Chapter Text
- - -✞ - ❁ - ✞ - - -
Rin was eight years old.
Tokiomi Tohsaka was her father and a great mage. It was only natural he would take in an apprentice.
Rin wished he didn’t have to be so bland and unsmiling though.
She had been playing with Sakura her sister that afternoon when Kirei, the apprentice, came by to pick up a package that her father wanted delivered to the Mage Association. Rin was playing roughly again and a wrong step caused her to trip and fall by some thorny bushes. Sakura immediately started crying on her behalf, while Rin tried to act more grown-up.
The eldest daughter refused to admit she was hurt.
Kirei had walked over to her then to inspect the two girls for a few moments before he bent down on one knee and ran a palm over Rin’s wounded leg. She winced at the contact and stared at his blank expression the entire time as she felt him heal her up.
Sakura was overjoyed. She smiled kindly and thanked Kirei. The apprentice said nothing, his expression unchanged, before he stood up. Addressing Rin, he merely said, “You should be more careful, Rin-san. It’s unbecoming of a Tohsaka to be so reckless.”
Rin's cheeks burned as she gathered herself from the grass, eyeing the man angrily. She ended up shouting indignantly, “Don’t tell me what I can or cannot be! YOU’RE NOT MY DAD!”
Sakura hid behind her back the entire time as Rin stepped forward. Her rage was quite the effective anchor as she pointed at Kirei with an accusatory finger next. “GO AWAY! I don’t need your help anyway! I could have taken care of it myself!”
Kirei’s eyes held neither light nor warmth. She was beginning to find that frightening. Still, she swallowed the anxiety and shielded Sakura.
“And why is someone from the Holy Church learning magecraft anyway? You’re either a fake mage or a fake priest! Which one are you!” She huffed then puffed her cheeks as she shouted at him: “YOU FAKER!”
“Nee-san, please!” Sakura whimpered, clutching at the hem of her dress.
Kirei said nothing. His eyebrows were raised, however, as he looked down at Rin, almost as if she was a new creature altogether that he couldn’t figure out. In retaliation to his neutral disregard of her person, Rin kicked him on the shin. Sakura started pulling her away now, but Rin gave Kirei another kick before she finally turned away.
She grabbed Sakura’s hand so they can leave the creepy man behind.
Rin was eight years old.
Her father was a great mage who had taken in an apprentice named Kirei.
She knew what he was, though her young mind could not articulate it. A Tohsaka must be decisive, and on that day she's decided that she will never ever accept him.
- - -✞ - ❁ - ✞ - - -
A week later her father the great mage gave Sakura away.
Rin was very mature about it. She has to be—if she’s going to become the head of the Tohsaka family one day.
On the day everything changed forever, the dutiful eldest daughter gave her sister a parting gift: it was a pink ribbon she made herself so Sakura will remember her old life.
Kirei stood beside Rin as they all watched Sakura being driven away by someone from the Matou household. Her parents went inside first and didn’t say a word when Rin just stood there by the sidewalk, still looking forlornly at the road even after the car had turned to a corner.
Sakura was gone.
She stood there with her fists clenched, unaware for a full minute that Kirei had also stayed behind until she turned her head and saw him.
“Why are you here?” she demanded, blinking through the tears she told herself were just moisture due to the sunlight shining down on her clouded face.
Kirei didn’t even look at her as he said, “Great things are expected from you, so don’t let the memory of your sister weigh down your future.”
“Shut up!” she shouted, raising her balled fists as if she was ready to fight him. “You don’t know that! Sakura and I will see each other again and we’re going to be great mages someday, just like Father! So you shut your mouth, you fake priest!”
She wanted to kick him again but restrained herself at the last moment. Mastering that self-control was the hardest thing she's ever done when all she wanted was to punish someone, but Rin managed to walk away from him without any further embarrassing display.
A Tohsaka must be dignified, much like her namesake.
That night her father and mother visited her room. They explained that Sakura was now officially a Matou, and so her image must be removed from all their family portraits around the mansion. Rin nodded solemnly, for she also understood that it might be too painful for them as much as it was for her to have any traces of her little sister still linger in their home.
