Mercy is a parasitic virtue.
Alms require paupers. Every proffered loaf demands a starving man to receive it. To forgive your enemies, you first need a few. And before you can help those enemies off their knees and touch their heads in forgiveness, somebody needs to bring them to their knees.
Something to think about, anyway.
I mention it only because Rin and I had just finished the church's daily charity work. She'd "volunteered". Which is to say, Rin had business with me later, and I'd roped her into it.
Her smile had grown strained after the third hour of serving soup to Fuyuki's drug addicts, homeless, and mentally disabled. Their penchant for fondling her hadn't improved her mood.
Rin's eyebrow seemed to have acquired a twitch by the time the last person shuffled out.
I checked my watch.
"Well, that wraps up the charity for the day," I said. "Just another hour before our meeting."
Pause.
"You said Shinji was coming at three o'clock!" she said.
I smiled.
"I may have miscalculated."
"By four hours?"
"I'm nothing if not fallible."
Rin didn't speak to me for a long time.
An hour passed without any sign of our "guest". I occupied the time tapping a thumb on my smartphone, scrolling through white text on a black background. Avatars blinked past the screen one after the other.
"What are you doing?" Rin said.
"Ah, she speaks."
"Shut up and answer the question."
I forced my lips notto twitch upward.
"Playing devil's advocate," I said.
"Playing…what? Gimme that."
She snatched the phone. Her eyes narrowed as she scanned the text.
"You can't be serious," she said.
"Oh?"
Her hand tightened on the smartphone.
"This isn't 'playing devil's advocate', Kirei. It's not even logical. You're just pissing people off!"
I shrugged.
"Sometimes it helps to bring alternative points of view to other people's attention. Forty-seven times."
She rolled her eyes and shoved the phone back into my hands.
Shinji Matou arrived half an hour after that. Pity. I'd have to remove "punctuality" from my list of his potential good points. It was already a short list.
Shinji stood in the narthex, holding his head up as he inspected us. He was well groomed, at least – starched brown school jacket, pants creased just so, his slightly curly hair combed with just a hint of waviness. His smile displayed teeth. Even his fingernails were scrupulously clean, if my reinforced vision was accurate. One might almost have suspected him of vanity.
"You left your Servants at the gate, right?" he said.
"This is a church, Shinji."
He snorted and sauntered up the nave, rapping his knuckles on the pews as he went. Apparently, he didn't realize that I hadn't answered his question. (Not that Joan would have killed him in a church anyway, but still...)
As Shinji walked up the nave, shafts of light from the crosshatched glass windows painted his hair a bluish color. His footsteps echoed off the stucco walls.
He leaned against one of the Ionic wooden columns, hands in his pockets, and smirked his customary smirk.
"Rin?" he said. "What gives? Your skirt's all rumpled."
She glared in my direction.
"That's because somebody invited me four hours early," she said.
"Forgiveness is a virtue, Rin."
"Bite me, Kirei."
Our visitor locked eyes with me. I think Shinji always imagined me as a sort of romantic rival for Rin's affections. Which is hilarious on many levels.
"Too bad you had to bring your 'apprentice', Rin," he said.
He even made little quotation marks with his fingers.
Rin gave him a gentle look and leaned back. She crossed her legs, showing a fair amount of thigh in the process. Shinji licked his lips.
"Just tell me what you want to talk about, Shinji," Rin said. "I'm listening."
That voice could have lulled a caffeinated rabbit into a constrictor's mouth. And again, Shinji's eyes drifted to the skin between Rin's skirt and stockings.
"Um…that note you left in my locker," he said.
"Yes?" she said.
"It's a good idea," he said. "An alliance, I mean. You have a lot to gain from my help…"
Here Shinji paused to flash his teeth. He sat back in a pew and kicked his feet up. They were covered in dirt.
"…and I'm sure I could find a few uses for you, Rin."
Rin's expression didn't change. She was twisting a hair ribbon around her finger, though, and the ribbon was starting to resemble a noose. I took a moment to savor the churning stomach and crawling skin that must have been hiding behind that façade.
"Agreed," she said.
Shinji chuckled. He patted me on the back.
"We-e-e-ellp, Kirei," he said. "I guess that makes you my apprentice, too. At least you won't justbe taking orders from a girl anymore. No offense, Rin."
"None taken, Shinji."
Ah, Rin. You'll ruin your smile if you keep grinding them like that...
"So what were you two doing while you were waiting for me, anyway?" Shinji said.
"Charity," Rin said.
"What, for poor slobs and junkies?"
I placed my own hand on his shoulder.
"Spoken like a true magus, Shinji," I said. "But charity doesn't distinguish between those who have magic circuits and those who…don't."
