Fate/first order derivative
Part I.7

⇒ continue: iteration 16, day 2, evening

"You knew Uncle Shin?!"

"Keep it down!" Rin hisses, glancing to either side. "I have neighbors, you know?"

"Sorry, just -" I run my hands through my hair. "Rin, this is huge. Messing around with my uncle's tech is what got me into this whole mess. If he -"

"Hup bup bup!" She wags her finger at me. "When did I say we were on a first-name basis?!"

"Oh. Right, right. Sorry, Tohsaka." I flush and look away.

"That's better."

"So... um..." I scratch the back of my head. "... still. How did you know my uncle?"

"He was an acquaintance of my dad's." Rin leans against the doorframe. "At least, that's what he told me. I met him for the first time at the funeral."

"Wait... as in, your dad's funeral?"

"Mmh." She brushes back her hair. "Then after my mom died, he started coming by to check in on me every now and again. Help me out around the house with things I didn't know how to do - plumbing, repairs, stuff like that. Took me out for ice cream sometimes. That kind of thing."

"Wow. I had no idea..." Wait, so both of her parents are dead? Shit... I guess it'd seemed weird to me before how empty her house felt. But I'd just figured her family must've been at work or out of town or something... "So then what?"

"Then nothing." Rin shrugs. "He had to stop coming when he got sick. Then he died. I presume you know about that, at least."

"Well, yeah..." There's no way this could be a coincidence. "So your dad was a mage, right? If he knew Uncle Shin... is there any chance he could have taught him about magic?"

"Absolutely not!" She rears up and crosses her arms. "Do you have any idea what the penalties for revealing secrets to normies are?! My father would never have risked dishonoring the Tohsaka name in such a way! And I never told Shin anything either, before you ask!"

"Okay, okay!" I hold up my hands. The way she's reacting, you'd think I accused her dad of being a war criminal or something. "Well... what if Shin was a mage? You said Magic Circuits can just randomly pop up in families, right?"

"Impossible," she snaps. "I would have sensed it. Even when I was a kid."

"You didn't sense me."

"That's because you're..." She hesitates. "Oh, there's no nice way to say this... your Circuits are so malformed, there's no way you could ever become a real mage. Even if Shin had been a rando like you, Father wouldn't have seen him as worth training. There'd be no point. You wouldn't even provide much as a sacrifice."

I try to ignore that last part and translate her lingo into terms I'm more familiar with. Sounds like normie means Muggle, and rando means... I don't know... some combination of Mudblood and Squib, I guess? "Listen, Rin - I think Shin might've been researching magic stuff..."

"What did I just say about first names?!"

"Well, sorry!" I throw up my hands. "It's just shorter. One syllable instead of three, you know? That's the only reason I keep doing it."

"Oh, well, in that case! Should I just start calling you Tom then?" she demands. "Just to keep things snappy?"

"Well, I mean, you could." I rub the back of my neck. "It'd just be weird, because no one does."

"Whatever." She rolls her eyes. "Don't push your luck, Tomonaga."

⇒ getting kind of off-track here

"So training's out," I say. "Could your dad have just talked to Shin about magic without breaking the law? If he was like me, I mean?"

She shakes her head. "I still can't see it. Randos might be a legal gray area, but it'd still look bad to the Association. Not to mention, most people frown on talking about craft with anyone outside the established families, much less with the uninitiated. Our standing would've suffered if Father had been found out. I can't see him risking it."

I blink. "So... why are you talking to me, then? Or Shirou?"

"Shirou's not uninitiated!" Her ears turn red. "His father showed him some things. And I wouldn't be talking to you if your situation wasn't so unique. And... well..."

She looks away. "... maybe I'm doing it for Shin."

I guess that makes sense. "... well, thanks. I appreciate it."

Rin shakes her head. "He really did help me out a lot back then. And he never let me pay him for any of it. I can't stand the idea of being in someone's debt." Her voice softens. "I miss him, you know?"

I nod slowly. "Yeah. Me, too."

There's a moment of silence. The sun's getting low.

"Though, dear God, was he gay," she adds.

