-Two months ago-
Rin occasionally used to bring Toru to the park. This time Aoi accompanied them. She looked longingly at the scene. Two children trying to catch Toru. It was like watching two flies fighting against a big wasp. Somehow it was funny. And that wasn't all. Nearby, Rin and her friends were talking about what's happening on the boys' side.
'You're so weird...'
She thought. Toru four months ago was very lonely and cold to everyone, but now he was playing with a slight kind expression on his face, although the expression on his face was still stiff as always. Rin was quite surprised how Toru adapts and changes his personality depending on the situation. To her Toru was someone quite strange from her point of view.
'Could it be that part of him was what attracted Sakura to him?'
To her it was an unsolved mystery. To unravel this mystery, she decided that she would talk more often with Toru, as in the last few months their conversations were limited to rather everyday topics. She had to be more aggressive and force him to reveal everything.
"Another defeat..."
"I almost had it..."
Again, lying on the ground, the nearly seven-year-olds were defeated by the power of the teenage Toru. Not only did he move with a certain elegance, but he always dodged every attack.
"It's the final boss..."
"The Overlord..."
They said. Toru found the reaction of these brats quite exaggerated, but in this case it was normal. Not even a normal adult in this world could catch him. That was more than clear. The crushing defeats Kirei received were proof of that.
"It's already getting late. You must return to your families."
Before the children could call for a rematch, Toru advanced to meet Aoi. She looked up and smiled at him.
"Is it already that late?"
She asked.
"Because there are only two months left until the war, it's best for Aoi-sama and his family to stay at home. We don't know when one of our enemies might attack before the war starts. It is better to be safe than sorry. Tokiomi-sama should have already started the investigation on the other Masters and their Servants, so preparations for war are already starting."
Aoi nodded.
"Now that the time is approaching, war is the only thing you can think about, isn't it?"
"It's the only thing I can do, since I'm a Servant."
"I see."
She stood up and called Rin over. The girl quickly said goodbye to her friends and followed Aoi and Toru.
"Hey, Assassin."
"Hm..."
"Why are you being so weird?"
"Rin, that was really rude."
Aoi said. Toru just shook his head, and before answering, he walked beside them very naturally while remembering things from the past related to Rin's question. As he thought, he unconsciously began to speak.
"Many say the same thing about me. Even in my time. My classmates. My teammates. The teammates of the criminal organization I belonged to."
Bingo! Rin managed to find out more from Toru. She smiled taking her victory for granted and approached Toru.
"So you were a criminal, huh..."
"..."
Toru realized he revealed part of his life by accident.
"I knew it. Typical of an Assassin. It's rare for the Throne of Heroes to consider your kind as Heroes. You must have been recognized all over the world despite being a criminal, huh..."
It was not strange to think so. After Toru turned the cold, dark night of the Shinobi World into a warm, radiant day, it would be obvious that everyone would know him by that. "Rising Sun" perhaps he was called that in the world for his final feat before he died.
To all this. Aoi was also curious. what did Toru do to be a criminal?
"What did you do to have the world against you?"
But Rin went ahead and asked first. Toru, considering that this girl wouldn't stop bothering him after getting such juicy information, resigned himself to answer that question.
"I was accused of a crime I didn't commit. I ran away and killed a lot of people on the way after that."
They even went so far as to call him Shinigami after killing so many ANBU shinobi.
"I can't say I figured that out already. Assassin's even use lies to enthrall their assassination targets."
"You can choose to believe what I say, just as you can choose the opposite. In the end, that part of my story reveals nothing of what I am capable of. It would seem that a Servant's history is the key to finding his weaknesses. Kirei-sama already knows most of them. So I don't have to keep talking about it."
"So your weakness is in your past. I wonder what it is?"
In the end, satisfied after hearing a part of Toru's past, Rin took her mother's hand and smiled as she walked. Toru saw that and simply chose to ignore her.
