Disclaimer: I do not own the Fate franchise it belongs to Kinoko Nasu and Type-Moon.

This Cannot End Well

Epilogue

"You two made quite a mess." Tom began without preamble before giving a smile. "Not bad. I mean, sure, you nearly got me killed, but thanks to the old man's armbands, I managed to get out before that nuke you set off fried me along the way."

"…sorry about that." Rin said with a quick series of bows, looking and sounding very embarrassed. "I was…too hot-headed, after a little encounter over at the Chaldean Annex. That said…you're surprisingly forgiving."

Tom shrugged. "I'm not dead." He said. "Besides, to protect against the abuse of magic and maintain order, that's the job of the College of Law. To lose your life in the line of duty is expected, normal even, and there's no point in taking it personally. So long as the job was done, I'm fine with everything that's happened. And it was. So let bygones be bygones, and let's move on."

Rin smiled. "Very mature." She said, and Tom cringed back.

"Mature?" he echoed. "Please, there's no need to be insulting."

"Oh? And if you're not mature, then what are you?"

Tom smirked before tossing Rin and Sakura a couple of souvenirs. "I'm a Man, that's what!" He said while lighting a cigarette. "Anyway, there's a couple of keepsakes to remember this whole adventure by."

Rin and Sakura raised their eyebrows while lifting the polished white skulls Tom had tossed them. They looked Human, at least at first glance, but closer inspection revealed subtle mutations to the jaw, which looked like it could open wider and in ways that shouldn't be possible for Human beings.

"Who did these belong to?" Sakura asked.

Tom shrugged. "Not a clue." He said. "I do know the what, though. Broodmothers, for lack of a better way to call them. Could have been Human once, but not anymore by the time I got to them. Ever seen an insect queen? Now, imagine a…woman, with six or eight bloated breasts down her torso, with everything past her waist looking like something an insect queen would have. Oh, and their jaws? Somehow, they could unhinge their jaws and swallow a man whole."

Rin and Sakura both looked pale and shaking. "…learned that from experience, I take it." The latter said.

Tom grinned wolfishly. "Well, yeah." He said. "That little monster soon learned why it was a bad idea, though. Turns out a plasma round in such a high-pressure, semi-liquid environment tends to make for lots of steam, and whether it's a Human or a monster's body, lots of pressurized steam inside you doesn't tend to be healthy."

"Oh…I see…yeah, that makes sense."

Rin coughed while delicately balancing the broodmother's skull on a finger. "I…um, heard you had other souvenirs of your own." She said.

Tom barked in amusement. "Damn straight." He said while pulling out a pair of necklaces, one of Human ears, the other of various fingers, all strung together on barbed wire. "I must have killed at least half a dozen versions of Shinji Matou. Little shits…you know, I walked in on one raping someone who looked like they were barely out of high school. Burned his rapist dick off, and the bastard had the nerve to beg for his life."

"How'd you kill him?" Rin asked.

"I ripped out his throat." Tom darkly said. "Little shit wasn't so tough rolling around in his blood trying and failing to breathe."

"Aww, and isn't that sad?" Rin mockingly replied, and causing Sakura to nod sagely.

"I agree, it's all very tragic." She said.

Tom gave another barking laugh while puffing out smoke. "Hey," he said with a smirk. "At least they all went out with a bang. Literally."

Rin and Sakura laughed before looking at each other. "Too true." They chorused.

"Very impressive work, all three of you." Zelretch congratulated the three of them as they arrived at Fort Yggdmillennia's command center. "I won't bore you with the details, but with the destruction of this timeline's Greater Grail, and with it, the compromised Ruby Class Kaleidoscope which had fractured the space-time continuum, everything has returned to normal."

"Well, that's what we came here to do." Tom said with a shrug.

"Quite," Zelretch said before bringing up a hologram. "That said, there is something you should know. Well, you already know that the Greater Grail possesses large amounts of energy drawn from the leylines, in addition to being a World Gate. A compromised World Gate, to be sure, but still a World Gate for all that. Now then, when the Zarathustra Cannon fired, it didn't simply destroy the Greater Grail, Ruby, and the Sakura Otsu Class Flesh-Construct wired into it."

"Sakura Otsu…?" Rin echoed.

Zelretch winced. Clearly that wasn't something that was supposed to have been shared, and then he paled, as a rather annoyed-looking Fiore rolled over in her wheelchair, while handing a file to Rin. Rin opened it…

…and then Sakura, Caules, and Tom were physically-restraining her as she practically threw herself at her master, hands clenched like claws twitching as though to strangle him.

"No need to be so angry." Zelretch said. "Now, where was I…oh yes. When Zarathustra destroyed the…er, Matou Hub, the amount of gathered magical energy detonated, setting off a chain reaction that ignited the surrounding leylines. Coupled with the preexisting temporospatial anomalies, this triggered what I call a temporal inversion event."

"…I think I know what that involves," Sakura said, looking pale from seeing what her counterpart had turned into. "It also explains why it affected Imaginary Numbers Space, something that should normally not happen."

"Yes." Zelretch said with a nod. "Basically, it reset this timeline back to when the incident happened. But, since I knew what was going to happen, and I was already monitoring the timeline, I was able to move quickly. Observe…"

Zelretch pulled up more holograms, one showing a chained and collared Shinji being dragged off by stern-faced Enforcers, while another showed an unconscious Sakura Matou strapped to a gurney and being loaded into an ambulance. A third hologram showed magi clustered around a large cylinder filled with countless crest worms, while a fourth hologram showed Shirou and a very pregnant Rin being restrained and led from their hotel room in a tropical country somewhere.

