What I See
Chapter 4: To Scent Fear
She could not help it. Absolutely could not help it. As stubborn as she was, it was impossible.
The resolution she had made then, barely alive as her crest and Rider had kept her from teetering over, it once more gripped her and refused to let go. "I should have said so many things" had crashed through her mind multiple times. "I should have spent more time with them" was also there. The fact that Sakura was next to her that time, also hanging on, was immaterial: she had thought she was going to die before, had thought there would be many things left unresolved between them. The third person that was not with them at the time made it seem as if there always would be an empty space.
"Where'd you find Japanese food in this awful place?" Shiki asked. Even if it was just a simple bentou-styled meal with little besides sushi and some karaage, he ate it as if he was starving.
Days had gone by, still with the same stalemate as before, all the various departments staring each other down. Eating a meal was appropriate—Shiki was the last thing on the table, and each magus aware of his existence was eyeing the other magi to see who made the first move. All except El-Melloi, of course, who had better games to play. "Nobody disturbs me for six days at the least," he told her a few days prior. "The new Suikoden is more important than anything else."
She visited Shiki more often. There was nothing much for her to say, however, as her mind considered the various things he spoke of. It was a very familiar spiral of sadness that his situation reeked of.
"I didn't find it anywhere," Rin said. "I made it."
Shiki's chopsticks clattered back into the box. Again, even without the ability to see, he seemed to peer to his captor.
"W-what?" Rin stuttered under the scrutiny, even if it was blind scrutiny.
"What are the laws here regarding shotgun weddings?"
She sighed. "I shudder to think of your love life. Girls want something a bit more romantic than 'let's get married now at some run down place on the side of the road.' At least when they're sober."
"What are the laws here regarding drinking age?"
"Nice try, buster."
He returned to eating his meal, looking more thoughtful than before now that he understood where the food had come from. Joking aside, Rin felt pleased since he had led her to the topic she wanted to breach to begin with. Or at least, obliquely gave her an opening into prying into his life.
"The files on you said that you encountered a True Ancestor. The Lunar Princess. I keep getting the impression you learned some things from her and that 'encounter' is not the best way to describe it."
Shiki snorted, coughed; the action apparently forced food down the wrong way. He beat on his chest to clear it. "You could say that."
"Since the Church and the Association don't get along usually, the info Bazett had access to was kind of vague. I called in a favor or two and found out a bit, though. Apparently you were more than mere acquaintances, according to one of the Burial Agency members."
Rin watched his reactions carefully, trying to read into his thoughts more than any words he gave. It was fascinating information to have dug up, knowledge that this young man was apparently responsible for the annihilation of multiple Apostle Ancestors. To know that he was somehow pulled right into situations that only someone like him could have survived. "I, uh, guess?" he said, nervously laughing and taking another bite.
"So, did you do her?"
This time the rice went flying out of his mouth instead of down his windpipe. "Is nothing sacred?!"
Rin gave a cat-smile. Even if he could not see it. "You have sex with a being beyond mortal ken and you somehow think someone like me who strives for that perfection isn't going to be interested?" Orientation damned, Rin was sure half the Association would drop trou at that kind of opportunity. Even Rin had to guess that if she were presented with that kind of option, she would be hard pressed not to take action.
"Ugh, when you put it like that…" he wiped at his mouth and set his food aside. There was clearly no use if the meal never made it into his stomach. "Not that you'd figure if you ever met her."
"Different than expected?"
"Yeah." He paused, thinking, then waved his hands. "Not like that!"
Rin snickered.
Shiki sat back, stretched, the chair he sat in leaning back on two legs. "She's more human than you'd think. I mean, yeah, you can tell there's a difference, and she'd sometimes talk about things that were hard to understand. But she also enjoyed living in a very human way."
Besides the chaise that Waver had brought in for the examination, the room did not have comfortable furniture to lounge in. Rin considered that, since the way Shiki's voice turned toward a nostalgic bent seemed more fitting for a kind of relaxed setting. "Sounds like you were very taken." Considering his rant before on life and treasured things, they sounded like quite the match.
"She'd be my first love, I guess you could say." He stretched again, and Rin was struck by how much he seemed to be doing that. Cooped up in the same room for days on end, he must have been restless. "But she's gone now. 'Till the end of the world."
