Fate/first order derivative
Part II.3
ZZRRRP
⇒ download censored
ZZRRRP
⇒ continue: iteration 25, day 3, late afternoon
YyyyyyyyyyYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHH - AAAGHHHH - AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGHHCKK...
⇒ it's okay it's okay
⇒ you're safe now
⇒ you're safe
ULLCHK - UCCCK - UCCCK...
⇒ just breathe
FUH. Fuh. Hckk... nightmare? Was... it was just a dream? Oh thank fucking God. What the fuck. What the everliving... shit, my head. Hurts...
... where am I?
⇒ find out
I open my eyes. Unfamiliar ceiling. I'm lying on a mattress. I sit up, my head pounding like a motherfucker. I know this place. Looks like I'm on one of the sickbeds inside the nurse's office. How'd I get here?... I pull the curtain open. On the other side, Ms. Taiga Fujimura - one of the teachers - leans back in a chair, sound asleep, snoring like a chainsaw. Aside from her, the whole room looks deserted.
My eyes are wet. Wait... was I crying? Why was I crying? There's a box of tissues set out next to the bed. I grab one and wipe my eyes.
⇒ she's a schoolteacher
⇒ her
⇒ are you serious
Yeah. She's not bad, actually. She's just... well... kinda a ditz when she's off the clock, or so I've been told. I reach out to poke - wait, no. I also heard she was some kind of martial arts prodigy growing up. I pick up the box of tissues and tap her gingerly on the forehead.
"Five more minutes," she mumbles.
Oh, for... I toss the box of tissues on her lap.
"GYAAA I'M NOT -" She wakes up, flailing her arms around like a Muppet. "Wha... oh, Tomonaga. You're awake. Good. How do you feel?"
"Okay, I guess? My head hurts." I rub the side of my head. Feels bumpy at that point. Did I get hit there or something? "Where is everyone?"
"They went home, silly. School ends early today, remember?" She yawns. "I owed the nurse one, so she asked me to stay behind and watch you. Dang pool shark... God, what time is it? Am I late for dinner?" That's one thing about Ms. Fujimaru. She seems to get real lax when she's hungry.
I knead my temples. "Sensei, what am I doing here?"
"You don't remember?"
"Not really?" I squint. "I was... talking to someone, I think? And -"
Then I remember. I remember everything.
Oh, God.
⇒ breathe
⇒ focus on the present moment
⇒ those aren't your memories
Not a dream. These are hers... my headache flairs. I clutch my temples.
But Ms. Fujimaru is saying something. "- Sakura Matou. She said you were talking in the hallway when you sorta randomly freaked the fuck out. Just fell on the ground, screaming and flailing. Like you were havin' some kinda seizure. That ever happen to you before?"
"No." But I can't say I'm surprised. These memories... fucking hell...
She shrugs. "So Sakura called for help. When we couldn't wake you up, we hauled you over here."
"Uh-huh..."
"You kinda scream like a little bitch, by the way," Ms. Fujimaru adds brightly. "Anyone ever tell you that?"
Okay, now that's just uncalled for. I glare at her. "And you didn't call an ambulance or something?"
"Nah."
You know, sometimes, this school seems really messed up. And speaking of messed up... shit. Sakura. What a goddamn nightmare...
⇒ don't
⇒ don't let yourself get sucked in again
Right. You're right. That'd be bad. I try and shove it into the back of my mind.
"Hey, don't look at me. I don't make the policies here." Ms. Fujimaru coughs. "So anyway. Do you feel like you can, y'know, walk and stuff? I can call your parents if you want."
"I... think so?" My head still hurts, but otherwise, everything feels like it's in working order. I try standing up. That seems fine...
"Great. Because once you're up, they told me to kick you out and lock up here." She pauses and puts a finger on her chin. "Oh, and there was something else I was supposed to do... what was it again?"
"A full battery of neurological tests?" I take a few experimental steps. A little wobbly at first, but that doesn't last.
She snorts. "No, silly. Are you kidding? I'm not even authorized to pick up a frigging tongue depressor around here. Not since that one time, anyway... oh, right!" Ms. Fujimaru snaps her fingers. "Sakura asked me to tell you something."
I blink. "Really? What?"
"She just wanted to say she was sorry. That's it."
⇒ wtf
I stare at her. "... she's sorry?"
"Yep. Didn't say what for."
"She's sorry," I repeat dumbly. "She's sorry." It's so absurd, I almost want to burst out laughing. Or maybe puke. Could go either way.
"That's what she said." Ms. Fujimaru tilts her head contemplatively. "She looked kinda upset when she said it? So I'm pretty sure she actually meant it. As opposed to... y'know."