The very next day it was as if Rin had always been an only child.
Neither parent ever had the heart to clearly state what Rin suspected all along.
It was Kirei who did.
The annoying fake priest found her by the thorny bushes again that afternoon. She was in the middle of ripping the plants out with her small hands until they bled. She didn’t care; something much sharper was cutting at her chest, so she needed to hurt something—anything.
Kirei bent down behind her to reach for her until he soon enveloped his larger hands around hers.
He told her in a hushed tone, “You need to forget about her the way your parents are doing."
She opened her mouth to say something but then he added, "Forget you ever loved her.”
Rin’s eyes watered. His despicable tone while he said something so cruel was an unkindness, so she decided right there and then that she should hurt him.
She whirled around violently from his grasp and tried to punch him. He caught her hands and simply told her to stay still so he can administer proper care on her injured fingers.
“Maybe I don’t ever want to be healed!” she insisted, trying to pry him off. “Maybe I’d be—maybe I’d be broken forever!”
There were no words of comfort from a supposed clergyman who's trained to abate the suffering of others. He merely applied healing magic on her hands and then let them go. Rin found herself reaching out for his hands again though, and she squeezed them with all her strength, hoping she could break the digits so he will know what it felt like to be her in that moment.
Kirei knelt before Rin for a few more agonizing minutes as she cried.
“D-Don’t tell any—anyone!” she choked out with eyes shut tightly.
He eventually said once her tears have dried, “No more tantrum fits, Rin-san. It's unfit for a Tohsaka.”
“Shut up, you faker, you stupid face…” Rin wrenched her hands free around his. Almost snarling, she declared: “I will hate you forever!”
“Can you hate me inside your house at least? It’s going to rain.”
He outstretched a hand towards her. Again, his expression barely changed. He looked curious as opposed to sympathetic like her breakdown earlier was a source of amusement. Rin was unnerved by everything about this man and could not understand what her father the great mage ever saw in him.
She didn’t take Kirei’s hand anymore. Instead, she started walking ahead, determined to make sure that the fake priest will not catch her with her guard down ever again.
- - -✞ - ❁ - ✞ - - -
Rin remembered the night Kirei ceased addressing her in a pandering formal way.
He dropped the honorific unexpectedly when he referred to her during an exchange, and so casually at that.
It happened during a dinner with her parents, and she got so flustered about it that she paused eating altogether. That would have been the end of that, but her mother—always with the kind smile and good intentions—turned what should have been a trivial ordeal into a disaster when she remarked upon Rin’s shady silence and refusal to make eye contact.
“Look, dear,” Her mother told her father. There was a twinkle in her eye as she smiled at Rin. “Our little girl is blushing. Could it be because Kirei-san has finally warmed up and now they’re getting along? I think it’s about time they do.”
“Mother, please!” Rin protested. Underneath her, her hands already balled into fists. She didn't care to even look at Kirei sitting across her, afraid to see yet another bland reaction from his stupid face. She suddenly felt like reaching for her fork and maybe stab her hand if that's what it would take for her to be excused from the table.
“Aoi, don’t embarrass her,” her father came to her rescue as he gently dabbed his lips with the napkin. “And don’t shout during meals, Rin.”
His tone was hardly scolding, however, as he met her eyes from the farther side of the table.
Rin just looked down on her half-empty plate and meekly nodded her head with an apology, “Sorry, father. Sorry, mother.”
Her mother started to pick up the conversation again, “So, Kirei-san, how are you enjoying your stay here in Japan? I was told that you were raised in Italy all your life. Is this the first time you’ve ever been here in the country then?”
“Not at all,” Kirei answered in that same dull voice that never failed to get on her nerves. Rin fixed her attention on her meal as she bit into a slice of beef. The man went on, “I’ve been here before during a few visits with missionary work.”
“Missionary work?” her father inquired. “When were you ordained as a priest again?”