"End of the world?"
"When she'll wake up to tell everyone they're being too noisy."
Rin could not tell whether he was joking or not. His grin said he was, but the sincerity in his voice said he was not. She decided to ignore it. "Sleeping Beauty, huh?"
The smile somewhat faded from his expression, though it did not go away completely. "No. And her coffin is a bit more sturdy than glass."
"That's Snow White, genius."
"You should be happy, though. With her gone, you can actually compete for the 'fairest in the land' title."
"Still the wrong story." Rin shook her head, tried to keep herself from muttering aloud. The way he would go from serious to jokester like this always suggested that was as far as he was willing to speak on any given topic. Rin would have to try other avenues if he was going to reveal what she was looking for. "Maybe you should read more—oh, sorry, hah."
"I see what you did there. Well, you know what I mean."
There were days when she did her work in the lab they kept him in. He, of course, hid in corners when it came time to draw blood from her system to charge the gems. Though he could not see what she was doing, he claimed he could make out the sound of the needle piercing her skin.
"This is how you're torturing me. You're a fiend. The devil personified."
"I bet you can't wait until we decide we're going to do a comprehensive examination on you. You'd have to be under anesthetic for it." Rin took one of the empty syringes she had and pumped it so there was a faint whisper of air. "Needle time for Tohno!"
He did not look amused.
When she was not working or attempting to break him psychologically, they talked. They talked about small things, silly things, stupid things. School life in Japan and what their classmates were up to now. Dates they had been on. The fact that Shiki had just missed Culture Day when he was whisked away.
"Although I'm kind of glad now," Shiki said. "I promised to go to an art gallery with Akiha. Not fun."
Rin thought she would agree if she too could not actually see any of the art. "You've mentioned her before. Except you haven't really said much about her besides how she has you whipped. She really that problematic?"
He made a sour face at her comment, but did not seem to consider any counter to it. "Akiha is…well…" he crossed his arms trying to find the words. "She's…hrm…how to say…a terror. A beast. Monstrous. Like a stalker, but she has absolute authority over you rather than following in your wake. Living with her is like living as Anne Frank in Nazi Germany. One wrong move and you're a smear on the wall."
Rin stared.
Shiki ranted on. "You'd think that with how uncomfortable dinners are, she would get the hint. But no, she has them every night, demands that you attend in the same weird silence each and every time, and she glares you down all the while like your very presence is an insult. And then there's the grades thing. She's my younger sister, but don't tell her that. Insisted on seeing my grades like a hawkish parent. An angry hawkish parent. Dictated my allowance. Gave me a curfew. Let's not even go into trying to bring a girl over."
Clear processing failure. Rin, who had spent over half her life feeling guilty and frustrated at the loss of a sister had no concept of someone who could speak with such great annoyance for what she had secretly longed for. Perhaps not in the same circumstances—Rin could not exactly imagine Sakura doting on her like a parent. Close enough, however. "Tried bringing your princess over to the house of a princess, huh?"
"No way." He put his head in his hands like the very thought caused him pain. "Arc did sneak around though, or try to. Arc liked Akiha. I don't think it ran the other way."
"Why do you say that?"
He looked up at her. Again, without being able to see his eyes, she still managed to discern the horror he held there. "Let's not go there. Trying to consider what is going on in Akiha's head is like navigating a minefield. While being shot at. During a lightning storm. While wearing medieval armor. In a—"
Rin clicked her tongue. "I get it, thanks."
"—with rabid dogs chasing you, and a swarm of bees stinging you—"
"And you jumped to shield her from harm…why?"
He "looked" at her strangely, the way his lips turned not a clear expression of amusement, confusion, anger, or sadness. A mix of them all, ultimately. "You have family?"
"Yeah."
"Don't tell me you get along with them perfectly and that everything they do doesn't tick you off like they were born to make your life hell."
"I get along with them pretty well and most of what they do doesn't tick me off like they were born to make my life hell." Extreme circumstances notwithstanding.
"You're a freak."
She understood, of course, the unspoken reason. Even if she would never have the same number of complaints, or even consider voicing any real issue. Everything with her "family" was silly, something Rin never regarded with anything but actual contentment.
But it was a strange chance to see something like it from the outside—because she understood.
Throwing away everything because you cared.
