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

For the Future

Chapter 1

Molten silver bubbled as it was poured from a blackened ladle into a tray divided into multiple molds. The liquid metal hissed as it filled the molds and spilled out into the grooves between them, but didn't react as Sakura moved her fingers, small cages of Imaginary Numbers floating through the air to submerge themselves into the molds. One per mold, before she took the handle of the press above and firmly pulled it down.

Hot air hissed from the vents, the mystic code ingeniously using the heat of the molten metal to fuel its own mysteries. Energy was energy, after all, no matter form it took. That was a fact of the World if not the universe as a whole, something that treated any distinction between magic and technology as a non-starter. Then Sakura lifted the lid, excess silver dribbling from fullers in the sides to receptacles beneath, which funneled them to a second ladle.

As for the molds, the silver within had congealed into steaming-hot wafers of silver, each stamped with a glyph inscribed in an unbroken circle and bound by chains. A fairly-simple, and even an orthodox way of imprisoning various spirits, but it was effective, and widely-accepted by magi of every stripe. It was, after all, an offshoot of the same mysteries which underlay the mystic codes known as phylacteries.

An old form of Thaumaturgy, but one even geniuses and prodigies swore by, and saw no reason to disparage. But of course: it was old and widely-used because it worked and well at that.

Why reinvent the wheel, and all that?

"These also go into storage?" Stark asked.

"Unless there are sample requests left unanswered." Sakura replied.

Stark responded by handing her a clipboard, which Sakura looked over. "Right…" she said softly before looking at the golems silently and robotically prying wafers out of molds with tongs, and sliding them into lead-lined receptacles in a long wooden box. "…Lord Reynolds has asked for twenty samples for his own research, as have Magi Eland and Snee. Magi Rascon and Canales have asked for ten samples each, as has Lord da Candreva. Magus Dighton has asked for five samples if possible but will settle for three."

"None of those should be a problem, except for the last one." Stark said.

"What's the problem with Magus Dighton?" Sakura asked.

"He's Romani." Stark replied before holding up his hands as Sakura pursed his lips. "I have no problems with the Romani, but some of the lords might."

"I don't give a shit." Sakura retorted with a mix of exasperation and annoyances. "Unless they can give me a better reason than ethno-discriminatory bullshit and cultural posturing to deny Magus Dighton's request, I've got no reason to do so. Besides, Magus Dighton was allowed to join today's exhibition, was he not?"

"Yes, he was."

"Then he has clearance for samples." Sakura firmly said. "Give him the five he wants, and if anyone has a problem with that, have them direct their complaints to Lord El-Melloi."

"Not Lord Beckenstein?" Stark asked with a small smile, and Sakura gave a barking laugh.

"Oh, she'll probably palm it off to her brother." She admitted. "But, she also sponsored this exhibition. If so, then she has the responsibility for any…issues, that may arise in the background. Of course, if she chooses delegating their solutions to others, that's her prerogative."

Stark chuckled while shaking his head, and then directed the golems to fill out the sample requests. Meanwhile, Sakura fingered the stick of quartz crystal that carried her records of today's experiments, with the only ones aside from her having similarly-comprehensive records being Lord El-Melloi, as well as the Department of Spiritual Invocation's Curator of Records. Though, in the latter case, said records belonged less to the incumbent curator, but to the departmental archives.

Everyone else had their own personal notes, or had to buy it from the scribe-savants and archival servitors which had made their own records for the Clock Tower's common archives. Both of which were almost certainly less comprehensive than what Sakura, Reines, and Spiritual Invocation had. Not that that was unexpected, of course.

That's just how the Clock Tower worked.

Stark returned with another clipboard, this one a technical report on the state of the instrumentation and other equipment used in today's experiments. None of them had malfunctioned during the experiments, and the preliminary post-experimental examinations had shown no sign of damage. More detailed examination would be done, of course, with Sakura signing that yes, as the one in charge of today's experiments, she was financially-liable should any damage be found.

That, and she had found them without issue for today's experiments.

"Is that all?" Sakura asked.

"Do you want your own samples, or should I have the golems take them to the materials repository?" Stark asked back.

Sakura responded by swapping a handful of wafers, and dropping them into Imaginary Numbers Space. Them, and the stick with her own records. "That will be all." She said, taking her long coat from a nearby chair, and putting it on but also leaving it unbuttoned. Little Rin floated over to clamber onto her big little's sister shoulders, leaving Mikasa lounging on the floating disc. "It was an honor to work with you, Mister Stark."

