Disclaimer: I do not own the Fate franchise it belongs to Kinoko Nasu and Type-Moon. Nor do I own the Resident Evil franchise, it belongs to Capcom.
For the Future
Epilogue
The ritual chamber was cold.
Very cold…at least around thirty degrees below zero. Sakura's breath came in steamy puffs, and her exposed cheeks chafed at the touch of the icy air around her. She was similarly bundled up in thick furs over thermal clothing, though she kept her scarf around her neck and refrained from wearing any earmuffs. Somewhat dangerous if her face and ears were left exposed for too long, but it was a necessity.
She needed to speak and her aria in order for her circuits to actualize her mysteries, after all. Arias were, when all was said and done, a form of self-hypnosis to trigger and guide the operation of magic circuits.
Sealed lanterns hung from iron hooks in the corners of the room, the only available light therein. Candles could potentially perturb any rituals conducted in the room, with even the lanterns feature unique enchantments to render them magically-inert on the outside.
Carved on the floor, there were a trio of unmarked circles, linked to each other by grooves similarly carved into the stone. Strangely-similar to a modern molecular model, but only because modern chemistry was essentially just the modern descendant of alchemy. And in alchemy, the three bonded circles symbolized the Philosopher's Stone, or more generally, the magnus opus.
The Great Work. Normally used to refer for the pursuit of the Philosopher's Stone by alchemists, or the pursuit of the Root by magi, but it could also be used as a metaphor for the successful conclusion of any miraculous pursuit.
Just like what Sakura would attempt over the next month, the Lunar cycle serving to regulate the stages of the ritual.
She would synthesize a Human soul with an animal spirit, and in so doing, create a guardian spirit. Over the past few weeks, she had gathered her materials, finalized her calculations, and made her preparations. And here and now, on the night of the New Moon, she would begin.
Iron chains clinked softly in the shadows of the room, holding two of the ritual components in place.
In one, there was Rin, no longer appearing like a healthy child, but as the rotting corpse of a sixteen-year-old girl. Her skin was pale, her flesh bloated, and her hair matted and falling off her scalp. Her clothes were similarly ragged, holed through with the decades' worth of decay.
Silver-plated collars bound her by the neck and wrists, bound by iron chains pulled taut against iron stakes driven into the ground in five places around the circle.
Sakura silently regarded the sight of her sister, the only noise coming from her the ragged sound of weak and strained breathing. Then Sakura raised a hand, circles flickering to life, from her inborn ones to those forged together from all her ancestors into her crest.
Hark, Child of Man.
I am the one with power over the world.
Hark, and be bound to my will.
By my will, transcendence shall be yours,
Surpassing Man and Nature alike,
In service to my will,
And to those who shall in time inherit my legacy.
So I have spoken!
So I have willed!
And so it shall be!
Sakura's circuits flashed to blinding, steam rising from her clothes at the brief spike in temperature, before they faded to nothing. The shadows in the room just as briefly darkened, as if they had become more than the absence of light, but as things in themselves, occupying space as matter would. A colossal amount of prana was expended in that instant, far more prana than Sakura could have produced in a year, but she had enough.
More than enough, even. The great stockpile of prana she and her twin sister had gathered during their past expedition to Trifas remained all but untouched. It had sat for years, idling in Imaginary Numbers Space, and would not finally be put to good use.
Even then, the amount consumed barely reduced it.
Sakura moved on, turning away from Rin, towards the second circle, perpendicular to her. There, Mikasa lay on the ground, the familiar likewise reduced to a rotting corpse, yet still alive, tethered to the world by her mistress' continued unlife. Silver-plated collars bound its neck and limbs to iron chains pulled taut, secured by iron chains driven into the ground at five points around the circle.
Hark, Scion of Nature.
I am the one with power over the world.
Hark, and be bound to my will.
By my will, transcendence shall be yours,
Surpassing Man and Nature alike,
In service to my will,
And to those who shall in time inherit my legacy.
So I have spoken!
So I have willed!
And so it shall be!
Again, Sakura's circuits flashed to blinding, steam rising from her clothes at the brief spike in temperature, before they faded to nothing. The shadows in the room just as briefly darkened, and a colossal amount of prana consumed.
Then Sakura stepped past, between the two circles, to stand before the third circle. There, resting on a tripod of bronze, was what serve as the anchor for the guardian spirit-to-be. A great block of ice, carved from a glacier at the heart of Antarctica, dated at over four hundred thousand years old. Ritually-consecrated tools rested on a ring of bronze that jutted out from around the tripod, and which Sakura would use to shape it into its final shape.
The Stormheart. Yes…that would be its name. The Heart of the Storm, the Frozen Fury of Winter Incarnate, the Cold that Strikes True with Death Against All Who Stand in Opposition.
