door, standing all the way back at the gate and facing his goal. He closed his eyes, he had to calm down, enter whatever zen spiritual mindset that magi would use to access their magic circuits... Ohh! He was feeling warmer, this was it!-
Kariya found himself blinded by the sun, which had just found the perfect time to peek out of the clouds and bathe him in its warmth while taking away his sight for a few seconds. 'Even better!' he thought. 'Amaterasu is watching! Mother to us all, I swear I'll get Sakura out of there!' He steeled himself once again, getting into a track and field stance as he looked at that door the same way he tried to incinerate Tokiomi Tohsaka with his line of sight the day that man had knelt down on one knee and-
"Sakura! Here I come!" Kariya had never ran faster in his life. Adrenaline was pumping and his feet hit the ground faster than he had ever run, none of which was due to any magic circuits. That door was going to explode into 50 billion pieces, Zouken was going to burn in Hell for thinking he could sacrifice the purity and sanctity of a little girl for his own ambitions and the door's opening-!
The next thing he knew, his foot got caught on the first step leading up to the porch and Kariya flew through the door and fell onto young Sakura, the very girl he was here to save and protect, not injure by accident.
"Kariya-ojisan?" Sakura weakly called out from under him as he scrambled to his feet and brushed the dust off his jeans and hoodie. "Yeah, it's me, Sakura-chan. I'm here to get you back home," Kariya explained as he dusted Sakura off too after picking her back up. Sakura was in pretty simple attire, a jacket over her long dress and shoes, her hair as brown as her mother's and eyes blue like normal. And that sweet and fragile smile on her face that always-
Wait. She looked normal.
"Back home? But why, Daddy- Mr. Tohsaka said that I had to be here with Grandpa now," Sakura asked Kariya, looking first elated then deeply confused. "Tokiomi was wrong, it isn't safe for you to be here with Zouken," Kariya couldn't look back at her while he said this. He always had this ugly look on his face whenever he thought of the two most hated people in his life, and he had only just mentioned them both in the same breath. He turned back to her and asked, "I'll explain later, Zouken hasn't done anything to you, right?" He had to make sure, she might look okay but the changes just might not have manifested yet...
Sakura shook her head. "I got fed some runny soup, and Grandpa pulled me by my hair for a little bit, but then this other man came to talk to Grandpa and he told me to leave. I went to open the door and then you fell on me, Kariya-ojisan."
The next thing they heard was the unearthly scream of an old man from inside the house.
Soft footsteps tried their hardest to echo as a little girl tiptoed down the hallway. She had socks on in order to muffle her footsteps, and anything would help against those creaky steps on the staircase down to the living room. Rin Tohsaka didn't want to get caught, because then Papa might force her to stop learning magecraft until he got back, and that was unacceptable. The more she learned before she had to leave with Mama, the more she could argue for a chance to stay with Papa and help him fight in the Holy Grail War.
Creeping down the hallway, Rin had to walk into the kitchen to get to the cellar door, the entrance to Papa's workshop. As she walked towards the door, she couldn't help but notice that the cupboard had an extra cup, a pink one next to her red one. Sakura, her beloved sister, was now living with another Magus family called the Matou. Her departure was too sudden for any of them, and all the evidence that another young Tohsaka lived here had yet to be cleared out. Papa had said that it was for the best, and that one day they would meet again because of the connection between the Tohsaka and the Matou families. She couldn't bear any ill will to her Papa for what happened, but that didn't make the empty place in her heart go away...
The sound of a chair moving against the uneven floor of the cellar downstairs made Rin jump. Was somebody down there already? Maybe Papa knew what Rin was up to, and decided to be three steps ahead of her? But that wasn't possible, she made sure that he was asleep with Mama in their bedroom. Then, an intruder?! But that also didn't make sense. Papa had that Weird Priest's Creepy-Skull-Squad watching over the house at all times, and the wards around the premises were first-rate. Therefore, there was only one conclusion left to draw:
It was just Rin's imagination.
Satisfied by her skills in deduction, Rin still remembered to open the cellar door as quietly as possible, closed it as quietly as possible (There was a pretty loud CLACK associated with each movement, hence why this was Rin's least favorite door) and tiptoed down the cold steps to Papa's Workshop. It seemed like Papa had forgotten to clean up after himself, because there was still a candelabrum burning with soft light. Rin took a moment to pout like her Mama would have at the sight, then giggled at the thought before she walked towards Papa's collection of Advanced-
"I do believe it's way past your bedtime, child."
