Day 7: Rin — Strive For The Impossible

Rin Tohsaka slouched despondently at Shirou Emiya's living room table. Shirou was out patrolling the city for enemy Masters. Rin should have been out there as well, but she couldn't fight the War in her condition: not with her thoughts and emotions in such turmoil. Though she had acted decisive when facing Shirou, her heart was torn over the issue of her former sister.

Sakura Matou had been born as Sakura Tohsaka. However, it was only possible for the magecraft secrets of the Tohsaka lineage to be passed down to a single heir. Rin had been chosen to receive her father's Magic Crest and continue the Tohsaka line. Sakura, on the other hand, had left the Tohaska family and been adopted by the Matous, whose declining bloodline was unable to produce a proper heir of their own. This had been considered the best option; not only for the Tohsaka family, but for Sakura as well. Instead of being forced to live out her life as nothing more than an ordinary human, she would have the chance to be initiated into the world of magecraft; her noble pedigree and refined magic circuits would not go to waste. Rin had never questioned the wisdom of this decision. It was a perfectly ordinary practice for a family of mages which produced more than one magically talented child.

But Rin had never been able to forget Sakura, never been able to truly sever her emotional ties as a proper magus was expected to be able to do. She had always surreptitiously checked up on Sakura at school, watching over her to see if she was doing well. To all appearances, Sakura had been healthy and happy. There had never been any sign that anything was wrong. And when she had confirmed that Sakura hadn't been chosen as a Master for this Holy Grail War, that she wouldn't have to fight, Rin had been satisfied that Sakura was on track to live an ideal life.

Then had come the confrontation with Zouken Matou. If the wicked old man had been telling the truth, then things had gone horribly wrong for Sakura. She'd been in torment where Rin couldn't see her, suffering behind her perfect smile; and now she had fallen into the grasp of False Avenger, some unspeakably dark and twisted aberration born from the corruption of this War. There was no avoiding the inescapable conclusion: Rin had failed her sister. And though it was her duty as a mage to kill her heart and turn her back on one who was no longer a member of the Tohsaka family, Rin could not find it within herself to do so.

Black Archer entered the room, accompanied by Bazett. Rin knew Red Archer was currently stationed up on the roof, keeping watch for enemy Servants, but she had no idea what Homura had been up; the female Servant frequently acted independently to the point of near-insubordination. Rin hoped Homura hadn't told Bazett anything too personal; the woman might technically be an ally, but she wasn't enough of a friend that Rin would feel comfortable opening up to her about Sakura.

"I notice that you seem pensive today." Bazett said. "Is something troubling your thoughts?"

So Homura apparently hadn't spilled anything about Rin's family situation, then. Rin wasn't about to enlighten Bazett to the true source of her emotional turmoil, so she instead blurted out the first alternative that came to mind.

"I've just been thinking about Shirou." Rin said.

Now why had she gone and said that? Stupid Shirou, clouding her mind. But she supposed this would make good cover for her real feelings. Bazett had to be curious about the relationship between her and Shirou; how two rival Masters could have come to the point where they were able to share the same house during the War. By confessing some of their history, Rin could sate Bazett's curiosity and prevent her from prying into more sensitive matters.

"I only actually officially met him recently, at the beginning of this War, but I've actually been watching him for a while longer. The two of us go to the same school, you see. The first time I noticed him was when he was on the track field, attempting to perform a high jump. The bar had been set too high for someone of his athletic ability, but he kept running and jumping at it anyway. Each time he jumped, he'd knock the bar down; and each time, he put it back at the same height for his next try. At first, I admired his determination – it'd be easy to cheat by just setting the bar a little lower, so he could make the jump easier and then lie to himself and say he accomplished his goal, but he wouldn't compromise what he was trying to achieve. As he continued on, though, failing again and again and again, I started to get disgusted by his stupidity. Working towards a goal is one thing; but by this point, it was clear that this was beyond his ability. I mean, if you can't do it then you can't do it; and once you've established that, what's the point of continuing to try when you know you'll certainly fail? But Shirou, he wouldn't stop. Even with the full knowledge that it was impossible, he kept on pursuing his goal. And finally, I realized it. It wasn't the jump that he was trying to overcome: it was his own limitations. He wasn't just futilely struggling against this one high jump; but rather, in everything he does, he is forever trying to surpass his weakness and achieve the impossible. Working towards an unreachable goal doesn't necessarily mean striving in vain... because life is a journey, not a destination. What matters isn't just what you achieve, but how you live. And Shirou found a way of living that would leave him with no regrets, because he would always strive his utmost."

"I see." Bazett said. "Even if one does not succeed, there is still nobility in the act of putting forth one's best effort. I can't say I've ever really thought about it that way before; in my line of work, it's often considered that results are all that matter."