“I received my holy orders as soon as my wife passed away,” Kirei explained. “But I had joined my father for missionary work here in Fuyuki prior to that.”
Unable to stop herself, Rin blurted out, “Kirei was married?!”
Her mother was shaking her head with a small smile, “Dearest girl, don’t just interrupt a conversation.”
“Sorry,” Rin hastily replied as she gave Kirei a sour look. Who would marry him?
The apprentice seemed unfazed by her stare, but he met it nonetheless with something akin to amusement in his eyes again.
Somehow Rin can't imagine him ever capable of love, let alone entertain the idea he was loved by a good woman. Yuck!
- - -✞ - ❁ - ✞ - - -
The burial felt like it was happening to someone else’s family, which should explain why the grief stopped being hers after a while.
Rin stood next to Kirei. She couldn't focus on the scenery before her, let alone pay attention to whatever biblical scripture he spouted.
Because of the drizzle, everyone else got umbrellas except for their pair. Rin felt the cold all over, but she had gotten used to it by now. Water from the sky sprinkled the gravestones, and for a moment she imagined that the things rotting below ground will sprout flowers soon. She was once told that more grass and trees flourished in cemeteries than anywhere else.
Now she understood why. She wished she never had to.
Rin’s arm throbbed. Pieces of the crest were embedded now into her magic circuits, so that arm has been wrapped in loose bandages in the meantime. It was Kirei who administered the implantation himself just four days ago. The painful way it persisted in her tissue was a welcome relief. It filled Rin in places where love and light were drained from.
“That was an excellent debut for the new head of the Tohsaka family, Rin.”
She couldn’t help but sulk when she heard his voice above her. He sounded so pleased. It was out-of-place during such a bleak event.
Her mother was wheeled into view next, rambling about nostalgia of days gone which Rin quickly tuned out with a polite remark. Barely able to smile, she gestured at the help to push her mother’s wheelchair towards the grave where her beloved was laid to rest.
Aoi Tohsaka looked happy at least, blissful in her brokenness. Rin envied it, as awful as it sounded. When she looked at Kirei once more, he was saying something to her again.
“There is something you should have,” he held what looked like a long object wrapped in faded bandages. “It belonged to your father.”
Rin found her hands reaching for it, the fingers trembling, while Kirei droned on, “As the new head of the Tohsakas, it seemed befitting that you now own something this precious to your father. It’s something that I think he would have given to you himself on your eighteenth birthday when you become an official adult mage.”
A pause. “I want to honor that in his memory, as you should as well.”
“This…” Rin murmured. She could barely hear herself say, “…was from Father?”
“It’s an Azoth dagger, forged in your father’s own magic.”
Rin's lips parted in amazement as she admired the elegance of the weapon. It was indeed a fine heirloom.
She never stopped watching the way it glinted against the sparse light, even when she sensed that the priest kept his eyes on her too.
What did he see? Did he see what she's beginning to understand about herself now?
A few of her tears fell across the blade.
But a Tohsaka is strong.
She held the Azoth dagger with a tighter grip and swung it hard. It sang in the air, and Kirei smiled.
A Tohsaka is stronger yet when the world wants to shatter what shimmers in beautiful defiance.
Rin laughed for the first time, mirroring her new guardian's glee.
- - -✞ - ❁ - ✞ - - -
Rin was turning ten years old next week.
She didn’t look forward to it.
Her birthdays used to be one of her favorite family occasions. Father would allow her and Sakura to stay by his side as he performed jewel magecraft at his private study. He would shape the jewels into ornaments they could keep for themselves. Mother would always bake blueberry cheesecake and then play the piano afterwards while Rin and Sakura sang along. Rin often got books as gifts which she loved very much, and she would read to Sakura the complicated words her younger sister doesn’t know how to pronounce yet.
She would tell her their meanings and help her spell them out on their notebooks. They would sit by the fireplace, crayons and pencils all around them as they learned things together.
There would be none of that next week.
Father was dead. Mother was hospitalized yet again for another routine check-up.
And Sakura was a stranger who is never coming back.