Unpleasant things click together inside my head. Oh, God. That whole ambiguous sarcasm/flat affect thing Sakura does? It's not a choice on her part. She has to talk like that, because if she expresses herself in any other way or raises her voice or whatever while she's at home, then...
... shit!
⇒ don't get pulled in
It's okay. I'm okay! It's just... all this time... it's been like that for her. And none of us knew. No one asked. No one did anything for her. No one raised a finger.
But she's the one who's sorry.
I don't laugh or puke. Instead, I find myself blinking back tears. Yeah. That feels about right.
⇒ breathe
⇒ let it happen
Ms. Fujimaru studies me. I guess certain signals are so obvious, they can even get past her hunger-induced apathy. "... are you sure you're all right? I can call your parents. It'll just take a second..."
"I'm fine," I lie. "I gotta go." Before she can question me any further, I turn and leave the nurse's office. I head for the nearest exit. As soon as I'm out of the building, I start to run.
⇒ hurry
I run all the way to the Tohsaka place. I bang on the door until Rin answers. She stares at me. I must look like hell. I feel like it.
I swallow. "We need to talk."
⇒ tell them
I first let Rin confirm my whole memory-hacking thing, since I forgot to mention that back on Friday. Didn't seem relevant then.
Then I talk.
I talk until my throat goes raw. I talk until I run out of words. I unpack every last hideous thing I saw inside Sakura Matou's head. Every terror, every horror, every atrocity. It takes a while.
When I'm done, I just rock back and forth in my chair, hugging my knees. We're upstairs in Rin's living room. It's dark outside the windows. Sun set a while back. A tea kettle and some cups sit cold and abandoned on the coffee table.
"So... what do we do?" I finally rasp.
No one answers me. Shirou looks kind of sick. Maybe he's just overwhelmed by it all, or he's reached some kind of place beyond normal anger and outrage. It's hard to tell. At some point while I was talking, Archer materialized in the room. He slouches over against the wall now, his expression unreadable.
"There's nothing I can do," Rin says.
She stands with her back to us over on the other side of the room, her arms folded behind her. The very picture of composure.
I stare at her. "What."
"To be more specific," she continues, "you two can do whatever you like. Saber, too. I won't stop you. But I can't help you this time. Neither can Archer."
"But - Tohsaka!" Shirou sounds shocked, almost hurt. Archer doesn't say anything, but he turns his head away.
"Are... are you goddamn KIDDING me?" I try to shout, but my voice gives out halfway through. "Do you think I'd make all this shit up? This is real. You can't just sweep it under the carpet and pretend it doesn't exist!"
She keeps her back to me. "It's not that simple."
"How?!" My voice cracks again. "How is it not that simple?!"
Rin sighs. "Listen. Sakura Matou is my biological sister."
That shuts me up.
"When my father was still alive," Rin says calmly, "it was agreed that she would be adopted by the Matous, in exchange for certain concessions. The Matous are an old family. Their talent for magic has been declining for generations. They needed a heir. The contract stipulated that Sakura was to become a Matou completely. Under no circumstances were we to attempt to take her back, nor establish any untoward influence over her. As head of the Tohsaka family, it falls to me to keep my house's obligations."
"B-but, but," I sputter. "That should be, like, double reasons for you to do something! Bonus reasons! You're gonna let this slide because of - what? Some stupid piece of paper?!"
"Contracts between mage families don't work that way!" Rin snaps. She pauses, then continues in the same emotionless tone. "As family head, there is a compulsive geas on me to make sure I stick to the terms of the agreement. If I take any action against the Matous on her behalf... if I get too close to her, or talk to her for too long... it could kill me. The spell feedback could even rebound on her. Then I'd be gone, and she'd be even worse off than she was before."
"Tohsaka," Shirou croaks. "That's - that's just insane. You've been living with a gun to your head this entire time?"
She shrugs. "That's what it means to be a mage."
"Wait... hold on." I blink. "That doesn't make any sense. Wouldn't that stop you from fighting Rider?"
Rin goes completely still. "What do you mean?" Shirou asks.
Oh, right. Guess I hadn't really gotten around to that part. What with, you know. All the horrible to get through. "So, yeah... you were right about Shinji not being a mage. Sakura's the one who summoned Rider. Her, uh, grandfather made her." Bluh. Zouken Matou. The less time I spend thinking about that fuck, the better... straight-up goddamn monster, that's what he is...