***
A few days later, as was Toru's habit, being on the roof of the mansion was always the best thing he could do in times of boredom.
"What is it with you and high places?"
Suddenly, Rin appeared down there, completely belittling the power of high places. Toru looked down and there he found the girl.
"Come down for a while. I come in peace."
Toru was again following the orders of a girl. This was also becoming a habit for him.
"What?"
"What's with all the coldness? You should be grateful that someone wants to interact with you. Always with such a blank stare. You depress others around you."
"This is the look I've always had. I don't understand what you mean."
"There you go again. Always denying everything as if it wasn't something obvious."
To Rin somehow Toru was quite easy to read. His eyes were the gateway to his feelings, or so she deduced, for it was all in the way Toru looks at things.
"Anyway. Do you want to go to the park?"
Toru nodded and together they walked out of the mansion.
At that moment, Aoi looked at them through the window and smiled kindly. Toru next to Rin looked like an older brother. He walked relaxed and carefree beside that eccentric girl. As a mother, Aoi was happy to see her daughter next to Toru. She had already confirmed that Toru was not a bad person, however, he seemed to have too many problems with his past.
Just like her daughter Rin, at some point she also started to read Toru's emotions through Toru's looks.
"I wish he would stay with us."
She smiled sadly, for deep down there was something she was keeping from Toru, something she overheard by accident. Tokiomi said it...
"To fill the Grail..."
The seven souls must be consumed....
***
"This place is always nostalgic even though I usually come here quite often."
Rin sat in the gazebo as Toru stood beside her. She looked up at him and huffed.
"Sit down."
Like a dog, Toru ducked his gaze and sat down next to Rin. This seemed to have delighted the girl, for she smiled and turned her gaze to the children playing in front.
"There are many things I want to know about the world as such. Reaching The Root is my family's goal. If my father does not succeed, it is in my hands that mission. You are a Servant and you have those special eyes Sakura talked about so much."
"Where are you going with all this?"
Rin, despite being a child, put on a serious expression and answered.
"You've already arrived at The Root?"
Toru expected a more personal question, but this was pointless. The beginning of things... that was something Toru didn't know as such.
"The Root, uh... Not at all. I know next to nothing about it. I more or less have the information I got from the Grail when I was summoned, but no. I have not accomplished what you think. In fact, even for me these eyes are an enigma. If you relate my eyes to the beginning of things, I would not know how to answer, for as I said before, even to me these eyes are quite mysterious."
"It's rather strange that you yourself don't know this, but considering your age, it could possibly be a justification for the lack of information."
Toru sighed. This girl was far ahead in many subjects. She was undoubtedly superior to Sakura and that was another reason why she is the heir to the Tōsaka family.
"You might be right..."
"Yes. I'm obviously right. Now show me those eyes. I want to see them, I want to verify that the myth is true."
Toru had already shown the Shigan to Sakura. Showing Rin the eyes of death wouldn't affect anything. So he closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, they had changed.
Rin immediately stepped in front of Toru and grabbed his head with both hands to see the eyes in more detail.
"Amazing. They're beautiful."
Rin was mesmerized by the mystical glow in Toru's eyes. A myth coming true in front of her eyes. Amazing, beautiful, dangerous... a mixture of emotions assaulted Rin. A faint dark blue light, which distorted into the other colors of the rainbow. The pupil had warped into the shape of an X that seemed to be able to rotate freely.
'It's as if I'm seeing my soul...'
Seeing the end of things was one way to get to The Root. The difference is that Toru doesn't know about the potential of his own eyes. In this world there are people with eyes similar to this boy's, but like Toru, none have succeeded in discovering the potential of those eyes, for no one has gone that far with the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception. No one has managed to discover the purpose of those mysterious eyes that are considered a myth within the Magus world.
"Are you satisfied?"
Toru said. This made Rin realize how close her face was to Toru's. She immediately pulled away from him and looked away. A nervous chuckle was heard next.