- - -✞ - ❁ - ✞ - - -
Rin just turned ten years old.
She got home from school that day and saw a generic cake waiting for her by the dining room table.
She didn’t even tell Kirei about the occasion, so she was sort of pissed off that he found out about it anyway. And the nerve of him for buying this cake just half an hour early before she got home! She knew this was the case because she happened to look at the receipt that bore the time stamp of purchase.
Knowing the fake priest, he probably left the receipt laying around the table on purpose.
Kirei appeared then as she sulked, and without missing a beat he unceremoniously stuck a small pink candlestick in the middle of the cake.
He snapped the lighter over it and lifted his eyes to meet hers. The overall countenance of the man was about as festive as the store-bought cake between them; he might as well be in the middle of preparing the host for a communion. The cake he chose, too, lacked dedication or any floral designs. Not even a, 'It's your 10th birthday, Rin'.
But hey, at least it was chocolate. He wasn't that cruel.
“Make a wish.” The fake priest watched her unblinkingly.
After she blew out the candle, she muttered a grumpy, “thanks,” and started walking out of the dining room. It was nothing but formality, and Rin will certainly not bother sampling a slice of his last-minute sympathy cake.
But then Kirei called out to her: “What did you wish for, Rin?”
She said nothing and climbed up the stairs to her room.
The next day she found her birthday cake in the trash. Kirei had sealed it back in the box where it came from and placed the cube, undisturbed, inside the otherwise empty metal container. She took it out and carried it that afternoon all the way to Fuyuki Church where she then dumped the fucking thing on the altar without so much as a hello to the rotten priest.
The truth was that she wished that she’d grow up quicker.
Maybe by becoming an adult everything would start hurting less.
- - -✞ - ❁ - ✞ - - -
She was twelve when she got her period.
Of course the inquisitive Tohsaka heiress was more than familiar by now with how puberty works; she didn’t think it would come this soon, though.
It happened on a weekend, during an ordinary Sunday morning when she woke up feeling rather sticky between her legs. As soon as she sat up to inspect what it could have been, she immediately saw the red droplets scattered across her sheets. In a daze, even though her mind could have easily processed what should be done next, Rin ended up calling out Kirei’s name a few times, sounding somewhat distressed.
Ever since he took over the practical matters of her family’s estate and assumed guardianship, he had been staying at the mansion on the first floor where the guest rooms are. Rin tried to stand up but was overcome by a dizziness she can’t explain that she wobbled all the way to her dresser.
She was already near the door when the knob turned and Kirei came in without so much as a knock. She wanted to throw something at him for this invasion of privacy but recalled that her voice must have sounded panicked earlier when she asked for him. Dammit!
Without another word, Kirei approached her with the same laconic gaze as before even when he asked, “Where does it hurt?”
As usual, there was no concern in his voice, only a measured tone of professional inquiry. Rin, however, was grateful for it in this instance because she was able to answer him just as calmly, “My menstruation has started. I need some sanitary napkins.”
To her horrified shock, Kirei answered. “I stacked them in one of the higher drawers inside your bathroom last year.”
She had to raise her eyes to meet his now, feeling so irate that he would make that kind of effort for something so personal to her. It was truly a violation of something which she did not have a name for but it was nonetheless valid.
“Last year?” she wanted to punch him suddenly. “What the hell, Kirei? Why would you even do that?”
“I wanted to be prepared to avoid any mishaps,” The man tried to help her sit down, but Rin pushed his hand away and climbed up a chair by herself.
“Fine,” she replied, “Then go fetch them!”
“I don’t think so,” he only said, “You should wash yourself in the bathroom too, don’t you think?”
Of course she knew that. She should be getting up again, but the dizziness has yet to leave. Kirei can’t know about that.
But he did. With a quiet, “Please excuse me,” Kirei proceeded to bundle her up in his arms and carried her outside the room.
“What the hell!” she shrieked and definitely now more than ever wanted to pound at his face with her fists.
He doesn't get to treat her like a helpless child. Like his child.
“You’re unwell,” he merely stated, all while pulling her much closer against his chest than what was necessary.
