Author's Note: Hey, all! This was my entry to this years fanfiction contest, in the humor category. It only took second place, sadly, because two of the judges really did not approve. I'm counting on you folks to change this. Like Firefly, I shall be vindicated by the post-release, becoming a cult classic on DVD!
... I lost the metaphor there somewhere.
Hope you enjoy!
***Happy RiniversaryRin Tohsaka had never had an anniversary before.
*
It was the simple truth. She'd never actually dated anyone before, much less two people. She knew the general rules of doing so well enough, but she'd never actually taken the time to do it, between magus training and maintaining the unbroken image of a school idol. But then the Holy Grail War had upended her entire life, and when the smoke had cleared, she had found herself with something she had never really expected to have: a boyfriend, and one she chose of her own free will.
And a girlfriend.
Things had been... weird. But good. She almost hated to admit it, but Shirou and Saber were the best things that had ever happened to her. She really did love the two overly noble idiots; they were just so chivalrous and awkward and silly and adorable, and they made every day brighter. And so, with the one-year anniversary of their odd little relationship beginning just around the corner, she wanted it to be special.
Maybe that was idiotically emotional of her, but they clearly wanted it to be special for her. He clearly hadn't wanted to let her go to study in the Clock Tower in the first place, but rather than complain, he'd just started plans to move himself and Saber there as soon as he could. This visit was more than just coming to meet Rin; he and Saber would be scouting out living quarters near the academy. They couldn't risk bringing Saber into the Clock Tower proper, of course, but the three of them could find a small place nearby. It was a perfectly normal and sensible thing for them to be doing...
But they were doing it on their anniversary. They were going out of their way to visit Rin on their anniversary. And if Rin didn't do something equally special, she would lose at the relationship.
(At this point, it is best to take a brief aside to mention the fact that Rin Tohsaka thought you could “lose” at a relationship explained a lot about what was going to happen next. At the very least, it should tell you something very significant about the way her mind worked.)
Shirou was easy. He was like a puppy, any gift at all would be treated as something rare and special. She had gotten him a selection of European spices, and he would adore it. Rin had totally won that relationship. But Saber? Saber had literally been a king. She had lived in a palace with knights and princesses and large silken gowns. Further, this was not only the anniversary of Saber's relationship with Rin... it was the anniversary of the first year of her second shot at life. Rin wanted whatever she got Saber to be phenomenally special. So special it blew the other girl out of the water. The single most special thing that Saber had ever gotten. And she had no idea what it should be.
She rifled through the library at the Clock Tower, studying as she often did. This time, however, she was not studying magecraft. She was looking into the history of King Arthur, both the official legend, and what the tower archives knew about the reality of it. Searching for something, anything that might offer an idea as to what Saber would like to get. Something that would have special meaning for her. She had no idea what it was, but she just knew that if she kept looking, something would jump out at h--
She flipped open the massive reference book on Arthurian myth that she'd found in the rear shelves, dust flying off it, and a smaller, leather-bound book fell out.
Rin blinked. Clock Tower students generally didn't have time to read for pleasure, so a book about mythology didn't get checked out often, if ever. It wasn't impossible for something to be stuck inside it for ages without being noticed. But what was it? She looked at the small book, which appeared to be a journal, the pages yellowed and fragile with age. She opened the first page, and despite the age of the text, was able to make out the words, The following was written by the Magus Merlin, during the spring of the year of our Lord 923...
Rin looked left. Then she looked right. Nobody was nearby, and nobody would hear.
“Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” she said, wrapping her arms around the ancient journal. Merlin! The Merlin! Blind luck it may have been, but she had just kicked the crap out this anniversary. She was the queen of relationships, and God those two were painfully lucky to have her. She hid the journal carefully among her other books and ran out of the library, clutching her new treasure, snickering wickedly at the thought of just how hard her lovers would have to work in order to equal the magnitude of this gesture... and slammed into something soft, and blue, and loud. And that was when things started to go wrong.
“Ulf! Excuse me, please watch where you're goi—oh. It's you,” said a painfully familiar, painfully unpleasant voice.
Ugh. “Luviagelita Edelfelt,” Rin said, her tone of voice the one that someone would typically use to say “festering infection.” Rin had been studying at the Clock Tower for a little over eight months at this point. She had wanted to beat fellow student Luvia to death with a shovel for seven and a half of them, and the feeling was mutual.
