Disclaimer: I do not own the Fate franchise it belongs to Kinoko Nasu and Type-Moon.

The Hand of Fate

Chapter 2

Uncle Kaleva was weird. Nice, but weird.

He was very tall, taller than Kirei had been, dressed all in blue with gold buttons down the front of his shirt, with more gold thread along the edges and on his cuffs. Oh, and gold tassel-things on his shoulders. That wasn't really weird though, and Sakura did think it looked very fancy. Rin didn't like to admit it, but she agreed. It looked very fancy while also being very proper for a magus and the head of a house at that.

Uncle Kaleva also spoke Japanese with a strange accent, but that wasn't really weird, either. After all, he wasn't Japanese, he was Finnish, so it was no surprise. That, and at least he was honest about it, which she and her sister could appreciate.

"My apologies if my accent and pronunciation causes difficulty," the man said with a bow. "Unfortunately, I haven't had much opportunity to practice or even learn Japanese, as it's not a commonly-spoken language in Finland or Europe. Fortunately, certain spells exist to grant immediate fluency in foreign languages…but alas, even they have limitations, or rather, a limitation. That is, true fluency can only be obtained by practice, as you and your sister have surely noticed."

Uncle Kaleva also had neatly-trimmed blonde hair, which he claimed was actually quite curly, only it didn't show because he liked to keep his hair well-groomed. He also had a very big mustache, the sight of which had entranced Rin and her sister. It looked very fine, and while she hated to admit it, it certainly looked more…grand, than their father's pointy beard.

That wasn't what made him weird, though. No, what made him weird was his entrance.

Rin and Sakura jolted as they felt the surge of prana. It was…colossal, like someone had turned a faucet only for the whole thing to pop off and sent water pouring uncontrollably out of the pipe behind it.

Then fog began to seep under and around the door to their shared room in the hospital, causing Rin to jump out of bed, Sakura quickly hiding behind her. Meanwhile, the fog kept on coming, coiling around the room over the walls and the ceiling, masking the light coming through the windows and giving the whole room an ethereal, half-lit quality.

Strangely, the fog stayed away from the sister, forming a wide, open space around them and towards the door, or rather where the door should be if the fog wasn't keeping it from sight. Rin narrowed her eyes, feeling the prana saturating the fog, and keeping it under the other magus' control. Between the tight control and the sheer amount…

…this magus was even stronger than their father had been! Even she, who her father had called a prodigy who would one day be the greatest magus their family had ever produced, wouldn't be at this level for at least ten more years. But even so…

…she would protect her sister, no matter what.

Then she and Sakura were jolting again, the latter peering out from behind Rin as music began to play, loud, powerful, and very energetic. Beams of light lanced out from the fog and swept across the room, accompanied by something else: a voice.

"HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!" a man's deep and powerful voice boomed, enthusiastic and confident in the extreme. "Greetings and salutations, my Japanese nieces! Fear not, instead, witness, and be awed! For you stand before the Seventh Head of Edelfelt, Master of Jewel Magecraft, Lord Sorcerer of Frost, Cold, and Snow, Guardian of the Winter Wonderland!"

Rin and Sakura gaped, the latter's expression of fear turning to awe and excitement, and it wasn't long before Rin's expression similarly began to change.

"Though you have lost much in recent days," the voice boomed again, even as a towering shadow loomed in the fog, beams of light lancing out in swirling patterns around it. "Do not lose yourself to despair, for I bring glad tidings! Know that you need not wander this world in fear and loneliness, for family you still have, and we have come for you, that you might come home at long last! Such is the reason for my presence, in the here and now, I, Kaleva, the Lord of Edelfelt!"

With an explosion of rainbow light, a thunderclap that all but blew Rin and Sakura off their feet, Kaleva finally showed himself, posing while diamond dust glittered with laser light around him and electricity ran all over his body.

Sakura squealed in delight, clapping and jumping excitedly. Rin was more restrained, but even so she gaped at her uncle for just a few more moments before shaking her head. "I…I want to do that too…" she muttered, even as Sakura tugged and babbled excitedly at her.

"That was so cool…" Rin lamented as she sat on her bed, while Sakura hummed on the floor nearby, playing with a handful of diamonds their uncle had given her. "...I can't just copy it, I have to make it…my own…special…but how…"

"Hey, big sister?" Sakura began.