Rin sniffed. "So…" she said while shrugging off her restraints. "…all's well that ends well, huh?"

"Yes." Zelretch answered.

"Fuck you." Rin spat.

Zelretch sighed. "You really need to stop taking anything that happens to your sister so personally." He said.

"Well, maybe if you had done a better job of keeping an eye on your former apprentice Nagato's descendants, then I wouldn't have to." Rin snapped. "But no…you were too busy protecting the multiverse…so I have to let this go…but don't expect me to stop taking my failures so personally…"

"There was nothing you could have done…"

"Enough!" Rin shouted. "I…I don't want to talk about this anymore."

Zelretch sighed again. "Very well…" he said, before bringing up a hologram of Nagato (Rin and Shirou's son). "…one last thing. Technically, Nagato hasn't been born yet…but since he was in another timeline when his home timeline inverted, much like this fort – and Chaldea's annex – which exist in a naturally-occurring temporal anomaly…he's still around. The question now is, what to do about him?"

"I'm not his mother." Rin immediately said. "Nor should I be. It'd be too…complicated, later on. Let Luvia and the rest of our Edelfelt cousins have him."

"Cold, aren't we?" Zelretch asked with a raised eyebrow.

Rin snorted. "No, just self-aware." She bitterly said. "I'm Tokiomi Tohsaka's daughter. I don't deserve to be anyone's mother."

"Now that's just…"

Rin raised a hand. "I'm not going to raise him." She said flatly. "Either give him back to his mom-to-be, though I advise against that, seeing as it looks like she's spending the rest of her life on a leash at the College of Law, or let Edelfelt have him. I'd pick the latter. They'll give him a good home, a family that actually loves him, and will protect him until he's old enough to look out for himself."

Rin paused and shook her head. "I can't give him any of that." She grimly finished.

Zelretch sighed (again), before looking at Sakura. "And you?" he asked.

"I've got my own problems." Sakura laconically replied.

"True…" Zelretch said while narrowing his eyes at Little Rin, whose irises had permanently turned red. "…a piece of advice, Murderer Blue. Hurry up with your research. Your sister has achieved a reality marble, and with vampiric aspects at that. Even I can't tell you how long it'll be until she becomes a full-fledged Dead Apostle. You know what you have to do."

Sakura didn't say anything, and Zelretch didn't press. "Anything else?" he asked instead.

Tom raised a hand. "I have a question." He said. "What's this Chaldea that's been mentioned now and then?"

Zelretch grimaced. "Oh, that." He evasively began. "Um…well, you see…"

"Damn…double damn…"

Sakura glanced at her sister. "Something wrong?" she asked.

"I'm not sure." Rin crossly replied. "It's just that…I don't know. I feel like we did all that work, and for no reward in the end."

"Well, we got our leave in the end, and I've decided to take you up on that offer for a vacation. Most important of all, the old man agreed…not that I'd have cared if he said no."

Rin looked at Sakura curiously, the two of them back in the latter's home timeline, standing in Hyde Park at London. It was early evening, and the skies above were tinted gold by the sunset. All around them people were walking around or just sitting in the scattered benches or even on the ground. Next to the sisters, a fountain merrily flowed.

"What do you mean by that?" Rin asked curiously.

Sakura smiled. "Before I answer," she began. "I have to ask: are you really fine with letting the Edelfelt have Nagato? I mean, sure, you never bore him, but he is your son. A simple genetics test will prove that easily enough."

"Yes, I'm fine with it." Rin said with a sigh, and sitting against the fountain's edge. "I…I wouldn't be able to raise him. Not properly…not without comparing myself to our parents, to say nothing of making things very awkward when I meet with my sister. It might even cause so much trouble, especially since Shirou is his father."

Rin shrugged. "I'm sure he'll understand," she continued. "When he's older, and this whole confusing mess is explained to him. But…things are already confusing enough as they are. There's no need to add to it."

"Fair enough." Sakura conceded.

"What about you, though?" Rin asked before narrowing her eyes. "How would you have ignored master if he had said no?"

Sakura smiled wider, and then reaching into Imaginary Numbers Space…

…pulled out Sapphire. The one Nagato had brought with him, and used to travel between timelines to begin with.

Rin's eyes went wide, and then she began laughing. "You're crazy." She finally said.

Sakura shrugged. "Maybe," she said. "But as you well know, there's a fine line between madness and brilliance."

Rin laughed again. "True…" she began. "…shall we get going?"

"To your timeline? Not just yet…I need to get something for after vacation, when I need to step up my research at Spiritual Invocation."

"Oh?"

Sakura smiled again. "It seems I need another…incentive," she said. "To get the powers-that-be over there to give me more resources."

"What did you have in mind?"

"Why, Zouken Matou's rotting soul, of course."

A/N

And that's a wrap!

The incident is resolved, and in such a way that it never actually happened in the first place. Of course, it's all very bittersweet, considering while the timeline resets, a lot of bad things would have happened, and only got reduced in the reset timeline. Shinji spends the rest of his life in Lorelei's dungeon, but while Sakura (Matou) gets the help she needs, it almost certainly comes with strings attached. Both Shirou and Rin also get arrested.

At least Nagato gets to stay with an actually normal – or at least, semi-normal – family. Granted, it's the Edelfelt family, so he'll probably be spoiled rotten and grow up to be a troublemaker (complete with HO-HO-HO-HO-HO laughter), but it's better than say…eventually being told a story about a 'Hero of Justice' and deciding that he'll succeed where they failed, and save everyone. Here we go aga~in…

Well, what did you expect? The story title is 'This Cannot End Well'. See you aro~und…