Disclaimer: I do not own FSN and FHA, but the plot is largely mine, although some parts of it are definitely not mine as well. They will be acknowledged at the bottom of each chapter.
Chapter 1- Fifteen Years Later
Once upon a time, there was a quiet little town in Japan known as Fuyuki, and there were three little families that laid side by side of each other. The first one was a pretty nice little house, the last two were large mansions, one with the letterbox named "Tohsaka" and the other named "Matou".
One day, in the small house, a little girl with blonde hair asked if she could play with the boy from next door.
A large man with white hair replied, "Alright, then, Mordred. I'll ask your mom if she permits. Arturia?"
A beautiful woman with long and similar blonde hair replied, "Yes, Shiro?"
"Our little girl wants to play with Eriol."
"Alright, but do return home before dinner, will you?" She said to the little child.
"Thanks, mom," she said before kissing her mother on her cheek.
"Now, be a good girl and go along with your father," she replied.
And so, the little girl jumped onto his father's shoulders without much help from her father and Shiro immediately dashed away at lightning speed, passing by a mailbox named "Emiya".
xxx
While they dashing out of the door, Mordred told her father, "Dad, I have gotten full marks for all my exams!"
"Really? Then well done, Mordred." He replied with an encouraging tone.
He sighed in glee as he zoomed pass the corner that would bring them to the Tohsaka mansion. His little girl has certainly inherited her mother's intellect and his analysis skills. But there was something that he had still not seen her perform yet.
Whether she had inherited their fighting skills.
xxx
"Coming," Tohsaka Rin replied when she felt Shiro and Mordred coming through the barrier of her mansion.
She had changed a lot since the past fifteen years. She had totally disregarded her past tomboyish and girlish looks, and now looked a lot like her mother in many different aspects. Her hair now flows straight down her shoulders. She wore simple dresses now, instead of the outrageous miniskirts she wore ten years ago.
And when she opened the door, she muttered in a rather soft voice, "Oh, so it's Shiro-kun and little Mordred. Well, how have you two been doing?"
"I am fine, Aunty Rin. Can I play with Eriol?"
"Sure, why not?" she said before calling, "Eriol! (Yes Mom?) Mordred has come to play with you."
"I am coming down," he replied before immediately teleporting next to his mother.
"Good evening, Uncle Shiro!" He chirped before saying, "Hi, Mordred."
Mordred replied with a wave of her hands.
"Can we go out to the playground to play?" Both of them asked their parents.
Shiro and Rin both nodded before Rin added, "Do be careful, though."
The two happy little children simply ran out of the door.
xxx
So Shiro and Rin simply sat down at two ends of a table, decorated by a basket of flowers. Shiro could tell that the flowers had been reinforced and were watered daily to make them look healthy everyday.
"Well, Rin, it has been quite a while, isn't it?"
"Yes, it has been quite a while, Shiro-kun. And it had been ten years since that, right?"
"Yes, it is certain that it has been ten years since that. The rite. It comes in different forms, and it will tell if the person is cut out enough to fulfill a role as a master. Still, I don't see how Kirei Kotomine got his role, though."
Rin responded with a laugh, but then sighed and continued, "I do hope they can pass that trial. The very ticket to their future lives as Masters."
Shiro sighed as well. "You're right. I have never always seen her fight before, although I did teach her all the lessons I can about Tracing. Although... it does wonders me to how she will fare in that."
Rin continued, "I have taught him the same amount of magic I studied when I was sixteen. And he's eight. When I tested him on all the magic terms and usage, he seemed to remember all of them. But still, I am not certain. People tend to forget about things when they are nervous."
While nodding his head, Shiro said, "Yes, you are right, Rin. Still, Arturia does not seem to be wavering in her confidence in both of their performances. Perhaps she is right about it."
"Yes, hopefully."
"Be optimistic, Rin. We have done everything we possibly can to help them. Now they are on their own."
Rin sighed again. "I hope you are right, Shiro-kun. Something else though, gives me a feeling that gets on my nerves."
xxx
Meanwhile, back at the Emiya Residence, Arturia (Saber) Emiya was busy preparing dinner. As she was cutting the onions, a little scene played back in her mind.
Back then, she was still learning how to cook. Shiro had been the most patient to her. He stood behind her and helped her in anyway he could. While she had learnt how to cook food and how to fine-tune her art of wielding blades (that is, to cut vegetables properly without looking like a butcher), she still had much to learn.
This time, she was cutting onions. However, it always seemed that she could not help but shed tears when she cut the onions. Then, Shiro, who had been behind her all the time, said, "Arturia, when you cut vegetables, it helps to put the onions in the water. That prevents all the irritants that the onions emit from irritating your eyes. That said, unless you want to wear a gas mask everytime you cut them?"
She stifled a laugh and prepared a bowl of water to cut the onions in.
She sighed and looked up at the clock. 5 pm. Just five more minutes before the rite will occur. Throughout the course of Mordred's life, she infused into her many lessons on close combat, just as Shiro was teaching her how to Trace.
However, just as she seemed confident of things, there were many thoughts on her mind.
First of all, she had not seen her Trace a weapon. And Eriol had not even reached the age to legally summon weapons. Would they be defeated simply due to the lack of weapons?
Mordred might be good with swords, but all this time, she had been developing a style suited to be on par against her mother. Shiro had not parred with her once. Could she be defeated by her own techniques? And there was the question about her personality. She was outgoing and kept her head cool all the time, and argued frequently, but never resorted to violence, even for last resorts, except for certain times. Would her personality be her worst nemesis?