"Yes, Sakura?" Rin absent-mindedly began, before blinking and jolting at the smell of smoke. She turned in its direction, and saw Sakura staring at fire slowly spreading over the floor. "Sakura, what did you do?"

"Um…I did magic?" Sakura innocently replied, before blinking and turning as with a whoosh, the flames spread to her bed's sheets. "Wow…the fire's getting big."

"SAKURA!" Rin yelled, scrambling out of bed to pull her sister away and put the fire out.

Elsewhere, Kaleva was busy supervising the looting…

…er, decommissioning of the Tohsaka residence.

"Tacky…just plain tacky…" the Lord of Edelfelt disapprovingly said as he reviewed a collection of paintings being put into storage by a pair of golems. "...I knew Tokiomi's tastes were kitsch at best, but this is ridiculous. These go back to my aunt and uncle's time, and while I cannot speak for the latter, Aunt Fiona should have known better."

"Perhaps…she was indulging her husband…" Kaleva's aide (and apprentice), Hugo Unger, suggested. "...or acting spitefully towards her upbringing?"

"...that…sounds plausible…" Kaleva reluctantly conceded. "...still…even if Aunt Fiona had a rocky relationship with my mother, this seems to go just a little too far…did she truly hate all of us that much…?"

"I…cannot say, my lord." Hugo hesitantly said, and Kaleva sighed.

"No, and I didn't expect you to." he said. "I don't blame you, though. In any case, it's all in the past now. The best way to honor the past, or to redeem it, as it were, is to live up to tomorrow's promise. I'm sure my nieces would do quite well in that regard. Oh? And what have we here?"

Kaleva rubbed his hands expectantly as another pair of golems brought a chest with them, and set it down in front of Kaleva. The man's eyes lit up as he sensed the weight of the mysteries woven into the chest, and he realized what it was.

"The Wizard Marshal's chest…" he muttered in awe. "...so the rumors were true…there is much we can learn from this…but what is inside?"

The answers turned out to be lots of paper, as well as a fossil of some kind, how very strange (and tasteless), which Kaleva tossed to a golem. If nothing else, it might be worth a few thousand euros, or maybe a plaque at a museum. Certainly, it paled in comparison to some of the papers, which if Kaleva's deduction was correct, were encoded schematics, technical data, and design notes on the Jeweled Sword of Zelretch.

"To think they were sitting on something like this for so long…" he muttered with a shake of his head. "...how many generations away they would have been…Edelfelt, not so much. It might even be in Luvia's abilities to construct the Jeweled Sword…"

A very small chance, in truth, but even so, Kaleva couldn't help but feel pride at the prospect of his precious little girl successfully replicating the Jeweled Sword. "Thank you, Aunt Fiona." he thought with a small smile. "Even in death and spite, you have brought glory to the family. For even this small chance to claim something of the Wizard Marshal's legacy, I will make certain that your name will once again be mentioned in Edelfelt's records. I have no doubt this would not have been possible had you not given us a link to the Tohsaka family, and as such, your name will be remembered with honor."

Then Kaleva blinked, and reaching into the chest, pulled out a toy of some kind. "No, not a toy," he thought, waving the gaudy wand around. "A mystic code…a very powerful mystic code…another one of the Wizard Marshal's creations? And…it's…snoring? I'm getting a very bad feeling about this…better put it away, and when we get back to Finland, have it sealed in lead engraved with silver wards and bound with chains of meteoric iron…yes…my gut tells me that nothing good can come of this thing…"

Shuddering despite not knowing why, Kaleva put the slumbering Ruby back inside the chest, before turning his attentions back to the papers. Then Hugo was returning, and with a concerned look on his face. "What is it?" Kaleva asked.

"My lord… that is…" he began before leaning in and whispering something into Kaleva's ears. The man blinked, then chuckled before shaking his head.

"Precocious…" he conceded. "...I remember when Luvia cracked a support beam back at the start of her training…as should be expected, from someone with Edelfelt blood…yes, this is fine."

"I'm very sorry!" Sakura said with a very proper Japanese bow.

"I'm really sorry too!" Rin also said with a very proper Japanese bow. "I should have been paying more attention at what Sakura was doing, if I had, the fire wouldn't have started."