"Then there's his magecraft." Rin said. "Reinforcement and Projection. I initially derided them as worthless; but since then, I've come to see his abilities in a different light. With Reinforcement, he can enhance his body to surpass his limitation. With Projection, he can give reality to the image in his mind, even if it would normally be impossible. Looked at that way... well, it's almost like True Magic."

"I'm not sure I would go that far." Bazett said. Though I do find Emiya's attitude to be admirable. At the beginning of the War, I would have expected one of his youth and inexperience to be the first one eliminated. That he has made it this far speaks volumes about his determination and drive to succeed."

"Seeing his drive kind of shames me a little." Rin said. "I mean, I spent years preparing for this War and just assumed that my superior talent and lineage would give me an easy victory, whereas he was thrown into a life-or-death battle without any training or even understanding of what was going on and has had to struggle each step of the way. And look at us now: I'm the one who's filled with uncertainty while he's out there acting like a Master."

Emiya seemed an unlikely choice, but it appears the Grail had good reason for selecting him." Bazett said.

"So it does." Rin said. "Of course, as head of the Tohsaka family, I naturally knew that I would be selected; but what about you? Did you prepare long in advance for this War, or was your selection a surprise?"

"It is typical for at least one Master to be chosen from the Mage Association." Bazett said. "While three of the slots are reserved for members of the Three Great Families who originally began the ritual, the other four can go to any magus with skill and the will to obtain the Grail. As the most experienced and ambitious mages belong to the Association, it has become standard procedure for one of them to enter the War with the objective of retrieving the Grail on behalf of the organization as a whole. In the previous War, the Mage Association's representative was Lord El-Melloi I, Kayneth Archibald. Of course, he proved insufficiently skillful and died. This time, many expected his successor Lord El-Melloi II, Waver Velvet, to be chosen; he seemed an obvious choice in that he had been a Master in the prior War and, though he did not win, managed to be one of the few who had survived. However, Lord El-Melloi II made clear that he had no interest in participating in the Grail War again; and his determination in this was apparently strong enough that the Grail sensed his resolve and did not bestow him any Command Spells. As a result, there was much infighting about who from the organization should attempt to claim his empty slot."

Rin nodded in sympathy. She knew from her visits to the Clock Tower that the Mage Association was riven with constant infighting over matters of prestige: how much a magus should be judged by his or her demonstrated skill, and how much by his or her hereditary bloodline.

"El-Melloi I had been an ardent believer in bloodline, and had joined the Fourth War because he boasted the longest magus lineage in the Clock Tower." Bazett continued. "His failure and defeat presented an opportunity to the reformist faction, allowing them to argue that, in order to prevent a repeat of their last failure, they must choose a representative based on individual merit rather than bloodline. But the traditionalists would not cave so easily, and the entire candidate selection process was thrown into turmoil."

"Ah, I understand." Rin said. "You were put forth as a compromise candidate: both of a venerable bloodline and indisputably skilled."

"Aaah, no." Bazett said, slightly embarrassed. "You overestimate me. The Fraga lineage is indeed long and great, but I was the first of the line to join the Mage Association. They do not count my ancestors who were not a part of the Association as worthy of being considered part of a lineage. Officially, I was treated as a mere first-generation magus; the lowest possible ranking. Nor did my skills win me any respect. My magecraft is focused around magically enhancing my body and beating my foe to death; nothing spectacular like Great Lord Zelretch's True Magic, or even as impressive as your own jewel magic. The viewed me like some kind of degenerate, reduced to beating enemies to death like an uncultured ape because I hadn't any magecraft of true strength or subtlety that would let me end lives from across the room with a mere snap of my fingers. I was never even in the running for consideration to take the Association spot."

"How did you end up here, then?" Rin asked.

"While the Mage Association was engulfed in turmoil, I was contacted by Overseer Kotomine." Bazett said. "He wasn't exactly a friend, but the two of us had worked together in the past; we were colleagues with a professional respect for one another."

"That's rather unusual, isn't it?" Rin asked. "The Association and the Church are mortal enemies."

"True enough, but two of us had similar roles in our respective organizations and we often found ourselves working together to achieve a common goal." Bazett said. "I was employed as a hunter to eliminate mages who had been given a Sealing Designation. Executor Kotomine, as he was ranked at the time, was sent on missions to dangerous persons and creatures whose existence had been deemed heretical by the Church. Sometimes, we found ourselves both hunting the same target, and it was convenient to form temporary alliances in order to increase our odds of success. And Executor Kotomine... did not treat me the way the Association mages had. He acknowledged and respected my talents. Even though he served the Church, I developed respect and even admiration for him."