"You see. Your eyes are something very special. The rainbow color is the highest grade of all the Mystic Eyes. I've read quite a bit about it because I thought that someday I might be able to attain something similar. Mystic Eyes possess different abilities depending on color and origin, but eyes like yours are very valuable and mysterious, with unknown powers related to divinity. There are people who kill other mages with Mystic Eyes so they can sell them on the black market. At least that's what my father told me."
Now Rin understood why Toru was a Heroic Spirit. His blood, his eyes. he was the perfect material for a hero even if he was an assassin.
'Maybe Assassin is known in his time for those eyes...'
"I see..."
Toru pondered on this. He already possessed information about the Mystic Eyes thanks to the Holy Grail, but knowing that there are people who kill to get those eyes reminds him a bit of his childhood as a Shinobi, when Orochimaru sought him out as a second choice to Sasuke just for the possibility of having the same eyes as Kyoko. Well, Toru has no way of knowing that Orochimaru had those intentions, as he tried to run away from him.
"Lucky you."
"I don't think that was lucky."
Because to awaken those eyes he had to be held in the "arms" of death.
"There were even people chasing me just for having these eyes".
"I'm sure they were the Mystic Eye Killers. Makes sense, come to think of it. Maybe that's why you were a criminal."
Again. Toru realized he revealed part of his past without realizing it. Seeing Rin smile at this, he felt a little annoyed. Rin was very good at creating situations where she can make people reveal their secrets. A terrifying child from start to finish. Moreover, she deduced that it was because of the eyes that Toru became a criminal, which was partly true.
"Well. I won't try to know more. I can see in your eyes that it made you angry."
"Somehow I think you like to tease others."
"Huh... that's not entirely true. Even I know when to stop."
"So if you like teasing people."
A vein swelled in Rin's forehead.
"That's a lie. Well..."
"You can't deny the obvious."
And so it was that she felt deja vu. Somehow she remembered saying something similar to this boy in the past.
"It's not good for you to make fun of others like that. Everyone will end up hating you if you keep doing the same thing."
"You don't know anything about me or the people around me. There's no way that-"
"There's no way they'll hate you. That's not for sure."
"Why do you think that?"
"Because I made a lot of people hate me for doing the same thing, only multiplied by a thousand."
"That's not making fun of anyone anymore. That's being a ruthless villain."
Toru closed his eyes and the Shigan deactivated.
"Yes... I was a ruthless villain."
"Uh...?"
Rin felt puzzled.
'Why are you smiling like that...'
Beside her, when she said the word 'villain', Toru put on a painful smile. It was as if a heavy burden was hitting his shoulders. Many regrets lay in his heart. He generated hatred in the hearts of the people who once loved him. That's nothing more than being a ruthless villain. It's just like Rin said, there's no better way to describe it. Toru didn't notice the expression he was making, but she could see it.
"You... what kind of things did you do in your life?"
Toru stood up and looked at Rin.
"A lot of good and bad things. Though the bad things abound in a long imaginary list. It's not worth it to make people hate you..."
Why in the end it will hurt too much to see what was once a world full of smiles and happiness turn into an abyss of tears and hatred.
Rin didn't know how to understand this, but somehow those words echoed in her mind.
"There must be some reason for you to tell me that..."
"There isn't, really."
Even Rin knew that was a lie. Knowing more about a stranger is what makes him an acquaintance, someone close.
'I don't care about him, really. But somehow I want to know...'
She denied her own emotions and hid them under the tutelage of curiosity. Concerned or not, she wanted to know more.
"There's something I want to ask you based on what you told me..."
"Go ahead."
Toru accepted the question.
"If you get the wish for the Holy Grail, do you wish you could fix the bad things you did?"
...
"The bad part of your life, in short..."
Toru froze with that question. He stared at the ground, thinking deeply.
Change the past. Change all the way he traveled to get here. Turn that hell into a paradise. No... that's not right. Even if the Holy Grail returns him to the past, nothing assures him that everything will be better. Fixing all his mistakes, what a stupid idea. That would be to live a false life, for....