"Thank you," Stark said with a small bow. "But the honor is mine. It's not every day that you get to work with someone with the Color Designation of Blue."

"You flatter me…but thank you." Sakura said with a smile. "Until we meet again, Mister Stark."

"Likewise, Miss Tohsaka."

"Ugh…I'm so tired…"

Little Rin looked on curiously as Sakura collapsed into the couch in their shared apartment. "Didn't you enjoy cutting up Zouken's soul, Sakura?" she asked, floating over rest prone along the couch's spine.

"I did…but it got tedious after a while." Sakura replied. "It's like…like…I like bacon, but eating it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for a whole week straight will quickly make me not like bacon. Just like that…plus all those deadbeats and their stupid questions…well, mostly stupid questions. Lord El-Melloi never asked any stupid questions, and neither Magus Aozaki's apprentice, what's her name…"

"Alice Kuonji…?" Little Rin supplied, sounding confused. "Um…I'm not sure she's Magus Aozaki's apprentice…"

"…she isn't…but I could care less right now…" Sakura grumbled.

"…by the way, um…I hate to be a pest but…did you notice there's a package in the mailbox?"

"It can wait."

"It feels funny."

"…fuck this." Sakura grouched, reaching into Imaginary Numbers Space, and pulled out an adrenaline shot. She pressed it against her neck, above a major blood vessel. Then she pressed the injector, and pumped herself full of energizer hormone.

"That's dangerous." Little Rin said, looking up as Sakura jumped up and stretched.

"In the words of my generation, YOLO." Sakura dully replied.

"We're not Gen Z, Sakura." Little Rin said before blinking and looking lost. "Um…I don't know what generation we are, actually."

"I don't either, but it doesn't matter." Sakura said, walking past and headed for the mailbox. She returned after a couple of minutes, carrying a metal cylinder while wearing a confused expression on her face. "What is this?"

"I don't know." Little Rin said with a shrug, Mikasa jumping on her head to meow.

Sakura tried to pry the cylinder open, but it was hermetically-sealed. It was hollow though, she could sense that much, but trying to divine more of what was inside was going nowhere. There were enchantments inside, enchantments that were seriously interfering with exterior scans. Sakura was tempted to just brute force it, but that could be counterproductive.

"Want to just cut it open?" Little Rin asked, feeling as Sakura did.

"Tempting…" Sakura admitted, tossing the cylinder a few times into the air with a hand. "…but that could be dangerous."

"Really?"

"Yeah, it could be booby-trapped, after all." Sakura said. "Set to explode or something once it's opened, one way or another. Well, we'd be lucky if it was explosives, it might be something nastier. Say…poison gas? A viral plague? It might even open a black hole…"

Little Rin snorted. "Yeah, like anyone else other than you can open a black hole…" she said before blinking. "…okay, maybe someone else can, but everything else is…um…more…likely? Than a black hole opening…hey, maybe it's just a gag bomb?"

"A what?"

"A gag bomb." Little Rin repeated, and Mikasa meowed again. "You know, it'll explode, but not that much, not enough to hurt, but sending paint, sparkles, and confetti everywhere."

"Why would anyone send me that?" Sakura asked, looking and sounding confused. "Well…those weirdos in the Department of Creation might just do that…bunch of hippies…"

Little Rin snickered, remembering how…eccentric, Creation magi were. She'd seen them a few times before, with more than a few sporting afros in addition to bell-bottom pants and platform shoes. There were rumors too, about disco rooms inside the department, not that she or Sakura had ever seen them, considering they'd never actually gone inside the place. Then again, if it looks and sounds like a sewer rat…

"I'm sure not all of them are." Little Rin decided to say instead.

Sakura snorted. "Right," she said with a roll of her eyes. "Some of them are Elizabethan cosplay fetishists instead, complete with wigs, doublets, and those oversized dresses."

Little Rin looked surprised. "I thought you liked Shakespeare." She said.

Sakura was silent for a long moment, caught in her own hypocrisy. "Some…" she grudgingly admitted. "…I like King Lear, and A Midsummer Night's Dream…among others…but I'm not going to dress up like some inbred fop."