"I know we've gone over this before, calling magi monsters and all. But in all honestly, it just sounds like your sister is weird, not that everyone else's family is the oddity."
Shiki looked stumped.
"What?"
"If I say, 'well you just need to experience her for yourself,' then my world ends. I don't wish for the terror the two of you could bring to this existence. You're actually a lot alike."
Rin began mentally calculating the likelihood of shoving her entire shoe into his mouth.
"Complaints aside, it's not exactly her. I think a lot of family is just like that. You fight to show you care. Or something like that." Although he looked dubious as to whether he meant it or if he was just miming some cliché rhetoric. "I'm sure I annoy her just as much."
Rin gave a sage nod. "Of that I'm certain you're absolutely right."
Shiki had taken to fiddling with the chain links hanging from his wrists, counting them off almost like a monk might go over a rosary. Though Rin had considered bringing some kind of entertainment in for him, she was at a loss since he could not read a book or the like. When she had brought up whether he could read Braille, he said he could not.
"I haven't actually been like this for a long time. A year at most. And I gotta be honest with you, I'm too lazy to learn something new now that I don't have to go to school."
"Not hard to believe," she had said.
Rin had done what she could, bringing a music player she rarely used and bought some music to go with it. Though she did not go far out of her way, the meals she brought attempted some variety, if nothing else than to make her feel less like a prison warden.
Despite that, it was clear he had very little to do, nothing else to consider but his own thoughts and feelings.
"You people sure are an inconsistent bunch," he said. "You catch a guy for what he has, then apparently take weeks trying to figure out what to do next."
"I could stab you right now and then you'd have some excitement." Rin was once again at work on her project, staring down the items on the desk as if she could will them to work faster.
He dropped the chain he was counting, then leaned himself over the chaise sideways, his head hanging over the edge until he was facing her upside-down. "I'd take it over dying of boredom."
She watched him out of the corner of her eye. "That sounded serious." As joking as the words themselves sounded and as silly as he looked saying them while halfway falling off a lounge chair, he had that strange tone again.
"I'm mostly serious. I mean, I'd rather not die at all, but at this rate, the suspense is killing me."
The second part at least sounded more lighthearted, even if it was probably due to the double-meaning. "You have some kind of idea that you want to die at the hands of someone you know a little, rather than somebody else here?"
"I guess so."
Rin finished drawing blood from her arm and set the syringes down. "I'm not sure whether that's a good thing or bad thing. I mean, well, dying when you don't have to is stupid overall, but I'm talking relatively here."
He grinned.
"The Tohnos…or the Nanayas, are they some kind of Samurai clan? Do you have some dream of dying romantically in honorable battle or with one of your own hovering with a sword over your head as you stick yourself?"
"No. Nothing like that. I don't really think death of any kind is romantic or pretty, or even terrible and horrid. It just is." He considered his words carefully, sitting back up on the seat properly. "It is true that I'm not afraid to die," Shiki said.
There were many things Rin wanted to say. That it was not natural. That he should be. That he still had family and friends waiting for him. That he still might have a chance to find the one he lost. That he was an idiot for thinking so. But the simple way he said it, without any kind of emotion or deeper thought—just, making an observation—it diffused all her desire to argue the point. "I see."
The corner of his lips curled up at that, just briefly. But when it left his expression, he suddenly looked nervous.
"What?"
He made a humming noise in the back of his throat. "I'm not afraid to die," he repeated. "But," he looked reluctant, the tension in his posture somehow deflating enough that he appeared smaller, "I think I am afraid to die alone."
Rin fought off the sudden memory of staring up at her sister, still bathed in darkness but crying her eyes out. She fought it off with her own sarcastic shot. "That is the worst pick-up line ever, you know. I'm assuming that you think it'll work so well, in the next ten minutes my panties will be on the floor and we'll be doing it on this desk?"
The weird grin that met her statement was almost worth the embarrassing description. "Whoa, you have a dirty mind. I was just only imagining some cuddling on a couch in front of a sappy movie."
"You wouldn't be able to watch a movie."
"Ah…" he looked more embarrassed. "I guess I didn't think of that."
Once again, he immediately went for jokes and sarcasm. But Rin had seen where his thoughts had gone there, could make out the conclusion his mind had come to.