Neither of them was completely sure where this deep-seated loathing had come from, really; perhaps it was the fact that they were the two front-runners for the wildly sought-after apprenticeship to Meister Zelretch. Perhaps it was the fact that they studied the same rare school of jewel magic, and each was secretly convinced the other's family had stolen the idea from their own. Perhaps it was the fact that when Luvia had made a mildly disparaging comment about Rin's ethnicity, Rin had responded by driving an elbow into her face, leading to a running fight that had destroyed two practice rooms, an alchemy lab, and a hand-painted portrait of Lady Szelnabeth's favorite poodle. Whatever the reason, the fact was that the two girls had a long-standing respectful rivalry, which was being used to poorly disguise a disrespectful searing hatred.
The two women locked eyes, and did not speak. There was a certain dignity that they, as elite students, had to maintain. Despite this, without saying a word, the following exchange still managed to happen, all with mere expressions:
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, Luvia's eyes said as she brushed off her skirt. Charging through the halls like a rampaging barbarian suits your infantile mind.
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, Rin's hair said as she brushed it behind her ear. Your nose so upturned you can't see what's right in front of you.
Luvia sniffed delicately, and the tiny sound said, That is the sort of attitude I suppose I have come to expect from a self-righteous pauper masquerading as nobility.
Rin smoothed her skirt, standing up and gathering her books, and this motion said, Yeah, well, that poofy dress makes you look like a fat blue cloud.
Luvia smiled and said, “Ah, Rin Tohsaka. I wasn't expecting to see you here,” and the curve of this smile said,Skank.
“Well, Luviagelita, I am here on a scholarship, so I'm afraid that unlike one of those students who only got in due to their family's money, I have to work rather hard to keep my grades up to the academy's standards,” Rin said demurely. The students like you, you demonic Swedish whorebag.
“Well, I do suppose that you have the minor disadvantage of a substandard training regimen, and it would likely take you far more effort to produce the same results,” Luvia said with a beautiful, warm smile. I'm Finnish, you backwater slattern. And my grades are the top of the class.
Rin opened her mouth and carefully positioned her pigtail to reply to this, but was knocked out of the zone by the realization that she had neglected to pick up one very important book. Gah! Where did I drop th--
“Hm? I've never seen a book like this. What is i--” Luvia began, picking up the small journal and opening to the first page. She cut off mid-sentence, squeaking, “Merlin?!”
An icy lump formed in Rin's stomach. “Hand it over, Edelfelt. I need that for... for a project, and...”
Luvia looked up at Rin, and she was wearing the warmest, friendliest smile that Rin had ever seen on a human being. It made Rin's blood turn to razor-sharp ice.
“Well, I'm terribly sorry, Tohsaka, but this particular book is just going to be an essential part of my collecti—of my research on... ritual effects in magical creation,” Luvia said, tucking the book into her own bag. “Be very nice, and I may let you copy my notes on it. In a few months.”
Rin's eyes widened. “No. No, you can't just steal my--” she began, only to be cut off when Luvia lazily pointed to the sign on the outside of the library door. The tiny brass plate that Rin had walked past every day for the last eight months without ever really stopping to read it:
Edelfelt Family Memorial Library, founded 1903.
“Or... I guess you can,” Rin murmured bleakly. Damn her ill-gotten Swedish wealth!
Smirking like a satisfied predator, Luvia walked down the hall to take her new treasure home, stopping only for the briefest moment to say, in tones of absolute triumph, “Oh, and I'm Finnish. Try to get it right.”
*
Some people, when they realized their only course of action for acquiring the present they had chosen for their girlfriend was to commit robbery, would simply choose to select another anniversary present.
Rin considered these people quitters.
She was not, it must be made clear, doing this just because she hated Luviagelita with every fiber of her being. She was doing this for love, and no other reason. None. At all. She swore. If Luvia happened to be accidentally maimed or humiliated, that was just fine, of course. But it was to be specified that Rin had no intention of jumping Luvia in the cafeteria, slamming a tray of pudding into her face, then punching her in the throat and stealing her pack just for the joy of doing so.
Those were just the perks.
Her first option, however, should be stealth. Ideally, by the time Luvia realized she had the book back, it would already be safely in Rin's possession and outside the school grounds where Luvia could not prove it was ever hers. For this approach to work, however, Rin would need a pats—erm, assistant.
Without turning, Rin slammed her open palm into the wall directly behind her in the hallway she was doing her plotting in, prompting a shriek from the small, mousy girl walking past. “Helloooo there, Hannah,” Rin said, looking down on Hannah Jacobs, the first year student who was both noticeably smaller and weaker than Rin, and currently looked like a rodent cornered by a cat. “Goin' to lunch?”