"Nothing will erase my past..."
"What?"
She hadn't expected that answer.
"Forget it..."
He said, but Rin wasn't going to give up. She wanted to create another situation where Toru would reveal more secrets to her. So she thought. Toru resents talking about the past. So why not talk about the future?
"Okay. Then let's change the subject. If you win the war... what will you do next?"
The answer was simple for Toru. Nothing.
"I mean. Despite being a Servant, you could live a normal, quiet life. You could join the Sorcery Association or work as a mercenary. There are many possibilities. There are many more opportunities for you."
Opportunities... To Toru a word was never as strange as the one Rin just mentioned. An opportunity... for him that....
"It's meaningless..."
Someone who wasted all the opportunities he was given deserved no mercy. Toru thought that way. After reliving his past in the Throne of Heroes over and over again, he realized how stupid he was. Every wasted opportunity... every moment he lived and ruined it without realizing it. Even if he lives in this world as a new person, he will still make the same mistakes, because that's how he is. Because.
'I'm used to...'
Rin again was confused by Toru's answer. The more the conversation progressed, the more distant Toru became.
She wondered how Sakura always stayed by Toru's side without him instinctively pulling away from her. Toru didn't seem to be the sociable type, no, he wasn't sociable at all. What was Sakura's secret to making Toru not so distant?
The answer lay in something Toru doesn't know, but Rin, seeing all of Toru's attitudes, putting the pieces of the puzzle together, deduced that the answer was rather depressing.
'Happiness?'
Human beings instinctively seek happiness, but the answer was something deeper?
'Hope...'
Finally her mind lit up with an answer. Someone who does not see the future, someone who is trapped in the traumas of the past, someone who does not know the meaning of happiness. Such a person lacks only one thing and that was a sense of hope.
Toru no longer had hope in his own life or in what the future held for him. That's why he was stuck with those very thoughts. Toru needs someone to give him hope, so he could wish for a Better Future.
'Come to think of it...'
From one moment to the next she felt embarrassed. She touched her head hiding the expression on her face with her hand.
'Why do I care about him so much, he has nothing to do with me!"
However, in front of her eyes, a boy together with his younger sister were strolling in the park. Rin opened her eyes, for in those two people she saw Toru and Sakura reflected. She lowered her gaze and finally realized.
'I... am I jealous?'
Seeing her younger sister inside her mind smiling next to Toru. She looked at the boy who seemed to be thinking deeply about himself. She looks at that boy's face....
'That's right... when you were next to Sakura you had a more relaxed and kind expression..."
Sakura had become that something that Toru was missing. Sakura was giving him the hope that Toru lacked and that made that same boy doubt his wish. However, when Sakura left, Toru lost that hope again, he went back to being the same distant and gloomy guy as always.
'What do I want to do, what should I do...?'
Rin pondered together with Toru. They both asked themselves the same question: what should I do?
"We'd better go back to the mansion. It's dangerous to be away for too long."
But after thinking for a while, Toru felt someone watching them from afar. It was someone with a higher amount of energy than normal humans, but not higher than his.
Staying here is dangerous, but maybe that person won't attack anyone, since they are in broad daylight and there are also many witnesses. Without asking permission, Toru grabbed Rin's hand and tried to lead her away from the park.
The girl looked at her hand and then looked at Toru. She sighed tiredly and thought.
'I'll let it go for the moment...'
On the other side of the park, a man in a dark blue jacket and hood was watching Toru and Rin silently sitting on a bench. The hood hid his face very well, for at that moment he didn't want anyone to see him that way. His hair had turned white along with one of his eyes. The veins were swollen somewhere on his face and he looked quite sick.
That man got up from the bench and walked limping in the opposite direction Rin and Toru went.
"I have to win... for Sakura-chan... for Aoi-san..."
He whispered to himself and disappeared into the riff-raff.