He did not want to say something like, If I'm going to die, could you be there with me? As much as they might banter back and forth, she was still part of the system that might just take his life. So, instead, he hinted, If I'm going to die, could you be the one to do it?
Even though she understood it, could see it, could sympathize with it, Rin thought for just a moment that she might not have hated anyone so much as she hated him for the idea.
Rin left the grounds that evening, once more deciding to venture out to her apartment. The bitter cold that hit her when she left the building was countered by the sensation that her blood was boiling beneath her skin and she barely noticed the wind buffeting her coat and hair.
Only a block away, however, she took notice of a different kind of cold that crept up on her.
"Actually taking leave of your charge for once? A wise decision."
For Rin, Lorelei Barthomeloi evoked the word severe in her mind. The way she stood, imperious and strict, and the intense look on her face always crossed Rin's senses first. The woman's hair was tied back and tight to her head in a no-nonsense way, and of course the riding crop she often carried gave her a kind of old-world feel. The woman was not exactly the kind to make Rin feel in danger, however, since she was one of the few that seemed not to care about the Heaven's Feel issue. Even so, as she approached the woman—who was heading in the opposite direction—a cold sense welled up in her, not unlike the first time she had met the dimension-hopping Wizard Marshal.
"I would advise you to discontinue your affiliation with that boy," Lorelei said.
Rin's eyebrows shot down. "Somebody has to 'affiliate' with him, regardless to what anyone wants with him specifically."
"You misunderstand." The woman tapped her crop in one hand. "I cannot guarantee your safety if you continue to do so."
Rin felt her leg muscles tense, felt that fight-or-flight response in her mind start to kick in. "Threatening? Really?"
Lorelei looked insulted, the corners of her eyes tightening. "No. I threaten nobody. It is for your own safety, as I cannot guarantee what will happen." Lorelei continued on down the hall past her, but said over her shoulder, "The moment that one stepped in my way, I became one he was destined to fight. I would advise you not be here when that happens."
She tossed and turned that night.
Unable to get the sense of foreboding out of her mind.
Unable to calm the anger she had over Shiki's choice of not-said words.
Unable to rid herself of the belief that she should do something.
"Something on your mind?" Shiki asked the following day. "You aren't your usual scathing self."
"Shut up," Rin said, though her thoughts were certainly elsewhere.
The sun was not due up for another hour, though London being London it probably would not come "out" to begin with. With the year nearing its end, Rin was actually surprised there had not been any snow yet.
Rin had returned once more to her apartment the evening before, this time taking her work with her. There, she had done what she could, until it was the early hours of the next day, when she packed right back up and headed for the tower grounds again. It was still so early, even for the never-asleep Association, that she encountered few along the way.
"Hey. Shiki. Get up."
She had gone straight for the lab, barged right in without knocking this time. Unsurprisingly, he was still asleep, still curled up in the sleeping bag she had provided for him.
He did not respond to her voice. Growling to herself, she gave him a little shake.
"Shiki, get up. Now."
Nothing. Sighing, she slapped his cheek once, then started poking at him. His only response was to bat at her hand like an irritating bug and roll his head aside as if to get away.
Rin glared. Like her, this guy was not a morning person. She was only awake now because she never managed to get to sleep in the first place.
Besides dousing him in water—which, with what she wanted to do, would cause an extra consideration she did not have time for—she knew of only one way that was sure-fire to wake anybody. So, blushing the entire while, she leaned forward until her face was right next to his, until her lips were brushing against his skin—
She blew the loudest, wettest raspberry she could manage right into his ear.
Shiki might as well have shot up into the ceiling at that, chains and all. He cleared his sleeping bag entirely and was instantly on his feet, head going this way and that, apparently trying to figure out what kind of violent alarm would make such a noise and for what purpose it was assailing him.
"The rhinos don't take sugar!" he shouted.
Rin stared at him. "I shudder to think of what goes on in your mind."
He clutched at his head like there was ringing in his ears—which there might be—and shook himself. As such, he did not react fast enough to catch the clothes Rin threw his way. "Wha?"
"Get changed."
"Ge…what?" Not only was he clearly still struggling with wakefulness, but he fumbled around as things were tossed into his face.