*
The plan was simple.
Hannah, as the expendable decoy, would go up and ask Luvia to give a speech. Most people would find this suspicious, but Luviagelita was a vile arrogant skank who couldn't resist yammering on and on about her greatness, and she would fall for it. Then one of two things would happen. In plan A, Rin would delicately steal the book from the backpack and subtly slip away, leaving Luvia none the wiser. In plan B, she would stab Luvia in the eye with a fork and burn down the cafeteria to hide the evidence.
Rin considered these plans equally valid. They were labeled “A” and “B” in the order she had come up with them.
Taking up her position at the south end of the cafeteria, Rin signaled across the hall for Hannah to begin her attack.
*
Hannah was not the best spy. She was pale, and shaking, and clearly struggling to determine if Luvia or Rin was scarier. At the moment, however, Luvia was eating a petite salad and some fresh bread while surrounded by loving admirers, and Rin was stalking the cafeteria with her crazy eyes, so she decided that she was better off doing as the Tohsaka Heir said. Less chance of her ending up chained to the bottom of a pit being prepared to be used as materials in a woman-skin suit.
Mustering her courage, Hannah walked over to the Edelfelt magus's table, and cleared her throat. “Er... um... Miss Edelfelt?” she said. As Luvia looked up, she spoke the words that Rin had told her were certain to catch the woman's full attention: “I was doing a report for my teacher on the history of magical families, and I wanted to pick y-”
Luvia did not appear to move. One moment she was seated, the next she was cradling Hannah's face tenderly in her hands, a warm smile on her face, and the very air around her seeming to sparkle. “Of course my dear. The history of the proud and illustrious Edelfelt clan is open to all who would seek to study it. Come, sit at my table.”
Behind Luvia, Rin delicately and politely shoved a small boy into the trash in her efforts to get into position. She was, after all, a lady.
Hannah swallowed, sitting at Luvia's table. She was surrounded by the most popular students at the academy, and she was not the sort of person who interacted with them under anything like normal circumstances.
“We must begin at the beginning, of course,” Luvia began. “The Edelfelt castle. It was built in 1201 among the magnificent forests of my native Finland, hewn from granite cut from the quarries of blah blah, blah blah blah, blah...”
Hannah admitted she was kind of drifting in and out of the discussion. It wasn't that Luvia's essay on how amazing her family's granite was wasn't just enthralling, really, but Rin had just threatened a group of first years into silence with a plastic spork, and that was making it hard to focus.
“Blah blah blah, and then my great-great-grandfather invented the idea of rye bread. Not the bread itself, though, just the idea of it. Blah blah blah...” Luvia said.
“How does one invent the idea of...”
Luvia took her hands, her smile growing, if possible, warmer and fluffier. “I'm so glad you asked! It all began in 1405 when blah blah blah...”
I don't like upperclassmen, Hannah thought.
*
All eyes were on Hannah. Or rather, on the woman enthusiastically telling Hannah about how her family had managed to combine their invention of Jewel Magic (Lying Swedish whorebag!) with their breeding of prize-winning stallions.
Rin slid under the table, avoiding the legs of adoring underclassmen (and why were they not adoring her? Traitors), and hooked one finger into the strap of Luvia's designer bag. It was a gorgeous leather number that probably cost more than everything in Rin's closet combined. Under normal circumstances Rin would have been jealous, she admitted it, but at the moment, what was inside it was the only thing that she cared about. Gently, she undid the clasp, opening the top of the bag...
There was a sound not unlike a gunshot from three inches in front of Rin's face, and something burning and blinding filled her eyes. She screamed, involuntarily leaping to her feet... which, given that she was underneath a table, was not the wisest decision. Stars flashed behind her—burning!—eyes and pain filled the top of her head, sending her to roll on the floor amid a rain of spilled lunches.
When she was finally able to rub the... stinging, burning crap out of her hands, the first thing she saw was Luvia's smirking face. The second thing she saw was that her hands were covered in bright orange paint.
“You like, Tohsaka?” Luvia asked. “It's an exploding dye pack. You know, like the sort they use to booby-trap stolen bank notes, so they can be marked and made unspendable? I had it set up to explode outward if my bag was opened without clicking the disarming switch. It does get my texts a bit dirty, but since I habitually take any valuable texts immediately to my laboratory at home. Because, you see, I am not a moron.”