Kaleva blinked, and then hummed while running a finger over his chin. Despite himself, his opinions of his late cousin rose by some degree, for all his faults, it seems Tokiomi had raised his children with proper respect for decorum and self-responsibility. Now, if only he hadn't been about to send off his younger daughter to a pseudo-Dead Apostle.

A scion of Edelfelt blood…in the hands of a pseudo-Dead Apostle…

…that was a bad joke.

But…enough about that. "So long as you understand," Kaleva graciously said. "And you do not repeat this mistake in the future, then it's alright. No one was hurt, and in Rin's case, you repaired the damage. So, again, it's alright."

"Um…thank you!" Rin said with another bow, Sakura doing likewise next to her.

"And in Sakura's case," Kaleva continued. "From what I understand, she's received no training at all, and this whole accident was just the result of accidentally pumping prana subconsciously into the gems I gifted you earlier, wasn't it?"

"I…guess…?" Sakura admitted, looking and sounding confused. "I…when I was playing with the gems…they felt…they felt like they were…tugging at me…after a while I wanted to know what would happen if I let them tug me in their direction…so…"

"Interesting…" Kaleva said, again running a hand over his chin. "...may I?"

Sakura responded by handing the gems back, stained with soot but otherwise undamaged. The moment Kaleva's fingers touched the gems, his suspicions were confirmed, but even so, he inspected them further just in case. Nodding in satisfaction, he handed the gems back to Sakura, who looked back at him expectantly.

"It's just that I thought." Kaleva said. "You have an elemental affinity for Fire."

"Eh?" Rin asked in shock. "But father always said that Sakura had no talent for the regular elements, and that she had…um…imaginary something…"

"Ah…that…" Kaleva said with a sigh before sighing apologetically. "...I was hoping for us to get to know each other better, but now that this has come up…might as well come clean. You see…it seems that your father was hiding a very important secret."

"What kind of secret?" Sakura asked.

"Your real abilities." Kaleva replied. "He said Rin was an Average One, and that you had Imaginary Numbers, but that wasn't true. No, you both have Ore Scales, a…magic, unique to my family…or should I say your grandfather's family."

"...but…why?" Rin asked.

"Do you know why magi guard their secrets so tightly?" Kaleva asked back, and Rin nodded.

"Of course I do." she said proudly. "It's because…oh…"

Kaleva nodded as Rin connected the dots. "Yes," he said. "If we found out, I'd have come sooner. I assure you, though, even if we had, I wouldn't have hurt you or you parents, and instead tried to come to a fair agreement with them. We're still family after all, and we have to look out for each other."

"But…daddy…didn't think so…?" Sakura softly asked, and Kaleva sighed again.

"Unfortunately," he said. "Family sometimes fight each other…my mother, and your father's mother, both…well, they argued a lot. That's why your grandmother eventually left, and married your grandfather. Your father must have thought that the grudges from back then would cause too much trouble, so…he did what he did."

"I…see…" Sakura said.

"But what does Ore Scales do?" Rin asked after a moment.

"It allows two people at a time to inherit a single crest." Kaleva said, smiling as Rin's mouth fell open in shocked realization. "Normally, it's possessed by twins, but you and your sister have a very small age gap between you, enough that it synced the two of you together…yes, Rin, did you know you were very sick as a baby?"

"Yes." Rin said with a nod. "That's why Sakura was born so soon, in case something happened to me."

"Well, it seems that's why you were sick in the first place." Kaleva explained, Rin's eyes going wide in realization as he did so. "Your magic was looking for your other half, and when it couldn't find it, it was going out of control, tearing you up from the inside. The same would have happened to Sakura…except right after she was born, your magic immediately latched onto each other, fixing the problem. And that's also what caused…the curse…"

"...the one that killed daddy…and Mister Kirei…" Sakura softly said.

"...yes." Kaleva said after a moment. "From what I can see, both of your magic remembered how Rin here couldn't find yours until you were born…and after you latched onto each other, created the curse to make sure you couldn't be separated. It stayed dormant, quiet, asleep, until the day Matou came to take you away. Sakura, let me guess: you felt very…unhappy back then."

Sakura looked down, hands going up to tightly hold onto herself. "...I didn't want to go…" she whispered. "...I didn't want to lose big sister…mommy…daddy…I didn't want to never come home again…no matter what daddy said…I…"

"...yes, that's what happened." Kaleva said after another moment. "Extreme emotional instability…it sparked the curse to life, and to protect you both, to keep you together…it killed everyone around you."