"Get changed. We're going out. You're going to treat me to something nice—I'll let you figure out what—and then you're going home." She reached over and ran prana into the key token that Bazett had left with her, a pseudo-Mystic Code that unlocked the cuffs around Shiki's wrists and ankles.
"Wh…out? What time is it?"
"Just hitting four-twenty in the morning. Hurry up." She moved back to the door, turning her back on him so he could do what he needed.
Not that he was. "I…what? I don't get it."
Rin stomped her foot hard onto the ground, spun on it, and hissed, "Get into those clothes right now or I'm dragging you buck-ass naked for all the world to see what a Japanese boy looks like shriveled up and freezing."
Apparently that was enough to focus his mind beyond the cobwebs of sleep straight into the horrors of the male anatomy. "I…yes…ma'am."
"When I talked about seeing a movie, I was only joking," Shiki whispered.
"Quiet."
They made their way out, Rin insisting they move fast and quiet—nobody would believe Shiki was a normal attendant at the tower with all the buzz about the "blind barbarian the departments all want to dissect." The early hour made it possible to weave through areas that were completely devoid of life, halls that echoed all-too loudly, toward a secondary stairwell that would take them in the direction of a side exit.
"Really. I don't, uh…don't want you to, uh, get…that professor of yours angry."
Despite the situation, Rin could not help but grin. Shiki was once more showing that very male side of him and just not spitting out the concern he had of getting her involved. He would just have to learn that she could not help but involve herself.
Especially for someone who just wanted to be left to their own stupidity.
"Waver's always angry. I'd never be able to tell the difference." She sighed. "Just, shut up and keep up, alright? I don't want to hear it now. Complain to me after I get you out of here."
"I still don't get what you think you're gonna get done, here."
"Absolutely nothing but my own brand of stupidity, alright? Now, quie—"
The warning was too little, too late. They rounded a corner just in time to see a person step out of the doorway leading to the stairway Rin was hoping to use. Rin almost dove back the way they came, but stopped herself when she saw the man stride purposefully toward them.
"Che—already? I disabled the boundary field," Rin muttered to herself.
"But you didn't disable the listening device on the door," said the man that approached them. "Just a simple little thing, on the ceiling above it, that tells me when you've opened and closed it." The man stopped short of the hall's midway point. "And there's only two reasons you'd come so early. To have an affair, or to make a pathetic attempt at a breakout."
Rin took a few steps forward, cautiously, watching the speaker for the first sign of an attack. Shiki seemed to follow after, reluctantly—he was clearly confused about what was being said, foreign language and all. "Quite the voyeur, aren't you Gram?"
Gram was one of the magi that Rin had seen loitering outside of the room when Shiki was under examination. Though rather indistinctive as a person—hardly any taller than Shiki, faintly olive skin that suggested ancestry other than straight northwestern Europe—he was both ambitious and well-educated, coming from one of the departments Rin thought had the most vested interest in Shiki's dissection. He was also a physical danger, as his magecraft could easily be combat-manipulated.
"You ought to have known better," Gram said. "But I guess you Japs look after your own?"
Rin laughed. In Japanese, she said, "He said we look after one another."
"I think he's…blind," Shiki said.
"Not to mention stupid."
Rin counted on that effect: the effect of people speaking a non-native language in front of somebody. The effect when that person knew they were talking about him. The effect when that person knew what they were saying was scathing to the one who did not understand.
Gram did look irritated. Irritated enough that the time for talk was apparently done for, and he thrust out his hand.
Rin pushed at Shiki, simultaneously pushing him to one side while giving her a springboard to move in the opposite direction. A harsh gust of wind passed between them from that, sudden and violent, but localized.
Gram had an alignment of wind. His usual application of it was something akin to telekinesis. He was often used to handle dangerous materials as he could manipulate objects from afar, transferring his physical actions to a location out of his reach.
Meaning he could punch and kick them from afar.
Rin had that covered. She made for one of the lounge couches that lined the wall, pulling it out and tipping it onto its back. She hid herself behind the upturned furniture and funneled her magic into it, Reinforcing it to the point where she doubted anyone less adept than her with magic could even scratch it. Though she was certain Gram had Reinforced his own blows or could manipulate his air strikes to be more powerful, she was certain he could not break through her cover.