“I... see...” Rin snarled, struggling very hard to keep from having a fury-induced heart attack. The rest of the cafeteria was dead silent, which should have told you how the two girls were viewed; anyone else, they would have been laughing at. Rin and Luvia, though... those two just got the Silence.
“Oh, and I'm Finnish,” Luvia said cheerfully. Her smile was soft, and warm, and behind her eyes Rin saw a malice that could have burned out the stars. “Just to head that off.”
*
“Okay, Hannah. What did you do wrong?” Rin asked a few hours later, after classes had ended for the day and she had gotten the last of the paint out of her hair.
“Um, I did exactly what you asked, a-” Hannah began.
Rin held up a hand, cutting her off. “You didn't warn me. I was going for a booby-trapped bag all along, and you gave me no heads-up!”
“Um... that... well, it's just that I couldn't see inside the bag, so I didn't know it was tr-”
“Hannah. Are you or are you not one who seeks to be a Magus?”
“Well, I actually wanted to be a dentist, but my dad made m-”
“If you seek to be a Magus, Hannah, you must have a greater eye for detail. You need to spot the snares and murderous traps of the demons, Hannah. Your eyes must sieve through Luvia's endless bloodthirsty schemes, don't you see? You must be a relentless, implacable predator who cannot be caged or outwitted.”
“Um, actually, Miss Edelfelt seemed pretty nice to m-”
“Now, Hannah. I am going to storm the very gates of Hell itself. I am going into Luvia's estate in the city, and I am going to reclaim my property,” Rin said, her aura burning with boundless confidence.
“Um, well, that seems a little bit illegal, and I thought it was really her proper-”
“And you are going to help me,” Rin said, clapping a hand onto Hannah's shoulder in fellowship.
“What?!”
“Consider it a free lesson in the path of the Magus, from one who has walked further along it than you ever will,” Rin said cheerfully.
Hannah made a kind of confused whimpering noise.
“No need to thank me.”
*
The Edelfelt manor in London was a beautiful and elegant mansion, and Hannah did not want to be there. Luckily, Rin didn't care what Hannah felt or thought.
“Okay, you have your role down?”
“Um... this is a really bad idea...” Hannah said, wearing a Girl Scout uniform and carrying a box of cookies.
“Nonsense, she'll never recognize you,” Rin said dismissively.
“She... she just saw me at school two hours ago...”
“Yes, but you're not very memorable,” Rin said, even more dismissively.
“Then why do you keep remembering me?” Hannah muttered as Rin left her to walk up to the front door on her own, circling around the manor's outer wall until she found a tree to climb.
Hannah sighed, walking through the beautiful rose gardens to the front door, knocking on the door. An older gentleman in a suit answered, smiling warmly at her. “Good evening, ma'am. I am afraid we do not accept solicitors here in the manor; Lady Edelfelt is a busy woman, and she cannot...”
“August?” said a woman's voice from within the manor. Luvia, in an informal (it should be mentioned that Luvia's idea of “informal” was still something that most people would consider appropriate to wear out to dinner, so it was very frilly indeed) evening gown, walked up to the door, a cup of steaming tea in her hands. “August, who is that at the... oh, how charming! A saleswoman. And a girl scout as well! I've always said that the scouts are the champions of the commoners. Welcome, common woman, to my home. Enter, and take tea with me, that you might peddle your simple gypsy wares.”
She really doesn't remember me, Hannah thought, the depression sinking in. Also, she might be as crazy as Tohsaka.
Glancing out a side window as Luvia led her to the kitchen, Hannah saw Rin climb over the outer wall circling the grounds, quickly gaze back and forth like a hunted animal, and begin slinking between flower bushes as she approached the manor with a slightly manic expression on her face.
Or not.
*
As was to be expected, the boundary field around the Edelfelt mansion was impressive. Just what Rin had come to expect of the demon she had deemed the greatest enemy of her life. But as deadly and cunning as Luvia might have been, Rin was a Magus of vastly superior natural skill, intellect, and beauty, and slipping through the security was well within her powers. She smirked, wondering how long it would take her to break back in one day in the future when she was finally ready to make war on the Edelfelt family and cast them into oblivion for the indignities their heir had heaped upon her.
Rin was maybe not taking this situation well.