⇒ focus
I shake my head. "Thing is, she didn't want anything to do with the war. So they found some way for her to hand control over to Shinji." Something involving a book, I guess? That part's kind of fuzzy. "Anyway. If you can't send Archer, that means Servants count as, like, tools or whatever as far as this contract's concerned, right? But then... wouldn't fighting Rider be basically the same as fighting Sakura? That would count as you interacting too, wouldn't it?"
Rin unfolds her arms. She lets her hands fall to her sides.
"Look, it doesn't matter how that stuff works," Shirou says. "If Sakura can somehow take back control of Rider, that makes getting her out of that house a lot easier." I can tell from the way his eyes scan back and forth that he's already thinking up battle plans.
"That's presuming she's willing to go against the will of her family," Archer growls.
"Well... yeah. Why wouldn't she?"
Above our heads, the lights flicker and dim.
Archer sighs. "The psychology of this kind of situation can be complex. Sometimes, victims may even come to identify with their captors. It's a way of coping with repeated trauma over long periods of time."
Shirou narrows his eyes. "What are you saying? How would you even know something like that's happened to Sakura?"
The temperature of the air around us suddenly drops.
"I don't. I'm just saying it's possible. You can't always count on a hostage being in the right frame of mind -"
"Uh... guys?" I whimper.
The room begins to shake. No - the entire house. One of the forgotten teacups vibrates off the edge of the coffee table and falls. It bounces off the carpet and freezes in mid-air, its contents hanging in an arc above the floor.
Rin laughs. It's not a pleasant sound.
White-hot lines of energy glow through the sleeves of her sweater. The wind in the room picks up. Darkness and flashes of lightning collect around her. There's this pressure in the air - the feeling of years of suppressed emotions being released all at once.
It is legitimately the most terrifying thing I have ever witnessed. And remember - I'm speaking as a repeat visitor to the apocalypse here.
Rin turns to us, her head tilted at a strange angle, her eyes shining bright red. Tears trail down the sides of her face. She wears a huge, utterly insane grin.
"GRAIL WARS," she says, her voice magnified and distorted a hundredfold, "ARE EXEMPT FROM THE CONTRACT. IF SHE'S A MASTER, SHE'S MINE."
⇒ jesus
I'm already hiding behind my chair. Shirou grips the arms of the couch, his face pale. Even Archer looks freaked out. His eyes shift around the room like he's scanning for an exit.
"SHIROU." Rin's grin grows wider. Crap. Is she floating? I think she's floating, just slightly above the floor. "CALL SABER NOW. AS SOON AS SHE'S HERE, WE'RE GOING OVER TO THE MATOUS. WE'RE GETTING MY BABY SISTER OUT OF THERE. AND THEN WE'RE GONNA BURN THAT SHITHEAP RIGHT TO THE MOTHERFUCKING GROUND! ANY OF YOU BOYS GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT?!"
"... no?" Emiya says weakly.
"Definitely not," Archer hastily adds.
"You... sure you want to do this, like, now now?" I squeak from behind cover. "Don't want to take some time, think it over, maybe get a plan together -"
"DID I STUTTER?!" Rin roars, her voice like the crash of thunder. A blast of wind sweeps my chair across the room into the wall. I'm left without shelter, staring helplessly into the heart of the storm. "WHEN I SAY NOW, I MEAN RIGHT THE FUCK NOW!"
⇒ skip to: iteration 26, day 3, early night
"... and then we all went to the Matou place and died," I finish.
Once again, we're all sitting in Emiya's kitchen - me, Shirou, Rin, Saber and Archer. Except this is on Sunday night, for a change. Didn't feel up to making the trek out to Rin's. Fortunately, calling her up and mentioning I had information about her baby sister proved more than enough incentive to get them to come to me.
"What, all of us?" Archer asks.
"Yeah." I pull my blanket in closer around me. "Turns out they've got these crazy good wards on the house that countered all of Rin's spells. You and Saber were making progress on breaking through. But then Rider came flying out - on this freaking winged horse - and turned us all to stone with her eyes. Because she's a medusa or something, I guess?" Medusae? Medusi? I forget what the plural is supposed to be. "Anyway, none of us even made it through the front door."
I take another sip of tea from the cup in my gloved hands. Trying to be more careful with the voice this time. Also, from here on out, I'm always wearing gloves. Always.
⇒ to be absolutely clear
⇒ you are wearing actual clothes under that blanket right
Uh, yeah? Of course? Give me some credit. I'm not that far gone. The blanket's just... sort of a comfort thing right now. Helps me stay calm.