Rin shrieked for an instant, then immediately covered her mouth with her hands, hoping that she didn't just give up the game. But wait, she wanted Papa to find her, because now she was in the worst possible scenario imaginable. She was in Papa's Workshop, it was way past bedtime, and now she was alone with somebody who could possibly be a child predator or worse because they had enough skill to evade that Weird Priest's Creepy-Skull-Squad, and worst of all, go through Papa's protective wards.
The intruder was sitting in a red chair that definitely didn't resemble any furniture that was in the Tohsaka Mansion. The armrests were bone-white and seemed to curve in like goat horns. The man himself had pale skin, blond hair and blue eyes. He was in a dark blue suit with a red tie, and his hands were holding a weird book that he had been reading up until Rin had walked in. She caught a glimpse of what looked like a pentagram with a hand in the center before the man shut the book and put it on top of a pile of similar books on his armrest. He looked right at her, his blue eyes seeming like they were boring into her own. "Well, do you have anything to say?" The intruder asked her with a smile.
It was the smile that set her off. Mama had a wonderful smile, and she tried to match it everyday. Papa didn't smile often, but when he did it usually happened when she improved her magecraft, and that was fine. This man's smile was too perfect, too unreal. Rin tried to speak, and finally managed, "Those were Papa's books- I don't know you!" She quickly brought her right hand up and pointed it at the intruder like a gun. She had her left hand steady her right for good measure, and started to charge her prana. 'A quick burst to stun him, and then go get Papa,' she thought as the man slowly got up from his chair. "Stay away!" she shouted as she got ready to shoot.
"Rin, calm down. I am not here to hurt you. You don't want an accident like what happened last time, do you?" The man spoke to Rin as he held his hands up as if in surrender, slowly walking towards her. A million thoughts were running through Rin's head now. 'How does he know my name? Is he telling the truth? How does he know about what happened here?' Then Rin flinched in indescribable pain, cutting her questions short. Not just her right hand, now her whole body felt too hot, felt like it was going to burst-
And then, just as quickly as it began, it ended. Rin sank down to the floor, gasping for breath as she was soaked in her own sweat. That was way too scary, she never felt her prana go overboard like that before... She looked at the man, and saw something strange. His eyes were closed, and he was chanting some odd language she had never heard before. His arm was out, and at his right palm a swarm of red energy had emanated from her and collected until it absorbed into him. Rin tried to speak, and was slightly surprised when the words came out easier than she expected, "Did you... did you do that?"
The man opened his eyes, but now they were an eerie red instead of the clear blue that they were before. Now instead of a man trying to make friends, he was every bit the cold, powerful magus that he looked like. "Did I just save you from a critical, uncontrolled surge of prana that would have ripped you apart from within? Yes, I did. Are you not a magus of the Tohsaka family? I thought you were taught to know your limits." A few seconds passed after that, then the man's eyes became blue again and he took a deep breath. "Still, I am not Tokiomi. I am not the one to scold or instruct you. I apologize."
Rin's next question didn't come any quicker than her last. "Do you really know Papa?" The man put his hand to his head as he replied, "Yes, in a manner of speaking you could say that I made him who he is today." He knelt down so he could be at eye level with Rin. "I am Cypher. It is my delight to meet the next heir of the Tohsaka legacy." He extended his hand out to her, and Rin let a couple seconds pass before shaking it. "I have known your father's family for quite a long time. I didn't mean to stay this late, but I was doing some research with the material your family has accumulated. What were you down here for, Rin?"
Rin had to clear her throat before answering, "I just wanted to do some studying of my own. I don't want to leave Papa alone in this Holy Grail War, and I don't know if I can trust that Weird Priest he's been teaching." Cypher chuckled at that last part and replied, "Yes, it's hard to put any stock in a man who works in His name, isn't it?" He stood up again and walked towards the work table, putting his right hand into his pocket... then pulling it out and putting something on the table. "I think... I might be able to help you, Rin."
Confused, Rin walked up to the table and got a look at the object that Cypher had dropped onto the table. It was an obsidian rock, but inside it had a faintly red glow. "You have been practicing your prana control with crystals? This unique stone might be the answer that you seek. Transmit your prana into this stone, and you will discover a power that can help your father win this war." Cypher stepped to the side, away from the table so that Rin could stand in front of the stone. She could swear she heard a tiny voice murmuring in the stone... 'This could be a very bad idea,' was the main thought floating in her head right now, and she considered maybe just asking to keep the stone and give it to Papa later, but-
But I can help... I need to help Papa with this power. Giving him this stone won't prove anything. It has to be me.