The side wall, under the master bedroom window, was overgrown with creeping ivy. This gave the manor a rustic, lived-in feel that Rin, as a traditionalist, approved of. Also, it gave her a foothold to climb up to the window, which was actually far more useful. A lifetime of Chinese martial arts had left her in great physical condition (And it didn't hurt that having a great body was just one more way for her to win at her relationship), so scrabbling up the plants wasn't too hard. The window was even open, so all she would have to do was climb right inside and...
Inside the bedroom, she heard Luvia's voice say, “And here, commoner, you see the beautiful bedroom of a noblewoman. Worry not, for even though it is beyond your simple means to achieve, you may join me here for tea and some of your wonderful commoner treats, basking in the light of my wealth for as long as you wish.”
Damn her Swedish hospitality! Rin thought, slipping down a few inches on the wall. Was drinking your tea in the dining room like a normal human being so terribly hard?!
“I'm Finnish,” Luvia snapped, suddenly.
“Um... I didn't ask if you were, Miss Edelfelt...” Hannah said softly.
“I... I'm sorry. I just... was compelled to say it,” Luvia said softly. “I sense something. A presence I've not felt since...”
Her voice drifting off, she stormed out of the room suddenly, leaving Hannah to sit at the small table and sigh. “Well... the tea is good, and at least I'm away from crazy, crazy girls for a little while...”
“It's good that you realize she's crazy,” Rin said, dragging herself up into the room.
“EEEK!” Hannah shrieked, the contents of her teacup splashing into her face as she jumped in her seat. “H-how... wh-where did you come from?!”
“Shhhhhhhhhhhhh!” Rin said. “She knows something's up. We have to maintain operational security, or we'll never achieve our objective.”
“I don't have an objective,” Hannah said, wiping stinging hot liquid from her face. “I just want to go back to the dorm and study and get away from you scaring me and her thinking I've never had tea before...”
“Oh, Hannah,” Rin said cheerfully, laying a single hand comfortingly on Hannah's shoulder, both to establish familiarity and to subtly remind the girl that she was physically powerful enough to snap her collarbone. “I know that isn't true. You really, really want to help me. Because we're best friends, aren't we? We are.”
“... We are,” Hannah squeaked.
“Good girl. Now, you just stay riiiiight here and clean up, m'kay? And if Luvia comes back, you stall her. Ask about Luvia's family again, she can talk about that for days.”
“Um... I have a test tomorrow...”
“Then it's really very sweet of you to stay here and be my decoy, isn't it?” Rin asked warmly. “I don't see the book in this room, so she must have anticipated I would come to look. Stay here, I may or may not be back for you.”
Leaving what's-her-name (Helga?) in Luvia's room, Rin began her hunt. The Edelfelt manor was, she noted without any rage at all, both larger and nicer than her own family estate back in Japan. But there were certain basics to all security; the central location, deepest within the home's defenses, was typically considered the most secure point. That was the best place to look first.
She slipped through the rooms like a wraith, always in the shadows, always silent. She saw no servants or household staff, but that hardly meant there were no eyes seeking her; this was the home of a Magus. And given that she was a Magus who had totally stolen all her spells from Rin's own family, a dangerous one (though limited by her meager intellect). She moved from room to room, seeking the center of the house, the most heavily defended place in the manor...
There. The door at the end of the hall looked like the same elaborately decorated foppery that adorned the rest of the house, but a quick inspection revealed it to be heavily reinforced beneath the exterior. Luvia's personal workshop, it had to be, and there was no place she was more likely to place anything that she wished to keep safe and study. Rin checked the lock, studying it for traps—and found the room unlocked.
“I had known you would come,” Luvia said, the book in her hand. “You really do want this, don't you?”
“Luviagelita,” Rin said, her eyes narrowing as she stepped forward to look at her foe face to face. “So you did know I was here...”
“I had never expected anything less of you,” Luvia said dangling the leather-bound tome from her fingers as a taunt. “My greatest foe would never give in so easily. Only when you came here, to the source of my power with all your ferocity, could my victory be complete. Now we shall have our final battle. Our powers shall clash, and when the smoke clears only one of us shall be left st--”
Rin snapped her hand forward, grabbed the book, and ran out the door.
Luvia blinked a few times at her empty fingers, before saying, “Bitch!” and sprinting after her.
*
There were people who would have called Rin's actions those of a coward. Rin called these people, “Failures.”
She had the book, and while she also had a furious Swedish pro-wrestling wizard—
“Finnish!” Luvia shrieked from behind her.
—on her ass, she considered this to be a price worth paying. Or at least, it would be worth paying when she got out of this house alive and with her prize intact. Which she was going to do, certainly. Really, Luvia was hardly going to...