"Oh yeah."

"Such a huge queen. Just massive."

"Yep," I agree. "Proud of it, too."

She looks away and smiles. Dammit. She looks so beautiful right now it honestly hurts.

⇒ ...
⇒ let's move on


⇒ skip to: iteration 16, day 3, morning

I run over to Shirou's before school because I totally forgot to mention the whole him-getting-stabbed-in-the-arm-today thing. As a result, Saber wants to come with us to keep an eye on him. Shirou insists that she stay and rest, though. (Not entirely sure why, honestly?) He winds up winning out in the end, but promises he'll magically summon her with a Command Seal if things look serious. Because I guess that's a thing they can do.


⇒ skip to: iteration 16, day 3, night

After school, I head back for dinner, then go over to Emiya's to keep practicing the meditation stuff. Shirou's not there. It takes a while for him to show up - this time with a wound on his other arm. "Still?" I ask.

"What else was I supposed to do?" Shirou shrugs. "It was headed right for Rin's head."

Saber's clearly not happy. "I believe this illustrates my point from before, Master. With the other Servants on the move, it is a tactical error for you to travel unescorted."

"All right, all right." Shirou rubs the back of his head. "I guess you can come with me to school tomorrow. I'm not sure how I'm going to explain it to the teachers, though..."

"I am certain you will think of something."

"Oh, and Tomonaga..." Shirou fishes a thousand yen note out of his pocket and hands it to me. "Rin asked me to give you this."

"Aww, yeah." I grin and snatch the bill. "Easy money." See? Knew it was nothing to worry about.

⇒ still wouldn't underestimate her

Right, right. She's still a scary lady. Her dere is starting to show, though.

I'd brought the detector with me for Emiya to take a look at. We sit down on either side of it on the floor of the tool shed. "Okay." I rub my hands together. "Let's fuckin' do this thing."

He eyes me. "You really like to swear a lot, don't you?"

"Oh, yeah." I scratch the back of my head. "Sorry, I can try to tone it down if you like. It's kind of a family habit, so I forget sometimes."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, my dad doesn't really care." I shrug. "And my mom... see, when they first met, she was in the Ground Self-Defense Force? And her unit spent a lot of time training with the US Marines, so..."

⇒ that is a half-truth and you know it

Oh, what am I supposed to say? That Mom was a former delinquent? You know she hates it when I tell people about that.

"I think I get the picture. Trace on," he mutters. He puts his hand on the detector. "... huh." He furrows his brow. "That's weird."

"What is?"

He takes his hand off the machine and examines it. "I'm definitely channeling mana into it... but I'm not getting anything back. Like it's a black box or something."

I think for a second. "Let me try something." I take the battery out of my bag and wire it to the detector. "Try it again."

He puts his hand on it again. This time, three lights come on. One green, two blue. G-Energy.

"I'm still not getting a response." Shirou glances at the lights. "What do those mean?"

"It means it's official," I say. "My uncle built a working mana detector."


⇒ skip to: iteration 16, day 4, early night
⇒ so someone was asking if you've thought about ways to exploit the loop yet or not

Huh? How do you mean?

⇒ like how bill murray learns to play the piano and stuff

Oh, so now you remember the movie. You're talking about using the loop to level grind on skills, right?

⇒ bingo

Well, isn't that kinda what I'm doing? (Trying to meditate, BTW/FYI, this is less than helpful.) Aside from that, sure, I'll admit the thought's occurred to me. The thing is, though - what would I even want to learn?

⇒ is this gonna be like picking out a college major

I mean, most of the stuff I'm interested in, I already know how to do. I just want to know how to do them better. And I'm not sure I can get much further just studying on my own. Sooner or later, I'm going to need to ask someone questions, you know?

⇒ you could learn how to fight
⇒ just throwing that out there

Yeah, about that... there's not a whole lot of point in exercising if my body resets every three days. And even if - I dunno - I got Saber to show me some kenjutsu stuff or whatever, would that even transfer?

Huh. Actually, that brings up a good question. I wonder if muscle memory comes along with my mind when the loop resets. Or does it stay with the body? I don't actually know how any of that works. The neuroscience of it or whatever.