"Personally, I can't say I ever liked him all that much myself." Rin said. "But I suppose it was he who brought you into the War?"

"Yes." Bazett said. "Overseer Kotomine informed me that he believed that the Association were overlooking my talent, but that the Holy Grail was sure to recognize it. He invited me to travel to Fuyuki in preparation for the War. And indeed, no sooner did I disembark the plane that brought me to Japan, than the Command Spells appeared on my left hand: the Holy Grail itself had affirmed Overseer Kotomine's judgement. The Mage Association did eventually decide on an official representative of their own and sent him to Fuyuki, but the Grail did not name him a Master as it had me. I had been found worthy to represent the Mage Association, and that honor would be given to no other."

"Do you think we might still have to worry about this guy?" Rin asked. "Though he wasn't chosen by the Grail, all those False Servants appeared and anyone was able to make a contract with them and be appointed Master and everything – probably being given Command Spells by the False Grail. If he snagged himself a Servant after all, he might come after you with a grudge to settle..."

"There is no need for concern in that regard." Bazett said. "It is possible matters could have turned out as you said, if he had been patient enough to await the summonings and see the additional Servants appear. However, he was not a patient man, but rather an impulsive one; and decided that, before I set about summoning a Servant, he would ambush me, torture me until I relinquished possession of the Command Spells to him, and then kill me and perform the summoning himself."

"What happened?" Rin asked.

"He tried, and I ended his life." Bazett said calmly. "He was entirely incompetent at both combat and support magic; it's obvious why the Grail refused to consider him, and I can't imagine how the Association came to the decision to appoint him as their official representative. Even if he had survived long enough to contract a False Servant and enter the War, I doubt he would have lasted very long..."

Bazett trailed off, then shook her head.

"Though perhaps I myself have no right to criticize, given my situation." she concluded. "With my Lancer defeated and my geas to you not to contract another Servant, I have been eliminated from the War in practice, if not official technicality. Looking at it that way, even if my attempted replacement probably couldn't have done better than me, it's not very likely he could have managed to do worse."

"Well, you're still alive and he's not, so that's score one for you right there." Rin pointed out. "Even if you lose the War, that doesn't render the rest of your life meaningless; I'm certain Lord El-Melloi II would testify to that. And there could be a worse outcome: he might've somehow managed to win, but without realizing that Angra Mainyu has tainted the Grail and it needs to be purified before a wish can be made, and caused some cataclysmic disaster."

"That is unlikely on several levels." Bazett said. "Even if we were to suppose he overcame the impossible odds against him and obtained the Grail, he would not use it to make a wish for himself. The representative of the Mage Association fights not for their own wish, but on behalf of the Association as a whole; and the prize will be handed over to the Association upon victory. Of course, that applies to me as well. I may not have been formally selected by the Association; but as a member, I do still consider myself their representative. Had I succeeded and attained the Grail, I would have presented it to the Association rather than using it myself."

"You wouldn't be tempted to use it for yourself?" Rin asked. "I mean, the Association didn't select you as their representative; they picked someone else and tried to have you killed. I would think that nullifies any obligations you might have held towards them. Surely you must have felt the temptation to compete in the War on your own behalf, to grant your own wish."

"Well..." Bazett looked uncomfortable. "Perhaps... such thoughts did cross my mind, if only briefly. Ever since I was a girl, I have admired the hero Cu Chulainn, and wished there was a way I could change his tragic fate. I was so overjoyed when I actually managed to summon him as my Servant that I temporarily lost my senses. Though, Lancer himself considered my wish to be frivolous. He said he had lived his life without regrets, even up to the very end; and that if I was going to use the Grail, it should be for my own sake. Then I thought of wishing to grant him true incarnation, so that he could continue to remain by my side even after the War had ended... ah, no, I can't go on! It's too embarrassing!"

Bazett's face had gone red, and she buried it in her hands. It was a side of the normally cold and composed warrior woman that Rin had never seen before. Rin actually felt some pity over her obvious embarrassment, and decided not to press for more details.

"Well, I personally only entered the War to restore the honor of the Tohsaka family and prove my skills." Rin said. "I didn't have any wish in mind to offer it. I know it's typical of mages to want world domination or access to the Swirl of the Root; but to be honest, none of that ever interested me."

"I'm very impressed." Bazett said, regaining some of her composure. "It is in the nature of humans to desire what they cannot have. If you are truly above temptation by an omnipotent wish-granting device, then that means you believe you possess within yourself the power to obtain all you desire – that you are already master of your own personal world. Such self-confidence is enviable."