Rin was going to open her mouth to argue again, to insult him and call him names, but she realized that it’s immature to act so contrary out of spite towards him.
A Tohsaka is self-sufficient.
The fact of the matter was that she indeed felt unwell. She had no clue how to go about this new change emotionally, no matter the lessons she learned in school about biology. Right now—and maybe even for the rest of her life—Kirei was going to be around in every step of the way as she grew up, because she was his obligation. Kirei was still her late father’s only apprentice and now her official guardian.
She felt curiously sore while bleeding between her legs. This is foolish! Why would a Tohsaka be scared of a little blood, and her own at that?
That's when she realized it's because Kirei Kotomine is the only adult in her life. No father, no mother, not even a sister.
She was all alone with him. He's all she's got.
Rin tightened her arms around him and buried her face on his shoulder. She was trying to find some comfort in this closeness but he was distant to her in ways she knew she could never figure out. It was why she itched to get rid of him from the moment they met. Now that she’s older, Rin understood it was because he frightened her for being so unknowable.
Kirei had carried her in silence all the way to the bathroom. He didn’t put her down at all as he rummaged through the drawers to retrieve a sanitary napkin first. Once he got it, he finally let her down. The tiles were cold on her bare feet, and Rin winced in spite of herself.
“Do you want me to help you wash up?”
“Why would I ever want that?" she raised her voice but couldn’t meet his gaze. "Why would I ever want you touching me!”
All that she's got is a man who did not know how to love.
“Suit yourself, Rin,” his tone was so gratingly conversational. “I’ll handle your sheets. Go ahead and get started.”
There was a weight on her head like migraine though the one in her heart was heavier. It took a few seconds to realize that the priest had patted her. Like some dog.
As soon as Kirei closed the door behind him, Rin placed a shaky hand on top of her head where Kirei just touched her. The ebbing flow of the blood between her legs made her even more aware of her changing body. It was so visceral, much like that gentle touch of hand from Kirei—and the nearness of his body around her as he held her moments ago. It was so disgusting that it filled her with guilty shame, and she wanted to throw up.
Scowling instead, she shouted at the door, “You idiot, rotten priest! Don’t tell me what to do!”
It was a bold attempt to impose boundaries.
Rin could feel that the gap between them slowly closing in, and she didn't know how to deal with that reality.
- - -✞ - ❁ - ✞ - - -
Kirei was fixing dinner for the both of them which he had done on occasion when Rin was too tired to heat up microwave-friendly, grocery-bought bento boxes.
It was summer, and Rin was fourteen.
The humidity was like an adhesive in her pores, so difficult to scrub off no matter how many times she bathed on that day alone. Nighttime mercifully somewhat alleviated the heat, but Rin still wore a sleeveless beige shirt whose fabric was thin enough to outline the shapely contours of her developing breasts. She had a black sports bra underneath anyway, which was very comfortable than any of the flimsily designed brassier the salesladies had pushed her to purchase instead.
Remembering her first trip to the shop a year ago to buy undergarments was an annoyance because Kirei had to be there too, like a silent guard dog who never smiled once even as the salesladies warmly tried to chat him up. He wasn’t wearing priestly robes that day either, and Rin supposed he wasn’t exactly ugly. He was taller than most men and well-built because of his martial arts training. In addition to that impressive physical prowess, he possessed an air of mystery which some women might find irresistible.
Rin wished she didn’t have to witness said women flirt with him though. Yuck!
At present, she sat up from the sofa in the living room and shouted for Kirei to hurry up, since she was growing impatient and hungry by now.
The dinner was fine. It was no feast, true, for Kirei was not an adventurous chef yet he was still a decent one who prepared passable dishes for the two of them tonight. He barely came home in the last few months, most probably because he was preoccupied with clerical duties that he had inherited alongside the church on top of the hill; also known as the designated neutral zone for mages and the Church assembly during Grail wars.
Rin had no peers at school because allowing anyone to get close to her would be too risky, so she had gotten fairly used to the solitude her own mage duties provided. That included the rotten priest's company every now and then.