Anyway, it's kind of interesting how different everyone's reactions are. Shirou's the one who's angry this time around, for instance. Halfway through my report on Sakura's memories, he got up and put his fist through one of the walls. None of us said anything. For her part, Rin just looks pale and tired. She hasn't done her whole Galadriel bit yet. I guess me telling her about the contract exemption up front took the wind out of her sails. (Or maybe she can only do that stuff inside her own home? Not going to pretend that wasn't a reason I asked them to meet me here instead.)
"If there are defenses," Saber says, "would it not make sense to liberate her while she's away from the house? For instance, while she's at school?" Her voice is as calm as ever, but there's this look in her eyes that makes me think someone's gonna die before too long. Heroes, you know? Put a damsel in distress in front of them, shit gets real.
"Fuck." I slap my forehead. "We can't. I forgot - this was her last day in school. After today, she calls in sick for the rest of the week." Her grandfather's doing, no doubt.
"What?!" Shirou slams his hand down on the table. "Then why didn't you tell us sooner?!"
"Hey, screw you, man!" I retort. "I've got the highlight reel from ten years of abuse inside my head! Which - just FYI? Includes sensations. I think I'm doing pretty damned good here, all things considered!"
As good as it gets, anyway. To be honest, I spent most of the last two days huddled in the fetal position inside of my room, alternately screaming and crying my eyes out. But it's not like there's a metric for something like this, right?
⇒ there really isn't
⇒ you sure you're up for this
No. But... I want to do something. I need to do something, you know? Knowing that everything I saw is still going on, right now, as we sit here talking... that almost hurts as much as the memories do. So I get where Shirou's coming from here. Even if he is kind of being a dick about it at the moment.
Shirou opens his mouth to fire back. Before he can, Rin speaks up. "I just wanted to believe she was happy," she says quietly, her voice hollow. She stares out into space. "Why... how could I let myself be so wrong?"
The room goes quiet. Shit. I take it all back. Bring on Galadriel. This is worse. Shirou reaches out to touch her elbow, then hesitates.
⇒ try to keep them focused on the now
"You didn't know," I finally say. Which sounds pretty lame, but it's all I can think of. "None of us did. Now that we do, though... how do we make up for lost time?"
"We're at a tactical disadvantage." Archer folds his arms. "Even putting aside the wards and Rider, the enemy controls the terrain. We have no way to know what kind of traps they could have waiting for us inside."
Oof, fuck. That's a good point. I mean, the Bug Room alone... I flash back to the image of a milky-white centipede the size of a horse, its jaws reaching out for my - her - eyes, and shudder.
"There's a reason invading a mage's lair is usually considered suicide," Saber agrees. "We need something to level the playing field."
"I've been thinking about that." I put my teacup down on the table. "If we're gonna do this... we need to break out the big guns."
AUTHOR'S NOTES
Those familiar with Unlimited Blade Works might notice that I've deviated from the source material here. In the canon route, Sakura continues to go to school throughout the story. Even when her brother specifically targets the school and tries to kill everyone there. Including her. In spite of her being... you know... THE ENTIRE KEY TO HER GRANDFATHER'S PLANS. I mean, seriously, Zouken? Shinji even claims the whole plot was your idea. Does shit planning just run in the family, or was the worm in charge of logical thinking on break that day, or what?
The binding magical contract/geas between the Tohsakas and the Matous is my way of making sense of Rin's behavior with regards to Sakura. (I mean, yeah, I know, she's being a loyal daughter and following her dad's orders... but Sakura is the only family she has left. She might not be ready to take on Zouken, but c'mon. Why wouldn't she try to cheat things where she could, unless there was something actively preventing her from doing so? - And yes, Rin can be pretty self-centered. But in this case, I'd argue that's even more of a reason for her to abandon or evade the agreement with the Matous whenever she felt like it.) In case Rin wasn't being entirely clear in the heat of the moment, the idea is that there was an exception built into the contract that would still allow the families to fight against each other in a Grail War. Basically, if both Rin and Sakura directly participate in the war by summoning Servants, the terms of the contract are temporarily rescinded so that they can fight/interact with each other as they please... up to and including, say, Rin gleefully nuking the Matou household and reclaiming Sakura as family. (So why doesn't she consider doing this in canon? Because she's usually not aware that Sakura's a Master.) Yeah. Zouken probably shouldn't have left that particular contingency quite so open-ended...
And yes, the contract really should have included some sort of clause making it null and void in the case of Sakura being mistreated by the Matous. Tokiomi might have been a snappy dresser and a decent mage, but a good negotiator? Not so much, I'm afraid.
Edit: Decided to try and rein in Rin's big scene a little more. Didn't really work, but I like this better anyway.