⇒ probably worth looking into

Yeah, I wonder how I could test that... maybe try picking up a new video game? Something simple like Tetris. See if that transfers?

Anyway - that said, I don't know if I'm really cut out to be a fighter. And I'd frankly prefer to spend my time researching Uncle Shin's tech or magic or whatever else I need to do to find a way off this stupid fourth-dimensional merry-go-round. I'm already bored out of my skull repeating the same exact classes over and over again. I don't know if I'm willing to go through that another dozen or so times just so I can learn to carve a penguin out of ice with a chainsaw.

⇒ well if you need ideas for how to use this
⇒ there have to be other stories about time loops right
⇒ maybe take a look at some of those

Can't think of too many off the top of my head, actually. There was an episode of Star Trek, I think?

Oh. And I've heard of some fanfics that use it as a plot device. Never really read any of them, though. They all sounded kind of boring.

⇒ dude too meta
⇒ reel it back in

Huh? I have no idea what you're talking about sometimes, you know that? - But it's like... if it's just a character going through the same events all over again, what's the point? Don't you already know what's going to happen? Where's the suspense?

⇒ so you're saying that you need a story to surprise you

Kinda? I guess it's more that I need to feel like there's some possibility the heroes could lose, you know? Otherwise, there's no tension.

⇒ careful what you wish for

... what's that supposed to mean?

⇒ look out window

Huh? What do you... oh. Huh.

So I'm meditating in my own room tonight. Shirou and Saber got home from school way late, so I decided not to bother them. (I overheard some rumor about a foreign barbarian punching Shinji Matou across the room? Entirely unrelated, I'm sure.) It's after dark. Looking outside, I see Shirou jogging down the street away from his house. Which is weird.

⇒ what do you mean

I don't see Saber anywhere. After yesterday, I could've sworn she wasn't going to let him out of her sight.

Something doesn't feel right here.

⇒ do you want to go after him

... yeah. Yeah, I better. I mean, I don't have much time before the loop resets. But still... guess I can give it a shot, right?


⇒ skip forward

So in the interest of saving time, I decide to go after Shirou on foot rather than grab my bike. This winds up being a tactical error. I'm not exactly the most physically fit person ever. Emiya, on the other hand? Is a frigging beast. I have no idea how long it takes for me to get within arm's reach of him. All I know is that I want to die at the end of it.

⇒ why not just shout at him

I tried! He didn't react, just kept on going. Yet another point on the bad-feeling-o-meter. Struggling for breath, I grab his shoulder. "EMIYA!"

"... huh?" He finally seems to snap out of it. He stops and gives me a confused look. "What are you doing here? Wait... where are we?"

I'm too busy trying not to vomit to answer, so I just wordlessly flail at our surroundings. At this point, we're in the woods just outside of town, part of the way up the Ryuudou Temple mountain. The path we're on is marked by the occasional streetlight, but it's still dark enough to set off my personal nope-fuck-that alarm.

Shirou looks around. "... where's Saber?"

"I - I dunno," I gasp out. "Back at your house... I think..."

"Really," a familiar voice says. "What a shame."

I swear that I feel my blood freeze inside my veins. I slowly turn.

Just off the side of the path, not four meters away from me, Illyasviel von Einzbern looks down on us from amid the trees. She's sitting on one of Berserker's beefy shoulders, his eyes glowing like the fires of hell.

"I'm disappointed, Shirou." She smiles. "Didn't anyone ever tell you it's not nice to keep a lady waiting?"


AUTHOR'S NOTES

From what I understand, calling someone by their first name is kinda a big deal in Japanese culture. Doing so denotes a degree of - if not exactly intimacy, then at least close friendship. So that's why Rin keeps getting ticked off at Tom at the start of the chapter.

And yeah, sorry for the meta, not gonna make a habit of that. Just couldn't resist when someone in the comments brought up other stories out there that use time loops as a trope. It strikes me as a tricky thing to keep up a sense of dramatic tension going in a scenario like this. What do you think? Am I succeeding? Should I keep going?