Their conversation tonight was minimal at best—not that they ever had anything to talk about as people anyway. Tonight he simply told her that she needed to start training physically and not just stay cooped up in her father’s office to hone her magecraft. Kirei offered then to teach her the fundamentals of Baijiquan which Rin seriously considered because that could definitely aid her in fighting the other masters for the Holy Grail War in case she ever needed to face one who knows hand-to-hand combat.
Rin stared at the glass of water before her as she tested that phrase again in her mind—the Holy Grail War.
It was the one thing she had been preparing for; the ultimate battle among magi which claimed her father’s life.
She was still ambivalent, in all honesty, but the heiress was like that with most things anyway. Her one true passion was studying, however; there was so much pleasure and enjoyment to be had with intellectual pursuits and stimulation which kept Rin company instead of people and relationships. If she ever pitied herself about that, it ultimately didn't matter.
A Tohsaka is driven and ambitious.
She's older now too, barely easy to bruise, and everything this family sought to preserve she must become.
Rin was her father’s daughter after all.
It wasn’t in her privilege to succumb to loneliness.
“By the way,” Kirei spoke up, interrupting her bleak reflections. He drank his glass of water first before he went on, “I stopped by the nursing home today. I regret to inform you that your mother has passed away this morning.”
Rin’s face hardly registered anything. The first thing she inquired about was, “And why didn’t you lead with that then?”
“Should I have had?” Kirei sounded genuinely curious.
“Well, it’s a vital piece of news,” Rin replied, so accustomed to his casual callousness by now.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Kirei remarked as he scooped up the last piece of fish and rice with his spoon.
Gritting her teeth, she answered him, “No. You’re not.”
Kirei blinked at her. And then: “You’ve never liked me, have you?”
“That already goes without saying,” she said.
Nodding, Kirei placed down his utensils to the side of the plate and rested his elbows on the table.
He explained, “You’re becoming a lady now, Rin, and very fixed in your ways. If I was ever an insecure man, I would try anything to earn your trust and respect, as if my own self-worth depended on it.” A chuckle now, “But I don’t concern myself about whether you like me or not. You live under my guardianship and therefore are subjected to my rules. There is nothing you can do about that, at least until you reach legal age. What I do require is honesty at all times. If you always cooperate with me, then things will go smoothly between us.”
Rin was quiet, choosing first to process his words without displaying openly how she felt about them. She was a young woman now, not a child given to hysterics.
“I will make the necessary funeral arrangements,” Kirei added. He paused to finish his food, leisurely chewing before swallowing. “Don’t stay up too late at your father’s office tonight, alright? You need substantial hours of sleep to maintain your health. Now finish your food, Rin, so I can wash the plates.”
“Are you staying here for tonight?” she had to ask as she began slicing through what's left of her fish.
“I don’t have to,” he remarked, “...unless you ask it of me.”
Rin narrowed her eyes. “What makes you think I would need you around right now?”
“Your mother is dead,” he stated so dryly as if the truth of it bore no weight.
“And so is my father, remember?” Rin countered. “I’ve made my peace about his death long ago, and that includes my mother’s condition. I knew that sooner or later she will perish. Her health hasn’t gotten better over the years, and all that money we put in for her stay at the nursing home was simply to make her comfortable before what was already inevitable will come to pass. And it had. That’s all.”
She can’t believe that her words came out so clinical, as if she wasn’t talking about someone she loved.
Kirei looked impressed by her logical answer. Of course he would be. She sounded just like him now. It made her so angry, but she contained that anger and shoved it down so deep she can’t even recognize it as her own anymore.
She offered him a cold smile next as she remarked, “Thank you for the offer about making the funeral arrangements. If there is anything that I can contribute myself, please let me know, Kirei.”
She didn’t wait for a response as she gulped down the last of her food, drank the water, and then pushed her chair from the table so she can take her leave.
Before she went, she managed to sound somewhat cheerful when she offered, “And you’re more than welcome to stay here tonight, Kirei. I don’t want you getting lonely. Even I’m not that heartless.”