Something exploded in the hall next to her head, showering her with plaster dust.
She's trying to kill me! Rin thought in something less like genuine rage and more like exasperated annoyance. “You are such a bitch!” she snapped, without stopping to look back. She couldn't afford to stop and fire back, either; she had a fragile treasure in her hands and a running fight just would not work. Her only real goal at this moment was to get out of this damn house.
“What was that?! Did something expl-” Hannah began, stepping out into the hall. Rin grabbed her mid-sentence and threw her down in Luvia's path as an obstacle. Some might have called this cruel, but then, Hannah hadbeen so utterly charmed by Rin that she'd volunteered to help her however she needed, even at the cost of her own life.
It should be noted that Rin saw no appreciable difference between “volunteering” and “being forced” when she was the one doing the forcing. It should also be noted (though at this point it probably went without saying) that Rin saw no particular difference between being “charming” and being “kind of a bitch.”
Luvia took a flying leap, hurdling over the hurled schoolgirl without the slightest break in stride. Had Hannah been in a better place, mentally, she might have noted the fact that both Luvia and Rin running her over without slowing even slightly or really noticing she existed was pretty much a perfect metaphor for her life. At the moment, though, he thoughts were more along the lines of Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch...
Rin turned the corner, spotting the first window she'd seen since starting her flight. Covering her face with her arms, she leaped through it, flying through the air amid shards of glass. It had been a second-floor window, but she was... pretty sure that she was over the lawn, at least. If not, rolling with the impact was seriouslygoing to hurt...
Ow. Ow. Ow.
She hadn't been over the lawn. She had been over the paved path leading to the main gates.
Wiping the blood off her forehead, she got to her feet and started to run again, even as she heard the sound of Luvia impacting behind her. The pavement shattered beneath her feet, and the sun got a little less bright.
Yeah, she was pretty pissed.
Rin took off running, pumping mana into her legs and clutching her treasure close. All she had to do was get off the Edelfelt property. She was pretty sure that Luvia wouldn't continue trying to murder her in public, and there was no actual proof who the book belonged to. It was her word against Luvia's and everyone knew the Swedes were horrible liars...
With an earsplitting shriek of “I'm! From! FINLAND!” Luvia vaulted a solid fifteen feet through the air, tackling Rin around the knees just as the other girl cleared the entryway and stepped onto the sidewalk. The two magi tumbled, and as was befitting two ladies of high class and standing from ancient, noble families, they most certainly did not begin to beat the crap out of each other. There was no biting, no scratching, no knees driven into stomachs or elbows driven into noses. Luvia most certainly never slammed Rin's head into the pavement by her pigtails, and Rin most definitely never threw aside the book in her hands to grab up a loose cobblestone in an attempt to smash Luvia's skull in.
Because they were too civilized for that, you see.
So if anyone saw anything like that, it was clearly their own overactive imagination.
However, this was where things began to unravel. And yes, I know that seems like an odd statement, since to the untrained eye, things had never been terribly raveled in the first place. However, to Magi, short-sighted conflicts over largely worthless prizes were basically just Tuesday. They tended to have a bit more dignity than this, usually, but the girls were young and couldn't be expected to self-destruct on an adult level just yet. So far, this had actually been on the tame side.
Then the dog showed up.
It was not a large dog. Probably some kind of corgi mix. It had a big friendly doggie grin, and it wagged its stubby doggie tail. It was extremely interested in the sight of the two girls fighting, and it trotted up on its little doggie legs to investigate. And upon reaching them, it found something truly interesting. Why, it was made of delicious leather! The perfect thing for a little doggie to pick up and take home to chew on. It did so.
Rin and Luvia stopped mid-brawl, their eyes wide at the sight of the little dog's teeth clamped firmly around the journal.
It stared at them, wagging its tail.
“Hey there lil' guy,” Rin said as calmly as she possibly could.
“Could you please put that down?” Luvia asked with what she hoped was a dog-charming smile.
The little dog, still wagging its tail, turned around and sprinted away.
Luvia and Rin, in a display of divine providence, managed to elbow each other in the gut in simultaneous attempts to stop the other from running along. They then hunched over for a few seconds, gasping for air, what with each just having a sharp elbow driven into her solar plexus. Then they started running.