With that hope in her heart, she held her hands out and concentrated. She closed her eyes and slowly felt the prana flow through her and into the stone... Even through her eyelids she could see a result, but it wasn't like usual. With the crystals that she practiced with, a blue light would dance across her eyes. This time, a dark red pulsed more and more, until it bled through like a red sun and she couldn't keep her eyes closed-
"Oh no!" She instantly knew that she went overboard with the transmission, and now the obsidian stone had lost its blackness and looked like a living ruby egg. Right in front of her eyes, it seemed to grow and grow. She backed up the wall as it grew to the size of a small watermelon and started to loudly, very loudly, crack horizontally across the middle like unstable glass. Any proof she needed that she was way deep in trouble was solidified by another horrifying discovery: Cypher had left.
The egg erupted, and it seemed to wipe out the concept of sound as a mass of black energy remained where it once was. A crackling noise was all that filled Rin's head as she struggled to comprehend what she was seeing. It was like the entire world around her had inverted in color as the mass of energy slowly floated to the ceiling until it reached the top, trembling and dancing with black and blue electricity until-
The bolt of lightning that erupted from the energy mass struck the floor of the workshop with so much force that it threw Rin off her feet, and she was deaf the moment she hit the floor. 'Well, there's no way Papa and Mama didn't hear that,' she thought as she struggled to get up off the ground. She blinked until the world came into focus again, and looked back towards the workshop. The stone was still there! It was black again, but the red aura from inside was pulsing with more strength now, and it seemed to go in tune with the beating of a heart.
In the center of the cellar now was... another little girl. The fading light of the candelabrum made her blue dress look like something between indigo and blue. Aside from her attire, Rin might have assumed that Cypher had shrunk. This little girl had the same hair and skin color as him, but she couldn't tell her eye color. The girl was lying on the ground as if she had slept... or rather, as if she had fallen from a great height. Slowly she got up to her feet, and Rin was compelled to do the same. Their eyes met, Rin's blue with the mysterious girl's yellow.
"Hello, what is your name?"
The other girl had curtsied as she spoke, so she didn't notice that Rin was too stunned to reply. The first reason was that she had asked Rin her name in English. The second reason was out of disbelief. 'It couldn't be... this is the power that will help Papa?' She cleared her throat and answered, "I am Tohsaka Rin, daughter of Tohsaka Tokiomi, the Magus that you will be serving."
"Ah, my apologies," the girl had replied, this time in perfect Japanese. "Greetings, Tohsaka Rin. My name is Alice."
Rin was really confused now. From what she could tell, she had somehow summoned Alice from the Lewis Carroll stories into being in Papa's workshop, a character from a work of fiction who by many accounts wasn't particularly well known for being a fighter... But on the other hand, what just happened could be a good thing! She brought something from fiction into reality! This must be a different facet of the Second Magic that she just realized! Rin was getting a little excited now, and she turned to the girl who hadn't changed her happy expression ever since she appeared. "Right then, Alice? Do you swear your unwavering loyalty to me and anything I will require of you?"
"Oh yes, Rin! I would be most happy to do anything to help my newest friend."
Yes! It worked, Papa would be- Wait, friend?
"Then... can I ask one thing of you as well?"
Rin looked at the girl, and found that she couldn't look away. She also couldn't move, couldn't blink, couldn't breathe, as Alice clasped her hands together as if in prayer, gave Rin the happiest smile on her face, and her eyes turned from yellow to red as she asked of her newest, and bestest friend, one little favor:
"Could you please die for me?"
Kariya Matou was frozen in his tracks. Zouken was the most horrible being he had ever known in his life, the reason that he had left this mad family in the first place. What he had just heard was that same horrible old man screaming in utter agony, and now the house was practically bathed in an aura of malevolent intent. He hadn't sensed this since the day he left this place, so many years ago. Obviously, Zouken wasn't going to let his plans go without a fight.
With nothing but the goal of preserving Sakura's wellbeing in his mind, Kariya scooped her up in his arms and ran for the door. The next thing he knew, his body was inundated with electricity and he hit the wall opposite the door that had somehow closed itself. "Kariya-ojisan!" Sakura shouted as she ran to him. It seemed that he had dropped her the instant he got shocked, so she didn't get the full force of the wards locking them in.
"I'm okay, Sakura-chan," Kariya reassured her as he slowly got up. It wasn't exploding from magic circuit overload, but it still hurt to breathe or stand up. He looked down at Sakura and met her blue eyes, shining from the crackling energy from the door, reminding him so much of her dear mother. He looked up past her, into the darkness of the hallway that felt like the old man was lying in wait, and steeled himself. "Sakura-chan, the moment you see an opening, get out of here and go back home to your mother, okay? Don't wait for me, don't look for me. Just go." He didn't want to see the look on her face as he told her this, and he didn't wait for an answer as he walked into the pitch black hallway.