Aoi Tohsaka would have been proud of her grace. I hope you are seeing this, Mother.
When she reached the stairs, each step felt as if her feet were sinking into quicksand, but she made it all the way to her room nonetheless.
Rin locked the door and squeezed the knob so hard that her fingers have gone numb.
My mother is dead, she thought, strangely disconnected from it.
She was right about growing up.
Everything had started hurting less.
- - -✞ - ❁ - ✞ - - -
Rin actually looked forward to the grueling physical training Kirei had been putting her through for a month now.
Why wouldn’t she? It was the only time she could take all the aggression and hostility she felt towards him over the years and punch him for as hard and as long as her body could handle it. It was a maddeningly exhilarating feeling! She could go on for hours just fighting him.
Kirei was tougher than she could ever have deduced, and his ability to withstand the difficult levels of his self-imposed regimen might actually kill a weaker man, or at least someone who did not posses the right frame of mind to train the way he did. Rin almost found it admirable for a time until she recognized it as needlessly dangerous. She made a point to give him a piece of her mind while they were standing together by the riverbank, rinsing the sweat and dirt from their overwrought bodies.
The man only gave her a mild look of condescension, “I’m touched, Rin. I didn’t know you cared about me this much.”
Rin wanted to kick him in the head, but the muscles of her legs wouldn’t obey. She merely tried to hit him with the force of her towel as she shot back, “We’re supposed to be looking out after each other, right? So don’t make such a big deal about it, you jerk!”
They jogged back to the mansion afterwards, much to her dismay, but she made it alive just in time before she almost collapsed into the empty bathtub inside her bathroom. She stripped off and willed her body to climb inside the tub fully as she turned on the faucet, setting the water to hot. She lay there staring at the ceiling as she tried to catch her breath.
Rin began to scrub herself clean, careful with her movements to avoid an accident. As soon as she was drying her hair, she felt very much revitalized. Sure, her muscles ached and she could probably fall asleep right now, but Rin felt like she accomplished something and surmounted the odds. She supposed she owed Kirei for the helpful physical activities.
But also never mind! It’s not as if she planned on thanking him about it.
It was a Saturday, and she happened to have finished all her homework from school since last night, so there was nothing to do this afternoon. She could probably practice crafting new jewels to store mana into, but Rin was still reeling from the exercises, so she decided to hang around the living room for a while. She picked up a random book from the shelves just as Kirei walked by without any shirt on, save for a towel around his shoulders. With his hair wet, it was more apparent that the strands have grown long and rather untamed.
Rin ignored her guardian even after he took a seat on the couch across from where she laid on hers. After some time she found herself peering at him curiously until she noticed the scar on his chest. The shape was jagged, like some kind of a horrific product of a botched surgery. It definitely went deeper than one layer of skin.
“What the hell happened there?” she pointed at his chest. "Some sort of a freak accident?"
“Something like that,” Kirei commented tersely.
The inquisitive Tohsaka heiress was unconvinced but she didn’t press on. Kirei moved to face the other side as he dried his hair, exposing half of his back to her in the process. Her attention was caught by the fact that his back was in an even worse condition than the front; it was peppered with more scars, different kinds of laceration, varying in depth and size. She instantly sat up, blinking hard as she exclaimed, “Where did you get all of those?!”
Rin approached him without hesitation, allowing her hands to roam so freely across his back as if she had done it many times before. Later on, she would blame this because of a certain familiarity between them that had developed since they started training together.
It made Rin aware of his body even more so on the day she got her period.
This time, however, there was hardly shame. Only curiosity. Boldness.
A Tohsaka takes calcuated risks.
Kirei barely reacted to her touch either. He didn’t even turn around.
“They’re old wounds, Rin. It’s nothing to be alarmed about.”
“Are you some kind of a masochist?” she sounded frazzled. “Why didn’t you just heal yourself before any scarring happened?”
The fake priest chuckled before at last turning around to meet her imposing stare.
“Maybe I don’t want to be healed.”