Sakura sniffled. "I'm sorry…I'm so sorry…" she sobbed, tears falling from her eyes. "...I didn't want to hurt anybody…"

"Sakura…" Rin said, hugging her sister tightly, and then looking up as Kaleva approached and knelt down before them both.

"It's not your fault, Sakura." he gently told her. "Like you said, you didn't want to hurt anybody. You didn't even know the curse existed, and I don't think your father and his apprentice knew either. But…magic is…mysterious…dangerous…things like this just happen…and sometimes, all you can do is keep moving forward, and make it count for something."

"...I don't want to hurt anybody." Sakura repeated after wiping her eyes.

"Hmm…" Kaleva hummed, knowing that just wasn't possible when it came being a magus, while using a kerchief to wipe Sakura's face. "...so long as you and your sister are together, then the curse will stay quiet. Remember that."

Sakura and Rin nodded, and then with a nod of his own, Kaleva got back to his feet. "Now then," he said. "Shall we go? I'm sure you don't want to stay in this hospital forever, and your grandparents want to spend as much time with you as they can before we have to go to Finland."

"Okay!" the sisters chorused, and Kaleva smiled.

"Will they really be alright?" Grandfather Zenjou asked while Rin and Sakura were off washing their hands.

"I will make certain of it." Kaleva said. "At the very least, you can be certain we won't be separating the sisters from each other, the way Tokiomi was planning."

The old man frowned. "Tokiomi meant well…" he began, and Kaleva inclined his head in understanding.

"I'm sure he did." he conceded. "But good intentions only count for so much. And from what we're getting about what the College of Law found in the Matou residence, suffice to say, the deaths of all those involved are a blessing in disguise."

Grandmother Zenjou bristled at that, and forcing her husband to grab a hand and squeeze. "How can you say that?" he asked.

Kaleva narrowed his eyes. "Then," he began coldly. "Would you say that you are unconcerned about the possibility of a five-year-old girl being infested with parasitic families, introduced orally, intravenously, intramuscularly, and possibly even vaginally and anally?"

Gasps of horror went up at that, and Kaleva scoffed. "I thought not." he coldly continued. "There's more, but I would not wish to darken this evening even further."

"I…we…that is…" Grandfather Zenjou spluttered out.

"Rest assured," Kaleva simply said. "The children will be looked after, their talents properly honed and harnessed, and most importantly, they will be with family. They will be loved. They may even contact you if they wish, and if they wish to visit, arrangements can be made, within reason."

"I…see…" Grandfather Zenjou said with a sigh. "...then…I suppose it truly is out of our hands, and all we can do is entrust their future with your and your family. But…will they be unable to attend their parents' funeral?"

"The funeral will be at least a month away." Kaleva replied. "The police are still investigating their deaths, and while the Association is working to keep it mysterious, it's actually best to let these peter out on their own. Too much intervention will only draw more attention. Once the bodies are released from police custody, then of course, arrangements will be made for the sisters to return and attend their parents' funerals."

"I see." Grandfather Zenjou said with a nod.

"And it's not as if we can really do anything about it either." Grandmother Zenjou said with just a touch of bitter venom. Grandfather Zenjou immediately tried to calm her down, but not quickly enough for Kaleva's eyes to narrow in her direction.

"No, you do not." He coldly said, in a tone and look that ensured no doubts could be had about this.

"We're back!" Rin and Sakura chorused, the sisters' cheerful presence immediately dispelling the cold and gloom around the table. "And just in time too!"

Rin's words were proven when waiters arrived with their orders, the family having Italian tonight, pizza, pasta, and bread in plentiful servings, and done to more than match Kaleva's high standards.

"A solid ending then…" he thought as he finished off a serving of bread. "...but not until we get back to Finland, and Luvia can bring these two under her sway. She, not I, will be their liege, as it should be."

A/N

On one hand, I don't really think Kaleva would so flamboyantly/extravagantly introduce himself to other people, it's just that when it comes to children, a bland and uninspiring normal introduction would put them off to a rocky start. This way, the sisters are immediately awed and drawn to their uncle.

But on the other hand, considering how Luvia is always so flamboyant and fabulous…well, you get the idea.