A fitting name for the Guardian of Frost, her dear and beloved elder sister.
Again, Sakura raised her hand, circuits coming to life with a glimmer of witch-light.
I am the one with power over the world.
By my will, mystery is woven unto reality,
The laws of the world deciphered and interpreted,
Spoken forth in understanding,
Such that miracles are brought into existence.
And so I declare,
That by my will the Heart of the Storm shall anchor the Guardian of Frost,
Just as she shall anchor myself and all who follow in my footsteps.
So I have spoken!
And so it shall be!
Again, Sakura's circuits flashed to blinding, steam rising from her clothes at the brief spike in temperature, before they faded to nothing. The shadows in the room just as briefly darkened, and a colossal amount of prana consumed. Then taking a hammer and chisel, Sakura raised them to the block of ice, and began to cut.
Unseen from the ritual chamber, the palest sliver of the Moon rising into the sky through the hours of night, and set even as the Sun rose.
Sakura didn't spend all her time in the ritual chamber, of course. On average, she spent about an hour and a half there every night, repeating her rituals, and shaping the Stormheart.
But she stayed in the adjoining chambers, refusing contact with her fellow magi, contact that might perturb the mysteries she wove. One chamber had a bed wherein she could sleep, and an adjoining toilet for her private business. Another chamber had a small kitchen, where she could prepare and eat her meals.
The days and nights passed, the Moon waxing to fullness before again waning to nothing as the month came to an end.
And in the ritual chamber, Sakura finished the Stormheart, the block of ice it had started as now carved into a truncated pyramid about waist-high, resting on a base of chemically-pure gold. Shafts were drilled into the ice, from its peak and from its sides, and at the very heart of the pyramid, a diamond was enshrined.
But not just any diamond. It was a synthetic diamond, as foolish as it might sound to any student of the Department of Mineralogy.
Not since the days of Paracelsus himself had any synthetic gemstone been of any real use in Thaumaturgy.
But this was different. It wasn't because Sakura had recovered the secrets lost when Paracelsus in his madness had forced his peers' hands, ending with his untimely death.
It wasn't even because she'd used arcane and nigh-irreplaceable mechanisms from the Department of Mineralogy either. That was a factor, yes, but only to concentrate the mystery behind the Spirit Stone.
No, what made this synthetic diamond unique, completely impossible to replicate in any meaningful way, was what it was made from.
The cremated remains of Rin Tohsaka from when she still lived as a flesh and blood Human.
As the Spirit Stone found its final resting place, it began to glow, brilliant white light that shimmered through the ice around it with all the colors of a rainbow. Behind Sakura, Rin and Mikasa began to convulse, steam rising as their collars began to heat up, slowly but steadily turning red-hot.
One by one, Sakura placed panels of chemically-pure gold on each side of the pyramid, rose quartz, jade, and smoky quartz inlaid into each panel, forming the images of ripe peaches hanging from tree branches, symbolic of immortality in Oriental culture.
Stone hissed as molten metal dripped down to the ground, Rin and Mikasa rising up into the air, their physical forms dissolving as they turned into purely-spiritual entities, glowing white with prana. Electricity arced and displaced air crackled, stinking with ozone as they drew to each other, filling the ritual chamber with light.
Then Sakura placed the capstone in place atop the pyramid, sealing the Spirit Stone within, made from a solid block of chemically-pure gold.
The resulting explosion was powerful enough to shake the Department of Spiritual Invocation, and setting off countless alarms. Magi and automatons rushed to the epicenter, and found Murderer Blue's cordoned-off area of ritual chambers and half-reduced to rubble. Golems immediately went to work clearing the rubble, a task made easier once Lord Reines El-Melloi Archisorte arrived, her mystic code, Volumen Hydragyrum, easily doing the work of twenty golems.
Then mouths fell open, even as a bruised, bleeding, and dirty Sakura emerged from the darkened ruins beyond. "You want to keep your eyes, then look away." She snapped at those of her colleagues busy ogling her naked sister, but for the fur coat which Sakura had lent her.
Most of the magi present backed off at that, though a few remained, staring at the catlike ears poking out of Rin Tohsaka's wet and tangled hair. Reines was one of them, and then looking around sideways, spotted a cat's tail gently waving around behind Rin.
She sighed.
"Success, Sakura?" she asked, and Sakura smiled.
"Of course."
A/N
And Sakura turns Rin into a guardian spirit, because the alternatives would be to a) truly kill her, or b) let her fully turn into a Dead Apostle. Neither of which is acceptable, and it's not like Rin really minds.
Of course, it turned her into a catgirl, which might cause some foaming at the mouth later on, but hey, it's not all bad, is it?