It took him a moment to catch the emphasis. I know because I felt his shoulder muscles tighten.
He slapped my hand away and walked for the door.
"Oh, and Shinji?" I said.
He stopped, although he didn't turn around. He waved his hand airily.
"What now, Kirei?"
"I recommend abstaining from certain chatrooms for a while," I said. "You never know when some seminary schoolgirl will begin lecturing you about lustful desires."
Shinji's shoulders tensed. He spun on his heel, grinding dirt into the stone floor.
"That loony religious girl was you?"
"I admit nothing."
"Y…you…" he said.
"Though I'm afraid you'll have to work on your technique. It did nothing for me. All take and no give..."
As a healer, I was slightly concerned when Shinji began making strangled, choking noises. After a moment or two more, though, he seemed to master himself. He growled and headed for the door.
"Wait, Shinji!" Rin said.
Shinji's "What now?"came out as a snarl.
Rin looked down. She pushed her fingers together, and blushed slightly. A hopeful smile crossed her face.
"I…I'm glad we're working together, Shinji. See you soon, okay?"
It was a fascinating process, to watch Shinji's snarl curl upward into a smirk. Directed at me, naturally.
"Of course, Rin," he said. "I'll enjoy 'working' with you."
He waved, fiddling his fingers as he did so. And then, he closed the door.
It shut with a bang, and latched.
Rin's smile dropped.
"Hook…" Rin said.
"…line…" I said.
"…and sinker," she finished.
Heaven's Feel is a dangerous game. But it's still a game. A mindless competitor can easily fall into the trap of believing that it's all tactics – or worse, brute force. It's neither. Five considerations govern Heaven's Feel, excluding Rule Zero (a.k.a. "sufficiently advanced magecraft allows you to cheat"):
FIRST: Servants have different strengths. A battle between Servants resembles nothing so much as rock-paper-scissors.
SECOND: Only two Servants will make it to the last battle.
THIRD: Servants and Masters mostly keep their identities secret.
FOURTH: Heaven's Feel isn't chess. Each competitor has his (or her) own private agenda. And weaknesses.
FIFTH: Masters are squishy. Servants aren't.
If you'd only read the second rule, you might initially decide to hunker down and wait for the other Servants to kill each other. But note the first rule. If the wrong enemy Servant survives that selection process, you'll probably end up on the short end of a rock-paper-scissors finale. Only the final battle's pairing will matter.
Which brings us to alliances. If a prudent master keeps one eye on the endgame, he can ally with beatable Master/Servant pairs to take out the greatest threats.
Rin's position was more complicated, since she couldn't benefit from rule #3. Everybody knew who she was. Worse, they knew that she'd summon Gil. An alliance against us was only a matter of time…unlesswe recruited a third Master to help us.
…And this problem, as I'm sure you've already guessed, leads me back to the fourth rule.
Arrogance, insecurity, lust, and a desire for validation do not necessarily blind a person to his own self-interest. Not when taken in isolation. Shinji Matou was merely unfortunate enough to combine the four.
"It was a marvelous performance, Rin," I said. "The blush was a nice touch."
"Of course."
"Though I wonder what you were actually thinking about to produce that blush."
"…S-stop smirking at me!"
Joan materialized behind us.
She'd shed the skirt with the slit down the middle, and now wore a simple blue dress tied up in the front and back. Buttons, she assured me, were an invitation to lust. She'd even covered her hair. I guess you get a little modest when they burn you for wearing men's clothing.
Rin's pet pagan King had adapted a little better to the twenty-first century. He wore jeans, a button-up shirt, and a black and white striped sweatsuit that managed to strike just the right balance between clinging to his figure and looking artfully rumpled.
"Besides, I could say the same about you," Rin said. "If you weren't already my apprentice, I'd worry about working with somebody so manipulative."
"You wound me, Rin."
"That'll be the day."
I sighed dramatically and shook my head. In truth, I'd been planning to do this anyway.
"Joan?"
"Yes, Master?"
Red light glowed on the back of my hand. Rin tensed. The coercive magecraft from Gil's treasury kicked in, and he found himself with a sword in his hand.
"Kotomine!" Rin said. "What d'you think you're—"
"By my first Command Seal," I intoned, "This is my order, Joan: If it looks like I intend to win Heaven's Feel for myself, kill me."
The seal disappeared. A heavy sensation settled in my chest.
Silence. Rin's mouth was open. She leaned over the pew and stared, gripping it with shaking hands. Joan's sword hung in the air where she'd materialized it. She scowled at me. Even Gil seemed to be watching me. An odd expression crossed his face.
I smiled and rubbed my hands together.
"So!" I said. "Now that we've gotten that out of the way, who's up for Mapo tofu?"
Nobody was.