Shiki, for his part, seemed to catch on quick. Though Gram sent a few experimental strikes his way, the marked man wove past them as if he could see them coming, moving strangely the entire time. Though it was not Capoeira, it reminded her of that style's unorthodox movement as Shiki's stance went wide and his body went low, almost like a four-legged animal.
Gram made a quick noise, some words in a language Rin did not know. She braced herself—
A strike hit her from the direction she and Shiki had come from. The standard method of thinking would be that Gram's strikes would come like he were reaching out across the expanse that separated him and striking, meaning that his blows could only come from the direction Rin had shielded herself. It was not so—and Rin had already thought of it.
The blow caught her as she raised her arms to guard, a snap of wind with the force of an American football linesman crashing into her headlong. At the same time, she kicked herself from the floor so the force of both her legs and the blow thrust her back into the couch, the couch forward down the hall. The moment the momentum was no longer at its apex, she pushed up from the ground, vaulted over the furniture, and crossed the hall toward Gram. As she did, Shiki also surged ahead, the man outpacing her and making for Gram first.
Gram made a crossed motion with both arms. If he had swords in them, the action might have resembled what Rin had once seen Archer do in battle.
The blow flung her way hit her aside the shoulder, though the direction she was running allowed her to twist her body, perform a spin, and still not loose her ground. She watched as what must have been an identical blow went Shiki's way, but he had already taken a hard turn almost straight for the wall.
If Rin had a way to describe it, the image that came to mind was a tennis ball thrown down the hallway. Gravity only appeared to matter after expending a vast amount of momentum and rebounding multiple times at difficult-to-track angles. Shiki was suddenly leaping for the wall with his leg extended, but instead of using the extra push from it to jump back into the middle of the hall and execute a high kick like she expected, he was suddenly against the ceiling. Gram seemed just as surprised, having raised his arms to block a blow that never came.
Rin came in low at that, a strike aimed for the magus' kidneys, but before it connected she withdrew in a feint just as the Gram's knee came up to block that as well. This was simultaneous to Shiki's continued arc, which sent him low to the opposite wall he had jumped from, rebounding only a few centimeters above the baseboard. Instead of taking a half-step into a normal stance or stumbling at the short distance, he landed as if he were part arachnid and came up with a kick, twisting his body and curling his foot around like his leg was a scorpion's tail. It caught Gram to the mirror side of where Rin's feint would have landed. With a knee up and his body ready to block a nonexistent hit, Gram went flying harder than he should have, his face careening into the exact place Shiki had initially jumped.
"I think I pulled something," Shiki complained.
Rin raised a finger and shot Gram point-blank with her Fin Shot, the energy discharge both cursing him and knocking the wind out of him completely. "Stretch it out. We have to hurry now, someone had to have heard that." She pulled him toward the exit Gram had come in from. "You need to exercise more."
She could barely make the joke, though, still replaying in her mind's eye what she had just seen. There was no Reinforcement involved, no magecraft at all. Shiki had simply been like an oversized jumping spider or had acted like gravity were some afterthought he only had to partially obey. Ignoring the Servants, she had never seen such a thing without some kind of magic involved.
"Because I could easily go for a run while chained and kept inside a small room," Shiki said. "Are we going to have to do that again?"
"Proba—"
Gram once more interrupted her, the sound of foreign words once again echoing through the hall. Rin turned in time to see the magus—still curled up against the wall—lift something silver and pointed without touching it. She tried to get a warning off, but the spell was faster, making a whistle of air as it shot forward. The knife sailed across the expanse separating them, a faster throw than should be physically possible. The weapon made a perfect line for Shiki's lower back, dead center to his spine—
Too late in his stride to make a leap out of the way, Shiki fell to the floor in a strange position, like someone grabbed his ankles from behind while simultaneously something pushed him at the shoulders from ahead. The knife flew past his shoulder, missing by a hair's breadth, and he absently reached up to catch the weapon by the pommel between two fingers.
Rin said, "Get that—"
Shiki tossed the weapon back toward the owner. It fell to the floor short of hitting the magi.
There was a cacophonous crack, followed by the rush of gale-force winds. Rin pulled Shiki through the doorway and into the stairwell.
"It had a spell on it," Rin explained, though she wondered if Shiki had somehow anticipated that. "Best not to use things someone else has thrown at you around here."