***
Rin didn't know why he kept holding Toru's hand, but since she previously allowed this, she had no choice but to stay that way.
'What things did you have to do to have hands like that?"
Rough hands covered with the effort of training.
Rin tried to think and imagine Toru's life, but it was all a blur, as she still knew very little about that boy. It seemed that Sakura, without knowing about Toru's past, had somehow come to understand him, which Rin can't do. She was jealous of Toru, as that boy was the only one besides Aoi who was together with Sakura, the only one who could see the real Sakura.
But in retrospect, there was something weird and somehow funny that Rin discovered. If she explored inside her own memories, every time she looked at Sakura and Toru together, she couldn't help but think about it.
'It wasn't Assassin who was taking care of Sakura.'
It was Sakura who was taking care of Toru....
-Matō family's household-
The evening light caressed her face through the window. There were some books on the desk in her room that were spread out and showed various topics regarding the control of the elements in magic. Sakura was reading one of these books with a shadowed look.
"Mm..."
She suddenly hugged herself as she felt a sickening sensation inside her body. She clenched her teeth tightly and suppressed that foul feeling with everything she could.
Her face was flushed and she was breathing hard. A couple of tears ran down her cheeks, but she immediately sighed, wiped the tears away and continued studying.
It's been quite a while since she was welcomed into this family.
'Zōken-sama keeps giving me more books...'
Because Sakura could not be trained with the Matō's methods, Zōken was forced to train her in the more common way in what she gets used to the worms lying inside her body.
Sakura felt tired, so she went to the bathroom and quickly washed her face. When she saw herself in the mirror, her brown hair had taken on a strange violet color. She touched her head with both hands and thought....
'Will Nii-san recognize me even if my hair is a different color?'
Although she had not returned to the worm room since that day, the worms that managed to get into her magic circuits were tearing them apart and changing them to completely different circuits. One of the consequences was that Sakura's hair color changed. But even though the worms were changing her in some way, the process was extremely slow, so the change could take many, many years.
'Onii-san... why don't you come visit me?"
Sakura's gaze became empty and soulless.
'Surely Rin is with you...'
She clenched her fists tightly.
'You're settling for her and blowing me off? Heh...'
She smiled in a rather disturbing way. She felt angry, sad and somehow something in her mind was changing the more time passed. With negative thoughts, unbecoming of a girl her age, as a storm of emotions generated inside her heart. However, noticing the expression on her face, Sakura shook her head.
'Maybe I should rest for today...'
She had already studied hard today.
'Tomorrow I have to continue studying'
Zōken longed to see Sakura use that dangerous magic again, but no matter how hard she tried, the result was not the same as that night. That magic disintegrated the worms that time, but Sakura could not replicate the result. However, there were specific occasions when Sakura used that magic and that is when she felt in danger. Zōken corroborated this when he made some worms enter Sakura's room. The result... a childish scream followed by the strange sound of wind. The worms disappeared wrapped in dust after that.
-Tōsaka family mansion-
A couple of days passed since Rin and Toru visited the park. Toru was still the same loner as always, but Rin had now changed. Whenever this girl had some free time, she took it upon herself to stalk Toru again and again. She had a plan in mind based on the doubts she had that day.
'Sakura... I'm going to try too...'
She approached Toru, who was standing by the window with a glass of wine. Rin looked up at him a little nervously, but then cleared her throat and put on a slightly....
"Onii-san..."
Hearing that word in Rin's voice, Toru almost spat out the wine in his mouth. He immediately looked at the girl and noticed that she had a "helpless" expression like Sakura. This made a shiver run through his entire body, as for him to see this was disturbing. Rin was always aggressive and eccentric, but now she's acting meek and mild? That was too anticlimactic.
"Rin-san..."
For a moment Rin thought her acting worked, for the boy's reaction was something she never saw in him. Toru almost spit out his drink and his gaze went straight to her.
"Are you feeling alright?"
"What?"
"You're acting weird, are you feeling sick?"