The dog had gotten a head start on them, and it clearly also had the minor advantage of four legs. But it was a short dog, and Rin had long amazing legs (Luvia's legs were also long but hideous, because she was a loathsome troll from the far north). They never lost sight of it even as it turned in and out of alleyways, dodging between the legs of pedestrians, and generally just ran as a doggie would.
It was happy and free, heading home with its new toy and totally oblivious to the two angry women who wanted to make mittens from its hide. In part this was because it was a dog, but also neither one of them had gotten anywhere near close enough to touch it by virtue of the fact that they were and always would be each other's greatest obstacle. Each time Rin pulled ahead, Luvia was all too quick to grab a pigtail and yank. Each time Luvia pulled ahead, Rin was more than happy to stomp on the hem of that poofy nightgown. Had either of them been chasing the dog alone, they probably would have caught it by now, but Luvia and Rin combined were far, far less than the sum of their parts.
Rin ran, head pounding, lungs burning, hair very much in pain and the dog not seeming to get any closer no matter how hard she ran.... partially because she got pulled a little further back every few steps. Am I never going to catch this shit?
Rin... use the magic, Rin... she thought she heard, like a whisper on the wind, barely audible over her own heartbeat and breath.
Archer? Is that you...? she thought, her eyes widening in confusion even as she ran.
I have returned from the beyond to be your spirit guide, Rin. Trust your instincts. Do, or do not, there is no try... Archer's voice said into her mind.
The world seemed to slow down. In her mind, the shot was already made; the action she took now was merely to make that inevitable reality occur as she knew it must. She channeled the primal forces of the universe through her body, and the crest on her arm glowed. The gandr shot rang out, invisible and implacable, her aim flawless. It slipped past pedestrians and static obstacles alike, honing in on the fleeing dog...
… struck the journal, sending it flying from the animal's mouth and sending it scampering off with a yelp...
… and leaving the priceless journal flying over a nearby guardrail into the Thames river.
“You useless dead son of a bitch!” Rin shrieked at Archer.
Oh God, I can't believe you did that, Archer said, laughing uproariously. Spirit guide? I'm just a hallucination you're hearing because Luvia gave you a mild concussion back when you were fighting! Hell, I was just makingStar Wars references for fun, I didn't think you were going to listen to me! God, you suck.
“I've never even seen Star Wars!” she snapped, much to Luvia's confusion as the two of them ran along the guardrail looking for the journal. It was floating, so maybe if they could get to it fast enough then it might not be damaged.
I know, your across-the-hall neighbor was playing it while you were sleeping three days ago, Inner Archer said. Say, the current in the river there isn't going very fast. I bet if you jump in you can catch the book by swimming.
How do I know you're not just screwing with me again?!
Because if I was lying to you, I'd recommend you tear off your clothes before you jumped in so all these pedestrians would think you were even more crazy than you already look to them... Inner Archer said, his voice fading away.
Rin sighed, taking this as about the closest she was going to get to any sort of confirmation of the correct path. Generally speaking, her mind didn't lead her down the right path, but at least it was now acknowledging there was a worse path to take.
She flipped over the guardrail and into the water.
Coldcoldcoldcold! Rin thought eloquently as she swam with the current, her teeth chattering as she swam with the current, the book bobbing up and down in her vision. It was flowing along aimlessly with the current while she pushed herself the limits of her physical ability, and she was getting closer with each second...
Her hand clasped down onto leather, and she kicked off to the edge of the water, slamming it down onto a mostly dry stone. “I,” she gasped, “got i--”
Before she got the 'T' out, Luvia dive-bombed onto her head.
Luvia held Rin's head under the water, her eyes wild with fury as she hissed, “This will teach you to steal back something I stole from you while you were stealing it from a library my family built and may not actually own!”
Rin took this as her hint that they were no longer even pretending to be dignified, and wrapped her hands around Luvia's ankle, flipping the girl off her feet and into the current. Luvia flailed in the water, her skirts soaked and making it harder for her to right herself than the comparatively underdressed Rin. She flailed about on the slick mud of the river bottom, trying to right herself, which Rin made notably harder by kicking her in the face. She turned back to the book, wrapping one muddy hand around it, and was of course immediately tackled back into the water by a rampaging Swede.
“I'm Finnish!” Luvia roared. “Get it right you stupid, ignorant c--”
For the sake of propriety, we will assume that Luvia was about to say “cow.” Not that it mattered either way, given that Rin cut her off at the “c” by throwing the first thing she found at the bottom of the riverbank into Luvia's mouth as she screamed.