"There's no need to praise me too much." Rin said. "That's only what I believed when I went into the War. Since then, however, I've been forced to face the fact that there are in fact things I desired... things I simply wasn't able to admit to myself, because I didn't want to think about them. I didn't want to think that there were things I couldn't control, regardless of my strength and skill, and so I simply pretended they weren't a problem."

Sakura. She'd always appeared okay at school, so Rin had just assumed things were going fine for her. She hadn't made any actual effort to investigate, simply taking as law her father's declaration that Sakura was no longer part of the Tohsaka family. She hadn't had the power to defy her father or Zouken, so she'd simply excluded Sakura from the sphere of her world. Even after her father's death, when she became head of the Tohsaka family and by all rights should have had the right to do as she pleased, she had continued respecting that old, imaginary barrier between their lives and simply looked at Sakura from afar. What had that filthy monster Zouken been doing to Sakura all this time? If only the power of the Grail were capable of saving Sakura from the old vampire's clutches, then... much as it shamed her to admit it, she would take and use that power, even though it meant admitting to her own frailty and impotence in this matter.

"It is only natural." Bazett said. "Most people say they are above temptation, until the time temptation is actually presented to them. Only when faced with it do they realize that there is indeed a price high enough that they would willingly corrupt themselves for it. Rare are those who would truly stick to their professed convictions even in the face of death itself."

"I guess so." Rin said. "What about you, Black Archer? You told me a while ago that you had no wish to offer the Grail. Is that still true, or has fighting in the War changed your opinion?"

"I have no wish, nor even any reason to fight at all." Homura said coldly. "Looking at this world, it is clearly wicked beyond redemption and deserves whatever terrible fate will inevitably befall it. I don't think it would be possible for even the Holy Grail to change this, for it is itself a product of this same fatally flawed world and must therefore be equally imperfect. But even if the Grail did have the power to redeem this world, I still would not consider winning it to be a prize worth the effort. I could hold the Grail itself in my hands, and see only another piece of rubbish. There was once someone I deeply loved who was able to look upon the world, with all of its filth and ugliness and pain and sorrow and tragedy, and forgive it; someone who, even after seeing all of the very worst the world could be, still managed to believe in it and wanted to protect it. In her memory, I became what you'd call a Counter-Guardian, an eternal guardian of the World. But, as you've probably figured out by now, we False Servants were summoned from parallel worlds different from your own. The world she loved, the world I swore to protect... this isn't that world. And while the girl I loved probably would have found things worth saving in this world as well, I am not so kind-hearted as her; I see nothing I wish to protect."

"If you're so unsatisfied with being a Counter-Guardian, you could seek the Grail to use its wish to break your contract with the World." Rin suggested.

"Even in that regard, I have no need of any wish-granting Grail." Homura said. "Service to the World might usually be unto eternity, without even the possibility of hope for an end; but my case is different. My final and most precious Noble Phantasm is an embodiment of a promise by the one I loved that my service will eventually end and, at that time, I will be reunited with her. I am only idly biding my time until that promise is fulfilled, as it certainly must be – for it is a promise guaranteed by the very metaphysical laws of the Universe itself. So no, your War and your Grail mean nothing to me."

"Whatever." Rin said. "I don't really care, so long as you obey my orders."

Any further conversation was interrupted by Red Archer materializing between them.

"Shirou has returned." he reported.

A few moments later, Shirou entered the room, his two Sabers trailing behind him. From the unusually grim expression on his face, Rin immediately knew that he had come bearing bad news.

"What happened?" Rin asked.

"While patrolling the city, I ran into Kotomine." Shirou said. "He told me that the Grail's corruption cannot be fixed. That this War is pointless and can only end in disaster. And that he will oppose us if we attempt to stop it."

Even the normally unflappable Bazett looked disturbed by this announcement.

"Typical." Rin spat through gritted teeth. "That shitty fake priest's gone and shown his true colors, huh? I ought to go down to the Church and beat him senseless."

"That wouldn't accomplish anything." Shirou said. "We need to focus on what to do about the other Masters. Luvia might have believed me when I told her about the problem with the Grail, but I don't think Ilya did; and Zouken is definitely still seeking the Grail for himself. Unless we figure out some way to stop them, there's no telling what may happen. This twisted Holy Grail War needs to end as soon as possible."

Rin sat up straight and composed herself. Just sitting around the house moping wouldn't solve anything. She was a magus, the head of the Tohsaka family, and she needed to behave accordingly. She'd ignored the problem of Sakura for too long – but no longer. As master of her own personal world, she was going to take back her sister and end the Holy Grail War once and for all. That would be her legacy, and it would be far more honorable and respectable than winning a stupid cup for the sake of injured pride.

At long last, Rin Tohsaka knew what she was fighting for.