Toru reached down and touched Rin's forehead. Her temperature was normal, so she didn't have a fever.
"Psychological damage maybe?"
He considered that as a possibility, but to Rin it was nothing more than an insult. She looked down at the ground and then looked up with a passive aggressive smile. A vein throbbed in her forehead and she clenched her fists tightly. She was gathering all her power for what was coming.
"I try to be nice to you and this is how you repay me..."
She raised her fist in the air without removing her angry smile and threw a punch unbecoming of an "ojou-sama", which impacted directly on Toru's face. Toru, at the same time, fell backwards because his guard was down. Rin for the first time managed to defeat Toru, although at that time her hand was quite sore. No, in fact, she felt something wrong with her hand.
"It hurts..."
Something was out of place inside her hand. She couldn't see it, but she felt the pain it generated.
With tears at the corners of her eyes, she looked at Toru. He, seeing her on the verge of tears, opened his eyes and remembered something from his childhood. Ino hit him like that once...she was crying at that moment too.
Rather quickly he walked up to Rin and grabbed her hand. He narrowed his eyes as he watched. Luckily it was nothing serious. Rin's index finger had only moved a little from its place.
His hands glowed faintly in the color of medical ninjutsu after checking the damage. He grabbed Rin's finger and pulled it to accommodate him.
"Hiiiii!"
Rin let out a rather high-pitched scream as she painfully felt her finger snap back into place. Though afterwards that pain was fading rather quickly because of the strange healing magic Toru's using.
"Why do you keep hitting people so nonchalantly? You'll get hurt if you don't know how to hit."
From the ninja seal on his wrist he pulled out a bandage and wrapped Rin's hand up to the wrist.
"The medical ninjutsu I wield isn't very good with internal injuries. If you get hurt like that again, I won't be able to heal you."
"Uh... okay..."
Rin simply couldn't refute, as she saw something from Toru that she never expected. He, at that moment, was too kind. Even if she hit him, he didn't do anything about it. In fact, he seemed a bit annoyed with her for what she did. Besides he had the decency to heal the wound she had given herself by hitting him.
Seeing what she had caused in such a short time, she felt ashamed with herself. Her attempt to imitate Sakura to get Toru's attention failed. It was really frustrating. Sakura cared for Toru, but she was gone now. If Rin took care of Toru, she was sure she would feel better about herself. She was sure she would feel closer to her little sister.
'Sakura... I abandoned you...'
She felt that way. She never realized what she had until she lost it. However, if she took care of Toru and kept him here, someday Sakura would see that she would never forget her. That was what she wanted to do... that was why she should strive for everything she will do in the future.
"I'm sorry..."
She whispered and looked at Toru.
"I'm sorry, Onii-san..."
Toru gasped at the sight of Rin. This time he wasn't disturbed by her attitude. Somehow that was something more "genuine". So he responded to this girl's feelings. He smiled kindly and said to her:
"Don't worry, Rin."
Rin's eyes lit up at the sight of Toru's gentle smile. It wasn't a prominent or exaggerated smile. Toru had only pursed his lips slightly, forming a smile that could be described as welcoming or kind. This was something new to her, but she decided to accept it. So, from now on...
"Should I call you by your name? You seem to be uncomfortable with me calling you that way. Besides, you didn't use any honorifics on my name a while ago."
Toru felt like his mind had been read. His poker face returned and he averted his gaze.
"I... I don't know."
He stood up and for a moment looked out the window.
"But you can call me whatever you want."
Rin then replied:
"Then you call me Rin. Don't use honorifics anymore. You've called me Ojou-sama for a whole year. You've called me Rin-san for a few months. Then use my name correctly, like you did before."
Toru scratched his head and agreed. Rin was silent because she thought Toru was going to call her by her name, but he had just been quiet. She looked down at the ground and felt anger boil inside her body along with her blood. She raised her other fist and then....
"It hurts..."
A strange relationship has begun.
To be continued