The Chinese Mitten Crab was an invasive crustacean species that had made significant inroads into English waterways since being introduced to Europe accidentally. They were about the size of a human palm, with sharp claws and legs, as was common for a crab. They were considered a pest species, one that displaced native creatures and damaged man-made waterways.
Luvia did not know any of this. She did, however, know that something big and sharp had clamped onto her face. She fell back, flailing at the thing with the claws clamping onto her nose, and Rin was free.
Battered, bruised, covered in mud and icy water, the shuddering, broken young Magus claimed her prize and slowly, painfully dragged herself up the wall by the riverbank, slipping under the guardrail and collapsing onto the sidewalk, gasping for air.
“... Rin? Is that you?” said a painfully familiar female voice.
With some effort, Rin raised her head, blinking mud and river water out of her eyes to see her boyfriend and girlfriend, looking at her in some confusion. This may have been that they were surprised to see her, may have been that they were surprised to see her climbing out of a river, or they may very well have just been unable to tell it was her beneath the layers of mud and bruises.
“Oh. You're here,” Rin croaked.
“Um... yes,” Shirou said warily. “We managed to get on a different flight and arrived early, and we were on our way to surprise you. So... um... surprise.”
Slowly, painfully, Rin struggled to her feet and slammed the muddy book into Saber's hands. “Happy 'nnversary. I win.”
Saber blinked in confusion. “Win wh--”
“Winna relationship,” Rin snarled. “Read book!”
Saber, her expression suggesting she was too scared to not do everything Rin ordered her to, opened the book. The wet pages made a kind of sticky popping noise, but she looked in, and read, “The journal of the Magus Merl—oh. Oh, Rin. This is... amazing. You went excavating beneath the river for a relic of my past? I... I don't know what to say...”
Rin smirked at Shirou. “I win. See that? Me. The winner.”
Saber eagerly turned a page, studying the text intently. “'The fifth of December. I met a fine young lass huddling by a lone campfire in the woods today, and made conversation with her. She was a dim sort, and it took only five minutes of conversation to talk her out of her garme-'” she read, cutting off sharply, her cheeks going cherry-red. “Oh, dear. Um. Perhaps a different entry. 'The sorceress Nimueh and I met to exchange spells to day, and in the end exchanged far more as I thrust myself into her womanh-' oh my.”
“What's wrong, Saber?” Shirou asked, once again demonstrating he had all the guile of a baby hamster.
Saber flipped between entries rapidly, her blush only growing deeper as she skimmed each one. Muttering in disbelief, she continued, “My God, he actually wrote all of these down? Even the one with those two barmaids that got him banned from eating in Essex..? 'The seventh of February, I have engaged in a wonderful prank upon milady Arturia. Having always taken some amusement in the young lady's efforts to be seen the man, I have used mine magic to give her a male orga--' NO! No, that is enough of that!” she shrieked, slamming the book shut.
“Great present, right? I'mma winner,” Rin muttered dizzily.
“It is a wonderful gift, Rin,” Saber said, her face as red as Rin's shirt. “I love it dearly, it perfectly commemorates our first anniversary, and I am most definitely not going to burn it at the first opportunity.”
Rin smiled in victory, gave a triumphant thumbs up, and passed out.
Shirou and Saber looked down on her for several long seconds, unsure of what to say. In this time, Luvia dragged herself out of the river thirty feet away, a crab still tangled in her hair, and pointed at Rin triumphantly. “I,” she said, her voice slurring slightly, “am Finnish.”
She then passed out.
Shirou and Saber looked back and forth between them, until Shirou finally said, “You know, I was just going to get you a tour of London for our anniversary. Let you see how England has changed. I wanted it to be a surprise, but... um. Well. It doesn't seem important anymore.”
“That sounds lovely, thank you,” Saber said. “Do you suppose we should carry them back to the Clock Tower?”
“Oh, you want to go to the Clock Tower? Just follow this road north until the streets get foggy, then turn down alleys until you find the gates. Boundary fields, and all,” said a young woman neither of them knew, lugging a suitcase behind her and smiling warmly as she walked down the street humming a jaunty tune.
“Oh, thank you, miss,” Shirou said. “Are you a student there?”
Hannah smiled at him. “Not anymore. Dentist school, here I come!” she said cheerfully, skipping off with her bag.
Once again, silence reigned. Even the other London pedestrians were totally still.
“Shirou?” Saber asked.
“Yes, Saber?”
“Is... every anniversary going to be like this?”
Originally Posted by LeopardBear
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