"Sakura, um…aren't we…never mind…back to the package with the mail…"

"Oh…right…this thing…" Sakura said with a cough, looking back at the cylinder sitting innocently in her hand. "…well, even if it isn't booby-trapped, until we know what's inside, forcing it open might damage what's inside. And it could be valuable, one way or another."

"So…"

"I'll have to think on it."

"Oh…okay then…who's it from though?"

Sakura looked at the package details, and did a double-take. "It says here it comes from Chloe von Einzbern." She said.

Now it was Little Rin's turn to look confused, Mikasa making a small squeak of sympathetic surprise. "Aren't they all dead?" she asked.

"They're supposed to be." Sakura said, already going through the possibilities in her head. "But, I suppose it's not impossible that one or another Einzbern might still be around and kicking. That said, why would they send me this? And what is it?"

"Maybe it's like a bottle, and it has a message asking for help?" Little Rin mused.

There was a moment of silence, and then the sisters burst out laughing for nearly a minute straight. "Right…Einzbern asking us – the Tohsaka – for help." Sakura said with a grin, and wiping a tear from her eye. "That'll be the day…what's next? The German Kaiser gets restored in the same place they crowned the first one the first time? Cows milking farmers? Pigs flying over London?"

As if on cue, a pig could be seen flying across the evening sky in the distance, through the apartment windows, in the direction of the Clock Tower. "…um…big little sister…" Little Rin began, while Sakura stood pale and shaking. "…well…at least the pig didn't have wings…"

"Ugh…fuck this…I'm going to order some pizza…" Sakura grumbled, tossing the cylinder into Imaginary Numbers Space. "…all meat and four-cheese…do you want chicken wings or carbonara pasta?"

"Both!" Little Rin yelled, Mikasa meowing in support.

Sakura laughed. "Figures…" she said while picking up the phone and dialing their usual pizza restaurant. "…good evening, I'd like to make an order please."

"So…what's your plan?" Little Rin said, following Sakura into her workshop through a portal, their dinner floating after them thanks to Sakura's telekinesis.

"You'll see."

"Oh! I like surprises!"

Sakura smiled, before levitating the food onto a table. She moved her fingers delicately, opening boxes and folding their lids to expose the food inside, two fifteen-inch pizzas, along with a full pound of chicken wings, and two large orders of carbonara pasta. Little Rin was quick to grab a plate, and filled it with a slice each of all-meat and four-cheese pizza, plus several wings and a generous serving of pasta. She also quickly deboned a couple of wings, and gave them to Mikasa.

Meanwhile, Sakura was muttering under her breath, raising bounded fields and dimensional traps in case there was something unpleasant inside the cylinder. By the time she was finished, she was reasonably sure she could weather anything short of a nuclear bomb, as well as contain a bioweapon or chemical weapon release.

"Come to think of it…I might not mind either of the latter…" Sakura found herself admitting. "…I mean…it's actually not that hard synthesizing chemical agents like chlorine, sulfur mustard, hydrogen cyanide, Sarin, or even VX, but without a control, there's no way to measure if what I get is up to weapon standards. As for bioagents…I might find a use for smallpox…"

An evil smile appeared on Sakura's face. After all, she did still have a Kaleidostick, and it might be fun to visit Makiri Zolgen's hometown before Halloween someday, and spread a few vials of variola major over the place. Sure, it wouldn't change a thing in her timeline or others where Zouken Matou existed, but a world where it or its progenitors died in their youth would undoubtedly be a brighter one.

Sakura took a deep breath…

…and breathed out. "Focus." She told herself. "Now's not the time to indulge in genocidal thoughts against would-be vampires and wannabe saviors. There are more important things to do than fantasies of death and destruction."

Sakura raised a hand. "Hadron Formation," she said softly. "Aion."

Reality distorted, a mandala overlaying the cylinder briefly before it warped and twisted into an infinite inward loop. "Ouroboros." Sakura said, and the mandala appeared before her. She pressed it with a finger, and without lifting it from the mandala, began to turn in a counterclockwise direction. In response, the spatially-distorted cylinder unraveled outward, its very material seeming to spool outward like a fruit's peeled skin.

Sakura kept on turning, until the cylinder's molecules were so far apart from each other – in spatial terms at least – that light could pass through the gaps between the molecular bonds. "What's this?" she asked.