"What?" Shiki asked, his voice louder than normal. He cupped a hand behind his ear.
She grabbed him by the collar and pulled him along in response.
"You're going to rob me of everything by the time I'm out," Shiki said. Four flights up and through another hall brought them on the ground level, though still a ways from the intended exit. In that time, his hearing had cleared, though he looked doubly sour.
"Quiet, or I'll take something more precious than that," Rin growled.
"I…wait," he held out an arm. The hall they were in was long and had no doors, simply acting as an indoor connection between distinct areas of grounds. Rin knew they were chancing it by crossing the boundaries between departments, but the main exit would be the most problematic to leave through even with the early morning hours. "Something's ahead, around the next corner," he said as quietly as he could manage.
"What?"
"Smells like a lot of oil and lube."
Rin looked at him funny.
"I'm serious!"
"No, I kind of smell it too." There was something in the air that vaguely reminded her of Shirou's shed and all the mechanical parts he had there. "But it's really the only way we can go. The main exit is trapped for non-magi like you."
"Do you happen to have something like a knife on you?"
"I do, but let's not go there unless we have to."
Shiki sighed. "I'm going to die, and it isn't even five in the morning. This sucks."
Slower than before, they took toward the strange scent, trying to keep their footfalls from echoing down the marble floor. When they reached the junction where the hall made a T-shape, Rin peeked around the corner and had her answer.
Men in leather robes. A wall of people completely blocking the exit.
They spotted her immediately, but did not move from their positions. Rin grumbled and glanced around the other corner, saw an identical group of armored guards standing at the far end of that hall. Each of them wore outfits that looked like a mix between a robe and leather armor. Rin shook her head. "Well, I guess this exit is trapped too."
"There are people coming from behind us. Lots of them."
Some kind of signal. Rin sighed, stepped out into the open. "I guess you've caught us."
The knight-like people before her did not respond, standing to attention but not making a move. Rin eyed them for a moment as the sound of footsteps finally came to her awareness behind, the same oily scent rushing in with the air they brought. Rin clenched her fists.
The Canticle had them completely boxed in.
"Is this the medieval age or something?" Shiki was shaking his head. "What's with all the leather?"
"They're the Canticle Brigade. They're magi soldiers, all trained to kill Apostles. You sort of insulted their pride when you killed one of the Ancestors," Rin supplied.
"Geez, don't they know how to go to a bar and pick up a woman, get over it like normal people? And seriously, what's with the clothes?"
A voice from before them answered. "The robes are forms of a Mystic Code that act as both physical and interference protection. They are based on items some of the Ancestors have." Lorelei Barthomeloi stepped out before the rest, crop in hand.
Rin said, "Say anything about pretty women right now and get a face full of my foot," before Shiki could open his mouth.
"It is unfortunate that this happened," Lorelei said. "I would have preferred that Rin Tohsaka not get herself involved after the warning I gave her, but it seems that the barbaric practices of her nation have made her irredeemable."
"You set this up," Rin ground out through her teeth.
The woman looked affronted. "No. I warned you. This certainly would have transpired at a future date, but you have merely expedited the circumstances. He would be mine, and there is no force within the tower to stop me from my prey. Now, I regret your involvement, but as you are aiding a Seal Designated prisoner in escape, you would be punished regardless." She allowed for a contemplative look. "I am surprised, however, at the timing. I thought that either you would do something immediately after my warning, or not do anything at all. Not take nearly two days." She considered for a moment longer, then shrugged. "It does not matter. This one has been under close observation the entire time. His escape is a simple impossibility."
Rin spat out a noise of contempt. "This sure seems prideful. Get your underlings to keep us boxed in."
"I did not call upon them to do so," Lorelei admitted. "I dislike such blatant shows of power. But my vice-commander is stubborn and did this of his own accord. They refuse to let me face battle alone, despite my obvious capacity." She frowned deeper, her natural frowning expression, only more. "I made them promise not to lift a finger, however."
"Yeah, that's comforting," Rin said.
Shiki's head went back and forth as if seeing some invisible game of tennis between the two women.
Until his "gaze" settled on Lorelei at the last. The woman's own glare burned hot enough to feel beneath his shroud.
"Shiki Tohno," Lorelei said, "your life ends here."
To be concluded.