Rin squinted.
In a theatrical whisper, deep voice shaky as if he was suppressing a laugh, he told Rin:
“Maybe I’d be broken forever.”
The phrasing was intentional; he knew it would have an effect on her since she had uttered the same thing once.
Once upon a time by a thorny bush where she loved Sakura who was no longer there.
The pain of losing a sister, a father, and a mother in that order throughout the years calcified into stone that's been hidden away, buried under tattered remembrances of a life she used to have. And Kirei merely swept a knowing hand where the dead were laid to rest. With a timely phrase like a spell, he scooped through the bed of flowers and dug up all her hurting again, as easy as he implanted the crest of her family's legacy and made her into this unbreakable force shaped as a girl.
A freeing epiphany crashed against Rin:
She hated her life.
The charades in her past.
The war in the future she has to fight.
And everything else in between those two fixed poles where Kirei resided, a haunting in the photograph; her personal ghoul.
Look at the bastard sitting here now, eyeing her with so much smugness, because all this time he didn't know what she was capable of.
Nobody should underestimate a Tohsaka.
A Tohsaka knows where to strike the deepest.
Calm as the first burst of color in the darkness, Rin cupped his cheeks.
instead of ripping his face apart, she dipped her head low and pressed their lips against each other.
It was not a kiss—she was adamant about him not misunderstanding that. A kiss was supposed to be heartfelt and meaningful. One was supposed to bequeathe it on someone she cares about. It was an expression of love between people who are intimate.
Rin felt a thousand different things for Kirei over the years; this toxic concoction of revulsion, incredulity and despair.
None of it could be love.
She pulled away without another word and took a step back. Her cold blue eyes were focused on Kirei’s the entire time.
It was beautiful, much like his namesake. Kirei Kotomine looked almost as if he was beginning to fear her.
Rin wished she could take a photo and burn it in her mind. She had no idea how long they stayed frozen like that, but Kirei was the first one to say something, and even then it was hardly important. Rin had moved closer again until Kirei’s hands reached for her throat, using the grip to yank her down until her lips were bruised and sore against his own again.
What? No...!
They fumbled awkwardly for a while, as Rin struggled to fit into the couch. She should push him away and scream. Instead she suddenly forced Kirei’s hand down the waistband of her sweatpants, and the man obliged by moving his fingers along the ridge of her thigh so he can soon touch the one place she never imagined would ever make his acquiantance.
She gasped as the sensation of someone else’s fingers rubbing almost roughly inside her folds. But she was already drenched, so it wasn’t painful at all.
Growing impatient, Rin twisted her hips so she can rest the weight of her back against Kirei and pulled down the rest of her sweatpants out of the way.
Her rational mind reeled. What is this? What the fuck are you doing!
While she turned her body to face the unforgivable rotten priest, she burrowed her knees on either side of him on the couch and therefore sealed her claim, though what it took to get to this point was to lose her sanity altogether. A fair trade, she supposed.
Frighteningly enough, Kirei’s eyes looked less dead than they usually were.
For a moment he looked present, even invested, in the very thing she was curious to try right now—even if it had to be with Kirei Kotomine.
Who else is there for this shit? He's all she's got; a man who didn't care about her except to see her destroy herself in the name of her hatred for him.
Rin was turning fifteen in a few days.
All she ever wished for was to grow up and not hurt anymore.
Today she felt fucking fantastic! A little deranged, yes, but it was of her own choosing.
A Tohsaka is empowered.
“This wouldn’t change a damn thing about you and me..." she murmured against his ear while one hand began unzipping his pants. “I will still hate you forever.”
Kirei laughed. She had never heard him laugh like that.
Almost conciliatory, he retorted, “Go ahead, Rin—break your maidenhead with a man spoken for God and become the woman you've always dared to be.”
Rin half-snarled as her hand gripped the base of his erection through the fabric as if this wasn’t the first time she ever held a man down there, when it really was the case.
"Fuck you," she cursed at him.
"Oh?" Kirei shot back, smiling and sneering, "I sure hope so, Rin..."