"Looks like…glass tubes…" Little Rin haltingly said while swallowing a mouthful of noodles and white sauce. "…and paper…with lots of numbers on it…"

"I can see that." Sakura agreed, sounding confused. "Hmm…looks like vials of some kind…specimen vials? But of what? There's definitely something inside, and from the look and feel of things, the vials are frosted…most likely, some kind of temperature control enchantment, so whatever it is that's inside the vials, it depends on cold storage to stay viable. Something organic then…blood, maybe? Genetic samples? It would be right up Einzbern's alley, considering their alchemical specializations. That said…some alloys also require cold storage to stay stable, but that seems less likely…why would Einzbern send something like this to us?"

"You mean send to you." Little Rin corrected before biting into a slice of pizza. "Also…what do those numbers mean?"

"Hmm…I'm not sure…" Sakura said. "…the paper's folded, so the numbers are mostly obscured…a code of some kind almost certainly. But what kind? A cipher? Coordinates? A passcode for a vault or some kind of containment or storage device? Regardless, that still doesn't answer why Einzbern would send this to us…to me."

Little Rin shrugged. "I don't know." She said. "Maybe you should eat first? To clear your head?"

"…good idea."

Little Rin smirked triumphantly as Sakura opened a can of beer and took a long drink. "Oh, that hits the spot." She said, before taking and biting into a slice of pizza. "Oh yeah, that definitely hits the spot."

Little Rin just laughed at the sight.

Obnoxious music played from the TV as the news program returned after a commercial break. "This is BBC News." A deep voice said before the screen shifted to show a reporter sitting at a desk in the TV station. "Good evening, this is Timothy Maxwell with the evening news. Our top story tonight…"

"Not going back to work?" Little Rin asked, popping up from behind the couch.

"I'm tired." Sakura said, before taking a drink from a can of beer. "I'll take care of whatever it is Einzbern's dragged us into tomorrow."

"It might be important though."

"It can wait." Sakura said with another drink. "I mean, Einzbern's been around for over a thousand years. Having lasted that long, I'm sure they'd have learned some patience. Maybe a few hours' worth of rest for a lonely young woman worn out from a hard day's work. Besides, Einzbern's caused a lot of trouble for us in the past. Even if this is important, I think a bit inconvenience for this…Chloe, von Einzbern, is fair play after everything her cousin Illya put us through before."

"That's not very nice." Little Rin protested.

"…oh, right. You liked Illya…sorry…"

"…it wasn't her fault." Little Rin mumbled. "Her grandfather was a jerk…like our parents…"

Sakura clicked her tongue, her mood souring at the thought. "All the adults in our childhood were assholes." She said.

"Yup." Little Rin agreed before sighing. "Well…I guess this…Chloe, was one of the bad relatives that put Illya through…everything bad that happened to her before the war, so…yeah, she can wait."

Sakura smirked in triumph, even as Little Rin disappeared to go play with her PSP elsewhere. Meanwhile, Sakura focused once again on the evening news, lifting the can of beer to her mouth to drink.

"…Dover Police still reports no leads found in the disappearance of the German geneticist, Chloe von Einzbern…"

Sakura did a spit-take at that, choking and coughing on her beer as she was caught by surprise. Meanwhile, the reporter continued to blather away on the news. "Dr. von Einzbern arrived on a Chunnel train yesterday afternoon, at around…" the man said. "The police are continuing their investigation, with Dover Mayor George Trevelyan assuring the public and the German government that…

"So, now what?" Little Rin said, having reappeared and looking very concerned.

"Well…shit…"

A/N

Funny thing is, assuming Rin and Sakura were born between 1988 and 1992, they're actually millennials.

As for Sakura's crazy musings on poison gases and smallpox, considering she's got no qualms fighting with beam sabers, and even built an x-ray laser powered by Grail mud, it really shouldn't come as a surprise. I mean, yeah, they're really nasty, but bad guys in magi society, or just the Moonlit World in general, are even nastier. Depending on what you're up against, popping the valves on a tank of mustard gas or VX (it be nasty stuff, folks!) before running like hell might actually be the difference between life and a fate worse than death.

That, and I'm pretty sure if it was Kiritsugu who was wondering if he should just gas and/or the bad guys, everyone would be cheering him on. So, yeah, double standards…

…besides, in the end, at least Sakura was conscious enough to realize she was just too tired (and hungry) to think straight. That, and probably just a bit high after dosing herself with adrenalize/epinephrine.