One way or another this ends today, and no matter what happens, she walks free.
Kariya walked through the darkness, trying to feel the walls to at least feel like he was still in Matou Manor, but he felt like he was walking in a void. His eyes couldn't see anything, and he tried his hardest to hear any sounds other than his low breathing or footsteps, to no avail. Was this another trap, meant to disorient and mislead him while the old man preyed on Sakura back in the living room? Suddenly, a light. A candelabrum had suddenly lit in the room ahead. Kariya ran for it-
A hand snatched out and grabbed onto Kariya's right leg! Kariya fell back and tried to kick the arm off with his left leg, but the hand held tight like a vice. Another hand grabbed onto his right foot now, and Kariya mentally reoriented his left leg and kicked for where the head would be. He felt himself strike something, and both hands released his right leg. Kariya got up to get a better look at the attacker... and saw something he thought he would never see.
A withered excuse for an old man was laying on the ground. He struggled to move, to breathe, to turn his head up to look at Kariya. He was frantically panting, and it was easy to see why. A gaping hole sat where his heart should have been, and a black ichor was oozing from that hole and every other orifice of the man's body. Zouken Matou was dying, very painfully.
"Kariya..."
It was impossible. This was the hated patriarch of the Matou family, a ruthless demon who used every trick in the book to prolong his life. A man who lost the body of a magus and every shred of his humanity, who was willing to turn an innocent girl into a worm hive and a womb for future generations of magi. Yet Kariya's senses did not deceive him. Zouken Matou, on his dying breath, was begging for him.
He had no love for the man, nor for the legacy that had tarnished their family. Ages from now, Kariya would never know why he knelt down to get a closer look at that old, dying man. "...Old man?" Before he knew it, Zouken reached out with blinding speed and grabbed Kariya's head and pulled him down to the floor. His chin smashed onto the floor and dizzy from the pain, he could do nothing but look into Zouken's eyes, no longer specks of light in blackness but the purple that had faded away centuries before. Images filled his mind-
A women in a golden dress, smiling for the first time ever at him as she walked into the light... A pale imitation of that woman exploding in a shower of blood, the first failed attempt at replicating the Heaven's Feel... His fist colliding with the mirror upon gazing at himself years later, the face of failure and mortality looking back at him... The smoking corpse of his first descendant bereft of Magic Circuits, dead at his hands and fury... A curved jade shimmering with corruption in his hands, cracking like an egg until a small worm emerged, and with nothing else to live for, he hastily swallowed it-
Kariya lurched back, batting Zouken's arms away as he hit the wall behind him and proceeded to vomit. That last vision was far too real, he almost felt that insect squirming in his own throat as he emptied what remained of his breakfast from his stomach. He coughed and coughed until he could breathe again, and tried not to think about- DON'T THINK ABOUT IT! He slowly caught his breath, ignored the stench of what he had just expelled from his body, and looked down at what had become of his ancestor.
The light faded from the old man's eyes, and he seemed to turn as stiff as stone. Kariya heard a cracking sound, and the old man's arms snapped off at the elbows and crumbled into pieces upon impact with the floor. The rest of the body followed suit, shattering into tiny pieces that resembled small worms. If Kariya looked closer, he might have even noticed one try in vain to tremble before dissolving into dust like the rest of the remains. Thus, Zouken Makiri had finally died.
Kariya simply lay there, his mind trying to calm down and comprehend what had just happened. Zouken was dead. Did Hell freeze over so he could fall on his frigid ass once he arrived? The hallway was full of light finally coming in from the windows, and the rest of the house seemed just as well-lit. Kariya breathed a sigh of relief. He could finally get Sakura out of here. He got up to his feet, careful not to slip on his own vomit, and started to run in the direction he had just-
"Stay where you are."
Kariya turned around to the source of the unfamiliar voice, and saw an unfamiliar man in a blue suit ensemble. He had white skin and blond hair, and his eyes were a completely different blue from what Kariya was used to. The other man was looking down at the small pool of black liquid that had leaked from Zouken's decaying body. It was still evaporating from the light, and he stood there silently observing the black pool until it vanished. He looked up at Kariya, and then seemed to look some distance behind him. He smiled and said, "Ah, little Sakura, you're back."
Kariya turned back around and saw Sakura running up to him. She clung to Kariya's jeans and looked at the other man with uncertainty. "Sakura-chan, do you know this man?" Kariya asked her. Sakura looked up at him and shook her head. The other man cleared his throat to get their attention and said, "True, we only just met today. My apologies for acting familiar." He raised his right hand, and then bowed to Kariya and Sakura. "My name is Cypher, young Kariya, and I am very delighted to finally meet you."