Arturia's head buzzed with pain at all these overwhelming thoughts. That said, she decided to continue to cook to swirl all these thoughts away. And yet, whether it was fate or any other god, he decided to continue to play with her.
At first, when she was walking around the kitchen, preparing all the food, the straps on her sandals snapped. Arturia was rather worried, but dismissed it as a coincidential accident after a while. Then, when a green bowl slipped out of her hand and broke upon impact onto the floor, she was getting paranoid but dismissed that due to the water on her hands making them more prone to slipping out. She calmed herself by stating that bad omens are results of everyday life that happens with scientific reasoning and any accidential results are purely coincidental.
But when all of a sudden, she heard crows from a nearby tree flying away in a flock with a loud cry, she muttered, "Oh my," which was had been a charateristic of hers during the last five years, that a straw had broken the camel's back. Something told her that something was going very wrong. Her mind was swirling within a confusion; her mind trying to react with the best plan to solve the problem. At last, she came to a resolution.
'It might not be the best method,' she thought, 'but it would be the safest.'
She immediately went rushing towards the Tohsaka mansion, uncertain of the fate that was unfolding for her daughter.
xxx
A woman with long, white hair dressed in black church robes was sitting in front of the gigantic pipe organ playing a fast Baroque piece whose melody vaguely resembles that of Dancing Mad. Her touch of the keys were graceful despite the mad nature of the song; her face angelic, and yet, a piece of the red ribbon untidily tucked into her side pockets showing out seemed to contradict the above points.
When she released the last note, a woman with purple hair walked into the church clapping and smiling while saying, "Bravo, Caren. Good to see you."
Caren Ortensia promptly stood up, turned around and smiled. She asked, "So, Bazett, is the examinor ready?"
"Yes. My son has taken Age Altering Mushrooms and is ready to go."
"So, who are the enemies?"
"A group of rogue magicians who have been hired to do the job. They have rather amateurish levels of magical skill."
"Perfect. And now it is 5.04 pm. Give them the orders to attack the target when the minute's hand reaches '1'."
"Understood. I do wonder how Mordred Emiya and Eriol Tohsaka will fare though. So far, only three magus have succeeded."
xxx
Meanwhile, Mordred and Eriol were racing through the roads to get to the playground in record time. Mordred, personally trained to excel in speed by her mother, was undoubtedly faster than Ariel, even though he was reinforcing his legs to perform better.
When they turned at the corner, Mordred taunted, "Eriol, aren't boys supposed to run faster, even without any spells or that sort of thing?"
"What do you know about it, Mordred?" Eriol yelled in a moderate tone back at her. "First, you were trained to do this everyday since three. I wasn't. Second, you inherited your speed from Aunty Arturia, while my mom does not have any talent in speed. Third... third... third... argh! Don't care about it!"
"Fine, by my means anyway, although I don't see anything wrong with that though..." Mordred replied, raising Eriol's anger by another margin more. But he kept quiet for the rest of the way though.
On the way, they met Aunty Sakura and Aunty Rider. They seemed to be going to the Tohsaka mansion as well.
"Good evening, Aunty Sakura and Aunty Rider." Both of them chirped.
"Well, good evening, Mordred and Eriol. You two are going out again, aren't you?"
Both of them nodded.
"Well, we must be going now, shouldn't we, Rider? We still have to help Rin-oneechan and Arturia with the dinner."
"Beware of kidnappers, though, Mordred and Ariel. I heard that they kidnap children with no parents near them during the evening and at night. Be on your toes," Rider commented.
In response, the children looked at each other quizzically before passing it as another of Aunty Rider's 'Usual Cryptic Remarks' while Sakura chided, "Rider!"
"Just a joke, you two little ones. Now go on and return by dinnertime or else your mommies will scold you."
Both of them nodded at Aunty Rider's words before dashing off again.
"Now aren't those two very energetic?" Rider said.
"You nearly slipped just now, you know, Rider?" Sakura replied.
"Yes, I know, but just a word of caution in case kidnappers do turn up. Those are just amateur magus. Anything can go wrong."
"But won't there be the video player at Rin-oneechan's house?"
"Through my experience, such things are not to be trusted. Even my trusty chains sometimes do go wrong."
"Rider!" Sakura chided her ex-servant at her pessimistic implication.
"Well, at least they do know how to match against magus, at least, right?" Rider replied.
Sakura sighed and said, "You're probably right."
xxx
A/N: Well, talk about an information-packed first chapter. Well, here are all the facts in this story.
Mordred: King Arthur's daughter. Seems like Shiro wanted her history to come alive again or something.
Eriol: From Card Captor Sakura Season 2. Otherwise known as 'The Reincarnation of Clow Reed'. In this story, he is to be implied to be a great magus, to be even better than Rin herself in the future.
Dancing Mad: Song from Final Fantasy 6.
Red Ribbon: Caren's ability, should be something that will keep demons tightly bound or something like that. Forgot its name (argh).
Age Altering Mushrooms: From Ranma 1/2. In the manga, Ranma and Ryouga are said to have taken these mushrooms by accident and turned younger. The mushroom will change a person to the age equivalent to the height of the mushroom. Bazett's son has taken it for the fitting of the examinor's role.
A/N: Many thanks to crazymaneesh, who pointed out the error in Eriol's name. Now all errors in this name have been edited.